AJ Artemel

Mubarak is gone, Ben Ali is gone, and the Middle East is erupting with revolutions. Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Bahrain, it’s all up in the air. Meanwhile, back at home the Wisconsonites are out in force and the Tea Party is making a ruckus. At U.Va. the flowers have started blooming and buds are swelling on the trees as pledges and plebians hit up the Corner on warm(ish) nights. What is the cause of these passionate awakenings and history-making events? The only possible explanation is that spring is upon us and it’s giving us all reasons to celebrate.Read more...

Yes, Tom Perriello has lost to challenger Robert Hurt. Many of us are stricken with a sort of deadening feeling at this news; what will become of Perriello, of this district? This angst and worry has a basis in looking at the past few years, especially the time in 2008 when Perriello was elected. It was basically an accident of timing for then-incumbent Virgil Goode, the arch-conservative who sought to deny a Muslim congressman the right to be sworn in on a copy of the Qur’an instead of the Bible.Read more...

For the past few weeks, Sanda Iliescu, art and architecture professor, has been rushing around Grounds with looks of determination and an air of urgency, preparing her art project for September 24, the Day of Dialogue. This past Monday afternoon found her rushing around again, though this time with a relaxed smile on her face as she handed out thank-you notes. “Art is like a gift and a lot of people volunteered,” she said while entering the A-School woodshop.Read more...

Academic freedom, an idea not protected in the United States Constitution, except perhaps peripherally through the First Amendment, has become the buzzword of choice around Grounds recently. The cause, as many already know, is the subpoena of U.Va. documents by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Equating alleged falsification of results in Climate Change research completed by former faculty member Frank Mann with fraud, Cuccinelli has taken on University lawyers in courts in a case that has ignited debate across the state.Read more...

In Baghdad, teams of young people walk up and down streets, through Sunni neighborhoods and Shi’a ones, too. In the bazaars they put up posters with charismatic faces staring down at passersby, and door-to-door they pass out flyers. “Vote for Shada,” they yell. “Vote for Shada.” But they are not campaigning for their favored politician in Iraqi elections; rather, they are urging their fellow Baghdadis to vote for the Iraqi competitor on Arab Idol.Read more...

With the recent shootings by a Muslim gunman at Fort Hood, Texas, many Americans have been questioning the status of Islam in the United States. Homegrown terrorism in Britain has given rise to fears that the same phenomenon could appear here, too. Before September 11th, the average American knew little to nothing about Islam—to many, Muslims were simply desert dwellers, oil tycoons, and taxi drivers. The cultural discourse on Islam was often limited to the Nation of Islam and Aladdin, without exploring what life is like for real Muslims and what they truly believe.Read more...

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born into an Italian-American family in Yonkers, New York and began playing the piano at age four. When she was twelve, she started taking voice lessons and at fourteen began singing at dive bars. At eighteen, she enrolled in NYU’s Tisch program but dropped out after one year; however, this prompted her move to the Lower East Side, where she joined the scene that she would ultimately represent. Distressed at being ignored at her shows, she began to perform in her underwear—soon she had the world’s attention. This is the story of Lady Gaga.Read more...

Who is Lady Gaga? At her show at the Landmark Theater in Richmond on Monday, she was simultaneously a performer beyond belief, a visitor from another world and, at times, extremely human. To many of those who like her music, she does not extend beyond her persona: overtly sexual, vapid, fabulous, and futuristic. But before becoming Lady Gaga, she was Stefani Germanotta, a classically trained pianist from Yonkers, New York. The concert was most successful when this side of her overcame the Gaga persona.Read more...

Ever since Google became a verb, it has been a fixture in our daily lives. We use it for everything. But not many people know exactly why Google is so loved. First, it has a catchy nonsensical name. Second, it runs on a secret algorithm which sorts all of the relevant articles to a search. This algorithm is the key to Google’s success, though many have tried to reproduce it, no one has been able to as of yet.Read more...