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Bomb blast in Islamabad affects more than just Pakistan

Although I did not realize it at the time, the hotel is eminent not only because of its extravagance, but because it neighbors the embassies of foreign dignitaries, the President’s office, and the parliament building. Perhaps most importantly, the Mariott serves as a symbol of corrupt Pakistani decadence and of the government’s unpopular alliance with the United States.

It is no shock, then, that it was the prime target of a terrorist attack.

By Nafees Ahmed September 25, 2008

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All we are saying is give football a chance

I’m not an unrealistic idealist: I know as much as anyone what our season was like last year. I know we’re still building a program that only recently joined I-AA. And I know that we’re facing as tough a schedule as ever. So I don’t have expectations of sweeping the league or watching a Football Championship Sub-Division playoff game on TV this season. But I do know that anything can happen on the gridiron, that every game is a fresh start, and that our team is talented enough to put up a fight every week. So I show up every Saturday ready to watch something special happen, to witness a time-expiring field-goal or a game-ending sack, to stand at the front of the bleachers when the game is over and triumphantly sing the fight song with a victorious team.

By Nick Sementelli September 25, 2008

Voices

Flirting with finance as time runs out

When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut (until I heard about the Challenger disaster). I wanted to be an astronomer (until I figured out they have to stay up all night). Then I realized that I just wanted to be the person who gets to make up the stories about the constellations—an illustrious profession I refered to as being a “mythologist.” And since the cosmos-naming gig never came through, here I am: suit-less and clueless and feeling incredibly behind because I have neither a job offer from Crédit Suisse nor a second round interview with Goldman Sachs.

By Simone Popperl September 25, 2008

Voices

Trains: they’re the only way to fly

After a few too many flights where pilots sighed, “Well, we made it,” and fellow passengers made the sign of the cross as the wheels finally managed to stick their landing, I knew it was time to find a different way to get around. Because they seemed to succeed where planes failed—with wheels firmly attached to the ground at all times—I began to take trains everywhere I went.

By Sara Carothers September 18, 2008

Voices

The SAT is to Georgetown what the appendix is to your body

Georgetown’s emphasis on standardized testing is harmful to both the University and prospective students. Georgetown should follow in the footsteps of Wake Forest, Bowdoin, Smith, Bard, Middlebury, and other highly regarded institutions of higher learning that have recognized the limitations of the SAT. It’s time to phase out the SAT and make the test optional for applicants to the class of 2014.

By Eric Pilch September 18, 2008

Voices

The disturbing way of the world

Suskind’s book, when put together with Scott McClellan’s What Happened, Barton Gellman’s Angler, and Bob Woodward’s The War Within, paints an extremely dark, deceptive, and frankly, evil picture of the Bush administration. While there have been many accusations over the past eight years, these books offer fairly definitive proof of Bush and Cheney’s two terms of illegal operations. Unfortunately, with the media completely fixated on the election, no one seems to care. Bush is hardly talked about anymore (with the exception of comparisons to McCain), and outrage at his presidency seems to be dwindling.

By Brendan Brown September 18, 2008

Voices

Give booze unto others as others gave booze unto you

While friends at large state schools reported that frats often charged entry fees to offset costs, all the parties I attended were free. I was sort of proud of this. As one particularly generous host explained, “It’s about taking care of our own. We crashed parties when we were freshman; now it’s our turn to pay it back.” His pay-it forward logic struck me as oddly chivalrous, especially for a guy in a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” t-shirt.

By Sarah Harman September 18, 2008

Voices

Law, order, and crappy coffee

As impassioned soliloquies ran through my head, my mother sought to bring me back to earth. She explained the mind-numbing boredom that accompanies jury duty of any duration. Worse, she explained that it is incredibly unlikely that I would ever be chosen for a jury because my father is a lawyer and I have an aunt and an uncle who are former members of the NYPD. No matter how reasoned her thinking, I dismissed everything mother dearest said, and began to prepare my remarks for the other members of the jury.

By Dan Newman September 11, 2008

Voices

How I almost became a saint

It was time for dinner with my parents, and I had something important to tell them.

“I’ve decided to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” I said. “The baptism will be on Saturday.”

By Traviss Cassidy September 11, 2008

Voices

The Dark Night: walking home alone

I hadn’t felt safe at night since the eighth grade, when I was taught to be afraid of the dark. The class was technically called self-defense, but it focused much more on fear than survival skills. Our co-ed gym class was divided for the month or so it took to teach us girls to cross the street, walk with our keys in hand, and not talk on the phone. Not to mention the Miss Congeniality-esque defense maneuvers that I would never, ever use. It became clear that the point of the class was to learn how to avoid dangerous situations, not to learn what to do if such a situation actually occured. It’s a valid point, and many of the pointers were useful for teenage girls growing up in a big city like Chicago. By the end of the unit, though, we were all convinced that we would get mugged if we took the El after dark, and God help us if we didn’t have a twenty in our wallets for the mugger.

By Allie Reiner September 11, 2008

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Give me liberty or give me death?

The poverty-stricken masses of Cairo are fed-up with an oppressive government that doesn’t care, a supposedly “grand America” that supports this negligent regime, and a city that doesn’t offer so much as clean air. “Religious” leaders seeking power use the compelling context of Islam to attract these people and to convert them into devotees. These figures augment their status in relation to the government and obtain a personal following. They promise a sanitized political system and a chance for people to have greater ownership over their own lives. Social services, like the hot meal that government welfare rarely provides, entice the average person to keep coming for more.

By Mark Lerner September 11, 2008

Voices

The lives of others

Podcasts of This American Life and other radio shows devoted to making real-life snippets into stories got me through my bus commute this summer. Call it voyeuristic, but I’m fascinated by the simple truths of other people’s lives. I love to hear a stranger laugh about night terrors that had him convinced there was a jackal in his bedroom, a woman talk about the time she tried to write a break-up song despite her lack of musical abilities (and got in touch with Phil Collins for pointers), a man explain how he unwittingly became a paid spokesman for California foster kids at the age of 17.

By Simone Popperl September 4, 2008

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McCain chose VP for style, not substance

More significantly, it seems that McCain doesn’t respect women for their qualifications but simply uses their gender for political advantage. Is this McCain’s way of telling us that he believes women can be easily manipulated for political gain instead of being respected for their own career accomplishments? McCain has shown us that he doesn’t respect women, and that he will go to desperate measures to get himself elected, an occurence that would put our country at risk.

By Sasha Wasserstrom September 4, 2008

Voices

Moscow: all grown up and out of vodka?

During our chats, I found that all but one of my workmates were married or engaged, two of them had children, and one was already happily divorced. The oldest of them was twenty-five. They spent their evenings in cooking dinners to feed their growing families, their Saturdays at the zoo in lieu of sleeping off a monumental clubbing night, and their salaries on the latest eco-summer camps and environmentally-friendly living instead of on live-in lovers and python handbags.

By Anastasia Stepanova September 4, 2008

Voices

Bullfights? “Não.” Espresso? “Sim!”

Walking up to the Moorish-style stadium in Lisbon, camera in hand, I was prepared to see a small drove of burlap-clad animal-rights activists banging on tambourines and chanting about respect for all living beings. What I did not expect to see was a group of average-looking citizens of all ages, standing respectfully behind barricades and police lines, holding signs reading, “Bullfighting is neither art nor culture.”

By Lynn Kirshbaum September 4, 2008

Voices

Unpaid? Uninterested

My dad never went to college. My siblings and I were raised on the tenets of hard and honest work, no matter how much we hated our jobs. In high school I bagged groceries at a local supermarket. For two years, I bit my tongue as suburban moms complained about the rising price of peaches and the bruises on their cantaloupes. But I never regretted taking the job, because even though I absolutely loathed standing for five hours ringing up groceries, I had one thing to be grateful for: I was getting paid.

By Madeline Reidy August 28, 2008

Voices

The last person on Earth without a cell

As time wore on, I got attached to the idea that rejecting technology signified a bohemian, responsibility-free existence. Everyone with their cell phones and iPods and fax machines could just go work at Merrill Lynch and rape the earth. I would be barefoot and bake vegan cupcakes, the American answer to Amelie, sprinkling joy wherever I went, free from the onerous burden of communicating with others.

By Sarah Harman August 28, 2008

Voices

Biloxi, three years later

Biloxi is the cultural center of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a region that has always been more New Orleans gumbo than Mississippi catfish. In fact, it was the original New Orleans, founded around twenty years before the Big Easy ever came into existence. It is a city settled by French, Croatians, Cajuns, and Vietnamese, a city that is proud of its Catholic heritage and cannot live without its Mardi Gras, a city where a po-boy is always lunch and no dinner is complete without French bread.

Three years ago, it was all swept from under my feet.

By Dylan Richmond August 28, 2008

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Dispatches from the Obama campaign

With deepening gloom, I had continued to call people, hoping I’d strike gold and find a volunteer. The next day passed uneventfully. I paced the room, talking eagerly to whoever picked up their telephone. Occasionally, pedestrians would slow down or stop when they saw that someone was walking around inside the office, but they’d soon move on again, and my hopes for a walk-in volunteer would dissipate into the sweltering August air.

By Nick Wertsch August 28, 2008