Opinion

Frida Garza | Showing and not telling

If John Legend is really the right guy for [Commencement], I challenge the selection committee to share why they have picked him.

Letter to the Editor | A missing pressure point

In “A different perception of pressure,” the authors outline the views of Penn’s faculty and staff on the sources of the recently widely talked about “unique stress” found on campus.

Alexandra Friedman | Redefining success

As long as our cultural definition of success requires that we identify “losers” among us, the ingredients for tragedy will be ever-present. When will we accept that we have already achieved success, just by being part of the Penn experience?

Jonathan Iwry | Reflections on the mortal coil

Michel de Montaigne once wrote that to philosophize is to learn how to die. That’s easy enough to say - as a philosophy major, I have spent many a term paper trying to solve some of the most intransigent questions ever asked.

Guest column by Kelly Diamond and Madison Hunt | Internet-shaming at Penn

We are two members of the Class of 2013. As proud Penn alums, we have been distant witnesses to recent events at our beloved University that have made us uneasy.

Guest column by Denzel Cummings, Abrina Hyatt, Abel McDaniels, Diana Cabrera, Katherine Mateo and Dawn Androphy | More than a theme, not just a costume

As six concerned members of the Penn community who strive to foster multicultural dialogue, we find the general trend of parties that serve to culturally objectify and vilify certain groups on campus deeply concerning.

Frida Garza | Good grief

Talking to someone inside four walls for an hour once a week should not be our only option. What we need right now is space to be together. And if we can’t do that outside College Hall, we will take to the internet.

Collin Boots | We're all blasphemous

Every single one of you reading this post is a blasphemer or a heretic to someone’s religion. The freedom of religion depends on the freedom to disagree with other religions. Blasphemy laws disallow that freedom in countless cases around the globe

Arielle Pardes | The little pink pill

But some women simply have lower libidos, and that’s completely normal. The growing interest in forms of “female Viagra” like Lady Prelox can make it seem like not feeling readily available for sex is an abnormality.

Akshat Shekhar | Getting to blah

We are to believe that a league in which three teams have signed Tim Tebow to a contract now considers media circuses anathema.

Sara Schonfeld | Be mine?

Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be about validation. As nice as it was to have a guy confirming that my butt is not strangely misshapen, whether or not someone says it, it’s still true. There’s no reason to spend a holiday trying to parade around relationship labels.

Diane Bayeux | Blue Eroticization

The controversy surrounding "Blue is the Warmest Color" has also been especially fierce because it is one of the first movies to display the relationship between two women without allowing its audience to reduce it to pornography.

Guest Column by Luis Vargas | Cinco de Febrero is not a Mexican holiday

It is a shame that there are members of the Penn community that feel comfortable throwing a party with a theme that is blatantly racist.

Guest column by Jonathan Paz | Enough is enough

Call it what you want — the struggle bus, the grind, hell week — it is a road to exhaustion, depression and worse. It is a road of alienation, high expectations to succeed and an unspoken pressure to not appear to fail — at anything.

Letter to the Editor | SLAP endorses John Hanger for Pennsylvania Governor

Sam Sherman | Building Culture out of Chaos

Given Penn’s historic artistic presence and the many resources available to students now — including the ICA, the School of Design, a music program, arts residential programs, the Kelly Writers House, the ARCH building and countless other arts-related activities and places — it’s truly remarkable that art is so overlooked.

Letter to the Editor | A response to "Please, stop changing your profile pictures"

For some, depression may largely stem from a neurochemical imbalance, but for others, social media can play a big role in aggravating negative ideation.

Jason Choi and William Zhang | Penn, where dreams go to … lucrativeness

While there’s often stigma attached to OCR and the mass migration of Wharton students toward the financial industry, I doubt many would criticize the fact that Penn is home to the East Coast’s biggest Hackathon “PennApps” and possesses a rich culture of entrepreneurship and innovation that has given rise to the likes of Venmo and Warby Parker.

Guest Column by Rob Gurnee and the Christian Association Student Board | A third way

The Penn community needs different expressions of Christianity and the DP needs to do its part in understanding the richness of the faith landscape at Penn when writing on the subject.

Letter to the Editor | Please, stop changing your profile pictures

I feel depressed not because Facebook is projecting some sense of perfection, but because my brain does not produce serotonin in the same way or in the same amount as most people’s brains do. The cause of my depression is not external, and it certainly isn’t Facebook.