i can't find the words

With the new year already four weeks old, it’s safe to assume most everyone has already cheated on — if not forgotten altogether — his or her resolutions. The fad has always been to start a diet on New Year’s Day, so these broken promises traditionally involve heaping bowls of ice cream doused in chocolate syrup and layered with sprinkles, whipped cream and even the proverbial cherry on top.

This year, however, the ugliness of a resolution gone awry rears its head in the form of a loaf of sourdough, courtesy of the new craze for low-carbohydrate dieting.

Dr. Robert Atkins wrote his first diet book, appropriately titled “Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution,” in the early 1970s, but has perhaps reached the peak of his popularity posthumously, following his untimely death last April. Much like Tupac Shakur, Dr. Atkins has surmounted the adversity associated with being deceased by becoming a household name.

Not only that, but his protein-and-fat-laden style of eating has caught on so well that some of the largest restaurant and fast food chains are hopping on the bandwagon. T.G.I. Friday’s recently introduced an “Atkins-approved” menu and a recent rash of commercials have been shilling the new “Atkins-friendly” wraps available at Subway. If you’ll remember, Subway’s previous health-related advertisements advocated low-fat sandwiches, which are generally thought of as “Atkins-hostile.” This begs the question: Who would win in a fight, Jared or the good doctor?

Dr. Atkins has even found his niche here on campus. Visit any of the dining halls and you’ll notice that each meal’s menu has at least one low-carb option. Makes you wonder if those lovely lunch ladies at Brodhead House are seeing any kickback, because surely Friday’s is.

Obviously Atkins Nutritionals is out for your money. They can publish a cookbook knowing that all of their brainwashed devotees are hankering for something other than three hamburgers minus the buns. Eight months later they can turn around and release a softbound version of the same thing, and then add illustrations and hit the presses again three months down the road.

But the Atkins plan and others, such as the South Beach Diet, still sell, because they seem so hip and sexy (not so with Weight Watchers, a name that evokes the image of a frumpy housewife — something a million Duchesses of York couldn’t gussy up). Nothing’s cooler than going to Borders and buying a book that will rapidly make you attractive enough to be a celebrity.

What’s confounding is how many people assume that simply following a diet plan will solve their weight problem (or body image problem, as is often the case), when the only thing doctors ever seem to agree on is the benefit of exercise. Even people who exercise regularly have a tendency to be hypocritical about it — there’s something fundamentally wrong with driving to a gym that’s only a 10-minute walk away and then hopping off the treadmill every half hour for a cigarette break. Which, when you think about it, is on the same level as having to buy special, non-delicious, low-carb bread and then having the ability to cover it with a tub of butter.

One last fact for all of you Atkins-philes: One byproduct of the diet is ketosis — the bodily release of ketones — which the official Atkins FAQ repackages as “chemical proof that you’re burning stored body fat.” In case you didn’t know, ketones cause stinky breath, something sure to cause hotties to forget about your new slim figure.

We all received the e-mail from President Gregory Farrington during the tail end of winter break, and the 75 percent of us not enrolled in the College of Business and Economics promptly rolled our eyes and deleted it. And though the $10 million donation made by Joseph and Amy Perella was earmarked for the CBE’s department of finance, that same large sum of money will have wide-reaching implications for the entire university. Perhaps we were all a bit too hasty with the mouse button.

A portion of the donation will support an endowed chair for a professor in the college’s new Financial Services Laboratory. The lab’s name sounds ominous, but the university is going beyond wall-mounted stock tickers and a constant stream of CNBC to ensure that the lab is an advantageous resource for everyone on campus. Computer science majors will have access to virtual Linux systems. Mathematics majors will be able to use advanced software for developing models. The entire Lehigh community, from engineering majors to writers for The Brown and White, can use the new laboratory as a window to the global economy.

This is a step in the right direction if the administration wants to expand Lehigh’s reputation beyond that of an engineering college (and it’s more pragmatic than changing the name of the mascot). The establishment of the FSL, along with recent renovations to the Wilbur Powerhouse and Coppee Hall, prove university officials are trying to raise standards, not just rankings.

These improvements are in line with several of Farrington’s “Seven Goals of Lehigh,” introduced in 2000 to serve as the university’s plan of action. The second rule states, “The quality and productivity of Lehigh’s faculty, staff, students, departments and programs should compare favorably with those of top-25 research universities.” Accordingly, the new financial laboratory will be comparable to facilities already in place at the University of Southern California and M.I.T., schools ahead of Lehigh in the 2004 U.S. News and World Report rankings.

Another of these goals is for the university to keep strong ties with its alumni. Certainly a donation more than twice the size of the average NBA salary is a good sign that this goal is being met. But what exactly could possess Mr. Perella to give so much money to his alma mater, for the benefit of students he’ll most likely never meet?

The answer is school pride. As an undergraduate student, he experienced first-hand the benefits and privileges that come with being part of the Lehigh community. As an alumnus, he saw that he could help give the same opportunities to current students, as well as scores of their future counterparts. This vigor — this willingness to give back — is what the university has always been particularly apt at cultivating in its former students; it’s no surprise Lehigh is ranked seventh in alumni giving.

But the Perellas of the world won’t always be around; today’s students will eventually be the ones visiting the “Giving to Lehigh” page so prominently displayed on the university’s Web site. In order for these future alumni to generously open their checkbooks, the administration needs to continue to provide an environment students will look upon with the same amount of pride as our current benefactors. Simply put, students should be happy with the education they receive.

While discussing Lehigh’s goals in a state of the university meeting, Farrington asked, “Are there ways that we can measure from a student perspective whether Lehigh is a great place to be, and how do we do it?”

There is a way, Mr. Farrington. Just ask us.

I was watching a feature story on “Dateline NBC” Friday, a harrowing tale of a high school junior who was kidnapped at gunpoint by a stranger. The student, Anne Sluti, kept her wits about her and was able to contact police several times, which led to the capture of her captor six days after and 1,200 miles away from the abduction.

I often keep track of clichés in movies, television shows, books and other various places where clichés are commonly found, and what really caught my attention during the hour-long program was the overuse of the phrase “the one that got away.” Stone Phillips uttered it, several Dateline correspondents made use of it and one sheriff involved in the case said in an interview that he would be “absolutely devastated” if Sluti was the one that, well, you know.

This usage of the expression plays down the depressing reality that many abductees are, in fact, ones that get away. Statistics used during the White House Conference on Missing, Exploited and Runaway Children in 2002 show that 40 percent of children kidnapped by strangers are murdered, and another 4 percent are never recovered. There may only be 100 or so incidences of this, the most dangerous form of kidnapping, each year, but how often do we hear about one of the sorrow-laden deaths on the nightly national news? Now compare this to the number of uplifting pieces we see (usually years after the fact, when the family has finally made some recuperation from the emotional anguish) about rescued victims. The happy always outweighs the sad.

Why? Because happy stories are demographically better than sad ones – people are always complaining that they never hear any good news. If the programs appease the viewers, they’ll watch next week. If they continue to watch, other people will tune in to see what they’re missing and the ratings will go up. If the ratings go up, businesses will covet the commercial spots and pay more for them. If ad revenue increases, the network executives can buy new yachts. It’s all about the yachts.

This is what’s ruining journalism. The higher-ups don’t mind feeding the masses this drivel, not considering the status of their checking accounts, and the result is comparable to a soma holiday from “Brave New World.” As appalling as recent newspaper scandals involving plagiarism and the invention of “facts” may seem, nothing can be worse for the profession than an American public that largely wishes to pretend that it lives in a utopia. These people sit in their recliners, skimming through the fluff in the local rag while listening to the new Britney Spears gossip on “Entertainment Tonight.” To make matters worse, their children, fed a steady diet of MTV and sugar, are eating right into the hands of these corporate bigwigs. Ignorance begets ignorance to the hundredth power.

And here I am. I’ve chosen to take on the career of a journalist, perhaps the noblest calling man has heard, because I want my writing to have the ability to influence the lives of others, so that they will too realize that not everything is good news, but everything news is good. This is my chance, and I can’t let it get away.