July 4, 2007
In a recent Opus comic strip, everybody's favorite penguin politico was conversing with Binkley about a trend the cartoon called "surprising:" "atheist books are suddenly bestsellers."

May 31, 2007
Author Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific writers of our day. Some of her notable novels include The Tattooed Girl, Black Girl/White Girl and You Must Remember This. Her 36th novel, titled The Gravedigger's Daughter, was released yesterday.

May 31, 2007
As I prepare to graduate, my thoughts have naturally turned inward to my past four years at the UW. As I prepare to graduate, my thoughts have naturally turned inward to my past four years at the UW. I have learned a lot from this great university, yet I think a college education comes with a few drawbacks, too. So, as my swan song, here are my reflections on the changes a college career can bring.

May 31, 2007
Sometimes, with summer right around the corner and the sun shinning down on us with record-breaking heat, classes just don't seem worth it. For seniors, senioritis might be taking over, making the temptation to skip classes more powerful. For the rest of the student body, graduation might seem too far away to take bother with.

May 30, 2007
We've all heard it before. Memorial Day weekend should be more than just one less day of class. It should be a time to celebrate those who have served our country and think of those who are serving, right?

May 29, 2007
Porn and chat rooms are vices that have ended many a relationship. They have also been reasons for getting fired for some people who like to indulge themselves while at work.

May 24, 2007
After the major film success of Hotel Rwanda, many Americans were asking themselves how such genocide could have occurred without international intervention.

May 24, 2007
Dying is, intrinsically, a forfeit of control, a final chapter of one's life that cannot be orchestrated. No one ever promised that dying will be painless, and in fact, I hope it does come with a degree of pain, as a reminder of how to feel for one last time.

May 24, 2007
The iconic college road trip keeps getting more expensive as gas prices continue to rise in Washington state. According to an article yesterday in MSN Money, Washington now has the fourth-highest gas prices in the country, right behind Illinois, Michigan and California.

May 23, 2007
Next year's incoming freshmen at the UW will likely be the highest academic achievers the school has ever seen — or so one would think, based on high school transcripts.

May 22, 2007
With the fire season having already arrived in parts of the country and quickly approaching the Northwest, many homeowners are starting to think about how to protect their home for the season.

May 21, 2007
A lot of people are tired of reading about Iraq. It's not that they don't feel bad about the war, it's just that they can't bear the thought of reading one more report on a car bomb exploding somewhere or the pond scum that some Iraqis are having to drink for lack of clean water.

May 17, 2007
For a world-class university, the UW made a very amateur move in the selection of the 2007 commencement speaker.

May 17, 2007
Karen Joy Fowler's latest novel The Jane Austen Book Club is elegant in its simplicity, its vivid and elemental imagery and its unique style of character development. Plus, it's just plain fun for any Austen fan and may even be appealing to people who haven't gotten around to reading Persuasion just yet.

May 17, 2007
The foundering recording industry, suffering at the hands of the illegal music downloading taking place everywhere, has a new tactic in the battle to stop college students from copyright infringement through file-sharing.

May 16, 2007
The state of Washington's history with sex crime prevention isn't a good one, and its high time state agencies taking greater measures to ensure the safety of citizens –— especially children.

May 15, 2007
Beginning next year, cell phone users won't have to worry about driving getting in the way of their text-messaging.

May 14, 2007
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still raging, and some kids couldn't celebrate Mother's Day yesterday because their moms are deployed overseas.

May 10, 2007
The green movement keeps growing and growing, expanding to all facets of our lives. Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon's new book Plenty: One Man, One Woman and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally is evidence that the trend has carved out a permanent niche in the mainstream literary world.

May 10, 2007
Researchers at the UW released a study Monday reporting that 40 percent of 3-month-old babies regularly watch television. The figure for two-year-olds is more than twice as high at 90 percent.

May 9, 2007
As humans, we share more than 98 percent of our DNA with our closest biological relative, the chimpanzee, though some scientists estimate the difference to be more like 0.6 percent than 2 percent.

May 9, 2007
Gig Harbor High School's Dean of Students Keith Nelson just made a big mistake in the school's halls. The dean has been reassigned to a new position, but the damage has already been done.

May 3, 2007
Chuck Palahniuk has a cult following of teenaged and twenty-something men that rivals the obsessed fans of boy bands at their peak. If you ever come close to seeing raised lighters and crowd surfings at a book reading, this is it.

May 3, 2007
The big city doesn't exactly offer sweeping expanses of land on which to plant a garden, but that's where the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods' P-Patch Program comes in.

May 3, 2007
Dirt. It's natural outside in the garden, but no one wants it in a home. Cleaning, whether it's the daily routine of laundry and dishes, or a tougher chore like scrubbing the toilet, is a part of life.

May 3, 2007
Going green is trendy right now, but does it really apply to students?

May 3, 2007
The National Park Service (NPS) is represented by an emblem of an arrowhead.

May 3, 2007
As it has become increasingly apparent that foreign oil will not be able to sustain domestic energy consumption in the future, scientists and foresighted politicians alike have scrambled to find viable alternatives.

May 2, 2007
Yesterday, President Bush and Congress completed a set of totally useless symbolic political dance steps when Bush vetoed legislation to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

May 1, 2007
A walk down the Ave. is enough to illustrate the trend noted in a recent Associated Press article – vegetarian dining is growing in popularity. From Veggie Veggie to Araya's Vegetarian Place, the University District has its fair share of strictly vegetarian or vegan restaurants.

April 30, 2007

April 26, 2007
If Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics is one of the most frustrating, gimmicky, esoteric books I've ever read, it is also one of the more interesting and intelligent. There is no doubt that Pessl is asking a lot of her readers in this novel, but if one can actually make it through to the conclusion, it's undoubtedly worthwhile.

April 26, 2007
Capital punishment has reared its controversial head once again, this time in the form of concerns about lethal injection procedures across the country.

April 26, 2007
Going out on a limb of the pedagogy tree, I'm going to say that I think the Bible should be taught in American public high schools.

April 25, 2007
The decision to move Seattle's annual gay pride celebration, Seattle Pride, to Seattle Center last year rather than keeping it in its traditional location on Capitol Hill was hotly debated by members of Seattle's gay community.

April 24, 2007

April 23, 2007
Since when does corporate America listen to anyone? The answer is, when a movement is so powerful, it becomes fiscally important, and even necessary, to listen to a vocal consumer base.

April 19, 2007
All my life, I've resisted poetry. The closest I've ever come to really loving it was the first time I watched Dead Poet's Society in high school.

April 19, 2007
The tainted pet food fiasco that has shaken pet owners and brought forth the wrath of animal rights groups across the nation may be indicative of far more serious problems in the way our nation monitors imported food products, according to a new report from The Associated Press.

April 18, 2007
Murder. Sex. Death. Three topics forbidden in polite discussion. And yet, if you take a look at the UW's spring quarter 2007 time schedule, you'll notice a trend.

April 17, 2007
Visitors can now walk right off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

April 16, 2007
Last week, the media airwaves were abuzz with the news that Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, had improperly secured a raise for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, who works at the bank.

April 12, 2007
Isabel Allende's novel The House of Spirits is a rare story in its ability to transcend time and culture.

April 12, 2007

April 11, 2007
Something is wrong with our food. Last summer, the United States saw its spinach supply tainted with deadly E. coli bacteria. In February, two brands of peanut butter were recalled due to salmonella contamination

April 11, 2007

April 10, 2007

April 9, 2007

April 5, 2007
A 15-minute shower each morning. A toilet flush. A workout at the gym. A load of laundry. A stop at the drinking fountain in Denny Hall. What do these have in common?

April 5, 2007
Mary Roach says in the introduction of her book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers that she writes about what she finds fascinating. She used to be a travel writer, but apparently that became too boring, so she turned to dead bodies. Quite the switch.

April 5, 2007

April 4, 2007

April 3, 2007

March 29, 2007
Before moving to college, students are bound to get loads of "helpful" advice from well-meaning relatives who haven't witnessed the collegiate scene in quite a while.

March 29, 2007
The magic of Walt Disney played a big part in my childhood. The Little Mermaid was my favorite movie for years, and I will always remember a special girls' night out with my mom when we went to see Beauty and the Beast together in a theater.

March 29, 2007

March 28, 2007

March 27, 2007

March 26, 2007

March 8, 2007
Federal Way's Calvary Lutheran Church is going green — not for St. Patrick's Day, but for Lent.

March 8, 2007

March 8, 2007
Not often is a fantasy novel mainstream enough to appeal to a wide readership as Guy Gavriel Kay's Ysabel.

March 6, 2007
Unfortunately, mental health care in Washington is facing a dilemma that could hurt the quality of care in the near future.

March 1, 2007
Cal Newport's How to Become A Straight-A Student advertises itself as the fast-track into "the unconventional strategies real college students use to score high while studying less."

March 1, 2007

February 28, 2007
When man's best friend's fur starts being labeled as faux in upscale clothing stores, we know we have a problem.

February 28, 2007

February 27, 2007

February 22, 2007
To the United States Navy, one of the world's most intelligent creatures is no more than a highly sophisticated piece of military technology.

February 22, 2007

February 22, 2007
Every once in a long while, I come across a book so profound that my reading experience becomes paradoxical. I read desperately, as fast as I can, to reach the end of the novel, all the while wishing the story could go on forever.

February 21, 2007
Growing up, my family took the stereotypical annual vacation or road trip. Some of the vacations were more modest — we spent year after year in a beach cabin on the Oregon Coast.

February 20, 2007

February 15, 2007
Married couples in Washington state just got a big surprise courtesy of the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. The group is gathering signatures for an initiative that, if passed into law, would require all marriages to result in children within three years of taking wedding vows.

February 15, 2007

February 15, 2007
At the beginning of the quarter, I read and reviewed The Tao of Pooh, a delightful little book I would recommend to anyone.

February 14, 2007

February 13, 2007

February 12, 2007

February 8, 2007

February 8, 2007
I will graduate from the UW in 14 weeks. Come June, I will wear a cap and gown for the second time in my life, listen to commencement speakers and attend graduation parties.

February 7, 2007
People seeking social, mental or professional help in their lives often turn to counselors for guidance, but they may want to double-check credentials before they pour their hearts out.

February 6, 2007

February 5, 2007

February 1, 2007
A fisherman off the coast of Japan recently caught a frill shark, a rare sea creature that has been around in the fossil record for 50 million years.

February 1, 2007

February 1, 2007
Curtis Sittenfeld's first book Prep just blew me away, so naturally, I looked forward to the release of her next book with an almost-giddy excitement.

January 31, 2007

January 30, 2007

January 29, 2007

January 25, 2007

January 24, 2007

January 24, 2007

January 23, 2007

January 22, 2007

January 18, 2007
"Condoms don't belong in school and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Federal Way, Wash. parent Frosty Hardison in an article the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed late last week.

January 18, 2007

January 18, 2007
Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is touted on its own cover as an "international bestselling phenomenon" and a book "that changes the lives of its readers forever."

January 17, 2007

January 16, 2007
The goal of holidays like Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Veteran's Day is to draw national and individual attention to the struggles and sacrifices of communities in our nation.

January 11, 2007
WorldPublicOpinion.org published an analysis in late December showing that most Americans actually agree across party lines about some of the most important issues facing the United States today.

January 11, 2007

January 11, 2007
In one of my English classes last quarter, a fellow student said her favorite book was a short little novel from the 1980s called The Tao of Pooh. Over break, I decided I needed something light to read, so I picked up this novel by Benjamin Hoff.

January 10, 2007
Parents at Whittier Elementary in North Seattle are up in arms, and with good reason.

January 9, 2007

January 8, 2007

January 4, 2007
In what is essentially a full acknowledgement of human-caused climate change, Bush administration officials have officially recognized the plight of polar bears in the arctic.

January 4, 2007
If you went to a Starbucks coffee shop yesterday and bought a pastry, you were among the first to taste the company's new trans fat-free foods.

January 3, 2007
Madonna goes to Malawi to adopt a child. Brangelina takes an extended vacation in her adopted daughter's native Namibia.

December 7, 2006

December 6, 2006
They're coming. Thousands of them in six-story swarms. Razing buildings to the ground. Sucking the life-blood out of entire neighborhoods, and leaving nothing but Craftsman rubble in their wake.

December 5, 2006
Keith Ellison, Minnesota's newly elected Democratic congressman, identifies himself as a member of the Muslim faith and as such would like to carry a Quran while being sworn into office.

December 4, 2006
The Seattle City Council will vote next Monday on a proposed set of revisions to city parking standards.

November 30, 2006
Few popular-fiction novelists are as famous or prolific as romance author Nora Roberts, who also writes suspense novels under the pen name J.D. Robb.

November 30, 2006

November 29, 2006
With Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth released on video last weekend, and with the Supreme Court intending to hear its first case on global warming starting today, human-induced climate change is clearly a hot topic.

November 28, 2006
You may not pay much attention to it, but you know its there. You know it's there because, even if you're not, someone else might get to be.

November 27, 2006
An increasing trend of Internet slang and casual abbreviations used in academic writing is being seen by both high school teachers and university professors, according to a new report by <i>Newhouse News Service</i>

November 22, 2006

November 21, 2006
The Pacific Northwest is renowned for its natural resources, with Mount Rainier on one side and the Puget Sound and Pacific Ocean on the other. Many Seattleites pride themselves on being environmental activists.

November 20, 2006

November 16, 2006
The Great Gatsby is a classic American novel. Now the timeless tale of greed, deception and stepping on the little people to achieve fame and fortune has been turned into a stage production at the Seattle Repertory Theatre.

November 16, 2006

November 15, 2006

November 14, 2006
Hola. Bonjour. Konichiwa. If you're like many of us at The Daily, you probably had your first taste of a formally taught foreign language as a middle or high school student.

November 13, 2006
When most students consider the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, they think of disease. Perhaps they think of hunger, too, but they probably do not realize that a lack of food is undermining the effectiveness of AIDS drugs in impoverished nations where the crisis is at its worst.