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January 2010

A zest for living

My colleagues on the Notre Dame faculty were amazed when they heard I had signed up to travel with students on the “Short Trip” to the Jan. 22 March for Life in Washington, D.C

Gay rights revisited

Demonstrators gathered in bitterly cold lunchtime temperatures at Notre Dame’s main gate Wednesday, January 27, to advocate for the inclusion of sexual orientation in the University’s non-discrimination policy.

The right to live

I predict that the pro-life movement will one day be viewed by a broad consensus of people as a bright segment of what Dr. Martin Luther King called the long moral arc of the universe that bends towards justice.

Thoughts on the Supreme Court ruling

President Obama and others have criticized the January 21 Supreme Court decision, which overturns certain restrictions on corporations contributing to political campaigns.

Haitian memories

Three members of Notre Dame’s Haiti Program, a public health effort to eliminate the disease lymphatic filariasis, were attending a meeting in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck on January 12.

Roe and me

My mother hung up the phone one afternoon in 1969, sick with the news shared by a mutual friend about an old roommate. The woman, once so proud of her pregnancy, had flown to the Caribbean for an abortion.

TV or not TV: Extraordinary Measures

Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford, offers the inspirational story of Notre Dame Law School alumnus John Crowley’s determined fight to advance the medical research needed to save the two youngest of his three children.

Haiti, a nation undermined

The historical situation in Haiti has long been dire.

Blessed are the healers

Maurice Antoine’s feet are too bloated and misshapen to fit into socks. Wrapped in white muslin cloths, they look like canvas potato sacks on the floor of his shack in Haiti.

Haiti backgrounder

Notre Dame Magazine has through the years run a number of articles about Haiti. We offer these background pieces for those wishing to learn more about the country and Notre Dame’s work there.

The World Is Their Classroom

At Notre Dame, education is not an ivory tower enterprise.

Molarity Redux: The Coach

Welcome to the premiere episode of Molarity Redux, the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends.

Something funny bites again

It was a noontime ritual virtually everyone engaged in during the late 1970s and early ’80s at Notre Dame. Whether you were a student, professor, administrator or janitor, it’s likely the first thing you did at lunch each weekday was flip through The Observer…

The inside scoop on Molarity

The Molarity gang will continue its adventures from this website.

Networthy ND

The staff of Notre Dame Magazine here offers some gems we’ve discovered of blogs, essays and stories by and about Notre Dame graduates and ND events.

A ‘massive explosion of joy and music’

Damian Kulash is absolutely right.

“There are not many people in the world who have the good fortune to be in a position where they can call Dr. Ken Dye and be like, hey, would it be cool if several hundred of your kids came out and made a video with us?”

Chasing down crazy ideas like calling the director of Notre Dame’s marching band and then trying to shoot a coherent short film in one take with the band and a small army of children is the kind of thing he likes to do when the moment presents itself, say Kulash, the OK Go frontman, while attacking a burrito in the Ricci Band Rehearsal Hall.…

Late night with the American pundit

“Say something more,” the burly taxi driver demanded after I told him the name of the Dublin hotel where I planned to stay. “Don’t you know where it is?” I inquired, wondering what he meant. “You’re that Yank on the radio,” he responded.

My Yellow, Two-door Crosley

National Public Radio’s Car Talk guys, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, asked listeners to vote for “the worst cars of the millennium.”

Another email: I hereby resolve to . . . .

After years of letting myself down I resolved this January to ban from my New Year’s forecast any resolutions to change my ways, to improve my life, to make myself better in any way.

Bigots I Have Loved

Perhaps Faulkner was mistaken and the past really is past — bigotry little more than a rusty whip handle unearthed at the site of a Mississippi plantation.

In the news with Brian Kelly

A digest of Brian Kelly links

The Reluctant Domer

A father and son find they are not fallen-away Domers after all.

A love that scares me

Last week, right after my boss had asked me whether I’d be willing to go to Pakistan this summer if need be and I’d said yes, the latest Humanitarian Policy Group report on providing aid in insecure environments crossed my desk.

It made for sobering reading.

The relative rates of attacks upon aid workers has increased more than 60 percent in the last three years, with a particular upswing in kidnapping, which has increased by more than 350 percent. The most dangerous location for aid workers remains the road, with vehicle-based attacks by far the most common context for violence. And the 2008 fatality rate for international aid workers exceeded that of U.N. peacekeepers.…

A proper upbringing

“Don’t you realize you’re just sacrificing your children to your political ideology?” My father-in-law hunched forward.

Having coffee with . . . Dan Reagan ’76

The Spirit campaign has reached its lofty goal, but here’s where things really stand.

The sport I love

For many, the weekend of October 17 was unlike any other. The USC Trojans were in town, and Notre Dame fans soaked up the unseasonably warm weather as the sun beat down on hundreds of tailgates. For my lacrosse teammates and me, the weekend meant even more as we participated in the dedication of Arlotta Stadium, the new home to Notre Dame’s men’s and women’s lacrosse teams.…

Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor

The camera calls

Ask actress Emily Liu ’94 how she knows she’s in the right business after nine years struggling to establish herself in Hollywood, and she’ll tell you about an audition she had a few years back.

Mitsui wants you to see a movie

Scott Mitsui, Notre Dame class of 1992, is upfront about what’s involved in making a movie trailer. “We cheat a lot,” he says.

Cowboy? Ballerina? Engineer?

When Alane Rivera speaks at elementary schools, she starts each presentation by asking the students what they think engineers do