The University of Pennsylvania has a pretty campus — so pretty, in fact, that you might be tempted to take a picture.

By all means, go ahead: capture on film our vast array of architecture, the deciduous rainbow of Locust Walk or one of the 429 statues of Ben Franklin.

But please, as a member of the Penn community, I implore you — do not take pictures of the squirrels.

Yesterday alone I stumbled (literally) over no fewer than three members of the squirrelerazzi. Rather than chasing their subjects through the streets of LA and New York, the squirrelerazzi can be found crouched low, waiting quietly for the perfect shot with their zoom lenses suction cupped to their eyes so as to capture every flea buried deep in Scrat’s matted fur. (I know you saw Ice Age).

My own walking safety is not the real concern here, my problem with the myriad photos of members of the family Sciuridae is their resulting inflated egos. Each image further solidifies their position as the sought-after socialites of the rodent world, Squirrelis Hilton if you will.

These pictures are not taken in an attempt to produce Jacob Riis-esque exposes of the horrors of squirrel life in University City. Quite the contrary; they are gratuitous photos of bushy-tailed rats living the life of the rich and famous.

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Not so, Sean Hannity! Not so!

Always had an inkling that nothing your professors said had an effect on you?

You’re right!

At least according to recent research conducted by, well, professors who try to have an effect on their students.

My favorite news source not ending in “-vanian,” The New York Times, recently published an easy-to-read summary of recent research. The research takes on conventional wisdom by demonstrating that professors’ godless, socialist viewpoints don’t translate to students. Quoting the article: “Three sets of researchers recently concluded that professors have virtually no impact on the political views and ideology of their students.”

Still, I can’t help but think that the article (Read it! Seriously!) is pointing out the obvious.

Of course our professors’ political (”liberal”) agendas don’t really affect us. Who’s got time to absorb the vast liberal conspiracy when you’re sitting in a 200-person lecture with your head nodding and your blood-shot eyes struggling to stay open? College students barely show up to class enough to absorb a professor’s view on the topic at hand, let alone something completely unrelated.

Do conservatives really believe that our professors stand in front of the lecture hall or seminar table and talk about raising taxes, killing babies, and losing wars?

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Oprah thinks America is rude, and she doesn’t even live in Philadelphia.

She devoted an article in her magazine to ranting about America’s lack of etiquette. From aggressive driving to people who chew gum with their mouths open, Oprah has a lot of pet peeves when it comes to bad manners.

At Penn, rudeness abounds. We have worse problems then bad drivers and exhibitionist gum chewers. Students order food while drunk and neglect to hold doors for their peers.

But students are not the only people in the Penn community with bad manners. The native Philadelphians who serve Penn students need some lessons in etiquette as well.

For example, I was waiting in line in CVS yesterday to buy some cold medicine while two employees were talking at their cash registers. I was the only person in line and was waiting for one of the employees to offer to help me. One of the employees then said, “You can go to whichever person you want, or you can just stand there.”

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I watch a lot of TV.

Sure, I am more devoted to my shows than I am to my four looming term papers, all due this week. Sure, I get about three hours of sleep a night because I lie awake, glassy-eyed, remote in hand. But when I’m gaining powerful life lessons from Addison Montgomery and Audrina Patridge, it hardly seems to matter. A double-shot is a small price to pay for the pedagogical gems imparted by Thursday’s network lineup.

The thing is, though, I’m picky. I’ve begun to feel myself getting antsy during 90210. I used to live and breathe The OC, but now my eyes wander and I multitask while re-watching episodes that once made me weep with happiness and fulfillment. I turn to these shows for that warm, little glow that once was, but I’m left feeling empty and unmoved.

But on the other hand, I cannot rip my eyes away from the three — four, if you count Spencer — blond drama queens who rule The Hills. I lap up the wisdom of Entourage’s Ari Gold, and I recently found myself digging through the Felicity archives, happily listening to the life musings she records on cassette and sends to her former french tutor. I used to wince at Gold’s crude remarks and I used to think that nothing short of a weekend-long paleontology seminar could be as boring as Felicity.

So what has become of me? Why have my TV tastes so severely altered?

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He looks so nice.

Goodbye, Provost Daniels.

Congratulations on your selection as Johns Hopkins’ 14th president. This is a very big day for you.

I wish I could say I’d miss you, but I never really knew you. And I wish I could say you seemed like a chill dude, but I’m pretty sure the only time I ever saw you was at my Convocation. I don’t remember what you said; on that day you were overshadowed by President Gutmann’s epic “You only have 43 months until graduation!” speech.

But I can say this, Provost Daniels: You were never scary, or mean, or purposefully unhelpful.

Of course, I also had no idea what you looked like until I googled you ten minutes ago. And I’m not really sure what you do, though that may be in part my fault. I’ll just go ahead and take President Gutmann’s word that you are “a gifted academic leader, a noted scholar, and an energetic collaborator with a passion for excellence.” Oh well.

A search committee is forming as we speak for a new faceless head academic officer at Penn.

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100 years later, still politically incorrect. Image via Wikipedia

Abercrombie and Fitch and the Yankees. Pure American traditions, right?

Well, despite the different culture that Spain has developed over centuries, something still makes it look abroad for more.

And the place it looks? The United States.

Yet another surprise that came from being in Spain is the stranglehold that American culture seems to hold on so many aspects of Spanish life. Here are just a few things that are far more prevalent in Spain that you would ever guess:

1. Clothing brands. Here, Abercrombie and Fitch and Ralph Lauren are the things to own. If you can show you’ve been to the US, you instantly gain 20 coolness points.

2. TV shows. At least a quarter of the shows with the highest ratings every night are imported from the United States and redone in Spanish. Think “Dancing with the Stars” (”¡Mira quién baila!”), “Big Brother” (”Gran hermano”), and “CSI Miami” — consistently some of the most-viewed shows every week.

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I spent an embarrassingly large portion of my childhood glued to Home and Garden Television. While I loved “Mission Organization” and “Decorating Cents” as much as the next eight year old, I would argue that no name is more synonymous with domestic goddess-hood than Martha Stewart’s.

So imagine my delight when I came across the headline “Martha Stewart Eats Cheese Steaks” on philly.com. It’s not every day you get to see a Queen of the Kitchen turned jailbird turned Queen of the Kitchen (again) sample Philly’s finest.

I’m not sure where you stand on the cheesesteak battle. I’m of the “I don’t care” school, but I couldn’t think of a better way to settle The Question than by deferring to the refined palette of Martha Stewart.

Now, before I reveal the results, let me remind you that this is the same woman whose website contains no fewer than 400 hits for “turkey recipe.” (Roasted with quince sauce, salt-and-pepper grilled, spice cured, roasted with sage, herb-rubbed, brined, deep-fried…) Her halloween specials included marzipan pumpkin petits fours, devil’s food cake with flame tuiles and chai-spiced cider punch, so from the start I was sure that Pat’s and Geno’s were doomed to be dismissed as layman’s food, chock full o’ grease and drizzled with something Martha wouldn’t even consider to be real cheese.

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I knew it would only be a matter of time before I saw something like this. Someone expressing the belief that an Obama presidency meant that this country should forget about racism.

The article represents a mentality that has been prevalent since well before anyone even heard of Barack Obama. Now in the aftermath of his historic victory, this mindset will undoubtedly become all the more powerful.

First, as difficult as it is for me to admit, the author of the article makes some valid points. Many white liberals have an overblown and unknowingly condescending level of white guilt. You don’t have to constantly apologize to black people for things that your ancestors did. You don’t have to pity them or always feel as if you owe them something.

The whole “blame whitey” mentality among many modern day civil rights leaders also hasn’t done much. Crying racism over trivial matters won’t fix our schools, stop black youth from killing one another, or stop black men from being incarcerated. Instead it creates a “boy who cried wolf” effect. When we actually speak up about real instances of racism that actually affect us, they’ll be dismissed as just another example of black people complaining.

But you know what else doesn’t help? People telling us to simply get over racism.

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A shameful human being.

California’s Proposition 8: “This measure would amend the state constitution to specify that only marriages between one man and one woman would be recognized as valid in the state” (CNN).

I am not heartbroken over the fact that Proposition 8 passed in California, but by the number of people who voted in its favor.

What people are voting for is what’s scary: to take away the rights of others.

To vote in favor of this measure is to literally cast a vote to say that, somehow, a man and a woman together are entitled to more rights.

These are 5,376,424 people that are voting based on the fact that if you are a man or woman, and you are born attracted to the opposite sex, you are more entitled to marital rights than a homosexual man or woman, who equally had no choice in his or her own sexuality.

The majority of votes belonged to people that voted to abridge the rights of others simply based on who those people are. Homosexuals marrying would not affect heterosexual marriages in any way. No, these votes stemmed from an ancient text that says that, for whatever reason, heterosexuals deserve one more freedom than everyone else.

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Too much, PennDems, too damn much

… So, please, PennDems, never again ask me if I know where my polling place is — no joke — ten times between my house and my class in the former Logan Hall. It is 10:30 in the morning. I am tired. Thank you for Baracking the Vote, really, but kindly shut up and never again put such an unnecessarily ridiculous number of people into your Election Day effort.

A quick summary of where I was asked if I had voted already (at 10:30!) or if I knew my polling place: 40th and Locust (two people), by Commons (three people), the top of the bridge (one person), by Huntsman (four people), and, of course, the Compass (94,000 people screaming bloody murder).

Worse even than the absurd number of times I was accosted on Locust Walk on Election Day is what your awful awful canvassers did to posters all around campus at 12 a.m. on Election Day. You sneakily covered every one up. Every fucking one.

Let me repeat: YOU COVERED UP ALL THE POSTERS THAT STUDENT GROUPS SO PAINSTAKINGLY PUT UP EARLIER IN THE WEEK!!!

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