Politics

MOSKOWITZ | How Free is our Press?

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On August 22nd, Gawker, a blog that had over 800 million page views in the last year, and posted more than 200,000 articles in its lifetime, was destroyed. Some in the media have argued argue that this came about because of Gawker’s own sins and that Gawker’s posting of “non-journalistic” material such as sex tapes and its public outing of powerful people led to its downfall. Yet I believe the truth is much more complicated and sinister. Gawker was destroyed because a billionaire wanted it destroyed. It was destroyed because an avid Trump supporter and tech billionaire decided that the website had done him too much harm and so he bankrolled a number of lawsuits which eventually made the website impossible to operate.

Politics

BETWEEN BARS | Inside Maximum Security

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Auburn Correctional Facility is less than an hour’s drive directly north of Ithaca, in a city whose population is comparable to that of total enrollment at Cornell. Sitting atop one of the Finger Lakes, it looks like any other town to pass by on the rolling hills of Upstate New York. But if obscurity has different degrees, Auburn is not a place without a name. It’s where Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman lived and died. It’s also home to one of the nation’s oldest prisons, one that pioneered the practice—the “Auburn system”—of daytime penal labor followed by solitary confinement at night, all under enforced silence.

Politics

Kravitz’s Korner | Keep the Cornell Plantations Name

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Recently, The University of Chicago notified first-year students that it does not support trigger warnings or safe spaces, going against the current trend in a higher-education system that has been characterized by suppression of uncomfortable ideas. But just when it seemed that the tides had started to turn, Cornell University doubled down on the coddling culture that has consumed American campuses by capitulating to the demands of certain students, with the director of the Cornell Plantations, Christopher Dunn, announcing that he will be recommending the Board of Trustees to rename the Cornell Plantations to the Cornell Botanic Gardens. Black Students United demanded that the name be changed because the word “plantations” invokes imagery of black slavery and causes distress among students. Never mind the fact that there was never a black slave plantation in the state of New York. Never mind the fact that there’s no evidence of Cornell using the name of the Plantations as a means of condoning slavery.

Politics

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL | Hey, Stanford! “Alcohol Culture” Isn’t the Problem. Rape Culture Is.

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In the wake of the recent and infamous Brock Turner case, Stanford University has responded with a new policy to combat sexual assault on their campus.  Sexual assault is one of the foremost threats to student safety on college campuses across the nation, affecting one in five women and one in 16 men as of 2015.  The university’s solution?  A ban on hard liquor at campus parties.  The idea behind the policy is that limiting student access to large quantities of hard liquor will construct a safer campus environment.

Politics

Nobody’s Opinions | Trump’s Candidacy: Fact, Fiction or Fraud?

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Most people have probably imagined being the POTUS at some point. Fewer people have imagined their best friend as president, fewer still their business associate, and most have probably not considered actually running for the office themselves. Consider it from this perspective, though: if you could be reasonably assured that either yourself or your business partner could ascend to the highest office in the land, wouldn’t you put some effort into making that happen? I probably would. More than that, I’d try pretty damn hard to make sure it did.

Politics

POLITICS & STUFF | Asian-Americans and #BlackLivesMatter

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As the consequences of racial inequality take center stage in US politics, America again uncovers its divisions across racial identities. From the abolitionist movement to the Civil Rights Movement, the fight for black liberation has been passed to the modern #BlackLivesMatter movement. Like many afrocentric racial justice movements, Black Lives Matter has been politically charged and has received much attention from both white and black Americans. However, the role of Asian-Americans in the Black Lives Matter movement has remained unexplored. Perhaps it is because we occupy a confusing space between white privilege and minority disadvantage.

Politics

POP CULTURE, POLITICS AND PERCEPTION | The Mythical Now

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The mythical demigod Theseus is a testament to the heroic ideal of the ancient Greeks. King of the Athenians, his mythical slaying of the minotaur is still present in the western cultural narrative. He performed many acts of heroism throughout his reign, including the valiant defense of Hippodamia. This young bride was stolen by the lecherous centaurs on her wedding day. Thankfully, she was restored to her groom by the noble Theseus.

Entertainment

THE E’ER INSCRUTABLE | 1916 Annus Fructus Extranei: Lynching and America’s Blood Theatre

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“The chief failing of the day with some of our well-meaning philanthropists is their absolute refusal to face inevitable facts, if such facts appear cruel.” -Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race

As a prelude to his article, the second of my series on tumult and upheaval in 1916, I must warn any potential reader that the content may be distressing to those sensitive to racism and violence. I would advise discretion. The controlled use of violence as spectacle has been a social glue since time immemorial: the Romans handpicked slaves to fight to the death over the graves of their patrician masters, and the despots of feudal Europe relished the drawing, quartering and parading of ghettoized pariahs and their ilk, be they Jewish, Huguenot, or Cathar. These previous blood-shows of Antiquity and the Middle Ages were the concerted efforts of knightly orders to, as they saw it, cut off gangrenous social limbs from the corpus politicum. D.H. Lawrence, in his compendium of critical analysis on the growth and stagnation of American literature, once wrote that a white man would never be at ease on American soil: the dust and mud and bronzed ochre itself would forever reject him, the usurper of one native population and the enslaver of a another he had imported.

hobbies

WELCOME TO THE ZOO | Trump

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With an open mind and two sides of the story, you’re bound to learn something new. Welcome to the zoo! This is a blog where both the Republican and Democratic
viewpoints are represented. The blog is not meant to sway you either way necessarily, just present both sides of the story. You may not agree with the whole article, but hey, you’re likely to agree with half!

Politics

GROSKAUFMANIS | Gender, Politics and Punchlines

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There’s an old riddle that goes like this:

A father and son have a car accident and are both badly hurt. They are both taken to separate hospitals. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon says, “I cannot do the surgery because this is my son.” How is this possible? Spoiler alert: the surgeon is his mother. That’s the punchline. The crux of this riddle is an issue of gender, and a reflection on how society often typecasts powerful, competent women as anomalies—so much so that they warrant a puzzle that manages to stump people’s minds.