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A recent Newsweek article offers up 10 “easy” tips towards green living for the new year. The idea of the article is that if everyone does their part with small things everyday, a big difference will be made in our net resource consumption.

In other words, instead of lambasting Humvee driving suburbanites, we can all just switch our incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent ones (ok, ok maybe a little lambasting too) and turn the lights out when we leave the room.

Imagine my surprise when at holiday dinner last week, my own father dropped Wikipedia into casual conversation. My father, whose e-mailing abilities are primitive at best. My father, who dials each digit rather than program his cell phone. My father, who would sooner pick up quill and parchment than a palm pilot or Bluetooth.

My father, the new shining beacon of hipness in a media-obsessed global climate.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one who’s taking notice of this omnipresent media madness.

by Emily Sloan ‘05

My quick guide to France in black and white
(because once in a great while, it’s okay to speak in absolutes)

After three months’ careful observation and reflection, I have decided that I really don’t care for several realities of French life:

Dog poop. On the sidewalk. Never cleaned up, so I can follow it from its initial deposition through its various stages

‘Tis the season for noting Americans’ behaviors, habits and peccadilloes.

The Census Bureau has just issued its 2007 Statistical Abstract. Divorces are down – likely due to fewer marriages than truer love, we now drink more bottled water than bottled beer, and more of us are injured by wheelchairs than lawnmowers (though it would appear that DWI is a diminishing factor in such accidents).

‘Tis the season for noting Americans’ behaviors, habits and peccadilloes.

The Census Bureau has just issued its 2007 Statistical Abstract. Divorces are down – likely due to fewer marriages than truer love, we now drink more bottled water than bottled beer, and more of us are injured by wheelchairs than lawnmowers (though it would appear that DWI is a diminishing factor in such accidents).