Don’t buy into the Killer Coke craze

By Barney Keller / May 18, 2007

Miranda Nelson, one of the leaders of a group trying to drive Coca-Cola off the University of Chicago campus, has a dark secret: “I really like Sprite.” But Nelson gave up her favorite soft drink for some very rational reasons. She and her group want Coke to leave because of the company’s alleged complicity in...

Student Government disappoints as usual

By Barney Keller / April 27, 2007

“Or don’t vote for me…who cares? Don’t vote at all!” So says high school student government presidential candidate Tammy Metzler in the cult classic Election. Here at the U of C, life imitates art. At the annual Student Government (SG) debate in McCormick Lounge last Sunday, Adam Brunk, a member of the Moose Party slate,...

What we’ve learned: Be nice to that weird kid in your dorm

By Barney Keller / April 20, 2007

Admit it. When you saw the carnage at Virginia Tech, you were afraid that something like that could happen here. Your friends probably blew it off, saying how horrible it was that 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui massacred approximately 30 people. Cho was a loner. He rarely talked to his suitemates. He did disturbing things, such as...

What is STAND really standing for?

By Barney Keller / April 3, 2007

They just don’t make protesters the way they used to. Not that the grammatically awkward Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) don’t have a good point. The genocide happening there is as bad as it gets. I’ve heard all the horror stories. American institutions like the U of C with investments in companies that do...

Zimmer: Who is he, and what does he want for the University? Meeting the man behind the presidency

By Barney Keller / February 20, 2007

Robert J. Zimmer, the new University president who’s been under fire from campus “politicians” for refusing to divest from Darfur and from campus nerds for changing the admissions process, has something in common with a lot of his critics. He’s a passionate believer in social justice. And he loves math. As an undergraduate at Brandeis...

The elderly just didn’t get it

By Barney Keller / February 6, 2007

I called Ben Weintraub the other day. Ben is my great-uncle; he is 77 and cannot hear too well anymore. I told him it was his nephew. “Who? WHO is this? Nancy!” Ben often yells for my Aunt Nancy when he can’t figure out who is on the phone. I asked Ben what he thought...

Analyzing the all-too-common U of C Sneer

By Barney Keller / January 12, 2007

The Sneer: As a student here at the U of C, you’ve surely felt its icy sting on your face. Maybe you were a bio major sitting in European Civ who couldn’t hide your disinterest. Or an econ major struggling to find Aristotle relevant and earning the contempt of a nearby Sneerer for your trouble....

U of C admin should be ashamed

By Barney Keller / November 21, 2006

Why does the University administration deal with personal conflicts through rigid bureaucracy and political correctness that divide the student body when a little common sense and initiative may be all that’s needed? What needed mediation last Thursday was a conflict between College Council representatives Kyle Lee and Ryan Kaminski. Lee wanted the Council to sponsor...

It’s time to dissolve Student Government

By Barney Keller / November 7, 2006

I think it’s time to hire a professional staff member to distribute the $1.3 million in student activities fees that the University collects each year. Eliminate every student officer—maybe have a president as a figurehead for “leadership” or “community,” but for the love of god, don’t let him make any other choices. Last year, I...

Attack ads are important sources of information

By Barney Keller / October 20, 2006

You’ve probably heard it. It is on TV day after day, and its shrill voice pierces the quiet autumn night. What is that sound, you ask? It’s a politician, whining about campaign attack ads. “Stop going negative!” he screams. “I just want to stick to the issues!” he cries. “I just want to stay positive!”...

Why the Democrats won’t retake anything in November

By Barney Keller / October 6, 2006

The Democrats won’t win in November. They won’t retake the House, or the Senate, or a majority of governorships. There are a variety of reasons for this, none of them understood by Democrats, and I’m beginning to think they will never get it.First, take the fact that all polling data indicates that the President is...

Horowitz, safe zone highlights hypocrisy

By Barney Keller / May 12, 2006

Well known conservative pundit David Horowitz came to speak on campus Tuesday and was everything that I hoped he would be. He was a great public speaker, and very funny. But nothing he said was funnier than the introductory announcement of Student Activities Coordinator Régine Desruisseaux that there was a “safe zone” outside of the...

SG: Leadership, not politics, is what we need

By Barney Keller / April 25, 2006

We’re in the middle of the annual Student Government (SG) elections. Of course, if history is any guide, you probably don’t notice or care. Out of the 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled here a year ago, only about 1,300 actually managed to vote, a turnout of less than 10 percent. But this time around,...

Don’t take our media’s freedom lightly

By Barney Keller / February 14, 2006

Before I sat down to write this column, I reread The Days are Just Packed, one of Bill Watterson’s collections of Calvin and Hobbes comics. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to sit in my bed and read the Sunday edition of Calvin and Hobbes. I loved that...

Want something done? Don’t ask SG.

By Barney Keller / January 26, 2006

Many times, in Government, we expect a certain amount of bureaucracy. There is the Social Security system, which processes millions of financial transactions each year. There is the State Department, which makes it nearly impossible to get a work permit in this country, and about as easy to get a passport as it is for...

Family values should not be dirty words

By Barney Keller / January 16, 2006

On the morning of November 13th, Michael and Cathryn Borden died of gunshot wounds to the head. When I first heard about this double murder in the small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania, it didn’t even phase me. I read about murders all of the time in the newspaper or see stories about them on TV,...

Campus forum did little to urge dialogue

By Barney Keller / November 14, 2005

Here’s the good news about the all-University forum on the campus racial climate sparked by the infamous freshman hip-hop party: It was a fairly civil exchange of commentary on an issue that often degenerates into angry finger-pointing. The forum opened up with comments from Steven Klass, the dean of students, who said he wanted to...

The Newsweek incident proves that responsibility is out of fashion

By Barney Keller / May 19, 2005

If George Washington founded this country with the sense of moral obligation (“I cannot tell a lie”) in his heart, then he must be rolling in his grave right now. In a May 9 Newsweek article, the magazine alleged that United States soldiers in Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran, the holy book of the...

The Pope’s election and his views are archaic

By Barney Keller / April 25, 2005

Now that there is a new pope, everyone can breathe more easily. John Paul II was replaced quickly after his death, and his replacement, Benedict XVI, will now take over the Catholic Church. The problem is, the last pope will probably be missed more than this new guy will be welcomed. John Paul II was...

Criticizing Summers harms free inquiry

By Barney Keller / April 7, 2005

A lot of times, I find it hard to understand what people were thinking at a given moment. Steve Bartman is a good example. Everyone in Wrigley was giving Cubs left-fielder Moises Alou as much room as possible, and then this guy decided it would be a good idea to try and take home a...

Protecting free speech, one idiot at a time

By Barney Keller / February 10, 2005

George Orwell had it right: “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them.” Take a look at Ward Churchill, chair of the ethnic studies department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He has ignited a national firestorm among professors and students on the First Amendment. Among the many offensive things he...

It’s not easy being a conservative teen

By Barney Keller / January 31, 2005

Kermit the Frog has it easy being green, trust me. If he were a conservative on a college campus, he would know the true meaning of having a hard time. We live in a country where a clear majority just voted for one of the most reviled Republicans in American history, and we attend a...

Could liberalism be dying in America

By Barney Keller / November 15, 2004

I grew up in a town called Belmont, which was right next to Cambridge and Harvard University. I remember going to Harvard Square as a kid, seeing one of the greatest universities in the world, and hearing the activist voices coming from it. These people, I was told, knew how the world should be. They...

Here’s to four more years of Bush

By Barney Keller / November 2, 2004

Presidential elections often boil down to the question that Ronald Regan raised in the 1980 presidential race: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” The answer to that question right now is no. We feel less safe than we did four years ago. The economy has declined to a level far...

Hunting the wrong type of game

By Barney Keller / October 24, 2004

Thanksgiving is closing in on us, bringing with it the image of those turkeys being hunted down and killed for our dinners. Now, I am all for this. I happen to like turkey. I have no qualms about those annoying sounding birds being butchered and then stuffed and sloshed with gravy. Especially when it is...

Meet the new face of the Bush voter

By Barney Keller / October 2, 2004

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Racial divide in education must be addressed

By Barney Keller / April 6, 2004

It’s been 50 years since the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision that desegregated public schools and paved the way for equal educational opportunities for young blacks, a crucial step toward a truly color-blind society. There’s been progress since, but there is still a whole lot of work to do. To get to the...

U of C brutality and racial profiling

By Barney Keller / March 9, 2004

The Clemmie Carthans police brutality incident has put a spotlight on the longstanding controversy over racial profiling. The Young Democratic Socialists put up flyers in Bartlett calling it an “example of the police violence that is systematically employed against the black population under racist American capitalism, where all black youths are treated as potential criminals...

Democrats still shouldn’t vote Kerry

By Barney Keller / February 6, 2004

Josh Steinman refers to presidential candidate John Kerry as “what’s next” in his recent column. Kerry is running away in the polls, and this may be so. But will he be, according to his hokey campaign slogan, the “real deal” in a match-up with George W. Bush? Kerry’s record suggests otherwise. While Steinman does offer...

Has Moveon.org crossed the Bush-bashing line?

By Barney Keller / January 20, 2004

As a child, I learned the benefits of trying to solve problems in as constructive a manner as possible. As we grow up, temper-tantrums become less helpful, and screaming at each other becomes more useless. These childish reactions have no place in dealing with the more serious issues of the adult world. This behavior, however,...

Patriot Act: a necessary piece of national security

By Barney Keller / December 2, 2003

In order to understand the oft-bashed Patriot Act, one must understand the origins of what Emily Alpert called “overtly Orwellian” (“Bush’s Secrecy Blocks View of White House Actions,” 11/21/03). The Patriot Act was started because of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Liberals would have you believe that those attacks were because of our...

If you’re going to vote Democrat, don’t vote Kerry

By Barney Keller / November 14, 2003

If you’re intent on voting for one of the Democratic presidential candidates—and if you are, you have my condolences—I hope that the one you will vote for is not John Kerry. There’s a reason why Kerry, once the establishment pick to win the nomination, is now getting trounced by Howard Dean in New Hampshire, running...

Republican support growing among youth

By Barney Keller / November 11, 2003

We’re not in the minority anymore. Our generation is now waking up to the fact the liberal baby-boom politics and the Democratic Party are not necessarily the right way to go. A recent Harvard University poll showed that 31 percent of college students nationwide are Republicans, and 27 percent are Democrats. President Bush’s job approval...

Response to racist comment discouraged dialogue

By Barney Keller / November 6, 2003

A recent incident at Brandeis University has prompted an investigation about where our generation stands on race relations. A sportswriter for the Brandeis student newspaper The Justice used the “n” word in a piece published about Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker, a black baseball coach. The reference was extremely inexcusable, and he was appropriately dismissed....