Opinion
OPINION: The importance of confirming Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense
|Chuck Hagel has a good history. Because of his fairly clean, relatively moderate and free-thinking background, it’s not particularly surprising that he was chosen by President Obama to be the next Secretary of Defense. As a Republican senator from Nevada, Hagel voted largely along Republican Party lines, receiving a lifetime rating of 84 percent from the American Conservative Union. After retiring from the Senate, he entered the realm of academia as a professor at Georgetown University.
OPINION: The many colors of discrimination
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My education began at a Lutheran elementary school in Richmond, Virginia. The school was small with only two hundred students, twelve classrooms and a staff of twenty teachers.
My Two Cents: Mike De Robbio
|Connect2Mason’s “My Two Cents” features a member of the Mason community giving their view on an issue. This week, Junior Mike De Robbio, a government major, talks about President Barack Obama and habeas corpus.
OPINION: How society must confront bullying by speaking up
|We all have skeletons in our closet, so how can anyone be justified in bullying someone? Our diversities should make us individual and unique, not victims or targets of bullying. Bullying, however, can be stopped. What’s lacking is confidence—the confidence to stand up for what you believe is right, and enough of that confidence in yourself so that you don’t have to bully another person for a self-esteem boost.
OPINION: Breaking the institutionalized misconception of overweight people
|Turn on your television and dare to flip through the channels. Instantly, your senses are assaulted with countless images: television shows, ads, movies, news programs—symbols of purported significance being forced in front of your eyes and ingrained in the periphery of your mind. It starts on Nickelodeon. Patrick Star, a chubby pink starfish, gobbles down a plate of “Krabby Patties” and proceeds to burden his friends and neighbors with his formidable stupidity. Click.
OPINION: Differences between college basketball and the NBA are game changers
|A few weeks back, Richmond (13-9) beat Virginia Commonwealth (17-5). Last week, The University of Virginia (15-5) beat No. 19 NC State (16-5). Can anyone tell me what Richmond and UVA have in common? CORRECT! They were both beaten by Mason this season.
@gmuhoops said it best on Twitter: “Richmond beat VCU, UVA beat NC State. George Mason beat Richmond and UVA, oh college hoops”.
OPINION: Campus construction is a cause for frustration
|As the semester begins, prospective students stroll along the sidewalks of campus with their parents. Some of these school-scouts have likely visited Virginia Tech or The University of Virginia, two schools which boast stately architecture and a beautiful symmetry. Though I was not able to visit any universities before I enrolled at Mason, my first impression of the school was that it seemed park-like. Winding concrete sidewalks took students on tiny adventures to undiscovered buildings with odd names.
OPINION: Women should be allowed the combat roles for which they are qualified
|Recently, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that the ban on women serving in military combat has been lifted, overturning the 1994 law that states that women cannot be placed in any combat unit lower in number than a brigade. This new development seems to be sometime in the making, especially considering that women make up around 15-20 percent of our nation’s armed forces.
OPINION: The five most often committed syllabus week crimes
|Last week, we were all blessed with one of the best weeks of the semester: syllabus week.
Syllabus week is the one wondrous week in a semester where the student body is free of homework, and students can enjoy the free time to do whatever we please. However, this week is not perfect. With the good comes the bad, and rest of this column will be dedicated to the heinous crimes that some of you might have committed on multiple occasions—the five most often committed syllabus week crimes.
OPINION: Students with autism are a crucial part of Mason's diverse population
|No one person is truly the same as another. Some people come from small towns with little diversity, while others come from larger communities or more urban environments. Large universities like Mason act as a crossroads of culture: people from all over the world come together with the universal goal of learning.