The Dangers of Cell Phones?

I have a few friends who use Bluetooth headsets, and one told me an upsetting story about her sister’s friend, who was a day trader and constantly on her cell phone, and who developed a brain tumor, allegedly due to the radiation.  (According to her, the headset prevents this exposure).  While I still use my cell phone regularly (how can you not?), I do sometimes feel a little nervous about it.  Cell phones are so omnipresent-it’s hard to imagine modern life without them.  I was quite worried when I read this article on the dangers of mobile phones-particularly for pregnant women and children.  It left me wondering, are mobile phones the cigarettes of the future?

Senator Ted Kennedy and Student Financial Aid @ Northeastern University

I am sorry to hear about Senator Ted Kennedy’s ill health.  He’s the subject of a new online exhibit by the NU Libraries Archives on Student Financial Aid at Northeastern University.  The exhibit recounts Kennedy’s strong support of federal financial aid for college students, and his relationship with Northeastern.  He spoke at student rallies, heard personal student testimonies, and held a press conference and a senate committee field hearing at Northeastern whenever student financial aid programs were threatened by presidential or congressional proposals.  The exhibit comprises photographs, articles from Northeastern University’s student and faculty/staff newspapers, official statements, and background information.  I wish Senator Kennedy and his family the best. 

From Homicide to Hope

Please join us for Thursday’s FOCUS (Forming Opportunities for Collaboration, Understanding, and Service) Forum-From Homicide to Hope: A Community Approach to Reducing Youth Violence.  Jack Levin, Professor and Co-Director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict, student Alex Alvanos ’09, Co-Founder of Social Change through Peace Games, and Emmanuel Tikili, Director of Programs for the Boston TenPoint coalition, will lead the discussion.  The program’s goal is to inform the Northeastern community about issues that affect our neighboring Boston community and to provide the attendees with resources that empower them to serve the community and to act. Attendees will leave the program with more information on what exactly they can do to reduce youth violence.  This forum is sponsored by Northeastern University Libraries and the Northeastern University Center of Community Service.

Thursday, May 22 @ 4:30 pm

90 Snell Library

Gossip Girl, Take 2

So I changed my tune, after my last Gossip Girl post.  I watched another episode with my roommate, and then became a little obsessed with it, catching up on the entire season’s worth of episodes.  I also found that it’s been pretty widely (and constantly) written about, even meriting coverage by the British press. In the beginning of The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James describes Isabel Archer, writing, “She had seen very little of the evil of the world, but she had seen women who lied and who tried to hurt each other.”  In the class I was taking at the time, our professor pointed to that line, and said that Isabel would be encountering far greater evil, evil that would seem incomprehensible to her then, as the novel progressed.  And while I could see his point, I also thought that “women who lied and tried to hurt each other,” was no small sin.  It’s also a type of evil most people encounter, and while the antics on Gossip Girl are more than a little melodramatic, I’ve also come to find them quite compelling.  The show’s depiction of friendship-the ways in which friends can love each other very deeply, without there being a rational reason behind it-is, I think, its strongest virtue. I also started reading (and enjoying) these very loving recaps-the writer draws parallels to Joseph Campbell, among others, and it’s made me feel better about my new fixation.   Tonight’s the finale: 8 pm on the CW, so tune in! 🙂

Julie Andrews and Libraries

You may know Julie Andrews as the star of Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and The Princess Diaries, but I was quite excited to learn that she’s also an enthusiastic supporter of public libraries! She wrote an editorial in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, criticizing budget cuts. I’ve visited some California public libraries (and in fact have a Palos Verdes Peninsula library card) but am not that familiar with LA libraries. Have any of you visited any? And what do you think of her editorial?