It is a remarkable thing, that should I have the means and desire to do so, I could comfortably vacation in Germany. I could spend an afternoon in Berlin, walking along a path that once split the city for a generation. I could hike the Black Forest, see the castles of Saxony and drink myself silly at Oktoberfest. Or of course, as has become a rite of passage for so many Jews of my age, I could visit the remains of a Nazi concentration camp, skillfully preserved in displays and museums that are well-attended and funded by the state.
Much outrage has erupted in the Middle East in these past weeks in response to Innocence of Muslims, a low-budget internet movie trailer that portrayed Muslims as mindlessly violent and easily drawn to anger. This outrage quickly grew into protest, where the offended Muslim parties tried to fight these unfair allegations by storming the streets with violent protests, flag burnings and rioting. Several dozens of people have died in these protests, including Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya.
The men and women of our armed forces are facing continual, catastrophic assaults that threaten not only their individual well-beings but also the effectiveness and cohesiveness of the military as a whole. These assaults don’t originate from Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or any of the groups that we have declared as our enemies. These assaults, distressingly, originate from within our own military. Every day our military personnel face sexual assault and battery from other members of the same military, frequently from those they have been drilled to trust at a religiously absolute level.
We live in a postmodern society: in fact, in the most promising one that has ever existed. We have cured epidemics, created previously unimaginable transportation and communications systems, conceived methods of going to different worlds and have seen life spans and life qualities go up at near exponential rates.
Despite hosting only about 4.5 percent of the world’s population, the United States is responsible for consuming 24 percent of the Earth’s total petrolium-based energy. According to PBS, per capita, this amounts to the average American consuming roughly the same amount of energy as two Japanese, six Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 31 Indians, 128 Bangladeshis, 207 Tanzanians or 370 Ethiopians. Consumption doesn’t stop at fuel; we consume 30 percent of the world’s paper, 20 percent of its metals and 60 percent of its illicit drugs (though odds are that this isn’t as harmful to the rest of the world).
We pride ourselves in our diversity. Be it racial, socio-economic, ethnic, cultural, geographic, religious, linguistic or intellectual, Amherst battles against homogeneity within its student (and faculty) population with very high standards. One area in which we are sadly lacking, however, is that which is present around our male students’ faces. Specifically, the number of students with facial hair is grossly underrepresented.
“In-Ex-Clusion,” Kyle Ramsay’s senior Theater & Dance project in Performance, was performed in Kirby Theater on April 7 - 9 along with Sarah Perez’s “Rupture,” her senior project in Choreography. By constructing three unrelated pieces in various areas of stage presentation, Ramsay truly made a show on “Performance,” offering the audience a pleasant medley of acting, dance, film and song.
