Want to sound like the smartest person around the water cooler today? Then you've come to the right place. Around the World takes a look at what's happening - from Toronto to Tokyo. From business, to politics, to culture, and beyond, we like to keep an eye on the world around us.

The Lion of Israel Still Sleeps

The next few days will be critical for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he continues to be kept in a medically-induced coma, following emergency surgery for a massive stroke.

The director of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where Sharon is being treated, said the prime minister would remain in deep sedation and on a respirator to “recover from severe trauma.”

There are many questions swirling with much speculation in the air. The fact is, even if Sharon does make a strong recovery the risks of paralysis, speech loss, and loss of cognitive functions, are all possibilities. That’s without considering the effects this will have on the new centrist Kadima Party and the nation of Israel.

For now, Israelis are keeping a quiet vigil, with radio stations playing sombre songs in tribute to the former general. The hospital's switchboard has been filled with get-well messages and the country's prominent rabbis called on Israelis to rush to synagogues and pray for the 77-year-old Sharon.

Sharon's authorities have been transferred to Vice-Premier Ehud Olmert, who met with key members of Sharon's cabinet early Thursday morning. “This is a difficult situation that we are not accustomed to,” Olmert told the ministers.

Sharon is scheduled to undergo a CT scan Friday morning to see if bleeding has stopped.

America's Bizarre College Courses

As tuition rates climb to an average of over $21,000 per year, today’s college students are studying prostitution, teeth whitening, Beavis & Butthead, and other bizarre courses according to the Young America's Foundation. Does that sound like sarcasm? Perhaps a few examples might shed some light on the subject.

Princeton University’s The Cultural Production of Early Modern Women examines “prostitutes,” “cross-dressing,” and “same-sex eroticism” in 16th - and 17th - century.

Alfred University’s Nip, Tuck, Perm, Pierce, and Tattoo: Adventures with Embodied Culture, mostly made up of women, encourages students to think about the meaning behind “teeth whitening, tanning, shaving, and hair dyeing.” Special projects include visiting a tattoo-and-piercing studio and watching Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bodybuilding film, Pumping Iron. Occidental College offers a course in Stupidity, which compares the American presidency to Beavis and Butthead.

Students at the University of California in Los Angeles need not wonder what it means to be a lesbian. The Psychology of the Lesbian Experience reviews “various aspects of lesbian experience” including the “impact of heterosexism/stigma, gender role socialization, minority status of women and lesbians, identity development within a multicultural society, changes in psychological theories about lesbians in sociohistorical context.”

Amherst College in Massachusetts offers the class Taking Marx Seriously: “Should Marx be given another chance?” Students in this course are asked to question if Marxism still has any “credibility” remaining, while also inquiring if societies can gain new insights by “returning to Marx’s texts.” Coming to Marx’s rescue, this course also states that Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot misapplied the concepts of Marxism.

...And I wasted my college years on Physics and Calculus.