The dust has settled. The swarms of stiletto-clad individuals have vacated Paris as quickly as they came. It’s back to ballet flats and quotidian black-and-white reserve on the Parisian metro. And yet, the Carrousel du Louvre seemed just a tad too empty last week without the recent mass of fashionistas in perpetual mid-Tweet. Their frenzy and undeniable ferocity seemed so out of context in Parisian two-hour café society. Needless to say, I was inspired: why not imagine a completely different way to relive the collections, sans Style.com (as comprehensive as it is)? The ticket, if I may, comes courtesy of the RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens): an 8.80 euro metro day pass. Consider the spring-summer 2010 shows as your unexpected, impeccably packaged program for rediscovering Paris in all its glory; with rust-colored leaves sprinkled on the streets and a festive nip in the air (plus a panoply of not-to-be-missed exhibitions), there’s no better time to fall in love with the City of L’Amour. Continue reading...

First off, let’s get this straight: I am all for American innovation. But I also think that when our dear old forefathers scribbled up the Constitution, akin to a hastily written note left on the kitchen counter, like any parents they had absolutely no idea what kind of crazy stuff their kids would get into. Automobiles, baseball and boy bands: not too bad. Sweatshops, pollution and genetically modified foods? We would be so grounded. In a time when people can actually trademark living things (ponder that one morning over your Starbucks TM coffee) Americans seem suspiciously ambivalent. Sustainable, mindful and environmentally conscious doesn’t have quite the same ring as bigger, better, faster, stronger, and scientists, with a generally mute conscience, have been using biotechnology to manipulate foods for decades. Continue reading...

It has been four years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. Teenagers have lived their entire high school lives in that time. The Olympics have happened. A new president was elected. Yet, in New Orleans, the passage of 1,461 days has made little to no difference for many areas. Houses are still in ruins from flooding; churches and schools have yet to reopen, instead standing as empty buildings that represent lives that will never be the same. Professor Andrew Curtis of the Department of Geography visits New Orleans about every two months. “It’s a shame what’s going on,” Curtis says as he clicks through a slideshow of his most recent trips. Continue reading...

I deleted my Facebook account back in December. I’m not exactly sure why I did it, probably to test out my endurance. Perhaps I also did it to feel a sense of pride when saying “Oh, I don’t have a Facebook,” as if I were too cool for the social phenomenon. I still find myself sitting at my computer after having read my e-mails, wondering what it is that I forgot to do. My mouse hovers over the web browser. It usually takes me a couple seconds before I realize that I have nothing else to do on the Internet and my pile of work is waiting for me. I sometimes wish that I still had Facebook to check obsessively to feel like I am procrastinating for a good reason. Sophomore David Mikulka recognizes that Facebook “is a way of wasting time,” but he still believes “it’s useful.” Continue reading...

“Let’s party it up tonight,” Gary suggested, trying his best to sound smolderingly dangerous. After all, we had spent the previous evenings watching movies at home (a flimsy excuse to stuff our eager faces with pie) and sharing knitting tips with Jeremy’s grandma. We needed to be dangerous in order to maintain a sense of college normalcy. On the agenda: going to a cool underground bar, befriending Seattle’s it-people, and dancing the night away. It didn’t really matter if it was only a Wednesday night, if Gary was under 21, if our dance moves could be mistaken for muscular spasms, or if we didn’t drink... right? Wrong. Continue reading...

I recently decided to become a locavore. For all of you unfamiliar with the term, a locavore is someone who eats only locally-grown foods. All week I have been eating leaves and I must admit, I feel like one of those preachy health fanatics whose idea of fun is downing shots of wheatgrass juice on Friday nights. The greens I’ve been eating are crisp, organic, and locally-produced, but I have about eight pounds to eat before next week’s farmers market and there are only so many ways one can rethink the salad. I am quickly realizing that it may have been wiser to become a locavore in mid-summer when practically everything is in season, but I am not one to abandon a worthy cause so readily (except for the time when I gladly abandoned my month of vegetarianism for a plate of Roscoes Fried Chicken and Waffles). Continue reading...