Civil discourse is a term that’s been thrown around in Student Senate and the greater community quite a bit lately, and the overwhelming conclusion I have heard from people is that Gustavus’s concept of civil discourse is skewed to the extreme, and, quite frankly, sucks worse than Childress’s ability to challenge a play. To offer insight, civil discourse in the vaguest terms is a conversation … Continue reading Disheartened by “civil discourse”
Voting changes nothing. Death is certain. -Steve Palmer As I put fingertip to keyboard to write this, it is five in the evening on what is supposed to be the most important day of every red-blooded American’s life. It is supposed to be the day that the America we know will be shattered into a million little pieces, and then interviewed by Oprah to find … Continue reading Politics as usual
Have you ever watched or read Winnie the Pooh? This is for you. It has come to the mid-autumn season atop the hill, meaning higher winds for us all. The yellow sugar maples made their sweet journey in the first weeks of October, then the red maples relaxed and let go like Carrie Newcomer sings, and finally, ‘tis the time for the Norwegian maples to … Continue reading Hang in there!
On the off chance that the bread making feature in The Weekly has piqued your interest, you will be happy to know that my column this week will be an extension of that idea. If you weren’t interested in bread making, or haven’t read the feature, then too bad—there’s no turning back for me now. I’ve been making breads now for over a year. I … Continue reading An afterward to bread-making
I LOVE Halloween. This coming weekend is one of my favorites of the year, second only to, perhaps, Christmas. Clearly, I don’t make these decisions based on the weather (where did those 60s go?) but rather on some experience that comes with the holidays themselves. I’m not badmouthing Christmas. In all honesty, I love December more than any other month, and it even comes with … Continue reading Halloween: Christmas for partygoers?
To start, I would like to relate a little anecdote of mine that I hope will illuminate my thoughts here. Recently I was wandering through the Arboretum, on a particularly windy day, when I realized, for whatever reason, that I was hardly using my sense of smell. I was surrounded by things to be sensed, but wasn’t bothering to do so. Naturally I immediately began … Continue reading The subversion of sense
There are many actions in human nature that are simply a knee jerk response to stimulus. Sometimes I feel like it could be so easy to go through the day on autopilot; eating when I was hungry, sleeping when I was sleepy or even just dealing with the simple problems at hand. And yet, I always find that such mental passivity is impossible. There are … Continue reading The sound of reflections
Well gentlemen. I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you all here tonight. Please, have some cheese from the cracker platter. Gentlemen, I consider many of you to be my brothers. And when I say brothers, I really just mean really, really good friends. That’s why I think it’s time for us to expand as an organization. As you know, we are all awesome people. … Continue reading It comes with a free pin
Upon our traveling to the Renaissance Festival back in the wee beginning of October (remember that Weekly column?!), my suite-mate and I purchased a bar of handmade soap. After smearing our noses in the dozens of samples in the town-market-esque shoppe and chatting with the saleswoman (soap wench?) who had “free soap here” written on her chest with arrows pointing toward her cleavage, we decided … Continue reading Sexy, Satyr Soap
Recently, the first-year orientation process, in particular the shows The Inside Scoop and E Pluribus Gustavus, have been receiving intense public scrutiny. So as far as I can tell, the cause can be linked back to a socially-conservative blog post made by a senior Gustavus student who wrote about those shows using video clips he captured while viewing the performances. The videos are not raw … Continue reading What the first-years see at orientation
