Air Force ROTC, Army ROTC and Veterans of Baylor will host a Veterans Day vigil at 11:30 a.m. today on Fountain Mall.

The ceremony will begin with an address from former United States Army veteran Dr. Curt Nichols, who is a West Point graduate and a political science professor at Baylor. The ceremony will continue with a presentation of the colors and flag-folding ceremony. “We want people to realize Veterans Day still happens every year, and understand that we have lost 2 million soldiers since 1917, which most people don’t realize,” Sherman senior Rachael Harrelson said. “Currently there are 430,000 in service members.” Harrelson served in the Navy for eight years.

We’ve got dolls that wet, crawl and talk. We’ve got dolls with perfect hourglass figures. We’ve got dolls with swagger. And we’ve got plenty that come with itty bitty baby bottles.

But it’s a breast-feeding doll whose suckling sounds are prompted by sensors sewn into a halter top at the nipples of little girls that caught some flak after hitting the U.S. market.

“I just want the kids to be kids,” Bill O’Reilly said on his Fox News show when he learned of the Breast Milk Baby. “And this kind of stuff. We don’t need this.”

The Scott & White Healthcare annual Be The Match drive starts Monday and will continue through next Friday.

Be The Match recruiter Stephanie Jardot said the drive will help find bone marrow and stem cell donors for patients with blood disorders.

“What we do is recruiting, which is when we go out and find donors, and we do fundraising because it is a nonprofit and it costs $100 to put a person on the registry,” Jardot said.

I have noticed several stories in the Lariat lately about people with autism.

While I am thrilled that you are raising awareness for this disorder, I think it’s important that you find out how to talk about it in a sensitive way.

The title of one story in today’s issue, for example, began with the phrase “autistic families.” This is not at all the correct way to talk about autism and can be considered offensive.

Families are not autistic…one individual in the family is (or several may be).

Thank goodness that’s over.

The presidential campaign of 2012 did not in fact last long enough to be measured in geologic time, but poll-scarred and ad-weary voters can, perhaps, be forgiven for feeling as if it did.

Barack Obama and his supporters will be, understandably, jubilant that his lease on that Pennsylvania Avenue mansion has been extended for four more years. But Tuesday night’s vote is also noteworthy for a reason only tangentially related to the fortunes of the incumbent president.

If someone doesn’t like a particular circumstance, he is told, “It is what it is,” and that’s the end of it.

In sports, “it is what it is” describes the numbers on the scoreboard after the game. You win or you lose and afterward. It is what it is.

In the world of journalism, that black and white statement begins to gray beyond wins and losses.

And that, as they say, is that. President Barack Obama has been re-elected for another four-year term.

After months of campaigning in battleground states across the country and spending billions of dollars on not-so-subliminal commercials, the American people have spoken.

The new Congress will be slightly more Democratic and more female though House Republicans still hold a majority large enough to confront and confound President Barack Obama as the nation grapples with a slow-moving economic recovery and record deficits.

The Heart of Texas Autism Network knows how to pay it forward in the Waco community.

David Jimenez was so elated over his wife’s recovery from cancer that he offered to clean the large crucifix outside the Hudson Valley church where he spent many hours praying for her to beat the disease.

On Memorial Day 2010, he was scrubbing grime off the cross when the 600-pound marble statuary toppled over, crushing his right leg.

The Baylor equestrian team hopes to ride its way to a victory over the Fresno State Bulldogs on Friday at the Willis Family Equestrian Center.

The meet, which will begin at noon, marks the seventh competition for the Bears since the season began.

The Superdome in New Orleans will be the site of the new marquee bowl matching the Southeastern Conference and Big 12, and the game will still be called the Sugar Bowl. The conferences made the announcement Tuesday. The agreement between the leagues and the bowl is for 12 years, and ESPN will hold the TV rights. The SEC has a long history with the Sugar Bowl. Seventy-one times an SEC team has played in the game, far more than any other league. The very first Sugar Bowl in 1935 matched Tulane, then of the SEC, against Temple.

Contestants of the 12th annual Miss Phi Iota Alpha scholarship pageant will showcase brains and beauty at 7 p.m. this Saturday in Waco Hall.

Pageant vice president David Luna says that they try to make every year better than the last, with more contestants and more money.

Located on a street once ravaged by prostitutes and drugs in a low-income, low-education area, Mission Waco’s Jubilee Theater and World Cup Café offer a ray of hope to a neighborhood that most people often avoid.

In response to the editorial of Nov. 7, “For America’s sake let’s all support President Obama,” it behooves me to explain that when I think of the phrase “I support you,” it is associated with feelings and abstract solidarity that I might offer to friends in time of need.

It turns out, not surprisingly, that the Baylor community has a lot to stress about. In descending order, the top things that stress us out are: Class, money, failing, finding a job or internship, politics, work, relationships, family, pets, ego, graduation and taking Lariat surveys.

The night of Oct. 29, students received a text from the university.

It said that an armed man was being sought by police near campus. Later reports from the police said that shots were fired in the incident.

A nor’easter blustered into New York and New Jersey on Wednesday with rain and wet snow, plunging homes right back into darkness, stopping commuter trains again, and inflicting another round of misery on thousands of people still reeling from Superstorm Sandy’s blow more than a week ago.

Asian Students Association is hosting its eighth annual AsianFest Culture Show and banquet on Friday and Saturday.

The event, which showcases multicultural acts from across the university, is aimed at celebrating Asian culture.

Baylor will experience international politics firsthand this weekend.

Baylor’s Model Organization of American States (MOAS) will participate this week in the 16th annual Ambassador Eugene Scassa Model Organization of American States competition that will be held for the first time at Baylor. The free event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and is open to the public.

The Baylor volleyball team fell to the Oklahoma Sooners 3-1 (21-25, 25-23, 23-25, 23-25) Wednesday night. Baylor had four players with double-digit kills in redshirt junior outside hitter Zoe Adom, freshman outside hitter Thea Munch-Soegaard, sophomore middle hitter Adri Nora and senior right side hitter Alyssa Dibbern.

The latest installment of the Don’t Feed the Bears podcast [soundcloud url=”https://soundcloud.com/dont-feed-the-bears/dont-feed-the-bears” iframe=”true” /]

Incumbent Bill Flores earned a second term in the U.S. House Tuesday defeating Libertarian Ben Easton. Flores received 85 percent of the vote.

No Democrat ran opposed to the incumbent. Flores was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for his first term in November 2010.

Embedded deep within the hubbub of the election day, largely seen as the day the president is decided, is the election for the seat of the Texas State Representative from District 56.

Republican incumbent Charles “Doc” Anderson defeated Libertarian candidate Neill Snider to gain re-election. Anderson won by 79.47 percent, getting 38,521 votes.