BY: REBEKAH RICHARDS

I wrote last time on the frightening state of our country with the health insurance mandate. The most frightening part of it is that Christianity is being attacked. I'm going to admit that I did not watch the Grammys. However, at about 11 p.m., I received a text from a journalist friend of mine telling me to watch out for Nicki Minaj in the news the following morning.

Minaj's performance at the Grammys, which displayed blatant disrespect for Christianity, saddens me greatly. As if the Catholic Church needs another thing to worry about with the struggles she is facing with health care right now.

BY: ELIZABETH WONG

At Franciscan University, we tend to get a little crazy when we realize Lent is approaching. After some careful discernment, we decide to do something along the lines of giving up the caf's lemon bars, getting up for the 6:30 a.m. Mass every morning and attending every Lenten talk on campus--all with the expectation of 100% success. This won't be like last year's Lent, we tell ourselves, such as when we gave up Facebook only to cave in halfway through because we needed to communicate with our friends in Austria.

There is technically nothing wrong with any of the above ideas. But we often forget about aspects of Lent that do not involve our personal spiritual formation.

BY REBEKAH RICHARDS

I have never been the type of person to completely keep up with the times. I got an iPod years after they came out. A flat screen television was not present in our home until just a few years ago. I did not have a Facebook account until halfway through my first semester at Franciscan and my roommate convinced me I wouldn't survive college without one.

As I prepared for this semester with The Troubadour I began to realize that this publication takes after me. School publications have been using social media for years now, and their websites are well-developed and intuitive. I had to ask myself, what are we at The Troubadour doing to catch up with technology and reach people where they are?