Last week, British Columbia announced its plan for reopening schools in September. At best, it is optimistic, and at worst, it could be dangerously incompetent. The plan involves a full reopening of schools in “learning cohorts” of up to 60 individuals in elementary schools and up to 120 in high schools, including both students and … Continue reading British Columbia’s Perilous School Reopening Plan
Author: agarwhale
Snowglobe Utopia
Among my menagerie of desk toys, I have no fewer than seven snowglobes neatly lined up in arrow formation, fond mementos of Northern Ireland, Panama, Disneyland, and beyond. They began as innocently decorative sources of amusement, but after days of sitting idly in my room, staring into these neatly packaged spherical universes, they occupy a … Continue reading Snowglobe Utopia
The Clockwork Universe: Determinism Through the Ages of Physics
In an interview, Albert Einstein once said that “Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” The origin of the universe and the method by which events are determined is a question that has simultaneously transfixed and eluded humankind for most of our short history. This article will discuss how the scientific community’s conception of determinism evolved through history, with a specific focus on the comparison between the Newtonian and Heisenbergian approaches to examining cause and effect relationships.
On Rising Tides
As John Steinbeck’s East of Eden would put it, “Samuel may have thought and played and philosophized about death, but he did not really believe in it. His world did not have death as a member. He, and all around him, was immortal. When real death came it was an outrage, a denial of the immortality he deeply felt, and the one crack in his wall caused the whole structure to crash. I think he had always thought he could argue himself out of death. It was a personal opponent and one he could lick.”
Literary Perspectives on American Racial Inequality
An issue that consistently escapes my understanding is the complexity of racial disparity in the United States. The knowledge that the life expectancy in some low-income African American communities is lesser than parts of rural Algeria is a bit irreconcilable with my image of the U.S. as the world’s most powerful and free nation (questionable … Continue reading Literary Perspectives on American Racial Inequality
The Quagmires of Quarantine
When I read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne a few years ago, I thought it would be interesting to spend a ridiculous amount of time in a confined space and watch myself become more and more psychologically unhinged. I have since discovered that this literary daydream was in fact highly context driven (context being a romanticised submarine) and living in my house with little human interaction and an abundance of instant noodles is really not the same thing.
On “East of Eden”
"The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay. I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer—and what trees and seasons smelled like—how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich."
“Slacktivists:” a Critique of Social Media Activism
It’s become commonplace to frequently be confronted with a flurry of angry (and frequently ungrammatical) posts filled with buzzwords every time Trump posts something stupid (so, fairly often). In fact, it’s become so accepted that people appear to view posts on social media as a legitimate alternative to tangible contributions to the community, such as … Continue reading “Slacktivists:” a Critique of Social Media Activism
Technology’s Role in Democratization
Recently, the largest ever election in global history occurred in India, with 600 million voters casting ballots all over the nation. In light of the rise of authoritarian right-wing governments in the past year, India’s election is a refreshing reminder that democracy is very much alive. In fact, democracy has never been as vibrant as … Continue reading Technology’s Role in Democratization
Oxford Commas and the Wonderful World of Punctuation
While a cultured literary connoisseur likely already agrees with me on this matter, amateur grammarians may be wondering what the necessity for Oxford commas is. Consistency? Clarity? An insatiable thirst for punctuation, even when excessive? The answer is all of the above.
agarwhale 