Opinion Columns
Abel McDaniels | A different kind of treatment
“Mental illness” is not like cancer, and going to CAPS is not the equivalent of radiation.
Sara Schonfeld | Feminist fashion?
Can a sorority woman dress a certain way and still respect herself? What about a businesswoman — what does she have to wear to look professional?
Akshat Shekhar | Straight Outta Compton
To stereotype Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City because of its creator’s hometown and its Wikipedia page is to fail to understand it. To fail to reward GKMC is to prove your complete ignorance of it.
Jonathan Iwry | A different kind of 'Heist'
I’ve been rapping for 12 years because it genuinely resonates with me — I love the culture of hip-hop as an art form, not an accessory.
Frida Garza | Food porn for thought
We should not be judging our diets based on arbitrary guidelines (Is this gluten-free? Is there dairy in this? Would a caveman eat it?) but instead get motivated by our individual body goals.
Jonathan Iwry | Into the whirlpool
It’s not just about keeping afloat. College is, above all else, a time of growth and self-discovery. Beyond grades, parties and everything in between, the most valuable thing we walk away with is a sense that we have somehow grown — that somewhere along the last four years, something has awoken inside us, and that we’ve found a voice within ourselves we didn’t know we possessed. From learning to live away from home to landing our first jobs, we slowly come to terms with our own independence.
Alexandra Friedman | Life's great balancing act
I can say confidently that I took in every sunset, devoured each Israeli-style breakfast and relished each walk around my home of four and a half months. I went to the bus station without a destination in mind, embracing a more spontaneous lifestyle than the one we have here at Penn.
Collin Boots | Reframing religious dialogue
Summits often overflow with phrases such as “coexist” and “can’t we all just get along?” While generally creating a tepid yet strangely pleasant atmosphere, any serious disagreement or dispute between faiths is consciously suppressed in favor of emphasizing the tenuous similarities between religions.
Frida Garza | No more thinkpieces on twerking
Take The New York Times’ latest exposé on millennial culture. Within the first paragraph, there is a reference to a twerking cat. Instinctively, I imagined the author’s glee when he came up with that quip: “A-ha! I’ve got them with this one!”Arielle Pardes | You, me and glass
Glance (which has also been buzzed about under the name “Sex With Glass”) was dreamed up by a team of London-based developers who promise users they can “experience sex like never before.” The thrust of it is watching yourself have sex, from your partner’s perspective.
Sara Schonfeld | Say no to FOMO
Sometimes I go and I’m extremely happy. This is great. Thank you, crippling fear of missing another sing-along to Ke$ha’s “Timber.”
Roderick Cook | Celebration, not toleration
We can come out of the closet — but only if we go back in for a little while when other people’s comfort is at risk. Furthermore, people who say that romantic or sexual relationships are private matters usually only apply this to queer relationships.
Akshat Shekhar | Location, location, location
Rhetoric about fairness, supply and demand, GSR abuse and the “One University Policy” will be thrown around, while we wallow in the inequity of having to walk a couple of blocks to study.
Alexandra Friedman | Political identity theft
Growing up in Marietta, Georgia, I was a proud liberal. Like my parents, a blue dog Democrat. At a young age, I didn’t necessarily know what being a liberal meant, but I rubbed it in the faces of my classmates, who, like their parents, identified as conservatives.
Frida Garza | S is for sisterhood
But as a woman, and as a sorority woman, I am done hearing about what’s wrong with Greek life. It is easy to point out the flaws. It’s not new. It’s not interesting. And I’ve found that many of the things people will say about sororities are just untrue.
Sam Sherman | A call for creativity
The key to succeeding in such enterprises is the unhindered development of creative thinking, in which one proposes new ways of considering problems and uncovering their solutions. However, many schools, including Penn, tend to do just the opposite — they obstruct and even shun creativity.
Sara Schonfeld | Misanthropy 101
For some reason, though, it feels taboo to strike up a friendly conversation before a lecture starts. At best, the conversation fizzles out after questions about other classes and dorms, and you end up nodding to yourself, muttering, “Cool, that’s cool. Very nice. Cool.”
Jonathan Iwry | Social Media and the New Modernity
The geezers are right about one thing: It’s a brave new world. And mass media is starting to taste like soma.
Collin Boots | Papal Bull
I care because Pope Francis has made no effort to correct the lie that condom use increases AIDS transmission — a falsehood propagated in Africa by the previous pontiff.