Both Cuban and American, Achy Obejas says she still has a firm sense of identity. And countries, as well as people, need to reconcile contradicting images of themselves, she says. The writer spoke yesterday afternoon at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center in the Carriage House about identity and its implications in society.

This is a takeout campus, not a restaurant campus. We've got Qdoba, the Greek Lady and food trucks galore.

The number of black students on Penn's campus would significantly decline if the University were to end affirmative action in the next 25 years, a new study predicts. Economists from the University of Virginia and Princeton University projected that without the program in place, significantly fewer black students would attend college.

New men's basketball coach Glen Miller has yet to run an official practice, but the first-year coach has already landed his first two recruits for the Class of 2011. First, point guard Harrison Gaines committed to the Quakers last week. Gaines is 6-foot-1, 175 pounds and plays for Serrano High School in Phelan, Calif.

In the metaphorical game of dodgeball, Penn just may be the fat kid sitting on the sidelines.

When Division I-AA Montana State recently upended a mediocre Division I-A Colorado football team, the result was considered a monumental upset. So imagine a sport in which top varsity teams are consistently threatened - and often beaten - by a club-level squad.

Following a nail-biting double-overtime victory against Columbia and on the heels of a No. 3 ranking in the Northeast Division by the NSCAA, the men's soccer team is riding high. It's been four years since the Quakers (7-2-1, 3-0 Ivy) and Scarlet Knights (7-6, 4-4 Big East) last met.

With a win over Dartmouth already under its belt, the Penn football team looks to go 2-0 in Ivy League play when it takes on Columbia. There's a good chance that a sentence like that will appear in the football preview found in Friday's Daily Pennsylvanian.

Wondering how to make sure your next party doesn't get busted by the police? Yesterday, C.L. Lindsay presented a step-by-step guide to serving alcohol at a party while avoiding legal trouble in Rodin College House's Rooftop Lounge. Lindsay is the executive director of The Coalition for Student & Academic Rights, which he founded in 1998 to help college students with legal issues.

Stephen Starr got it all wrong.

For those that have never ventured farther west than Qdoba and Allegro's, West Philadelphia has a stigma attached to it that breeds images of desolate paths and constant danger.

With only breakfast and lunch hours and an entrance snugly fit between two larger buildings, La Cigale is easy to overlook.

Behold - the power of cheese.

It's restaurants like Amada that make the trip to Old City worthwhile.

Literally translated as "white flower," Shiroi Hana offers straight-from-the ocean freshness and a tranquil ambience that will make you forget that you're sitting in the heart of Philadelphia's busiest district.

Division of Public Safety initiatives to cut crime on campus may be paying off. Total crime for September in Penn's patrol zone is down 18 percent between 2005 and 2006. While there were 114 incidents of crime around Penn - ranging from assault to bicycle theft - in September last year, there were 93 offenses, all of them considered relatively minor by safety officials, in the same month this year.

My companion to Portofino wanted to order fettuccine alfredo, but the chef, Giuseppe Falconio, wouldn't let him. Sitting at our table, Falconio shook his head at my friend's lack of mealtimes ambition.