Saturday, December 27, 2025

Take a peek behind the curtain and test drive the NEW StateNews.com today!

Commentary

COMMENTARY

Vic Loomis and John Fournier

Each of the East Lansing City Council candidates has his own vision for the city's future. The State News met with all four candidates and grilled them about relations between permanent residents and students, the April 2-3 disturbances, housing and other issues East Lansing has potential to improve on. We've done the research and made decisions about what we think is best for the city. Agree or disagree, it's now left in your hands to vote on Tuesday. You can learn more at www.votesmart.msu.edu and www.youvote.msu.edu. Don't waste the liberties given to you as an American citizen. Out of four leaders, we need the two most capable of helping the city grow. Those two are John Fournier and Vic Loomis. Fournier's campaign is professional and mature.

COMMENTARY

Torture not allowed from anyone, bill should restrain CIA actions

On the front page of Wednesday's Washington Post read the following large, bold words: "CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons." According to the article, suspects held in these prisons are subjected to interrogation techniques such as "waterboarding," whereby a victim is submerged into a vat of water until drowning is imminent, revived and nearly drowned again as necessary.

COMMENTARY

Bice disregards good uses of afterlife idea

Like most of his previous diatribes, John Bice's recent column, "Consequences in afterlife prevent promotion of contraceptives" (SN 11/02), about belief in an afterlife, points out the ill uses to which religious beliefs can be put. Such a belief, however, is what makes it possible for rational beings to endanger their own lives to protect others, even though they are not close biological kin.

COMMENTARY

Iraqi consititution isn't end to Iraq war

I sincerely wish that passing this Iraqi constitution will do everything President George W. Bush claims it will. I would love nothing more than to be proved completely wrong on every assumption that has led me for the past two years to look at my newspaper every day and think to myself: "I told you so." I'm willing to give up my pride and my frustration with this administration just to see something that resembles peace happen there. I'd also like to win the lottery. I'm wary, to say the least, because Bush and his supporters have a kind of twisted optimism bordering on willful ignorance that is extremely disturbing.

COMMENTARY

Smart spending

When elected officials spend money, those who elect them need to see results. ASMSU, MSU's undergraduate student government, plans to spend the $11,000 it recently allocated for updating office equipment, software, signs and insurance.

COMMENTARY

Ill intention

At least President George W. Bush is being proactive. Bush's announcement of a $7.1 billion plan to research, develop and stockpile vaccines to prepare the country for a possible flu pandemic is a preemptive approach to protecting the country. Many scientists believe a deadly flu outbreak is one of the greatest dangers for the United States and the world.

COMMENTARY

Fournier not merely spouting 'cool ideas'

John Fournier is running for one of the two open seats on East Lansing's City Council. After meeting Fournier at a Democracy for America "Meetup" this summer, I urge voters to choose him. Fournier is a student at MSU.

COMMENTARY

Group's efforts very effective worldwide

I feel backstabbed by Joseph Ryzyi's letter "'Fashion show' does nothing significant" due to the lack of research used in attempting to ruin the reputation of Students for Economic Justice, or SEJ. To correct his largest error, as a member of SEJ, I guarantee you that MSU has joined the Worker Rights Consortium, or WRC (see for yourself www.workersrights.org). And despite Mr. Ryzyi's claim, we were only able to get our university to do this after five years of creative, determined actions and demonstrations. The fashion show that Mr. Ryzyi discusses was an action geared toward education and it accomplished its goal.

COMMENTARY

Big joke

Nobody did anything. A crowd of 3,000 people gathered in the streets and were met by police with tear gas and pepper spray.

COMMENTARY

Students shouldn't pay for overtime

I am appalled by the "restitution" being charged to students illustrated in the "Students upset with $1,733 fine" (SN 10/28). Why should those students pay for the overtime of the overzealous police that tear gassed innocent bystanders? I do believe the guilty parties should foot the bill for all damage done, but having to pay for the cops that a vast majority of us agree acted in a heinous manner is ridiculous. What are the consequences for the cops that provoked the students and made unnecessary arrests?

COMMENTARY

Too late

The Democrats finally got the nerve to try to get answers about the war in Iraq. It's about time, but it's too late. As a testament to the country's division, Democratic senators invoked a rarely used parliamentary procedure on Tuesday to effectively shut down the Senate in an attempt to complete an investigation into the cause of war. It's part of an ongoing battle between Democrats and Republicans.

COMMENTARY

Team not meeting fan's expectations

I am a proud MSU graduate. I feel our university is second to none academically and morally. As a sports fan, I feel that our university family deserves the kinds of athletics that make us proud.

COMMENTARY

Reporter: Situation in Iraq not hopeless

Hard data from Iraq is difficult to come by. We can speak of 2,000 U.S. military deaths, estimates of Iraqi deaths or we can speak of voting margins for the constitution, but without reference they don't indicate anything about the progress in Iraq or the sentiments of the people there. Michael Yon is an independent reporter currently embedded in Baghdad (he was very recently in Mosul as well). His pictures and observations are freely available on his weblog.