Opinions

Security Services is often viewed negatively by students for enforcing the rules on campus, going unnoticed and unthanked for their more important role of keeping us safe. Although many students are unaware of it, Security on our campus is actually very professional. Security Services seeks to ensure that our campus is secure, but if students are not supportive or cooperative with this mission, then there is only a limited extent to which we can be safe. For this reason, Security wants all of us to more actively help keep campus...

One of the appeals for many students at this University and other small liberal arts schools is the opportunity to study abroad at some point during their time here. The topic is widely discussed throughout campus as students leave, return and are excited by the prospects of doing so for some portion of their junior or senior year. In the midst of discussion, Puget Sound’s study abroad program seems to generate a lot of frustration among students on campus. And we have heard the comments and even said some ourselves:...

We know your Netflix queue is demanding, but these underappreciated series are worth your attention.  Here are a handful of shows that may cater to your major. 1. “Veep” Geared For: Politics and Government English “Women at a wedding are like ripe fruit ready to drop and I am a sex wasp.”  Amando Iannucci, writer and creator of television hits “The Thick of It” and “In The Loop,” creates a hysterically scathing White House satire, incorporating previous American political gaffes into a fictionalized Vice President administration.  The rapid-fire wit of...

Veganism is often mocked when it comes up in conversation. By now, many people have heard the joke, “How do you know if someone is vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.” Well, the same could be said about all types of diets, including those that adhere to religious or health concerns, such as when someone is kosher or diabetic. Even omnivores will tell you what they can or cannot eat because we all have individual tastes and reasons for why we eat what we eat. But the way we think...

“Feminism” is one of the most loaded words in today’s society. Too often it is associated with images of bra-burning and man-hating, which tarnish and can occasionally silence the movement’s call to action. This, I contest, is a result of distortions and exaggerations spread by both unflattering coverage in the media and through people or groups with negative, and perhaps uninformed, views. Recently, an example of this phenomenon is the blog Women Against Feminism, which is essentially a photo collection of women holding handmade signs that ridicule the entire movement...

This past year has brought about many new challenges to our world, one of which is the use of violence in the name of religion and politics on individuals and groups of people. The Jan. 7 attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo killed 17 people and received an astounding amount of media attention. Boko Haram, the terrorist Islamist group based in Nigeria, is known best for the kidnapping of 276 school girls from Chibok, Borno and the very recent attacks in Baga, which left somewhere from 150 to 2000...

To The Trail, in response to the letter published in the December 5, 2014 issue:   In a letter published recently in the Trail, a reader raised objections to the divestment campaign currently underway within the student body. There are many critiques I could make of their arguments, such as the claims about how divestment would or would not affect the companies’ behavior, whether the companies’ behavior is in fact bad or not, or whether it is hypocritical to fight for divestment when oil remains a major part of our...

The phrase “melting pot,” used to ascribe the various mixing of cultures in the United States, is, unsurprisingly, not a perfect portrayal of the American body politic. The concept of the melting pot is the goal for all cultures to be reflected in one common culture, however, this is generally the culture of the dominant group.  What results from advocating this construct is the appropriation of minority cultures by the dominant group. In the United States, cultural appropriation almost always involves members of the dominant culture (or those who identify...

Think of all the waste that could be eliminated if there were no more “to go” containers in the S.U.B. Everyday at the Diner in the S.U.B., hundreds, if not thousands, of paper plates and cups, plastic utensils, and wrappers are thrown away. Instead of opting for reusable dishes, many students choose disposable tableware that creates an enormous amount of preventable waste. A “take out” culture, in which even students who eat their food in the Diner often use disposable dishes, thrives on our campus. According to workers in the...

YouTube has given this generation a vast platform to express ourselves, be it through anime-mixed music videos, funny cat compilations or how to play guitar tutorials.  Yet there are genres within the YouTube community that should truly be labeled as dubious entertainment. 1. Social experiments have become a disease on YouTube, and not because the most recent video “Drunk Girl in Public (edit: Awareness Skit)” went viral.  Like this one, many of these productions are staged, often uncomfortable and most often slightly racist.  YouTuber Chescaleigh explains on her channel how...

Editor’s note: this letter is a response to letters published in the Dec. 5 issue of The Trail.   To the Trail: In last week’s issue of The Trail, a letter to the editor appeared responding to a number of pieces that had come out in support of a transparent investment and socially responsible investment (SRI) campaign two weeks before. The author, Oliver Field, expressed his disapproval of the campaign. As participants in the campaign, we are happy to have sparked campus wide conversation and would like to respond to...

Classes are finally over, and students all over campus are celebrating their freedom.  Come Sunday, however, one thought will be plaguing nearly every student at Puget Sound: final exams. From an outside perspective, it seems like there isn’t really a point to them since they will mostly be testing students on concepts they’ve already learned, so why even bother?  The thing is, they might not be so terrifying for students if they weren’t worth such a huge percentage of the student’s grade.  So much so that this one last test...