By Aurore Duiguo

Italian director Nanni Moretti’s “Habemus Papam” is a movie about a wandering, about a man who has fled.

It is the wandering of a newly elected pope (played by Michel Piccoli), who is chosen against his will. “Habemus Papam” (“We Have A Pope”) is about a man who believes that he can’t assume this huge burden. In fact, he does not want to.

After a new pontiff is elected, tradition dictates that he will appear through a balcony window at the Vatican to introduce himself to the faithful. But before this can happen, the chief of the College of Cardinals is called upon to reveal the name of the next head of the Church. The new Pope is completely shattered by his selection.

He begins to scream and can’t stand up. His disconcerting reaction reveals his uneasiness and makes us understand the existential crisis he is experiencing. Dwarfed by the role he is about to assume, he is unable to make up his mind about being Pope. Everything is on hold.

By Gautier Coiffard

When I saw the poster for the new Pedro Almodovar film in front of my theater, I was, of course, thrilled. Almodovar is the director about whom you never know what will come next as his movie unreels. Every new picture he makes is completely different from his others, yet you can tell it’s one of his babies.

Let’s analyze the spiel about the film that you will find in many magazines: “Since his woman had her skin burned in an accident, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) is trying to create a new skin.” You will read that it’s a movie about a man fighting against time to save his beloved wife.

A college student’s first protest takes him directly into the big leagues

By Connor Miller

The Occupy Wall Street movement and subsequent protests that are continuing across the United States have drawn world-wide attention. Our correspondent, a college freshman, participates in the first demonstration of his life. Here is his point-of-view of Occupy Wall Street.

I was a little apprehensive about going at first. A couple weeks ago, two girls from my school were sprayed in the face with mace. Someone caught it on video and put it on the unofficial Sarah Lawrence blog. I watched it several times to try and gauge how painful it would be to have mace in your eyes. 

By Glenn Young

In the last two years we have seen President Obama maneuver brilliantly in negotiations with the right wing crazies on two major occasions; over raising the Bush Tax Cuts in the lame duck session of Congress, and in the fight over the tax ceiling.  His own base does not understand how successfully he has been, and in order for his success to continue he must continue to be like that old Buddhist saying of “those who know don’t say, and those who say don’t know.” 

One basic point to begin, which also seems to be greatly missed by his base, if not the American people in general; we are a republic and not a monarchy.  The president has very little power under our Constitution in creating laws, especially when the Congress is controlled and dominated by the “other party.”  So those who keep trying to insist that Obama is not demanding enough from Congress, not offering laws and such, simple do not understand that anything President Obama asks for overtly is actually quite “dead on arrival” with this Congress.  No matter what President Obama asks for, the Tea Party Republicans will simply not allow a progressive jobs bill to pass. If fact what every the President asks for will be held up for ridicule and attacked endlessly.  Therefore … at this time it is best that Obama shows what he knows by not saying.

By Glenn Young

In 1920, Warren G Harding’s campaign slogan for the presidency was “a return to normalcy.”  He never defined the term and won in a landslide.  This failure to define normalcy in the US continues, leaving ever one more or less free to determined their own definition of what is normalcy in the US.  This is quite a dangerous situation because we are mostly always driving in our political campaigns for exactly that, one form or another of a definition of normalcy, (Reagan’s Morning in America, Bush’s 1,000 points of light, Nixon’s silent majority, etc.) which results in a real lack of determining normalcy based on facts and scientific approaches such as real data, and not on images and fantasy. 

To many this fantasy sees a “normal America” as a progressive one, with great services, schools and jobs for all, and opportunities for education and advancement for all.  We see ourselves in some image of the view of the 1950’s black and white TV image of Father Knows Best, or Ozzie and Harriet or Mayberry RFD as what was and always has been normal.  However, with a real review of real American history, based in facts and solid research, see that this image is as false and empty as the previous political rhetoric that tried to define normalcy.

Weathering a move into a dormitory in the eye of a hurricane

 By Connor Miller

 I first learned about Hurricane Irene, which was tracking along the eastern seaboard, the day before I left for college in New York state. Back in sunny California, my dad took me to the computer and showed me a map. He pointed to Bronxville, New York, just north of Manhattan, where my home away from home would be. “This is where your college is. And this,” he traced a line directly over my school, “is the path of Hurricane Irene.” I was a freshman who would be moving into my dormitory during a hurricane.

   The next day, Friday, August 26, we (my mother, father, and myself) boarded our plane for New York. The flight attendant shook his head as he scanned our boarding passes. “Shouldn’t you be leaving the city?” This became a recurring theme on the trip. The flight attendant would come onto the intercom, make an announcement, and spice it up with a hurricane joke.    

“Are any of you planning to do the ferryboat tour? Leave your jewelry with me for safekeeping and if the hurricane gets you…, I’ll be rich.” There were more jokes like this at which everyone on the plane laughed because we had nothing better to do. But by the time we landed, I was sick of hurricane jokes, and I could tell when a new one was coming. 

In our hotel room my dad obsessed over hurricane updates on the news. The reports were overly dramatic, complete with animations of what New York City would look like underwater, as well as footage of the storm blowing through east coast towns. One woman journalist, broadcasting live from an area that was about to get hit by the hurricane, reported, “It is so quiet here. It is like the terrifying calm before the zombies attack.”