Author Archives: Matthew Ellison

Earlier this year, Sarah Palin told Chris Wallace, “I’m never going to pretend like I know more than the next person. I’m not going to pretend to be an elitist. In fact, I’m going to fight the elitist, because for too often and for too long now, I think the elitists have tried to make »

Human history has been marred by struggles between groups. Untold millions have perished for simply being members of the out-group. Criteria for such divisions have varied widely over the years, including characteristics such as race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality and many others. Sometimes groups have formed and fought in the absence of any detectable differences »

HEALTH CARE REFORM Did H.R. 3590 pass because we the people fought for it? Or because Obama and Pelosi did? They did. Late Sunday evening, upon the passage of health insurance reform legislation by the House of Representatives, President Obama spoke to reporters in the East Room of the White House. After discussing the momentous »

Andre Narcisse ’12 was one of my Branford little sibs, but beyond the initial meet-and-greet at the beginning of his freshman year, I did not have any interaction with him. To be honest, I didn’t even remember meeting him until after he died when I wondered how we were Facebook friends and found an old »

Political discourse these days seems to thrive on feigned outrage and manufactured scandals, and Sarah Palin is not new to the practice. This month’s installment: She called for Rahm Emanuel to step down after he called plans by liberal activists to run ads attacking Democrats who were stalling health care reform “f—ing retarded.” While Palin’s »

I read newspapers before I really knew how to read. Every morning from when I was about four until when I was about six, I would sit on the floor with the sports section and read through the box scores. In time, I read the front section as well. It made me feel grown-up and »

The Issue In the wake of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, is stepping up airport security the best way to ensure that Americans are safe? Since September 11th, there has been significant debate over what should be done to protect the United States from terrorism. Countries have been invaded, »

For the next two weeks, we will all engage in a furious dash to the end of the semester, churning out papers and cramming for finals. Why? Is it because we really want to learn everything we possibly can in all of our classes? While I recognize that just about all Yale students value knowledge »

Last month, on this page, John Scrudato ’11 praised the candidacy of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman for New York’s 23rd Congressional seat (Politics of revenge, Oct. 29). He wrote, “The hope is that Hoffman’s success will encourage voters across the country to stop looking at politics as red versus blue and take a chance »

When anyone asks me what baseball team I root for, I tell that that the most accurate answer is that I root against the Yankees. For Halloween, I dressed as “anybody but the Yankees,” donning a Red Sox shirt, Phillies jacket and Dodgers hat. The Yankees got the last laugh that night, beating the Phillies »

By now, the news that our hometown senator, Joe Lieberman ’64 LAW ’67 of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party (seriously, that is the name of the party whose ticket he was re-elected on) is threatening to filibuster a bill that includes the public option has completed its spin through the 24-hour news cycle. Here’s what »

As we all know, health care reform is moving through Congress like a kidney stone. For all of the news that the health care debate has generated, you might think that the American public would be very well informed about the different proposals circulating in Congress right now. Alarmingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, you would »