The Wake

I believe that my Halloween roots were much like any other child’s. There are photographs of me in costumes I don’t recall wearing, with other children I don’t know. I remember that my aunt and uncle would bring us to Edina to trick-or-treat, where they handed out the king-sized candy bars. I know that I was an angel, a rabbit, a Kirsten doll, a clown, and a pumpkin. My elementary school had a Halloween parade every year where the local business owners would stand outside their shops and give us goodies. Things were looking good for me in the Halloween department. Then, when I was eight, the unthinkable happened: my parents decided that we weren’t going to celebrate Halloween anymore. I was pulled out of school on the day of the class parties and the …

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Dear Uncle Ethan,I’m a TA for an intro anatomy course and I’m in a bit of a pickle. I have a bit of a crush on one of the students in my lab section. I’m not too worried about the age gap (it’s small); It’s the ethics of dating a student that I’m concerned about. I know student-professor relationships are explicitly forbidden, but I haven’t heard anything regarding TAs. Thoughts?
-Extra CreditDear EC,I, for one, have always been an advocate of student-teacher relationships. Shared academic interests naturally translate to romantic compatibility. I’ve seen many such relationships blossom from the hallowed halls of our University—though I hope there’s not too much blossoming in the halls themselves, if you know what I mean.They say that a woman will look for a man …

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We have many names. We are “Generation Y”, the “Millenials”, the “Echo Boomers” and the “Internet Generation,” but the last of the bunch seems to be the one that defines us most often. To other generations, we are inexplicably linked with that network of computer networks that developed and grew as we did. From all the talk linking us with technology, you would think that we were born knowing how to type, our pudgy little fingers pounding the keys, or that we hesitantly blurted out “HTML” as our first word. With such a childhood, surely we must be at ease online. Not only at ease – at peace – and eager to log on to any website just for the sake of using it, regardless of its relative usefulness.It would be so simple, perhaps, if …

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During the two and one half weeks that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME ) workers unions were on strike, I was working behind picket lines at the U of M Admissions office in Williamson Hall. At my job I perform clerical tasks typical of AFSCME’s 3800 union. These union members work in offices, entering data and processing transcripts. When word broke that union members were to go on strike the next week to protest the unfair contracts proposed by the U administration, I wondered what that would mean to me. I am a student worker, doing some of the same things that members of AFSCME 3800 do, although my job is admittedly more menial. I was working despite the strike, perhaps allowing the administration to prolong …

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Dear Uncle Ethan,
The other day on the way to the store, a cat ran in front of my car and I couldn’t stop in time. It didn’t make it, and now I can’t stop thinking about that poor creature. How do I forgive myself and move on?
GrievingDear Grieving,
This is God’s way of punishing you for masturbating. Stop.Dear Uncle Ethan,
I work with this really sweet guy, “Steve”, and have had a crush on him from day one. I’d flirt with him when I could, but nothing really happened until last weekend when I ran into him at a party. We were both pretty gone, I took him home, and you know the rest. At last! I couldn’t wait to tell my friends at work the …

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Let’s say Jimi Hendrix rose from the grave for one last epic performance, and every legendary rock star was with him on stage. In this unprecedented show, tickets are free. Now imagine that someone decided to make the show 21+; it would be a travesty. I for one would hire a ninja to karate chop the bastard that thought it was a good idea: karate chop him hard.What is it about the 21st year of our existence on this Earth that so completely revamps our thought process? It’s the magic age in this country. Twenty-one is the age when we’re somehow suddenly able to go to a bar and get shitfaced in public. Twenty-one is the age we can go to a liquor store to get shitfaced …

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Beginning October 1st, 2007, the Minnesota State Legislature’s Freedom to Breathe Act has gone into effect, restricting the ability of tobacco smokers to breathe their distinctively carcinogenic air in most public places. As was the case before, all indoor government, public school, transportation, and health facilities prohibit smoking. In addition, all public restaurants, with the exception of those whose liquor sales exceed food sales, are now illegal to smoke in. The primary source of political controversy over this matter is the question of how it will affect restaurant owners’ revenues. Many feel that this new restriction will discourage smokers from going out as much, if even at all. Though I find it hard to imagine any particularly dramatic decreases in restaurant profits as a result of this law, it does seem that this is the …

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When I started college, I had no idea that I would also be gaining a new, non-human significant other. My pockets were empty. My stomach was growling. I had nothing but a bottom-of-the-line microwave. Then it graced me with its presence: Its name was ramen. Ramen is the college kid food staple. Being the college kid I am, I quickly learned that a relationship with ramen follows the same patterns as a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. From start to finish, ramen is right there in its own noodly ways.When freshmen move into their new dorms, they suspect nothing. They meet their new roommates, unpack and maybe check out UDS for the first time. Classes start, a week or so goes by and the unsuspecting freshmen suddenly realize they keep missing lunch or even worse—dinner. Like all hungry …

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Today, I made the regretful mistake of stepping back in time. Forgetting the two papers looming over my (un-styled) head, I walked aimlessly into Northrop Auditorium on a Saturday afternoon to be blinded by the glare of hot-pink feather boas bouncing to a techno re-mix of “I Know What Boys Like.” It took me a second to realize that under the heavy layers of neon fuzz were dancers. Dancers from the six-year-old very-competitive category, to be more specific. Here, on that same stage that so many bright women have crossed to receive their diplomas, were miniature prim donnas whoring themselves to an audience of adults numb to the horrifying spectacle of their own children.You know the type. These are the parents you have seen on television, forcing their starving daughters to become fixated on their …

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While as far as I can tell there is no shortage of shortages (I’m here all night, folks) in this country, I am much more concerned with the qualities we seem to lack as a society than how much oil we’ve sucked out of the corpses of so much endangered Alaskan wildlife.There’s a shortage on truth out there, my fine-feathered friends. No one is honest with anyone else anymore. Not just bad lies like, “I’m not cheating on you,” or “Cut the blue wire or we all die,” but white lies too. I personally have gone entire weeks with food in my teeth and no one has told me. Some argue that I should floss more, while I often retort that they should shut the hell up. But I digress.When you tell your friend that …

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I’ve seen games of hopscotch that were manlier than football. God, with those constant interruptions of play, coaches, apparently having seen Seinfeld, covering their faces while barking out orders–and pause now for station identification. It’s amazing to me how anyone has ever watched, played in, or admired an entire game of football. Seriously, why is it that, in our boring country, football is held as the shining pinnacle of masculinity? The players are draped head to toe in protective padding–why don’t they just wear bubble-boy suits for when they bump into each other?Now the real football, what we Americans call “soccer,” that is a man’s sport.But first, what does that mean, to call something “manly”? An unfortunate byproduct of the feminist movement, (which, ask any coworker or female relative, I am all about) was this …

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So good-ol’ George W. ain’t so good-ol’ no more. Not too popular, as it happens. The public’s general distaste for the war-monger-in-chief has spawned a mega-glorification of the most recent non-Bush Republican president, who happens to be Ronald Reagan. Been following politics? Ever since presidential campaigns started kicking off 30 years in advance, there’s been a wave of Reagan idolatry.“I’m a Ronald Reagan conservative,” says John McCain, over and over again, and again and again. He’s not the only one. A few weeks ago at the CPAC, a political conference for right-wingers, a whopping 79% of poll respondents identified themselves as “Reagan Republicans” as opposed to “Bush Republicans.” It’s understandable, I think. If I were a Republican, especially one who’d been a cog in President Bush’s political support system over the past half-decade, I, too, …

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There have been few symbols throughout the course of history that have become as universally recognizable as the American flag. Though the number of stars on the flag has changed over the last two and a quarter centuries, the message that it conveys has remained unchanged, and the flag itself has become almost synonymous with freedom and liberty. For the past few decades, the issue of flag desecration has become increasingly controversial and has been the focal point of many debates within the United States Congress. These disputes mainly revolve around the constitutionality of the burning of the American flag and whether or not this type of symbolic speech is protected under the First Amendment. At a time when there are widening gaps between political sects as well as increasing tensions between those who support …

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Five years ago Charles Roselli began a study with a team of researchers and a small flock of sheep to determine why about 8 percent of rams seem to be gay. In the past year, he’s been criticized from both ends of the political spectrum and accused that his studies are unethical and ba-a-a-d science. While most major news outlets left the story alone, some had a field day, poking fun at the idea of the experiment with headlines like “Ewe Turn for Gay Rams on Hormones” and “He’s Just Not That Into Ewe.” Roselli is a professor of physiology and pharmacology at Oregon Health and Science University and is working in conjunction with Oregon State University. OHSU, which has been criticized in the past for experimenting on monkeys, received about 20,000 letters protesting …

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We’re all busy people. When juggling school, work and a social life, most of our attention is diverted away from trivial matters such as safe food preparation and storage. Although cooking raw meat, poultry and fish at temperatures well above 135 degrees Fahrenheit should be standard practice, few want to think about whether or not their “reasonably” aged leftovers could make them sick. But by forgetting the fact that a slice of day-old pizza left out at room temperature is also a tasty morsel for millions of hungry microbes, most college students continuously put themselves at risk of food poisoning. Nourished by food at an everyday indoor temperature, a single bacterium can multiply to four million in only eight hours. Anywhere from an hour to several days after eating contaminated cuisine, a person will suddenly …

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