Columns

BERNSTEIN | Election Day Does Not Affect the Need to Fight for Change

By |

With outstanding early and absentee ballots yet to be counted, it seems like the presidential election will take a long time — maybe days — before conclusive results are announced. Both candidates gave speeches of confidence late in the night, but victory couldn’t be formally declared. The night was tense and many fear for their futures, the futures of their loved ones and the future of the nation. Knowing this, we must not let the battle for progressive change end, regardless of the election’s outcome. Racial injustice, climate change and COVID-19 have not gone away; they never will without pressure from the people.

Columns

WILK | The Paradox of Election Harm Reduction

By |

Around 2 a.m. on Monday, my roommate and I were going through a slideshow of quotes from Joe Biden and then Donald Trump, in desperate need of entertainment. Our aimless procrastination had us following her mouse to online galleries that burned into our eyes with the unsavory clumsiness of the two men who were competing for the prestigious misnomer of leader of the free world. It was supposed to be funny, and for a bit, it was. Until their words stopped painting an image of their indiscretion, instead telling ugly truths of their aptitude to cause suffering. My laughter was interrupted by a lump in my throat.

2020

Why Urban America Can’t Forget Its Farmers

By |

Why do agricultural issues matter to young cosmopolites attending an Ivy League institution and who quite possibly are from a family in the top one percent? Besides being consistently ranked as one of the top agricultural schools in the country and the world, Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences conducts an enormous amount of research and outreach to help end food insecurity, combat climate change and, most recently, protect food production workers against COVID-19; just check out the litany of innovations here. Cornell is in a unique position to conduct its research; unlike many of its peers, it’s role as a land-grant institution informs its involvement in communities surrounding it. 43 percent of the counties in the Southern Tier are classified as rural. If you include upstate micropolities, such as Corning and Cortland, as semi-rural, that figure jumps to 57 percent.

2020 election

How Television Becomes a Tool for Targeting Voters

By |

Audiences cannot avoid being targeted by political campaigns, but as long as they understand how their viewing preferences influence the perception of their identities or opinions by political campaigns, they will be able to recognize how and why they are targeted by such political advertisements.

2nd Presidential Debate

ST. HILAIRE | This Is What Donald Trump Has Done for Me

By |

Like many people, I tuned into the last presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle last week. The fragile masculinity of two American grandfathers and the way it manifested itself took up 90 minutes on every major news-media station and held the attention of myself and 63 million others on Thursday night. In a way, I think that we have been spoiled. I spent so much of the first debate pointing out disrespectful quips, laughing, internally crying and outwardly cursing our founding fathers for drafting a governmental system that could be completely decimated by “an unlikely candidate.” You know, as if ‘unlikely’ has recently become synonymous with racist, misogynist, xenophobic and ignorant. I have been seeing this new classification of the incumbent President Trump as “an underdog.” I had to refresh my definition of the word and found that it meant “a victim of injustice or persecution.” I feel obligated to express my displeasure that we classify the offender, our persecutor-in-chief, as “an underdog.”

Returning to the more tame and traditional Presidential debate that I tuned into on Thursday, I was bored.

Columns

BARAN | Vote Responsibly on Election Day

By |

Election Day is quickly approaching. It seems as if everyone has an opinion and a stake in the battle for the presidency. However, the tone of the discourse has mirrored that of the current president’s, even as many participating denounce him. Social media and conversation is rife with half-truths, slander and personal attacks. This is not productive and it is downright hypocritical for opponents of the president.