OUR COLLECTIVE post-Sept. 11 identity was supposed to be one of unity and renewed patriotism, but nothing divides Americans like questions of political correctness and racial sensitivity. Recent plans to build a memorial to New York's firefighters have been met with controversy.
ONCE AGAIN Darwin and his theory of evolution are under attack, and this time the criticism is coming from universities.
AS WE ALL return from Christmas vacation to begin a new semester here at U.Va. - a clean slate if you will -, I want to take the opportunity this week to do something that I don't usually do: I want to tell a story.
DURING winter break the city of Charlottesville becomes a different place. For instance, on the Corner it may be easier to spot a parking space than a student bearing the latest handbag from Kate Spade.
THE GAP is still there, yawning wide. Considerable distance remains between the privileged and the disadvantaged.
THE BIBLE condemns homosexuality, doesn't it? According to most conservative Christian leaders, it does.
AS 2002 begins and the world enters the second year of the third millennium, America should break new ground by declaring its official language "American." Though Ebonics and Valley speak have existed in America for years, it was the politically correct 1990s that redefined the language and created a definitive difference between English and "American." Combined with a basic inability to understand the delineation between parts of speech, American speech has perverted and distorted the English language to such a degree that Americans speak a nearly indecipherable dialect of English. Many conservatives attribute the deterioration of the language to slang, but the reality is that the study of linguistics finds that most commonly accepted words were in similar positions at some time in history.
DIVERSITY is a term typically over-used and rarely completely understood. Under the rationale of diversity, some schools engage in aggressive recruiting and admitting of certain groups of would-be students.
APPLYING to college is a difficult process no matter what. Some students, however, apply once and get it over with by Christmas.
CHRISTMAS, right up there with the Chinese New Year, has always been my favorite time of year. Perhaps it is because the decorations for this holiday have been put out two months in advance, but I have always felt especially happy and cheerful during this holiday season.
CHRISTMAS is the time when the Lord sent his son, Jesus Christ, down from Heaven to live among us.
THE SEMESTER has flown by. It feels as if classes started only yesterday. Yet, for many people, the intensity of the college academic schedule has made its mark and worn people out.
AS MY FIRST semester as a transfer student at the University draws to a close, I have begun to reflect on the comical difference in atmosphere between the University and my last school, Carnegie Mellon University.
CYNICS often trash Christmas as a stressful, consumerist holiday that probably was invented by Hallmark and Sears.
IT'S DEC. 25, a day I've anticipated for the past 364. I wake up early - before my five other family members - and softly creep downstairs, an ongoing ritual from my childhood.
AS ANOTHER semester draws to a close at the University, I have decided to compile a list of cheers and jeers from this semester.
PRESIDENT Bush is entirely correct in calling for military trials of suspected terrorists. Although liberals may whine about abuses of civil liberties, the issue is key to national security and fighting the war on terrorism.
AS WE NEAR the end of the semester, most University students already have enrolled in some courses for the spring and now are working on altering their schedules.
I HAVE never been a big fan of Cosmopolitan magazine. I don't really think that the - ahem - "values" system it promotes is necessarily one that we as a society want to be embracing, nor did I ever buy into the common argument it was just "harmless fun" and has no influence on society.
ONCE IN every half hour or so, a person dies in an alcohol-related accident and in 2000, 40 percent of all car crash fatalities involved drinking, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Drunk driving is one of the biggest problems we face, yet society seems particularly unconcerned by it.
