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Culturally Speaking
By Sarah Stodola
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Last week they discovered a Bengal Tiger in a Harlem apartment. Then Roy, of Siegfried and Roy, was mauled by a Bengal Tiger during a Vegas performance. So, speaking of Bengal Tigers, The Life of Pi was a fascinating book.
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There was a point about a year ago when there was some serious talk circulating among academic circles that Columbia University's School of Journalism would be done away with altogether. Apparently, there are people within the administration who feel that the j-school is a trade school, and therefore not in line with the mission of Columbia, which is to foster intellectual achievement. The basic premise seems reasonable, but then a double standard emerges; I don't see them proposing to nix the business school anytime soon because it promotes the trade of money-making rather than intellectual enhancement.
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However, as someone who majored in journalism as an undergrad, I must say that I think journalism school in general is a joke. But, I also generally think something much worse of business schools.
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I have noticed that in the world of high-powered financial institutions, men do not refer to their girlfriends as girlfriends, but as "my girl." I am worried about what this means.
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I have also noticed that in midtown office buildings, men will step aside for women to both enter and exit elevators ahead of them. It's chivalry, stupid. But I thought chivalry was dead, and I was actually pretty happy about it.
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Somehow, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) got Radiohead and Sigur Ros to accompany the Merce Cunningham Company at their opening night benefit on October 14. This seems like more than a minor miracle to me, and I am so so sad (but not surprised) that the show is already sold out.
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There is glaring evidence of the disparity between the ideology of the American intelligentsia and the rest of the country in the fact that not one Ayn Rand book appears on the Modern Library's list of the best 100 novels of the 20th century, and on the "reader's list" there are four of her novels in the top ten.
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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three. She can be contacted at [email protected].
© 2003 Me Three