Op Eds
An Interview with Ayman Nour
At the start of the Egyptian revolution last January, over 20 percent of Egyptians said they would vote for Ayman Nour, according to one poll. Unfortunately, in April of this year, the Election Committee prohibited Dr. Nour, along with nine other candidates, from entering the election.
Dharun Ravi: What If?
After cursing Harvard’s rooming assignments, I now count among my friends people with similar political and religious views to the girls I lived with. And so, reading about the case, I can’t help but think, “what if?”
NASA Needs a Rebirth
After all, $30 or $40 billion a year for an institution that transports human beings beyond the confines of our rock is anything but expensive.
Chinese, an Opportunity
We can take pride in our exceptionality and believe others should learn our tongue. Alternatively, we can recognize the great opportunity to increase our national skillset and be able to communicate with people in the world’s second largest economy.
The Social News Network
Everyone is creating, sharing, and distributing new content online and while this is mostly convenient and expedient, it can also create false notions about the comprehensiveness of our news consumption.
Collaboration and its Discontents
What is the role of others in our own intellectual development?
Funding the Fantastic
The idea that the ‘one percent’ are going to be the driving force behind the fringe of technology and science is problematic, for numerous reasons.
Some Humean Advice
You should indulge in intellectual pursuits. But don’t forget about your humanity, and be an active participant in this human society.
Mandarin? No, Thanks
Despite the possible benefits the language may offer, the recent boom in Mandarin teaching seems to be shortsighted and excessive. Simply put, Mandarin is not the language of the future.
Technology and Decisions
Read Receipts reflect society’s movement away from traditional methods of long-distance communication and toward a more realistic model of in-person communication.
Good Answer, Mr. President
But it was not until Wednesday, when President Barack Obama became the first sitting President of the United States to express full support for same-sex marriage, that I felt again that same stunned joy I’d felt back in 2004.
Education by Culture
In some ways, those hours spent reading a book or watching a movie are even more impactful on intellectual, moral, and behavioral development than what is traditionally considered “educational.”
What Student Protest?
Before a journalist suggests, yet again, that Harvard students never put their feet on the ground about issues they care about, it’s important to point out the impressive nature of this school year’s student activism.
#RacistTweets
New internet news sites like Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post—which scour Twitter for the latest eye-popping trends—have elevated the tweets of no-name wackos to the status of news.
Latino Studies in Arizona
The establishment of Chicano Studies programs in universities across the country was a decades-long struggle led by Mexican-American faculty and students, and it would be a shame if it were all laid to waste in Arizona by a politician with irrational fears of a Reconquista, a supposed plan by Mexico to re-conquer the lands it lost in the Mexican-American War.
