By Travs Epes

It probably wasn’t in the state’s curriculum, but my tenth grade English teacher insisted we watch Dead Poets Society. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, it’s a good coming of age-type-piece where an unorthodox English teacher (Robin Williams) teaches his students to live life passionately and to never feel cornered by their strict private school education. John Keating (Robin’s character) shows the class photos of the school’s past students, and sums up his philosophy with the phrase, Carpe Diem. As much as I love saying it, sometimes seizing the day can be more complicated than we’d like.

By Travs Epes

I just spent an hour and a half browsing the web. I cleaned up my friends list on Facebook, sifted through various tech blogs evaluation/bashing the iPad, and fulfilled my daily pseudo-intellectual fix with some webcomics. As I flounder around this virtual stew, my English essay remains unfinished, week-old dishes grow a solid layer of grease, and I let an hour an a half slip away. And for what? I’m now moderately more in sync with tech culture, and in ten months I’ll have about eighty fewer people pretending to wish me happy birthday. In only an hour and a half, I’ve managed to pervert a device which could have connected me to something constructive. It would appear there’s a growing gap between what the internet promises and the product your ISP delivers.

By Travis Pillow

The “environment dollar” is a pretty big dollar. The sustainability mavens have managed a coup, selling “green” and “organic” to hipsters and sorority girls alike – and probably their affluent parents to boot. The adherents of “hipster wisdom” tend to have privileged backgrounds and leftish politics. The former makes them the perfect target for any sales pitch, while the latter leaves them susceptible to appeals to conscience.

But behind the marketing coup is a real and growing anxiety about our mounting environmental calamity. People are driven to “organic” labels by well-founded concerns over the waste, pollution and adulteration that infect our food supply at every stage. Of course the solutions the marketers offer are mostly bogus, albeit highly profitable. A serious evaluation of our problems and the benefits of the products purported to solve them rarely fits their business model, so instead they wrap the products in emotional appeals to the customer’s as a person of conscience.

By Eric Chianese

Hello, friends, Romans and readers.
So, it’s been about a month. A bit more, I think. No lame excuses this time and no bullshit. I’m going to level with you. Blogging just isn’t my top priority. Think of me what you will–I’m certain my editors will love it.
Why? Because I like to think of myself as [...]

By Travs Epes

Welcome back readers. I know I said that this post would explain the Internet’s importance, but Eric’s talk of betrayal got my cogs spinning in a different direction (as I hope it did to yours). It reminded me of watching The Power Rangers when I was a wee tyke and thinking, “High school’s gonna be nothing but drinking smoothies and beating up bad guys!” There were plenty of bad guys, but I never did find those smoothies. It wasn’t until college that I got to questioning this crazy hoax.