Beauty queens have put world peace on the back burner. In an interview on MSNBC’s Today Show this week, former Miss California Carrie Prejean said that she has been “Palinized” by the media for voicing her opposition to gay marriage during the Miss USA pageant in April. (To be “Palinized,” she explains, is to be unfairly scrutinized because you are a conservative woman. This is not to be confused with “Palinated,” which is to be propelled to the forefront of conservative politics despite being incompetent because you are a former beauty queen.) Prejean’s assertion that “marriage should be between a man and a woman” certainly attracted heavy scrutiny from gay rights activists and left-wing commentators like Keith Olbermann.

9 p.m. Rainy season. Friday night. I was standing in the open air hallway when a mo-ped drove in with a bundle of cloth thrown over the driver’s lap. He jumped off the bike yelling, “Dogo toro” (doctor in the local language). Within the swaddle, lay a two-year-old girl drenched in sweat, barely breathing audibly. We placed her in a bed and I immediately examined her for severe malaria.

A couple of summers ago, I found myself in the back of my Jeep with a Canadian, rebounding out of a very serious relationship. Things were heating up and hands were starting to venture south. I slowly undid his belt, then the button and zipper on his jeans. I reached my hand inside his pants and grabbed on. But something seemed different … there was a lot of skin down there. I poked around for a hot second, then quickly removed my hand. Being the nice Jewish girl that I am, I went home that night to Google and typed in the nine letters I hoped would prove me wrong: f-o-r-e-s-k-i-n.

There she is again. That girl that you really like. That one you have such a good rapport with, that you see every day in Libe Café when she orders an iced skim vanilla latte (this is me putting a mundane, over-ordered drink by the majority of female café customers to make a random reader think that I am writing this article solely about them … or am I?) or that you share your text message joke-of-the-day with every week at your Cornell Cheese Club Exec Board Meeting.

While the health care plan that passed in the House on Saturday elicited mass celebration amongst advocates of health care reform, for a largely voiceless group of Americans — namely, low-income women — this historic bill hardly signifies a “courageous vote,” as President Obama suggests.

You can picture it, I’m sure: It is 2 a.m. My body is a tightly coiled slinky of stresserosity, ready to go springing out of my house, roll down the hill and into Beebe Lake. My hair is a frizzy mess, my eyeballs are bugging out at all sides and I have a Jason Segel-sized bowl of soymilk and entire box of Life cereal (think: Forgetting Sarah Marshall), two cooling cups of coffee, a beer and a pack of cigarettes in front of me. I am a crazed person. I qualify for a straightjacket.

I have a paper due.

Quick quiz: Whom are we fighting in Afghanistan? If you say “the Taliban,” you’re only giving the easy answer. What exactly is “the Taliban?” Who comprises it? What are its motives, its goals?

Most people would say that the Taliban is a hardened group of “terrorists,” an extremist group of murderers bent on destroying freedom and eliminating the West. This view is understandable — it’s all anyone hears from the politicos and pundits, who, in their laughably narrow debate over the war (has anyone in power seriously advocated immediate withdrawal?), paint “the enemy” in broad strokes and leave little doubt that we’re engaged in a conflict of ideas.

Most students don’t give a damn about Cornell’s Code of Academic Integrity. That is, until I see them shaking uncontrollably, sobbing hysterically, scared that one mistake or misunderstanding has ruined the academic record they have worked so hard to build. I have sat on the Academic Integrity Hearing Board of the College (AIHB) of Arts and Sciences for two years — the group which hears appeals of all violations of academic integrity in Arts and Sciences courses. I have seen how students’ legal and moral rights have been violated by a few professors who should know better. I have witnessed how the ambiguities in Cornell’s Code of Academic Integrity have caused leaders around campus, straight-A students, and most often, students who never had any intention to cheat to be convicted of violations of academic integrity. Our code is deeply flawed — its inconsistent application leads to excessively harsh punishments for some, none for others, and injustice for all Cornellians.

So I was going to write another kitschy column about how I’ve morphed into a frat bro. It was going to be pretty great, too, replete with mid-’90’s hip-hop references and copious use of the phrases “legit,” “bro” and “yo.” But I am experiencing a brief bout of self-righteousness, so please excuse this foray into the semiserious. Don’t worry: Next time I will return to talking about myself.

As the health care debate nears its climax, it’s only natural to look ahead to the next big political showdown in D.C. — energy reform. It’s an issue with far reaching environmental implications, and one that contemporary society seems hard-pressed to tackle head-on.

Whatever legislation emerges from the Senate, it’s a good bet it will be watered down and ineffectual, owing to the ubiquity of the energy lobby in our nation’s capital. Which begs the question: What can realistically be done to combat the growing carbon specter? Distinguished University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt wondered as much himself, and set out to get some answers.