Hey everyone, We've really got a great issue lined up for... Excuse me? Really? Another award for NUComment? Oh, just put it over there with the rest of them. Yes folks, NUComment is adding some more bling. In this year's Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence regional awards, we took third in the loquacious category "Best All-Around Independent Online Student Publication." This proves once again that, though we're definitely NOT the Daily, we can rack up street cred just the same. Also, I want to commend SPJ for continuing to recognize the value of alternative journalism. All too often, publications become word factories, rapidly churning out formulaic ideas in a lifeless form packaged in blaring advertisements. Writing becomes an anonymous task where you're supposed to fit the norms and write like everybody else. Well we at NUComment say "no" to manufactured journalism. If these other publications (not naming names) are factories of journalism, we like to think that we're the art gallery. It's an open forum that sometimes ::gasp!:: doesn't follow the journalism conventions to a T. We've been ad-free since our founding in 1999, and we intend to stay that way. It's not about the Benjamins – it's about connecting readers and writers, with as little as possible in-between. We're glad SPJ noticed. With that "free forum" idea in mind, this issue has no theme whatsoever. Sometimes we like to throw out an idea for the writers to use as a launching pad, but this time, we just said "go do your thing." The result? Gold, of course. In our feature piece, Malorie Medellin goes in-depth into Muslim-American culture, investigating how the hijab and other traditional clothing have become a re-affirmation of faith and self for many Muslim women. Newbie Kaisa Galazka goes from Almost Famous to journalistic dilemma in her trials as a wannabe groupie. Devonie McCamey talks about my man-crush, Barack Obama, and his quest for the youth vote, while tech-boy-extraordinaire Tom Cohlmia gets Googley. For no real reason, I asked our sports columnist and sex columnist to switch jobs for a change, so you'll be talking sex with Dan Marlin and baseball with Lindsey Slater. I'm tossing in a piece or two of my own as well, so check those out for some fun. We've got a new web guy, so everyone please welcome Jeff Wozniak (or just Woz) to the crew. We'll be keeping the same format, but look for some little changes cropping up around the site. As always, Matt Cohlmia Editor-in-Chief