Posts Tagged ‘ opinion ’

Students on Human Rights: Gay Marriage Is Important; Civil Unions Are Not Equality

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By Devon Lantry

Our life is incredible.  We live in a place where equal rights and personal freedoms are more widespread than in almost any other place in the world.  Our society is based around every person’s equal entitlement to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, creating communities that foster the realization of individual potential.

But it hasn’t always been that way.  Throughout U.S. history, Americans have fought brutally and sacrificed their lives to extend the American dream to more people.  The next fight for equality in our story is for homosexual, transgender and queer Americans. The most important cornerstone of this fight is the struggle to legalize gay marriage.

If legalized, gay marriage would grant same-sex partners equal hospital visitation rights, job benefits, inheritance rights, tax treatment by the government, and more rights.  Even state sanctioned gay marriage still excludes over 1,150 federal rights given to straight married couples. Read more »

Jew Tattoo Taboo

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Photo: Dyanna via Flickr

By Omry Shemesh

Many of you have probably seen Jews with tattoos and wondered, “Hey, isn’t that against Jewish law?”

Like every other Jewish debate, there are different ways to interpret it. The only clear text that is strongly reminiscent of tattoos is Leviticus 19:28 – “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.” Read more »

SOPA: Deciding the Fate of the Internet Freedom

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By Max Brother

SOPA Infographic Cropped

Americancensorship.org Infographic (click the image to see full version)

A contentious new bill is under debate in Congress. The bill, called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), threatens to enable the U.S. government and the entertainment industry to control the World Wide Web, similar to government-imposed Internet restrictions in countries such as China, Iran and Syria.

As stated in the preamble of the bill itself, SOPA intends to “promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.” Read more »

Great Expectations: The iPhone 4s

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It was the best of phones, it was the worst of phones: on Oct. 4, Apple announced the newest generation of iPhone, which was met with great disappointment from its fans.

Rumors have been flying around the Internet regarding this year’s iPhone since the announcement of the iPhone 4 last year. Speculations spanned everything from a slimmer phone, a return to the aluminum back, a unibody akin to the MacBook Pros and even the announcement of an iPhone mini. Read more »

Segway: The Way of the Future?

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This semester, Shana Weitzen, the “Gadget Girl,” investigates consumer technology.

Our intrepid reporter in action.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about creating environmentally friendly modes of transportation—hybrid cars, electric cars, less polluting trains and more. However there is one way to get around that bears more investigation: the Segway, a two-wheeled, electric-powered “mobility device” that hit the market in 2001. The Segway never caught on in a big way—actually it’s banned in New York and San Francisco—but could it work in LA? With this in mind, I tried one out.

Segway employee, Tresa Hill, explained the ins-and-outs of the Segway and let me cruise around for a while. The mobility device feels like a motorized razor scooter that your body controls. When I leaned to the right, for example, the Segway followed my motion. I didn’t expect to have so much fun on a vehicle I didn’t need to exert much effort in controlling. We were next to the Santa Monica Pier soaking up the sun without breaking a sweat.

But is Segway possible as an everyday vehicle? Read more »