Three months ago, an exhibit on Soviet political posters and cartoons might have (to the detriment of all) come to Brown and left without much ado or notice. As a Slavic Studies concentrator and political cartoon enthusiast, I thank Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev for returning international attention to where it belongs: the former Soviet [...]

Senator Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) superstar popularity has certainly been no surprise. Virtually all media outlets act as if he is the center of the universe,and record his every move,no matter how insignificant or irrelevant. Courtesy of CNN news, I’ve learned more about his affinity for basketball, his quasi-addiction to cigarettes, and his exorbitant gym hours [...]

The dance was slated to begin at 6:00 p.m. sharp on Friday, April 18. The time was relatively early compared to the dances most students partake in at Brown University. This particular instance, however, would not feature some student DJ showcasing his iTunes library, or a bar with one dollar drinks in a crowded room. [...]

Since America’s “unilateral” invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, it has been fashionable among the liberal and novice foreign policy critics alike to castigate the Bush foreign policy as “Cowboy Diplomacy.” This view of Bush as the Lone Ranger on a quixotic quest, tilting at the windmills of democracy in the Middle East, has [...]

When I heard a rumor that Hugo Chávez, the infamous President of Venezuela, would grace our university with his presence, I had mixed feelings. Although I am quite fond of discourse and dialogue, my other half yearned to plan for actions that were less intellectual, and far less peaceful. Luckily for everyone, the Chávez rumor [...]

On October 18th, 2007, during day two of Michael Mukasey’s Senate confirmation hearing, the prospective Attorney General refused to label waterboarding as torture. Although he was criticized heavily by the media, Mukasey hesitated to allow public opinion to guide his conscience. On January 30th, 2008, now-Attorney General Mukasey continued to deliberate on whether or not [...]

Last year, as a group of black students were put on a very public trial in a case known as the Jena Six, we saw a reemergence of the often sugar-coated race debate. For those of us who do not come from towns where there is a high amount of racial tension, we have no [...]

In some sort of magical trick involving water, bad guys, and heroes, terrorists are thwarted and disasters are averted. The CIA itself purportedly waterboarded top Al-Qaeda suspects after the 9/11 attacks. What exactly, then, happens in a waterboarding session? The details are somewhat murky – skewed by media and word of mouth – but general [...]

A great deal of attention has been paid to sexual assault problems over this past month. In an editorial published in the Brown Daily Herald on October 11th, Lily Shield ’09 writes, “For a school of our size and with our money, Brown has an appalling lack of resources dedicated to helping sexual assault survivors.” [...]

How do you define racism? If you answer that question in a literal sense, racism is “the belief that people of different races have different qualities and abilities, and that some races are inherently superior or inferior.” In today’s day and age, most of us (hopefully) know and believe that this is not true, that [...]