In 2012, the permanent secretary of the Nobel Committee, Horace Engdahl, made a controversial statement that “American literature is too isolated, too insular,” prompting fears that the Swedish Academy had ruled out American writers for the prize in the foreseeable future. With this statement, and the recent trajectory of Nobel prize winners being authors not very well known in...
American history and American culture are both completely intertwined with protest and rebellion. To protest something that you see as injustice in order to fix that injustice is among one of the most patriotic actions you can take. However, that doesn’t mean all protests are constructive or useful. If not handled carefully, protests can easily explode into violence, resulting...
Last week’s fiery events at Berkeley ignited a new debate over the drawbacks and downfalls of protesting. Armchair activists, safe behind their keyboards, stick their nose up and declare protests to be a nuisance or claim that these riots have somehow discredited any peaceful opposition to the “alt-right” and the Trump administration. These are the same people who said,...
Governor Jerry Brown signed a law on September 24th that will mandate all high schools to teach their students how to conduct CPR and become familiar with medical tools like defibrillators. This is amazing. No, I’m not a big fan of government intervention in the daily lives of citizens, but there is no downside to this law. Unlike most...
“Come see this Jif!” my friend yelled from the other room.
Confused as to why exactly I would be interested in seeing a jar of peanut butter, I briskly walked in to see what was so special about this particular jar. Turns out he was talking about the file type called Graphical Interchange Format, otherwise known as a GIF. You...
Whenever anything is complimentary, there will always be some bad apples who abuse their privileges. I remember the signs posted around the Lothian dining halls almost four years ago, asking students to not take coffee cups home with them. Whenever I go to Costco, I and assuredly many other patrons abuse the unspoken “one free sample rule.” The newest...
With 90 percent of car crashes being attributed to human error, car developers are looking toward self-driving cars as the remedy for vehicular accidents. Even the government supports their development and distribution because, perhaps by taking out the “human” aspect of driving, errors won’t occur. With some self-driving cars already on the market, people are hopeful that a future...
Riverside has a drug problem. It may not be the most popular subject for the public to talk about, but it is, nevertheless, still there. With this in mind, a Riverside resident, Katie Chamberlain, is working to establish a nonprofit group that will provide clean needles, as well as some amount of support — such as HIV testing, overdose...
Since Proposition 215 passed in 1996, which legalized medical marijuana use in California, there have been debates and friction regarding its implementation at the city, state and federal level. Despite being passed by a majority of voters, many officials have circumvented the democratic process and banned the opening of medical cannabis dispensaries in several cities and counties, including Riverside....
Donald Trump is a garbage person.
I don’t mean he is one of the hardworking Americans that collect refuse from various households; I mean that he is a person, only made of garbage. He mocks the disabled, accepts endorsements from members of the Ku Klux Klan and should have been launched into the sun long ago.
And you should totally...