By: Michelle Luan To many, Crazy Rich Asians was a “must-watch” or a check on the bucket list. For others, it was just another insignificant rom-com that hit Hollywood. Released in August of 2018, the movie depicts much more than a simple love story. Hollywood has suppressed the Asian-American voice since inception, but this movie […]
Features
Color in a White House: The Obamas Reimagined
The Presidential Portraits exhibition of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery houses presidential art ranging from a bust of Woodrow Wilson to a gold-framed photograph of Martin van Buren. Evoking emotional responses from warmth to awe, the Presidential Portraits claim to “tell the American story,” and the newest chapter about to be included is that of […]
Why Culture Cannot Be Our Politics
There has not been a time in recent memory during which the liberal cause was in more desperate need of something new. In an election where the GOP nearly imploded before running Donald Trump as its candidate, the Democrats got swept. As the current iteration of the Democratic party is woefully short of leadership and […]
The Dodgers are the Best Team No One Can Watch
Despite a horrific stretch of play over the past month, the Los Angeles Dodgers are sitting pretty with a 99-57 record, nine games ahead of their closest competitor in the National League West. Fangraphs’ projections have them ending the season with over a hundred wins and the best record in Major League Baseball. Those same […]
Explaining the “Failing” Fourth Estate
Post-truth, fake news, the failing New York Times, very fake news, and “democracy dies in darkness.” Politics has never been more obsessed with the medium through which it is reported. Since President Trump took the oath of office on the west front of the Capitol, periphery of his right eye trained on the sparse Washington Mall […]
What Syria Needs Now
On September 10, 2016, the U.S. State Department announced that it had struck a breakthrough ceasefire agreement with Russia in Syria, the site of a conflict that has in recent months rekindled Cold War tensions long-thought to be extinguished. The much-lauded deal promised a stop to all hostilities between Syrian rebels and the Assad regime, […]
The Pop Culture Matrix
Disclaimers: Big data might save the world, but this exercise is entirely subjective. Any references from before 2008 come from covers of Us Weekly that we saw in the grocery store. Names that appear on the matrix might more accurately be associated with public perception of the individual rather than with their true character (e.g., […]
The Fatal Flaw of Border Security
Maria Ochoa will not forget the day in June 2007 when her party stumbled upon human remains while searching for an undocumented immigrant in the southern Arizona desert. We were looking for a young woman that had stayed behind with her uncle and her husband because her uncle had become ill. She was seven months […]
The Insidious Myth of In-Person Voter Fraud
As American democracy faces its greatest test, its core is rotting. Legislation disguised in the name of electoral integrity is making it worse.
The Brave New World of Gene Editing
Biotechnology has progressed faster than our society’s ability to understand it. Our newfound powers raise serious ethical questions.