I see you.

You pour yourself a cup of coffee, haphazardly sloshing milk into the brew and spilling a few rouge grains of sugar on the counter top.  Out of the corner of your eye, a light flickers on, and the melodious greeting of your computer peaks your curiosity.  You take a sip, pulling back as the liquid scorches your lips.  Plopping into the arm chair, you open up a web browser on your computer.  You type in those beautiful, beautiful words....

Facebook.com

You begin to peruse your news feed to see if anything interesting has happened since you checked Facebook on your phone 20 minutes ago.  You "like" a few statuses and post your own update:

"I love the smell of coffee in the morning :)" - a nod at Apocolypse Now.  Five seconds later, a notification:  (Insert Name Here)   has liked your status.

Perhaps this is innocuous enough, but maybe it's something more.  Do we have enough information?  Should you be alarmed?  Maybe so...

Weary Wanderers Wary of Winter?

We've been lucky this year. It hasn't been quite so cold in Wisconsin. Sure, it dropped down to zero degrees one day this year, but it's mainly hovered around the teens and twenties.  Today, it got up to 40.  I gladly shed my parka and trotted down University in just a t-shirt and unbuttoned cardigan.

That being said, the mild winter has surely been a blessing to the over 3,000 people who stayed in homeless shelters (admittedly, the most recent numbers are from 2010).  Of those who stayed in shelters, 20% said they had slept outside or in a car the night before.

So is a warm winter something to be happy about if you're homeless?

"Let's talk about sex, baby......"

It’s one of the best and worst words in the English language.  It makes people uncomfortable.  It makes people excited.  It causes grown men and women to shout at each other, to lose their cool, to forget all decency.  It happens behind closed doors.  It’s talked about in hushed tones.  Gossip magazines make millions off of it.

It’s “sex.”

Once again, it’s taking the media by storm.  The controversial topic has recently been brought up in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times since a mandate requires religious employers to provide health care access to contraception for their employees.  In the past, many religious (mostly Catholic, it seems) institutions have refused to supply contraceptives to those who receive health care through the institutions, which include universities, hospitals, and charities.

A little background may be needed…

State of Insanity

Last night, President Obama gave his State of the Union address to our nation.  Tonight, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker gave his State of the State address.  These men might not have much in common...one is a Democrat, the other a Republican.  One is black, the other white.  However, the pair does have a few things in common, and these speeches came with high stakes.

The content of the speeches themselves were similar in a number of ways.  Both men discussed a specific person who had been laid off, but was re-hired at a better job and is now thriving.  Both men discussed energy sources - Obama discussing oil; Walker, mining.  They touted the job creation within their constituency, and how they aided that progress.  They also discussed education - Obama proposed that students must finish high school, or be in school until they turn 18.  Walker proposed reading reform to keep kids in school, as well as an accountability scale for passing and failing schools.

The "Unclean"

This morning, I had breakfast at Chick-fil-A.  It's somewhere I've decided to boycott, and yet their delicious Chick-n-Minis keep me coming back. But while I chowed down on my delectable treat, my guilt grew.  How could I support such an organization?

So what's the problem?  Well, in 2009, Chick-fil-A donated nearly $2 million to anti-gay groups, according to the Huffington Post.  Earlier this year, change.org released a statement that Chick-fil-A still has deep ties to the anti-gay movement.  "We do not accept homosexual couples," wrote WinShape Foundation, Chick-fil-A's "charitable arm."

As a final paper for my public opinion class, I wrote an analysis of the same-sex marriage debate.  I pride myself on my ability to play devil's advocate, to argue both sides (when needed).  People should be able to make their own decisions instead of relying on the decisions handed to them by their parents or society or their church.

But when I wrote the paper, I was horrified by many of the arguments against gay marriage.  "Legitimate" arguments.  Ones that people actually argue, and not something silly that a comedian says.  Arguments that people actually believe.  A list of them, found in "Same Sex Marriage: Focus on the Facts" by Sean Cahill, is below:

A look back at 2011

The holiday season is upon us, as they say, and that means a time to reflect and be thankful.

Personally, 2011 has brought it's own adventures and difficulties.  I packed my things and moved away from home for the first (real) time.  I have struggled with making friends, being away from family and those who love me, and finding where I fit in at graduate school.  But I am blessed with some amazing new friends, an increased confidence in myself, and the ability to scrape by in a meager studio apartment and lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I try to use this blog to reflect on the world from my own perspectives, to bring attention to injustices and examine the decisions we blindly make every day.  We're just going through the motions, more often than not.  I wake up and switch on my little green coffee maker from my friend Christine.  I go to classes, churn out papers with moments to spare, and wave to familiar faces at the corner of University and Park.

That behind me, I'm going to use this space to look back not just on my life, but on what 2011 meant to the now 7 billion humans that call our Earth home.  What did this year mean?  What have we accomplished?  Where have we fallen...

A pleasant kind of Onion

"It smells like roses!" he yelled.  The crowd erupted in cheers.  "They said that's wind you guys up."

Monday evening, UW alumni Joe Garden and Carol Kolb of The Onion came to speak at the Distinguished Lecture Series in what was titled "An Evening with The Onion."

I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen, but it did not disappoint.  Garden and Kolb proceeded to give a presentation worthy of Onion fame.  They began with the history of the paper, which they claimed was established in 1783 by T. Herman Zweibel, a Prussian immigrant and "tuber farmer" who established The Mercantile Onion.