If there's one thing Natalie Koch can attest to, it's that things just aren't the same anymore in Aralsk, Kazakhstan. The Dartmouth College geography senior recently returned from a three-week stint in Central Asia to study the effects of poor water-management policies.

Indeed, policies have been inept at best, and destructive at worst: Aralsk, once a booming fishing hub of the Aral Sea, now sits 75 miles from its coast. The desiccation of the Aral Sea has been one of the great environmental catastrophes of our time, and it has been relatively undocumented in the mainstream media - but try to explain that to the dejected fisherman sitting on a bench in Aralsk, watching a swath of desert where a body of water, his former livelihood, once stood. [Read article]

Immediate, unconditional withdrawal of American troops from Iraq has long been the correct answer to Iraq war woes. Unfortunately, however, such a strategy has always appeared too radical for our nation's politicians. It simply wasn't realistic. Times have changed.

To get anything done in our political system, you must play by the rules; you must compromise. Solutions must garner support from both sides of the political spectrum. Solutions must find a middle ground. [Read article]

Discrimination tarnishing 'sanctity of marriage'

I would just like to say I completely agree with Alan Eder's column on gay marriage ("It's discrimination, stupid") 110 percent. It is a shame that I have to witness the creation of a second class in my lifetime. As someone who always grew up being taught to love everyone, I think it is completely unacceptable and wrong what our government is doing. The 2004 "Moral Values" campaign is perhaps the greatest lie and hypocrisy in American history since the days of Jim Crow. [Read article]