A diamond to the 22,280 high school seniors who were rejected from Brown this year, the most ever. May it comfort each of you that your great personal misfortune marginally increases our own feelings of self-worth.
And while we're at it, a diamond to the fact that transfer applications to Brown were up 40 percent this year. Either other schools are getting worse, or Ruth is telling potential transfers something we don't know about a new water park.
Coal to the spoken-word poet who confessed that he felt like a "trained capitalist monkey" for liking Justin Timberlake's music. We'll pretend that wasn't a veiled reference to the diabolical research currently going on in the animal testing lab in BioMed - those monkeys are still proprietary experiments.
A diamond to the results of this semester's Herald poll, in which we got not only your approval rating of various things, but juicy details on your favorite substances. It looks like opinion of Ruth isn't the only thing that's high at Brown.
Speaking of the poll, a diamond to UCS, which had the highest percentage of students in years respond that, good or bad, they held at least some opinion of the council. Hopefully this increased interest won't convince anyone to actually attend those four-hour meetings.
A diamond to the Brown chemists who have designed a "palladium nanoparticle" that speeds up fuel cell reactions. But coal to the fact that the nanoparticle supposedly increases efficiency by making targeted layoffs and trying to buy out aging free radical atoms.
And in a further pooh-pooh to dire financial straits, coal to the fact that second-floor kitchens in Caswell Hall will be converted into doubles over the summer. The last thing we need in this economy is eliminating those few safe havens where students can unwind from career-related stress by making overambitious culinary disasters that they don't clean up.
A diamond to the naive Chinese student who complimented Americans for their ability to "think and talk at the same time." Apparently the verb "to bullshit" doesn't translate.
A cubic zirconium to a new state law that allows 16- and 17-year olds to pre-register to vote. We're all for increasing the youth electoral voice, but only if they have to wake up at 8 a.m. and neurotically type in pre-recorded five-digit candidate ID numbers.
