Columns

The 2019 Major League Baseball season came to an end last week with the Washington Nationals completing their magical playoff run, defeating the powerhouse Houston Astros in Game 7 of the World Series.

Late last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech at Georgetown University outlining Facebook’s policy on political advertisements. In it, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would continue publishing political ads, even those that include misleading or demonstrably false claims.

University spaces have historically been central to political and social movements around the world. In the United States, activism in universities rises and falls across years in ways that mirror the political and social climate of the nation.

Brown University’s celebrated Open Curriculum turned 50 this year. As any promotional pamphlet at the front desk of Stephen Roberts ’62 Campus Center will tell you, the Open Curriculum “is responsible for a vibrant intellectual environment in which students are fully engaged.

Last year, I wrote a column in The Herald on why students who are concentrating in computer science and are planning to enter the tech industry should be cognizant of the harm that the industry is inflicting on cities such as San Francisco. As a native of San Francisco, I take this issue to heart.

Burger King has recently made headlines — as well as literal lines outside their stores — with their Impossible Whopper, which consists of a plant-based patty that tastes and “bleeds” like real meat. It was recently reported that this new burger fueled Burger King’s best quarter of growth in four years.

Roughly a decade ago, members of Brown’s Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter began offering a free harm reduction service to fellow students in the form of drug checking kits.

Every September, dozens of students flood the Brown athletic fields for ultimate frisbee try-outs wearing sports clothes and nervous smiles. Some are juniors or seniors, many are first-years looking for a community. On the sideline, new players rifle through a trash bag filled with spare cleats.

Questioning the validity of astrology and its place in modern conversations may seem straightforward — after all, as Jamie Flynn ’20.5 stated in his recent opinion, “astrology is pure pseudoscience.”

In 2018, it was revealed to the public that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had illicitly harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users.