By Amanda Millea
Before you start reading this, there are a few things you should know about me:
1. My iPod consists of mostly 90s pop music
2. I have a loud, unique laugh
3. I smile… a lot.
4. I live for my NBC Thursday night line-up (see #5.)
5. I am in love with Tina Fey
These five things are a huge factor in who I am today. However, today the purpose of this article pertains mostly to my number five: Tina Fey. To you, she may be no one. To me, she’s “Tina Fey: The female writer and actress that changed my life.”
I recently read her book. It was amazing that a celebrity could speak to me as much as she did as I was reading her book. From her going through the same self-esteem issues as every other teenage girl, to her views on being a comedy writer in what she thought to be a man’s world, saying Fey is my hero is something I would consider to be an understatement.

I have always known Fey to be a strong, independent female. I knew her as the first female head writer on Saturday Night and writer of the movie every teenage girl should be able to quote “Mean Girls.” She taught me there is nothing wrong with being myself. I can be whatever I want as long as I strive to achieve it.
Specifically, here are the lessons I took from Fey:

I’m going off to college in August. I’ve thought a lot about the person I am, the person I want to become. I want to become a writer. I will not make money, but I will be happy as a clam doing what I love. I want to inspire others through comedy writing, even if some may not appreciate my sense of humor. It may work out, it may not. One can only hope for the best.  I am completely okay with the fact not everyone will like me. I’m me and I’m not changing for anyone. I will laugh until my voice goes out, I will break out my un-coordinated dance moves whenever I please, I will sing as loud as I can (because, in the car, I know I’m good enough to have my own record deal), I will continue to obsess over dry-witted television shows, I will smile until I might as well be a Barbie, and I will ALWAYS be in love with Tina Fey.

My name is Amanda, and I love who I have come to be.

By Garrett Receveur

It plays out like a scene from a “Modern Warfare” game. Four helicopters, full of U.S. Navy SEALs, land outside a compound, surrounded by high walls topped with barbed wire. One of the helicopters malfunctions, so another helicopter is called in to replace it.

The SEALs, knowing the risk, rush into the home while waiting for the replacement helicopter. Two Arabic guards situated at the compound open fire on the SEALs and are easily taken down. The SEALs storm into the building, searching room to room for their target. They find their man on the second floor and, after he refused to surrender, they shoot him in the left eye, killing him.

Before the man’s fatal shooting, a woman, who was caught in the crossfire, called out his name, the name of America’s most wanted terrorist: Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden was the leader of Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. He was the figurehead of the organization and the mastermind behind the attacks, along with fellow member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In fact, it was Mohammed’s torture at Guantanamo Bay which had given the federal government the information needed to plan a successful raid on bin Laden’s compound.

Newspaper printers stopped all across the country, printing new headlines, photos, and stories about this momentous occasion, many headlines proclaiming “We got the bastard!”

Soon after President Barack Obama delivered the news of bin Laden’s death to America, cheers and enthusiastic celebrations broke out across the nation. Thousands of people converged on the White House and Ground Zero, hugging each other amid cries of “U.S.A!” knowing that justice had been done.

As much as I would have liked to, I did not watch Obama’s address to the nation concerning the plot to kill bin Laden. I was asleep at that time.
However, I did happen to be on Facebook. I was checking it before I went to bed and I saw that one of my friends had posted a status saying “Osama bin Laden is dead. Thank God!”

When I first saw this, I didn’t know what to believe. I thought they might be the lyrics to a song by a really obscure band that I had never heard of. Needless to say, I checked all the news sites I could. Sure enough, bin Laden was dead.

If I wasn’t so tired that night, and if I lived in New York or Washington, D.C., I would have jumped out of bed, ran out to hug someone, and shouted patriotic phrases myself. The day after I found out, I was enthusiastic. Former president George W. Bush claimed that justice had been done the moment bin Laden was assassinated. Frankly, I agree with him. Bin Laden was the world’s most wanted terrorist up until his assassination, and for good reason too.

Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the masterminds behind numerous attacks against America and other nations. Embassies worldwide have been targeted by Al Qaeda for years and Middle East-inhabitants have to struggle with suicide bombers and car bombers daily. Though, to us Americans, all of that pales in comparison to the horrifying events of Sept. 11.

Yet many Americans are hesitant to celebrate bin Laden’s death, saying it’s not right to celebrate the death of a fellow human being no matter how evil he was.

While in most cases, I would agree with this statement. However, in the case of bin Laden, I completely disagree.

Bin Laden and his organization were responsible for the deaths 2,998 people on Sept. 11 alone. I’m sure bin Laden’s followers were celebrating that day with no concern for the thousands of lives that ended so abruptly. I’m sure there were many followers hugging each other in the streets and burning American flags, shouting “Death to America!”

How, then, is it not right for Americans to celebrate the death of one man who caused so much grief and misery during his lifetime?

Besides, Al Qaeda is not yet completely destroyed. All the Navy SEALs did was assassinate the leader, which surely will not be the end of the terrorist organization; they just crippled it for the time being. Al Qaeda itself promised us this much.

We have kicked the proverbial hornet’s nest. A couple hornets came out and stung us, so we went in and squashed the queen. However, soon, whole hordes of hornets will rush out of the nest and sting our bodies until they are completely covered in raised red bumps.

The Al Qaeda threat is not going away anytime in the near future, much to my chagrin. A new figurehead will rise up to fill bin Laden’s spot and gain control over the organization. Perhaps even someone worse than bin Laden. Perhaps the attacks this new leader has planned in order to avenge bin Laden’s death will cost even more American lives than Sept. 11.

Nevertheless, America has fulfilled its promise and that is an occasion to celebrate. What Bush started, Obama finished. Both men, along with the Navy SEALs responsible, deserve credit for the successful assassination of a deadly figurehead for an even deadlier organization.

Nothing will ever be able to bring those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks back from the dead. For most families, the pain of the loss will never leave. While bin Laden’s main goal in the attacks was to destroy the American social structure, he did a lot worse. He tore family after family apart with each plane his terrorists hijacked.

Earlier in the year, I wrote a column that ended with how I’ve always imagined the Sept. 11 attacks. The vision always centers around a little boy whose feet dangle precariously above the floor of the plane. He is clutching the plastic Mickey Mouse ears strapped to his head and is screaming as the plane he is riding collides with the World Trade Center.

I still think about this little boy, but now I imagine something different. I imagine that this boy is still wearing his Mickey Mouse ears, but he is no longer in a plane nor is he screaming in horror. Instead, the boy stands in the middle of a New York street, filled with a multitude of other people waving American flags. Suddenly, a military man, chest adorned with medal after medal, scoops the boy up onto his shoulders and gives him a small flag to wave. The crowd starts chanting “U.S.A!” when, all of a sudden the boy with the Mickey Mouse ears starts singing and the whole crowd eventually joins him, ending in a spine-chilling finale.

“Oh say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave for the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

By Paige Thompson

It was a normal day a few years back, and my sister Lora, my mom, and I were in Target. While my mom went off and did her thing, Lora and I decided to go look at the movies. I wandered off my myself to another aisle, looking at something else. I walked down the rows of movies, wishing my mom would hurry up, minding my own business.

Suddenly, I heard a loud ‘hayah!’ echo through the building from a few aisles over. A million thoughts ran through my head, including, “Who is this freak, and why are they doing karate in the middle of Target?” But I went about my business anyway ,not really thinking about it too much.

Then it dawned on me that my sister was around the spot where the noise came from. “Please…do not let that be my sister…” I thought, knowing deep down in the pit of my stomach that it probably was. Not two seconds after hearing the noise, my thoughts were interrupted when Lora ran around the corner. The look on her face told the whole story. It was red, and it had a look of sheer terror.

“Oh no…” I thought, and sure enough, she began to tell me the entire story. She was standing where I had left her, looking at movies. She had seen me walk off and decided to come up and scare me. This is when she lifted her leg, lifted her arms, and “karate chopped” me. Alas, it was not me that she had karate chopped. The small, innocent woman that she had just busted out her karate moves on turned around, giving her a look that said, “Who the heck are you and why did you just karate chop me?” At this point, my poor sister, utterly mortified at the fact that she just pretended to karate chop a total stranger, decided to make a run for it. This is when she came upon me, minding my own business in a completely different aisle, and proceeded to tell this story to me while I was dying of laughter. Needless to say, I karate chopped her a few times throughout that day, while she said “Shut up Paige” with a red face and a smile appearing.

Everyone has these embarrassing or awkward moments in life. I know I have them pretty much on a daily basis, and while I wish I could have written about one of my them, like the time a chicken tried to roost in my hair, I felt that it was my obligation to talk about a few belonging to my sister Lora, since her embarrassing moments are better than mine and she seems to be able to embrace them more than me. I look up to her for this reason.
These embarrassing moments become our stories. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times while trying to describe my sister to a person, I have used the Target karate chop story. I know that these moments can be utterly humiliating at the time, but with people to laugh it off with, they become great memories and stories to tell later that people can relate to because everyone has them.

My sister’s embarrassment has turned into well-told and well-loved stories in my family. In fact, just the other day in my history class I was re-telling some of these stories, and even from across the room my cousin Jackson knew exactly what I was talking about and began laughing with me.
Don’t sweat those awkward moments. Instead, embrace them with a laugh and a sense of humor, keeping them in your memory for later like my sister, who can simply laugh at herself and embrace her embarrassment as another funny story.

4) Forecastle Festival:  Another Louisville festival, they will be celebrating their 10th anniversary in the summer of 2012. Last year, the festival included artists such as She & Him, Spoon, and Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s. This festival takes place on the Riverfront in downtown Louisville. The name comes from the word Forecastle, which is “a place where the people come together,” and “a place where workers relax after a hard day of labor.” The very first Forecastle was held on July 20, 2002 at Tyler Park in Louisville, and it has grown ever since into what it is today. However, according to WHAS 11, Forecastle will not happen this summer because they want to make it bigger and better for next year, its 10th anniversary.  Forecastle not only celebrates music, but it also celebrates art and activism.

5) Sasquatch:  While this festival is the farthest, taking place in George, Washington at The Gorge Amphitheater during Memorial Day weekend, May 27-30. The lineup includes artists such as Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine, Beach House, Local Natives, and many many more. Sasquatch is also for those who are into camping and outdoors.

6) Warped Tour: Vans Warped Tour is coming to Indy on July 7 at the Verizon Wireless Music Center. Warped tour includes many artists including 3OH!3, A Day to Remember, August Burns Red, and many more. This is a one day concert for those who do not want to attend a multiple day festival, pay for a hotel, or camp. It is also fairly close to home and requires little travel.

7) Pitchfork: Another Chicago festival, Pitchfork takes place July 15-17. It has a lineup of artists such as Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, and Woods. Tickets range from $45 for one day, and $110 for all three days. Since it is in a city setting, you can get a hotel room and will not have to camp like at other festivals.

8) Harmony Festival: This festival takes place in Santa Rosa, California on June 10-12. One of the older music festivals, starting in 1978, Harmony Festival’s lineup for 2011 includes Ghostland Observatory, The Flaming Lips, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, and more.