A First Look At The 2012 Summer Olympics In London

May 11th, 2012 by Jeremy Unger

The Olympic flame was lit yesterday in Athens, and that means we are only a couple months away from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. We here at NYU Local thought it might be a good idea to give you a quick preview of the headlining events so you can get a head start on learning about all the sports that are relevant once every four years.

Just like in 2008, all eyes will be on the pool as Michael Phelps once again returns, but after being caught taking hits from a bong and taking months off from training, most are doubtful that Phelps will come even close to repeating the successes he had in Beijing. Phelps’ main goal is to break the record for most Olympic medals ever by a single athlete, and with 16 already, he is just two behind Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina’s record of 18. Phelps shouldn’t have a problem accomplishing this, and once he’s done in London he can go retire and go back to smoking weed whenever he wants.  Read more…


Summer In NYC: Where To Get The Best Frozen Treats

May 11th, 2012 by Melissa Cronin

 

The hot weather’s coming, and if you live in a cramped, windowless walk-up cave in the East Village like many of the NYU Local staffers, you’ll be looking for a good way to cool down this summer. We’ve got the nearby beaches covered, but for a quick fix, stop by one of these ice cream, gelato, or frozen yogurt places and treat yourself.

Big Gay Ice Cream—If you haven’t already been here a million times, then your life is probably sad and empty. Luckily, you have the whole summer to frequent this wonderful place, or to stalk the truck on Twitter like we do. The flavors, besides being delicious, have some of the best names ever—our favorites are Salty Pimp, Bea Arthur, and Mexican Affo’gay’to. If you’re lucky, you may even catch a celeb sighting while you’re there.  Read more…


BREAKING: Chinese Activist Chen Guangcheng To Serve As Visiting Scholar At NYU Law

May 10th, 2012 by Brett Chamberlin

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng will attend NYU Law’s US-Asia Law Institute as a visiting scholar, Professor Jerome Cohen confirmed today. “He’s clear that he’s coming to NYU,” Cohen, co-director of the Institute, told NYU Local in a phone interview today. “He would come here immediately.”

Chen, a blind human-rights activist, captured headlines recently after escaping house arrest and seeking asylum at the American Embassy in Beijing. Chen had been detained without charges since 2010, after spending the previous four years in jail.

Chen’s escape put the United States is a tricky diplomatic position. Sheltering Chen would strain an already tense relationship with the Chinese government, but releasing the blind activist back into custody was deemed unacceptable by American diplomats. Read more…


Richard Price, David Levien, and Brian Koppelman Talk Screenwriting At The Montclair Film Festival

May 9th, 2012 by Chris McEwen

What makes a good screenplay? Or, perhaps more importantly, how do you even go about putting one together?

In a conversation that freely flowed from stories about Paul Newman (“Fellas, have you ever had a grapefruit in the shower?” he allegedly asked at an early Color of Money script meeting) to Sasha Grey, the talk always seemed to return to some iteration of those two above questions.

Yet at the recent Montclair Film Festival screenwriting panel– moderated by AMC executive Joel Stillerman, and featuring Richard Price (Clockers, The Color of Money) and screenwriting duo Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Rounders, Ocean’s Thirteen), all participants decidedly veered away from evangelizing about the rules of the craft. Read more…


North Carolina Removes Protections For Same-Sex Couples In New Vote

May 9th, 2012 by Raj Sidhu

North Carolina passed an amendment today to its existing ban on gay marriage, ensuring that only “domestic legal unions” between one male and one female will be considered valid by the state. 60% of North Carolina’s population voted in favor of the bill, with counties that hold a higher number of college graduates generally voting against.

As always, the vague wording of the bill accounts for the outrage surrounding it – many believe that the amendment will nullify domestic partnership protections for all same-sex unions, while eliminating the possibility for couples to get married in the state in the future.

Though support for gay marriage is growing slowly even within the GOP (70% of adults age 18 – 34 support the legalization of gay marriage), and with same-sex marriage laws being voted on in states like Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington in this coming November, it remains to be seen whether or not conservatives will continue to bar civil-rights for same-sex couples as they have in the past. If North Carolina’s amendment was any indicator of future voting trends within the party, though, then prospects look slim. Read more…


Fracking Update: The Future Of New York’s Water

May 9th, 2012 by Melissa Cronin

Last Friday, the Obama administration announced a new ordinance stating that oil and gas companies will have to disclose the chemicals they use when hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—on public lands. While this seems like a big victory for environmental groups concerned with water supply contamination, the announcement came with a sobering qualifier—drilling companies will only have to disclose the chemical names after they’ve drilled.

Environmental groups have been campaigning furiously for years against large natural gas companies that are eyeing land in upstate New York to gain access to the Marcellus Shale, a huge reserve of natural gas lying thousands of feet under New York and other areas of the East Coast.  Read more…


Here Are Videos Of Rhinos In Helicopters To Distract You From Finals

May 8th, 2012 by Kyle Zinn

How do you move a rhinoceros that weighs more than your car? According to the World Wildlife Foundation, the gold standard in rhino transportation is as follows:

  1. Tranquilize the rhinoceros
  2. Strap bungie cords to the rhino’s ankles
  3. Chain cords to a helicopter
  4. Do this.

Last year the WWF moved nineteen Black Rhinos, a critically endangered species devastated by poaching, to expand their range of presence in Africa. While the airlifts seem precarious, project director Jacques Flamand says the ”new procedure is gentler on the darted rhino, because it shortens the time it has to be kept asleep with drugs, the respiration is not as compromised as it can be in a net, and it avoids the need for travel in a crate over terrible tracks.”

While we understand that the conservation of a delicate ecosystem, threatened by aggressive human exploitation, fueled by a global underground economy is probably the real story here, we’re stuck on the whole flying rhino thing. It’s pretty wild.

So wild, in fact, that instead of studying for finals and writing papers you should watch videos, read articles, and see more pictures of it, because that’s what we’re doing.

(Image via)


In Honor Of MCA, Four Cool People That Set Foot Inside Your Dorm

May 8th, 2012 by John Surico

The death of Adam Yauch on Friday left any person who remotely likes the sound of music sobbing. That’s because of one reason: Nobody dislikes the Beastie Boys. Nobody stops headbanging after yelling out “KICK IT!” when “Fight For Your Right To Party” comes on somewhere. The line “I like my sugar with coffee and cream” in “Intergalactic” off their (arguably best) album Hello Nasty is one of the coolest lyrics in any song I’ve ever heard. It’s not a brilliantly insightful line or a life-changing epitaph; it’s just constructed in a way that screams cool. Hence the name of their debut LP, Licensed to Ill: they defined what it means to be “ill.”

But Yauch’s death hit home for me on a different plane: Rick Rubin, the famous producer best known as that grizzly white guy in the “99 Problems” video, started Def Jam Records in his isolated insane asylum of a dorm room in Weinstein. He was the brains behind Licensed to Ill so, by undeniable logic, Weinstein created the Beastie Boys. And I lived in Weinstein my freshman year (Shout-out to 5th Floor, B Tower, Class of 2010). That means that the Beastie Boys, at one point earlier in their career, were standing right in the middle of my room. Actually, probably on the Stoop – a place I used to call home. And that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard, even if it’s technically missing a few facts here and there.

So I did some research and found that other really cool stuff happened right where you’re sitting as you read this. Hopefully you made it down this far, because look at this: Read more…


Looking For Change In Zimbabwe

May 8th, 2012 by Anonymous

This is a guest post from a Zimbabwean NYU student. They wish to remain anonymous due to the political climate in Zimbabwe. For more background, check out the NY Times article on the change problem here.

This week as I pack, I will be looking for clever ways to carry dozens of pennies, quarters, and dimes in my suitcases without looking crazy. It has to be a balance—it’s the art of smuggling. I need just enough change to use in Zimbabwe for two weeks during summer when I go to the grocery store. But not so many coins that my bags will be clanking suspiciously at customs at JFK, at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, or when I pass by Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania.

It’s bad enough that I have the incriminating passport. Often, in Amsterdam, check-in agents at the airport take an extra look at my passport. It’s a dark, distinct green, slightly worn, with the big, gold letters ZIMBABWE fading on the cover. It’s tired of hopping from country to country, stuffed in folders and back pockets. “How’s Mugabe?” some of the check-in agents joke about our infamous Zimbabwean president. “I’ll ask him when I get there,” is my answer. Read more…


50 Phrases Of Academic Jargon To Juice Up Your Final Papers

May 8th, 2012 by Aaron Marks

Classes are over, and only one thing stands between you and the freedom of summer: Finals. This week we’ll all be busy prepping, in an attempt to cram an entire semester of reading into a few days of intense study.

After all that time cramming, you may find yourself too tuckered out to actually write those papers, or else struggling to fill that reviled blue book on test day.

Luckily, we’re in college — the home of puffy words which make you sound incredibly intelligent without having to really mean anything at all! We rounded up the best academic jargon you can throw into your papers to boost your final page counts and, just maybe, your GPA.  Read more…


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