Opinion Columns
Morgan Jones | The internet giveth, and it taketh away
On July 1, 2013, Google will be discontinuing Google Reader, a RSS feed that displays all your news sources, blogs and sites of personal interest in one place. This instance does, however, point to one glaring fact that we internet users like to forget: everything we store on the internet is under the control of someone else, and we don’t have much of a say if that controller decides to take it all away.
Adam Silver | Beneath the border
What is basically a prohibition of drugs in the United States and of guns in Mexico creates an extraordinary demand for the illicit products in each country — a demand addressed by drug cartels.Arielle Pardes | Save pornography
If we want better models for sex, then banning pornography is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Hayley Brooks & Ali Kokot | Why isn’t Lena leaning
But as we look to past pop culture role models of ours, the girls from “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s hit HBO series, we’re confused. In their sour season two finale last Sunday night, they represent the antithesis of Sandberg’s message.
Lauren Agresti | Reinventing Rejection
It’s okay to have no clue what you’re doing after finals are finished.
Rachel del Valle | What’s the age again?
So every once in a while, it’s a bit jarring to pause and realize that I’m living in 2013, in the United States, with a biracial president — and there’s still a current of latent prejudice everywhere.
Xavier Flory | Over-represented or under-rewarded?
The University prides itself on elevating groups that have faced discrimination, but it is penalizing Asian Americans for their success despite prejudice.
Morgan Jones | The city of brotherly brew
We — Philadelphia — have everything. Well, almost everything. But you know what we don’t have? A weekly pub run. And do you know what would make Philadelphia an even greater city? A weekly pub run.
Kurt Mitman | Spring forward, fall flat
Economist William Shughart II estimated that daylight savings costs the United States approximately $1.7 billion a year. He arrived at that figure by calculating the opportunity cost of our time and the total amount of time it takes to adjust all of our clocks twice a year.
Adam Silver | What we can all do
Politics today is riddled with stories of candidates rising from the one-bedroom log cabin to the political stratosphere. Yet rarely have I come across a candidate quite like Williams, a man who, for nine months, had to plea for money, search for food — often in trash cans — and find a warm place to sleep.
Robert Hsu | Adding fuel to the fire
Our constant consumption on and multitasking across various technologies may actually be training our brains to focus for smaller increments of time, which further decreases our ability to efficiently complete our work.
Hayley Brooks & Ali Kokot | Disney, drugs and dubstep?
While these actresses use “Spring Breakers” as a catalyst for reinvention, we too use our own week of spring break to rebrand ourselves.Arielle Pardes | Not hooked on Penn Hookups
Penn Hookups lacks the good vibes of its sister pages. While the other pages mostly praise our peers, Penn Hookups solicits strange commentary about our sex lives — especially things that we wouldn’t say offline.Vinay Harpalani | Diversity and community upliftment
Unfortunately, the court could strike down race-conscious admissions policies in Fisher. And one reason is that elite, private universities like Penn do exactly what Justice Alito maligned: preferring minority students from privileged schools over those who are less privileged.
Anthony Liveris | A revolution without an army
For the short term, the American government needs to further open its borders to skilled scientists of multiple nationalities if it wishes to enable the Shale Revolution.
Divya Ramesh |The hyphenated American
The desire to embrace the hyphenated, non-white American — the Nigerian-American or Asian-American, for example — is not something all children have.Arielle Pardes | I kissed a girl
Within the LGB bundle, the B is often pushed to the margins or misunderstood as a stepping stone between “real” straightness and “real” gayness. But the space in between — middle sexuality — is very legitimate, and it encompasses our otherwise uncategorized sexual desires.
Nadine Zylberberg | When less is more
Last week, in an effort to suggest where this viewing trend could be heading, film distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories uploaded the entirety of its 88-minute film “It’s a Disaster” onto Vine before its theatrical release … six seconds at a time.
Morgan Jones | @UPenn, where is the #love?
What does the fact that we cannot enjoy such a show but rather must criticize it ruthlessly and endlessly say about our culture? #NothingGood.