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Opinion | 1000

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COMMENTARY

'U' requirements valuable, increase quality of any degree

Usually, I do not respond to letters to the editor printed on The State News' Opinion page. On most controversial subjects, letters from both sides of the debate pour into my editor's e-mail box, and thus, I have no reason to continue the debates in my columns, leaving my opinionated ire free to focus on some other political controversy. However, after reading two separate letters that compare Michigan State University's mathematics requirements to monumental atrocities in history (including slavery, segregation and communism), I am going to join this debate.

COMMENTARY

Deserving citizens

Ask yourself a question: How will gay marriage affect peoples' lives? If two women and two men, who are truly committed to one another, marry will people's lives alter or are they against gay marriage because the issue just makes them uncomfortable? Today, the most commonly cited reason for outlawing same-sex marriage is the desire to protect the American family.

COMMENTARY

'U' should voice concerns about arts

I know that change can be tough and even downright scary. Many of us would rather maintain the status quo that is our daily lives rather than face the unknown. Unfortunately, divestment from higher education by the state of Michigan has forced MSU and other universities around the state to rethink how they provide the students of Michigan with an education. The restructuring of liberal arts, although indirectly connected to budget reductions, is just one avenue that the university has to reduce costs and maintain, although difficult, the quality that all of us expect.

COMMENTARY

Reclaim faith

Across the globe today, Christians are observing Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season of abstinence from temptation.

COMMENTARY

Reorganization is devaluation of arts

Provost Lou Anna Simon's new reorganization plan (College of Communication, Arts, Languages and Media, or CALM) would be a disaster for the liberal arts program and the university in general.

COMMENTARY

Granholm needs to work for equality

You said it yourself, Gov. Jennifer Granholm: "... I think this is right - that marriage is between a man and a woman" ("Granholm announces opposition" SN 2/24). Now, you have to back that statement up, and to facilitate your explanation, I'll list a few excuses you could use.

COMMENTARY

3rd-party choices represent millions

In response to "Not again, Nader" (SN 2/23), this might sound blunt, but it's what many Americans have been thinking for decades: Al Gore and the Democratic Party have only themselves to blame for losing the 2000 election, not Ralph Nader.

COMMENTARY

Application action

The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan might be less diverse places to go to school when the fall semester rolls around.

COMMENTARY

Born leaders

In "Kindergarten Cop," California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to know, "Who is your daddy, and what does he do?" Arnie's children can say without a trace of satire that their Austrian-born, Predator-hunting father is, in fact, the governor of the Golden State.

COMMENTARY

Some things are meant to offend, get reaction from society

Ed Ronco
February 23, 2004

When you discuss controversial issues in the newspaper, you get a wide range of emotions in return. Today's editorial cartoon is a good example of that. People will write letters or e-mail or call our newsroom wondering how I, as an editor, could print something like today's cartoon and how we could casually use a word as vulgar and offensive as "fags." I assure you, its use on today's Opinion page is anything but casual.

COMMENTARY

Restructuring hurts liberal arts classes

Here is a short summary of "Realizing the Vision: Liberal Arts in the 21st Century Land-Grant University." Though there will no longer be classes in which questions about citizenship, policy or the self can be asked, the university resolves to help each student understand better what it means to be human; to develop the intellectual, creative and productive capacities to be an educated and engaged citizen; and, therefore, to be able to contribute more fully to professional, civic, cultural and community life. Though the university plans to eliminate the college in which the humanities exist, it anticipates the strengthening of graduate programs through synergy. Though undergraduate classes now will be larger and thus unable to contain a writing component, the university thinks a student could reach an understanding about "what it means to be human" through a multiple-choice test and a class taught by more temporary faculty.

COMMENTARY

Four years of Bush leaves world divided

Think back to the last presidential campaign. What a difference four years make, don't they? Remember how, back then, it seemed more like a competition to be the most boring, inoffensive candidate possible?

COMMENTARY

Nation should allow same-sex marriage

As a nation, are we bored? I am beginning to doubt that the national pastime is actually baseball. I think we should finally admit that picking on every nonwhite, non-heterosexual, non-Christian, non-middle- or upper-class, non-able-bodied person we can find is really what we crave. As a nation, we are willing to bomb, destroy and terrorize other countries in the name of freedom, but at home we are unwilling to grant the freedom of love to anyone who is not heterosexual.

COMMENTARY

Packing of programs creates long names

MSU has a unit whose name is the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages. It will presumably become part of the new College of Communication, Arts, Languages and Media.