A Puzzled Penguin

  He heard the phone starting to ring — once, twice, three times. At last, it stopped. Gatsby stood and stared across the Bay towards the green light. In his head, all he could hear was “You can’t repeat the past.”  For the first time, he stood still. He knew he couldn’t do anything. Gatsby was afraid to lose Daisy. His entire life was centered around Daisy, the longing to be with her, her status, and her money. But none of that mattered anymore. For the first time, he had self control. It felt good. He heard Nick's voice again: “You can’t repeat the past.”  This time, he didn’t argue back. Ever since he got back from the war, he thought of ways to get her attention, but none of that worked. He thought about calling her, he realized that there was nothing he could do. He put down the phone and went outside. The night air was cool and damp. He stood on his marble balcony and looked at the green light one last time. For years, the light amazed him. Now, it seemed like...

  The wealth gap in America is increasing — that's no secret. Just look at this income-based graph by the federal reserve. Over the past 10 years, the top 1% have tripled income, while the bottom 50% has stayed relatively consistent.  When asked about the increasing divide in wealth and power, the most common reaction is fear or anger. They might think that since the rich get richer, the poorer get poorer. Mind you, this is not my own saying. The Percy Bysshe Shelley attributed aphorism (I failed that vocab quiz too btw) says "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."  In any expanding economy, wealth tends to concentrate first among those who create and take risks. When new technologies or markets, those risk takers get most of the rewards. After all, you reap what you sow. How could this be unfair? It is just a reward for the risk takers. Over time, the profits, income, and wealth slowly distribute back to the common people. Economists call this the Kuznets Cu...

  I recently had a friend that told me that they feel too lonely and dependent on their friends. As someone who usually has some type of suggestion when complaints are made, I felt quite useless at that moment. I didn’t know what to say because they seem to always be surrounded by friends and always at the center of attention. At this point, I became puzzled. How could someone who is so socially active (at least from the outside) feel lonely? There, I realized that loneliness isn't a lack of interactions from other people, it’s about the desired social connections they lack. Sometimes, the desire to be understood is the biggest desire one could want: a feeling that you are not alone. That story reminded me of Dvořák, especially his “American” string quartet and his “New World” symphony. When he composed these two pieces, he was living in the United States, which was far from his home in Europe. To everyone else, he was praised, admired, constantly surrounded by students and fellow ...

Everyone loves freedom. It’s on bumper stickers, posters, and it is also my excuse to eat cereal for lunch. After all it’s a “free” country isn't it?  America is called “the land of the free” (free shipping is usually included as well” but I would argue that it is the most misunderstood concept. In class, we were asked to read Civil Disobedience and The Swimmer . The two essays presented two different ideas to me. The former tells us to “be a friction” to the government while the latter tells us that we should just go with the flow. However, before I dig deeper, I’d like to address some problems I have with Civil Disobedience that I have to get it out(feel free to skip to the next paragraph.) First, how can you say that the power should be put in the minority? I promise you if that was the case the world would be over already. Did Mr. Thoreau even think about what groups are part of the minority? The minority could be a hate group for all you know (that would end pretty badly won...

  In the summer of 2025, I saw our president hand out tariffs like Oprah handing out cars: “You get a tariff! You get a tariff! Everyone gets a tariff!” No one was safe from this gift. Friends, enemies, and neighbors all were all chosen. I didn’t think much of it (besides the fact that our president basically announced a bar brawl and invited the entire world to it.) Like one would expect, the other invitees took a small swing back, a mere 20% increase on all American goods. It’s like watching kids on a beach building sandcastles. One kid goes to stomp all over the other kid’s sandcastle, yelling that he is the best. Naturally, the other kids go stomp on the troublemaker’s sandcastle. Problem solved right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. In the end, no one has any castles left — it's a lose-lose situation. But I mean hey, who doesn’t like a good scuffle? Imposing tariffs on each other limits trade. As one would learn in economics 101, countries specialize in certain produ...

We’ve all heard Churchill's famous saying of, “history is written by the victors." While this may sound cliche or just not true, it feels more truthful after the first two weeks of class. In my reading of Postcards from the Trenches, the same question kept on coming up: whose story gets to be told and who decides that?  Without a doubt, monuments are powerful at keeping history. They give communities a place to grieve, to celebrate, and to remember. Because most memorials are cut out of stone or metal, they are able to serve their purpose for centuries. However, monuments are expensive. A simple headstone costs upward of a thousand dollars and the Vietnam War Memorial reportedly cost 7 million, which is about 28 million now. That money doesn’t come from nowhere — it is usually paid for by the government or people with influence. For the people who pay for these memorials, if the memorial/monument does not reflect well on their history or themselves, they would not give funding...