Monday, April 7, 2025

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Commentary

COMMENTARY

Burden of actions not Jones' alone

I’m pretty sure everyone has heard of The Rev. Terry Jones “International Burn-a-Quran Day.” The event — by all indications more local than international — is scheduled for this Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

COMMENTARY

Program substitutes information for interaction

A new program offered by the MSU police gives students attending Spartan football games the opportunity to alert the department of crimes with an anonymous text message. Though the idea of communication between police and public should be encouraged, it’s hard to think of a situation in which texting the police station would be more appropriate than a call.

COMMENTARY

Reader expresses dismay at editorial board's 'arrogance'

I was dismayed at the arrogance displayed in the editorial “Punishment for pie-thrower should be tempered (SN 9/01).” Not only did The State News editorial board members demonstrate their ignorance towards the specifics of (anthropology senior Ahlam) Mohsen’s case, but additionally demonstrated their ignorance toward social justice movements and activism more broadly.

COMMENTARY

MSU helps refine abstinence sex-ed

In high school, I remember health class teaching sex education with a specific set of phrases such as, “Say no,” “You could die before the age of 25” and “Children are forever.” Safe sex was promoted to cover all the bases, but abstinence was the main push in a classroom full of hormonal teenagers who recently discovered themselves.

COMMENTARY

Viewing MSU in different light

For as long as I can remember, the MSU spirit has been ingrained in my system. Both of my parents graduated from MSU, and I’ve spent most of my life living very close to campus. I’ve always cheered for the Spartans during college football games. However, now that I’m starting classes as a freshman, I’m realizing MSU has so much more to offer.

COMMENTARY

Health care plans are what the doctor ordered

ASMSU has started the 2010 fall semester on a serious note. MSU’s undergraduate student government has put together health care packages for MSU students based on the individual health care needs and budgets of students.

COMMENTARY

MSU Alumnus: fraternity event was not a good idea

Lambda Chi Alpha posted a party on Facebook called the “Freshman ‘Fifth’teen.” As members of the greek community have suffered grievous injury and death due to binge drinking, they do lip service to the idea of responsible drinking with no change.

COMMENTARY

A guide to taming 'blur' on campus

The first days of classes are a blur for everyone. One of the major reasons for this is the disastrous combination of speeds ranging from “Fast and Furious” to “Driving Miss Daisy” on campus and Grand River Avenue.

COMMENTARY

Report important, but not the be-all, end-all

In a recent college ranking study published by U.S. News & World Report, MSU was ranked last out of all the colleges currently in the Big Ten Conference. When it’s phrased that way, it sounds pretty awful, and kind of demeaning. But in most cases, the MSU experience is not one that can be captured by a number.

COMMENTARY

A chance to opine about your mind

It’s the beginning of the semester, so that must mean I’m writing a column about becoming a guest columnist for The State News. The gist is simple — so simple, in fact, I am going to paraphrase it from the column I wrote in the summer.

COMMENTARY

Punishment for pie-thrower should be tempered

As part of a protest, anthropology senior Ahlam Moshen alledgedly hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in the face with a pie. There are the traditional sit-in’s, marches and other peaceful ways to make a point, but a pie in the face? Not so much.

COMMENTARY

Gay rights are a secular triumph

While listening to a program about the overturning of California’s Proposition 8 on National Public Radio the other day, a caller brought up a point that has been on my mind for some time, and perhaps is the most important part of the whole debate over gay marriage.

COMMENTARY

MSU trustee deserved another shot at position

For more than 15 years, MSU Trustee Donald Nugent has driven three and a half hours almost every month to attend MSU Board of Trustees meetings. Nugent’s term comes to an end in January 2011, and although he has served two consecutive terms and submitted his bid for re-election, Nugent no longer will serve MSU as a trustee starting next year.

COMMENTARY

Some Americans could use cultural center

This is the imperceptive radicalism fueling our nation right now. Gingrich and Sarah Palin with her ever-so subtle and yet so inane pleads of Islam adherents compassion toward American jingoism only are a few of the people to be named in the campaign to mystify the distinction between terrorism and community cultural centers.

COMMENTARY

'Someday' is not a part of the week

At the end of spring semester, I told myself I was going to take a step back and learn to relax for a little while. During the summer I had planned to do yoga, read lots of books, enroll myself in an anger management course, look at graduate schools and just breathe.

COMMENTARY

MSU should show a little more faith in students

These past summer sessions at MSU have been somewhat eventful compared to the slow pace of those in years past. With changes happening across campus, ranging from road construction and residence hall renovations to the elimination of undergraduate programs at MSU Dubai and the assault on student savings to pay for increased tuition and possible parking tickets, MSU is not the same campus it was in early May.

COMMENTARY

Truth ignored in political rhetoric

What has been dubbed quite incorrectly by conservatives across the U.S. as the “Ground Zero Mosque,” finally has, amid protests, been approved. As soon as those three words are combined, they create an immediate inflammatory reaction in the average American.