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Retired astronomy professor reflects on career

By Anna Radtke · Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 11:42 p.m.

Colleagues honored Edmondson, former chairman of IU’s Department of Astronomy, by naming an asteroid after him. Now 96 years old, he was a vital asset in transforming both IU’s department and national observatories across the country, said Caty Pilachowski, IU’s Kirkwood chair of astronomy.

The Indiana Daily Student

Nothing to wear and no time to shop? Try these options.

By Bryan Payton · Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 11:20 p.m.

Do you ever wake up in the morning to closet full of clothes, yet nothing to wear? I know I do. Maybe I’m just too picky with what I choose or possibly just too indecisive. Whatever the case, we all have heard the phrase “time is money.” If that were meant literally, I’d be making it rain every morning, as hundreds would be thrown away by the second.

The Indiana Daily Student

BPP ‘PlayOffs’ teams to write, act in 24 hours

By Tyler James Perry · Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 11:17 p.m.

Imagine what it would be like if a professor assigned a 10-page paper and said it was due by the end of the day. Imagine being unable to procrastinate. Now imagine the Bloomington Playwrights Project’s “PlayOffs”: Playwrights are given just one day to write an entire play. What’s more, the actors must memorize the lines in an even shorter time. The directors must work feverishly to get everything before the just-born play takes the stage – that night.

The Indiana Daily Student

Formerly exiled Polish troupe to perform

By MaryJane Slaby · Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 11:15 p.m.

Fresh from the airport, the Polish theater group Theater of the Eighth Day hurried into the Polish Studies Center to escape the cold November rain. Stepping into the center’s living room, the group looked around and declared it to be a “little piece of Poland.”

The Indiana Daily Student

Construction materials probed in Minnesota 2007 bridge collapse

Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 11 p.m.

Safety investigators said more than a half million pounds of construction materials had been piled on the Interstate 35W bridge directly above steel plates on the day they failed, causing the Minneapolis bridge to collapse.

The Indiana Daily Student

Austrian father Fritzel charged with murder, enslavement

Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 11 p.m.

Prosecutors filed a murder charge Thursday against the man accused of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering her seven children, saying one of the youngsters who died in infancy might have survived if brought to a doctor.

The Indiana Daily Student

Palin urges to keep Dems in check

Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 10:59 p.m.

Sarah Palin called on fellow Republican governors to keep the new president and his strengthened Democratic majority in check on issues from taxes to health care as she signaled she’ll take a leadership role in a party searching for a new standard-bearer.

The Indiana Daily Student

Obama hasn’t passed test yet

Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 9:21 p.m.

I could not help but feel a sense of deja vu as I read Indira Dammu’s Thursday column about President Bush. While the embattled president has been a soft target for years now, his successful campaign in 2000 has several resemblances to the 2008 Barack Obama victory. He promised to bring a new way of doing things to the White House, which is similar to Obama’s message of change. He promised a diplomatic foreign policy approach, which would include absolutely no nation-building. Specifically, he planned to use a policy of containment to keep Saddam Hussein and Iraq in check, a plan that then-Sen. Obama agreed with wholeheartedly. He had a vision of “compassionate conservatism,” which referred to responsibly using government funds to support charity organizations. Bush also promised to raise the Earned Income Tax Credit, which was similar to Obama’s middle and lower class tax cuts. Bush was forced to deal with Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina and the current financial mess.

The Indiana Daily Student

Bill Lynch shouldn’t be fired

Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 9:21 p.m.

To all of the people who want to see Bill Lynch fired, I have one thing to say: Shut up, already! After reading Monday’s front page story on how most fans want to see Coach Lynch canned, I felt I needed to stand up for him. I will agree that our Hoosiers have had a truly awful season. We all had sky-high expectations going into it. However, there are many problems with the idea of firing Lynch. First, he is under contract for the next three years. Second, the recruiting class he has coming in for next season is supposedly really good. If we fire Lynch, these players leave. Third, I find it hard to believe that people who do not show up for games and just get wasted tailgating in the fields have an opinion on what should be done with our coach.

The Indiana Daily Student

Turn down the media

By Mitchell Blatt · Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 9:20 p.m.

Don’t read the news. That might sound strange coming from a columnist, but I’m going to say it because not reading the news might make you a better person. We live in the age of information overload. You can find out what hundreds of friends who aren’t really your friends are doing tonight on Facebook. You can find out what Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is on Wikipedia. You can argue who is a better voice actor for Sonic the Hedgehog on YouTube. But it’s not just the Internet that lets you twiddle away your time with trite nonsense. All media is generally useless: including the news. The responsibility of the “informed citizen” is a farce. Think about some of the top items of the presidential campaign: Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin’s winks, hope and change and Bill Ayers.

The Indiana Daily Student

Stopping the copying

Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 9:18 p.m.

One half of the students at the University of Cambridge have plagiarized, according to the results of a recent survey by Varsity, the university’s student paper. The university and the survey defined plagiarism as “handing in someone else’s essay; copying and pasting from the Internet; copying statistics, code or field-work; making up statistics, code or field-work; handing in previously submitted work; using someone else’s ideas without acknowledgement; buying an essay, or having an essay edited by Oxbridge Essays.” The survey only attracted 1,014 respondents, about 5 percent of the university’s entire student body. Although the results might not establish causation, students of certain subjects – like law, anthropology and archaeology – tend to plagiarize more. Despite the overwhelming and disappointing number of students who plagiarize, 80 percent of students believe the University does enough to combat academic dishonesty. The Cambridge Web site claims that the University’s “(academic) examiners are experts in their field and are therefore extremely likely to spot work that has been copied from another source or not referenced appropriately.” It appears some of these “examiners” have been duped.

The Indiana Daily Student

Put on some pants

By Julia Boriss · Thursday, Nov. 13,2008 9:17 p.m.

Women on this campus are so committed to looking identical that they will endure all kinds of winter weather in those thin, black spandex pants. People like to complain about the hideousness of Ugg boots, but Ugg boots don’t bother me nearly as much as the black tights that get tucked into them. I am of the opinion that if it’s cold enough to be wearing boots, it’s cold enough that you should be wearing pants thicker than a dryer sheet. So why do women wear them? “Because they’re so comfortable!” This is the untrue, defensive cry of women all over America who starve and suck themselves into whatever ridiculous trend they think will turn them into a walking sex symbol. It’s like the time my friend bought a pair of Crocs a few summers ago when they became popular (not that this exactly turned her into a walking sex symbol). When we all made fun of her for it, she insisted that she only wore them because they were so convenient to wear in water. This seemed legitimate, because who doesn’t like to wear shoes in the water to keep the bottoms of their feet dry? But her argument became void the following winter when she purchased a new pair of Crocs lined with fake fur.

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