Athletes spend their lives preparing for the Olympics. They train endless hours and devote their lives to their sport. When their dreams are realized and they make it past the qualifying competitions, how awful would it be to have people not only ignore that success, but also mock and disrespect it to the point of absurdity? This is exactly what has happened with the traditional torch relay for the 2008 Olympics.
Between the ever-increasing number of craft breweries in Oregon as well as the Oregon Brewers Festival, it’s no big surprise that Oregonians love their beer. What may be shocking is that other people like our beer too.
College students hang out downtown. It’s what we do. It’s where we go out, party and have that after-school stress release. What makes downtown so appealing? It’s the city, full of life and people. Yet, recently there has been a growing group of people who claim that downtown is missing something college students wouldn’t think of. A group calling themselves the Central Portland Families wants to disrupt downtown life and introduce something unheard of: an elementary school.
Anyone who has experienced the painful hangover that follows a joyously celebrated St. Patrick’s Day has asked, “What did I do last night and why did I do it?” There is usually no clear answer to that question, but by the time the next St. Patrick’s Day comes, we’re out there again, making that same mistake.
Wandering around town, it’s easy to see that Portlanders have P-town pride. Bumper stickers with “Stumptown” and T-shirts with “Keep Portland Weird” litter the cars and bodies of locals. But there’s another type of local pride being pushed these days that goes deeper into your pockets than the cost of a T-shirt. A group called PDX Currency has taken local pride to a ridiculous level by trying to promote a Portland-only currency.
Anyone who saw Chris Crocker’s desperate web plea to “leave Britney alone” last September knows how involved and obsessed Americans can get about celebrities. We laugh when they laugh, we’re happy when they’re happy, but when they break down, we’ll definitely be there to kick them. Sometimes, we kick them even when they’re happy. It just depends on how cruel we’re feeling at the moment.
Looking at films like Idiocracy, we laugh and poke fun at how unbearably stupid Americans could be 500 years from now. But all laughing aside, we have to wonder: Is it possible that our country is being dumbed down? Between tabloid-controlled media, reality shows like American Gladiators and presidential nominees being revered for winning a Grammy, I would have to say, it is not only possible, but a quickly forming reality.
For college students, the Internet is very much an active part of our world. Many students have Facebook or MySpace accounts, and every student automatically has a Portland State e-mail account. Yet, with Microsoft’s recent outrageous bid to buy Yahoo, we have to wonder if the Internet as we know it could eventually change to our disadvantage.
“Be a Good Egg.” There it is again. Another sign encouraging college girls to donate their ova.
At the beginning of the year, the Oregon government began an ad campaign letting students know that they would be giving out twice as much money this year as they gave out last year. “Hooray!” I thought for a moment as I read the news, “Maybe next year, I won’t have to take out as many student loans.”
Since announcing her candidacy for president, Hillary Clinton has received a lot of criticism for being too stern or unfriendly. Being the first female candidate for President of the United States with a real shot at succeeding, we have to ask, is it because she is a woman that she’s getting such bad press?