Voices

Does your beard hang low?

There's one question that I regularly encounter in Morocco with my newly-grown beard. "Are you Muslim?" the vendors ask in Arabic. I've come to realize that in Muslim countries, a beard carries a specific meaning, or at least something other than, "I'm too lazy to shave."

By Dan Newman November 13, 2008

Voices

Think Prop 8 is bad? Wait till you see Act 1

As I scrolled through the election results on CNN.com, I felt like I was being punched in the gut with gray clouds closing in on my Democratic euphoria. "Ban on gay marriage in Arizona"-CNN predicts "yes." "Ban on gay marriage in Florida"-predicted "yes." "Ban on gay marriage in California"-still counting, but looks like a yes. Again and again, rights denied, unfair divisions imposed, equality rejected. But the one that hurt the most was a measure I hadn't even known was on the books. Act 1 in Arkansas, "Ban on gays adopting children"-called as a "yes."

By Shira Hecht November 13, 2008

Voices

My Catholic catharsis

My name is Chelsea Paige and, until recently, I was scared of Christianity. For about one-third of the world's population, Jesus is numero uno. But for that largest of religious diasporas, the Jews of the New York metropolitan area (or the ones I know, at least), Jesus was altogether foreign-a vague, amorphous being who lay at the core of the religion which brought us the Crusades and the Inquisition. Oddly enough, my visceral reaction to Christ stemmed from silence rather than any anti-Christian propaganda: my teachers failed to mention him once during my fourteen years of Hebrew school.

By Chelsea Paige November 6, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

MUN: Kicking ass, and taking Ivy names

Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service is one of the leading undergraduate schools for the study of international affairs, and Georgetown is located in the nation’s capital. One would assume that Georgetown should naturally dominate the collegiate Model UN circuit. Unfortunately, until two years ago, we didn’t.

By Jasdeep Singh November 6, 2008

Voices

50% Austrian, 50% South African, 100% American

I understand why my parents came to America. Where else can two fresh-off-the-boat, kiss-strangers-on-both-cheeks-in-front-of-the-local-blue-collar-bar foreigners eventually become locals? In the late 1970s, they stepped off a plane in appallingly-polyestered Kennedy International Airport as outsiders and by the grace of the American experiment, they now celebrate Thanksgiving, watch college sports, pay taxes, vote, do yardwork, have potlucks, and cheer for U.S. Olympians alongside Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution. They criticize this country, but they always acknowledge that in no other place in the world would the union of a South African daughter of a pogrom survivor and an Austrian son of a Nazi ambulance driver have been possible. I accept this, but even so, I've always wished I had not been born in America.

By Simone Popperl November 6, 2008

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The tea party’s over: the plight of India’s workers

Because of the expanding tea industries in both Kenya and Sri Lanka and the overall decreased demand for tea in our coffee and latte-chugging world, the tea industry is facing a downward spiral in India. Plantation after plantation has had to shut down, especially in the Darjeeling region of West Bengal. While many plantations are still pulling in a substantial profit, the owners are not reinvesting their profits back into their plantations and their workers. Instead, they are putting their money into other industries and failing to adjust their laborers' salaries to inflation in the market.

By Sarah Marie Ryan November 6, 2008

Voices

National Coming Out Day—a time to just be yourself

On a night like many other during my freshman year, I sat in the Leavey Center’s big comfy chairs and pretended to do homework with friends from my floor. But on this night, my friend took me and another friend aside and said that she had something important to tell us. I had no idea what it could be, but after she started to say what was on her mind, stopped, and tried again in a different way, I realized that whatever it was, it was big and daunting for her. We encouraged her to just get it out there. “I think I might like girls,” she finally said. “You might?” my naïve self asked, not quite grasping what she was trying to tell us.

By Sara Carothers October 30, 2008

Voices

Dude, you’re getting a Dell? Sucks for you, dude

I awoke on the morning after my 22nd birthday to learn that I had been dumped. After fourteen months of love, laughs, and tears, my Dell Inspiron 130B laptop had left me-and he'd taken all the files on my hard drive with him. Apparently all those long nights we spent together in the basement of the library didn't mean anything. And all those ignored error messages, well, they did.

By Sarah Harman October 30, 2008

Voices

Trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something fair to eat

Never, in all my years of torturous trick-or-treating, did anyone ever drop a bar of Scharffen Bergen or Green and Black's chocolate into my plastic jack-o-lantern. Considering the incredible cost one would incur giving that stuff away for free, who could blame them? Most Halloween booty-M&M's, Hershey's, Reese's, Kit Kats-excite my taste-buds just as much as they aggravate my conscience. All chocolate is not made equal. Aside from the variations in taste, there is also the moral consideration of where it comes from and how it gets to us.

By Sadaf Qureshi October 30, 2008

Voices

This just in: Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck with

In these days of Kanye West’s superstardom and “Lil’ Wayne for President” t-shirts, rap as a genre needs little defense. During our generation’s coming of age, hip-hop was brought out of the streets and onto the airwaves, but it gained the same cookie-cutter commercialism and predictability of pop music, even if it is more edgy and profane. So next time you hear T-Pain robotically whining about throwing money at strippers, remember the time when rap was dominated by the gritty beats and crazy characters of the Wu-Tang Clan.

By Sean Quigley October 30, 2008

Voices

In the Middle East, far from the Situation Room

It was already 12:58 a.m., and my friend and I only had two minutes to find the right channel before we missed the beginning. “Oh, stop,” I said as I... Read more

By Dan Newman October 23, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

Inciting racism is a move for morons, not mavericks

In a country already extremely sensitive to matters of race and religion (especially Islam), the McCain campaign is actively encouraging people to question Obama’s identity in an attempt to build a severely distorted narrative about him. When their own vice presidential candidate is saying Obama is friends with terrorists and implying that he harbors intense resentment for America, what does the campaign expect their middle and southern American base to do?

By Brendan Brown October 23, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

In financial crisis, taking public transit pays

If there is any time to encourage the use of public transportation, it is now. With ridership at an all time high, the focus should be on keeping these new transit riders out of their cars, not encouraging them to return to their old ways. Plus, an investment in the nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure will provide jobs in the short run and would encourage development in the long run, alleviating the effects of the economic downturn.

By Dylan Richmond October 23, 2008

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Everything I needed to know about college admissions I learned from Machiavelli

Perhaps this new emphasis on college is the continuation of the American emphasis on meritocracy, the idea that by working hard in high school you can pull yourself up to Ivy League prestige. As another sixth grader told the Times, ‘’With the Ivy League schools, my dad always says that to get into them, it’s like a race. Let’s say we could put the whole grade in a race. People have to fall. People have to stop to tie a shoe. But if you keep getting good grades, you race and race to the top.” This survival of the fittest mentality may be brutal, but at least achieving the best is earned.

By Rebecca Abelman October 23, 2008

Voices

Technology & its discontents: it’s my life in a box

It’s hardly a new problem, this constant mediation of experience into information and information into broadcasts. We take pictures just to tag them, have exciting adventures that immediately become emails or blog notes, distill our day-to-day life into status updates and Twitter shout-outs. The Facebook profile box is just the latest way to process the world through processes. Rather than experience itself, we have the experiencing of the experiencing, thinking about how we’ll tell other people about what we’re doing right now. It’s a meta-existence—thinking about what we’re doing rather than doing it.

By Shira Hecht October 16, 2008

Voices

Lessons from the tweenage wasteland

On the edge of the scene, I sympathized with the intimidated professionals and the weary grandmother, but part of me envied the energetic horde—social anxiety, overactive hormones, and all. Watching from the outside, I noticed the loss of my connection with their age group and I felt old. Unlike members of that raucous mob, I am no longer engaged in the exuberant assertion of my newly-discovered individuality. To wake up, I require two or more shots of espresso. I cannot imagine the preemptive wasting of energy on the doorstep of academia at the beginning of a day. I doubt any of the frightened, drowsy suits at the bus stop could either.

By Simone Popperl October 16, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

The dearth of discussion about depression

The repercussions of depression are great for those who deal with it daily. Depression is more than just its physical symptoms.

Antidepressants can dramatically affect your social life at college; anyone who’s been on them knows that it’s not a good idea to drink while taking medication. Some would choose not to drink anyway, but being on medication means that you never get to make that choice.

By Rachel Chow October 16, 2008

Voices

Unmasking the Man at the DNC and RNC

About a month ago, I was staring into the barrel of a gun. I remember the nauseating feeling in my stomach—an intoxicating blend of extreme fear, shock and blinding anger. During my time spent protesting the Democratic and Republican national conventions in Denver, Colorado and St. Paul, Minnesota, I felt these emotions many times: fear because of the burning sensation as my body was coated in chemical spray; shock at seeing clouds of gas, tinted red by the lights, engulfing us as we ran, coughing and gagging: even terror at hearing the concussion grenades bursting over our heads, making us stumble amidst the whirlwind of chaos.

By Julia Shindel October 16, 2008

Voices

Re-finding Ramadan

This past month, my phone went one step further and served as my trusty alarm clock as well. It provided a jarring, whining five a.m. wake-up call. This past month was the month of Ramadan, and every morning, just before the sun rose, my phone and I shared a pre-dawn meal. It’s not quite the same as sharing your pre-dawn meal with your parents and siblings. The automated, unrelenting sound of an alarm clock is nothing near the gentle touch and voice of your mother by your bedside.

By Sadaf Qureshi October 9, 2008