Saturday, May 18, 2024

Editorials

COMMENTARY

Show courage

The 10 MSU students involved in the racial profiling case against the Deb Shop in Meridian Mall have a lot of guts.While shopping for Fake the Funk 11 outfits in the mall on Oct.

COMMENTARY

Raw emotion

It’s a shame to see a group of firefighters in New York facing criminal charges for some altercations during a rally Friday. Protesting Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s decision to reduce the number of firefighters from the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center disaster site from 300 to 24, 12 people - 11 active firefighters among them - were arrested on charges of inciting a riot, assault, criminal trespassing, disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Hundreds of firefighters took part in the protest, organized by the Uniformed Firefighters Association, which believes the cutbacks were done for economic reasons and that all debris, including remains, would be sent to a landfill on Staten Island. City officials said the scaling back was a necessity to maintain safety, noting several near misses at the unsafe site. Clearly, the firefighters were in violation of the law, but it’s a case that is completely understandable.

COMMENTARY

Vote Tuesday

Tuesday’s election will decide who fills two open seats on East Lansing’s City Council. Residents and students will have four candidates to choose from - Planning Commission Chairman Kevin Beard, Planning Commissioner Liz Harrow, Downtown District Authority Chairman Vic Loomis and two-term incumbent Councilmember Bill Sharp. But whoever is chosen, the important thing is that students get out and choose someone. Student voter apathy is one of the biggest problems on campus.

COMMENTARY

SN endorses

With rich histories in East Lansing, numerous ties to the university and extensive backgrounds in city government, Vic Loomis and Bill Sharp are the best choices for East Lansing City Council. Loomis, Sharp, Liz Harrow and Kevin Beard will face each other in Tuesday’s election to fill two open seats on the council.

COMMENTARY

Paint it green

Saturday’s football game will go down in the record books as the 94th meeting between MSU and the University of Michigan.

COMMENTARY

Heads up

As this year comes to a close, it is not a surprise possible deficits and revenue shortages are looming - at the federal, state and local levels of government.With city council elections on Tuesday, it’s encouraging to see the four East Lansing candidates recognize the importance of watching the city’s money.All indications point to a shrinking budget following the economic slowdown, and it would be unfortunate if the only actions taken are raising fees - such as the $5 increase in city parking fines last year.Charging higher fines and fees doesn’t help city relationships with students, and will lead to fewer people visiting East Lansing’s downtown.Instead, the two candidates who are elected Tuesday, along with the rest of the city council and other officials, will have to think smarter with the budget.

COMMENTARY

Right way

The recent agreement between the University of North Carolina and Nike over athletic apparel is a remarkable and positive move toward improving labor rights.There has been a long history of Nike’s apparel manufacturing factories in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia exploiting workers with poor conditions and substandard wages.North Carolina’s eight-year, $28.34 million agreement with Nike requires the company to expand the Fair Labor Association’s monitoring program and to disclose the locations of the plants where game uniforms are manufactured.

COMMENTARY

Boo!

Today is the day circled in red marker on thousands of little kids’ calendars. Children count the days until Halloween each year. Our job is not to ruin the day kids have been looking forward to.

COMMENTARY

Wrong method

ASMSU’s Student Assembly did the right thing in not approving a bill Thursday to add a seat for Jewish student organizations.

COMMENTARY

Activist Education

There’s nothing wrong with being a little more informed about a topic. When the topic is the Black Panther Party, some may disagree.

COMMENTARY

Still a deal

Students don’t need a national survey to tell them college tuition rose an average of 7.7 percent last year, including an 8.9 percent raise at MSU.

COMMENTARY

Cash strapped

As we face down a fiscal year fraught with possible deficits and revenue shortages, state lawmakers need to take a careful look at the way they manage the budget. At Tuesday’s financial conference, economists predicted an overall deficit of about $1 billion in 2001, but they expect the state’s economy to recover in 2002.

COMMENTARY

Bad display

If the goal was to spark discussion and surprise, the supposed “genocide pictures” posted around Wells Hall on Monday and Tuesday certainly accomplished their task. MSU Students for Life and the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform organized “The Genocide Awareness Project,” a photo exhibit of aborted fetuses alongside historical examples of genocide, including victims of the Holocaust and Rwandan and Cambodian massacres. The Wells Hall courtyard is known for startling displays and protests, and the last couple of days have proved to be no exception. But this was not the best way to make a point.

COMMENTARY

Juice on the loose

The Juice is loose - and this time it’s absurd. O.J. Simpson is in court again, as the sole defense witness for himself against charges of auto burglary and battery charges. In his testimony in a Florida courtroom Tuesday, Simpson asserted, among other things, that he never had to lie with his life depending on it, and that he had never been accused of being an actor - a comment that produced laughter throughout the courtroom. Facing up to 16 years in prison if convicted, Simpson answered a series of questions in cross-examination, some of which were barred as Prosecutor Abbe Rifkin began treading the line on items relating to his ex-wife, and the criminal trial in which he was accused of killing Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. During normal times this news might make more prominent headlines, although it really shouldn’t.

COMMENTARY

Public search

As University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger’s departure to become Columbia University’s president looms, the Board of Regents is beginning the process to find his successor.We hope the regents learned their lesson from the presidential search that produced Bollinger, as well as the more controversial episode here that brought President M.

COMMENTARY

Money matters

There is not expected to be good news for the financially minded today. State economists are meeting to examine Michigan’s fiscal future.Three state agencies will be participating in a revenue-estimating conference to discuss the state’s economic shortcomings and what may be done to combat them.The situation is better than the early 1980s.

COMMENTARY

Breath of life

Thanks to the members of the state House Appropriations Committee who kept their watches running Thursday.The committee voted 18-11 to revive the repeal of the tuition tax credit, which appeared to die two days earlier in subcommittee.

COMMENTARY

Ice legend

More congratulations to college hockey’s winningest coach. MSU hockey head coach Ron Mason reached the landmark 900-win mark Saturday after the Spartans downed Ferris State at Munn Ice Arena. The milestone comes only weeks after Mason and his crew successfully pulled off the largest attended hockey game in the world. More than 74,000 people attended “The Cold War” in Spartan Stadium on Oct.

COMMENTARY

Annex option

East Lansing and other municipalities need to watch where they grow in the future. Land annexation is not a new issue for the city.

COMMENTARY

Old Town temple

Temple Club, Lansing’s newest nightclub, opened its doors for the first time Thursday night. Welcome to the area.This nightclub’s look alone almost guarantees high-quality entertainment.