I come from a region of the United States that is regularly referred to as the “snowbelt.” It’s an unofficial term for those states directly due east and those southeast of the Great Lakes that receive gargantuan quantities of lake-enhanced snowfall every winter. Buffalo, New York — part of ...
I recently had the chance to watch the new movie “American Sniper” about Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. It is, to use one of my Brown vocabulary words, “problematic.” A good versus evil story that doesn’t capture the muddied reality of the Iraq War, it paints Chris Kyle as a Texas cowboy hunting insurgents ...
There are very conflicting feelings permeating the senior class. On one hand, it is exciting to decide what we want to do with the next chapter of our lives and where we want to be next year. But it is also bittersweet to remember that this is our last semester at Brown, a place that many of us love. Shopping ...
On the papal plane from Sri Lanka to the Philippines Jan. 15, Pope Francis, speaking about the terrorist attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this month, put the world on notice. “If (my aide Alberto Gasparri) says a swear word against my mother, he’s going to get a punch,” ...
Amidst the heat of continued Republican opposition, President Obama has faced many a stalemate and government shut-down. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it best before the 2012 election: “The single most important thing (Republicans) want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term ...
The problem with Brown’s interim response to the White House directive to address sexual assault on college campuses is that it has chosen to address procedures and not substance. The University has refined and expanded procedures for adjudicating charges of sexual assault instead of seeking to prevent ...
In response to the shootings that targeted the staff of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, many have recently risen up under the slogan “Je suis Charlie,” which translates from French to “I am Charlie.” The slogan sympathizes with those who were killed in the massacre, thereby supporting freedom ...
The old joke goes that graduate students are paid to read. It’s true, we read. A lot. But reading is not solely what we are paid to do: We are also paid to teach and mentor undergraduates, conduct research for faculty members and conduct our own research in order to write journal articles, papers ...
The State of the Union always seems to be a time for hyperbole, excitement and drama. Whether it’s Ronald Reagan returning to public life after an assassination attempt or Richard Nixon proclaiming in 1974 that “one year of Watergate is enough,” the annual State of the Union never fails to entertain. ...
When in the course of human events does it become necessary for one people to dissolve the bands that connect them to a corrupt culture? The Founding Fathers listed many grievances in the Declaration of Independence that they believed warranted separating the colonies from Great Britain. How many more ...
On Monday, New York Times journalist Alan Schwarz reported on a creative idea that might help curb sexual assault on college campuses: getting sororities to throw house parties. Most sororities across the nation do not host parties because of longtime bans on alcohol in houses that aim to maintain tranquility ...
Colleges have drastically changed since their establishment. Originally, universities were primarily intended for affluent and educated men. At the time, the benefits colleges provided were non-essential. Few occupations were restricted to highly educated people, and many did not require any type of ...
In early January, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon announced that President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas’ proposal to join the International Criminal Court was approved. Effective April 1, Palestine will join 122 other states in a court that seeks to establish global ...
When Robin Williams died in 2014, many people began to reassess how to diagnose and treat mental disorders. The idea that a comedic legend was battling depression disturbed a lot of people because depression had a “status quo” look that Williams did not match. He had a successful career, supportive ...
In his State of the Union Address Tuesday, President Obama talked about his plan to make community college free for part-time and certificate students, making continuing education a more accessible and possible option for many people. “America’s College Promise” would cover tuition for a variety ...
Inhaling a generous gulp of Bolivian air, I gazed at the view below me: sprawling foothills of the Andes, a collage of purples, greens and browns and a blue, blue sky without a cloud in sight. I could hardly comprehend what my eyes perceived below me. I was in paradise. At 5,180 meters, the air was ...
Two weeks ago, as I walked through the now-deserted city center of Paris, pens littered the ground. A day earlier, some 1 million people had stood in that same place, stretching from Place de la Republique to Place de la Nation — from Republic to Nation. It was an almost ironic reminder of the democratic ...
Six years into his presidency, even President Barack Obama acknowledges that Americans are craving that “new car smell” once again. While the State of the Union unofficially serves as the kickoff to a new year of political aims and strategies, increasingly, the political pep rally for the commander-in-chief ...
As one of the union negotiators, I’d like to respond to Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Beppie Huidekoper’s Dec. 2 commentary on the current contract negotiations between library staff and the University. The union is not, as she states, asking Brown “to commit to having ...
Elizabeth “Beppie” Huidekoper is the executive vice president for finance and administration at the University. From what I can tell, she is very powerful. If Brown were an ATM machine, the pin number would probably be Huidekoper’s initials. I am very scared of her. I heard she once outsourced ...
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