Gay unions shed light on gender in marriage. Gender roles don’t really exist. In gay relationships, there is no one who is the “woman” or the “man”. Gender roles are not biological; they are a cultural construct. (Duh.)
JK Rowling’s commencement speech to Harvard. A bit long but every bit insightful. Excerpt: “So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. [...] Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”
Rejecting the “model” in model minority. Asian Americans are the classic model minority; we are, supposedly, amiable and submissive to Caucasian authority. Not only is this demeaning to Asian Americans, it also insults other minority groups by telling them how to act: with complete subservience.
Former Dartmouth professor plans to sue students and colleagues for “intellectual distress”. I wouldn’t have noticed this story except that it happened right down the street. Professor got humiliated by a freshman class. It has happened before. Professor wants to sue university because of said humiliation. That’s something new. Want some perspective on her personality? Get this: “Venkatesan didn’t get along with her colleagues - who consisted of research associates, Ph.D. students, and other postdoctoral fellows - from the very outset of her tenure at [Dartmouth Medical School].” Gee. Guess what the common element is.
Amber Ying is a figment of the Internet. In real life, she is an undergraduate student of biology and chemistry at Colby-Sawyer College. Amber likes kittens, postmodern American literature, public policy, and cheesecake. She dislikes eggplants, parking tickets, and cobblestone streets.
