Now that we're back and I'm finally caught up on my blog-feed reading from 2015, I figured I'd link to selected posts from some of the blogs I really enjoyed getting caught up on. This is not all of the posts from all of the blogs, just some selected ones from selected ones, chosen more or less following my whims.

My reading from December 1 to December 31 totalled almost 600 posts from 23 blogs; December in Review: Part I and December in Review: Part II include about ninety links with commentary from me. If that sounds like too much for you, December in Review: Best Of is twenty links (plus two bonus mathy ones). Finally, My Faults My Own | Reading Feed already has stuff from the first bit of January, albeit in more abbreviated form.

No warranty, especially not merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, should be implied -- my interests in reading range significantly farther than my interests in writing, so don't expect that every blog is 100% recommended to every Faults reader. Nevertheless, if you enjoy reading Faults, there's probably something here for you.

While we were on finals-induced break...
(if you wish, skip over this news review)

Says Jasmine M. Waddell, resident dean for Elm Yard, as reported in the Crimson article:

"This is a way to say, 'You've been exposed to a lot of different ideas, and particularly in this moment when there’s a lot of discussion about various topics, you’re going to go home and you may or may not be able to speak the same language,'" Waddell said. "It's not that you have to believe in what's on the placemat, but it gives you some tools to be able to have productive conversations."

Waddell added that the Freshman Dean's Office decided against emailing the placemats directly to students, instead installing them in Annenberg without comment as a piece of "

(1)

Say you are deeply, morally opposed to capitalism on principle, but nevertheless some inconsiderate person walks up to you, presses a dollar bill into your hand, and walks away. You already have more dollars than you need, and you certainly don't want to take part in the system you despise by spending it.

But then what do you do? Hide it away in order to level down inequity? Burn it in protest of the capitalist system that distributes luxuries to the rich instead of welfare to the starving?

Writes Scott Alexander:

If, as I’ve postulated, the reason we can’t solve world poverty and disease and so on is...the capture of our financial resources by the undirected dance of incentives, then what better way to fight back than by saying "Thanks but no thanks, I'm taking this abstract representation of my resources and using it exactly how I think it should most be used"? (...)

I suggest that you give it to someone who needs medicine. Or food. Or whatever else a dollar can buy. You don't seek to destroy unearned wealth if you can dispatch it to do immediate, tangible good. That's just selfish.

Writes Jeff Kaufman:

If you think of privilege as something you have that makes you a bad person, if you know the word and know it applies to you but you try to hide and dismiss your privilege, to find axes along which you have less of it, that's only marginally more helpful than if you were to deny your privilege entirely and insist

Unless you're using Lynx, you've probably noticed a new theme for the site. Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the brand-spanking-new comments section! (If the comments are broken, let me know by email.)

It's my own design, built from the ground up, and I'm still tweaking it around the edges, so I appreciate any general feedback on the visual design, whether positive or negative, as well as bug notices. I've been hacking at it for long enough that you should assume that any bug you find is not something I'm aware of yet.

Known bugs so far:

• Scrolling on mobile is jerky. If your browser refuses to scroll at all, or if your scrolling is messed up in a desktop browser, do let me know.
• The site icon has reverted to the Ghost default. I'll eventually put a new one up, once I get around to drawing it.
• I'm still working on optimizing load/render time, so consider that a known issue.

...and with that, we're back from hiatus! Expect a proper post first thing tomorrow. (I'd like to do a writeup of the theme-development process, but the first post won't be that.)

Gene Corbin

This meeting makes me think about the importance of good leadership in our country and on this campus. Let's thank Dhruv and Ava for their leadership, and for all the candidates bravely putting themselves out there in this election.

Ground Rules

Time limits announced per-question. Keep it civil, and try to generate good ideas.

Opening Statements

Shaiba / Danny

We're here to open Harvard. That means opening social space, opening dialogue on mental health and sexual assault, and putting students in those discussions, and making the first-year experience feel like a home.

We'll hit the ground running, because for the past year, we've been working on this issues. We've lobbied the administration and planned parties. We've been crafting a bystander intervention program.

All of these issues are intertwined because students feel like they don't belong on this campus. You don't belong when you have nothing to do on a Friday, when you need to go to MHS for mental health services, or if 20% of the women in your class have been sexually assaulted

Will / Will

For a very long time, three issues have plagued our campus: mental health, sexual assault, and social spaces. But now they've come to a head. It's only now that we're trying to discuss them, and we need to make sure that our efforts don't disappear, people don't forget that they exist, and that they don't forget that they have solutions.

We are two people who have done a lot of good on the UC, and elsewhere on the campus. We're not trying to be the UC

Bar "Issues of Varsity Athletics" on the varsity athletes' platform, the only difference between the three tickets' platforms this year is that the Rather/Banks ticket collapses sexual assault and mental health into the single issue "Open Dialogue", while adding the plank "Open the Yard", read "Freshman Life".

I'd be inclined to write this off as a matter of branding and rhetoric rather than ideology, except that at the Crimson-hosted UC Crossfire debate, Danny Banks tried to make hay out of it -- claiming proudly that "We are the only platform with a third of our platform dedicated to freshmen."

I don't think you can believe that those words mean anything if you don't also believe that they mean other planks holding less importance. The time, energy, and political capital of the UC presidency is limited, and if you believe that freshman social life deserves attention at the expense of mental health on campus, then your candidates are Rather and Banks.

But I'm voting Greenlaw/Morris.

(1a)

Will Morris, before the UC vice presidency crossed his mind, has been writing eloquently on the chords of discontent often heard on our campus; perhaps you remember Dear Andy?

I hope this letter to you will help change things for others. I hope it will convince someone who is like me all those years ago to find the support that they need. I hope it will encourage someone like me now—too busy with their midterms, their finals, and their papers—to check in on a friend. I hope it will encourage us as a community to fight against the stigma surrounding mental

Opening Statements

Nick / Jeff

We were both disenchanted with Harvard as a whole...but then we realized how lucky we are, and how many things are wrong at Harvard. We can do better as a community, and we can do better as a whole.

Our platform stands on:

• Mental Health
• Sexual Assault
• Social Spaces
• Issues surrounding Varsity Athletics

Shaiba / Danny

Opening Harvard includes making truly inclusive social spaces, putting students in high-level administrative decisions, and re-imagining the first-year experience.

• Social Spaces
• Sexual Assault & Mental Health
• First-Year Life

Will / Will

People complain about social spaces, put on a band-aid solution it, and forget about it. People complain about sexual assault, put on a band-aid solution it, and forget about it. People complain about mental health when we hear that someone hurt themselves, but then we just put on a band-aid solution it, and forget about it. It's time to do something about these issues.

• Social Spaces
• Sexual Assault
• Mental Health

Policy Proposals: Sexual Assault

Nick / Jeff

Sexual assault: Mandatory beginning-of-year OSAPR/DAPA training.

Social spaces: Expedited party forms, allowing you to register parties 30min ahead of time.

Shaiba / Danny

Shifting the sexual assault dialogue from reactionary to preventative.

It's important that the administration adopts an affirmative consent policy.

Will