Alyssa Tillman

     In a 2023 interview with W, the Weeknd claimed that Hurry Up Tomorrow would serve as a skin-shedding for his career: “The album I’m working on now is probably my last hurrah as the Weeknd,” he said. “I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as the Weeknd. But I still want to kill the Weeknd.” The Weeknd released his longest album to date last Friday, marking the end of the second trilogy in his catalog. A follow up project to After Hours and Dawn FM is no easy task, but I was impressed with the work that went into this album.        Hurry Up Tomorrow begins with The Weeknd trapped in a state of cynical despair. Dark, doomsday-inspired synths and a pulsing heartbeat set the stage for lyrics that linger in isolation and flirt with the idea of death. But just before he sinks into hopelessness, his harmonies build to a crescendo, leading into an upbeat groove similar to Michael Jackson's Thriller. It does not sound like a direct sample, but still a...

     The purpose of “Nuts and Bolts of Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition” is to brush up on the “nuts and bolts” of English prose. The first section covers dismembered parts of speech, specifically how nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and coordinating conjunctions are used to form sentences. The next section explains that using they/them/their is not only acceptable but a more gender neutral/inclusive alternative when assigning pronouns in a sentence. The chapter also touches on incomplete clauses, danger words, fixing sentence fragments, and punctuation. Ch. 2: Inside the Tutoring Session provides an overview of the structure of a tutoring session and what typically happens during one. While the session’s flow depends on the student’s progress with their paper, there are some key elements that are consistent across every session. It usually starts with establishing rapport with the writer and asking questions about their paper that will help guide your approach. From...

Conservative talking points frequently portray immigrants as a drain on public resources or as being disproportionately involved in criminal activity. These claims are often exaggerated or false, as research consistently shows that immigrants contribute positively to the economy and are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.       According to the ACLU , a central promise of Trump’s 2024 campaign is to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” once in office. Trump is attacking birthright citizenship, barring undocumented children from schools, and again forcibly separating children from their parents at the border. The Trump team’s strategy is to dismantle our nation’s asylum protection system and attack human rights at the border.       Trump in October suggested that migrants who are in the U.S. and have committed murder did so because “it’s in their genes” AP News repo...

Joe Rogan came under fire last year when he did a sit down interview with Kennedy on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience , regarding Covid-19 and vaccines. The three hour long episode is full of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the impact Covid-19 has had on communities, as well as the Coronavirus vaccine. The San Antonio Current reports that Rogan said in 2023 that "A lot of times if you see me on this podcast talking about s***, I probably just read the headline". The controversy surrounding his podcast began in 2021, when he encouraged his audience to ignore the advice of medical professionals regarding the Omicron strand of the virus. He received backlash for having a number of guests who were set on spreading their anti-vaccine agenda, providing no evidence or research, US News reports. His main talking point in 2021 was that Covid-19 is just like the cold and anyone who gets it just needs a couple days of rest. This was disproved by a countless numb...