IN THE PAST few months, there have been a spate of attacks against prominent conservative icons -- not from the liberal media establishment (what a shock!), but this time from, not surprisingly, campus activists.
AS THE spring semester comes to a close and things wrap up around Grounds, we often become so busy with our own lives that we forget to give serious consideration to events going on outside of our own community.
LAST WEEK, Mohammed Kenbib, Professor of History at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, came to the University to speak about Morocco's history of Jews and Muslims living together peacefully.
LAST FRIDAY, as John Negroponte began his first dayas the nation's first ever Director of National Intelligence, Charles Duelfer spoke at the University's Miller Center on his experience as a weapons inspector in Iraq.
THE VIRGINIA governor's race has been called the country's most-watched election this year. But now is it becoming clear just what those watchers are starting to see: gay-baiting. So, Jerry Kilgore has a "gay-sounding" voice.
THE INFAMOUS "clam" is dead. My favorite drink at Jaberwoke, and therefore a large part of my social life, is now forever spoiled as part of the Virginia Department of Alcohol Beverage Control's recent crackdown on the Corner. The clam's official name is the "walrus drink," which is an assortment of liquors and juices in a huge clam shell with numerous large straws.
AFTER CLASS last Wednesday, I scurried over to Gilmer 130, where the first image I saw on the white screen was one of a black individual eating watermelon and enjoying it, and the first words I heard were "this is the underbelly of America that they try to tell us never existed." These were the words of Dr. Brenda Verner, in an event labeled "What African American Men Can Do to Save Our Culture," sponsored by the Office of African-American Affairs, BUCKS and the Black Student Alliance (BSA). The event, while interesting in its own right, indirectly underscored the ongoing communication, coordination and information gap between blacks and non-blacks in working towards a more equal America. The communication and coordination gap exists not only in BSA meetings and events, but even in national politics.The BSA event, while having a respectable turnout, only had around four or five non-black individuals attending.
ANYONE who follows politics knows that the "morning after" pill has been at the epicenter of a brewing storm of recent controversy.
It's a sign of these highly competitive times when the new basketball coach's salary of $925,000 per year is considered conservative, compared to the $3 million that the University was reportedly considering paying another candidate.
WITH ALL the talk of spreading democracy around the world, it is astonishing how little attention has been given to the breakdown of democracy in our own backyard.
"IT IS not too much to say, I believe, that the idea of eugenics, based upon the science of eugenics, will work the greatest social revolution the world has yet known." May 6 is Holocaust Remembrance Day, an opportunity to take stock of the horror unleashed upon millions of innocents by ideologies like these, espoused by monsters an ocean away from own community. Except the remarks above are not the words of any Nazi.
SO-CALLED "family issues" have become among the most divisive in our nation, with both liberals and conservatives polarizing increasingly over issues of "morality" as opposed to anything else.
DEMOCRACY in the Middle East has long been a central policy for the United States, most recently centering on the nation of Syria in which the United States has played and should play a strong, firm role.
TWENTY-THREE states are currently considering legislation that explicitly grants pharmacists the right to trump a patient's access to healthcare through refusing to fill prescriptions based on religious, moral or ideological grounds. "Refusal clauses" for pharmacists already exist in 10 states, allowing the pharmacist to refuse to fill any legal prescription for contraceptives due to moral objections. A pharmacist is, of course, entitled to his or her own conscience.
In a seminar on the state of Asian-Pacific-American affairs at the University held on Tuesday, April 19, Daisy Rodriguez, assistant dean for Asian and Asian-Pacific-American students presented the results of a survey conducted this spring on the opinions of the APA community.
REMEMBER some of the inane things you used to be graded on in elementary school? Handwriting, teamwork and behavior grades routinely appear on the report cards of young students.
I HAVE to admit, I was a complete skeptic regarding democracy's chances in Iraq. And to be frank, I still have my doubts about just how well the democratically elected government there will be able to handle the problems facing the country.
THE UNIVERSITY has the phrase "we envision a community of understanding, tolerance and respect" emblazoned across its Diversity Web site.
THIS PAST week, Connecticut became the second state, following Vermont, to officially sanction same-sex civil unions.
WITH PUBLIC education serving as the learning body of the state, lawmakers and school administrators have long disputed the secularization of education.
