Cute Stuff issue

The

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Lauren Perry Lauren grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and has returned to Wyoming to live near her father. With a passion for all things medieval, colorful, sparkly, or poetic, she loves life and the music it creates!

Shannon SmithShannon is a Sophomore at the University of Wyoming. She likes long walks on the beach, and sharing milkshakes. Wait, no. She likes writing about the way things really are.

Steven K. mcmanamenAs a senior molecular biology, Steven enjoys writing about science and energy. He has a great fondness for Wyoming’s great outdoors and the people who live there.

veronica oLSonveronica is a senior communication major from Pittsburgh, Pa. after graduation in may, She plans on attending graduate school back east. She also wants to get a puppy.

noelle Lopez editor-in-chief

Kayla mauriello aSSiStant editor

tim Stewart aSSiStant editor

Shantana Banta GraPhic deSiGn

nyla hurley GraPhic deSiGn

Justin Gerard PhotoGraPhy

Kevin Wrobertz iLLuStrator

WiLLiam WhydeWilliam is a undergraduate student at the University of Wyoming. He plans to do something after he graduates.

andreW caLLAndrew started drawing comics and passing them around in school from then on he drew comics and wrote the occasional story. After UW he hopes to go to the coast, Oregon or Washington, and keep writing.

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H.R. Johnston had porta-potties located on a hill. He got a call saying they needed to

be moved. Upon arriving at the site, he saw the potty, went over, picked it up, and proceeded to carry it down the hill. That is until he heard the banging and screaming inside.

Is cleaning porta-potties and taking shit from hundreds of people everyday worth it? Johnston thinks so.

H.R. Johnston was the owner of a porta-potty company named San-O-Let in Douglas, Wyo. When asked why anyone would be interested

the business he said, “To make money. It’s prof-itable.” At one point in his porta-potty career, Johnston’s business controlled between 5,500 and 6,000 units.

How does one become an employee who cleans 6,000 potties? Johnston said he likes to hire people who “have the ability to do work and get their hands dirty.

“Actually, we wear rubber gloves for that,” he laughed. Workers need to be competent drivers but do not need other special skills in order to manage the potties.

San-o-Let: out StandinG in the fieLd By Shannon Smith

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The porta-potties are stored dry and clean. When needed, a driver takes the potty to the location on a truck. Once at the location, the truck disperses a strong commercial deodorant mix into the large porta-potty tank. It definitely won’t leave white marks under your arms, but it does make the thirty-second trip bearable—well, with your nose plugged.

Once people can smell the potty from the stadium, a driver returns to the location with a truck. Depending on how many people visit them, potties are cleaned anywhere from once a week to everyday.

When cleaning, the driver begins to suck out the contents of the potty with a vacuum hose. Yummy. Finally, the employee gets a bucket of water and the commercial deodorant. He or she puts rubber gloves back on and gives the inside of the potty a sponge bath, getting into all the cracks and crevices. Then he or she refills the tank with another five gallons of deodorant or brings it back to the storage area. Where would one store 3,000 porta-potties?

“Well, if you don’t have a storage unit you better make sure you have a big backyard,” Johnston said.

When I asked Johnston how many times an average porta-potty is taken to a new location after storage, his reply was, “Oh I don’t know, maybe 1,000.” That’s just locations, not cheeks planting themselves on the seat.

The final and dirtiest part of the process is after the potties are stored. The trucks are taken to a landfill where they dump the con-

tents of the potty, and as Johnston experienced, there is no stopping the contents until the tank is completely empty.

H.R. Johnston was dumping his porta-potty at the landfill once when it was rainy, snowy and muddy, and you already know what happened next. He slipped right underneath the pipe and caught the brunt of everything that was previ-ously in that porta-potty.

Surprisingly, getting the load dumped on you isn’t the worst part of the job, Johnston said. Neither is the freakishly long list of chemicals that you are showered in after you are envel-oped in human waste.

The worst part, he said, is working when it’s 20-below out in the gas hills, where uranium is extracted in central Wyoming.

I asked him what other locations his potties were located. His first response was rock con-certs. Other locations were pretty typical: Inves-co Field at Mile High, construction sites, power plants, coal mines and railroads.

Johnston was looking forward to moving pot-ties at Mile High Stadium Invesco Field until a client said he couldn’t wait for a football fan to step out in front of the truck. Offended, John-ston asked why he would say that. The client said so they could see what really happens when shit hits the fan.

Johnston said the best part of owning San-O-Let was the satisfaction of a job well done. Well that and the jokes that go around.

“It may be shit to you, but it’s our bread and butter,” Johnston laughed.

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aulophobia: Fear of flutesFlautists are victims of oppression by the op-pressed, the misunderstood group within the already misunderstood band children. Choosing to play the flute is actually a noble choice since it invites the scorn and ridicule of peers as well as some parents. Maybe that is why the instrument retains its negative image.

The brave children who forsake the list of generally accepted “cool” instruments and invite social torment have a breaking point. Only a few make it through high school and into college, let alone a professional flute-playing career. Unfortu-

nately, for those who still have hope that the flute will one day become as totally awesome as the clarinet, that hope might be misplaced. If there ever was a time where the coolness of the flute began to gain momentum, Jethro Tull effectively destroyed the movement.

Proctophobia: Fear of rectums I actually don’t know why this one struck me as particularly weird. I mean, rectums are quite strange and terrifying, mostly because they carry so much negative baggage. Rectums only seem to be discussed in “Jackass” or prison dramas as re-

afraid of heiGhtS? SmaLL SPaceS? don’t feeL SiLLy, there are far WorSe thinGS to fear By WiLLiam Whyde iLLuStration By Kevin WroBitz

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gions suitable for hiding (or just inserting) things, whether it’s jewels, drugs, chess sets or toy cars. In most cases, rectums are preferably unseen and unheard, except for reality television, where watch-ing people eat farm animal rectums for temporary stardom or a date with Tila Tequila is a very special kind of entertainment.

octophobia: Fear of the figure 8 The figure eight is scary because it reminds people of the digit eight, which rhymes with “ate,” the past tense of a verb that can be used by someone who participates in cannibalism. Other than that, I can think of no reason why the figure eight should be feared. Anything else would be stupid.

Phronemophobia: Fear of thinkingI am so happy this is a recognized phobia be-cause it makes me feel a little less guilty about

my fear of trying. I remember a few years ago I was trying something and I thought, “Maybe try-ing just isn’t for me.” So I told my doctor and he diagnosed me with Extreme Trying Aversion Dis-order, an illness that affects extremely apathetic people. So now I have a medical excuse when people accuse me of not trying, which allows me to never have to try anything at all.

Pteronophobia: Fear of being tickled by feathers Some people dream of being tickled by feathers. Others resent the fact that they are not being tickled. While not all feathers are soft, it seems like there are numerous cringe-inducing tickling materials that could inspire a much more under-standable phobia. It would be more disturbing if the phobia involved being bound and then tickled with feathers. In fact, anything that involves being bound probably warrants a phobia. I fear being bound and force fed mayonnaise.

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In fact, if Eli Roth ever decides to do a “Hos-tel 3” (which his ego will probably encourage) he should replace the power drills, blowtorches and chainsaws with mayonnaise, cottage cheese and lima beans. Farm animal rectums would not even be necessary.

Lutraphobia: Fear of otters Otters? If any aquatic mammal deserves a phobia to be named after it, it is the leopard seal. The penguin movie phenomenon showed audiences that leopard seals are bloodthirsty and terrifying. They threaten the well-being of baby penguins, elderly penguins, surfing penguins, dancing pen-guins, penguins that have retired from surfing because they faked their own death and are now ashamed to appear in public, and penguins com-

mitted to a loving relationship.They also threaten packs of stranded sled

dogs, as seen in the epic leopard seal versus stranded sled dog team chase sequence in “Eight Below.” (Out of embarrassment for referencing “Eight Below,” I must say that everything about that movie is surprisingly memorable with the exception of Paul Walker and the guy who man-aged to spawn an acting career by making love to a pie.)

consecotaleophobia: Fear of chopsticks I fear blunt objects that can be used as deadly weapons in extreme circumstances, a category that chopsticks could fall under. But simply fear-ing chopsticks seems somewhat mysterious, even as far as fearing eating utensils goes. I always

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thought knives or forks were a bit scarier, but maybe that’s just me.

dikephobia: Fear of justice I wonder what kinds of people suffer from a fear of justice … racists perhaps, or maybe mi-sogynists. Nobody has the right to deny creamy justice to all.

Pogonophobia: Fear of beardsMuch like otters, chopsticks, flute-playing band children and rectums, I feel beards may sim-ply be misunderstood. The mountain man beard never seems to go out of style, especially the mountain man beard that gathers stew and milk—the only two food groups necessary for a mountain man.

While facial hair with stew and milk in it may rub some people the wrong way, others may find it oddly inspiring, maybe even alluring. These people often choose to become, or already are, mountain people. Ted Nugent, the curious hybrid of scary mountain man and don’t-take-a-wrong-turn-on-West-Virginia-back-roads man, sometimes sports the Frizzle Frazzle—a beard consisting of randomly placed patches of what appears to be frayed gray yarn. Some fans of the Nuge have fol-lowed the example of the Frizzle Frazzle.

After seeing Conan O’Brien’s writer strike beard, I wanted to grow my own but knew I could never pull it off like the Cone Zone. My point (sort of) is that even the strangest beards can be inspiring to some-body, and therefore not all beards can be feared.

arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouthWhen recognizing new phobias, the phobia rec-ognizers should consider whether or not the fear of something could be the subject of a mildly suspenseful, feature length movie. I am not sure this can be done with the fear of peanut but-ter sticking to the roof of the mouth. Although, if “Date Movie,” “Epic Movie” and “Superhero Movie” could be made, I guess I could not be completely shocked if “The Peanut Butter Massacre” comes out this year.

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What is the fascination with miniature things? Everything seems to be better when it is one-fifth its normal size. Even movies are getting into the trend: MINI Cooper getaway cars, miniature Roman soldiers and cowboys fighting each other in muse-ums, even a Mini-Me. Why all the fuss?

Because they are just so damn cute.So here are the top five cutest miniature things

that will make you want to go home and cut your couch in half just so you can have something small and cute too.

minicattLeObviously, miniature animals are going to make the list. What makes girls “ooh” and “ahh” more than a puppy? Not much. Minicattle however, go above and beyond the average cute-animal status.

Miniature cattle, besides being adorable, are also practical. They are perfect for small-acre farms and their beef production per acre is double that of large animals. Talking about beef production does decrease the cute factor a bit, but it makes these miniature livestock seem more sensible.

Many owners of miniature cattle do keep them as pets, not tomorrow’s dinner. At full maturity, some cows are as small as a My Size Barbie and as docile as one. While they may not be a toy chihuahua or a miniature dachs-

hund, these miniature cows are just as adorable and friendly. Plus, instead of riding the golden retriever, kids can ride their My Size Cattle. Bull-riding training can also begin before kids are out of diapers.

The tiny horns and udders make these tiny cattle irresistible, until you see the miniature cattle calves. Then you just want to pick them up, carry them in your purse and name them Tinkerbell.

SmaLL PhoneSThink back to the first cell phones that were gray, a foot long and had a 6” antenna and buttons that you could read even in the dark. Those are not making the list. A phone that is making the list, however, is the Modu phone.

Tiny phones such as the Modu phone are moving to the next level of miniature. This new phone weighs as much as a York Pep-permint Pattie and is one-third of an inch thick. The basic small phone can only be used to make and receive calls, but “jackets” can be added to include games, a camera and a keyboard for texting. With three different covers the user has three different phones or devices at once. Even with the jackets on, the phone is still small enough to fit inside

miGhty miniSthere iS SomethinG BeautifuL aBout the PocKet-Sized item. aS Soon aS it’S mini, it iS numBer one By Shannon Smith

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one’s palm. This tiny phone would even make Derek Zoolander jealous.

thumBeLina the horSeThe world’s smallest horse must be deserving of at least No. 3 on our list, especially when Thumbelina has made appearances on “Oprah,” “The Today Show,” MSNBC, Fox News and sev-eral others. Also making her deserving of the countdown are the charitable foundations

created in her honor.Thumbelina is a dwarf miniature chestnut mare.

She is 7 years old and is just taller than Shaq’s size-22 shoe when it is standing upright. Thumbeli-na weighs about the same as a small child at just 57 pounds. She is even smaller than large dogs.

Thumbelina is a “mini-mini” because both of her parents were miniatures as well. At the farm where she lives, she overthrew the dog’s right to the dog house, which is now her home.

While there may be things in life you

prefer not to come in miniature sizes,

if it’s going to be mini, it should be

something you are going to like.

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As if this weren’t enough to make Thumbelina one of the cutest things on the planet, she is also dedicated to the happiness and wellbeing of children. She went on a year-long children’s tour where she visited children in over 180 hospitals, schools and shelters. In 2007, she brightened the day of over 20,000 children. That is more children than the entire population of Augusta, Maine. The Thumbelina Charitable Foundation raises money for children’s charities to help troubled, disabled and abused children Even if she weren’t less than 2 feet tall and came up higher than the knees of other horses, her tiny furry face and hooves that are smaller than a child’s hand make her too adorable to ignore.

miniBottLeS While there may be things in life you prefer not to come in miniature sizes—like alcohol—if something is going to come smaller than it should, it should be something you are going to like. It isn’t just airplanes and minibars anymore that are serving alcohol in a single-shot container. Today anything you can drink, you can drink out of a minibottle. From cheap vodkas to imported cognacs, nothing is too crazy to be put in a minibottle.

Much like larger bottles, minibottles are now coming in more than the plastic bottle shape. There are fat bottles, skinny bottles, short bot-tles or tall bottles. There are also exotic bottles shaped like the Taj Mahal, bottles in plastic pouches, bottles shaped like barrels and guitars, even bottles that aren’t bottles, but tubes. While

the bottle itself may be small, the concept of the minibottle is definitely growing.

The price of miniature bottles of alcohol can also be rather miniature depending on the quality of the liquor inside. Minibottles cost an average of $1 to $5 for common liquors in a liquor store: Smirnoff vodka, Jack Daniels whiskey and Jose Cuervo tequila. While the shot may be miniature compared to what you’re used to, a baby bottle of tequila that comes wearing a sombrero has got to be worth something.

miniature carSMINI Coopers make this car look like a luxury sedan: the 1990 Honda Caren is the length of a bathtub at 5 ½ feet long and 1 yard wide. This one-seater running on three wheels has a top speed of 35 mph. Weighing less than Arnold Schwarzenegger at 200 pounds, the Honda Caren runs on a single cylinder and only produces 3.8 horsepower.

Honda Motorcycle Japan Co., Ltd. manufactured this tiny car and imported it to Miami in 1990. It is a moped/sidecar combination with only one door.

While you may not want to be seen in the Caren, you might want to reap the benefits of its sheer size. Some microcars can get as much as 100 miles per gallon. Parking, especially parallel, is also made easier as the Honda Caren is even smaller than most European parking spaces. You could even park on the UW campus in this car.

Well, maybe.

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Uranium prices are now around $60 a pound, much higher than the near $10 a pound in

the mid-1990s, and many energy companies are hoping to make uranium one of Wyoming’s most prized minerals once again. Wyoming has vast re-serves of coal, natural gas, oil, uranium and many other minerals. Most of the minerals extracted in Wyoming are easy enough to understand, but uranium has a very different energy potential than its hydrocarbon siblings.

Most people know uranium is used in nuclear

power plants to make electricity, but exactly what is uranium and how does it produce elec-tricity? And how, unlike coal, oil or natural gas, can this mysterious mineral also be used to make nuclear weapons?

Wyoming’s uranium history:Uranium was found throughout Wyoming in the late 1940s and early 1950s during an intensive government search spurred by the Cold War and the need for nuclear weapons.

uranium SatiSfieS WyominG’S SWeet tooth By Steven K. mcmanamen

“Yellow cake”

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Wyoming uranium production increased in the 1960s and 1970s as the number of nuclear power plants grew. At its peak, the Wyoming uranium industry produced 12 million pounds of uranium a year.

In 1979, the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility near Middletown, Pa—the worst nuclear accident in American history—and uranium flooding the market from Canada and Australia over the following few years devastated the U.S. nuclear energy industry. The price of uranium plummeted, nearly collapsing the mining industry in Wyoming. The decommissioning of Cold War-era nuclear warheads in the 1990s flooded the nucle-ar power industry with new fuel and drove market prices below $10 a pound, further depressing the few mines still operating in Wyoming.

Things are looking brighter for the strange mineral these days. The price of uranium has skyrocketed the past few years and is projected to keep increasing for the next decade or lon-ger. This has turned the heads of many uranium companies back to Wyoming and the possibil-ity of extracting much more of this oddball en-ergy source in the hills and plains of the mineral industry-friendly state.

So what is uranium?Uranium has some of the most unique properties of any known element. Uranium is the heaviest natural-ly occurring element on Earth. It is a metal like gold or copper, but much more dense. A pound of ura-nium will make a ball only 1.3 inches in diameter.

One of uranium’s better known properties is its radioactivity. Radioactivity, or radioactive decay, is when atoms spontaneously disintegrate and transform into different, more stable atoms. Ra-dioactivity emits both particles and energy known as radiation. Very high levels of radiation can kill cells in your body and can cause serious diseas-es such as cancer.

Up until the last 70 years, uranium was not much use to anybody. It was discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth, a German chemist, and named after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered eight years earlier.

In 1938, it was discovered that uranium could be split to release energy, using a process known as fission. Scientists found that if they bombarded a uranium atom with neutrons, the atom would split and an enormous amount of energy would be released. Because this energy came from breaking the bonds in the center (nucleus) of the atom, it became known as nuclear energy.

energy from uranium:Uranium can indeed pack a punch, as the omi-nous grainy films of mushroom clouds prove. One ton of uranium can produce more than 40 mil-lion kilowatt-hours of electricity. That is equal to 16,000 tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of oil.

Getting electricity from uranium is not like getting it from coal. Rather than burning fuel to produce electricity, nuclear power plants use the energy from the “fission” of uranium to boil water into steam, which then drives generators to make electricity.

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The way fission works is this: A uranium atom is split with a neutron and energy is given off along with two or three more neutrons. Those neutrons split two more uranium atoms and so on. This chain reaction can split 40 quintillion uranium atoms in less than one-thousandth of a second. A quintil-lion is a billion billions. Leaving this chain reaction unchecked is the basic action of an atomic bomb.

Uranium mined in Wyoming is known as “yellow-cake” uranium. Yellowcake is milled uranium oxide. There are three different types (isotopes) of ura-nium: uranium-234, uranium-235 and uranium-238. The fuel for nuclear reactors has to have a higher concentration of uranium-235 than exists in natural uranium ore. The amount of the uranium-235 has to be enriched. It is this enrichment, a very compli-cated process, which the U.S. government is worried about both Iran and North Korea trying to do.

The potential hazards nuclear waste could have on the environment is the main problem with nucle-ar energy, specifically the nuclear waste it creates. The nuclear fuel continues to be radioactive long after it is used. This waste must be stored in a safe place, away from people and the environment.

Many experts think uranium and the nuclear en-ergy it is used for will be an important part of a sustainable-energy future. Uranium demand is pro-jected to increase at an annual rate of 2.8 percent by 2010, and double by 2020. Uranium mining is continuing to increase in Wyoming. Whether or not uranium will be mined as much as it once was is yet to be seen, but as carbon dioxide emissions become a bigger problem and nuclear energy gains popularity, this radioactive, oddball mineral could take the lead as Wyoming’s most important mineral resource.

ᐧ Uranium was apparently formed in supernovae about 6.6 billion years ago.

ᐧ Though described as “yellowcake,” uranium is actually silvery-white in pure form.

ᐧ Other uses of uranium include gyroscopic compasses, ceramic glazes, colored glass and X-rays.

ᐧ Plutonium, used in most nuclear weapons and some nuclear power plants today, is synthesized from uranium.

ᐧ Although uncommon in the solar system, its slow radioactive decay provides the main source of heat inside the Earth, causing convection and continental drift.

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FunnY FarmBy noeLLe LoPez PhotoGraPhS By JuStin Gerard

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FunnY FarmSleeping in the hood of Lisa Gouge’s sweatshirt is the fattest rat I’ve ever seen. His tail is hanging over

the side and one of his eyes keeps twitching open when I laugh. His eyes are probably big and brown like his fur, but I doubt that I’ll ever know, because he sleeps like someone slipped him a Quaalude.

Lisa is awake, though, and she’s busy petting the naked little rat on her lap. This one’s been chilling in her pocket and looks like she’d rather go back there. She’s a hairless rat, the beluga caviar of the rat world—rare and an acquired taste.

“You just peed all over me. Great job, booger butt,” says Lisa to the wrinkly little rat who doesn’t seem to care.

By noeLLe LoPez PhotoGraPhS By JuStin Gerard

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The rats are 33-year-old Lisa’s life, hobby and part-time “work.” She’s a rat rescuer; she takes in the abused, abandoned and neglect-ed and gives them a permanent home.

She is the matron of an orphanage filled with hairy little children.

The “orphanage” is a two-bedroom trailer just west of Laramie with what must be the most understanding landlords ever. There she gives the rats food, water, shelter and, when the mood strikes her, does things like hand-sewing hammocks and building elaborate tun-nels for them to run around in.

“I take in ones that need homes. I don’t mind if they’re babies. I don’t mind if they’re old. If they need a good home or have spe-cial needs, I’ll take care of them.”

The ones she has with her today are just two of the 13 she has living with her right now.

The fat one she calls Fat Albert and the hairless one is Chrissy.

“Hairless are my favorite. They’re very rare. I guess I like them because they need more love, because people think they’re disgusting. But I think they’re beautiful. They just need a little extra attention and extra love and I think that’s why I love them so much.”

When you hear “hairless rat” you assume that they’re totally furless, but that’s not the case. They have these little stiff, white whis-kers that curl up like cartoon mustaches. The rest of their body, though, looks totally bare, but isn’t. It’s completely covered with tiny

hairs that don’t do anything to make them look any less like naked, wrinkly old men.

Obviously, this doesn’t bother Lisa, but it doesn’t seem like much does. She has two rats hanging out in her shirt, I’m making her miss dinner and as of yesterday, she’s homeless.

Well, not really. Her house is being fu-migated, leaving her, the two rats and 11 of their comrades temporarily displaced. But Lisa and the rats seem fine and don’t seem to mind that we’re hanging out in the Washakie Dining Hall break room.

This is where Lisa works when she’s not busy saving rats. She’s a custodian at the university and is in charge of two floors in White Hall, where the residents know her as “the rat lady.” She doesn’t bring the rats to work, but they know from the posters on her door and the wallpaper on her phone that she’s hooked. Today, of course, is an excep-tion as she snuck her two favorite rats into the break room for me to see.

Lisa sits on a folding chair in a pink sweatshirt that looks like it has seen better days and more than a few rats. Her hair is dirty blonde with errant pieces; maybe from Fat Albert playing in it or a windy Laramie day. She looks tired, but you’d never know it by how much she smiles.

Lisa gestures to Fat Albert, “This is his fa-vorite sweater.”

She says she knows because he’s chewed on it and he rides in the hood.

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“They chew on it, they pee on it. It’s just what they do. But they’re wonderful. I couldn’t imagine my life without them. They’re great.”

Lisa works full time as a custodian in addition to being a part-time pre-law student at the univer-sity. She works hard to keep her habit.

“It’s hard, but it’s worth it. I support me and the babies. That’s why I work 40 hours a week,” says Lisa. “And I don’t mind it. They eat good and they’re taken care of. You know, that’s all that matters that they’re all taken care of.”

For Lisa’s rats, eating good means four pounds of rat food about every two weeks and snacks like crackers, cereal and whatever she’s eating.

Her rat habit has her running to the Pet Pantry, a local pet store, almost every other week says shop worker Christy Bell who looks forward to her visits.

“She’s loud and fun and funny. She is just happy every time she comes in,” said Christy.

Lisa hopes to finish up her undergraduate degree at UW, go to law school and someday

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practice animal law.“I’ve always wanted to work with ani-

mals. Always, since I was kid. I always wanted to be a vet, but I don’t have the heart anymore. It’s too heartbreaking. So I’ll go and fight for them. Speak for them, because they don’t a voice.”

Lisa came prepared to the interview with a camera full of pictures. She has pictures of all 13 rats and pictures of their very own, soon-to-be-purple room lined with rat houses. The cages are elaborate little rat mansions, with ramps, hammocks and sleeping rats in every one. She has two columns of cages that cover three-quarters of the wall and they’ve been built with plans for expansion.

Lisa finds her rats all over the place. She’ll pick up babies used as feeders from pet stores, abandoned rats at the animal shelter and rats from owners that can’t or won’t take care of them anymore. Fat Albert was rescued about a year ago from the animal shelter. He was abandoned in a cage with nothing but a donut.

But Lisa’s seen much worse.“I’ve seen them with no teeth, seen

them with skin and bones—that’s the one that breaks my heart.”

Lisa’s heart is one of her defining features, says her longtime friend Susan Payne. Lisa met Susan six years ago while working together at the 7-11.

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“She always thinks of other people, always wants to help, whether it be human or animal. More of-ten, it’s the animals she’s helping,” says Susan.

“She definitely really puts them before herself when it comes to expenses. I’ve seen that several times. Her mom keeps joking that she need an intervention—a ratervention.”

Lisa claims she’s never had less than five rats at once in the 11 years she’s been doing this. She estimates that over 70 rats have passed through her doors and once they do, they’re there for life. One of Lisa’s pledges when she rescues a rat is to keep it until the day it dies, even if the rat makes her wish it was a little sooner, rather than later, like it is with an angry little rat named Donatello.

Donatello was rescued earlier this year with his brother, Leonardo. Since then, Donatello has proved to be extremely unfriendly, aggressive and downright hostile. It takes Lisa almost 45 minutes every week to clean his cage because she has to dodge his hisses and teeth.

“He’s just mean, and when he bites, he bites down to the bone. But, I just don’t have the heart to get rid of him. I’m his seventh home in a year.”

Christy at the Pet Pantry says she’s tried to en-courage her to put him down, but says that every time Lisa gets to the door she just starts crying and can’t go through with it.

“She’s so giving and loving and caring. She wouldn’t have a love for animals if she didn’t have that in her. I mean, because that’s all you ever hear her talk about, is her animals. It’s one of the biggest things in her life, you know? You have to

have that in your heart if you live your life like she does,” says Susan.

Fat Albert is awake now and Lisa has him on her lap. She’s kneading the fur on his back and he seems pleased.

“I like rats because they’re complex and yet they’re simple. They’re simple creatures and they don’t have the respect they deserve. So, I think that’s why I like them. They’re almost an outcast which makes them even more lovable.”

“Somebody once told me I was disgusting for having rats. I’m like, okay, they’re cleaner than some dogs I know. People will say, ‘Oh, they’re so ugly. How could you own something that ugly?’ But somebody’s got to love them. And that’s me.”

The halls outside the break room fill with the echoes of students’ voices. The dinner service must be over and they must be headed back to the residence halls, and more than a couple must be headed to the hall where Lisa works. Lisa finally looks tired, and the rats look like they could use a nap in one of her handmade fleece hammocks. It’s time for the crew to head home, or at least to their temporary retreat at a friend’s house where they’ll wait another week until her house and their little room are safe again.

Chrissy is already in the front pocket of Lisa’s sweatshirt as Lisa picks up Fat Albert from her lap and tries to wiggle him into her hood.

“You’re gonna be pissed at me in a minute, but if we don’t hide you, we’re not getting out of here alive,” she says to the giant rat’s haunches and tail as they disappear through her hair.

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Love constantly eludes me. While I have claimed the “love” status with boyfriends several times,

I can honestly say I don’t know if I have ever felt it toward any human outside my genetic. I do not know if I have ever really “loved” a boy, guy or man. I’ve dated all, with the exception of the latter.

Love, to me, is the feeling of accomplishment when my father is proud of me. Love is the intense fear I feel whenever my younger sister starts to remind me of myself. Love is what propels me to sit and listen to my grandmother’s life stories, no mat-ter how many times she may have told them to me.

Love is what I feel when I sit, looking haggard and bereft at the breakfast table in my house after a long night, and my sorority sisters still smile at me and claim me as their own. Love is the bond that ties humanity together. It is the simple act of caring when we don’t have to, of nurturing when we could walk away.

Love puts us a step above animals, in that we don’t kill people that anger us, and we look for the best in those around us. Love may not be what we claim it is in the movies, but the core that our world rotates around, keeping all of us on our feet; a gravity that does more than hold us upright.

The aforementioned is love according to an English major, and a young one at that. What is love according to people immersed in other disciplines?

Love accordinG to the dictionary:What better place to start in the search of the meaning of love than the dictionary?

love according to...LooKinG at Love from aLL the WronG PLaceS? mayBe you ShouLd LooK at Love from too many PLaceS By Lauren Perry

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While the literal meaning of the word could never encompass all of society’s meanings for it, I thought it certainly could help in forming some ideas.

Love: Pronunciation: \lüv\ Function: noun & verb Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lufu;Date: before 12th century To have or feel love toward (a person, a thing per-sonified) (for a quality or attribute); to entertain a great affection, fondness or regard for; to hold dear.To entertain a strong affection, to feel love; spec. to have a passionate attachment to another; to be in love.To show love toward, in the manner of a child; to embrace affectionately; to caress, fondle; to engage in love, play with. (Oxford English Dictionary)

Vague? Yes. Helpful? Slightly. Most people would agree with this general assessment of love, but to become experts, we need answers much more specific than that.Love accordinG to PhiLoSoPhy:According to Professor Susanna Goodin of the department of philosophy, there is no one answer. Just like the varying opinions of college students on what love is, philosophers don’t agree either.

“I guess the most important point to make first off is that there isn’t really a single, unified philo-sophical standpoint on love per se, although phi-losophers have had a ton of things to say about love. The classic is Plato’s ‘Symposium’, but his account of love there is so closely linked to his account of knowledge and reality that it is difficult to make sense of it without understanding the gist of his whole philosophical theory.

It is in the ‘Symposium’ that we get a report of the

poet/playwright Aristophanes talking about how we used to be united with another, then were split apart and we spend our lives looking for our other half, our soul mate, to complete us. Many people read the ‘Symposium’ and come away with this image as the abiding view of love … but the fact is that Plato, the philosopher, ridiculed the view quite thoroughly.”

After reading some of Plato’s “Symposium,” I learned that the Greeks believed in different types of love, while philosophers debate over whether or not love actually exists. Love is such a loose con-cept, it is no wonder that people and philosophers cannot agree on what love really is. Love accordinG to a Poet:Craig Arnold, professor of English and published writer, was gracious enough to lend me a peek into his upcoming book of poetry titled “Made Flesh,” coming out soon from Ausable Press. As a former student of his, it was almost as if he dared me to read the poems myself (which are absolutely bril-liant) and see if I could draw out his take on love. Here’s a tidbit from Dr. Arnold’s prolific poetry:

“Now I writewithout hope of answer to saythat what we gave each other nakedlywas too much and not enoughTo say that since we last touchedI am not empty I hear you namedand my heart starts the pieces of your voiceyou left are interleaved with mineand to this quick spark in the emptinessto say Yes I miss how lovemay make us otherwise…”

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If I have interpreted Dr. Arnold correctly, love has the ability to remedy “emptiness,” of which humans are consumed.

Perhaps to a poet, love does not necessarily make one whole, but creates life experiences that are both “too much and not enough.” Physically and emotionally, love may not be the kindest of emotions in the eyes of a poet, but it is certainly essential to human existence.

“Tenderly! be not impatient! Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh! Strong is your hold, O love!”

“The Imprisoned Soul” by Walt WhitmanLove accordinG to a muSician:While professors naturally have the upper hand on wisdom and knowledge, I couldn’t resist asking a peer for his interpretation of love. I asked Michael McNamee, musician and student, what he thinks:

“As a musician, when I’m writing a song, you can throw the word ‘love’ around a lot. ‘“Oh baby, I love you,”’ and you know it’s not really that sin-cere. That’s because love is such a big word. The Greeks didn’t have the word love, they had several different words for the different kinds of love. I love spaghetti but I don’t really love spaghetti.”

I know exactly what McNamee means. In ev-eryday life, the word “love” is used according to anything and everything.

“The purest form of love is empathy,” McNamee explains. Pretty wise, if you ask me.Love accordinG to BioLoGy:Everyone knows that there is an explanation of what love is according to the chemicals released in our

human brains when we are attracted to someone. There is the ever-present need and desire to spread our seed and populate the world … it seems pretty full to me. I did a little researching, which is huge for me, considering the fact that my brain was not made to understand science. Apparently what hap-pens is this: Thanks to the hormones and chemicals in our brains, especially after certain things (like orgasms), chemicals similar to endorphins and oxy-tocin are released, making us feel unusually happy.

According to biology, the emotion is caused by chemicals released in our brains that cause us to form attachments to others in hopes of producing offspring or protecting offspring. That makes sense, right? The strongest love is between significant others or between children and their parents. It makes sense, but I refuse to buy that love is only a biological mechanism. Love accordinG to....While there are many other perspectives I could investigate, those that I found are probably a good representation of most people’s views of love. There will always be a scientific take on love, insisting it is no more than a mixture of chemicals released at a specific time. While that may be true, love is what we make it and love is undoubtedly something that humanity revolves around. Whether you profess to love your girlfriend, whether you love your parents and want to make them proud, or whether you simply love life and feel exhilarated every day, love is an undeniable force. Define it how you will, love is the light, pulling us forward through the darkness of life’s uncertainties.

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do you Lie aWaKe at niGht aSKinG yourSeLf if you couLd Live off your oWn urine? We do By andreW caLL iLLuStration By Kevin WroBitz

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if you’re dyinG of thirSt, WiLL it KiLL you to drinK your oWn urine?The answer is no.

So you’re out in the middle of nowhere, be it the woods, a desert, the ocean, somewhere that fresh water isn’t accessible. You’ll die soon if you don’t find something to drink: can you gulp down some of your own urine to survive?

The U.S. Army Field Manual advises against it, explaining that urine contains harmful body wastes and is about 2 percent salt. But according to Discovery Channel’s Bear Grylls, from the popular show “Man vs. Wild,” as well as adventurer Aron Ralston (you may remember him from 2003 when he was forced to amputate his own arm after getting stuck while rock climbing), you can indeed drink your own urine and it may be your only chance of survival. Urine contains urea, a waste product that is toxic to the human body, but it is not concentrated enough in urine to cause dam-age. So the choice really boils down to whether or not you can bring yourself to drink your own waste. If your survival is on the line and there’s no one around to bruise your ego, chances are you’ll do it. It could save your life.

iS the five Second ruLe true?The answer is: It depends.

In May of 2007, Harold McGee wrote an article for The New York Times reflecting on a study he’d read, done by Clemson University. The study took an in depth look at the five second rule by plac-ing food slices on surfaces that had been coated

with salmonella. “Slices of bologna and bread left for five sec-

onds took up from 150 to 8,000 bacteria.” Further testing showed that slices left on the

contaminated surfaces for over an hour picked up as much as 10 times the amount of bacteria. McGee went on to say that although the Clemson University experiment used highly contaminated surfaces, most surfaces in your home will have some number of bacteria on them. There is no definite answer to this one. There’s nothing that points to a time limit determining how safe your food is after you’ve dropped it.

can the human Body Survive the vacuum of SPace?The answer is yes.

Although a trip into space minus a suit would probably not be a pleasant experience, it wouldn’t necessarily be deadly. Traveling in space is unfortunately one of those things that many of us won’t have the chance to do, but don’t worry, Hollywood has it covered. Most space movies wouldn’t be complete without a scene of someone getting stuck in space without a suit. This may bring to mind Arnold Schwarzenegger and his bulging eyes from the movie “Total Re-call” or the unfortunate worker who swells and ex-plodes in the 1981 Sean Connery film “Outland.”

Well I hate to disappoint you movie buffs out there, but it turns out the human body won’t ac-tually explode in space.

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The “Ask an Astrophysicist” team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland sheds some light on the subject saying, “If you don’t try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce per-manent injury.”

The biggest problem about being in a vacuum is the lack of oxygen, not the lack of pressure, although it’s possible your eardrums could suf-fer damage. Space would be extremely cold, but the human body doesn’t lose heat that quickly, so you wouldn’t freeze to death automatically. Something similar to “the bends” could be ex-pected, much like a deep sea diver surfacing too quickly. The human body is extremely resilient. If you were able to get back to a reasonable tem-perature and a pressurized environment almost immediately, it’s likely you would survive with little or no serious injury.

WiLL drinKinG aLcohoL KeeP you Warm When it’S coLd outSide?The answer is no.

It’s well below zero outside and you’re con-templating adding a little liquor to your morning coffee to help fight the cold: is it a good idea? Surprisingly enough, the answer is no. Although alcohol may make you feel warmer, the feeling is only temporary and deceiving.

“Alcohol might feel warm going down but it actually makes staying warm more difficult, be-cause it sends blood to your skin, making you

lose body heat to the cold air,” says PBSkids.org. This means that while you think you’re warming your insides, you’re allowing more warmth to be drawn from the core of your body and up to the surface of your skin. So with cold wind blow-ing across your skin, and more blood exposed to this wind, you actually lose more heat than if you hadn’t taken that drink.

iS SWaLLoWinG Gum reaLLy harmfuL to your Body?The answer is no.

A popular myth associated with chewing gum is that if you swallow your finished piece it will sit, undigested, in your stomach for seven years. This is completely untrue. After seven years there’s not much that wouldn’t be dissolved by your body’s stomach acid.

A health Web site, Ask Dr. Wiel, says that swallowing large amounts of sugar-free gum can cause digestive problems. The substitutes for sugar in sugar-free gum like Xylitol and Sorbitol don’t get absorbed. Instead they pass through the small intestine and colon, causing diarrhea. While swallowing chewing gum is not necessar-ily the healthiest thing a person could do, rest assured it won’t be nestled in your stomach for seven years. Instead, it just passes through the body undigested, much like fiber. While it’s much more convenient to toss that old, tasteless piece of gum into the trash, swallowing it without con-sciously knowing won’t kill you.

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We’re keeping your options open.

The Union Food Court is open into the evening for your convenience.

Stop in for a frozen treat at the Snowy Range Creamery. Order a custom-

made gourmet pizza at S’Pokes Pizza Company. Indulge in a cup of coffee, hot panini, fresh salad, or a premium bakery item from Rolling Mill Café. Or, grab an evening snack from CJ’s

Convenience Store.

Whether you’re looking for a place to grab a quick bite to eat, enjoy a leisurely meal, or spend time with friends, we provide just the right

setting to do so.

The Union Food Court is open into the evening for your convenience.

Stop in for a frozen treat at the Snowy Range Creamery. Order a custom-

made gourmet pizza at S’Pokes Pizza Company. Indulge in a cup of coffee, hot panini, fresh salad, or a premium bakery item from Rolling Mill Café. Or, grab an evening snack from CJ’s

Convenience Store.

Whether you’re looking for a place to grab a quick bite to eat, enjoy a leisurely meal, or spend time with friends, we provide just the right

setting to do so.

SNOWY RANGE

P I Z Z A C O M P A N Y

ROLLING MILLC A F É

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 7:30 a.m. - 9 p.m.

7 a.m. - 8 p.m. 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.

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Unveiled:

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By veronica oLSon PhotoGraPh By JuStin Gerard

Unveiled:wedding traditions

Listening to the final refrain of “YMCA,” I pushed the remainder of my chicken cordon bleu around my plate and wondered when it

would happen. They had already smashed raspberry-filled devil’s food cake into each other’s faces and had their best friends embarrass them with childhood stories of peeing pants and eating glue. Surely the DJ would play another song. The “Chicken Dance” hadn’t made an appearance.

Realizing I needed to execute my escape, I downed the rest of my champagne and hurriedly excused myself from the eight-setting circular table, sloshing the water keeping four blue candles afloat. But it was too late.

“Allllriiiiiighht now, I need all the beautiful single ladies down on the dance floor,” the DJ bellowed with a little too much enthusiasm. “You know what time it is...”

I knew alright—the most awkward moment of the entire wedding. No woman wants to be the first to declare her bare left finger and stand uncomfortably in the center of a crowded room, let alone actually catch the damn thing and be forced to let some pimply-faced second cousin of the groom slide a garter a little too high up her leg.

Yet, toward the dance floor I went.

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One by one, single female friends and loved ones formed a cluster behind the bride, each at-tempting to act more nonchalant than the next.

“Ok, are you guys ready?!” the bride asked as she turned over her shoulder, her face plastered with a gigantic smile, seemingly unaware that she too once grudgingly took a spot in another gag-gle of single women. “One … two … threeeee!”

The calla lilies soared into the air and dropped at my toes. No outstretched arms, no grunts of disappointment—just the clicking of high heels as the group quickly dispersed. No one claimed the fallen bouquet, which forced me to ponder the role tradition plays in modern weddings.

“If it’s going to work out, it’s going to work out,” Megan Fletcher, newlywed and University of Wyoming junior, says of wedding superstitions. “It’s not about good or bad luck.”

That may be true now, but way back when, it seems luck was pretty much all that mattered in a wedding. Who cares if the bride and groom hate each other; does she have a sixpence in her shoe? Arranged marriages would work out so long as it didn’t rain that day.

That reasoning sounds silly to our modern ears, but lucky traditions continue in today’s wedding world. So where do they come from and why do we continue their practice? The following are five traditions that supposedly bring good luck and are common at modern weddings. if the groom sees the dress, makes the marriage a mess.

This is one tradition that most brides follow.

Whether for surprise or superstition, many brides still forbid their fiancés to catch a glimpse of their white—or candlelight, off-white, crème, ivory, eggshell, diamond white, ecru or stark white—dresses. Technically, if the groom only sees the dress, the cosmos won’t fall apart, but if he sees the bride in her dress, better call the whole thing off.

In ancient times, when almost all weddings were arranged, the groom wasn’t allowed to see the bride at all before the two exchanged vows, in case she was hideous or had some horrible disfigurement that could cause the groom to call off the arrangement. If such a thing oc-curred, the bride would be left destitute, thus the “bad luck” of seeing the bride in her dress before the big day.

Give your party guests cake, and good luck it will make.A wedding is definitely not a wedding without cake. In ancient Rome, a wedding was final-ized by breaking a wheat cake over the bride’s head. The wedding guests would then scrape the crumbs off of the floor and eat them for good luck. Fortunately, today’s wedding guests don’t have to scurry around looking for their dessert, and they get more than a measly crumb. Another cake ritual is keeping the top layer of the wed-ding cake for the newlywed’s one-year anniver-sary. This modernized ritual stemmed from keep-ing the cake’s top layer for a baby’s christening, back when couples were expected to pop-out

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babies immediately. That way they didn’t have to buy another cake.

“We kept it, but we’re not going to eat it,” Megan says. “We’ve heard horror stories about how bad it is. We’ll probably throw it away on our anniversary.”

follow this rhyme for a good marriage time.Something old, something new, something bor-rowed, something blue. This tradition is one that most brides follow just for fun, including Lindsey Korsick, UW senior and marrying her fiancé in June 2009.

The calla lilies soared into the air and dropped at my toes.

No outstretched arms, no grunts of disappointment—just

the clicking of high heels as the group quickly dispersed.

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“I only have something old right now,” Lindsey says. “But I’m sure I’ll do it all.”

Something old for the connection with the bride’s family and the past, something new for optimism and hope for the future, something borrowed for someone else’s good fortune, and something blue for loyalty and fidelity. If Lindsey really wanted to go by the textbook, she’d put a silver sixpence in her shoe for wealth, if silver sixpence still exist.

if the clock hands point down, then your marriage will drown.The date and times of weddings also affect the luck of the marriage. Getting married on the hour is seen as bad luck, because as the ceremony progresses, the clock hands point down as they go around the clock. According to wedding lore, a Saturday wed-ding will result in an unlucky marriage, yet Satur-day is the most popular wedding day, perhaps the reason for a 50 percent divorce rate in the United States.

don’t attack the poor girl, catch the bouquet when it’s hurled.Back to the ol’ bouquet toss. In the 14th century, it was good luck for guests to get a piece of the bride’s clothing, so guests tore and grabbed at the bride’s dress. To avoid the attack, brides would throw their garters as a good luck offering, which has continued in partner with the bouquet toss. Bouquets originally contained herbs to ward off evil spirits and were therefore considered lucky. Once the bride was done with the good luck charms, she

passed them onto another bachelorette.“Those are the kind of things to get everyone on

the dance floor and get them involved,” Emily Larsc-heid, UW senior and marrying in August 2009, says regarding why brides still throw their bouquets. “It’s cliché and corny, but that’s what people enjoy.”

At the next wedding I attend, I’m going for the bride’s dress. Some traditions are worth bringing back.