November
1, 2002
Front-Page
News
In the Red
"It's time for a reality check on taxes," wrote John
O. Fox, MHC visiting lecturer in complex organizations, in an
October 19 column in the Boston Herald. Fox wrote that
unless the United States Congress drastically reduces anticipated
expenditures—something not currently under consideration—it
cannot responsibly ignore the need for new taxes. Otherwise, future
generations will be unfairly saddled with tax burdens we should
bear. Fox pointed out that last year's budget deficit of $157
billion becomes $346 billion once Social Security and Medicare
surpluses are excluded. This is only the beginning of rising,
massive deficits over the coming years, Fox noted, before taking
into account future shortfalls in Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid, and likely new expenditures, such as a prescription
drug program for the elderly, increased domestic security, rebuilding
Afghanistan, and a war and occupation of Iraq. He concluded, "Our
nation urgently needs a debate about which federal programs are
worth preserving or adopting and how we will pay for them. Our
children and grandchildren deserve nothing less."
Raves about Kendade
The new Kendade Hall, the nexus of the College's unified science
center, has opened to "raves," says an article in the
October 20 edition of Springfield, Massachusetts's Sunday Republican.
Frank DeToma, director of the science center and Professor of
Biological Sciences on the Alumnae Foundation, told staff writer
Sandra Constantine about the building's environmental friendliness
and its promise of bringing together faculty and students from
across the sciences to encourage interdisciplinary interactions.
Elianna L. Goldstein '05 of San Francisco contributed a two-word
review: "It's beautiful," she said.
Ordinarily Extraordinary
Mary Jo Salter, MHC Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities,
reviewed a new volume of poems by Billy Collins, poet laureate
of the United States, in the October 20 New York Times Book
Review. Salter praised the book, Nine Horses, noting
of Collins that, "His originality derives, it seems, from
the marriage of a loopy, occasionally surreal imagination (the
moon looks like ‘the top of Shakespeare's / famous forehead';
a dead groundhog in the road, like ‘a small Roman citizen
. . . . still hailing Caesar') to an ordinary life observed in
just a few ordinary words."
The
counter is
1,055
|
