March Madness Followup

Tweet

I believe I have the ultimate bragging rights against my brothers because I have not watched a single game of the "march madness", I know absolutely nothing about any of the teams...and I am still doing so much better than both of my brothers in the bracket. My brothers, of course, have probably watched like every game (or at least parts of every game) and had strategies and what not for their brackets.

I have done pretty well (especially considering how I chose my teams), and even have the remaining four teams correct.

On the women side, Rutgers made the "Elite 8" over the weekend. :)

Earth Hour

Tweet

Today, people all around the world switched off lights (dimming buildings, hotels, restaurants, bars, etc.) to show concern with global warming for one hour starting at 8 P.M., local time. According to an article on Yahoo!:

"Up to 30 million people were expected to have switched off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" --which started in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- has completed its cycle westward.


More than 380 towns and cities and 3,500 businesses in 35 countries signed up for the campaign that is in its second year after it began in 2007 in Sydney alone."

Toronto's CN Tower and its surrounding skyline was also expected to be in darkness for the hour.

Google even changed its homepage background to black from white on more than a dozen country sites, and had a message on the site which read: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn." Here's a picture of Google's homepage from today:


What a neat idea..I love it. It's for such a good cause and it will prove that little things add up to make a big difference. Most people do not even realize yet how big of a deal global warming actually is and what its consequences will be in the future.

Rutgers Walk Out

Tweet

For the second year in a row, Rutgers University students organized a walk out in protest of the war. For weeks, students could see the signs everywhere on campus encouraging everyone to walk out of their daily routines to protest the ongoing U.S. occupation in Iraq. Through email correspondence, facebook, and signs on campus, the majority of people got the message that "The Walk Out is occurring whether rain or shine! Walk out of class, your dorm room, the dining hall, your work, anywhere at 1:23 p.m.".

At promptly 1:23 PM on Thursday March 27, 2008, the protesters gathered at the Vietnam Memorial in Voorhees Mall on College Avenue.

At two points during the march, the protesters (Rutgers University students and faculty, along with New Brunswick community members) sat down in the middle of George Street for brief sit-ins. One specific one was at the intersection of George and Albany streets in downtown New Brunswick, and was timed to last five minutes, representing one minute for each of the five years the Iraq war has gone on.

Protesters joined together with chants like "Hey, Bush, what do you say? How many kids have you killed today?"

According to Home News Tribune, "Hundreds of demonstrators blocked George Street, marched up Route 18 and rallied at Rutgers University's Voorhees Mall on College Avenue".

According to the Courier News,

"There was a visible law enforcement presence throughout the event, including police cars that blocked off points along the marchers' route, a N.J. State Police helicopter hovering overhead, and plainclothes police snapping photos of the crowd."

Some professors even chose to cancel classes in support of the students' decision to protest. Also, according to the Daily Targum:

Part-time lecturer Bruce Reynolds of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies said although he does not have a personal opinion on the value of the Walk Out, he still cancelled his Writing and Editing for Print class in order to let anyone participate if they chose to.


"I think [protests] are as much a part of the college experience as anything else, and to deny them access to the Walk Out would be to deny them access to part of their education," he said.


In addition to canceling class, Reynolds gave his students an assignment to write a news story about the Walk Out for extra credit. An assignment, he said, would be a good test of his students' objectivity.

Here are a few links discussing yesterday's walk out:
Click here's the link for the article in the Daily Targum. The Daily Targum is the student-run daily newspaper at Rutgers University- New Brunswick Campus.

This article, also from the Daily Targum, is from March 27th, 2008.

Click here for the Courier News article.

Home News Tribune Article

There are a few picture's on the Star Ledger's website. Click here to see them.

Spring Break is Over

Tweet

After an impromptu (and fun) day in Virginia to end off my spring break, it definitely makes me not want to go back to school even more.

The bright side is...only six more weeks of classes until summer vacation! :)