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(04/27/07 4:00am)
AS I look back on four years as an undergraduate and as a Cavalier Daily Opinion columnist, I can't help but recall the wise words T.S. Eliot: "We had the experience but missed the meaning, and approach to the meaning restores the experience." Within this quote is a sentiment I strongly sympathize with -- that a higher understanding of life goes beyond the simple highs and lows of our everyday social experiences.
(04/03/07 4:00am)
LAST WEEK, a debate exploded over Bob Sweeney's nomination to live on the Lawn. Though few people have made the point, the Sweeney controversy really isn't about Sweeney at all. It's about the University's decreasing competitiveness vis-à-vis peer institutions, mainly due to a strain in funds. This has led to slower development, less competitive salaries, higher student faculty ratios, etc. While this problem can be addressed in many ways, by far the easiest way is to encourage class givings.
(03/27/07 4:00am)
CORPORATE ABUSE enjoyed a brief period of popularity following the Enron scandal. For awhile, it was on the list of top domestic issues, reaching an apex with the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Now, as people are talking about black presidents, woman presidents and Republicans that support gay marriage, it seems the issue of corporate abuses died with its icon, Kenneth Lay. While Britney Spears' bald head may be an important issue for the media to cover, we shouldn't altogether forget corporate abuse as a crucial domestic issue.
(03/21/07 4:00am)
RACISM, racist and race itself are peculiar words, as their definitions change constantly and shift according to context. Comments one person thinks are innocent are deemed racist by others; people considering themselves one race are, in a different context, called something else. The inability of these words to consistently reflect social reality highlights the complexity of "social reality." Nowhere can we find a better case study than in the controversy surrounding the dress code recently implemented at Jaberwoke.
(02/20/07 5:00am)
I REMEMBER when I first learned about the Holocaust, I wasn't told that millions of people were murdered -- I was told that millions died in camps, which seemed odd. Weren't camps the places you went in the summer with log cabins and swimming lakes? Such thinking obviously betrayed my youth and naiveté. Even without knowing they were murdered, I wondered how we let that many people die.
(02/14/07 5:00am)
GENERALLY, columns about sports don't belong in the Opinion section. Yet some areas of sport could be compared to our University as an academic institution, thus rendering them a distinctly opinionated column. One such shared area is hiring. As an institution with limited resources, we are remarkably and necessarily dedicated to hiring only the most qualified faculty. However, it becomes painfully obvious that, in the realm of sports, nepotism, not merit, is the rule of the day.
(02/06/07 5:00am)
THE IDEA of progress is perhaps the least valuable weapon in the liberal arsenal. Often criticizing conservatives for trying to live in the past or refusing to accept today's world, liberals use the word "progress" in a way that betrays a deep naiveté about the world and their beliefs. As someone who sympathizes with the liberal worldview, I see no place in our lexicon for the vague and condescending term "progress." Using examples of race relations and technology, I will attempt, in constrained space, to articulate some of the many problems inherent to "progress."
(01/30/07 5:00am)
ONE IN FOUR: Not coincidentally, the name represents both the number of women who are sexually assaulted at the University as well as the on-grounds CIO working to ameliorate the problem. By far the saddest thing about being a fourth year is that the statistic that gives the CIO its name has barely budged. While this is due to a large array of factors, prosecutions are undoubtedly obscured by one ubiquitous variable: alcohol. In response to the confusion created by alcohol, the University could create stricter, clear-cut standards for our community.
(11/28/06 5:00am)
ALONG with a Democratic victory in the Houseand Senate,the November elections also enacted a host of controversial ballot referendums. Missouri approved a measure endorsing stem cell research. Michigan passed an amendment forbidding race and gender preferences in state agencies. Here in Virginia, an awkwardly worded amendment now constitutionally forbids gay marriages. The prudence of all these measures may be questioned, but the democratic system guarantees representation, not sagacious policy. Nonetheless, our University should challenge the gay marriage ban by testing its constitutional scope and validity in the courts.
(11/07/06 5:00am)
TODAY, there is much at stake at Virginia's polls. The national spotlight has been on Virginia for at least a month now because incumbent U.S. Sen. George Allen faces a real challenge from Ronald Reagan's former Navy secretary, Jim Webb. While opinions on these two candidates largely fall along partisan lines, there is one issue this election that need not be partisan: The anti-gay marriage amendment.
(11/07/06 5:00am)
TODAY, there is much at stake at Virginia's polls. The national spotlight has been on Virginia for at least a month now because incumbent U.S. Sen. George Allen faces a real challenge from Ronald Reagan's former Navy secretary, Jim Webb. While opinions on these two candidates largely fall along partisan lines, there is one issue this election that need not be partisan: The anti-gay marriage amendment.
(11/01/06 5:00am)
THERE ARE two types of buzzwords in today's policy debates: political and substantive. A buzzword can best be defined as a word used repeatedly to make a point. Political buzzwords are often ad hominem attacks disguised as substantive debate points. Examples of political buzzwords are abundant: "flip-flop," "cut-and-run," "homophobe," etc. These words are used repeatedly with varying degrees of accuracy by politicians wishing to attribute undesirable traits to their opponents. A second prominent type of buzzword is a substantive one, which, rather than being a political attack, represents an actual policy position. Examples of this are the "free market," "democracy," "pro-choice," etc. The most regrettable feature of these buzzwords is simple: They sound simple, so their meanings and values are often left without debate. With the examples of "flip-flopper," a political buzzword, and "democracy," a substantive buzzword, we can see where today's national debates have been lacking.
(10/24/06 4:00am)
FINALLY, Student Council is discussing "globalizing" the academic curriculum. This long overdue discussion is, however, only a small part of the bigger picture. While the addition of new languages, more race-related courses and a Queer Studies program would be beneficial to our current academic program, they would hardly guarantee that University students graduate with a broader perspective.
(10/04/06 4:00am)
LAST WEEK, as I ordered a tallvanilla latte, I couldn't help but notice that two of the three conversations in the Starbucks line were about foreign policy. Later that same day, I watched a few news programs and realized the same thing: Foreign policy dominated the discussion. There's no doubt that post-9/11 America should be taking a good, hard look at her foreign policy, but it seems we've all together forgotten about domestic issues. So, as every day progressively demonstrates the failure of conservative ideology in handling international relations, there remains insufficient debate on economic policy in America. Using the proverbial ECON-201 toolbox, we can take one crucial facet of conservative dogma -- tax cuts -- and demonstrate how they fail an unlikely group: conservatives.
(09/20/06 4:00am)
THE CONTROVERSY over offensive comics continues to be an interesting case study here at the University. The most recent incident sparked opened the floodgates of Opinion columns and letters to the editor articulating almost every point of view possible on the issue. Few, however, have stepped up to defend our University from the divisive external forces that underestimate what it means to be a Wahoo. While many of us disagree about what limit, if any, to put on free speech, I strongly believe that we all agree that contrary to Bill O'Reilly's opinion, the common bonds forged by our experiences at the University are infinitely more important than our everyday disagreements.
(09/15/06 4:00am)
AS AN IRANIAN refugee, I am probably the last that person would stand up and defend anyone in the Iranian government, past or present. However, the illogical utterances of those opposing former President Khatami's visit last week are so un-American that I feel compelled to speak. Judging Khatami's presidency in context of Iranian political structures reveals that the arguments raised against his visit boil down to one shabby un-American argument: We don't like him or what he says.
(08/24/06 4:00am)
IN ERROL Morris' documentary, "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara," the first and perhaps most important lesson was to empathize with your enemy. Since 9/11, however, empathy for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations has been replaced with both partisan rhetoric and inflamed patriotism. While understandable and at times inspiring, the lack of empathy in our foreign policy costs the United States dearly, both strategically and financially.
(06/29/06 4:00am)
WHEN IT comes to scholarships, all the recent buzz has been about the need-based AccessUVA program. Despite its generous financial aid to the "needy," AccessUVA does not address the onerous burden of undergraduate costs on everyone else -- an understandable result justly allocating scarce resources among those most in need. However, the University concomitantly doles out the available merit-based scholarships in counter-intuitive and economically peculiar ways. University scholarships should be reconfigured in two ways: Jefferson Scholars should not be eligible for further scholarship money and winners of one scholarship should face a more uphill battle when seeking a second.
(04/18/06 4:00am)
"What do we want? A living wage! When do we want it? Now." Pounding on drums, waving their fists and marching around Madison Hall, the "living wage" protestors were quite a sight this past weekend. Some people attended, ignited with joy for what they perceive to be a good cause. Others walked by wordlessly in dissent or drove by without honking, secretly turned off by the protesters for a wide variety of reasons. But for interested observers, one cannot help but indulge in a historical comparison. While the academic value is debatable (and worthy of a book, rather than a column), superficially comparing the "living wage" movement with the civil rights movement certainly provides interesting conclusions.
(04/11/06 4:00am)
ON JUNE 28, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court yet again reaffirmed the basic principles of Roe v. Wade when it struck down the improperly labeled "partial-birth abortion" ban. In Stenberg v. Carhart, the court recognized that "partial-birth" was a political term coined for propaganda, and wisely judged the law for what it was: an attempt to place undue burdens on women seeking a type of abortion usually performed for reasons relevant to maternal health. However, in a demonstration of complete disrespect for the supreme law of the land, President Bush signed into effect the Federal Abortion Ban -- and act which bore a striking resemblance to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. This law is a regurgitated version of the law struck down in Stenberg v. Carhart and should be similarly struck down for violating a number of American legal traditions.