KING GEORGE II was the last English king to lead troops into battle -- in 1743. Kings and princes no longer prove themselves worthy leaders through great military successes.
LAST SPRING, ten elections were decided by less than ten votes.This spring, as always, every vote matters. If you are reading this column and have not yet voted in the university student elections at UVAvote.com, please take a few moments to cast your votes.However, if you are a regular reader of The Cavalier Daily opinion section, you were probably one of the many students who voted as soon as the polls opened last Wednesday.If you did, I applaud you for your active participation and hope you will use your enthusiasm to encourage your fellow students to vote as well. Talk to your friends, your classmates, your colleagues, your brothers and sisters, your captains, your acquaintances, your neighbor, strangers on the street, that cute girl/guy in your discussion section.E-mail them, call them, instant message them, poke them on Facebook (but please do not stalk them).Ask them to make up their own minds by doing their own research on the Voting Guide or provide them with recommendations.Do what you can to ensure that everyone around you has voted. In recent years less than half of all students have voted in the annual spring elections.Self-governance cannot sustain itself with a majority of stakeholders watching from the sidelines; we all know that democracy is not a spectator sport.It is time for students to step up and take on the ballot for those five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes. However, the responsibility of sustaining self-governance does not lie with student voters alone; the candidates who are elected leaders and representatives this spring must show the relevancy of their positions to the electorate so that we do not fall into a cycle of blame and apathy.Too often we hear from students who have no idea what their elected leaders do, let alone the qualifications they should be care about while voting.It is up to the elected leaders to show students what they do throughout the year, not just in the two weeks leading up to elections every spring. Voting in annual student elections is the extent to which the majority of the members of our University community engage in large-scale civic involvement.Indeed it is this group of students -- those who are least likely to vote -- from whom we need the highest participation in order to ensure the strength of our system of self governance.
I ONCE witnessed an honor violation. In the fall of 2002, I was enrolled in Concepts of Physics, a "for non-science majors" course taken by hundreds of undergraduates anxious to put three hours of core requirements behind them.
JOE CAMEL and the Marlboro Man were two of the most memorable icons created by the tobacco industry.Their purpose was to lure more people, especially younger ones, into the world of tobacco.Today, the goal of boosting tobacco sales ironically competing with the goal of educating America's youth about the dangers of smoking.
THE RECENT report in this newspaper on the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment highlighted the inadequate response from our own institution.It's high time that the University community was made aware of President Casteen's inaction on environmental and energy policy.From academic rivals like UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Pennsylvania to state schools with a much larger student bodies like the University of Florida, the University is being outdone. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the most authoritative and conservative body investigating human-caused climate change, recently reported with scientific certainty that human activities are warming the climate, driving shifts towards more erratic and severe weather events and sea level rise.
THE HONOR system at the University has been the subject of much debate and controversy recently, as well it should be, given an illustrious history that no longer stands up to reality.
FOR ANYONE with the perseverance to follow the endless single sanction debate, it quickly becomes obvious that discerning the right or wrong answer to the problem is as impossible as getting pro-choice and pro-life advocates to agree on when life begins.
Afew weeks ago, I returned to the University for the first time since I graduated last May. As a student, many of us described the University as a "bubble,"and I will admit that it was my bubble.
NEVER HAS so much for so many depended on the stupidity of so few. With apologies to Winston Churchill, there is no other way to describe the British government's latest blunder.
Countries have already begun establishing foreign language requirements for their elementary school children.
Should University students be free to say things that offend Islam? The College Republican club at San Francisco State University may face sanctions from SFSU and its student government on charges of incivility, attempting to incite violence, and attempting to create a hostile environment.
Monday night, Sam Leven and Rachel Carr represented Hoos against Single Sanction to justify their proposal for a multi-sanction revision to the honor system, which appears as referendum four on the ballot this week.
When one thinks about the tobacco industry, lawsuits and those scary "Truth" ads usually come to mind.
Overshadowed by the increasingly dire situation in Iraq, the conflict in the East African nation of Somalia has quietly provided the United States with perhaps its greatest success in the War on Terror.
THE FLYERS are up. The chalk is down. The writing is on the wall. The Honor Committee has one of the longest "lame duck" periods of any organization on Grounds: nearly a month.
THIS WEEK, the city of New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras for the second time since being devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005.
THIS WEEK, students at the University will get the opportunity to make their first substantive vote on sanction reform in five years.
IRAQ IS looking a lot like Vietnam these days and not just because Americans are dying there for a cause the locals don't believe in, sapping our moral standing and military might to the benefit of our enemies in the region and the consternation of our allies around the world.
THE RECENT six-party deal on North Korea was greeted with unnerving criticism from conservatives and a gleeful "I told you so" from liberals.
BRITNEY Spears's haircut, no matter how extravagant, is not newsworthy. News delivers pertinent information about recent events to a large audience so that as a society, people can be more informed about the events that affect them.
