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-Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, December 3, 2019
At the start of the semester, I wanted to do everything. and be everything — an A+ grad student, a kick-ass instructor, a student group leader, a superstar columnist, a standout part-time receptionist, an exemplary community volunteer and a jiu-jitsu and weightlifting phenom — all while still having the time and energy to kick it
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Some see it as the latest sign of communal decadence and immorality. For others, it’s the coming of a toker’s paradise, a slice of heaven on earth that only a few years ago seemed impossible. Then there’s the investors and politicians, rubbing their hands gleefully in wait of a fat payday to line their pockets
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, October 29, 2019
There’s something off about U.S. politics today. A smelly je ne sais quoi floating around in the air. You take a whiff. Then another. But you still can’t quite put your finger on what stinks. Maybe the problem is that the stench is coming from many directions. One, we can say, is impeachment. Did President
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, October 8, 2019
A couple weeks ago, at the start of the semester, I took a detour from my usual path to Bond Hall from Hesburgh Library to visit the Main Building. Surely, I told myself, they had covered the Columbus murals over the summer, as promised way back during the bitter frost of January. It was a
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, September 24, 2019
When it comes to climate change, Greta Thunberg doesn’t play. The 16-year-old Swedish activist spent last week chastising lawmakers in Washington for their inaction before leading a global climate strike by millions of young people Friday — after sailing across the Atlantic in August on a zero-emissions yacht, deliberately foregoing air travel because of its
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Football. If you’ve been around Notre Dame long enough, the word evokes the image of blue-and-gold-clad gladiators streaking through the opposing end zone in the nick of time. Or two opposing lines of burly young men locked in various forms of pushing and grunting under the eyes of tens of thousands of fans. Football is
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, August 27, 2019
The headline of this column isn’t meant to question the piety of Domers. Or reinvigorate last year’s leggings controversy. (Though here I am wondering whether Ms. Maryann White saw the light after getting repeatedly torn down in Viewpoint opinion pieces in both seriously articulate and hilariously petty ways — hallelujah.) Instead, I’m kicking off the
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Perusing the list of University staff and students picked to form the committee advising administrators on the much-debated Columbus murals, I noticed that listed as committee chair on the Feb. 14 press release was the director of Italian and Dante Studies. OK. Sure, I guess. I kept reading, looking for that corresponding “Yada Yada, Professor of
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Amazon is taking over the world. I kid, I kid. But the thought comes to mind whenever I hear the latest about the “retail apocalypse” wrecking through a shopping mall near you. Or the up-to-date tally of Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos’s ginormous net worth ($140 billion and increasing by the day). Or, on
Oliver Ortega | Tuesday, February 26, 2019
There’s a reason Bernie Sanders scares the bejesus out of the establishment. The Independent senator from Vermont tells it like it is — billionaires control society, working families are suffering in the rat race of low-wage jobs and an ever-thinning social safety net and slowly but surely we are polluting the planet to death.