I am man, hear me roar! (Penn Rugby)

Penn Rugby gets the short end of the stick.

For much of this semester, they’ve been training on a grassless, gravel-smitten and ravaged pitch, littered with trash, completely untended by the Penn Athletics Dept. Last week a player landed on the sharp end of a discarded earring.

Rugby is not mentioned on the Penn Athletics website. Add that to the fact that players are forced to train on a substandard and dangerous playing surface, it would seem rugby at Penn is as good as ignored by the Athletics Dept. This is unacceptable.

The Penn Men’s Rugby Football Club is recognized as the oldest collegiate rugby team in America. It is first documented as being in existence in 1910 and was training and playing competitive games on a regular basis pre-WWI. The club has continued to grow over the past century. There are now two teams who train three times a week and compete in the Ivy League Tournament every spring as well as featuring in regular games throughout the year.

The Penn Athletic Department claims to be “dedicated to providing a wide array of athletic opportunities on both the intercollegiate and recreational levels which will enhance and enrich the educational experience of our students” and yet can’t find any space on the website for the Rugby Club nor a field in its vast campus for them to play on.

Rugby is a major world sport The International Rugby Board has 95 full member countries, including global heavyweights such as England, France, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The sport continues to grow with countries such as Italy and Argentina joining the ranks of major actors. The US and Canada both have national teams, though you wouldn’t know it for the lack of media coverage.

The demand for facilities is there. The money to provide them surely is. Penn Athletics needs to address this immediately.

Mommy, Stanford has an iTunes page, I want one too!

Penn can’t cope with iTunesU. We have no definite plan for installing the technology (a few cameras). Students are so lacking in self-belief, they’ll refuse to ask questions if the classes are recorded. And apparently we’ll all stop going to class. Empty lecture theatres will echo with the memories of the vibrant Penn campus of yesteryear. Furthermore, regardless of the benefits of the iTunes technology, Penn students don’t want it. Or at least they haven’t asked for it yet.

So goes the argument of the anti-iTunesU brigade. Their misplaced criticisms and unfounded fears were reflected in the DP Editorial published earlier this week that provoked serious criticism from within the University.

So what is this iTunesU and is it really worth getting our Ivy League knickers in a twist? According to Apple, “iTunesU is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to their educational content, including lectures and interviews, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”. The service has proved popular, attracting esteemed like Stanford, Berkeley and Duke. And it’s been nothing other than a rip-roaring success.

Obadiah Greenberg , former product manager for ‘webcast.berkeley’, UC Berkeley’s webcast and podcast site, spoke to Apple about the speed with which students jumped on the new technology, “UC Berkeley on iTunes U officially went live on April 22, 2006, just in time for Cal Day. By the end of April, we’d had over 330,000 downloads, and nearly 10,000 subscribers.” So in just one week 10,000 students signed up. And not only did they register, they downloaded 330,000 academic items that, in all likelihood, enriched their educations. I’m struggling to see what the problem is here.

Some examples of the benefits perhaps? Well at Stanford, not only have lectures been put online but also more innovative concepts. Professor Kingsley Willis explains on his blog how he has uploaded “short podcasts highlighting the student project portion of an Anatomy of Movement course”.

And for language classes, the opportunities are endless. At Duke University, video clips, texts and audio are being uploaded, allowing students to learn their vocab on the move. Imagine being able to do your homework while walking to class, being able to re-watch a lecture while flying home for fall break, being able to listen to a guest speaker while in the bath.

The premise is clear. iTunesU would open up new doors to the broadening of our academic horizons, allowing us almost unfettered access to the true scope of materials and facilities here at Penn.

And of course, it would help Penn extend its sphere of influence, in the US and abroad. “We have a worldwide audience, too” Greenberg told Apple, “a great result of UC Berkeley on iTunesU”.

According to the DP Editorial team, laundry machines and bus services are more important to Penn kids. Apparently sweet-smelling t-shirts are the key to a successful college career, not mental stimulation and academic excellence. They claim the UA needs to improve Penn In Touch. Seems to me they should be concentrating on getting the DP in touch with the student body first.

We should embrace this new generation of technology. Penn is supposed to be one of the leading schools in the country, if not the world. Let’s keep it that way.

Warren Buffet (CNN)

I had lunch on Friday with the most successful investor of all time. He took me out for a steak. We drank Cherry Coke, shot the breeze about his life and his outlook for the future. He offered to pay the bill. His company earns around $200 million a week so he’d easily covered his costs by the time we’d finished eating.

With a net worth of $42 billion, Warren E Buffett is the poster boy of modern capitalism. Hailing from Omaha, Nebraska, where he still lives, Buffett started his career as a professional investor in 1956 when he created the Buffett Associates Ltd, managing $105,000 of funds. Just $100 of the money was his own. 10 years later, the fund was worth $44 million, a return of 1156%. Hello Mr. Buffett.

From there, he went on to build an empire, acquiring Berkshire Hathaway , a failing textiles business, and then investing in other firms under the Berkshire umbrella. Today Berkshire Hathaway has a market capitalization of $167 billion and is one of the most successful companies in the world. Buffett has built what he calls his “masterpiece,” his Sistine Chapel.

Now 76 years old but still as energetic as ever, Buffett has turned his attentions more towards giving something back. Each year he meets with a small number of business students from across the US, imparting pearls of wisdom upon their sponge-like brains, holding swathes of eager young minds enthralled by his love of investing and passion for life. Last Friday, I was lucky enough to be one of the few Penn students to meet with him. And what an honour it was.

For a man worth 6 times the Penn endowment fund, Warren Buffett is as humble as they come. Not interested in the glitz and glamour of billionaire life, he still lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500 and always drives his own car. Last Friday, he drove four Whartonites from Berkshire Hathaway’s headquarters to Gorat’s Steakhouse for lunch. No chauffers, no bodyguards, no overtures to grandure–Buffett is reassuringly unassuming and a pleasure to be around.

Last year, he shocked the world with his generosity, making the largest philanthropic donation in history. Buffett announced plans to transfer shares in Berkshire Hathaway totalling $30.7 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and over $6 billion to other charities.

It’s unlikely you’ll ever hear of such compassion and altruism again, such was the extent of his charity. But to Warren Buffett, who recently told Fortune magazine he “agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society”, this monumental act of philanthropy is merely the natural reallocation of wealth to a society that has given him so much.

After lunch and a few photos, it was time to go. A handshake and a smile and Buffett was off into the Omaha sunset. It was short but very sweet, for I had sat in the presence of greatness.

What would you do if you saw the President’s Bush’s little princess at a naked party? (Deliverance)

Penn kids are so sexually depraved and morally corrupt that we now have parties naked. Yes, that’s right, many of us now shed the materials so unbecoming of our natural being and let it all hang out while enjoying a few beers.

CBS , the clever buggers that they are, apparently managed to infiltrate these “underground” parties. Their ‘inside man’ - another annoying showbiz presenter and ‘friend of the stars’ (or not) - successfully tapped up an anonymous junior to uncover the dark world of naturism at Penn. And what did he find?

Well apparently they were scenes beyond even the infamous Animal House. “One woman attended a nude party and says some students did hear some pretty wild stories.” Oh, so she didn’t actually see anything herself? She just heard rumours from other students? Wow. This really is dangerous stuff!

While purposefully throwing in unsubstantiated crap to infer some kind of mass orgy, and of course mentioning the age-old rumour that Barbara Bush (the girl, not the grandma) once went to a naked party at Yale, CBS was also forced to drop a few truths &mdash “according to reports, most naked parties are sex free. Our Penn student says he never saw people cross the line.” Damn those blasted facts.

So it turns out that the shocking reality is more a case of a few Penn kids adopting naturism, becoming part of an industry worth $400 million here in the US. Indeed, College Junior Kyle Textor said he had no problem with nudity and would “gladly attend a naked party”.

Eager however to keep their readers interested in this non-story, CBS tried to link it to “sexually charged messages from Hollywood”, as if sex in Hollywood was a new thing! Audrey Hepburn and James Dean are turning in their graves.

According to the Yankelovich National Travel Monitor , 15% of Americans would consider a holiday resort that offers nude recreation. 88% of Brits see nude recreation as harmless and 24% have swum nude. And yet CBS saw fit to publish an article on Penn kids in the buff. It must have been a slow news day.

As always, a Penn student provided the voice of reason amid a deluge of forced morality - “I just don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed about with human body”. While CBS are climbing down from their high horse, we at Penn continue about our daily lives, fighting through the snow, not a nipple in sight. But if we did want to take our wet clothes off at home, we could and we should, and shame on CBS for trying to hedonise something so natural.

The White House refused to comment on Barbara’s college antics &mdash a response about as interesting and unsurprising as the rest of CBS’s drivel.

In February 1957, a college student from La Salle University came across a large box with what looked like a doll inside. He didn’t think to report it but, after hearing a radio report about a missing child, decided to call it in.

When police arrived they found the body of a small child, a boy no more than five years old. He had been dead a few days.

And yet nobody claimed the body, nobody knew of any missing child who matched the description – this was “America’s unknown child” and probably “the most famous anonymous person in Philadelphia history.”

Forget ‘box in a box’. Melissa Lamb’s taco might be certified, but the ‘boy in a box’ mystery has been around for fifty years.

In an attempt to match the dead boy to his family, friends or guardians, police made and distributed over 10,000 copies of a poster with pictures of the boy and details regarding the incident. But, the mystery of the ‘boy in a box’ has never been solved.

William Kelly, a veritable Dr. Watson, who worked as part of the Police Department’s identification unit at the time, has spent much of his life trying to bring a close to the case. As part of the Vidocq Society, an amateur investigative society formed here in Philadelphia, he has followed countless leads but the chances of ever finding the boy’s true identity or his murderer are now slim. “My only regret” he said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer “is that I don’t have another 50 years to give”.

Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word! (www.vidocq.org)

The Vidocq Society is a private society that meets regularly to discuss and research unsolved murders and disappearances. It does not allow applications for vacant positions from members of the public but those who consider themselves a Sherlock Holmes in the making can subscribe to the newsletter by contacting the Vidocq Society Office directly.

“America’s Unknown Child” will be remembered in a service organized by the Vidocq Society at 10am on February 26th at Ivy Hill Cemetery. It is fitting that the tragedy that befell the boy be remembered. Praise must also go to the Vidocq Society for never giving up hope of bringing his killer to justice and for following in the footsteps of Holmes himself who said, “My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law”.

The Philadelphia smoking ban may have unintended effects on your sex life.

According to scientists in the UK, the level of alcohol consumed is not the only reason for going home with a stunner and waking up next to something slightly less appealing than Laura Bush. The level of light and smokiness of a pub or club and the drinker’s eyesight may also contribute to your romantic choices on a night out.

You’ve all been there. You’re out, enjoying yourself, had a few (too many) drinks, you meet a guy/girl by the bar and next thing you know…score!. Next to you in the cab is the hottest thing this side of the Delaware. Hours pass, the sun comes up and your head pounds as you slowly open your eyes. And then it hits you. That person you thought was destined for America’s Next Top Model is not, in fact, a sight for sore eyes (and an even sorer head).

These scientists at Manchester came up not only with a compelling theory, but also with a rather trendy equation.

(BBC)

Beta is the ‘Beer Goggle Effect,’ which can be anything from less than one, no beer goggle effect, to more than one hundred, a level at which you might want to consider never waking up again! Contributory factors include An (units of alcohol consumed), S (smokiness of room), L (luminance or strength of lighting), D (distance from potential target) and Vo (visual activity).

Not one to leave an equation without a valid example, Nathan Efron, Professor of Clinical Optometry at the University of Manchester was kind enough to put his algebra into action. “Someone with normal vision, who has consumed five pints of beer and views a person 1.5 metres away in a fairly smoky and poorly lit room, will score 55, which means they would suffer from a moderate beer goggle effect.”

So there you have it. With smoking banned, the world of college bars is becoming a dangerous place. Save the equation on your blackberries or write it on the back of your check book just to be sure you can calculate your very own beer goggle effect next time you think you’ve struck the jackpot in Smokes.

If however you choose to disregard the findings of the University of Manchester, don’t come crawling to me with your excuses. I have shown you the light (or luminance). The rest is up to you.

If you’re not getting any loving and chocolates just don’t do it for you any more, there’s a new way of attaining that warm bliss — philanthropy.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke , the “warm glow” that many donors feel following charitable activity involves “the same brain mechanisms that evoke pleasurable sensations after sex, eating good food, and using heroin or other drugs.” Hear that Wharton? If you’re having trouble finishing the job with the ladies get rid of some of those greenbacks.

I ignored the advice of my fellow blogger Dan Brickley, just last Thursday night when I was approached outside Blarney by a man who went by the name of William. He had a pretty good story and, when he introduced himself, his hands were stone-cold, so I gave him a couple of dollars and walked away to the sound of his raspy voice shouting “god thanks you for your kindness sir”.

Yes I felt good having helped William out. I did have a “warm glow” (although that may have been due to the 50 cent drinks). But as Penn School of Social Policy and Practice professor, Dr. Dennis Culhane, told Dan, giving the less fortunate members of our community hand-outs only encourages begging. Instead, we need to look at the root of the problem. Raising the standard of living in West Philadelphia will, after all, benefit us all.

There are plenty of events coming up to get involved in - the Hillel Soup Kitchen hosts a free dinner every Sunday from 5.30-7pm, PennPals are having a Valentines Day Gathering on February 9th, and the local Big Brothers Big Sisters agency is running a “Bowl for Kids’ Sake” campaign in March and April with Game 5 hitting our local Strikes Bowling Alley on March 29th.

While there are those, such as Ralph Nader, who see charity as a reactive rather than a proactive response — “A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity” — in our current political climate, there is an obvious demand for charitable activity. I doubt many of us here at Penn are in the enviable position of Warren E. Buffet , but we can give our time.

The DP ran an editorial early in this school year in which it said “Penn will grant you a degree, and it will be your turn to return the favor to the world.” A good point well made. And if the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is right, you’ll end up feeling pretty damn good afterwards too.

Step 1 - Drag the hi-rises out of the 1960s. Hopefully that’ll be done as part of the $100 million renovation project taking place this summer.

Step 2 - Thrust on-campus accommodations into the 21st century. This is easier said than done. We know that the University needs some help in that department, afterall, when left to its own resources, it will spend $2,400 on a chair to be chic. Luckily, The Association of College and University Housing Association has a few novel ideas.

As part of a nationwide competition for the “most innovative and cost-efficient dorm room”, Boston based architectural firm Jonathon Levi Architects produced a stunning visualisation of what the future will hold for future generations of students.

Project Coordinator Michael Coakley said the design was supposed to promote academic growth within affordable housing. And while the proposed housing might not make the highrises the Burj Al Arab , it’s certainly heading in the right direction. Instead of the rigidity of traditional student accommodation, Jonathon Levi suggested interactive walls, glass walls with adjustable transparencies and, most exciting of all, a combination sink-toilet. I’m not quite sure how that would work but it sounds fun.

Other entrants offered retina-scan and finger print systems as an alternative to keys and politically fashionable alternative energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines. Also proposed were removable walls, allowing rooms to be easily converted from singles to doubles, something that would definitely provide a popular alternative to a tie on the door/ night on the couch.

Those all sound cool by do you know what ‘d love first though? A working kitchen and a modern bathroom. But since I’m daring to dream, I’ll dream of flat-screen TVs in every room and my personal combination sink-toilet. That’d be nice.

Switzerland’s Roger Federer right, stands with Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez at the trophy presentation after winning the men’s singles title at the Australian Open tennis tournament.(AP Photo/Rick Stevens)

My roommate woke up at 3:30am last Thursday morning to watch Andy Roddick play Roger Federer in the semi-finals of the Australian Open Tennis. He needn’t have bothered. I could have told him the result. As expected, Federer blew Roddick out of the water with an awesome display of hard court tennis, winning 6-4 6-0 6-2. Roddick didn’t have
a chance. Why? Because Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player in the world. Ever.

Superlatives are used far too often in sport. Commentators and pundits use phrases like “world-class” and “all-time great” with blatant disregard for those who truly deserve such language. But there are a select few who sit at the top of their respective sports, men and
women with names carved into history as a result of their staggering achievements. There is now a new name to add to the list.

Roger Federer has dominated men’s tennis for the better part of 4 years. His first singles title came in February 2001 but it wasn’t until July 2003 that he secured his first grand slam, beating Mark Philippoussis to win Wimbledon for the first time. Since then he has
won 9 more grand slams, including his recent demolishing of Fernando Gonzalez in the Australian Open Final.

Federer breezed through the Australian Open without dropping a set and has now won 36 matches in succession and six of the last seven grand slams. He rewrites the record books with every game he plays and is just three weeks away from breaking American favorite Jimmy Connors’ record for most consecutive weeks as the top ranked male tennis
player.

The man is clearly talented! But more than that, he’s humble and gracious and one of the most pleasant men in Tennis. He rarely criticizes other players or officials, he maintains complete control on court, he never uses his success or fame for any narcissistic means he’s a gentleman and a genuine role model for youngster with aspirations for glory.

Federer gives something back too. In 2003 he established the Roger Federer Foundation , played a number of tournaments to raise money for
the people affected by the Tsunami of 2004 and last year was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador to UNICEF.

First and foremost though, he is a tennis player, probably the greatest we’ll ever see. Still just 25 years old, he has the ability to continue his dominance well into the next decade. He’s yet to win the French Open and as such is yet to win the ‘True Grand Slam’ of holding all four titles in one calendar year, but most expect him to
conquer this final hurdle in the near future. And when he does, he will surely be heralded as the best ever.

So here’s to Roger Federer, probably the greatest tennis player to have ever lived, great enough for a 3:30 am wakeup call. May the superlatives rain down on him for few are more deserving than he.

71% of Americans would die for their religion, according to a recent ICM poll.

73% are convinced God exists — an incredible figure in a country living under the ’separation of Church and State’.

Upon arriving here at Penn in August, I soon discovered that three of the girls living across the hall from me went to church most Sundays. And another girl I met in my first week was a committed Christian who had been to church every week for as long as she could remember. Compared to my life back home at Edinburgh University, this was a whole new ball game.

In the UK, only 7% of the population claim to attend a religious service every week. I know only three committed Christians at Edinburgh, people who’d attend regular church services. I know of no committed Jews. Yet here at Penn, I met four such people within my first week.

Back home we have the Church of England, an established state church in an officially Christian country. Queen Elizabeth II is the head of that church and is crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey.

All of this is in direct contrast with the US Constitution, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Imagine the US President being the official head of the Church of America and being inaugurated by a Bishop in a ceremony held in Washington National Cathedral! Thomas Jefferson would turn in his grave.

And yet 57% of Americans say religion is a very important part of their life, 58% believe religion could solve all or most problems today and 41% profess to be born again or ‘evangelical’ Christians. This country is clearly a religious nation — Church and State are about as separate as Ben & Jerry.

Coming from the UK, Super Churches that can hold 25,000 people are as foreign as ice hockey and food trucks. A church for 25,000 people?! I’d be surprised if my local church pulled in a congregation of 25.

Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas seats 25,000 and has sports fields, a foodcourt and an arcade on the premises.

Which got me thinking, why is this so? Why is religion so dominant in the US and so limp in the UK? College sophomore Erica Evans says her religious roots are as much cultural as anything else — “Being a black woman from the south, I’m part of a community that remembers slavery and can see the huge steps black people have made in America today. That in itself is a reason to believe in God”. She also believes Christianity plays a large role in providing a “moral upbringing”, for people of all races.

For black society, the burning ashes of slavery may well be doused by religion. But more generally, religious strength in the US comes from the country’s foundation, as a new home for persecuted Europeans. Here, this melting pot of cultures and races are brought together by their beliefs. America clearly is religious, constitutionally secular or not. As John Adams said in 1775, “We recognize no sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus.”