A recent New York Times blog article highlights the stupendous ineptitude of the American government to keep corporate regulations in check. When new standards for energy usage were set for corporations to follow, General Electric embarrassed the entire legislature by sidestepping the issue altogether—they simply reduced the output of the lightbulbs.

So the U.S. government finally won: So-called “light” cigarettes can no longer be marketed as such to the public. As with all legislation, it will take an indeterminable amount of time to actually come into effect, which leaves room for questioning: Why exactly is it illegal to market light cigarettes?

So Michael Phelps apologized—and he got his sponsors back. Over break I had the pleasure of watching a commercial where Phelps got a solid 1.5 seconds of airtime, with nothing to say whatsoever about Phelps’ earlier pot scandal. Of course, all of the pretending in the world won’t fool anyone into thinking Phelps didn’t take a healthy rip from his bong, but the better question remains: Why do we still care? Perhaps the most reasonable answer is that we simply shouldn’t care.

One would be hard-pressed to find as enduring and prevalent a Republican representative as Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of the political debate, event, controversy or climate, one can reliably turn on the radio to hear the loud, brash Limbaugh delivering some polemic or other against the liberal tyranny that is America.

Last year, my allergies caught up with me­—for the third time in my life, I actually had an asthma attack. Thankfully, SHS managed to come to the rescue—they were extremely helpful and very thorough.

An interesting e-mail came in my inbox from an anonymous person, asking the point of my last article on stereotypes of drug users. Why point out that we group drug users together? Sure, so we stereotype people. Who cares? The question is valid, and one that I think is worth considering.

Just say the words “drug user,” and all sorts of negative connotations come to mind: shady back alleys, gang violence and lengthy jail sentences.

As I make my morning commute from an off-campus apartment to Wash U, I encounter a lot of frustration – not only at the terribly outdated and inefficient timer-based traffic lights, but also at the complete inability of people to drive.

Whether in the United States or in any country, the purpose of gay pride parades is to raise awareness and money for HIV research, as well as to promote acceptance of homosexual activity across the nation. As far as fundraisers go, the gay pride parades are great: They make quite a large contribution toward funding extremely important research that aims at finding a cure to a deadly disease. However, when it comes to promoting acceptance of homosexual activity, all I can see is the exact opposite.

I gave the question of “why do we drink alcohol, given all of its negative consequences” some thought, and realized that it was a matter of framing: It’s very easy to paint an undesirable picture of many things that we, as humans, find fun. It’s especially easy when the person painting the picture doesn’t enjoy those things the way others do.