Grade This! - April 22, 2005

The weekly wrap-up: Bolton shocks a conscience, Cookie Monster diets, Gregg scores Snowe, Feds got game, MIT students cyberprank academia.
 

Senator Has a Conscience

Why this was not the top headline of every major paper in the United States on Wednesday we have no idea. The norm for Senate hearings is for Senator A to go on and on reading a script about something while Senators X, Y and Z read their mail, sign pictures, talk with staff, fall asleep, or think about how they want to read their own scripts in order to get on television. Rarely do minds get changed during discussion and debate. Well, the earth must have stopped rotating on Tuesday. After hearing impassioned and intelligent remarks by Democratic Senators Joe Biden of Delaware, sometimes windy, and Chris Dodd of Connecticut on the nomination of alleged mean man John Bolton to the UN, Republican George Voinovich of Ohio broke ranks, saying "My conscience got me." This prompted a domino effect, with Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chaffee and Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, both Republicans, also announcing reservations on Bolton. We doubt all of this is helping John Bolton’s anger issues. In fact, these three Republicans might need some extra security before they are devoured by fellow Republicans.

President Bush’s claim that opposition to Bolton is simply “politics” even though concerns by Republican Senators halted the committee vote:  F+ (F on decency grounds, + for effort)
John Bolton: F- (down from our previous grade of F+)
The Domino Effect: A (if it works in America’s favor)
Finding out a Senator has a Conscience: Too Monumental to Grade
The right-wing Move America Forward’s radio ad calling Voinovich “a traitor to the Republican Party”: Good for fundraising from kooks, unclear if good for influencing Voinovich their way.
Marcus Mrowka, Campus Progress

Cookie Monster to Lose a Few

Move over Anna Nicole … Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster could be the new poster child for weight loss. In the furry aging star’s 36th season, he’s laying off the cookies and turning to more fruits and vegetables. His web site features him eating an apple and has a new “healthy habits” section. Gone are the days of “C is for Cookie, that’s good enough for me.” Cookie Monster’s singing a new song, which teaches that “a cookie is a sometimes food.” The new low-fat monster is accompanied by talking and dancing fruit and vegetables as well as “Grovercise” sessions where kids can get in their cardio with another favorite furry friend. Even politicians have gotten into the mix—Sens. Frist, Dodd and Clinton have all taped commercials with puppets on the benefits of eating smart and exercising. The Sesame Workshop says its preschool audience is at just the right age to learn healthy life habits. They say Cookie Monster won’t be giving up cookies for good, just learning the skills of moderation. Keep a lookout for a guest appearance on Kirstie Alley’s Showtime series “Fat Actress.”

Cookies: A
Politicians Needing Face Time with Puppets: C
Puppets on Diets: C-
Being a Pre-schooler: A

Marcus Mrowka, George Washington University

When Republicans attack…Republicans.

This week saw some fireworks among Senate Republicans. Apparently Judd Gregg (R-NH) just couldn’t handle being wrong about the stance he’s taken against drug re-importation from Canada. He went ballistic on Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who had the temerity to propose that FDA-approved drugs be re-imported from FDA-inspected labs in Canada. It must be tough for Gregg. After all, he can’t find any holes in the bill, and his top three donor industries, according to Open Secrets, are “health professionals,” insurers and Big Pharma—to the tune of 600 grand. Poor Senator Snowe got just a measly 29 thousand from the health industry, so she’s free to represent her constituents on this one.

Olympia Snowe, for bucking her party’s ‘corporations come first’ mentality: B+
Judd Gregg for letting contributions come before constituents: F

Joshua Holland, USC

You Down with .G-O-V? Yeah, you know me

Playing Online Games When I Should Be Studying: B
DARPA Games: C+
FBI Games: D+
CIA Games: F
Army’s Football Game: B
Trogdor: (as always) A

Matt Singer, University of Montana

Putting the Sense in Nonsense

Three MIT students should have been ecstatic last week when they got word that their paper had been accepted for the Ninth World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics scheduled to take place in July in Orlando, FL. But they were laughing too hard. The paper, entitled “Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy,” sounds like nonsense. But I’m no Systemics, Cybernetics or Informatics expert. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take an expert to know nonsense when she hears it. Or perhaps it takes an expert not to know nonsense when she hears it. Either way, the four-page paper was utter gobbledygook, the product of a computer program that the three students wrote to generate fake, nonsensical papers. Shades of "Transgressing the Boundaries – Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," the human-generated fake paper published by the journal Social Text in 1996. The students say they set out to prove how often academic conferences allow claptrap to pass as scholarship these days. I’d say, point taken.

MIT students for putting old fashioned Mad Libs skills back to work: A+
The World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (sounds suspiciously nonsensical to these expert ears) for eating up habberdash: C

Jenn Borden, Chicago, IL

Illustration: August J. Pollak