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(02/06/09 12:00am)
Last week there was a sexual assault on campus in the Humanities Building, which is in itself truly frightening. What is almost equally frightening is the fact that very few people knew about it, which put them in danger of similar attacks. As a coordinator for the Women's Resource Center, I would like to take this opportunity to offer the WRC's condolences to the victim of the attack and suggestions to the Rice University Police Department on how they can better keep us safe after such an attack. In general, the attack calls for a wider and more timely dissemination of information without disparities.Let's start with immediately after the assault, which occurred on a weekday night in the center of campus when it was almost certain that many people were out and about. As the perpetrator was not detained by RUPD, it is conceivable that students and faculty in the area were in danger of encountering him. To keep members of the Rice community safe, RUPD should have initiated a system for instantaneous notification, allowing people in the area to retreat to safe locations or do whatever they thought necessary to protect themselves.
(12/05/08 12:00am)
There is no such thing as Spanish. If living in Guatemala, Peru and Chile during the last eight months has taught me anything, it is this: There's Guatemalan, Peruvian, Chilean, Argentinean, Bolivian, Uruguayan and so forth, but no "Spanish," except for maybe in Spain.For those of you who are confused, as you have a right to be, let me give an example: if I told a non-Chilean Spanish speaker, mi pololo estaba ponceando con lolitas cuando fue a caretear, ¿cachai? it's a safe bet that he or she would have no idea that I was trying to say, "When my boyfriend went out partying he was making out with lots of teenage girls, do you get that?" And if I told someone in Central America Nacio la gwawa en la chacra he or she wouldn't understand that I was saying, "The baby was born in the country." And that's just the vocabulary. How about accents - where Spaniards use lisps and Argentineans sound like Italians? Or grammar - in which Chileans terminate tu verbs with -i or how tu barely exists between Guatemalans?
(03/21/08 12:00am)
What is your reaction when faced with a problem? How about 10,000 problems? The Internet and general trade patterns have made the world a much more accessible place over the last 20 years, not only bringing us closer to our fellow man but also bringing us closer to his problems. Look at the front page of a newspaper and you're bound to read about worker exploitation in China, suicide bombing in Iraq, sex trafficking in Eastern Europe or, more recently, genocide in Sudan. It is absolutely overwhelming, and the constant barrage of negative imagery that persists can have detrimental effects, especially on the most idealistic. This condition is called sympathy fatigue.Sympathy fatigue is much like apathy and occurs when a person feels the weight of so many problems that they stop taking any sort of action to combat the problems. We might also call it getting jaded.
