The New York Times claims teens are cutting back on spending! Is this really true?

The New York Times - December 26, 2009

Recession? Teenagers Get It, and Are Cutting Back

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

          After a year of observing their parents pinch pennies and fret about the economy, the nation’s teenagers may be coming to grips with reality.

          Sales are down sharply in recent months at nearly every major retail chain catering to teenagers, and interviews with teenagers suggest that the reasons go beyond their own difficulty finding part-time jobs.

         “I think my sister and I, throughout this year we’ve kind of lost an interest in getting gifts and things like that,” said Morgan Porpora, 16, who in the past had a list of things she wanted for Christmas. “I guess we’ve noticed the economy and we just kind of even feel bad I guess asking for a lot.”

More here... 

College Applications Demand "Context," Not Just Grades & Scores

This post is only for serious college-bound students:

Today's New York Times has a story about what colleges are looking for in applicants from high school:

Across the country, selective public colleges and universities are taking a page from their private counterparts and implementing what is commonly called a holistic or comprehensive admissions process.

The trend is partly a function of rising application numbers at sought-after publics, which is a result, in turn, of the climbing cost of private higher education and a peaking population of high school seniors. Many applicants, it seems, easily meet academic requirements. Merely pushing average grades and test scores ever higher won’t necessarily yield the most vibrant student body.

Here for link to the full story  

Yale Murder Story

The recent murder of the Yale student researcher, Annie M. Le, was strange from the start.  She was killed just days before her wedding in Long Island and her body was found stuffed inside a wall in Yale lab on the what should have been her wedding day.  And now it has gotten even stranger!

Police have arrested a Yale employee, Raymond Clark, for the murder.  He wasn't a stalker.  He wasn't another researcher.  He was the team leader of a crew assigned to the CARE, FEEDING AND WELL BEING OF LAB ANIMALS and it is believed that when he just couldn't take Annie's refusal to follow the procedures in the lab, he just snapped and killed her.

The New York Times runs a story today that pulls all of this into focus.  It is very interesting and shows a sharp contrast of two worlds:  those who take care of lab animals and sometimes grow attached and those who conduct medical research on same animals.  In one very sad instance these two worlds collided so badly that one person chose murder and another lost her life.


Here for the New York Times story