Jan. 11 marked the birthday of one of my environmental heroes, Aldo Leopold. I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that one reason I’m obsessed with him is because he was born in Iowa and I’m from Iowa, but there’s also much more to him. Beyond being from a great state, he is known best…
I spent last week at a theatre festival in Minneapolis and something I heard a lot of was praise for plays that are outdated, discriminatory and supremacist. “It’s a product of its time” was the most common defense used in discussions of whether or not colleges and playhouses should continue to mount productions of plays…
My mom had my little sister, Tess, when I was nine years old and that’s when I started hearing the debate about whether or not women should be allowed to breastfeed publicly. Public breastfeeding was brought to my attention once again, a decade later, when the topic swept across social media outlets, starting fights and…
We should strive to represent all holidays After months of anticipation then only two short weeks of vacation, the holiday season is over at last. Snow continues to fall — as does the temperature — and classes resume as usual. We have successfully survived another round of capitalism via religious holiday, and we have a…
I am pro-life but I am not anti-abortion. Yes, there is a difference. I identify as pro-life because I believe that we need stricter gun laws in order to protect the lives of the people in our nation. I believe that we need to do away with capital punishment and that choice war is never…
Do you remember how relieving it was when Ebola was finally eradicated? How about when Joseph Kony, the African warlord who enslaved children and who was responsible for decades of death and destruction, was finally brought down? And who could forget the relief felt when, after years of war in the Middle East following 9/11,…
Consider your gifts’ environmental effects It’s beginning to feel a lot like the holiday season: Thanksgiving is over, the Christmas concerts are in full swing, decorations are up, the hot cocoa is brewing, there is snow on the ground and break is right around the corner. Maybe you have even started to write your Christmas…
In the wake of the attacks in Paris, the political climate of the world is at the most tense it has been in recent history. Militaries are arming for war, families are burying loved ones and Muslims everywhere are learning the sting of persecution. Meanwhile, politicians in America are using cheap politics to contort an…
Upon arriving back to campus after Thanksgiving break, my friends and I sat around, whining and joking about radically conservative family members who had said some questionable things over creamed corn and Jell-O salad. We complained about grandmothers who support Ben Carson because they “heard that he prays twice a day” and great uncles who…
Rest in peace, Coffee Stop espresso machine This week the espresso machine in the Coffee Stop, perhaps over-burdened by the increasing late-semester demands of the student population it serves, stopped working. I first heard the news when I attempted to order a medium mocha Tuesday afternoon. The barista sheepishly told me that fulfilling such an…