The dream is always the same. I’m writing a screenplay about a teenager fantasizing about his babysitter when my wife flings open the bedroom door. Writing is risky business. Or is it dreaming? I do more than my share of both, and The News-Letter, where I first let my imagination run wild on the printed page, must bear some of the blame.
When I began college in the fall of 1966, I wanted to do well in some extracurricular activities. I tried out for the football team and lasted two practices. Then I ran cross country during my first two years. I worked on the speech team for a year. I was involved in a campus community service program for three years.
It’s 1981, a few months after U2 released their debut album Boy. Perhaps the editors at The News-Letter knew a good joke when they saw one, so they assigned a boy to review it. That’s how I, a freshman and not even 18 yet, got to pen a review that’s not quite as embarrassing as I feared it would be upon re-reading it 40 years later. “Since all members of this group are under 21, musical history could be rewritten if this act gets itself together,” I offered in a bet-hedging opening graph.
It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly 25 years since the two of us were spending every Wednesday night in the Gatehouse basement, churning out the Features section late into the night and developing valuable skills and a lifelong friendship. After polishing stories from our writers, putting the finishing touches on our own features and laying out pages, we would use our last bit of sleep-deprived, slap-happy creativity to put together the “Cartoons, Etc.” page. This included constructing a quirky Word Find — with themes such as “Parsnip (And Other Words We Like)” and “After This, I Get to Go to Sleep (And Other Things to Be Happy About)” — and of course, writing “Eat This!,” the recipe column.
Walking into the Gatehouse, to the right sat a long table with mismatched chairs. On a good day, pizza had just been delivered. On a bad day, half-empty boxes sat with grease congealing on cold slices. The paper had an arrangement with local pizza places: free pizza in exchange for ads. For hungry News-Letter staff, it was mutually beneficial unless you were a discerning eater. Cokes and Pepsis, regular and diet, were the fuel of choice.
As a precocious kid growing up in the ‘50s, I was a daily New York Times reader and avidly followed the ups and downs of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In the early ‘60s, I chaired a student World Affairs Council in high school and dreamed about becoming secretary of state.
Health-care disparities and vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. have been brought to the forefront of national conversation in light of the pandemic and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter.
Last December, it was discovered that Johns Hopkins, the University’s namesake and founder, owned enslaved people, invalidating the narrative that he was a lifelong abolitionist.
Last spring, Hopkins Hospital paused its long-time practice of suing patients who could not afford their medical treatments.
“There were many opportunities to do the right thing, to make a difference for those families whose lives will never be the same. The pain and the horror of the whole process, of being relocated and displaced, of gentrified community — you can’t imagine the pain that goes through your mind.”
“As Black students begin the daunting process of applying to medical school, the structural racism and inequality that they experience is not always visible to the public,” Shavonia Wynn wrote in an email to The News-Letter.
The U.S. government classifies most colleges and universities as nonprofits because of their “educational purposes,” exempting them from federal income taxes. This means that, despite operating four campuses in Baltimore, Hopkins is not legally required to pay the city any property taxes.
Over the course of the past year, researchers have found that residents of low-income, majority-Black neighborhoods in Baltimore and cities across the country are at a higher risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19.
Due to restrictions for in-person labs, the University announced new changes to its curriculum to accommodate virtual classes. Students enrolled in labs related to biological sciences are now required to watch the Japanese program Cells at Work! along with its spin-off Cells at Work! Code Black.
It is with great embarrassment that I must share this testimony of mine. This story henceforth is my contribution to a greater and better public, so that anybody who can resonate with my struggles knows that they are not alone.
The Virginity Club launched a newly-revamped Hopkins Twelve contest on March 30. It is a pandemic-friendly sequel to the original Hopkins Seven, which challenges students to have sex in several designated locations across campus.
On Tuesday, junior Alex Smith assumed that his Zoom lecture would be like any other.
Freshman and self-proclaimed furry Azure Fowler was kicked out of Charles Commons on Wednesday after being found in a lounge area making love to a Jay the Blue Jay sex doll. Witnesses report that Fowler was completely naked except for his mask and that he wouldn’t stop shouting, “Wear a mask please!”
The Homewood Academic Council persecuted a group of students running an essay-writing business last Friday. This group, formally known as “LET OUR MONKEYS WRITE LLC,” was found to have captured a bevy of monkeys to perform the manual labor of their operation and, as stated in its business plan, “bolster capital accumulation and facilitate rapid returns on investment.”
To start off, I want to make it clear that I do not want to be writing this little piece. Furthermore, I do not care for or endorse any of the second-rate, vomit-inducing garbage published by senior Alex Hecksher Gomes. However, I felt my response was merited considering Hecksher Gomes’ extremely flawed and overly indulgent writing on me.
