The inaugural issue of The Walk

Everybody loves fashion or at least admires its beauty.

The proof lies in the high circulation of Vogue, Elle and Glamour as well as the massive popularity of shows like Project Runway, What Not To Wear and America’s Next Top Model.

Recently, Penn students have put a collegiate spin on the industry that has become a kind of leisure sport for Americans. Dzine2Show, Penn’s fashion society, has ventured into the world of journalism with The Walk, Penn’s first publication dedicated to fashion.

“As a fashion society, it seemed the next logical step to start a fashion magazine,” Wharton senior and editor of The Walk Stephanie Williams said.

The publication serves not only as resource for those interested in fashion and style on campus, but as a pre-requisite for those interested in pursuing careers in communications, retail, journalism and marketing.

“it’s not just about fashion,” Williams said. “We want to give people a background in media and the opportunity to gain experience in photography, graphics, design and to just express yourself in fashion.”

The organization was started by Penn alums Charlene Ong and Ebele Mora.

“When we founded the organization in our sophomore year, our aspiration was to fill the void we saw in the Penn curriculum for those students wanting to express a creativity in fashion design,” Ong said. “Even in its initial phases, Dzine2Show has always had an applicable business side, well in tandem with the motto Penn has about the importance of vocational learning.”

If their magazine launch party downtown this past weekend is any indication, Dzine2Show has their business down solid. The magazine will be distributed on a quarterly basis and the premier issue “Walk This Way” will be available on campus after Thanksgiving break.

Two heads are better than one and thousands of intelligent, educated heads are better still.

This was the foundation for Wikipedia’s 2001 launch. Now publishing goliath Pearson PLC is joining forces with Wharton Vice Dean Jon Spector, Wharton Professor Yoram Wind and professors at Mit’s Sloan School to produce a new Wikibook.

The book will be called “We Are Smarter Than Me” and in a truly meta fashion will, according to the Wall Street Journal, “explore how businesses can use online communities, consumer-generated media such as blogs, and other Web content to help in their marketing, pricing, research and service.” While the founding authors will create a skeleton for the book, interested users can contribute content through the website www.wearesmarter.org.

User-generated business texts carry both great opportunities and potential flaws.

(wearesmarter.org)

On one hand, shared experiences are already hallmarks of business learning. From case studies to best practices, the idea that people should learn from each other already exists in the business world. We Are Smarter Than Me may thus fare better than the original Wikibooks textbook project, which sought to address the problem of expensive textbooks by building open-content texts online. That initiative has seen limited success and has not yet gained the authority to be assigned by teachers or professors.

Having already recruited some big-name academics and businesspeople as contributors, the We Are Smarter project will certainly provide interesting anecdotes and analysis. The oversight role of Pearson and the ghostwriters who will compile the text will also allow for more coherence and legitimacy than the original Wikibooks. As the Journal correctly identifies, the problem in this case will be managing competing egos.

If the project successfully jumps this hurdle, We Are Smarter Than Me will open new doors in academia. Somewhere between peer-reviewed journals, traditional textbooks, and case studies, open-content books can quickly collect information from different sources and offer competing perspectives on any given topic.

So long as they don’t bump into each other, many business heads really will be better than one.

(The Harvard Crimson)

The most valuable lesson I’ve learned since coming to Penn is that I suck. You’d think I’d feel bad about this, but I really don’t mind. Because all of you suck, too.

Seriously, it’s okay. Obviously, we don’t all suck at everything. But I promise you, everybody sucks at something.

I’ve accepted my suckiness, and you should too. While I could probably fill an entire book listing all the things I suck at, let it suffice to say that items one and two are probably “calculus” and “anything involving a kitchen appliance that isn’t the microwave.”

I know you were perfect in high school. I know that you got straight A’s, got fives on all 37 AP exams you took, and got a 2400 on your SATs (even when they only went up to 1600 back then). So did I.

But then we came to college, where being awesome was a little harder than before. And sometimes, no matter how much work you did, you weren’t awesome anymore. I call that “something” Math 103. I was the kid in high school that couldn’t stand anyone that didn’t understand math. But after killing myself in Math all semester at Penn, I just barely pulled off a C+.

Some of you probably think I’m pretty dumb. After all, when I told people I was taking “stupid calculus,” they would reply, “Oh, Math 104?” And I’d have to reveal that I was being killed by a class even lower in the sequence than Math 104.

But sucking at calculus was good for me. I realized that blaming the professor wasn’t going to help, that other people had gotten A’s and (most importantly) that no one is good at everything. I turned my attention to concentrating on what I was good at and what interested me instead of freaking out about not being perfect.

Most people I know had this epiphany freshman year, whether it was caused by a bad grade or not making the athletic team they had expected to walk onto. Once we got knocked off our high horses, we learned to roll with the punches and accepted our suckiness with pride.

The longer it takes to learn this lesson, the worse off you are.

For example: Yifei Chen, a Harvard sophomore who threw a hissy fit via e-mail after not being re-elected to the 2007 editorial board of the Harvard Crimson. I’m not saying His Highness was a bad board member in 2006, but he obviously hasn’t learned that it’s okay to fail sometimes.

Along with learning that nobody’s perfect comes learning to suck with a little grace. At the very least, you learn that calling next year’s editorial board “incompetent” and “undedicated” and resigning in self-righteous rage might be just a tad juvenile.

Holding yourself to a higher standard is great, but you have to be realistic. Don’t beat yourself up for sucking sometimes. Because if nothing else, I can assure you that people who think They’re perfect have no friends. And that sucks.

Hardly more than two weeks after its release, Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat–an irreverent mockumentary about the United States–is swimming in money. As of yesterday night, the movie has grossed over $90 million domestically and $135 million worldwide.

Quite impressive for a new release.

Slightly less impressive are the ethical concerns regarding the way Cohen went about gathering his video footage. Two anonymous plaintiffs are suing Twentieth Century Fox–the distributor of the film–and One America Productions, claiming that members of their college fraternity were made to sign talent release forms while intoxicated.

As a result of the disreputable things they said on camera, they claim that they have suffered “humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community…” They claim that they would not have participated had they not been intoxicated or had they known that the movie would be released in the United States.

Similarly, the villagers of Glod, a remote village in Romania where Cohen filmed a part of his movie, have angrily accused him of exploiting them after learning that his film portrays them as a backward, incestuous group of people who engage in rape, abortion and prostitution.

The confluence of these and other lawsuits have made me not want to see this film. I don’t believe that one should trick or lie to people in order to get them to say stupid things in front of a camera.

Then again, it could be that I feel this way simply because I’m Polish.

Over the last week, a hilarious video clip has surfaced to the top of YouTube’s most-viewed videos. The video features a mayoral candidate for the Polish city of Bialystok. The candidate, Krzysztof Kononowicz, rambles about eliminating cigarettes, alcohol–everything! …and installing police on the streets because That’s what They’re for, That’s what They’re for–I repeat: That’s what They’re for! All while, he wears a disturbingly pathetic sweater whose replicas have since become a hot-selling commodity on eBay.

And yes, he is entirely serious.

Despite the popularity of the clip, Kononowicz lost the mayoral race. But his rambling tirade should serve as an inspiration to Cohen and other comedians looking to trick people in order to get them to say stupid things: all you really need is a camera and a Polish politician.

After segregated Survivor, Maury Povich and the National Enquirer, I was fairly confident that we had reached the nadir of human depravity.

Naturally, I was wrong.

The impending release of OJ Simpson’s book If I Did It begs to be new definition of low. In it, Simpson explores how he would have gone about murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ron Goldman. You know, if he had done it.

Simpson was reportedly paid $3.5 million from Regan Books for the deal. I pretty much blew a gasket upon learning that little nugget.

Judith Regan, the President of Regan Books (and a former National Enquirer reporter), has told reporters that she takes Simpson’s chillingly-real, theoretical depictions of the murders as his confession to the crime. So’she, like the rest of the country, thinks he’s guilty. Then why pay him $3.5 million to put it into a book? Clearly I’m missing something important here.

I’ve always been an ardent defender of American pop culture when it comes under criticism from the class of high-nosed snobs. But I’ve finally encountered something completely baseless. As the self-proclaimed hardest person to offend, I champion political incorrectness and humiliating behavior if people are really that desperate to appear on television. (Nobody is forced to make out with Flavor Flav.) But this, I’m almost surprised to find myself saying, goes beyond the pale.

Regan claims that her deal with Simpson is arranged such that profts will not go to him but a “third party” and his children. But Geraldo Rivera has speculated that he’s already spent much of the money on real estate.

Simpson’s friend said the book project was less about money as it was giving a final “f— you” to the world that already thinks he did it. For the love of God, let’s finally give that to him and not buy this book.

(Alpha Phi)

Somehow, I ended up attending four of the eight sorority philanthropy events this year.

Even though consider myself the least sorority-like girl of all time, I willingly found myself supporting sisters all over campus.

It was happenstance that I showed up at the right place and right time to attend Tri-Delta’s pancake breakfast at Marathon Grill. I accompanied my roommates to stand in the rain at Cavanaugh’s river deck for Sigma Kappa’s battle of the bands. I survived a fight-free night at the Trocadero theatre for Alpha Chi Omega’s Big Man on Campus. I also endured listening to tone deaf frat boys sing at Alpha Phi’s Karaoke Phi-ver.

Despite my previous feelings toward sorority functions, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at each of the events. Plus my attendance benefited causes ranging from cardiac research to supporting women against abuse.

My personal stereotype of sisterhood activities was definitely challenged. Being in a sorority seems to have obvious benefits to women on campus–the support system between sisters, the bonds of friendship and, of course, all those Greek tee-shirts. The popularity of these events also demonstrates the strong presence that all the sororities have at Penn, for all of these events were jam packed and contained an even mix of Greek and non-Greek students.

If I take anything away from my brief stint as a sorority supporter, it’s that sororities aren’t all that bad. The girls not only “wanna have fun,” but also know how to have fun while supporting valuable causes.

I’ve got it pretty easy when it comes to getting home for Thanksgiving. For me, returning to my Jewish mother’s nest entails is hopping on a train at 30th street station or a bus in Chinatown. I can leave Penn after my 5 o’clock class and still be home for dinner, so attending classes the day before Thanksgiving is not a big deal for me.

But for a pretty sizable chunk of Penn students, Wednesday classes are a much bigger nuisance. For example, 55 percent of this year’s freshman class lives beyond the catch-a-train-after-class Mid Atlantic bubble that stretches from New York to Virginia. They booked their plane tickets for late Wednesday night before their teachers canceled class on Wednesday. So, they are going to miss the beginning of the holiday festivities.

Then there are those pesky professors who, under the guise of giving students their money’s worth, hold classes on Wednesday. They pretend that it’s just a usual class day and ignore that there is just a sprinkling of a few brave, mainliners in an empty 200 seat lecture hall. The lecture is usually exceedingly boring because the professor can’t really teach anything new.

Why not get rid of this whole hoax? Why not standardize the whole ordeal and let students plan? If Penn wants to reach out to more students from more diverse geographic backgrounds, concessions need to made. Since there is really no value added by having class on Wednesday, Penn should just bite the bullet and cancel them.

On Judgment Day, the righteous are supposed defeat the morally corrupt, and so on. And if that’s true, you’ll see for yourself this Saturday.
At noon, Yale will take-on Harvard in the 123rd playing of The Game. And if (like most of the country), you don’t care about Ivy League football, you only have to wait until 3:30, when Michigan takes on Ohio State for a bid to the National Championship game.

I know that when the Bible talks about Judgment Day, they weren’t talking about football. But we’re in the middle of a drought of religious holidays, so why not spend some time in the church of Saturday afternoon football?

If you don’t have any pre-existing allegiance to any of the teams that are playing, you can have your pick of whichever rivalry you’d like. You can get into the Harvard-Yale rivalry, with its proper Ivy League history, tailgate debauchery, sweater-vested alumni and rap wars.

If you like your sports rivalries on a larger scale, you can watch the number one and number two college football teams in the country battle it out on national television to see which team will finally suffer its first loss of the season.

(mgoblue.com)

I have to confess that I’d choose baseball over football any day. But I can’t abandon ESPN until April. So this weekend, I’ve picked college football to care about.

As a result of a grandfather and freshman year roommate who are obsessed with Michigan, I’ll be rooting for the Wolverines. But regardless of how much you care about sports, college football is a pretty easy one to get into, at least for a day.

Who doesn’t want to watch kids their own age battle it out with the weight of entire campuses and alumni networks on their shoulders? It’s why even the most apathetic Penn fans suddenly find themselves sitting in Franklin Field. If watching is free (at least on television), college sports can be addictive. A good rivalry is the best way to get into it.

As a college football convert, I swear that you don’t have to know every intricacy of the rulebook to have fun with it. And while anyone outside the Ivy League will probably try to convince you that the Harvard-Yale game isn’t a “real” rivalry, not all of us have the strength to deal with the intensity of the Big 10. So pick whichever game you feel more comfortable with. I promise, they’re both (somewhat) equally respectable.

The Spin will be back on Monday morning. Have a nice weekend!

(Wikipedia.org)

When Dartmouth sophomore Rembert Browne cited Wikipedia in a research paper last year, his professor requested that he replace it with a more permissible scholarly source. Despite the site’s immense popularity, the question of Wikipedia’s validity as an academic resource goes beyond the Dartmouth faculty.

There is a great danger in relying too heavily upon a source in which anyone can write as an authority on any subject. However, Wikipedia entries and other online resources, such as Google, can make college classes more interactive.

The internet allows for more spontaneous academic conversation, which is a healthy digression away from rigid curriculums. If a topic or historical figure arises in class discussion, a professor can easily jog his or her memory via the Web. These servers become the Genies of the classroom. But they are only academically useful and reliable as a main resource in the presence of knowledgeable professors, who can serve as filters and discern the accurate information posed.

I have been in many classes at Penn where professors have resorted to the Web to show a visual or familiarize students with a subject. The result is that classes feel more personal as students can direct the course of the conversation. For this reason, Web sites that may be inappropriate to cite in an academic paper can be valuable resources in the actual classroom.

Apparently the mohawk is back and it’s invading Penn’s campus. Since Saturday I’ve seen 4 mohawks around campus. They are sported by a diverse crowd, including skater dudes and frat boys.

For several months, European men have embraced what fashionistas are calling “faux-hawks.” Penn men are apparently just picking up on the trend. In fact, two freshmen in my Digital Design class just got matching ‘hawks, and another friend of mine has yet to cut off his mohawk since Halloween. Much like skinny jeans and leggings, the mo- and faux- hawks of the 80’s and early 90’s have made a comeback.