The Santa Monica College bookstore's textbook rental program, which started this Winter term, has provided 460 textbooks to students since classes began, totaling a savings of $11,600 in book costs, or about $25 per textbook. "These are very good numbers," said David Dever, SMC bookstore manager. "We expect them to triple during Spring." Dever emphasized that as more classes are...

On Friday, December 13, a select group of viewers were able to escape the chilly Los Angeles night inside the exclusive Wilshire Screening room and be transported into the halls of Ecuador's quirky, decadent elite at a place known as Rock City. Director Javier Andrade's "The Porcelain Horse" is a classic cinema underdog, a strong personal drama Ecuador has submitted...

On Friday, Nov. 22, the Studio Stage at Santa Monica College felt like a private, darkened space as a small audience sat down in the small room and watched the SMC Musical Theatre Workshop perform a selection of classic musical numbers. It was indeed an intimate setting and audience members were fully immersed in the performances which took place in...

With the sounds of Claude Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" filling the office, Judith Douglas, Santa Monica College's dance department chair, discussed a memorable 2013 and what is in store for the coming year."As a proud parent and as a proud department chair, I am very pleased with everything [the dancers] have achieved in such a short...

Modern American society is constantly in a fast-paced, go-all-the-way mindset that sometimes has people looking for that little boost in the middle of the day. In this environment, people often turn to boosters with terms such as “vitamin supplements” as well as traditional energy drinks. Energy drink sales were up 6.7 percent this year, according to the online journal Caffeine...

2013 was the year we looked into the abyss and stepped back. This was the year President Barack Obama discovered a real viper in the garden — the emerging radical wing of the Republican Party. It feels like the citizens of the republic are becoming a nation apart from Washington, D. C. where Congress appears to be living on another...

Four deadly minutes were all it took for John Zawahri to carry out a shooting spree that began at his home and ended in the Santa Monica College library, culminating in his death and five others. In collaboration with the Santa Monica Police Department, the Santa Monica College Police Department officers were able to take down the shooter, quickly ending...

On June 24, 1545, Hans Bluetl was tied to a stake in the town square of Ried, located in the Bavarian region of modern-day Austria. He was soon set alight by his Catholic captors and, according to the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, "With great courage he endured the fiery death, singing hymns of praise until he collapsed." Bluetl was...

The songs are not telling us what to do. Instead, they are mirrors into what's cooking inside our membranes as a society. The argument over whether music is a bad influence on society should refocus on whether society is a bad influence on music. The infamous credit card through the posterior swipe in Nelly's "Tip Drill" or the recent uproar...

In Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1960 film "Psycho" is a scene where Janet Leigh, the film's female lead, steps into the shower of a low-rent hotel room. As she bathes, a shadowy figure steps inside, opens the shower curtain and repeatedly slashes Leigh with a butcher knife. While the violence of the scene is eerie and visceral, what has truly helped...