Pratt offers herbivore-friendly potluck

07 Feb 2012, Posted by Ashley Mooney in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Faculty and students from the Pratt School of Engineering have begun a “Meatless Monday” meal, featuring home-cooked vegan and vegetarian foods.

The first potluck-style meal was held Feb. 1, offering a range cuisine for meat-eaters and veggie-lovers alike to try. In removing meat from one’s diet for the event, one can reduce his or her carbon footprint while engaging in a communal event where anyone can showcase his or her culinary prowess. The lunch was held at the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences.

Pratt is the second school on campus to sponsor meatless meals. The Nicholas School began the first meatless potlucks on campus last summer.

According to an article in Duke Today, food from livestock is responsible for approximately 18 percent of carbon emissions worldwide. This means that if Americans did not eat meat for one day a week, it would equal taking 19.2 million cars off the roads for a year.

Although the next “Meatless Monday” has not been scheduled yet, it is expected to occur monthly. Updates are available at the “Pratt Sustainability” blog.

Pop Culture Grid: Carpenter vs. Nagel

07 Feb 2012, Posted by Annie Wang in News, 0 Comments

Although most Duke students recognize Coach Jolene Nagel as the head of the women’s volleyball team and Samuel Carpenter as an admission officer and the director of the tour guide program, few realize they are husband and wife. This power couple has been at Duke for more than a decade and have two boys that reside with them in Durham. The Chronicle’s Annie Wang interviewed this husband and wife duo to learn more about them.

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Politics roundup: Romney building momentum

05 Feb 2012, Posted by Walker Schiff in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Mitt Romney Builds Momentum in FL and NV

Mitt Romney scored two big wins in the GOP primary race last week. On Tuesday, Romney beat a distant 2^nd place finisher in Newt Gingrich by almost 15 points. This decisive victory halted almost all momentum Gingrich had accumulated after winning South Carolina.

On Saturday, Nevada voters went to their local caucus meetings and gave Romney another big victory. With most of the precincts reporting, Romney has just under 50 percent of the vote. He is followed by Gingrich, who is currently at just under 22 percent. These percentages may change because some of Nevada’s bigger counties are still hand-counting ballots.

As of right now, Romney actually earned less of the vote in Nevada than he did in 2008. Having said that, these two wins give him a lot of momentum going forward.

First Multi-State Election Day Coming Tuesday

For the first time during this nomination season, multiple states will be holding elections on the same day this Tuesday. 76 delegates will be up for grabs in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses. Missouri will be holding a primary on Tuesday as well, but it doesn’t count towards the final nomination result as their delegate’s votes will be decided in caucus in mid-March.

Romney has the momentum heading into Tuesday’s contests and it shows in a Public Policy Polling (PPP) poll out of Colorado that was released Saturday. The poll shows Romney with a 14 point lead over Rick Santorum and a 22 point lead over Gingrich.

In Minnesota, the outcome is significantly harder to predict. A PPP poll also released Saturday shows all four candidates within ten points of each other with Santorum at 29 percent, Romney at 27 percent, Gingrich at 22 percent, and Paul at 19 percent.

This Week In Irony: Gingrich goes “anti-establishment”

04 Feb 2012, Posted by Hong Zhu in News, 1 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

In an interview on “CBS this Morning” earlier this week, Gingrich blamed his unpopularity on “the establishment” (whoever they are). According to Gingrich, his opponents often attack him because “they’re part of the establishment…They’ll say and do virtually anything to keep the system alive, and I think they recognize that I’m a genuine outsider…I have none of the establishment ties.”

Apparently, you don’t develop any establishment ties from being in Congress for two decades (four years of which were spent as the Speaker of the House and thus second in the presidential line of succession). Neither does offering consulting services to Freddie Mac—a relationship that lasted eight years and brought $1.6 million to The Gingrich Group. Building what The Washington Post called “an empire of companies and nonprofits that took in about $150 million over the past decade” certainly doesn’t make you an insider, either.

Sarcasm aside, Gingrich’s rhetoric amounts to an establishment candidate getting away with packaging himself as a grassroots, anti-establishment, average-Joe type of guy. Regardless of whether or not one thinks that Gingrich did a good job in Congress and supplied useful advice to Freddie Mac, it is still the case that he is about as “establishment” as they come. Admittedly, the meaning of “anti-establishment” can be—and often is—stretched. But even if you, say, lived on a permanent moon base your whole life, a quick look at the dictionary and Gingrich’s Wikipedia page would make it readily apparent that Newt does not fit the bill.

The anti-establishment rhetoric has proven to be an extremely powerful political tool in the past few years. In 2008, it worked for then-candidate Barack Obama, and even for Sarah Palin (at least for a while). It helped a number of tea party candidates get elected in the 2010 midterm elections. As many tea party candidates discovered, labeling yourself anti-establishment is particularly successful because you can then dismiss negative publicity as an unfair attack engineered by The Establishment.

Gingrich’s move to employ this kind of rhetoric will, in my opinion, ultimately demean the argument’s power. By calling himself “anti-establishment,” Gingrich ironically stretches the definition so far that it becomes meaningless.

MegaUpload’s legal troubles

03 Feb 2012, Posted by Andrew Luo in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Copyright protection is taking a huge leap forward.

MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site that allows visitors to download free movies and television shows, is not deleting its online data just yet. Managers of the Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications, two services that hosts MegaUpload’s data, have agreed to preserve MegaUpload’s online material for a minimum of two weeks, beginning on Monday.

The commotion around the site began on January 19^th, when the Department of Justice announced that it has taken action to shut down MegaUpload. Prior to the government order, users were allowed to both upload files onto the site as well as download content from other members. Premium members whose content became popular were paid for their participation. Based primarily in Hong Kong, MegaUpload made a total of $175 million through its advertisements and premium subscription fees over a period of five years. At its peak, the site received more than 50 million visitors daily.

After receiving indictments from a Virginia grand jury however, the company was charged for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and the federal authorities have since arrested six other people affiliated with the piracy site, seizing 18 domain names and $500 million in assets. According to the indictment, the operators of MegaUpload caused an estimated $500 dollars in harm to copyright holders. Furthermore, New Zealand police also raided the home of MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom, arresting him on charges of piracy, money laundering and racketeering charges. Authorities also seized a significant amount of Dotcom’s personal assets, which included 108-inch flat screen TVs, 60 servers and 18 luxury cars.

The news of MegaUpload’s fall was met with support from the entertainment industry, whose leaders have faced an opposition in their advocacy for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). On the other hand, critics who thought the bills didn’t protect civil liberties conducted a U.S. Internet “blackout.” Participants in the Internet freeze included Wikipedia, Craigslist and Reddit. The protest pressured lawmakers to oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Just as opinions varied over online piracy nationwide, Duke students also offered their share of perspectives.

“I can see why MegaUpload was such a popular site,” said freshman Max Karakul. “I just don’t think it’s necessary, especially for Duke students, since we can readily borrow movies and shows from the libraries on campus.”

Other students showed support for the two week extension before Megaupload’s data are deleted.

“It’s a good thing that the files are being preserved,” said freshman Mark Chee. “It’s one thing to punish the founders of website, but it’s another to punish the members who legally uploaded their files.”