Author: Owen Roche

  • The IKEA Veggie Dog: An Odyssey

    To be a vegan in 2018 is to be a creature of pilgrimage. We catch wind of a restaurant on the verge of adopting plant-based menu items and we immediately set to planning our trip. Word gets around that a store finally serves Beyond Meat burgers or a single dish without cheese, and there’s (metaphorical) blood in the water. We grind our herbivorous molars in anticipation. We tremble with equal parts excitement and vitamin deficiency. The hunt begins.

    Through the ages, the decision to travel vast distances in the name of an honorable cause has sparked the most influential human migrations in history. Some sought religious freedom, others a new life and a fresh start. Some went into the unknown in search of riches beyond their wildest dreams. I was looking for something to break the monotony of PB&J sandwiches for lunch.

    Leaning against a lamp post in front of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, I imagined the cautious optimism and noble urgency within me must have been what my ancestors felt as they crossed the Atlantic. They put up with decaying, decrepit transport. I took the downtown A. They were hungry. So was I.

    I pulled up to the curb in front of Borough Hall with my ticket to the lunch I had been waiting for. Weeks of salivating, practicing my order and rehearsing the steps of my daunting pilgrimage culminated with a six-row shuttle bus — a sight I could only imagine was as glorious as my forefathers’ first glimpse of Lady Liberty’s shining torch. The paper taped crookedly to the inside of the door read: “IKEA.”

    The promised land beckoned.

    Much like how early Man crossed the Bering Strait in his ultimate quest to survive and thrive on Earth, I journeyed to the most populous borough of New York City in search of one thing and one thing only: the new IKEA veggie dog.

    Introduced to America on Sept. 25, it joined veggie meatballs within the Swedish home furnishing Mecca’s movement towards plant-based eating and sustainability throughout the company’s offerings.

    As a seasoned vegan myself, I know that it’s a cruel, cruel world we live in, and all veggie dogs are not created equal. Some have uncannily-snappy casings, like the Yves Good Dog. Others maintain the comforting mushiness of Loma Linda’s canned Big Franks. Some are big, some are small; from seitan to vital wheat gluten, textured vegetable protein to just plain marinated carrots — I’ve given each dog its day. But the IKEA veggie dog could be different: a product of a company dedicated to giving its customers a veritable bang for their buck. This dog had the chance to lift my lunch to top-shelf eating — or shatter my expectations flatter than a POANG chair.

    My disappointment was evident the moment I set foot in the shimmering hospital-white confines of the IKEA cafeteria. I suppose I can’t accuse IKEA of lacking balls; after all, the meatballs were where they should be — where they always are. Their veggie alternatives were assembled in trays right beside them. The Dog, however, was nowhere to be found.

    Had I read the press release wrong? Was this specific IKEA refusing to serve the veggie dog? Was my pilgrimage in vain? I choked back bitter tears as I picked at my veggie balls, quinoa and mixed vegetables. Lingonberry drink did little to dull the pain of knowing I had come so far for nothing. I gathered myself and cleared my plate, safe in the knowledge that my food waste would be converted into biogas or something. I had to press on, to reach the checkout, to prove that I had reached the finish line with my ego intact.

    Countless tastefully-decorated (yet so unbelievably affordable!) house tours later, I trudged through the self-service furniture warehouse ready to go home. Like an explorer sent to uncover riches but forced to return empty-handed, I felt foolish to ever entertain this journey in the first place. No one takes the subway 12 stops for veggie balls.

    The checkout counters beeped mockingly at me. The sliding doors welcomed my defeat and the shuttle stood ready to put an end to my fruitless pilgrimage.

    Suddenly, I looked up — did my eyes deceive me? Was it an illusion sent from the gods to torment me as they did the wanderer Jason? No, friends, it was true — before my eyes danced a digital depiction of what I had sought after all this time. Of course! The IKEA Bistro, situated beside the Swedish Market and past the checkout lines, had the veggie dog all along.

    The hairnetted, grey-eyed woman who took my order seemed to know how far I’d come, and I must have been jittering with anticipation — and hunger, surely, after walking through the entire store. I received the warm, perfectly-assembled IKEA veggie dog in trembling hands and scurried to an empty seat, hunched over like some sort of goblin. I pulled back the paper wrapping and wept with joy.

    The dog itself is an exquisite combination of red lentils, kale, carrots and ginger, spiced to perfection to match the savory taste of its veggie ball counterpart. Its constitution falls into a sacred middle ground of satisfying texture, tenderness and completely free from the sneaking suspicion that one is eating something with any sort of “casing” on it. The veggie dog does not need to be contained, nor should it be. Its flavors, in tandem with the sweet pickled cabbage and crunchy fried onions that graced it like a delicious tiara, are what every dog, meaty or otherwise, aspires to deliver.

    The peace of mind that one of IKEA’s plant-based offerings takes seven times less carbon dioxide to make than its meaty counterparts only heightens the euphoria of eating this divine dog. Great taste combined with moral superiority is a potent mixture, and IKEA treads this line with the utmost grace.

    I needed no printed instructions to properly eat the IKEA veggie dog. Like a screw into a perfectly pre-drilled hole in a KLIPPAN sofa, it went down easy. With a full stomach and arms laden with Swedish cookies for the road, I proudly made my way back home. My quest was a success. I plan to return soon — and this time I’ll know where to look. But until then, I maintain my solemn vow to relentlessly scour vegan cooking blogs and the Beyond Meat Twitter account, just as those before me pored over incomplete, unreliable maps of their time — always in search of the next pilgrimage.

  • I’ve Gotten This Far Without Trilling My R’s

    ¡CIENTO VEINTIDÓS!

    ¡CIENTO VEINTIDÓS!

    ¡CIENTO VEINTIDÓS!

    There was no significance behind it. To the three whiter-than-white seventh-graders chanting “one hundred twenty-two!” in the back of Señora O’SmithSchneiderStein’s Spanish 1 classroom, the syllables that tumbled from their mouths simply felt good on their tongues—and, after all, it was funny.

    Funny in the same way that kids would shout things like TAREAAAAA and PAPAS FRRRRRITAS during vocabulary review sessions to get a laugh out of their classmates.

    The way we learned the cultural significance of the baCHAta before donning colorful dollar store sombreros and filling paper plates with tortEEya chips and UNE POCOE de SAALSA.

    But not guacamole. It was green, after all. VERDAY. We were a little suspicious.

    Have you ever heard kids with heavy Philadelphia accents go through their first years of learning Spanish? The same people that drink WOODER bottles and root for the IGGLES on winter Sundays send children off to school each day knowing that their offspring will butcher two languages before the day is done.

    ~

    The United States of America has no national language. Our melting pot PR is very good. However, thirty of the fifty states in the union have laws mandating English be spoken in all important official interactions and exchanges, and Geno’s Steaks is famous for proudly displaying “This is America, when ordering, speak English” in its window.

    Obviously, people here care a lot about how they are allowed to express themselves and tell their stories. The fear of people saying things we don’t understand (while also never making the effort to understand) has inevitably taken root in the public school system. Suburban Philly kids are not alone in their hatred of Spanish class. The nation’s majority cry out from the un-air-conditioned half-open windows of their schools with an arrogance almost as palpable as their ignorance: 

    When are we going to actually interact with someone who actually speaks Spanish? Like “Gimme a cheesesteak wit” is even English.

    But it’s cool to be ignorant. Doing terrible in a foreign language class is just as acceptable as struggling with math—communicating with others is permitted to be “just not my thing.”

     The “humanities” surely include literature, but we’re under the impression that only what we can already comprehend counts. To deny another human’s expression—to render their literature, their language inapplicable to you—is to negate their existence. I’ve polled the room, and the 11th graders bored out of their minds in Spanish class don’t seem to mind all that much.

    ~

    Accent and emphasis are the two key elements of Spanish pronunciation. In Spanish class, you’ll get along just fine without them. While it is assumed that emphasis is placed on the penultimate syllable, sometimes it lies elsewhere, wherein we denote this emphasis with what we call an ACK-SCENTO ( ´ ). The funny little snake atop the N in MANYANA is called a TILL DAY  ( ~ ). Accents define regional dialects and can give you a good sense of where someone’s from or who they hang out with. If they replace their YYYs with soft JJJJs, they’re probably Argentinian, Uruguayan, or somewhere in that neighborhood.

    If they say things like pWEDO EER ull BAHNYO right before the quiz to go study and vape in the bathroom, they might just be an American teen duped into thinking their world is far smaller than it actually is.

    ~

    I like to imagine that, just as we enjoy characters in movies with heavy foreign accents, people from Spanish-speaking countries see movies with Americans that have that perfect mixture of Spanish mastery and unmistakable English steamrolling of syllables. Perhaps that’s why I’d be able to understand Spanish with impeccable accuracy so long as everyone spoke like the skipping cassette recording we used in middle school.

    Ac-Actividad… uno. Escuchen a las siguientes palabras y marque con un circulo la respuesta correcta que corresponde a cada pregunta.

    Perhaps the Spanish learning experience—foreign relations in general, even—would be better for everyone if we spoke loudly, slowly, and only about the weather and the whereabouts of the nearest library.

    ~

    The last time anyone bothered to check (2008), 58% of middle schools in the United states taught foreign languages. Twenty-five percent of elementary schools, if you care. We are creatures born with a desire to communicate and an unabashed love for language, but that magic biological window that ends on one’s 18th birthday for learning a language seems to be a resource yet untapped for the better part of America’s population of monolinguists. The kids don’t really care.

    They’ve never been given a reason to care. 

    Nations around the world brag about their high percentages of bilinguals, but we have the luxury of speaking from birth the language everyone on Earth strives to master if they want to puncture the international seal and inject the tiniest bit of personal experience and struggle. The future engineers and stockbrokers and English teachers of the world sit through Spanish class because they have to, letting riches go in one ear and out the other simply because they cannot be bothered to convert the currency. 

    By the time English-speakers get to high school, where a foreign language is required in 91% of schools, it’s too late. Their best language-learning years are running out, and there are more pressing matters to attend to than Spanish 1 workbooks. A token class period to sing songs about “EEZKEYERDA, DUHRECHA, DUHLANTAY, DUHTRASS” and whisper test answers in English does little to build the foundations of language. More often than not, these efforts amount to no more than shallow graves.

    ~

    CircumloCUTION means “talking around the word I need to say because I forgot my dictionary and just blanked on how to say ‘where is the discoTEca.’” Talking around something is excusing your monolinguity with a dismissive wave because you will never, ever, have to communicate with someone who doesn’t talk like you. And you really don’t want the hassle, anyway.

    CircunloQUIo is how students ramble on and gesticulate wildly in the middle of their presentation on Bodas de Sangre because they never really bothered to read it because, you know—it was in a foreign language.

    It was someone else’s story. If the literature was that good, how come we didn’t learn it in English class?

    ~

    Words that sound similar in English and Spanish are called “cognates.” CogNAtos. Kids in Spanish class love those. Beware, however, of false cognates—Pope and potato, pregnant and embarrassed, exit and success headline words that should not be confused with each other across languages. If someone spills a drink and tells you that they’re emBAraZAda, ask them when the baby’s due. Confusion is inevitable when you present someone with something significant but told in a manner to which they cannot fully relate. The lack of one-to-one comparisons is more than enough to discourage those who demand mathematical answers to human questions.

    Have you ever tried watching the news in a different language? Suddenly, everything is happening outside yourself, in a world where your words mean nothing. You may sit diligently though every last mediocre Spanish class in high school, score decent marks on your placement exams and pursue it as an avenue of study in college, but I think I speak for all the whiter-than-white college kids still chanting CIENTO VEINTIDÓS under their breath with a grin when I say that feeling like an outsider in Spanish class is some poetic irony.

    ~

    Should I tell my story in a language I’ve only co-opted? I question whether I’d even be communicating authentically using words that are not my own. To make them mine smacks of the very process of conquering that made my mother tongue the alpha throughout the world. My problems are minute when we speak of relativity; but just as I am free to communicate and co-humanize with the majority of my country, I am locked out of so many others. At its worst, Spanish class is less a passport and more a ticket to gawk at the Other; to imitate its movements and mimic its vocalizations. Call it lip service, satire, or blatant farce—most just call it fifth period. A prerequisite to graduation. A participation trophy.

    But I do not study the language to apologize for my countrymen and classmates in TEXCESS and LOSS ANJULUS demanding their neighbors speak American. 

    My EMbarAZO when I talk is the very thing that chains me to the back row of my high school Spanish class. The eggshells I crush underfoot with every butchered proNUNciAciON are, I suspect, self-placed. That if I simply let go of the parts of my identity that stick out when I fumble over TILL DAYs and encaBALgamiENto, I’d finally do the language justice. I’d be someone who shares—not takes, nor simply observes from afar—the experiences, the life, and the humanity of a fellow human.

    How do you know if you’re really, truly honoring a language? Ask a native speaker, and I suppose they’ll give you an answer. But they might just ask you the same question instead.

  • Thanksgiving: The Holiday of Moral Qualms

    There is no holiday more shrouded in ethical angst, more clouded with moral ambiguity than Thanksgiving. It is only fitting that November, the bitter, neglected child of the calendar year, has once again brought us face-to-face with the one day off that carries enough baggage to ground an airplane. 

    Thanksgiving has made its name on a sense of unity and family, but we see through the tryptophan sham. This fourth Thursday of November, it will once again be time to gather the family ’round the table to confront the ethical conundrums that muddy the gravy of this feast of farce.

    To unleash unease is only in the holiday spirit.

    The easiest target is enough to make even the most patriotic AP U.S. History student squirm with moral turmoil: the “First Thanksgiving” that graces the pages of children’s books and “Peanuts” specials the world over. It may be old news by now that friends, buttered toast, jelly beans and popcorn do not quite represent the selfless gesture from Native Americans to struggling European colonists immortalized in many a terrible school play. Did you want an extra helping of genocide with your mashed potatoes?

    Does the inevitable backstabbing of epic proportions that followed the iconic meal we annually seek to replicate boil your blood hotter than a thousand pots of corn on the cob? Is it the meat sweats, or does the irony of giving thanks on stolen land make you perspire?

    Now you’re getting into the spirit.

    In the interest of maximizing stress throughout the holiday, one might seek to bring up the United Nations Climate Report once more — you know, the one that says we’re doomed as a species if we can’t change our ways and work towards a more sustainable tomorrow. Atop the list of horrible human habits that turn up the heat on planet Earth: eating meat. It really just isn’t Thanksgiving unless each turkey leg and sliver of roast beef fills you with the unshakable notion that the carbon emissions and ultimate sacrifice of innocent life to fill your stomach weren’t entirely worth it — on your way up for thirds. A soggy block of tofu is more symbolic of the season than turkey ever was, after all.

    The televised military tribunal our country holds every year does little to lighten the mood. Thanksgiving may be unique in its position as the only holiday marked with a presidential pardon. Members of a foreign species stand trial for their right to exist, walk free by the benevolence of our enlightened despot and, assumedly, return to tell their friends about the might of the United States — if they’re not already cooked up and served. 

    This may be too harsh a judgement. Perhaps the shifty eyes, twiddling fingers and crescendoing gastrointestinal distress are entirely separate from the unsettling air of the season. The knife-cuttable tension around this year’s feast of folly may very well have another, even more callous source: gluttonous sequels you just can’t wait to celebrate.

    The holiday, sufficiently dreadful on its own, continues to find ways to absorb other weaker sources of gloom, much like an imploding star. Black Friday and Thanksgiving are one and the same, and you know you love it. The sense of urgency that accompanies food prep for the big day is but a pregame for the adrenaline to come, as visions of white-knuckled grips on shopping carts dance in the heads of Black Friday veterans. Turning one’s ear away from the commotion in Best Buy reveals another, even sweeter sound of impending stress: sleigh bells. Halloween is far in the rearview, and Thanksgiving is the perfect harbinger of snow, ice, mall Santas and Walmart layaway.

    If the pumpkin pie-fueled regret and self-loathing haven’t kicked in yet, be safe with the knowledge that Thanksgiving, in one way or another, will do its part to stuff you full of ethical turmoil and stressful conflict before the last plate is cleaned. If you, like millions of Americans, look forward to taking this single day out of the year to be thankful, be forewarned: you’ll have no choice but to face the impossible contextual nuances, ethical quandaries and boats upon boats of muddy gravy that give twisted life to the holiday, lumps and all.

  • Administration Inactive as Old Quinn Languishes

    For the indefinite future, the best view students will get of the old Quinn Library space will continue to be through its locked doors.

    Two years after the new, three-story Quinn Library opened in the fall of 2016 as part of the newly-renovated 140 West building, the old library on the ground floor of the Leon Lowenstein Center remains gutted and underutilized. Rare views into the once-active space reveal evidence of periodic renovation and maintenance; however Fordham has yet to decide how space will be allocated and reinvented for “Old Quinn’s” second act. 

    The Lincoln Center Space Planning Committee is tasked with envisioning a new role for the sizeable space. The group is comprised of select members from the Fordham Faculty Senate and chaired by Lincoln Center Vice President Frank Simio. Recently, Interim Dean Frederick Wertz, PhD has joined the group. 

    The committee was active during the 140 West building renovations, completed in the fall of 2016, and the acquisition of Martino Hall in the summer of 2015. However, as of late the committee has encountered scheduling troubles and has struggled to come together to decide the fate of the old Quinn Library space, according to Simio. They have yet to meet this semester and as confirmed by Simio, they have no definitive plans in place for the space.

    While the new Quinn Library thrives, its old home — and the bulk of its collection — appears forgotten. As one of its only functions today, the old facility houses more than 260,000 books owned by the college and published before the year 2000. However, it functions as closed stacks, and books cannot simply be pulled off the shelves at whim. Students must place an item on hold or seek assistance from a library staff member to access the archival premillennial collection.

    A sum of the literary resources of Fordham’s various downtown schools over the years and an infusion of books from the Rose Hill campus, Quinn Library has housed Fordham Lincoln Center’s main collection of books since 1968. The library utilized the first floor Lowenstein space for 49 years before moving to the 140 West building and transitioning into its current split-collection situation. 

    With space at a premium on campus for students and faculty alike, many hope the eventual rebirth of the space will alleviate the cramped and overbooked realities many members of the Fordham community face. The Lincoln Center campus’ perennial lack of office space, especially for contingent faculty, was raised once again in the most recent Fordham College Council meeting on Nov. 8 and will have considerable influence over the administration’s plans for the space. However, Wertz stressed the need for input across the Fordham community in deciding the next step for the old Quinn Library.

    The Fordham College Council plans to discuss both the state of the Lincoln Center Space Planning Committee and the fate of the underused space at length during its next meeting, slated for February 7, 2019.

  • Celebrities Should Not Have Opinions

    I’m sorry, the old, apolitical Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh — because she’s a Democrat.

    2009 was a simpler time. On Sept. 13, on national television, rapper Kanye West snatched the microphone from up-and-coming pop-country darling Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards and insisted that indeed, he would let her finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. It was delicious drama, a high-profile feud that would satisfy the population for months on end.

    It’s 2018, and Swift and West are once again in the headlines. No, West didn’t storm another stage to feed his fans’ appetites for zany antics (as of printing). Swift didn’t rehash an old relationship for the public’s enjoyment, either. They did something worse: they voiced their opinions. Worse yet — political opinions.

    The fun’s over. Thanks Taylor, now the world knows you’re anything but red.

    Nine short years from that fateful VMA broadcast, it’s clear that Taylor Swift’s recent endorsement of Democratic candidates in her home state of Tennessee has hit a nerve. Never mind that Kanye’s scarlet headgear habits as of late only bolster his reputation for erratic and inflammatory public statements. But we expected more from Taylor. Who could have imagined in their wildest dreams that the singer-songwriter would keep up with current events, much less formulate and express her rational, well-articulated views on politics?

    A powerful and — worse yet — popular woman in America thinks she has the right to weigh in on the state of the nation? This is why we can’t have nice things.

    Reception of Swift’s brazen partisanship has been rightfully chilly. President Trump has been confirmed to listen to her music a whopping 25 percent less because of it, moving her hit “22” down at least eight spots on his Golf Jams playlist. “Getaway Car” on Putin’s personal mixtape gets skipped almost every time, per top White House sources. Scathing treatment on the national stage, but warranted — there was a delicate balance in the entertainment world, and Swift has created major bad blood with her refusal to be completely ignorant of local elections and the American two-party system.

    How can we restore order and reestablish the blank space between artists with opinions and the rest of us? Where is our savior, Kanye West, to wrench the microphone away from Swift once more?

    At a nationally televised meeting with the president, of course. Just when the world thought West had decided to stick to tattered thousand-dollar cardigans and funky footwear, he’s treated us to a madcap red cap rodeo with the promise of a presidential campaign in 2024 — letting Trump finish a potential second term, true to form. Trump supporters loved it; critics were quick to criticize. In the end, however, Kanye was just wasting the president’s executive time. 

    Don’t be fooled — it’s not just the controversial duo spouting their personal views like anyone cares; even more artists have jumped on the ridiculous express-how-you-feel-about-current-events bandwagon. Chance the Rapper recently endorsed a political candidate in his hometown of Chicago, Amara Enyia, for mayor — a move as audacious as it is unprecedented for the artist that has been known to shy away from any sort of community involvement whatsoever. He’s not Chance the Sociopolitical Advocate, after all.

    Where has this plague of celebrity endorsement come from? Everyone except the President of the United States of America must very reasonably have a seasoned background in politics before they open their mouths. It only makes sense that we leave the big decisions and political endorsements to the experts. Would you really want a singer telling you who you should support in the next election? A rapper? To the blue collar, salt-of-the-earth families of America, their trust in pale, pudgy politicians in expensive suits is well placed.

    What’s that? Donald Trump is a celebrity, too? Impossible — NBC has no plans to bring back his show, the failing Celebrity Apprentice. Our president won the election without the crutches of star power or cheap persuasion tactics, and he governs with the same disdain for spectacle. Ask anyone who agrees with him; they’ll tell you the same thing: His opinion matters.

    People with power whose views I don’t agree with using their platform to push personal beliefs is shameless and counterproductive to our democracy. Celebrities getting fearless about their political views must stop. It’s time to put an end to beloved contemporary icons sticking their noses where they don’t belong. You can keep your two cents, Taylor — all we care about is your music. And not even 75 percent as much as we used to.

    Taylor, would you please return to your roots and be an impartial, oblivious music maker that never leaves the house? I wish you would. Artists, personalities, Instagram influencers, take note: Americans and political consciousness are never, ever getting back together.

  • Fighting Extremism with Extremism

    The neo-Nazis’ tiki torches glow near.

    In this dark hour for America, reason, honor and dignity have failed us. Centrism and compromise are the new worst c-words. The alt-right tips the spectrum radically right, and radical leftists swing in the opposite direction. The last time the president of the United States reached across the aisle was to grab a diet coke from Air Force One’s mini fridge.

    We live in an era of extremism.

    Radicals on both sides have led their followers off the same cliff, and America is sick and tired of terrible solutions where everyone wins a little and loses a little. We’ve tried all the conventional remedies to the internal conflicts that plague us — It’s high time we try the rest of them. The playbook is out the window; in a country plagued by extremism and acute lack of compassion, we can’t beat ’em. We might as well join ’em.

    It’s clear to see our dysfunctional government is beyond saving. The time for understanding has passed. To hell with Smokey the Bear, let’s fight fire with fire.

    Extremism is the much-needed antidote to America’s problem with extremism. The current situation calls for a reactionary movement like no other; one that doubles down so hard on any existing extreme values that it comes full circle in opposition. We’ve fostered a population ravenous for outrage and itching for change. Let’s give them what they want.

    The economy must be the first to experience the tender ham-fists of extremism. Some scream, “The economy is good! The market is bull!” Others say something dumb along the lines of “The economy is not represented by the stock market, as only 50 percent of Americans own stock!” From one side of the aisle, people yell “Extreme regulation is harming business!” All the way from the other dirtier, grosser, stupider side, Neanderthals counter that “Extreme deregulation is irreversibly poisoning the earth and disproportionately affecting the already disenfranchised!” It’s hopeless. We really can’t seem to reach a conclusion with such wildly conflicting, blindly radical positions on our current capitalist structure. 

    The solution? Throw it out. Restructure the American economy into a feudal agrarian superpower free from acronyms, Dows, Walls, streets and those red and green arrows that make people so mad. Underemployment? Impossible to track if everyone’s a farmer. Much of the world’s currency manifests in something other than physical cash. This extreme, dogmatic worship of invisible, intangible, arbitrarily-valued squiggly symbols is tearing our country apart. We must counter it with a complete reversal to the barter system. Wampum is also acceptable.

    The scope of extremism doesn’t end there. We are altogether too worried in this day and age about healthcare — whether we need it, whether we deserve it and whether any government has an obligation to provide “affordable care,” if you will, regardless of one’s economic situation. Taking into consideration one’s right to continue to live? A little far-fetched indeed. We are called upon in this moment to abolish modern medicine, letting natural selection do its work to thin the herds. By some estimates, this revolutionary strategy will cut the amount of people with poor vision in half by 2090, letting our four-eyed friends with outdated prescriptions fall victim to tiger attacks like nature intended. This is the only way Americans can put a stop to the elites’ pushing of radical views down our (possibly strep-infected) throats.

    Bringing fresh, new extremist values to fruition in America does not stop with simply the economy and healthcare — no, there is much more work to be done if extremism is to be repealed and replaced.

    America is a country known worldwide for its extreme eating. However, our red-blooded hotdog eating contests risk extinction in the face of reactionary health militants. We’ve seen the screaming, blood-throwing, vitamin B12-deficient vegans take over our streets and flood our supermarkets with their meaty falsehoods. No more; it is our duty to counter with radical meat and dairy consumption. Only venison milkshakes and egg yolk sundaes can save us, and not a moment too soon — Radical health culture was most assuredly on the verge of making us live long enough to deal with the consequences of our actions. Our heart attack numbers have been middling lately; we can make heart disease great again.

    Moreover, desperate times surely call for desperate measures. Centimeters, for example. Celsius. Perhaps describing our weight in stone is what this country needs. Stick it to the status quo and measure your french fries in Paris Inches (Freedom Inches?). In lieu of leaders we can trust, we must turn to liters we can count on. Do extreme conditions in our country call us to go to equally ridiculous lengths to oppose them? The point ’Smoot. 

    These are but some of the wide-ranging extremes we can go to in order to snatch Uncle Sam from the jaws of extremism. 

    Some may shy away from these modestly-proposed solutions. That means they’re what our country most desperately needs. Finding solutions and being irrationally angry were once mutually-exclusive, but our country demands that we come up with ill-conceived, reactionary ways to counter our knee-jerk, blindly-extremist sorry state of affairs. 

    Jump on the radical train before it’s too late. After all, extremist views win elections and get the most screen time. Most importantly, they get a reaction out of lazy, politically-apathetic radical moderates weary of the ping-pong of extremism and too millennial or something to check their morals at the door and join in the fun like the rest of us. I really hate those guys.

    Our politics are extreme, our weather is extreme, and lately, we’ve been flirting with unity enough to warrant some legitimate concern. We have no choice but to perpetuate the cycle recklessly for our own amusement. The future is in our irresponsible hands, America. 

    So are you in or what?

  • Protein

    There has—to my knowledge—never existed a food more polemic, more evocative of outrage and love alike than the off-white rectangular prism that currently sits on my cutting board. There’s a little bit of liquid leaking out of the sides, and it kind of smells like crayons.

    Did you cringe? Salivate in delight? By now you must know I’m discussing everyone’s favorite block of beans, tofu. I’ve frozen, thawed, chopped, sliced, cured, sautéed, and baked enough of the stuff in my day to tell you if you’re not on the Soy Express, you’re just not cooking it right.

    98% of all soy produced in the United States goes toward feeding livestock. Humans eat the rest. Some of that soy finds itself in mass-produced baked goods, serving as a better and cheaper dairy alternative. Some of it contributes to the production of soy sauce, if you’ll believe me. But the rest squeezes into small, boxy packages and finds its way to the part of the supermarket with the least foot traffic.

    Are you allergic to soy? Stop reading. There’s plenty of textured wheat protein for you elsewhere.

    In the supermarket is where preparation truly begins. One immediately has a choice to make: silken, firm, or extra firm? Personally, the texture of beached jellyfishes isn’t my style. If you want to make tofu right—so right that your roommates ask you when you’re baking up a new batch next—your success story starts with extra-firm.

    You need a tofu that bites back. Like the Nathan’s and Hebrew Nationals and Bubbas that haunt the sleep paralysis episodes of seasoned vegans everywhere, tofu deserves to be prepared into something truly worth sinking your teeth into. 

    Step two—cutting up the block of tofu—is where the weak-willed falter. It’s nevertheless true that some people just aren’t used to eating geometrically-sound objects. Pulled pork sandwiches aren’t known for their exacting specifications. Tofu is different; it’s cubes all the way down. Rectangular prisms if you’re feeling fancy. If you’re faced with a squadron of somewhat-moist, beige-colored (and smelling) dominoes, you’ve done it correctly.

    It’s not enough to have simply cut up your extra-firm block of beans, however. Texture is tantamount to taste in tofu, so pop those bad boys in the freezer overnight. Why frozen tofu? It’s meatier. No, it’s not plagiarism. It’s less of an obsessive ex situation and more of a we-can-do-better mindset. 

    There’s nothing like the smell of frozen tofu cubes in the morning. With a little sauce, a little cornstarch for crispiness, and a nice, hot oven on 350 for thirty minutes (flipping once halfway through), you might just have some delicious protein squares on your hands. 

    Cooking is an experimental art, and there is no better lump of wet clay to practice on than tofu. Which, coincidentally, initially smells and feels like wet clay. But when it comes out of the oven, it’s clear that tofu is exactly what you make it—no more, no less.

  • Out with a Bang: Richard Russell’s Barrel Roll

    He was a good person; ask his high school’s track coach. He was a football player, wrestler and discus thrower. He was surrounded by people who cared about him. He was a funny guy. He was an airline worker at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. And he was alone when he died.

    He died in a stolen airplane, reduced to fiery wreckage in a crash designed to induce but one fatality: his own. If you think he was simply another addition to the 44,000-plus self-induced deaths in this country this year — you may be right.

    Then again, you haven’t heard the rest of Richard Russell’s story.

    On Aug. 10, just as the sun began to set on Puget Sound, Richard Russell crashed a stolen, otherwise-empty 76-seat prop plane into an uninhabited island, killing himself in the process. We know from bystander reports that he successfully executed a loop-the-loop and finally lost control attempting a barrel roll. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has Russell profiled as suicidal, with little elaboration. With that, his life became a statistic: one of the 123 suicides committed each day in the United States in an ever-increasing yearly tally.

    But this was no run-of-the-mill suicide. The beautifully twisted tale of Richard Russell’s demise is thought-provoking, the image of the flaming post-joyride wreckage captivating. What amounts to a Cannes-sweeping movie plot — a tale of a broken man, a commandeered plane and a simple desire to go out with a bang — must somehow make this tragic event more than a passing headline in a thoughts-and-prayers world. 

    However, we know the final minutes of his life through the airplane’s salvaged cockpit voice recorder. Despite its grand fashion, Russell’s death might just be a textbook case. During the back-and-forth between Russell and air traffic control as the latter tried to steer him toward the nearest runway, the vigilante pilot interspersed comments on the picturesque Olympic mountains with rueful self-revelation. His motivations were not grounded in political upheaval or earth-shaking conviction. “Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess,” he can be heard saying. “Never really knew it until now.”

    Russell was no terrorist, nor was he out for vengeance. “No, I told you. I don’t want to hurt no one,” he insisted to air traffic control. The only damage he desired to inflict was on himself. He felt alone. Moreover, Russell, in the midst of his heist, felt shame. “I’ve got a lot of people that care about me, and it’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this,” he said. “I would like to apologize to each and every one of them.” 

    The most bittersweet moment of the doomed flight, in any other context, would surely be the most memorable, as Russell looped the plane and flew it upside down for a period of time. He was disappointed, however, radioing to air traffic control, “I was kinda hoping that was going to be it. You know?” His journey had not yet ended in a grand display as he had hoped. Through all his regret and loneliness, Russell wanted to die with style. Why he did so is perplexing — he didn’t need to do any of this if he simply wanted to die. Whether his goal was to send a message or fulfill a dream is unknown. 

    Perhaps, in the end, his avian acrobatics were one final cry for help. His conversation with air traffic control was not a manifesto, but a final attempt at normalcy and penance for a cornered man. 

    It’s possible the duality of shocking novelty and grim predictability surrounding Russell’s suicide can send a much-needed message. No one hopes to die in vain, but not many people go out the way he did. Russell doesn’t deserve admiration, and the act of taking one’s own life is no adventure movie jaunt. But if his death — facilitated by a constant and frightening notion that he truly had nothing left to lose — doesn’t scare us, nothing will.

    There is a tradition in America of treating mental health as a personal issue and dismissing it as a personality flaw. Richard Russell was an airline worker anyone else would have described as normal, but in his final minutes he knew he was broken and alone. A surefire sign that suicide might be a problem in your country: people get creative with it — and stop to admire the mountains on the way.

    It shouldn’t have taken a stolen plane and daredevil flight patterns to reveal to Richard Russell — and everyone around him — that he needed help. Drastic measures, those less daring than Russell’s included, are the results of too many unanswered cries for recognition; for understanding. It takes a community to uplift and acknowledge the individual, and it takes a country to accept mental health as a threat that manifests beneath a façade of normalcy. If an image of the flaming wreckage of a life cut short in style isn’t enough to burn the importance of mental wellbeing into the public consciousness, what is?

    Richard Russell, with no formal pilot’s training, took to the skies in a stolen airplane intent on going out with a bang. Some of the most exciting moments of his life were his last. His story is finished. We must be diligent to ensure that those after him can rewrite their endings with recognition, understanding, support and happy landings.

  • Evil Meatless Impossible Slider Must Be Stopped

    Eating meat is about as American as apple pie, drone strikes and — quite literally — fast food hamburgers.

    However, a new threat looms on the horizon: vegans and their non-committal friends, vegetarians, are going mainstream. At first, the plant-based eating movement seemed harmless enough, quarantined to communities of rich people with nothing better to do and too much time to think about the morality of their actions. It was once a passing fad, relegated to subheadings in “Women’s Health” and fond memories of ex-hippies. But times have changed. This new unhealthy obsession with health and unamerican aversion to animal products is tearing down our shared culture as we know it, and it must be stopped.

    Unfortunately, American fast food chains, fingers ever-present on the sluggish pulse of the nation, have been quick to respond to the plant-based craze. Today, vegan depravity is everywhere; worse yet, it’s affordable. We shook our heads in dismay when McDonald’s tested a “McVegan” in Europe. We watched aghast as TGI Fridays debuted a “Beyond Meat” burger in January. But will we stand by and let the greatest mainstay of American culture fall to the radical vegan agenda? Will we allow the hallowed parapets of freedom to crumble under the weight of a couple kale-consumers?

    Too late. As of April 12, 2018, White Castle has fallen. The Impossible Slider is here.

    On April 12, the fine eating establishment famous for its classic sliders colloquially known as “belly bombers” and “rectum rockets” welcomed a sinister addition to its menu: a burger sporting a patty of nefarious origin. White Castle’s Impossible Sliders pack onions, pickles, lies, deception and the Impossible Burger — a misleading meaty masquerade — between their buns. The amalgamation of plant protein is produced by the startup Impossible Foods and is meant to imitate and replace the classic beef patty. This is preposterous, impassable, inconceivable, unthinkable, impractical, insurmountable and downright improbable. Much like the steam engine, iron lung and self-checkout kiosks, it will never be the same as good old flesh and blood. 

    This beguiling burger was made available in all New York, New Jersey and Chicago locations, including the White Castle mere steps from the gates of Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus. As a faithful Jesuit institution, we know God gave us cows because they’re so delicious. Are plant-based cultists really trying to one-up the Big Man? One look at White Castle’s menu says yes. Surely, just as Frankenstein’s monster sought revenge on his creator for his unnatural, cursed existence, so too will humanity face its $8, two-sliders-fries-and-a-drink comeuppance. The Cursed Castle is playing God, and we’ll all pay.

    What’s worse, our arsenal of comebacks and self-justifications against the vegan menace is dwindling. With White Castle’s meatless sliders, gone are the days of the anemic, emaciated vegan stereotype. What’s more, the rich, twig-eating suburban strawman is a thing of the past. The diabolical anti-meat powers-that-be have used White Castle to widen the scope of unnatural meat alternatives, and in their quest to make plant-based food more accessible, an $8 Impossible combo may sadly be too enticing for many red-blooded Americans to resist. How ironic that a greasy, alabaster castle now stands to symbolize accessibility, progress and lower blood pressure.

    That being said, the fact of the matter remains: a meal without animal cruelty just doesn’t feel right. Eating red meat and processed meat without the exhilarating knowledge that you’re ingesting known carcinogens just isn’t the American way. Feeling like a piece of garbage for pulling into a White Castle drive-thru at 2 a.m. and ordering a Crave Case containing 30 all-beef sliders is a bona fide rite of passage for citizens everywhere. Impossible meatless sliders soften the pointed, useful life lessons contained in this experience, and consuming the flesh of sentient beings in the parking lot under the dirty glow of a White Castle sign is a constitutional right. Vegans should not meddle with this delicate ritual. It is downright sick to disallow a cow to die a noble death for the benefit of a self-hatred-fueled 2 a.m. burger binge.

    Alas, the damage is already done. In the game of carnivorous chess, the vegans are always one move ahead. Americans may feel helpless to stop the flow of alternative meats into their favorite eating establishments, but they’re certainly not alone. The vegans have blood on their hands, and dutiful omnivores worldwide will continue to resist — in the name of freedom, tradition and the pursuit of cholesterol. Unlike other Missions Impossible, it must be ensured that the sequels end here. Thanks, but no thanks, radical plant-munchers, we’ll keep vegetables in their rightful place: the wilted, flavorless eighth of the plate that gets scraped into the garbage bin when nobody’s looking. 

    We’re very content with our current worldviews, thank you very much. Meat is meat, change is scary and nutrition is just about as legitimate as vaccines. The plant-based community can’t waltz into America now and expect us to dance to their repulsively ethical tune. White Castle is on the wrong side of history. You can’t tell America to eat less meat; it would be downright impossible.

    But, then again, so are those sliders.

  • Something More: The Importance of Student Journalism

    You can see it in their eyes, red from squinting at screens for hours on end. You can hear it in their shouts lobbed across the room as sections collaborate, commiserate and help the work along. It’s imbued in first drafts, on crumpled mock-ups and atop stacks of newly-printed editions.

    The drive. 

    Nobody is paid at The Fordham Observer. There is no academic credit associated with participation.

    They do it for something more.

    Listen in on any returning staffer’s yearly application interview, and you’ll know why twenty-some busy college students pack themselves into a room of computers for six, seven, eight hours on production night. There’s something more. There’s something that makes the dark circles worth it. There’s a reason they come back week after week, year after year. They love what they do — and more importantly, they know what they represent.

    The Margaret Mead quote emblazoned on countless community service and walkathon t-shirts goes like this: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” As cliché as it sounds, for the writers, editors and staff of The Observer, there is truth behind these words. More truth than meets the eye.

    See their discourse immortalized in print and online. Listen to the conversation their words inspire. Watch the way they flip through today’s issue with equal parts pride and fine-toothed scrutiny, and you’ll never doubt for a minute that a group of thoughtful, committed students can change their school, each other—and maybe even the world.

    To appreciate the amount of time and passion that they allocate to creating a publication that is entirely their own is to understand the importance of student journalism in this world.

    The staff of The Observer is far from perfect. They don’t always catch mistakes. Not each and every word they print shakes the foundations of the school, nor the bedrock of New York City. However, the very presence of The Fordham Observer speaks the loudest, clearest, most constant message the newsroom has to offer: thoughtful, committed students are here. Their ideas can thrive here. Their opinions matter here. Their dedication to the truth is celebrated here. 

    Student journalism is alive here.

    You can see it in every single one of them. They do it for something more.