Welcome again to our hallowed halls of hysteria. We have another fun bunch of martyrs this week, so let's get to it. The Martyr of the Week for Jan 28-Feb 3 is St. Martina (Jan 30). Martina joins our long (and it seems never ending) list of Virgin, Roman martyrs. Not much seems to be written about her except her martyrdom (our saint isn't a myth but the acts of her passion may have been created by Pope Urban Vlll) and the fact that a church was built in Rome in her honor. Legend has it that Martina was whipped with iron hooks, showered with boiling grease, thrown to the lions, and then burned at the stake (she survived all of these). Finally she was beheaded, but a fountain of milk instead of blood gushed forth. This is why she is the patron saint of nursing mothers. As a side note, history buffs will remember this as the day on which the Catholic Church (Our friend Pope Urban Vlll to be specific) forced Galileo to recant that the Earth orbits the sun ("...but it does move." -Galileo before the Inquisition). Gee, you mean that the church was wrong about something.... Other Martyrs of note this week are St. Tryphena (Jan 31 (martyred by being gored to death by a bull in a public arena. A fountain of milk sprang up from the spot on which she fell (I'm sensing a theme here))), St. Pionus (Feb 1 (Tortured and then burnt at the stake for commemorating the death of St. Polycarp)), St. Blaise (Feb 3 (Martyred in Armenia with a wool comb(see picture))).

St. Blaise

From the corner -Kelly Gunter The Premise It's senior seminar time for me and although that has played it's role in this forth coming column, I think it was more of a reminder than anything else. The topic for the year is, "Environment and Citizenship," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. The point is that I sit in this class which has a definite rhetoric to it, or law of righteous morality. There are a few people in there who actually interact intelligently in respect to environmental issues, and one guy who believes he's after the idealism of Ayn Rand's profit motives, but the majority of bipeds in that room are merely acting like lemmings and going any way the tide strikes.

These people remind me of a boy over the summer who was the cause of my brainstorm for GDT Ecology (Vol. 2, iss. 1). He initially approached me two years ago, looking to score, he has since spent quite a lot of time trying unsuccessfully to convince me that he isn't shallow, but as is custom, I digress. This last summer he tried to impress me once again by telling me that he was now working for Green Peace and that he was just trying to do his part for the environment. Much like the time he asked me to have sex with him, the humor of such an idea rolled out from my mouth in a thick and boisterous laughter, which seemed on both occasions to take him somewhat aback.The point of my anecdote is not simply to ridicule one misguided boy, but to acknowledge the fact that most of these seemingly environmentally conscience people in class are much like this boy who wouldn't bat the metaphorical ethical eyelash at buying, using,

or disposing of products that are now known to cause damage to our environment, because his stewardship of the environment is only as they say, skin deep. This is the premier of a column that will be dedicated to passing on information, ideas, and even heightened awareness to those of you out there who actually wish to learn, really care, or just want to make others think you do. If any of you have any comments, requests, or questions that I might help with, please send them my way. And finally for those of you who presume to be wielding the mighty profit motive sword of Ayn Rand, I suggest you reread Atlas Shrugged or maybe even try reading The Fountainhead. Profit is the materialization of the recognition of the ideal, it is by no means the motivation.