John Brown University's Student Newspaper
On Feb.9, 2023, an estimated 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners were released and exiled from the country and sent to the United States. Since 2018, Nicaragua has faced the imprisonment of hundreds of students, journalists and politicians who oppose the country’s government. This event, which has startled the whole country and its citizens around the world, is an outcome of the United States’s involvement in an attempt to protect and advocate for these Nicaraguan citizens’ human rights.
As the sparkling crown is placed upon her head, she smiles. Fernanda has just won the Miss Costa Rica beauty pageant. Because Fernanda comes from the same canton as I do, I felt proud and represented at the time; however, I began to wonder about the power these types of competitions hold over women. As a college student, I have witnessed how beauty conceptions influence women from a fairly early age. This has led me to think of beauty pageants in a broader way, where beauty represents the value and worth of a person. On one hand, many people perceive beauty pageants as the foundation of the stereotypes depicting how women should look and behave. On the other hand, the sponsors of these contests proclaim that beauty pageants represent the culture, tradition and values to which the contestants belong. Because of this, beauty pageants transcend from merely physical representations of beauty features to intangible characteristics that shape social awareness. Considering this, I plan to present both perspectives to impel reflection upon the following questions: are beauty pageants contributing to improving women’s conditions throughout the globe? Is beauty itself required to create awareness to obtain social justice?
We are in yet another election season. It is the culmination of two years of hotly-contested debate from both sides of the political spectrum here in the United States over a variety of issues. For those on the political right, this election season presents a chance to impose a referendum on Democrat President Joe Biden, a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, allowing conservatives to regain their political momentum in advance for what could be another slugfest of a presidential election in 2024. For those on the political left, this election season presents a chance to prevent all of that from happening, while setting the stage for President Biden’s agenda to advance with as little resistance from their political opposition as possible.
As we know from the frequent examples we have seen, not only locally, but also nationally and internationally, there is very little that compares to extreme weather when it comes to the devastating impact it brings. It destroys homes and communities and threatens the lives of everyone in its path, bringing nothing but tragic results. Unfortunately, the western part of the world is set to experience two hurricanes in the span of a couple of weeks.
In the last 18 months, much has changed regarding the landscape of student media right here at John Brown University. On March 1, 2021, students were informed that the Communication major, whose department had been the primary supporter of student journalism, and whose lone full-time faculty member served as a supervisor for this newspaper at the time, was being cut by the university. It was noted, in an editorial written and released on the same day, that “this puts our future and work as student journalists on the chopping block.”
The issue comes to you in a time of many goodbyes. Of course, in a school setting, the end of every year means saying goodbye to something. It could be goodbye to your dorm. Goodbye to a friend who is graduating. Goodbye to a professor who will be taking sabbatical next year. This year, The Threefold staff has an unexpected and difficult goodbye.
At 4:04 a.m. on March 30, a tornado touched down near Malco Razorback theatre in Fayetteville and ripped a destructive course all the way to the Jones Center in Springdale. With winds between 136 and 165 mph, the National Weather Service in Tulsa reported that the tornado was a EF-3, and along its 5.2-mile path, it destroyed an estimated 400 homes and 25 businesses, according to Colby Fulfer, Springdale’s chief of staff. Thankfully, no one perished, but seven individuals received emergency medical care.
On Wednesday March 2, the International Criminal Court announced it would immediately proceed with investigations into President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. With greater transparency due to social media, citizen journalism and technology, the world has been able to watch this war unfold in real time, unlike before, and it is abhorred.
The following is a letter to the editor from Becky Weimer, Dean of Academic Services and Registrar. I am writing in response to the news article published by the Three-Fold Advocate on January 27 entitled “Student Expresses Rising Frustration, Says Accommodations Office Falls Short.” While I appreciate that the writer […]