It’s becoming easier to live your life through the Internet each day as new Web sites emerge that allow us to connect to each other and see things in ways we never have before.
Lately, I’ve come to embrace my inner slacker. When it comes to all things academic — tests and papers, chapter readings and group projects — I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel.
The university’s Anti-Discrimination Policy needs to be changed, and we propose doing so. You see, the ADP is used to punish anyone who discriminates against or harasses others, including both violators of actual law and violators of “university community … standards of conduct more stringent than those mandated by law.”
Although religion still plays a large role in the social discourse of American society, its authority in the long term has eroded tremendously. Since the Enlightenment, society has largely shifted toward making decisions based on logic, rather than faith and dogma. Although the number of people who proclaim themselves reasonable is certainly growing, many self-described reasonable persons are actually just as unreasonable as the religious groups they mock.
There are some things that teeter-totter in my mind. Do I prefer Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? Are patterned wellies really that cute? Is Starbucks worth the $4 I spend every time? But the topic that has most frequently bounced back and forth in my head is my opinion on graffiti stencils.
As news reports and TV commercials regarding identity theft circulate throughout society, most people don’t really think about it happening to them.
Detroit and its mayor can’t hide from the world’s scrutiny. Media everywhere have been reporting what everyone is calling a sad day for Detroit: when Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy finally announced Monday that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty will face felony charges relating to a well-publicized text message scandal.
GOTV. “Get Out the Vote.” This should be familiar to members of our generation. In 2004 and 2006, campaigns such as “Vote Or Die” sought to get us off of our Xboxes and Facebook.com and into our local polling precinct. Every election cycle, celebrities and political elites get together to encourage us Generation Yers to participate in our democracy.
Ever heard the one about the Hillary Special from KFC? Two fat thighs with small breasts and a left wing. Yeah, it’s funny. And not in a politically incorrect har-har kind of way. Funny as in, wow, deranged sexist morons objectifying anyone with a vagina still roam among us?
Of the many metrics by which one can estimate the health of a society, one of the more interesting approaches is to compare the amount of public money spent on corrections versus how much is spent on higher education.
As many of you can probably tell by the tone of most of my columns, I do have a political bias. Yes, I’m a Democrat. In fact, I ran for office as a Democrat almost two years ago.
Fun stuff is happening in the nation’s highest court. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard its first Second Amendment case in about 70 years. The nine justices will decide whether a Washington, D.C., handgun ban currently in effect is constitutional. Or, simply put, whether ordinary citizens have the right to keep a handgun in their home.
There is no cure for the common cold. This is universal knowledge. Yet when a “miracle cold buster” hit the shelves in 1999, Americans snatched it up. Throw in a cute story about a second-grade teacher who invented the product and an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey and you’ve got Airborne, the “effervescent dietary supplement” that made $151 million in 2006.
We must make value judgments every day, and it’s easy to make decisions for the wrong reasons because they’re based on flawed logic. Unfortunately, even the basic principles underlying these daily decisions are not standard curriculum in pre-college education.
Some readers have urged me to consider a popular creationist assertion called the “fine-tuning argument.” It’s said that the laws of physics are precariously balanced. If the value of one fundamental physical constant were slightly different — such as the strength of electromagnetic and nuclear forces — life couldn’t exist.
It’s all downhill from here. Judging photo submissions solely on attractiveness, Collegehumor.com will now narrow the field down to 64 contestants who will be entered into a tournament bracket. Users of the Web site will then vote to determine who wins each round, and the tournament champion will receive $10,000.
It’s deja vu. Controversy surrounding the Danish cartoons that depict the Muslim prophet Muhammad first appeared more than a year ago, and was resurrected last month by a group of Danish newspapers exercising freedom of speech yet again.
Research, networking and of course wicked no-holds-barred gossip: The Internet is good for a lot of things. Two months after its introduction to MSU, the online burn book that is JuicyCampus.com is the new home for filthy hearsay.
There are certain behaviors and habits that are only socially acceptable at college. Depending on your future career, walking out of the house in sweatpants won’t be acceptable. People won’t be as sympathetic if you fall asleep in a meeting as your peers are when you’re drooling in your history class. And to some, going to the bar during the week might just look like pure desperation rather than an attempt to socialize with your peers. I’m not condoning overindulgence in these behaviors, but you should enjoy them while you can.
You could feel it coming before Ralph Nader even uttered the words announcing he is running for president. Regardless of the fact that he was basically a nonfactor in the 2004 election results, Democrats were ready to attack Nader for having the audacity to run again for public office.