IndependentPress

  A person’s life shouldn’t be something easily summarized. It shouldn’t be possible yet here Naomi sat, with the files and bills that made up her mother’s life. All the assets her mother prepared to leave both her and her sister Chloe, when she found out she was sick. Now, in the aftermath, they were the remnants of her mother’s life. At least the house was paid off, and there was insurance to cover the medical costs—that would be horrible to deal with as a nineteen-year-old. Looking at the tiny words and long lists of billing history, Naomi would rather eat glass. What a miserable way to say goodbye, she thought bitterly.   She mechanically shifted the papers to read the next one in the pile but couldn’t find the willpower to even look at the title. It was all so bland and resembled nothing of the color her mother brought to the world. She pushed the papers away in disgust; all the critical forms were filed weeks ago.   Naomi looked out the window, watching C...

History does not often repeat but it does tend to rhyme. On February 28, the United States and Israel launched an attack against Iran. In response, Iran has retaliated with large scale attacks against US bases and infrastructure in the region and has also made it extremely difficult for cargo ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz.   The Strait of Hormuz is a critical waterway in the Middle East in which 20% of the world’s oil and gas passes through in addition to other products like helium used in the manufacturing of semiconductors and fertilizer used in the production of agricultural products. Iran’s closing of the strait has had major implications for not only the United States but also for the rest of the world. Many political and economic pundits are assessing the long-term implications of this conflict. However, we can use history as a guide to foresee not only the effects this conflict could have on the economy but also the effects this conflict could have on the politi...

The year is 2009, Tim Tebow leads the Florida Gators to their second national championship in three years, Kentucky men’s basketball becomes the first program to reach 2 thousand wins, and Ed O’Bannon files a lawsuit against the NCAA . For context, O’Bannon was a former power forward and college basketball star for the UCLA Bruins, helping lead the team to a national championship in 1995.   O’Bannon brought a lawsuit against the NCAA after noticing the use of his likeness in EA Sports’ NCAA Basketball 09 video game. He argued that the video game used his name, image, and likeness (NIL) without obtaining his consent or providing him compensation. The case, O’Bannon v. NCAA, would become a prominent topic in college athletics for years as many waited for a decision. In 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the final decision on the case, and to the surprise of many, it ruled in favor of O’Bannon. The appellate court held that the NCAA’s restrictions on certain student-a...

  We inhabit a historical moment defined not by progress, but by a "pervasive atmosphere" that blogger and writer Mark Fisher famously termed Capitalist Realism in his 2009 book of the same name. It is the widespread realization that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it. This is the "suffocating" cultural logic of our time—a state where we are no longer able to imagine a future that is not even a slightly different version of the present.   This internal colonization is what philosopher, theorist, and Catholic theologian Byung-Chul Han identifies as the violence of positivity. Unlike the "disciplinary society" of the past, which functioned through "No" and "Shalt Not," the modern "achievement society" functions through the imperative of "Yes." We are no longer subjects of a sovereign power, but "en...