Who's Reading The Daily Prince? Um, Apparently Hardcore Professional Gamblers

It's a cold Friday night in the dead of winter, and none of the major basketball conferences have games. What's an addictive professional gambler to do? Well, according to this New York Times article, the answer can be found in a small cult of gamblers who bet on Ivy League basketball games religiously every Friday night (kind of like Shabbot, but with less Challah). And because of the lack of information available on Ivy League teams on traditional sports websites like ESPN.com, the gamblers often turn to the student newspapers. Finally, a niche for the Prince beyond lonely breakfasters!

On the subject of Princeton basketball, after a 2-8 start and an improbable late season run, the Tigers have a shot to at least tie Cornell as Ivy League Champions if they can win at Columbia, at Cornell, and at Penn. (Likely? No, not really. But hey, crazier things have happened...)

(image source: princetonbasketball.com)

SKG

Nothing ever happens in Princeton, or, the time the Prince covered suckling pigs

A short and sweet summary of one of today's Prince news articles, "Whitman celebrates College Night with suckling pigs":

Whitman's Tuesday night College Night dinners serve suckling pigs, sometimes with accessories.

Some people are offended.
Some people are not offended.

We appreciate the quotes though.

Offended!

Vegetarian Whitmanite Katie Rodriguez ’11 said she was “appalled” that the Whitman College Night dinners were “centered around an animal product.”

Not offended

Vegetarian Niklas Peters ’11, however, said the pig did not upset him. “The first time I saw it, I wasn’t shocked like I thought it was offensive. I was shocked like I thought, ‘That dead pig has glasses on,’ ” he explained. “It was a very surprising thing.”

Offended!

PAWS member Maya Goodwin ’12, however, said she was not amused by the dining staff’s decision to accessorize the pigs.

“I just don’t think that’s funny. I don’t know who thinks it’s funny. Do you think it’s funny?” she said of the pig sporting sunglasses.

Not offended

Roast suckling pig was already a familiar dish for Mark Lock ’11. “I’m Chinese, so that’s not something that’s foreign to me,” he said of the pig at Whitman. “I think it was cool.”

(image source: dailyprincetonian.com)

AW

IN PRINT: Princeton makes budget cuts while increasing workers' salaries

Princeton University has an $82 million budget-cutting plan set for the new fiscal year, Princeton administrators told members of the community during a town hall meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

Princeton currently has an operating budget of $1.3 billion, 48 percent of which comes from investment income while 29 percent came from student fees, 16 percent from sponsored research and 9 percent from gifts, Vice President for Finance Caroline Ainslie said.

“Princeton is especially dependent on investment returns compared to other public institutions,” Ms. Ainslie said. Princeton averages a 15 percent return on the endowment. Last year, however, returns were only 5.6 percent and they are expected to fall 20 percent for the 2009 fiscal year, Ms. Ainslie added.

“This gives you a sense of why we’re not in the same good old days and why the times are not normal,” Ms. Ainslie said. The new budget will cut the amount that comes from endowment returns by 8 percent or $74 million, Provost Chris Eisgruber said. Princeton also borrowed $1 billion for operations in order to prevent increased endowment spending, Ms. Ainslie said.

Mr. Eisgruber said that these measures are only the beginning.

Read entire article in the Princeton Packet here.

SJP

OM NOM NOM: The Little Chef

Last week, a friend sent us this review of one of Princeton's many bakeries, The Little Chef, with the note, "??? How have you not been here?"

How, indeed.

This week, we've visited Pouchon and his macarons et croissants four times.

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Though Serious Eats' review leans toward the long side, and is chock full of personal anecdotes that we happily skipped, one look at the ham-and-Gruyère croissant is all you need.

The Little Chef is on 8 South Tulane Street, between Sotto and the Princeton Record Exchange. You've seen it --it's the hole in the wall bakery that always seems empty.

It's definitely not empty if you stop by early in the morning --the little chef himself says that croissants are typically gone by 9 or 10 am.

If you can't get up that early for croissants (or for that matter, class), we suggest stopping by for a macaron later in the day. We like the chocolate and pistachio ones. These meringue-like cookies filled with ganache are well worth the price. They're $2, but then...so is a Bent Spoon cupcake. Isn't it time to try something new?



(image sources: http://seriouseats.com, http://kitchenmusings.typepad.com)

AW

IN PRINT: At black symposium Princeton mayor says she may not run for reelection

Update 3/28: Here is the PAW article on the symposium.

[Full disclosure: This reporter was covering a symposium on the black experience at Princeton a couple weeks ago for the Princeton Alumni Weekly. It only occurred recently to this reporter that Princeton Borough mayor Mildred Trotman's comments may be news.]

Princeton Borough mayor Mildred Trotman, in office since 2005, said she will probably not run for reelection.

Speaking at a panel discussion with former New York City mayor David Dinkins and Trenton mayor Doug Palmer on February 21, Mildred talked about her emphasis on consensus and fairness when governing. She then admitted, "I don’t think I'm going to run again."

Trotman did not discuss further her comments, though Dinkins responded that one should "never say never."

"Mayor Trotman, you're going to run again, I bet you," Dinkins said.

Dinkins also addressed the upcoming New York City mayoral race and lamented mayor Mike Bloomberg's decision to run for reelection after overturning term limit laws.

"I like Mike, and I get along fine with him, but I would hope that he would not seek reelection," Dinkins said.

He offered praise for NYC comptroller Bill Thompson, who has said he will run for mayor.

"Billy Thompson is a good friend of mine, and I think he is eminently qualified to be mayor," Dinkins said.

However, he said it would be challenging for Thompson to run against Bloomberg because of his immense personal wealth.

"It’ll be very difficult for Billy or anybody to defeat [Bloomberg], and I think [Thompson] would have had a battle with [Rep. Anthony] Weiner, but I think he would have beat him," Dinkins said.

BKN

(image source: princetonboro.org)

Those Incestuous Ivies!

Today's New York Times ran an article heralding the new Dartmouth College president, Dr. Jim Yong Kim (full story here). What caught our attention, though, was the headline: “Dartmouth Selects Its New President from Harvard.” An Ivy League president with ties to (gasp!) a different Ivy?

There’s something unique about that Crimson, though, that makes the Times’ college-cum-university presidential supercenter inference especially apt. Kim’s hiring will make three out of the seven Ivy League presidents educated at some point at Harvard. For those of you at home keeping score, Penn’s Amy Gutmann got her B.A. from Radcliffe and her Ph.D. from Harvard and Brown’s Ruth Simmons received a Ph.D. from Harvard.

Granted, Dr. Kim is inextricably linked to Harvard: in addition to working as an official at Harvard Med School, he got his Ph.D. in Anthropology and his M.D. at Harvard. But the article buries that fact that Kim also went to Brown undergrad, in the same paragraph that mentions his football prowess at his Iowa high school (he was a quarterback).

What consolation is there for us at Princeton? Well, three out of the seven Ivy presidents have at some point taught here: Gutmann, Simmons, and of course Shirley. So we’ve got that going for us.

SKG

IN PRINT: Princetonians go to class, everyone else in New Jersey stays inside

Late Sunday evening, Rutgers canceled all classes on its New Brunswick and Piscataway campuses.

Then The College of New Jersey closed its campus at 5 am this morning.

Then all local school districts declared it a snow day.

After we'd hoped all night for the expected "8-14 inches of snow" to bury Princeton's Gothic buildings and cancel --or at least delay!-- classes, imagine our disappointment when we woke up to a measly 6-7 inches and...a full day of classes. Beginning at 8 am.

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Though some professors decided not to attempt the drive to Princeton (or decided to just stay home that day --Come on, the roads were pretty much clear) and canceled classes due to the weather, the day progressed as normal for most students.

”Closing the campus is very rare and is done only under extreme, unsafe conditions,” Ms. Cliatt said. “This would take place usually only in a blizzard or other extreme weather situation, and we believe such closing has happened only three times in the past 15 years — in 1996 for a blizzard, in February of 2003 also because of heavy snow and in April of 2007 because of heavy flooding in the region.”

Check out the article in the Princeton Packet here.

AW

Guy fakes Princeton degree - doesn't get away with it

A University of Minnesota student is dropping out of a race for a City Council position after the university's daily found that he lied about attending Princeton.

Charles Carlson, who also faked a British accent and, actually, a British life, apparently falsified a transcript from Princeton and Phillips Exeter, but was found out when the bullshit mounted too high (ref.: "[Hillary] Clinton shared a crème brûlée torte with him [in England]").

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Sure it seems ridiculous, but Carlson joins a number of other fakes that love the Princeton name. Remember Nava? And maybe you've heard of Princeton's biggest gaffe - admitting con-man James Hogue, a.k.a. Alexi Santana.

Additionally, the article reports that Carlson said he has "schizophrenia affective disorder, which impacts an individual's ability to accurately judge reality." Guess he should've just said he worked for the Prince.

WAS

What the...?

We already know that Professor Robert George--social conservative extraordinaire and archbishop of POL 316: Civil Liberties--loves fetuses at all stages of cellular development and isn't very fond of the homosexuals. But a recent Youtube excursion uncovered another Robbie George factoid: he likes the banjo! No, seriously, watch:



BKN

IN PRINT: Closing the food gap

Jarrett Kerbel, executive director of The Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton, speaks at a forum on food policy in Mercer County.

How hard is it to buy fresh, local produce in Trenton? Harder than it should be, say organizations like the Crisis Ministry and Isles.

A group of Mercer County residents--professors, farmers, college students and parents--gathered at Labyrinth Books last week to open up the discussion on food policy in Mercer County.

”We use the term food democracy,” said Mark Winne, who writes, speaks and consults on food policy councils and subjects ranging from hunger to agriculture. “It’s a concept that we as consumers should have some say in what we’re eating.”

More...

Everyone knows about Princeton University's one freegan, but the locavore movement has begun to spread into Trenton, an urban center of Mercer County which residents say receives too little of its suburban and rural neighbors' fresh produce.

Check out the article in the Princeton Packet here.

AW