We’re more apathetic than ever

Six or seven protesters stood outside Crouse-Hinds Hall — the Chancellor’s HQ — in the freezing cold, plotting where to put their protest snowmen.
“Right in the middle of the walkway that leads to the front door,” one suggested. “That’ll show ‘em,” another replied. “Show ‘em we’re serious about this tuition stuff.” [...]

Bringing new meaning to the phrase “salt the Earth” by promoting permaculture in Syracuse

By Evan Klonsky : Illustration by Amelia Bienstock
In May 2007, Elizabeth Slate returned to Syracuse University to finish her degree in sociology. As a new mother, she had spent the past year and a half on the road searching for a suitable [...]

By Kelina Imamura & Illustration by Tate Chow
For centuries, preconceived notions of the world after Y2K have caused a fixation on the future. Future-obsessed institutions made economic, technological, and scientific predictions for the new millennium: health care prayed for an HIV/AIDS vaccine, researchers thought they’d find the cure for cancer, and jet packs were expected [...]

There are more than secrets between the trees of Thornden Park: a gay sex outlet has existed for over 30 years in SU’s backyard.

Sometimes it only takes a few minutes: one honks, the other turns his engine off and gets out. Other times they sit for hours with their headlights on, drivers’ seat windows down, [...]

Photography by Ben Addonizio
On a warm August night in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Greg Callen, then 29, drunkenly stumbled to the roof of a friend’s house for a cigarette. Seconds later, Callen was on the ground, 13 feet below the rest of his friends, paralyzed from the waist down.
Five years, a bout of depression, and [...]

Alternative Transmedia gives children a voice through journaling and photography

WoW gamers find true love and kick Alliance Ass

Once upon a time, a heavily-armoured, red-haired Troll named Vrai met an emaciated Undead named Shirasabro. They talked about their likes and dislikes — namely killing members of the Alliance and avoiding their homework.
Okay, so maybe this Hunter and Death Knight didn’t have homework, but their [...]

Valuable advice from a temporary Londoner

The hotbed of UFO sightings that is Central New York.

The appearance of a glowing fireball outside Eloise Boshers- Ross’ home interrupted her routine 44 years ago on an early November night. The 41-year-old housewife and mother of three had never professed a belief in aliens or seen a flying saucer. She had read [...]

Corporations and the community vie for control of Syracuse’s electrical power.
Rachel May opens her energy bill every month with hesitation. She pays, on average, about $120 per month in the summer and around $220 during the harshest winter months in Syracuse.
She makes a conscious effort to conserve energy by improving her home’s insulation, replacing [...]

We here at Jerk magazine do not advise you to visit this place. Seriously. Keep your life.

Art and booze lovers rejoice, this town’s got it all

Troubled youth flood Syracuse’s juvenile prison system.

At first glance, teenager Janiese Flagg looks like any other high school senior. Flagg, a senior at Syracuse’s Nottingham High School, goes to classes, hangs out with friends, and applies to colleges in her spare time. But six years ago, Flagg’s future wasn’t as promising.
Her middle school suspended her [...]

Members of Central New York’s LGBT community find a safe haven in Paganism.

John Crandall woke up every day on a Westcott Street bench. For three months, the 16-year-old sat on the sidewalk homeless and cold.
After one rainy night, Crandall, in pajama pants and a T-shirt, stirred in his sleep as a woman wearing a [...]

Sex stimulates the advertising world as media regulations wane

A sexually charged billboard hung high above New York City’s SoHo. It featured a female model lying on a boy as she kissed a second male. All three wear only Calvin Klein jeans, no shirts. Another male model lies on the floor with his shirt and pants [...]

Culture Corner

A country isn’t very well known when nobody knows where it is, what the people look like, or anything else in between. Student response ranged from: “I’m getting an Indian, Spanish feeling and I don’t know why” to “P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef is the best ever.” Let’s hope this Culture Corner is enlightening enough [...]

Dress me up in a sari and call me Brangelina

This week, the latest installment of Culture Corner tackles the multicolored elephant in the room that is India. Many Syracuse University students hail from this mystical country, but attempts to learn about their culture have been less than stellar. Hosting over one billion people – and [...]

Parents and friends use Facebook to cope with the loss of their loved ones

Michael Goodman, a 53-year-old technology consultant, regularly logs onto his daughter’s Facebook account. He changes her profile picture, updates her status, reads her wall posts, and accepts gifts and bumper stickers sent from her friends.
His daughter, Bailey, died on June 26, 2007 [...]

Naturists from Florida to Canada flock to CNY’s Empire Haven to escape the misconceptions and stigma behind nudism

Welcome to Empire Haven Nudist Park. Rule No. 1: always sit on a towel. But it’s a rule that Manager Michelle Keagle doesn’t need to follow since she wears clothes. “I love clothes and hate my body, so [...]

A group of Sudanese refugees struggle to survive in Syracuse.

Lino Ariloka walked into Price Chopper every day at 6 a.m. sharp. He mopped the floors, stocked the shelves, and handled all of the heavy lifting. He earned minimum wage and received only a few hours of work per week.
Ariloka went home from work to a [...]

Kevin Eggleston experiences America’s true form: wrecking cars for sport.

Fat Americans take on the Stylish, Overfed, Snooty French

Welcome one and all to the first Culture Corner! This column is devoted to breaking the sheltered American bubble in which most students live. For each column I will ask students their perceptions about a particular international culture, then relay the three most popular answers [...]

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

A good drinking buddy is more than someone who is willing to carry you home from Chuck’s after you’ve had too many, or tests his or her luck with you every Flip Night at Faegan’s. The perfect drinking buddy makes any night a good night and delivers free insights with every [...]

Pop Goes the Culture

The Amish. These two words typically conjure images of a backwards people who speak a weird language, refuse to use electricity, ride around in horse-drawn carriages, and wear drab colors. But, lately those two words are making people think of something else — great love stories.
According to a recent article in [...]

A slice of American Pie

In his City Hall office, Syracuse Common Councilor Van Robinson talks about the city. He mentions the citizens, the schools, the businesses — but not with the words of a politician. Rather, his words seem to come from a friend, a neighbor. He came to Syracuse just over 40 years ago and never left. He [...]

For the Syracuse Community Choir, “diversity” is more than a PR buzzword. It is the core value that resonates within each singer.

A man carefully enters the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society Church and makes his way to the piano as singing commences. He sits down and places his fingers gently on the keys. His eyes stay [...]

Ain’t no party like a Scranton party

Pratt’s Place is no ordinary building. Its orange walls and baby-blue pinstripes glow against a backdrop of snow and gray sky.
A 5-foot, brightly colored “American Gothic”-style portrait of building owners Anne and Skip Pratt hangs on one wall. Above the portrait, two turquoise-purple-yellow faux dogs stare out across a parking lot.
Pratt’s Place would stick out [...]

Pube grooming in the LGBT community
To this day, Daniel Smith* can’t decide which was worse: the excruciating pain of burning off all his body hair, or the humiliation of going to school the next day.
Smith, then a senior in high school, had always felt some pressure to reign in his near-rabid hair. It wasn’t [...]

The mysterious disappearance of female pubic hair

By Jennifer Beth Williams
With a flick of her wrist, Jennifer Eiffe yanks out chunks of pubic hair. Over and over, day after day, session after session, Eiffe makes a living as a waxer at Garbo’s, popular beauty salon among Syracuse University students. Somewhere, somehow, someone has banned bushes. Business [...]

The first day I visited Ben, he never looked me in the eye, never acknowledged that I was in his home or photographing him. I was not invisible, and he made space for me, but he seemed miles away. This distance is just one of several traits that reveal the struggles Ben and his adoptive family, the Lehrs, have en¬dured for the past 30 years. Ben is autistic.

The Cat-Skillz Moutains

Canada’s not bad, eh?

It’s recess time, and Daniel* is yanking a coat out of Alim’s* hands. Alim wails, but doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t tell the teacher Daniel accidentally switched their coats. He doesn’t ask Daniel to give it back. All he can do is cry in a room with 23 second graders who can’t understand him.

Chris Bell made a mistake during the summer of 1996 — over and over again. He had unprotected sex with a man, sometimes up to six times a week. Then, after he caught mononucleosis in August 1997, doctors ran a few tests. Bell, who had spent most of his academic career studying AIDS, was now HIV-positive.

The only thing that comes close to the pleasure of having sex is hearing about the sex everyone else is having. And who better to divulge their dirtiest, naughtiest, most sexual scandals than the rich and famous?

Sex is, in a word, spectacular. Primitive, sensational, and not to mention calorie burning—it is an act that connects two (or more than two) people on a whole new level.

By day, Jennifer Moravasik, 33, is a graphic designer for Seaboard Graphics in Liverpool, N.Y., but by night and weekend, she goes by Lady Desiderata Drake – “Desi Duck” for short – and is dedicated to being a pirate.

Good food and good beer — what more can a daytripper ask for?

To the untrained eye, it looks like a local Verizon service rep is beating the bejeezus out of a tech guy at the Oneida County Department of Planning. But to the members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, it’s simply another Wednesday night of heavy weapons fighting practice — and Andrew Biel and Rick Reichert are duking it out medieval-style.

In the middle of the night, Alisa Ruperto can ignore the fire truck sirens roaring by her window. She can ignore her laughing neighbors stumbling home from the bars and slamming their doors. But when her roommate cries, sleeping just a foot away from her bed, Ruperto can’t ignore it.