Author Archives: Michael Zink

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The News has been suffering from a distinct lack of discussion of the candidates for the Democratic nomination for Ward 1 alderman. Every day, I have found space on this page that has not been covered with text that addresses today’s exciting election, which will definitively determine the winner of the Ward 1 aldermanic race, »

A digest of recent top stories from CNN and MSNBC: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot might be disappearing, having shrunken by 15 percent in the past ten years; Michelle Obama touched the queen, causing royalists everywhere to swoon fitfully; A man dropped the engagement ring during a marriage proposal on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was later »

Lots of Yalies tuned in to watch President Obama address Congress this Tuesday, but I was more interested in what happened afterward. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was scheduled to give the Republican rebuttal, and he’s widely regarded as a rising star in the GOP. It’s not hard to see why. Jindal is a decisive leader »

If you happen to be reading this article over a piece of dining hall tilapia, then hold up: You may be about to sink your teeth into a kitten, sort of. According to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, fish are badly in need of an image makeover. Hence they are no longer »

This is what a medieval joust looks like today: Two students, armed with the vague sensation that they are acquaintances, approach one another from opposite ends of an empty hallway. Tension grows. One, defeated, looks away — but nobody cheers. There is no clattering of hooves, but a muffled vocalization, perhaps a half-grunted “hey.” Tragically, »

In a tableau that was mirrored on countless college campuses, in city streets and suburbs across the country, hundreds of Yalies converged on Old Campus on Tuesday night to celebrate Barack Obama’s historic victory. People hugged. People cried. Chants of “Yes we can” were met with even more spirited chants of “Yes we did.” Yet »

In his novel “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture,” Douglas Coupland coins the term “ultra short-term nostalgia,” defined as the modern feeling of “homesickness for the extremely recent past.” That’s the sentiment I felt on Tuesday, immediately upon discovering the existence of sexually-transmitted-disease e-cards. It is now possible to send digital greeting cards via »

Even in the face of skyrocketing oil prices, some American policy-makers stubbornly refuse to abandon bans on domestic drilling. Rather than tap into the nation’s most bountiful oil reserves, they would prefer to sit on these supplies in hopes that they will, at some point in the future, prove useful. A ready supply of oil »

It is the year 2005. An everyman — let us call him “Jim”— buys a house for $400,000. The house is actually worth $200,000, but its price has risen dramatically because, for whatever reason, lots of investors have been buying houses lately. Jim cannot afford this house because he makes $20,000 per year, but he »

There’s nothing complicated about gender politics in America, at least as far as its two main political parties are concerned. Everyone knows that Democrats are champions of women’s rights, while Republicans seek to demean women everywhere. Of the 16 women currently serving in the US Senate, 11 are Democrats and only five are Republican. The »

For a moment last week, there was promising news for the American economy. Major news outlets briefly carried the story that the US economy had grown at a 3.3 percent annual rate for the second quarter, more than doubling the Commerce Department’s initial predictions. Given all of the recent financial gloom, I hope that this »