Kathryn Olivarius
Kathryn Olivarius
Recent Stories
Olivarius: Penicillin and condoms
Culture Quotient
As I sat in my last class at Yale on Wednesday morning, a classmate gave a presentation on Samuel Pepys, a famous English diarist from the 17th century. In 1656, Pepys made a very risky decision to undergo surgery for bladder stones that had caused him acute pain his entire life.
Olivarius: Suffocating the death penalty
Culture Quotient
The international community is currently sanctioning a country for violating human rights. Sanctions are nothing new. What’s new is that the country being sanctioned is the United States.
Olivarius: Kids, don’t get down too soon
Culture Quotient
Nobody had heard of Rebecca Black before this week. Now, she is more Internet-popular than Charlie Sheen. “Friday” has millions of hits on YouTube (perhaps 30 of which are mine). It has been been praised, called “the worst video ever” and inspired a backlash so hard that it stunned almost everyone — including Black herself.
Olivarius: It’s time for more Ms. Managers
Culture Quotient
Positive discrimination” has been a hot topic in the UK lately. Cranfield School of Management found that women accounted for just 12.2 percent of directors of the 100 biggest companies in 2009, and only 7.3 percent of the 250 biggest.
OPINION | Olivarius: Bieber's abortion comments are not benign
Sixteen-year-old tween-heartthrob Justin Bieber said in an interview this week with Rolling Stone, “I really don’t believe in abortion. It’s like killing a baby?” (Yes, that was said as a question). What about in cases of rape? Bieber responded, “Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason.”
Olivarius: Rejecting the Hollywood standard
Culture Quotient
This month in Redbook, “The Office” star Jenna Fischer talked about weight fluctuations in Hollywood. She said, “In a normal job, if you gain or lose a few pounds, it’s no big deal. But in my business you have to tell someone so that the next time you go to a fitting, the clothes are the right size.
Olivarius: Digitizing history
Culture Quotient
Something cool happened to me this week. I was working on my senior essay about rural antebellum Mississippi when I found a digitized lease agreement from 1835 that was signed by one of the “protagonists” of my story, Ruel Blake. Blake was hanged later in the year (wrongly) for inciting a slave insurrection.
Olivarius: Make way for the modern monarch
Culture Quotient
On her 21st birthday in 1947, George VI’s daughter and the future Queen Elizabeth II said to the peoples of the British Commonwealth and Empire over the radio: “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
Olivarius: Digital dud
On Wednesday, a dozen celebrities went “digitally dead” (no Twitter, no Facebook) until their collective fans donated $1 million (with a $10 individual minimum) to Keep a Child Alive, an AIDS charity founded by Alicia Keys. Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, P. Diddy and Kim Kardashian, to name a few, put down their BlackBerries to help the fight against AIDS.
Olivarius: Hayes verdict sets a sinister precedent
Culture Quotient
On Monday, jurors in state Superior Court in New Haven voted unanimously to sentence Steven Hayes to death, after finding him guilty last month of six capital felony charges. Early this year, Hayes, 47, along with fellow recent parolee Joshua Komisarjevsky, 30, (set to be tried next year) found William Petit sleeping on his porch, beat him with a baseball bat and locked him in the basement.