By now, anyone with a computer and an internet connection has seen the photos of Rihanna after she was allegedly assaulted by Chris Brown the night of the Grammys a few weeks ago. In the wake of this incident, adults and teens alike have struggled to talk to one another about abusive relationships. It is unfortunate that such society needs such an event to provoke this conversation, but what is even more disturbing are the trends that seem to be emerging from the national dialogue.

When writing last week’s article about the Swiss perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it was a little difficult finding people who were native to Switzerland because it is populated with people from all over the globe. In my article, there are only two native Swiss people present and even then, they have exposure to many different cultures and ways of thinking.

However, the population’s make-up ultimately contributed to a richer understanding how other parts of the world perceive the conflict. I am very grateful that I work at a place like the International Labour Organisation and just Geneva in general because people from all regions of the globe also work there, providing a multifaceted outlook to different social, political and economic issues.

Where do you go when you want to hide? If you’re from a war-torn country, you go to a place populated with people from all over the world and where you can easily blend in with the crowd. Geneva is convenient in this regard - it’s a city filled with people from all over world and you can find almost any culture here. Some say that’s Geneva’s downfall - the city lacks its own identity. But Geneva is also a great place if you want bring national attention to a certain issue, as it is host to several international organizations devoted to helping the impoverished and under served.

Greetings from Geneva, Switzerland! Currently, I am working at the International Labor Organization so I will try to blog not only about U.S. happenings, but add to that an international perspective and how the rest of the world sees these events. In the future, you may see interviews with some ILO officers.

I’ve been meaning to put these notes up for awhile. About three weeks ago, I wrote the feature story for Eclipse on the culture of stress on Cornell’s campus and some of its root causes. I wrote about some strategies people use to de-stress. What I didn’t get to include in the article was some of the ways stress affects genders.

While everyone is under an immense amount of stress due to the economic crisis, the holidays, being swamped at work, the way it affects the genders has important implications for society at large. One example is women in computer science, which illustrates the ways stress can maintain barriers to entry in certain career fields.

Many Americans are in euphoria this week. And with good reason. Barack Obama’s election has revived America’s reputation of equality for all--not counting California, of course. This week, voters in California passed Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Forty-eight percent of voters were against the ban and 52 percent of voters voted for it. The battle over Prop. 8 was one of the most expensive and intense campaigns in California’s history. Supporters and opponents to gay marriage poured a tremendous amount of money into the campaign. In particular, the Mormon Church devoted millions of dollars in hopes of passing the ban.

Though we here at Muckraking for Pennies are delighted to see Obama as the President-Elect, we hope that his massive electoral win will not go to his head. Many a ruler has fallen when his pride and arrogance gets to his head and we would hate to see the man who united the country last night succumb to such follies. But given his behavior up to this point, we have hope he will shift America in the right direction.

But in other news, McCain has already begun repairing his tarnished image, starting with his concession speech last night.