Enquiry: A Publication of the AHI Undergraduate Fellows | vol. X
The annual State of the Union address was a spectacle this year. Cameras panned to an obviously split House chamber after each sentence from President Trump. One side applauded enthusiastically while the other side sat stone-faced. Besides its theatrics, this year’s State of the Union address brought forward an important question: Can we look past disdain for a politician’s character in order to work with them to enact policy?
Read MoreA London publisher, Laurence King, observed: “How many times have you heard the term ‘curate’ in the past few years? But what exactly does it mean? Curating has been a key concept both in and outside the art world in the past few years, with the role of a curator having changed and expanded with each new exhibition or biennale.”
Read MoreCongressman Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts delivered the Democratic response to President Trump’s State of the Union address last week. Speaking to a small audience in Fall River, Massachusetts, Kennedy elicited a range of responses during CNN’s live Facebook stream. One of the most-liked comments on the stream came from an older man who said he “closed his eyes and heard him.” Other commenters were quick to agree that Joe Kennedy III sounded like his great-uncle, the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy.
Read MoreOver winter break, a college student from my hometown went missing.
Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year-old at the University of Pennsylvania, disappeared after going to a park in Orange County, California with a friend late at night while home from college. Police officers and community volunteers scoured the area for days, circulating posts on social media and holding out hope that he would be found alive.
“Down with the czar!” cried the protesters in Pushkin Square.
This was in January 2018, not November 1917, and the protesters meant Vladimir Putin, not Nicholas II. About 1,000 Russians gathered in Moscow to protest the upcoming March 18 presidential election. Additionally, police reported protests in 90 other cities around the country, calling for Putin to step down and encouraging their fellow citizens to boycott the election. Alexei Navalny, who is considered Putin’s most formidable political rival, organized the protests to highlight the election’s unfairness. The Kremlin barred Navalny from running because of his criminal record; he maintains that these legal problems were manufactured to prevent his candidacy.
Read MoreImmediately upon beginning Michael Wolff’s political tell-all, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, I was reminded of the books Barnes & Noble once placed near the checkout line, the amusing books about courtly scandals and the ridiculous hijinx of prominent historical figures. Some of them had silly titles, like Napoleon’s Privates. Some of them offered soap opera-worthy drama about royal family intrigue, exposing the private lives of long-dead nobility as entertainment for a 21st-century audience. No matter the book, no matter the subject, these revealing and sometimes ridiculing accounts always left the reader with the simple thought, These people are idiots.
Fire and Fury is no exception.
Read More