Mental Basement

by Nat Lavin

I’ve been in love perhaps a few times, but never so strongly as my first love.

The girl was far from perfect for me, but she was certainly amazing. One of the prettiest girls ever, so much so that it would be fair to say that she was so far out of my league; we weren’t allowed in the same stadium. Before I dated this girl, I had only a few emotions: hungry, happy, sleepy, and horny. Easily, what I remember most about this girl was the way she opened my…heart? mind? I’m not sure which I’m referring to specifically. The point is, she introduced me both to a level of happiness that was literally unimaginable to me before, and a level of horrible depression that left me in my room, not eating or sleeping, for three days.

I remember thinking, after the break up, that I had romantically peaked at the ripe age of 16, and that life was now pointless because I could never be that happy again. A few months of emo-ness later, I realized that was not true, and eventually I could learn to fall in love again and be happy.

Since then I’ve changed a lot. I was never particularly religious, but I would say the fact that I am now an atheist now is a big difference. I remember about a year ago, when I held a particularly bizarre agnostic view of God, the conversation of belief in God came up with a friend. She said she didn’t believe in god, but she really wants to. She wanted someone out there to convince her God exists.

I guess I too now want someone to convince me that God exists, but in a slightly different way. I want to feel the way I did with my first love. I want to be so head-over-heels in love again, that there is no possible way God himself didn’t somehow mean for her to be with me. I want a girl who makes me believe in God.

by Arjun Sharma

Check this out, via CNN.com. Maybe I’ve been watching too much of the Puppy Cam, but I thought it was really interesting. I’ve always said we give dogs less credit than they’re due in terms of their brain power.

——

Dogs appear to experience a range of complex, unpleasant emotions such as jealousy and pride, scientists have discovered.

Until now, this type of behavior had only been shown in humans or chimpanzees, but researchers suspected that other species that live together could be sensitive to fair play — or a lack of one.

“We are learning that dogs, horses, and perhaps many other species are far more emotionally complex than we ever realized,” Paul Morris, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth who studies animal emotions, told The Sunday Times.

“They can suffer simple forms of many emotions we once thought only primates could experience.”

Scientists noted that dogs hate to see their owners being affectionate to other dogs and can suffer if a new baby or partner arrives on the scene.

To test the theory, Friederike Range and colleagues at the University of Vienna in Austria asked 33 trained dogs to extend a paw to a human.

The animals performed the trick virtually all of the time whether they were given a reward or not — when alone or with another dog.

But the dogs’ enthusiasm waned when they saw other dogs being rewarded but received nothing themselves.

Dogs that were ignored extended their paws much less often, doing so in only 13 out of 30 trials. They also showed more stress, such as licking or scratching themselves.

“They are clearly unhappy with the unfair situation”, Range told New Scientist magazine. She also suspects that this sensitivity might stretch beyond food to more abstract things like praise and attention.

“It might explain why some dogs react with ‘new baby envy’ when their owners have a child,” she said.

——

by Nat Lavin

This is a thought that has bothered me for a few years now.  I knew a few girls going off to all-girls colleges so I asked “why?”. Their reasons, I found to be weak and sexist.

I completely agree, that at the times of the foundings of the vast majority of these schools, they were probably completely necessary. Women deserve the same education men do, and these all women’s colleges were the only way to go about that. the seven sisters exist in contrast to the eight ivy schools.  I guess what I’m trying to say is, I understand why these schools were founded, and understand that in certain circumstances, something like these single-sex college might be necessary.

What bothers me most about these colleges is that they seem to go entirely against my believe that women and men are equal. In my classrooms in high school and college, women have had just as vocal a presence as men. women have dominated certain class room conversations just as much as men. Women in these classes are just a smart, capable, and driven as men. There is not a doubt in my mind that these women can “compete” with men in the classroom. (I put “compete” in quotes because i fully disagree with the idea that the classroom is a place for any form of competition). If one accepts that men and women are equal, which I do, that leaves women’s reasons for going to an all women’s college to these two reasons:

1) They are female chauvinists who feel they are better than men, and need to be freed from men in order to excel (ie: A class can only move as fast as its slowest members, so get rid of the slowest members (men).

2) Women find themselves to be inferior. either too quiet, too meek, too insecure (my guess is that in these cases, its mostly women being too insecure) to compete with men in a classroom setting.

I’m friends with a lot of girls. I would go so far as to say the two girls I’m closest to here in college are basically superior to me in every way. They are both on honor roll, they are both drop-dead gorgeous (at least one of them has modeled in the past), and they are both D1 athletes who recently won conference and are now seeded 16th in their NCAA tournament.  I don’t think a single girl I’m friends with is incapable of competing with men.

I have asked a few friends who attend all women’s colleges how they rationalize the decision and no one has ever been able to fully articulate it to me in a manner that has me convinced they made the best choice for their education, except when she replies something to the tune of “because it was the best college I could attend.”. Without a doubt, anyone, man or woman, should get the best education they can. Don’t these all women’s colleges  create some sort of unfair advantage for women? at that point, doesn’t the concept of the all female college become femme-chauvanist?

I attend Tulane University, which up until Katrina had “Newcomb College” as a part of it. Newcomb College was the all women’s college that shared a campus with Tulane. Now Newcomb is just the liberal arts college. I remember asking an older feminist woman what she thought of Newcomb college no longer being an all-women’s college. she said it was “A Shame” and that “It Destroyed a lot of leadership opportunities for Women”. That answer bothered me deeply. I think it bothered me because i disagreed with her notion that just because there were now fewer leadership positions that could be filled by only women. I feel that women are just as capable at holding  a leadership office and competing for that office as men, especially in modern society, on a place as liberal as a college campus. I guess in interpret her notion that this destroyed opportunities as women as a subtle way of saying “i find women to be incapable of competition for these positions”. i disagree with her categorically.

Let me conclude by saying i have one clear exception to my idea that only sexists attend all women’s colleges: lesbians. I know, that sounds funny, but I’m not joking.  Never in her life will a young, lesbian woman have an opportunity to live somewhere that open and accepting of her lifestyle. So free of judgment and ample with possibilities.

Women going to an all girls college tells me that the women who chose to do so are either:

a) Bitter, cold, women who hates men and is stuck in some bizarre mentality (that was probably accurate a few decades ago) that men are holding them down.

b) Insecure girls, who in all probability will get completely steamrolled in a classroom because they are so timid.  They will be overshadowed in a class regardless of the gender of their peers because they have self esteem issues on which they need to work.

c) Lesbians. is an amazing environment for them. I can say that the two girls im closest with who attend all women’s colleges both prefer the company of women (or at least, enjoy it the same as they enjoy the company of men). The world is harsh towards homosexuality. Its sad, but its true. These environments provide a safe-haven for these girls while they explore and find themselves. I know this may sound sarcastic, but i mean it in the most sincere of ways.

I feel the vast majority of women attending an all womens college either believe men are inferior, or believe that they themselves are inferior to men. You can not believe in equality between the sexes, yet believe that youre getting a better education by removing yourself from the male population. “colleges for young women” are an outdated and sexist institution.

by Arjun Sharma

You know, as much as I am somewhat embarrassed to express support for John Cusack at times (Must Love Dogs, anyone?) I do have to point out that I have two reasons to admire the man greatly- his closeness to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, an idol of mine, and the movie High Fidelity.

In truth, a big part of why I loved High Fidelity was the idea of mixtapes, which for some reason I find immensely interesting. I guess it’s the idea of expressing yourself simply through a combination of songs that seems just plain cool to me.

Unfortunately, having been born in the late 1980s, I missed out on mixtapes as I entered this world during the early age of CDs. I’m not saying CDs are bad - they’re still around for a good reason - but a “mix CD” just doesn’t have the same feeling of love that a mixtape does. It’s easy to just throw ten or twenty songs on a playlist and burn them; with a mixtape, you had to go through each song and painstakingly put it on your mix. There wasn’t a SINGLE analogous medium for me to express my desire to make mixtapes and, ultimately, realize my dream of being as 80s as possible. Until now, that is. As I’ve discovered in the past 6 months, the YouTube playlist, that extremely under-utilized feature of the ubiquitous video site, is the 21st century mixtape.

Think about it- 99% of us don’t upload our own music onto YouTube (I mean, it wasn’t even MEANT for music). Instead, we have to search out music videos and other uploads, some legally put up by record labels, and some put up illegally and allowed to stay up. Once you find the right version, you have to go to the video and add it to your playlist, at which time you end up listening to the entire song anyway. I’ve found that even if you want to slap together a YouTube playlist, the process becomes longer and more involved than you intended simply because you end up listening to most of the songs as you make the list. For example, here’s my latest mixtape of chill music, some of which I’ve been introduced to recently and some of which I’ve loved for many years. Below the embed you can find instructions on using YouTube playlists to make a mixtape of your own.

Making a playlist is easy:

1) Log in to YouTube and click “Playlists” in the drop down menu that appears under your name.

2) In the top left corner, click “New,” select “Playlist,” and enter the name of your playlist.

Adding songs:

3a) If the song you want to add is in your favorites, go to your favorites page, select the song(s) and click “Add to,” and select your playlist

3b) If the song isn’t a favorite, go to the video, and underneath it select “Playlist” and pick the playlist you want to add the song to.

Things you can do with your playlist:

4) Go back to the playlists selection in the drop down menu that appears over your username

5) On the left, click on the playlist you want to mess around with

6) When you click “Edit this playlist,” the preferences appear. Here, you can edit your description, get a link to the playlist to share with other people, get the embed code, and mess around with a couple of settings

7) Underneath “Edit this playlist” there are options to mess around with the various songs / order of songs, and my favorite button, “Play All.” I now use YouTube as often as iTunes to listen to music.

Note: If you use the link to let someone else access the playlist, they have to go to the site, click on the first song, and then on the left the playlist will appear, and above it you can toggle the auto-play.

by Arjun Sharma

I’ve been living in Los Angeles for a little over a year now, and the only definitive thing I can say about it is that it’s freaking insane.

There are people out there thinking, “No it’s not…. what the hell are you talking about?”

Think about this: LA is a sprawled out desert city on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, home to some of the most diverse populations of people. If you drive down any road long enough, you’ll go from low-rent areas like South Central and Chino up to places like Palos Verdes and Beverly Hills. In between, you’ll turn a corner and find yourself in Koreatown or Little Ethiopa or some place like that.

This in and of itself isn’t crazy. What’s crazy is that this cultural convergence, rather than being the most powerful city in the world located in one of the prime superpowers with a massive population, is instead a wasteland; a black hole of rational thought. LA is where good ideas come to DIE.

Los Angeles is a city that worships celebrity- shutting down roads and businesses for people whose sole job is to act like other, more awesome people. Even more amazingly, in true black hole fashion, Los Angeles has spread its vapidness successfully in a way that only someone simultaneously selling cocaine and sex could surpass.

Look at this example. I was checking out the Wikipedia article on actress Elizabeth Banks because I couldn’t remember if she played Laura Bush in W. or not (she did.) At the top of the article read the following statement:

This article is about the actress. For the other person named Elizabeth Banks, see Elizabeth Banks (journalist).

Take a moment to think about that. In this entire world, there has only been one other person of note with the name “Elizabeth Banks.” I say that with confidence because I trust Wikipedia to contain every person and event of note; considering that contributors have time to write articles like this list of every “gym leader” in one part of the Pokemon world and a comparison of those leaders’ actions in their game, anime, and manga formats, I’d say they’ve covered the important stuff already (for the record, the Pokemon entry is longer than the entries on World Peace and Osama Bin Laden combined.)

So who the f*** is Elizabeth Banks (journalist)^{[citation needed]}? She was apparently a “fiery red head,” born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1872. She went on to become a journalist known for going undercover and writing about the plight of the lower class, and later went on to make, “major contributions to British Intelligence in developing strategies to help protect London from German aerial attacks.” She also lived at 17 Downing Street in London, which happens to be (as those of you paying attention know) down the street from the British Prime Minister. To say the least, this lady was important.

And yet, if you go to the Elizabeth Banks page on Wikipedia, you get a chick who was in a movie about making a porno for money (and a couple of other movies that vary on the same theme.)

You might think I’m a puritanical idiot, who doesn’t like to have fun or go outside. But if so, you don’t get my point.

I love Los Angeles. Living in this city is an experience that you couldn’t ever recreate, even with $300 million dollars, a studio lot, and a lot of drugs. Even though our prime export is shallowness and mediocrity, every once in a while you find someone who’s so awesome that you remember why you live in a city that has huge earthquakes and landslides every so often just for fun. That’s why Los Angeles is freaking sweet.

If you still disagree with me, let me leave you with this. There are people out there who compare LA unfavorably to Sodom and Gomorrah, although even Sodom had the occasional sane person wandering around. Rather than fight this image, the city has embraced it. As anyone in the city will tell you, it has been RAINING ASH for the past week. My city is on fire- therefore it is more awesome than yours. QED.

Photo Source: LA Times