Midd Blog

The Fall 2008 Middlebury Magazine hit coffee-tables around campus this week and it’s got some interesting features. It’s not online yet but here’s a sampling of cool stuff:

• Average number of emails received on campus daily: 545,000
• Number of 2012 students who have registered: Macs 289 / PCs 236
• Spring 2008 Major Breakdown: Economics is still the most popular major. 30.3% of students majored in the social sciences, 9.3% in languages, 4.9% in arts. There are 5 WAGS majors and 6 Classics majors in the school as of Spring 2008.
• Aylie Baker ‘09 has her first story, “Uganda’s Children” published as the Middlebury Fellow in Narrative Journalism.
• Alex Rossmiller ‘04 was as a former Defense Intelligence Agency Analyst who wrote an inside account about the failures of the government from “Baghdad to the Pentagon.” Oh and Jeff Sengle ‘99 is a secret service agent protecting Obama and Biden…
• MiddMag published not one, not two, not three, but four commendations of President Liebowitz’s speech last spring at Baccalaureate. And yet only one alumnus found it necessary to take Dean of Students/Provost Tim Spears to task for encouraging “incoming students to read The Communist Manifesto“

Chained

Originally uploaded by ryanocerosk

Issued by The National Weather Service
Burlington, VT 
3:06 pm EST, Tue., Nov. 18, 2008

… WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM EST WEDNESDAY…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BURLINGTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR 3 TO 6 INCHES OF SNOW IN WESTERN ADDISON COUNTY… WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM EST WEDNESDAY.

LAKE ENHANCED SNOW SHOWERS WILL CONTINUE ACROSS WESTERN ADDISON COUNTY TONIGHT… BEFORE THEY BEGIN TO DIMINISH BY MID-MORNING TOMORROW. TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATION WILL RANGE FROM 3 TO 6 INCHES BY 10 AM WEDNESDAY MORNING… WITH THE HIGHEST SNOWFALL AMOUNTS NEAR THE LAKE SHORE.

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SNOW COVERED ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES… AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.

Yea, at one point in history Middlebury ruled Jeopardy…remember the day.

And then the closer where Keith comes through with a nailbiter at the end…

Glass Fight

Originally uploaded by ryanocerosk

Locked

Originally uploaded by ryanocerosk

A Crowd

Originally uploaded by ryanocerosk

With the start of the G20 Economic Summit in D.C. and the end of MTV’s “TRL”, reality finally burst our post election highs this week reminding us just how bad the world economy is and just how difficult it is to watch/listen to good music anymore. Here a few other little reality checks from the week-

• OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: The “leaked” questionnaire in which potential Obama staffers lay bare their entire lives confirms that vetting is the new college application process.
• ECONOMY: Our troubled economy may have taken its toll on George Bush and John Paulson, but Spam and McDonald’s have never been better.
• JAMES BOND: Quantum of Solace is finally out and for those who haven’t seen it yet, let Wired’s Bond’s Villain Gallery whet your appetites a little.
• FACEBOOK: British Airways and Virgin Atlantic found out the hard way that Facebook monitoring shouldn’t be just a part of the application process.
• FASHION: Mattel is celebrating Barbie’s 50th birthday by signing on as a co-sponsor for New York Fashion Week, along with Mercedes, however it looks like the powers that be should have consulted Lego instead.
• VISUALS: Mint.com’s new “Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis” not only helps all of us struggling visual learners understand what’s going on, but puts certain people’s mistakes into glaring perspective.
• CHOICES: Everyone likes having choices, but a recent study by a Swarthmore professor points out that Starbucks is the perfect example why too many choices may not be so goood.
• TECHNOLOGY: With the arrival of his first YouTube address and the promise of a ginormous email network, president elect Barack Obama may soon be talking to you more than President Liebowitz. (Obama may face some competition though from video blogging Medvedev.)
• MISC: Hillary Clinton might be Secretary of State, China wants to ban lip-syncing, Rahm Emanuel roasts Stephen Colbert, and Lieberman is precariously holidng onto the most important position in the Senate.

Website of the Week: Andrew Sullivan. I know a lot of people already obsessive compulsively read Andrew Sullivan (or did before he put himself completely and biasedly in the tank for Obama), but I feel this week he’s worth highlighting again. So if you have a sec this morning, scroll down “The Daily Dish” and take a look at all the pictures of protests around the country in the wake of the survival of Proposition 8. This year’s definition of “change”? Breaking down barriers.

The contest: Ben Folds is holding an acappella contest for covers of his songs. Here are the two Middlebury entrants…

The Bobolinks:

The Mamajamas: