It was a cloudy, rainy Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 6. Students dodged puddles and hurried into the immense belly of the New Balance Memorial Gym to vote. Despite the stormy weather, the polls saw an increased number of voters in what many considered to be a successful election on campus.

“Anyone who was at the polls can see that [students] were turning out in numbers that were significant,” said Rob Glover, professor of political science and one of the principal directors of the University of Maine Voter Activation Network. “To see such strong turnout despite a really gross, rainy day was fantastic.”

The Voter Activation Network group coordinated political engagement efforts between students and faculty at UMaine during this year’s election season.

This year, the members of the group directly reached out to roughly 3,000 students, Glover estimates, through club and class presentations. He said these efforts contributed to a successful Election Day.

“I was most excited to have so many members of our campus community volunteering to help get out the vote and to assist the town in administering the election. We had dozens of volunteers engaged in this effort,” Glover said.

Orono Town Clerk Shelly Crosby echoed Glover’s sentiments. For her, Election Day was a chaotic 12 hours of shuffling around the Memorial Gym, registering new voters and trying to keep lines moving quickly. According to Crosby, 4,404 ballots were cast in person and 1,200 absentee.

This represents a nine percent increase from 2014 in the number of registered voters who cast ballots in a midterm election and referendum in Orono, according to statistics provided by the town of Orono.

Town officials also handled 1,445 new-voter registrations and information changes.

Processing all of the absentee ballots was one of the day’s biggest challenges, Crosby said, but volunteers from Student Services and the Political Science Department pitched in to help with the workload.

“Students attended mandatory training and worked [alongside] appointed election clerks and registrars to handle the volume of tasks both before, during and after the election,” Crosby said. “This process was widely successful and will certainly be repeated in the future.”

It wasn’t just on the organizational side where students came out to help. Animated by national political fervor, some students showed up to vote with a clear purpose.

Fourth-year psychology student Lanie Howes said that she was most concerned about reproductive rights and noted that she was casting her vote in light of the recent confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

“I’m hoping to elect officials that care in some capacity about human beings rather than simply tax money,” Howes said.

Others also emphasized that they were interested in voting for officials who represented their interests, and political orientations fell to both sides of the aisle.

Josiah Paradis, a fourth-year music education student from Belgrade, Maine, talked with his family members back home and professors in order to get a better sense of how to vote.

“I would like to see another Republican governor,” Paradis said. “Maybe not quite as brash as Paul LePage … but I’d definitely like to see things continue that way.”

While students like Howes and Paradis and members of the community waited in line to vote, students outside the Memorial Gym celebrated the day, handed out information and directed those registered to the polling location.

This nonpartisan event, Party at the Polls, was organized by the Feminist Collective and sponsored in part by Student Government. Student volunteers tabled throughout the day, fielding questions and handing out free pizza to those sporting an “I Voted Today” sticker.

This year, through the coordinated effort of members of the Voter Activation Network, roughly 3,000 first- and second-year students were given the opportunity to register to vote and told about their rights as voters.

“Honestly, I was most concerned that those we’d registered wouldn’t turn out to the polls,” Glover said.

Glover said that, going forward, he hopes to help engage UMaine students even further in the political process. With sights set on 2020, he wants even more student-led volunteer efforts on Election Day and, of course, for more students to come out and vote — both this year’s keys to success.

University of Maine Professor of Higher Education Elizabeth Allen recently published a new study on hazing on college campuses. The study comes at a time when there is a strong local and national discourse about hazing involving students groups at colleges.

The results of the study, which was published in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, give insight into student attitudes toward hazing on campus and suggest steps that can be taken to prevent it. Allen said that, on the part of the university, it is important to “make a meaningful commitment backed by action.”

Of the 84 percent of students sampled for the study who agreed to answer questions about groups they had been a part of, 26 percent said that they, at one point, had to engage in activities that fall under the definition of hazing as a requisite for membership. The study also found that “students frequently reported positive associations with their hazing experiences such as feeling more like a part of the team or group (62.8 [percent]).”

This study was conducted across seven institutions, according to a UMaine news release. UMaine, Allen said, was the subject of a study roughly five years ago with the Hazing Prevention Consortium, but the data is out of date and a new study is needed to get a sense of the severity of hazing on campus and the attitudes of students.

Current UMaine policy defines hazing as “Any activity without reasonable or legitimate educational value expected of someone joining a group or to maintain their status in a group that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional, psychological, and/or physical harm, regardless of a person’s willingness to participate.”

Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Robert Dana said that this policy is constantly being informed by up-to-date research and information on hazing, like the kind found in Allen’s research.

“[The policy] is not static and is periodically reviewed but the bones of the policy are strong and invariant,” Dana said. “Bottom line is that hazing is bad for people, bad for organizations and bad for our community. There are much safer and humane ways to establish bonds, commitment and connection.”

There are multiple groups at UMaine who have the same commitment to promote anti-hazing policies. Vice President of the Interfraternity Council (IFC) Austin Steward noted that his organization actively works to raise awareness of hazing and engage students in its prevention. In October, IFC organized a “These Hands Don’t Haze” event where members of Greek life could make handprints in paint and sign their name on an anti-hazing banner.

“The goal of the banner, and the Hazing Prevention Week as a whole, was was to show that we the students at the University of Maine (not just Greeks) don’t believe or tolerate hazing,” Steward said. “With the ever changing national view of Greek Life it’s our responsibility to step up and actively show we are different than the stereotype.”

It should be noted that Steward’s comments come on the heels of one serious instance of the University taking action against hazing.

UMaine recently brought down the judicial hammer on the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) for charges of hazing. The fraternity was dismissed from campus last June following a late-spring investigation by university officials into incidents that occured on Maine Day in 2018. The charges against SAE involved violation of UMaine’s hazing policy, violation of the drug and alcohol policy, endangering health and safety and physical assault.

Despite the way the issue is presented by the national media, hazing is not unique to Greek life. Steward encouraged members of any organization to speak up when they think there might be an issue of hazing.

“[I]f you feel something is wrong or doesn’t align with your morals then I would always encourage saying something to your fellow [organization] members,” Steward said.

Dean Dana has a similar view.

“If someone wants to talk to someone about… something that think might be hazing just come to Student Life and someone will sit with you and hear your concerns. Bottom line if you see something that seems weird or wrong say something to someone,” Dana said.

There are multiple campus resources for students who may have witnessed or experienced an incident of hazing, including the Office of Student Life, the University of Maine Police Department’s anonymous tip-line Campus Eyes, UMPD (reachable at 581-9255 and 581-4040) and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs.

The first bike that Michael O’Clair brought to college was his father’s. It was an antique, at least 30 years old. O’Clair had a lock. He took every precaution to secure his only mode of transportation. He clipped the two plastic ends together and fumbled with the rotating numbers every time he went inside, regardless of if it was for 20 minutes or eight hours.

On a day like any other, O’Clair got out of class, rode to his dorm, locked the bike and went inside. When he came out 20 minutes later, he was surprised at what he found.

“I came back out and the bike was just completely gone. The lock was gone and everything with that. I was 100% sure I locked that bike,” O’Clair said.

Bike thefts like O’Clair’s are an all-too-common occurrence at the University of Maine. What’s unique about his story is that it wasn’t just that first bike that was stolen. It was the next two as well.

“I came back early for winter training for track. It was the beginning of the year — early January,” O’Clair said. “I figured that was my own doing because I didn’t lock that bike up because I was the only person in my entire dorm.”

When Michael left his dorm — just like the last time — where he should have found his bike, he only found a patchwork of snowy footsteps. He admitted that it was likely because he hadn’t locked the bike that it was able to be stolen so easily, so he got a new lock and a new bike.

O’Clair’s third attempt to keep a bike on campus was short lived as well.

“I went into the Field House to do a little bit of studying,” he said. “Still had it locked up. And when I came back, this time I found that my lock was broken, and the lock was still there. But the bike wasn’t there at all.”

O’Clair’s last experience is an increasingly common one for students at UMaine. According to statistics from the University of Maine Police Department (UMPD), since the beginning of the fall semester there have been 15 reported bike thefts. Only four bikes have been recovered.

UMPD noted that bike theft is no new issue, but this fall semester has seen a particular surge in the number of incidents in which the lock was broken. This now tends to occur more often than not. Since the beginning of the semester, eight complaintents reported a broken lock compared to six in which the stolen bike was not locked.

In some cases, the thieves take the lock, and in others they leave it. On Sept. 16, UMPD responded to a call from DTAV/Patch that someone had found three broken bike locks on a bike rack outside the apartments. When O’Clair’s first bike was stolen, the thieves took the lock and all.

Spencer Ward is a third-year computer science student and has a similar story.

“I never saw any sign of even just my lock. I never saw that lock again,” Ward said of the theft of his bike from a bicycle rack near Penobscot Hall last year. It was a relatively-common type of lock: plastic cord surrounding a core of metal wire.

“If you had the right tools you could definitely cut it,” he said. “It wasn’t like one of those ones with the thin wires that you could probably cut with pliers.”

After discovering that his bike was missing, Ward’s first inclination was to search for the bike himself, then alert UMPD. However, contacting the police proved unhelpful.

“I checked every bike rack I could find. No sign of it,” Ward said. “I went to UMPD. I reported it stolen. I gave them a pretty clear description, showed them a picture of the bike, and they told me they would get in touch with me if they ever found it. I never heard anything back.”

Ward noted that he could have done more to secure his bike. Penobscot Hall is one of the dorms on campus that offers indoor bike storage options, but he noted that the door locked at 9 p.m. every night, usually well before he arrived home.

The Residence Hall Association (RHA) recommends that students’ first measure to secure their bikes should be to “buy a good quality bike lock that is easy to deploy.” After that, “it is strongly suggested for those who live on campus to lock their bikes in the bike storage room, if possible,” said Brandon Richards, president of RHA.

“These rooms are open to anyone in the building, so they should still make sure to lock their bikes. There is a new building access policy in effect this year, and it is that only the residents of such halls can get into their hall. This further reduces the amount of people that have access to the bike rooms,” Richards said.

Jim Rose, owner of Orono’s local bike shop Rose Bicycle, goes a step further and says people should always bring their bikes inside for the night if possible. Rose said that most bike thefts are “a theft of opportunity, somebody faced with a long walk home late at night, maybe too many drinks [in their system], so not the best state of mind.” Still, he acknowledged that extra precautions should be taken in light of the recent spate of cut bike locks.

Rose said that if your bike is stolen, you should call your local bike shop, in addition to contacting the police. Students at UMaine also have the option to register a bike with UMPD, who will then provide a metallic identification sticker. If the stolen bike is recovered, officials would be able to match the sticker to the owner and return it.

However, there is a big “if” in that situation: the bike needs to be recovered.

Recent incident reports from UMPD exhibit common characteristics: the bike was left unattended on a bicycle rack overnight — near a dorm or apartment on campus — sometime during the night the lock was cut with what appears to be bolt cutters and the bike is usually not recovered. Whether the bikes are being sold or put to some other use is not known.

The thieves could be reselling the bikes, but Rose stated that its extremely uncommon for people to try to sell a stolen bike to his shop.

“We do not buy bikes but do take trade-ins on a new bike purchase,” Rose said. “When a new bike is sold we take the purchaser’s contact information. [One time] a traded-in bike turned out to be stolen which we discovered when a customer recognized their bike in our shop. We contacted the police, they used the contact information to recover our bike and we gave the traded-in bike to it’s rightful owner.”

Rose’s story is uncommon — most people don’t recover their bikes, even after alerting UMPD to the theft. In nearly every case, proactive measures to secure the bike like locking it up, taking it to the dorm storage rooms and investing in a more substantial lock, have proved more effective than contacting police and attempting to recover the bike after the fact.

For Ward and O’Clair, they have accepted that they will probably never see their bikes again.

Ward is now riding a new bike to commute between home in Orono and campus, and he hasn’t run into any issues yet. And O’Clair has accepted that, until this problem with bike theft at UMaine is fixed, he might have better luck with a different kind of vehicle.

“I got rid of the bike. I actually saved up and got a car. So hopefully no one steals that,” O’Clair said.

On Tuesday, Sept. 25, the nation celebrated National Voter Registration Day, and the University of Maine partnered in this effort to get people registered to vote.

Efforts to engage students on campus included two booths in the Memorial Union and on the university Mall, which registered close to 200 voters. Over a dozen students also signed up to volunteer on election day. In addition to the on-campus activities for voter registration, those helping out with the event also spent the week going into classrooms in the Bangor and Old Town areas to hand out voter registration cards.

The windy weather did not deter those wanting to take part in their civic duty. Max Harris, a business-marketing student, and several other first-year students took advantage of the opportunity that the National Voter Registration Day booth presented.

“I was hesitant to register to vote because I didn’t think registering was this easy. It’s a good event to have,” Harris said.

In addition to registration cards, the booth on the Mall offered election-related freebies such as stickers and raffle tickets. Participants who entered the drawing had the chance to win a selection of prizes ranging from gift cards to the UMaine Bookstore, UMaine versus UNH hockey tickets and an iPad. Members of the campus community also had the opportunity to fill out a sign explaining “Why I Vote” and be photographed with it as part of a video to promote voter turnout.

Voters had many different motivations that brought them out on National Voter Registration Day, but overall the consensus was that it was an opportunity to make a change and have their voices heard.

Noah Robbin, a first-year business student, made his reasoning clear and simple: “It’s every citizen’s duty; you cannot complain if you didn’t vote.”

The Union also had a table where people could register to vote. Marina Cucuz is a graduate student at UMaine who tended the table. Cucuz said she was representing the 500 Women Scientists group of UMaine, a national grassroots organization that builds local chapters where women in STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math, can “meet regularly, develop a support network, make strategic plans, and take action,” according to the group’s website.

“We all should definitely vote and it’s very convenient that it is done right here on campus, so there is really no excuse to not do it,” Cucuz said.

Despite the convenience of on-campus voting, student voter turnout is traditionally low, especially during midterm elections. Last midterm election the student turnout was only 29 percent which is a factor contributing to the local push to get students voting this year, according to professor of political science Rob Glover. Since 2002, eligible voter turnout as a state has continuously increased and this year is projected to be a larger turnout, according to a report from News Center Maine.

“Voting is both a privilege and a right, and the stakes have never been politically higher,” Dana Carver-Bailer, a volunteer administrator, said.

Maine is being watched closely by the nation since the split presidential electoral vote last year. Now, the whole nation is curious as to how the state will vote in 2018. The congressional race between Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin and Democrat Jared Golden is also of great interest as it has the potential to go either way. If Golden wins, that would be the first time an incumbent lost in Maine’s second Congressional District since 1916.

If you missed the chance to register on National Voter Registration Day you can still register or request an absentee ballot in the Student Wellness Center any time before Oct. 5. There is also the opportunity of same-day registration in all Maine elections.

When Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy hung up her hat on June 30, 2018, as the chief operating officer of the National Science Foundation, all that separated her from a new position as president of the University of Maine was a good night’s sleep.

“It’s been good to be back in New England,” Ferrini-Mundy said last week of her roughly three months in office. “I’ve been very warmly welcomed, very heartily welcomed at both campuses.”

President Ferrini-Mundy arrived on campus on July 1, 2018, to fill the position left by President Susan Hunter, who served in the position for almost four years. The new president brings administrative experience from the National Science Foundation and holds a doctorate in mathematics from the University of New Hampshire.

According to UMaine’s website, she “is a national leader in STEM education research and policy, co-leading the development of a governmentwide strategic plan for science, technology and engineering education across 14 science agencies that has achieved improved coherence and impact in the federal government’s $3 billion STEM education investment.”

It’s no surprise, then, that during the presidential selection process, decision-making representatives thought Ferrini-Mundy would fit in at UMaine, a university with a strong commitment to expanding STEM education to serve the state. The University is currently planning construction of a state-of-the-art, $80 million engineering building.

“We’re always going to need to pay a lot of attention to enrollment, to making sure we are serving the state of Maine well and that we are helping to prepare students who can be a part of growing the economy in the state of Maine,” Ferrini-Mundy said.

While her priorities are focused, they are not one-dimensional. Ferrini-Mundy is making it a priority of her administration to serve the student body at UMaine, something that can be accomplished through outreach and making herself and her office accessible.

“I’ve been on university campuses where I’ve seen presidents who know the students by name, and I hope we can get at least to a partial point of some of that,” Ferrini-Mundy said.

To meet this end, she has taken steps to reach out directly to individual students and organizations. A new system of presidential office hours has also been implemented with hopeful expectations.

“I hope people feel welcome to [office hours] and will come by and talk to me about their experiences at the University of Maine,” Ferrini-Mundy said. “UMaine has such phenomenal activity going on, such good stories, great accomplishments among the students, the faculty everyone. I’m eager to be a part of helping to spread the word to make sure the stories from here are well known, beyond the university and beyond the state, nationally and internationally.”

The form to request office hours with the president can be found through a link on the website of the Office of the President.

Before her departure from UMaine, President Hunter offered a word of advice to the next to fill her position. To best support UMaine, she said, you “really have to get out, you have to drive around, you have to visit the towns, you have to look at all the lighthouses.”

For Ferrini-Mundy, the past summer has been a time for the kind of empirical self-education that President Hunter advocated, both statewide and locally. She traveled to UMaine Machias and Acadia, attended dinners on campus and student move-in day, went to a barbecue for Honors College students and celebrated the first home football game with alumni.

Most of her time as president was before students arrived on campus in the fall, however, and Ferrini-Mundy acknowledged she still has “work to do to get to know the student culture here [in Orono].”

She even joked that maybe, in the future, she could be a substitute lecturer in a calculus class.

“I love to teach, and I always have,” Ferrini-Mundy said.

Contrary to popular belief, populist nationalism is not becoming “the new norm.” President Donald J. Trump, Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen and a few others are unique in that their personality compliments their power to make headlines. But an executive like Rodrigo Duterte, of the Philippines, gained notoriety in 2016 firstly because of his political alignment. His campaign brought worldwide attention to the Philippine election, yet focus was only on him, his policies and his nationalism. The media would not have hyper-analyzed any other establishment politician halfway around the world. Our view of populism’s rise is tainted by agenda and we can take this case as a prime example.

At the same time, no one can deny the significance of continuously increasing support for populist leaders in the west. Shouldn’t a populist realignment of our policies—as the world leaders in democracy, justice and human rights—create a vast ripple effect across the world?

I think we need to return to the idea of a media agenda to answer this question. Perception of world dynamics is shaped by how information is consumed. As we have seen in America, the media turned vicious against Trump the night his victory was called. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw a pro-Trump article without seeking one out. The information bias leans heavily against Trump and similar leaders—and yet—every new nationalist seems to make news. Every election, where a populist victory may be possible, is scrutinized to the highest degree. It seems fear of these processes has brought them unprecedented attention.

Time will tell us how lasting this trend toward nationalism and anti-globalism is, but my hunch is that what we see in the news is the whole of the argument. The U.S., France, Hungary, Russia, Philippines, Mexico, Germany and a handful of other nations in Europe are supposed to represent a worldwide trend.

Let’s get out of our western-centric view for a moment—what about the other 150 plus countries not accounted for? In reality, they are not all subordinating themselves to the few stronger, populist western countries. We need to think of the world as independent of our sphere of perception. Just because May and Le Pen preach isolationism, does not mean all of Europe will unequivocally go in that direction; just because Duterte was elected in the Philippines does not mean Asia is destined to disintegrate into nationalism, anti-globalism, populism or whatever else the media may label it.

We have totally bought into this false narrative. International relations literature is currently consumed with predicting the direction that populism may take the world in. In the interest of not suggesting a global conspiracy, I won’t say that strings are being pulled across the media to orchestrate our thought processes. But fear has been generated and it is being propagated throughout our country and others in the west. The rise of populism applies only to a very narrow view of the world. Africa, Asia, South America, the Middle East and most countries in between are being forgotten in the frenzy.

The world exists beyond our and our allies’ borders. To forget the rest is to cloud our vision and our judgement.

Raising Turkey from the ashes of the first world war, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s first president, said, “My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth, and the teachings of science. Superstition must go… Every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not… bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men.” With these words, Atatürk steered Turkey’s path through the 20th century. To westernize and to liberate the Turks from the bindings of theocracy — these aims were realized to great prosperity.

Fast forward to today and Turkey is drowning, a far cry from the peaceful democracy that Atatürk envisioned.

Terrorist attacks in the last two years have killed over 500 people. The once-bustling Istanbul now sits against a backdrop of fear and violent, anti-government protest. Tourism has been bottlenecked by fear, setting Turkey adrift from Europe and crushing hopes of integration into the EU. Many blame the government — at its head lies the fear-mongering, would-be autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

His quest to consolidate power has left a divisive line across Turkey between Islamic nationalists and globalists. Last summer the situation boiled over into a coup attempt by an anti-government faction of the military. Erdogan used the opportunity to jail journalists, judges and teachers, labeling them conspirators. Many think the coup — which failed in a day — was a ploy.

Now Erdogan is seeking to dissolve all checks on his power. Turks headed to the polls this week to vote on sweeping alterations to the constitution. Among the most extreme changes would be eliminating the position of prime minister, giving the president authority to act in the judicial system and to appoint top officials.

Similar to the coup, this vote will grant Erdogan maneuverability and mandate to jail dissidents, critics and radicals. Unique to this consolidation, however, is the democratic means by which these power moves will be carried out. What new space this affords Erdogan will create a tougher, more centralized government and to match it, a bolstered revolutionary movement will rise. We can expect to see an increasingly vocal resistance to the government as free speech is punished more and more and dissidents are marginalized.

Istanbul is called the crossroads of the world, with one half of the city lying in Asia and the other in Europe. On one hand, this is simple middle school geography; on another, though, it stands for the intersection of culture, ideas and major civilizations all arriving at one central hub. Wrestling with its Middle Eastern, European and Asian identities has defined Turkey’s modern history. This referendum — and Erdogan’s rule — is but another step in Turkey’s confused journey to stability among these outside forces.

Before WWI, Turkey — then the Ottoman Empire — embraced its Islamic heritage. After suffering terrible losses in the war, Atatürk turned toward Europe’s model of development to transform Turkey into a prosperous, modern state. Now, Turkey is in the midst of another cycle of change that harkens back to its Islamic roots. Middle Eastern ideology is clashing with Western ideology across the globe; Turkey is a battlefield in this struggle.

Six years. For six years, the U.S. position in Syria has been supportive of the rebellion against Assad. We finance the rebels and give them the materials to fight an upward war. But the whole time, our focus has not necessarily been on subverting the Assad government — instead, the U.S. leads the international coalition against ISIL and finances the rebels on the side. This was true until earlier this week, when the U.S. launched 59 tomahawk missiles against a Syrian government air base. Is this a change in our policy? Will we now readily engage Assad face to face? Only time will tell. In any case, it was a bold, assured move by President Donald Trump in a situation that has needed this sort of intervention since its inception.

The reality is that the U.S. has been too lenient with Assad. In 2013, where was the strong response after the government used sarin gas in Ghouta? The government pledged to disarm its chemical weapon stockpiles — yet here we are, outraged after another slaughter. Excluding the day-to-day killings of innocents in Aleppo — a once thriving capital, now rubbed to dirt — the government has committed numerous war crimes that the international community has spoken out against. As one of the biggest players in the Syrian conflict, the U.S. should be the one to address atrocity when it occurs, not cower behind human shields in the rebels.

This is not to say we have avoided all direct pressure on Assad. Diplomatically, the international community is pointing a finger at any action that could be considered inhumane or illegal and actually talking about the issue — more than we got in 1994. The result of this soft pressure? Well, not much. Assad agrees to resolutions with crossed fingers.

A strong statesman like Assad, disposed to killing his own people, will only respond to an equally strong reaction from the U.S. By striking directly after the government’s use of chemical weapons early last week, the U.S. has drawn a line in the sand. No more joking around. Chemical weapons use is a serious violation of human rights — not to mention international law after the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention — and must be met with the highest degree of reasonable pressure from the international community.

However, this doesn’t mean the U.S. should become more aggressive in Syria’s chaos. It is important to remember that the fear of an attack is often enough to deter aggression from a government. The demonstration of force is a powerful tool and ideally this one strike will be enough to prevent any more in the future. If the proper steps are taken now, peace may be on the distant horizon in Syria. Now, while the government is acutely aware of the U.S. disposition, is the time for diplomacy and peace negotiations.

The U.S. now finds itself at a fork in the road. Down one path is a grim future where the war in Syria is intensified, where the U.S. engages with Assad militarily but can’t stop the conflict because of Iran and Russia — Assad’s allies. The other path is more hopeful, where conflict is lessened after diplomatic work and negotiation. Under a traditional administration one might be able to predict which path the U.S. will choose. But Trump is different. His policies are unpredictable. Nobody can be assured on which side of the political spectrum he will lean next week. Let’s hope he leans on the peaceful route.

How many of us have an elderly relative who loves to go on about the vices of technology? Almost all my relatives over 60 either outright declare their distaste for new technologies, or attempt to use them and find themselves helplessly lost. “The good old days,” they say, “were simpler times. Where our conversations were face to face and more personal.” They are, of course, talking about cell phones.

I think this notion that we have become detached from our relationships is utterly false — in fact, the capability of cell phones to link us to bigger causes has made our generation globalist and humanitarian, seeing the plight of every human on equal ground. This is not the danger of pocket-sized computers. The danger is in the agenda of consumerism. As cell phone use becomes more ubiquitous, companies are attempting to make it a tool for them — the producer — not the user.

The evidence is right in your pocket. Technology used in cellphones is some of the most rapidly developing today. As the abilities of our phones increase, they offer us new opportunities to connect with friends, organize our hectic lives or even play video games in virtual reality. But a relationship never goes one way and if you think that developers are implementing these advancements in our phones solely for the good of the user, then you must be hooked on Candy Crush.

Consider the application Snapchat. Up there with Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat is one of the most popular social networking applications, allowing users to send pictures that disappear after a short time — ten seconds or less. Long time users of the app will agree that it is essentially a marketing tool now. Many photo “filters” are sponsored by companies and the homepage is filled with clickbait links to Buzzfeed, Bleacher Report, CNN, MTV and many more. Without even realizing it, users of Snapchat have made viewing these ads as common as sending a picture to a friend. And to think that the developers are really introducing weekly updates for any other reason than to keep users hooked on new features, or to provide a different way for companies to sell themselves, is crazy. This free app lives on advertisement — not user satisfaction.

Not all developers are as subtle. Facebook employs technology that actively turns your phone into a personalized marketing device. How many times have you had a conversation with a friend about a product — say, a type of drink — and upon going to Facebook discover that, lo and behold, the ads in the margins are for that exact product. Facebook really does use technology that allows it to draw on your personal information to customize ads — that includes your search history and yes, any conversations you may have within a short range of your phone’s microphone. We agree to this of course by signing “I understand” on the terms and conditions.

Possibly worst of all is that children are being conditioned and taken advantage by these greedy companies. The rise of smartphones has developed a niche market for child-oriented advertising and game development. Media frenzies on the harm of smartphone use have reported many times on children who have mindlessly paid in-app “microtransactions” for extra content in a mobile game. Companies, especially the shady ones, rely on the fallibility of children to sell this content far from the watchful eye of their parents. This not only normalizes taking advantage of children, it also instills a sense of dependency on simple, flashy and instantly gratifying games. Targeting the developmental stages of life as prime real estate to make a quick buck is a disgusting practice.

The ultimate transformation is the detachment of our personal devices from our own possession. As advertising on smartphones becomes more and more common, how can we say that our phone is really ours? It becomes the advertiser’s tool, like a billboard or a poster. And we don’t even realize what is happening. The spear of commercialization slips into our minds with deft subtlety, slowly conditioning us as slaves to the machine of mass consumption.

Let’s do an experiment. Go out into the street and ask people, of any age, what the “best decade” in America was. Chances are you’ll hear a few ‘50s, more ‘70s and an overwhelming amount of ‘60s. These were the good times. American culture hit some of its highest highs in music, film and social activism. Modern culture is obviously a product of the past, but these times seem to hold a special relevance today. Now let’s continue the experiment, but this time on a college campus or a downtown cafe.

“What is the best decade?”

If you didn’t get this answer before, you are now assured to hear “the ‘90s.” It’s become a staple of youth culture, this reverence of the decade before Y2K, when torn flannel flour bags ruled the fashion scene and Biggie Smalls and Tupac made a generation of young gangsters into poets. Many think it’s novel to be a “‘90s kid,” but it goes deeper than that. On the surface the appeal of the ‘90s appears to be one big joke concerning everyone who was a “‘90s kid,” but if we think about how our society has developed since then, it is clear that the ‘90s may have been the last time we were innocent and our problems were narrow in scope.

But yes, our first consideration of the ‘90s is superficial. It is a tongue-in-cheek joke to think that the ‘90s was significant for music or style. When people who were young adults in the ‘90s think about that time today, they cannot help but laugh at how the culture of angst mirrored their own feelings, feelings which they have grown out of. The novelty of ‘90s nostalgia has spawned countless internet memes and parodies. Society — internet culture at least — has reached a point where this decade is itself a meme: a small behavior or knowledge that is spread from individual to individual (almost always by means of the internet).

If you frequent internet forums, chances are you have seen the meme “only ‘90s kids will get this.” For those unaware, this text is overlaid onto a photo of a classic ‘90s thing: toys like Furby that aged out of time or special red cups that Pizza Hut discontinued at the turn of the century. People gleefully accept these memories with open arms, connecting with that distant trend for the first time in years. This is the drug of nostalgia. It makes people of any generation feel good to remember what made them happy as children and connect that memory directly with others who had similar interests. For the ‘90s, the decade in which many things we take for granted were born into popular culture, this connection is profound. ‘90s kids grew up with these trends like friends, some of whom dropped off like Furby but a few which kept in contact and grew with them into adulthood.

We can think of the ‘90s as a teenager: petulant, anti-establishment and edgy. It was the last innocent time in America before we matured into cynicism. The ‘90s was concerned with fitting in, dealing with mental health, discovering identity and defining its own trends. Now we deal with the problems of a mature society that are international in scale: divisive politics, national identity, bigotry and the spread of terrorism. We face these issues in a post-9/11 world. Americans have learned that some might have a problem with their way of life.

The young decade has left its mark on our culture. Behind the novelty of remembering ‘90s culture is a legitimate nostalgia for a time that was in many ways better. Those who remember will always look back with reverence at the time when our problems could be overlooked by our love of music, fashion and all things that American culture has since made trivial.