Seeing Double: Who Won?

Seeing Double Columnists Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 and Thomas Brodey ’22 close out their long-running column with a debate of who is the better fledgling columnist.

Seeing Double: Tradition, Tradition!

Seeing Double Columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 reflects on his four years at Amherst, concluding his last solo column with a claim that the college is in need of more student traditions.

Seeing Double: Getting Involved in Town

Seeing Double Columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 discusses his positive experiences working with the greater Amherst town community, and encourages students to join town committees.

Seeing Double: How to Make Challah

Seeing Double Columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 reflects on his Jewish identity, his connections to the Amherst community, and a very special loaf of bread.

Seeing Double: For More than Zero Gazebos

Seeing Double Columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 discusses why Amherst should build a gazebo (or multiple) on campus.

Seeing Double: Nuclear Power Isn’t the Future

Seeing Double Columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 argues that using nuclear power as an energy source has more negative consequences than positive.

Seeing Double: Reflections on Amherst Activism

Seeing Double Columnists Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 and Thomas Brodey ’22 discuss what it means to participate in activism.

Seeing Double: Administrators Should Talk to Students

Seeing Double columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ‘22 outlines why the administration needs to consult students before making certain decisions.

Seeing Double: Auditions, To Do or Not To Do?

Seeing Double columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 considers how to balance equity with beauty and access with skill in an article inspired by recent AAS rulings on auditions and funding.

Seeing Double: “What Is Amherst Uprising?”

Seeing Double columnists Thomas Brodey ’22 and Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 look back at the Amherst Uprising and question how the student body can maintain movements’ memories when their time on campus is so short.

Seeing Double: Seeking Student Spaces in the Student Center

Seeing Double columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 thinks back on his experiences working with Green Room and argues that the planning of a new student center provides the perfect opportunity for a new student-run space.

Seeing Double: Consensual Cannibalism?

Seeing Double columnists Thomas Brodey ‘22 and Cole Graber-Mitchell ‘22 debate the ethics of consensual cannibalism. Brodey argues that endocannibalism especially does no harm and holds significance to many the world over. Graber-Mitchell refutes, discussing where societies should draw a line.

Seeing Double: Work-Study is Less Not More

Seeing Double columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 points to the equity issue surrounding the college’s policy on ​​federal work-study. He argues that the college shouldn’t treat work-study as part of financial aid awards which forces its beneficiaries to work for their aid.

Seeing Double: Pay Up, Profs

Seeing Double columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 reveals the system of unpaid student labor underpinning much of the research that takes place on campus, and asks students and faculty to build a better system by ending unpaid research positions.

Seeing Double: Amherst Reorientation 2021

Seeing Double columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 shares the difficulty of adjusting to life back on campus after so much time away. He urges students to take their time settling back into in-person college life and make use of college mental health resources when things get tough.

Seeing Double: Let Us Swipe!

Seeing Double columnist Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 illustrates the importance of student access to the various buildings on campus in fostering a strong community atmosphere. He then asks the college administration for one crucial thing in the upcoming semester: “Let us swipe!”

Seeing Double: Amherst College Should Help Fund Local Schools

Amherst’s local public schools are in crisis. Due to declining enrollments, Amherst Regional Public Schools [https://www.arps.org/] — a cooperative school district that includes the towns of Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury— is facing a $1.2 million budget cut [https://www.amherstindy.org/2021/05/07/town-council-passes-regional-school-budget-with-1-2m-cut-in-services-operating-budget-provides-minimal-funding-for-alternative-to-policing/] , a reduction that will lead [https://www.gazette

Seeing Double: Pros and Cons of Court-Packing

In October 2020, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made the controversial decision to fill the seat of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg with Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The move gave Republican appointees a six out of nine majority on the nation’s highest court, a balance that could have far-reaching consequences for national law. Since then, some Democrats have advocated for adding more justices to the Supreme Court, known as court-packing. Last month, President Joe Biden form

Seeing Double: A Love Letter to Bad Drawings

A few weeks ago, I decided to ignore the nagging voice in my head insisting that I do homework and spend some time relaxing in the sun. To distract myself from the fact that I would be doing this alone, I pulled out an old notebook, grabbed a pencil and drew something. In particular, I decided to draw The Octagon — not that you would know that by looking at the result. See, my drawing skills are elementary at best. By that, I mean that if my drawings were mixed up with an elementary schooler’s,

Seeing Double: Not Everything Should be an Email

Chances are, you’ve been to a meeting that you thought was unimportant. Maybe it was too long, or maybe it veered far off-topic. And maybe you thought to yourself, “This could have been an email” — or maybe, like I have, you snidely remarked to a colleague that it should have been. That saying — “this could have been an email” — was around before the pandemic, but now it feels even more apt. It used to just describe boring, unnecessary meetings. Now, it describes boring, unnecessary meetings th

Seeing Double: Our Vaccine Regime is Killing People

So far, the United States has administered more than 124 million [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html] coronavirus vaccine doses — more than a fourth of the total doses administered worldwide. About a fourth of the country’s population has received at least one dose, and one-eighth of all people in the United States are fully vaccinated. But as we take care to protect our population, we’re screwing the rest of the world. See, most countries have vacci

Seeing Double: You Need a Union

A car exits the highway and stops at a red light outside of a warehouse. Two union organizers, standing on the sidewalk, wave hello and strike up a short conversation. The car’s driver is one of the 5,800 Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, where the first union election at any of the company’s U.S. warehouses since 2014 began last month. And the organizers from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in nearby Birmingham are optimistic. Inside the building, the warehouse bosses plast

Seeing Double: We Aren't Special

You, the beautiful and kind person reading this column, are one of a kind. Nobody in the world is quite like you. Even the person most similar to you, wherever they may be, has had different experiences, holds different opinions, and is, quite simply, different. But while you are certainly unique, I can promise you one thing: you aren’t special. I mean this not in the sense that the things that make you a distinct individual don’t matter, but rather that you aren’t more deserving than other peo

Seeing Double: What a Bummer is Summer

At a certain point in each semester, my days become brighter and lighter. I find that I suddenly have an extraordinary amount of time on my hands — time to watch Netflix, do my long-neglected hobbies, and maybe even get around to taking care of myself. Yes, I’m talking about the first real days of break, when every final is over, every paper is finished and every group project is well and truly over. And that incredible feeling is exactly what I want no school-aged student to ever feel again. Th

Breaking the Ice with Breaking Bad

For the past three months, we have studied remotely from the hamlet of Gill, Mass., population 1,500. You’d think that since we can’t go anywhere, we would see a lot of each other, perhaps hanging out in common areas and bumping into each other in the kitchen. Though that’s true, it sometimes felt as if we had gone days without seeing each other — too often, we retreated into our rooms and our Zooms. So that’s why we decided to watch exactly one episode of “Breaking Bad” every night at 10 p.m. s

It's Time to Abolish the Senate

On Nov. 3, voters across the nation will become pawns in a travesty of democracy. In 34 states — including Massachusetts and my home state of Minnesota — 35 Senate seats are up for grabs. As voters go to the polls, turn in the last mail-in ballots and wait anxiously for results, the hidden gears of the American government will creak into motion and give some voters vastly more power than others. Now, this isn’t a government conspiracy; nobody is literally throwing out votes or committing voter

What To Do If There's a Coup

Donald Trump is planning a coup, and it’s our job to stop him. For the past four years, Trump has poisoned our democratic institutions in anticipation of this very moment. He’s installed [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/05/william-barr-donald-trump-attack-dog-attorney-general?ref=hvper.com] a loyalist in the supposedly independent Department of Justice, filled [https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-fills-10-more-judicial-seats-mitch-mcconnell-stole-from-obama] dozens of stole

Seeing Double: Amherst’s Invisible Financial Aid Crisis (Part Two)

This is the second part of a two-part series about Amherst College’s financial aid program. Check out the first part [https://amherststudent.com/article/seeing-double-amhersts-invisible-financial-aid-crisis-part-one] here. Last week, we showed how Amherst College’s financial aid fails its students. Once we graduate from Amherst, we’ll have hundreds of thousands in debt, and thanks to those of you who reached out to us after our last article, we know we aren’t alone. Amherst’s student debt cri

Seeing Double: Amherst’s Invisible Financial Aid Crisis (Part One)

As we write, one of us is on track to graduate from Amherst College with $135,000 in student loan debt. The other will graduate with $27,000 of debt in his name and $110,000 in his parents’. And we aren’t alone: 28 percent of graduates in the class of 2019 had student loans averaging $22,629, according to Amherst’s 2019 Common Data Set [https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/facts/common_data_sets/2019]. That debt casts a dark shadow over our futures and is a source of tremendous worry for us and

Seeing Double: Should We Mine the Moon?

As space travel becomes more advanced and efficient, many experts say that extraterrestrial mining operations are increasingly viable. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-encouraging-international-support-recovery-use-space-resources/] encouraging companies to develop technologies capable of mining the moon. The moon contains numerous valuable and useful minerals, but moral concerns about extracting

Seeing Double: Should Facebook Ban Political Ads?

In recent years, political advertisements on social media have become a hotly contested issue. Much of the criticism revolves around Facebook, which runs the vast majority of social media political ads. Some say that these ads help spread misinformation and weaken our democracy. Others say they are an important part of the free market of ideas. In light of the controversy, some companies, like Twitter and LinkedIn, have already banned political ads. Should Facebook do the same? Thomas’ Take So

Seeing Double: Should You Really Have Nothing To Hide?

In almost every conversation I have with other young people today about privacy, I’m told that they “have nothing to hide” or that they “know companies steal our information but use their apps anyways.” We’re ambivalent about the prospect of losing our privacy, content to reassure ourselves that there’s nothing to be done even while our government tracks [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/us/politics/nsa-surveillance-2017-annual-report.html] our communications [https://www.lawfareblog.com/docu

Seeing Double: What To Do About Nuclear Warfare?

Since the United States’ first use of the atomic bomb in August 1945, nuclear weapons have threatened the survival of humanity. In recent years, some supporters of nuclear de-escalation have proposed a No First Use (N.F.U.) policy, which would require the U.S. to refrain from using nuclear weapons except in response to a nuclear attack. Some, like presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden, believe that N.F.U. would reduce the risk of nuclear war; others, like former Secretary of S

Seeing Double: Can Leaders Lie?

Lying is a major issue in American politics today. President Donald Trump is notorious for issuing false or misleading statements — over 20,000 of them, according to The Washington Post. Though Trump’s deceit is widely criticized by allies and opponents alike, it raises another, broader question: Is it ever acceptable for a political leader to lie? Thomas’s Take: Everyone lies. One study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst showed [https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amhers

Seeing Double: Does Social Media Help or Hurt Activism?

In recent years, social media has played an important role in social and political movements worldwide. Social media offers many benefits to activists, including the ability to reach wider audiences and greater connectivity. At the same time, it also presents real engagement and security concerns. In this semester’s final edition of Seeing Double, we debate the question, “Has the rise of social media helped or hurt activism?” Thomas At first glance, social media seems like the perfect tool for

Seeing Double: The New Normal

My parents got divorced when I was in fourth grade. Often, people say that they remember events like these clearly, but all I have is a fuzzy memory of sitting down in the living room and being told that yes, they were getting divorced, and yes, they would split custody of me and my sister. Then, we went to get ice cream at Sebastian Joe’s — if you ever visit Minneapolis, I highly recommend their raspberry chocolate chip. My mom moved to a duplex nine blocks down the way on the other side of ou

Seeing Double: A Tale of Two Crises

In the five months since Chinese doctors first reported a new pneumonia-like illness — now known as COVID-19 — nearly the entire world [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51737226] has taken drastic measures to slow its spread. Countries are closing their borders to foreign travel, screening travelers and limiting domestic movement. By March 24, more than 20 percent [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/nearly-20-of-global-population-under-coronavirus-lockdown] of the world’s population wa

Seeing Double: Tipping, est. 1865

Believe it or not, tipping is an imported culture: it didn’t exist in the United States until after the Civil War when wealthy Americans brought the practice home after visiting England. By the turn of the 20th century, tipping was a normal practice nationwide — but that didn’t stop people from grumbling about it. When William R. Scott wrote “The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America” in 1916, he compared tipping to slavery, calling it an “aristocratic” and “un-American” pract

Seeing Double: Rethinking Housing Selection

Like last spring, and the spring before that and all springs since time immemorial, it’s time for Amherst students to “choose” where we’ll have the pleasure of living for the next school year. As standard parts of the school year go, housing selection might be my least favorite. It’s stressful and full of disappointment for almost everyone involved. The Office of Residential Life (ResLife) is the butt of ire and jokes for months, and we’re stuck with rooms we inevitably have problems with. It’s

Seeing Double: Solving Our Climate Crisis

Socialism as the Solution Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22Columnist Right now, we have what we need to overcome the climate crisis. We have the the will: an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that climate change is both happening and dangerous, according to a 2018 study by Yale researchers. And we have the means: America is wealthy enough to make the necessary changes. The only barrier left standing is our commitment to capitalism. Over the last 400 years, capitalism has turned our pale blue d

Seeing Double: No Library for You, Billionaire

About 45 miles away from Amherst and 187 years ago, the small New Hampshire town of Peterborough voted to establish the first tax-supported public library in the United States. The Peterborough Town Library, which is still operational today, uses tax money to buy books and make them available to all. Public libraries, shelved with books, home to educational events and foundational to community, now span across America. And so can their fundamental structure: the collective funding of a collectiv

Seeing Double: A Legitimate Political Party

The GOP: Increasingly IllegitimateCole Graber-Mitchell ’22 When Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt searched through history to distinguish failed democracies from those like the United States, they found a crucial factor that prevented backsliding: strong political norms. Their book, “How Democracies Die,” starts with the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, the United States’ first political parties. In 1798, the Federalists passed the Sedition Act to target opposition ne

Seeing Double: On Optimism

If you read this column regularly, you’ll know that I tend to write about what I see going wrong in the world. In the past few weeks, I’ve written about the harms of our immigration laws, felony disenfranchisement and the slow death of local news. All of these topics impact our lives and the lives of people around us in profoundly negative ways. At times, it can be demoralizing and difficult to spend time reading the stories of people who have been hurt by our laws and policies. The same is tru

Seeing Double: The Case for Open Borders

According to Pew Research Center, 62 percent of Americans have said that immigrants strengthen our country. Yet, around 11 million undocumented immigrants face constant fear of deportation, immigration court backlogs number over one million and refugee resettlement in the United States has plummeted. Some immigration applications have been sitting in line since 1995 and are still waiting to be processed more than 20 years later. Our immigration system is broken beyond repair because it was neve

Seeing Double: America’s Sub-Citizens

More than six million Americans could not vote in the 2016 elections because of felony convictions. In other words, about 4.5 percent of eligible voters were prohibited from casting ballots simply because they had been convicted of a felony at some point. Of these disenfranchised voters, 77 percent were on parole or probation, or had already completed their sentences — they had ostensibly rejoined society, but couldn’t participate fully in our democracy. Felony disenfranchisement hasn’t always

Seeing Double: How to Read Local

At Amherst, we know to emphasize eating and buying local. Valentine Dining Hall serves local food from as close as the Book & Plow Farm, and A.J. Hastings and Amherst Books, both independent businesses, are our campus bookstores. What we forget about, however, is reading local. For example, take a look at the newspapership expenses of the Association of Amherst Students, our student government. Last week, the AAS voted to buy roughly 2,000 digital subscriptions to The New York Times for use by

Seeing Double: An Introduction

Over 1.7 millions books have been published so far this year. 8,607 tweets are posted every second. And 75 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube in the 15 seconds it took you to read this paragraph. Most of those gigabytes of information will never cross our minds, but the fraction that do still overwhelm us. We have access to so much information in our pockets that it’s hard to develop our own ideas and personal values. Thinking for ourselves isn’t a new problem, especially at Amherst. Here

AC Dems Are Not Contributing to Extremism

In a recent opinion piece published in The Amherst Student, Thomas Brodey ’22 accused the Amherst College Democrats (AC Dems) of contributing to extremism by declining to engage with the Amherst College Republicans (ACR) in light of their recent actions. We respectfully disagree, and feel that if AC Dems had agreed to debate ACR, they would falsely equate a culture and politics of acceptance with one of hatred. ACR still has not apologized for the reprehensible comments of their members, giving

Transforming Our Judiciary

The Supreme Court is immensely powerful: it has the power to change the meaning of the Constitution with a simple majority vote of nine members. And since the Constitution is the “supreme law of the Land,” according to article Six, clause Two — and centuries of jurisprudence — this means that the Supreme Court has incredible power over state and federal law, despite its passive nature. Thankfully, the justices on the court are some of the best legal minds in the country. Whether or not you agre

Renewable Energy: Combating Authoritarianism

In this moment, two forces threaten democracy on a global scale: anti-democratic superpowers and authoritarian populism in established democracies. A resurgent Russia and hegemonic China threaten not only their immediate neighbors, like Ukraine and Taiwan, but also our own democracy. And authoritarian leaders across the world damage democracy as an institution from within, America most prominent among them. At the risk of sounding imperialist, these problems must be solved in part by the U.S.

ResLife Announces Change in Suite Selection Process

The Office of Residential Life announced on Feb. 20 that it has implemented a separate selection process for all suites on campus, removing these rooms from the general selection process, as well as changes to the way accommodations factor into room selection. Previously, the suite process was used only for 10-person suites in Jenkins Dormitory. According to an information session led by David Watts, assistant director of student life for housing assignment and operations, groups of students vy

Progressive Values: How to Win in 2020

It’s time for the 2020 election cycle, and with this come the claims that Democratic politicians are moving too far to the left. To some, this might seem problematic given that people care about getting food on the table, not ideological questions — as if you can separate the two. These appeals to the center, however, miss the importance of articulating a vision for America that goes beyond specific policy proposals. Instead, progressive values will guide liberal politics and help sweep a Democr

On the Failure of Gov. Kasich's Message

In my relatively short time at Amherst College, I’ve noticed one question that seems to come up repeatedly in my classes: what’s at stake? It turns out to be an especially important question, because it asks why something matters and why something is worth pursuing. If nothing is at stake, if nothing is affected by our paths of inquiry, if our activism can’t cause meaningful change, then we might as well stop. It’s this question that former Ohio Gov. John Kasich couldn’t seem to wrap his head ar