I spent the first week of September running through the streets of New York behind one of my best friends — he cradling a video camera, me clutching my reporter’s tablet.

We were on a self-designated mission to document the sentiments of protesters at the Republican National Convention, which we attempted with more than 20 hours of video and 30-some on-camera interviews. Since then we have been looking over our footage and one of the unavoidable ideas that keeps cropping up is what a “dark age” we are living in.

While this lurking sense of despair and dissatisfaction has not yet erupted into the outright defiance and large-scale protests that many of our parents participated in (and we all secretly or publicly wish we could have been a part of), it is expressing itself in more subtle ways that reach even to PLAY’s entertainment-focused pages.

The main example of this is our cover story on page 3, which picks up where last week’s “Rock with a purpose” story left off and elaborates on the trend toward outright criticism through music the Rock against Bush and Vote for Change tours imply.

Then there is the story on page 8 about “Assassins,” the Arts Alliance Garden Party show that highlights the failures of the American Dream as expressed by several disgruntled historical figures plotting to take down a president.

Capitalizing on the political and particularly pertinent themes in the production, Associated Student Government will set up a table outside the space to encourage and assist students with registering to vote.

Which brings me to the larger trend I see showing through this melding of art and politics. There is a huge undercurrent of people in this country who don’t see the last four years as the overwhelming success President Bush proclaims it –they view them as some of the most embarrassing, saddening and frightening in recent memory. The reason this doesn’t show up on the news analysts’ radars is many of those people don’t usually vote — and they don’t have listed numbers at which you can call and ask them poll questions.

But they are voting this year. At least according to this talking head. All those supposedly apathetic college students out there are quietly using every means possible to cause a (relatively) silent, subversive overthrow of the current administration. Don’t stop now.

But, recognizing voting isn’t the only thing on your collective mind, PLAY has answered a more worldly concern about our first issue. “Hey, where did the sex column go?” I’m not going to lie, it looked a little iffy for while. But then Sarah Bailey came through in a pinch. Her sex column on this page will alternate with Matt Morrison’s humor column for the rest of the quarter. So enjoy, and don’t let me hear you say we never did anything for you.4

Medill senior Miki Johnson is the PLAY editor. She can be reached at [email protected].