It turns out hundreds of users on Black People Meet are not actually black. A considerable chunk of JDate members aren’t in the tribe. And on Our Time, 585kidd, who lists his age as 19, is one of many who are a long way from 50. “Ages does not bother me as long as we love each other,” he writes on his profile.

In fact, a quick search on nearly any targeted dating site reveals poachers – people who use these sites to find a partner of a certain demographic to which they themselves do not belong. BBPeopleMeet.com, a website for plus-size people, has a sizable portion of lean lovers. And not everyone on TallFriends.com is over 6 feet. Many of these websites attract people who are looking – quite literally – for their significant “other.”

Take Benjamin Hagar, 23, a white man who’s interested in dating only black women – a difficult pairing, given that he lives in Saranac Lake, N.Y., where only 1 percent of the population is black.

“Meeting a nice black woman around my age in this area has about the same chances of success as throwing a rock from Times Square and having it land on the moon,” he said.

As the number of seemingly insular dating sites – from SeaCaptainDate.com (“find your first mate”) to BikerKiss.com (“two wheels, two hearts, one road”) – continues to climb, so does the number of interlopers. Though many of these dating sites neither encourage nor forbid trespassing, some have tacitly welcomed outsiders. JDate, for instance, has added new options to its profiles: “willing to convert” – and even “not willing to convert.”

Outsiders on sites such as Black People Meet are more conspicuous, but this hasn’t kept them away.

“I find African-American women take care of themselves, dress better and treat their men better,” said David Dargie, 58, a white store manager from Vermont who has a dating profile on Black People Meet. “I just find them more attractive. Some men like blondes, some like brunettes – I like black people.”

Stereotypes, such as the notion that a Jew will have strong family values or an Asian will be highly educated, are “very enduring” despite “tons of disconfirming evidence,” said Jennifer Lee, a sociology professor at University of California-Irvine, who focuses on ethnic minorities, interracial marriage and multiracial identity.

“Even a complimentary stereotype can be damaging,” Lee said. “It seems like it might be flattering – but what they’re doing is putting that person into a box and hoping that they conform to their image of what a Jewish person is, or what a black person is, based on preconceived notions.”

Members of minority groups often prefer to stick together, searching for love within the community to preserve their culture or because it’s simply more comfortable to be with a partner of the same background. They may not take kindly to gatecrashers.

“Some people see my photo, and they send me a message saying, ‘Get the hell off this website. This is a black people website. What the hell are you doing on it? Blah blah blah,’” Dargie said. “I understand where they’re coming from.” But he’s not taking down his profile; in fact, he said he is “very busy” speaking to interested women from the site.

Internet user Jellyfrog48, a member of a dating site for single parents, was similarly perplexed when she received an email from a member of the site who has no children. Uncertain whether to respond to his entreaty, she sought advice from the Internet forum Babycentre.

“Weird?” she asked. “Or am I overly suspicious?”

Responses from fellow parents on the chat room varied from the cautious (“Keep your guard up a bit”) to the explanatory (“He may not be able to have children”), and even to the obvious (“Of course, this is the Internet”).

This kind of poaching has been happening since the beginning of time – or at least since the beginning of JDate, the self-proclaimed “premier Jewish singles community online” that launched more than 15 years ago.

Paul and Tanya Zimmerman – a Jewish American and a Catholic Asian – met on JDate in the late ’90s. (Photo courtesy of Paul Zimmerman)

Paul Zimmerman, 56, a property manager from Los Angeles, joined JDate in its early days. One of the first emails he got was a shocker. She was very honest, he said. She introduced herself from the get-go as Asian – and Catholic.

The message was from Tanya Tran, 49, a Vietnam-born property manager. “I had a Jewish boyfriend before I met Paul,” she explained recently. “We broke up, but I wanted to date a Jewish man, so I went to JDate.”

Six months after their first date, Tran and Zimmerman got engaged. They have been married for 13 years.

“Jewish culture is very similar to Asian culture,” said Tanya, whose last name is now Zimmerman. “We value family and education.” She has since converted to Judaism.

Sexual or romantic desire for a person of another ethnic background is deeply embedded in race-obsessed American culture, said Jodie Kliman, a psychologist and family therapist at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology who focuses on the effects of class, race and culture on family life.

It may be subconsciously related to power play, based on historical notions of an older man’s dominance or a black woman’s submissiveness. It may be driven by a yearning to have a different life than one’s childhood – to have a lively Jewish family if you grew up with emotionally aloof parents, for example.

“We have to look at the extent to which the other is exoticized by the dominant group,” said Kliman. But for many people there’s simply “something exciting about breaking the rules.”

Anyway, in the age of self-definition and blurred boundaries, who’s to say who’s black and who’s white, or who’s fat and who’s thin?

“It’s not about where you come from,” said Paul Zimmerman. “It’s about the values you have. It’s what you can become.”

Email: ld2538@columbia.edu

Ken Rajtar, a participant in four Run For Your Lives races, pictured with two fellow zombies at the Atlanta event. (Photo courtesy of Ken Rajtar)

On the morning of March 3, 2012, Ken Rajtar’s face was covered with fake blood, bruises and grayish skin. He adjusted his two additional heads – one on each of his Frankenstein-esque shoulders. Just after 6 a.m., he was ready for the day.

Setting off in drizzling rain, Rajtar staggered through 10 inches of mud to chase runners through mazes, over slopes and other obstacles in an effort to either “kill” them, or else turn them into zombies like him.

Rajtar has been a zombie in four “Run for Your Lives” 5K races – one of several increasingly popular zombie-themed adventure runs. The race started in October 2011 as a one-time event in Darlington, Md., created by Ryan Hogan, CEO of Reed Street Productions, to market his line of athletic apparel, WarWear. The 2011 event drew 10,000 participants, leading the company to expand to 12 cities in 2012 and 21 cities this year.

The race takes runners through a series of obstacles — typically set up in large outdoor areas like campgrounds — with designated zombies hiding on the ground, in water or behind trees. Racers, wearing a flag football belt, must find the fastest way to the finish line with at least one of three flags remaining to “survive.” Those who lose their flags are considered “killed,” but can finish the race anyway. In addition, eliminated runners who have registered for the privilege of zombiedom can then get their makeup done and chase the next shift of runners, with a new group starting every 20 minutes.

Hogan’s races raise money for the Baltimore-based Kennedy Krieger Institute, which helps children and adolescents suffering from brain disorders. But for Hogan, the zombie aspect itself is a therapeutic form of escape.

“If we could just for a fraction of a second have you think rethink reality, then we’ve succeeded,” he said.

Other zombie runs have emerged in the last few years. The Zombie Mud Run, started last year by Patrick Konopelski, owner of Shocktoberfest — a 30-acre haunted scream park in Sinking Spring, Pa. — is a similar 5K that has doubled this year from two to four cities.

At Run for Your Lives, most who register as zombies get their outfits and makeup done when they arrive, but Rajtar prepared in advance a special costume for his first race in 2012 with two extra heads and a lawn-sprayer under his sweatshirt that he uses to squirt runners with water or blood (red dye, actually).

He typically takes a break between being a zombie and a runner to stroll around in costume where participants and supporters gather.

“The best reaction is the incredible amount of people who want to take a picture with me,” Rajtar said.

The most recent surge in popularity of the zombie in pop culture began after 9/11, according to Arnold Blumberg, co-author of the book “Zombiemania” and professor of a “Zombies in Popular Media” course at the University of Baltimore. The 2002 movie “28 Days Later” was followed by the debut of “The Walking” Dead comic in 2003, and the “Dawn of the Dead” movie remake in 2004.

“As with all horror, zombies tend to peak in popularity at times of great stress, tension, struggle, and so on,” Blumberg said. “It’s no surprise then that at a time when the nation — and by extension the world — was consumed with fears of terrorism, the zombies emerged again.”

The creatures first hit movie theaters in 1932 in “White Zombie,” arguably a racist distortion of West Indian Voudoun traditions. Zombies were initially depicted as living humans controlled by a master, but they evolved into flesh-eating corpses, most notably in “Night of the Living Dead” in 1968.

Unlike past surges in popularity, the recent one is sustained, Blumberg added.

While Debby Murray and her boyfriend aren’t zombie historians or aficionados, they are fans of the “Walking Dead” television series. More than anything, though, when they heard about the 2012 race in Temecula, Calif., it “sounded like good, clean fun,” Murray said.

It wasn’t without challenges for Murray, a 52-year-old Northern California resident, who went home with scraped knees and bruises. She admits there were a few points where she was actually afraid, in particular when trying to get over one mud hill with no footing, with zombies gaining on her.

“I really had to dig my fingers in,” she said. Just as scary was the “Smokehouse Obstacle,” a tentlike structure with steam and shock-inducing electrodes overhead that she had to crawl through in darkness, without knowing whether the people behind her were zombies or runners.

“I did not survive,” she said. Still, she completed every obstacle in what was her very first 5K race. “I lost all my flags, which at the end was kind of a relief because then you didn’t have to run so hard.”

“It was pretty realistic, maybe what you would have to do during a zombie apocalypse,” she said. “If I can do that, I can do anything.”

In light of the Boston Marathon bombing, Hogan says that Run for Your Lives has toned down its social media, especially since a race is set for Wilmington, Conn., in July.

“With our New England event coming up, we absolutely must stay mindful,” he said. Hogan added that adventure runs like “Tough Mudder” and “Warrior Races” don’t  have names that evoke some of the real horror that runners of the Boston Marathon experienced.

Still, according to Blumberg, the horror genre can provide a cathartic way to deal with real-world fears – “to enable us to laugh at the zombie and ourselves at the same time,” he said.

“People that dress up as zombies for charity walks, runs, pub crawls — these are all ways of co-opting the idea and making it a safe way to engage with these monsters, to be comfortable with them,” he said. “In the fiction of a zombie apocalypse, there may be no hope and no way to stop them, but here in the real world, the zombie works for us.”

Email: sak2209@columbia.edu

The Chi flat iron unplugged. (Photo by Marlisse Silver Sweeney/CNS)

My morning routine is typical: wash my face, brush my teeth, plaster on my makeup, straighten my hair, turn off the hair straightener, unplug the hair straightener, say out loud, “I am unplugging my hair straightener,” get dressed, make sure the hair straightener is off, eat breakfast, check again that the hair straightener is unplugged, grab my keys and walk out the door. Then turn around to check once again that my hair straightener is off and unplugged.

Maybe it isn’t so typical?

Such phobias are hardly confined to females and their hair appliances. Many people have idiosyncratic rituals, according to Simon Rego, director of psychology training and the CBT Training Program at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Sufferers tend to repeatedly check car doors to ensure they’re locked, step on sidewalk cracks exactly the same amount of time with each foot, sanitize hands over and over to fend off germs.

Driving the compulsions “is a low tolerance for uncertainty, which leads to a need to know and make things certain,” Rego said.  He said double- and triple-checking an important email or Googling the smallest cold symptoms are all ways of ritualizing, and thus relieving, anxiety.

Samara Secter, a student in Toronto, doesn’t just turn off her oven.  She’ll go back to check that the lights are off and feel for warmth to ensure it’s cool.  Chris Beneteau, a lawyer, checks his trouser pocket to see if his BlackBerry is still there every half an hour when he’s out.  “It doesn’t matter what I’m doing,” he said, “it’s always running somewhere in the back of my mind.”

Others rituals include counting … anything.  Ted Brookes, an investment adviser from Vancouver, counts by multiples of four with his fingers when he’s driving.  Though difficult to explain, the counting is triggered when he perceives a gap in his environmental surroundings, like the space between two lamp posts.  “I would do it over and over and over and over again,” he said.

Some may call these habits eccentricities; others, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which has a prominent place in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM.  Elspeth Bell, a psychologist from Washington, D.C., who specializes in treating patients with OCD, says there is a big difference between the two.

“OCD is part of our everyday language – ‘I’m so OCDing about that’ – it’s a verb now,” she said in a recent interview. Everybody has intrusive thoughts, rituals or habits, Bell explained, but for people who suffer from anxiety disorders such as OCD, the discomfort becomes genuinely and sometimes physically distressing.

“There’s a distinction between having habits and routines and then feeling the need to have to do them,” she said.  The distinction was made evident recently by Lena Dunham’s character Hannah in the popular HBO series “Girls,” where the character she plays confined herself to her bedroom by a bout of OCD.  People can even be hospitalized for the disorder, explained Rego.

OCD has become such a byword and cultural touchstone that  “people falsely identify as being OCD without truly understanding what OCD is,” Bell said.  While they may not have started out with OCD, by the time they seek her services, people are likely to have the disorder at some level.  The rest of us merely have “obsessive compulsive tendencies.”

Though experts aren’t sure what sets off the habits, often there will be an underpinning of logic.  Sarah Endacott, a lawyer from Vancouver, blames Jennifer Anniston for her own hair straightener compulsion.  Many woman born in the 80’s desired Anniston’s layered ’do at some point, but her luck is less in demand.  On an episode of “Friends,” her character, Rachel, burns down her apartment because she left her hair straightener on.  Endacott cites this episode for igniting her own fear, because it aired “around the time I started using a hair straightener,” she emphasized.

For OCD sufferers and those with OC tendencies alike, Rego suggests Googling the root of a phobia, and to work out the likelihood that it would transpire.  So I spoke to District Chief J.R. Saez of the City of Orlando Fire Department, a 25-year firefighter who says he has never, ever  seen a house fire started by a hair appliance.  “It’s very, very rare,” he explained in a recent phone interview.  “You probably have a better chance of electrocuting yourself if you’re standing next to a tub and you drop it in water.”

Now I worry, should I stop bathing?

Email: mjs2298@columbia.edu

A soda jerk mixes a soda made from housemade syrup at Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Co. (Photo by Kerri Anne Renzulli/CNS)

In a back kitchen in Brooklyn, Anton Nocito stood over a giant pot of water bubbling with cane sugar, golden raisins and bits of a woody-looking herb. Inside the pot was a familiar thing: soda syrup. What wasn’t so familiar was the flavor: lovage.

The savory, almost celery flavor is one of P&H Soda Co.’s, signature syrups, but it is also an endemic sign of the effervescent beverage’s new stage of life — one that exists largely outside the familiar chilled cans of corn-syrup sweetened fizz.

The soft drink has gone artisanal.

It’s hardly surprising that soda syrups have joined the ranks of the DIY revolution that has conquered nearly every food staple in the past decade. Growing health concerns over the amount of sugar, sweeteners and artificial flavor in brand-name sodas, New York City’s proposed ban on large soda size purchases, and the environmental impact of all those plastic bottles and cans have all dented the traditional soda’s appeal.

By mixing their own soda, restaurants and home cooks are leading a revival that is bringing the culinary values of seasonal, homemade and local to the beverage, while reminding us of the soda fountain’s heyday.

And naturally, they’re doing it most often in Brooklyn, N.Y.— America’s unofficial artisanal capital.

“We really do take the ingredients and our sourcing seriously and ultimately you taste that when it’s in the bottle,” said Kari Morris, one of the owners of Brooklyn’s Morris Kitchen, which produces ginger, preserved lemon, rhubarb and spiced apple syrups. “There is a similar aesthetic popping up all around the country for these homemade syrups.”

And thanks to the ease, size and price of home carbonators on today’s market, it has never been easier to mix your own pop. Americans bought more than 1.2 million carbonators like the SodaStream and the SodaSparkle last year and Samsung now makes a refrigerator with a built-in sparking water dispenser.

Home carbonation manufactures maintain a profitable sideline in flavored syrups, usually artificially sweetened, that can be mixed with the fizzy water to recreate the taste of name-brand sodas, but they often lack the health and taste benefits of their homemade peers.

These somewhat healthier syrups come in a limitless spectrum of flavors that often use fresh ingredients like lemon or ginger, which rarely make it into name-brand drinks because of their short shelf life.

“This is a niche market, but with SodaStream growing, the small retail bottles are selling more,” Nocito said.  “The general public still doesn’t really know what our syrup is, but when I’m doing demos and stuff, people often say ‘oh, you mean this thing will go with my SodaStream’ and then they want a bottle.”

Nocito first started experimenting with soda syrups in 2009 using his own home carbonator. His wife loved the flavors so much, she convinced him to get a stall at a market and begin selling them. At first he just sold cups of soda made from his syrup, but customers kept asking to buy the syrups for themselves for use with their home carbonators and a few stores even asked for bottles of syrup to sell alongside home carbonators in their shops.

Queens resident Ashley Zari loves the ginger and preserved lemon syrups from Morris Kitchen with seltzer water and even brought bottles back to her family on the West Coast.

“When I taste regular ginger sodas, I’m like ‘where is the ginger?” but with this you can really taste it. It actually tastes like what it says it is,” Zari said. “It’s fresher and more flavorful and it taste exactly how you want it to because you can put in as little or as much as you want.”

Several restaurants — like Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain, Portland’s Blueplate lunch counter and soda fountain and L.A.’s Bar Ama — have taken their soda-making a step further.  Not content with buying other artisanal syrups, they now mix their own in-house flavors.

“We get to take something that was historically popular and break it down and recreate it to fit our own legend,” said Peter Freeman, owner of Brooklyn Farmacy.

Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Co.’s housemade sodas in pineapple and cherry lime rickey. (Photo by Kerri Anne Renzulli/CNS)

Although there was some initial customer hesitation to branch out into these recreated or new flavors, Jeff Reiter, owner of Blueplate, said “we turned many to the sweet side.” And Josef Centeno, owner of Bar Ama, said he sells about 2,000 cases a year of his housemade sodas, called Baco Pop, in flavors like tamarindo and mango.

“It has a unique flavor I can’t put my finger on; it doesn’t taste like regular soda,” Susan Macpherson said while sipping one of Brooklyn Farmacy’s homemade sodas. “ I’m not sure I would know it was a cola if I hadn’t ordered it, but I really like it.”

But most home cooks and restaurants who just want to dabble in homemade sodas choose the premade small-batch syrup flavors as a way to lock in all the taste benefits without the work.

“It’s a good product to carry,” said Sam Bates, one of the owners of Eagle Trading Co., a restaurant and food shop that sells P&H soda. “It’s in line with our kind of homemade, local aesthetic that we are going for. It is simple, but it tastes great and people really appreciate the extra effort.”

Bates makes serving the soda a full-on production. A tall glass is filled with the syrup and then fresh fizz added, mixed and served with the kind of flair normally given to fancy cocktails.

He said the procedure takes the soda and elevates it, enticing customers to buy and making it more fun than pushing a button on a soda dispenser.

The novelty of the syrups also helps sell their versatility. These homemade flavors have been dashed in cocktails, poured on ice cream, stirred into teas and mixed with yogurt.

All of which helps to offer an odd distinction.

“People always tell me ‘I won’t give my kids soda, but I’ll give them yours’ or ‘I don’t drink soda, but I’ll drink this,’” said Nocito. “They always seem to surprise people.”

Email: ker2148@columbia.edu

For some, it’s an organized religion known as Jediism; others adopt it as a philosophy of life, called Jedi Realism. Both share a central outlook on life.

“Being a Jedi is saying to the world that I am on a quest to become the best person I can be,” said Matthew Vossler, author of “Jediism: Philosophy and Practice,” who runs the online Maryland Jedi Order and goes by the self-chosen Jedi name Zindel. “It’s like saying I’m going to hold myself to this standard, and I’m going to try my best to stay on this path.”

The Maryland Jedi Order is just one of several Jedi communities that congregate online. (Photo by Lauren Davidson/CNS)

George Lucas coined the term “Jedi” – for those who fight for justice using the Force, “the energy field that binds the galaxy together,” according to the Star Wars figure Obi-Wan Kenobi  – when the first Star Wars film was released in 1977. But it wasn’t until the 1990s, with the advent of the Internet, that Jediism caught on.

The Star Wars spiritual following made headlines in 2001, when 390,000 citizens of England and Wales – or 0.7 percent of the population – claimed Jediism as their religion, making it the fifth most popular faith behind Christianity, no religion, Islam and Hinduism. Jediism even dwarfed Judaism, which had around 260,000 members.

The U.K. Office of National Statistics hypothesized that people chose “Jediism” for humor or political protest, after a controversial campaign against the religion question on the census. The numbers dropped significantly by the 2011 census, with just 177,000 writing in Jedi as their religion.

While the U.S. census does not include questions about religion, thousands of Americans do identify themselves as Jedi.

The Temple of the Jedi Order, founded in 2005 by John Henry Phelan in Texas, is the first international church of Jediism. An online congregation, its website gets an average of 5,000 hits per week and hosted more than 290,000 visitors in the past year. Of those, at least three quarters are in the U.S., said Michael Kitchen, the church’s spokesman, who is also a shop clerk in London. 

The Temple of the Jedi Order was granted tax-exempt status as a nonprofit religious organization in Texas. Last year, with 3,842 new members, it brought in $788 in donations, most of which went towards Web hosting, according to its annual report. The group’s leaders earn nothing for their time.

The church ordains its own ministers, who can ascend clerical ranks through deacon, priest, bishop and archbishop. They listen to confession and perform wedding ceremonies. A minister posts a written sermon online every Sunday, and once a month, the Temple’s website streams a live sermon.

“Does it really matter how I or you as a Jedi believe?” asks Patricia Bolcerek, a minister who calls herself Master Neaj online, in a sermon from mid-April. “Simply, no. … My choices and beliefs can and will differ from the next, because you are not me and I am not you. But we are in consensus that we believe in a path that is the same.”

This path follows “peace, justice, love, learning and using our abilities for good,” according to the Temple’s website, but stipulates no religious belief. Jedis can be Christian, Wiccan, atheist or anything else.

Jedis are expected to be in constant training, aiming to better themselves through meditation, study and acts of selflessness. After a few initial stages – member, novice, then initiate – the Jedi begins an apprenticeship, which can take one or two years to complete before the member becomes a knight.

As a senior knight, Kitchen is training three apprentices in the U.S. over Skype. His lessons cover topics that include critical thinking, religious history and metaphysical ideas. When the three apprentices graduate, Kitchen will become a Jedi master.

Most Jedi training and communal gathering is done online, through Web forums and social media. The “Jedi Church” Facebook group, for example, has more than 6,000 members. Physical meet-ups are planned at least annually, and there are three offline groups in the states: Chicago Jedi, Kentucky-based Heartland Jedi and Jedi of the Mid-South, in Memphis.

The Star Wars movies have spawned other factions, including the Karths and Siths, who revere the dark side of the Force. But for many Jedi followers, the films are unimportant.

“I have no interest in Star Wars,” said Alethea Thompson, who is head of education at the online study community Force Academy. She says she’s a Jedi because its philosophy teaches “you to become better than what you were the day before.”

“We are not fictional; we are not the same as that which is portrayed in the Star Wars universe,” explained Kitchen. Jedis in the real world do not use lightsabers, nor dress up as their movie counterparts.

Jackie Meyer, an engineer from Houston who runs the Web-based Institute for Jedi Realist Studies, came to what she calls the Jedi path through her childhood love for Star Wars. But she doesn’t take the movies too seriously, instead seeing them as “a modern myth for our generation.”

Though Jediism may be the offspring of a post-70s cultural phenomenon, and inherently linked to the Internet age, it incorporates age-old spiritual ideas. “Lucas put a name to a series of spiritual foundational ideas that had really been with us since the beginning of time,” said the writer Vossler.

Indeed, the Temple of the Jedi Order’s website names Buddha, Jesus and Martin Luther King as masters of Jediism.

Whatever name it takes, Jediism is ultimately about improving the self and the broader community.

As Meyer said, “Finding your own path in the world can be really rewarding – even if its name is Jedi.”

Email: ld2538@columbia.edu

(Photo by Photo Monkey, via Flickr/CC)

Not all mannequins are created equal.

You can get Euro-mannequins — like “Michelle,” “Toni” and “Laura,” pale brunettes with high cheekbones. Some are “Abstract,” like “Nicole” and “Karen,” who are shiny and egg-headed and boast green, orange or purple skin. “Carmen” wears a pretty dress, but is unfortunately headless. Most of them will end their lives in retail, posing in shop windows and department stores.

And those that don’t? Some uses are just oddball, said AMT Mannequin’s Chuck Meadows. Sometimes people just “want to destroy them,” he said. Roxy Display’s online mannequin store sell a lot for haunted-house events, and Store Supply Warehouse’s phone representatives spend their breaks giggling about the weirder stories born of “private use.” And sometimes, the mannequins go straight to court.

Part and parcel of the work of Kevin Allen, assistant attorney general of Knox County, Tenn., as a homicide prosecutor is demonstrating to a jury exactly how the victim was (allegedly) murdered — and, to do this, he can’t afford not to use a mannequin. “I don’t want to think about how badly I’d be hampered if I couldn’t use it,” he said. He can’t remember a case when he hasn’t.

In each trial, during testimony by the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, Allen brings out the mannequin. (His office shares a single dummy, bought for $2,000 “six or seven” years ago with smaller prosecutors in the region.) The medical examiner explains the nature of each of the victim’s injuries – stab wounds, bullets and so on – and shows the jury photos. Afterwards, Allen will ask the examiner to “act out” the injuries on the mannequin, one wound at a time, using pins and long rods to show the direction of bullets and trajectory of wounds. “It takes all the two-dimensional words and pictures, and brings it to life,” Allen said. “It’s an overwhelming effect for the jury to see just how many injuries there were.”

Henry Rivkin of Only Mannequins said that this is one effect of a world “more visual.” “People have become more accustomed to physically seeing things,” said Rivkin, citing the rise of the smartphone camera and the Internet. “We’ve realized that the more visual the world becomes, the more mannequins are needed.” Besides, he said, “a jury will remember a mannequin.”

Homicide trials aren’t the only uses for a mannequin in the courtroom. A Colorado trial saw a mannequin being dressed in Muslim attire to make the point to jurors that the victim, from Saudi Arabia, had felt “invisible.” In s New Jersey trial last year, an officer – who had interviewed the defendant the evening she shot a man, allegedly in self-defense – stand up and re-create the woman’s version of events using a mannequin. And in Texas, prosecutors demonstrated a shotgun murder by dressing a mannequin in the bloody clothes of the defendant. The prosecution won.

States such as West Virginia and Alabama  use mannequins in sex abuse trials, particularly those involving children. While defense attorneys in adult trials frequently claim that using a mannequin can bias a jury, protecting already victimized children from further trauma is another matter. In the past decade, these states have increased the legality of using mannequins to help make relaying past events easier for a child.

Scenarios like these involve very precise mannequins: generic, mass-produced dolls don’t suit the position. “Lawyers often have very specific size requirements,” said Chuck Meadows of AMT Mannequins. “They say, ‘I need a female with these dimensions.’” And often they can’t speak much about the trial, since it’s still ongoing. “They might say, ‘We need the guy sitting, leaning over this way, in a vehicle,’” said Mike Davis of Manne King. “So you sort of deduce what they’re doing. But they don’t discuss.”

In terms of mannequin material, the more flexible, the better. “They call us, and don’t go into it, but they want something pose-able,” said Zing Display’s Tom Sciolla. Popular with the courts is Zing’s range of “Economical Flexible” mannequins. They’re made from foam, which allows for a wide and varied range of motion — almost like a life-size Play-Doh doll. “You can pose the mannequins on the floor, recreate whatever,” said Sciolla. “You can demonstrate whatever the court case calls for.” The mannequins have generic, faceless heads, he said, which helps.

Retail mannequins live, in all their storefront glory, between five and 10 years. Court mannequins, with all the injuries they build up over time, tend to fail sooner. Though it’s a life well lived, after just a few years they’re sentenced to the dumpster.

Email: jah2235@columbia.edu

A few weeks before the Rose injury, Keith Shank, a mechanical engineering student from West Palm Beach, Fla., hurt his knee dancing at his own wedding day reception. Attempting a “Russian split” in front of his friends and family, Shank, 28, jumped in the air, trying to touch his toes mid-flight and landed awkwardly.

An athlete rehabs her knee with an athletic trainer. (Photo courtesy Gregg Bell, University of Washington Athletics)

“One of my legs was at an angle,” Shank said. “So when my weight came down it twisted my knee in an unpleasant direction.”

Like Rose, the superstar athlete, Shank tore an ACL. Unlike Rose, whose salary from the Bulls this season is $16.4 million (despite not playing a single game due to injury), Shank would forgo reconstructive surgery. Both faced a lengthy rehabilitation and an uncertain athletic future.

The ACL is one of four major ligaments in the knee and connects the femur and the tibia. As many as 200,000 ACL injuries occur every year in the United States, with about half as many reconstructive surgeries, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. While most people associate a torn ACL with college or professional athletes, it is an injury that can happen to ordinary people and those who play in recreational sports.

Tyler Martin, 28, is a customer service analyst in the banking industry, but he also enjoys pickup basketball and golf in his free time. In February, he joined his girlfriend in a co-ed flag football league. Attempting to chase down another player, he made a sudden move to change direction. “I heard a really loud pop, crunch, snap noise,” he said. “And I went down.”

Tears happen most often in soccer or football when the foot is planted and the knee twists, and in basketball after awkward landings. “Non-athletes are more susceptible to tears,” said Dr. Natalie Voskanian, an assistant clinical professor of sports medicine at the University of California at San Diego. “They have less muscle and less experience with a sport’s movements and landings.”

Martin opted for surgery, a 45-minute procedure in which a donor ligament was grafted to the bones in his leg. In total, he lost only two days of work, but spent a few days at his desk in khaki shorts with his leg propped on a chair.

In the 1980s, an ACL tear was considered a career-killer in sports, but now reconstructive surgery followed by nine to 12 months of rehabilitation can lead to a successful recovery and return to action. “I recommend it for younger individuals to middle-aged individuals that are very athletic,” Dr. Voskanian said. “Older individuals tend to do fine without it.”

The ACL is a major stabilizer in the knee, but strengthening muscles like the quadriceps and hamstrings can compensate for not having one in place.

When it comes to ACL injuries, women are six to nine times as likely to experience them, according to Voskanian. To prevent them, female athletes have to strengthen their legs and consider their biomechanics, ensuring their motions don’t twist their knees and that they absorb contact evenly and at a correct angle during landings.

Dr. Riley Williams performs arthroscopic surgery. He is a sports medicine surgeon at Hospital for Special Surgery and medical director for the New York Nets and New York Red Bulls. (Photo courtesy Hospital for Special Surgery)

Amy Gass, 19, has had five knee surgeries, including three ACL repairs. Her latest tear occurred in October 2012, during batting practice for the softball team at Nazareth College. An intense competitor, she would like to return to the field but is now experiencing heart problems. “I have been going to rehab for over five years now,” she said. “I go every day so my physical therapists and athletic trainers have become like a family to me.”

She reaches out to others via the Twitter handle @ACL_Problems. “To help other athletes who have torn their ACLs and inspire them to never give up,” she said. “To let them know that they’re not alone.”

Gass also sells T-shirts with inspirational phrases (150 so far). Her latest design is a neon yellow long sleeve with large letters on the front. “Just a minor setback for a major comeback,” it reads.

Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls are waiting for his comeback, but are not rushing his rehabilitation. Known for his fearless drives to the basket and for absorbing contact, he will face intense pressure to perform at peak level once he returns. But whether his knees can handle the quick changes of direction, the crossing over from side to side, and the jumping and twisting, remains to be seen.

For the nonathlete, the expectations are more manageable. After spending his honeymoon in Disney World on crutches, wheelchairs and motorized scooters, Shank consulted a doctor and decided to put off reconstructive surgery. Since then, he has avoided high impact activities like jogging but remains positive, despite his new limitations. Skipping lines at amusement parks is a new perk, for instance. “I lost athletic ability,” he said. “But luckily, that wasn’t what I was banking on.”

Email: adc2163@columbia.edu

The Haynesville Correctional Center is one of a handful of prisons across the country to offer a dorm for veterans. (Photo from Virginia Department of Corrections)

Every day at 8:15 a.m. at the Haynesville Correctional Center in Virginia, incarcerated veterans gather in their dormitory dayroom for their morning briefing, much the way they did in the military. Brian Pitts, 50, a former soldier and current inmate, serves as the prison’s inspiration coordinator.

A history buff, Pitts likes to provide quotes from famous military leaders to set the tone for the day.

One of his favorites: “The decisions we make in life today will ultimately dictate our future.”

The veterans’ dorm emulates the army structure, with a chain-of-command and inmates given responsibilities like facility maintenance and keeping areas in compliance.

Living with a group of veterans who underwent military training is a stark contrast from living with the general population where inmates are young and “bouncing off the walls,” Pitts said in a phone interview from prison.

“What this program tries to promote is that at one time, we were responsible not just for ourselves but for our country and we have to understand that – what we once upon a time represented.”

The Virginia dorm is one of a handful in at least four states with a similar unit aimed at reducing the recidivism rate among veterans, each with extra support for mental health disorders that often lead to crime. About 9 percent of prisoners in the U.S. are veterans, according to Margaret Noonan, a statistician with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Craig Bryan, associate director of the University of Utah’s National Center for Veterans’ Studies, said that while veteran-centered prisons haven’t been analyzed yet, many hope for positive results similar to those seen in the veterans’ courts established in 2008.

Inspired by a similar program by Florida’s Department of Corrections, the Haynesville unit opened in November 2012 and houses 84 inmates. Veterans must meet certain eligibility requirements – no dishonorable discharges, no escape attempts in the last five years. To fully reap the program’s benefits, inmates must have no more than 36 months until their release and no less than six. Four Florida state prisons house a total of 224 veterans.

Having veterans as both staff and dormmates means they can relate to one another and create a more supportive environment, Pitts said.

“The veterans’ dorm is the quietest and most well-behaved dorm compared to the rest of the jail population,” said Anton Daniel, the Haynesville unit’s manager. The program conducts seminars to help prisoners receive their benefits like housing options to prevent homelessness, treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, and games like “Jeopardy” and singing competitions.

A similar program at the Muscogee County Jail near Columbus, Ga., houses 16 veterans.

“They kind of formed their own self-help group – that’s really what it is,” said John Darr, the jail’s sheriff.

Of the nearly 40 veterans who have gone through the jail since 2012, only three have come back, according to Darr – a 7.5 percent recidivism rate compared to the national average of 40 percent.

Blake Chester, 44, served a nine-month sentence at the Muscogee County Jail for two DUIs. He was released in November 2012 and went to the Plummer Home, a Christian residence for veterans coming out of jail. After a month, he was employed as the home’s outreach coordinator.

For Chester, the army, navy and military crests lining the wall of the jail served as motivation. “It was still jail, of course, but it was comforting – a feeling in yourself that your service does matter,” he said via a phone interview from the home.

Starting out his sentence, Chester never imagined himself doing the work he does, but he attributes his success to the jail’s programs, which included Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and stress management courses.

The Muscogee program serves as a way to prepare for what Darr expects will be a “perfect storm of things that are coming,” as de-escalation continues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“You need to try to get ahead of a problem before the problem gets ahead of you,” he said.

The unmet mental health needs of veterans are a growing concern as servicemen and women return from Iraq and Afghanistan with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression — caused in part by more time spent mobilized than in prior wars, according to an August 2008 report from the National GAINS Center Forum on Combat Veterans, Trauma and the Justice System.

Veterans often have trouble returning to civilian life because of survival behaviors adopted for combat, according to the report.

“Hypervigilance, aggressive driving, carrying weapons at all times … all of which may be beneficial in theater, can result in negative and potentially criminal behavior back home,” the report states.

“A lot of these guys are suffering without even realizing how much,” said Haynesville inmate Pitts, who served in the U.S. Army from 1981 to 1987 and is in prison for a DUI.

Pitts previously worked as a park ranger and tour guide at the Arlington National Cemetery until budget cuts led to a mass layoff.

“That was my downfall. I was out of work, I was disappointed, probably going through an element of depression. I started drinking,” he said. “Unfortunately that activity also came with the irresponsibility of getting behind a wheel.”

In the dorm, he’s found camaraderie, but he’s also learned about benefits like GI education loans, and prepared for going back into society.

With about 300 days left of his sentence, Pitts plans to return to his job at the cemetery as a tour guide. He is no longer eligible to be a park ranger.

It’s not a high-paying job, but he looks forward to putting his history knowledge to use.

“Let’s face it, I’m not in here for singing too loud in church,” he said. “At the same time, I know there was a point in time when I was trusted, when people believed in me and people looked at me as this person of honesty. You want to get that back.”

His time at the veterans’ dorm, Pitts said, allowed him to experience that once more. “It allows you to feel human again,” he said.

Email: sak2209@columbia.edu

But these workmen are not trying to keep it in working order. They are stabilizing the ruins that remain.

Washburn Mill ruins after the 1991 fire (Minnesota Historical Society)

Once the heart of American flour production, the Washburn Mill was the largest of its kind ever built. After being abandoned in 1965, the building was almost destroyed by a fire in 1991. That spurred the local historical society to start campaigning to preserve the ruins for posterity. It now serves as a museum where people can see the different functions each level of the grain elevator and mill once had.

“We have interactive teaching points, so when people go up in the cab, they can stop at various places and there are small dioramas set in the walls and films,” said Laura Salveson, the museum’s executive director. “Preservation of the structure will always be an ongoing activity.”

Although the idea of a modern ruin seems like an oxymoron, grassroots preservation societies all over America are trying to conserve great abandoned industrial and modern structures. Having lain empty for years, they are a new all-American kind of historical ruin that is far removed from the ancient Coliseum of Rome or the pyramids of Giza.

The Mill now, once again a hive of activity (Minnesota Historical Society)

However, these groups don’t want to restore the monuments. Rather, they treat the buildings as traditional heritage sites, valuable in their current state as a unique symbol of a local history and culture.

Among the latest preservation efforts is the Michigan Central Station, formerly Detroit’s main depot until Amtrak service ended in 1988. Derelict for years, it was saved from demolition in 2009 by the Michigan Central Station Preservation Society, led by John Mohyi, who organized a petition of more than 15,000 signatures and 350 local volunteers. Station owner Manuel Moroun, a local businessman, has invested $10 million thus far in stabilizing the structure, according to Mohyi. Calls to Moroun’s CenTra Inc. were not returned.

“It is one of these things that just can’t be replaced,” said Mohyi of the station. “Even now, you see newlywed couples in the summertime drive up in their limos to take photos in front of it. Just imagine what it’ll be like when it is rehabilitated!”

Driving the trend of preserving ruins is a growing sense of nostalgia for America’s past, said Kenneth Breisch, professor of historic preservation at the University of Southern California. Deciding to preserve something as a ruin is usually inspired by people’s emotional attachment and ideas of heritage and commemoration of where they and their culture sprung from.

At the Washburn Mill, glass viewing platforms and reinforced steel allows visitors to explore it safely. Many are Minnesota residents who want to show their friends from out of town something emblematic of the region’s culture and place within the larger American history.

“You can see the marks of the industrial process and the decay that has happened over the years,” said Bethany Fixsen, who visited from Henderson, Minn. “There is a film that is projected on the wall of the grain tower that really explains what went on there and how it fits into the Twin Cities’ history.”

Professional photographer Arthur Drooker agrees that the decay itself is part of what makes the ruins special. He has traveled the country documenting ruins in places as far flung as the Cook Bank building in Rhyolite, Nev., or the Bethlehem Steel Mill in Pennsylvania. Drooker found examples of preserved industrial buildings that are now thought of as heritage sites.

“Even though Americans like to think of themselves as future oriented, I think there is a kind of yearning for the past. That is part of how fast our development has been,” he explained. “We want something to harken back to that is tangible.”

One of Drooker’s favorite sites is Bannerman’s Castle, a faux-medieval style armory located on Pollepel Island in New York’s Hudson River.

The armory was originally built at the end of the 19^th century by army surplus dealer Frank Bannerman. One of the few remaining examples of the medieval style armories that were once scattered throughout the Hudson Valley, the building had fallen into disrepair over the years. It would have continued to fall apart had it not been for the efforts of Bannerman Castle Trust founder Neil Caplan and his wife.

Caplan discovered the armory in 1992 after seeing a drawing of it in a book on the area’s industrial history. Seeing an opportunity to preserve the site as a monument for tourists to visit and learn about the Hudson Valley’s heritage, Caplan set up Friends of Bannerman Castle.

The trust secured a $350,000 Environmental Protection Agency grant that was matched by private donations. The group was able to stabilize the buildings enough to open the island up to the public in 2008, but much of the structure was still too shaky for visitors to enter. Part of the north wall of the main building was knocked over during a storm in 2010.

Despite the setback, the number of tourists wanting to go to the island and see the bizarre structure for themselves has been steadily increasing each year. Last year, almost 6,000 people took a tour.

Now, through visitor fees and donations, the group has raised the $150,000 it needs to start stabilizing the remaining structure so that more people can start coming to the island and exploring the inside of the buildings. This, in turn, will drive more conservation. In preparation for the upcoming season, the trust has begun operating an extra tour to accommodate the growing numbers of tourists.

“You don’t want to lose something like this,” said Caplan. “This country is very interesting in that we like to tear things down rather than preserve them. But this place is one of a kind. It is symbolic of the industry we once had and lost.”

Email: chc2149@columbia.edu

The TKTS discount ticket booth in Times Square. (Photo by Marlisse Silver Sweeney/CNS)

When Jill Owen, 28, a New York accountant, buys a Broadway ticket, she bases about 90 percent of her decision-making on which celebrities are in the show. Last February, she saw “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” because it starred Scarlett Johansson, whose most recent movie megahit was “The Avengers.” Christine Tarves, 27, a marketing executive in Vancouver, decided to see “Grace,” a dark comedy about a young religious couple, because it featured Paul Rudd, who has appeared in many Judd Apatow hits. “I was a little disappointed,” she admitted. “It was a dramatic role, so not really what one would expect. His star power was almost distracting.”

Many first-time patrons are being lured to the theater by the chance to see in person the people they see on the covers of US Weekly and People magazines. “Stars are great for Broadway,” explained Charlotte St. Martin, the executive director of the Broadway League. “They bring a focus on new productions and help develop a brand sooner”for the show.

When the Roundabout Theatre produced “If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet” last fall, starring Jake Gyllenhaall, 1,500 new members joined its discounted ticket program for people ages 18-35, compared to about 500 people for a show without a Hollywood star. “It’s definitely a group of people that we would assume to be young professionals, who are very interested in seeing film stars on stage,” a spokesperson for Roundabout explained.

It’s not just Hollywood’s A-listers singing the lullabyes of Broadway. The revival of “Chicago,” now in its 17th year, has been a revolving door of lesser celebrities. Jerry Springer, Christie Brinkley, Ashlee Simpson and Alan Thicke have taken their turns in the show. Last November, as Rudd was appearing in “Grace,” his fellow cast member from the 1995 hit movie “Clueless,” Alicia Silverstone, was acting at a nearby Broadway theater; her show, “The Performers,” closed after just seven performances. And American Idol runner-up (and 2009 Tony contender) Constantine Maroulis, just opened in a revival of “Jekyll and Hyde” that received mediocre reviews.

But the audience doesn’t always seem to mind the omission of “Juilliard” from the Playbill biographies.

A spring rainstorm wasn’t deterring Meghan Thompson, 40, of Pittsburgh, from lining up to see “Lucky Man” on a recent Thursday evening, as she stood outside the Broadhurst Theatre to purchase $27 standing-room-only tickets. “Tom Hanks drew me to this show,” she admitted. “He’s a quality actor. I don’t think he’d be in just any show.”

For years some Hollywood stars avoided the stage, until the advent of stage microphones and amplification in the 1980s made the transition easier, said Joseph Roach, a Yale University theater history professor who studies celebrity. The Broadway League’s St. Martin also credits the Hollywood writers strike of 2007-2008; as television and movie production ground to a halt, many stars found themselves looking for new venues.

“It used to be the reverse journey,” explained Elizabeth Bradley, a professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a theatrical producer. “Actors were forged in the theater.”

Yet big stars don’t necessarily fill seats. “Simply casting one of these stars is not automatic box office gold,” said Garrett Eisler, an instructor of drama at New York University. Finding the right theater role requires versatility, while Hollywood stars are encouraged to play the same roles over and over again, said Eisler. “‘Lucky Guy’ is working commercially because he’s Tom Hanks, a good man playing a good man. A perfect match of the star and the role.” Johanasson didn’t fare as well in “A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which “wasn’t designed for her to lie on a bed and purr all night – people didn’t get what they expected.” The average reader rating on the New York Times website rated the show as 2.5 out of 5.

To be sure, there are as many reasons for going to the theater as there are bulbs in a marquee. A 2012 Broadway League study cites personal recommendations, liking the music and seeing the movie version as the top three reasons to select a show, which may also explain the rise of movies-turned-musicals. The research profiles the average theatergoer as female, 43.6 years old with an annual household income of close to $180,000 and a college degree.

Roach, of Yale, said people are often searching for someone able to “live in moments we have imagined and dreamed about,” adding, “there’s certain magical personalities that can make us want to go there with them.”

St. Martin said, “I think having these celebrities come to Broadway has certainly helped keep the focus on live entertainment and on Broadway.”  With the advent of reality television, social media and even the microphone, the definition of celebrity in our culture has changed, making star-power even more predominant.

Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando and Lucille Ball all started out in the theater. Yet while they were considered theater and consummate stage actors, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne’s stage stardom never transferred to film. “A film star, and even more so a television star, to open in a Broadway vehicle” is relatively recent, Bradley said.

But on a recent night at the TKTS stand, at the half-price ticket booth in Times Square “The Nance,” starring theater veteran Nathan Lane, had tickets available. Meanwhile, three blocks away, “Lucky Guy” had a line stretching from the box office out into the street. Hanks, nominated for a Tony for his performance,  may not win, but surely his producers aren’t complaining.

Email: mjs2298@columbia.edu