WHERE defamatory speech is concerned, hypocrisy runs rampant. Speakers are constantly attacked for statements they make, the veracity of their claims challenged by those whom they speak against.
FOUR DECADES after the civil rights movement reaffirmed the Constitution's guarantee of racial equality, it is an unfortunate truth that race relations continue to be an issue in America.
DON'T LOOK now, but I think someone managed to offend Muslim extremists. As if the present incursion into Iraq, renewed military presence in the holiest of regions in Saudi Arabia, rampant pork eating, literature reading, dirty dancing, free speaking, music listening, alcohol drinking and general Western hedonism weren't enough, Muslim fundamentalists can now add cartoons to the list of things worthy of jihad.
ACROSS the devastated Gulf Coast, recovery from Hurricane Katrina continues. The rebuilding process is meeting with slow but encouraging success, although donations have slowed to a trickle and the issue has long disappeared from the national news.
A SERIES of staggering statistics brought to light by the Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina at Asheville indicate that most states are facing considerable problems with the toxin mercury.
WELCOME to reality according to the Bush administration, where scientific evidence is irrelevant, intelligent design is just as legitimate as evolution and credentials don't matter if you have the right politics.
WHEN THE Cavalier Daily published a cartoon last semester that offended African-American students, the paper was met by vocal protests and demands for a discussion with the editor-in-chief.
JUDGING BY the amount of space on the front page of this newspaper given to the article with the headline "Council calls for [domestic partner] benefits in resolution" (Feb.
FOLLOWING a series of racially charged incidents reported in the fall, there was an outpouring of solidarity based on the belief that black students at the University should not be subject to bias or intimidation.
NOT EVERYTHING works out as planned. I planned to write last week's column on Friday and send it to the editors for Monday's paper.
MY FRIENDS never heard me breathe a word about The Cavalier Daily before my first article was published, but it is pretty much all they have heard from me since.
IT'S STRANGE to think that these words are likely the last of mine to ever appear on The Cavalier Daily's Opinion pages.
I WANTED more hate mail. As a lowly first-year Opinion columnist, I never felt I got my fair share of e-mails that ended with an expletive or an insult toward my mother.
MY FIRST year, I intended to give up journalism. I had spent so many nights in the past two years worrying whether I had enough stories and writers at the Lee High School Lance, that I promised myself once I got to U.Va., I would try something new and different.
THREE AND a half years ago, before I was a part of The Cavalier Daily, I would get annoyed when the paper was not in production after holidays and during exam periods.
THIS WEEK, Congress and the American people got their first look at a much-anticipated document: President Bush's proposed federal budget for the fiscal year 2007.
The lead editorial Feb. 7 ("For serious") described the honor trial standard of seriousness as "if 'open toleration of such an act impairs the community of trust enough to warrant permanent dismissal from the University.'" While that phrasing is sometimes cited, that is not how the standard is written in the Honor bylaws, which read, "An act is considered to be serious if open tolerance thereof would be inconsistent with the community of trust."
ADDING Honor Committee members to the jury would substantively improve our current system. That has been my belief since this summer, and that is why I formed an ad hoc committee on the issue last fall.
PUBLIC institutions of higher learning enroll only 12 percentof their students from the bottom quarter of income in the United States.
THE RECENT passing of Coretta Scott King and Rosa Parks reminds us that collective action is as indispensable to social change as is the courageous leadership of a few.
