Given that this is Panhellenic Sorority Recruitment Week, I thought we would commemorate the event with a countdown of the most shamelessly abused phrases, we will hear all week.

Gird your loins, because here we go!

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10. “Welcome to the family!”

Sororities are not the Sopranos, besides with the matching t-shirts it’s more a Crypts/Bloods operation, not a high-class Italian gig.

9. “I wonder who my big will be…”

As a former fatty (now moderately hefty), I do not understand why anybody would want to sign up to be a “big”. If it was called a “sexy”, I might develop interest.

8. “I am not just paying for my friends!”

Ah, the classic argument. Telling someone in a Greek organization that they “are paying for their friends” is the anger-grenade equivalent of saying cheer leading wasn’t a sport back in high school.

7. “I have to buy some fancier jeans.”

If the deciding factor is a pair of crazy-expensive, butt-hugging jeans, you might ask yourself if this is the right “family” for you.

6. “Will there be free food?”

Okay, I do not have a snide comment for this one. I can sympathize.

5. “Sisters!”

I’m not like the most testosterone-driven gent, I’ll admit it, but when it comes to sorority rush week there’s just way too much estrogen for my taste. It’s like getting dragged  to a Twilight movie, sitting between two crying girls, and replaying “The End” by The Doors in your head.

4. “Sorry, I can’t do anything tonight I have RUSH.”

I have hung out with dudes for a week. Sure, the campus might be on estrogen overload, but no one is ever free to leave, and I’m not about to kick it at Broncho Lake.

3. “Do you like sweet tea?”

I might be crazy, but I swear this is asked in the most foreign of tones. Like sweet tea just came onto the scene, and only a supersecret group is reveling in it.

2. “I LOVE SWEET TEA!”

This is usually said when two “sisters” become best friends.

1. “There is only one thing better than sweet tea…PEACH SWEET TEA!”

Many  people blame the advent of social networking for dismantling our ability to have a well-rounded conversation. I blame Sonic. There is a real smart group of scientists that did this really scientific experiment, that showed definitely 93 % of all conversations are about food and beverages. Peach sweet tea making up a majority. Oh, what a world!

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J. J. Hutton

Web Writer

My homepage is setup to deliver me the latest news from all over the world, so I can be as informed as possible and know exactly what to bitch about. Lately, I have encountered countless articles assessing the value of an education. The sustained spike in unemployment seems to have everyone debating over whether or not the cost of school and the risk of taking on student loans are worth the current job prospects for graduates in today’s market.

Well, who wants a job anyways? I would rather sit around and play the guitar all day. Girls love a man who knows how to handle an instrument; but, for those of us who do want to become a wage earner, one thing is clear, the future is uncertain and the end is always near.

The alternative is to shift our perspective of value.  Money is a means to an end. It represents our labour or commodities, but the attraction is toward its purchasing power. Money is not what we desire; it is the goods or luxury that it can be exchanged for.

Now, I am not saying that the best things in life are free. It is nice to have nice things, but in this day and age of instant information, and the ever-increasing invasion of privacy, how many people have we seen with money that still succumb to the pettiest of pursuits.

Value cannot always be measured in strictly tangible terms.  A human being is not only worth what it can produce, and education is not only worth what kind of job it can land you.

I relish in my role as a student at UCO. I do what I want, and I can feel my mind expand with each lecture, chapter, or week that goes by where I have met an academic challenge. This is one of the only times where it is socially acceptable to explore the possibilities and find the discipline or practice that beckons you.

When I graduate at the end of this academic year I am going to frame my diploma, and carefully place it above the toilet in my bathroom, just to keep things in perspective – of course I’m kidding, well, sort of, but my point is, that a piece of paper is worthless. Just like in the case of money, an education is a means to an end. The value lies in the experience.

As a student, I think it is crucial to take full advantage of our time here. There is plenty of opportunity to hate our jobs, significant others, and resent our children, down the road.

It is not necessary to have everything planned out. Figuring out what you want is a process, not a destination. We shouldn’t be afraid of changing our mind or letting of go of the excuses that keep our dreams just out of our grasp.

We all made a choice to be here. We are all seeking something. It is important to recognize the beauty of the now, and as long as we never remain stagnate by just treading water, we will eventually get where we are headed. So, lets go get it. No regrets. No worries. No need to explain.

Light it up- A.J. Black

If they have lived to see eighty, then they have no doubt seen the exponential explosion of advancement and technology that shapes our daily lives. We have literally gone from walking and riding on horses or chariots or something crazy, to jet-propelled rockets that can fly to infinity and beyond, all within one hundred years. To them the internet may well be the devil.

If you do happen to have a lively conversation, you will most certainly hear about the good old days. About a time that was simple and things made sense; their was a right and wrong, and everybody got along just fine.

The problem is, that as bad of shape as we are presently in, the basic questions remain.  From antiquity, with Socrates and Aristotle, to whoever is in charge now, the answers have eluded us. We had then and have now, conflict and prejudice, disease and famine, human beings sleeping on the street, and little girls and boys being shipped off to war or sold into slavery.

The myth of the good old days is nothing more than a sick joke played on the young, by the faulty memories and inflated egos of a generation sensing their own mortality. It is a common phenomenon of the human race to overemphasize the importance and impact of the self and its place in the world. Growing up is hard enough without having to compete with the elderly over whether or not civilization has taken a turn for the worse since they were a kid.

All that a person has to do to see the sad state of humanity is turn on the news. Some dictator somewhere wants to start a holy war, the pope thinks it is a sin to use a condom, kids are killing kids at school, and of course the countless never-ending wars. Times are tough no doubt, but has there really ever been a time that was ‘good.’ Have we, the youth of today, been cheated somehow?

It seems to me that nobody really knows what is going on.  Now, I can only speak for myself, but I just got here, and I didn’t ask to be born. In fact, I have pretty much just done what was expected of me my whole life. Now, don’t get me wrong, because I am from the old school, and I do respect my elders, but something has got to give. We cannot keep lying to ourselves.

If by chance, the Mayans were wrong, and the world doesn’t end in 2012, then we better do something about it, or the irony of self-fulfilling prophecy will no longer be able to be exploited by Hollywood, because California will be in the Pacific.

Now, this may sound crazy, but I have seen the future, and ultimately, none of us make it out alive, so we might as well do something about it while we are still here. So, instead of going home and lying in bed to sleep tonight, go home and sit in the dark. Sit and fester and feel what it is like to be a pissed off human being. Then come and see me.

-Light it Up, A.J. Black

The first week of school can be financially shocking, socially frightening, and full of whacky romance. Can it be a week of fun and fancy? Absolutely. Can it be a swirling torrent of misery and woe? Absolutely. So how do you guarantee you are kicking it with the former?

Dear friends, let me be your bearded, quasi-handsome guide.

SURVIVAL TIPS

1. Do not make more than two over-zealous friends. This campus is packed to the gills with go-getters. Leadership students, passionate volunteers, Greek kiddos, all wanting to smother you with help, attention, and if you are pretty, alcohol. If you make more than two over-zealous friends, you will be torn asunder by mountains of social engagements and never have time to do any of that school work your mama and papa pulled a second mortgage to afford.

2. Play the “Starving Game”. Your tuition went up, your books cost three hundred dollars more than you expected, then you had to buy one of those online Book Keys (that taste exactly like highway robbery), then you had two flat tires, and your addiction to Red Bull is kicking your sweet behind.

What will you do when your cupboard is empty and you already sold every ounce of plasma in your body? Turn starvation into a game. Get your buddies to play along. You can easily cut two weeks of grocery money out of your budget.

3. Wear armor to the water balloon fight. I’m serious. Every year, 78 percent of everyone luscious, gets groped. I got groped last year. Just looking out for you.

4. Have a Reserved for (Your Name) parking sign manufactured. Plant that baby in some free spot, and you will have saved yourself a tremendous amount of stress. The days of casually coasting to school with two minutes until class starts can be yours again!

5. Do not fall in love with the first cute person you meet. You will blink, two months of your life will have gone by, and all you will have to show is crap-horror film movie stubs, an obscene amount of debt due to overdraft fees, and a stalker that sends you a text every twelve minutes about how they miss the scent of your hair.

6. Fake a heart attack. Occasionally professors like to throw a curve ball question, to challenge our silly little summer-washed minds.

If you fall victim to one such question, grab your chest immediately, breathe heavy, and in-between breaths quote that creepy Doors’ song to the nearest person, “This is the end, beautiful friend,” that will sell it.

7. If you see President Roger Webb, kiss him on the face. He is a nice man. The kind gesture may establish a friendship that will keep you safe from many of the unforeseen dangers of Stampede Week.

I hope these tips lead you to great success. You might have to break a few laws, make a few people uncomfortable, and skip a few meals, but as long as you keep those feet moving, you shall overcome.

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Joshua J. Hutton IV

The name so long,

you know it must be real.

The issue is over whether or not a cultural center, meant to educate and advocate religious tolerance, should be built near the site dedicated to the victims of 9-11. The polarizing issue has created a politically charged atmosphere and raised questions over the line between the freedom of religion and what is to be considered socially appropriate taste.

The animated arguments from both sides have seen extensive coverage by the mainstream media, but no peaceful resolution can yet be seen upon the horizon. Many who are publicly opposed to the center, have used the Founding Fathers as a voice piece, claiming that it is against the principles of a nation, established upon the bedrock of Christianity, to embrace religious tolerance. This rhetoric seemingly disregards the significance of the first amendment, which the American Revolutionaries felt necessary to place at the top of the Bill of Rights, ensuring protection against tyranny and religious persecution.

The maxim of America is the freedom to choose. There is no doubt that the proposed religious center has the ‘right’, through the separation of church and state, to be built anywhere that is legally zoned for a religious center, so the only unanswered issue is whether or not it is within good taste.

It is unfair to paint any organization as diverse as Christianity or Islam with a broad brush. Uncouth acts have been carried out in the name of many Gods throughout history. The fact that the terrorist attacks were allegedly carried out by Islamic extremists should be of little consequence to the Nation of Islam as a whole.

The recent level of intolerance being displayed has the potential to take away part of what makes America what it is. If the extremist’s that terrorized a symbol of freedom by destroying the twin towers goals were to undermine American ideals, then they win. If we idly disregard our obligation to the protection of everything that we as a nation have fought for since our inception, then the idea of what makes the United States of America the greatest empire in the history of humankind is simply a piece of the past.

The freedom of expression is the real foundation of this great nation, and if that means that the placement of a memorial, dedicated to education and religious tolerance, infringes upon some Americans perspective of good taste, then that is a small price to pay for retaining the rights of the individual to create their own path and pursuit of property and happiness.

I had such an opportunity the other day as I walked the UCO campus.  I was enjoying the outdoors, slowly and meticulously smoking one of the last hand-rolled cigarettes I could ‘legally’ smoke before the anti-tobacco policy went into effect.  As I strolled around, I came across a vender unloading several cases of soda from the back of a big red truck.  The commercial vehicle had a familiar and fancy white cursive logo on both sides.  The vendor beside the truck was in the process of stockpiling the fifty or so Coca-Cola machines sprawled across our beautiful campus.

I asked the young man what UCO had to gain by allowing so many machines to be conveniently located in every building.  He told me Coke had a contract with the school and that his company provided the machines and the product and any money beyond the base pay for the soda was split between the corporation and the university. He wasn’t certain, but he thought the amount was somewhere around sixty cents.  Meaning, anything over sixty cents is evenly divvied up.  Not bad I thought; that’s around thirty three cents to the UCO for every soda sold.

Maybe I should tell you that I had just finished reading an article before my walk about how Oklahoma had received an ‘F’ for fat, making it one of the unhealthiest and overweight states in the Union.  The combination of the new information and the idea of a non-smoking policy touted as a health concern for students struck me as odd.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that most college students are merely kids and may not have the brain capacity or level of maturity to make sound decisions, so it is only natural that an entity like UCO should provide a policy supporting a healthy lifestyle, and monetarily punish those who do not comply, but the scene and the idea left me with a few unanswered questions.

Now only a small minority of students, employees and faculty make the decision to use tobacco products, but according to the new study on health, around one in three people on campus are either overweight or morbidly obese.  In addition, a recent study out of Columbia University revealed, “The prevalence of smoking [in] the US [has] declined 18.5% from 1993 to 2008, with most of the loss occurring in the past six years; during the same period, the proportion of obese people (body-mass index >30 kg/m2) rose by a steady 85%.”

I know what you’re thinking – so what?

The “so what” is answered by the fact that the food choices on campus, especially those found in vending machines, are contributing to the growing number of fat people.

I eagerly anticipate the sound decision to remove soda and candy vending machines on campus, since obesity recently surpassed smoking as a cause of death and disability. While obesity issues may not be as ‘in-your-face’ as some people find smoking to be, it nonetheless impacts us all significantly by raising insurance and medical costs. I have faith that UCO is as anxious to remedy this problem as they were to curtail smoking on campus, and I remain confident in the fact that UCO making money off the vending machines, as they never did with smoking, is not a reason to compromise steps toward good health.

- Light it up.  AJ

This week social networking giant Facebook reached the momentous 500 million user-mark. Now, listen, I am a humble man. I buy awkward t-shirts at thrift stores, I shave with a single blade Bic, and most of my groceries come out of a can.

So how am I to survive in a wave of social networking, with shirtless mirror pics of egomaniacal dandies riding the crest?

Poke fun, I suppose. I mean I cannot be a success in a culture where the state of my abs supersedes all personality factors, given the condition of my tummy. I have the stomach of a 40-year-old woman who has birthed six kids, and I’m a man. Look at my beard. Yes, the modesty of humankind is in need of a transfusion, so I’m going to shoot the status quo full of sarcasm.

Social networking has made us all fall head over heels for ourselves. We use sites to promote half-baked philosophy, witty remarks, mushy boasts, political rants, cries of boredom, and requests for incessant text messages. We want an army of so-called friends to give our sentiments a thumbs-up, to cast our opinion of whether or not cheerleading is a sport into brainiac gold.

Who is to blame? It would be easy to say celebrities, or a high-speed lifestyle where classic romance is traded for sexual quick fixes, but I feel the original criminal is the deterioration of high art.

Our culture prescribes to a Jerry Bruckheimer state of mind. Explosions and sex scenes. Action, action, action, for the plot requires too many brain cells. We celebrate formulated pop and any country song that talks about daddies fighting wars, front porches, mama’s cooking, dogs, and patriotism sprinkled in the chorus so every demographic is appeased.

Low culture revels in immediate pleasure. Girls in microscopic shorts and boys lifting up their Affliction t-shirts all in the name of swollen egos. It is a cancer that is constantly eating at us. Gimme, gimme, gimme more attention.

I want people to be real. I want them to be relatable. Not puppets that play lip service to whatever is trending on Twitter. Not to be so caught up in their story that they cannot see past their passing wants.

Put on your shirts, ab fiends, put on some pants, scantily clad lady friends, turn off Bad Boys II, and read Brave New World.

Water may be the most powerful element on the planet. It is soft enough and weak enough to not have a shape of its own; it simply conforms to its container. And yet, if given enough time, it is strong enough to cut through the densest of rock.

Approximately 70 percent of the human body is composed of the life-bearing liquid, and virtually all of existence that we know of is completely dependent upon the wet refreshing substance.

In the United States, before the Industrial Revolution and the automobile, you could safely drink out of practically any stream or river without having to worry about what was lurking in the water; that is if no one was using the river as a restroom upstream. As of late, I don’t always feel comfortable drinking what comes out of the tap or water fountain.

Now for argument’s sake, if for the remainder of the article you promise to assume that global warming doesn’t exist, I will promise not to make fun of Al Gore or any other jackass. The reason I have asked you to forget about the theory of a man-made climate change is because that is not the most important issue at hand. Regardless of whether global warming is true or not doesn’t change the fact the addiction to petroleum, that we have been involved in since the turn of the 20th century, is systematically destroying everything that makes life livable, right down to the very water that we can’t live without.

As millions of gallons of oil are pumped into the Gulf and a tributary to Lake Arcadia is bleeding black gold, I have to ask myself, what the heck are we doing? What kind of society actually needs a law prohibiting against dumping chemicals into a river or ocean?

I have to tell you, addiction is a funny thing. At first you make a choice to do something, and it is fun. You do it when you want to and enjoy doing it, but then something happens and it quits being a choice.  Now, cocaine is a hell of a drug, but it is bad for your body and mind. Likewise, making whoopee with petroleum-based products and other fossil fuels was a blast while it lasted, but it is time to find another resource – something a little more manageable.

I could break it down like this: If politics and special interests were as dominant in the early 1900s as they are now and horses – the animal people used to ride before the steam engine – had a strong enough lobbyist presence in D.C. like big oil and company do, then maybe the horse industry could have blocked the use of petroleum altogether. If we rely on the current powers to decide the direction of legislation and industry then they will do anything they can to maintain their privileged status among the privileged, and we will be stuck with the ecological aftermath of the product of a dead dinosaur lurking in our faucets.

-Light it up, A.J.

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My Top Ten Favorite Albums of 2010:

1. This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem

2. High Violet by The National

3. Mare by Julian Lynch

4. Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusy by Big Boi

5. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene

6. Have One On Me by Joanna Newsom

7. Before Today by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

8. InnerSpeaker by Tame Impala

9. The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth

10. Treats by Sleigh Bells

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My Top Ten Favorite Songs of 2010:

1. “All I Want” by LCD Soundsystem

James Mercer and Danger Mouse of Broken Bells

2. “Round and Round” by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

3. “Good Intentions Paving Co.” by Joanna Newsom

4. “Conversation 16″ by The National

5. “Dear God 2.0″ by The Roots

6. “Scissor” by Liars

7. “Ready to Start” by Arcade Fire

8. “Come With Me” by ceo

9. “Go Outside” by Cults

10. “The Ghost Inside” by Broken Bells