Headlines of the Week (Or Whatever)

Is It Torture Now? ISIS Apparently A Fan Of CIA's Waterboarding Techniques

Women Listening To Men In Western Art History

Dignified Debate: The United Kingdom shows the rest of the world how to have a wise, honest, eloquent discussion about assisted suicide.

Indefensible: Why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s lawyer is leaving the defense team—and the Army.

Labor Intensive: In Defense of Sex Work
Sex work is not a liability. It is a form of labor and art; its participants don't deserve violence or stigma.

What Wellesley learned when it stopped giving out so many A's

Headlines of the Week (Or Whatever)

NYT: There’s a Reason They Call Them ‘Crazy Ants’

The End of the College Essay: An Essay

Do Whales Kill People? Most collisions between boats and whales are accidental. But not all.

10 Illuminating Nonfiction Books About Poverty

The Way It Was: The Beatles ruled. The mini was in. I was seventeen, and pregnant. What happened next is what could happen again.

On the Nature of War

 From my weekly comments for Honors Colloquium:

"War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." ~ Carl von Clausewitz

War. Genocide. Engagement. Atrocity. Intentionality. These are topics upon which we have touched. We discussed war as an act of politics, requiring a state-sanctioned entity; as an act of religion, requiring only hate of Other; and as an atrocity, no matter what form it takes. But at the core of all of these things is intentionality. Whether the motivation is political, religious, social, or even personal, war is, as von Clausewitz posits, “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will”. The intention of force is war. Thus the machinations of divorce attorneys, Congressmen, and nations alike are all acts of war and part of a larger war, in which we all fight for power on multiple levels, every day of our lives. Which frankly sounds exhausting.

American Federal Government Presentation #2: Instant Runoff Voting

Instant Runoff Voting: A Solution to Hyperpluralism

Hyperpluralism is a problem. The idea of our pluralistic system is one of distributed power. Interest groups influence the government, and the government makes policy. This works best when there are many special interests groups promoting candidates from which we choose representatives, who then balance one another within our government. In the US, we have many, many political parties, but rarely do we notice anyone not from the two largest parties. This has led to a state of hyperpluralism, wherein our two main parties have grown so strong that they've suppressed both the power of the government and the will of the people. We now have two angry mobs playing Tug of War with our civil rights, our economy, and our lives. We should reform our Presidential electoral system in order to provide a robust selection of candidates, which would in turn, reintroduce balance to our system of governance.

Homework Panic. It's a Thing in the World.

Can I finish the last four pages of this five-page essay and analytically read two 18th century sermons in the next 1.5 hours? Let's find out in today's episode of 'Rose R Collig Stoodent'! Stay tuned for a commercial break from our sponsor, Red Bull...

Government Presentation #1: An Analysis of The Judiciary Branch, as Proposed in the Federalist #78-84

My notes and handout from my first presentation for my American Federal Government class.

Presentation Notes:

I'd like to begin with a very famous quote. It that appears nowhere within the Federalist, but is nevertheless present throughout.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

This statement encapsulates the entire basis of our Union. We have rights. The government exists to secure them. That's the point. Out of these branches, the Judiciary does the most to secure and promote those rights, because they provide 'equal justice under the law' to every citizen. (Except maybe Dred Scott.)

Honors Econ Research Proposal

Unemployment & the Labor Force; Definitions Thereof

We currently define the unemployment rate as the percentage of workers without jobs in our labor force. We currently define our labor force as workers who are actively looking for jobs. However, those definitions are both simplistic and problematic, excluding complicated factors and variables that keep us from arriving at a more precise unemployment rate.

Who rocks? I rock.

"Dear Rose Welch: Congratulations! Your application to the Cameron University Honors Program has been accepted. You are now a part of an elite group of students..."

Yeah, I rock. :)