College campuses are often havens for some interesting advertising campaigns. Since most campus organizations have a market limited to those who visit campus, there is a variety of creative and cost-effective ways to reach a large percentage of campus. We have all had the mass e-mails, seen the flyers and, of course, diligently read the Lehigh daily announcements.

However, all those methods have become quite mundane by now. Things only get interesting once organizations become increasingly desperate for attendance. Campus “chalking” is perhaps the most common example.  To most, there is a certain loss of respect for those who get down on their knees right in the middle of University walkway to spread a message. Is Asian Pacific American Culture Heritage Month Kickoff, or any other chalked advertisement really that important?

Recently though, desperation has been taken to a new level. Cue the Office of Student Leadership and their Altitude Leadership Conference. The conference is “student run,” and costs $50 for a full day of conferences in scenic… Bethlehem. Really, it is mind-boggling that they are so desperate for attendees, but it is the case. How desperate are they? Well, the best way to judge that is through their marketing techniques.

Over the past week, 24” by 12” posters have made their way into every classroom on campus. Yes, every single one of them. The assault on classrooms on campus sets a curious precedent. Classrooms primarily serve as places where students are educated, and advertisements certainly counter-act that purpose. Fortunately, our friends in Leadership Lehigh seem dead-set on bucking such an archaic ideal about something as trivial as “learning.”

Indeed, classroom advertisements are welcome for those students who look to do anything but pay attention in class. With Leadership Lehigh’s bold steps, classrooms no longer need to direct focus on the professor. By this time next year, students can be mesmerized by the 12-foot banner over the chalkboard reminding them to attend the Vagina Monologues instead of listening to their professor drone on about “numbers, theories, and crap” as one anonymous student put it.

While the verdict is still out on Leadership Lehigh’s most controversial advertising technique, some of their other methods have produced interesting results. Personally, I have received no less than eleven e-mails already reminding me to apply for the conference. It was not until the fifth one that I updated my spam filter to catch anything containing both “Altitude” and “Leadership.” It was one of my best decisions of the week.

In addition to classroom posters and mass e-mails, there seem to be a literally endless supply of desktop flyers floating around. We have found some of them in some bizarre places, quite a testament to the advertising masterminds within Leadership Lehigh and the Office of Student Leadership. Check out some of our favorite flyer locations on page 22.

Leading by example, Leadership Lehigh has informed us that the best way to provide the campus with meaningful programming is to provide best in class advertising. Posters? Colored and glossy. Flyers? Too many to count. Website? Produced by Lehigh’s International Multimedia Resource Center.

And that brings us to the Altitude web site. The conference promises to help “participants summit the many faces of the leadership mountain throughout the day.” What does that even mean? Beats me. But it clearly goes along with the theme of “Branching Out: Growing Within and Outside of Your Organization.” It’s almost as if they didn’t realize that logically their theme could just be replaced by one word: Growing. But, if my years in Leadership Lehigh taught me anything, it’s that there’s no reason to do something in one simple step (or word, in this case) when you can do it in nine convoluted ones.

Most of us, as mortal Lehigh students, simply are not able to comprehend a lot of this complex leadership jargon. According to one expert though, their web site’s two-paragraph overview comes to us in colloquial English as: “We are people with no real credentials who are going to reuse ambiguous leadership jargon until you believe that we believe that we know what we are talking about. Please send us money to support our cause.”

As Altitude continues to search for enough victims…err…attendees to offset the significant cost of the event, they have provided a great example of desperation advertising that the rest of us would do well to never repeat for the sake of both ourselves and everyone around us.

President Gast recently expressed her intentions of hiring a Chief Diversity Officer; a position which would improve the standing of Lehigh University when compared to other racist institutions. Additionally, it would create another figurehead leadership position, a role that Lehigh as an institution has far too few of.

Comparing Lehigh to its peer institutions in the Lehigh Valley and around the world, there is a clear sense of “keeping up with the Jones.’” Colleges including Moravian and RIT have created this position; therefore, Lehigh must spend more money to compensate. Lehigh has a clear need to “leverage and maximize investments in diversity initiatives”1 as one of the most homogeneously white campuses in the United States.

Under President Gast, Lehigh University has embarked in a new direction. The job description: sending the most powerfully staged e-mails, inspiring fear in the hearts of racists, and evacuating emotion from the “affected minorities.” This new role must be taxing! Clearly, Gast does not have the patience to respond to bias incidents, and would rather focus on her golf game.

Lehigh University has a proud and storied tradition of over-developed efforts of threat construction. Starting with 500 people attending a town hall meeting in response to idly wasted words and continuing with editorials flooding the Brown and White, Lehigh has historically acted decisively and swiftly after the occurrence of race-based conflicts to publicize and relentlessly promote the actions of racists and stigmatize the entire campus.

A Chief Diversity Officer will have other benefits to campus. He or she will create a purpose for the Council for Equity and Community, and give them tangible results for the past 22 months. Lehigh University wouldn’t want the efforts of the noble volunteers in the Council for Equity and Community to be wasted on crafting equality now, would they?

The Chief Diversity Officer fulfills a clear, unmet need on campus. His or her role will encompass new ground, uncovered by the Council for Equity and Community, The Movement, the Black Student Union, The Women’s Center, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Africana Studies, Women Studies, The Rainbow Room, or The Multicultural Room. The position will be a boon for Lehigh’s race-centered population and engender a healthier campus community for all involved. Furthermore, he or she will be able to dole out the copious amounts of funding that are sure to accompany his or her modest salary.

With the addition of a CDO, Lehigh gains the ability to recruit one of the most desirable demographics: minorities. An increase in minorities betters the standing of the university in the eyes of the world, increasing our rankings that have been slipping over the past few years. Peer institutions, such as MIT outpace our racial commitments many times over, and minority representation is a hallmark of a quality educational institution.

Finally, The Movement will be able to demonstrate clear outcomes from their dramatic rallies, protests, and marches on President Gast’s house. This would represent the second demand yielded to the Movement, and it would be the most indelible mark left on campus…next to the hole in President Gast’s door.2

The Patriot implores President Gast to spare no expense and hire a Chief Diversity Officer. We are amazed that this institution has survived for 155 years without an individual dedicated to ensuring equality for all on this campus. A Chief Diversity Officer will singlehandedly smite every racist and every racist thought from this campus and create a Lehigh Bubble of Equity and Community, the envy of the world.

Sources:
1. http://www.nadohe.org/
2. http://www.lehigh.edu/diversity/pdf/TownHallMtgs/11-11_town_hall_mtg_notes.pdf

In reference to the Lehigh bookstore manager’s alleged destruction of several Brown and White’s:

“… Free speech took a big step backward because someone didn’t like it when a student dared speak out against what he saw as a discriminatory policy. Just because something makes you or your company look bad doesn’t mean it should be silenced or negated. Take a look at some comments on the Brown and White’s Web site for evidence of that.”

Interestingly, and hypocritically, The Brown and White does not allow comments to contain links to any outside websites (or “Web sites” if you are the B&W edit board) in a clear attempt to restrict the dialogue on campus. The Patriot was unable to find any reputable news source with a similar policy. This, in addition to the Brown and White’s policy of screening comments before they are posted combines for a much more egregious violation of the spirit of the First Amendment than a book store manager allegedly ripping up a few Brown and White’s.

From the latest rehashed editorial bemoaning printing usage at Lehigh:

“But this is not a privilege we should abuse. We are all guilty of it because it’s not something we usually think about, but next time you go to print, think about how much paper you waste.

Sure, we are used to having a copy of our assignments in front of us when we read, but is it so bad to have to read from a screen? Between our computers and televisions, we spend most of the day in front of a screen anyway. What’s the difference?”

While the Brown and White calls on you to ‘think before you print,’ the Patriot editorial board would like to ask the Brown and White to ’think before you write.’ Since you can easily read all of the Brown and White’s articles online, there should not be any reason for an actual paper copy of the Brown and White according to this editorial. We would be very interested to know how much paper is used in printing several thousand copies of the Brown and White each week, and why their editorial board feels justified in killing so many trees.

Lehigh’s practical jokes still lack sophistication.

“Most of campus fondly remembers awakening on Flagpole day to find a Nazi flag firmly planted atop the flagpole.”

Fifty-two years ago, The Brown and White had a much more relaxed approach to swastikas appearing on campus. Such an event today would likely evoke about eight e-mails from President Gast and her administrative cohorts, a town hall meeting to “heal the community,” a police investigation, and various demands from various special interest groups around campus.

Corporate advocates and wall street watch dogs all have their own political machines armed and ready for anything in the 2010 “Obama agenda.” With the formation of a Consumer Protection Agency to reform the financial marketplace, the wall street dogs are ready for a heyday. Meanwhile, corporations are doubling their lobbying budgets and moving their operations and conferences to Washington D.C.
With all the employed enlarging their loudspeaker to the ears of lawmakers, there is no voice for the unemployed. While Obama might say his focus will be jobs for 2010, he has no idea how to start. The following list, far detached from the intentions of Obama, is a set of well rounded suggestions.

1. Draft the unemployed. Instead of a liability, our unproductive workforce can be asset. Clinton era national service programs including AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and Peace Corps were created to help revive America. By diminishing work-loss benefits and payouts, the government can effectively “draft the unemployed” to serve America. A roughly ten percent hole in the economy can be revised to help rebuild infrastructure, strength diplomacy, and improve education.

2. Legalize gambling, prostitution, and drugs. Artificially limiting livelihoods is a sure way to cut the number of jobs. If congress made accounting illegal to practice next week, we would not only incriminate our auditors, but we would cut millions of jobs. The same thing happened in 1920 when America experimented with prohibition. From the start of 1920, when alcohol related livelihoods were legal, to the end of 1921, unemployment in the United States more than doubled. Conversely, the end of prohibition has a near perfect correlation to the economic recovery after the Great Depression. Once again, with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration created in 1973, the unemployment rate almost doubled again.1 Therefore we can greatly increase the supply of jobs by eliminating legal restrictions on “sinful” industries.

3. Remove minimum wage. Any economist would tell you that rent ceilings to protect low-income workers will inevitably leave more people homeless. The same concept applies for minimum wage. Wage floors prevent demand from being met. If an employer is willing to pay two workers five dollars an hour and you tell him that he has to pay each worker seven per hour, he will only hire one more productive worker leaving the worker unemployed.

4. Legalize organ sales. In the words of Levitt and Dubner, authors of Super Freakonomics, Iran has more economic sense than America in regards to human organs. One major drag on the economy is the amount of long-term care patients, of which transplant waiting-list patients make up more than 100,000. 2 This enormous drag on the economy, established with the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, could be repealed to cut medical costs and save lives. As a result of repeal, doctors would have more surgeries to perform and lawyers would have more malpractice cases to deal with, increasing net amount of doctors and lawyers.

5. “Drill baby drill.” In the words of Sarah Palin, we need to increase oil drilling at offshore platforms and in environmentally protected areas including ANWR. The more we drill here the less we drill in the Middle East. It is zero sum. Instead of funding terrorists and Saudi princes we should allocate our money to desecrating America soil. The more we drill from the U.S. the more jobs we will create and less depen dent we will be on oil from instable governments that don’t believe in human rights. Right now we spend $200,000 per minute on oil imports, that’s like giving a Ferrari to Hugo Chavez every minute or buying a private jet for Nigerian identity thieves every hour.

6. Bring back the uranium. According to George Kuczynski, executive at PPL, “We have been planning to build a multi-billion dollar nuclear power plant for years, but regulations have halted progress.” Instead of pontificating about sustainability and renewable energy, Congress should act now. By loosening regulations on nuclear power plants and passing a carbon tax, Congress can encourage a green and more radioactive future. With most of our energy infrastructure over 35 years old, a major crisis could cripple America. Therefore, we should be proactive and create some serious high-paying nuclear engineering jobs by encouraging energy companies to go “green”.

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Despite knowing much about the origins of Jersey Shore cast members, one Brown and White commenter has made the incorrect claim that the Mason-Dixon line crosses New Jersey.

Mason and Dixon used the stars to calculate this path through the wilderness and mark out the 233-mile-long boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, and the 83 miles long north-south boundary between Maryland and Delaware; the effort took five years.

Information about the Mason-Dixon line, and two men trying to restore it

Here at the Lehigh Patriot, we have tremendous respect for our colleagues at the Brown and White.  They provide the Lehigh community with a biweekly feast of the news and analysis that keeps our campus dialogue informed and vibrant. Professors, administrators and prospective Lehigh families alike view the Brown and White as a window into the minds that make up our student body.  For better or worse, they speak for all of us.

It’s a small miracle, then, that the Brown and White was there to give us 800 words to describe the operating hours of a new off-campus deli.  From this thrilling investigative piece, we learned the following:

Samantha Petner, ’11, is a frequent patron of Dave’s Deli.

“I am kind of boring, I just like turkey on a Kaiser roll, but Dave’s really has the best sandwiches,” Petner said.

Kelly Sprague, ’11, goes to Dave’s Deli about once a week and is a big fan of the Chicken Ranchero.

Hannah Gobetz, ’11, does not consider herself a regular at Dave’s Deli, but she said she found the Chicken Caesar Wrap to be quite delicious.

This intrepid reporter didn’t stop there.  She managed to use “the internet” to uncover a startling fact:

Part of the deli’s secret, according to its Web site, is that it uses “the best” meats and cheeses.

While the news division of the Brown and White works to hold local establishments accountable to the highest standards of deli meats and cheeses, the lifestyle section reliably churns out impeccably sourced universal claims about the social lives of Lehigh students.  In a recent issue, they even tracked down an expert financial analyst to talk about the bar scene:

Brooke Wiener, ’10, said the current economic conditions haven’t impacted the bar scene.

“It’s not necessarily about the economy,” she said. “It’s just being smart about your money.”

In addition to economic issues, the Brown and White is always there to cover Lehigh’s attempts to be environmentally friendly. One such story gives us a great deal of detail about a “new eco-friendly printer” to be used in Rauch. If you are not excited yet, you should be:

Buskirk called Lehigh’s acquisition of the trial a rare opportunity. Few other universities have access to the ColorQube’s unique technology.

In case you were wondering, the ColorQube has other benefits:

In its brochure, Xerox says that the ColorQube can print up to 85 pages per minute…

For the printer aficionados in the crowd, the article continues to explain all of the gory details about printing technology that most of us never thought to ask:

“The ColorQube’s ink blocks only leave behind a small black spot of biodegradable wax that resembles a Necco wafer,” Buskirk said.

For all of its heady intellectualism, the heart and soul of the Brown and White is found on its editorial pages.  Here, the senior editors demonstrate that conventions of grammar, diction and syntax are merely obstacles to telling a unique and heartfelt story about how sad they are to be leaving Lehigh.  Some variation of the following statement (from the 10/20/09 publication) can probably be found in every Brown and White Edit Desk dating back to 1894:

The end of this magic experience is on the decline, and I for one am going to find all means of using Lehigh to get the best experience possible. I hope you all do the same.

Yes.  Everybody, please do…that.

—

(Editorial Correction:  The printed version of The Patriot incorrectly stated that the Brown and White Edit Desk referred to in this article was published on 11/13/09.  The correct publication date is 10/20/09.  The editorial staff regrets this mistake.)

In response to the recession, Lehigh has decided to launch a $20 million study to find ways to reduce wasteful spending.

“Alumni and students alike have urged us to exercise fiscal restraint in these tough times. For them, I am proud to present this new plan,” said the newly appointed Director of the Office of Fiscal Responsibility, Mark Simonson. The newly created Office employs 50 experts full time to monitor all costs at Lehigh. “Our purpose is to spend every dollar we get to find ways to save money,” Simonson remarked.

Instead of using available office space around campus, the plan provides for a special addition to the Alumni Memorial Building to house the new Office. Due to poor weather and an unreliable construction company, the project is already millions over budget, but that doesn’t deter the bright spirit of Simonson. “To properly do our work, we need a special, stress free environment and quite simply that just doesn’t exist on campus right now. But I am confident once we get to work then we quickly start cutting costs.” Currently, the staff of the Office is on university payroll but cannot begin work till the addition is completed, as stipulated by their contract.

In addition to monitoring all University expenditures, the plan entails interviews with every member of the teaching and administrative staff. The records from these interviews will then be destroyed and the interviews run again. “We’re hoping that the first round of interviews will be like a ‘trial run’ and the second time we will get more accurate results,” Simonson explained. “It is really important to be thorough, and that means sparing no expense to find ways to make the campus and overall education experience more affordable for the average student.”

Though most people expected the savings from this study to aid tuition costs for struggling families, Simonson assured the administration that this was not so in an open meeting between Simonson and the rest of the department heads last week. “Students can obviously meet the demands of a tuition that puts them in a life time of debt or they wouldn’t be here, why would we change that?” When asked what the hypothetical savings would go towards, Simonson did say there were some definite options on the table. “Right now Lehigh is really struggling with ways to pay for the new monolithic STEPS building which is running at least $7 million over budget at $62.1 million. We are also looking at ways to fund this study because right now we are running way over budget. The truth is, despite Lehigh’s award winning endowment and above average tuition, we simply do not have the money for simple things like a 135,000 square foot building such as STEPS.”

Despite Lehigh’s current policy of raising tuition at least three percent every year, many students are convinced the University has their best interest in mind and will lower tuition. “I’m glad the University is doing this study,” one sophomore said. “The University is going to save tons of money and tuition will have to go down. It’s simple economics.”

Parents are equally excited by the new study. “I took out a second mortgage on my house to help pay for my son’s education, so I am relieved to see that it is going towards a good cause,” said one parent. Another parent remarked, “I am always agitated when I hear more money is being spent on stupid things like financial aid and scholarships. This is finally something that has a practical application for us normal people.”

Though formal meetings are pending on the completion of their office, Simonson claims he and his associates have several ideas for cost-saving measures. “One of the biggest expenditures comes from residence hall’s power usage so it was obvious to us to start there. Right now we are looking at cutting supply power to the residence areas during quiet hours. That saves energy, saves money, and helps to enforce quiet hours: win, win, win. It’s progressive ideas such as that one that we are aiming for in this study.”

Many believe that the role of art in society is to define the culture of a certain time and place. At Lehigh, such art is all around, whether you have noticed it or not. I have divided the art seen at Lehigh into three distinct categories: Art, Modern Art, and Stall Art. Their existence at Lehigh and student’s responses to them provide an interesting look at Lehigh’s culture.

Art

Traditional art consists of the paintings, stained glass windows, and other established methods of expression. Even the architecture of buildings like Alumni Memorial and Packer Chapel satisfy the definition of expressing something about Lehigh.  While such displays are everywhere, they go completely unnoticed by a sizeable portion of the Lehigh population. How often do students walk by Alumni Memorial each day, without realizing how incredible a structure it is? Can you describe the paintings on display in Rauch Lobby right now? Traditional art receives the least attention from Lehigh students. This is a sad fact, because the art is all downhill from here.

Modern Art

Chunk - The Museum of Modern Art

Lehigh, for an unknown reason, has been able to acquire a great deal of interesting sculptures that have been strewn haphazardly across the campus. These sculptures can be broadly defined as modern art. While the definition of modern art is tough to determine, I generally use a simple test which requires answering only three questions:

1. Do you think it is pretty?
2. Do you know what the artist was trying to express?
3. Did you initially wonder how you ended up at a junkyard?

If you answer ‘no’ to two out of three of the above questions, you are probably looking at modern art. My personal favorite is not at Lehigh yet, but my hope is that a generous alumnus will send “Chunk” (pictured below) from the Museum of Modern Art to Lehigh where it belongs. While “Chunk” may not provide as many drunk-photo opportunities as pieces like the model student or woman on bench, I am sure students would find a way to utilize some of its finer qualities.

Stall Art

Stall Art - Lehigh University

Lastly, we arrive at the art that Lehigh students are most intimately involved with: stall art. The public restroom has always served as a hub for news, rumors, and more. Thanks to Lehigh dining, many students spend a good portion of their day frequenting some of the many stalls around campus.

This, inevitably, leads to expressions that come directly from Lehigh students. As such, they provide the most detail about the culture at Lehigh and provide a great way for all students to learn on the job. Lessons in anatomy, philosophy, and even physics can all be found around campus.

For those freshmen who need a quick social lesson, stall art at Lehigh provides that too. A quick tour through several stalls can provide anyone with a good idea of which fraternities house the cool guys, and which fraternities no one likes. Events like Meet the Greeks and open houses are meant to be the way students are introduced to Greek life. However, stall art has allowed many savvy freshmen to form preconceived notions before they even head up on the Hill.

Stall art may not be as refined as its partners on campus are. However, no one can deny that a visit to several public bathrooms on campus would give prospective students a much better idea of life at Lehigh than a stroll down University walkway.

Replacing “A Moment With Mumma” will be “The Lighter Side” where an editor or author discussing some of the events that we saw in the news over the past month in a “lighter” way. This section may contain blatant or hidden sarcasm, distasteful jokes, and or other literary devices that should not be read literally. Thank you and enjoy!

On September 17^th, President Gast held a townhall meeting discussing the short and long-term goals for the Lehigh community. Were you there? Probably not, considering most people have classes from 1 to 2:30 on a Thursday. Did you hear about it before hand? Again, probably not. The events advertisements consisted of an article on the Lehigh homepage, strategically hidden along other exciting headlines such as “A dose of HPC helps buildings survive earthquakes intact,” and “Arup SenGupta wins new acclaim for improving global health.”

While it really is great that Arup developed technology to remove arsenic from drinking water in poverty-stricken regions of the world, the headline isn’t really something to make you sit up in your chair. Everything aside though, this town hall meeting clearly was not designed for the Lehigh student body to attend. There’s two reasons why this could be the case. First, President Gast and company don’t think students care about the strategic vision or second, they don’t want students to care about the strategic vision.

I felt this was something I should look into, and thus did something no Lehigh student has done yet. I downloaded the 30-page Strategic Plan, and read it. It’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but I did pick up that the strategic plan is big on strategies. In 30 pages, the word ‘Strategic’ appears 44 times. This brought to mind an amusing image of President Gast sitting in her office muttering “Strategery” in her very best George Bush imitation.

But let’s move on to more important things, such as the aforementioned Strategic Plan. It is simple in essence, looking to improve Lehigh, the faculty, students, and the local community. From the wording of the document, it is clearly a long-term strategy. Along with ‘strategy’, the document is peppered with phrases like “intend to build”, “advancing our intellectual footprint”, “position us well for developing further”, and “we aspire to.” As the wording shows, the strategic plan isn’t a strategy for us as students, but rather for the Lehigh of the future.

That’s not a bad thing. Certainly Lehigh needs to look toward the future, and since most of us won’t be active members of the Lehigh community 10 years from now, it makes that we won’t be the ones affected. Even so, a better effort should be made to allow current students to weigh in on the strategic plan, and play a role. Students have a different perspective on Lehigh, and have an entirely different set of experiences. Strategically, hearing student’s opinions and questions will benefit Lehigh and the strategic plan. Hopefully next time Lehigh’s administrators will make a better effort to involve students.

Civil Discourse

As the health care debate rages on, people are starting to lose extremities. Less than a month ago, William Rice was arguing with another protester when a scuffle broke out. In the ensuing melee, the tip of William’s pinkie finger was bitten off.¹

The alleged attacker was protesting with a group organized by Moveon.org, a left-leaning web organization. It has yet to be determined if this is now the official strategy of the Democratic Party, since calling protesters names such as “Un-American” seems to have failed to curb their enthusiasm.

Sadly, doctors were unable to reattach the rest of William’s pinkie. Despite the loss of the digit, there was an ironic benefit for William. His trip to the ER was covered by his Government-run Medicare policy.²

1 – http://www.theweek.com/article/index/100164/How_Bill_Rices_finger_was_bitten_off

2 – http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/community/man-bites-off-protesters-finge/

Sing a new song onto the Lord

In an effort to reestablish the totalitarian regimes of Europe during the 1940’s, one New Jersey teacher is attempting to start her own cult of youth for President Obama. Modeled after the Hitler Youth, the teacher had her entire class singing songs of praise for Barack Obama.

With the surfacing of a video of the event on YouTube, the teacher’s movement is in jeopardy as the school district is launching an investigation. Nevertheless, these students will clearly have lyrics such as “He said we must be fair today, equal work means equal pay. Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama.”³

If this means that politicians are next-in-line behind religious figures for songs of adulation, then my worldview has been turned upside down.

That’s all I’ve got. I’m off to write my ballad of praise for Mark Sanford and John Edwards and their upstanding morals.

3 – http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/24/lyrics-songs-president-obama/

Editor’s Note: a form of ‘strategy’ was used 18 times in this article. For over double the strategery visit www.lehigh.edu/2009plan/

The art of complaining is developed in humans from a very young age. Over the years, it seems that our generation has attained markedly improved skills in this area compared to our predecessors. While most of our parents’ generation couldn’t whine and talk back without getting smacked, our generation was mostly able to avoid such a tragic fate. Whether this is due to the laws in place against child abuse or the compassion of our parents’ generation is uncertain, but it is also beside the point. What we have now is a mass of people in their twenties who find it outrageous when one little thing does not meet their understanding of “fair.”

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