Serge Lang was a brilliant mathematician, i'm told. (I haven't tlooked at a math book, since, well, first semester senior year of high school. Sorry about second semester, Mr. Potter) He was also pretty wacky, what with the rennaisance music and all. Sometimes he was even nutty. Dav Corson-Knowles introduced me to him one bizarre night during my Freshman year of college, during which we all wound up going back to Lang's office in LOM and he launched into a tirade against Dan Kevles and gave me a dossier six inches thick about how HIV didn't cause aids, pills did. This scenario was made all the more bizarre by the fact that at the time, i hardly knew Dav at all, let alone why this strange math professor was giving me reading assignments. Lang died Monday. I'm sorry he's gone.

While I'm linking to the YDN, i want to know why, exactly, the guy who works for the Yale Investments Office with no campaign other than accusing Rebecca of being a tool of the unions (we've heard that one before, haven't we?) and the UOC (guess that means someone did something right) and loving Cancer, and bragging about how he used to be the captain of the Yale Hockey Team, and claiming that membership of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society constitutes active involvement in New Haven politics, gets a puff piece in the YDN without a similar courtesy being extended to his opponent.

Here's something i find interesting:

For Shalek, the impetus to run for office came during a packed
public hearing on the Yale-New Haven Hospital Cancer Center in July. As he sat
at the Board of Aldermen meeting that night, Shalek said he first became aware
of what he said was the strength of interest group influence in New Haven
politics.

Kruger, you will recall, announced his candidacy to unseat Ben amidst the farce of the ONHSA "protest" against the Board of Aldermen fair share vote on July 7, 2003. Kruger's entire platform consisted of berating Healey for not sending Emails to ward residents, accusing him of being a tool of the unions ("Go Yale!") and attempting to blame the Honorable Ben Healey for the entire strike. Kruger lost the election by an overwhelming margin, winning only around 15% of the vote. Maybe Shalek coul avoid a similar outcome if he were able to articulate a progressive vision for the city, rather than the same old reactionary propaganda.

Holy shit, the Wowz are on Pitchfork.