ON THE SIDE OF SOME EXPERIENCE
EQUINOX
THE PERFECT MESS
TIME: COMMODITY OR OPPORTUNITY?
THE LUXURY OF SIN
THE IDEA OF DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO VIDEO GAME ADDICTION
SCENE 1: BIRTH (poem)
HARD CASH
PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE
LIVING IN THE CELEBRITY SHADOW
FADING OUT THE MARQUE
WAIVING THE WHITE FLAG ON THE WAR ON DRUGS
CLIMATE TROUBLES: JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
FROM CHILDREN'S TELEVISION TO SOCIAL ISSUES
NEW YEARS EVE TRADITION
IGNORED VIOLENCE
OVERWHELMED WITH INFORMATION
THE EMOTIONAL EPIC GOES VIRAL
THE OVER RELIANCE ON TECHNOLOGY
LIFE SCIENCE HEADED FOR EXTINCTION
IF SEX IS ALL YOU HAVE
LITERACY IN AMERICA
VETERAN'S DAY - WE WILL NEVER FORGET
WOMAN'S WORK IS NEVER DONE
CAUTION FOR CATS IN THE COLD
MY ADONIS (poem)
POST GRAD REALITY
FROM HOLLYWOOD TO POLITICALWOOD
BLESSED ARE THE GEEKS, FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH
COMIC CON 2013
INFORMATION OVERLOAD (poem)
WHOSE FAULT IS IT
MODIFICATION OR MUTILATION?
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BOOB TUBE
FURRY PEOPLE
THE MYSTERIOUS MERMAID
AND THE WINNERS ARE…
A CINEMATIC WEEKEND TO REMEMBER
SYRIAN SURRENDER
ATHEIST AMERICA
CHILDREN: CHOICE VS. CERTAINTY
EDUCATIONAL RISKS
THE LAST CHANGE I EVER HAD TO MAKE
THE TRAGIC TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA
FILM FESTIVAL COMES TO MAPLEWOOD
GOOD LEADERSHIP
DRASTIC MEASURES OF SELF-DEFENSE 
INFORMATION AGE REVOLUTION
EVOLUTION OF THE DAMNED (poem)
JUNIOR (poem)
HOW FAR IS TOO FAR?
OVERSPENT
WHO DO WE BLAME?
THE BOOK OF DISBELIEF
FILMMAKER HELPS RESTORE TOWN DEVASTATED BY HURRICANES
THE PROMISE OF SUMMER
THE LOVE DRUG
TRAITOR OR HERO?
A PERFECT MESS
LOSS OF LOVE
ROLE MODELS 
TEXTING AND DRIVING: THE NEW RUSSIAN ROULETTE
THE GOOD OLD DAYS GONE BAD
MARIJUANA MAKES CRIMINALS?
TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT
PHEROMONES, NATURE'S MATCHMAKER
MARS AND EARTH, A CONNECTED PAST
PRECONCEPTIONS OF BEAUTY
THE JUSTIFICATION OF VIRTUAL VIOLENCE
MILITARY DAYS
THE DARKEST CONTINENT
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
DESPERATE TO SELL
INNOCENT BLOOD FROM OPEN BORDERS
CONFORMING TO THE ARTIFICIAL
THE MORE THE MERRIER (IN FILM)
PUSHED TOO FAR
DAYDREAM BELIEVER
THE FICTION BEHIND THE SCIENCE
BUDGETING FOR DOOM
BOYS WILL BE BOYS, BUT WHEN DO THEY BECOME MEN?
BOSTON - THE CITY THAT NOW SLEEPS
ARE WE TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD?
THE PENNY EXTINCTION, TRADITION VERSUS ECONOMIC NECESSITY
WHAT HAPPENED TO FAMILY VALUES
THE SHADOW PARTNERSHIP: CELEBRITY AND CRIME
CALLING ALL DOCTORS
PREQUEL. THE NEW SEQUEL
THE DEATH PENALTY: ONLY AMNESTY FOR THE INNOCENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ON THE SIDE OF SOME EXPERIENCE
by Heidi Dougherty

And how ugly and beautiful it is,
on the side of some experience.
I have seen the Truth and now,
am wiser and now
am accepting and now
I am reborn.

There is a White Oak tree in my old hometown.
I related to Him and do still.
He towers above my tiny town
at seventy-five feet tall
like he owns it, and protects it,
and with no key needed.

His bark, like an ash-gray face
of heavy wrinkles;
but to touch, is like touching
soft, worn-down barnacles on some driftwood near the sea.

Townsfolk peel the Oak’s bark
for fun, or out of habit.
Lovers come and carve their names.
Harvesters come to make cork.
None of it bothers the Oak.
His roots run too deep.
He does not sway in high wind.

His arms are toned and strong and
flow out from anywhere they want to, it seems.
Most of the arms have knotted wooden fingers.
Very many, though, time has taken.
It does not bother him.

The oak, its leaves, the most colorful
Leaves; plenty drop down with a brushing,
peaceful sound ethereal enough to make the roots
around him grow.
He’s generous.

My visits were daily.
I listened closely to the secrets he kept
from one-hundred years
of passing humanity on the streets.
How amazing, how charming, how bittersweet.

The last day I visited that Oak,
He whispered to me, in the most sonorous of earth-tones,
“I have seen the truth and now,
am wiser and now
am jaded and now
am accepting and now
I am Re-born, and forever I will be.”

That was the last time I needed to go home.






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EQUINOX
by Heidi Dougherty

Walk to me, love,
walk the three-hundred miles
to come to me; it’s Equinox and
my husband is asleep and uncaring.
 
Walk to me, love,
with gouged sides and back.
Show me you belong to the brave, and
you can play in war with the boys here
and then finally surrender to whichever side prevails.

Walk to me Love: like in the old days,
before our hearts and minds were at
Peace, and Love was Torture before succession,
before the in-between of Now, before Beethoven.
You should remember this well, Love, the selfish
Love of ours. It needs no protection.

Walk to me, love,
walk the three-hundred miles
to come to me; it’s Equinox and
there are herbs lit, waiting for us
in the shrine.

Sway with me, love,
sweat and smile and sob with
me. You are allowed here,
good sir, stranger, partner, love-maker.
 
Stay with me, love,
don’t rush off like an American- take your time.
Here: eat this apple with me, nice and slowly,
savor its essence, its knowledge.
We are all Gods here.
 
Play a mind war with me, love,
Enlighten me and I will educate you.
It’s Equinox, we always have ‘til next full moon.
Until then, let our bodies transcend to the Stars, or Dust, or Truth.
Let us forget the War for now,
And bet our odds on Seven.

Walk to me love.  






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THE PERFECT MESS
by Heidi Dougherty
 
What do you wish your parents told you and never did?
I’m just as curious as a kid.
 “This moment is all we have…” you say? 
“Getting a career, not a job is best…?’
Not me, no way, but I’m different, see,
I’m the Perfect Mess.
 
If my folks had only once uttered,
Like one solitary seed,
“That you are simply good enough,”
would have filled my only need.
But life was that, and from youngster on,
Perfection, my only aim.
Trying to be good enough, my self-esteem relied upon;
 my family, me as pawn, now just a defective game.
 
And try, and succeed, and try
I did, obsessed with the Number One.
Sweat, and tears, and sacrifice,
while I had my time under the Sun.
 
One day I woke up and realized,
As the sleep went from my young eyes,
That perfection was just illusion,
And no longer did I possess the energy or want to try.
 
Einstein spoke on the success in failure,
And Edison was proof.
Kennedy believed it,
And Chanel saw it through.
That thinking success is “perfect-ness,”
Is just a stone-age view.
 
So days went on and mistakes I made,
As humans usually do,
But clutch tight I did to the new belief,
that when I flawed and erred I did,
That “success” meant truly Boo.
 
Happiness I wanted then and knew inside my head,
that mistakes are vital learning tools,
professionally to in-bed.
 
But If my Mom had told me so,
that day I won the nation,
that good enough would do,
I would not have the comfort in knowing
 that a Perfect Mess fits me,
Just as snug as my favorite shoe.
 

 

 

 

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TIME: COMMODITY OR OPPORTUNITY?
by Heidi Dougherty

“You may delay, but time will not.”- Benjamin Franklin

Time: the ambiguous, pervasive, and infinite equalizer that is now, more than ever, an obvious “commodity” to whose disrespect has gone truly unaddressed and unquestioned. We know all the clichés about time: “the clock stops for no one,” “once it’s spent, you can’t get it back,” and the new infamous American lazy-man’s alibi, “There’s never enough time.” In an age where men and women spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to stop time in themselves, there is, in equal proportion, a ruthless squandering of time, whether spent overworking at depressing jobs or the seeming ignorance of the small allotment of time we have here by being obsessed with technology, nihilism, or war; say, over things that actually matter like genuine human connection and well, adventure that is just as present and in supply as time. In an age where no one seems to have enough (of ANYTHING), has America, specifically, unknowingly produced time as the “ultimate commodity,” more precious than money and even power, in some instances? Or are some just confused because they condemn themselves to hamsters on wheels, worrying and letting precious time go to ultimately unsatisfying aims?

That classic scene from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” stands out to me here. Ferris drives his best friend’ Dad’s prized and off-limits car, but because he knows Cameron’s father will check the odometer, he tries to ride the car, stationary, backwards, thinking the miles would be “returned” and he would save the day. Yes, hysterical idiocy, but no more idiotic than thinking that we can get time back that has already been given away by us. Some know how that scene ended… Dad’s mint-condition vintage Ferrari crashes out a huge back window. Some lives end up that way, like cars crashing out of windows; we hear it all the time on deathbeds. “I wish I travelled more;” “I wish I spent more time to stop and smell the roses,” “I wish I spent more time with loved ones.”

Time, I believe, should be a gift, or more so an opportunity: a chance to become better men and women, a chance to make memories with loved ones and try and change the world in small ways, a chance to really “stop and smell the roses.” Now it seems we just use time as another means of complaint. No one seems to have enough time even though it is in continuous supply. Am I the crazy one? I have felt time at a standstill, I have felt nine years gone by in an instant as well. In deep Africa, where life may seem meaningless to some and getting fresh water means a woman walking 6 miles to gather one large bucket, I wonder if the population believes there is not enough time to spend time with their starving families…

America has undergone a huge paradigm shift in the way time is viewed, especially in and near major cities. Rushing and worrying through life has gone from a malady needing correction to a thing that is customary and even prized. We are Americans, we can take on anything and everything, and that includes having a tornado of to-dos we designate to ourselves at our own expense. This at the cost of a complete lack of focus, especially on the things that do truly matter and need changing…. Children and spouses we neglect for our iPhones and conference calls, starving people in our own streets that need our money more than Coach and Whole Foods, and untapped talents, faith, and adventure for life in our own selves that need tending to. Without vigilance, the overly fast-paced world we live in will reduce us to victims of screaming clocks, warning the passing of the short time we have here, and us feeling we have no control.

How should this issue be looked at? It’s time (at least for me) to take a hard look in the mirror: what do I truly want out of life? Why do I believe this illusion that something needs to be done at all times and feel guilt when I stop? Am I happy spending my time the way I am? For me, without viewing time is an opportunity, a counselor on decision-making and life from past time spent, I would see time as a “burden,” a “limited commodity in high demand,” and “something that I’ve let others spend for me for too long.” Although those fears may also be truisms in the loose sense, giving in to them will make me just like the hamster on the wheel, running and running for the same return: nothing.


 

 

 

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THE LUXURY OF SIN
by Heidi Dougherty

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”- Wilde

Forever present, lurking there,
Within our basest selves, from the basest of souls to
the most elevated,
Lies a sin we share, a common thing really.
It is an equalizer in an era of vanishing proportions.

Yet, a sin by any other name, is that a sin? And if that name Love?
And what if that name be Lust?
An omnipresent appetite to propagate what is left
Of the better half of the human condition. Nay, sin not,
Survival, yes.
Yet, alas, in this age Survival shan’t bow down to Moral any day,
And that is just commonplace knowledge; our president tells us so.
But a weakness of the senses ‘tis what ‘tis, mere fleshing lights
And red carpets to…. Peak.
Now there is no more common a sin.

But the look she wore, while unzipping her
Laced gown, tresses of gold down her work-of-art back.
Her eyes, inviting and visceral and she knew it; her Mom told her God “blessed” her,
To her, so curs’d a life of Beauty could be,
But such is life.
Her voice called to me like
The smell of slowly-browning butter;
Her lips were peaches begging to be eaten.

And such is life.
Call it evolution and pin a medal to it.
Or call it coitus, and be one of the sinners.
All told, being a sinner is one of the most honest things you
Can be these days.
 

 

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THE IDEA OF DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT
by Heidi Dougherty

“… (The division of two parties is)…A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.” - Adams


In most all situations, I always try not to speak about politics or religion, especially with family and close friends, but even with passing acquaintances. It is no shock that these two topics act as the giant elephants in most all social situations. We have simply become divided… Countless wars over centuries have been fought over the childish fights of “OUR GOD is better and more True than YOUR GOD; or “OUR IDEA of government is obviously much better than YOUR IDEA of how a country should be run.” Why this worldwide battle, and why now particularly in this country, are we essentially unaware that we are truly the Big Bully that despite our ignorance, most all other countries see us as, and correctly so? I am not just here to bitch about our country: we are afforded many freedoms, like not having our personal liberties taken away (haha, watch out Facebook members) but also the real ones like our right to vote for whichever of the two major political parties that exist in the states.

But that is part of the problem: our right to vote for one of only two major parties (because, let’s admit it, we can try to rally to vote Green but it has not proven to be successful in any significant way). We have now to choose between a tycoon and an autocrat. We have chosen to allow the society to swap democracy for tyranny. That leaves us with basically no rights at all; we must choose. Who is worse?? And here is where the absolute problem arises: our two-party system. Look around us… adversarial cattiness, the convenient editing of each major politicians’ speeches (as always), with the added invasive and persuasive interest in their personal lives and even health conditions. There is a pseudo-war between parties, and it has already led into madness. Madness itself in who has been able to rise to become a presidential candidate.

As John Adams, one of our founding fathers so elegantly put it, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” People: The Constitution has gone to shambles in many respects, from The Patriot Act and “Constitution-Free Zones” to The Independent Payment Advisory Board AKA “The Death Panel,” whose decisions automatically become law without going through Congress at all, and being overridden only by three-fifths the majority in the Senate.

The true founding father, George Washington, wholeheartedly concurred with Adam’s frightful clairvoyant speculation, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.” It seems that most of us are comfortable just going along with it-life as it is here; we, as a country, are filled with those that like to continue things on “repeat.” Some, and in my opinion, the most religious or strong right-winged, are comfortable with war and ignore its large-scale human tragedies, whether man, woman, or child. Others just go to work in this socioeconomic tornado, come home, watch their TV shows, eat, sleep, and again every day, on and on.

Emile Durkheim predicted in his persuasive book, Suicide (1897), in which he writes first about the term in his time, that “anomie” was a phenomenon of industrialization—mass uniformity that could not adapt due to its own energy and its resistance to change. The word anomie itself comes from the Greek meaning for “lawlessness.” In the basic sense of the word, Durkheim explains, anomie is a "condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals". So many: the rich, the poor, the religious, the Atheists, and on ad infinitum, are misdirected in the moral sense, which leads to a division of not only society but to a stronger division of government and its interplay with that society. In both his present time and through futuristic ponderings, Durkheim used the term anomie to represent a quick change of the values of societies (whether economic or otherwise), and an associated feeling of alienation and purposelessness of the society’s individuals. More widely, he expressed and predicted a strong sense of political apathy, especially amongst the youth, when there is a significant discrepancy between the ideological theories and values commonly professed.

My generation has exhibited anomie widely and I know this just based on social recognition of how many my age have stopped voting or have never voted; their blatant carelessness for anything political. So here is the good news: this apathy stops here, I believe. Many my age are now “riled-up,” fighting for progressive change. With an election as bollixed and plain old insane as the one we are consumed with now, the young people will make their voices known. And, since the last time I voted (8 years ago), I WILL make myself known at the polls. I will not have the two Purple Hearts my grandfather received in World War II be laughed at. I will not allow, either, for lying and the use of manipulative family genius.

We need to get out and vote; we need to stop this illusion of control our government imposes upon us. Please, for the sake of our future sons and daughters, our grandkids, mothers and fathers, please make your voice be known. And if that is a voice of anarchy, so be it. If it’s an attempt to revolt, so be it. Nothing gets done in a large sense without severe change…. I mean, our country did not exist alone without fighting to the death with our oppressive dictator. Let us fight for what is right, or at least the lesser of the two evils at this point. Let the people again become more powerful than a despotic government. As literature has pointed out, “(Change) happens sometimes quickly, and sometimes slowly,” but change is inevitable. And social change is possible if we reach for it.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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SCENE 1: BIRTH (poem)
by Heidi Dougherty

Momma puppets her Dirt Devil to play advocate; she sucks me into the family vacuum with Beelzebub’s blessing- a hereditary curse.
While a bathtub tunnel-sucks her bearer into the next life, I, in screaming sticky nesting womb, screaming no
To Bear the name again – an Arab cherub clad in blonde braids warring upwards to new life,
Bearings only the muddy ridges of a native mountain.
Perpetual kinder I see from above on an evergreen’s prickled foliage-swing; they bear phantasms
Of the Incest Parasitic: sheep vs shepherd, savior vs saved, the bearer and the born.
All this emerges from bonding, the well-intentioned bondage of Whitman’s constant ‘procreate urge’
The urge, the urge of the species.
Bonding together fetus to families
As sure as God’s irony-
The dawn of warfare that bore a fallen angel new life.

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HARD CASH
by Learus Ohnine

That saying "money makes the world go around" seems to have taken on a whole new meaning over the past decade. Money can indeed make the world go around, but it can also knock the world off its rotating axis, too. The United States has reportedly just experienced its worst financial crisis in its history of existence. Additionally, Americans have reportedly increased their spending habits despite the nation's financial crisis. Credit card indebtedness (along with other various debts) to income ratios have climbed out of control for individuals over the past few years, while the U.S. government debt/spending trends appear to be no more or less indistinguishable of the aforementioned. In comparison, is there a correlation between the two?

First, let's begin with examining the debt/ratio status for Americans as individual consumers. According to the recent data reports on consumer debt released on February 18, 2014 by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Americans have managed to increase their indebtedness to U.S. financial institutions by 2.1%, or $241 billion in 2013. These tallies include debts owed in the form of student loans, mortgages, automobile loans, and credit cards, which has risen by $11 billion during the last 4 months of 2013 in comparison to the 2011 survey reporting consumer credit card debt. Prior to this moment in time, the overall average U.S. household debt ratio compared to income ratio was offset by 127-to-1, meaning American individuals were struggling to shell out 127% of their income to financial institutions.

Second, let's take a look at our nation as a whole and its overall spending trends and financial dilemma(s). The U.S. Government began showing major signs of entering a crisis phase financially in March of 2007, when the mortgage industry began to encounter above-average foreclosure rates causing at least 25 mortgage lenders to file bankruptcy themselves. Stock market prices dropped considerably by 57% in October 2007. The unemployment rate increased from 5% in 2008 to 10% in 2009, therefore increasing the amount of Americans having to rely on government funding for financial assistance. And last but not least, the U.S. total national debt rose by an astounding 66% in 2008.

Clearly, there's a correlated pattern to the financial downfall in spending habits of both Americans and the United States; it appears as one big circle. When one entity falters, the other must support the weaker one. But if both entities rely on each other for support, neither entities can afford to make costly financial mistakes. Considering the fact that both are relatively sustaining the life of the other, a sizable amount of balance is necessary to make this nation rotate on an unfluctuating financial axis.








 

 

 

 

 

 

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PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE
by Learus Ohnine

Without a doubt, our upbringing has the most important impact on how we view the world as adults. Regardless of what generation you were born in, learning manners as a general rule consisted of these three main household phrases: "be nice", "speak nice", and "play nice". If we take into consideration we were all brought up to accept one another regardless of race, creed or color, sexual preference was one issue that beheld a constant belief in strict heterosexuality practices. Over the past 10 years or so, sexual behavior in regards to what is considered publicly acceptable and non-acceptable in today's society is steadily showing a progressive decline in the discriminatory attitudes towards sexual preference when compared to 20 years ago.

During the 1800's, many were degraded and discriminated upon due to their sexual preferences, so much so that it was regarded as a "sin" in most parts of the world for any other marriage union outside of a man and a woman to coexist, particularly in the United States. Since the early 1990's, gay rights activists have been fighting with all dignity to be heard and acknowledged, accepted and allowed, authorized and endorsed according to their constitutional rights. The formation of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community symbolically represented a nation of people who were determined to be respected without disregard, and fought tirelessly for their equality. Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriages in 2004, followed by Connecticut in 2008 - preceding 15 other states by either court decision, state legislature, or popular vote.

On the contrary, 17 states accepting gay marriages as legal hardly constitutes for the amount of other states in the union whom are still debating on whether or not they should join the bandwagon in legalizing gay marriages, or the states who are completely opposed to it but will allow the civil union version of it. Ironically, it seems a majority of states opposing gay marriages are the red states, or republican states. Even Mitt Romney, a republican and former Governor of Massachusetts, has expressed his oppositional views to legalizing gay marriages by stating "I believe we should have a federal amendment in the constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman...".

Despite the antagonistic approach by a few highly influential public leaders, is the recent trend of legalizing gay marriages a sign of public acceptance? For the majority of U.S. citizens, it seems to come as second nature to agree to disagree, or to at least be open to consideration.

 

 

 

 

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LIVING IN THE CELEBRITY SHADOW
by Learus Ohnine

Fantasizing about a famous lifestyle is fine, as long as it's put into its proper perspective. We may even indulge in a bit of harmless role-playing on a night out with friends, family, or our significant other when in public just to imagine what it would be like to be famous or well-known. Imagining what it would be like to be among the "rich and famous" is something we may find ourselves daydream about from time to time also, just as a distraction from our everyday lives if we hold an "average joe" job within the workforce. For those who wish to display their talents within the entertainment industry, one may ponder if they would have been born into Hollywood on some level, this might make their own goals all that much more easier to reach. Alternatively, taking a deeper glimpse into what it's actually like to live on "the other side" of the social spectrum, to actually be the sibling of a celebrity, this would quickly bring us to the realization that even their public status, although successfully achieved, still has its fair share of ups and downs.

Sylvester Stallone rose to fame with his incredible performances in "Rambo" and in the "Rocky" movie series. With being in such a "bright" spotlight during the earlier stages of his acting career, this gave his brother, Grammy and Golden Globe nominated artist Frank Stallone, the competitive edge in being able to have access to the industry's leading prospects and insider connections while pursuing his own career goals. Talented in his own right and only 4 years younger than his brother, Frank made tremendous progress in the entertainment industry as a musician, a writer, and as an actor, thanks to his brother's name. In interviews, Frank openly discusses a variety of topics, from struggling to make ends meet on the streets of New York to the loss of his nephew in an apparent drug overdose. While Frank seems to enjoy taking the humble approach in trying to promote his own talents during his interviews, he still has to be confronted with questions pertaining to his brother's career, as he will always be knows as "Rambo's brother".

American actor and producer Oliver Hudson, who shares a kinship with actress Kate Hudson (sister), originally wanted to pursue playing hockey as a profession. Having being surrounded by celebrities during most of his early years (his mother Goldie Hawn and step-father Kurt Russell), Oliver enjoyed making short films with his friends so much that he decided to study film instead of aiming for a career in sports. He further landed roles in several television series and began going to auditions for small parts in Hollywood movies. Earning his fame by his own merit, the attention that goes along with the Hollywood glamorous life does not seem to appeal to him as one might think, seeing as he will always be inevitably associated with some of the Hollywood's top names in the entertainment industry. In an interview with People Magazine in reference to being asked how he feels about the publicity of his private life, both the good and the bad, the actor was quoted as saying "I prefer to stay at home."

Having a connection with a celebrity does have its perks depending on one's career goals. On the other hand, depending on one's personal standards, the cons that come with public success and being in the spotlight cannot be ignored as well. It is imperative to understand that the pros and cons must go hand-in-hand with the public spotlight territory, regardless of how that association with the spotlight occurred. While some would love to lavish in the attention given by the paparazzi, some would prefer to opt-out of having their personal affairs dissected for public display. Either way, being famous or associated with someone famous means living in a shadow that may not be an easy one to live by.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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FADING OUT THE MARQUE
by Learus Ohnine

With Americans having to adjust their budgets now more than ever to modestly harmonize with their incoming cash flow, cutting costs for entertainment expenses is indeed on most everyone's agenda. Those who enjoy watching movies have had to lay this form of entertainment on the budget chopping block as well, but thanks to mediums such as Netflix and Video On Demand, movies can still be enjoyed for a reasonable price that can easily fit into modest budget. The average cost of going to the cinema is roughly around $25 per person, which includes tickets, snacks, drinks, and other refreshments sold at the concession stands. According to the results of an online survey conducted by "Harris Poll®" in December 2013, 57% of Americans favored watching movies at home as opposed to the 21% of Americans who preferred to go to the cinema. With approximately a little over one-half of American moviegoers faithfully visiting the cinemas, will this amount be enough to keep the cinemas alive within the next few years?

The participants who were surveyed in the aforementioned poll were also asked to give their opinions about the pros and cons of going to the cinema to watch movies verses watching movies using another medium. Being able to experience a movie in 3-D and in digitally mastered sound quality seemed to win the majority of votes on the pros' list despite the fact that "rude moviegoers" was the number one reason on the cons' list for why the participants would prefer to watch movies from home. The high cost of refreshments sold at the concession stand was another major turn-off for 62% of those surveyed, and an overwhelming 69% felt theaters take advantage of showing 3-D movies as an excuse to charge outrageously higher prices to view them.

With tablets and smartphones gaining more and more popularity for their video-playing capabilities, a majority of the moviegoers who are constantly on-the-go have converted their medium of viewing pleasure from going to the cinema into indulging in Netflix for downloading movies to their portable device. If the cinemas can come up with an idea that tops this convenience along with figuring out a way to offer lower prices for tickets and refreshments, then the cinema might have a fighting chance to stay alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WAIVING THE WHITE FLAG ON THE WAR ON DRUGS
by Learus Ohnine

"I don't think it is no more dangerous than alcohol..."

The above statement sent a surge of shocked brainwaves across the board of observers as President Obama commented on the recreational usage of marijuana. In the past, Obama has admitted to partaking in the recreational use of the narcotic during his adolescent years - also during a time period when it was illegal on all levels in all states. Currently with states such as Colorado and Washington legalizing the recreational use of marijuana along with many other states preceding the legal use of medicinal marijuana, it should come as no surprise that the President would truly support one of his old vices with this statement: "It is important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished". With the most powerfully influential man backing up one of the most lucrative legislative experiments in history thus far, will legalizing this drug be an aggrandizement or a disaster for society?

40 years ago, only a very small portion of marijuana legalization activists in American were in favor of the "civil union" way legalizing marijuana usage no matter if were for its medical or recreational purposes. Today, 85% of Americans support medicinal legalization, and 58% of Americans are in favor of the legalization of recreational marijuana. That's a significant shift in opinion in favor of the legalization as compared to those during the Baby Boomer years. Possible reason for this shift: the projected amount of money to be made, estimated to be in the hundreds of billions. With that comes extra federal tax obligations, however, those who profit the most won't mind as they carry duffle bags of cash to the nearest bank for depositing. So far, there are 20 states that have enacted laws to legalize medicinal marijuana, followed by Colorado and Washington legalizing its recreational use. It is rumored California, Maine, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont, Nevada, and Rhode Island are on the list of those states next to legalize recreational use of the narcotic; definitely an aggrandizement for the economy.

While the Department of Justice clearly stated they will be focusing more on prosecuting those who are distributing the drug "illegally" rather than those who are using the drug, the Legislature is more concerned with how much further drug activists will push their limits. As each state joins in the legalization of marijuana on either level of usage, the expectation of receiving a variety of theoretical proposals pertaining to the benefits of legalizing the usage of other more powerful drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, are anticipated to appear shortly. If Legislature is pressured to legalize the more potent drugs in some form or fashion, that may very well end up turning America into an overnight disaster.

Given either argument, (for or against marijuana) there will be developmental milestones of change among American society as time moves, either as a whole or part, with so many checkpoints yet to uncover on how to continue the war on drugs without becoming a prisoner of war within our own estate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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CLIMATE TROUBLES: JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
by Learus Ohnine

With films such as "Twister," "The Day After Tomorrow," and the more recent release "2012" depicting some of the most horrific weather conditions with impressive special effects, who would have thought we would see these scenes practically come to real life? Although not as extreme in severity, the recent changes in weather conditions around the globe keep scientists speculating just how similar, theoretically speaking, these treading conditions will be in comparison to the Hollywood's adaptations. From major blizzards to record-breaking temperatures, attributes such as global warming and solar output, put together a more precise explanation of why there seems to be a "role reversal" in climatic changes. While glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are decreasing in mass, other parts of the world are either experiencing out-of-season unusually cold temperatures in Summer, abnormally high temperatures in Winter, or vice versa.

Aside from the all the other scientific theories, another intergalactic phenomenon that has slowly yet efficiently progressed over the years may also be a contributing factor as to why the earth seems "upside down." From 1982 to 2005, the Earth's geographical poles have changed locations, moving at a speed of approximately 6 centimeters per year according to a research conducted at the University of Texas in Austin. Data collected by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) was used to determine is the shifting of the North and South Pole have had any affect on the changes in weather. The results concluded the exact opposite: the changes in weather caused by global warming have affected the Earth's positioning; for example, the North Pole is gradually moving southward.

However, there's more to the changes in the weather than just being attributed to a shift in geographical polarity and global warming. The Sun's atmospheric motions, which includes sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections, proposedly has an enormous impact on the Earth's surface, thus creating a cataclysmic pattern of intensified earthquakes and increased volcanic activity. Japan's worst earthquake in history occurring on March 11, 2011 followed by the Philippines on April 11, 2012 along with the most recent of earthquakes on January 20, 2014 in New Zealand clearly demonstrates the increasing trend of seismic activity along with the various volcanic eruptions occurring within the 21st century.

Conclusively, all changes in weather conditions has made a gross impact on our lives and daily routines regardless of its origin, with seemingly no relief in sight for the near future. All we can do is hope these changes do not become so increasingly dramatic that it really does seem as if we are living in a science-fiction movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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NEW YEARS EVE TRADITION
by Learus Ohnine

Every culture has its own celebratory traditions that are recognized respectively throughout the entire year, but the old-age tradition of closing out an old year while simultaneously preparing to enter into a new one is universal. New Year's Eve will always be a day in which traditions are honored, memories are most cherished, and resolutions are most appreciated. Thousands may flock to Times Square in New York City to watch the ball drop with a traditional countdown, and countless others may choose to watch the ball drop on television in a more intimate environment surrounded by friends and family. From extravagant aerial displays to bizarre customary group practices, each of us from around the globe will welcome in the new year in a variety of ways.

In Spain, a New Year's Eve tradition which guarantees the gathering of many patrons at the main squares involves quickly eating one grape at each stroke of the clock at midnight. It is believed to bring good luck to each month for every grape that is consumed. The celebration continues into the wee hours of the morning with plenty of cava passed around. In Columbia and Mexico, it is not uncommon to see patrons running around the block with an empty suitcase at the stroke of midnight. This tradition is performed as a way to bring more travel opportunities. The skies over France will light up with a spectacular display of fireworks at the stroke of midnight, and many will propose a toast using champagne, white wine, or hot wine vin chaud.


Although the above traditions all seem reasonably normal to most of us, Latin America has its own unique idea of what is considered the norm. The "burning of the dummies", traditionally performed in Ecuador, adds a unique twist to their holiday tradition of fireworks as spectators witness thousands of colorful human dummies engulfed in flames and filling the skies with smoke. Denmark is not far behind the uniqueness bandwagon of bringing in the new year with their tradition of jumping off chairs in unison at midnight, which is said to be able to rid the person of any negative spirits, therefore bringing good luck into the new year. And if that is not unique enough, throwing old dishes at their friends' houses at the stroke of midnight also signifies that person has many friends and will bring many more to come during the upcoming months.


Regardless of what custom we honor to celebrate our New Year's Eve, our traditions carry with them priceless memories that are symbolic in nature, performed sincerely within our beliefs, and statutory in a lifelong recurring pattern of a 365-day cycle of wishes for a rejuvenated life ahead.

 

 

 

 

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IGNORED VIOLENCE
by Learus Ohnine

Violence is, and always will be, that uncensored part of human existence to which we are all subjected to becoming exposed to it in one form or another; either as perpetrator, victim, or spectator. For those who have suffered violent acts at the hands of their attackers, there's a road to recovery for them that seems optimistic for some survivors and yet exasperating for some. Over the past few years, there have been numerous repetitive situations of violence involving a generation that retains a monstrous amount of uncontrollable rage, with their focal point being a desire to strike fear into the hearts of innocent onlookers in one of our most highly regarded traditional environments: our schools.

On December 13, 2013, Karl Pierson opened fire at his school, the Arapahoe High School located in Centennial, Colorado, critically wounding a 17-year old student before killing himself. Originally, detectives had several leads as to a possible motive for the gunman's violent rampage, however, the most reliable source of information would have to come from the person themselves. Prior to this incident also in the state of Colorado, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered the Columbine High School located in Littleton to carry out a terroristic massacre that resulted in 15 deaths before both students turned their guns onto themselves. Both suspects left a trail of clues for detectives to decipher the meaning behind this premeditated killing spree with all of their conclusions directing towards the most obvious cause: mental illness.

Both of the above cases, as disturbing as they may be, seems to point to an even bigger issue with youths who suffer from incurable psychological illnesses that, if left ignored, can alter one's perception of reality in the most tragic of ways. It's sad when youths turn to violence as a solution for the pain and rejection they feel for not being deemed as "normal", for so many innocent bystanders have had to have their lives ended without warning or defense. It is time for society to stop brushing this issue under the rug and start taking into consideration the innocent blood that is continuously being shed among the students of our educational institutions.

 

 

 

 

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OVERWHELMED WITH INFORMATION
by Learus Ohnine

From smoke signals to fiber optics, the evolutionary way we exchange information has expanded at such a rapid pace that we seldom realize the overwhelming amount of information we literally receive today compared to many years ago. With a majority of society having access to the internet along with the use of satellite technology, we encounter breaking news stories and pertinent information within seconds of the initial start of an event. In the 1800's, the average time it took for a news event to circulate around the world would approximate within the range days, weeks, or even months depending on its mode of transmission. When comparing the modes of information transmission used today with those of yesteryear's, the uncanny similarities in the art of creating systematic modes of communication for our convenience are more apparent than what we give them credit for.

For example, the concept of using smoke signals was to create a visual for the use of transmitting news and to signal danger. Although the smoke signal itself could only be seen within a particular range of view, it was much more effective in getting a message across quickly within a matter of minutes. Today's concept of the smoke signal's mode of transmitting live information would be equivalent to that of the satellite, with the exception being the amount of time it would take to transmit a satellite signal being narrowed down to seconds as opposed to minutes. Satellite technology offers us the guarantee to receive a vast amount of information more frequently, and to reach a wider range of audiences for a much more quicker response.

Another comparative form for transmitting information would be the personal messenger system used during the Abraham Lincoln era and today's electronic email system. The personal messenger system required information to be carried manually by a human carrier from one location to another, sometimes traveling by foot or with the help of an animal. This posed a problem for messages needing to be delivered immediately, for in Abraham Lincoln's days, "immediately" could be assumed to be within the next few hours. Today's electronic email system has a varied definition for "immediately", which entails the time frame to be within a matter of seconds. An entire conversation that would take days to conclude during the Abraham Lincoln era can now be concluded within minutes, and also be held simultaneously with numerous parties involved.

The incredible transformation with how we receive information in today's society when compared to many years ago does not only provide us with the ability to communicate quickly, but also adds to it the possibility of what new information transmitting concepts that can be created from it for usage in the next generation to come.

 

 

 

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THE OVER RELIANCE ON TECHNOLOGY
by Learus Ohnine

The 2013 holiday shopping season is finally here, with each and every store filled with frantic shoppers searching the isles for the ideal gift that will make a lasting impression on Christmas day. Some shoppers opt for the more simplistic method of buying gift store cards while other serious shoppers seem to prefer the traditional route of seeking out the best bargain for their money on the biggest and busiest shopping day of the year: "Black Friday". When looking back a decade or two ago, "Black Friday" meant seeing hordes of serious shoppers standing in ridiculously long lines for hours on end in spite of the blustery cold weather just to buy the hottest fashion trends on sale, the latest toy on every child's wish-list, the newest video game console or a newly released video game. Nowadays, when taking a sneak-peak into the shopping carts of a majority of "Black Friday" shoppers, what was seen as items of pleasure a decade or two ago are now considered to be necessities of life.

Technology-related products seem to have become the most preferred item on a majority of Christmas shopping lists just as much as they have become a major component in the daily routine of just about every consumer there is. Anyone who is capable of maneuvering a qwerty keyboard owns a cell phone nowadays, regardless of their age or occupation. Cell phones have become such an essential medium with how we communicate with one another that laws have had to be put into effect in order to monitor its usage at inappropriate times, such as while operating a motor vehicle. The sudden viral obsession with text messaging has become so extreme that it is now estimated that 31% of motor vehicle accidents are cause by texting and driving. With all the additional features a cell phone has to offer, consumers often find themselves literally joined at the hip with a device that can be considered a modified version of a mini portable desktop computer.

The laptop, or mini portable desktop computer, has become a must-have household item essential in conducting any form of interaction with those from around the world. Those with addictions to worldwide gaming sites, gambling sites, entertainment sites, etc., can enjoy the convenient portability and appreciation of a laptop for nonstop access. The laptop has just as much of an influential impact on private usage as it does for business usage. A majority of business professionals rely on its convenience potential when having to conduct business in a multitasking fashion. Some companies require their employees to communicate via email instead of relying on the postal mail system for faster service, conduct video conferences instead of actual physical meetings, and construct company websites for promotional purposes instead of printing advertisements.

In short, the over-reliance of technology has increased dramatically over the years to the point where it has become an essential way of living and a necessity for every individual to arrange their lives to accommodate such conveniences.


 

 

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THE EMOTIONAL EPIC GOES VIRAL
by Heidi Dougherty

As we embark on another holiday season, no one wants to admit that sadness does not take a break during Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza, etc. It is a time when we feel pressure to spend money, remember loved ones we’ve lost, and remind ourselves that many of us are divorced or without a significant other. Here in the United States, you would suspect nothing of the sort. Happy holiday ads in full gear, the alcohol is pouring freely and the car companies are overseeing their own versions of Santa’s workshop.

In the United Kingdom, however, the best advertisers are willing and able to admit more about the truthful, sometimes grim aspect of the season than we are. And their clients’ wallets are now getting as fat as Santa’s belly because of it. The retailer John Lewis has put out a fantastical blockbuster advertisement called the “Bear and the Hare” about a bear that had never seen Christmas before. When the bear finally sees the new holiday in the togetherness it can offer, it is as if he has awoken from a lifetime of hibernation. The magic of the video will bring thousands into John Lewis this year. See the video here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqWig2WARb0. Among others, Tesco has also released an ad depicting the realities of an authentic family at Christmas. The video, from the fighting to the dancing, pulls on heartstrings . Watch here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_4AOpcBwZ4

These ads have universal appeal because they show the human side of the holidays. There is an honesty and willingness in admitting that for some, it is a difficult time. It is OK to feel what you feel, even if it is sadness during a time when there is an endless expectation to be happy. So next time you get a case of the “bah humbugs,” watch these videos and know that you are not the only one without the elusive Christmas spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

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LIFE SCIENCE HEADED FOR EXTINCTION
by Learus Ohnine

From the days of the Louis Pasteur era until now, scientists have made numerous successful attempts in their exploratory approach to save humanity. Science, along with technology, has become so advanced over the years that what was once thought of by scientists as an uncertainty is now a breakthrough in innovative discoveries, for scientists now have the resourceful devices necessary to further their exploration of the human body with precise detail and remarkable accuracy. With the birth of such remarkable artificial life-saving devices as the pacemaker and the dialysis machine, the possibilities for discovering complete cures to life-threatening illnesses seems more and more possible in the future as science advances in the areas of biomedical engineering, thanks to all of the financial support provided by the U.S. Government to scientific research agencies over the past few decades.

Unfortunately during this decade, one of those resources has been drastically cut this year by 10% at the very least -- a percentage that cannot be ignored, especially when it pertains to biomedical research. Since humanity has been anticipating for years to hear of a much awaited breakthrough in the discovery for cures to some of the most deadliest of diseases such as cancer and HIV, it seems all hope will have to be put on hold for what seems to be a much bigger problem that appears to be taking precedence lately over healing the sick: war-related funding.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the most pertinent sources of funding for biomedical research agencies and institutions, has been commended for increasing the life expectancy of humanity since the early 1800's. Not only does the NIH conduct their own research at their own facilities, the agency relies on its funding to be allocated within the congressional budget. The United States has already spent approximately $1.7 trillion on war-related expenses from 2001-2011, and is expected to see these expenditures rise above the $6 trillion mark by the end of the 2013 fiscal year. To avoid a government shutdown this year, Congress had to cut all expenditures until March of 2014 by at least 10%, and this includes the financial support the NIH heavily relies upon to continue its research efforts. The NIH has reported their biomedical research expenses to be at $29.5 billion for the 2013 fiscal year alone. With Congress being unable to properly negotiate a suitable national budget plan while continuously financially supporting war-related expenses to the fullest, the NIH has been forced to put a majority of their critical clinical trials on hold with no certainty of when they will resume again.

Eventually along the line, we all reap the benefits of medical research, even those who are currently considered to be in perfect health. At the rate in which science has advanced, humanity's chances for a greater life expectancy could have been dramatically increased many years ago if it had not been for the extra expenditure of wars... or could it?

 

 

 

 

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IF SEX IS ALL YOU HAVE
By Heidi Dougherty

“Once I got a taste of real intimacy, I never wanted to go back.”

It was recently discovered just how much physical and emotional affection infants actually need. Newborns will cease to thrive if not held and bonded with. The story should not be much different with adults, but it is. In our super-individualistic society, has the need for real closeness with another diminished, or are a lot of Americans just starving for meaningful connection?

Intimacy is a centered around a basic biological need for real closeness to another individual or group of individuals. Intimacy has, for the majority, been abandoned in relationships in our culture. We live in a promiscuous time of failed relationships. It is considered “normal” for a person to go out to a bar, meet someone, and then take him or her home to unleash some unidentified passion in the bedroom. Is this to say that the occasional happy marriage is not the end result of a wild one-night stand? No. More unlikely things than sex leading to intimacy (and vice versa) have been known to happen. In general, however, sex without love has become a norm.

What has happened? One of the basic reasons why intimacy has died is because the terms “sex” and “intimacy” have been compartmentalized. There has taken place a separation of intimacy from sex when sex should always include an aspect of intimacy. Sex, in many cases, is simply a physical act that can be had amongst strangers. Intimacy may not include sex, and is had in relationships through a patient and loving understanding of each other. A thirty year-old man, we will call Jim, asserts, “Intimacy is when out of a connection sprouts a little seed. It needs to be nourished and tended to over time or else it dies. It’s not like sex, which does not need sensitivity, nourishment and delicacy.”

Age may also have something to do with a lack of intimacy. The younger the man I have been with, the less interested in foreplay and a patient understanding of my body. Young people (men and women alike) have their eye on the main prize from the get-go, and do not see the point in taking the time to understand what their partner may need and/or want. This may lead to resentment in a relationship. One should not take for granted the power of a simple touch, a romantic dinner, or a bath together. These are moments that preserve the intimacy that is so essential to a satisfying life with one another.

Sex can be a great thing. In the end, however, without an emotional connection, there is nothing intimate about just sex. Everyone can have sex, whether it is on a first date or in the first months of dating. But in reality, if a component of true intimacy is missing, what do you honestly have? Real intimacy makes us feel alive, like we have “been found;” as if someone finally took the time to peer into the depths of our soul and really see us there. Until one experiences true intimacy, one may feel passed over and ignored. As Leslie from Manhattan explains about her relationship with her current boyfriend, “The sex is amazing, but that’s all it is. Sometimes, because there is no intimacy, it’s as if he’s looking right through me.”

 

 

 

 

 

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LITERACY IN AMERICA
by Learus Ohnine

The advanced potential of technology, along with its mainstream function of being able to access information at any given time, has now overturned the way readers have access to books. Having the potential to access publications from the comfort of your own home at any given time of the day or night may be the main contributing factor as to why consumers have elected to invest in the purchasing of an e-book reader as opposed to spending money on transportation costs to their local bookstore. More recently, local and large chain bookstores have reported an enormous drop in sales since technology has introduced a more convenient way to read by way of the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Amazon Kindle, the Pandigial Reader, and the Sony Reader. While e-book sales have increased over the years in the United States, the U.S. adult literacy rates have decreased.

Literacy has a major impact on the functional ability of a country. However, statistics reveal a sad truth concerning the readers residing in the United States: approximately 32 million Americans cannot read. According to a study performed by The Organization for Economic Adult Literacy, the United States ranked 16 out of 23 countries. 1 out of 3 American adults cannot read properly, meaning either they do not fully understand the material they have read or they cannot analyze the information they have read correctly. Oddly, 33% of American adults, or 1 out of 4 Americans, own an e-reader of some sort. As the number of e-books sold has increased by 43% over the past 5 years, over 10 million e-books have been sold thus far yet this does not indicate there is hope for an increase in American literacy rates.

One possible explanation as to the awkward imbalance in statistics when comparing the number of e-reader and e-book sales to literacy rates is the decline of available bookstores where physical books may be purchased. When assessing the literacy rates, approximately 1 in 3 adults scored low in problem solving abilities within a technical environment. Not every reader is computer literate. In bookstores, customers can readily ask for assistance if needed when searching for a specific topic or publication. With e-readers, the reader is pretty much on their own. Since the sales of e-books has risen over the past 10 years, bookstores have been forced to shut down due to their low sales volume. Their low sales volume is contributed to the rising number of readers who prefer to purchase e-books rather than the traditionally printed book, and not all adult educational development resources are available in electronic form.

With bookstores becoming extinct and electronic book sales increasing, there may still be hope for raising the literacy stats for American adults as long as the number of library locations does not decline in the process...

 

 

 

 

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VETERAN'S DAY - WE WILL NEVER FORGET
by Learus Ohnine

November poses as an extremely important month for a particular group of Americans who deserve an enormous amount of recognition. On this day, Veteran's Day, there is no amount of gratitude too spectacular that can be expressed sincerely enough for protecting our nation's freedom. As noble of an honor as it to be a Veteran, the title came with a hefty price. Some of these people are forever inevitably forced to live with the memories of the horrific traumatic visuals of death, gruesome scenes of mutilation, and unspeakable methods of torture they've encountered while trying to fight for their lives during times of war. Not only that, these very same unselfish heroic people were also fighting for the lives and freedom for individuals of whom they've never met, have never heard of, and will never see. Those who were fortunate enough to survive and return home, return with having to totally restructure their way of living due to the loss of their mobility while they watch various strangers, whom they have literally rescued, walk pass them with all their limbs still intact.

For this, each and every American citizen should acknowledge all Veterans, the living and the deceased, on every Veteran's Day of every year in the month of November. Free and/or discounted meals are being offered exclusively to the military and ex-military community this Monday, November 11, 2013 at the following restaurants:

Applebee's - free meal
Bar Louie - free meal
Bj's Restaurant & Brewery - free meal
Bob Evans - free all-you-can-eat meal
California Pizza Kitchen - free meal
Carraba's - free appetizer
Champps Americana - free meal
Charlie Brown's Steakhouse - free meal
Cheeseburger in Paradise - free meal
Chili's - free meal
Denny's - free all-you-can-eat meal
Einstein's Bros Bagel - free bagel
Famous Dave's - free or discount meal
Fox & Hound & Bailey's Sports Grille - free or discounted meal
Friendly's - free breakfast & coffee
Golden Corral - free meal
HoneyBaked Stores - free meal (lunch)
Hooters - free meal
Hoss's Family Steak & Sea House - free meal
Hy-Vee - free breakfast
IKEA - free sandwich, hot dish, or entrée salad
Krispy Kreme - free doughnut & coffee
Little Caesars® - free crazy bread®
Lone Star Steakhouse - free entrée
LongHorn Steakhouse - free Texas Tonion and alcoholic beverage
Max & Erma's - free meal
McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants - free lunch or dinner
Menchi's - free 6 oz. frozen yogurt
O'Charley's - free entrée
On The Border - free meal
Outback Steakhouse - free Bloomin' Onion & drink
Paciugo Gelato Caffe - free 12oz gelatte
Red Lobster - free appetizer
Red Robin - free Red's Tavern Double & Bottomless Steak Fries
Ruby's Diner - free Cinnamon Roll French Toast until 11:30am.
Shoney's - free All-American Burger
Spaghetti Warehouse - buy one entrée, get one free
Sizzler Restaurant - free meal until 4pm.
Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes - buy one meal, get one free
Texas Corral - free meal
Texas Land & Cattle Steak House - free appetizer
Texas Roadhouse - free lunch
T.G.I. Friday's - free lunch
The Olive Garden - free meal; 10% off family dining with a veteran
Tim Hortons - free donut
Tony Roma's - free entrée
Twin Peaks - free meal
Uno Chicago Grill - free individual pizza
Village Inn - free breakfast item
Note: please call your local restaurant of choice listed above to confirm discounts, or check their websites for further details. Remember to bring your proof of military service for verification.

Aside from enjoying a complimentary meal, Veterans can also enjoy free or discounted services at the following companies and attractions:

Anheuser-Busch Parks - free admission for service member and up to 3 dependents
Bed, Bath & Beyond - 20% off entire purchase
Colonial Williamsburg - free admission
Car Washes - free car wash
Great Clips - free haircut
Home Depot - 10% discount (year around)
Historic Jamestowne - free admission
Joann Fabric & Craft Stores - 20% off entire purchase
Knotts Berry Farm - free admission
Lowe's - 10% off entire purchase (year around)
Pro Football Hall of Fame - free admission
Sport Clips - free haircut
Walgreens - 15% off eligible store items; 20% off Walgreens brands

For those who do not qualify for the aforementioned discounts but will be out and about at any one of these locations on Monday, please show your appreciation and gratitude if you should happen to run into a Veteran, or anyone from the military community for that matter. Give them a handshake, tell them thank you, or simply stop and say hello. Do this not only every Veteran's Day, but also on any given day of the year. By acknowledging our beloved Veterans, it is a symbolic way of expressing the context of America's 9/11 slogan: "We Will Never Forget."


 

 

 

 

 

 

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WOMAN'S WORK IS NEVER DONE
by Learus Ohnine

For decades on end, woman have been fighting for their equality to be recognized, in one form or another, within the workforce. Former President John F. Kennedy endorsed it - President Barack Obama ensues to enforce it. The Equal Pay Act, signed by Kennedy in June 1963, was the latest attempt to put an end to gender discrimination pertaining to unequal wages earned by women versus men who are employed in identical positions that are of equal job content. President Obama sponsors John F. Kennedy's Equal Pay Act (or EPA) for gender wage equality with the Paycheck Fairness Act (or PFA), a legislation to end the approximate 77% difference in compensated wages earned by women when compared to that of men. This bill was approved in January 2009 by the House of Representatives, however, the United States Senate fell short of 2 votes for the 60 votes needed in order to move the bill forward. The bill was presented again for a second time in June 2012. Consequently, the United States Senate only acquired 52 votes in favor of proceeding the bill to its final consideration. Why?

Republican Senators, of whom comprise the small minority of congressional voters opposing the PFA, believe that the bill could adversely affect small businesses by making it easier for female employees to file litigation suits in regards to wage discrimination. Ironically, out of the number of Republican Senators who blocked the bill, five of them were women: Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Senator Susan Collins, also of Maine.

In a statement made by Senate Republican Susan Collins on June 5, 2012, she believes the existing workforce laws are already sufficient: "We already have on the books the Equal Pay Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Lilly Ledbetter Act in which I support, and I believe that they provide adequate protections. I think this bill would impose a real burden, particularly on small businesses." In a similar statement made by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky supporting Collins' viewpoint, McConnell states "We don't think America suffers from a lack of litigation." In another statement made by Republican Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, he makes it clear that he does not support pay discrimination within the workforce based on gender, but instead focuses on the issue of workforce inequality in itself: "The question is, will the Paycheck Fairness Act actually address workplace inequality? And the simple answer is no."

The Paycheck Fairness Act, in comparison to the Equal Pay Act, would provide remedies for the loopholes found within the act signed by former President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The bill would require wages to be paid based on education, training, and/or experience, not sex-based. This bill would also protect employees from retribution from their employers should they happen to discuss their wages for the purposes of evaluating whether or not a gender differential exists. Although American women have come a long way when it comes to putting an end to being shortchanged within their professions, it is still evident that women will have to continue fight even harder for their right to be heard and understood. As the old cliché goes: "Men work from sun to sun, but woman's work is never done."

 

 

 

 

 

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CAUTION FOR CATS IN THE COLD

As the weather becomes colder, cats have a tendency to hide under cars and around the tires of cars. Many drivers don't realize this when getting into their cars, having fatal consequences for the cats seeking warmth. In recognition of the cats, below is a poem about my cat, Adonis.

My Adonis
by Heidi Dougherty

My Adonis, that damned cat,
He claws his way up the sides of my couch,
Gets so nasty when I don’t feed him enough,
For my eyes he goes to gouge.

He goes out at night and stirs ‘round the yard,
All the while I think he asleep,
Meanwhile he hunts then raids my only farm,
Then the next morning on my stoop there’s a sheep.

That damned cat, I say,
Enough is enough, back to the zoo he soon shall go.
For tigers are not made for the hearth of a home,
Nor for a widower’s beau.

So I sat and I thought,
And discerned once and for all,
That the pains in my sides weren’t him,
So instead of putting my cat out the door,
I decided to sell my farm on a whim.

Adonis and I set out on the road,
That damned cat and I started a family,
Better than the modern dysfunction around,
Happiness is simple, won’t you agree?

We started a service for big cats to join,
To look for their human gypsies,
Now I go to bed at night with a smile on my face
About my contribution to the survival of that damned cat’s species.



 

 

 

 

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POST GRAD REALITY
by Learus Ohnine

Throughout our educational years, we have been taught by our instructors that we can become whomever we want to be, we can achieve any dream we wish to achieve, and we can have anything we want to have. Our educators encourage us to dream big, to never give up, and to strive for success by reaching the top of the ladder in society with hard work and dedication. We are pre-programmed to think a dose of perseverance, an ounce of faith, and a smidgen of determination is all that's needed to make our dreams come true. But the one thing that is not taught is the fact that our perception of how things SHOULD be and the reality of how things WILL be are not the same entities - and that is the recipe for disappointment.

The depressing reality is: half of today's college graduates are working in jobs that are not in their chosen field or they may be overqualified for, are making less money than what they're worth, and are sacrificing a majority of their hard-earned income into repaying student loans for an occupation they were told would put money in their pockets and cover their post-education expenses. In a 2012 McKinsey & Company survey, along with the collaboration of Chegg, Inc., 4,900 college graduates expressed their regrets of what they envisioned reality to be like after four years of higher learning. 48% of U.S. college graduates were employed in jobs that did not require a four-year degree; while 32% of graduates were actually working in their field of expertise. Out of the 72% of college graduates who were required to complete an internship in their chosen field of study, only 42% reported their internships have landed them a job.

As the competition stiffens within the workforce, the number of available jobs for college graduates decrease. Of course, this all depends on one's major, with the visual and performing arts being the most difficult to break into, while science, engineering, and technology provide the most satisfactory results for job seekers. But with today's economy, even choosing the "right" major still does not guarantee a stable job. Higher education institutions overlook this fact when promoting idealizations of reality in exchange for a signed promissory note. What appears to be achievable through hard work, dedication, and persistence is not always the reality of it.

 

 

 

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FROM HOLLYWOOD TO POLITICALWOOD
by Learus Ohnine

Celebrities often have to be extremely careful of what they say, what they do, and how they react when interacting with the public. The slightest well-meaning act of kindness or opinionated compliment can be easily blown out of proportion by the public eye, who is constantly watching their every move and quick to scrutinize their analysis. The voice of a celebrity is so powerfully influential on the public that it's no wonder why marketing companies scramble like mad to get a high-prolific celebrity to endorse a specific product. The market place seems to be a common place for opinionated endorsements by celebrities, but what about when it comes to politics? Should there be a thin line that separates Hollywood and "Washington"? Celebrities such as Shirley Temple, Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar have all tested this hypothesis by crossing over that thin line, making major contributions to society beyond the entertainment level of the silver screen.

Shirley Temple, America's favorite dimpled-faced child star in the 1930's, was appointed as a United States delegate to the 24th United Nations General Assembly in 1969 by President Richard Nixon, appointed as the United States Ambassador to Ghana by President Gerald R. Ford, appointed as the first female "Chief of Protocol of the United States" in 1976, and later appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia by President George H. W. Bush. She was in charge of all State Department ceremonies, including coordinating the inauguration ceremonial protocols for President Jimmy Carter.

Ronald W. Reagan, and American radio, film, and television star, was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States in 1981, serving two consecutive terms. Prior to his presidential victory, he served as California's 33rd governor. During his first term, President Reagan was best known for his "Reaganomics" policy, which included reducing taxes, government spending, and inflation all in an effort to help boost the economy and control the money supply. During his second term, he focused primarily on foreign matters, including putting an end to the Cold War.

American director, producer, and former television and film actor Clint Eastwood entered the world of politics when he endorsed President Richard Nixon's presidential campaigns both in 1968 and 1972. Labeling himself as a "liberal on civil rights", his numerous endorsements influenced remarkable changes within the most prominent movements during that era such as the Equal Rights Amendment for women, pro-choice abortion, and same-sex marriages. In 1986, he was elected as mayor of his hometown, Carmel-by-the-Sea in California.

Eastwood's impressive political views were supported by yet another Hollywood film actor, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, who appointed Eastwood to the California Film Commission after he himself became elected as the 38th Governor of the state of California in 2003. Nicknamed "The Governator", Republican Governor Schwarzeneggar expressed his political views quite differently than most other Hollywood celebrities of whom were reputed as having liberal or democratic stances on political issues. The Governor spent a majority of his time focusing on global-warming issues, and the other part of his time (as he called it) "behaving badly." In 2010, a group called the "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington" considered Schwarzeneggar to be one of 11 "worst governors" in the U.S.

Conclusively, Hollywood has proved that it can have a positive influence on the political aspect of society. However, the effectiveness of this influence does not solely rely on the strength of that popular voice that speaks; it's moreover how the weight of that political power is utilized is what gives the celebrity their influence.

 

 

 

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INFORMATION OVERLOAD
by Heidi Dougherty

“The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self.” – Stravinsky

There is a blank, it’s sung, it’s drawn,
Seeps out from the pores.
From information overload
Has come nothingness,
It is the beginning of a war.

There is a plague in postmodern art,
Just a symptom of the times:
Born of too much freedom and no direction,
Intellectual apathy can climb.

Abounding liberty helps but one,
At the closing of each day,
When producing work of great worth,
Constraint, to the storm of silence, does allay.

Less with more and classics first,
Creativity’s supplied,
From the meager bounds of a few short colors,
A kaleidoscope’s implied.

 

 

 

 

 

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WHOSE FAULT IS IT
by Learus Ohnine

Imagine you are kidnapped - you are held hostage against your will by a belligerent abductor who threatens to kill you unless they receive everything they are demanding in exchange for preserving your life. Your fate lies in the hands of the negotiator, who then refuses your abductor's demands, and in turn, kills you themselves. Prior to your murder, your abductor did proclaim to the negotiator of their intent to kidnap a hostage long time ago, yet the negotiator did nothing about this warning to stop this from literally happening.

Now imagine the entire United States of America being held hostage by a committee comprised of 535 law makers whose congressional position would not have been possible if it were not for them being voted into their appointed seats by the U.S. citizens themselves. Unfortunately, this congressional committee cannot seem to collaborate on pertinent issues that are supposed to be made in the best interest of the country as a whole. Ironically due to this committee's poor negotiating skills, the fate of the country soon begins to quickly plummet on a downward spiral by the very same people whom the citizens have willingly chosen to represent them.

Both analogies describe what the current U.S. government shutdown is really all about. One side of the congressional table, or the predominately-Republican House of Representatives, wants to have their way by insisting their own budget plan will work out for bailing the United States out of $17 trillion in debt by dismantling President Obama's health care reform law, while the other side of the congressional table, the predominately-Democratic Senate, will not agree nor negotiate the idea of altering anything pertaining to the Affordable Care Act. Since Congress could not pass a budget by the October 1st deadline, shutting down the government was the only alternative left for them to do until a compromised can be reached by both sides.

In the meantime, as of October 1st, approximately 800,000 federal employees will not be paid, however, 1.4 million active-duty military personnel will get paid but may not receive their paychecks when they anticipate to receive them. Food programs that provide nutritional vouchers to low-income pregnant women and mothers with children up to age 5 will not be funded. All Smithsonian museums, zoos, national parks and monuments (this includes the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the National Mall, and the Statue of Liberty) will be closed. And as if this wasn't bad enough, Senior Service Programs such as "Meals on Wheels" which provides food to thousands of senior citizens may not receive government funding, energy assistance and weatherization programs for the low-income families to help them stay warm during winter months may cease to be funded, and social security and supplemental income programs may see delays in check disbursements.

The bottom line: who is really at fault for the government shutting down? Every American who voted for a congressional nominee based simply on whether or not they were a Republican or Democrat is to blame. We put those people in office, therefore, we gave them their power - power that is apparently devoid of any genuinely bona fide cofunctioning abilities, especially in a time of crisis. Only we, the voters, can prevent these politically catastrophic conditions from ever happening again by voting based on policy and NOT party.

 

 

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MODIFICATION OR MUTILATION?
By Heidi Dougherty


Do people push the boundaries of insanity through “body modification” to make themselves feel alive, or to find comfort within their own skin? To some it is fanaticism, to others it is a means to an end for self-preservation. Some people lose weight and not only as a means of achieving ideal health, but to gain their version of the ideal physique. While others choose to get a tattoo or piercing to signify an important period in their life. Most notably from the mid-1980s forward, the act of modifying the body for these reasons and many others has become a superpower.

Although body modification includes things as simple as dying one’s hair or bodybuilding, it can also include things as drastic as branding, extreme plastic surgery, hanging suspended from hooks pierced through the body, and even cutting off a limb.  There is much controversy over whether this behavior can be seen as destruction rather than enhancement, as mutilation rather than modification. What is the intent of body modification?

According to Alan Falkner, the father of modern body suspension, people do it to give themselves perspective. He states, “It’s along the same idea as walking on hot coals…when you walk across hot coals, the rest of your life is easy…it’s a life-changing experience.” Falkner also affirms that this ritual is a positive one, and those who take part should not be stereotyped as evil or disgusting. No matter how easy it is to preach a nonjudgmental stance, however, most everyone could see this practice as unnecessarily painful and attention seeking.

Others feel it has to do with finding meaning and feeling confident in one’s own skin. According to professional bodybuilder Joseph Paterson, body modification is his purpose in life. “I found the vehicle that’s going to (help me) change the world,” he says emphatically. Does he think changing his body makes him happy? No. He emphasizes, “People try to modify their body for happiness, (but real) happiness comes from within. “

Some societies consider beautiful what our society looks at as frightful mutilation. In the American society of today, it has become acceptable to get plastic surgery to become more aesthetically pleasing. In others societies, including some “modern primitive” ones, mutilation of the body is seen as just as acceptable, and even cherished as an ancient ritual. In some instances, modification is placed on a religious pedestal.

The Church of Body Modification, which is active in the United States (around 3,500 members), considers its mission the spiritual unification of mind, body, and soul through body modification of its members. Methods include scarification, hook pulling, fasting, and firewalking. This group pushes the limits of a cult, where members can feel comfortable to bond through hurting themselves. Crucifixions are recreated, and in these rituals, members feel closer to the gods of their faith. As Vince Hemingson, filmmaker and expert in the field of modification states, “In almost all hunting and gathering cultures, shedding of blood summons the gods- and good and evil spirits.”

According to the notorious “Lizard Man,” the difference between modification and mutilation is clear. “If it’s not safe, sane, or consensual, it’s probably mutilation.” We must take into consideration, however, that what is sane to one person may be insane to another. Often times, sanity is in the eye of the beholder.

Whether it is for artistic expression, to feel more alive, or to gain comfort by living on the outskirts of mainstream society, body modification, or as some see it, self-mutilation, is far too complex an issue to be seen from only one perspective. To most of the people that take part in modification, the issue is clear: It is a given human right to be able to do what one wants with one’s own body. In some instances, like in Georgia, where certain procedures and piercings are still banned, the American government disagrees.

Go here for an example of a modern-day body suspension. Caution: graphic in nature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suspension_Moscow_4.jpg
 

 

 

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THE RESURRECTION OF THE BOOB TUBE
by Learus Ohnine

Television viewers from across America can certainly appreciate the way the "Boob Tube" has expanded not only its content by way of regular programming, but also its optional convenience of being able to access most programs at the viewer's discretion. Gone are the days when it was imperative for television viewers to frantically race home from work in order to catch their favorite prime-time tv show at the exact moment it was to be aired or when the housewife had to postpone her housework during the only available airtimes for her favorite soap opera as to not miss one episode. Television viewing has become so advanced that not only do viewers no longer have to concern themselves with adjusting their own availability according to their favorite program schedules, they don't even have to be present in front of a television screen to watch it.

VOD, or Video on Demand, has become the most popular (and most convenient) sought-out method for those who have a busy lifestyle and need to stay on-the-go, or even for those who just want to enjoy their favorite television programs and/or movies in the comfort of their own home at their own leisure by way of any preferred technological medium. Video on Demand allows its users to stream selected audio and video content through a "set-top box" connected to their television or personal computer to view in real time, or download content to a digital video recorder (DVR) or any portable media player device for leisurely viewing at any time. Users have the option of viewing their downloaded selected content in much the same style as with a VCR with functions such as fast forwarding, pausing, slow forward and rewind functions, etc.

For those who especially enjoy watching movies from the comfort of their own home without having to travel back and forth to the nearest video rental store, the most popular on-demand provider, Netflix, offers the widest range of variety for movies (and prime time episodes) for a small monthly subscription fee comparably lower than most video store rental rates. Netflix subscribers can choose between watching their favorite selected content online via Internet streaming or DVD and Blu-ray Discs via U.S. mail. Instant-watch devices compatible with Netflix include the Amazon Kindle Fire, the Barnes and Noble Nook Tablet, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo Wii, and the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch supported by the Android Version 2.2 and above web browser platform.

According to the research firm Rentrak, American households watched approximately 8.5 hours of programming per day through Video on Demand services with an all-in-all total of over 1 billion hours of VOD programming in 2012. With these statistics guaranteed to continue climbing with each passing year, television networks and cable companies can count on VOD to help build a new audience of viewers from all walks of life.
 

 

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FURRY PEOPLE
by Learus Ohnine

Pet ownership can be a gratifying experience with its many underlying purposes as to why people become owners. The mutual bonding, the companionship, and the experience of feeling what it's like to be a caretaker all play important parts in the duration of relationship between pet and its owner. Most pet owners choose the pets they wish to care for based on their ability to care for the pet, the functions of the pet, and some may even purchase a pet based on their own personality or that of the pet itself.

While some become pet owners just for the purpose of having a lovable little furry friend around the house, some become owners to fulfill a much needed deeper psychological desire to transform their pet into a furry human being. For example, for those who cannot bear children, pet ownership makes a wonderful replacement when the probability of parenting a child is not likely or at all possible. In this situation, the owner cares for the pet as if the pet were a human being. They may buy throw birthday parties for their pet every year, they may call themselves "mommy" or "daddy", and some may buy their pets products that were strictly designed for human use only, such as pacifiers, McDonald's happy meals, etc.

Another case scenario may be the pet owner who disdains the idea of having children due to their own personal contempt for them in general, yet they still want to nurture something lifelike that does not resemble a child but will return the love and affection they desire from their role as a caretaker. Regardless of the fact caring for a pet can start out being just as time-consuming as it is in caring for a child, this particular type of pet owner will feel as if their responsibility as caretaker is more fun than work as a child will demand more attention and need more supervision. Also, pet owners of this type may suffer from other psychological issues stemming from their own childhood and would rather refrain from the presence of children in their life altogether, however, they do like the idea of feeling needed and wanted - something a pet will give unconditionally.

Whatever the reason a pet owner may have for substituting a pet for a child, one thing is for certain: there will never be a shortage of human beings in this world, and with the small amount of owners who fall into this ownership category, there's no cause for worry in contributing to the masses.

 

 

 

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THE MYSTERIOUS MERMAID
by Heidi Dougherty

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves…
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”

-T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock”

From the stories of Greek gods like Zeus, to the Myth of Creation, to Pandora’s Box, myths are all around us. They give meaning and stability to life, and explain the unexplainable. Through mythology, which took shape before religion and even the written word, we are connected to our ancestors and to the deities. Some myths express a culture’s shared unconscious, the fears, expectations, and dreams of a people that symbolize its implicit ideals.

The tales of mermaids remain in the spotlight in modern culture and art, and I find it interesting the amount of attention paid to the subject recently by a couple of leading television networks. Many people’s introduction to mermaids as children is the popular children’s movie “The Little Mermaid” (readapted from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale). Like most myths, which change and develop over time, mermaids were not always seen as kind the kind creatures they are in that story and other modern mermaid myths. In the earliest tales of mermaids, from Syria and Greece, mermaids were dangerous. They would lure men in with their beauty and song only to send them to their death by drowning or some other horrific catastrophe.

Different people can interpret the shift in the mermaid from a deadly creature to a heavenly creature in different ways. In ancient times, powerful women goddesses like Aphrodite and Athena were popular. Goddesses were beautiful, and sometimes also dangerous, causing great harm to man. The Sirens, especially in Homer’s “The Odyssey,” are very similar to the first representation of mermaids, and baited men with their charm to then destroy them. Culture was more open in antiquity about the apprehension men had over women, as tales of the supernatural were concerned. Mermaids were seen as more dominant, as opposed to now, helping man while also charming them.

This shift from the powerful mermaid to the impotent mermaid may also represent man’s fear of women in modern culture. Women now own Fortune 500 companies. They have made their way, if not slowly, into the political forum. Some men do not agree with the woman who is capable outside of the home, and especially the woman who can conquer, or kill, a man. Their answer: represent women as weak and subservient.

According to feminists, the stories of goddesses and otherworldly women like mermaids also represented then how culture worshipped women, allowing them powers that now are left to only male deities. Female deities were treated as equal to male gods and were approached with utmost respect and, at times, fear.

In modern time, though women have rightly fought for more equal rights, in marriages and otherwise, the fight has been long and hard. Now, mermaids, representing women, are objectified, catering to men and existing only for their pleasure. They are also in a state of constant sacrifice for the man, like in Andersen’s original “The Little Mermaid,” in which the main character has to forfeit her tongue and feel like she is forever walking on swords just to be united with her prince and live a much shorter life as a human. The power the mermaid once had has burnt out, if not for the immortal myths that continue the compelling and dominant role she once had.

Among fascinating stories of gods and giants, myth of the mermaid will continue on worldwide, in whatever form the each society allows. Sometimes, it is through art, literature, and the media that we more easily understand the ethics and paradigms of our culture. The most modern myths of the mermaid are very telling…

 

 

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SYRIAN SURRENDER
by Learus Ohnine

In light of what seems to be a progressive compliance to an agreement reached by the United States and the Russian Federation on September 14, 2013, the Syrian government has met its first deadline in an attempt to destroy their chemical weapons program. On Friday, September 19, 2013, Syrian officials have submitted an inventory list of their chemical weapons stockpile to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), with the intent to destroy their entire chemical weapons program by mid-2014. It has been indicated that Syria has the potential of executing surface-to-surface missiles, aerial bombs, and artillery rockets containing several thousand tons of the toxic chemicals Yperite, VX, and Sarin for use in warfare.

Considering the history of Syria's light-hearted regards for integrity, one only has to wonder about the accuracy of this "list" submitted to the OPCW. On July 23, 2012, when Syrian officials admitted to being in possession of stockpiles of chemical weapons for defense purposes, major concerns were raised given to the fact that Syria had previously denied being in possession of such weapons in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In July of 2012, Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman severely contradicted himself when he stated "No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used", safely and securely stored away from rebels, and will not be utilized "unless Syria is exposed to external aggression." In December of 2012, a gas attack using the odorless military incapacitating agent named "Agent 15" killed seven civilians in Homs. In March of 2013, missiles allegedly containing a chemical substance were launched into the Khan al-Assal district of Aleppo and Al Atebeh suburbs of Damascus. When Syrian officials gave permission for the UN to investigate these allegations, they refused to allow the UN to investigate other areas where possible chemical weaponry were also alleged to have taken place.

However on April 18, 2013, British military scientists confirmed the use of nerve agents in the Homs, Aleppo, and Damascus areas by way of forensic evidence found on soil samples smuggled out of those regions, regions the Syrian government previously denied chemical weapon usage. Although Russian scientists concluded the March 2013 attack was possibly initiated by rebel forces, the chemical weapons attack on Ghouta in August of 2013, killing 1,300 people, was most definitely led by the Syrian regime.

Currently, the exactitude of this chemical weapons list remains under scrutiny until official reports from the OPCW confirm its validity. In the meantime, many alternative scenarios could be underway in yet another attempt by the Syrians to evade discoveries of possibly hidden chemical artillery. Syria could ship weapons to another undisclosed location since there have been reports in August of 2013 of the Syrians moving weapons to an outside location. Bashar al-Assad could order his chemical weapons to be shipped to allies in the outside regions in order to elude his stockpile from undergoing complete destruction.

North Korea perhaps?
 

 

 

 

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ATHEIST AMERICA
by Learus Ohnine

When Colonial America was initially established, the majority of European settlers brought with them their strongly upheld religious beliefs in God with the intent to develop these thirteen territories into a Christian Nation. For this reason, very few challenged the religious beliefs of our Founding Fathers in conjunction with their shared beliefs on how Colonial America should be governed. In a formal letter written by our Founding Fathers to the English King, better know as "The Declaration of Independence", an attempt to repudiate from the idea that the power to govern the people comes from the term "God" as depicted in a biblical sense by radically differentiating this spiritual entity with the term "Divine Providence", which is also a term commonly used in Deism practices.

Over the years, the religious identification of America has become remarkably questionable as the number of religiously diversified foreigners migrating into United States began to rise. According to a 2008 survey reported by the American Religious Identification System (ARIS), 34% out of 303,202,683 people who make up the American population considered themselves as having no religious affiliation. In 2012, that same percentage of Americans who claimed to have no religious affiliations, or were either Atheist or Agnostic, increased by 6%. Out of the approximate 20,000,000 Americans who fall under the non-religious category, an overwhelming 5,000,000 American citizens were accounted for as Atheists.

Numerous Atheist groups have continued to grow over the years, challenging traditional laws by petitioning for their rights to be upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court. By supporting their legal claims with the concept of "the separation of church and state" in order to make major changes to accommodate those of a non-religious affiliation, many Atheist have made drastic changes within America's society in their attempts to convert the United States into an Atheistic country. In 1963, the American Atheist group was founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hare after she petitioned the United States Supreme Court to abolish state-mandated prayer and bible readings in public schools. In 2005, the Godless American Political Committee, or GAPAC, was founded in order to enforce the constitutional rights of the Atheist community to endorse political candidates, oppose Christmas being a federal holiday, and eliminating any mention of God on U.S. currency or in the Pledge of Allegiance. The most recent attempt by the Atheist community to eliminate anything representative of a religious nature is signified by their 2011 lawsuit claiming the 9/11 iconic cross-shaped steel beam display located in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum is a violating of their constitutional rights, stating the cross is "grossly offensive".

However, with Kim Jong's nuclear threats still held in "limbo" along with the recent events unfolding in Syria, would it be wise to kick God completely out of America and convert us into an Atheistic country at this point?

 

 

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CHILDREN: CHOICE VS. CERTAINTY
by Heidi Dougherty

More and more adults are opting out of parenthood these days with plenty of reasons to cite, and the backfire from media and some educational communities is mind-boggling. Earlier this year in Newsweek, in an article entitled “Where Have All the Babies Gone?” Joel Kotkin and Harry Siegel bash younger generation Americans who choose not to have children as selfish, going on to question the health of the entire generation. Alluding to the extinction of the family unit and dependence on the state, the two write, “…the lack of productive screwing could further be screwing the screwed generation.”

This blunt and even vulgar statement comes from a very limited view. The pair, and millions of others, sees the act of having children as a compulsory rite of passage versus a choice to provide and share life with another, looking down on women that choose not to reproduce. Having children should absolutely be a choice, especially in America where we are supposed to cherish free will and freedom from oppression. The choice to remain childless is an admirable one, as it has to be made against the odds of great social pressure and stereotype.

Younger people who do not have children should not be dubbed by society as selfish and irresponsible, just because they choose not to take on the responsibility of having children. Abdication of one responsibility does not necessarily mean surrender of others, including family, friends, and career. Childless women in America tend to be the highly educated and successful, not the alternative. The equal opportunity revolution for women has allowed them to gain successful careers, and the postponing or choosing not to have children outright is one of the consequences of that revolution.

The financial concerns of having children are also at play. According to some sources, raising a child in a middle-income family for 17 years now costs about $235,000. With the soaring cost of living, lack of job growth, and absurdly high education costs, having children is a daunting undertaking.

One of the main issues the authors from Newsweek bring up is the association between the choice to remain childless and the disintegration of the family unit. There is no causation here. The high divorce rate and absence of family values is at the heart of familial fragmentation, not the choice of some not to reproduce.

These are complex times, and the issues in our country are not so easily attributed to the choice to remain childless. One thing, however, is certain: There will always be women who choose to have children, despite the risks, burdens, and uncertainties. One cannot choose for others, only for oneself; this choice should be made without societal prejudice. For some women, having children is life’s highest achievement. For others, it is one option among many in a country of opportunity. And while there may be minute population decline in some countries, the issue should be seen in the larger context of an overwhelming worldwide population of over 7 billion souls.

 

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EDUCATIONAL RISKS
by Learus Ohnine

Consumers want the most from their dollars, both earned and spent, as we continue to advance to the next level of achieving an economic equilibrium in the midst of a national economic crisis. This means businesses will naturally become more competitive and collaborative, thereby necessitating the recruitment of qualified educated individuals to meet productivity demands. Consequently, the chances of employment will selectively be given preference to those candidates who possess the highest level of education possible for every position. Postsecondary education becomes cardinal for educating tomorrow's leaders, however, the rising costs of a quality education may outweigh the benefits of having one.

According to the latest reports on CollegeData.com subsequent for the 2012-2013 academic year (fall through spring), the average tuition cost to attend an in-state public college is $22,261 and $43,289 for a private institution. This does not include expenses incurred for housing, meals, books and supplies, personal and transportation. Depending on the student's major, all costs may be significantly higher than previously quoted. According to the "U.S. News & World Report", the positive side to these tuition quotes is that some colleges have already announced they will freeze their tuition rates for the 2013-2014 academic year, thereby allowing better financial planning for those paying out-of-pocket for these expenses. However, the more prestigious universities have already announced an increase in tuition rates that equal more than a $3,000 difference per academic year.

For those students having to rely on the federal government to pay a majority of (or partially for) their college education, the Congressional Budget Office announced earlier this year that drastic cuts will have to be made to the Pell grant program in order to offset a $1.4 billion deficit predicted for the 2015 fiscal year. This means having to impose stricter eligibility and academic requirements as well as reducing the amount awarded to each eligible participant. Furthermore, this will force the reduction of the amount of prospective students being eligible to enroll in a postsecondary institution by 40%.

This leaves prospective students with only one other alternative to meet their education expenses: student loans. In August of 2013, President Barack Obama signed legislation passed by Congress approving the increased student loan interest rates for all variations of student loans, except for the Perkins Loan. Student loans have a repayment grace period of 6 months after graduation, cessation of attendance, or whenever the borrower drops below half-time enrollment status. Given the average enrollment time to complete a degree that will give a college graduate the competitive edge in today's job market is 4 years or more, the amount of financial debt owed to the federal government by the borrower could mean having to use a majority of their salary to repay this debt for several years. For some, it may mean a lifetime.

Although most profitable and worthwhile occupations require applicants to have a college education, another requirement for applicants is tangible experience. This takes time and can force a graduate to have to settle for a salary much lower than what they are actually worth. Companies falling by the wayside from the pressures of an enormously competitive economy may be forced to downsize. Ironically, downsizing holds no discrimination regardless of how educated an individual is. Meanwhile, all debts incurred while achieving that education must be repaid regardless of the future outcome of one's career path.

Conclusively, is a college education still worth the increasing costs and student loans? It will be IF you remember to choose carefully, invest wisely, and keep an open mind no matter what kind of educational risk is taken.

 

 

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THE LAST CHANGE I EVER HAD TO MAKE
by Heidi Dougherty

“Who we are never changes. Who we think we are does.” – Mary Almanac

I had always fought change. I got a tattoo once that says “I am what I am” just so that when I did socially unacceptable or disappointing things, an inevitable excuse was near by. To change my bad habits, my eating patterns, even my furniture arrangement was difficult, mostly because I was fearful of the unknown. I used to think everyone was. Yet I look at my life recently, and there has been a lot of change.

Not long ago, I let go of a long-term, passionate affair with alcohol that affected all areas of my life. This seemed like a big enough change that I would be all set for a while. I started to enjoy the benefits of a healthier lifestyle: steady job, rejuvenated social relationships, and less drama all around.

What I am starting to discover, however, is that change without maintenance is like no change at all. Often times, change needs to be systemic; each change cannot occur in a vacuum. Whether we like it or not, change, though it may appear to come one small adjustment at a time, is the greatest and most constant force in our lives.

The last change I ever had to make was in realizing that life in its entirety is about constant change. We change so we can grow as individuals. We change in order to acclimate to other inevitable changes. Change is a frightening word for most people. It removes us from our comfort zones, and drives us into the unknown. But it also forces us to continuously reinvent ourselves or willfully make the choice to stay the same.

Some days I am resistant, and old patterns surface. Other days I effortlessly embrace the new person I am becoming with complete surrender to the old me. Change is a process, one by which is very painful at times. But as scared as I am to face changes in my life…remaining stagnant is even scarier.
 

 

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THE TRAGIC TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA
by Learus Ohnine

One of the most favorites of popular fads these days are the social media networks. A majority of electronic devices (desktops, laptops, cell phones, etc.) are already installed with pre-loaded apps for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms before they leave the manufactures. These media platforms are a great source for entertainment purposes, keeping up-to-date on the latest news and events, networking, playing online games, and staying in touch with friends and family. While this social media epidemic appears to be meekly harmless fun on the forefront, there have been reports of it becoming a severe unhealthy addiction for some, especially when that addiction teeters on the avenue of gross negligence.

A South Korean couple was arrested and charged with starving their three-month-old daughter to death while they obsessively devoted a majority of their waking hours into playing an online role-playing game, Prius Online, whose main objective was to raise a virtual baby girl. The couple seemed to have slipped into an overwhelming depressive state of mind due to their sudden unemployment status and the reality of giving birth to a premature baby girl. Obviously, their uncontrollable addiction to this role-playing game was a remedy for escaping their own reality. The tragedy of their willfully negligent behavior became more of an irreparable reality than the one they have imagined was necessary to escape from.

A 28-year-old New Mexico mother was convicted of second degree murder and child abandonment for the negligent death of her three-year-old daughter. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be starvation, with traces of cat liter in her digestive system. FBI agents assigned to the investigation were astonished to find a computer located in the home which showed continuous online activity from noon until 3am on the day of the child's death. During her trial, the remorseful mother admitted to spending countless hours online playing the fantasy role playing game "World of Warcraft".

Some parents joyously spend hours at the computer updating their facebook and twitter statuses of their children's playful antics, milestone developments, and proud photos of their playful antics. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It is only when this devotion to any social media platform begins to alter one's state of mind whereas they are no longer able to distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality is when intervention not only becomes imperative, it becomes an urgent life or death emergency.
 

 

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GOOD LEADERSHIP
by Learus Ohnine

Being in a position of leadership should only be reserved for those who can handle the pressures and conformities that go along with being in a position of power. Not everyone who desires to be a leader possess the qualities essential to fit that position. Understanding what makes for a good leader is the first step in acquiring those unique set of skills, as it assures potential followers a level of confidence in their decision to adhere to the authority of a good leader's administered guidance.

Below are a few examples of what traits makes for a good leader:

1. Modest 2. Respectful 3. Cooperative 4. Trustworthy 5. High standards of personal ethics 6. Resilient to defeat 7. Able to productively work under pressure

A majority of high-prolific leaders are located within the political system. History has shown many political candidates who may have been prolifically qualified to run for a political office have indeed failed at winning the victory. Although their charismatic demeanor and charm may have been enough to win over the public's support to be nominated, those traits alone were not enough to win them the official seat in the office. What determines whether or not a politician will make a good leader is if they meet all the criteria mentioned above, and that in itself can only be reflective of their performance after they have been officially elected.

Take for example the collaborative efforts of three political officials on the east coast of the United States: Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. All three officials were faced with the Hurricane Sandy crisis when the tropical storm made landfall over their region in October of 2012. 89% of NYC voters voted in favor of Christie's emergency response efforts, followed by 85% in favor of Cuomo's, and 75% in favor of Bloomberg's. All three men were notified of this oncoming storm at the same, however, their approaches in handling this emergency were vastly different.

Although the above mentioned politicians are basically responsible for maintaining only one state in a crisis situation, a bigger responsibility lies in the hands of a good leader who has to maintain a country. U.S. President Barack Obama has recently been rumored to be handling the Syrian crisis in the same manner as his predecessor, former U.S. President George W. Bush. Bush declared the war in Iraq, and Obama is leaning towards declaring war in Syria. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Bush's response efforts have been placed under a microscope numerous times, and many questions have been raised by suspicious activities concerning his involvement in the planned attacks. And now, many fear Obama may be falling in his footsteps.

But let's throw away all the conspiracy theorists' viewpoints on each major catastrophic event in the news over the past decade or so, and let the public decide. Do you feel your state is better off than it was before or after the current political leaders were elected into office? Do you feel your country is better off now with the current president in office or when the previous one was elected?

Remember: every opinion, and vote, does count...

 

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DRASTIC MEASURES OF SELF-DEFENSE
by Heidi Dougherty

“The only thing to fear is fear itself.”- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fear, it is a necessary but unpleasant evil. Fear exists to protect and defend us against harmful things and does so brilliantly most of the time, with our fight or flight response. Sometimes, though, we can fear things that would normally soothe us, including the positive aspects of a relationship like unconditional love. Some with these fears have been deeply hurt before. Others are consumed by crippling catastrophic thinking, i.e. "it is inevitable that this will not last." Still others perceive harsh judgment from their partner, and have little or no self-esteem because of it.

For whatever reason, those who unintentionally push people away can usually trace this behavior by a laundry list of casualties. All of them want intimacy, but few ever find it. It is only the strong of heart and mind that stick around. Here are a few things that I wish someone told me before I started pushing the people away that I have needed most as a child.
 
1.) Just because one or a select few people have hurt you does not mean everyone will. 

There are a lot of bad people out there, yes, but there are also a lot of good ones. Give people a chance before you write them off as having bad intentions. Be mindful of the normal warning signs for danger, yes, but make sure they are legitimate. Also, do not search for things to be distrustful of.
 
2.) Not all people judge you as harshly as you judge yourself. 
 
Many of us are so hard on ourselves and actually believe other people will or do judge us as "less than,” and find us as unsuitable partners. Where there is little self-esteem, there cannot be a healthy relationship. I will say this, and cannot stress it enough: You must love yourself before you can love anyone else. And if you do not now, you will, if you want to and work at it.
 
3.) How do you expect other people not to abandon you if you are abandoning them first?
 
You are not doing the other person a favor by saving them from getting to know you. Make sure you are not doing the same things the person/people who hurt you are doing. Always keep yourself in check with this.
 
4.) Be on the lookout for your own subconscious motives.
 
Remember that the human subconscious is a mysterious thing, and it affects behavior. Sometimes when a strong feeling like anger comes out of the blue and you find yourself picking a fight with your partner over something you think is legitimate, be wary. This may be a form of self-sabotage that you have become accustomed to.
 
5.) Try to live in the moment.

If you are fixated on what has happened in the past in relationships or are stuck on how things could possibly go wrong, then you are not living in the moment. Take a few deep breaths, practice meditation, or get in touch with a spiritual leader. Do something in the “now” to bring you back to present.

It is not surprising, because bad things happen to good people sometimes, that some want to shun real human connection for fear of getting hurt…again. Pushing people away, however, is not a proper solution to protecting ourselves from pain, and it fosters violence to self and others. Love and trust will remedy hurt much better than distrust and isolation.
 

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INFORMATION AGE REVOLUTION
by Learus Ohnine

Everyone who utilizes the internet have their own individualistic purposes for doing so. Some use it mainly for gaming, some for social networking, and some use the internet to conduct their personal or professional business. A majority of internet users take full advantage of its many available "How-To" resources for researching anything from mechanics to technology itself, or in other words, anything that will enlarge, enhance, or expand their knowledge of a particular subject.

With the way the "Information Age" has transformed the way we learn, evidence shows our learning is not only exclusive to tradition classroom learning. For example, two exceptionally intellectual teenaged individuals have made great strides in their contributions to science by creatively putting in motion the knowledge they have acquired from their usage of the internet. Jack Andraka, a high school student better known as the "teen prodigy of pancreatic cancer", won the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Gordon E. Moore Award for his invention used to detect the early warning signs of pancreatic cancer. Ann Makosinski, a 15-year old student known for her invention she calls a "hollow thermoelectric flashlight" that transforms body heat into energy. Coupled with traditional classroom learning, both teens utilized the resources available on the internet to do both researching and marketing of their ingenious inventions.

The internet has proven to change the way we think, the way we live, and the way society will revolutionize as a whole. As time moves on and technology advances, the expansion of knowledge being learned and shared on the internet will be infinite.
 

 

 

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EVOLUTION OF THE DAMNED
by Heidi Dougherty

‘‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”- Matthew 15:7-9

Where a narrow world,
in all its absurdity,
offers no measure of reason to mankind,
the group clings to pretense,
and become a mass of the blind.

A place where the things bemoaned
are the very things possessed.
now the pharisees are brought to trial by God
for perjury and theft.

“Do not bother testifying for your fellows,
on behalf of their claims;
you will be charged with high treason as will
your neighbors, Hell’s flames.”

So on to a prison,
worse then that from which they came,
religion’s oppression beat them senseless,
while sober skills did they gain.

The birth of the emotive,
through the ending of sick minds.
Here, deceit has died out, as did resentments,
and distrust of the kind.

So heed this warning, friends,
here’s a word from the once wise,
if you’ve slipped through the cracks of your current prison,
be sure to get baptized.

 

 

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JUNIOR
by Heidi Dougherty

Hair still a dramatic blonde chaos from the bed, 
I stop the car like
a clad schoolgirl who covers herself from feverish glares
Up the stairs and into her skirt.
 
It was a well-oiled machine,
this place. How bizarre!
Teenage boys who just got their licenses,
boiler makers and librarians,
moms with newborns, old men with walkers,
fingering the products in wonderment, giggling over these
overwhelming feces of
a multi-billion dollar blowup doll of Jenna Jameson.
  
Overpriced fashion garments
and 70s platform shoes,
the kind that you see worn in those places that have names like
Candy’s and Stiletto’s call out to me.
The images jump from their film covers and pump a pink throbbing blush to
my bones, my dolls, my imaginary friends,
my father calling me his little girl.

 

 

 

 

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HOW FAR IS TOO FAR?
by Learus Ohnine

In light of the recent worldwide travel alert warnings of potential terrorist attacks issued by the U.S. State Department, issues surround the risks posed manly on the safety of Americans or its allies have, once again, become a major top concern. Seeing as the season is not over yet for vacationers and tourists, some have come to think just how far is considered too far to protect our country.

Take for instance the controversy over whether or not Edward Snowden, former employee for the National Security Agency, did the right thing by leaking classified information that should have been kept confidential as to how the United States finds out what goes on behind closed doors. Since this worldwide terrorist alert has been issued, many who viewed this as the United States engaging in unconstitutional behavior have changed from animosity to appreciation.

The events of September 11, 2001 have without a doubt left a serious impact on just how far terrorists will go to make a statement. With no holds barred as being their personal mission statement, it would seem feasible that we as Americans take the same stance by whatever means necessary to ensure we do not suffer the same catastrophic event ever again. But is that really possible?

Apparently, it is possible. Intelligence officials claim to have evidence supporting a possible terrorist attack to occur from now until the end of August, thereby putting embassies and public transportation systems on high alert. By announcing this recent finding, this let's all terrorist groups know "we are on to them", however, that does not guarantee their possible plan of attack will cease; they could change their strategy.

Should we protect our nation by any means necessary? Absolute, thanks to this so-called "infringement on our privacy" technique. We may not appreciate whatever those necessary means are, especially if it includes infringing on our privacy. If there was ever a choice to be made, many U.S. citizens can be rest assured nothing can ultimately replace their lives once lost if sacrificing our privacy means preserving our freedom and peace of mind.
 

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OVERSPENT
by Heidi Dougherty

It is not just the spending of the U.S. government that is highly dysfunctional, but also the spending of the American people. Although the ambitious acquisition of money and goods is not a novel concept, it has reached unsustainable levels. Fifty-two percent of Americans now spend more than they earn, yet a big portion of those people are still dissatisfied with their sometimes six-figure incomes and always feel like they need more. The question is: why are we, as a society not satisfied with what we have?

Shopping has become a stressful activity for the masses.  Too much emphasis is placed on external manifestations of success…status symbols. The American middle-class strives to drive Mercedes and carry Prada bags. In the eyes of the public, if you drive a nice car, you are worth more as a person. A Paralegal from Hackensack, New Jersey describes the rush she gets from spending money, “Once one gets attention from status symbols like cars and nice clothes, the attainment of that attention is like a hunger that is never satisfied. For the moment, “retail therapy” makes one feel better, filling an emotional void.” This void could range anywhere from lack of direction in one’s life to chaotic relationships.

Romanticizing the perceived American “high life” of millionaires has become a way of life, catapulting millions into debt and bankruptcy.  The reckless acquirement of goods has become an all-out addiction like over-eating and alcoholism, and the emotional tolls are many.

In “What I Learned From My Mother’s Overspending,” Hava Buchanan describes what it was like growing up on the other end of obsessive spending.  Although some weeks her family had hardly enough money for food, Hava would be often surprised with piles and piles of new clothes that her mother had bought for her to wear. “It felt empty,” Hava describes, “like she was using me as her clothing model for things she couldn’t wear. I wore the clothes she bought [not because I liked them, but] because she made me feel guilty if I didn’t.” Later in life, with emotional issues, Hava herself becomes a victim to the spending addiction, but has since recovered, although there were many lost jobs and relationships in the progress.

Some responsibility can be placed on the government here. A government that refuses to acknowledge the impact of annual trillion dollar deficits sends a message to the populous that deficit spending is ok. People cannot print money, although governments can, and when the bubble bursts, the damage to individuals is irreversible. If Americans, especially the ones living comfortably, can learn to appreciate what they already have, it may become less important to compulsively attain new things.

 

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WHO DO WE BLAME?
by Learus Ohnine

Raising a child in this day and age can be stressful. Most parents concern themselves with protecting their children from the harmful elements that may endanger their child's physical growth, such as keeping current with vaccinations, proper nutritional planning, and instructing exemplary hygiene practices. Taking a child's physical well-being seriously is commendable, however, it will not guarantee a child's healthy state of mind. Children need to be protected from exposure to the more potentially dangerous influences in their environment that can easily be misconstrued as harmless.

Television and video games, a popular form of entertainment among adolescent males and females today, may appear to be harmless at first, but they most certainly do have some sort of negative impact on a child's psychological health, especially if the theme focuses on the complexity of violence. Television programs today do not contain the same censored quality as the programs of yesterday once had. As time moves on, the level of violence seen in these programs have become exceedingly more violent, more vulgar, and more corrupt as this seems to be what generates the highest ratings. Video games allow the players to become one with their characters with more hands-on interaction than television offers. However, becoming one with a character whose goal is to successfully conquer a series of violent scenarios by using violent techniques in order to win runs a risk of programming a child's mind to believe the most effective way to win in life is by the use of violence.

Some say the solution to preventing exposure to violent mediums is by monitoring what a child is exposed to. While this method may be effective to some degree, it is not a sound proof method to the fullest. Internet access has parental control loopholes where children can easily slip through restrictions to gain access to violent video games, movies, and television programs. While one parent may show great concern for the content their child has access to, another parent may not. Children sharing violent resources amongst their peers has become a common method of ensuing the circulation of violent content.

Is there any hope in discovery a method to prevent adolescences from being exposed to violence? One option that may be effective is to set the example. Since children do indeed learn by example, we as adults must consider our own behavior before we can address theirs. The slightest detail that we may overlook as influential may have a profound impact on any psychological war our children face when managing the right choices for their own behavior.
 

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THE BOOK OF DISBELIEF
by Heidi Dougherty

It’s one of the age-old questions: Is there a God, some higher power in the universe who reigns over us and gives us strength? For thousands of years, religion has attempted to answer this question with presumptive authority. According to the Sunday congregation of the non-profit Humanist Community at Harvard University, the answer is, emphatically, “No.” That doesn’t stop them, however, from having group meetings in a chapel to discuss atheism and spread their way of life in “atheist activism.”

While there have been groups devoted to Humanist and atheistic togetherness, none compare to this. Founder Greg Epstein comments, “We decided recently that we want to use the word congregation more and more often because that is a word that strongly evokes a certain kind of community - a really close knit, strong community that can make strong change happen in the world.”

The meetings seem the very picture of a traditional religious service, with contemplative music, chaplains, and serious discussion. Each gathering encourages a strong message on compassion, evolution or acceptance. Besides their common lack of belief in a God, Humanists feel that organized religion may sometimes do more harm than good. For example, religion does not necessarily promote ethical conduct. Epstein clarifies, “We can learn from the positive [of religion] while learning how to get rid of the negative.” Not believing in God and organized religion should not hinder the teachings of good life lessons and a feeling of togetherness, according to the Humanists.

What does the public think about this? One older religious woman, enraged, responds, “It’s backward. Why don’t they just stick to their convictions and not practice some pseudo-religion? What it is at a basic level is just people pretending. So as long as they know they are pretending to be something that they are not, I am fine with it.”

Others have a much different view. One atheistic man reacts, “If they want to meet and spread advice and happiness in a way without endorsing religion, fine. I am a very happy atheist. I find comfort in it. I imagine, however, that many atheists do not and might therefore find it beneficial to have the community this organization offers to those who do not have the “guidance” of a religion.”

In a place where truth is controlled by reason and evidence, can there still exist a transcendent dimension to life? In this new movement, a creed of disbelief in God does not equal nihilism, or the refusal to believe in anything, including love, community togetherness, and compassion. Whether or not people agree with it, the movement is building and this new hope in disbelief is spreading like wildfire.
 

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THE PROMISE OF SUMMER
by Learus Ohnine

Out of the 4 seasons of the year, summer is the one that seems to be the most anticipated. Families plan memorable vacations to unknown or familiar territories. Those working within the construction, landscaping, or any of the outdoor-related occupations are sure to have big smiles throughout the entire duration of the season as favorable weather permits them to line their pockets with extra cash. Many teachers look forward to taking that long paid break from the classroom, while students from all educational levels have a chance to either get ahead on their studies or catch up on what they've already missed throughout the previous school year.

There's a psychological transformation that takes place with the anticipation of the upcoming summer months each year, usually right after the winter holidays. Most of us begin an exercise regimen that puts us in a frame of mind to achieve a desired physique by the time we want to wear our favorite summer outfits. Financial preparation for our vacation expenses normally begins anywhere from weeks to months after the previous summer season is over or prior to the new one beginning. This could mean anywhere from picking up a second job or to adhering to a tighter budget plan. Students spend more time studying during the final semester before summer begins in order to eliminate having to use a majority of their time off in summer school. Depending on one's occupation, refresher courses help with the transition back into the workforce or courses are completed with the sole purpose of qualifying for a promotion.

So what about the lessons learned from summers of the past? Those annoying flight layovers at the airport on the way to a vacation destination can be used to one's advantage with just a little imagination and careful scheduling coordination. While speaking of imagination, exploring various indoor facilities for entertainment and enjoyment ahead of time can offset disappointment when the summer weather does not always turn as favorable as expected to enjoy the outdoors. Deciding which goals are most important can help free up a lot more time in order to get the most out of summer fun, such as deciding whether or not catching each and every episode of your favorite nighttime drama television series at the moment it airs is more important than spending that time taking a much needed night class at your local community college instead of having to take it over the summer months.

No matter how we choose to spend our time, our money, or utilize our resources, there's nothing like entering the summer months psychologically prepared to enjoy it to its fullest.
 

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THE LOVE DRUG
by Heidi Dougherty

“Tired of the lack of intimacy between you and your partner? Does distrust dominate the relationship, making you unable to connect to your significant other in any substantial way?  Then make the decision to better life, not only for yourself, but also for your partner. Now available intravenously at your family doctor: the Love Drug. Come get struck by Cupid’s Arrow today, it is sure to cure moral deficiencies, lack of trust between partners, and all sexual dissatisfaction.”

This is all too familiar in an advertisement for Oxytocin, a hormone occurring naturally at low doses, now available in an ingestible spray and IV. Sound too good to be true? That is because, like many other pharmaceuticals that boast a big game, it is.

It has been flaunted as “the most incredible molecule on the planet” by io9 for its tendency to boost fellowship and intimacy. Yet this view on the “moral molecule” is overly simplistic; for every benefit of the synthesized hormone there is a significant risk to be had. Most alarmingly, it can produce opposite effects in people. It may promote trust and intimacy in some situations, but can amplify envy and anger in others. While it has been shown to strengthen human connectedness, this usually only applies to a person’s own inner circle. Ethnocentricity is common, and a landmark study of Dutch participants on the hormone shows a vast increase in bias to other cultures. The warm feelings Oxytocin produces are not toward the world at large. Other side effects include postpartum hemorrhage, hallucinations, breathing that stops, and water intoxication resulting in coma.

What lengths are we willing to take to save a relationship, even when that relationship may be better on the back burner or ended completely? The Love Drug is a quick-fix to some not so elementary problems in relationships: real or imagined distrust, the absence of affection, and moral follies including affairs. These issues take time and passionate hard work to resolve, if there is to be any meaningful and lasting progress made between a couple. Perhaps counseling would help, or taking a step back to focus on improved interpersonal communication and the expression of needs. And sometimes, no matter how painful, the best medicine for a hurting relationship is abstinence from it for a period or for good. Sometimes taking space or a break-up can prove to be beneficial to both parties, and can actually strengthen the relationship, bringing it to a new depth and level of understanding. 

The Love Drug craze is just another societal fad. It is expensive, and results are based on narrow research and biased views. Boost your relationship, and your levels of Oxytocin naturally. Spend more time with your partner, get to know their quirks and subtleties. Learn everything about their being that makes them who they are. Hug them, and be hugged… You never know when it will be your last.
 

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TRAITOR OR HERO?
by Learus Ohnine

There's a difference between knowing the truth, telling the truth, and knowing when to tell the truth. Apparently for Snowden, there was a fine line between all those differences. His intention to inform those of what he felt they needed to know verses his pledge of secrecy to the U.S. government for what he wished he didn't know has taken a drastic turn for the worse on his behalf and the behalf of the whole world; all because he told the truth. While Snowden had something very important to say, the government had something very important to hide.

The United States is going to hold Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, accountable for espionage whether he likes it or not. Running halfway around the world, being detained at Moscow's Sheremedevo International Airport because his passport has been cancelled, and desperately pleading to 27 countries to be granted political asylum does not change the fact that he is guilty of leaking classified documentation about U.S. surveillance programs; a huge no-no as far as the U.S. officials are concerned.

So what's the hold up on getting this guy granted his asylum? The problem with every country that Snowden has applied for asylum to has to consider whether or not taking in a fugitive will jeopardize the economic relationship each one has with the United States. Venezuela made $56 billion last year off of exports and imports between the United States and is the country's fourth largest supplier of imported crude oil. Bolivia made close to $2.4 billion last year in exports and imports with the United States. Not only did Nicaragua earned more than $3.8 billion last year in exports and imports between the United States, but the United States also gives Nicaragua special trade preferences.

Would Snowden be considered a hero or a traitor? No matter where the guy seeks his safe haven, there's going to be a "cause and effect" with the way that nation does business with the United States, which will eventually have another domino effect on our economy that we'll have to deal with. On the other hand, what he did actually opened the eyes of a lot of Americans still wondering why hasn't anyone done anything about the sex-trafficking issue if all means of telecommunications are supposedly being "watched." However, in the words of Edward Snowden himself: "I am neither a traitor nor a hero. I'm an American."

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A PERFECT MESS
by Heidi Dougherty

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”- Albert Einstein

Not long ago, I surveyed a random sampling, asking “What is the one thing that you wish your parents had told you growing up and didn’t?” The responses were included “that life is not easy or fair” and other things from “that women don’t like nice guys” to “love this moment because it is all that we have.”

The most common response, which jumped out at me: I wish my parents told me that it was OK to make mistakes. Our culture is always trying to be perfect; we need to have the perfect body, career, kids, etc. Whether we were not told that we were good, fast, or smart enough or it seems to be ingrained, perfectionism is a destructive coping mechanism that leads to depression and constant self-deprecation. Unlike a healthy ambition to do one’s best, perfectionism comes with unattainable personal expectation. We all know it is impossible to be perfect, and for those trying to attain perfection, life is filled with self-loathing.

I know this because I was a hardcore perfectionist. Developing as a small child, my perfectionism ruled my life. If I got a 98 on a test, it was not good enough - it was not a hundred. If I got 2nd place at a national swimming competition, I became a bad sport because I did not get 1st place. It got worse and worse each year until I had an emotional breakdown and had to be relieved of stress completely for time.

Making mistakes is human, and having the willingness to do so and the self-confidence to accept the consequences is honorable. Perfectionism falsely protects us from shame and embarrassment over much-needed mistakes and makes it easy to point the finger at others for personal faults.

Mistake-making is a vital learning tool, helping us mature emotionally, professionally, romantically, and the list goes on. Accepting and learning from a mistake allows for understanding whereas non-acceptance of a mistake allows only for private castigation.  In his book, Brilliant Mistakes, Paul Shoemaker writes off the premise that 99% of successes come from failures. Because mistakes are invaluable, he finds it baffling that the act of making mistakes has such a negative connotation. He argues that companies should plan on making mistakes, that the mistakes must be learned from, and that mistake-making should be promoted.

Maybe I’m not twenty-seven with a corporation like Yahoo under my belt, and today I’m OK with that. Five years ago, on the other hand, I would have been filled with self-hate over the seeming temporary loss of personal drive. Through determination and a desire to be healthy, I accepted the fact that I was not perfect. It was when I came to this realization that I started to have a better life.
 

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LOSS OF LOVE
by Jimmy Smith

Have you ever thought that the girl/guy who just broke up with you was the love of your life? As though you couldn’t imagine going on without them. Why did they break up with me? If they could just see me, they would want me back for sure. Your heart is then left with lonely silence.

 

As children, we grow up hearing about this thing called loved. But we only know what the movies tell us. If she breaks up with me, I can stand outside her house with a boombox and get her back. If he breaks up with me, I can make him jealous by going out with his friend. Then you meet that special someone, or worse off, lose that special someone, and you don’t know what to do.

 

Have you ever thought that maybe they left because they weren’t the one? Well, maybe eventually, but right after it happened? The movies don’t prepare us for that. If we love ourselves, we will shine, and the one meant to be, will find our light. Or, we can think every pretty face who has some interest in us is the one, and face that cold lonely silence when they are not.

 

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TEXTING AND DRIVING: THE NEW RUSSIAN ROULETTE
by Heidi Dougherty

It’s everywhere. Moms with small children do it, as do senior citizens. It is especially common in teenagers. Texting and driving. The new killer, which has replaced drunken driving as the leading cause of death for teenagers, makes a crash up to twenty-three times more likely. Surprisingly or not, reported the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2012, driving while texting is six times more dangerous than driving while drunk at a .08 blood alcohol level.

Why is it that despite over 1.6 million accidents caused each year by texting in a moving vehicle, we don’t seem to comprehend that injury and death is on the other end of our messages? With arrest and license suspension as the consequence for drunk driving, Americans have learned to view that offense as indecent. It has only been recently that states are cracking down on driving while “intexticated” with fines and citations, which will hopefully spark a change in the social norms involved. In New Jersey, citations have recently more than doubled, and the money collected will go in part towards educating the public on the dangers involved in using a cellular device behind the wheel.

I asked the community what their views on texting and driving are. One man was perplexed, “In a time where everything is about instant gratification I don’t understand why we choose to text a conversation that we don’t get an immediate response to? Make the call when you arrive safely at your destination.” What’s scary is that Americans, especially younger Americans, actually do expect a response within seconds. A couple friends recently have confessed to me that my lack of immediate response to their texts has become a big pet peeve of theirs. My response: I have not, and I will not be a constant prisoner to my phone. The relentless communication that now exists in our country needs to be tempered with a little peace and quiet and mindfulness of what we are doing in the moment. Especially when some communication now carries the risk of serious injury.

Another annoyed source asks, “What is SO important that it can’t wait until your vehicle is parked?” That is usually what the survivors of loved ones involved in fatal texting accidents ask, never getting an acceptable answer. Whether we are just asking about dinner plans as we slow down towards a light or responding to angry parents, there should be no excuse for texting and driving. When I saw an acquaintance with a young child in the car texting, I lost my cool. To take that much risk with someone else’s life should be punished. What do you think?
 

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ROLE MODELS
by Learus Ohnine

Every parent wants their child to have one. Not just any one, but the best one there is. Some of us still hold on to the one we originally had as a child, and still cherish the day we found it throughout our entire lives. It may even be safe to say it's ingrained in our nature to seek out a least one of these. All of us at some point of our lives will have had at least one or more, but there's nothing more disappointing than finding out the one we have is not all that its cracked up to be.

What we're talking about here are role models. A role model can be defined as someone you look up to; someone you admire for their achievements, triumphs, goals, etc., or in short, someone with whom you would like to mirror their image. The behavior of a role model should exhibit a set of examples for others to follow. For example, when a child has dreams of one day becoming a famous fashion designer, pictures of Donatella Versace's work may be something found plastered all the child's bedroom walls along with article clippings of magazine interviews highlighting every detail of this designer's life. The same goes for a child who has dreams of becoming an actor/actress, a model, and so on. Admiring the work that someone is known for being famous for seems harmless at first, and also quite inspiring to the young learner indeed. However, this is also one major reason why parents need to show great concern if their child's role model is rumored to be involved in less than desirable behaviors.

Over the past 100 years or so, it seems the quality of role models has declined greatly, especially in the world of sports. There has been so much controversy publicized by the media today to the extent where it not only discredits the athlete, but it also undermines the athlete's integrity by which the individual appeared to have used in order to achieve their victories. Athletic icons of the past such as Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Jordan were all portrayed as genuine highly-skilled athletes whose only "less than desirable" behaviors included reckless gambling, draft evasion, and profiting without conscious.

Nowadays, a majority of global athletic heroes are constantly under scrutiny for steroid usage abuse to the point where their reputation will forever be tarnished as well as their career. Jose Conseco has said he regrets writing his book on the abuse of steroid usage in sports because it exposed a truth that had major adverse effects on his career as well as those of his fellow team players. Chris Benoit was involved in a double murder-suicide role when he killed his wife, his 7-year-old son, and himself while suffering from brain damage due to his steroid usage. This opened the doors for a federal investigation into steroid abuse in the world of sports. While some athletes don't deny their usage and have actually been convicted as being guilty and disciplined for it, many have been innocently accused and also suffer from having the same murky reputation as the ones whose names really do deserved to be smudged.

With a lack of athletic role models available to play in the lives of today's youth, should sports be put on the endangered species list of careers for the sake of preserving our fragile youth? Sports should be fun and engaging as well as provide a healthy dose of competitive entertainment to win, but not at someone else's expense, which is exactly the impression we get from today's athletic role models.

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THE GOOD OLD DAYS GONE BAD
by Learus Ohnine

Over the years, each generation seems to have progressively declined in stature versus ingenuity. When we think of the "good old days" of growing up as a child, we think of waking up early every Saturday morning to watch our favorite cartoons, drinking tap water from the garden hose on a hot summer day, frantically rushing to stand at the curb whenever the sound of an approaching ice cream truck could be heard, and playing outside with our friends until the street lights came on.

Nowadays, we see less children playing outside, especially in groups. What we do see are more and more children finding alternative ways of entertainment, usually methods that require staying indoors. With today's world practically being ran by technology, it's no wonder children aren't immune to this fad as a form of entertainment as well.

Video games have become a popular pastime for children nowadays, with some children taking these video games to the extreme. A majority of favorite video games children have been found to be most interested in are the ones that allow them to use monstrous mass weapons of destruction used in the most unimaginably violent of ways. Although video games are rated according to its explicit content, this doesn't seem to turn off the average youngster from engaging in games that are rated far beyond their age group.

With that idea in mind, what does this spell for the future of our youth, whom will one day be in charge of this nation of ours? The fact that the content of some of these video games seems to be at an extremely vulgar level, this raises the concern of the kind of graphic violence our youths are being exposed to during their developing years. Expand their imagination to the extent of how to cause death and destruction, gain power and control, and raising a curiosity that is morbid in nature can only make one think our youth may grow up to become raging, venomous monsters by the time they reach the age of maturity.

Not only that, but the whole concept of converting social time from playing outdoors into what is actually considered social isolation can only run risks of many children not being able to work well with other due to their lack of social skills. Added to that a warped mind from their engrossed addiction to more explicit video games may mean our youth will one day become antagonist towards one another. This means many more violent wars, more homicides, and major competitiveness in an environment where there needs to be harmony in order to thrive.

So what can we do know to stop our nation from turning into a major catastrophe? Turn off that television set, interact more with our children, and leave the violence to right where it belongs... on the store shelves.

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MARIJUANA MAKES CRIMINALS?
by Heidi Dougherty

Prohibition of marijuana makes criminals of our citizens. The so-called War on Drugs, lavish and fruitless, has created a schism in American society, diverging the “normal” alcohol consumers from the somehow “abnormal” or immoral drug users. There were over 645,000 Americans arrested in 2011 for mere marijuana possession. Hardly criminals, using a generally benign substance which can not result in a fatal overdose like alcohol or heroin, these people inhabit our prisons at the cost of taxpayers.

Every year, the United States spends more than 51 billion dollars to fund the “war,” which according to Obama’s drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, “people perceive as a war on them.” He then stated, “We’re not at war with people in this country.” Our leaders have created a standard of fear in this drug war, using punishable methods for drug law violations instead of focusing on the rehabilitation of addiction in these people. How is it that the guy on the corner selling marijuana is somehow more dangerous than the barkeep at a local restaurant, serving shot after shot with no real “checks” to consumption limits? It’s because American business owners are allowed to see in dollar signs, but the poor and minorities selling drugs out of economic insecurity are not.

Recently, leaders have been speaking out against the Nixon-launched War on Drugs. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo have both identified the war as an essentially failed attempt to reduce drug rates, victimizing minorities and the poor when drug rates are about the same across racial lines. Then the Organization of American States came out with a report conceptualizing alternatives to the war, including legalization and decriminalization.

Some sources agree strongly with the stringent war, however, and have a very cut-and-dry attitude about those behind bars. One source says, “regardless of if regulations are "fair", society knows the punishment if they are caught, and do it anyways. If there was a law, say, no chewing gum on Thursdays, yes it’s an idiotic law, but those people who still chew gum on Thursdays are even more idiotic.” That same source does admit, however, that the War on Drugs could have very well become a war on race or class instead, as the arrest and prosecution rates are much higher for minorities and the poor despite equal rates of use across racial lines.

If America is to improve, it needs to at least learn from the mistakes of its past. Laws completely prohibiting access to something are rarely effective, as we have seen in the American prohibition of alcohol from 1920-1933. The cost of criminalizing possession and use of marijuana far exceeds any benefit derived, and only stigmatizes its users. The time is now to reexamine the matter and find a more enlightened approach. Even President Obama agrees, “I think it is entirely legitimate to have a conversation about whether the laws in place are ones that are doing more harm than good.”
 

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TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT
by Learus Ohnine

The warm-weather seasons are one of the most favorite times of the year for enjoying the outdoors, especially those fun backyard barbecues. One can pretty much be guaranteed to catch a whiff of that delightful aroma of burning charcoal combined with a mixture of fresh flaming meats mainly on those traditional barbecuing holidays, such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day. As with most any holiday, purchasing large quantities of meat are usually sought out with the best bargains in mind, depending on the budget of the shopper. However, most of us who are not health-conscious about what we stick in our bodies are likely to walk away from the store with the cheapest bargains, feeling satisfied at being able to carry home a few more dollars in our pockets than expected. We save money in the long run, but are we really saving money? Or are we really sacrificing our health for the sake of a principle?

Conventional foods seem to be the cheapest to buy, but alternatively come with a hefty cost in the long run. Bovine Somatotropin, also referred to as BST or BGH, is a peptide hormone that is naturally produced in cows. Molecular cloning of this growth hormone created the synthetic version named "Recombinant Bovine Somatotropin", or rBGH, which is widely used by the agricultural industry to increase livestock productivity. By injecting dairy animals with rBGH, this increased the level of production of the IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1 hormone, also naturally produced by cows and humans) that is neither destroyed by pasteurization or homogenization. Physicians became increasingly concerned with the risks associated with the human consumption of this synthetic hormone as a possible link to developing breast cancer in males as well as females, especially pre-menopausal women. Other risk factors may include a higher risk for infertility, heart and kidney abnormalities, gastric ulcers, arthritis, heat intolerance, prostate and colon cancer, and an increased susceptibility to infections.

Organic foods are normally priced substantially higher than conventional foods, however, the health benefits associated with its consumption versus consuming conventional foods outweighs it monetary forfeiture in the long run. Natural fertilizers, such as compost and manure, are used to treat the soil for cultivating plants and vegetables. Pesticides made from natural resources are used as opposed to using synthetic insecticides, and environmentally-generated plant-killing compounds are applied in the place of using synthetic herbicides to control weeds. The harvesting of these naturally-grown plants and vegetables are also used as feed for the livestock, which in turn suggests these animals are assured to have a proper balanced diet. In ensuring these animals have a properly well-balanced diet will also insure no synthetic growth hormones and other potentially harmful chemicals will be passed through human consumption. The results are: a greater human consumption of antioxidants naturally found in foods, reduced pesticide exposure, and reduced exposure to potentially life-threatening synthetic chemicals.

With the cost of health care these days, who could not afford to maintain a healthy diet that may assure them a longer life in the long run? Taking shortcuts when it comes to one's health may not be such a profitable afterall...

 

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PHEROMONES, NATURE'S MATCHMAKER
by Jimmy Smith

Is he/she the one? We often ask that question when in relationships, but did you know that our bodies tell us how attracted we are to the other. I am not talking about the physical attraction, I am talking about the real attraction. Albeit, it is a chemical attraction, our bodies still tell us.

People emit a nature smell. Studies show that when a person smells good to you, it is your body reading their pheromones, telling you that you are attracted to them. Perfumes create an artificial scent, but the natural scent contains these pheromones.

I have had relationships on both ends of the spectrum. The one where a girl has asked me to put on cologne before we went somewhere… no shock that relationship didn’t last. The other where a girl has continued to sniff my shirt or jacket even after I have left. Maybe that is why people like sleeping with shirts of their significant other’s when they are away.

Next time you are out, stop to take in the air around you. Your soul mate might be in the air.

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MARS AND EARTH, A CONNECTED PAST
by Madison Grasso

Are we alone in the universe? Have aliens visited us? Yes. No. Maybe. Everyone has a different opinion. But some facts can not be ignored. In ancient Egyptian times, they built the pyramids. These structures are magnificent architectural creations, even by modern standards. Humans are capable of great things. But what if they weren’t created by humans?

On Mars, there is a sphinx. Photos taken by NASA in the late 70’s and viewed in the early 80’s reveal this. The sphinx looks just like those in Egypt, here on Earth. Their placement, geographically lines up to the same placement on the 3^rd planet from the sun, as it does on the 4^th planet from the sun. When the planets line up, they are in linear placement. Makes you wonder which other planets might have a sphinx and who put them there? Or is it natural creation for the structure to appear?

Are we alone in the universe? You can make your own interpretation, but there are some questions, which don’t have answers, and some answers, that make us raise questions.

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PRECONCEPTIONS OF BEAUTY
by Learus Ohnine

The first thing we notice whenever we meet someone is their appearance; their facial features, their hair style, their make-up (if any), and their complexion. All of these characteristics combined together determine whether or not we find that person physically appealing. So much pressure is put on men as well as women nowadays to conform to what society deems as handsome and/or beautiful in order to get noticed. Why? Because beauty implies having access to the best of the best in terms of friends, lovers, and careers. Beauty implies receiving special treatment, being judged more favorably in spite of the circumstances, and attaining power and status quickly... all based on looks.

But really, is this not all just a bunch of clichés?

When the cute and cuddly 15-year-old Paris Jackson, the daughter of deceased pop rock musician Michael Jackson, confessed to being a victim of bullying in school as one of her reasons for attempting suicide, one would assume this beautiful young woman would have no struggles in her life thanks to a good gene pool mixture. The notion of someone as gorgeous as this little girl breaking down from being the target of ridicule is absolutely preposterous to think of as real, since it would appear that her beauty would be enough on its own to keep her immune from such psychological torment. Or better yet, an attractive young lady like her could pull off acquiring the largest support system of friends with ease, eagerly willing to throw themselves on the front line for her to fight against any adversity that comes her way. Or what about the fact that she is extremely beauty; who in their right mind would believe the notion of a beautiful girl like her would ever be a bullied victim?

Unfortunately, this notion is real, and believable. Those clichés are without a doubt debunked. Contrary to popular belief, beauty does not always have the benefits of favoritism.

Norma Jeane Mortenson, famously known as Marilyn Monroe, was named one of the most beautiful actresses in American culture in the 1950's. The public envied her gorgeous blonde locks, her charming personality, and voluptuous curves, all of which catapulted her to becoming one of the biggest sex symbols during this era. She managed to charm three highly desirable husbands most women could only dream of marrying, and also managed to drive these desirable husbands away. Little did anyone know what was really underneath that enduring smile of hers; a tortured soul with a tortured past. With all the world at her feet and more, it's safe to say even her beauty wasn't sufficient enough to save her from the demons that drove her to an early grave...

On an even more grizzlier stereotyping scale, assuming the best in a person based on their looks has been known in the past to be a "deadly" mistake. Anna Marie Hahn, nicknamed "The Beautiful Blonde" serial killer by the press in the mid 1930's, had a pleasant appearance and the sweetest most comforting smile that any of her elderly victims had ever seen before. Her charming demeanor added to her beauty, which is what she used to her malicious advantage when offering to care for the generous elderly men on their death beds. These dying elderly men in turn compensated her for her services by means of a financial inheritance after their deaths. Anna claimed to be a nurse, although she had no formal training, and also dubbed herself as "an angel of mercy", claiming it was her duty to poison these elderly men in order to speed up the process of their natural death. By the time it was all said and done, Anna had murdered fifteen elderly men, whom died in agony from being induced with four different types of poisons, mainly being large quantities of arsenic and croton oil.

The truth of the matter is: beauty holds no real value in society. Even beauty has its inner psychological struggles. It has its relationship problems. It has its self-esteem issues. Beauty is a byproduct of what we take for granted. We live in a world today where people are quick to judge a book by its cover but slow to listen closely to what those words inside are really trying to tell us...

 

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF VIRTUAL VIOLENCE
by Heidi Dougherty

The Justification of Virtual Violence

 In 2006, the Japanese video game RapeLay was released, centering on a male character that stalks and rapes a mother and her two daughters. This is an appalling glorification of sexual violence. The notorious American Grand Theft Auto series is not much better, allowing the player the opportunity to rape a prostitute during a drug deal and then shoot her in bloody murder.

There were 191,670 victims of rape or sexual assault in 2005 in the United States. And we have to imagine that statistic increasing with each emerging video game depicting violent sexual acts. Children and young men see these powerful, dangerous male characters as cool, and there is a message sent to girls that females are helpless creatures.

We, as humans, are not impervious to persuasion by powerful stimuli in the media. Especially as children and adolescents, we learn by example and tend to imitate what we see. Writers and producers in America have free reign, and are even motivated, to depict the worst acts of mankind. Sensationalism is everywhere; it is what sells now, what is at the top of the box office and video game ratings.

In the article “Video-game Violence Against Women,” Rebecca Hagelin describes an instance in which a mother learns that during a birthday party at a local family restaurant, her 9-year-old son played a violent video game featured in the restaurant. He recalls it with exacting detail, telling her of men beating and killing women. Hagelin writes, “Karen…felt powerless to protect her son…[how could] such a “game” have been part of a family restaurant at a supervised birthday party. Is there any place truly safe for children?”

It’s not just video games either, it is the movies. Most recently, the movie The Purge revolves around a plot in which the government has launched an annual 12-hour time period called "The Purge", during which all crime, including murder, is legal. Americans are most known in the film to purge the unnecessary “swine,” or what the poor are referred to. On a newscast in the film, it is said that “humans are inherently violent,” and since the initiation of “the purge,” people are calling the better America “a nation reborn.” Americans wonder why people gun down movie theatres and schools while at the same time selling their people the very type of violence they so rigorously work to protect society against. In particular, I thought the film “The Purge” was abominable, a cheap attempt to widen the gap between white and black, rich and poor by justifying violence.

In American censorship laws, a whole lot flies with the exception of things urging others to commit illegal acts. Does the depiction of a government-launched killing spree no longer qualify for the promotion of violence and hate?

Unfortunately, there is a scarcity of information and research on the effects of violence in the media. This makes it hard for conclusive results to have effect on government policy regarding the censorship of violence, especially in games and films aimed at younger audiences. Some government funded firearm studies have even been criticized as promotion. In January, the White House stipulated the that "research on gun violence is not advocacy." This was a response to criticism when the federally funded Center for Disease Control put together a committee to study the impact of the media on real-life violence.

Eventually, we will become numb to the brutality we see in the media as a justification of violence. There may be no quick-fix to this systemic problem, but families can certainly censor what their children see. Let’s not let the media flaunt our most sacred constitutional right.

 

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THE DARKEST CONTINENT
by Heidi Dougherty

Africa: a beautiful nation, a very tragic story. Since the outbreak of AIDS in the 1970s, over 30 million souls have died from the disease and related illnesses in Africa. Famines kill in legions, as do conflicts, civil and abroad. It seems as if the nation is helpless, with no work, no food, and bad health. But it is not. We can make a change.

About 24 million people are infected with the AIDS virus in Africa, most notably in sub-Saharan Africa. In some southern countries, over 20 percent of the population is infected, with over half of all hospital beds filled by those with HIV-related diseases. There are preventative plans in play, including the ABC strategy, also known as “abstinence plus,” which recommends loyalty to partners, abstinence, and the use of condoms. Yet because of the prevalence of the virus and the infection from mothers to children, AIDS is a plague in the nation.

Famines have always been the cause of high death tolls in Africa. From droughts to wars caused by colonization by the British, Portuguese, and Belgian empires, the lack of food in this nation is extreme. The famine of 1980 in Karamoja, Uganda was one of the worst in documented history. Twenty-one percent of the population died, including sixty percent of the infants. This is morally unacceptable when Americans are living, for the most part, comfortable lives. And the military history of the continent, from ancient conflicts, to wars of independence, to civil wars today, is astonishing. During the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, for example, the estimated death toll was between 3.5 and 5 million.

There are some advances in the confrontation of African issues, but epic assistance is still needed. The African Progress Panel, which consists of ten dignified leaders, has been working hard to initiate change. The panel debates and initiates change in areas like safety both civil and abroad, developmental finance, and food security.  On a local level, there are things we can do to make a difference in the lives of many. We can donate money to the proper treatment of AIDS, including retroviral drugs, or go abroad to assist in patient care and helping families to eat and drink clean water. To help out, go to http://www.aidforafrica.org/donate/, which is linked to over eighty-five charities, or you can explore different solutions to African issues by going to http://africansolutions.org/.

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MILITARY DAYS
by Learus Ohnine

Long gone are the days when target practice for U.S. soldiers consisted of the use of OKC-3S Bayonets, Colt Dragoon Revolvers, T-13 Beano Grenade drills. Over the years, military technology has incited a way for the United States' Armed Forces to decrease the odds of our enemy's victory and our country's defeat as well as our fatality rates. While looking back on the analytical history of warfare involving the United States, one can easily see how American ex-militants could have benefited with the use of today's advanced military technology.

The Korean War, held between 1950-1953, was statistically one of the worst wars for American soldier casualties with an estimated 37,000 deaths totaling at approximately 45 deaths per day; quite a number for such a short period of time. During this war, the United States Air Force experienced its first combat use of its jet aircraft, and also its first knowledge of just how flawed its employed aircraft was.

The F-86 Sabre jet series played a major role as being one of the main specialized fighter-bombers used by U.S. troops during the first half of this war. However, these sound barrier breaking jets could not outrun their MiG-15 adversaries with a maximum speed of only 1,100 miles per hour, were prone to experiencing engine overheating problems, and mechanical failures were often reported when discharging empty fuel tanks in an attempt to prevent aircraft explosions. Since then, the USAF has employed the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor Fighter jet equipped with signals intelligence roles, electronic warfare, and can excel at speeds of more than 1,300 mph.

The Vietnam War between 1961-1975, another "ugly" war for the United States in terms of casualties, resulted in approximately 58,000 combat related deaths with an estimated death count of 26 deaths per day. The United States' military forces entrusted heavily on the use of firepower superiority for their seek and destroy missions though some of the artillery used was prone to having mechanical failures while in use. Popular artillery rifles used during combat, such as the M16 rifles, were often known for malfunctioning upon firing and many soldiers believed the cleaning procedures for the rifle were too time consuming.

Replaced by the upgraded version named the M4 in 1997, the same problems eventually still ensued. Today's replacement candidates include the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System with its ability to hit targets hiding behind barriers with its sophisticated laser technology and its impeccable ability to automatically calibrate its microchip-equipped rounds.

Overall, the advancement in today's military technology could have reduced the amount of casualties suffered by U.S. troops if used in past wars and may dramatically reduce the amount of casualties as well as injuries in the future. The safe return of our U.S. troops should first priority when designing military weapons, and with advanced technology such as drones still surfacing, one can only hope one day U.S. combat casualties will dwindle down to nil.

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ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
by Learus Ohnine

With the United States supposedly being the leading country as having the world's largest economy and entrepreneurial climate, why is our education system falling behind other countries reflective of our student academic performances? Could the academic deficiencies of American children be due to their delinquency in starting their education at an earlier age than in most countries? Is there a learning gap between genders in the United States as opposed to international students? Does classroom size determine the outcome of an American student's success?

When comparing the starting age of children in pre-kindergarten programs in foreign countries to the U.S., surveys revealed children are allowed to begin their childhood education abroad during the most crucial stages of a child's early developmental years. For example, Denmark allows children to begin preschool as early as 12-months-old. The main objective for their early education curriculums are focused on learning cultural norms, social and motor skills imperative for managing the cognitive, emotional and social development of a child. Kindergarten programs are taught at age 3 in Korea and Singapore. Belgium provides the same early educational opportunities for 2-year-olds, while the average age for kindergarten attendance in the United States is 4-years-old.

Gender discrepancies when comparing test scores in mathematics and science fairly compensates for the benefits of having an early education, but may also explain the rationale behind the differences in scores amongst gender due to the persuasion from cultural forces in other countries. South Korean and Singapore's fourth-grade male and female students ranked in the highest overall percentile in test scores in math and science when compared to the 11th percentile ranking in math and the 17th percentile ranking in science for both male and female U.S. fourth-graders. In Korea and Finland, 15-year-old females scored 14 percent higher in science scores than 15-year-old males. However, male students within the same age bracket were in the overall lead by 15 percent when compared to the 15-year-old female students in the United States. Females as well as males in countries such as Russia, Asia, and the Middle East are persuaded at an early age to go into science and engineering occupations whereas females are stereotypically motivated to only pursue nursing, teaching, and administrative occupations in the United States.

Studies have shown student performance rarely depends on the student-teacher ratio regardless of differences amongst the diverse cultural and ethnic populations nationally and internationally. Korean and Japanese K-12 schools, with its 37-to-1 student-teacher ratio, still ranks higher in student performance than with Finnish K-12 schools at a 20-to-1 ratio. In the United States, Vermont and Wisconsin ranks closest in comparison to Korean, Japanese, and Finnish schools for high-ranking student performance yet with a lower student-teacher ratio. While Vermont K-12 schools currently has a student-teacher ratio of 11-to-1 and Wisconsin K-12 schools with a 15-to-1 ratio, both schools maintain more culturally diverse teachers than students.

Conclusively, there is no one contributing factor as to why America does not hold the highest rank in student performances nor is there any cause to blame why the United States cannot achieve a higher ranking than it has. American minority and Latino students have made a considerable amount of progress over the years, therefore it cannot be proclaimed that cultural diversity holds any sort of hindrance on a child's academic success. All students enrolled in the education system in America are allotted the same equal opportunistic educational advantages as in other countries, but its up to our nation as a whole to encourage our students to make the most out of their opportunities before we can reach the rank of #1 amongst all other nations.

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DESPERATE TO SELL
by Heidi Dougherty

 Advertising, the 12 billion dollar a year elephant in the room, has become wilder and more brutish than ever. And despite truth-in-advertising and other guidelines, companies are becoming more deceptive in reeling in any and every possible customer, including children. Fast food restaurants use plastic food in their ads to make their products look more appealing. Tobacco manufacturers, who spend about 30 million dollars a day on advertising and promotion, attempt to lure in children and teenagers by representing smoking as “cool” in magazines with young readership. In fact, studies have shown that one-third of all adolescent smokers have attributed their addiction to tobacco advertisements. Companies have used presumptuous and controlling tactics in their ads, such as enticement through sex or money.

In one commercial rumored to be aired during this year’s Superbowl and later banned, sex is simulated, equipped with bodily fluids made of Skittles. One viewer claims, “I can’t stop…eating Skittles without feeling dirty.” These semi-pornographic ads have become increasingly accepted, undoubtedly because they have spread like wildfire. Even when I was growing up in the early to mid-nineties, advertisements weren’t nearly as ethically dishonest. One peer expresses, “What happened to the good old days when a commercial for Pine Sol would give you directions and then say ‘do this and your floor will be like new?’ No misrepresentation, no flagrancy.”

From subliminal messaging to the banal use of sex in advertisement, companies seem more desperate than ever to make a dime at the expense of the moral fabric of society. This has resulted in a desensitization of our youth to “adult things” they should be shielded from until they are mature enough. Rubbing sex in children’s faces is likely to result in more pregnant teenagers and less high school graduates. The last thing our materialistic culture needs is more emphasis on the possession of material goods. Jonathan Kent from The Guardian writes, “We’re turning out legions of little consumers rather than young citizens who will value themselves for what they contribute to the society in which they live.” 
 

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INNOCENT BLOOD FROM OPEN BORDERS
by Learus Ohnine

Terrorism-- its not like its a hobby or just a fad. It is a force; a life-threatening one that can and should be reckoned with. Whenever a terroristic tragedy strikes on U.S. soil, it's natural that we will tamper with ideologies of how and why the attacks occurred to eliminate the possibility of all future attacks. With the latest of terroristic attacks, such as with the attack on September 11, 2001 and the Boston Marathon bombings, our analysis of these situations reveals one commonality that leads to only one possible solution: enhancement of our security by means of stricter immigration laws.

Americans were alarmed to discover that Ramzi Yousef and Ahmad Ajaj, the masterminds behind the planning of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, were allowed into the United States using false passports that showed obvious signs of tampering. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a co-conspirator in the bombings and leader of "The Islamic Group" who spoke very adamantly and publicly about his "anti-American" viewpoints, was on the U.S. State Department's terrorist watch list yet was freely allowed to travel in and out of the United States on an expired visa while conducting terrorist attacks in Egypt.

Nawaf muhammed Salim al-Hazmi, one of the chosen pilots by Osama bin Laden in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, obtained a tourist visa which showed evidence of his association with Al-Quaeda. Because immigration inspectors were not officially trained to be aware of this sort of evidence, he was allowed to enter and exit the United States repeatedly. In 1999, the CIA was informed by Saudi Intelligence of Khalid al-Mihdhar's (another chosen pilot in the attack) association with Al-Quaeda but was still allowed into the United States in 2000 to attend flight school.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013, was allowed to continue to live in the United States in spite of Tamerlan's application for U.S. citizenship being placed on hold because of speculations of his association with Chechen terrorists. These suspicions were reported by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2011 to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, the FSB never responded to requests by the FBI for more supporting evidence of this speculation, therefore the case was closed.

Under the current immigration laws, certain offenses can disqualify an immigrant from obtaining and/or retaining American citizenship. With all the facts being apparent as to how and why the above terrorist were able to bypass these laws, it is obvious the current laws are not working. Unless stricter immigration laws are implemented immediately, we can expect more innocent blood to be shed because the United States will have failed, once again, to protect its citizens.

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CONFORMING TO THE ARTIFICIAL
by Heidi Dougherty

What lengths do people take to form a sense of their own identity when social structures like family no longer hold any intrinsic value in self-identity? In America, these lengths can be deadly. For females aged 15 to 24, anorexia, or self-starvation, has a mortality rate twelve times higher than all causes of death combined for females in this age group. The startling social phenomenon of eating disorders permeates the lives of 8 million Americans, 7 million of them women. This alarming statistic makes these disorders practically common in nature

Why has this happened? Fifty years ago, eating disorders existed, but were not a seemingly contagious epidemic. Yes, people have always been involved with their appearance. But in this superficial time where the American culture has lost its identity and teaching values is neglected, we fall back on cursory things like clothes and our physical appearance to others to provide us a sense of self. Not to say that wanting to look good is an innate evil. But when it becomes, as it has, a pseudo-religion that breeds on a distorted notion of beauty, we need to wake up, look around, and do something about it. Let’s put literature in our daughters’ hands and not Cosmo. Let’s form prevention programs in our schools. Let’s provide rich, supportive environments for our children to grow up in. God knows we need it.

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THE MORE THE MERRIER (IN FILM)
by Learus Ohnine

Recently, there has been quite a bit of controversy over whether or not Hollywood should be allowed to utilize resources supposedly meant only for smaller-scale film makers and emerging talented artists. The Rob Thomas Veronica Mars project and Zach Braff's "Wish I Was Here" project drew attention to crowdfunding resources to help develop their artistic projects. Hollywood celebrity projects are also being presented at independent film festivals, which has sparked yet another concern for smaller-scale film makers. Emerging artistic-entrepreneurs are concerned these high-profile projects will deprive them of funding, as well as having the presence of Hollywood creative artists at independent film festivals, will increase commercial pressure.

Kickstarter, a for-profit fund-raiser, is designed to assist artists in a collective effort to help generate the required capital needed towards the development of their creative projects. For those who contribute a donation towards a project (called "Backers"), the artist will reward their pledges with incentives based on the amount pledged. With the presence of Hollywood celebrities promoting their work, aspiring film makers feel the competition for acquiring funding is now too intense, mainly because of the more appealing incentives being offered by these high-profile projects and the presumption of the celebrity to be already financially secure enough to not need the monetary support. However, the presence of "Hollywood" on this site has statistically proven to have drawn more backers who are willing to take the risk to invest in a production. Consequently, the more investors equals greater chances of exposure and in meeting the proposed investment goals for all participants.

Aside from the storylines and genre preferences, surveys have shown that movie goers tend to go see movies that feature their favorite Hollywood performing artists. Therefore, one of the main revenue-generating reasons behind the box office success of a film is due to the casting of the most popular Hollywood stars. Since determining the cast of a low-budget film usually weighs heavily on the film's budget, this limits the available options for choosing major revenue-generating performers for the production of the film itself. The initial purpose of creating independent film festivals was to allow emerging film makers the opportunity to display their talents without the pressures and conformities of Hollywood competition.

Because celebrities have since been able to participate in these independent film festivals, many feel this contradicts the purpose of these festivals in focusing the attention on the work of a lesser-known talent. On the other hand, celebrities bring with them a fan base of many whom attend these film festivals for a chance to meet their favorite celebrity face to face, again more chances of exposure for lesser known talented artists in creating their own fan base. With celebrities and their affiliates in attendance, this also creates more exposure and networking opportunities for emerging artists, and also the possibility of receiving collaborative propositions from those already established within the industry.

Ultimately, the chances of emerging talented artists getting increased exposure is greater when their association is connected to those who are already established within the Hollywood studio system. Many celebrities have made it all the way to the top of their career this way--associating, networking, and collaborating through increased exposure. Crowdfunding resources and independent film festivals are about more than just competition; it is now considered the best collaborative social networking system beneficial for artist from all walks of life.

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PUSHED TOO FAR
by Heidi Dougherty

We all want to succeed, and we want our children to succeed, but what happens when a child is pushed too far? Child athletes and students everywhere are under enormous pressure from parents, and are being pushed at ages as young as 6 and 7 to be the best at a given sport, instrument, or in school. Although a parent’s intentions may be the best, wanting their children to be part of a team and to build confidence, inappropriate expectations can place children in a place where they are scared to let their parents down if they don’t have an interest anymore or even the energy to be interested.

Parents need to know what is acceptable behavior and what is not in raising their children. The healthy development of a vulnerable child is most important, and part of that development is allowing the child time to “just be a kid.” From pageant moms to competitive dads obsessed with getting their children full scholarships, parents are pushing dangerous limits with their children that border on abuse. And with the psychological fallout of a burnt out athlete, including loss of identity and depression, parents need to check themselves when it comes to child rearing, making sure to support their child’s growth as an individual. Based on my experience as a former national record holder in swimming, I can say that being pushed too hard was very emotionally damaging for me.

A study conducted by USA Swimming asked children ages 7 to young adulthood why they participated in their sport and what their drive was. The findings, by order of importance: 1) to have fun 2) to stay fit 3) to be with friends 4) to compete. Taking this into consideration, let’s keep it fun for our children. Nothing is worth losing your sanity, or your child, over. 

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DAYDREAM BELIEVER
by Heidi Dougherty

We all know the feeling: it’s been a long day at work or school and our minds wander to another place. We fantasize about our hopes and dreams or romantic aspirations. This is called daydreaming, or the act of detaching from one’s actual reality to a degree, and it is very common among us. It is a type of trance, a state between waking and sleeping in which sensations are experienced at a level of awareness too dull to be experienced at times.

Daydreaming has been the cause of heated debate throughout the years, starting when factories and their robotic assembly lines began replacing more creative-driven work. Peering out into nothingness was considered lazy and frivolous, and even in the 1950s psychologists advised parents to forbid their children to daydream as it may cause neurosis.

There are many positive aspects to daydreaming, which tend to go unnoticed. Artists and innovative people everywhere have been known to gaze into the distance, scheming up their next painting or business plan. Some believe that daydreaming is vital to healthy living, allowing everyone alike the opportunity to dream about their goals so as to make them a reality. Anything is possible in a daydream, and it’s been said that if one can dream it, one can achieve it. It has also been found by doctors to assist in relaxation and actually improve productivity, as a little time to ourselves with our brains on idle can inspire us to be better at what we do.

Whether looked at as good or bad, daydreaming is a part of life that should not cause shameful feelings. It gives our minds a sense of freedom from the mundane and the constant chatter of life. In our fast-paced society, we need a little time to unwind, and the negative connotations of daydreaming are in proportion to our society’s overwhelming need to quantify productivity. "We are under constant pressure to do, achieve, produce, succeed," says John McGrail, a clinical hypnotherapist in Los Angeles. And when taking a little time to fantasize about achieving is translated into laziness, we should look at what we put above our dreams.

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THE FICTION BEHIND THE SCIENCE
by Learus Ohnine

We're all familiar with the world's most famous discoveries and inventions such as Benjamin Franklin's elaboration on the concept of electricity, Alexander Graham Bell to whom we give credit to for inventing the first practical telephone, and Thomas Edison who invented the first phonograph. The notions for improving how we live, how we interact with one another, and our mediums of entertainment is what inspired the creative brilliance of these individuals, but what about the creative brilliance of the individuals who were inspired by science fiction to bring fantasy into the real world?

In 1898, Mark Twain's sci-fi story entitled "From The London Times" was the first to introduce a concept that would later become a major necessity for humanity: the internet. Twain's fictional invention, called the Telelectroscope, consisted of a phone system created for the purpose of sharing information over a world wide network. Today, thanks to the creative brilliance of computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the invention of the World Wide Web has become a crucial gateway in collaborating our communications for business, education, and entertainment purposes.

While speaking of information sharing, the concept of the iPad was first introduced to us in the mid-60's by the fictional sci-fi character Captain Kirk from the television series "Star Trek". This device, called the Personal Access Display Device or PADD, was used by the captain to communicate, play music, and create daily logs of the activities on the USS Enterprise. Credit for designing the Apple iPad, a portable tablet computer similar in functional capabilities as the PADD, goes to the creative brilliance of the Senior Vice President on Industrial Designs at Apple Inc. Sir Jonathan Paul "Jony" Ive.

Inventor Raymond Li's quest to defy the laws of gravity and fly without the use of aircraft as a source of entertainment was inspired by the early 1930's sci-fi characters Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, and also by the 1965 James Bond movie "Thunderball". The hydraulically water-powered innovation, called the Jetlev R200, is capable of soaring you above (and below) water up to 30 ft. with speeds of up to 30 mph. You can buy your own water jet pack starting at $68,500 at Jetlev.com. Rental options are also available; quite a hefty price tag for a recreational activity.

However, our options for recreation are also available in "smaller" less-expensive packages thanks to the inspiration inspired by science fiction writer H.G. Wells in his book "War Of The Worlds". In 1957, Gordon Gould, a Columbia University student, focused his research on expanding the concept of combining an infrared light into a visible light using an open-resonator laser design based on the theoretical calculations of Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes. In 1959, he published the term "Laser", short for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, thereby spawning the creative brilliance of ideas we know of today as DVD players, laser printers, laser light shows, and the popular 1980's recreational sport called laser tag. Lasers have become a popular choice of weaponry for most all science fiction's authors.

One only has to wonder what kind of ingenuity Franklin, Bell, and Edison would come up with from viewing the latest movies, television series, and comic books within the science fiction genre if they were alive today...

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BOYS WILL BE BOYS, BUT WHEN DO THEY BECOME MEN?
by Heidi Dougherty

The word chivalry has its roots in the 13^th century, where the term was used as a code of conduct for medieval knights, emphasizing honor, love, and virtue. Chivalry was intended as a moral guide for men in remaining courteous and loyal to their Gods, their lords, and their women. Over time, it was exemplified in good men everywhere who showed respect and kindness to women not for credit or for some ulterior motive, but simply for the sake of being respectful and kind.

Now, with over half of all marriages failing, we need to wonder what part men play. Men, especially young men everywhere seem pained to show common courtesy and respect to anyone, let alone women. And women, with their struggle to gain independence and a sense of purpose outside of the household, are torn between accepting disrespectful creeps or holding out for a man that will treat them as the beautiful and dynamic creatures that they are.

There are still good men out there though, and although far and few in between, even young men are speaking out against disrespect for women. One of my sources, a young man from Hawthorne, New Jersey, states on chivalry or lack thereof, “Unfortunately our generation and the ones coming are truly missing this word in their lives. To be a gentlemen is getting pushed farther and farther out of sight, and men are now boys with no respect or manners.”

Now, am I blaming men completely for the breakdown of romance and respect? No. I think that women play a part in this also, and do not demand respect from men the way a man would respect one of his own. On one hand, women ask to be treated like independent-thinking adults but on the other hand tend to act helpless without a man telling them what to do and when to do it. Ladies: command respect and do not accept anything less. If a man is worth your time, he won’t mind opening a door for you or listening to you as you vent about your life. It’s up to you to show men that you want to be treated as a real women, because in this day and age it is no longer “cool” to be chivalrous.

When Heidi Muller of askmen.com asked for responses on the “chivalry is dead” catchphrase, one of the responses was “it’s not dead, just on life support.” So let’s bring chivalry back into this culture and into these young generations. Talk to your man about chivalry in a supportive way, because the barbarism that has shown itself in the 21st century has a lot to do with extraneous factors like depraved role models and the breakdown of sexual ethics in America.
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BUDGETING FOR DOOM
by Learus Ohnine

The United States' national debt, currently standing at $16.394 trillion, makes the U.S. rank as the largest debt for a single country. As Americans struggle to survive while living in one of the worse economic periods in the country's history, there's not much hope for a future sign of relief. While budget cuts may numerically prove to be a solution in helping the United States stabilize the economy financially in order to create a better country for its citizens to live in, reducing budgets in the imperative areas of our economy may very well open doors to more unforeseen problems that could potentially backfire.
 
According to the February 2013 report from the Congressional Budget Office, the funds for social security benefits are in danger of being exhausted sooner than the original anticipated date of 2033 in accordance with last year's report. The Social Security Board of Trustees have reported that the deteriorating funds are due to the extended lifespan of Americans, higher energy prices, the increased number of Baby Boomers soon to retire, and the dilatory rebuilding of the United States' economy, making the future exceedingly grim for those over the age of 65 years who are trying to survive.
 
The U.S. Postmaster, General Patrick Donahoe, announced that he will order Saturday letter delivery service to cease beginning in August 2013 in order to help offset the department's $15.9 billion deficit in 2012 and its projected $18.2 billion loss in 2015. For those Americans who still rely on their supplemental income checks to be delivered via mailman, this may pose several complications for them should their anticipated arrival date happen to fall on the weekends.
 
Police departments across America are resorting to extremely dramatic yet dangerous budget cuts, resulting in a reduction of officers on the force to help serve and protect in some of the most highest crime-ridden locations as Detroit, MI., Los Angeles, CA., and Camden, NJ. In cities such as Oakland, Tulsa, and Norton, MA., police departments have adopted limitations on their service policies, which include forcing residents to file their own reports online for less serious crimes and implementing either longer than usual delays or no response at all to reported crimes such vandalism, fraud, and car theft.
 
With a combined reduction in employment, protection, and future financial security due to drastic budget cuts in these areas, what does that spell for the fate of the American people as time moves on?
 
Chaos.
 

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BOSTON - THE CITY THAT NOW SLEEPS
by Learus Ohnine

Thanks to the incredible eye for detail, the heroic bravery, and the calm, cool, and collected approach of a citizen in the city of Watertown, MA., the city of Boston can now breathe a sigh of relief knowing that justice shall soon be served.

David Hannebury, owner of the prize-winning boat which served as a hideout shelter for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, stepped out of his home located at 67 Franklin Street in Watertown, MA. immediately following the release of a city-wide lockdown enforced while authorities intensely searched the city of Boston and local communities for the suspect.

As Mr. Hannebury roamed his property, he noticed the sounds of movement in his boat located in his backyard. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the strap securing the winterized tarp was severed. He then proceeded to take a peek under the tarp, and saw a pool of blood with a trail that led to what looked like a body curled up in a ball.

Without causing a disturbance around this horrific scene, Mr. Hannebury quietly notified authorities immediately. Helicopters were summoned over the area to use a heat-seeking device to pick up the thermal image of the suspect still lying inside the boat. With the assistance of this thermal image, law enforcement teams were meticulously guided around the backyard of Mr. Hannebury's property, resulting in a victorious apprehension of the suspect. 

The suspect was taken alive but in serious condition to a nearby hospital. Locals cheered in the streets after a nightmarish week filled with panic, anxiety, and distress caused by the captured suspect and his accomplice, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaerv, was finally over.

On Monday, April 15, 2013, the Tsarnaerv brothers were video taped by surveillance cameras along Boylston Street carrying backpacks similar to the one found after the pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing 3 people along with severely injuring and dismembering several spectators.

Law enforcement authorities embarked on an intense manhunt for the two suspects over a course of 72 hours following this tragic event, resulting in the killing of Tamerlan Tsarnaerv in a shootout after the duo attempted to elude police in a stolen sports utility vehicle.

Although injured, his brother managed to escape police using the stolen vehicle, and this led to the lockdown of the city of Boston and its surrounding communities. At approximately 8:45 pm on Friday, April 19, 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was finally captured.

Mr. Hannebury may have lost a boat for the moment, but he will always be remembered as Boston's hero forever.

Thank you, David Hannebury! We owe you a boat...

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ARE WE TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD?
by Heidi Dougherty

Call me stubborn, call me antiquated, but do not call me a smart phone user. For a variety of reasons, I have chosen to avoid the smart phone craze as of yet. It scares me that as a 27-year-old, I do not know one person 30 or younger still in possession of a non-smart-phone; thus, I thought it would be interesting to take notes on the reactions of one-hundred young people when realizing that I still proudly sport a simple phone, one without the capability of accessing the Internet. Eighty-five of these peers made a verbal note to me about it, and about half of those eighty-five made a joke, in my expense, over my seemingly obstinate attitude regarding our society’s absolute obsession with technology. Why the attitude? Mainly because I see, amongst young people, a complete breakdown of not only social graces but of the English language.

Complex emotion and sophistication out the window, there has been a flattening of human relations, with too many dimensions of healthy communication lost because they cannot be expressed by text and Facebook lingo. Acronyms or computer shorthand for normal speech such as ‘lol,’ ‘lmao,’ and ‘brb,’ clutter young people’s vocabularies and act as a mask for real emotion. When I think about where our country goes from here in regards to the technology obsession, it does not seem promising. The times of walking to a neighbor’s to say hi are out the window, and calling people now, even on their birthdays, seems too outdated for young people. I share in the feelings of Jess C. Scott, who writes in her The Other Side of Life, “That’s sad. How artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something…real.”  

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THE PENNY EXTINCTION, TRADITION VERSUS ECONOMIC NECESSITY
by Heidi Dougherty

Less than three months ago, at the time that the Royal Canadian Mint stopped the production and distribution of the penny, it had cost their federal government 1.6 cents to make the coin. Now, the United States government is taking a hard look at Canada's intelligent financial move and wondering if this is not the next step for the U.S. After all, it costs roughly 2 cents in America to make the penny, and with a national debt of $16, 687, 289, 180, 215, do we sound like a nation who doesn't need to, excuse the pun, save a penny or two?

The debate over the extinction of the penny goes on. Aging baby boomers are reluctant to agree that cutting the penny out would save the government $44 million dollars annually, holding fast to the maxim "A penny saved is a penny earned" and clinging to the ideal of the penny's "Honest Abe" meaning. Younger generations tend to lean on the side of penny extinction. When I asked one of my sources, a young teacher from Wayne, NJ to comment on the issue, his reaction was strong. "The saying 'a penny saved is a penny earned' is outdated bologna. A penny saved is litter in the cup holder of my car or an irritating jingle in my every other step."

At a press conference recently, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty commented, "The penny is currency without any currency." Now of course, we all know that there is monetary value in a penny, but when we acknowledge that the cost of producing it is greater than the value of it, will unyielding American tradition win out over economic intelligence and necessity?

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WHAT HAPPENED TO FAMILY VALUES?
by Jimmy Smith

What happened to the youth today that they are no longer learning proper family values? Steubenville, Ohio; Saratoga, California; Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Groups of high school age boys taking part in sexually assaulting drunken girls and then posting photos and videos of the ordeal.

It makes you wonder where are the parents in this? Why are these boys parents not teaching them right from wrong? Where did they learn such atrocious behavior and think it is alright?

There is a break down in the learning of family values and right from wrong. In learning that it is not okay to sexually assault someone, let alone think that because they are drunk, it is an invitation… then post evidence of it as a means of taunting them about their violation. These parents need to be more proactive in teaching their kids what is right, and what is most definitely not.

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THE SHADOW PARTNERSHIP: CELEBRITY AND CRIME
by Richard F. Gallipeau

So it's official; Lindsay Lohan is at it again. This time she stands accused of lifting wardrobe items from the set of her latest acting gig, Charlie Sheen's “Anger Management” show on FX. It seems like every time she gets a hangnail there's a feature story on the calamity at the NY Post or CNN. In and out of court more than she is on and off a movie set, the debacle of her career is the stuff that tabloid papers and entertainment news networks exist for, so that the working stiff who comes home from a 9-to-5 job can drink vermouth or whatever and chuckle to him- or her-self over the zany antics of these dang rich people. And how about the saga of Chris Brown and Rihanna...? Slightly dysfunctional, and when folks are comparing your relationship with that of Ike and Tina Turner in the 70's, it can't be a good thing. However, this is nothing new. Crime and celebrity have always had a kind of “shadow partnership”; for instance, twentieth century mafia gangsters often courted the media, thus becoming famed and in the public eye. Ted Bundy, the notorious multi-state serial killer, became a media darling for a time by choosing to represent himself in court.

They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; the same could be said of fame. Superstar actors, musicians and athletes especially are revered so much by their fellow man that they enter a state of pseudo-hubris, becoming like deities to those whom they dazzle. Consider American football player O.J. Simpson, whose 1995 trial on charges of battering and murdering his ex-wife and her lover divided a country that was supposed to be advanced or elevated right along racial lines. The incident happened in broad daylight at her condominium; not just strength or rage can induce someone to kill not one but two people, one of them male, without a gun, in a wealthy area. That takes ego, pure and simple. And that ego doesn't come from nowhere. We, the American people, give it to the famous by appreciating only the shallowest qualities or pursuits; beauty, physical strength, obvious musical or acting talent. Subtlety and humility are abhorred by our culture, for whatever reason. The list goes on and on; give them an inch and they will probably take a mile. Successful actor Lillo Brancato, Jr. was in A Bronx Tale (1993), a great flick, and also on the hit TV show The Sopranos in 2000; this didn't prevent him from being involved with drugs and the fatal shooting of an off-duty police officer when the man tried to stop an attempted burglary. And don't forget pop music legend Michael Jackson, one of the most talented vocalists of our time; even his career had been besmirched with allegations of child sexual abuse and illegal levels of drug usage. Also, I am a huge fan of the Fox Network's somewhat recently cancelled show “24”, starring Kiefer Sutherland; but no one is so ignorant as to not have heard about his reputed assault and several DUI's.

And it stems back even further into the twentieth century. How about the Natalie Wood incident? In 1981, when she was 43 years old, she drowned off the coast of California in a mysterious boating incident. It took them 31 years to reclassify her cause of death as undetermined just this past year. I won't speculate on what happened there. The famed director Roman Polanski allegedly committed statutory rape in 1977 when he was 43 years old; its ramifications have haunted him ever since, he's now 79. He directed many influential, classic films over the years, yet the shadow of a crime is often enough to stain everything one does in one's unrelated career. You can be world famous, you can be technically brilliant, but if you are evil or immoral in your personal life, it may out. However, this incident came later in his life than his first major brush with crime and death; in August 1969, he was living in Europe, working on a new film, when his wife Sharon Tate and several other people were slaughtered by Charles Manson's “Manson Family” in Los Angeles. Celebrities, being human, can be negatively affected and warped, even afflicted by PTSD like anyone else. So sometimes, while not dismissing or discounting what they do, because everyone is responsible for his or her actions, one can see or understand a little bit where their train went off its tracks.

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CALLING ALL DOCTORS
by Heidi Dougherty

A source told me the other day that a couple of his friends, who are psychiatrists, see between 90 and 100 patients a day. These doctors are seen as crucial to psychiatry, seeing patients that otherwise would not be seen and continue to suffer. With some experience in the mental health industry, I am confident in saying that some of these doctors are downright irresponsible, peddling free samples pushed on them by pharmaceutical companies, obsessed with making a profit even more than the pharmaceutical companies themselves. Desperate and sick patients, shunned by even the mental health system that is supposed to help them, are looking for doctors who are willing to spend more than 5 minutes with them, taking out their prescription pad and over-medicating based on too little patient information.

My source, who holds a PhD. In Psychology, commented when questioned on the integrity of some of these doctors in the way they practice, “All one has to work with in any profession are the tools of one’s trade. For a psychiatrist, his tool is his prescription pad.” My point is this: It seems as if it is too much to ask in this capitalistic, money-hungry age, for people to still conduct their practices with a sense of decency and moral fiber. Give the patients more than 5 minutes, get to know the illness in which you are treating instead of becoming rich drug peddlers for big business.

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PREQUEL. THE NEW SEQUEL.
by Richard F. Gallipeau

The prequel. After the "new" -er Star Wars trilogy (I saw Phantom Menace four times in the theatre, I'm as guilty as anyone), the prequel has officially found the mainstream. It's a new staple of the fantasy genre, but has really always been around, film buffs will note. Several high profile movie prequels have come out in recent months, what with Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, based on the famed J.R.R. Tolkien novel of the same name, and the Oz series prequel Oz: The Great and Powerful. However, I'd like to use this opportunity to expound on the state of the art; are we being inundated with prequels as we have been in recent years with remakes?

It began in the early 2000's, I believe; suddenly, the forces that be in Hollywood and movie-land in general began to greenlight remakes far more often than ever before. There have always been remakes. 1982's Scarface, and Scorcese's awesome 1991 version of Cape Fear. However, the prequel is a bit of a different animal, possibly even a trickier one to master. For instance, The Exorcist (1973) had two prequels, one of which astoundingly was a remake of the other, yet released a year earlier. Follow all that? True story; Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) and Dominion: A Prequel to the Exorcist (2005). Even more confusing is The Godfather: Part Two (1974), which was a sequel combined with a prequel; it told the backstory of Don Corleone while simultaneously telling that of his son Michael. Great film, it manages to pull everything off flawlessly with the help of Robert DeNiro's classic performance. The film Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), a prequel to the first film, Underworld (2003), is another example of an amazing prequel. I found it to be as good as the first one, easily. Matter of fact, even the superb Eastwood/Leone film The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966) is reputedly a prequel. So is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), even though it was released as the second film in that series. So there's a grand tradition of wonderful films that have technically been prequels.

There's also, unfortunately, a not-so-grand history of wasted film/and/or digital storage space making lousy, waste-of-time prequels. About Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) I remember very little about, just a bunch of running, screaming and of course, chainsaw revving. The Star Wars prequel trilogy has its share of detractors, 96% of whom only complain about Jar Jar Binks. And supposedly, Hannibal Rising (2007) also wasn't much of an addition to the Silence of the Lambs series. But really, there's no point in ruminating on the lameness of some of these films; prequels exist also in literature. They've always been around to some degree, they're here to stay, and every once in awhile, a great one is made.

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THE DEATH PENALTY: ONLY AMNESTY FOR THE INNOCENT
by Clifton Ellsworth Bullock

Capital punishment is a method that serves more justice to the lost lives of the innocent more than to the community that the crimes where made in. The old eye for an eye mantra that has made its way through ancient time seems to be the only way for society to justify to itself that taking a life should equal a life taken by another man or woman.

I think that the death penalty is a good thing if the crimes can be proven without prejudice. That means more than one term. When I say without prejudice I mean without the hatred for the gender, race, or religious views of the man or woman in question that has committed the crimes. In today’s day and age and with the advancement of the medical technology, DNA evidence has to prove without shadow of doubt that the person to be put to death indeed committed the crimes in which they are being accused.

So many times do you hear that a person who has been accused and prosecuted for crimes that are dated back to an earlier time have been either had the charge reversed of they have may have had the results of DNA to confirm their innocence before amnesty can be provided. This is not the case in every situation but to have it happen even once makes the crime against the community worse because another innocent person will have died and justice still will not be served to the actual perpetrator.

Another issue is the method and longevity of death row. A person will be able to sit on death row for decades before the process continues for an inmate to pay for the crimes that they have been convicted of. In turn tax payers have to flip the bill for an inmate who is guilty and prosecuted for a crime. During this time the same citizens who were victimized by heinous crimes are now being victimized finically as the state tax that is
paid goes to provide a comfortable life style for the same criminal for a substantial amount of time. Therefore they are now victimized twice.

The catch 22 is that if some of the inmates where executed immediately a lot of innocent people would be persecuted and if they are not executed in a decent amount of time then the tax payer finances the inmates comfortable prison cell complete with Direct TV, High speed internet , and world class weightlifting equipment. While the average American in today’s economic hardship ridden time do without some of those necessities whiles working honest livings and paying the vig of taxes.

Until we can correct the loop holes that are in the justice system then I believe that the death penalty should be limited to the crimes that have been proven without a doubt. Life taken by the state of the people is just a bad as life taken by the hands of the people. The power to prove the truth should be the ultimate denominator.

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