NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper
washington square news Vol. 39, No. 50
THURSDAY, December 8, 2011
nyunews.com
OWS moves to the NYU classroom
NYU to add sites in India and Brazil
Occupy Wall Street will be taking over the classroom next semester. The Department of Social and Cultural Analysis has announced that it will be offering a course on the movement this spring. The course will explore the history and politics of debt and take a deeper look at the economic crisis the movement is protesting. It will be taught by SCA profesor Lisa Duggan. “Occupy Wall Street has done us all the service of illuminating [the fact] that the economy operates within the framework of political, social and cultural conflicts, and not outside them,” she said. Duggan also hopes students will learn how the current crisis has developed and understand how it has affected the world.
For the 87th year in a row, crowds gathered and sang carols in Washington Square Park for the annual Christmas tree lighting.
NYU’s global network is about to get a bit bigger: The university will open two additional study abroad sites in Brazil and India. The university is in the very early planning stages of opening these two sites, NYU associate vice provost Anne Waters said. “What is under discussion now is what is the best model and what would be the timing,” she said. Waters thinks India and Brazil are the natural next steps in the university’s global expansion plans. “India and Brazil are two incredibly important world economies,” Waters said. “India is the world’s largest democracy, and both India and Brazil are multi-ethnic, multi-racial, re-
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By Gentry Brown
By Rita Solomon
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KRISTINA BOGOS/WSN
Oh Christmas Tree
Wall of wishes brings community together By Nicola Pring What do you want to do before you die? Fall in love? Travel the world? Go skydiving? Now you can share your thoughts as part of a public art project called the “Before I Die” wall in downtown Brooklyn. The original “Before I Die” wall was created by artist Candy Chang on the side of an abandoned building on a New Orleans street. After the project experienced success, she released instructions on how others could create a similar wall. People all over the world have constructed their own “Before I Die” walls to share their dreams with the public. The concept was recently brought to a temporary wall on the Fulton Street Mall in Brooklyn, where a new Shake Shack will open in the coming weeks. The wall, which spans half of a block on the corner of Fulton Mall and Adams Street, is painted black so that passersby can write their thoughts in chalk. The responses range from the silly, like “Ride a dragon,” to the personal, like “Make my kids happy” and “See my mom free from
pain.” “There are a few things I’d like to do,” said LSP sophomore Kathryn Van Son, who would have contributed to the project had the supplied chalk not been used up when she visited the wall. “I want to have a motorcycle before I die, and I’d like to go to the Burning Man Festival.” The temporary chalkboard brings life to an up-and-coming
area. Over the past few years, the Fulton Street Mall has undergone significant changes, which include the construction of new stores and restaurants like the soon-tobe-completed Shake Shack. The changes represent a great deal of modernization and development in the area. The “Before I Die” wall is an effort to create a sense of
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Kelly Schott/WSN
New Yorkers scrawled their hopes and dreams on the Brooklyn wall.
New features continue Mario Kart’s solid legacy By Jonathon Dornbush Having sunk more hours into “Mario Kart” titles than I care to admit, I have come to expect a certain pattern from the longrunning series. Every game retains the series’ strong structure, using slight tweaks and additions to make each game feel unique. “Mario Kart 7” fits this pattern, and while it’s not a giant leap forward, the tiny changes make for one of the most sophisticated “Mario Kart” games yet. This is very evident in the game’s more hit-than-miss track selection. Great courses like Music Park and the mostvaried Rainbow Road do an especially good job of incorporating the karts’ new ability to glide through the air and travel underwater. It doesn’t greatly affect gameplay, but it provides plenty of course variation. The same can be said for tracks that are raced in three sections rather than three laps. Furthermore, the legacy tracks
highlight a number of the series’ more memorable outings; many of them are the same as those featured in the familiar Wii and DS entries. “MK7’s” best new singleplayer feature is the signature Mario golden coins, which the player can collect in every level. These can be used to unlock new karts, characters and different wheels and gliders. This should allow players to mix and match to best suit their styles. It’s no “Gran Turismo,” but the level of modification is a welcome addition that incentivizes players to try out every driver and every kart. With the usual extra modes, including Time Trials, Balloon Battle and Coin Runners, the single player is as enjoyable as ever (though it’s disappointing to see that the Mission Mode from “Mario Kart DS” has disappeared). While veteran players will breeze through much of this content, “Mario Kart’s”
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