For a long time the Roman Catholic Church has seemed, to me, quite austere and removed from daily realities; its age-old traditions and white-clothed specter of a pope have often felt more symbolic than tangible.
Pay it forward
What if you didn’t have to take out a loan to get through college? In fact, what if you didn’t have to worry about paying at all the whole time you were studying?
Will we pay attention?
The trial of Trayvon Martin is over. Yes, I meant Trayvon Martin, not George Zimmerman. When you think of murder trials, you rarely think of the victims as being on trial. They’re the victims, after all. They’re the ones who lost their lives. They are not here to speak for themselves anymore. They are usually painted with the most sorrowful of colors, their lives mourned and their memories safeguarded. Funny how different this trial was.
Embracing the shake
Phil Hansen was in art school when he developed a tremor in his hand. That would surely be troubling for most of us, but as long as we could still hold a beer can successfully we’d probably be OK. For Hansen, it was the potential end of a career; his dreams of pursuing art—the one thing he was passionate about—came to halt even as his hand never did.
PSU cancels 79 summer classes
It’s official. We’re in the throes of summer term and the weather has decided to join in the fun. Before long, we will all be complaining about how hot it is since we can now stop doing it about the rain. Ah, isn’t life great? As long as there’s something to grumble about, we’re all good.
The national anthem raises racist hackles
The 2013 NBA Championships are over, and we will have to wait another year for oversized and overpaid players to lift the trophy in triumph once again. Don’t get me wrong, I love basketball—I just liked it better when it was more about the skill of the players than their egos. But that’s another story.
No, you can’t have my passwords
The Oregon Senate just passed a bill that doesn’t raise as many eyebrows as what the bill seeks to prohibit. If made into law, House Bill 2645B would “prevent businesses from demanding passwords to Twitter and Facebook as conditions of employment,” according to KATU News.
Domestic violence—just a women’s issue?
As the Benghazi hearings continue to rehash the difference between calling something an “act of terrorism” or a “demonstration” and the incredibly complex meanings of each, they bring to the forefront the intrinsic significance of language and its role in creating the world we live in.
PSU students have plans for Lombard Street
Rarely do you get a chance to see what your education is tangibly doing for you, or for anyone else for that matter. You sit in your class and repeat French verb conjugations or mathematical algorithms, and while it makes you sound exceedingly clever, that’s probably the extent of its effect your life. Unless, of course, you’re moving to France this summer to date a mathematician.
Pregnant women paid to give up cigarettes
Headlines are a great way to gauge how judgmental you are. The saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is almost irrelevant since people don’t read those any more. It’s all about headlines, bylines and taglines. It’s the two seconds when a cleverly crafted phrase catches your eye and tells you its story before you move on to the next one. They’re loaded these days—they have to be.
A thousand reasons
Eight people were reported dead last week after a fire ravaged a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, according to USA Today. This is the most recent incident to hit the country and its garment industry after last month’s factory collapse, in which 1,000 people died.