Author Archives: Kai Thaler

The Yale administration owes the student body an apology. Thomas Kaplan’s article “Expansion: Not if, but when” (1/15) illuminates what many students have been feeling for months: Yale President Richard Levin and the university administration have never really cared what students thought about whether or not two new colleges should be built. When President Levin »

The news media is obsessed with violence, and Iraq provides ample stories. There is the Sunni-Shiite conflict, spiraling out of control and stacking bodies higher and higher. There are attacks on Iraqi government forces. And of course, there are attacks on Americans, which provide the best stories because we are most concerned with, and best »

No one is going to argue that Elihu Yale was a nice guy. As Hiram Bingham III, class of 1898, wrote in his biography of Yale, he had “a domineering, opinionated, [and] aggressive personality” and made his money working for the exploitative British East India Company in India. In short, old Eli was not someone »

There is something in the water here at Yale. It is not that intangible essence of power that makes so many alumni leaders in politics and business. It is not the spirit of elitism that so many people think possesses the University and its students. Nor is it magical love juice that will enable you »

Obesity is the most visible and talked-about health issue in America today, and its prevalence is rising worldwide. It has a profound effect on public health and the economy, to the tune of $93 billion per year in health expenditures (not taking into account lost productivity), almost half of which is paid for by the »

Humor about social issues is always likely to offend someone. This is a simple fact. Generalizations will be made, stereotypes will be used, and even if the attempt of the joke is to satirize that stereotype, its very presence in print seems to draw an immediate defensive response, as we have witnessed with the current »