Monday, December 15, 2025

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Commentary

COMMENTARY

Persuasion patterns

Ordinarily, I try to stay above the fray when it comes to religion. For starters, the topic is an absolute minefield.

COMMENTARY

Spartans earned NCAA championship

We did it. The Spartan hockey team, overcoming everything from rampant illness, losing captain Drew Miller to the NHL and a myriad of other setbacks, bested Boston College in the 2007 NCAA national championship game. Much like they had been during the season, in the beginning of the game, the Spartans were the underdogs.

COMMENTARY

Fast-track sainthood

John Paul II has been in the express lane to canonization since two months after his death in 2005. At that time, Pope Benedict XVI announced he was waiving the customary five-year waiting period to begin the process. Monday, the second anniversary of John Paul's death, the findings of diocesan investigations were passed on to the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

COMMENTARY

Commencement speaker does have good message

Wednesday's editorial "Graduation speaker not recognizable" (SN 4/4), concludes that Jaime Escalante is a poor choice for graduation speaker because he is "not recognizable." However, the author fails to acknowledge the other commencement speaker guidelines included in the article: Unlike Clinton and the other politicians who will be speaking around the country this spring, Escalante will not be speaking for his own personal gain; his message will genuinely be for the graduates — it will be appropriate. Escalante's inspirational success in the classroom stemmed from setting high standards for all students — who can be more motivational to students graduating than someone who made a living pushing students to work harder and to achieve more than they had ever conceived?

COMMENTARY

Slant on vegetarianism is common liberal 'cliché'

The "Meatless Alternative" (SN 4/4), by Drew Winter is about what I expect out of most vegan conservationists; a cliché comment bashing President Bush to get "The Daily Show with John Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" crowd on board, then a pointless tirade on how animals deserve rights in our society. While most of his switching to vegan argument was harmless, there was one phrase, "with no regard for their well-being as self-aware individuals" that left me chuckling.

COMMENTARY

Anonymous voices

I went to California a few years ago to visit a college. While I was there, I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting where a panel of women discussed the reasons they had abortions and the difficulty of making such a decision.

COMMENTARY

Graduation speaker not recognizable

To conclude their undergraduate career, students now know who will speak at their commencement ceremony on May 4 — Jaime Escalante. Escalante, a high school math teacher whose story became famous after the 1988 film "Stand and Deliver," was chosen as the speaker. He became nationally renowned after his students at Garfield High School, an inner-city school in eastern Los Angeles, ranked at the top of national calculus testing.