Karen Kovaka -

People always struggle to understand themselves in relation to nature. We have worshipped and exploited nature, seen it both as a place of retreat and solace and as a place of exile and loneliness. At times, nature has been a symbol of lost purity; at others a reminder of a primitive, animalistic past. Continue Reading

William Sloneker, Contributor Opinion -

In the past month, the American intelligence and security community has seen its competence tested considerably in a number of different incidents: Northwest Flight 253 (the failed in-flight bombing on Christmas Day), the assassination of seven CIA operatives by the double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, and the evacuation of the American embassy in Yemen. These episodes differ significantly from one another in terms of what transpired, but the common thread lies in a similar potential to disrupt American security and weaken public confidence in the institutions responsible for such debacles. Continue Reading

Brendan Benedict, Editor Opinion -

2009 was a red-letter year for bankers in the red. The thought was that some financial institutions were too big to fail, so it became necessary to prop them up. And so the year became one for the powerful, the top dogs, and the front-runners. Goldman Sachs and a handful of other banks towered above the rubble with newfound profits. Continue Reading

Before the trial challenging California’s Proposition 8 began, the Supreme Court issued a temporary ban on broadcasting the proceedings on YouTube. According to the Court, the temporary ban would afford them more time to weigh the merits of allowing a full, online display of the trial. We believe that the Court should allow the trial to stream online. Continue Reading

Argument 1: By Emma Staffaroni

It was time for discussions about healthcare that address the needs of all Americans — almost. Instead of being able to rejoice over our victory in the House of Representatives earlier this month, Democrats winced with disappointment and chagrin. On Nov. 7, the House passed the “Affordable Health Care for Americans Act,” and with it ushered in the bitter taste of sexism. An amendment with a ban on all abortion coverage under the federal plan was tacked onto the bill at the last minute. This is an outrageous manipulation of the current state of abortion rights in the United States. Continue Reading

By Kathryn Haroldson

Rape happens, just not here at Boston College. At least, that’s what a large percentage of our student body seems to think. I have been a Sexual Assault Network (SANet) advocate for the past year. Over the course of my time with this organization, I have been constantly surprised by the lack of knowledge about this subject, especially with regard to the BC campus. Is there some tacit complicity to ignore this issue, or does everyone just seem to turn a blind eye to it because it “taints” our school’s image? Regardless of its origins, the ignorance surrounding sexual assault on our campus needs to be rectified. Continue Reading

By Nick Schaufelberger -

Picture this: you’re enjoying a beer with some friends in your dorm room while celebrating after the Eagles beat the Fighting Irish in overtime. But one of your friends drank before he arrived and is now quite intoxicated. He slips, bumps his head on the wall, and ends up with an unsightly gash that starts bleeding profusely. You are worried that he could be seriously hurt and want him to get medical attention, but if you call an ambulance, you will get in trouble for drinking. What do you do? Continue Reading

By Andrew Schofield -

President Barack Obama returned this past week from a ten-day trip to Asia to find that his approval ratings had plummeted to all-time lows. Two polls released recently, a Gallup Poll and a Quinnipiac Poll, found that Obama’s job approval rating had slipped below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency at 49 percent and 48 percent respectively.

It is not a surprising fall for Obama given the political climate today. The honeymoon during the first 100 days of his presidency when he enjoyed approval ratings in the high 60s is over. The unemployment rate has hit double digits. The conflict in Afghanistan seems to worsen each month as some of the bloodiest months have occurred recently. Unpopular bitter partisanship, that Obama promised to end, dominates Capitol Hill, as the fight for the passage of the health care bill gets messier by the day.

Obama and his aides will argue that the polls mean nothing at this time, and all that matters is the job at hand dealing with health care reform, Afghanistan, and the tumbling economy.

As David Axelrod, a senior advisor to the president, told The New York Times, “I think the history of these things is that Washington becomes absorbed with them. But not every day is Election Day. There’s not all that much relationship about what these things mean and what’s going to happen in an election a year — or three years — in advance.”

Axelrod is right. At this point, Obama has little to worry about concerning the new poll numbers. He has three years to turn his approval ratings back up. And if health care reform, one of Obama’s major campaign promises, is passed, his ratings should get a large boost.

Also, the fact that Americans have shown that they have a much higher opinion of Obama as a person than they do of his handling of particular issues should allay some fears and instill confidence that he can easily turn his approval ratings around.

History is on Obama’s side. In 1994, after Bill Clinton’s health care reform collapsed, Republicans made sweeping gains in the midterm elections. But just two years later, Clinton rebuilt his image and won reelection. Early in Ronald Regan’s first term, he had a lowly approval rating of 42 percent, yet he recovered in time to crush Walter Mondale for reelection. So this early in his term, Obama has no reason to fret.

His approval ratings, however, are not completely meaningless. Democratic congressmen up for reelection, not Obama, should be the ones worrying if Obama’s approval rating remains below 50 percent. For the past 50 years, the controlling party, on nearly every occasion, has lost seats if the President had an approval rating of less than 50 percent.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is even taking notice of the trend. According to The New York Times, it has distributed a slide-show presentation to supporters, charting the correlation between a president’s job approval rating and his party’s performance in midterm Congressional elections.

Although Obama has little reason to worry at this point, he has no grounds to completely dismiss the polls either. The message to the president in the declining approval ratings is simple: America expects better results. The current economic condition will not be acceptable when Obama is up for reelection, nor will the situation in Afghanistan. Luckily, Obama has plenty of time to turn his presidency around. However, his fellow Democrats in the Congress might not be as fortunate.

By Edward Shore -

On April 18, 2009, fresh into his third month as the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, attended the Organization of American States-sponsored Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, meeting with the heads of every government across the Western Hemisphere (excluding, of course, Cuba, whose delegation was expelled in the early 1960s) to discuss the future of inter-American relations. Speaking from my own experience abroad at that time in Quito, Ecuador, onlookers throughout the region met Obama with unbridled enthusiasm. Continue Reading

By Caroline Merck -

Here in Massachusetts, 14 year-olds face imprisonment for the rest of their lives. According to current state law, adolescents as young as 14 can be saddled with what was previously an “adult” sentence: life in prison without the hope of parole. In light of what the scientific community knows about the adolescent brain and its development, this forgoing of all attempts at rehabilitation is an unconscionable practice.

By doling out these harsh sentences of life in prison without parole to those too young to sit on the juries that convict them, our system ignores the vast difference between an adolescent and an adult and tip-toes the lines of international law. Most importantly, by imprisoning children, we throw away the potential that adolescents innately possess. Continue Reading