Column

Prevent gun violence by closing loophole that allows indirect gun purchases My dad’s a lawyer, so I’ve grown up hating loopholes. Whether it be a sneakily thrown in one-liner about a custody agreement or working at a job that pays less to avoid spousal payments, loopholes have always irked me. So it’s no surprise that […]

America could stand to learn a few things from other nations about gun laws Controversial as the statement may seem, America is actually not the best at everything — especially when it comes to gun violence and gun laws. Our gun homicide rates are 25.2 times higher than those of other high-income industrialized countries such […]

As our world grows increasingly connected through technology, the opportunity to interact with others from different cultural, political and religious backgrounds is also increasing. Social media allows users to communicate with individuals across the globe in mere seconds, promoting civilized sharing of ideas across cultures and, consequently, building a more tolerant global environment with […]

Portlandia simultaneously celebrates and mocks liberal cliches, culture I grew up in a town called Sebastopol, located about an hour north of San Francisco. Sebastopol is small, community-oriented and quaint. Although it used to be known for family-owned apple orchards, it’s losing its charm to large-scale and invasive vineyards. What it strives for and succeeds […]

Emissions at forefront of obstacles to animal sustainability One of the most prominent issues in sustainable animal agriculture today is debunking the idea that not eating meat is the best way to reduce carbon emissions from livestock. The amount of news articles claiming that meat will be the destruction of Earth has grown dramatically in […]

President Obama spends final days in office locking horns with Putin As the American election season hits full steam, two titans are still trading blows. U.S. President Barack Obama, champion of the entrenched Democrats, and Vladimir Putin, hero-president of the Russians, have been trading blows since 2009. Now, this battle between heavyweights is in its […]

Shakespeare and company at risk of dismissal When universities finally become the diverse places they purport to be, shoot me an email. I will rejoice. For universities are not the bastions of diversity everyone claims. Their demographics prove otherwise. Look around a typical campus and try to spot Waldo: a conservative professor hidden in a […]

Graduation takes a lot of work. Some students will leave their undergraduate universities, apply to graduate schools and sign up for GREs, MCATs or LSATs — three of the most popular tests required for professions like medicine and law. Others enter the workforce directly after applying for jobs or internships. And some do neither. All […]

Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and the fight for work-life balance Not just anyone can create, produce and star in a show, be a part of the cast of Saturday Night Live and write a memoir before the age of 50. But Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two amazing female comics, have accomplished all three. They […]

Undergraduates at fault for perpetuating a devious trend against intellectual freedom Janet Napolitano’s recent editorial on the merits of preserving free speech at universities is becoming increasingly necessary in the current political age. She observes the recent trend of college students suppressing views that even marginally sound marginalizing. Her most striking point: “If it hurts, […]

What Trump interrupting Clinton says about our culture at large During the final presidential debate last week, Hillary Clinton demonstrated yet again how difficult it is for a woman — or any marginalized group, for that matter — to have a conversation with an ignorant, white, cisgender man without being interrupted. Donald Trump managed to […]

AI without ethics could prompt the downfall of mankind Well, Aggies, we’re rapidly approaching the scariest day of the year again. (I’m of course referring to Halloween and not the 2016 presidential election, although at this point the two are nearly interchangeable). It’s only fitting, then, that we celebrate by exploring the spooky uncertainties surrounding […]