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(04/06/17 4:30am)
The first installment of this series posited a divide between freedoms the United States purports to afford its citizens and the actual ways in which pervasive, structural features of American life restrict opportunities for those citizens. Perhaps the most important manifestation of this divide is in the American education system. Vast inequities in the quality of primary and secondary education across district lines, stemming from the fundamental ways the United States has understood the burden of educating its youth, beget vicious cycles of poverty. The rising cost of a college degree, necessary for any job that might propel one to a higher socioeconomic stratum, means the rich benefit while the poor grapple with either debt or ignorance.
(04/04/17 4:35am)
Last year’s Presidential election brought out the fundamental flaws in America’s two-party system. Establishment Democrats and Republicans alike were seen as being status-quo and in bed with big business, Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. The success and popularity of populist insurgent presidential candidates, including now-President Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), was largely an effect of their loud antagonism toward the Washington establishment, corruption and big money.
(04/04/17 4:45am)
Believe it or not, it is already week two. We trudged through a snowstorm for April Fools’ Day, forced our livers back into full gear over the weekend and wound up again with dark circles underneath our eyes again. Things are starting to get serious – as we finally settle into our classes, we now have to catch up on our readings, pay attention to our professors and start working for the midterms and assignments coming up. This stressful consciousness of our impending workload could not be more different from the cushy, carefree first week most of us experienced as we “shopped” for classes but didn’t necessarily do work for them.
(03/30/17 6:26pm)
My spring breaks are notoriously uneventful, mainly due to my own lack of energy and creativity when it comes to planning cheap, fun and short outings. However, after many days of laying in bed, I was lucky enough to have friends that got tickets for the recently revived Broadway show, “Miss Saigon.”
(03/30/17 4:35am)
People in America care — or profess to care — about freedom and personal liberty, perhaps more than any other group of people in recorded history. The Declaration of Independence speaks of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Constitution, the fundamental document from which each statute and protection in American law stems and whose tenets it must not violate, putatively exists to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” Political and patriotic rhetoric, generally purporting to speak for “true” Americans and “true” America, centers on the freedoms that Make Us Special. United States foreign policy from George F. Kennan to Donald Rumsfeld has held the liberation of oppressed places and people from the chains of tyranny into the warm embrace of capitalism and democracy as its guiding ideal.
(03/30/17 4:25am)
Before spending the winter term in Paris, everyone I had spoken to who had gone on a study abroad program had sworn by the life-changing wisdom and experience they had gained. I did not believe them. I knew that, just like most statements by Dartmouth students, those opinions were hyperbolized, omitting the negatives while exaggerating the positives, creating the illusion of satisfaction or happiness despite what exists beneath the surface. I would not say that I was right, but I was not wrong either.
(03/07/17 5:20am)
On Feb. 24, Chinese photographer Ren Hang died. Known for his minimalistic portraits which often combined human subjects with animals and various inanimate objects placed unexpectedly, Hang often highlighted the borderland between erotic and artistic, leading him to shoot photos for fashion brands like Maison Kitsune and face censorship in China. His photograph “We’ve Got Eyes Everywhere” for Milk Studios, for example, features a black-haired woman donning red lipstick and holding a peacock which partially covers her face. Despite the polarizing nature of his work, Hang denied that his work had a political message, sometimes claiming it had no meaning at all.
(03/07/17 5:15am)
A junior at Yale University named Cole Aronson wrote a column on Feb. 27 in which he argued that “sports have nothing to do with the mission of a college as I see it.”
(03/02/17 5:20am)
I’ve only recently found my personal style. After I moved to the United States from a country where it’s summer all year round, I had to completely recalibrate what it means to dress myself. But the process of starting my wardrobe afresh taught me many lessons, including knowing what looks good on my body.
(02/28/17 5:30am)
In my government classes at Dartmouth, there is always “That Guy.” He speaks too loudly, he leans so far back in his chair you wish he would just tip over, he thinks he speaks God’s word and his monologues are long enough to make the professor cut him off.
(02/28/17 5:15am)
One day the sun will blow up, and humanity will cease to be. You and I will have died long before that. In the grand scope of the universe, our lives amount to nothing.
(02/24/17 5:30am)
From our comfortable perches atop the 21st century morals that have become our societal bread and butter, it is tempting to look at people from the past and judge them harshly for their actions. In order to satisfy modern standards of inclusivity and tolerance, we whitewash our own history by denouncing former icons as racists and bigots. Past moments of reactionary hysteria have become periods of shame worthy of derision. Too easily do we look back upon these supposed fools of yore, wagging our fingers at their ignorance, smug in our belief that we are above such nonsense.
(02/24/17 5:15am)
I cannot distinguish the political stances of great professors, and I’m lucky enough to still not really know. However, it is no lie or exaggeration that conservative students are drawn to certain courses that reaffirm their views over others and vice versa.
(02/16/17 5:40am)
If lies, untruths, falsehoods, mischaracterizations and alternative facts were removed from a transcript of everything Kellyanne Conway has said since President Donald Trump assumed office, all that remained would be a picture book-length collection of her saying “good morning” to Sunday talk-show hosts. And even that might be rated less-than-true by the legions of fact-checkers this administration has put to work, because few mornings have been good to the young Trump White House. If the narrative driving the day’s news cycle isn’t the administration and erstwhile campaign’s connections to Russia, it’s Conway’s ethics conflicts stemming from her on-air commercial for Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. If the scandal du jour isn’t a botched executive order that is most likely unconstitutional, it’s a shutdown of national parks’ Twitter accounts over an obsessive insistence on the size of the crowd at the inauguration. Critics of the administration have labeled it evil, but even that gives Trump’s team too much credit. America is not being led by a savvy comic-book villain; the highest levels of our government are a clown car with nobody at the wheel.
(02/16/17 5:24am)
Following Adele’s Grammy win for Album of the Year this past weekend, my Facebook feed has been filled with long rants and links to pop culture websites about why Beyoncé should have won instead of Adele. Whether I prefer Adele or Beyoncé is irrelevant; it neither influences who I think should be the Grammy winner, nor is my opinion influenced by the results of the Grammy Awards. By overvaluing the opinion of large-scale, corporate institutions that support the arts, we come to have a narrow understanding of what the arts are and lose the chance to form more complex ideas about the arts through our peers and ourselves.
(02/16/17 5:35am)
In 1969, a famous sequoia tree’s extended life came to an end. The Wawona Tree in Yosemite National Park had been tunneled out so that cars and people could go through it. Even though sequoias are so massive and robust that boring a tunnel through their trunks is possible without killing them, the tunnels are damaging to the trees and only benefit park publicity. When the Wawona Tree was toppled by a storm, its lifespan was recorded to be “around 2,100 years.”
(02/14/17 5:25am)
Boy Scouts didn’t teach me much. I remember one “fire safety” talk when my friends and I took turns using lighters to try to set each other on fire. Oh, and we condemned what we saw as the organization’s homophobia, transphobia and ingrained misogyny. But, from all the things that I was supposed to learn but made a joke of on my path to becoming an Eagle Scout, the organization’s slogan will always resonate with me: do a good turn daily.
(02/09/17 5:25am)
Like most Americans, I consider any question about seceding from the Union forever settled at Appomattox, Virginia in 1865. In my mind, the Civil War sanctified the United States as an indestructible union, one nation bound by the principles set by the Founding Fathers long ago. The fact that so many American lives were lost in the name of this ideal is a humbling one and is to this day a reminder of what we stand to lose should our Union ever be so questioned again.
(02/07/17 5:25am)
My head hurts and the endless stream of ridiculous news on the KAF television screens does not help — there is no escape, as there are two, one on either end of the room. Oh, the struggles of an Ivy League sophomore government major. I spend my days writing hackneyed emails to congressmen that are probably barely skimmed by their aides, attempt to survive my commitments and classes and stay constantly drugged up on Dayquil to combat the most recent bout of flu. I do the bare minimum politically, yet I feel incredibly tired. I know that many of you may feel the same but refuse to admit it because you do very little to advocate for your political views, too. Still, I would like to address the immovable, heavy weight some of you may carry with you.
(02/07/17 5:35am)
Many contemporary Republicans — and in particular the proto-fascists in President Donald Trump’s administration who label themselves “Republicans” for no reason other than to ingratiate themselves with the current American political system — seem to chart a single-minded course pursuing what they call “national security,” or the safety of America and her citizens, and are now implementing measures ostensibly to that effect. But the safety of Americans, insofar as it means avoiding maiming or death, extends far beyond issues of immigration and terrorism. The administration’s singular focus on this issue belies its rhetoric on national security, because if it were indeed committed to the safety of American people, it would pursue other policies that it has not broached and has even actively suppressed.
