Driving With Big Brother
Megan Gould writes: Driving in America these days requires additional focus to avoid treacherous potholes and deteriorating asphalt. Since 1956 the primary funding for building and maintaining America’s roads and bridges has come from the gas tax. However, revenue has severely declined as cars have been more fuel efficient, American’s have started driving less, and […]
When A Scientist Tries To Play Historian…
Becca Harrison writes: As a science-y person, I am accustomed to the resources I need for literature-based research being readily available with a few strokes of keys into an online search engine. Cornell has provided us science-types access to virtually any information we can think of, and after today’s big announcement about your tax dollars […]
Foreign Aid
Phoebe Kuo writes: Foreign aid doesn’t get a lot of media fanfare. Food distribution is slow and journalists don’t get too many juicy stories from it. And yet, a good number of Americans don’t support it, especially when there are other programs they would rather see enacted and supported closer to home. Americans tend to […]
Media And Its Influence On Political Opinion
Kyle Chang writes: Media has been used as a propaganda tool to garner the support of people. Media and its relation to its audience is thus of utmost importance for policy decisions, especially in a democracy where government is “for the people.” Optimally, the media is an unbiased representation of reality and the people decide […]
Researching The Supreme Court
Maggie Henry writes: This week, I’m sharing a bit about my archive research and how it has progressed. I’ll begin with a little background on what direction my project has moved in (and indeed, it has moved!) Since I submitted my proposal and wrote last week’s blog, I have had the chance to review Professor […]
Grieving Families: Why Mental Health Needs More Attention
Colleen Burke writes: Unfortunately for the United States, 2012 has been marked as a distressful year with mentally ill individuals damaging the lives of others. Two notorious shootings this past year were highly covered by the media, attracting the attention of Americans nationwide and the focus of law and policy makers. On July 20th in […]
Placing Development Alongside Diplomacy
Sarah Allibhoy writes: Recent literature by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) describes its mission in conjunction with the larger US national security strategy – placing development alongside diplomacy and defense as the key ways in which the United States interacts with other nations. In establishing USAID in 1961, President Kennedy laid the framework […]
US-Colombia Free Trade
Jeremy Brewer writes: Less than a year and a half ago the Senate held an open executive session considering the implementation of the US-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the US-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA), and the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. Background of the hearing: Economic arguments in favor of signing the FTA and TPAs […]
Humanitarian Aid and the World’s Darfurs
Gabriela Balbín writes: After decades of drought and abandonment, rebellion broke out in Sudan’s Western Darfur region in 2002. Chaos spread, as rebel groups made up of Darfur’s farming population fought against the nomadic Arab tribes supported by the Sudanese military. These militias under the response of Sudan’s government started what the world would later […]
Africa and Thriving Industry
Theresa Anoje writes: Up until the past decade, many African governments did not, and often could not, put attention on their country’s industrial sector. This is the result of the “Washington Consensus” (Warning! PDF), a set of policies that many African countries were forced to adopt as the conditions for loans from the International Monetary […]
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