The opinions presented below are solely the views of the author and do not represent the views of The News-Letter. If you are a member of the Hopkins community looking to submit a piece or a letter to the editor, please email opinions@jhunewsletter.com.
Factual inaccuracies and straw men too often go unchallenged in the campus abortion debate. In its Oct. 9 editorial endorsing abortion on demand, the News-Letter Editorial Board promoted a number of myths about abortion.
On Aug. 13, the college ranking that we have all been waiting for arrived: The Daily Meal’s list for the “75 Best Colleges for Food in America for 2014.” Students prepared for the waves of jealousy over their friends' campus dining programs at other schools, but much to everyone’s surprise, we ranked second. In one year, we managed to climb from number 42 to number two, beating every single Ivy League university in terms of food. But is the ranking truly accurate?
Beauty pageants have been debated both ways: Some women find them empowering, while others view them as degrading. For some, beauty pageants are a lifestyle and a chance for women of all ages to use their grace, beauty, talents and mind to compete in a single competition. There is a stigma that surrounds the art of pageantry; outsiders often tend to judge contestants as shallow, vain individuals — only concerned with outer beauty. In competitions such as The Miss America Pageant, individuals have the opportunity to show who they are, inside and out, as they are judged in a talent segment, bathing suit segment, Q&A, dance and more. I often ask myself who would want to be judged on how “complete” of a “package” they are, but then I remember that some women find it enjoyable, and to that I say, “You do you.”
A few weeks ago I attended a mandatory Sexual Assault Seminar for all new students. I was prepared to hear how sexual assault, specifically rape, is a very serious crime that should be reported to the police. However, throughout the two-hour session, almost every aspect of sexual assault was mentioned except for the fact that rape is a felony.
I would like to respond to the article published online on September 25, 2014 titled “Greek Week meets mixed student reviews.” I am most concerned about the way that the article portrayed the multicultural Greek (MG) groups on campus; with no other information beyond what is presented by the author, a reader will draw the conclusion that MG groups willingly ignore emails from other Greek groups and then complain that they had no power to participate in any events. This could not be farther from the truth.
In 1783, Belinda Royall sued for reparations after surviving the Middle Passage and 50 years of slavery. She was given 15 pounds as compensation. This was far from a complete loss, since it was the first time a court had agreed that racist mistreatment of black individuals in America deserved reparations. Now a new litigation, over 200 years later, has come to light.
Earlier in the semester, University President Ronald J. Daniels released a University-wide statement addressing the issue of binge drinking on campus, specifically in regards to full-time undergraduate students. Johns Hopkins University, along with eight other Maryland universities, participated in the Maryland College Alcohol Survey, which found that out of the 4,200 students who completed the survey, nearly half had taken part in binge drinking. Daniels’s message echoes the University's mission to address this pervasive behavior and improve the health and safety of the Homewood community.
Today you can’t watch the news on television or visit a news outlet’s website without reading something fresh on the Ebola virus and the danger it poses to the American population. Indeed, if someone only recently decided to tune in to the news, he would be under the impression that Ebola was an epidemic running rampant across the nation. Googling Ebola yields words like “fear,” “crisis,” “anxiety,” “panic” and “outbreak” abundantly in the headlines. I understand that views make ad revenue, but it’s time to cease the fear mongering.
The Editorial Board would like to extend its heartfelt condolences and support to the family and friends of Yangkai Li. It is always incredibly sad to see a young person’s life end before their time, and this circumstance is no different.
Anytime we lose a member of our community, we grieve. Yangkai Li was a member of our community, and we are grieving. Family, friends and faculty members who knew him are left wondering whether there was anything they could have done or said that might have made even the slightest difference. They ask themselves if they missed any signs.
This week, the Student Government Association (SGA) launched a new blog called Flightplan, and the Editorial Board could not be more pleased with the site. The cleverly named web page is like the Rosetta Stone for Baltimore happenings and public transportation options relevant to Hopkins students. Too many times we’ve heard our peers complain that they would make more of an effort to get off campus if only the public transportation system didn’t seem so convoluted and confusing. Now, thanks to Flightplan, this is no longer an excuse. Hopefully those students who were so intimidated by the seeming complexity of Baltimore’s public transportation system will see the links to Flightplan on Facebook, read the blog and be off to explore Charm City this weekend.
Last Thursday, Students Educating and Empowering for Diversity (SEED) organized a presentation on the portrayal of domestic violence in the media and its direct effects on public opinion. Following a candid video screening, coordinators moderated an interactive discussion meant to elucidate the extent to which traditional gender roles bias the way that we perceive domestic violence. Inspired by the recent uproar in the news surrounding the altercation between ex-Raven Ray Rice and his then-fiancée Janay Palmer, the event illustrated the adverse influence that news broadcasts and publications often have on their mass audiences by propagating unjustified criticism and misinterpretation of issues involving domestic abuse.
In most instances, the word suicide is an unpleasant one. There is something about suicide that strikes directly at people’s basest urges. The act of taking one’s own life is so counterintuitive to most of us — so powerful is our survival instinct — that suicide almost inherently brings with it the idea that there must have been some way to convince the victims not to go through with it. Help on that front is certainly possible. Mental health services, grief counseling and other preventative measures can all aid those who are suicidal. Yet there is another face to suicide, one that does not occur to most people. In certain places in the U.S., terminally ill, mentally-lucid patients may petition a doctor to help them facilitate their own deaths if they have within a certain time left to live. Here, the goal is not just the patient ending his life; it is to prevent suffering that may accompany a death that is rapidly encroaching.
I would like to avoid sounding like a disgruntled Neo-Luddite, but we really do need to start putting our phones away more often. These 2 x 4 inch screens more effectively capture our attention than practically anything else in our surroundings, which is a bit of a problem. Now I am in no position to preach about this, since I too spend far too much time scrolling through Facebook and Instagram when I should definitely be doing something much more productive with my time. Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if we could just find a better endeavor that lets us spend a study break within a different kind of alternate reality? This is why I think it’s time that this generation revisits a lost art: reading books. While it may seem quite difficult to find time for leisurely reading with our oppressive workloads, I believe that we should all be able to make time by cutting down on our many daily visits to social media sites.
Our incomprehensibly complex and beautiful brains are the triumph of millions of years of cutthroat natural selection, yet they are horrifically maladapted to the world we live in. For all the millions of years it took to develop us, we developed civilization in a couple thousand. Our ancestors even just 1,000 years ago — let alone hunter-gatherers from 10,000 BC — could never imagine our way of life. We live like Gods. You want unlimited potable water? Turn on the faucet. You want a hot steak dinner? Take it out of the freezer and put it into the microwave. You want an endless torrent of unimaginably engrossing entertainment? Turn on your TV or flip your laptop screen up. Most of us regularly exploit the fact that the development of modern society has surpassed our own biological development by a practically infinite margin. We bombard our ancient, chemical reward centers from the paleolithic era with preposterous amounts of supernormal stimuli for pure pleasure, which unfortunately has some serious consequences.
Today, Voice for Choice (VFC) will be holding a campaign on Q level in the library entitled “JHU’s 1 in 3 Campaign” to raise awareness of the fact that one in every three women will have an abortion in her lifetime. According to its website, the 1 in 3 Campaign aims to “end the stigma and shame women are made to feel about abortion… [and] build a culture of compassion, empathy, and support for access to basic health care.”
California recently passed the “Yes Means Yes” law, which defines sexual consent for college campuses, requiring “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.” In other words, both parties must consent verbally or otherwise to the sexual activity before it occurs. The law ignores any history of past relationships, meaning that parties in relationships — even marriages — cannot assume consent any more than can parties who have just met. And however healthy the intentions, this law places what we consider a dangerous burden of proof on those accused of sexual misconduct.
California recently passed the “Yes Means Yes” law, which defines sexual consent for college campuses, requiring “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.” In other words, both parties must consent verbally or otherwise to the sexual activity before it occurs. The law ignores any history of past relationships, meaning that parties in relationships — even marriages — cannot assume consent any more than can parties who have just met. And however healthy the intentions, this law places what we consider a dangerous burden of proof on those accused of sexual misconduct.
This morning, I sat down to finish my opinion piece on the effect that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S. would have on U.S.-Pakistan relations, and how President Obama should maneuver in this diplomatic minefield of a relationship. I was prepared. I had done my research: I knew that every American president since Kennedy has tried to intervene in the Pakistan-India conflict, how the disputed Kashmiri border came to be and why it mattered so much to the people of both countries. I knew how vital both Pakistan and India were to the counter-terrorism efforts of the U.S. in the Middle East and across Asia. I knew how the Pakistan-India conflict inserted a huge, sometimes seemingly insurmountable wedge in America’s diplomatic relations. I was ready. I was excited.
