I read this story and the only thing that came to mind was......THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE HAS BEGUN!!!!!
Are you ready?!
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place. It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats. Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts. This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now. But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...” Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us. But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay. We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement. When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck. For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that… What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have. In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe. We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that. We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world. |
| The largest organization of U.S. Catholic nuns on Friday rejected a Vatican assessment that they had fallen under the sway of radical feminism and needed to hand control of their group over to a trio of bishops. Tensions between U.S. nuns and church authorities, both in Rome and in the United States, have been simmering for decades as nuns have taken an increasingly independent and outspoken role in politics and social outreach. The Leadership Conference has aired frank discussions of issues that deeply discomfit the Vatican, from ministry to gays and lesbians to the patriarchy of church culture. Some nuns have made public calls for the church to relax its stance against contraception; others have worked to ordain women as priests, in ceremonies the Vatican does not recognize as valid. The Vatican also complained that the nuns have focused attention on social justice issues, such as poverty, and have not spent enough time promoting the church's view on divisive political questions such as abortion and gay marriage. To bring the sisters into line, the Vatican announced earlier this spring that it would put the Leadership Conference under the effective control of three bishops, who would have the power to rewrite its statutes, its meeting agendas and even its liturgical texts. |
| Ron Paul, mobilizing both young and old with his message of liberty tempered by personal responsibility, and government power tempered by accountability, has already won far more than the election. He has won the trust and the imagination of the people, Rocky Balboa-style. Consider the issue of the Federal Reserve, where Dr. Paul has been an outspoken critic of the Fed’s policies for years. When Paul proposed a bill to audit the Federal Reserve in 1983, he had not a single Republican or Democrat who was willing to co-sponsor the measure. When he reintroduced it in 2011, every Republican and several Democrats in the House signed onto Paul’s bill. Almost every Republican candidate vying for the nomination this year supported a full independent audit of the Federal Reserve, and many demanded that Chairman Bernanke be fired. Paul’s views on the Federal Reserve are no longer outside the mainstream. According to a survey published by Bloomberg in 2010, most Americans believe that the Fed should be severely reigned in or altogether abolished. These numbers are probably higher in 2012 considering that Fed policies have not pulled us out recession. Some Republicans like Ron Paul’s ideas when it comes to issues that are economic, but most haven’t completely embraced his views on foreign policy. Despite GOP objections, most of the American people and American troops agree that it is time for the United States to stop policing the world and engaging in nation building missions. Several polls have shown that more than half of the American people agree that it is time for the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan. Further, according to a poll conducted by CBS, one in three U.S. veterans of the post-9/11 conflicts believe that America’s presence overseas and the wars America is currently fighting are no longer worth the cost. This probably explains why Paul receives more campaign contributions from members of our military than Obama or Romney. Republicans are beginning to slowly come around to Paul’s view of foreign policy. This was evident when many conservatives stood with the Congressman in opposing the Libyan conflict overseas. Paul’s adherence to Austrian economics is also meeting with greater acceptance in mainstream America. This theory of economics, once unknown and obscure, is now beginning to receive interest and respect. In fact, Austrian economist F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” was recently on the bestsellers list. Likewise, we now hear stories of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann reading Ludwig Von Mises’ “Human Action” on the beach and young people all across the nation reading the writings of authors who adhere to the Austrian school, such as Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Thomas E. Woods, Charles Goyette, and many others. Every day, more people are coming around to Ron Paul’s way of thinking. Paul’s message continues to attract and inspire many young people, challenging them to question their government and to change the status quo. These leaders of tomorrow will take the ideas that Paul espouses and inject them into their respective professions, be they academia, politics, business, law, health, or other. This timeline will ensure that Paul’s ideals will continue to enter into the mainstream long after Paul’s campaign for the presidency ends. Ron Paul may or may not win the Republican nomination, but he has won the battle of ideas. Many are moving in Paul’s direction, and that is a victory larger than winning the Republican nomination. |
In February 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration's Justice Department had determined that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and, as a result, the administration would no longer argue in support of the act's constitutionality in court. Paul issued a statement to Iowa Republicans criticizing the Obama administration's position, saying: "Like the majority of Iowans, I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected. I supported the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’ constitutional authority to define what other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a same sex marriage license issued in another state." |