Brandeis University's Community Newspaper — Waltham, Mass.
Its not about real estate its about values.
That was the key message conveyed by Jerusalem Post columnist Amotz Asa-El in a lecture addressing the Israel-Palestinian conflict at the Rapaporte Treasure Hall on Thursday evening.
As a middle school Latin student, I remember thinking that Zeus was a much cooler name than Jupiter.
When Caesar was out of the question, I took my salads with oil, vinegar, feta, and olives. I once argued that Alexander, conqueror of the Persian Empire, should be called Alexander the Greatest. So, yes, you could say I am a fan of Greek life. While I have yet to pledge any Greek organization and have no plans to do so in the immediate future, I recognize the important role they serve. I also understand the decision to not recognize fraternities and sororities, and more recently to not allow the ZBT chapter, which happens to have many Brandeis students as its members, to identify as ZBT Brandeis. Really though, while Brandeis might need Greek life, surely Greek life does not need Brandeis.
Someone once asked Marcel Ophls, a director whose films The Sorrow and the Pity and Htel Terminus changed the way a generation of Europeans thought about fascist collaborationism, what it was like spending so much of his time interviewing Nazis. Oh I get along with Nazis, he responded.We share something in common: an interest in the past. I share more with them than I do with most people today who dont care about the past.
Let me just start off by stating that patience is a virtue, one which I definitely dont possess. Ill be upfront with you and say that I am possibly one of the most impatient people you will ever meet. I dont like to wait for anything. I hate waiting for people to return my emails or phone calls, I hate waiting in the long lines at Einstein Bagels, and I absolutely detest waitingmore like wasting my life awayin a long traffic jam! But somehow, I dont think that Im alone in my sentiments.
Every college kid, during the course of their collegiate career, has questioned their attendance at a university. I am sure that all students have wondered why they are wasting four years of their lives, laboriously poring over useless information, and going through the motions of the educational enterprise. I too have had these sentiments. This is one of the least societally productive parts of our lives. We are left to ripen on the vine and not make anything of ourselves while we use the scholarship money or parental funds delegated to us. Still, one has to analyze this topic from a different angle and realize the benefits of having a university education. Though we are not actively producing anything of importance, our heads are being filled with wisdom and our lives forever changed. Though these four years may seem unproductive, they are in fact the most important times of our lives as we learn valuable lessons both in and out of the classroom. College kids have always had the sentiment that higher education is just a big waste of time, but further analysis will yield different conclusions.
Kitchen floors, as much fun as they sound, are not conducive at all to having sex. I thought my back was going to break like the condom we used. But I didnt have to worry about spending too much time on the hardwood floor because my dog decided he wanted to join us and that pretty much finished us off.
Welcome to a special edition of the Book of Matthew!
I would like to thank Noah Klinger 08 for giving me the idea for todays column. I appreciate his efforts to contradict my views, because that is exactly what democracy is all about. Of course, I cant let him get off that easily.
There are four countries that border IsraelEgypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syriaall of which have a majority Arab Muslim population. Countries that border those countriesTurkey, Iraqalso are the home to a majority of Arab Muslims. Israel, on the other hand, is home to a majority of Jews, and is the Middle Eastern country with the strongest relationship to Western civilization. It has become difficult to progress through modern daily life without hearing of the constant conflicts that bombard the citizens of these countries.
One of my all time favorite classes in high school was a seminar called Modern Political Theory, in which we compared the likes of Socrates and Aristotle to more recent philosophers like Marx and Nietzsche. There was one particular day after a discussion on Saint Augustine that I snapped. My class assumed my beliefs to be similar to those of Augustine, a philosopher with whom I vehemently disagreed, for the sole reason that we were both Christian. The following morning I agitatedly stormed into my teachers classroom and demanded an explanation for what had happened, and why he had said nothing to come to my defense. After I ran out of steam, and he still had said nothing, I realized that he had let the class continue as it did to provoke us. He wanted to get a reaction from me, to get me to think, to push me beyond my limits and question the unquestionable.
