All News

Everyone here is selling something.  If you're not selling, you're buying.  If you're not buying or selling, you're observing both practices through osmosis and routine.  The corporations, the advertisements, the corner stands and transportation stops call out to the consumer.  I wonder if I understand to some degree, why Islamic terrorists believe that every day America sells its soul. 

The trains and I, we've got some beef. Public Transportation: a simple concept, as well as a necessity for a crowded and chaotic city such as this. The population smart enough not to own a car here depend on it to get to work, to go shopping, to eat. All fundamental to live, clearly. Then why may I ask is such an integral part of living in this limitless city so complicated? Red, green, 1, 9, N, R, seriously, let's just call the whole thing off. I might as well walk.

The United States has been long considered the land of opportunity, and right outside of our windows is Lady Liberty, standing watch over the gateway to this new land. I feel that there is opportunity here, and a chance to start a new life. It's a big step to go from the small village of Clinton, N.Y., to the island of Manhattan.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin published a research article, "Convex Geometric Graphs with No Short Self-intersecting Paths," in Congressus Numerantium 160 (2003), pp. 205-214.  Her research shows that a graph that can be drawn in the plane with no short self-intersecting paths is guaranteed to have a vertex of small degree and therefore have to have an edge set whose size is linear in the number of vertices.

E.B. White, in his article “Here in New York,” describes the difference between living in the city and being a visitor.  I always knew the city from the commuter side, but for the past week, I have woken up to the sounds of the sirens and the wail of the boats; I have looked out the window at the Statue of Liberty; I have grabbed an “A.M.” paper from the man outside the subway; and I have traveled from my apartment with the herds of people going to work or school.  I understand why so many people view the city as overpowering.

I remember the first time I came to New York City; I was a freshman and visiting some high school friends at NYU.   From a distance, the city seemed safe, compact, and relatively small and the underground maze of Penn Station and the color coded alphabetical/numerical subway system did not faze me.  As we rode to Times Square, I thought that I could handle city life despite my rural Vermont roots.  Largely as a result of my sheltered childhood, I had a much skewed vision of New York from movies, too many episodes of Law and Order, songs, and the 9/11 images.

Being confined to the sick ward a.k.a. my 30th floor apartment has given me a interesting, albeit mildly - no significantly - claustrophobic view of the city.  I can look outside my window and see the harbor - ferries coming and going, tugboats and large boats navigating the waters and the changing shapes of the ice.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Brian Rosmaita has been elected treasurer of the Society for Machines and Mentality. The Society for Machines and Mentality is an international scholarly organization whose purpose is to advance philosophical understanding of issues involving artificial intelligence, philosophy, and cognitive science. The Society is affiliated with the journal Minds and Machines, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and third party presidential candidate in 2000, will give a lecture, "Politics and the Environment: Winners and Losers," on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 8 p.m. in the Hamilton College Chapel. His lecture is part of the Levitt Public Affairs Center's series "The Environment: Public Policy and Social Responsibility."

Professor of History Maurice Isserman reviewed Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie for the Chicago Tribune. Isserman writes: "Woody was certainly good to his future biographers. He left behind a trove of unpublished letters, reminiscences and manifestoes ....  [Biographer Ed] Cray has mined these sources thoroughly .... The result is a reliable and lucid work of biography."