A look at drink­ing respon­si­bly for pleasure

Why do I drink? To answer hon­estly, I drink because I enjoy it. I don’t do it to escape some hor­ri­ble real­ity of life and I don’t do it to show off, I do it because it is enjoy­able and can enhance sit­u­a­tions if used properly.

I’m not one to go out and drink 15 cheap beers on a Friday night, but I do make my way out to those par­ties occa­sion­ally. I don’t go to the bar and order shots of whisky until I pass out, but I do like the atmos­phere of a bar and enjoy a few bour­bon and cokes with some friends.

If you are some­one who enjoys being three sheets to the wind and mak­ing a fool of your­self, by all means go ahead. As long as you don’t drive or throw up on me, that’s your choice. Continue Reading…

Being able to han­dle and learn from crit­i­cism is an impor­tant trait to have in order to be suc­cess­ful in our society.

Most of us will leave uni­ver­sity life and hope­fully find a great job that we love. Most of us will receive some type of feed­back that requires us to change how we per­form at that job and how we react and absorb that cri­tique is impor­tant. Right now we get that feed­back in the grades we receive on papers and assign­ments. It’s less direct, less per­sonal. It doesn’t feel so much like an attack on our integrity or a maneu­ver by an antag­o­nist, but an eval­u­a­tion of our effort. Continue Reading…

Although quit­ting smok­ing frees peo­ple from cig­a­rettes, many peo­ple gain weight…lots of weight sometimes.

Quitting smok­ing is a smoker’s great­est lib­er­a­tion. Kicking the habit can take years and over­com­ing the huge chal­lenge is part of what makes being released from nico­tine bondage feel so good. No more wor­ry­ing about can­cer, heart dis­ease and an early death from the count­less other dis­eases peo­ple acquire from cig­a­rette smoking.

I have been a smoker for seven years. At my worst, I smoked a pack and a half of cig­a­rettes per day. I did not know I was addicted to smok­ing until I began try­ing to quit cold turkey three weeks ago. Since then I have chewed on straws, bit­ten my nails and fid­geted a lot. I have also inhaled food like a vac­uum. I went from hav­ing three small meals a day to eat­ing every­thing in site all day long. In three weeks, I have gained nine pounds.

Weight gain is one of the many rea­sons why peo­ple have a hard time quit­ting smok­ing, espe­cially women. A female friend of mine said weight gain is the very rea­son she has not attempted to quit because she’s strug­gled with her weight all her life that she would rather risk can­cer than be fat.

According to the Mayo Clinic, most peo­ple typ­i­cally gain between 5 to 10 pounds. within the first three weeks of quit­ting. The myth is that there is con­stant weight gain. However, once the first cou­ple of weeks are in the can, the urge of the oral fix­a­tion of smok­ing dies down and so does weight gain.

The rea­son why so many peo­ple gain weight while quit­ting smok­ing is that nico­tine is an appetite sup­pres­sant. Nicotine slightly increases metab­o­lism and assists in burn­ing calo­ries. When peo­ple quit smok­ing, their appetite and metab­o­lism return to nor­mal, which may leads to weight gain. Also, people’s abil­ity to smell and taste food improves dur­ing this process, mak­ing food more appealing.

Quitting some­thing you like to do really sucks. The truth is, I did not quit smok­ing because I wanted to improve my health. I decided to quit on a bet with my boyfriend and since I hate when he is right, I will just have to suffer.

Even though quit­ting often means weight gain, exer­cis­ing seems like not too hard a task to incor­po­rate into one’s life. Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Human Health and Service’s Weight-Control Information Network advises that peo­ple not try to lose the weight while quit­ting smok­ing because it will lead to smok­ing relapse. Although doing both things at the same time would be the ideal, I sup­pose I will have to sup­press my van­ity. I guess I’d rather be chubby than have cancer.

Being broke is, in many respects, a key fix­ture in col­lege culture.

Every stu­dent has that story about liv­ing off of jam for a week and most col­lege grad­u­ates have devel­oped a strong aver­sion to Ramen noo­dles by way of their col­lege experience.

This Goodwill shop­ping, scroung­ing for cash men­tal­ity though, is some­thing that I am see­ing less and less. With the sup­posed “neces­sity” of cell phones, $300 mp3 play­ers and clothes that have that pre-worn look for a new-sticker price I have to won­der how stu­dents are com­ing up with all this spare cash.

Answer: Many of them are charg­ing it. Continue Reading…

Letter to the Editor:

I would like to respond to an arti­cle writ­ten in the Nov. 11^th edi­tion of the Torch titled, “Peace, love, and reli­gious tol­er­ance.” The author stated that, “No one was forc­ing any­one to look at that mes­sage, and if some­one didn’t like the mes­sage they could have just ignored it and kept walk­ing.” However, shortly after mak­ing this state­ment the author then states, “I under­stand how one might find it frus­trat­ing to have a reli­gious mes­sage forced onto them.” Clearly she is con­tra­dict­ing her­self. The major­ity of the Ferris cam­pus is most likely Christian, as is true of the Nation. However, I rarely find reli­gious mes­sages on cam­pus and in the Nation that are Islamic, Buddhist or even Atheist-based. When we do find a mes­sage from a minor­ity belief sys­tem things like the author’s arti­cle get­ting pub­lished in a school’s paper hap­pen far too often.

The author also com­plained about, “the defile­ment of the orig­i­nal mes­sage.” If this mes­sage had been writ­ten on its own some­one from the major­ity belief sys­tem on cam­pus would have still had a prob­lem with the mes­sage. If only the author would heed her own advice, “You don’t have to accept some­one else’s reli­gion, but you should accept that they have a right to believe as they choose.” It is obvi­ous that the author has not yet applied this the­ory to action. When we hear about respect­ing and appre­ci­at­ing diver­sity it espe­cially applies to opin­ions which we vehe­mently dis­agree with. The vic­tims of dis­crim­i­na­tion can call for more tol­er­ance and accep­tance not some­one who belongs to the major­ity of soci­ety and is doing the most intol­er­ance. A truly accept­ing and diverse cam­pus hears all belief sys­tems not just the majority’s.

Natasha Gibbons
Senior, Social Work

Editor’s Note You can view the orig­i­nal arti­cle here: Peace, Love, and Religious Tolerance.

Continue Reading…

The first step to retak­ing Congress and the White House is get­ting back to con­ser­v­a­tive roots

Republican vic­to­ries in the New Jersey and Virginia guber­na­to­r­ial elec­tions were only the foot-in-the-door for any major Grand Old Party (G.O.P.) attempt to “take back” the coun­try from the Democrats.

As much as I’d like to say that win­ning in New Jersey and Virginia was all the Republicans needed to fore­cast the polit­i­cal out­look of the coun­try a year from now, I won’t. I’m not that naïve.

The G.O.P. still has too much work cut out for itself before sup­port­ers can even think about tak­ing back the major­ity in Congress next year, let alone hav­ing a chance at the pres­i­dency in 2012.

Recent polls from the past months and the recent elec­tions, how­ever, reveal that the coun­try at large is begin­ning to favor a Democratic can­di­date less than a repub­li­can one.

Over the sum­mer months, Democratic can­di­dates held almost dou­ble digit leads over Republicans when vot­ers were asked whom they would vote for in the 2010 elec­tions. After last week, Democrats held only slight margins.

Right now, it looks like one of the key fac­tors in next year’s elec­tion is going to be health care. With the pro­posed health care reforms, cit­i­zens are going to have a lot to con­sider when they head to the polls.

While vot­ers will ulti­mately decide the polit­i­cal demo­graph­ics of the 112^th Congress, G.O.P. can­di­dates have quite a bit to do in order to ensure their vic­tory in the next election.

To reclaim seats in both the House and Senate, repub­li­cans need to reeval­u­ate where the party cur­rently stands.

I feel that the G.O.P. has strayed a lit­tle, or rather a great deal, too far to the left. This is clearly evi­dent when look­ing at the fact that Senator John McCain got the repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion in 2008. The fact that Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe was sup­port­ing the Democrats and their pro­posed health care reforms adds even more evi­dence that lib­eral and mod­er­ate Republicans are run­ning the party.

Even while being a mod­er­ate repub­li­can myself, I do not jeop­ar­dize the foun­da­tions and beliefs that the party was founded on and tra­di­tion­ally stood for.
Before attempt­ing to mount any type of come­back, the Republican Party needs to take a good look at the direc­tion it is head­ing, turn around, and get back to more con­ser­v­a­tive roots. If it does not, all we can expect is more dev­as­tat­ing results like those sus­tained in 2008.

Another fac­tor that is haunt­ing the G.O.P. is that there isn’t a promi­nent fig­ure lead­ing the party right now. President Obama emerged rather early for the Democrats in the 2008 elec­tion, but no one is stand­ing out right now for the republicans.

The media is look­ing at Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin as the prob­a­ble con­tenders for the nom­i­na­tion in 2012.

While I like all of these can­di­dates, what the G.O.P. needs are young, ener­getic, con­ser­v­a­tive repub­li­cans to reju­ve­nate and take con­trol of the party. A strong con­ser­v­a­tive will lead the party back to its roots and a young repub­li­can will help off­set the aver­age age of Congress that is well over 50.

When these repub­li­cans emerge, then the G.O.P. can con­sider tak­ing back Congress and the presidency.

The last thing most col­lege stu­dents want to be reminded of is how those who qual­ify will not be receiv­ing the Michigan Promise funds, bar­ring some inter­ven­tion dur­ing the appro­pri­a­tions process.

Monday, the University announced that it would be using $1.3 mil­lion in fed­eral stim­u­lus dol­lars to pro­vide aid for the fall semes­ter to nearly 10.5 per­cent of the stu­dents of Ferris State.

According to a press release issued by the uni­ver­sity two days ago, the 1,312 stu­dents who had been antic­i­pat­ing Michigan Promise aid and the 616 expect­ing the Michigan Competitive schol­ar­ship, who also saw a cut in pro­posed fund­ing by 50 per­cent, can expect a lit­tle finan­cial help from Ferris.

This is great. A mil­lion bucks to help a lit­tle more than 10 per­cent of the stu­dents is a won­der­ful thing and I’m glad the uni­ver­sity is tak­ing this action to ease the finan­cial bur­den that dif­fi­cult eco­nomic times have caused.

I only ask that maybe, just maybe, we sneak a few bucks in there for 12,000 of my clos­est friends and me with­out a “promise” but still a need.

The Ferris Board of Trustees, who unan­i­mously sup­ported the use of these funds to aid the scholarship-expecting stu­dents, is also respon­si­ble for approv­ing increases in tuition, like the one Ferris had at the begin­ning of this year.

Maybe we could have saved a lot of time and headache if instead of charg­ing stu­dents more, then giv­ing some of them money back, we just didn’t charge them more to start with.

So please, Ferris, keep on giv­ing. The stu­dent body will let you know when to stop… probably.