It’s been a while since a turned 18 and became legal, but I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I have never cast a vote — not for a local, state, or national election. My first opportunity to vote was the midterm elections in 2006, and I just wasn’t informed enough about the House and Senate to make a smart decision. So I didn’t.

The other thing that paralyzed me, and that made me think it wouldn’t matter if I voted even in the presidential election, was the electoral college. I’m from good old Massachusetts — you know, the first state to legalize gay marriage, the so-blue-we-don’t-even- see-the-color-red state, the most liberal state in the union. There is never a contest about who wins our state’s votes. In fact, the politicians don’t even try; in the last election, I didn’t see a single presidential campaign ad.

So why bother voting? My vote amounts to a spit in the wind, and as long as we’re not talking about national popular vote as an option, things are going to stay that way. Still, though, I felt a renewed urge to cast my vote this year, because more than ever it seems like a year when a tremendous amount is at stake. Like hundreds of millions of others, I’ve seen my country slowly going down the tubes in the past eight years. It’s gotten a lot harder to be proud of my country, and I see the ideals it stands for increasingly obscured by smoke.

That’s when I found out that several states — including my college’s state of New Jersey — have voted to pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular election. Hot damn, my vote counts for one vote again! It’s a very exciting and rebellious move on the part of several states who are tired of only Ohio and Pennsylvania getting all the love.

So I registered! Read More »

In today’s Photoshoped world, it’s hard to tell which buzz-worthy pictures are fake, and which ones are actual hilarious moments caught by a camera…

We’re sincerely hoping this one is legit.

Why IS marijuana illegal? Why is it illegal when far more dangerous drugs, like alcohol and tobacco, are legal? Despite any hesitations you may have about marijuana, the research proving that it is hardly dangerous is in. And it means something.

Sure, marijuana can make you lazy and lethargic. But so can a big meal. Sure, it can make you hear, see, or feel things in a new way, but I think most of us know that alcohol does the same thing. Except alcohol tends to bring out violence in a lot of people, extreme behavior, and cigarettes cause cancer…

My point is that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that something is up with the legalization of marijuana, regardless of whether or not that rocket scientist smokes him/herself.

The state of California is catching on to the BS surrounding the case of marijuana and they have long been standing against it. Leading the way in legalizing marijuana for medicinal reasons, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that California is now trying to make marijuana legal for everyone. (Editor’s Note: Time to move out west!) Read More »

When I tell people that I was raised with no religion, it’s usually met with a certain amount of skepticism. I never realized what an anomaly it was until I moved away for college, and childhood stories, stories from home, were a matter of course in the ‘getting to know you’ conversations, and bitching about abandoned family religion was a hot topic.

“Never? You’ve really never been to church? What about Christmas? Easter? Seriously?”

Nope, never means never. At the age of 18, I had never sat in a pew and attended a church service. We weren’t high Holy Day Jews, or Easter-only Catholics, or even Unitarians in it for the social aspect (as my Dad was raised, until he was given the option to stop going around age 12). American demographics being what they are, my exposure to religion was haphazard, but fairly broad. I had friends of many religions, though I was too young to really understand what that meant, beyond a weekly time commitment. More importantly, I knew no one for whom it was a problem that I didn’t believe, just as I didn’t care if they did.

Even with this lack of Christianity, Christmas was (and is) a big deal in my home. A tree with an angel and packages and cookies and friends and family, the whole nine yards, the family tradition. Looking back, it’s odd that we had tiny creche figures that we got to remove one at a time from our daily advent calendar, complete with baby Jesus, but it was part of the package. We believed in the story, but that was as far as it went. I knew that Jesus was a good guy, a leader of men, but…he can’t be the son of God if you don’t believe in God. Read More »

[Okay.  So now maybe it WASN’T fake?!] 

[Editor’s Note: since this story was published, Schvarts has admitted to faking the reality of the situation. Her project was to induce conversation about such topics, not actually do them]

Well if my massive hangover wasn’t enough to get me to barf this morning, this story will surely help.

It seems that the line between what is art and what is downright vulgar and disgusting is a lot finer than believed. Aliza Schvarts, an art student at Yale, artificially inseminated herself repeatedly while simultaneously taking medications to induce miscarriages…for her senior art project.

The final product is “a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself ‘as often as possible’ while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process….” Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 194
Mood: Protective

“what’d you do this weekend?” Naima, Rebecca and I were walking back from the science building, each of us weighed down by the heavy books of our respective classes. For the first time all week, the sun was out, and it was more than twenty degrees. We could walk slowly, pull our scarves away from our faces and actually talk, instead of running from one class to another.

“I didn’t do much…” Heaving my backpack higher onto my shoulders, I dodged a puddle next to me on the grass. “Just sort of stayed in and studied.”

“What?” Naima was obviously disgusted. “You studied? On Saturday?”

Rebecca laughed, sliding her eyes over to mine. She had been in studying with me most of the weekend, but had the sense to keep her mouth shut about her lack of excitement.

“It was too cold!”

“Too cold?” Naima was even more disgusted. “I can’t believe we’re friends. The weather is no excuse to stay away from parties!”

I dodged another puddle and smiled helplessly, hoping that Naima would see my reclusive weekend as simple laziness. The truth was that I hadn’t been going out for a few weekends now. There were people I didn’t want to see. Read More »