Highlights - Page 52

Where Should You Go To Study? The Ultimate Swarthmore Library Quiz

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The looming weight of this decision haunts you wherever you go; night and day you feel it nagging, worrying you, hovering over you with seemingly life-altering consequences. The choice you must make again and again, every new day, sometimes multiple times a day. It’s there waiting for you when you get out of class, when you leave Sharples with a takeout container in hand, when it’s 10:30 p.m. and that paper is due by midnight.  Every Swat student must answer the constant, all-important question: “Where should I go to study?” Yes, it may at first glance sound trivial, but the

Exploring New Asian Futurisms Alongside Pastries and the Past

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Despite having been in the area numerous times for Reading Terminal Market, I’d never seen the gallery before. It’s a short, unassuming building next to a highway and an alleyway. The only branding is on its green awning, and it’s in plain, white sans-serif font: Asian Arts Initiative. It’s one of the most unpretentious art spaces I’ve ever seen. And as someone who often conflates quality with pretension, I probably I wouldn’t have entered if I wasn’t on a class trip. We were there for the opening reception of the New Asian Futurisms exhibit, featuring works by Saks Afridi, Melissa

Say Boo to Halloween

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October has descended upon us, and we all know what that means — pumpkin spice, sweater weather, and general spookiness. To cap off this long month, America has adopted an old Celtic celebration, now known as Halloween. However, this celebration is merely an excuse for people to dress up as something they’re not. Costumes are sometimes used as an excuse to take on a different identity, but they can often be offensive or culturally appropriative. Halloween is a waste of time and money and acts as the worst possible prologue to the actual holiday season. I simply cannot understand why

Club Boxing Team Attracts Wide Interest

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If you are anywhere near Tarble gym on Monday or Saturday night and hear the sound of muffled music and rhythmic pounding from below, it is likely that you are hearing the practice of the newly founded Swarthmore Boxing Club practice. Started by Robert Zigmund ’21 early this year, the Swarthmore Boxing Club has received interest from 78 students. A majority of these students, around 50 of them, signed up during the annual club fair, while the remaining have accumulated over the weeks as word of the club has spread. Zigmund became interested in boxing during last year’s spring semester

Pussy Riot Concert Brings the Riot to Swarthmore

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On Thursday, Sept. 26, the wooden floor of Upper Tarble shook so much that it seemed about to collapse at any moment. In the back of Upper Tarble, bright red, and black-and-white strobe lights shone onto a stage with two of Pussy Riot’s performers — Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria J Baez. They wore costumes that combined the aesthetics of police uniforms, goth attire, and what one might expect to find in a hazardous waste processing facility. A screen hung behind the stage, and on it rapidly flashed a video repeatedly showing the words, “Vomit on your bulletproof vest.”  Pussy Riot,

OSE and SGO SEPTA Lottery in Transition

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Swarthmore SEPTA station at sunset

Opportunities for students to travel into Philadelphia cost-free are currently more limited than usual due to the absence of the SEPTA lottery. The future of the lottery is uncertain — its original funding source ran out and changes to the SEPTA system itself make buying tickets more difficult for the Office of Student Engagement. Conversations are currently taking place between the OSE, Student Government, and the Student Budget Committee to determine where funding will come from, who the lottery will serve, and logistics of its implementation.    The SEPTA lottery was introduced in September of 2017 by the Office of Student

The Medicalization of Desire

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Men in the medical field couldn’t understand why their wives didn’t enjoy having sex with them, so instead of finding the clitoris, psychiatrists in the 1950s decided their wives must have a medical disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has included a sexual disorder defined by a woman’s lack of sexual desire since the first edition. The name of this disorder has changed from frigidity to inhibited sexual desire to Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder to Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder. While there are differences in the specific diagnostic criteria, all of the disorders apply to women who have

New Club Tennis Team Welcomes Players of All Levels

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If you are looking for club tennis at Swarthmore, you’re in luck. A new team started up this year, and by its early popularity, it looks like they are here to stay. Dan Yang ’22 and Justin Jatto ’22 started the club just a few weeks ago. “We started the club with the intention to link up with more Swat students that enjoyed playing tennis.” Yang said. “We were lucky enough to be friends last year and hit together, but we wanted to extend beyond the two of us.”  In just over one month that Swarthmore has been in session,

Swarthmore Students Join School Strike for Climate

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On Friday, September 20, Swarthmore students stood in front of Parrish Hall before heading to march outside Philadelphia City Hall as part of a global youth climate strike calling for a response to climate change. The event at Swarthmore was spearheaded by the Sunrise Movement club, a subsidiary of a national organization and network of hundreds of thousands of young people. Greta Thunberg, the sixteen-year old Swedish climate activist who has taken time off school to call for stronger responses to climate change, inspired the climate strike around the world.          Hundreds of students and dozens of faculty members gathered

Moving on From R.E.C.s, the College’s Plan to Reach Carbon Neutrality

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In 1999 the college began purchasing renewable energy certificates, and the college’s 2012 “Climate Action Plan” cited Renewable Energy Credits (R.E.C.s) as a necessary tool to offset those greenhouse gas emissions associated with the generation of electricity that could not be eliminated by reducing consumption. Numerous studies have found that R.E.C. markets do little to drive the reduction of carbon emissions. In response to these concerns, the college intends to implement a new strategy of electrifying systems and decarbonizing electrical sources.  As defined by the EPA, a R.E.C. is the “legal property rights to the ‘renewable-ness’ … of renewable electricity

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