Midwest Beer Belly Despair Blog

So despite my objections on going on a scavenger hunt in COLLEGE, I set out into Morningside campus looking for a Post-It note with a doodle on it. My first thought was to head to Eppley. It’s the refuge of the arts here on campus (except for the theatre folk, who, like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, must be kept separate) and I figure if there was anybody anal retentive enough  to draw on a 2×2 inch piece of paper they would be there.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anybody in Eppley at 2:40 in the afternoon. The only people in the building where Claire, Judith, myself, and some kids in an art class who gave me the stink-eye for being in the hall. After making a few circuits of Eppley looking lost, I decided to head to greener pastures. The only place I could think of that would have people around who wouldn’t be in class was Lewis. So I headed there.

I made a beeline toward the admissions office, since I’ve met just about everyone else in Lewis by this point. I surged through the door gaining weird looks from a man and the secretary. I hastily introduced myself to cover the awkward and explained why I was there, looking for a doodled upon Post-It note. The man exited rather quickly but the secretary, Diane Hay, looked around her desk for me, shooting sideways glances at me the entire time. She asked if I wanted her to draw one for me, and while I answered that it would be improper for me to suggest anything to her, I elevated and lowered my head vigorously.

After chuckling for a few minutes, Diane sketched an oddly shaped money sign, with some circles at the end of each line. It was done in red ink on 3M yellow Post-It note. While I personally thought it looks more like a u with a railroad through it, I wasn’t going to fight with the artist, especially after she had been so kind as to doodle for me. I thanked Diane Hay most profusely, and luckily she seemed amused by the whole exchange. I made a quick getaway, thanking my lucky stars that I had met someone as easy going as Ms. Hay to doodle for me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15112760

China’s continuing to steam ahead with their space program and now have launched their first attempt at a space station. And good on them. China seems to be the only country right now with any serious interest in beginning to colonize the cosmos. One of the only good things I can say about Bush is that he approved new plans to return to the moon. Unfortunately Obama killed those plans (along with any hope America had, the bastard) and right now Russia is to poor to really afford a space program. Which leaves China as the only nation that can launch people into space on their own accord. Europe is very interested in space but they have to rely on NASA’s and Russia’s capabilities in order to put anyone in orbit.

The Chinese aren’t really a “threat” to the US, at least not right now, but what is important is that they are pushing ahead much more quickly than anyone else out there. China has a stated intent of colonizing the moon (or at least putting a base up there) and they are putting their money where their mouth is. Pretty cool, if you ask me. The only hope for humanity to survive in this universe is for us to get the hell off of Earth. We’re burning through our natural resources rather quickly and once we do, we need stuff from somewhere else to keep us going.

Combine this with the fact that there is so much we don’t know about space ( like how does human physiology change in long term low gravity situations? What would being on a different body in space do to the human psyche? How different from Earth’s gravity is too much for human birth?) and China moving ahead in their space program is really exciting. I’m hoping that it spurs a Cold-War-esque space race with America. We’ve run out of frontier in America and space seems to be the only place left for us to go. Not to mention that if the Chinese outstrip us in the space race, they’ll be the first to have orbital bombardment, which is terrifying.

Former Speaker of the House and Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich spoke on Tuesday at Morningside College. Mr. Gingrich spoke for about an hour and a half during a question and answer session involving local Sioux City citizens and a smattering of students. About a hundred people attended the event and were very receptive to the former Speaker. Questions ranged from economic concerns to immigration reform, and Gingrich responded with a surprising amount of candor and intelligence.

Gingrich, while not citing specifics, tried to convince the crowd that a new, more complex contract with America is required to fix the problems in the country. There was very little original material in his outlines of fixing the country, being a rehash of GOP ideals in four main points. These are to cut taxes, get rid of regulation, invest in American energy, and to make businesses comfortable in order to spur growth.

Mr. Gingrich has a long history in Washington politics and that experience is not serving him well. He came to a college campus and engaged with older, white, conservative voters. Most of his ideas to fix America are repackaged tactics from the Reagan era, and Gingrich touted his experience with the former president. “I’m the only candidate who worked directly with Reagan.” While using this claim as a strategy to bolster support, it seems to have backfired.

Gingrich is a rather uninspiring candidate. He rehashed old ideas, engaged with older voters, and stood on the laurels of a president who served before most college students were born. Daniel Whithorn, a Morningside student, said “I didn’t feel inspired to go out door to door and tell people to vote for him.” Gingrich barely made an attempt to engage with younger voters, which is odd since he came to a college campus to speak.

Speaking of ridiculous shit, the Supreme Court once again failed in it’s duty to protect American citizens and to uphold justice. I swear, even the name “Justice Department” is becoming more and more Orwellian all the time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15013860

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14998248

This shit is utterly ridiculous. I expect this sort of crap from the American government, having grown up during the Bush years of destroying regulation and curtailing civil liberties. But India? They spawned Ghandi for Christ’s sake. It’s completely boggling to me that a country that gained it’s independence through unified, peaceful resistance can try to treat it’s citizen’s this way.

A half a dollar is not a livable wage in any part of the world, and using that to define who is poor and who is not is criminal. Not to mention the inflation that is afflicting every single currency in the world. If a full dollar is worth less than it used to be, a half a dollar will decline in value. I

t feels like the Indian government doesn’t know their world history. One of the major reasons that the Nazi party was even elected into a political position in the late 1920’s was because of the worthlessness of the duetchmark. Not to mention that an unhappy, poverty stricken lower class has been at the heart of numerous violent rebellions in the past, from the French Revolution to the Russians in the early part of the twentieth century.

Even if things don’t get that bad in India, keeping a vast majority of a country’s populace in poverty is no way to achieve becoming a superpower. Even if this is a way for India to save money from spending on the poor, there are better, longer lasting ways of doing it, like providing proper education and infrastructure so that the poor can break out of poverty on their own skills. This just smacks of people trying to find a quick fix to a major problem. It’s like applying a band-aid to a compound fracture. It won’t stop the bleeding or set the bone.

Palestinians head for UN state showdown

This is a really, really interesting article. The Palestinian/Israel dance has been going on since before I was born but within the last ten years it has really started to seem to come to a head. While nobody in the Middle East was too terribly happy with Israel in the past, but the fact that Israel has nukes and the backing of the U.S. has kept most of the nations from blatantly attacking Israel.

However, Israel has its head up its collective ass. Their place as the only nuclear power in the region is being threatened by Iran’s headlong charge to nuclear armament. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have killed any goodwill toward the U.S. in the Middle East and yet Israel is still very dependent on the States for support. Israelis continue to build settlements in areas that have been gifted to the Palestinians and they show no signs of stopping. While they say they are open to a two state solution, the ultra-conservative government is so stiff necked about the Palestinians coming to the table that nothing can be done.

It’s nice to see that the Palestinians are doing something out of line. They’re utilizing the U.N. in a way that the U.N. was designed for, even if it doesn’t necessarily please America. Not to mention, it’s a way for Palestine to fight Israel without violence. The Israelis are clearly in the wrong as far as the treatment of the Palestinians are concerned, but their fear is justified. No other people has been persecuted quite like the Jews and Israel is definitely their bright, shining hope of having a safe country to live in. If they could only temper that fear, enough to allow their neighboring countries to stop hating them so much, then Israel might have a chance to survive.

On the homework note of this, The story has timeliness, currency, and impact as far as news values are concerned. It’s dealing with an issue that has to be solved soon (timeliness). It’s about Israel and Palestine, and those two have been bickering for years so people want to know the latest developments (currency). It’s also about the U.S. facing another international faux pas, and one that will directly affect our standing with the Middle East (impact).

The Nebraska Union: More Traffic than Some State Highways

“I tap three mana and play a celestial dragon!”

The groan of four players swells as the Magic: The Gathering game before them changes in an instant. These players are overly loud, intelligent, completely socially awkward, and present on every single campus in America. Behind them the shouts of the Japanese run Chinese food place are drowned out by the whoosh as a burner for the wok ignites. A little off to the left, stands the gauntlet of student activities, all with a booth and all wanting some of your time. There is no place like Nebraska.

The Nebraska Union on the campus of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln is a very busy place. There is almost always a constant buzz of conversation, rising to a crescendo between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. as thousands of students pour through the building. Whether it’s for lunch, or heading down to the basement bookstore to buy yet another blue book, or sometimes for a speaker or luncheon, there is always a crush of people doing something or going somewhere.

The Union was funded and built in the late 1930’s, being first proposed by student Jack Fischer in the spring of 1935. The university was not very keen on the idea of a student union back then, due mostly to a reluctance to accept public money to help with construction. During the summer of 1935, instead of forwarding the paperwork for funding the Union, the university sat on their hands.

The students coming back felt betrayed. However, they did not allow the lack of enthusiasm from the administrators of UNL to stop them. The students raised over $10,000 and forced the administration to realize that the issue of a Union was not going to go away. The Board of Regents and President of the time agreed to allow the building of the Union and even accepted public works money, to the amount of $180,000 in 1936. Construction began and the Union was finished in 1938.

Having undergone three separate renovations and the addition of a new multicultural center, the Nebraska Union’s main charm is that it is constantly changing while still being recognizable. From my freshman year in 2006, the Union has lost two restaurants, Subway and Burger King, and replaced them with two new ones, Runza and Planet Sub. The Sbarro pizza joint there went out of business and then reopened under new management. The bookstore in the basement has changed its layout three separate times in as many years, and a Dairy Store outlet was put in next to the coffee shop.

No matter any other change however, the people remain the same. Not the individuals themselves but the groups to which they belong and identify. There are always the members of the Greek system there, beautiful and shallow. There are always theatre majors, high on their own self-importance and talking and screaming way louder than they need to. There are always the indie/ hipster/ potheads who smell vaguely like incense and cigarettes and are too damn cool for their own good. There are always the foreign exchange students, hanging out in clumps and speaking incomprehensibly in their native tongue.

If there is a beating heart of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, it’s the Huskers and the Stadium. It’s what most people associate with the university and brings in the most of revenue and attention. But the lungs of UNL are the Nebraska Union, where there is such a collegiate cultural mix that there is always a new breath of fresh air.

This piece is news, to me at least, because it’s dealing with Pakistan, which is arguably the scariest place in the world. Despite any personal feeling about the war in Afghanistan, America’s involvement there has caused a massive destabilization within Pakistan. The Taliban, being driven out of Afghanistan, has moved their base of operations over to Pakistan and has begun to fight against the Pakistani government, which was never very stable to begin with. This is so scary because Pakistan is one of the few confirmed nuclear powers in the world. If the Taliban causes the Pakistani government to fall and takes over,  it will also take over their nuclear weapons. That would mean a nuclear state that is extremely hostile to the U.S.Unfortunately due to our fiscal and social problems here in the U.S., and the fact that this problem has been brewing for a couple of years now, no one is really paying much attention to the situation over there. It’s nice to see someone reporting on attacks that are happening in an incredibly important and unstable part of the world.

Another reason I think this is news, is that the reporting seems rather objective. It gives the facts about the attacks and not much else. It’s more of a report over the wire than a piece giving a slant on the events. That being said there is an obvious pro-U.S. bias, but it is an American newspaper. The bias is evident in that the two likely suspects are al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the two most common scapegoats of the “War on Terror.” Also a point of bias is that the paper only quotes the U.S. embassy’s response to the attacks, while saying nothing of what the Pakistani government thinks of the attacks. Despite this bias, which is really unavoidable in a U.S. paper, the reporting seems to be just the facts. One other point about this piece is something Fuglsang also mentioned in class. “If it bleeds it leads” was the quote and I’ll direct your attention to the picture on the page.

Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/asia/08pakistan.html?ref=world

What is art these days? Rocks with mirrors on them. Located just south of the MacCollin Classroom building and Eppley Auditorium, Earth Mirrors, as strange a piece of sculpture as any seen by man, sits on a small hill hedged on two sides by parking lots and on the other a road. Ten rocks are set up in a triangular pattern on the hill, like over sized bowling pins waiting to be knocked over. The rocks are made of sandstone and there seems to be no discernible pattern to them other than their placement. The tallest stone stands at just about six foot six inches, and the smallest stone is just under three feet. Their girth ranges from a foot and a half to three feet wide. The cream colored stone is rough hewn and the angles of the cut, while not following any pattern, are obviously man made. Attached to each of the stones, is a piece of polished metal, cut to fit the outline of one side of the rock it’s mounted on. As with the shape of the rocks themselves, there seems to be no pattern as to where the mirrors are place on the stones.

The area around the standing stones leaves much to be desired as well. While there is no shade in and among the rocks themselves, there are trees on the side of the hill closest to the Eppley Auditorium. While providing some shade from the ever present sun, being under the trees is far from pleasant. Small, whining bugs continually fly about the ears, and the tree trunks are home to many ants who are not at all afraid to stake a claim on an unwary visitor. Breezes do roll in from the south, but their murmur through the branches is often interrupted and overpowered by a car parking nearby or the high pitched drone of a Kawasaki motorcycle zipping by on the road.

There isn’t even much history to the stones. According to a plaque set a few feet from the stones, the whole thing was made by someone named Andrea Stanislav and was only dedicated within this last year, on April 13, 2011. The whole place has a feeling of artificiality to it. The base of the rocks do not even have grass growing up to them. There is a four inch area of nothing but dirt around the rocks. It’s as if somebody was trying to create the illusion of antiquity but did an exceedingly sloppy job with it. So the question remains, what is art these days? The answer to that would take pages. However, in all those pages, Earth Mirrors would not be mentioned as art. Earth Mirrors would instead be mentioned as an example of swindling an institution out of money, and leaving an eyesore as a mark of a successful theft.

Ice cream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream? Maybe not today. Shunting aside the disappointment of not being given free ice cream, but having to do some work with it, I have to say I was surprised by this frosty concoction. It came in a cup, spawning memories of being seven and fighting with friends over who’s ice cream was better, sweltering in the humid misery of Point Harmony Elementary cafeteria. Divided roughly in half, the cup was one side white ice cream and on the other a brown icy swirl. The white side performed as expected, melting slightly on the top, curling  in one piece as the spoon shaved off the top layer. Nothing out of the ordinary until, BAM! The spoon hits the brown and going from a nice, smooth, easy shave the ice cream turns vicious, bucking the spoon, flakes of brown ice crystals stacking up and shattering against each other, the rage of some substance being released from it’s frozen prison.

Finally having a a good glob of ice cream on my spoon, I pop it into my mouth, hurrying so as to replace the oddness of the texture of the ice cream with a wonderful mixture of chocolate and vanilla. But NOOO. The brown betrayed me. It’s not chocolate at all. It’s root beer. HyVee, not content with the glory and majesty that is a root beer float, decided to FREEZE it. While it tastes fine, this is absurd. It’s almost as bad as making ketchup purple or blue or green or any other color other than red. Why, Hyvee, why? By the time I take the second bite, I already decide that this is not a happy time and has a rather unpleasant aftertaste. Almost a minty, antiseptic taste. And then it hits me. I’m tasting my mouthwash. The ice cream is being overpowered by Crest. I can’t take it. I stop eating, letting the ice cream melt into swirled, sad puddle of sugar, lactose, and water. Once again, dentists have ruined another day in my life. First it was cavities, then it was braces, and now it is ice cream. These sadists are gaining more and more of a foothold on things that I enjoy, all in the name of “oral health.”