Acclaim & Disdain
Acclaim
At the end of her show’s 25th season on air, Oprah Winfrey will call it quits on her talk show. Although this won’t happen until September 9, 2011, I think we can all acknowledge that this can’t happen soon enough. Thank you Oprah for 25 years of force feeding over-protective mothers that “information” they needed to never let their child do anything enjoyable ever.
Disdain
Takara/Hasbro created the Transformers toy line and the animated series to market the toys over 25 years ago. In those subsequent 25 years, Electrical Engineering students have been making the same joke about transformers non-stop. I realized this in lab yesterday after our instructor mentioned that we will be using transformers (two capacitors in different circuits that transfer electrical energy from one circuit to the other) and me and 20 of my fellow classmates had to fight the urge to sing “Robots in disguise.” I actually couldn’t help myself and quipped, “Are they more than meets the eye?” under my breath.
Acclaim
A large group of students held buildings in protest of the 32% fee increase at University of California schools yesterday. California is in a huge budget crisis, funding is being cut, and yet we attending the state colleges are having to pay more even though there are state mandatory furlough days where the professor is not allowed to teach, taking time from an already short quarter long class. Yes, that’s right, I’m paying more money to be taught less. Even though these students eventually got arrested, I have to applaud them for actually taking action against this outrageous fee increase, academics should not suffer while you still pump money into athletics and campus expansion projects, it’s just not right.
Disdain
New Moon opens today in theaters everywhere, a continuation of the Twilight saga about a brooding sparkly vampire and the pathetically helpless girl who both pine over each other. Obviously all the women are melting over the hot shirtless werewolves and Captain Sparkles, leaving me to wonder: how is this any different from what the media does to woman? We’re always hearing about how women are self-conscious to fault these days and have body-image issues because of all the skinny and toned women in magazines and in movies/television. Yet here they are ogling ripped half naked men who for some reason always have their shirts off. I have to say, I think women are being a bit hypocritical here.
Acclaim
Earlier this month, a new United States Naval vessel was christened the USS New York. The San Antonio-class ship is sixth in the line and as a tribute to those lost on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2009, the bow was forged from steel from the fallen World Trade Center towers. The ship’s crest features a phoenix rising from the twin towers with the words, “Never Forget.”