Editorial Cartoon
134 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Longing for the long run
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Cross-country running in high school proved to be a most rewarding experience. My first season got me acquainted with the burly captain of the wrestling team who took running as seriously as he did studying. One of those self-proclaimed “seniors-who-just-don’t-care,” he taught me an invaluable lesson of high school (and formal education)’s true value and purpose.Before our first race, this fellow hoped to get a head start on his latest English assignment: reading the first act of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” In Act I, Sc. 1, the Danish courtier Bernardo calls out the first line of the play: “Who’s there?” When our coach snapped the order to get warmed up, stretched and mentally attuned for the grueling task ahead, my friend tossed the book aside and sprang to his feet. As we jogged alongside each other through the lush September breeze, I listened keenly to what the burly wrestling captain had to say about the most famous play in Western literature. “The first line goes, ‘who’s there?,’ … and then I had to stop.” After pausing to catch his breath, he unleashed his full train of thought: “I wonder who, or what, there is.” I giggled and guffawed along with my teammates, as much to soothe pre-race nerves as to avoid displeasing this formidable jock of jocks. But apart from the mock-curiosity and scholarliness he displayed, what etched this moment into my memory was the self-deprecating tone he used to suggest: “I may be bigger and badder than you ever will; but when it comes to Shakespeare, I can’t read two lines in one sitting.”Whether I’m putting words in his mouth, or projecting my own self-aggrandizing opinion onto someone else’s, is irrelevant. Nor is it of any worth to assume that because this fellow didn’t read and didn’t study much, his intellect and study skills were below average. He is, in fact, now a senior at Bucknell.18th-century English writer and statesman Joseph Addison said: “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” I still run these days, albeit on my own time, and with far less frequency than I read. Yet Addison’s words, in conjunction with the wrestling captain’s self-jabs, prove the absurdity of the idea that a social divide could exist today between those with a zest for sport and those with an enthusiasm for the written word (which admittedly includes more than Bill Shakespeare). Yet it’s surprising how inclined we still are to make that overtly simplistic distinction—between the physically gifted and adroit and the supposedly more sedate, “learned” members of society. Far gone, however, are the days of those sharp social contrasts and stereotypes that pervaded the worlds of academic and athletic competition before college. Although I harbor no delusions as to my future as a student (and my lack thereof as an athlete), the wrestling captain’s lesson remains clear: that for all those wannabe jocks of posterity, the line cannot only be blurred, but erased.
Luv: It just ain't enough
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Instead of taking a road trip to the Sunshine State this past spring break like many of my friends, I stuck around B-Town and took up a challenge on a topic I’d never even thought about before. A New York Times Magazine essay competition for college students challenged writers to answer the question: “Modern Love: What is it now?”Although the deadline would not be until the end of March, something drove me to the library well in advance to get a hold of at least a few inspirational tomes, everything from “The Beatles And Philosophy” to “Hemingway on Love.”You might say I tried to diversify my research. And I really did. When all was said and done, however, I was more likely to drive up to the Big Apple, sneak into NYT headquarters and urinate all over their printing machines than seriously consider submitting my piece to them.I came to realize that they weren’t really looking for creative drive, emotional veracity, intellectual integrity or rudimentary research and writing skills, whatever their purported criteria for evaluation.What, then, could possibly be worth the prominent endorsement of the NYT Magazine’s “Fashion & Style” section, an appearance on mtvU (MTV’s college network), and $1,000? If previous winners are any indication, the price would be pretentious, fatuous, pop-cultural drivel passed off as deeply introspective discoveries of love in their own lives.To be fair, some of the entries were quite good. One piece, entitled “I Married A Republican: There, I Said It,” gave me a sort of aesthetic-intellectual orgasm. I wanted my piece to be exactly like the rollicking adventure I’d just read, not some glorified diary entry, nor the drug-induced bitching, moaning and whining of some of my favorite songs.Yet the reality of modern essay competitions is a lot like the reality of modern love: to try to portray, explicate or even mock it requires one to contribute to what one of my former professors called “a world of superficialities.”It’s true that writing a research paper isn’t the same as trying to represent, in words, one’s most permanent and intimate understanding of love. Equally true, however, is the crude maxim that writers – all writers – are whores.Those who enter high school or college essay competitions thinking they can get around this crude maxim are some of the biggest and most unfortunate whores. They believe that by appeasing judges who are bound by preconceptions and prejudices (concerning things like “creativity,” “originality” and in this case, “love”), they can win something more than fleeting recognition and material prizes.In order to succeed, however, writers must have a semblance of honesty and substance about them as much as a sense of style, and these “winning entries” placed infinitely more emphasis on the latter than the former.Love is undoubtedly the most subjective of all possible subjects. It’s far easier to write about the “luv” of our AIM and Facebook-charged generation. It certainly isn’t honest, but it is more specific and far more marketable than the real thing.
Editorial Cartoon
Enviable place, unenviable time
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I know more than a few IU folks from the Chicago area. I use the term “area” because I wouldn’t want to spoil the racy feeling one gets by saying they’re from Chicago, when in truth they happen to be from Evanston, Arlington Heights or somewhere else on the unfashionable “outskirts” of the city.I freely admit I’ve never really “been” to Chicago, despite having physically set foot on its storied sidewalks. I don’t really count the time in fifth grade I attended my brother’s graduation from boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. When a friend invited me to visit him this summer, I accepted, albeit with some reluctance.My most enduring impression of the city, accurate or not, is the setting of the 1987 Brian De Palma film “The Untouchables.” Based on a 1950s TV series and inspired by the 1957 bestseller by legendary detective Eliot Ness, it hypes the hell out of the clash between Ness and Al Capone – the crime lord who corrupted and terrorized Prohibition-era Chicago for six years before his indictment and imprisonment in 1931 (for income-tax evasion).While it’s by no means sensible to slight this celebrated cultural center of the Midwest for events more than 70 years in the past, since East Coast cities like New York (Capone’s birthplace) and Boston similarly upheld the reign of organized crime, gambling, prostitution and bootlegging, but the Windy City of today is by no means guiltless of failing to erase yesteryear’s stain of scandal and governmental corruption.Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has produced the bulk of the disappointments tainting the historically brackish waters of Chicago politics today. He cited a $2 billion budget deficit (which his six-year administration couldn’t possibly have to do with) in his veto of HB5701, legislation enabling a critical boost to social service programs, hospitals, prisons and child-care centers.This controversial rejection estranged him from fellow Democrats (particularly House Speaker Michael Madigan, one of the bill’s staunchest supporters), broadening the partisan divide that is stalling progress on Chicago’s crime control, which Blagojevich bombastically referred to as “out of control” recently. This blithering remark did not sit well with Police Superintendent Jody Weis or Chicago’s mayor, Richard Daley, who is aiming to make the city a flashy candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics and whose administration’s suggestions of youth-employment programs as crime prevention Blagojevich characteristically snubbed.Yet perhaps most unsettling detail of these misadventures is the Governor’s ties to Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the Obama campaign fundraiser (and a known Blagojevich contributor) convicted earlier this year of fraud, money laundering, and aiding and abetting bribery. When reporters raised questions about it last week, Blagojevich blew his stack.This news is not heartening. While Chicago’s vibrant arts community and sports teams make the city an enviable place to visit, enjoy and admire, it is an unenviable time to being doing so. At least Capone’s dead and Ness’ sensational biography can still enlighten us.
Editorial Cartoon
Twain-based truth
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>One of my first college literature courses surrounded me mostly with folks of Hoosier background, with sprinklings of Illini. They filled the cramped Ballantine Hall room with a din of unmistakable dialects and raucous humor that irked my professor. Having met someone who would later become a lasting friend in the class, this atmosphere did not start out bothering me.Until, one day, someone decided to deride Mark Twain (an American literary hero if there ever was one) for the relatively free pass our current era of political correctness has given him.“I mean, nobody ever calls him racist!” the student said, tossing up his hands exasperatedly in the middle of his directionless diatribe.Upon spouting his hastily surmised thought, he took for granted how serious a reaction it would’ve elicited outside the classroom. By “outside the classroom,” I mean any recognizably public spot, including the hallway.In these places, where others were not so accustomed to the strident, unyielding flow of this student’s rants, where people wouldn’t have been so tired of them that they stopped listening after five seconds, this student wouldn’t have gotten off as freely as the dead man he thoughtlessly criticized.Outside the classroom, he might have been approached by someone of the same opinion as Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter, who recently wrote an essay for Time Magazine called “Getting Past Black and White.”“Was Twain racist?” Carter, who is himself black, asks. “Asking the question in the 21st century is as sensible as asking the same of Lincoln.”Although Lincoln really did think of African-Americans in terms that would be considered racist today, Carter concedes, he deplored slavery throughout his life and waged one of the most gruesome wars in our nation’s history to uproot, outlaw and formally end the despicable practice.Now, even a young American like me (supposedly brainwashed by the public school system, if I have any brains left) can pride himself on knowing this part of my country’s history. I guess that’s because American history isn’t much without Honest Abe.The same could be said for his fellow Midwesterner, Twain, whose storytelling and prowess for blunt criticism brought out from the American mind its humane and sensible elements while lampooning its darker side as no one else could. He villainized his era’s bigotry, hypocrisy, fanaticism, zealous religiosity and moral disfigurement, among other things.Academia and literati may be the most willing to defend “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from censorship and attack by those who cry foul at the characterization of Jim, Huck’s runaway slave companion, who speaks (like the rest of the characters) in dialect and whose appearances in the narrative are often accompanied by the n-word.Still, there’s no level of erudition necessary to see Jim’s deep fraternal bond with the narrator, the heroic instances in which he ensures his safety or the transcendent pathos of his development throughout the book – a book that generated more momentum against the cause of slavery than any work of American literature, before or since.There’s a reason Twain isn’t branded as racist more often. It’s because he wasn’t.
Editorial Cartoon
Summer of Schadenfreude
As orientation reaches its peak and the Class of 2012 starts gagging on the campus literature that’s being perfunctorily crammed down their throats, my feelings drift between pity and “Schadenfreude,” the German word for finding mirth in other people’s misfortunes. \nI’m not proud of it. It’s just a wretched impulse that seizes me when I walk past all those misty-eyed, pasty-faced “pre-frosh” on my way to work, flitting and gibbering at the heels of their parents. They thought they were ready for college, I chortle to myself. But all they’re ready for are the forces of fate that will soon swallow them whole.\nHow will they be swallowed whole? And why? These are serious questions.\nIn my two years of observation of the deadening slough of Welcome Week, there is one tradition that provokes in me the wicked-est laughter of all: the Freshman Induction Ceremony. It’s one of the oldest traditions of the program, and the one their parents will most likely force them to attend.\nDr. Herman B Wells, in his autobiographic sketch “Being Lucky,” wrote: “When as a student I first witnessed this ceremony, the colorful regalia, the beautiful ritual, the excitement of starting another school year combined to make the moment memorable.” Before my official induction, I shared Wells’ feelings. The hellish intensity of my high school years would now amount to something more than inflating my resume with expedient “extracurricular activities” and whoring myself to the tastes and demands of seemingly omniscient admissions officers.\nSo I sat up straight in my plush auditorium seat, ready to be vindicated – not only by the relatively official status of “student,” but by the mantle of meaning that would soon be bestowed on my post-adolescent life.\nThe auditorium’s organ kicked in, signaling the start of the eerily churchlike ceremony. The orderly flow of robed figures to the stage merely enhanced the clerical atmosphere. The deep red and crimson colors evoked the feeling of generations of tradition, as well as IU’s founding as a seminary. \nAlthough I was something of a believer then, the religious tone and theme of the introductory procession unnerved me. I wanted to like it, to be inspired. But I wasn’t.\nI nonetheless found myself humming to the low, rich music. I looked about, finding other people tolerating it just as much. I feared for my soul. \nThen-President Herbert stepped up to the podium, resplendent in immaculate white robes (not unlike the evil Emperor Commodus from the movie “Gladiator”). The ritual had begun for my conversion from East Coast snob/heretic into predictable, impressionable, trustworthy Hoosier stock.\nThis can’t be what college is altogether like, I thought. \nI won’t feel the need to buy into more meaningless pageantries and spectacles like these, will I? \nI’m still an individual, right? \nMy greatest fears and dreams don’t wholly resemble those of my peers. Do they?\nWith a bitter chuckle, I surrendered my soul to the glory of old IU. But after two years of college, I’m glad I can still laugh at myself. And, of course, at those poor freshmen.
Editorial Cartoon
Editorial Cartoon
An overrated legacy
Charlton Heston most certainly isn’t rolling in his grave. If anything, his cold dead hands have temporarily come back to life and tightened their grip on the antique rifle he’s no doubt entombed with in a posthumous victory. One of his most cherished beliefs was validated by the country’s highest court last week: the civilian right to keep and bear arms.\nHeston, as you may know, died this year. The big-time movie star turned stalwart conservative did more to protect and call attention to the Second Amendment than any politician of his generation.\nAlthough we all know a surprising number of people who couldn’t tell the difference between the “arms” mentioned in the Constitution and the appendages hanging from their upper bodies, I’m confident that an equally impressive number were left queasy by the Court’s decision. It has already rallied the rifle-toting reactionaries of our time, those who have adopted the un-mindful attitudes that allowed the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres to happen.\nBy “reactionaries,” I don’t mean Heston, who was in fact a poised and respectable advocate for his cause. To give a better example, I once lived in a town where pick-up trucks rolled around with bumper stickers reading “CHARLTON HESTON IS MY PRESIDENT,” a swipe at then-president Clinton, who signed the 1994 assault-weapons ban into law. And it’s not like I was seeing the same truck over and over again.\nAs if that wasn’t sufficiently close to home, I also grew up in a household where a considerable arsenal of ammunition and small arms rested in a safe on the other side of my bedroom wall. Perhaps because of my gentle, artistic disposition, my parents successfully kept this secret from me for several years. \nI’m glad I found out sooner or later, just to remind me where I stand on this historic ruling. I don’t deny the virtue of the argument proclaimed by Heston in an essay for the American Bar Association’s Human Rights Magazine: that the Second Amendment was, in no minor sense, “America’s First Freedom.” You can’t blame our colonial ancestors for preferring to have guns in their hands when leaping out of the bushes at those numerically superior British redcoats. \nBut you can blame today’s self-righteous, ideologically motivated NRA and related gun groups who began a countrywide crusade last week against cities with strict gun-control laws in the wake of the Court’s ruling. Their aim is not the logical preservation of self-defense, but a voracious and impetuous pursuit of hastily defined legislation that will leave gun-fearing communities even more fearful. \nCapitalizing on public anxieties to combat the ambiguously defined specter of “victim disarmament” (that banning guns only takes guns away from law abiding citizens, not criminals) fails to achieve what the founders of these groups originally intended to do. They wanted to bridge the gap between gun safety and gun accessibility and to encourage an atmosphere in which both interests can thrive. Their ideal was not to scare the hell out of people, humiliate those who feel genuinely threatened and to make guns seem more of a priority than human lives.
Editorial Cartoon
Editorial Cartoon
A call from the mountaintops
Have you ever noticed how, in the humdrum of casual, college-kid conversation, the topic of politics is regarded with aversion and distaste? I fully understand the ominous feeling that overtakes you when you really aren’t ready to reveal some of your most personal convictions, especially to someone who gets a kick out of finding some superficial basis for argument.\nBut the old adage about avoiding religion and politics at dinner parties falls short of describing this peculiar characteristic of young adults who are now beginning to participate in and learn about our precious democratic process.\nI can’t think of a clearer, more obnoxious example than the “Political Views” personal information tab on people’s Facebook profiles. While it’s entirely optional to make this information public (along with your sexual orientation, birthday, etc.), if you’re going to be open and honest about where your beliefs and experiences fall on our ideological spectrum, is it really necessary to select “Other”?\nBetter to leave that portion blank than indulge in the pretentious ambiguity surrounding this description of your “ideals” – supposedly so far removed from the party-bound sentiments of the masses that you can’t afford to waste your breath on anyone curious for your opinion.\nSince the advent of the blog and sites like Facebook, this self-righteous cynicism towards our political system has taken root and become emblematic of today’s youth culture. People take every opportunity possible to distract themselves from the increasingly civic nature of lives as coming-of-age citizens. \nYet as 2008 approaches its pivotal halfway point, it’s also become more difficult to hide behind vague, self-created labels. It’s even more important for people to get involved than perhaps 40 years ago, in 1968. Then, as now, overseas conflict mixed with disillusionment about government leaders has mobilized a new generation to become more politically active than before. But it isn’t enough to just “be involved;” we have to figure out what we believe and participate constructively, instead of just watching. Personalized forms of media have made it easier to distort and delude ourselves as to what we really think, and much of the political discourse has been left to over-opinionated airheads who think they’re writing and prophesying history every time they open their mouths. \nIn spite of it all, however, there’s no exaggerating the youth-central energy behind this election. But it isn’t enough to just keep track, we have to first and foremost identify where and with whom we stand. However, there are plenty of people who, if they bothered to clarify their views, might sway this election. \nFor those under 30, the Washington Post estimated about 6.5 million participated in this year’s primaries or caucuses. Time Magazine found 7 of 10 people our age who avidly follow the race. So even if you aren’t sure which party to affiliate yourself with, don’t hesitate to take a side if that’s what you happen to truly believe. This might be the only time in your lifetime that it will matter this much. No matter who or what inspires you, vote! – and make it a call from the mountaintops.
Editorial Cartoon
Editorial Cartoon
Gotta love gas (and travel)
In a political season like this, things are said to change rapidly. But here’s an example of what hasn’t changed in this historic year thus far: my ambivalent attitude towards the New York Times. \nWhile sifting through a June 9 article on how gas prices affect citizens across the country’s various regions, one line caught my eye.\n“With the exception of rural Maine, the Northeast appears least affected by gasoline prices because people there make more money and drive shorter distances, or they take a bus or train to work.”\nI stopped reading, not because the NYT dropped a staggering no-brainer in the middle of a poignant news story, but because it surprisingly lacked the BS in which these stories are so often embedded. It was so bereft of BS, in fact, that I suffered a flashback to one of those 13-hours car trips up the eastern seaboard to see grandma.\nIt’s a pity that of all the people not to be affected by gas prices, it had to be the group whose driving is arguably the worst you’ll find anywhere in the country. \nI remember why my father didn’t exactly look forward to passing through Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. As a result of those claustrophobic, profanity-laden hours of authentic family time, I vowed to exercise all possible patience, courtesy and vigilance behind the wheel. After five years of practice, I’m proud of how true I’ve stayed to those vows. Far more consistent and unchanging than me, however, has been this hard little fact: The drivers in those areas still deserve to be condemned with the same four-letter words that played so critical a role in my father’s driving. When I came to the Midwest, however, I was floored by the utter lack of chaotic motorists. \nI sympathize (albeit reluctantly) with my dad whenever undertaking a trip “home” with that blend of animosity and nostalgia all lovers of travel learn to overcome. Having gone to school here for two years, it’s hard to believe the disparity in basic road manners and competence between here and my home in the Northeast. For drivers, Bloomington is comparably idyllic. \nIt’s a shame that Bloomington’s calm road atmosphere has faced adversity through higher gas prices. If anyone should have to drive less, it’s my relatives on the East Coast. Yet even here, Bloomington has an advantage. We don’t seem to have suffered as much as countless other towns. Our public transportation is as good as anywhere in the region, and our city often receives awards for how “walkable” it is. Not only can you escape the pain of gas prices here just by expanding your worldview through taking alternative transportation, you can’t help but come to grips with the prevailing sense of peace in and around Bloomington in doing so. So when you indulge your next college-themed road trip, remember what you had back in B-Town.
Editorial Cartoon
Editorial Cartoon