The Carletonian

The half-dozen student shows staged the past two weeks have been an interesting buffet of diverse styles and tastes for the Carleton theatergoer and, as always, a chance to enjoy the class and creativity of one’s peers.

The Laudie D. Porter Guest Artist Concert on Feb. 28th featured an emphatic and moving performance of “Penelope” in the Skinner Memorial Chapel.

Depending on who you talk to, you’ll hear that the ResLife staffers in charge of pairing first-year roommates seem to possess an uncanny, practically Orwellian, degree of insight into the psyches their awkward, pimply building blocks, an almost alchemistic talent in forging relationships among high-school haters for whom the overused “quirky” is kind. 

Gao Hong Dice, Lecturer in Chinese Musical Instruments, and Carleton students Kim Bauer ’13, Yawen Chen ’15, and Joseph Concannon ’13 are awarded an ASIANetwork grant to continue the efforts of exploring and preserving Chinese ancient temple music. 

Former US Ambassador to Egypt and Israel, Daniel Kurtzer gave a peace talk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Twin Cities. A busload of Carleton students trekked north last February, 27th to hear Kurtzer’s opinion of what is really going on between Israel and Palestine: is the process towards peace at a standstill or is it possible in the near future?

“Gun control is a serious problem, and something needs to be done to stop that.” So spoke Mary Lewis Grow, founder of the Carleton Challenge Against Gun Violence, Carleton’s newest activist group on campus.

As the time for members of the sophomore class to declare their majors, it seems likely that at least a few of them might not be satisfied with the present slate of options. So some of them might avail themselves of the option undertaken by few Carleton students: declaring a special major.

Sophomore Colby Seyferth ‘15 figured in a trio of all-conference honorable mention performances on Day Two of the MIAC Indoor Track and Field Championships as Carleton College finished eighth in the team competition.

The Carleton College women’s golf team has opened the 2013 spring season ranked 20th in the first Golf World/WGCA Division III coaches poll.

Paul Cooper ‘13 gave up a combined four games while wining in both doubles and singles to push the Carleton College men’s tennis team to an 8-1 triumph over St. Cloud State University, a NCAA Division II program. This was the Knights seventh straight victory.

Senior Haley Johnson broke the school record in the 1000-meter run and first-year Ruth Steinke turned in another All-MIAC performance on the final day of competition at the MIAC Indoor Track and Field Championships.

In last week’s “Defense of Divestment” article, Patrick Burke, Zachary Levonian and Isaama Stoll wrote, “unethical investment is the product of the greater corrupt, capitalist system, deeply rooted in some of the ideals of the United States.” The assumption that we exist in a corrupt, unresponsive capitalist system is both deeply misguided and wrong.

On February 23, I travelled to the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul for Pro-Choice Lobby Day with Becky Katz ‘14. While there I attended a workshop focused on religion and choice.

I don’t know what got into me. I am a cheese-loving girl from small town Wisconsin. At the beginning of this term, I decided to have a go at veganism for a term.

Earlier today, we received a forwarded email from a friend with the headline “Hate Crimes at St. Olaf.” The email was from an individual who identified himself as “Stephen, a PhD candidate here in Minnesota” who is also involved with the Students for Justice in Palestine organizations at both the University of Minnesota and St. Olaf.

Innovation is all the rage these days; it’s the buzzword that makes the money, gets the endorsements, and makes the world move forward.  It seems like anytime the economy gets brought up, innovation is not far behind.

We do a lot of theorizing at Carleton, and I understand that sometimes that theorizing gets extremely tiresome. The standard seminar format is to bombard us with conflicting views on an issue, whether it’s literary theory or sociology, and expect us to spontaneously generate our own conclusions about it.

In the middle of December, during one of the coldest weeks of the year, I found myself driving out of the Portland cityscape to the beautiful Washington countryside near Ephrata to meet some pigs.