Conservative Rumblings

“The Happening” seemed like a good premise: according to the trailers, it seemed that some sort of mystical ailment and/or attack was going to cause people to begin killing themselves. It sounds like the ultimate psychological thriller. How do you protect yourself from yourself? When M. Night Shyamalan’s name is on the credits, something twisted is expected, and as a fan of his movies, I looked forward to the release of his latest thriller and was probably biased to give it a good review.

However, twenty worthless plot twists and fifty dead minor characters later, I’m pretty sure someone was physically restraining me from attacking the screen.

The bottom line: the movie had 100 good starts, and maybe two good finishes. It felt like Shyamalan was writing and shooting the movie at the same time, in a linear pattern; he wrote in good stuff, realized he couldn’t tie off the loose ends and finish it, and so instantly killed off the characters and dropped the plot line. The result is a hodge-podge of half-developed characters, random wastes of time following irrelevant plot lines and a terrible overarching plot that made little to no sense.

Before you read any further, let me point out that there are spoilers in here. I don’t give away the plot, but I give away the fates of some characters (hint: if you watched the trailers, you know what ‘happens’ anyway). The movie is entertaining for its predictability and not much else, so really, these sorts of spoilers are things you are going to have already figured out.

Back to the review. The basic premise is that people are killing themselves, and the movie follows high-school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg, “We Own the Night,” “The Departed”) and his half-estranged wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”). I say that because the relationship between the two is one of the most awkward husband-wife pairings you will ever see in a movie.

The Moore clan is leaving their city after ‘the happening’ starts, well happening. That’s when the movie starts to fall apart.

As seems to be the trend with modern movies, the trailer basically used all the stunning scenes from the movie, which were then used up within five minutes of the actual movie. The people jumping off the roof, the woman stabbing herself and everyone just standing still in the park all play a large role in the trailer but evaporate very quickly.

The line about losing contact with everyone is nonsensical and never explained, and it is gone within 15 minutes. They never explain “everyone,” and the train operators, who are seen for about 20 seconds, just drop all the passengers off in a small town and then vanish themselves.

Shyamalan managed to create, as he usually does, a ton of interesting characters. There was a man (played by John Leguizamo, “Ice Age”), who was friends with Moore, who seemed to know something. There was always a glint in his eye, that suspicious “I was working in the lab that accidentally released this virus” sort of look. Did we ever find out why? Nope. He ends up killing himself by slitting his wrists with broken windshield glass.

Then, there was the man I liked to call The Crazy Hot Dog Man (played brilliantly by Frank Collison, “The Village”). The man was extremely concerned about hot dogs. It seemed like a life or death question when he asked the other survivors if they liked hot dogs and when he double-checked that his wife, who was packing survival gear, had gotten the mustard. Plus, he talked to plants.

It was an amazing character that should have been expanded on, and instead he is killed off while the focus is elsewhere (you don’t even see him die).

This wasn’t limited to Collison’s character; there was tons of instances where this happened, including a pair of kids that join up with Moore and his wife and an Army private. All three are quickly eliminated just as we are possibly getting interested in them. There is something to be said for killing off characters that the audience cares about, of course, but not all of them!

Something that really hampered the movie, of course, was the casting of Mark Talking to a Wahl-berg as the main character. He simply sucks the life out of every scene with his obscenely dull delivery. He phoned in so many scenes that the one or two times it didn’t seem like he was reading cue cards while hammered were the aberration and felt wrong.

Except for “Shooter” and possibly that brothers movie, I have yet to see a movie with Mark Wahlberg where he played a good part, but this was extreme. There were times when it was so robotic and so forced that I half expected him to squeak out a “Line!” call. He was so awkward in his words, his movements and his interactions with other characters that it is tough to describe.

Without spoiling it too much, I also have to point out the horrid inconsistency with the “happening.” As some random scientist explains, it seems that whatever is affecting the people causes the neurotransmitters in their brains that are linked to self-preservation to turn completely off. So, things like walking off the edge of a building or walking into a lion’s den at the zoo seem perfectly plausible. People do not realize that they can hurt themselves and as a result are getting killed.

However, (and this is a big however), the problem comes from the people that begin to actively kill themselves. I’m talking about the aforementioned lawnmower death, but also a cop who pulls out his gun and blows his head off. How is that simply lack of self-preservation? It is active suicide. Thus, with bad characters and a ton of starts and stops, the main plot really needed to be solid to make up for it, and it simply was not up to par.

People in the theater laughed a lot, which really isn’t the point of a horror movie, especially when we were laughing at the wrong parts. In fact, the scariest part of the movie has absolutely nothing to do with ‘the happening,’ a disease or people dying, and instead involved an old lady screaming.

The movie reminds me of an episode of “Family Guy” where ‘Stephen King,’ for his 300 and something book, offers to write about an evil lamp monster. Shyamalan couldn’t think of any other enemy than the ridiculous one that he made, apparently.

The political statements made during the movie are also extremely tiresome. At the end, another random scientist gives basically a political stump speech on the issue, cloaked around tricky verbiage and references to the movie. It completely gives away the plot if I say what issue is being brought up, but you will easily see it if you put yourself through the pain of watching the movie.

Actually, that is kind of harsh; the movie is it’s own kind of fun, but fun in the way that “Bloodrayne” is fun, or “Jason X” is fun, or “Waterworld” is fun. Bring a friend, point and laugh and you’ll have a great time.

Just don’t expect something worthy of M. Night Shyamalan’s track record of “Unbreakable,” “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs,” because you will be quite disappointed and probably ready to kill yourself in a way even more inventive than the 6.2 million types of deaths Shyamalan made up for the movie.

Section: News
Published: Waubonsee Insight

Facing serious opposition from concerned students and local lawmakers, the demolition plan for NIU’s Cole Hall has faltered and slowed to a near stop.

In an email sent to the students and faculty of NIU on March 4, NIU President Peters announced the creation of a “February 14th. Memorial Committee.” The purpose of this committee, according to Peters’ email, is to solicit the opinions of students, faculty, alumni and families, in order to “develop ideas for a fitting memorial.”

Peters announced a “three phase process” that will involve the newly formed committee collecting and organizing the suggestions on the future of Cole Hall. At the present time, the hall will remain closed, but no steps will be taken to tear the structure down.

This reversal is significant; it stands in stark contrast to the sure-fire statements put forth by Peters and Gov. Blagojevich at the press conference last week, when both leaders stated unequivocally that the building would be taken down. However, as that plan quickly came under fire from many sides, its supporters were forced to re-evaluate their stance.

Part of the pressure to reconsider the decision came from a student group that coalesced online within hours of the Feb. 27 press conference; one of the key leaders of this opposition group was Amy Genova, an anthropology/archaeology graduate student at NIU.

Genova, along with several colleagues, created the Facebook group “Preserve NIU’s Cole Hall” immediately after the press conference. According to Genova, the group was reaction to a decision the group felt was made without the “consultation of the greater NIU community, students, faculty [and] staff.”

“Our original intention [for the group] was to find out whether or not other students, faculty, and staff disagreed with the proposed legislation,” Genova said.
The group quickly ballooned up to several hundred members, and the discussion board of the group became the site of lively and spirited debate regarding the future of the building.

Genova and the other administrators of the Facebook group sent a lengthy email to Peters the day after the press conference, and also contacted State Representative Robert Pritchard (R-DeKalb) and State Senator Brad Burzynski (R-Sycamore) to express their concerns.

Both lawmakers responded “immediately,” according to Genova.

“Burzynski wrote in an e-mail that the proposed legislation was to be revised, and that more community voice will be involved. Pritchard contacted me via telephone and expressed similar sentiments,” she said. “Both men have been truly amazing, and I value their hard efforts to make certain that all voices be heard this time around.”
The group also organized a petition that has been signed by over 1300 students, faculty and alumni. Those signing the petition essentially stated that they were in favor of calling a general community assembly to address all options regarding the future of Cole Hall.

Genova explained that the goal of the petition was to educate the community as to the options and consequences involved with the various choices for Cole Hall’s future, and also to ensure that all sides of the issue were able to voice their opinions. The intended recipient of the petition is Brian Hemphill, NIU Vice-President of Student Affairs.

“Because we had no formal venue to discuss our thoughts and opinions regarding the matter, [the online group and petition are] all we had,” Genova said. “After seeing the reactions of my fellow community members, I knew that we needed to combine efforts and make sure that our voices were heard regardless if one was in favor of the demolition or not.”

“The petition was and still is a movement for the community to move ‘Forward, Together Forward’ without forgetting who we are and why we need to support each other in such times of tragedy.”

Despite her leadership role in the group, Genova quickly pointed out that the project would have never been possible without the support of the hundreds of members of the Facebook group, as well as all those who signed the petition.
“I believe everyone deserves credit,” she said. “Those who signed placed their personal opinions aside to advocate a community voice, even if that meant their voice would receive opposition.”

The debate about Cole Hall’s future is likely to continue for some time given the passion and fervor shown by both sides. Genova said she simply wants more community input before a decision is made final.

“As an archaeology graduate student in the anthropology department, I understand the importance of monumental structures standing for future generations,” Genova said. “Even though I would like to see Cole Hall stand as a memorial in testament to the five lives tragically lost [in the shooting], I want the community to make this decision together.”

Section: News
Published: N/A

Braving blustery winds and freezing temperatures, over 100 students, faculty and members of the media gathered outside Cole Hall on Feb. 26 to hear Gov. Rod Blagojevich unveil his new plan for the building.

The governor outlined a plan that would involve the complete demolition of Cole Hall and the construction of a new building called Memorial Hall. The new hall would be about 40-percent larger than Cole Hall and would provide 10 classrooms, as well as three lecture halls and several media production computer labs.

Cole Hall has been closed since Feb. 14, when former NIU graduate student Steve Kazmierczak entered an auditorium in the building and opened fire on the assembled students with a shotgun and several handguns. He killed five students and injured at least 16 others before turning a gun on himself. Classes for the rest of the semester were moved from the building, and the university has been weighing options for the future of the building.

That option seems to have been chosen. According to NIU President John Peters, the decision was made very soon after the shooting. “Very early on I made the decision that we had to raze [Cole Hall]; we had to demolish the building and replace it with something fitting our needs and [serving] as a memorial,” Peters said.

Peters appealed to the governor’s office for help, and Blagojevich stated in a press release that he would introduce “emergency funding legislation” in order to obtain the funds. “It’s time to look to the future, and Memorial Hall is part of the future of this campus,” Blagojevich said at the press conference Wednesday.

The demolition plan, however, is not without its obstacles. No legislation has yet been introduced, according to an Associated Press report published Saturday that quoted State Senator Brad Burzynski (R-Sycamore). The same report also quotes Burzynski as saying that what the project will entail would probably not be what “the governor envisioned.” Burzynski did tell the “Northern Star” in an interview that he hopes to have the legislation introduced by the end of this week, but it remains to be seen if the funding bill will pass the Illinois General Assembly.

The governor’s contentious relationship with Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago), whom Blagojevich has feuded with several times since 2002, may end up delaying or even completely halting passage of the funding bill.

Despite the optimism of both President Peters and Gov. Blagojevich, the debate rages on campus as to whether or not the new plan is the best option for Cole Hall.
Two student groups entitled “Save Cole Hall” and “Preserve NIU’s Cole Hall” spawned on the popular social networking site Facebook almost immediately after the press conference, and quickly recruited hundreds of members.

Many postings on the groups condemned the project, with reasons focusing on funding issues, the logistics of moving the classes Cole held for at least several years and the fact that the decision was made so quickly.

One student pointed out that “tearing Cole Hall down is not as easy of a solution [as] people think it is,” while another posting argued that destroying the building was surrendering to the fear and “letting the shooter win,” instead of “moving forward and showing our spirit and resolve.”

Several students also pointed out the option that Virginia Tech employed after 33 students were killed in a shooting there last year. Norris Hall, the site of 31 of the 33 fatalities from that shooting, was reopened within three months of the incident. The second floor of the hall, where the attacks took place, was kept locked, but the remaining areas of the building went back into use.

Student debate on the plan was not limited to online tongue-lashings, either; Sherry Loos, a junior accountancy major, had “several” heated arguments on the controversial topic while on campus Friday.

“My question is what other vital project is this $40 million being taken from? Completely remodeling the inside of the building [would work], but to demolish the entire thing is not the solution,” said Loos. “There are a lot of better ways to honor the victims than tearing down Cole Hall.”

Section: Features
Published: N/A

Many people know Valentine’s Day only in the context of the late 20th and early 21st century: chocolates, cards, flowers, chocolates, romantic dinners and, well, chocolates.

However, the history of Valentine’s Day is a bit checkered and much less well known, as the traditions and origins behind the ‘most romantic day of the year’ are rather varied and, in some cases, not quite so romantic.

The holiday has its roots in legends that belonged to both Christian and Roman culture, according to Cheryl Lemus, an NIU Ph.D. candidate in history.

“There are several myths about St. Valentine and why Valentine’s Day is celebrated in February,” she said, “Like many holidays, Valentine’s Day was ‘Christianized,’ as the Catholic Church, hoping to spread Christianity, adopted many ‘pagan’ celebrations.”

The Roman Catholic feast of St. Valentine, which falls on Feb. 14, is named for a martyred saint who died on that day in the third century. Christianity was a persecuted faith at that point in history, as the Roman emperor, Claudius II, had banned marriage, claiming that it “decreased his soldier’s zest for battle.”

A priest named Valentine, however, performed marriages in secret for those that wished it. When Claudius uncovered what was happening, he arrested Valentine and had him imprisoned.

Valentine was given the choice of renouncing his faith or facing death. When he refused to deny his religion, he was executed and later canonized as a saint. Before he died, however, he inadvertently started one of the main traditions of Valentine’s Day: the giving of Valentine’s cards.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the practice of giving ‘valentines’ began while Valentine was in prison. After meeting the blind daughter of his jailer, the priest felt pity for her and offered up prayers for her healing.

As the legend goes, the girl’s sight was “miraculously” returned to her. Valentine became friends with the girl, and on the night of his beheading, wrote her a farewell message that ended with, ‘From your Valentine.’”

Thus, the practice of calling sweethearts ‘valentines’ was born, and the tradition has grown from that goodbye note to a massive level; the U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that one billion cards are sent every year for Valentine’s Day, which is second worldwide behind only Christmas.

The feast day also has significance in Roman legend, as Feb. 15 was a Roman celebration that honored the pagan god Lupercus and involved a sort of arranged courtship procedure. Women would write love notes and place them in a large urn that men would randomly draw from. Whichever note was drawn would be the woman that the man would court.

When Christianity eventually became the official religion of Rome, the church combined the Feb. 15 Lupercus feast with St. Valentine’s martyrdom on Feb. 14 and the holiday was born.

Lemus notes that Western Civilization did not pick up the holiday, officially, until the 1600s. “In Britain, Valentine’s Day was celebrated sometime in the 17th century, as men and women sent each other little notes and gifts,” she said, “In America, Valentine’s Day was not really recognized until the 1840s.”

Despite the fact that many anti-Valentine’s Day advocates in recent years complain that the commercialization of the holiday has ruined its ‘original purpose,’ when America first recognized Valentine’s Day as a holiday in the 1840s, the commercialization began right away.

The credit for the first Valentine’s Day card goes to a Massachusetts resident named Esther Howland, who sold $5,000 worth of colorful cards in 1847. Other manufacturers soon copied her ideas, and very quickly the ‘commercialized’ Valentine’s Day became the norm.

By 1861, Richard Cadbury had invented the Valentine’s Day candy box, and within 40 years, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates were a mainstay of the holiday and could be found all across the country.

According to Lemus, today’s Valentine’s Day is much the same as it was then, with just subtle differences. “It is still a commercialized holiday.” Lemus said. She explained that she has seen old advertisements from the 19th century that listed prices for valentines, some reaching as high as $250 each, no small sum in the 1800s.

Men and women were urged as well as they are now to spend their disposable income on treats and gifts for their significant others.

Section: Opinion/Editorial
Published: Helium (http://www.helium.com/items/806002-giving-illegals-roadmap-citizenship)

Giving illegals a roadmap to citizenship that does not involve returning to their country of origin is basically handing out a reward for illegal behavior, and rewarding illegal behavior simply encourages more illegal behavior. If we reward illegals who are already here and are already breaking the laws, nothing will stem the tide of illegal migrants that come rushing over ALL our borders in response to such amnesty. And it is amnesty; calling it anything else is just a politically-friendly euphemism.

There is a roadmap to citizenship for illegals: they need to leave the country for at least a year, and then attempt to re-enter legally. They need to apply like everyone else, with no special treatment.

Think of the damage amnesty for illegals would do to legal immigration. On one hand, you have the immigrants who spent the proper time and effort to immigrate legally. They did things the way they were supposed to, many times at great expense and sacrifice. On the other hand, you have these criminals who have been leeching off our society for, in some cases, years upon years. Instead of doing something to support the legal immigrants, who went about the process the correct way, we give freebies to criminals who abused our system. Does this encourage legal immigration? Of course not; it encourages future generations of immigrants to come in illegally.

It is sheer insanity to reward criminals. What if we applied this theory to, say, car thieves? Should car thieves have this path to freedom that involves releasing them from prison for no reason and acting as if they never committed a crime? That’s not even an efficient analogy, to be honest, because illegals are getting more than their freedom; they are being given essentially a free ride for all the time they already spent here, breaking our laws and taking advantage of our system.

The simple truth is that illegal immigrants are criminals by their very label. I have a brain aneurysm every time I hear a politician say that they want to “deport all those illegal immigrants that have committed crimes.” What about the very crime of BEING illegal?

Rewarding criminal behavior is taking a step down a very treacherous road, a step that should not be taken for any reason, political or otherwise. Criminals belong being punished, not being given special treatment.

Section: Opinion/Perspective
Published: Northern Star, November 15 2007 Issue

An Internet search can provide vast amounts of specific information, but not without sifting through piles of distracting data.

For example, if you wanted to find information on the Civil War Battle of Antietam and you went to Google, you would find about 575,000 results. That’s quite a lot of information to wade through, and it may or may not be usable.
Most likely, you won’t get through more than four or five pages of results. The Antietam search is also on the small end of what you will usually find using Google; sticking with historical battles, the Battle of Marathon pulls down 2.3 million, and the general term of World War II - try 183 million.

Since the Google search algorithms use page views and external links to rank their results, chances are extremely good that an off-the-beaten path source with some really good information is probably hidden behind hundreds of thousands of other so-so sources that you will never wade through.

So, if Google is giving you information overload, where can a self-respecting student go to get good information for a research paper?

Enter the NIU University Libraries article database, a massive repository of quality sources easily available to students.

Remember my first search, the Battle of Antietam? Well, after perusing the history section of the NIU library database, I came across a database entitled “Civil War Letters and Diaries.” Within 20 seconds, I found about 100 letters and diary entries, written by Civil War soldiers and civilians, that mentioned the Battle of Antietam. How’s that for some primary source material? Imagine trying to sift through the 575,000 results on Google and come up with something as rock solid as that.

Besides its own extremely thorough collection of sources, the NIU library database also provides thousands of starting points that lead to other credible sources of information.

In my Antietam example, I did a page search on the history section of the database for the terms “Civil War,” (press ctrl+f in your browser and type in your query; very useful when you are trying to find a specific term in a long document). I found, near the bottom of the page, a link to a huge Civil War database maintained by the University of Tennessee.

All of these results are what I found under one section of the history database. This is only a small example of what awesome power you can wield with this database at your fingertips. The databases include everything from the history section we’ve already explored, medical terminology, social studies, legal information, math and statistics and everything in between.

Granted, the NIU database can seem a little overwhelming at first, just like a random Internet search, but the distinct and clear advantages it has over just a simple search engine are huge. For starters, all the sources are legitimate, which is usually a huge time sink for anyone researching on the Internet.

Secondly, the information is sorted very well, allowing you to quickly and efficiently find exactly what you need.

To access the database, head to www.ulib.niu.edu, click on “Students,” then click on “Find Information” and then “Articles and more.” The process is slightly different based on whether you are on-campus or accessing it from another location, but the general steps are the same.

Note that you will have to login using your Z-ID number if you are off-campus, but once you have done that, you are off and running. Just remember to cite your sources.

Section: Opinion/Perspective
Published: Northern Star, November 9 2007 Issue

When I got the e-mail saying NIU was partnering with Ruckus to give students free music, I wanted to commend the university for trying to do something like this for students.

As a transfer student from Waubonsee Community College, where the administration often went out of its way to make things more difficult for students, this really impressed me.

I still want to commend them for trying, but unfortunately, when I spent some time investigating Ruckus, my optimism turned to disappointment after downloading and setting up the player and seeing how it all worked.

Basically, you have to download the incredibly unintuitive Ruckus player, which meshes with Windows Media Player (only the newest version, of course). After you have that whole mess installed, you can begin downloading music.

The problem with this music, however, is the insanely strict DRM (digital rights management) codes attached to every song.

The songs are given in .wma format, the Windows Media Audio file, which means, you guessed it, they are incompatible with iPods and iTunes.

You can only put the music on “Play for Sure” devices (such as the Microsoft Zune player), and only after you sign up for the “Ruckus to Go” subscription service.

With all due respect to the four NIU students that use “Play for Sure” devices, the rest of the modern world is using iPods, and this music will not play on them.

The songs each have a license that lasts one month, so you have to renew it at that time or the song will refuse to play. Perhaps more aggravating is the fact that you cannot burn the songs to a CD (even once).

So, if you use a CD player or your car as your main source of listening to music, Ruckus is essentially worthless.

Since you can only use the music on a computer and not in a CD player or non-“Play for Sure” device, it also becomes problematic for those of us who don’t do our homework sitting at our computer.

This situation is sort of like giving someone a coupon for unlimited free hamburgers at McDonalds, but the burgers you get can only be bun, ketchup and pickles, without the burger itself.

You want to say thank you, but then you realize you really haven’t gotten anything worth thanking someone for and you wish they hadn’t gotten your hopes up to start with.

It sounds pretty ungracious to trash something being given to students for free, but I want to use this to illustrate a bigger point. The reason this music is useless is because of the copy protections put in place to combat music piracy.

This makes the Ruckus music situation a microcosm of what is wrong with digital music.

Criminals are still going to be criminals. Making it harder to steal music isn’t going to stop them. Instead, they will just put more effort into it and break the codes anyway.

Every version of DRM has been cracked in some way, and this version is no different. It will be broken, and all of this will be for naught.

These so-called “protections” are only inconveniencing the criminals. They are not stopping them. The protections are, instead, putting up roadblocks for legal users.

I buy all my music legally on iTunes, but as more and more companies put ridiculous copy protections on their music, legal users are forced to pay the price for the illegal downloaders who steal music.

Perhaps what NIU should have done was partner with independent artists who would have welcomed a chance to get their music distributed for free. That way they could have accomplished their mission of giving students free music, but without the copy-protection mess Ruckus brings us.

Section: Opinion/Perspective
Published: Northern Star, November 1 2007 Issue

Students often cite cost as one of the main reasons for not keeping their computers safe.

After all, does anyone really have this insatiable urge to shell out $90 for a security suite from Norton Anti-Virus?

Thankfully, that $90 can be spent elsewhere, because you can protect and defend your computer from viruses and spyware on a very low budget – for free, in fact.

Setting up your computer to be protected is not exactly a fun job. It’s much easier to run the no-firewall, no-anti-virus route. Easier, that is, until you get infected and your computer begins to run so slow that the Comcast Slowsky turtles pass you on the information superhighway.

Chuck Downing, NIU professor of operations management and information systems, explains that virus and spyware protection is critical for two reasons.

“First, to avoid the hassle and inconvenience of having a slow or stalled computer: Many spyware programs redirect your attention to other Web sites and advertisements and can dramatically slow or even disable your computer,” he said. “The second reason is to protect against theft, disablement and liability.”

Downing said that the second reason is actually the more serious of the two. If someone uses your computer as a “springboard” to attack another computer or network because your system was not secured properly, you will be liable for the damages caused on the other end - a concept called “downstream liability.”

BROWSER

The first step in defending your computer is using the proper browser. Internet Explorer, despite its current 80-something percent market share, is a terrible piece of technology. Nearly every virus and piece of spyware is written with Internet Explorer and Windows in mind.

I’ve worked in the computer industry for six years. Of the scores of infected computers I’ve saved from spyware and virus attacks, the vast majority owe their infections to one of two sources: The user intentionally installed something filled with worms, i.e. Kazaa, or they used an unsecured browser (Internet Explorer) that was compromise.

Use Avant Browser (www.avantbrowser.com), a little known browser that views Web pages just like Internet Explorer (so you don’t have the compatibility or plug-in problems that sometimes plague Mozilla Firefox), but it is far more secure, quicker and more stable. Avant gives you built-in, tabbed browsing, an ad blocker, a pop-up blocker and many other useful security features.

ANTI-VIRUS

Head over to www.grisoft.com/free and download AVG Anti-Virus, the free edition. This anti-virus is easily one of the best anti-virus programs, as it runs in the background, instantly scans everything that downloads your computer, including Trojan horse worms that download themselves to your temporary Internet files, downloads new virus definitions in seconds each day and has a fantastic e-mail scanner.

The best testament I can give to the power of this program is the number of viruses I pulled off a single client’s computer – 45,000 - and I did this after the client’s Norton Anti virus program removed a whopping nine viruses and called the computer “clean.”

FIREWALL

For a free firewall, there is none better than ZoneAlarm (www.zonealarm.com). You have to navigate the site a bit to find the free version, but it’s there and it’s good. The firewall can monitor each piece of incoming and outgoing traffic and also has an emergency stop button that can be used to instantly shut down an Internet connection if necessary.

SPYWARE

I suggest, for most users, a two-tiered approach for spyware detection and removal: Lavasoft’s Ad Aware (www.lavasoft.com) and Spybot Search and Destroy (www.safer-networking.org). More advanced users should check out HijackThis (www.merijn.org/programs.php), but that program requires far more experience than the first two.

Ad Aware is an extremely simple program that will find many pesky pieces of spyware with little input from the user. You install, you run and you quarantine.

There are rarely any false positives, and the program does a stand-up job of eliminating many light threats. Spybot is slightly more difficult to use but catches a wider array of enemies. The program is quick and efficient, and while it does catch more false positives than Ad Aware, it is easy to uncheck those and move on.

Regularly running these two programs on your computer - whether you think you are infected or not - is good practice, because they can often find an infection in its infancy, when it is easy to remove without resorting to drastic measures.

Overall, Downing does not believe students protect their computers well enough.

“Most college students have simple or no anti virus software, and use a reactive - rather than proactive - strategy of protection,” Downing said. “They go on about their business and hope that nothing will happen.”

With these free options, more students should be able to protect themselves from the swirling hordes of viruses and spyware lurking just outside their firewall.

Section: Opinion/Perspective
Published: Northern Star, October 25 2007 Issue

We get emotional when our favorite sports team wins and loses – it’s just a simple fact of our society because of the emphasis that we place on sporting events.

If you were to walk into work or school and declare that you were in a rotten mood “because the Cubs lost,” no one would question you. It’s not necessary to have a real reason to be upset. Forget the “rough weekend” or “case of the Mondays” excuses. In 2007, your favorite team losing a game can cast a pall over you that is accepted by society as a good reason to be depressed for the next two weeks.

When Bad Rex showed up to deliver his opus during last year’s Super Bowl and the Bears were cast down by Indianapolis, the depth of the depression radiating from the Chicago area was palatable and somewhat disturbing.

How many people remembered that this was a game and that it was supposed to be fun?

There is a line between healthy support for your favorite team and an obsessive streak that can be detrimental to you and those around you and, unfortunately, fans are crossing this line.

Many fans are much larger stakeholders in their team’s welfare now than in past years. A study in Psychology Today magazine calls these types of fans “high-identifiers,” fans that they say have “extreme emotions in the face of defeat, compared with average sports fans.”

These labels used to be most often applied to the fans who really went over the edge and jumped onto the field of play, pummelling the guy sitting next to them or engaging in some other sort of outlandish behavior.

Increasingly, however, more and more fans are starting to drift toward the “high-identifier” category. Sporting events are transcending hobbies and pastimes and becoming emotional crutches, and that change in our thinking is not healthy.

When the hardcore fan becomes a part of the team, their health, both mental and physical, can become tied to the team’s performance. The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology explained that the team can literally become an “extension of the fan’s ego,” and when the team does poorly, the fan begins to feel tired, despondent and depressed.

If your favorite team decides to go on a massive losing streak and you are living and breathing every play, you are going to go down with them. Questioning the meaning of life because your favorite player just blew a tight game is just a little beyond the realm of healthy sporting fervor.

It’s important to not get too high or too low on your team. When my D’Backs finished off the Cubs a couple weeks ago, I was cautiously optimistic about their chances against the Rockies. Obviously, they got absolutely destroyed in the NLCS by the suddenly unbeatable kids from Denver, but at that point, it was something to shrug off.

As college students working and taking huge course loads, do any of us really have the time to become so wrapped up in our team’s destiny that a loss sends us into a haze for the next week?

Step back and remember: It’s just a game.

Section: Opinion/Perspective
Published: Northern Star, October 5 2007 Issue

There’s a reason many students can’t think before noon.

How often have you slammed down a hit of caffeine or sugar and ran out the door to an exam? After all, who has time for breakfast? You need those extra five minutes to jam one more obscure fact that may or may not be on the test into your head.

Well, as it turns out, those five minutes may be better spent getting some nourishment rather than blankly staring at your study guide.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the clichés on TV and the radio about how breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

However, most of it is actually true. According to a study conducted by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1998, “Breakfast consumption preferentially influences tasks requiring aspects of memory.”

Last I checked, exams require quite a bit of memory, so falling into the habit of skipping breakfast isn’t going to work quite so well for anyone trying to ace a test.

Martha O’Gorman, a registered dietician with Recreation Services at NIU, agrees.

“Traditionally, breakfast refers to a meal eaten early in the morning,” she explained. “The crucial element is to eat your first meal within two hours of waking, [and] this meal ideally will include protein as well as carbohydrate.”

“The protein will come primarily from the dairy products or the eggs and, to a lesser extent, the whole grains. But, this first meal might also be a hearty soup, a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a glass of low fat milk consumed at 11 a.m.,” O’Gorman said.

Trying to single-handedly increase PepsiCo and Hershey’s third-quarter profits by another tenth of a percent might taste quite good (believe me, you get no argument from me – I bleed Pepsi); however, it’s not the best choice when you’re trying to use your brain on an exam. In fact, too much caffeine and sugar can actually hurt your ability to recall information.

According to O’Gorman, “Consuming large portions of caffeine or sugary beverages without adequate protein and healthy carbohydrates will likely leave the student feeling lethargic or fatigued in the middle of the exam, just when he/she needs to accomplish their best recall.”

She added, “The biggest detriment for students will be if they are taking an exam or studying for an exam without fueling the brain.”
O’Gorman explained that students who want to improve their exam performance should focus on a “balance in the time and type of meal” to properly fuel the brain.

“Whether maximizing mental or physical performance, eat within two hours of getting up and eat every four or five hours up to the two hours before going to bed. Choose a balanced mix of lean protein, whole grains, fruits, vegetables and healthy fats,” O’Gorman said.

Eating is something you’re going to do anyway, so why not do it right and give yourself a leg up when it comes to that next exam?