Articles by: jdavis15

 

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  University Hall Ready, Housing VIII Coming Soon

  News1 August 29, 2011 at 3:48 pm Comments are Disabled

  George Mason University’s Fairfax campus has exploded in size in recent years, as evidenced by the construction of many new buildings

   

• Mason Now a Voting Precinct

  News1 August 29, 2011 at 3:45 pm Comments are Disabled

  In an effort to make the process of voting easier in Fairfax County, George Mason University has been made its own voting precinct.

   

• Cost of Attending Mason Hits New High

  News1 August 29, 2011 at 3:44 pm Comments are Disabled

  Food, parking, tuition and credits — almost everything at George Mason University is becoming more expensive.

   

• What do we really know about Hewitt?

  Sports May 2, 2011 at 11:33 pm Comments are Disabled

  All I have seen on Facebook and Twitter and everything that I have heard from students on campus portrays new coach Paul Hewitt as the savior of George Mason men’s basketball. Comments of “Great hire!” and “Is anyone else as pumped up about hiring Paul Hewitt as I am?” filled the Tweetosphere on Saturday, shortly after Mason Athletic Director Tom O’Connor announced that Hewitt would be the new coach of the Patriots. And there isn’t anything wrong with that. In fact, it is great to see the incredible amount of support for coach Hewitt coming from the student body. But how much do we really know about this guy? Unless you are a fan of Georgia Tech – though that is highly unlikely – you probably don’t know a whole lot about Hewitt other than the fact that he is our new guy. Allow me to fill in a few holes for you. Hewitt was fired from Georgia Tech in March after another year in which his program underachieved. However, numerous media outlets in Atlanta claim that the decision to release Hewitt was made for three different reasons: 1) As there is with everything in this day in age, there […]

   

• Letters to the editor

  Editorials May 2, 2011 at 11:32 pm 1 comment

  Inside are five letters to the editor.

   

• The university wants as much money as possible

  Editorials May 2, 2011 at 11:29 pm Comments are Disabled

  It’s just a few weeks until graduation (or, if you’d prefer to signal your boorishness, commencement), and preparations are well underway. But no preparation is further along than George Mason University’s plan to extract every last cent from students on their way out the door. In economics, payments that come to you because of some privilege are called rents. When you try to accumulate more special privileges, your actions are called rent-seeking behavior. And no one knows more about rent-seeking behavior than the folks coordinating graduation. I’ve received three letters addressed to my parents (although I have been independent from them for over 10 years) advertising diploma frames. Most diplomas have a landscape orientation. In fact, just about any stock diploma frame available is built that way. Mason diplomas, however, have a letter orientation. If Mason diplomas were like all those others, you could pick up a diploma frame and mat at any office supply store. But a hard-to-find, letter-oriented mat will probably have to come from the university’s official supplier. Graduating in a black cap and gown is supposed to be a hallmark of completing university. Most schools leave the gimmicky colors where they belong: in high school ceremonies. […]

   

• If you want something to change, then change it

  Editorials May 2, 2011 at 11:29 pm 1 comment

  On any given day, if a student walks around George Mason University’s campus they are guaranteed to see advertisements promoting various different charity organizations or good causes. Students typically do not pay any attention to these advertisements. They walk right past them without giving them a second thought. Recently, I heard a conversation between two Mason students. One stated, “You shouldn’t go to the circus. They abuse the poor elephants.” The other student replied, “It makes me really sad that they do that to the elephants, but it won’t stop anything if I don’t go. So, I bought tickets anyway.” This sort of scenario happens too frequently. People are sympathetic to a cause, but they do nothing. They feel as if they will never make a change. If everyone in the world had this mentality, imagine how much worse the world would be. What people fail to realize is that change happens on a small scale. The power one individual has to positively affect another is exponential. People tend to forget this when they make decisions. I know of a student who lost touch with one of her friends. After not speaking for awhile, the student decided that she wanted […]

   

• Cyclists are a scourge on roads and pathways

  Editorials May 2, 2011 at 11:28 pm 1 comment

  Living, as most of you do, in the City of Fairfax, you probably don’t have many reasons to traverse Rock Creek Parkway in the district. It’s a lovely stretch of road, and if your excursions take you into the city, let me give my strongest recommendation to cruise the strip, even if it means going a little out of your way. Its serpentine-like single lane runs from approximately the Lincoln Memorial to Connecticut Avenue, whereupon it is rechristened Beach Drive and continues northward another several miles. It weaves through a well-preserved vein of lush greenery. The roadway itself gently twists and turns, rises and falls with the lulling nature of a hypnotist’s pendulum. And where the city has deigned to do road maintenance, the road is smooth and hums as you fly over it. At a touch over the sanctioned 40 mph, you feel like a racecar driver. You will have yourself a merry old time — that is, until you get stuck behind some damn cyclist out for a spin. You know the types: weekend warriors, dressed up in their too-tight bike outfits with the butt-shorts, looking like they think they’re Tron freshly escaped from the grid and training […]

   

• The new game room should be free for students to play

  Editorials May 2, 2011 at 11:27 pm Comments are Disabled

  So we have a new and pretty cool game room in Student Union Building II (which is now referred to as “The Hub,” even though the building signs haven’t changed.) Either way, the first week or two that the new Corner Pocket was open, there was free game-play for the things they traditionally charge for. This was great, yet it didn’t last long. I find it hard to believe that with subpar equipment the university has the audacity to charge its students $3 an hour to play ping pong and $5 an hour for pool. Even though the fee isn’t much, it’s the principle. I would be fully supportive of a fee to play as long as the equipment is new and not held together by scotch tape, as is with the ping pong equipment. Yes, hard to believe, but most of the paddles are missing a piece of the handle or are covered in tape. You would never buy a new car only to replace the parts with those from a used car. It makes no sense. So until they upgrade the ping pong equipment, it should be free play. Hell, it should always be free play. I pay […]

   

• The socialist parade on college campuses

  Editorials May 2, 2011 at 11:26 pm 12 comments

  Radicalism breeds on college campuses throughout the country. Extremism runs rampant and in almost every single instance, radical college groups come from the political left. But why? To answer that question let’s look at our own microcosm of iconoclasm here at Mason. The other day I was shocked to find a flier for the “Mason Socialists” while perusing a campus bulletin board. On it they refer to themselves as “revolutionary” and “radical” socialists while pondering the question, “What would need to happen…to actually abolish capitalism?” It’s not just my opinion that these self-described socialists are radicals; they proudly offer that mantra themselves. The parent organization of this student group publicly states, “To achieve socialism, the most militant workers must be organized into a revolutionary socialist party.” So here at Mason we have a group that actively recruits militant members for purposes of a socialist revolution. This misguided group of miscreants isn’t the first of its kind to tarnish this campus. Students for Justice in Palestine are another such faction. They denounce the Jewish state of Israel, accusing them of war crimes, apartheid and occupation. They spit in the eye of the Israelis and their constant struggle to defend their God-given […]