Everyone hates Barbie. Is it because she’s tall, leggy and disproportionately well-endowed? Or is it because her lashes are permanently curled to perfection and is always matched up with the incredibly good looking Ken? Banish the biatch from shelves for good (or at least hide them behind a bunch of much uglier toys). Do what you gotta do, Iran—this pernicious piece of Western culture is eroding morality codes everywhere!

Read More »

I’ll never forget the first footage I saw of the uprising in Egypt last winter – Tahrir Square full of people shouting, chanting, and waving Egyptian flags. As the Arab Spring movement continues to grow, we are witnessing a revolution. But watching a revolution from afar is strange – it’s exciting, scary, and confusing all at the same time.

Recently, I had the chance to interview Lara Setrakian, a foreign correspondent for Bloomberg Television and ABC News. Lara is a young American journalist based in Dubai, but travels back and forth to the United States frequently. She has come to be regarded as an authority on the political situation in the Middle East, and reported live from Tahrir Square earlier this year as the rule of President Hosni Mubarak came to an end. Who better to provide a little perspective on these events than someone who has seen them firsthand? Read on for my interview with this incredibly inspiring and driven lady!

Read More »

If you’ve been on the internet at some point since Tuesday night (and if you’re reading this, then yes, I’m talking to you), then you’ve probably read one headline or another about the Iowa Caucus, which was one of the first “races” for the Republican presidential candidates. It’s usually supposed to be an accurate early indicator for who will win a political party’s nomination, but what happens when over 120,000 votes are tallied and a candidate leads by only eight votes? Should we even care about these caucuses at all?

Read More »

As an overworked college student, it can be hard to pay attention to the off-campus world.  You are struggling to keep up with your courseload and you’re expected to keep up with international developments too? It is tempting to retreat to the library, glue your nose to a textbook and forget about world issues.

However, if you neglect to keep up with the news, you are missing out on a crucial component of your education. Professors don’t want you to read Aristophanes and learn economics so that you can quote the Lysistrata and draw models, what you learn in class is supposed to shed light on real issues. How can you see the comparisons between old and new, theoretical and actual, if you don’t know what is going on around you?

Read More »

I love discovering new music, so going to concerts is one of my favorite ways to spend a weeknight (when I should probably be studying instead). That’s why missing concerts simply because I didn’t hear about them until too late is one of my biggest pet peeves.

But I’ve recently come across a new site that ensures I won’t ever miss another show: SuperGlued. SuperGlued features a concert calendar, so you can browse upcoming shows in your area, and also notifies you of upcoming concerts you might want to attend.

Upcoming concert alerts aren’t all that SuperGlued has to offer, however. The site also links to all your existing social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr and Instagram. You can easily check in, share tweets, pictures and videos of concerts you’ve gone to — making it easy to connect with fellow concertgoers, and maybe even find a new concert buddy! The site also imports your top 100 favorite artists from your last.fm account and lets you know when they’re playing a show in your area. Read More »

Cities across England turned dangerous as violent riots, spurred by the death of a black man by police, spread throughout the country. Mobs took over the streets, setting buildings and cars on fire, shattering windows, and looting stores. Things were particularly bad in London, where the Prime Minister sent 16,000 policemen on Tuesday to calm things down. It worked- the worst is over- but the cost of clean up is estimated to be in the tens of millions. Even though the riots began because of one man’s death, the social and economic inequality may have been what really heated things up. That’s an issue pretty familiar to those living in the U.S., and now, many are wondering, could the same thing happen in the states? Read More »

[There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, Facebook…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there (like BlogLovin, Any New Books? and When Parents Text) and more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.]

Our lives as college students can get pretty busy — we balance tons of different activities such as multiple classes, extracurriculars, homework, studying, part-time jobs, internships and social lives (and our parents wonder why we aren’t getting enough sleep?).

We’re so busy that we don’t always have time to watch the nightly news or read CNN.com. But if you’re anything like me, you still want to be informed about current events and news (besides what you get from your Twitter and Facebook feeds) — because there’s nothing worse than having someone ask you what you think about the situation in the Middle East, the latest reason Lindsay Lohan is in jail, or the amazing ending of last night’s big game and have no idea what they’re talking about.

Thank God for the geniuses at College Daybreak! Read More »

Photo courtesy of Jezebel.com

Is it still pro-life when the legislation isn’t actually supporting life?

That’s what our friends over at Feministing are asking as they discuss a proposed law in South Dakota that would expand the definition of  ”justifiable murder” to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus. Who would that include exactly, you ask?  That might be the doctor willing to perform the abortion or maybe even the woman that wants to have the abortion, herself.

Does anyone else find that just the slightest bit contradictory? It’s one thing to oppose abortion. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It’s something else entirely to legalize and justify the killing of a man or woman willing to perform an abortion. It’s extreme, irrational and just a little bit absurd.

As of now the bill has passed out of a committee with a nine to three vote and is expected to face a floor vote soon.

Click here to read all about what  Feministing is calling “anti-choice legislation taken to it’s extreme,” then share your thoughts/feelings/concerns below.

If I was taught anything in my high school etiquette class (true story) besides which fork to use for which course, I was taught that there are two subjects you should never bring up: religion and politics. And since I’m still a little fuzzy on the whole spoon thing I figure why not break another one of those rules.

Let’s talk about politics, ladies.

Or maybe something slightly more relevant to us: politicians and their children.

The daughters of today’s politicians always seem to have their own agendas; messages they want to spread, campaigns they want to share, insider accounts of the campaign trail. It’s like because we’ve elected their parents (or rather because their parents want us to elect them) it automatically gives them the right to speak out on a whole bunch of issues they may or may not know anything about.

And I’m not sure exactly where I stand on this whole thing. Because while I know I could really do without ever hearing about Megan McCain’s “blogette” or reading Dirty, Sexy, Politics, some politicians’ daughter might actually be worth listening to.

Well…not this one.

Read More »

Over 120 mobsters were arrested on Thursday in New York City’s biggest Mafia bust in history. If you thought the Mafia was just for the movies or Facebook games, well that’s what they wanted you to think. The gangsters were charged with various accounts of murder, extortion and narcotics trafficking. And, yes, of course, prosecuting the mobsters for the crimes they commit is serious business, but it’s hard not to laugh at the nicknames of some of the men who have been arrested. I can’t really imagine Jello, Vinny Carwash, Marbles, Johnny Lollipop, Lumpy, the Professor, or Tony Bagels being too intimidating, but hey, maybe that was part of their strategy.

Read More »