Follow your favorite Playmates and Playboy models on Twitter and keep up with the most beautiful women in the world
By Aranya Tomseth and Jessica Galliart
Twitter-mania has swept the globe and numerous Playboy beauties have enthusiastically hopped aboard this social networking bandwagon. To make things simple for Playboy fans, we’ve compiled a list of all the Playmates and Playboy models who are currently using Twitter. Follow your favorite girls and keep up with their non-stop travels, exciting personal lives and hectic work schedules. And don’t forget—you can stay in tune with all-things-Playboy by following @Playboy as well.
Interested in finding out about other great women who are using Twitter? Read The Sweetest Tweets to see 10 sexy, savvy babes you need to be following.
See the full article on Playboy.com
Published: October 2009
Did the Chicago Cubs inspire the 1919 Black Sox scandal? A new book says yes.
In his new book, The Original Curse, sportswriter Sean Deveney claims the Chicago Cubs inspired the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, when the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.
Deveney uses newspaper articles and official documents from the era to illustrate how and why the Cubs could have planned to lose the last three games of the 1918 World Series against the Boston Red Sox. More importantly, he taps into the psyche of the players, the owners and the fans themselves to try to make sense of what might have happened almost 100 years ago.
Playboy talked with Deveney from Chicago about the processes that went into researching a book entirely composed of dead people, the most striking evidence to support his theory and how the politics of baseball hasn’t changed all that much in the past century. He also shares a few excerpts from the book.
Should we be surprised by high teacher turnover?
Another school year, another problem reported for Chicago Public Schools—this time, it’s seemingly off-the-charts turnover rates for teachers. According to a study released in June by the University of Chicago, more than half of CPS teachers leave within five years of being hired. But is high turnover in an infamously low-paying and sometimes thankless field really all that strange?
Statistics from other industries suggest Chicago’s schoolteacher turnover falls more in the middle of the pack than in the extremes. The U. of C. study reports that 20 percent of CPS teachers leave their schools each year, slightly higher than the national average for teachers, 16 percent. Compdata Surveys, a human resources research firm, reports that the annual national turnover for business services is 23.6 percent; financial services, 19 percent; health care, 17.9 percent; and not-for-profits, 16.4 percent. Outliers for turnover look more like the hospitality industry: 36.9 percent.
Published: Chicago magazine, September 2009 issue
Graduating? Hate Columbia? Make a pro-con list
Toward the end of every semester, I (like most students) experience an intense feeling of anxiety and desperation to be done with it all. It’s usually more like a desperation for a break, I suppose. And this semester, my last, the feeling seems much more intense than usual.
I’ve experienced severe depression and anxiety from the whole not-having-a-job thing, mostly because I feel like a mega-failure. But what’s worse is that in the past few weeks, I’ve transferred these emotions into some really negative feelings toward Columbia and other things for taking over my life and putting me into unimaginable debt with, what feels like, nothing to show for it.
It’s a really confusing time for me, and most of you, I’m sure, as I’ve never felt anything but love for this college. I dreaded leaving for the longest time, but lately, all I can think about is crossing the stage at graduation and never looking back.
So, I thought it was time for an intervention. I made a list—much like my predecessor did in this column space last year—of my favorite and not-so-favorite things about Columbia, from the experiences I’ve had in the past four years here.
As if the last semester of one’s college career couldn’t be stressful enough, most of us have the incredible task of assuming the role of event planner for our own graduation, which is now less than four weeks away. (Let the countdown begin!) There are dinner reservations to book, hotel rooms to reserve, itineraries to plan out and many CTA visitor’s passes to purchase, not to mention that whole graduating thing. Oh, joy.
Due to health concerns, acclaimed author Ray Bradbury won’t attend Manifest on May 15, or speak at the School of Media Arts commencement on May 17, where he was scheduled to receive an honorary degree from Columbia.
“He had full intentions of coming, but at 88 years old, his health is just too delicate to risk traveling across country,” said Sam Weller, faculty member of the Fiction Writing Department and Bradbury’s official biographer.
Bradbury will accept the honorary degree from his home in Los Angeles and has recorded a speech to be broadcast on large video screens at commencement.
“He will be there,” said Mark Kelly, vice president of Student Affairs. “We have already videotaped his commencement speech, which is just […] a grand slam. It will be a very moving event.”
The parade will go on as planned, with costumes and puppets styled in tribute to Bradbury’s characters in novels like Something Wicked This Way Comes and Farenheit 451. Manifest officials are working on plans to keep Bradbury at the parade—in spirit.
“They’re trying to coerce me into being a faux-Bradbury,” Weller said. “I’d rather be a character, but if they really want me to be Ray Bradbury, then, whatever, I’ll do it.”
Published: The Columbia Chronicle / April 20, 2009
The panic has finally set in—really set in.
I’m graduating in about a month, and I have yet to get something lined up in the job department. Despite applying for an average of one job every day for the past month or so, nothing is really working out. Wah wah wah, life is so tough.
The truth is, most of us are in the same boat. Journalism is particularly brutal right now, but the job market, in general, just plain sucks. Nobody’s hiring, and those who are hiring are doing so more selectively than ever, making it that much more difficult for our graduating class. So we may spend hours writing cover letter after cover letter—which, as we all know, are probably the most painful things in the world to construct—but, really, it doesn’t do much good to knock when nobody’s home.
So in my own personal tribute to cover letters and in an effort to provide some comic relief for us whiners for a moment, I’ve come up with a proposal for those of us trying to work through this panic: Let’s all go work for Columbia!
Please see my cover letter, seeking employment at Columbia College Chicago, included below.
Besides that whole thing about entering the real world and never having to go to class again, there’s one thing I’m particularly excited about come graduation time: Never having to touch or deal with the FAFSA ever again. Ah, relief!
This six-page form crammed with more than 100 questions was instituted back in the early 1990s and has been a main source of frustration for students looking for financial aid for more than a decade. Now, I couldn’t be happier to be done with it. Even though I have never filled it out myself—my parents simply don’t trust me enough—I always knew to keep my distance from my dad while he spent hours filling out that stupid form.
So as frustrations have been building over the past decade and more students and families are in search of tuition help now, the government is finally coming to students’ rescue.
The Chronicle talks with Carter to further discuss state of the college
Shortly after his State of the College address to the Columbia community on March 12, President Warrick L. Carter had a little more to say about where the college stands amidst a touch economic climate.
The Chronicle sat down with Carter in his office on the fifth floor of the Alexandroff Campus Center, 600 S. Michigan Ave., to further discuss the state of the college, including how the faculty hiring freeze will affect students, diversity in the Columbia community and how Carter balances his responsibilities as president of the college.
The secret ninja has emerged from the shadows.
Last week in this column, I made the observation that President Warrick L. Carter was much like a secret ninja, swooping in and out of Columbia’s campus with ease.
But on March 12, Carter made his annual appearance in dress attire—I’m convinced he actually dresses in ninja garb while he’s in ninja mode—for his State of the College address. The Chronicle had the opportunity to have a sit-down with the president afterward, accompanied by his chief of staff and Columbia’s media relations director, of course.
Though it wasn’t quite like the prom, it was certainly a day to remember.
