What ever happened to hitch-hiking? The eco-friendly mode of transportation made so popular by books and movies a generation ago seems to have faded out of our society. People who once stopped to pick up roadside travelers now speed past and many who grew up riding around via their thumbs wouldn’t dare travel that way anymore. This change in habits seems to stem from a greater sense of fear – both of those wandering alongside the road and those in the driver seats.

Why is it now no longer safe to pick up strangers in the car? Was society blissfully naïve in decades past or has have people actually become more dangerous? Neither answer seems to make much sense, but if people haven’t changed, our perspectives surely have.

This past week England’s Prince William announced his engagement to long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton. There was no shortage of press coverage of the event, and the deluge of “news” stories surrounding the change in relationship status drowned out many other events of the day such as a rare Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House.

This intense coverage prompts one to wonder why we seem to be so obsessed.

It might be understandable if the duties of the future queen would be more then ceremonial. But for a woman who will be merely a spouse of a figure head the severe scrutiny seems unneeded. Does this tendency to fixate on the young couple come from affection for celebrity or something more? Did centuries of political rule engrain an affinity for royalty, however symbolic?

A recent study published in Britain documents the 20 most harmful drugs in the country. Ranking first, well above all others, was alcohol. Its score, out of a possible 100, was 72. The next highest in terms of harmful (as measured by 16 considerations of harm to the user and to wider society including “damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime”) was heroin with a rating of 55 and crack cocaine with a rating of 54.

Clearly, alcohol can be an incredibly dangerous and harmful substance. Many commentators have since raised concerns reminiscent of the 1920s prohibition movement. However the study also supports a different question of legalization: if heroin and crack cocaine are only ¾ as harmful as alcohol, why are they not legal for adults as well?

As students begin to consider after graduation plans in a still shaky economic climate, the promise of two year job security with a decent salary is an attractive prospect.

Tens of thousands of graduating seniors apply each year for the program Teach for America, whose deadline was this week. The number of applicants for the competitive program, which places individuals as teachers for two years in high needs districts around the country, increased by 32 percent from 2009. Harvard reports a full 18 percent of its graduating class applied to work as teachers for two years.

Teach for America touts its method of teaching teachers as instrumental to the school’s success. Yet with the program now more competitive than some Ivy League law schools, one wonders if it is simply the teachers themselves who have made the program so exceptional.

I like the band Straylight Run. They know how to take a clique and turn it into a beautiful lyric. So when they sing about actions, “like cutting off your nose despite your face,” I don’t automatically write it off as an uncreative line.

In fact, at this time of year, cutting off my nose despite my face is exactly what I’d like to do. Regardless of the beauty of the changing colors, my sinuses, particularly my nose protests the changes of pressure and temperature so much I sometimes think I’d give up every good smell in the world to not have the pain. Yet then I remember my sage musical companions.

Straylight Run decries such nose –cutting. So it is with their support I ask fellow sinus suffers to (and I paraphrase) “keep holding on, it will be better when it’s done.”

One by one they are falling. After growing and living side by side their entire lives, slowly they slip away to meet their final fate alone. Everyone sees yet no one notices. These deaths are expected and normal; only if they kept living would passersby be surprised. Even though they were admired in life, their beauty in death exceeds their entire prior splendor. Their deaths are neither feared nor grieved; their lives are celebrated and their ends accepted as part of a beautiful natural cycle.

This season’s falling leaves provide not only a gorgeous backdrop to our lives but insight about the end of them.

Facebook has come out with the latest and greatest way to know all about everyone else’s business. The Groups function debuted earlier this week. It’s not a new idea, but rather a recapitulation of some of the strengths of Google and Microsoft.

If you’ve ever used Google docs, you’re familiar with the ease of having only one master copy for a group project. My history class made a single study guide online that everyone edited and added to. Likewise, different group applications make disseminating information, like a soccer schedule, incredibly easy.

Yet it seems somewhat ironic that a tool so productive has now come to one of the best modes of procrastination in the world. We’re left to wonder where to draw the line between doing real work with real people and filling our lives even more with the stuff of those we do not really know.

Student government is a tricky business. As in any leadership organization, there are always issues of finances and personnel.
But student government leaders have unique opportunities to shape the direction of their university as well.

At a recent SGA meeting, an administration official came hat in hand offering to talk about diversity on campus and the ways in which UD could change. He was announced in advance and student leaders were asked to prepare questions in order to have a forthright discussion about important issues of education such as affirmative action and pay discrepancies. However this important conversation failed to materialize. While there was plenty of spirited debate that evening, the topic was Greek Life funding, not the composition of our campus. The unprofessionalism that appeared was not spurred by passion about what it means to be educated, but rather based in what seemed to be simply personal disagreements.

It seems hard to believe that what really makes our leaders passionate is the allocation of funds. Are the abstract ideas of identity and education merely much harder to fathom than issues of finances and friendship?

Rain has finally come to Dayton. And with it arrived the opportunity to do something daring and dangerous, cavalier and carefree.

I am of course referring to the artful act of puddle jumping.

The dreary downpour of late has created many puddles and thus many opportunities. Splashing into a puddle reminds us to take ourselves less seriously; just as getting wet doesn’t make us melt, neither do occasional bad hair days or poor test grades end our college careers. Life is an adventure with opportunities to be missed by always doing only the expected. Pull on your rain boots or roll up your pants and jump in!

As we have blustered past the autumnal equinox with temperatures still well above a customary 70 or so, one hears more and more the phrase “Indian summer.”  But what does that really mean?

Folk lore references the days when Indians attacked the colonists late into the fall months, thanks to the warm and clear days. If we’re going to name the meteorological phenomenon for an attack made possible by the warm weather, then it’s definitely time for a name change. And for this campus? I propose “sprinkler summer.”

As long as the heat keeps drying out the grass, the sprinklers will keep soaking out the students and staff.