Being Blue at PSU

By Tim Klaum Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, on many levels of government and from both sides of the aisle, we've head it said that there's no "federal solution" to ending this, and that the states have autonomy to make rules as they see fit. Most recently, the president himself said those words almost verbatim. And while they may see this as true, I can't help but look at countries around the world who have handled this pandemic farm more gracefully and efficiently than we ever did. Granted, a lot of these countries are smaller than the United States, in both population and just by land mass. However, I can't help but be jealous of countries like New Zealand, which has been relatively covid free since June 2020, while the United States is still struggling. For instance, in New Zealand, they were able to shut down the country altogether, and for the most part their citizens followed protocol. In doing this, the nation was able to quarantine those who had con...

By Annmarie Rounds-Sorensen | President 2021-2022 The women in my life taught me from a young age that I needed tough skin to get through life. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother have been my heroes for my entire life, and I consider myself supremely lucky to have them as my guideposts. I grew up watching them survive challenges I consider myself too weak to handle, and they shared their stories and advice with me. Now, when I am faced with seemingly unbearable situations, I have the tools to survive. As I grew up in less than favorable conditions, I found political organizing and activism to be a cathartic way to fight the barriers I saw not just for myself, but for those around me who had even less than I did. I saw up close when I was 17 at the New York City Women's March how huge our fight is. It reminded me of a Rupi Kaur poem. "we all move forward when we recognize how resilient and striking the women around us are" Political organizing is deeply pe...

  By JT Thomas Okay, so lately I’ve been thinking about the military-industrial complex and the absolutely absurd amount of money the US gives to the Pentagon each year. I’m far from an expert, but really, what in the world could the military possibly need with $768.2 billion? Nobody else on the planet spends nearly as much as that. The bottom line is that we need to cut the the Pentagon’s paycheck down to size. Now, I realize that I’m probably preaching to the choir here. So how do we preach to the rest of the people in the room? My friends, allow me to take you on a journey. I call it: the Car Metaphor. Imagine you have a car. Let’s just say it’s a Subaru. User friendly, dependable, long-lasting. Your Subaru is a 2016 model; it’s not too old, but it’s not brand-spanking new either. Still, it gets you from point A to point B. It’s comfortable and reliable. It’s even got a bluetooth speaker. In other words, you like your 2016 Subaru. It works for you. Then, they release the 2022 ve...