On March 21, Idaho’s state legislature became the 19th in the country to wrest control of wage laws from democratically elected city governments. State governments in these and other states have passed similar legislation to supersede local autonomy on issues ranging from nutrition and labeling to paid sick time and maternity leave.
To the young and moderate Republican, finding a candidate to represent you in this election might seem hopeless. The only moderate candidate left is John Kasich, who has virtually no chance of securing the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination. The other choices we are left with are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Cruz is much farther to the right on social issues than most college-aged Republicans, and Trump comes off as a semi-racist buffoon during his rallies.
I’ve been working on Cape Cod for more than two months now, and I still don’t get tired of staring at the water. Almost every day, I take a walk to a stretch of beach located near the building I work in at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The water looks a little different every day, but it’s consistently gorgeous and pristine. The pure blue and sound of the waves lapping always makes me feel calmer during a hectic day.
I was eight years old when I was first told I couldn’t do something simply because I was a girl. Eight years old when I first had to defend my strength and ability. Eight years old when I first realized my hair and my love for pink made me stand out more than my straight As and mad Wiffle ball skills. I’m 19 now, and I cannot tell you how many times between eight and 19 I have been told I cannot do something because I am a girl. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to defend my strength and my ability and my intellect in regard to my gender. I cannot tell you how many times I have walked down the street just to have my slowly gained self-respect ripped away from my tightly clutched hands by a whistle or a “come on baby, give me a smile.”
Many Americans are understandably concerned about drugs in the US. But sadly, the rhetorical goal of fighting against drug addiction has been used to put a good face on terrible policies. Mexico is often unfairly portrayed as the perpetrator of drug smuggling. If anything, the US has been largely responsible to the rise of the cartels and the violence they bring, and it is Mexican citizens who are truly suffering as a result.
The end of American civilization is approaching, and it’s approaching quickly. Soon, no one will work. The economy will grind to a halt. Cars will disappear from the roads. Adults will idly wander around cities, unable to do anything for themselves, helpless. Breakfast cereal will be a discarded relic of a bygone era. The culprit? Millennials, in all their entitled, lazy self-righteousness.
In a dangerously misguided ruling that contradicts previous consensus, US District Court Judge Mark Kearney ruled two people in Pennsylvania had no right to film and photograph police officers in public. His essential claim: Recorders have no right to protection unless they also make clear efforts to “challenge or criticize” the officers they film.
Supporting peace and rejecting human rights violations may seem like an easy task, but what happens when it isn’t? When any seemingly good topic is presented without context and the full picture is not understood, how is someone to make a decision?
Each Thursday afternoon this past month, I’ve attended a lecture on ice-ocean interaction, each led by an expert in the field. The talks, held at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), are part of a course in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography and are open to all members of the community, including college interns like myself. The experience of attending these talks is kind of like how I imagine it must feel to stand on a piece of ice in the warming Arctic.
On Monday, the Student Government Association (SGA) held a town hall to hear opinions from the student body on five referenda under consideration. Among the submitted referenda was a proposal from Students Against Institutional Discrimination (SAID) to initiate a democratic redrafting of the SGA Constitution to make the group more responsive to the student body. The referendum proposal is supported by a broad coalition of student organizations who have been frustrated for years by the Association’s structural flaws, which prevent representatives from being accountable to their constituents.
