Tuesday, December 16, 2025

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Commentary

COMMENTARY

Column is speculation on what happened in Boston

I am writing in response to Pete Nichols' opinion piece, "Bomb scare points out country's susceptibility for overreaction" (SN 2/5), about the city of Boston's reaction to the ill-planned marketing efforts of Turner Broadcasting System Inc. I am an MSU alumnus now living in Boston.

COMMENTARY

Candidate will be great leader for Republicans

Thank you for your coverage of Steve Japinga's campaign for chairman of the Michigan Federation of College Republicans, or MFCR, in "Preparing to run for political office" (SN 2/5). Japinga is going to be a fantastic chairman of this important group. Japinga represents a remarkable MSU story.

COMMENTARY

More students should run for ASMSU

As we enter ASMSU's election season, the organization has 32 vacant seats — leaving every MSU college except James Madison and Social Science underrepresented in the Student and Academic assemblies.

COMMENTARY

Writer's counterpoint demeaning, hypocritical

I must say that Alex Lishinski wrote an interesting criticism about people of faith in his letter to The State News, "Belief in god wasteful, necessitates blind faith" (SN 2/1). A letter in which he completely degrades anyone who isn't as socially enlightened as he has proclaimed himself to be.

COMMENTARY

Same-sex partners deserve benefits

Another blow was delivered to same-sex couples Friday, with the state court's decision to ban same-sex health care benefits. The ruling follows the state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage from the 2004 election — it passed with 59 percent of the vote. According to the court, when Michigan voters approved the ban on gay marriages, they also banned domestic partner benefits as well. During the run-up to the election, proponents of the gay marriage ban stated early and often that same-sex couples retain all the rights afforded to them.

COMMENTARY

Definition of marriage should not be based on sexual orientation

With every issue I have an opinion about, I make a concerted effort to understand those who disagree with me — their motives, feelings, reasons — because without mutual understanding, I do not believe problems can really be resolved or gaps ever bridged. However, there are a few issues of which I truly do not understand the "other side." I try, but I cannot seem to find a common ground on which I agree with, or at least understand and appreciate, the views of those who disagree with my opinion.

COMMENTARY

Christianity doesn't need column to incite reaction

Much has been written lately in The State News about atheism and Christianity. To me, Christianity and atheism are like two bars of metal. The surface of the atheistic bar is golden, shiny and aesthetically pleasing while the Christian bar appears soiled, dirty and unattractive.

COMMENTARY

2008 presidential election could break through 'marble ceiling'

If you followed the 2006 elections, you witnessed a few "ceilings" fall. If you watch the 2008 presidential election, you'll hopefully see what's left of the "marble ceiling" crash to the ground. As Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House in United States history, so proudly proclaimed after the Democratic majority took over, "for our daughters and our granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling." The United States is unmatched in political inequality in terms of racial and gender under-representation.

COMMENTARY

Attend student commission meetings

The University Student Commission, or USC, of East Lansing serves as a venue for students to gather together and express their viewpoints on the policies and legislation in the city.

COMMENTARY

Both stem cell research, organ harvesting ethical

I am writing this letter in response to "Definition of human life needs to be determined" (SN 1/30). Though I would without a doubt be considered a liberal, I can normally understand and respect where the other side of a debate is coming from.

COMMENTARY

Bomb scare points out country's susceptibility for overreaction

Sometimes, a story comes along that is at once indicative of an era and so gleefully idiotic it would almost be funny — if it weren't so pathetic. Case in point, the now-infamous "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" bomb scare. The gist of it goes something like this: A couple of guys working for an advertising agency started a guerrilla marketing campaign for Adult Swim's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" movie by putting up lit signs depicting two of the show's characters giving the finger to passers-by in major cities such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Boston. After seeing the signs, which were placed anywhere from the sides of buildings to bridges, Boston residents did their patriotic duty and terrified themselves into action, calling the police and eventually summoning the bomb squad to come along and destroy the offending neon signs.