C'est Mon Amie: Mallory Wiegers

This is Mallory. I must admit, I am a little harsh on her at sometimes, but it's all in good fun. Usually if one were going to describe Mallory, one might make a remark on her tall stature or maybe comment about her obsession with cats, but me, I choose her "mother-esque" qualities as the pinnacle of my presentation. For starters, she likes to bake for groups of people. Combine this with her tall stature, her natural love for giving hugs, and her infatuation with felines, the term "mom" fits quite nicely. Or perhaps crazy cat lady. Take your pick.

For the seven weeks following my girlfriend's departure to France next Friday, Mallory is to be my replacement date for things like dinners and such. For those of you who don't know nor understand my group of friends, this is purely a joke and holds no real substance when considering the American term "date" nowadays. She is simply way too tall, and I way too short, to ever seriously date, besides, I just finished writing about how she is motherly.

A short, contemporary biography of Mallory would include her love for art and young hippies. If you would like to contact her, she is the tallest female roaming the hills of Lawrence, Kansas, where she proudly calls herself a jayhawk.

Controversial Moment: Tank Man

Next year I will be moving into a house and lately I have been thinking about how exactly I will decorate my walls. I have come to the conclusion that one wall will be covered in pictures depicting controversial issues of the past. I have decided that occasionally, throughout my blog, I will give a brief history on the moments that I find disputed in one way or another.

Tank Man, as some like to call him, was a brave young civilian who stood up to several tanks making their way to Tiananmen Square in early June 1989. For those of you who aren't aware of these events, let me fill you in. It began as a student revolt; nothing more than a simple protest. But eventually the protest attracted the other civilians of Beijing, and what started as a simple revolt turned into a full fledged attempt at a revolution. Due to the oppressive nature and lack freedom granted by the government, soon 1/10th of the population of Beijing joined in. Eventually, the government called in the Army to keep the peaceful protest in hand (like I said, it was a peaceful movement and therefore, didn't really need such drastic measures to be taken). Once the army was brought in, the people of Beijing were shot at for little than throwing pebbles. This all lead to the brave man who stood up in front of the tanks. The man was eventually taken away by four men, and the whereabouts of him are still disputed today.

Sadly, if one shows this picture to a Chinese person too young to know about the events of 1989, they wouldn't have a clue of what the picture means. 236,000 pictures come up in Google if one types in "Tiananmen Square," but if the same search is made in China then only three pages of pictures come up, each excluding "Tank Man."

Coffee-Table Books

Q: What is the single greatest threat to those of us who love to read?
A: Coffee-table books!

Well, rather those who own coffee-table books. These are the people who lavish their coffee tables with highly intellectual or cultural books with no intent to read them. We all know these people. I know one in particular who claims to love reading and love books but he never reads. Instead he ornaments his bookshelf with books like The Teachings of Buddha, Origin of Species, Paradise Lost, and a copy of the Koran. Sure, these are all great books, but they are only great if one reads the words inside them. It thoroughly annoys me that he hasn't even touched them since the day that he bought them.