Category: The Fordham Observer

  • Prestige Is a Losing Game

    The next SAT test date is May 4.

    Across time zones, from Hong Kong to Honolulu to New York City, a morning of a healthy breakfast or thrown-up waffles or nothing at all and a fruitless review of hundred-dollar flashcards will occur again and again. 

    The students who will take it that day might have studied for months, even years. Maybe they’re taking it completely cold. With each passing hour, achievers high and low will file into testing centers, safe in the knowledge that with a handful of hours and cost of admission to lose, they have the world to gain.

    In quick succession, worn-down students around the world with high hopes and soaring dreams will undertake a $64.50, four-hour necessary evil. As high school juniors and seniors — and maybe even sophomores and freshmen — there’s nothing at all new about the SAT. Sure, they (most likely) haven’t seen the questions yet, but what’s one more college-crucial measurement of worth? What’s one more bubbled-in identity — race, religion, future plans, sex, age, summation of all previous experience to be judged as such?

    What’s one more test?

    It’s no revelation that standardized testing is worthy of criticism. Anyone filling in a Scantron this May 4 knows full well they’re playing a game of memory recall and who-can-pay-for-the-most-prep. They must believe their investment will have a return.

    It’s an understanding that comes with the price of admission: we’re all here to get into a good school.

    Prestige is on the line. High schoolers’ ambition to prove — to themselves, to their parents, to their teachers — that they’re worth something makes the exclusivity and selectivity of the highest of higher education the gold standard.

    It’s one thing to tell a starry-eyed junior that, when it comes to picking schools, they’re buying, not selling — but doesn’t every minivan-buyer dream of that irresponsible, irrational two-door sports car? 

    Given the buying abilities of powerful credentials, it’s suddenly much less rational to dig through shelves upon shelves of schools when the shiniest ones are right in the front.

    With a pocket full of 1600s, heartfelt letters and selfies with kids in Ghana, it’s so tantalizingly easy to scoff at the people who say your money can’t buy you happiness.

    But it won’t.

    I had none of the above in my pocket. I did fine on my tests and got good grades, and I got a small taste of what it feels like to be patted on the head for a role well played. I paid my dues, and opportunities glimmered before me, indifferent, as I fawned over their hypnotizing glow.

    I could picture wearing the sweatshirt to family gatherings, having aunts and uncles ooh and aah at the name of the fancy university I would attend. I imagined going to classes and sports games and it all being just a little different because of the prestige I had dutifully earned.

    I never thought about the friends I’d make, wherever I’d end up. It didn’t concern me who my professors would be, or what I would be inspired to create, or what clubs I’d join. In wanting to join something bigger than myself, I fell into the trap that snares every student far too confident in their wax wings: I lost myself.

    Appropriately, we attend a crash-site littered with Columbia and NYU rejects (and, unfortunately, soon-to-be transfers). So many starry-eyed high schoolers got a pat on the back and a false invitation to reach blindly for the shiniest stars of them all — and they ended up at the place with the free application and just enough financial aid to please their parents.

    We go to a school where everything — the education, the faith, the social life and the city — is exactly as much as what we make of it. No more, no less. Its indifference teaches us the lesson we needed to hear but never wanted to accept.

    Some of us are proud to call Fordham our home; others still feel the sting of rejection. To the latter: be glad that life disrupted your best-laid plans. Be glad it might eventually change your priorities, too. The prestige of a school will never be the deciding factor in your ultimate success, but your ultimate failure has this blind faith in prestige at the very center.

    Make a choice. Choose to accept life as a test without time limits and scores that don’t matter. Your life is yours more than any diploma or sweatshirt or hallowed name could ever say. Higher education is supposed to be where you learn to become an adult. Don’t let childish dreams of prestige stunt your personal growth.

    On May 4, high schoolers will take the SAT, some for the very first time. I hope they remember to eat a good breakfast, bring extra pencils and clear the memory on their calculator.

    I hope they don’t let it define them as much as I let it define me.

  • Free the Pimple: Puberty Chic Going Through Changes

    Being American and going through puberty is a unique tradition of ours. It’s an experience that unites across religion, color, creed and privilege — up to a decade or more of awkwardness, mental and physical, is indeed the single greatest instance of evolutionary hazing — and rightly the bedrock of our nation.

    And it sucks.

    Anthropologist Margaret Mead took a look at adolescents on faraway islands and told us about as much — that the moody, angsty, self-conscious and sexually-repressed youth given hours of homework a night over in the land of the free aren’t exactly the gold standard of formative human development.

    No citizen is safe. Sooner or later, we get pimples. Everywhere. Our voices change. We get lumps in weird places. Sometimes, we want everyone to die. Sometimes, we feel like dying ourselves. We try to blend in and stand out at the same time like camo pants in a K-Mart: poorly on both accounts.

    Oh, and we’re so unbelievably horny.

    As American bodies transition from childhood to adulthood, the imbalanced brains that pilot them are just as developmentally wonky and even more vulnerable. Sadly, barring the collapse of capitalism and a collective change of heart in the next couple of years, kids and teens in America will be treated the same way their parents were, and their parents before them — knowing that they’re changing, knowing that they’re disproportionate and never being equipped with enough information to handle it.

    And they’ll continue to have that unshakable feeling that no one understands them or what they’re going through until they’re old enough and have clear enough skin to pretend like it never happened.

    Where do brace-faced, tent-pantsed American pubescents turn for validation? It’s too risky to depend on parents. Their knowledge of labia and scrota too often calls into question their very parenthood.

    When bad grades and weird hairs get them down, kids and teenagers need a distraction.

    So, they turn on the TV. They go to the movies. They open Netflix.

    The depiction of high school life on screens big and small is perhaps an equally American tradition. Nostalgia, our national pastime, drives us to seek out representations of our past — the “That ’70s Shows,” the “Greases” and the “Goldbergses” of our time provide us with just such an outlet. They give us a taste of the past — our past, perhaps, with an accuracy more rosy than rosacea. Do you picture it in your mind yet? Do visions of 30-year-olds pretending to be teenagers dance through your head?

    America has been crushing on puberty chic big time.

    “Pretty Little Liars” would perhaps be more accurate if the actors were shown going out for drinks after third period or filling out rental car forms. Jason Earles, a 39-year-old man, played Hannah Montana’s co-star Jackson Stewart. Did we hear about his character’s nocturnal emissions? His struggle with sexual identity? Did we see a single pimple?

    Nobody put Baby in a corner, but they certainly cast her 17-year-old character with a woman 10 years her senior.

    It’s spelled out plainer than a TV show teacher’s name underlined on a green chalkboard: we’re ashamed of what we looked like in middle school. We cringe at what we did, how we dressed and whom we crushed on in high school.

    Instead of looking back and laughing, we go to great lengths to convince ourselves and everyone around us that high school wasn’t like that for us. We were cool, wore leather jackets and had a fully-settled facial bone structure. Puberty chic is so ingrained in American pop culture — we’re so ashamed of our first periods in first period — that we risk passing our revisionist habits on to the next generation.

    Alas, we’re not out of the woods yet. Contemporary shows like “Sex Education” on Netflix get the second part right — that growing up doesn’t have to be a taboo subject — but the message falls flat when it’s told by a 22-year-old.

    It’s discouraging to walk the line this way, implying that the validation of kids and teens is valuable but that they’re just too unfit to deliver the message themselves. Is it too much to ask to have a movie called “Eighth Grade” played entirely by actual eighth graders?

    However, the trend could be starting to reverse. Only now have we started to dab the Tretinoin gel of reality on the angry, swelling zit of puberty denial, or so I hope.

    “Big Mouth” is the biggest ray of hope for such a counter-movement. The smash Netflix hit, two seasons in and going strong, chronicles in vivid detail middle school kids fighting mood swings, questioning their sexualities and getting their first periods at the Statue of Liberty. Though their voice actors are far beyond their pubescent years, the animated characters are undeniably, often grotesquely teenage.

    That the brash, vulgar lessons of the show have resonated so much with audiences suggests that it’s now as cool as ever to talk about sex and growing up in a genuine way. The people who need to hear it most get the message, and those who’ve been through it already might even crack a smile as they begrudgingly relate.

    This representation and validation are long overdue. We’ve made steps in the right direction, but we have a ways to go before facing the ugly truth goes completely mainstream. Puberty chic isn’t cool — and neither are America’s adolescents — but representation certainly is.

  • Going the Distance

    I am more familiar with the McMahon B stairwell than most who live on the 10th floor. 

    The dusty, lumpy maroon coverings that grace each flight are actually a welcome sight after a long day of work and classes. The echo-filled, maroon-tiled liminal space filled with people simply passing through is my favorite place to stop and live in the moment.

    An odd choice of hangout spot, no? 

    It may surprise you to learn that I don’t all that much relish sitting down on the top step outside the 10th-floor exit, resting my head awkwardly against the cold railing. When I position and reposition myself in the clinically-lit, altogether uninteresting B stairwell, I wouldn’t blame you if you judged a little. You certainly wouldn’t be the first — many a laundry room-seeker has awkwardly stepped over my sprawled form, and their “what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here” faces are memorable.

    I really don’t care. In that dirty, disused stretch of residence hall, I do what I’ve been waiting to do all day.

    I call my girlfriend.

    She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on and the kind of person who could get that bust of Leon Lowenstein to crack a smile with ease. She makes me want to be a better person with clearer skin and funnier jokes. She amazes me every day with her strength, her resolve and her commitment to others.

    Oh, and she’s six hours away by bus. Seven, if traffic is especially bad.

    I’ll be honest; when I pictured college life, stairs were not part of the plan. Hour-long phone calls were not what I envisioned. Then again, learning how to love someone on a level I’d never experienced before — all from long distance — wasn’t either.

    I’ve learned things I never imagined I’d need to learn. 

    Things like: Buy your bus tickets very early or last-minute. Anything in between will break the bank harder than need be. Spend your money on the things she mentions in passing over the phone, but there’s a great flower shop near the place where she’ll pick you up, just in case. 

    I’ve learned when’s best to send a paragraph of motivation over text, the best times for 15-minute phone calls and the right moment to buy a spontaneous midnight bus ticket two hours before departure.

    I’ve learned that if you’re planning on sleeping on the bus, get a window seat. Ball up a jacket and use it as a pillow as you lean against the window. Try to contain your excitement at being so desperately close to actually seeing and touching your significant other, and get some sleep. If the sweet old lady next to you ends up falling asleep on your shoulder, well, that’s just the way it goes. It makes for a good story to tell one day. 

    I’ve learned that a long-distance relationship is tough. There is a lot of time, space and telephone silence for doubt to creep in. Schedules evade each other as texts get short and “I” sometimes gets dropped off of “love you.” You blame them for having a life, making friends without you, and you hate something, but you can’t put your finger on what exactly it is, but you’re sure it’s not them, right?

    And when you do it for a long time — this commitment to love someone who you only see in your wildest dreams — you learn that cellphones make your voice garbled enough that it pays to be genuine.

    When you recline on the dusty steps of Stairwell B and call that person who may very well be waiting for their phone to light up with your name, you learn to talk about fear.

    My authority on long-distance relationships — that is, simply that I am in one — hangs by a thread. A lot of the time, it seems that the only way I can justify my relationship is simply because it’s still standing. If the bedrock that has supported us so far reveals deadly faults, poof — it’s over. I’m no longer a shining example of how love can withstand anything. I’m just a kid who wasted time and money on something silly.

    I fear that all of this will come to nothing. That one day, a misunderstanding will snowball into a week of silence and a fatal phone call where neither of us says what’s really on our minds.

    I fear leaning up against the cold cinder blocks of the B stairwell and staring at the phone, daring it to play her voice on speaker again. Saying anything but “goodbye.”

    I fear reading these words one day and feeling bitter enough to post a correction. “EDITOR’S NOTE: They broke up. Don’t bother reading. It wasn’t worth it.”

    Maybe I’ll look like a fool. Maybe it’ll work out in the end. Maybe we’ll end up together. Maybe we figure out we’ve become two different people after growing up and apart. But I promised myself that I would support this relationship with everything in me until I woke up one day and didn’t feel that desire any more.

    Today, I woke up at 7 a.m. to a blinking indicator light on my phone. One new text message, 6:30 a.m.

    “Hey you! Good morning! Have a great day today, okay? I love you :)”

    Today, I woke up and knew I was doing the right thing. Today, I felt the familiar certainty that tells me all those Greyhound rides are worth it. That every last phone call and bus station goodbye has been worth it. That she is worth it.

    I don’t know how this will end, but something tells me there’s only one way to find out. The space between us is up for us to fill — and doubt always threatens to seep in — but day by day, bit by bit, we fill that space with love.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a call to make — and a bus to catch.

    Editor’s Note: They broke up. This story is still worth reading. We grow as human beings only when we love deeply, supremely and without fear. Find someone worth writing about.

  • Millennials are Ruining Award Shows

    The past months have not been kind to back-slappers.

    Much like the silver-haired lifetime achievement-accepting stars who unfurl their scroll of thank-you’s on primetime television, American award shows aren’t aging all that well. The most recent Grammys, Emmys, Oscars, Golden Globes, Espys and even the usually rock-solid Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards all suffered notable declines in ratings from previous years.

    We live in a unique time: At no other point in recorded history have we been less motivated to turn on the TV and watch the Emmys.

    Scapegoats are myriad. Some point fingers at the social media streaming of events as the explanation for the dismal drop in viewership of the 2018 Grammys. Others bemoan prime-time competitors stealing viewers. The loudest cry from the consuming masses, however, is the most concerning — and most infuriating. It would appear that, for the crucial 18 to 40-year-old viewing bracket, award shows just aren’t doing it for them anymore. 

    Suddenly, lavish galas, expensive dresses and long speeches — broken up by live performances from artists who should really, really consider performing exclusively in the recording studio — are boring a certain demographic of Americans. The Hollywood Elite and Common Man no longer share those special nights of extravagant wealth and gratuitous hugging and kissing the way we used to.

    Horrifying, surely. 

    When Americans stop crowding around the television to watch Andy Samberg tell Catholic-homily-caliber jokes, it’s a good indicator that our society is beginning to rot from the inside. The moment we cannot come together and listen to Hillary Clinton read “Fire and Fury” at the Grammys, our tone-deafness has reached levels even autotune can’t salvage.

    We’ve changed. No longer do we champion the classy serial killer question, “Who are you wearing?” Less-than-scrupulous elections from “academies” and “colleges” don’t rile us up like they used to, especially when our favorite creepy fish film won anyway. 

    We know who’s ruining award shows for the rest of us. After discovering the killers of Applebee’s, diamonds, jogging and fabric softener, we know exactly who to blame.

    Millennials, a blanket term for young people who do things I don’t like, are the single biggest killers of all things good and wholesome. Millennials are “entitled.” They “text” their dastardly emojis at all hours of the day. They “Venmo” their friends and have no time for Facebook, where the best news comes from. 

    They are a generation raised on tokens of false accomplishment. Tee-ball trophies. Spelling Bee participant medals. Stickers simply for showing up to the grocery store. The “Me Me Me” generation grew up over-validated and lazy, yet they refuse to sit on the couch and endure hours of entertainment industry workers congratulate themselves on a job well done? After all this time, they’ve picked now to go sour on trophies?

    Hollywood stars, the most morally-reliable and ethically-admirable people out there, are rightful and justified role models for a generation that, apparently, would much rather stream a “Twitch” than ogle Lady Gaga in a Valentino dress worth more than their entire student debt. The absolute nerve.

    It’s disgusting. The hallowed tradition of watching celebrities trip their way up to a podium to announce the winner of a category you didn’t know existed, only to comment at your screen “wow, he got really old” is somehow not enough for the youth. It’s hard to imagine what more they could possibly want.

    I fear a future populated by award shows more tailored to the twisted millennial persuasion. I shudder to think of catching a glimpse of a first annual Meme Awards or, worse yet, a funny opening monologue from a host that wants to be there as I flip between reruns of Modern Family. 

    If millennials have their way, award shows as we know it will cease to exist. When young people start to impose their views on the status quo, we don’t need an Academy, church jokes or gilded envelopes to tell us who wins. Everyone loses. 

    Millennials, young people and anyone who’d rather “floss” a “Fortnite” than floss their own teeth: Do the right thing. Buy into award shows like the rest of us. We had to sit through them; you should, too.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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.