And there are few extravaganzas with a wider circumference than the Super Bowl in any realm of entertainment. Stands groan under the feet of thousands of fans while cameras swoop on zip-lines across modern coliseums, capturing several faces in a mosaic of American hype.

Players take to the turf beneath a confetti of sparks, ushered by the almost inhuman grumble of the nation’s avid fanatics. It’s the blue collar American dream replayed each February, where the good ole boys from your hometown duke it out for glory — if only politics hefted the same sort of intent and valor.

For a night, all of America huddles together with the two top teams under the bright lights and tosses the old pigskin as though the economy were not decrepit and the government were not at odds with itself or the people. Violence is left to the streets, the innards of newspapers and case files — if it happens to squeeze its way through the positive energy, it’s perceived as contemptible.

Maybe it’s the endorphins buzzing about or the slower buzz of alcohol that causes us to make a beeline to the sidelines on Super Bowl Sunday; regardless of the draw, the nation’s sportsmanship on nights such as these is worthy of elaborate commemoration.

Unfortunately, for other regions of the world, major sporting events are more highly susceptible to instances of brutality than cohesion.

Penalties in Egypt were not confined to the field during a soccer game in Port Said — 70 people were killed and at least 1,000 more were injured when a riot broke out between fans of the local Al-Masry team and the Al-Ahly club of Cairo.

On May 9, 2001, over 120 people lost their lives in Accra Stadium in Ghana during a stampede, caused by police responding with tear gas to fans hurtling bottles onto the field.

Over the decades, exhibition of sport has suffered from tragic happenstances such as those listed above. But in such cases, it would seem that a ball isn’t the true kicker of brutality. Political turmoil somehow makes its way into the stands and what was once a vehicle for reverie becomes one more house for battle.

Forums where communities can discuss their irritation and concerns are largely affirmative, but athletic venues are not the place for promoting diplomatic agendas. Wherein the crowds are robust and the ease is generally abundant, a palace of play should not have to accommodate revolt.

So in the wake of the Super Bowl, no matter whether your team came out the victor or otherwise, appreciate that no one lost a life or a limb. Let’s continue to concentrate on keeping the game just that — an event for amusement and good cheer — and not an opportunity to make a point at the expense of innocents.

According to the ads, representatives from these companies came to the University of Maine on Nov. 5, 6, 7 and 8. Other companies teased visits later in the month.

This was direct marketing then — focused, yet shouted to the entire university population. But the days of massive companies placing ads looking for workers aren’t coming back. The in-person recruitment method is losing its luster.

This is the Information Age. When companies post job openings, you can often apply in minutes. They expect instantaneous reaction, backed by a resume showing not just a solid transcript, but plenty of practical experience.

Because student proactivity is pivotal in today’s stagnant, competitive job market, the classic model of employers inundating campus to seek the next generation of help is waning.

There are opportunities, but we’re in a state whose economy is struggling to accommodate college graduates. According to the Maine Department of Labor, the number of job openings for those graduating with bachelor’s degrees is expected to stay stagnant at 1,884 per year until 2018. The University of Maine System alone awarded 2,541 bachelor’s degrees in the 2010-11 year.

In a potentially encouraging turn, yesterday’s UMaine Career Fair saw 89 employers station themselves in the New Balance Student Recreation Center to interact with interested students throughout the day. Many walked out with interview dates or verbal agreements, showing the old guard of job recruitment helped some of UMaine’s finest.

Many things haven’t changed with time. Students must set themselves apart from their peers by building their grade point average, gaining internships or other practical experiences and gaining lifelong connections in their fields.

But as far as firm purpose goes, the extent to which career fairs can help most students find employment in the future is limited. Fairs are fitting less and less into the modern, competitive job scene. Occupations are now advertised, sought, applied for and won online, not in person.

It takes savvy and self-awareness to snag a post in the professional stratosphere, and events where students are prompted to look for openings or even apply online after handing over hard-copy resumes can’t forever be helpful for those most serious about finding immediate work.

Career fairs will never hurt, and UMaine’s Career Center should be commended for their efforts to bring employers, graduate school representatives and internship advocates to campus. It shows a focus on job placement lost in some places of the insular university world.

But finding a job, especially now, is a round-the-clock operation. Many of us will get jobs in our fields out of college. Many won’t. What will separate the camps is tenacity, experience, connections and  lucky breaks.

Nothing’s for sure now, UMaine. In a tough time, students need to own their future and make sure their search for a future, whether it be interning, going back to school or working, is as thoughtfully planned as possible.

A University of Maine System board of trustees meeting last week brought about the approval of a motion to demolish 10 three-bedroom apartment units — which are all considered obsolete and more expensive in upkeep than the 26 other buildings at the park — over the upcoming summer.

Whereas the intent of the system trustees is transparent and practical, those occupying the units slated to be razed are presently fighting off the haze of bombardment and bewilderment, having only received word of their pending displacement following the meeting on Monday evening.

Before the decision, 11 families had homes through June and possibly beyond — now their homesteads will be reduced to rubble instead. And all that over the course of a week.

When tenants like Devin Reilly signed their leases and planted their familial roots at University Park, most never expected another uproot so soon.

“I wish they would have given us some kind of warning,” Reilly told The Maine Campus when questioned about the abruptness of the system’s decision. “I moved here from Howland. I never would have done it if I knew this.”

Although the University of Maine System and Auxiliary Services are attempting to make the park relocations as innocuous as possible, the manner in which the information was conveyed to those it most profoundly affected cannot be characterized as laudable.

A decision to completely abolish an entire portion of a rental community does not occur overnight; it takes years of preparation and discussion before solidified.

Residents like Reilly should have been warned about the possibility of their demise at least before the decision. Not doing so bespeaks a lack of responsiveness and respect for the people it’s supposed to represent.

Malice does not appear to be a factor in the trustees’ resolution, but some absence of care does permeate within the discourse between park lessors and renters.

Maybe next time destruction is imminent, the proper authorities will give residents a heads up before they batten down the hatches and prepare for the blast.

Certain things freeze better than others, and in today’s hyper-progressive climate, the impulse for preservation — gelid or otherwise — is a precipitous and constant desire.

As students searching desperately for a secure future in this age of economic and occupational uncertainty, our fantastical impulses dictate that time stop and we take shelter until frigid reality thaws a bit.

But with the first tuition freeze offered in a quarter-century by the University of Maine System for some scholarly constituents, we’ve been given the next best thing to this time warp.

When the University of Maine System revealed on Jan. 23 that it would be putting in-state tuition increases on ice for the upcoming fiscal year, it gave students and their bank accounts room to exhale.

Year-over-year increases in tuition have become the norm for the collegiate community throughout the new millennium, reaching a peak in the state of Maine during the 2008-2009 year when UMaine tuition rates ascended by 10 percent.

As an article on page A1 articulates, those students who started furthering their education in 2009 have seen an influx of more than $1,000 in their tuition costs. According to the National Science Board, in 2009, if a Maine student were to cover all costs for higher education out-of-pocket, 48.4 percent of their total disposable income would be consumed by education costs alone.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition deems a household “burdened” if 30 percent or more of household income is exhausted on housing. Clearly, the student struggle for a bachelor’s degree is equivalent to keeping tabs on a bachelor pad without a proper paycheck — add 12 to 15 credits to the latter and burden becomes an understatement.

The University of Maine system has provided its customers, the student body of Maine, with one hell of a freeze during a period when finances are a hot-button issue for everyone. At last, the administration’s white-knight persona can ride into the daylight for all to behold and be gratuitous toward.

Perhaps a new trend is on its way in, where those nonexistent, out-of-pocket funds statistics claim students have are accepted as the folklore they truly are.

We may be “burdened” for years to come, but at least the encumbrance won’t be added to or increased on tuition bills set to fix their calculated stares on Mainers next fall.

Getting iced, if truth be told, may be the most advantageous action taken against students in a long, cold while.

Literally helping out by the ton, LePage has decided to recommend passage of a bill that could require up to a $4-per-ton fee of construction and demolition debris (CDD) as well as a $3-per-ton fee for any CDD processing residues deposited into the state’s landfills, including Juniper Ridge Landfill on the Old Town-Alton border.

LD 1278 — the bill that has won LePage’s much-coveted stamp of approval — is sponsored by Rep. Bob Duchesne, D-Hudson, and is currently in committee until Tuesday. If the bill survives the legislature, fees will become law, regulating CDD for the first time in Maine history. Duchesne said the fees in the bill likely won’t be as high as the governor’s recommendations, but in the $1 to $2 range.

If it passes, these dirty deeds in the state of Maine will no longer be done dirt cheap. Luckily, the monitoring of rubbish happens to be a prominent bipartisan issue and many see the governor as a man seldom approaching party lines, much less straddling them.

During a prime moment in local waste policy, where state regulators are deciding whether to more than triple Juniper Ridge’s waste capacity, a promise of restraint from the top tier of government couldn’t have come at a better time.

Not only will recommended fees regulate those who have long evaded fees and they have the purported potential to generate $1.2 million in annual revenue for the Pine Tree State, to go toward stabilizing a fund meant to aid Maine municipalities with landfill issues of their own.

It’s high time big-business trash-heapers like Casella Waste Systems, Juniper Ridge’s operator, put a lid on extravagant waste generation, especially since much of the drivel disposed of in Old Town comes from elsewhere, according to a 2010 annual report from a Casella subsidiary based in Lewiston.

During a time of economic struggle for the state of Maine and the nation as a whole, it’s comforting to discover that even the most staunch figures are now willing to regulate the waste being stocked away in our backyard.

Good going with the garbage, Governor. Sometimes getting a little dirt on your hands strikes the right balance for affirmative change, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on.

But such a statement offers far more facets than can be found in the margins of student notebooks or the blackened bubbles on course evaluation forms. Course discrepancy also happens to leave a stain on a majority of paychecks nationally, even in the University of Maine System.

Part-time or adjunct faculty members account for 47 percent of all higher education faculty in the United States, according to the American Federation of Teachers, a national teachers union affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Here, among the University of Maine System, part-time professors who teach a total of 12 credits in a calendar year will earn a salary of $12,348 on average; meanwhile, full-time faculty members at UMaine specifically (other universities within the system vary) will receive, on average, a compensation of $76,030.

Egalitarianism evidently doesn’t come easy in educational circles.

Whereas distinctions are much deserved by those who assume a full-time role at a university in contrast with those who have yet to acquire more privileged offices, the imbalance at work nationwide regarding part-time faculty is offensive in its severity.

The Maine Part-Time Faculty Association, the union for part-time faculty at the seven University of Maine System campuses, has been volleying contract proposals with the system office, desperately attempting to acquire some sort of added benefit or pay raise for the workers it represents.

But as both full-time and part-time faculty have been going about their business without a contract since June 30, 2011, PATFA’s efforts have become futile and its chances of winning concessions, at the moment, appear to be beyond the reach of its bargaining power.

A nearly $64,000 difference makes for a heck of a stretch, especially when adjunct faculty are instructing many undergraduate courses alongside their full-time counterparts. The stalemate established over the past months between both faculty unions and the system isn’t showing any signs of budging, yet the issue must be presented across the board.

A nasty disparity is at play here — people are getting the slip from their pay stubs and they aren’t being offered opportunities to advance in their careers. Who is to blame? The natural inclination is to condemn the Man or the system, but regulations only allow institutions so much sway in matters such as these.

It’s a sticky situation indeed, but one we mustn’t ignore. The first step to alleviating an issue is educating those it affects.

So next time you’re holed up in that classroom enduring an endless lecture on quantum physics, Virginia Woolf or mathematical functions and dub it worthless, know that you may not be far off in your classification.

Perhaps taking note on the assumed lesser value of perfectly decent instructors may encourage you to take actual notes on their preachings.

On Jan. 7, the University of Maine men’s hockey team took to the ice against the rival University of New Hampshire Wildcats in a most unusual location — Boston’s Fenway Park. But even in a place where the Red Sox have the best fit, the UMaine Black Bears managed to bring skates back in style.

An overtime 5-4 victory over UNH put the UMaine pucksters on par with the best hitters and pitchers to participate in the nation’s preferred pastime, and for a team navigating the peaks and valleys of a 10-7-2 season, the win couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment.

And it wasn’t just the players slicing competition and expectations — UMaine fans from far and wide came out in droves to watch their home team play in a foreign place, on foreign ground.

Blue-bedecked alumni peered down from atop the Green Monster as the Black Bears deked the Wildcats up and down the rink. Current students were peppered among followers of the past exuding a zeal for the game that has been largely absent this season.

While Fenway was on ice, fan support for UMaine hockey was on fire. Once more we were reminded that when huddled together working for a common goal, conquest for this sporting community is undeniable.

Now, imagine if the pizzazz displayed at Fenway made its way back to not only Alfond Arena, but all the courts and fields scattered across campus. Athletics would never be the same.

A little support can go a long way. Not only would current athletes thrive on full stands of cheering fans, but prospective ballplayers and puck passers would regard UMaine with the prestige and desire it deserves.

Right now, the UMaine men’s basketball team is a contender for the America East championship, but their attendance so far is third-to-last in the conference.

And this past fall, the women’s field hockey team peaked as one of the top teams in the nation; football finished  eighth in the country, winning their first playoff game in a decade; baseball won their conference and an NCAA regional game; and between field hockey and football, there were four All-Americans.

Clearly UMaine possesses the constituents to overcome on any turf. All that is needed is the extra abet of spectators to bring the Black Bears entirely back into the fold.

If hockey can make a comeback rounding the bases, triumph can happen anywhere. Now we all should try to be there.

Every day since, Jordyn’s family, friends and the scholars she left behind have been searching for some sort of resolution to her untimely demise.

On Wednesday, the void left behind by Bakley was offered temporary filler with the sentencing of the man who committed the atrocity — one Garrett Cheney, 23, of South Berwick.

The conundrums that accompanied Bakley’s end, even this week — nearly two years after the calamity — reverberated seemingly louder than ever.

J.C. Bakley, Jordyn’s father, spoke to the judge and, at times, Cheney, bewildered as to why his daughter had to be stripped from him and his family so soon, without reason.

“How could you leave another human being in the road for dead?” he asked a silent Cheney.

After more heart-wrenching appeals and testimony from both the Bakley and Cheney families, residing Superior Court Justice William Anderson handed down a sentence of 15 years, all but seven years suspended. In effect, Cheney will serve seven years  with four years probation.

And just like that, the Bakley tragedy was ushered beyond the walls of the courthouse by justice itself, liberated, to some extent at least, from doubt.

A long, difficult chapter for the UMaine community has reached its conclusion, and although it may not be the wistful ending we could have hoped for — with Jordyn back among us and Cheney a safe distance from the wheel of a car — it’s perhaps the best we can receive when navigating the often unforgiving genre of reality.

Seven years behind bars allocates a sensible amount of time for Cheney to contemplate his crime, accept his fault and restructure his actions to assure that when he is liberated from his confines, he won’t make a similarly deplorable mistake ever again.

And whereas the sentence could have been elongated so that Cheney would be serving prison time for the majority of his total penalty, within the confines of the law, seven years appears reasonable.

There is no bringing Jordyn back to life. As her father told the court, aside from one blue velvet bag and now, a viable punishment given to the man who caused her death, “this is all [we] have left of her.”

It will never be good enough compared to Jordyn herself, and it may only alleviate a fraction of the wound her absence has caused, but it does enable more healing to occur.

Garrett Cheney was convicted of a monstrous act in that left the community with one less heroine. But there is a small victory to be gathered at the shirttails of this tragedy — one more person who thoughtlessly took a life is not getting away with it.

And even slight balance is better than none at all.

Come this evening, WMEB will be sidelining RoboDJ’s jams and giving some play time to a new segment entitled “Looking Around,” a local half-hour radio show similar to the likes of “This American Life,” which voices the stories of people of the nation and world over.

Somewhere in the windy city, Ira Glass should be humbled in his bundles.

Headlined and created by Bourcard “Bhuki” Nesin, a fourth-year sustainable agriculture student, and Amy Becker, a journalism and ecology student, “Looking Around” is set to look at community roots and the tales of the people who tend to them — something our student-run station has long lacked.

“It’s about engaging your local environment and utilizing it,” Nesin explains in a story on page A1.

At long last, 6 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays will bring UMaine a creative fertility to bracket and assuage the inevitable stress that may arise during any given workweek. After all, who doesn’t enjoy the treat of a good story about someone they know?

But “Looking Around” will do more than uplift the moods of UMaine students — it also will attest to an instance of reinvigoration of collegiate ambition.

By simply getting their show on the air, Nesin and Becker are mutineers for radio and this campus, even during the video era, by capitalizing on a resource long left by the wayside, giving it new frequency.

As is often the case, many students are content with their discontents, perfectly willing to talk smack about the UMaine community but not act for betterment upon criticism. The result is a looming aura of pessimism even more overcast than Maine winter weather.

But a select few possess the gumption to take their passion and put it to the test by immersing themselves within the process. Nesin and Becker employed their interest in honing the storytelling scope on local figures via “Looking Around” and, in the same wavelength, were able to raise the heavily condemned medium of college radio to a higher standard.

Ambition marches forward to the beat of a new ear drum for both Becker and Nesin. And such change doesn’t have to be wielded by just the look-about duo — the power lies within every scholar who knows of aggravation or shortcomings and longs for something different.

Who knows — perhaps acting upon your dissatisfaction could land you the spotlight on an upcoming episode of “Looking Around.”

It’s something to look up to.

LCD flat-screen bargains flattened wallets as two-for-ones and half-offs pillaged the remains of savings accounts nationwide. Retail chains and credit card companies had a feast to rival the stuffed turkeys gobbling up their ridiculously cheap products, and slept satisfied, no doubt, when the day met its end.

Unfortunately, Saturday and small businesses did not get the full-belly treatment afforded to their big brothers. In Orono, it was just a normal day at the office.

Bracketed by the heavy-hitting holiday hootenannies Black Friday and Cyber-Monday, American Express’ Small Business Saturday hardly stands a chance at success. After all, big-box items will crush close-knit niche products on any given day during a weekend dedicated to corporate sales.

But David did conquer Goliath when given the proper venue and tools.

Small-town businesses, such as those located in Orono, saw little influx in shopper traffic Saturday during their American Express-designated day of deals. While Black Friday did bring in some costumers to community shops, many shoppers drove right past the moms and pops, appliances and electronics merrily in tow.

One haggle day out of the year may suffice for the likes of Walmart, Best Buy and Target, but when it comes to local boutiques such as The Store Ampersand and Metropolitan Soul, promotion should be a never-ending ordeal — every day represents another moment to sell backyard brands.

Alas, it’s time for small businesses to rally their best marketing skills and pound the pavement to become more renowned by their communal constituents. If consumers know of a store and what it sells, unique holiday and event purchases will be made to local storefronts rather than faceless retailers.

The appeal of shopping local is the idiosyncrasy of the commodities — you can’t find such brands or items anywhere else — not giveaways or occasionally low prices.

It’s time to capitalize on this appeal rather than the capital acquired via one day of heightened procuring. Banding together within the community and publicizing year-round is the only route by which small businesses can prosper.

Small business Saturday was predicated on the fact that communities aren’t utilizing their local outlets, but it has become clear that a single day can’t sustain small-business.

‘Tis the season for giving, indeed, but giving to the community doesn’t have to be ensnared by one moment in a year.

Every day could be Christmas to small businesses, if they would just chime their bells and sell more of themselves to the people they rely on.