Alternative uses for Earth Hour 2009

01 Apr 2009, Posted by Jacob Wolff in Backpages, Jacob Wolff, 1 Comments

This past Saturday, cities across the world took part in “Earth Hour 2009” as households, businesses and famous landmarks turned off non-essential lights for an hour from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. Though perhaps 1 billion people didn’t end up participating like the organizers, the World Wildlife Fund, claimed would, it nonetheless appears to have been a success.  Even if  many individual households didn’t participate, the dimming of lights at famous landmarks like the Egyptian pyramids, the Empire State building, Big Ben and my house’s porch light should nonetheless serve what was most likely the campaigns’ ultimate purpose: raising awareness about energy use and Climate Change.

I spent Earth Hour with my parents who were visiting from Chicago in the Bryan Center (though I didn’t shut off any lights, I did shut my folks down in some intense games of crazy eights!). But when I got back to my computer later that night, a tweet on comedian Michael Ian Black’s twitter had me laughing: “Going to use Earth Hour as an opportunity to loot.” Now I think Earth Hour is a great idea for a great cause, but I like to consider myself an environmentally conscience individual who is already pretty aware of Climate Change (read: I know we’re in lots of trouble). So I didn’t feel too bad when my mind started to wander a bit as I asked myself: What else could one do during the unique opportunity that was Earth Hour?

I came up with this list, but feel free to add in the comments:

Looting: As Michael Ian Black suggested, Earth Hour offered the perfect opportunity to satisfy that looting itch we all get every now and again. Feel bad about looting? Loot environmentally friendly products such as Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs.   Looters care about the environment too!

Worry about ghosts: Sit in agonizing discomfort and in angst as every little noise heard becomes magnified to the shriek of an unfriendly ghost or the roar of a menacing monster.  Draw the quickest and most efficient plans to turning on every light in your home the second the clock turns 9:30. Leave them on overnight to counter the overwhelming sense of fear, loneliness and diffidence caused by the hour without light.

Kill Mr. Mustard: Take a brief moment to club Mr. Mustard in the library  (Perkins) with the candlestick.  No one will immediately know it was you if you skulk away through mysterious drapes and the lingering air of confusion.  Also, make sure to shout accusations.  This should provide an evening’s worth of fun, a life’s worth of hard time or perhaps both!

Not wear pants: Who hasn’t wondered what it would be like to walk around in public not wearing pants? No longer do really drunk people have a monopoly on such a privilege.

Clumsily bump into everything in your life (metaphorically too!): Utilize an hour of darkness to not only physically knock over and shatter all teetering objects in your house, but do so with a hint of allegory. Remember that combos are worth more points, so as you spill on yourself attempting to pour a glass of milk, try to drop it, slip on the glass, grab for the counter but instead pull down your pile of taxes and grandma’s urn in the process.  Finally, emotionally distraught, cry over the spilled milk.  Repeat for one hour or until everything in house (in life) has come crashing down.  Eventually it should all burn down, as clumsy people like you shouldn’t use candles.

Destroy a longstanding symbol of freedom: This is actually an amazing story. In a small firehouse in the town of Livermore, California, a light bulb has been on for 107 years! The bulb was first screwed into place in 1901, and hasn’t been turned off or burnt out since. It’s obviously become something of a symbol of pride for the town and firemen. Just by reading what some of the firemen in the article say, it’s safe to say that even if this light bulb was single handedly causing climate change, they’d fight to the death to make sure nobody turns it off. Environmentalists v. Big Burly Firemen? Sorry polar bears, the Firemen win this fight.

Many more things could have been on the list (dress your dog in an ugly sweater, like Canada, do that weird Tai Chi thing, read (Fahrenheit 451) by candlelight etc), so if you have any good ones, put them in the comments.

Of course, let us not forget what Earth Hour was truly for… raising awareness about what really is one of the worst problems our world has ever faced:  Our inability to walk around our own homes naked without fear of being seen by the neighbors.  Wait, strike that one, I mean climate change of course!  Seriously though… Climate change is bad, guys. Next year do Earth Hour, it’s a cool concept.

(Mad props go out to my brother Chris for his help)

A question often asked

31 Mar 2009, Posted by Braden Hendricks in Backpages, Braden Hendricks, 0 Comments

Why do we go to college?

It seems like a simple question, but the answer can be rather complex. Or perhaps it’s just that there are multiple answers, none more correct or incorrect than the others. For example, I might answer that I go to college to not have to get a 9 to 5 daily gig just quite yet. Why do that when I can hang out for four more years having fun—maybe even picking up a few things from academia along the way? Or, if I were in a different mood, I might say that I actually go to college to watch the basketball team there.

These two answers represent two of the goal oriented paths a collegiate career might take, but how does that apply to our lives post-college? In response to that, I might say, like I heard someone else eloquently put it once, “Well, nobody goes to Duke to be poor.” And that’s probably true, right? I mean, we paradoxically accumulate financial debt by coming here, but for a lot of us, the image we see of ourselves post-Duke ultimately leads to a hefty bank account balance, with house and car attached. For me personally, it’s this house and this car, but I have what might be considered extravagant tastes.

At least, that’s how I matriculated, full of ambition not to be a more educated and complete person, but a wealthier version of the current me. I was set on driving through my classes with one eye on my GPA and the other on law school, the means by which I would acquire that house and car I have always dreamed of.

But somewhere along the way, I had an epiphany. I think many factors went into this realization but what it amounted to was that what I really wanted to do was be a creative writer and filmmaker. Unless they’re one of the very lucky few, most creative writers and filmmakers do not own mansions and Italian sports cars: they struggle and get frustrated with bills and payments as they etch out a living in Los Angeles. I realized that I would be OK with that, just so long as I could write and pursue film projects without having to answer to some dude who more than likely kissed ass to get to his managerial position, but has less brains than a squirrel.

I know this is the very definition of cliche, but this was a huge thing for me, the realization that I should just seek my own fulfillment as a person rather than filling out the parameters set for me by anyone else, society included. This is why I chose to study English and history, and to get a film certificate, rather than go to law school. I know that for writers times can be very tough, and I will likely have to work some sort of day job to get by until something happens with my writing, but I’d take that over sitting at a desk 12 hours a day poring over things that don’t really mean anything to me.

Why this is a tiresome subject

27 Mar 2009, Posted by Ade Sawyer in Ade Sawyer, Backpages, 2 Comments

Every year around this time I hear people argue against minority recruitment weekends.

The arguments are always pretty familiar:

• Minority recruitment weekends shut the rest of the community out and keep them from welcoming minority students.

• Introducing students to Duke in the context of race predisposes them to identifying themselves along racial lines.  And as a result they pursue less diversity in their Duke experience.

• Minority recruitment weekends don’t accurately depict life at Duke.

…Continue annually, ad nauseam.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m in favor of keeping minority recruitment weekends, but I think it can be worthwhile to reexamine the way we implement them in the context of an ever-changing world.

In the interest of space, I’ll briefly respond to the first argument and respond to the second with a bit more depth.  The third…I can’t really argue with.

The idea that non-black or non-Latino students are unwelcome at BSAI and LSRW events is confusing and a little ridiculous to me.  Organizers of these weekends have never excluded anyone from any event, and as a former BSA officer, I can say from experience that non-black students have been involved, active and welcome in both BSA and BSAI.  Participating is a matter of choice, and everyone is welcome to do so.

As for the second point, it implies that black and Latino students are somehow more culpable than the rest of the community for any racial divisions.  It’s insulting, so here’s a  bit of perspective:

According to the Campus Life and Learning Project, which the university published in two parts in 2006 and 2007, Duke students’ social networks remain “remarkably stable” from the senior year of high school to the fourth year at Duke.  For white students, it found that in high school their close friends were 90 percent white and by the fourth year at Duke their close friends were 82 percent white.  For Latino students the percentage of close Latino friends declined from 22 percent to 16 percent.  For black and Asian students the percentage of close friends of their race rose from to 56 percent to about 67 percent and 47 percent to about 49 percent respectively.

The project also examined students’ broad social networks including all friends, and in this it found that Duke students were “slightly more diverse.”  It found that for black, Latino, Asian and bi-racial students the proportion of friends of the same race or ethnicity declined across the college years, while white students’ networks became slightly less diverse.

Take whatever you choose from these statistics, but here’s what I get:

Black and Latino students haven’t demonstrated any aversion to diversity that distinguishes them from any other group.  In fact, both Latino and black students increase the diversity of their social networks at Duke, although black students tend to gain more close black friends.  It seems to me that there’s little evidence to suggest that black and Latino students are being poisoned against diversity through BSAI and LSRW.  So guys, let’s put it to bed.

I think there’s a bigger question raised here as well: What sort of ratios should we be targeting to prove our “diversity” credentials?  Should the ethnic diversity of our friends mirror Duke’s population?  America’s population?  The world’s population (since we all want to be global citizens…)?

I don’t know the answer to that, and I don’t think you do either.

You know you go to Duke when…

26 Mar 2009, Posted by Jeff Ditzler in Backpages, Jeff Ditzler, 3 Comments

I have sinned.

I have contributed to an Internet meme.

If—what do I mean, if?—Since you have a Facebook page, you probably are familiar with the “You Know You’re From…When…” groups.  You probably won’t get all, or even most, of the references if you’re not from the actual location, but browsing these groups can introduce you to dozens of obscure regional grocery-store chains and lead you to discover the similarities between different places (apparently, the United States alone has about 30 locations where you design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, 75 where the only spices are salt, pepper and ketchup, and over 500 where you have to switch from heat to air conditioning in the same day).

Upon encountering these, I sensed an opportunity to help my hometown, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, escape from being overshadowed by nearby Hershey, as well as Elizabethtown, Kentucky, which is apparently the nation’s most prominent Elizabethtown (but at least we don’t have an ultra-sappy movie about us).  I started a Facebook group called, naturally, “You know you’re from Elizabethtown, PA, when…” (you can find it here, but you probably won’t understand a lot of it).  It was surprisingly successful, drawing over 1,100 members, leading me to wonder if something similar might work at Duke.  Here goes:

You know you go to Duke when…

• You have to explain to your friends from other colleges that you only get one credit per class.
• Labor Day?  What’s Labor Day?
• The name “Mike Nifong” still makes your blood boil.
• The only words of the school fight song you know can’t be repeated on a family-friendly blog such as this.
• You realize Chapel Hill is a better college town than Durham, but you’d never admit it.
• You’ve studied abroad in Europe, your roommate is Chinese, you’ve attended an Indian dance show and you have a favorite Thai dish, but parts of Durham are too weird for you.
• You can actually pronounce and spell “Krzyzewski”.
• You factor waiting for the bus into your daily schedule.
• Tailgating has nothing to do with actually attending the football game, and you don’t understand why anyone thinks it would.
• Living in a tent for two months after paying $10,180 for room and board makes perfect sense.
• You have to dodge tourists on your way to class.
• You have been asked to take a complete stranger’s picture in front of the Chapel.
• You frequently park illegally.
• You don’t feel too strongly about the stimulus, the war, President Obama, or the economy, but you are passionate about whether to go to Virginia Beach or Myrtle Beach after finals.
• You actually like Dick Vitale.

I’d like some input from readers on whether these are true and whether there are any more you’d like to add.  I might even turn this into a Facebook group, but I’m not sure we really need another Facebook group right now—Oh shoot!  I just dropped my cell phone into a puddle!

The end of the Internet

25 Mar 2009, Posted by Jacob Wolff in Backpages, Jacob Wolff, 1 Comments

Do you remember that AOL commercial from a while back for  (what happened to all those free AOL CDs?  They were fun frisbees) where a guy was surfing the web, and he supposedly reaches the end of the Internet?   His wife shouts from the other room something along the lines of “are you surfing the web?” and he replies, “I was, but I finished it.” I couldn’t find it online anywhere, but you get the gist of it.

Though it would be impossible to “finish” the Internet in the same sense as one “finishes” a book, one man, Greg Rutter, has apparently attempted to write the Cliffs Notes version.  I recently stumbled upon this little gem (actually my dad emailed it to me), it’s called: “Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something.”  The name is self-explanatory: it’s 99 things on the Internet that all the cool kids are doing.

Check it out; it’s a really great list.  It mostly consists of funny videos (think Star Wars Kid, Chocolate Rain, etc), but has other stuff as well.  WARNING:  There are 4 links at the bottom that are rather X-rated (read: 2 girls 1 cup), but the rest are mostly silly YouTube videos (which still may not be safe for work, so beware).

It’s a pretty awesome list, and if you check it out, it’s fun to count how many you’ve already seen (I was around 55/99).  The site is a great way to distract yourself and catch up on the viral videos you may have missed.  But after spending a good 5 hours clicking from link to link (and related links) and then attempting to stand, my legs’ inability to function got me thinking…

Take a second and think, actually think about how much time you spend on your computer each day.  It’s crazy.  Perhaps I’m an outlier, but I’m about as attached to my laptop as I was to watching Are You Afraid of the Dark everyday when I was a kid (no better time to watch a scary show than 4:30pm, IMO).   I know, I know, the statement “Facebook is ruining our ability to communicate in person” has been said again and again, but really, Facebook IS ruining our ability communicate in person.

I actually don’t have too big of qualms with Facebook (it does help people stay in touch), though I do think Facebook has affected our ability to actually speak with others in real life.  It’s really just our general abuse of the Internet that worries me.  It’s just too darn easy to get lost in the Internet and completely avoid actually interacting with other human beings; why push myself and acutally engage in social interaction when I can  just as easily waste away and watch an entire season of 24 at the push of a button?  In a recent study I did (by asking myself and my Mom), surfing the web with no real purpose was found to be the #3 leading cause of lost friendship (#1 was a friend suddenly liking Linkin’ Park, and #2 was  catching an acquaintance examining a snooty Kleenex too long).

When does aimlessly surfing the web go from ‘relaxing escape’ to ‘reality-numbing-brain-frying-life-sapping menace?  I’m not 100 percent sure of the time and date, but I think it’s a Thursday.

I actually don’t fault the videos found in the list above.  Viral videos and the like  don’t contribute much to our slow transformation into half-human half-computer cyborgs (the real cause, as everyone knows, is rogue Sky-Net technology from the Terminator movies), they tend to be too short, too hilarious, and generally too harmless for me to be mad at.  But I do think we need to re-examine our Twitter/Facebook/Side-Reel/Warcraft/Perez Hilton/Hulu/Addicting Games/Second Life/ESPN.com/MySpace/Megavideo/IGN/Minesweeper infected lives.

Now I know I’m opening myself to a lot of retorts: “You’re writing a freakin’ blog, the manifestation of the computer age,” or “the Internet is an extremely useful tool,” or “where else can I find such a sweet picture of a mustache!?!”  Those all have a lot of merit.  But I don’t think it’s a stretch to claim we really ought to be spend a little less time surfing the web, and a bit more time ensuring that we don’t let technology turn our children into socially inept, brain dead adults who resort to biting to solve their problems.

(Thanks again Dad for the link…)