Hennen's Observer

A True Account by Eileen Rush

Like many other Gen-Y-ers my love life has always been permeated with technology. I met my first boyfriend on the school bus in sixth grade. We would play our Gameboy Colors next to each other sitting side by side battling our Pokemon. The next one in eighth grade was too shy to talk to me in person, yet just bold enough to sit next to me in English Honors and he would oh so bravely message me on AOL when he got home. It only makes sense that 10 years of school and a salaried position later, technology would be my wingman.

by Joshua Hennen

NEW ORLEANS Louisiana—Voodoo. The word conjures images of little dolls stuck with pins and magic potions. Being a genuine form of belief by many it has also become embedded in the American popular culture. But what is the truth behind this distinctly American religion as it stands today? To answer this and other questions I decided to go to the “Crescent City” of New Orleans, the center of Voodoo culture, to investigate this topic firsthand. But first, some background information may be helpful.

by Brandon Hennen

Sherman New York—It was10:00 pm Friday night. A rolling wave of thick fog unfurled before me as I walked the gravel pathway leading into the woods. As in a dream everything seemed slightly askew. A barrage of music noise and the general mayhem of the people from the stages in the field below only excited this feeling. One of my friends jabbed me in the arm with his elbow and said, “There’s your inspiration,” pointing to the eerie mouth of the woods and all the people pouring out of it. As we headed to the campsite and into the chaos of glow stick waving hippies and dealers standing by the side of the path offering reasonably priced “trips” in the form of tabs, cookies, brownies, chocolates, and more. I knew this would be an experience that would not soon be forgotten. It was The Great Blue Heron Music Festival, and I had arrived.

by Brandon Hennen

 Pittsburgh Pennsylvania - “They’re all over the place and they’ve all been pretty friendly ” said the woman at the bar. She spoke to the bartender and anyone else listening about half a dozen patrons. She was referencing the “furries ” as they’ve come to be called. The furries had come to downtown Pittsburgh for the largest gathering of its kind in the world, a convention known as Anthrocon. There actually is no unified definition of what constitutes a furry. Indeed, even the furries themselves cannot agree upon one, as I would soon discover.