Month: March 2019

7 tips to stay safe while studying abroad

7 tips to stay safe while studying abroad

Published by Sam Flores

Studying abroad can bring great rewards, but being a visitor in a foreign land also comes with significant risks. “It is important to understand how the risks may be different from home, and to be prepared,” says Shaun Jamieson, an International Risk Analyst at Iowa State University, where I teach Spanish and run the university’s largest study abroad program. Few cases underscore this point more than the tragic case of Otto Warmbier, an American college student arrested and imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster from a North Korean hotel. After being imprisoned, Warmbier was brought back to the United States in 2017 brain-damaged and in vegetative state. He died a short while later and is widely seen as the victim of a brutal regime. While Warmbier’s case represents an extreme — and deaths of American students while studying abroad are rare — they still serve as grim reminders of the perils potentially faced by the more than 332,000 U.S. students who study abroad each year. Europe remains a top destination …

“After Neverland,” R. Kelly’s CBS meltdown, and the insidious patterns we refuse to see

“After Neverland,” R. Kelly’s CBS meltdown, and the insidious patterns we refuse to see

Published by Sam Flores

Minutes before the closing credits roll on “Oprah Winfrey Presents: After Neverland,” the host quotes Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times piece concerning “Leaving Neverland,” the four-hour documentary detailing two men’s allegations of being sexually abused as children by Michael Jackson, which inspired Oprah’s special. “Celebrity supersedes criminality,” Dowd writes, and when Oprah repeats those words before an audience composed primarily of rape and sexual abuse survivors, a hushed “ooh” ripples the air in Manhattan’s Times Center auditorium. Oprah nods knowingly. “Mmm-hmm. If you love that line,” she adds, “You’ll love this one: ‘How can you see clearly when you’re looking into the sun? How can an icon be a con?’” Some may be asking themselves that very same question with regard to R. Kelly, in spite of the pile of testimony against him, much of it provided in the court of public opinion by way of Lifetime’s docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.” On Wednesday Kelly’s unhinged explosion during an interview with Gayle King aired on “CBS This Morning,” revealed a man so out of touch …

Why an overlooked digital election theft controversy offers important lessons for Democrats

Why an overlooked digital election theft controversy offers important lessons for Democrats

Published by Sam Flores

In recent weeks, two stunning examples of stealing votes by obtaining and forging ballots in elections have surfaced—the first in North Carolina provoking extensive coverage, while the second has escaped notice by reporters and election experts. But the overlooked example may be far more important, as it concerns exploitation of a way of voting that is likely to debut in some of the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential caucus states. North Carolina gained national coverage after a consultant working for a Republican House candidate hijacked absentee ballots. That operative’s team harvested votes from these mail-in paper ballots by posing as helpers to citizens seeking to vote from home. They assisted voters to obtain ballots, but then filled out or altered some votes—and signed ballot envelopes—before sending them on to election offices. Such meddling is illegal in North Carolina. These details surfaced in hearings before a statewide election board, which ordered a new congressional election. The contractor faces multiple felony charges. The North Carolina example is a case of stealing votes on paper. A parallel drama—only using …

Luke Perry dies at 52: Farewell to “Beverly Hills, 90210” bad boy Dylan McKay

Luke Perry dies at 52: Farewell to “Beverly Hills, 90210” bad boy Dylan McKay

Published by Sam Flores

Twenty-seven and a half years ago, when Luke Perry was about embark on playing Dylan McKay in the second season of Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210,” the promise of glimpsing him at an official mall appearance was enough to guarantee absolute chaos. In August 1991 at the Fashion Mall in Plantation, Florida, an estimated 10,000 screaming fans bum-rushed the stage when he came out, resulting in 21 people being injured, “ranging in age from 8 to 39,” according People, with the reporter adding, as to emphasize the what-is-the-world-coming-to bizarreness of it all, “ yes 39.” Three months before that in Bellevue, Washington, Perry had to hide in a laundry hamper in Bellevue Square Mall after 4,000 rabid fans descended upon him. This is what happens when a decade spent obsessing over the signifiers of a different decade lacks an icon on par with James Dean. Television creates one — or more accurately, “90210” creator Darren Star, by way of primetime soap opera producer Aaron Spelling, did that — and the teenage girls come running. Perry was …