Author: Lauren Buckley

Justin Marinelli

Staff Writer

While I don’t know if I can speak for every male when it comes to handling relationships and the drama that comes with them, I do have a fairly solid idea of how I (mis)manage them.

The question posed to me is: “Do you need to talk and discuss feelings?” Well, as always, the answer depends. If the issue is something out of the control of both you and your partner and it would only hurt the other person when brought up, then it’s probably not necessary. For example, if your partner has a really annoying laugh, don’t talk about it. Just try not to be too funny.

The usual reason given in favor of always discussing feelings is avoiding the building up of any resentment from suppressed negative feelings about your partner. While this is solid advice, you also have to take your own personality into account. Are you a chill person who doesn’t worry too much about little things? Then you can perhaps avoid having these discussions over trivial quirks, like said annoying laughter. For larger matters (say, your partner’s parents hate you), discussion might be necessary.

Sadly, these discussions don’t always go as planned and fights can break out. Within these fights, there is usually a similar pattern. The female-identified person will usually end up linking this fight to other similar ones. The male-identified person will usually assume he is being blamed and react defensively. From there, the fight will either burn itself out or nothing will be resolved and feelings will simmer.

There seems to be a bit of a gender divide here when it comes to how to handle these simmering feelings of resentment. People who identify as female tend to want to talk to their friends and be reminded that there are people who love and appreciate them. People who identify as male tend to go off to be alone and play video games or punch things, and want to be reminded that they have power over the things in their personal space.

We all obviously want to avoid these situations. While I can’t give advice for all situations, in my experience, this is what tends to be the case. Males still like to have their independence and sense of self in relationships and want their partner to respect them and support them in that end. Females tend to want to feel loved and appreciated and know that their partner is thinking of them.

I’m not a relationship counselor, nor do you have any reason to take my advice whatsoever. But I’ve been in a fair number of relationships, and I understand pretty well how people work. If you disagree with me, there’s no need to start a fight over it.

Sarah Morris

Staff Writer

Does anybody actually talk in person anymore these days? I mean actually talk, not scream into each other’s ears in the back of some dark and damp frat house, with the music blaring, not really listening to the words and just sort of wishing the person would shut up, kiss you or leave you alone. Things can get difficult here in “the Bubble” when it comes to romantic issues between you and your loved one.

To start thinking about how girls and boys react when it comes to fighting with their significant others, I collected data from a short, personal survey which concluded in the following unanimous results: it all depends on the person. I actually did ask several of my friends from both sexes, and each of them said something along the lines of this: “Well, girls are more emotional so they always want to talk about everything … guys never want to talk about anything ever.”

Quickly though, each person began to sort of mutter about how they had met people who fell on both sides of the emotional seesaw and renounced their previous answer in exchange for the far simpler explanation that “it all depends on the person.” But I think the real problems arise when you don’t know what kind of person your partner is. If you’re the type of person who likes to talk about things, it’s probably in your best interest to try and get whatever the issue is off of your chest so that you’re not holding onto resentment. However, you can’t be disappointed if your partner chooses to only listen to what you have to say.

If you’re feeling a bit disconnected from your partner when it comes to communication, just remember what DHT said in their hit song: “Listen to your heart, when he’s calling for you. Listen to your heart. There’s nothing else you can do.” It’s all about understanding where your partner is coming from and what he or she may be feeling. I know it is difficult to read somebody’s feelings based solely on the emojis he or she sends, so if the going gets rough, don’t be scared to meet your partner in person and use the power of body language to get you through your troubles. You may want your lover to be the strong and silent type, but sometimes conversation is unavoidable when it comes to serious issues.

Riley Schwengel

Writer

Perhaps the most memorable and hardest part of high school was the dominating cliques that controlled the social environment. I can’t speak for everyone, but at my high school, the kids were organized into labeled groups in school. There were the obvious stereotypes everyone sees in a teen movie: the jocks, the hot girls, the music kids, the art kids, the burnouts, the geeks and any other types that come to mind when thinking about high school.

While I was preparing for my first year of college, I wondered if those cliques would follow me to campus or whether I would have the same type of friends as I did the previous four years. It turns out that cliques somewhat followed me, and I do have similar friends. I realize now that people naturally gravitate toward other people who are similar to them. We enjoy the company of others that share our beliefs, hobbies or interests because we have things to talk about and share together. People who are dissimilar to us can be fun to hang out with once in a while, but for the most part, we enjoy the comfort of our group of familiar friends.

When I started school, I immediately found a group of people who had similar personalities to my own, and I spent most of my time with them. I felt comfortable in their presence, just as they did in mine, so I had no problem having very similar friends. When I entered the fraternity system, I naturally chose an organization whose members shared interests and made the best impression on me. I often hear people complaining that they don’t know enough people or don’t hang out with a diverse enough crowd, but I think that’s a good thing in some aspects. It’s nice to have a small, tight-knit group of friends that feels almost like a family rather than a large group of friends that you may not know all as well.

I do feel that the clique system in college is much more harmless than the one many people may have struggled with in high school. Even though there are cliques here, there is a lot more intermingling that occurs between groups. I have my core group of friends, but I’ve met a lot of great characters and different personalities that I enjoy seeing around campus and bumping into at parties and social events. This variety lets us keep the comfort of being part of a group without making us feel trapped in cliques we align ourselves with. Talking to someone with different opinions and views on life can be a refreshing change when you start to feel trapped within your clique.

It’s silly to criticize the idea of cliques as long as the hierarchy or variation exists properly. Cliques get bad raps because of the high school stereotypes, in which the groups are very exaggerated and segregated. In college, you are allowed to surround yourself with familiar friends while still feeling part of a bigger and more diverse community.

El McCabe
Writer

Do you ever feel overwhelmed, exhausted and/or hopeless when thinking about the seemingly never-ending stack of things you need to do? If you answered yes to any of these, you are most likely stressed out by everything on your plate. Stress is inevitable at a place like the University, with such rigorous academics and countless time-consuming activities, clubs and organizations to join, but stressing constantly is extremely unhealthy. Constant stress is proven to shorten life spans and lessen the enjoyment you get out of participating in even your favorite activities. The reason is because if you over-schedule yourself or leave everything to the last minute, you will not be able to enjoy the fun aspects of college and dread all the work that needs to be completed. Fortunately for you, there are some simple solutions that can dramatically reduce your stress levels and help you manage college life effectively.

One of the most successful stress managing tactics I have found is creating a plan for each day. Every day, I look over my schedule of things that I have to do (classes, school work, my job), and then figure out exactly when I am going to eat, take a nap, go to the gym or go to my various club meetings. The key to this strategy is being flexible since plans change and you never know when a friend might stop by asking for advice or to just hang out. However, if you follow your schedule for getting your work done, these unexpected circumstances will not allow you to put everything off to the last minute.

Also, in order to motivate myself to get my work done quickly and efficiently, I provide myself with rewards after completing assignments or studying. Having motivation to finish your work earlier than the night before does wonders for your sleep cycle and stress levels. Try this strategy next time you have three papers due on a Friday: allow yourself a cookie or two in the caf after writing a page. Setting small goals for yourself makes all the work you have seem much more manageable and promotes a sense of accomplishment.

Finally, taking ample study breaks is crucial in relieving stress. Staring at a computer screen and typing paper after paper can be emotionally exhausting, but breaking up homework and relaxing after completing an assignment will allow for a clear head later on. Working out is one of the best study breaks you can take because the endorphins wake up your brain, and exercise is proven to relieve stress. Even taking a walk around campus or taking a power nap works as a stress reliever. Stopping in the middle of your work may seem counter-productive, but it actually saves you time and stress in the grand scheme of things. As long as you do not pile too many extra-curricular activities on your plate, those activities can also count as study breaks that you can look forward to on a day to day basis.

Justin Marinelli
Staff Writer

It’s well known that among most University students, there exists a certain political apathy. Many would also consider there to be a religious apathy as well, but I’m not so sure about this.

First off, look at the number of religious groups on campus. There are organizations like the Catholic Campus Ministry and the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship organization, not to mention Hillel, the Muslim Student Association and countless other groups predicated on religion. If students were really so religiously apathetic, there wouldn’t be nearly this many religious organizations on campus.

Sure, there’s a fair number of people who consider themselves atheists, agnostics or nonreligious in various ways. Yes, I do have friends in the Bucknell Atheists and Agnostics Association, but I have friends who consider their religion to be a key part of their identity, and I’m friends with at least one individual with such a strict religious upbringing that he was once quoted as saying, “Blow jobs are the Devil’s work.”

It’s easy enough to say that University students in general are especially nonreligious, but it seems more likely that we’re just as religious as young people in general, a demographic that tends to be less religious than older ones. If you compare us with our peers, it seems we’re pretty much in the middle of the pack.

I know people my age who are incredibly zealous when it comes to religion. I have a cousin who is majoring in church music at a university that forbids kissing and teaches that evolution is a sham. If anyone had a right to bemoan a lack of religion on this campus, it would be me.

The fact of the matter is, it’s not the amount of religion on campus that’s lacking, but the variety. We’ve got the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), and that’s essentially it. I can count on one hand the people I know on campus with a religion that’s not one of those three.

Now, part of this is just societal context. We just happen to live in a country in which the most common religion is Christianity. However, the U.S. has almost always had a broad diversity of religious ideas. This isn’t a sufficient explanation.

In a way, this religious homogeneity is really just a symptom of the fact that the University just isn’t a very diverse place. If we want to make this an even more interesting place, it will require increasing diversity on campus overall, not just in regard to religion.

John Coleman & Kamran Khan
Contributing Writers

During the first presidential debate, Barack Obama did not live up to the expectations of his supporters. Unfortunately, he was not prepared to defend himself against Mitt Romney’s ever-changing policies.

Recently, Romney has been attempting to appeal to centrist voters, so he has been changing his position on key issues, tending to lean less to the right than he has in the past.

During the second debate, however, Obama was on top of his political game. He pounced on Romney, eager to call Romney out on his fickle stances. Obama was significantly more confident this time around, calling Romney out for opposing the Affordable Care Act since Romney previously supported a similar bill as governor of Massachusetts.

When asked to provide specifics about how his plan to reduce the nation’s deficit is mathematically sound, Romney had no answer. The ideas that Romney and Paul Ryan propose just don’t make sense.

Throughout the whole campaign, Romney and Ryan have been protecting fat-cat businessman such as the Koch Brothers, who have been giving Romney millions of dollars to protect their personal interests. If Obama is elected, then their selfish lifestyles are immediately threatened.

Another issue of contention for the election has been reducing the federal deficit. Obama wants to increases taxes for the wealthiest one percent of Americans to 40 percent in order to reduce the deficit. He also wants to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire, which will bring in another $800 million over the next few years. He also wants to close loopholes for billionaires and big businesses, such as Exxon Mobile, that don’t need government subsidies to thrive.

Even still, all of these policies combined will not balance the budget because of the state of the economy. Looking back at Bush’s presidency, we see that Bush came into power during a surplus, but when he left office, the U.S. was in over $10 trillion dollars of debt. Where was this balanced budget approach when Bush was waging an unjust war on Iraq? That war alone cost the United States millions of dollars and instead of using taxes to fund this war, Bush put the tab on a “credit card” that Americans are forced to pay in the future.

Another hot-topic issue in this election is the economy. How can it be fixed? Obama has created five million jobs with his policies over the last four years, and has made the tough decision to bail out the automotive industry which has created over 800,000 jobs. Romney refuted this idea and wanted to let Detroit go bankrupt.

Obama also detailed the production of oil, saying that production has doubled in the last 30 years. Natural gas is being produced on public lands at its highest rate. The United States has also been investing in green energy in an attempt to liberate the United States from dependencies on other countries, which would ultimately lower gas prices.

Obama believes that America needs an educated work force to progress. He believes there is a wealth of opportunity to create jobs in STEM fields if citizens are educated in math and science. He has increased Pell Grants and lowered the interest rates on student loans to make it affordable for students to attend college. Romney wants to cut out Pell Grants and other education spending in order to balance the federal budget.

As far as foreign policy, Obama ended the war in Iraq, supervised the killing of Osama Bin Laden, weakened al-Qaida and helped bring democracy and peace to Arab nations. Obama has a strong commitment to peace and security for Israel, as shown by the tough sanctions he implemented to weaken Iran’s currency. Recently sparked protests in Iran are proof that Obama’s sanctions are working. Obama has made the United States safer and more respectable in the eyes of the world because of how he has made strengthened relationships with allies in the world.

Obama has demonstrated success and plans for improvement in the economy, the federal deficit and foreign policy, proving that he is the superior presidential candidate. While you can argue against his policies, you cannot claim that he did not deliver on keeping America safer and stronger; he is a man of his word.

Joe Selvaggio and Josh Cohen
Contributing Writers

The first presidential debate of the 2012 campaign took place Oct. 3 at the University of Denver in Denver, Colo. It is clear that the challenger, Mitt Romney, came away besting the incumbent president, Barack Obama. An Oct. 4-5, Gallup poll revealed that
those who viewed the debate overwhelmingly believe Romney did a better job than Obama, 72 percent to 20 percent. Sources from both the left and the right agree that Obama’s performance lacked preparedness and presidential gravitas, while Romney appeared more confident, more capable and better equipped for the debate.

Throughout the debate, Romney pressed Obama hard on a multitude of critical domestic policy issues.

On energy, Romney discussed his goal of becoming energy independent by focusing on harnessing untapped domestic energy sources, such as oil and natural gas. He criticized Obama’s energy policy, highlighting regulatory suffocation, such as the drastic reduction in drilling permits, and the $90 billion of wasted investments in the president’s green-energy agenda.

Romney’s ability to command the stage carried on into the discussion about jobs, where he focused on the importance of allowing the private sector to create new jobs by reducing individual tax rates, which are being paid by 54 percent of small businesses that currently employ over half of all private sector employees. He also plans to eliminate incentive-distorting tax deductions for both individuals and corporations, many of which were inserted into the tax code over the years as sweetheart deals for supporters of politicians of both parties. Many of these tax deductions simply lead to suboptimal resource allocations, as individuals and corporations respond to tax incentives instead of market price signals. In addition to the micro-economic benefits of shifting from tax preferences to lower marginal tax rates, Romney points to the macro-economic benefit of lower marginal tax rates, which incentivize increased employment of labor and capital leading to economic growth and increased tax revenues.

Romney argued that the president’s current plan will only do more to stifle the job market, based in part on the abysmal record that Obama tallied in his first term. Obama sold his 2009 stimulus plan to a naïve Congress, based largely on a promise that the unemployment rate would not rise above 8 percent, if the plan were to be approved, and that by September 2012 the unemployment rate would be no higher than 5.6 percent. Of course, the actual unemployment rate peaked at 10 percent in 2009 despite passage of the stimulus bill. The actual announced unemployment rate in September 2012 was a whopping 7.8 percent, and if it weren’t for discouraged workers leaving the labor force since Obama took office, the rate reported in September would have been 10.7 percent.

The vaunted “job growth” of the president and his surrogates during the exceptionally weak recovery of his term has been insufficient to keep pace with the growth of the population of working-age Americans. Romney stayed true to his campaign’s message throughout the course of the debate. He championed small government, while slamming the president on his reckless deficit spending and amassing of a huge national debt. He was able to voice his opinion decidedly against Obamacare and the individual mandates that it brings, while maintaining that healthcare reform would be a priority of a Romney administration.

Besides displaying a clear understanding of key domestic policy issues, Romney was finally able to show his presidential poise. For the first time since campaigning began, he stood toe-to-toe on the same stage as the president of the United States and debated as no less than an equal, coming away as the victor. Thus far, election polls have shifted dramatically across the board as the second debate approaches. It will be interesting to see how Obama responds to the challenge of being behind 0-1 in the debates and behind in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. It has yet to be seen if Obama has the ability to climb out of the shadow cast by Romney.

Justin Marinelli
Staff Writer

One of the most annoying moral dilemmas is when you have the opportunity to hook up with a friend’s ex. On one hand, the urge to satisfy your animalistic desires runs strong. On the other, you don’t want to induce any possible tension between you and your friend (even if you think that what you do is none of your friend’s business).

Granted, some rules exist to help you navigate such a situation, but relying on phrases like “bros before hoes” hardly provides a solution to all situations you could find yourself in. What we need is a definite line to be drawn that cannot be crossed. Allow me to set that line.

Many would consider a time limit to be a reasonable thing to gauge appropriateness of the situation. After all, getting into a relationship with a friend’s ex two years later is far more reasonable than waiting two weeks, right? I disagree. Time isn’t the issue; it’s whether your friend is over the person you’re interested in or not.

More specifically, whether your friend is over their ex dictates exactly what action you can take. If they’re really over their ex, there’s no problem whatsoever, even if it’s just been a day or so since the break-up. If they aren’t, things get tricky. Most people would argue that pursuing someone at such a time is a completely unacceptable action. I’m a bit more lenient in my view. While many consider it a mark of disrespect for your friend to date or hook up with their ex, especially if he or she isn’t over them, there is no good reason for this to be so. Still, you want to keep your friend happy, so it makes perfect sense to not let him or her find out if you’re doing anything behind their back.

Am I condoning going behind your friend’s back to get with their ex? Only if you don’t let them find out about it. It’s none of your friend’s business what you decide to do with another person, but if your friend would be hurt by your actions, then it would be a good idea to be discreet. No need to upset him or her needlessly.

Now, would it be more ethical to completely avoid dating or hooking any of your friends’ exes? Absolutely. However, what is acceptable doesn’t have to be the height of morality. As they say, all’s fair in love in war.

El McCabe
Writer

Negativity is a popular theme in society today. Everywhere you turn, there are news stories about traumatic events, natural disasters and even which celebrity couple recently split. For some reason, negative stories catch people’s attention, sell magazines and newspapers, and fill up time on news blocks. However, what publishing, campaigning and other companies fail to realize is that constantly immersing yourself in negativity has dangerous potential to trickle down into all aspects of your life, such as social and political involvement.

This preoccupation with negativity is a salient issue this year with the November election quickly approaching. Election strategies over the last few decades have been centered on “digging up dirt” on the opponent rather than on the actual issues–a fact turning many voters away from the polls altogether. For example, if a candidate is caught having an affair, many voters who do not respect cheaters will change their votes to his opponent or decide not to vote at all. Candidates are human beings that make mistakes like everyone else, and going back and forth ragging on one another will only create negative perceptions about the political process and voting.

Politics and the election process should be about choosing the candidate that is going to look out for the best interests of the people, not about who has the cleanest record. Just because a presidential candidate has made mistakes in his/her personal life, does not mean that he or she would make a bad president. Likewise, those with clean records may have just gotten lucky and not been caught, and due to these variables I firmly believe that the private spheres and public spheres of these candidates’ lives should be kept separate.

Unfortunately, negative publicity has already started turning the tide of the election this year and has swayed the opinions of many voters. During the process of choosing the Republican candidate for the 2012 election, many of the prospective candidates turned against each other to win the primary. This forced Republicans to choose the “least worst” of the candidates in the negative light they were portrayed in and has caused many Republicans to dislike all the options for the presidency.

Now, although it is inevitable that these politicians will continue to duke it out until November, we as voters still have the power and time to change the outcome of the election. Choosing a president blindly and out of bias will only hurt our country in the end, and we need to look past the negative. I understand it may be difficult to avoid feeling hopeless with so much negativity everywhere, but it is crucial to remember that no one is perfect and to vote along the lines of who will improve society.

Justin Marinelli
Staff Writer

We live in the most connected and communicative time in history. We have the capability to communicate with essentially anyone we’ve met across the course of our lives. Why don’t we? Remember your high school graduation, when you totally told all of your friends that you’d stay in touch? If you don’t remember, trust me, you did. How many do you actually keep in touch with?

I certainly remember believing I’d keep in touch with my high school friends a lot more than I’ve ended up doing. It actually fascinates me that this happened. I suppose somewhere along the line I got caught up in my new life at college, and it took me until now to do some introspection.

At any moment, I could get on Facebook and send a message to essentially any of my high school friends that I promised to stay in contact with. Yet, I don’t. I keep in touch with only about two or three of my old friends. Not because those were the only people I really cared about, but just because that’s how things ended up.

At the end of the day, a fair number of my friendships have faded because of a lack of contact, but not all of them have suffered that fate. While most friendships will get weaker with a lack of contact, some connections run too deep to fade. While this isn’t true for the overwhelming majority of friendships (I can count on only one hand how many people I have this relationship with), those few I have would have carried on just the same, even if we didn’t have the option to keep in touch through technological means.

In a way, I suppose you could say not keeping in touch is the best way to find out who you really feel a close connection with. Still, applying acid tests like this to find out this information is a bit of a harsh way to treat your friends. At the end of the day, fostering relationships takes work, even if it’s just a relationship between two friends. We have the opportunities and the tools we need to keep in touch with old friends. It would be quite a shame not to use them. Here’s my challenge to you this week: get in touch with an old friend you haven’t talked to in years this weekend. Catch up, rekindle the friendship and remember how things used to be. I know I’ll be doing that.