Rick Santorum's three-state victory sweep and recent surge ahead of frontrunner Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential nomination race may have been considered an "upset" to some, but those who know American politics are well aware that no surprise is too surprising during election season.
It's 10 a.m. on a Sunday and an intern is late for an event. Four hours and numerous voicemails and text messages from the supervisor later, the intern calls and explains that he's sorry, he thought the event was the following Sunday. Sounds obnoxious, something that "would never be tolerated in the real world," right? The sad reality is that today's interns get away with far more than they used to and far more than they should.
The Grammy Awards can be useful for highlighting some of the best music of a given year. They offer one kind of historical marker that measures popular genres, successful artists and iconic songs of the era. You can learn a substantial amount about a society's cultural values by merely looking back at what music rocked its world.
After the Obama administration announced a mandate that would require all employers, even religiously affiliated ones, to offer birth control for its employees under their health care plans, Catholic leaders and Republicans alike lashed out at the regulation.
Contraception on campus has been one of the heaviest and longest held debates within the U.S. academic community. Is contraception promoting promiscuity? Is it taking away from the mission we uphold as an institution of learning? And yet the most important question, which arguably should be the first one asked, really hasn't been. Realistically, how dependent on contraception is the student population at hand? The issue of contraception on campus is one of numbers, not morals.
Feb. 14 is a day that all singles dread. Valentine's Day leaves the singles of the world at home in front of their TVs with a romantic comedy and a tub of ice cream. This day was designed for singles to feel bad. Everyone shows off their partners and gushes about how in love they are and how beautiful their relationships are.
Have you ever scrolled through the comment section of YouTube or Facebook? If you have, you more than likely have seen some ugly and crude remarks. Sometimes these are directed towards other users, and sometimes they're directed towards the subject of the video or article itself.
Political humor. We're talking wicked satire here. Thanks to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert people have begun to rely heavily on these popular shows to get their dose of politics. And for the average under-informed voter, like those students who might not feel like they know a whole lot about politics, these shows are the perfect place to start.
Starbucks is one of the most beloved and loathed companies in America. The simple act of holding a cup with that iconic green siren immediately triggers an array of judgments. Pretentious, stylish, tasteful, wasteful and even conformist are some of the assumptions made about those who drink it.
Being accepted into college is every teenager's dream. Once you get that letter, it's a feeling you never want to let go of. It signifies accomplishment and success and allows you to live out senior year without a worry. Students work hard to earn acceptance letters, and they should never be taken away, even if there is a "system error."
This past week, a Canadian jury convicted three members of an Afghan immigrant family for the proposed "honor killings" of their four female relatives. Mohammed Shafia, his wife and son were charged with the murder of Shafia's three daughters and his first wife based on wiretapped conversations in which Shafia condemned his daughters' "immoral" behavior. The verdict carried a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
If you have lived in Chicago between November and February, you may have noticed that the city's seemingly friendly residents—the ones who will go the extra step to smile or hold a door for you—have been overcome by a very obvious sort of misery. And misery, thy name is winter.
Getting a coffee at the Lincoln Park campus en route to class has become a seemingly impossible task. You can do everything right—checking the train tracker to schedule exactly when you'll land in Lincoln Park and getting to The Bean 10 minutes before class begins—and, still, it's not a guarantee that you get a coffee in time. Too few locations, long lines and inefficient service are the sole reasons.
The conservatives in South Carolina did not care to look to the long-term when voting for Newt Gingrich. Gingrich won 40 percent of the primary vote, beating Mitt Romney who garnered only 27 percent. The fact is, South Carolinians demonstrated they value of cutting insults and personal jabs far more than politics.
The Obama administration has directly attacked a core belief of the Catholic Church: the stance against the use of contraceptives.
A reader's response to "Let's (not) talk about sex, baby."
Sex is both very ambiguous and very prevalent in the Bible. Take the Song of Solomon from the Old Testament, which can be interpreted as an erotic piece of literature, or the fact Abraham fathered sons from both his wife and his servant, and let's not even mention the incest that seems to take place on more than one occasion. Depending on how you read it, the Bible is filled with sex.
Apparently even disgrace can go viral, as four American Marines recently demonstrated. In only 39 seconds, the world got a view of just how inhumane war can be. And we're not even talking about the combat. The video depicts four Marines urinating on three Afghan corpses. The shocking stills are reminiscent of the previous U.S. military disgrace Abu Ghraib.
We recently celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a holiday dedicated to a great American who spent his life working towards the recognition of all citizens' equal rights and liberties. Yet, as the years have passed, the gaze of many has been drawn to a certain question: Did Dr. King believe in equal rights for all people, or just for all races? What would Dr. King think about today's gay rights movement?
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is either an ignorant man or a complete hypocrite. The self-professed Roman Catholic zealot is aiming for social conservatives who may be reluctant to vote for Mitt Romney, but his tactics in gaining support have proven not only tacky, but illogical.
There is no denying it; the full madness of the presidential election has befallen us. Usually with an incumbent president running, our nation is spared some of the electoral insanity by only having to watch one party stumble through the vicious cycle of mud-slinging, flip-flopping, and finger-pointing that is the candidate selection process. This year however, the Republicans are stepping up their act to provide us with a comprehensive demonstration of crazy.
Academic freedom is under attack, not just at DePaul University but at various academic institutions in the United States and around the world. Despite tedious rules regarding tenure, publishing, and financial support given to university departments, there is still a very clear and concise political agenda behind every aspect of the inner workings of a university.
For those who've followed the race for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, it must seem as if things have digressed from Barnum and Bailey to the final scene from Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." There are now three or four desperate men ready to do unspeakable things to each other in order to win the nomination.
The Taste of Chicago just isn'The Taste of Chicago just isn't what it used to be, and there are numbers to prove it. The Taste not only lost money in 2011 but also had the lowest attendance to date, and safety has also become an increasingly serious issue.
Americans are codified from a young age to acknowledge the fleeting, the anti-intellectual, the sensational and the superficial. We learn early about the nature of celebrity worship and the monopoly they have on our culture without questioning why or how they have achieved such status. Sadly, this has become a blindly accepted norm.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a topic of large debate in Congress, as issues of economic vitality, intellectual freedom, and corporate greed continue to loom in the minds of many. Unfortunately, the ever-shakable and weakening moral fiber of our public officials and the hypocrisy of our government's bureaucratic structures must once again be reexamined.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was a long shot from winning when the debate season began. There were no profile pieces of him in The New York Times or Newsweek. His closet wasn't ransacked for skeletons. He didn't even suffer from the malapropisms that plagued the nova campaigns of Bachmann, Perry and Cain.
Every New Year brings with it the opportunity to reaffirm optimism in the world by inflating the psyche with attainable goals, which, inevitably, are never achieved.
Illinois lawmakers recently announced a consideration to ban drivers from using cell phones while operating a vehicle, even if they're using a hands-free device. The idea for the ban came from a national recommendation by the National Transportation Safety Board, in an effort to decrease distracted driving accidents.
The bad behavior exhibited by celebrities makes magazine and television headlines every day. For a culture obsessed with Hollywood, it comes as no surprise when celebrities act in a manner deserving of negative publicity. However, usually they're at least somewhat apologetic when faced with the reality of their actions, which is ultimately what separates Alec Baldwin from the rest.
As the Penn State scandal has simmered down and we are now only hearing the occasional updates of Jerry Sandusky's trial in the mainstream media, perhaps we can look at the issue more objectively. Penn State University has provided a model of what not to do in the future. From the moment assistant coach Mike Mcqueary witnessed Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in 2001, to when interim head coach Tom Bradley said the game against Nebraska was the beginning of the "healing process," everyone involved has been guilty of fumbling - to use an appropriate metaphor.
If one were to examine this year in retrospect, paging through the minutes, the hours, the days, reciting the headlines, recalling the lives and the deaths that made us look up and realize the magnitude of our world and ourselves, protesting would be at the epicenter of it all, making "The Protestor" as Time's 2011 Person of the Year fitting.
The Victoria's Secret Fashion show has become an American event, neatly packaged and marketed with a primetime network slot. The commercials, featuring tall, leggy, semi-emaciated women are no different from the advertisements we are fed for professional sports, action movies, and sitcoms – quick hits, quick jokes, and carnal images of women. Simply put, Victoria's Secret buys airtime once a year to remind America that their definition of beauty still holds reign.
Second only to places of worship, schools are meant to be the safest environments for those inside. It is where we learn, where we grow, where we socialize, and where we escape the responsibilities and complications of work and home. No student or staff member should ever question their well being while inside the walls of an academic institution.
Facebook takes in information and paints a picture of you. After a while it has a very good idea of what you like and don't like, and what type of person you are. How wonderful for a marketing team to have such an in-depth profile of its target demographic.
With more than 800 million users, Facebook has a good deal of influence on the international community. However, the European Union is not happy with Facebook's practice of utilizing its users' information to sell advertising.
18-year-old Emma Sullivan was unimpressed with what she heard from Gov. Sam Brownback when she attended a class field trip to hear him speak in Topeka, Kan. on Nov. 23. Like so many others, the Shawnee Mission East High School senior took to social media to express her disapproval, tweeting to her then 60 followers ""just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot."
Images of spewing blood, guts, and missing limbs sound like gruesome details of a decent horror movie or slasher film. But it's not; it's real life, it's happening now, and it's in the news a lot more than the average American sees.
As a DePaul student, it would've been nearly impossible to miss the Sabra Hummus campaign last spring. When the referendum failed, not because of a lack of support for SJP's campaign, but because an insufficient number of total students had participated in the referendum, many thought that the campaign had also failed. But I've returned to DePaul to find that SJP had actually succeeded in their campaign, and this success went unpublicized.
Mitt Romney has a problem. Many evangelical Christians will be reluctant to vote for him, because of his Mormon faith. With the Iowa caucus less than two months away and the presidential election fast approaching, Romney faces criticism from the Tea Party voters and evangelicals.
As a victim of sexual abuse from age 11 to 17, I know my abuser stole the biggest part of my childhood, robbed me of my innocence and forever changed my life in ways that cannot be repaid or restored. When I hear people complain that they're tired of the ongoing press coverage of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal and ask whether it all might be a little overblown, it makes me wonder, "What will it take?"
Herman Cain's sexual harassment accusers are multiplying as quickly as his positive poll numbers are diminishing. When trying to win the Republican Party presidential nomination, it's probably best not to have your unwanted sexual advances and the Fibonacci Sequence mentioned in the same breath.
When someone is taken from their home by force, locked up and made to work and has no chance of escape, that's called slavery. It's the exact reality for orcas who have been removed from the ocean and denied their family and companions, dumped into a tank at SeaWorld, and spend the rest of their lives performing tricks that demean and disrespect them.
During the early morning hours of Oct. 25, the encampment of Occupy Oakland at Oscar Grant Plaza was raided by approximately 500 Oakland police officers. It was reported that the Oakland police department used tear gas and beanbag rounds to disperse peaceful protestors.
Holidays are stressful. That's a fact, and if you think otherwise then please send me a dinner invitation to your house as soon as possible. I love Thanksgiving for several reasons; the food, spending time with friends and family, listening to Christmas music becomes acceptable, the food, shopping malls overflow with crazed mothers…did I mentioned the food?
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