Select Page

Open Letter to PA Rep. Scott Conklin

Dear Representative Conklin, My name is Isabella Teti, a senior at Penn State University Park campus majoring in Political Science and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (WGSS). I have lived in Centre County since 2002, and I will actually be graduating next...

Patriotic Dissent

Earlier this month, I read and saw on the news that President Trump called the Democrats who didn’t clap for him during his State of the Union address “treasonous.” “Un-American,” the president said, “Un-American. Somebody said treasonous. I mean, yeah, I guess, why...

Legislators and Representatives

As some of you know, I’ve been working with a Quaker lobbying interest group called the Friends Committee on National Legislation. My primary job is to recruit people from the State College area (PA’s 5th district), teaching them to lobby our national...

Review of “I Am Evelyn Amony”

I read a really impactful book recently and I thought the PLA might be interested. Here’s my review: Evelyn Amony was eleven years old when she was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda. Under the name of Betty Ato, she would spend the next...

Gun Reform in the Wake of the Las Vegas Shooting

[Originally posted 10/6/2017] I imagine that by the end of this week, there’s going to be tons of posts talking about the Las Vegas shooting on Sunday night. One of the things this atrocity has brought into the light again is the gun control debate in the U.S....

China’s Devaluing Currency

Something pretty interesting is happening in the international political economy right now. For some time, experts have believed that China has been artificially devaluing its currency (the yuan). This devaluation has allowed China’s price on exports to remain low and...

How to be an Advocate in the Age of Adversity

We’ve entered a tenuous era in our country. Bipartisanship has spilled over from Capitol Hill and is now present in every corner of America today. Advocates and protesters gather nearly every day in front of monuments, airports, police stations and even schools to...

Female Tropes in Video Games

I have been playing video games ever since I received my blue GameBoy Advanced for my sixth Christmas. I have loved and even obsessed over many games over the years, but one game that has kept my attention, and which I still play as an adult, is World of Warcraft...