Op-Eds
Op-Eds
Clubs should consider contributing to community
It's our responsibility to help the people of Rochester as long as we're in school. The SA could help with some incentives for its groups to engage in community service. Read More
Op-Eds
Don't make Huck Finn a slave to censorship
“Turn him loose! He ain’t no [African American laborer],” said Huck Finn about the runaway slave Jim. This rewritten phrase may take the original’s place in new publications of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” if publishers decide to censor the word “slave” due to its uncomfortable connotations, something they recently did to the word […]
Op-Eds
New meal plan offerings hard to swallow
Big changes are in the works for dining on campus next year, and things don’t look good. Maybe it’s just fear of the unknown, but I am not excited about any of the upcoming shifts and am actively worried about most of them. I’m going through them one by one and thinking about the impact […]
Op-Eds
Crony capitalism: corruption and collusion
In the 1987 film, “Wall Street,” Michael Douglas’ character Gordon Gekko notoriously said that in capitalism, “it’s a zero-sum game: Somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.” Messages like these, degrading free markets, have always been widespread, but have gotten ever more pervasive with […]
Op-Eds
Fruit on campus: a seriously rotten deal
Ah, pesticide. As much as I appreciate insight into agricultural processes, I’m not a fan of tasting the crop-dust on apples — or maybe it’s not chemicals, maybe I’m tasting the industrial plastic the apples were shipped in. Or the oil from 10,000 hesitant, collegiate fingers. Whatever’s in my mouth, it could use a bath. […]
Op-Eds
The classics should not be all Greek to us
Some foreign language programs have no need to justify their existence. Certainly few would advocate removing programs like Spanish or French from high schools, given how many people worldwide (and, especially with Spanish, in the United States) speak them. Nor do languages like Arabic and Mandarin lack their defenders, given their importance to current American […]
Op-Eds
Boredom and business
During reading period and the week before final exams, students often find themselves overwhelmed with schoolwork. They’re mentally overloaded, whether from studying for exams or finishing assignments such as papers, projects or lab reports. Some professors have exams on the last days of class instead, but this usually gives students even less time to prepare. […]
Op-Eds
Married to the church: Celibacy is outdated
I am a happy “lapsed Catholic,” meaning that I go to Mass every Christmas, Easter and a few other times in between. Still, I am pretty much a loyal Catholic in practice. I love the liturgy, the mysticism and the connection to the past. However, as someone who’s been interested in the priesthood since the […]
Op-Eds
Modest prediction: Dems can flip the House
I’m going to make a very premature prediction. It could easily be wrong, but I stand by it. I believe that the Democrats are going to take back the House of Representatives in November 2012. It’s a very premature declaration, to be sure, but it’s one that I believe will happen for three reasons. First, […]
Op-Eds
Self-defense should be protected by law
Last month in Florida, 19-year-old Antonio Gordon knocked out the front teeth of a 13-year-old boy in a bowling alley parking lot. In response, 17-year-old Marqualle Woolbright shot Gordon in the chest with a .22 caliber handgun, killing him. No murder charges have been filed, though. This is because Florida has a law that adheres […]