How to Butcher a Black Forest Cake (and still make it taste delicious)

The Black Forest cake in its natural habitat.

The Black Forest Cake wasn’t created in the Black Forest of Germany (obviously, you can’t bake a cake in a forest…) but was named after the cherries that grow there.

The Bollenhut

Now I have been making this cake for YEARS and nobody ever told me that there was a black forest

cake hat. This hat is truly sensational, and combines two of my top 100 favorite things: cherries and hats.

At this point I feel that it is my civic duty as a global citizen to share with you the secrets behind this delicious cake.

Here is the first secret: I cheat.

They don’t sell Kirchwasser at Wal-Mart and I don’t have the patience to bake a chocolate cake from scratch. However they do sell cool whip, cherry pie filling and chocolate cake mix at Wal-Mart, and my short attention span can deal with all of those things!

So without further ado, here is the college kid’s version of a Black Forest Cake:

Make the chocolate cake according to the directions on the box. Put it in two circular pans.

I know what you may be thinking: that is not a circle. I know. I know my shapes and I also know I don’t have enough money to buy circular pans. So I went with rectangles cut in half. Hopefully it’ll taste the same!

Remove it from pan. I have never done such a perfect job. This cake flip is so good it should be on the cover of a magazine. Or win a blogging contest.

Lather some Cool Whip and cherry pie filling on top of that baby.

Now plop the other cake on top and repeat the last step. Feel free to make it fancy.

Wow. That is one not aesthetically pleasing cake. But it tastes good, further proving that it is truly what’s on the inside that counts.

This German tradition that I have so cavalierly butchered holds its own amongst the desert battle throughout Europe. In my expert opinion (I eat a lot of deserts) the Black Forest cake crushes the cannoli (figuratively and literally, it is a very dense cake), defeats flan and massacres macaroons. Black Forest cake is yet another example of German excellence, throughout not only Europe, but the world.

Women's Leadership Conference coming soon

Maria Di Bianca explains the Women's Leadership Conference and encourages both men and women to attend in the MU Student center on Friday November 15th, 2013.

Buttons and save the date cards were handed out at today's tabling for the Women's Leadership Conference 

The Center for Leadership and Service at Mizzou puts on a Women's Leadership Conference every year. The conference is meant to promote Networking, Education and Equality and is being held on March 15th, 2014. Today, members of the Women's Leadership Conference's Executive Council were promoting the event in the Student Center.

"We will have speakers coming in from all across the country this year, it will be a great opportunity for networking," said Executive Council member Maria Di Bianca. These speakers include Elisa Parker, co-founder of award winning social change program See Jane Do, based out of San Francisco. Dr. Cathy Scroggs, a member of the chancellors staff will also be speaking, as well as many other leaders in and around the Columbia area. The tabling today was meant to inform students of the opportunity to not only attend, but be a speaker at this event, as well as pick up a nice button. 

News is Crazy

I am not at all surprised by what was presented in this article. Many of the smartest people I know have a political viewpoint, and even if you are a "smart person" you're still going to want to hear that what you think is right. Sometimes even more so, I think. These networks and publications have a massive viewing audience, theres no way it is just limited to "narrow-minded, politically obsessed characters who send mass e-mails from their mother’s basement." 

I have spoken quite a few times about how much I despise the overbearing political tilt of some networks. When I talk about this I am mostly referring to 24-hour news networks like Fox news and those painful radio shows. I understand that essentially every newspaper has a bias, though. I think in that case, its more effective for the viewer to deal with it and take the news with a minute grain of salt, rather than disregarding newspapers all together. A matter of a few words can shift the bias of an article, and finding completely neutral words to describe every situation is not very realistic, especially considering time constraints. 

What this article mostly reminded me of was my dad. He certainly leans to the right, and thats tough in a liberal city like Madison. There is a liberal talk radio show in madison that actually is fairly popular, due to its location. Sometimes my dad puts it on, just for kicks. He, in that regard, goes against everything this article mentions. I think he likes to listen to the other side just so he can hate it more and have more ammunition against it, by hearing their quite frankly, outrageous arguments at times. I consider myself fairly neutral, and this station has the power to irk me just as much as Rush Limbaugh could. 

In the end, there is an equal amount of bias on either side. While it is nice that one side isn't worse than the other, that mean one side is never better, and that is what leaves us with the situation that we have so often been encountering: nothing is getting done. Sometimes people need to be right and sometimes they need to be wrong for there to be progress, but since both sides have enough mediums and supporters to pump themselves up, that is rarely seen.

Afghanistan

In previous journalism classes, we have learned about the duties of journalism. These duties include being a watchdog, making sure the government is doing its job, and giving the people the information they need to know to make informed decisions and to be safe in the world that they are living in. These values were explained within the context of American journalism, but many countries could definitely benefit from holding these same things important.

As far as Afghanistan goes, as important as it is to keep it's own population informed, it is just as important to continue to broadcast what is going on there to the world. As a unstable country, it seems, at least in the opinion of the people who made this video, it will be difficult to keep their heads above water without foreign assistance. Afghanistan needs journalism to make sure they are not swept under the rug, forgotten, and as a result succumb to the Taliban again.

The watchdog element is also very important in keeping Afghanistan moving forward. If they are able to stay in control of their media and continually keep track of what the government is doing, it will be more difficult to shady business to begin to creep in again. Having an independent media source has proved, time and time again, important in avoiding authoritarian rule. When Mussolini came to power, one of the most effective ways he gained control and spread fascism was to take over the media and require every journalist to be a registered fascist. Afghanistan has been there before, Taliban rule is not a distant memory, and they recognize that one of the best ways to steer clear of it is to keep control of their media.

It was also interesting to hear the positive Afghani support of our occupation there. I don't know if that man speaks for everyone, but it seemed that perhaps having troops over there isn't the worst thing in the world. There is a very strong sense of opposition to being in Afghanistan at all, of course there is, nobody ever wants to have to put Americans in danger. It was reassuring to hear that we aren't being a complete nuisance. That guy is right, we cannot stay there forever, though, and I wonder what steps we will/are putting in place to make sure we leave it safely.

You go, green dinosaur

I know the green dinosaur is right. I know it. I sometimes fall prey to being upset by the outwardly bias that fox news and company spews as news, I have to admit it. It wasn't until least semester in Cross Cultural journalism that I learned that it was actually intended that way. That made my firey hatred to clearly biased news outlets dull down quite a bit. But despite this, I will never accept news from either one.

These networks are certainly on the extremes. Non-24 hour news networks like nbc and abc, do present a bias, but I believe, for the most part, double sided coverage. It is not completely objective, no, but I don't believe any human can be, when it comes to reporting news.

A thing happens. Sure, that is a fact. But no one, no one on earth can speak of anything while disregarding their personal views and experience. The comic uses the example of the indisputable fact that the sun is hot. Obviously, that is true. But what about suicide bombing? As Americans, we all have unanimously agreed that suicide bombing--- not cool. We will never accept that as a means of justification, and as both an American and a citizen of the world, I don't think I will ever be able to justify a suicide bombing. It seems like black and white to us, but in reality, it is not.

Countries and cultures that practice suicide bombing do have these justifications. They understand, and sometimes support the individuals that make these decisions. I could never, in a million years do this, but I cannot deny that some people do.

Does this mean that because some people support suicide bombing, US media coverage should give it a chance? Should it try and preach to the American people that, yes, this person killed himself and over a dozen people, but he was doing it for his god, so it is kind of okay?

Absolutely not. This comic uses the argument of science to support this. I would prefer to use the argument of society. Killing yourself and others for your religious belief is not something that Americans believe in. To try and report and justify it, show us their point of view, is a waste of time. Trying to justify attacks on another country because of religious beliefs to a country with no universal religious beliefs is just not right.

Whether or not an individual supports or dislikes its society, it is undeniable, society exists. If journalism does not cater to the society it is broadcasting to, it is simply not doing its job. If doing its job means not justifying a select group of people across the globe, then that is okay. Exposing its citizens to the viewpoints of others, sure, but convincing them that every way of thinking is alright and okay, is something that will never logically happen.

So if the orange dinosaur wants to keep arguing that, it's cool. He is going to be extinct anyway.

Closed county

This blog post is in response to this article http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/09/231086726/county-in-utah-threatens-takeover-of-national-park-areas?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20131013&utm_source=mostemailed

I never thought of the shut down of National Parks as an actual problem, but rather as a more of an inconvenience. I forget that National Parks are not just a luxury, but an actual source of revenue for certain places.

I think that this county has every right to stay open, if that is what takes to stay alive. This entire government shut down is very sad, and I wonder if they realize how many people's lives they affected by their stubbornness. As well-off, educated people, you would think that they would, yet here we are, coming off the tail-end of a government shut down that jeopardizes so many people's well being.

I wonder if the government will enforce the fines and punishments for trespassing. While they could certainly use the money, they look bad enough as it is. To punish people for trying to maintain their well being would be absolutely atrocious.

What I don't understand is whether or not they are just reopening the parks and doing the work without getting paid, or how they are funding the reopening. Everything costs money, and I imagine National parks don't just have a lot of spare cash sitting around just in case.

I am very happy that the government shutdown is over, but I wish more would have come out of it. The polarization of our politics is so terrible. When it comes to election time, of course I want to vote, I think that its hard to complain about how the government is running if you decide not to vote, but I really don't want to vote for anyone. The only candidates I would truly stand behind would never win. I think this government shutdown could've done more to change things, and make an example of how bad it is when things are like this, but I don't think it did.

Malala

I don't think there was a preasssigned blog topic this week, so I am going to talk about Jon Stewart's interview with the 16-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala. She was hunted by the Taliban, yet maintains a pacifistic attitude that has shocked the world.

She says in the interview that if she were to be confronted by a member of the Taliban, that she would, rather that throw her shoe at them, which was her first thought, she would speak to the man about the importance of education and take a non violent route. It was this reasoning that shocked pretty much everyone. For so many years, we have been engaged in such brutal violence to fight them that it is hard to imagine dealing with it any other way, but this girl did.

If we could stop violence all together, obviously that would be great. I feel like we are probably in too deep. To stop fighting now and switch methods, it doesn't seem very plausible. What I don't know is how much discussion actually has gone on. We see on the news all of the terror and violence, but you don't see much discussion. I understand why this may be difficult, the Taliban doesn't seem like the kind of group that would subject themselves to such a discussion, they aren't really looking for compromise.

In the context in which Malala explained it though, it could happen. What has captivated so many people is the thought of what would happen? Although the Taliban might be bad guys, they are humans. Would they listen or would the continue to shoot? I honestly don't know, fortunately I have never had any run-ins with the Taliban, but in my mind, they have to be so messed up to do the things they do. I don't think they have any trace of humanity and decency to stop them from killing yet another person.

Despite all of this, her comment is still striking and her goals are still honorable. I believe she will get what she wants and I think she could play a big role in the future of Middle Eastern relations with the Taliban, because obviously she is very different, special, daring and smart, all qualities that an impactful leader needs.