Ithacan Wants to Amend the Constitution

Over at the Cornell Insider, the blog of our esteemed peers at The Cornell Review, they've got an interesting little story on an Ithacan woman who wants to abolish corporate personhood. To that end, she has put a resolution forward before the Ithaca Common Council that calls for the city to express that it is in favor of amending the U.S. Constitution.

For those of you who don't remember exactly what corporate personhood is, it's the issue that was at stake in the infamous Citizen's United vs. Federal Election Commission a little over a year ago. To grossly simplify an idea, corporations are treated like an individual under the law, meaning they can pay taxes as a single entity, make political contributions, and sue and be sued.

One wonders if Ithaca is the only place on earth with less going on than in Hanover. At the very least, camp Occupy Dartmouth no longer clutters the front of Collis Porch, but since they aren't going to freeze outside any more, perhaps they'll begin writing annoying letters to the New Hampshire House of Representatives? Maybe we'll get a resolution out of them, too; this sort of thing is right up the Occupy crowd's alley.

--Sterling C. Beard

The Mega-Man

Last week, I wrote about the shutdown of Megaupload, a massive file-sharing website that helped fuel the entertainment industry’s push for SOPA and PIPA legislation. I discussed briefly the personality behind that operation, a self-styled “Dr. Evil” named Kim Dotcom. Born in Kiel, Germany, and once known as Kim Schmitz (later Kimble, then...well, you get the idea), Dotcom is now awaiting extradition from New Zealand to face charges of conspiracy, money laundering, and copyright crimes in the US.

He was arrested last week at his mansion in Auckland, in a raid fit for Hollywood’s finest action flicks. Helicopters hovered overhead as police cut their way into the home’s panic room, where Dotcom was reportedly hiding with a shotgun at the ready. Ars Technica, a favorite among tech enthusiasts, has written a profile of this larger-than-life figure (both figuratively and literally: Dotcom stands around six-and-a-half feet tall and weighs some 300 pounds). If you’re in the mood for a healthy dose of profligate megalomania, it makes for a very entertaining read.

--Thomas L. Hauch

Ochocinco and Boehner Share Tweets

New England Patriots' Chad Ochocinco asked John Boehner if he was "OK" via Twitter after noticing that the Speaker of the House looked upset during the State of the Union Address on Tuesday.  Still concerned, the next day he said, “If all else seems bad in life, just remember I love you kind sir.”  Speaker Boehner thanked him, and wished the receiver good luck in the Super Bowl. Read more about it here.

--Melanie Wilcox

Former TDR Editor-in-Chief Smith '09 on the Current Controversy

Over at Acculturated, former Review Editor-in-Chief Emily Smith '09 has got a few thoughts on the firestorm that Andrew Lohse '12 stirred up recently. Ms. Smith raises the primary objection that many people have with Lohse's article and actions, namely: if things were so terrible, why didn't he depledge? It's a brief read, so pop on over. 

Full disclosure: Mr. Lohse briefly wrote for the Review during the fall of his freshman year, 2008. He left our staff to join The Dartmouth Free Press the next quarter, where he proceeded to write an article calling us all sorts of nasty things. Sometime thereafter, he left to write for the Independent and finally the D, making him perhaps the only person in the history of this college to write for all four campus publications. As a sidenote, you can see that he still lists us and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity on his LinkedIn profile page.

--Sterling C. Beard