For many of us, our perception of Vietnam is not the same war-torn controversial one held by an older generation.
Sometimes real life can feel like reality television. Although I'm not living in some sick immaculate loft, with five intentionally good-looking roommates with All-American bodies chiseled in sharp angles and donning perfectly white teeth lined like impeccable soldiers, there's still a certain sense of falsity in life these days I can't ignore. This isn't MTV.
A couple of weeks ago, a colleague walked into a meeting late, her eyes shaded by dark sunglasses even though she was inside.
In Caitlin Scuderi's column, "English as official language doesn't threaten culture, instead unifies U.S.," (SN 6/6), she argued that making English the official language of the U.S.
Stop watching "Laguna Beach." Please turn off "My Super Sweet 16." If you're going to watch any reality television — and by reality, I obviously mean "loosely scripted" — turn to "The Real World." It didn't happen on purpose, but somehow MTV got socially lucky.
In his recent support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, President Bush stated that the reason we need to preserve marriage as a bond between a man and a woman is that it is the "most fundamental institution of civilization." While I appreciate a good political discussion, I expected the president of the United States and his speech writers to come up with a better argument than that. Aside from discussing what characteristics are used to define "civilization," and which institution might be the most important to it, cross-cultural evidence shows that marriage between one man and one woman is not universal — nor fundamental — to society. Since the U.S.
Whenever I go home for a weekend, one thing is always the same. My parents and I sit around on Sunday morning, sucking down cheap gas station cappuccinos and coffee while thumbing through stores' weekly ads and reading two or three local newspapers.
On immigration, the House and Senate have passed two very different bills. In fact, they're so different, the situation evokes one of those science-fiction movies, in which scientists combine matter from one dimension with matter from another. Usually, the result on film is a big explosion.
Growing up on Barbie and Ken, Uncle Jesse and Rebecca, Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski, it was thought and, thus, expected that everyone should grow up living the "normal" lifestyle — heterosexuality. Although I wasn't brought up to dislike the differences that humankind reflects, I tend to inquire about why or how our society can be so insecure with itself that it uses something as minuscule as sexuality as a scapegoat for the harnessed problems of our era. My biggest concern is the fact that so many of our politicians who hold seats in our government are allowing their religion to justify the way they decide on certain legislation.
I was listening to NPR the other day in my car, and the guest speaker suddenly burst into tears. I'm not accustomed to hearing announcers from National Public Radio cry.
The early '90s nearly brought about Armageddon. Animated violence in controversial video games such as "Mortal Kombat" was considered by conservative politicians and overbearing mothers to be bringing about the decline of Western civilization.
As a journalism major, words are my business. I study them daily, dissecting run-on sentences while sensing the feeling each word invokes.
Hearing voices in your head used to mean trouble. Now it means you're techno-fabulous. Remember that crazy shoe phone in the old TV show "Get Smart"? Well, its 21st-century cousin has just been born in the form of a new gizmo developed by Nike and Apple Computer, Inc. that allows your lower digits to go digital. Mind-body connection?
Scientific rationality is commonly proposed as justification for a materialist and naturalist world view.
As the national debate rages on about illegal immigration, it's likely that countless Americans have revisited their thoughts on the topic and the sources of their beliefs. The immigration question is being asked by people about other people — making it xenophobia-prone and bound to be emotional and personal — all of which leads to irrational discussion and an increase in cases of foot-in-mouth disease.
The first time I heard about attention deficit disorder, or ADD, was in the fourth grade. My friend, Eric, had to leave recess early, and when I asked him why, he told me he was sick. It wasn't until later that his mom told my mom that he had been diagnosed with a different form of ADD called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
There's always a reason. Every time one of these spring-loaded sociopaths breaks out in a homicidal rage, we hear how it all stemmed from something that happened to him. He came up one hug short of a happy childhood, or his porridge was too hot or too cold, or society failed to remove a thorn from his paw.
With all the recent arguments in favor of banning abortion and implementing the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classrooms as an alternative to Darwinian theory, I took it upon myself to research what exactly has happened in our nation's rich past that has pivoted the fundamentalist Americans against rationalists. With the many losses fundamentalists have suffered to science in the past century, the current conservative control of our nation is abusing its power by trying to silence the rationalist community.
I'll be honest with you — I haven't missed Al Gore. After he rode off into the sunset after falling ever-so-short of moving into the White House in 2000, I've heard a murmur here or there about him teaching or working on a book, but the stories never held much interest for me. I didn't pay much attention to Gore when he was vice president because, well, he was a vice president.
Don't forget — he said no turnips. Extra tomatoes. Sauce on side. Cut in half. Repeat order.