In my latest Harvard Independent column, I argue that the legal challenge to Proposition 8 in a California federal court may end up backfiring if it reaches the Supreme Court, because there almost certainly are not five votes for judicially-imposed gay marriage on the current court. Furthermore, I said, an anti-marriage equality ruling would suck … Read more
Media narratives about backwards Africa say more about us than them. Almost without exception, the images that frame the Western portrayal of Africa are horrifying. Africa, Americans are told, is a barren place of unimaginable poverty, starvation, disease, and violence. Rather than the second-largest continent in the world with a dynamic collection of fifty-six different … Read more
Jo Luck is President and CEO of Heifer Project International, a position she has held since 1992. Heifer, founded in 1944 and based out of Little Rock, Arkansas, provides livestock to impoverished families in over 125 countries. HPR: What can you tell us about Heifer International’s approach to alleviating global poverty? JL: Our approach is … Read more
NPR News has an excellent article up this week on the persistence of rape and sexual violence on college campuses. In honor of Women’s Week and “Feminist Coming Out Day” here at Harvard, I thought I’d make a few comments: There’s a common assumption about men who commit sexual assault on a college campus: That … Read more
On Tuesday night I went to the Harvard Political Union’s discussion on climate change, which was centered around the question of what steps the University should be taking to be greener and on the issue of global warming in general. As part of what seemed to be a minority of non-affiliated observers at the event … Read more
Evaluating the first year of the Obama presidency Barack Obama’s administration just celebrated its first birthday. Conservatives deem it a year of policy failures and socialistic overreaching, while liberals claim that the stimulus saved the economy from the brink of collapse and that the Republicans are obstructionists. Obama’s first year in office was certainly eventful, … Read more
New online business model will help the press serve the public good Early next year, when the New York Times begins to enforce a metered system in order to charge for its online content, millions of readers will have to decide if that content is worth the price. For a few short years, the Times … Read more
How Scott Brown pulled out a victory in New England Campaign season came early for residents of Massachusetts this year. The January special election to fill the seat of the deceased Edward M. Kennedy pitted the Massachusetts Attorney General, Democrat Martha Coakley, against Republican state senator Scott Brown. Despite Massachusetts’ history of Democratic leadership (all … Read more
New York Times Magazine, I know you’ve probably been working on this magnum opus on Rahm Emanuel for weeks, but I feel like this take from the New Republic was more than enough. Oh, and this. And this. But, yes, I’m a sucker and read all of them anyway. PS. And this. Photo credit: spdpurtill’s flickr.
A Republican resurgence in the 2010 election? One year into the Obama presidency, the Democrats have faltered on key initiatives, most notably health care reform, and public dissatisfaction with Congress has skyrocketed. Many factors that allowed for the GOP takeover in 1994, including voter frustration, a struggling health care reform effort, frail economic conditions, and … Read more