Activism

ONONYE | Is Womansplaining Activism?

By |

In honesty, while I will be the first to say that Womansplaining is (definitely!) my favorite part of being a Cornell student, it doesn’t actually take me a lot to write my columns. I write most of them in an hour or two the Friday before they’re due to my editor. I prioritize my own experiences and thoughts (key my apt title: Womanplaining) and most of those experiences happened the week that I write: e.g. this week I went to a talk and now I’m writing about my thoughts from that talk, the week of the 2020 election I wrote about the election, when I ran for Student Assembly I wrote about Student Assembly. Obviously my opinion writing is different from writing my thesis or a class paper, but a lot of times they come from the same space. And the crux of the question is whether or not a writing about feminism is feminist activism. 

column

LIM | Turning Screens to Black and White this Lent Instead of Our Politics

By |

Under the influence of several friends who told me about the designed addictiveness of screens, I recently switched the color filter on my phone and laptop to black and white. I made this part of my observance of Lent, 40 days of simple, ascetic living observed by Christians in preparation for Easter. 

If Lent involves ethical progress via analogy — refraining from indulging in sugar to train the same discipline that refrains from indulging in excessive criticism — then being more conscious of literal surfaces, like laptop screens, acts as one of several possible reminders to not take what is immediately before us as all there is. I’ve since realized two things: One, that relative detachment from my screen was in line with Lenten principles to remove distractions from what was important; two, that spending less time with surfaces like my screen and having faith in what might be beyond had implications beyond the private domain of religion, and extended into public domains like politics. A secular description of faith by the psychoanalyst and nontheist Erich Fromm is, “a conviction which is rooted in one’s own experience,” or a belief in the value of pursuing data-informed visions of truth that eventually lead to scientific discoveries and social transformations — taking the surface, but daring to see beyond. This could be as practical as the environment and sustainability major disturbed by discouraging data on water pollution and flooding, but determined to study and someday apply the building of ditches.

Dining

AUSTIN | Throwing Stars and Sweatshirt Stains

By |

For the first installment of a Moosewood Mess, I started out with dessert because it seemed like a relatively easy first step — something very much within my comfort zone. I invited my friends for the inaugural Moosewood Meal, which only ramped up the pressure. I felt like I couldn’t disappoint them, but I also didn’t want to make something overly complicated and ruin everything before it even started. That brought me to Chocolate Cranberry Crunch bars and chocolate sugar cookies. 
When I first looked at the recipes, they seemed to be idiot-proof. However, it appears I’m an idiot.

Dining

AUSTIN | A Moosewood Mess

By |

I’m a mess in the kitchen, both literally and figuratively — just ask my roommate. When I moved to Collegetown my sophomore year, my roommate and I figured out a solid routine: I cook and she cleans. This works for us because I would like to think of myself as a relatively decent chef, but I am a HORRIBLE dishwasher. My kitchen techniques definitely leave much to be desired (more on that later), but I enjoy cooking and sharing it with others. I don’t like recipes.

Arts & Culture

LU | The Un-Banning of TikTok

By |

Good things have certainly sprung from TikTok — whether you see it as the embarrassment of Trump’s Tulsa rally or the inspiration of watching someone sew a dress from scratch — but so have the sinister parts of its nature. Many point to the app’s addictive design, but for me, it’s the high potential of losing myself in a TikTok reality.

1980

PONTIN | Video Did More than Kill the Radio Star

By |

The medium demands multiple senses, our full attention, tearing us away at least for a few minutes from the relentless multi-tasking that has become our society’s default mode.