When I was in the 4th Grade, I walked into my classroom every day and saw the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at the front. She was a constant presence in that classroom, and so was her gaze, no matter where I was. When my grandmother took the Oath of Citizenship, she swore her allegiance […]
Lead
AI and The Future of Writing
In April 2022, I started reading articles about OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research lab, and its image-generating program, Dall-E (https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/). I kept reading and realized it is another version of GPT-3. GPT-3, or the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer 3, is a large language learning model: the AI model is given data to ‘train’ on to produce […]
Fighting the Right: An Introduction to The Gravel Institute
From ordering food straight to your door to planning an entire vacation, today’s Internet is more complex, rich, and interesting than ever before. Over the relatively short history of the World Wide Web, a few sites particularly stand out. Among these, one site has remained the central hub for any length or style of video. […]
How Republicans Could Use the Supreme Court to Cancel Democracy
After Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, the United States experienced an unprecedented rejection of a presidential election’s legitimacy. Although these tensions culminated in the January 6th attack on the Capitol building, the “Big Lie” has remained influential among much of the Republican party’s base. To most casual observers of TV news, American democracy is […]
An Ode to the Wisdom Within
This is a story about everything. It’s about jumping timelines and the power of creative imagination. This is a story about vulnerability, healing, and collective action. It’s about mutual aid and the potential for abundance––not the kind of abundance James Bowdoin II envisioned 250 years ago as the justification for perpetrating war against the people […]
Radio’s Dead, but We’re Still Dancing
Introduction Radio hasn’t died–it’s just evolved. The Weeknd’s latest album, Dawn FM, has brought listeners an auditory experience that many thought to be lost to time: radio. In a media landscape dominated by streaming, it’s easy to feel that AM and FM radio are hopelessly outdated. Radio popularity and listenership are trending downward and have […]
Black is Front Lines
(The names of key individuals in this essay have been removed for the sake of anonymity.) I survived. I felt the pain of an unsolicited knife and fought back. I gave myself credit for my resilience. Throughout hardship comes strength so I can achieve happiness and I can love and care for myself in the […]
The Losers of Climate Change
Russia wins the climate crisis. At least, that’s what Abrahm Lustgarten of the New York Times argues: as the climate continues to change, and temperatures rise in the global North, Russia will see its climate become more agreeable. If you concede the point about it being a competition at all, there’s a lot of truth […]
Shoegaze
“You made me acknowledge the devil in me/I hope to God I’m talking metaphorically/Hope that I’m talking allegorically” — “A Girl Like You” by Edwyn Collins Shoegaze is a genre of indie/alternative rock that originated from a few people playing with guitar pedals, vocal effects, intense amp feedback, and holding a constant, trained focus downward […]
The Cost of Immunity
On the last day of Bowdoin’s fall break, each student was requested to pick up an at-home test from Coles tower to administer themselves before classes picked back up. When I removed my testing kit from its cardboard “do not tamper” sleeve, I noticed, in a moment of solemn revelation, that the test had been […]