ORCSA is doing its part to make fun die

By Ethan Stanislawski / May 15, 2007

May 11, 2007 will be remembered as the day fun officially died on this campus. While President Zimmer, Ted O’Neill, and Bill Michel have spent a large amount of energy trying to subdue that stereotype, their efforts were significantly set back last Friday by the very people who are supposed to push it forward. The...

Government and religion should never mix

By Tara Kadioglu / May 15, 2007

Mega-churches are a hoot. One summer when I was working as a reporter in Chicago, I covered the opening of the country’s second-largest church, which cost $50 million and housed more than 10,000 people. It was built to help salvage a community downtrodden by crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, and general lack of morale due to...

Debate over facts must not stifle quest for policy solutions

By Liz Egan / May 15, 2007

I’ve written on this before, but it can’t be overemphasized that more and more these days, it’s not ideas that politicians are debating, it’s facts. The “he said, she said” war that characterizes the debate over most of today’s hot issues has replaced conventional discussions of method, ideology, and the search for new ideas and...

Item #2007: responsible students

By Maroon Editorial Staff / May 11, 2007

The quads of this University, famous as a hub of intellectual rigor, are all too often about as riveting as the gray granite of their Gothic architecture. But for one spring night each year, they are transformed into a veritable carnival of flashing lights, thumping music, and carefree revelry when Scav Hunt teams come together,...

With Coca-Cola, capitalism’s injustices are abundantly clear

By Daniel Benjamin / May 11, 2007

Breathless praise of free-market capitalism, never far from the Maroon’s opinion pages, returns in the form of Ryan McCarl’s pro-corporate screed (“Want My Coke? Then Pry It from My Cold, Dead Fingers,” 5/8/07). McCarl’s condescending article is a parade of factual errors and conceptual confusion. McCarl’s argument rests on his views about the conditions of...

Debate over facts must not stifle quest for policy solutions

By Liz Egan / May 11, 2007

I’ve written on this before, but it can’t be overemphasized that more and more these days, it’s not ideas that politicians are debating, it’s facts. The “he said, she said” war that characterizes the debate over most of today’s hot issues has replaced conventional discussions of method, ideology, and the search for new ideas and...

Speak softly and carry a green stick

By Maroon Editorial Staff / May 8, 2007

This year, a noticeably high level of student activism exists on campus, from groups decrying the genocide in Darfur to others striving to kick Coke off campus. In terms of realized success, however, one student group stands above the rest. The Green Campus Initiative (GCI) was formed in 1999 in anticipation of pending construction projects...

Want my Coke? Then pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

By Ryan McCarl / May 8, 2007

The great miracle of capitalism is the bewildering array of choices it offers to consumers, entrepreneurs, and workers. Capitalism, and the prosperity it has created, makes us freer by giving us choices. I can travel cheaply, communicate quickly, access more ideas, eat and drink anything I want, purchase the clothes I want, and choose the...

Why I Scav, why you should too, and why it’s good for us

By Ethan Stanislawski / May 8, 2007

During the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt became world famous for promoting her theory of the “banality of evil.” Though Eichmann was one of the key facilitators of the Holocaust, Arendt argued that he showed no signs of evil or malicious intentions, but that he was simply another bureaucrat doing his job and not...

With democracy, you can’t have it all

By Joe Katz / May 8, 2007

The next great battle for the future of the Middle East is taking place in the halls of a legislative body. This should be good news. It’s not. This Sunday, the Turkish parliament failed to elect a president for the second time in as many weeks—despite the fact that the governing “Justice and Development,” Adalet...

College should add more minors

By Maroon Editorial Staff / May 4, 2007

The first lesson taught in economics is supply and demand. Ironically, the economics department, along with several other popular departments, has yet to apply this principle to its college offerings. Despite student interest in minor programs, departments like economics, political science, and history only offer major courses of study. These departments should learn from their...

The key to ending genocide in Darfur: China

By James Conway / May 4, 2007

While organizations like our campus’s own Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) will continue to push for American institutional divestment and to argue and infight over how to spend President Zimmer’s “blood money,” the true key to solving the Darfur crisis remains ignored. This key that will unlock the padlock on international action regarding the...