A Shot of Hennessy

Just try not to look at creepy as this guy.

When the time creeps up to 12:30, don’t frantically mass-text everyone in your phone book “meet me @ houston?”

Make a lunch date with yourself instead. You can do whatever you want! Eat your California roll with a fork, chomp on your Hemo’s as unflatteringly as you’d like. Except I personally would still stay away from that Indian “food”…ew.

No, you don’t have to pull out your DP and fail miserably at the New York Times crossword (if it’s after Wednesday) and you know you want to save that Sudoku for Physics class when you’ll really need it. Why not enjoy your own company? After all, if you can’t stand being around yourself how the hell is anyone else supposed to?

For most Penn students, doing much of anything alone is a source of great anxiety. You will say, “But Morgan, how are people supposed to know I am cool/likable/popular/normal if I eat lunch alone? What if I run into that cute [insert frat here] boy?? He’ll think I’m a pariah!”

People already know that you have friends, or at least I hope so. As evidenced by several fraternities on campus, the harder you try to prove that you’re cool the less cool you will actually look. It takes sophistication and self-satisfaction to sit happily alone. Audrey Hepburn never called a friend to eat breakfast with her at Tiffany’s.

Sidenote: this only works in public places - eating alone squirreled away in one’s room is lonely and reclusive.

There are times when you don’t want to be alone by any means…for example, when you’re walking home from 42nd and Baltimore at 3 a.m. Or when you’re trying to pick out what to wear before a party. That’s always hopeless without a friend around.

But lunch is just perfect.

This weekend I experienced it myself. Saturday was a beautiful day. I’d had a stressful week, so I headed downtown for a few hours of intensive retail therapy, and soon my tummy was rumbling.

I went to have a slice in this awesome brick-oven pizzeria…by myself.

I wasn’t armed with a DP, a book, or my physiology notes. I sat by the window and tried to look demure while scarfing down my food.

Passersby didn’t stare, no one pointed and laughed. However, I did make some serious eye contact with a cute guy. How bad could that be?

So next time your mass-text replies are nil, don’t panic and grab sushi on the run. Sit and enjoy your food with your own, fabulous self.

A Shot of Hennessy appears every Monday and Wednesday.

BeatNick

I took the LSAT on Saturday. Pretty awful experience all-around, but it’s a necessary evil for anyone who wants to go to law school. So for those of you still thinking about it, here are a few questions you might find on an LSAT.

1. Wu, Xu, Yang, and Zhang are 4 Wharton students preparing for exams in Marketing, Finance, Statistics, and Accounting (but not necessarily in that order). Each student is preparing for exactly one exam. They have reserved 4 consecutive half-hour timeslots in the same Huntsman study room.

Wu studies for Finance during the second time slot.

Xu and Yang study earlier than the student preparing for Marketing.

Accounting and Finance are studied for back-to-back, though not necessarily in that order.

How many arrangements are possible?

A) 1

B) 2

C) 3

D) 4

2. Giant Douche: I’m on Locust Walk handing out fliers for the Oz party tonight, but only to the hottest girls I see. I also just bought a gram of cocaine from a guy named Ty-Ty behind McDonald’s. So I’m definitely going to snort coke off someone’s naked body tonight, since that’s what I do at any party where there’s cocaine and a hot girl.

Which of the following, if true, allows the argument’s conclusion to be properly drawn?

A) Oz brothers sometimes snort cocaine off each other’s naked bodies.

B) Ty-Ty actually sells flour to Penn students.

C) You’re a giant douche if you only flier to hot girls.

D) At least one hot girl shows up to any party that fliers only to hot girls.

3. Food Critic: Anyone who thinks that food quality is always the primary indicator of sales at food carts is mistaken. Kim’s, for example, outsells Yue Kee only because of its longer hours of operations. Similarly, Bui’s outsells Steak Queen only because Ms. Bui is really friendly and attractive.

What is the main point of the argument?
A) Food quality is not sufficient to determine sales.

B) Asians make better cheesesteaks than do third-generation Italian-Americans.

C) Variables like hours of operation and service are sometimes the primary indicator of sales.

D) Mr. Bui is a lucky guy.

Free ice cream cone to whoever emails me the right answers first (barr@dailypennsylvanian.com). Arbitrary terms and restrictions apply.

BeatNick appears every Monday and Thursday.

CommenTATE

The big screen at A-Jad’s speech at Columbia.

He looks fresh off the pages of the latest GQ magazine and his rock star status allows him to wine and dine with media celebrities like Brian Williams and Christiane Amanpour. If his words weren’t translated, you’d never guess he denied the Holocaust and wished death to Israel and the United States. I’m talking about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It’s dangerous that millions of Americans still have no idea who Ahmadinejad is. Indeed, I’ve even encountered Penn students who’ve never heard of him (”Ahmadinejah-wha?”). That is, until the media storm that preceded and followed his Monday appearance at Columbia University.

On that Monday, I tuned into CNN with some friends to watch A-Jad speak at Columbia. I’d seen him talk before on 60 Minutes, but most of my friends hadn’t and watched him for their first time. They were shocked. The man they read about in the press was supposed to be a crank, not one for rational discourse. So when they watched how well he dressed, how many times he gave those looks of optimistic smiles, and how mild mannered he acted, they thought differently.

One friend in the room watching with me was College Freshman Eric Dein. After the speech, Dein said, “A-Jad puts on a show in the media to appeal to the American public. It’s scary because he appears so nice, and dresses like a pop culture icon.”

And I’m not surprised to hear that. Because it’s true. On television, A-Jad looks great, consistently sporting that jacket-sans-tie look. He appears not rash but fair tempered. Always calm and well-centered. His trademark jacket even attracted the attention of Newsweek’s “Look of a Leader” feature.

Other Penn students were impressed by his media image. College Sophomore Salmon Kadivar–Iranian-born, Farsi spoken, and Ahmadinejad fan–concedes the point that A-Jad knows the television language of the American people and “makes a careful effort to look spectacular, studious, and hard-working on television, dignified enough to command respect.” He said, “That’s part of his strategy.”

Likewise, Salah Chafik, a College Sophomore and Muslim Student Association board member, remarked that A-Jad knows how to take command of the media. “Consider him at Columbia when he is introduced as an evil tyrant. He shakes it off with a warm and friendly smile, looking professional.”

A question that a few were left with earlier this week after watching Ahmadinejad talk at Columbia probably was: What’s the big deal? Is he really that evil of a guy?

It’s because A-Jad’s image on television is impressive, enthralling and in the end–once you realize what he’s saying–disturbingly diametric to what he really believes.

CommenTATE appears every Monday and Friday

Under the Button

Please, mister, don’t hurt me

As we get nearer and nearer to finding a biological basis for
homosexuality, I get more and more nervous. Why research something with no possible positive outcomes?

Currently, a researcher in Idaho is conducting experiments on some rams not only to determine the source of their homosexual behavior but also the best way to “fix” it. While this research is supposed to improve fertility rates in sheep breeding, it has still caused controversy in the gay
community.

As we say in Oklahoma, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

There’s no reason to do this research. I’m sure,
at the rate we’re currently moving, it will be done eventually.
Someone will probably find some physical, maybe genetic, correlations to explain the urge to have sex with someone with similar genitalia. But now doesn’t seem like the time in our society or in our science.

In terms of our society, it’s a lose-lose situation. While a
biological basis would support the gay liberation claim of being “born that way,” this small gain for the movement would immediately be overwhelmed by conservative cries of “disease!”

We already have enough crazies out there trying to “rehabilitate” gays;
why give them any more ways to harass people? While acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle has become more and more mainstream, there’s still enough resistance to the idea that I see no reason to add another variable to the whole equation.

While I in no way support the restriction of scientific research, I do think that the state of modern science presents a good reason not to try to solve this puzzle. Yeah, we’ve gotten pretty far, but why is anyone trying to do somewhat-useless research when we still have huge problems to solve? What about curing cancer? What about AIDS? For that matter, what about our little obesity epidemic?

Maybe I’m just a naive idealist, but I say that all the time, money,
and intelligence being directed into finding the “gay gene” should be thrown at something that can actually save lives.

It’s like your general requirements - sure, you’d rather take that
random, useless, fascinating course you stumbled upon in the
course register, but first you have to take math. Get the useful crap
out of the way, figure out how stuff works, and then you can study
something fun.

Apply the same thing to science and maybe we’d have better treatments for various fatal diseases instead of a
cure for impotence and a pointless search for an important but
irrelevant gene.

Under the Button appears every Tuesday and Friday.

Caroline in the City

See anything appetizing in there?

So, today is trash day - also known as the day Pine Street turns into one hot mess of overflowing garbage.

While high rise dwellers have the luxury of throwing their trash down a chute, never to be seen again, students living off-campus not only have to deal with trash fermenting outside their doorstep, but they must also fend off the dumpster divers of West Philadelphia.

Whatis.com defines dumpster diving as “looking for treasure in someone else’s trash.” These urban foragers find precious loot in what Penn students deem to be unusable. In fact, dumpster divers have been known to target universities, like Penn, that house wealthy and oftentimes wasteful individuals.

The New York Times ran a storythis past June describing the divers who loot through NYU’s trash after graduation. These individuals, who label themselves ‘freegans,’ live off consumer waste “in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism.” The freegans will even collect things like bruised produce and expired canned goods in order to conserve their own money and make up for other people’s wasteful habits.

Whether the dumpster divers that roam Penn’s off-campus housing can technically be considered freegans or not, they have been known to run off with items such as expired milk and empty shoe boxes.

In order to find such goodies, they rip open garbage bags and leave trash strewn all over the sidewalks. While dumpster diving is not exactly illegal unless it occurs on private property, Penn security should take more initiative into making sure these dumpster divers do not messy up the streets and taint the environment around student housing.

And students should be extra careful with things like receipts and old bills, for these items could end up in the wrong person’s hands.

Caroline in the City appears every Wednesday and Friday.

A Nick at a Time

Looks terribly exciting.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Shrek the Third. Spider-Man 3. Harry Potter 5.

Was anyone else underwhelmed by this summer’s film releases?

If you’re like me, you love a good movie. And, if you’re even more like me, rarely is there a new release that excites you enough to plunk down something approaching $10 to see it in a theater, or even $5 to rent. While really good movies do come out, it’s usually too much work to sift through the dull parade of recycled (or even remade) Hollywood thrillers, romantic comedies, and shoot-’em-ups.

For those who feel the same way, I recommend an excursion past the land of the stars and stripes to homes of other, less formulaic cinema.

Yes, foreign films. Many nations around the world have industries churning with movies that offer anything you could be asking for - entertainment, enlightenment, attractive foreign performers. Yet very few people at Penn seek out good foreign films to watch.

A common concern is subtitles. “I’ll watch some movies with subtitles, but for the most part I’m not really interested in reading during the movie,” explains College freshman Raymond Kwok.

But to allow subtitles to deter from enjoying some of the world’s greatest movies is unfortunate. Especially when extensive collections of foreign films are available to us completely for free.

Many students are introduced to foreign films through language study at Penn. The mind of many a German student has been expanded by Run Lola Run. And this is how Wharton senior Jontae McCoy became a fan of Spanish films, though she added, “I hate French films.”

Which brings up another point - each country’s films have a flavor of their own, and you have to explore them yourself to see.

I enjoyed the movies I watched in Korean class so much that I took a whole course last semester on Korean cinema. Some were excellent and some were terrible, but almost all were refreshingly different from what I’ve come to expect out of America. I learned. I laughed. I cried. Seriously.

So, if you don’t have a good reason for not checking out foreign films, I suggest you give them a shot. Between Van Pelt, the many departmental or dorm-based collections at Penn, and places like Video Library, availability is no excuse.

If you’d rather not, there’s always Good Luck Chuck.

A Nick at a Time appears every Tuesday and Thursday.

BeatNick

On Monday, I called attention to a bizarre sign posted throughout Philadelphia. The sign was ambiguously worded, and even if it meant what I thought I meant, I still wasn’t sure what it meant.

I wasn’t alone in my confusion.

“Who buys guns for criminals? Here ex-rapist and convict, have a 9mm,” posted one incredulous MySpacer on his buddy’s “Friend Space.”

A few days later, things are clearer. Who buys guns for criminals? The answer is straw purchasers. A straw purchase is one in which an eligible customer - a 21 year-old without a criminal record - buys a gun for an illegible customer - possibly a criminal. Straw purchases are a serious problem in Philly, and have contributed to the enormous increase in the area’s gun violence. Crack down on straw purchasers and the whole infrastructure of illegal gun trafficking crumbles.

So hopes Al Toczydlowski, head of the Gun Task Force Initiative. Spearheaded by District Attorney Lynne Abraham, Attorney General Tom Corbett, and the Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, the Initiative has targeted straw purchases through various means, including advanced training of the Police Department and legislative measures such as the “One Gun a Month” bill.

The Initiative has also tried dissuading would-be straw purchasers through ad campaigns, bringing us back to the sign: “The gun you buy for a criminal may kill a child.” Below those words a handgun points ominously towards a schoolgirl with pigtails.

Does it make any sense to try and pluck at the heartstrings of straw purchasers? Toczyldowski thinks so. “By nature, straw purchasers have no criminal record,” Toczyldowski told me. “It’s important to send a strong message to these people.”

But it’s naive to think that having no criminal record is equivalent to never having committed a crime. And a glance at some of the profiles of arrested straw purchasers shows that these aren’t one-time offenders.

A closer look shows something else. Many straw purchasers are women. Abraham described the situation as “the same revolting picture” in an August news conference: “Women have been providing guns for their drug suppliers, their boyfriends, their former boyfriends, the father of their children.” Sure enough, just yesterday, 5 more arrest warrants connected with straw purchasing were issued. 2 of the suspects were women.

Could the sign be playing to every mother’s fear in order to dissuade women from gun trafficking? Maybe. But if you ask me, every dollar spent on advertising is wasted. Man or woman, a straw purchaser is just a criminal who hasn’t been caught yet.

The key word is “yet.” With 78 arrests and 300 ongoing investigations, the Initiative is off to a good start. Only time will tell if it actually alters Philadelphia’s violent landscape.

BeatNick appears every Monday and Thursday.

Common $ense

That’s tough competition.

On what was a pretty tame day in the markets, two seemingly unrelated events caught my attention. For one, cosmetic manufacturer Bare Escentuals, Inc. (Ticker: BARE ) spiked over 11 percent on a “Buy” recommendation. As for the second event…

…the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy!

Why do I love this show you may ask? Is it for the Emmy-winning actresses, the cool soundtrack or the backstage fights?

It’s for one thing only - unrealistically hot surgeons with problems.

Normally, I consider myself to be a pretty man. My addition to the DP staff has considerably raised the level of sexual tension in the office. I only hope you aren’t so mesmerized by my 1-inch portrait at the top of the screen as to not finish reading this post. It is difficult, I understand.

But alas, my beauty can’t hold a candle to Dr. McDreamy, Dr. McSteamy, and don’t forget the now infamous Dr. Mc-I-was-fired-for-being-an-asshole. Surely they and the ladies on set must be made up like China-dolls; of course, without the toy safety hazards a la Mattel.

Could the return of America’s favorite melodramatic doctors foretell good things for BARE going forward?

Looking at the way BARE’s stock rose rapidly from just one upgrade, and not even from a major bank, leads me to believe there was short covering. In other words, people have been betting on the stock to fall for so long, they decided to buy it back on the first sign of good news to protect their profits.

Some preliminary research of mine found investors have been wary on the company due to weakness in sales from their high-margin infomercial business.

Several Penn women I know have professed their loyalty to BARE’s strong product line. Despite the slowdown in infomercials, BARE is still the top selling cosmetic product at stores such as Sephora. Their industry-leading products should reach a wider pool of customers with more store-owned boutiques on the way.

I expect the stock to come down after the knee-jerk reaction Wednesday. However, with its price down over 24 percent in the past three months, longer-term believers should pick up shares on weakness. I’m not a buyer due to my ignorance regarding makeup, however I’m bullish on any company whose products attempt to make Penn girls look better.

Common $ense appears every Tuesday and Thursday.

Beckstreet’s Beck (Alright!)

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Walking down Locust Walk, I couldn’t help but notice all the election signs. “Vote for Jeff Kaplan!” said one. Simple, direct, commanding. Everything you could want in a leader.

Should you vote for Jeff? I have no idea. Should you vote at all? I really don’t care, and that’s what separates me from a lot of people who think voter participation is really important in student elections.

Last year, the Nominations and Elections Committee offered free pizza to get students to participate in elections. Pretty soon they’ll start their annual campaign of knocking on freshmen’s doors and asking them if they’ve voted yet.

“You need to vote, it’s really important!” they’ll say.

“But I don’t know the people running, or even what they stand for.”

“Don’t worry, you can read all about their platforms online!”

And you absolutely can read about them; however, they’re not helpful. Half of them are just jokes, and not even funny ones.

Our buddy Jeff Kaplan (with whom you can “make it happen”) claims to “support magicians and ventriloquists.” Oh, good thing I paused my game of Mario Kart to participate in this silly election - the plight of magicians and ventriloquists needed my vote. Candidate for Class Board President Lauren Albert wrote her platform as a parody of Fergie’s Fergilicious. I don’t really have anything to say about that, I just feel it’s important this doesn’t go unnoticed.

Some candidates do actually list issues that they’re concerned about - lowering text book prices, better food in the dining hall, and my favorite: quality toilet paper. That’s all well and good, but I’d like to hope that if the UA and Class Board had any power over these things, they’d already be fixed.

It’s not like any of their opponents are for raising the price of textbooks, like The Penguin Publishing Company bought them out.

I’d love to moderate a debate where a candidate was arguing against bringing in two ply toilet paper.

Candidate 1: “I say, it’s about time this school got real toilet paper!”
Moderator: “And your rebuttal, Mr. Anderson?”
Candidate 2: “You’ll all get one ply and you’ll like it!”

I’m not trying to negate all the work the UA and Class Board does. I’m sure it takes a lot of effort and I’m glad I’m not responsible for it. I just believe that nearly anyone who runs for such a position will be qualified enough to fulfill its duties.

Who you elect will not make much of a difference since none of them actually have the power to do any of the stuff they want to do. Now watch me be wrong and somehow one of these kids gets us involved in a war with Iraq.

Beckstreet’s Beck (Alright!) appears every Tuesday and Thursday.

Dear Danny

“Only 1 in 10 low income students will graduate from college. You can change this.”

So say the powerful signs planted in gardens across Penn’s campus. Teach for America (TFA) is recruiting corps members to lead the fight against poor education in many American communities. And their efforts are paying off. In this first round of applications, 47 Penn students applied.

Teach for America is pretty simple: get graduates of elite colleges and universities into under-funded urban and rural classrooms. While the corps members inspire and motivate their students, their subject knowledge will help them to teach, and their enthusiasm will propel their classroom forward.

It’s a great idea, with plenty of critics. While teachers from traditional backgrounds spend a year or more doing specific training, TFA graduates have one summer to prepare before entering the country’s most difficult classrooms. The diversity, the bureaucracy, and the attitudes may be too much for fresh, idealistic Ivy Leaguers to handle.

Even 2006 College alum Stefanie Williams told me in an e-mail interview that at first she felt like she had no idea what she was doing in her Miami classroom. But TFA “really supported me as a teacher, constantly having me reevaluate my methods in order to best help my students succeed.”

Nancy Lee Bergey is the coordinator for Penn’s undergraduate Urban Education minor, which can lead to teaching certification. “The first year of teaching,” she told me, “no matter what your background, is really hard…being fresh is important.”

And Matt Reamy, recruitment director for TFA Philadelphia, agreed. “Teaching is an art that you learn by doing,” he said. “We train more people to teach in low-income areas than anyone else. We’re very skill and tool-based, very practical. I think that is an important distinction.”

And when Reamy taught in north Philadelphia, he found the diversity of his fellow corps members to be an outstanding resource. “We are speaking with the leaders of the minority community [at Penn],” he said. “[Many] have become invested.”

Even so, he doesn’t push his applicants to take education courses while still at Penn. “Every time I see the TFA lawn signs,” said Nancy Lee, “I want to put one right behind it that says, ‘Take an education class while you’re still here!’”

Any TFA applicant should seriously consider the effect an education class or two would have on their students. TFA is unique and revolutionary - its effects shouldn’t be hindered by too harsh a learning curve.

Dear Danny appears every Monday and Wednesday.