To state the obvious, she’s a woman, a mother and a politician. Choosing her in what seemed to be a frantic campaign move smacked of patronizing Hillary supporters that had yet to embrace Obama as their candidate. Her positions on abortion and gun control are embraced by only the most conservative of women voters; Palin’s nomination was “historic pandering”, suggesting that the decision-makers made the shallow assumption that women would vote for any woman, however inexperienced she is, based only on her gender. What’s more, her choice to have her son, Trig, with full knowledge he would have Down’s syndrome is being touted by Republicans as evidence that her moral stance on abortion is undeniably superior — a completely dehumanizing assertion, as if having her child was a planned political move.

Palin wasn’t to blame though for her coverage; she was being used. The big name misogynists during the Hillary days immediately changed course and rushed to Palin’s defense, a miraculous act of born-again punditry that made hypocrites out of every Republican with a teleprompter and airtime.

Sarah Palin was the change of pace that the Republicans needed, but not because of her credentials: Simply, she was enough to McCain’s right to shove his moderate views into many conservatives’ blind spots.  Her family history, an issue even Obama refused to pass judgement on, was brought to the fore by Republicans seeking to paint her as a victim of the media’s sexism.  She may have fielded a few too many questions about her capability in post-announcement interviews, but it was her own party that left her vulnerable to such intense scrutiny in the first place, by skimping on their internal vetting.

But perhaps the biggest issue I had with her nomination was implying that her age, her gender and political experience made her as qualified for the White House as her opponents are.  Republicans and Democrats can agree on one thing: She looks absolutely nothing like an experienced Washington politician.  The problem comes when the Republican party argues that not being part of the “old boys’ club” automatically imbues Palin with the ability to bring everyone’s favorite political buzzword — “change” — to Washington.

Obama has caught some flack for his usage of Palin’s “lipstick” quote, but the comparison he made seems apt.  Being one of the first women to have a shot at the White House doesn’t make her even half the seasoned lawmaker and campaigner that Hillary is.  Being young and making unpopular decisions in office doesn’t make you the insightful lawmaker that Obama is or the maverick McCain claims to be.  

Especially when you’re responsible for your own host of alleged corruption activities, including an ethics scandal and the recent inability to deny supporting the “Bridge to Nowhere” (wearing the t-shirt doesn’t help).  And I wouldn’t trust the difficult job of cleaning up earmark abuses to someone who’s requested $453 million worth of them (in a mere two years as governor, netting $295 per capita in earmark money).

A “Miss Alaska”-turned Governor is no two-term U.S. senator.  Hillary slugged through what may have been one of the most difficult primary seasons in recent history, and has spent time in and around Washington for most of her career. Palin, on the other hand, made her way from PTA member to Governor of Alaska — no small feat for a former sportscaster, but not the journey of a seasoned politician either. 

Palin’s free ride is an insult to the work Hillary had done battling Obama; Palin wouldn’t have had a shot at the White House had it not been for John McCain using his vice presidential pick as an olive branch to placate the religious right.  And insulting, too, is her youth; both Obama and Palin are young and it shows, though insisting that they are equally insightful is ludicrous. Palin is early in her first term as the governor of a state that has voted mainly red since its induction into the Union.  Obama has extensive experience as the editor of the Harvard Law Review, a civil rights lawyer in Chicago, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago and a progressive community organizer on Chicago’s South Side. No contest.  Palin insists she has better managerial skills than Obama due to her executive experience; maybe she’s learning on the job as a governor, but she needed to hire an administrator to help her govern a town of (then) 5,500 people.

In her short career, she’s become the first female and the youngest governor of Alaska, but was she ready to be yanked to the top in what seemed like a move of desperation? Ready to face public scrutiny over her personal life and political flame over her experience? Her politics aside, she’s given McCain a media buzz that makes his embarrassing days in midwestern German restaurants seem a thing of the past.

Palin seems to act as a shield for the McCain campaign. Her nomination makes McCain deliberately difficult to attack, diverting media attention from the war hero entirely.  This has the effect of putting Republicans embarrassed by McCain at ease, but it’s still at heart only McCain’s quick fix to gain some ground on Obama, a strategic distraction that still hasn’t had a permanent effect on the polls.  Rather than considering her actual political experience, the Republican party seems to have fallen in love with whom she represents and not who she really is.

Has our generation’s notion of a romance film gone up in smoke?

Whether it was Harold and Kumar or Cheech and Chong that started it, the stoner film seems to have gained popularity in the last few decades. Certainly not fazed by 1936’s Reefer Madness (a thinly veiled public service announcement exaggerating the effects of Cannabis usage), our generation has seen its share of Hollywood stars stoned. Modern audiences can easily relate to the rebellious teenagers chasing the girl they met in an elevator, the deadbeat twentysomething, and even the father figures (thanks to Judd Apatow).

It is interesting to see how this fixation on the illegal substance has changed our notion of romantic comedies in the recent past. The 90s were littered with romance films in the chick-flick vein; Titanic was the decade’s highest grossing film, and the likes of Pretty Woman and Dirty Dancing used tried-and-true formulas to pack theaters nationwide. But the romance comedies that fill most of our nostalgic memories of the decade seem to have lost their spark for today’s moviegoers.

Now, it seems, our generation prefers a more believable formula for its comedies, romantic or not. In the same weekend, Tina Fey’s Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay were the two highest grossing movies. Both dealt with the topics of gender, race, pregnancy, and prodded at America’s general notion of acceptable subject matter. And Pineapple Express, a movie about a stoner that accidentally witnesses a murder, is poised for a successful debut this summer. Ushered on by the sharp-witted frankness of Judd Apatow, a thick haze has changed the character of new movies. Hapless, out-of-shape potheads have taken the place of dreamy Romeos. Strong-willed career women have taken the place of women in waiting. But why?

On the whole, our generation seems to be a whole lot more liberal. Political leanings aside, who would have allowed a movie called “Knocked Up” to hit the silver screen a decade ago? We are less tolerant of canned cinema than ever before, opting for movies with more plausible plotlines and more realistic dialogue. Events are exaggerated, of course. But I’m more inclined to watch a comedy, romantic or not, that could mimic a wild Friday night than one that is too saccharine to be believed.

We are also growing up in a generation that inherited the achievements of women’s lib, and a generation that is fairly open about sex and relationships. It would be irresponsible as well as unrealistic to portray the typical submissive female in a culture that no longer embraces that image. Whether or not the plot is driven by a love story, reality and all its associated grit and humor seems to be an increasingly profitable basis for a movie. In Knocked Up, Apatow creates dynamic characters, illustrating the changes that take place in Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl’s characters as they come to terms with the difficult pressures affecting their relationship. And we appreciate the complexity because it mirrors the real world. Shallow gender roles dredged up from your typical 1950’s household won’t fly anymore.

So why do we, the Northwestern student body, enjoy these films? Because they’re not too far off from the truth of our experiences. While not every college experience involves marijuana (realistically, only a handful of students call it a pastime), the archetypes of stoner movies remain true. I’m sorry to pass judgment on you, Northwestern, but we are what we watch. The girls at this school seem to fit the new women in these movies; strong personalities, and highly motivated. And the guys here may be talented and brilliant, but I feel like we enjoy the films because we can relate: I’ve seen my fair share of girls come back from parties empty-handed and annoyed (and, hell, even College Prowler gave us a C for our boyish good looks). Apatow’s image of the guy cautiously taking a step out of his league and landing safely seems to fit our school’s social character.

Although often surrounded by a cloud of smoke, this new wave of movies aims to bring realism back to cinema. They expose the difficult, awkward, inappropriate, and improbable aspects of life to audiences that no longer buy into predictable storylines. So while marijuana may be what lures us to the theater, it is the brutally honest but lighthearted storytelling that keeps us coming back. We don’t want a story with a happy ending anymore. We want reality.

The Green Apple Music Festival comes pretty close to hippie perfection. With free performances in eight cities across America on Earth Day, the festival combines an environmental message with live bands, ranging from The Roots to O.A.R. Representing an impressive feat of musical organization, the man responsible for the festival is independent filmmaker and music industry mogul Peter Shapiro, Communication ‘95.

A native of New York City, Shapiro developed a love for film in high school that would push him to apply early to Northwestern as a Radio/Television/Film major. On campus, he became a member of Phi Kappa Psi and joined the Ultimate Frisbee team that he would ultimately become captain of during his senior year. But it is his love of music, he said, as developed over his junior and senior years, that came to define the rest of his achievement at Northwestern.

“I started to go to see jam bands in bars like Otis’s, the Cubby Bear [and] the Vic,” said Shapiro. “I saw Phish at the Vic in 1993, and started seeing all those [kinds of] bands in Chicago.”

In his junior year, Shapiro embarked on an ambitious independent study. With the blessing of former professor Richard Maxwell, and the help of a friend, he decided to make a movie about the jam band music that had filled his weekends. Five weeks of the summer after his junior year was spent making Tie-Died, a film that involved following the Grateful Dead on their summer tour, submersing himself in Deadhead culture and interviewing an impressive set of personalities. The hour long documentary was peppered with interviews with “sixties luminaries,” as he called them, including Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, and Wavy Gravy. The film premiered during his senior year, at the 1995 Sundance Film festival.

After Northwestern, Shapiro made a purchase that proved to define the rest of his career. He had heard that the Wetlands, a New York music club and jam-band haven, was up for sale. Interested in the prospect of owning a piece of music history, Shapiro decided to buy the club.

“I learned that Wetlands was for sale and was looking for someone to continue the environmental vision,” said Shapiro. “I didn’t know anything about the night club business, or putting on shows, but I had this very unique opportunity, and I went for it.”

Aside from being a music venue, the Wetlands also ran its own environmental activism center, out of the same building. It was a haven for the environmentally conscious, the jam-band fan, and any kind of crossover between the two. Brokering a deal with the owner to pay for the club over time, he pledged to extend the owner’s own environmentalist hopes for the club, and ran it for over five years until its closing in September 2001.

His work at the Green Apple Music Festival is an extension of the passions he cultivated during his stint at the Wetlands. With the same environmental zeal, he decided to bring free music to New York City with the first Green Apple festival in 2006. The next year saw an expanded festival, with performances in Chicago by jam bands Umphrey’s McGee and the Disco Biscuits. This year’s festival promises equally spectacular acts across eight major American parks, including the National Mall in Washington D.C., which has been a stage for American activism throughout the nation’s History.

The Jammys are also a product of Shapiro’s vision. An awards show for the jam band community, the idea sprung out of Shapiro’s experience as a co-owner of Jambands.com. Shapiro has translated his affinity for improvisational, jam-heavy rock music into an annual show, now in its seventh year, for the jam-band community.

“We thought the boy band thing was huge then,” said Shapiro. “We wanted to do an awards show to celebrate a different kind of music.”

Doing things differently has been a general theme in Shapiro’s life. His career seems to mirror the music he enjoys: Both share a love for improvisation and creativity. And it was his time at Northwestern, his immersion in the Chicago music scene and his time on the road with the Grateful Dead that defined him as the music and environmental advocate he is today.

With themed dance blocks, bizarre costumes, and wild dancers, Dance Marathon is full of surprises. But nothing’s more surprising than seeing a beer bong being raised in the air during a benefit for pediatric cancer.

“It’s a play on the whole frat thing,” said Harrison Shih, Weinberg sophomore and a philanthropy chair of Zeta Beta Tau.

Anyone around the participants can here the loudly chanted countdown, the moment of silent anticipation, and the victorious thrust of the funnel and tubing into the air amid a flurry of lights and dancers. The “hydration bong,” as members of ZBT call it, is indeed a beer bong; but the drink of choice at this Friday night party happens to be Gatorade Rain.

“Every year our philanthropy chairs come and make sure our guys are hydrated,” said Phillip Reich, a Weinberg junior and former ZBT philanthropy chair.

ZBT and partner sorority Delta Gamma combine their efforts each year in fundraising. According to Shih, ZBT has over 50 members participating this year. However, members of ZBT and DG that are not dancing spend all day Saturday canning to raise extra funds to donate. Since they aren’t spend the thirty hours dancing, they also try to keep other dancers hydrated and healthy, returning to DM as often as possible. ZBT provides their dancers with the bongs, other bottled drinks, and “Nina’s Cookies,” a staple of the ZBT diet freshly baked from their in-house chef.

In exchange, ZBT and DG are consistently able to raise the most funds of any student group. Last year’s total donation reached the $80,000 mark.

Drink up!

Flight of the Conchords wowed a packed house at Cahn Auditorium on Thursday night.

The New Zealand folk/parody duo packed the 1,011-seat auditorium, which took only 45 minutes to sell out. Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement spent the night playing songs from their eponymous HBO show and the Grammy-winning EP The Distant Future, and engaging the crowd with witty banter in the downtime between songs.

The night began with improv and sketch comedy group Mee-Ow. Warming up the crowd with a sketch on diversity and games like “World’s Worst”, Mee-Ow provided a hilarious and succinct opener to the show.

Kristen Schaal took the stage next. A Northwestern alumna, Schaal received tremendous applause from the crowd as she walked sheepishly up to the microphone. She spent most of her set lampooning her time at Northwestern; she told the crowd about being the only sober person during Dillo Day and getting a “D” on a senior performance studies assignment titled “Anne Boleyn on Fire.”

Schaal weaved her stand-up between reenacted sketches and performances from her Northwestern days, often with special guests; Bret and Jemaine joined in on her sketch “Cartwheels and Somersaults,” and she staged a fake wedding proposal with a Northwestern alum she claimed to have met and fell in love with at the Norris information desk.

While the Conchords hit fan favorites like “Business Time,” “The Most Beautiful Girl In the Room,” and “The Hiphopotamus vs. The Rhymenoceros,” there was an unfortunate flubbed lyric in “Bret, You’ve Got It Going On,” where Jemaine looked to the audience for help.

Their set was a study in informality, with the band adjusting their microphones and monitors, riffing on the audience’s heckling, and yelling to the person manning the lights to request “sad lights” for the more somber songs. They played a few brief excerpts of songs they said were part of their new material, and dropped various hints about their new season of episodes. There was even a tease of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” soon played over the Conchords’ “Mutha Uckas.”

To open up their song “Think About It,” a song about musical activism, Jemaine said, “Basically anything that Bono’s into. If Bono’s into it, then we’re right there with him.”

The Conchords were called back for an encore after an hour and twenty minutes on stage. They ended with “Angels,” a song off of their 2002 self-funded Folk The World album that describes the sex lives of angels. They offered the crowd a chance to go to heaven, hell (”Like Tenacious D… Satanic messages!” said Jemaine), or yes, even the bank, as pointed out by a heckler. But judging by the thunderous applause as the house lights went up, the Conchords’ concert seemed more like the former to their audience of avid Northwestern fans.