This morning, I started to write a radically different article. After a painful U.S. election, I wanted to issue a call to action and a plea for hope in the face of what seemed like utter hopelessness. The first paragraph quoted Emma Lazarus and the second lamented Arizona’s passage of Proposition 314. Frustration poured onto the page. Then I got an email. My friend died this afternoon.
Just 11 days before the U.S. presidential election, Jeff Bezos decided to kill The Washington Post’s editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris on grounds of “compromised objectivity.” I think his decision undermines the very foundation upon which journalistic credibility is established.
The last few days have seen escalating attacks on conservative students at Boston College in the wake of President Donald Trump’s reelection. Conservative students have been targeted on social media and on campus, being told that they condone rape, sexism, racism, and every other “ism” in the English dictionary.
The terms “mother nature,” “lady justice,” and “mother tongue” convey a certain gendered innateness about them. In other words, they are feminizations of natural and social concepts. These terms, among many others, are used to signify nurturing and naturally occurring phenomena, paralleling the way motherhood has been constructed and reciprocated as innate to womanhood.
On Tuesday night, I sat on the floor of the overflow room at Walsh Hall to hear Liz Cheney speak. I had been confounded for weeks: What had The Council for Women of Boston College chosen to celebrate? The fliers were maddeningly vague—and one week before the election, too! Wouldn’t she be campaigning with Kamala Harris? I was fascinated.
Anywhere from 20,000 to 150,000 people have been killed. No one knows for sure because it’s impossible to get enough reliable data. Over 7,500,000 people have been displaced—on top of the 2,800,000 in the country that were already displaced before this war.
The resignation of Boston College President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., tasks the University with finding a new leader for the first time in almost 30 years. However, the Board of Trustees made sure to swiftly indicate that it is likely to select another Jesuit to fill the role.
During my six years at Boston College, a lot has changed. The student body has continuously grown in diversity, BC began participating in Questbridge, and LGBTQ+ students now have their own dedicated staff member integrated into the Bowman AHANA Intercultural Center (BAIC).
Yet, while BC seems so publicly driven by the Catholic faith, it is clear that the University’s administration does not place the faith first when it comes to fossil fuel divestment.
Peace and Christmas have long been inextricably linked. One of the most famous examples of this is the Christmas truce during World War I, in which British and German troops began a ceasefire on Christmas Eve.
