The Wake

Illustration by Srijon Chowdhury

Columbine. Rocori. Red Lake. Virginia Tech. University of Texas. When we think of these words, we think of the tragedies they represent. We think of the sadness and despair caused by individuals who spread their pain and fear across our country in a vast media blitz of bullets. Since 1999, high school and college students haven’t worried about exams so much as they’ve worried about the lone wolf in the student population climbing up the bell tower and shooting up their schools.

What were once separate attacks by tortured souls have become commonplace in the media now. After Valentine’s Day this year, when a 27-year-old former graduate student shot and killed five students at Northern Illinois University, …

Read more →

Illustration by Anders Carlson

In the debate over what the apocalypse will consist of, I side with film director Richard Kelly over Al Gore, if only because I’d rather see the species implode through a combination of hyper-pervasive entertainment, mad scientists, and interfering parallel universes – à la Southland Tales – than by hearing until death the latest measurement of ever-shrinking polar bear testicles and what that means for my children.

By this I don’t mean to deny the very real effects of global warming, or even to imply that polar bears can go to hell while I watch movies. I simply ask why Mr. Gore, for a person who bears the largest grudge against the …

Read more →

Never, no matter what the circumstances, put a balloon on your cock.

Now, I understand the variety of situations in which that would seem like an appealing course of action. “But Deniz, I ran out of condoms and they look approximately the same!” “But Deniz, I just got a pack of vibrantly colored glow-in-the-dark ones!” Save it. No matter how desperate your situation or how appealing the balloons, this is not a good idea.

Sure, it’ll let you have sex with your girlfriend (and perhaps even make your penis look bright and colorful and welcoming), but when you pull out you’ll notice that you can feel nothing but a strange tingling sensation in your penis. That is because the balloon is cutting off the circulation to your genitals. Of course you realize this, and you act quickly, …

Read more →

Illustration by Dixon Bordiano

My iPod broke the other week. I didn’t drop it. I didn’t leave it out in the cold. After a year and a half, it just stopped turning on. The little apple stopped popping up to greet me. Sixty gigabytes of music ceased to exist. Since most of that music is on my computer, CDs, or records, I survived, but I realized how dependent I was on my iPod. It pisses me off that a stupid mp3 player had assumed such a large role in my daily life, because after all, digital music is really just a bunch of ones and zeros. It doesn’t really exist in any tangible form. So after I ceased being angry, …

Read more →

Minnesota held statewide caucuses on Tuesday, February 5, and it was a sight to see. Ford Hall was the place to be for young Republicans on campus. Caucus organizers expected a measly 10-20 people, while roughly 300 decided to make their voices heard. With no organization whatsoever, lines stretched across the first floor of Ford Hall, and classrooms were standing room only.

While reading Dan Savage one afternoon, I stumbled upon the website of a certain high-profile porn blogger and was taken in by her rhetoric. She seemed down-to-earth about pornography, admitting that most of it sucks, but holding that it serves a purpose and should not be looked down on. Interested, I took a look at her recommendations section, and though most of what she recommended seemed fairly standard, one film caught my eye: The Fashionistas. She calls it “the best porn film I’ve ever seen, the film that made me sit up and realize that there really were porn filmmakers that could make a real fucking movie.” In her glowing description of it, she mentions its “great acting and . . . very clever storyline.” Well God damn, I was sold. I paid a visit …

Read more →

Illustration by Anders Carlson

Homer Simpson once said, “There’s as right way to do things, a wrong way, and the Max Power way.” The Max Power way entails the wrong way, but faster and we are sitting in the middle of the quintessential Max Power election. The media is saying nothing repeatedly over an 8-hour news cycle. While this is partly due to a fascination with new technology, it is largely confusion about off-the-wall election year rhetoric. Huckabee would destroy the country with values while simultaneously loving us all to death with big, “liberal” Christian government. Ron Paul is concurrently too liberal for the GOP and a gun-toting Klansman. Hillary Clinton is totally unelectable, yet “100% of women will …

Read more →

Dear Uncle Ethan,So there’s this girl who’s got everything going for her: she’s gorgeous, smart, funny, and we’re totally on the same wavelength intellectually.There’s only one problem: she’s dating my roommate. But when she talks to me, I get a strong vibe that she’s craving something more. How can I steal this girl without my roommate killing me in my sleep? JessieDear Jessie,First off, roommates come and go, but true love is forever. So you should be more concerned with following your heart and less worried about pussyfooting around trying to avoid hurting your roommate’s feelings.You’re all open-minded college hippies, right? Convince the two of them that they should have a three-way, and when it’s going down, subtly but firmly insist that your roommate spend most of the time working the camera. It’s the perfect …

Read more →

I’m in an auditorium and 25% of the students are sleeping, 25% are sudokuing The Minnesota Daily and roughly half the room appears to be either paying attention or staring blankly into space. 10% of students look like they’re taking notes. Personally, I’m on my laptop, writing this introductory paragraph and wishing I were somewhere far, far away. What happened to that college education I was promised in high school?This particular class is Intro to Psychology – and it is the cause of an overwhelming urge to take what little money and self-respect I have and leave the college forever. This and the majority of the other intro classes available at the University of Minnesota are the product of a new trend in education and society: a collective acceptance of laziness and a uniformed …

Read more →

Irony is tricky. Often cited but rarely understood, it is a modern day conversation-killer that has the power to make you sound both stupid and pretentious. The difficulty starts with the many definitions of the word. Beginning with Socrates who “knew nothing,” continuing through Shakespeare with Roman (dramatic) irony, and finally into the all-encompassing cosmic irony, the word has proven its resiliency until now. Plagued my constant misuse and misappropriation, we might be witnessing the death of the word in the worst expansion in (ironic) history. Two weeks ago I was wandering Dinkytown, meeting my new neighbors, and enjoying a Friday night shirking school responsibilities when “irony” crossed my path. I met Colby, a round cheese, wearing Chuck Taylors, Rivers Cuomo brand eyewear, and a well-worn sweatshirt that read Fall Out Boy. Being …

Read more →

In the 1960s, student demonstrations for free speech erupted at the University of California at Berkeley, attracting national attention and cementing the movement’s reputation as a landmark in the history of civil disobedience and student protest. Since then, American universities like Berkeley have been seen as hotbeds of activism, “marketplaces of ideas” where multiple voices can be heard. But Indoctrinate U, an independent documentary that played last month at Oak St. Cinema as part of a series of screenings around the country, aims to unseat this image of the freethinking American college. The film claims that the liberal ideology behind the free speech movement has become so prevalent on campuses that it has begun to directly inhibit opposition (i.e. while openly defending free speech, administrators and professors will work to silence messages that go against …

Read more →

Dear Uncle Ethan,I spend a fair amount of time at the Rec Center, which is mercifully populated by exceedingly attractive girls. But what are the rules about approaching girls in that setting without creeping them out?-Ripped RickyDear RR,The single biggest complaint about the Rec that I get from girls is that guys are too busy with their weights and treadmills to pay any attention to the co-eds. Reading Cosmo on the Stairmaster is boring, so get over there and make a move! Open with a compliment on her physical attractiveness—she’ll be pleased that her exercise has paid off.
Dear Uncle Ethan,World of Warcraft is stealing my boyfriend from me! Ever since he joined, he spends every waking minute raiding and questing and we haven’t gone on an actual date in …

Read more →

I. SETTING SUNI remember:Another late summer day rolled by; the sun climbed over the sky and stopped to slowly and dramatically disembark. As its last rays crept over the horizon, they seemed to illuminate a group of people standing at the corner of 3rd Street and Cedar. They huddled together into a small mass, their movements excited yet synchronized. “STOP WAR,” the signs waving over their heads read. I remember turning to a friend and remarking, “That’s weird.” I gazed around at the store fronts, the passing cars, the irritated pedestrians, the setting sun and it struck me: It is weird, isn’t it? But should it be? America is currently in a state of war. Regardless of the rhetoric, slogans, campaigns, “Mission Accomplished” banners, etc, American troops are on the ground in a foreign country …

Read more →

Any college student who loves to play videogames wants an Xbox 360. They also want a Nintendo Wii. Some of the more affluent students just might want a Playstation 3. Myself, I want all three. When I heard about this website RadioFreeXbox.com, I thought it was too good to be true. I was driving to school when an ad for it came on the radio, complete with the standard testimonials from people who I can only assume are paid actors. A website that promises a free Xbox 360?! Score! Upon further investigation my hopes melted away like ice cream in the sun when I discovered the truth.Beware of RadioFreeXbox.com. Or any website on the Internet that tries to promise free things. Oh sure, they seem to offer so many good things to you. But the …

Read more →

In the middle of the night in a dark parking lot in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, I recently shouted at a complete stranger that I was going to rob him. My actual words were, “Man, I’ll rob your ass!” In a way, I wanted to mean it, although I have never robbed anyone in my life and do not plan to. In order to explain my vicious threat in the dark of night, I need to make a series of stops that will first take us through the world of college hockey, then on to postcolonial East Africa and finally to the contemporary American city. Strolling through the sublimely withering terrain of the University of Minnesota campus one afternoon, I noticed a light swarm of people all heading towards the hockey arena for an afternoon game. …

Read more →