Columns
Burning, For You!
Forty-eight hours before shopping week began, I was eating dust, watching a man on a giant spaceship go up in balls of fire. You should have joined me.
They're the Top
Spending time with my grandparents this summer, I found myself taken with the show tunes and ballads of their youth.
Institutionalizing Queer
Ten years ago, in response to student activism, Harvard created the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response. Three years later, after student demands, it inaugurated the modern Harvard College Women’s Center. Most recently, just two years ago, Harvard funded the Office of BGLTQ Student Life, also in response to organized student outcry
Burning the Midnight Diesel
As it stands today, Boston is a fairly large city that—for all intents and purposes—shuts down after midnight.
The NSA and America’s Accountability Problem
In fact, the NDAA is only one instance of a festering government problem since Iraq—the dramatic, Congress-sanctioned, expansion of executive power.
Carrying on the Mantle of Reform
The battle over charter schools is largely a political ploy that undermines substantive policy work. Charters have been proven good models where students thrive and succeed.
The Latest Political Pivot
If Obama’s June announcement—that the United States will begin funneling arms to Syrian rebels in an attempt to help them fight off the armies of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad—says anything, it’s this: Iraq still hangs on America’s mind. A seven-year occupation may be over, but the impact of the war is heavy.
Cover Story
Covers give a strangely pleasant sense of displacement, like being in two places at once.
What the Debate over Measure B Could Be About
People don’t want to see condoms in porn because they like their porn world to be free of STIs and pregnancy.
Fighting for Change in the Trenches
Many college students voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 because his message of equality and opportunity resonated with their idealism. If we want to continue to work toward that message, however, we have to get our hands dirty in America’s city halls.
Summer Plans?
However, this time what really struck me about her questions was the never asked, but very much underlying question, “What is Harvard?".
Yeshar Koach, Yair Lapid
What distinguishes Yesh Atid from previous secular parties, however—including the one Lapid’s father headed up—is that it is unafraid to speak in the language of Jewish tradition and refuses to concede Judaism as the demesne of Haredim.
The Warren Bubble Act
Given the poor economics of the bill, I can only hope that Senator Warren’s real intention is to garner publicity and popularity rather than actually implementing her policies.
A Farewell to Harvard
Reflecting on my time here, there is nothing I would rather do than thank Harvard for all that it has done.
It Might Have Been
Instead, seeing the writing on the wall, the administration may begin to wonder what could have been done differently: a less controversial, better-argued healthcare bill, avoiding the detrimental austerity of the debt ceiling, sidestepping the self-harm of sequestration. Arriving at the recognition of his own irrelevance, as the media whips itself into 2016 frenzy and Congress stonewalls, President Obama should ponder the mistakes of his term and consider what could have been done differently.
Obama Goes Full Nixon
While those inside the White House wants to deify Obama as its “North Star,” the potentiality of corruption in his administration must not be overlooked. President Obama must proceed carefully if he doesn’t want to end up with an eerily Nixonian legacy of disgrace.
The Odds Ever in Our Favor
As far as I was concerned, the freshman world was dog-eat-dog, tribute-spear-tribute. With every day came a new rush toward the Cornucopia to gather items perceived as essential to survival. Some were harder to acquire than others. Everyone could lay their hands on everyday necessities like those in Katniss’s backpack: an umbrella, a Snuggie, Advil, Adderall, condoms.
Real Issues
And as irresponsible as it would be for me to dismiss questions about social security’s long-term solvency and the appropriate federal response to gun violence, I cannot sit by as members of the political class laugh away issues of sustainability, psychedelic research, intellectual property, human enhancement, and geoengineering as matters of the apolitical long-term.
Department of Gender Studies?
What does a discipline so used to being excluded from spaces of power—in fact, a discipline built up on critique of the institutions of power—do when it is offered a seat at the table?
Searching for War on Youtube
Viral content is an endless list of funny gifs and cat videos, strange images and witty lists, but sometimes it can be much more significant.
Who’s Running the Country?
Obama needs to assess the situation and put forth the best nominees he can come up with. And he has to do it with some celerity, at least nodding at the fable that these appointments have real, meaningful work to do.
Men's Lacrosse Deserves Credit
While last year’s Harvard men’s lacrosse team may have underachieved, this year’s squad almost overachieved.
Winter Is Coming
For a show filled with fire-breathing dragons and Machiavellian politics, Game of Thrones is surprisingly rich with economic metaphors that resemble the world we live in.