He walked into the actuarial science class with no intention of sitting through it and every intention of making it the last class of his life.

As he pulled out his semi-automatic weapon, he showed he had every intention of making it everyone else’s last class as well.

He pulled the trigger, waving the gun around the room.

Jammed.

He slammed the clip of the gun on a desk, and again pulled the trigger.

Jammed again.

As he attempted to slam the clip for a second time, a desk came sliding his way and knocked him into the chalkboard, providing time for the rest of the room to clear out.

This isn’t the story of the gunman from Virginia Tech or Northern Illinois University.

This is the story of the attempted shooting at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Oct. 13, 1992.

This story repeated itself in September at the University of Texas at Austin and Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, only with different outcomes.

University shootings have happened before, but every time they happen campuses across the nation become more sensitive to them and wonder if they could have been prevented.

UNL officials say the university is prepared for an event and is also active in prevention of such an event.

UNL’s first and only experience with school shootings was that day in 1992.

Since then, the university has prepared itself for a similar event.

“Had that firearm not jammed, we would have been Virginia Tech a good 15 years before Virginia Tech,” said Robert Portnoy, director of UNL’s Counseling and Psychological Services.

BREAKING POINT

Portnoy said this incident prompted the creation of a trauma response team and eventually  the campus’ Threat Assessment Partnership.

This is a coalition among the campus police force, counseling and psychological services, the dean of students and other campus organizations, aimed at reaching out to those people who exhibit signs of becoming a threat to themselves or others.

“If someone has been identified by a friend, for example, or a faculty member as really struggling, there will be an effort to reach out to this individual and encourage them to seek treatment,” Portnoy said.

Signs that someone may be at risk to become a shooter are similar to those you would find in someone who is becoming depressed.

Students who are withdrawing, uncharacteristically using alcohol and drugs or behaving erratically may be at risk.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody is about to go on some kind of shooting rampage,” Portnoy said.

“It means that their resources are starting to become overwhelmed, their ability to cope, and as a consequence, they need some help. But a very, very small percent of those folks actually become violent.”

Portnoy believes many instances of campus violence can be prevented with proper mental health treatment, and the responsibility is on students and faculty in order to help make UNL a community that helps those in need find that treatment.

This is one of the reasons he emphasizes that UNL is a community that takes care of each other.

He also said he and his colleagues are drafting a University Mental Health Emergency Plan and are in the meeting stages of planning.

Even with all of the planning and time spent on prevention, it is still possible that a shooting could happen at UNL, he said.

“We’ve been very fortunate here at UNL not to have such a horrendous incident even though … we came very close,” Portnoy said.

“But all the planning in the world can’t absolutely protect us.”

FOLLOWING FOOTSTEPS

Sometimes, after a school shooting there are “copycat” shootings, or similar shootings that follow the original event.

Portnoy said when at-risk individuals hear of these incidents, whether it be suicide or shootings, they may be inclined to behave similarly.

“Some of it is just – this sounds simplistic – but just copycat, if you will,” Portnoy said.

“People decide that getting their name out there, even in these horrendous circumstances, is somehow desirable.”

Portnoy said he believes copycat behavior accounts for only a relatively small percentage of shootings that follow another shooting.

He said sometimes individuals have a sense that the fabric of society is falling apart after a campus shooting.

It isn’t, he said, but that perception exists.

As a result, a person may abandon their moral restraint and act in an extreme, violent way.

This contagion effect of extreme acts has been curbed by media down-playing the actual act itself and focusing on the life of the people who committed them.

Portnoy pointed out the first major incident the media took this approach with was Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

“They did not glorify his death, they glorified his life, but they were very clear in all the stories that they did, that this was a product of his depression, not who he was as a person,” he said.

“And as a consequence, the contagion effect was quite a bit smaller than what would have predicted otherwise.”

NEW TEXT MESSAGE: ALERT

The UNL emergency planning committee has prepared extensively for potential active shooter situations on campus, said Kelly Bartling, manager of news for University Communications.

When campus shootings happen around the nation, the committee meets to discuss what was handled well and what could’ve been handled differently.

It gives the committee an opportunity to think about what would have happened under similar circumstances at UNL.

Bartling said one of the most useful tools the campus has is UNL Alert.

It is the primary message-delivery system on campus.

This emergency alert system sends messages to students and faculty through cell phones, landlines, fax-machines and e-mail.

It even allows students to select which alerts are most convenient for them.

A similar alert system was used by the University of Texas at Austin during last month’s shooting.

Lydia Schendel, a freshman journalism major at UT, was in class at the time of the shooting and said the alert system was quick and helpful in confirming that the shooting was really happening.

“The first thing that happened, at about 8:15, was four students ran in from outside and one of them said they heard gunshots,” Schendel said.

“But it wasn’t really verified until we got the text messages that came out from the school. That was really the first believable notification of what was going on.”

Further alerts directed students not to leave class or their dorm rooms and gave further safety tips.

UNL’s alert system is very similar to UT’s in its abilities to communicate with students quickly, as well as requiring students sign up to receive alerts.

For this reason, Bartling encouraged students to sign up for alerts at http://emergency.unl.edu.

This is especially important for new students who may be unaware of the alert system and may be confused about what to do when an emergency happens.

The website also has tips on what to do in active shooter instances and a video called “Shots Fired” with information on what students and faculty should do.

“People may not think about what they would do right now if a shooter walked in to their office or their classroom,” Bartling said.

“But it’s important to get people to think about what they would do. Would they run and hide? Would they try to take aggressive action towards the shooter and knock him or her down?”

Bartling said students and faculty must play an important role in preventing these types of situations before they occur, acting as the eyes of the police.

“You cannot have a gun on this campus,” Bartling said.

“So if there’s ever a time where someone sees someone with a gun, that information needs to be immediately reported to police and police need to immediately send an alert letting people know what to look for, where, what time and what to do.”

There are very few places in Omaha that inspire nostalgia quite like Rosenblatt Stadium. From home runs in the bottom of the ninth to teams that seem to capture the city to the pandemonium that reigned when Nebraska made trips to the College World Series, for half a century there has never been a dull day in Omaha during mid-June.

However, what sums up Rosenblatt isn’t so much the games or the competition; it’s the experience in and around the stadium. Fighting traffic, tents lined up and down 13th Street for a mile or more, bitting into a freshly grilled Zesto burger and sharing time with newly made friends in the next parking stall before and between games are all part of the fun.

The College World Series is a product that always delivered both on the field at Rosenblatt and in the neighborhood surrounding it. It’s more than just an event – it’s an institution.

So, with all this history it’s understandable that there was much skepticism when it was announced last spring that something new called the United Football League would be bringing in a team that would play at Rosenblatt Stadium.

What kind of football is it? Where are the players going to come from? How are they going to play football at Rosenblatt Stadium? But probably the most pressing: is this really going to work in Omaha?

To put it simply: yes, it does.

What seems initially out of place when you walk into the stadium soon becomes overlooked and even accepted. Some of it has to do with us Omahans.

We’ve been to Rosenblatt before, and we have the blueprints for what makes it a fun and entertaining experience regardless of what sport is being played. However, despite our reputation as Omaha sports fans, the Nighthawks work because of the product they put on the field and how that product is presented throughout the game.

It’s real football – real good football. The players are big and fast, hit hard and have tremendous skill.

Anyone who has ever been a fan of the NFL will easily recognize what’s going on in the UFL. You’ll also recognize some of the names: Jeff Garcia, Ahman Green, Daunte Culpepper, Dennis Green, Cato June and Maurice Clarett.

If you’ve been to Arrowhead, Invesco, the Metrodome or any other NFL stadium recently, you’ll recognize the fan experience. There’s music at the end of every play, the stadium announcer encourages the crowd to yell “first down,” and there’s an unnecessary number of cheerleaders.

All that being said though, what you’re likely to recognize most is the style and level of play. It’s hard to run the ball, it’s hard to establish a drive and it’s just plain hard to have any kind of offensive success.

That isn’t to say that the game lacks power, though. If that were the case, we all would have stopped watching the NFL a long time ago. The potential for something big is always right around the corner. A running back or receiver breaks a tackle and look out, a play that was intended to get four or five yards has turned into 25, 40 or a whole lot more.

The game commands your attention, not only because of the potential for something big but because of the skill on display in almost every play. There’s no easy pass to complete. Quarterbacks have to fit the ball into very small windows to have any success.

There are very few running lanes to be found. When a back does get free it’s often due to some fancy footwork to avoid a defender.

It’s just good football. It’s easy to see that, it’s very hard to do things well and it’s not difficult to find an appreciation for the level of competition that the UFL provides.

It also doesn’t hurt that both of the home games the Nighthawks have played so far both were decided by late scoring. Two weeks ago a touchdown pass from Garcia to Jeb Putzier led to an Omaha victory over Sacramento with just over five minutes remaining.

The week before, Garcia found Robert Ferguson in the corner of the end zone with eight seconds left to secure the win against Hartford. There’s excitement, the stands are full, the crowd is loud and you almost forget you’re watching all of this go on inside Rosenblatt Stadium.

The fans have clearly embraced this team and this league. So far Omaha has sold out both home games and created an immediate home field advantage. With the Mountain Lions driving late in the fourth quarter, you could honestly feel the ground shake beneath you.

This wasn’t lost on Sacramento head coach Dennis Green.

“Clearly Omaha gets it,” said Green. “I think the fans, the excitement, the tailgating, the whole ball of wax.”

Even former NFL stars rave about the environment at Rosenblatt.

“The atmosphere here is great,” said Sacramento starting quarterback Daunte Culpepper. “The people here in Omaha, they obviously love football. When you go into a hostile environment like this it makes it a little tougher.”

With football leagues that aren’t the NFL, the future is never guaranteed. It is a bit troubling that the only two times the league has sold out were the first two games Omaha ever played in.

With this kind of a start there is little concern around Omaha that Nighthawks will stop anytime soon. Some of that is because Nebraskans love their football, but most of the credit has to go to the UFL plays on the field.

They haven’t tried to make it different or unique. They’ve just tried to make it good football. And that’s what it is: real, good American football.

While engrossed in a poorly heated living space this fall and winter, don’t turn to layers of restrictive clothing or big heavy blankets. The answer is simple, people — just get naked.

There’s nothing better than making natural body heat by rubbing against a partner to get frisky and warm.

But as science majors know, the fusion of two bodies requires energy. Sex without drive won’t come naturally. However, I have good news — there are ways that we can increase our libido!

The term aphrodisiac refers to any substance that acts on an organism in such a way as to increase the sex drive. Due to the broad nature of this definition, we classify things we see, smell, taste, hear and touch as types of aphrodisiacs.

Upon contact with such substances, the body becomes physiologically elevated. Certain foods trigger hormonal releases associated with pleasure or drive, while simultaneously triggering an increase in heart rate. Suddenly, the desire to rip your clothes off and mount another person becomes unbearable!

Chocolate is a widely-known and used aphrodisiac. Research shows that dark chocolate, which contains more cocoa, actually releases serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is the hormone tied to feelings of relaxation and pleasure and chocolate can easily be used in the bedroom.  For example, licking chocolate syrup off your partner’s body serves as great foreplay! You don’t even have to worry about the calories because that ruckus under the sheets will burn those instantly.

If you prefer spicy over sweet, you will love this next one! Chili peppers can spice up your love life by releasing endorphins into your brain. But the spicy nature of this food could be a turnoff, so eat with caution. Don’t indulge or you might sweat profusely or drip snot all over your partner. Yuck!

Oysters are high in zinc, which is necessary for sperm production, as well as ingredients that raise the testosterone levels in men. In addition, there is said to be a striking resemblance between an oyster and the female anatomy, which can also serve a stimulating function. So go get your man some seafood!

Celery contains the male hormone androsterone, which is absorbed after consumption then released through perspiration. It functions as a pheromone, thus stimulating female sex drive. Nothing captures a girl’s vagina like the natural musky scent of her man.

For future reference, here’s a list of several other aphrodisiacs you can put to good use —  pineapple, vanilla, ginger, figs, basil, tomatoes, strawberries, cherries, artichokes, bananas, saffron, honey, eggs, mead, asparagus, radishes, nutmeg, mustard, pine nuts, coffee, avocados, almonds and more.

So this season, don’t just stay warm — get steamy. Remember that sex dominates stress! Afterward, you can settle back to studies with some tea and honey, or perhaps hot cocoa. But be careful … round two?!

As 33 Chilean miners are lifted 2,300 feet from a copper mine, Emma Sepulveda will stand just meters from the spot where they breathe fresh air for the first time in two months. But the miners won’t see loved ones faces for several more hours.

“They have to come up with their eyes covered because the impact of the sun will be too brutal,” said Sepulveda, the director of the U. Nevada-Reno’s Latino Research Center. “They will be taken to an on-site hospital where eye covers will be removed and they will reunite with family.”

On miner’s rations and shantytown beds, Sepulveda has spent the last month gathering information from a number of people associated with the effort to rescue the 33 miners trapped by a collapse on Aug. 5. In what started as research for a book on the miners’ wives, Sepulveda, a Chilean citizen, said the project immediately expanded to include a much wider perspective.

“When I started interviewing (the wives), I realized the story would have to be bigger,” she said. “I began talking with doctors on the scene, with psychologists and miners who had worked in the mine.”

Aside from her work on the book, Sepulveda said she has become an impromptu journalist and an intermediary for a number of world media outlets. She has spoken on Spanish radio in Reno and Argentina and has been interviewed by media outlets from France, Belgium, England and Australia.

Sepulveda’s stay at the mining site has required a high degree of discipline, she said.

“I have to be in the middle of the desert with a huge sun heating us up,” she said. “It’s freezing at night. I eat what they’re giving people for free here. I carry my own water.”

As reporters from around the world have swarmed the spot to cover the final rescue, Sepulveda said the atmosphere around the mine has changed.

“A month ago there weren’t many reporters here,” she said.

“Just family members. There was a lot of family and solidarity. We sat around the campfire and drank mate.

“This past week has been hell. Four hundred reporters have shown up. Every country in the world has a reporter here.”

Sepulveda said she will return to Reno only after all 33 miners have reached the top of the mine. Due to delays and false alarms in the miners’ rescue, she has changed her return ticket three times, she said.

Iris West, assistant to the director at the Latino Research Center and a Chilean citizen, said Sepulveda’s work will look at the mining disaster from a perspective not seen in the news media.

“It’s will show a more personal and human side of what’s happening at the mine,” she said.

Sepulveda’s work will also take a much-needed look at the lives and rights of women associated with the mining industry in Chile, West said.

Jazmin Aravena, a civil environmental engineering graduate student at UNR, said the disaster has been frontpage news for two months.

“I check the news all day about the mining incident,” she said. “It’s important to Chile because Chile is a big mining country.”

Sepulveda, a Chilean citizen, will return to Reno with a true Chilean perspective of the ordeal, Aravena said.

“It’s the Chilean view right here in the U.S.,” she said.

Here’s the story: girl and boy meet. They realize they want each other. Conflict ensues. They realize they need each other. Highly emotional reconciliation. Happily ever after.

I used to think I was above the Twilight fuss, but when the first one made it to Redbox, I figured it would be okay for me to see what the madness was all about without seeming like an obsessed pre-teen. I was surprised by what I found.

The movie was awful. That wasn’t a surprise. Looking at the work independent of the books on which it is based, I found the characters lacking personality and emotional depth. The relationship between Bella and Edward was awkward – not at all the kind of romance real people should fantasize about for themselves. But in some way, it didn’t matter. It struck me that even though the relationship was decidedly ridiculous and shallow, I still wanted what Bella had.

It gets us every time. It doesn’t matter if you’re a scholarly college girl or the 14-year-old that wants to marry Justin Bieber. We’re all suckers for a good love story. In fact, sometimes we’re even suckers for bad love stories.

I wondered what the reason could be for buying into a story like Twilight, but then even as a little kid, a Disney princess cartoon could have me dreaming about the day I would meet Prince Charming.

Most of us have likely developed the notion that finding a prince (or a soul mate or what have you) is the one thing we need to have everything. I mean this in two ways.

The first is that, in a practical sense, romantic aspirations are the least achievable. You can study hard for a grade or a degree. You can build up a resume to get a good job. You can make yourself work out and eat right to be in shape. But what can you do to ensure that you meet that one person? Finding that guy will allow us to have everything because we can take care of the rest on our own.

The second is that romantic movies cause us to have unrealistic expectations. If you look at most of our childhood love stories, the prince primarily functions as a rescuer. What we want is for someone to save us, to go to great lengths to have us; or someone to know what is wrong without asking questions and to be the thing that makes us happy regardless of the circumstances.

This is asking a lot. There are days when even lifelong friends have trouble understanding us. We can’t ask a guy to be God, and we shouldn’t hold out for one that is.

Girls at Northwestern often complain about the lack of dateable guys around, but I think we should be as pragmatic in our romantic aspirations as we are with other aspirations. The men in classic love-stories aren’t real, so we shouldn’t expect guys to be like them any more than guys should expect us to have Cinderella-sized waists.

“League of Legends” is a free video game by independent developers Riot Games in which the player fights in a twisted, magic-infused realm while controlling one of a myriad of champions that range anywhere from a yeti-riding miniature mage to a mutated giant armadillo.

The first incarnation of “League of Legends” was, surprisingly enough, in a different game.  “League of Legends” is based on a similar game called “Defense of the Ancients,” a custom scenario in Blizzard’s game “Warcraft III”. Some of the developers from the series split off and formed Riot Games.

Both games have the player control his or her selected champion in an effort to destroy the enemy champions in an opposing base.  The keys to game are the items, skills and, most importantly, the teamwork between players.  For example, if a teammate charges into the enemy base alone (warning: language), holding aloft his or her plus-15 damage sword, they will quickly meet their death.

Character choice is very important as well, and also serves as one of the most unique parts of “League of Legends.”  There are currently 50 playable champions, each one with its own unique play style that can be broken down further into different options with various choices of items.

Sorcerers, warriors, assassins, archers, pirates, ninjas, trolls, dwarves, humans, animals, monsters and whatever else one could possibly think of are controllable in the game, each one playing incredibly differently from the other choices. Even if there are two of the same champion, they could be playing in completely different styles, which leads to varied and frantic game play.

“League of Legends” is a metric-ton of fun, being one of the most addictive games that a select few testers on the Speakeasy Entertainment staff have ever played.  Homework is pushed aside, girlfriends are ignored and the night is always considered young – even at 5 a.m.

When things do not go in a favorable direction, however, the game can turn into one of the most enraging things a gamer will ever play, (Note:  that happens about 50 percent of the time.)  especially when the player is paired up with random players across the Internet, who could range anywhere from newbies who skipped the tutorial to seasoned “Field of Justice” veterans who are capable of dealing death in a few seconds.

A single game can last anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour, though it is time pleasurably spent, especially considering a player’s profile will still gain experience points even in a loss.  Also, once enough points are gained from playing various games, a player can also use them (or actual money) to buy new champions to play with, runes that add slight bonuses and new (often hilarious) costumes for the champions and much more.

One minor problem with the game? It is currently only available for Windows. Eager Mac owners only have to wait a little longer, however, a version friendly to their operating system will be appearing sometime during the fall fiscal quarter of this year.

Every story has distinct characters. The social butterfly. The social climber. The social outcast. The worst, however, and most dreaded character type in the story of life, is the social terrorist.

The social terrorist is the character guilty of “incessant and unwanted intrusion into each aspect of everyday life.”

Everyone knows a social terrorist. Social terrorists possess the uncanny and unfortunate skill of being present at the most ordinary of places, and at the most inconvenient times.

The one in your life story could conceivably be the guy who was your co-worker over the summer and now creepily asks you to play “World of Warcraft” with him (even though you don’t even play it) every time you’re in class. In addition, every time you walk to class, he has the disturbing ability to spot you and again ask you the same thing.

Maybe it’s that incredibly insecure girl who attempts to completely latch onto you because you once commented on her cute boots. Now everyday she seeks you out and asks you if her outfit looks okay; saying senseless things like, “does this make me look too dressed up, because I don’t want to look too dressed up. It can’t look like I tried too hard but I still have to look like I care.” Meanwhile, you roll your eyes and continue walking to class as she so desperately needles, pokes and prods for constant praise and attention.

It could even be that neighbor of yours. The one who has the annoying habit of taking the oft-spoken phrase, “make yourself at home,” to a whole new level. Rather than just asking for the standard neighborly cup of sugar to make chocolate chip cookies with, they also help themselves to a handful of Halloween candy, ask to use your printer to print off their 12-page project and conveniently always seem to have “run out of laundry soap,” therefore, they absolutely need to borrow yours.

How are social terrorists to be dealt with?

In the interest of your sanity, something must be done, but you wonder what.

There are several different approaches that may be used when dealing with a social terrorist.

The first is to kindly but firmly redirect them.

To the guy who endlessly inquires if you want to play “World of Warcraft,” you can kindly say, “thank you so much for the invite, but I’m not actually really interested in that whole thing, and I’m not into learning either. However, I bet that guy who sits two rows behind us in class who always wears the ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ shirt would be thrilled to play with you.”

This way, you have been polite, cleared up the fact in words that your disinterest will persist in the future, and you have offered him an alternative person to gravitate toward.

The second is to be honest.

Next time the insecure girl queries whether or not her outfit looks however she wishes it to appear, tell what you honestly think (without being too blunt). For example, “even though that puce sweater looks like it must keep you warm, I think maroon might be a color more suitable for you.” Make certain, however, to avoid any more future inquiry from her by adding, “but as long as you have confidence, you can wear anything.” If she isn’t sold on that, simply insist, “I don’t know much about fashion though, so you should really start asking someone who is a fashionista for that sort of advice.”

A third approach that may be taken when a social terrorist is on your hands is to simply diagnose them.

However, do not point your finger at their forehead and through clenched teeth and mutter, “You social terrorist.”

Instead, when your neighbor pops their head in your door asking to again borrow your laundry soap, calmly reply, “why yes you may; first however, I would like the $___(insert amount) for it, as it does all add up and can become rather expensive.” The key in this situation is to remain calm and cordial but firm as well. As long as you consistently reinforce your anti-freeloader policies, the point should make it across.

Though social terrorists can be unpleasant characters to be surrounded by, they pop up without fail in every story. Every good story has some conflict, and in the story of life, the protagonist must always face these conflicts they are presented with, head on. Hopefully, these three approaches to dealing with social terrorists help each and every one of you protagonists in your life story.

As the economy declined, more and more students began looking for alternative ways to gain work experience, including unpaid internships. However, many are starting to question whether unpaid internships are legal, and others wonder if they’re really worth their time.

Beaver JobNet allows for students to search for jobs and internships in a broad range of fields, allowing all students equal access to the jobs that are out there. There are certain fields that are more likely to hire unpaid interns or volunteers than others due to the nature of the work.

Adry Clark, assistant director and career counselor for Career Services at OSU, works to connect students with programs and reviews guidelines. Companies contact Clark wanting interns and she helps students better understand their opportunities, hoping to improve the state of internships for students at OSU.

“In order for an unpaid internship to be lawful, the intern must be working for a nonprofit company and there needs to be a lot of guidance and training,” says Clark. “More unpaid internships are arising due to the budget crisis and companies think that they can get someone to work for them for nothing. Scams, commission-based jobs, (and) work from home are all ways that employers are trying to get free labor.”

Clark’s job is to act as a gatekeeper when it comes to unlawful internships, but to also let students know that there are more internships out there than ever before. Students can come to Clark if they feel violated or used in any way while completing an unpaid internship. This will allow Clark to stay informed and better serve students.

“As more internships open up, they see it as an extended interview,” says Clark. “The employer is getting fresh talent, and if it works out, it is the best way to find future employment, which makes the whole experience positive.”

Some fields, like human services, teachers and counselors are more likely to complete field work or shadow someone in order to fully learn the job, an unpaid experience that is invaluable. Clark recommends that students talk to people in the field that they are interested in and conduct informational interviews in order to understand how they got their start, or if starting out with unpaid work is a normal practice for the specific area of interest.

“Business, social media, (and) engineering internships are largely paid positions, so students have a lot of leverage,” says Clark. “Sometimes students are so eager to accept, they forget to inquire about the pay, which is something that students should be assertive about. If the intern contributes and is an asset to the company, they can have a good case as to why they should be paid.”

Internships on campus have been growing over the years, particularly athletic internships. Nikki Pruett, director of promotions and fan development for Oregon State Athletics, enjoys hiring OSU students who are passionate about the athletic department. Athletic interns are each given a book scholarship each term or paid an hourly wage, depending on which department they are hired in, as well as compensated with Nike gear.

“Like other internships, it’s an opportunity to learn about an industry that may be of interest to the intern in the future,” says Pruett. “Each intern is working for people that have worked within this industry and have contacts outside of OSU. If interns do a good job within their department, their supervisors are more than willing to help them, as much as possible, to find a job after they graduate.”

In an article published in April 2010 in the New York Times called, “The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not,” Steven Greenhouse reported that The Labor Department is “cracking down on firms that fail to pay interns properly and expanding efforts to educate companies, colleges and students on the law regarding internships.”

Greenhouse also reported that officials in Oregon and California have begun investigations and fined employers, increasing enforcement nationwide. If students at OSU are interested in seeking internships for college credit, there is an internship class that must be completed first that is available for almost every major. For more information, talk to your advisor or schedule an appointment at career services by calling 541-737-0519 or visit oregonstate.edu/career.

There is a difference between making remarks that are anti-Muslim and making remarks that are anti-Islam.

Muslims are people: The Arabic word for Muslim means “one who submits” — to God, that is. Islam, by contrast, means “submission” and is an ideology — that is to say, a set of truth-claims and prescriptions, like communism, Catholicism or conservatism.

It is one thing to say “Muslims are terrorists” and something different to say “Islam is incompatible with Western values” or even “Islam is wrong.” Take Martin Peretz’s infamous commentary in The New Republic: “Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.” To begin with — because it is not clear to me that this is universally accepted in Western Europe — Peretz ought to have the right to say this. He does have the right to say this, under American law. Nonetheless, he ought not to exercise that right because the commentary is unconstructive, uninformed, unhelpful and an attack on persons rather than ideas: much like the average submission to the ‘Prince’ website.

By way of contrast: To say “Islam is incompatible with Western values” advances a serious debate, not least because it requires us to ask, “What is Islam?” and “What are Western values?” For example, in 2007 roughly one-third of young British Muslims believed that conversion from Islam is forbidden and punishable by death.  (Intriguingly, only one-fifth of their grandparents held this view.) If we assume — as I do — that freedom of religion is an authentically Western value, then that particular definition of Islam is incompatible with Western values. Unfortunately, it is hard for anyone who is not a Muslim to state categorically, “This is Islamic, this is not.”  Like Protestantism, Islam lacks a centralized body to interpret its sources of religious authority: While there are prominent leaders whose decisions guide the practice of millions, it tends to be the violent fanatics who claim that they are the only legitimate voice of Islam.

My fellow columnist Adam Bradlow is right to condemn “anti-Muslim” rhetoric: for example, characterizing Muslims as terrorists or the bizarre assertions of Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, that parts of Michigan and Texas are now governed by Shariah. But I see no reason to condemn rhetoric that opposes Islam, so long as it is conducted in a reasonable and informed manner (which excludes the perpetual allegation that Islam mandates female genital mutilation — it does not).

At the same time as Muslim zealots across the globe are trying to bully Westerners into self-censorship about religion (see the “South Park” Muhammad debacle), many Westerners, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, seem to be working toward the same goal. Witness the British Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006, which, but for helpful amendments from the House of Lords, would have ironically rendered both the Bible and the Koran illegal. Or consider the trial of Geert Wilders: While I find it implausible for a man who wants to ban books to cast himself as a champion of free speech, he should nonetheless not be prosecuted for saying things.

America, fortunately, seems remarkably free of attempts to legally limit our public discussion of religion, which is why I was particularly perplexed by Bradlow’s rhetorical question about whether America is still “the land of the free.”  Of course it is: America is, in public discourse, more free than most West European democracies. The only freedom we don’t guarantee is — to borrow the words of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — the freedom “not to be offended.”

I support the general idea of Park51 largely because I view it as the perfect riposte to Islamists who claim that America is engaged in a war against Muslims. So far as I know, the people trying to stop Park51 have thus far failed to demonstrate any connection between the organizers of the Islamic center and Islamist terrorists — though I would point out that the preliminary sketches submitted for the project are very ugly, and its opponents might want to consider arguing against construction on aesthetic grounds alone.

Muslims are people, and until all Muslims become alike — in any respect other than their religion — it will be impossible to smear the backers of Park51 with the brush dipped in the blood of Islamists’ victims. Islam, however, is an ideology, and like any ideology it must be legally and socially open to criticism.

The cracks of Penn State’s dynasty were starting to show — perhaps even before this season began.

A 102-match winning streak and three consecutive national championships were irrelevant for the Nittany Lions’ women’s volleyball team in its hope to repeat in 2010.

This season, Penn State features a considerably different roster. New faces, new roles, new expectations — and new burdens.

“We’re a different team this year,” coach Russ Rose told reporters at media day in August. “Each year is different.”

Now, it’s seven weeks into the season and the Lions (13-4, 3-3 Big Ten) have lost four matches over the past four weeks. The seven-time defending conference champions are currently in sixth place in the Big Ten standings. And they’re not the No. 1 ranked in the country for the first time since Oct. 22, 2007.

The cracks are growing deeper, and some are beginning to question: Is this the end of the Penn State juggernaut and its reign over collegiate women’s volleyball?

“I would say you could predict the end of a dynasty, yeah,” said Buster Olney, ESPN baseball analyst and author of The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty. “When you see the players that were so important leave, it’s like a colony of ants. They all had their specific roles in the clubhouse, and when they leave, the culture is different. And the hardest thing to deal with is the pressure to try to repeat.”

Penn State entered the 2010 season without its core.

Alisha Glass and Megan Hodge — veteran locker room presences who graduated last spring as a part of the winningest class in school history — moved on, and nine freshmen were added to the Lions’ roster.

Olney said he came up with the thesis for his book, which chronicles the decline of the New York Yankees’ dominance over Major League Baseball from 1996-2001, in the summer of 2002. When Olney saw players such as Paul O’Neill, Chuck Knoblauch, Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez — who he described as “the core for that incredible leadership culture” — leave, he knew things would change.

Olney said the Yankees kept making the playoffs after that, but the feeling wasn’t the same.

It was a different team, he said.

“I think the change in personnel became a defining characteristic of their decline,” Olney said. “When you get that label of ‘dynasty’ the players go from excited about winning a game to the expectations that, if they lose, you’re losers. The Yankees had to deal with that and I’m sure the Penn State volleyball players do, too.”

The Lions have stumbled of late, tumbling to a No. 9 national ranking — their lowest since 2003.

However, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Dave Anderson, who has been a sports columnist at the New York Times since 1971, said a few regular season blunders might not mean it would be the end of a dynasty.

Anderson said dynasties are measured in championships. He said when a reign of dominance occurs, there’s always a common thread.

“The end of a dynasty comes if all the good players or coaches who were a part of that get old, retire or are not there anymore,” Anderson said. “Especially the coach. Usually when a team is in the midst of a dynasty range, they have the same coach. Players only last so long.”

Anderson pointed to the Yankees’ dynasty of 1947-62, when New York won 10 World Series championships in 16 seasons as a prime example. He said when General Manager George Weiss retired in 1960, the team’s philosophy changed.

And not soon after, the Yankees’ run ended.

Rose has coached the Penn State women’s volleyball team for the last 32 seasons, and last year amassed 1,000 wins.

“These things can be revitalized as long as the people who are still doing the recruiting and established the program are still there,” said Filip Bondy, a longtime sports columnist for The New York Daily News.

“They will still be a magnet school for talent and interest. Once the coach leaves, the program can completely fall apart.”

Bondy said the perfect illustration of that is the Tennessee and Connecticut women’s basketball programs, which have combined to win 12 of the last 16 NCAA titles.

The success has been a result of sound coaching, Bondy said. Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma are two of the winningest coaches in the history of the sport, and together have put in 60 years at their respective institutions.

“Summitt and Auriemma might have an off year or two, but as long as those coaches are there, their programs will keep winning,” Bondy said. “Rock solid teams fall apart when coaches leave.”

That’s why Karch Kiraly isn’t worried about the Penn State women’s volleyball team. In fact, Kiraly — an ESPN volleyball analyst and current assistant coach for the U.S. women’s national team — feels strongly the Lions will “claw back up.”

“Some claim Penn State lost a few games, and it’s the end of dominance,” Kiraly said. “I think the more important thing to focus on is what an amazing accomplishment it was for coach Russ Rose to put together the best team in the history of college volleyball. That should be appreciated for what it is.”