What? There are supposed to be antiwar protests this weekend? We've been at school for a week and I haven't heard anything about this. The Brandeis activists seem to be dropping the ball.

CriticalMass is a website set up for Harvard students to express their opinion about classes and professors. It seems students are usually too scared to speak up.

This is quite the opposite of how things are at Brandeis. While the administration doesn't always listen, students are always willing and eager to start up a petition or a protest about school policies. Two years ago there was a two week vigil by students hoping to gain tenure for a popular professor. The professor did not get tenure, but since then the administration has created a position to gain student input on tenure decisions.

Just one more way Brandeis is better than Harvard. We don't have grade inflation either.

Slate's wonderful Explainer column (which I don't read often enough) gives us the origins of the expression "Pie in the Sky".

The fifth Harry Potter book will finally be published on June 21st. And apparently, it's longer than the last one!

Why We Won’t Invade North Korea. A clear, concise, easy-to-understand analysis. (Link via Megan McArdle

The first Israeli astronaut will carry this drawing by a boy who died in the Holocaust into space with him. The moon landscape depicted in Petr Ginz’s drawing attests to his aspiration to reach a place from where the earth, which threatened his life, could be seen from a secure range.