WE ARE a super-sized nation. Americans adhere to the McDonald's school of thought: We want whatever's biggest, sweetest, and we'll be especially happy if we get "20 percent more, free!" When it comes to servings of fries, the size that was called "large" 30 years ago is "small" now.
CONGRESS passed a baggage law Nov. 20 that will require the inspection of all checked bags for explosives.
A REPORTER for The Cavalier Daily asked me to write an opinion piece for their pro and con presentation on the subject of early decision in colleges and universities.
NEXT TO "Where do you go to school?" and "Do you like your roommate?" it's the most frequently asked question that college students encounter from almost all the people they meet: "What are you majoring in?" Unknown to most of the inquirers, though, the majority of students have no clearer idea of the answer than those who asked in the first place.
THIS IS the Old Dominion: where the specters of past prejudices continue to haunt the politics of the present.
THE BEST teacher I ever had was a third year student at the University. His name: Tom Bednar. He already has taken his degree and is in Iowa, but his lessons remain in my mind and in my heart.
THE NOW defrocked John Geoghan, a former Massachusetts priest, was convicted Friday of indecent assault and battery in Boston stemming from a 1991 incident in which he touched a 10 year old boy.
DESPITE enormous advances in equality and civil rights, the socioeconomic barrier between whites and non-whites in this country still stands solid today.
THE BEGINNING of a semester is a good time to tie up some loose ends from last year, and most of the loose ends involve reader e-mails that I could not work into last semester
AMERICANS are happy with President Bush. His average job approval rating since the Sept. 11 attacks has been 87 percent.
HOW DID you celebrate Religious Freedom Day? I attended a lecture on Theology and Politics. I had to, because I registered for the class.
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.
