Editorials

Chalk It Up As Another Win For Mason

Editorials, Multimedia October 23, 2012 at 9:59 am Comments are Disabled

Just when you think Mason cannot get any better, it pulls a fast one on us and raises the bar all over again. While this week’s announcement that the university will be expanding its territory and opening a beautiful campus in South Korea brings outstanding notoriety among East Asian countries, it is a campus that very few students will ever get the opportunity to experience first-hand. Perhaps more relevant to the Fairfax community, though, Mason celebrated the completion of its newest academic residential and dining facilities on Thursday just down the road in Front Royal. A $5 million gift from real estate developer Gerald T. Halpin, namesake of the G.T. Halpin Family Living & Learning Community, helped bring life to a vision imagined by Mason and the Smithsonian that will allow the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation to foster and nurture future generations of conservationists. His generous donation will provide funds to establish an endowment that will provide scholarship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. The campus, where students spend a semester living on campus and engaging in the study of endangered species, includes research halls, dormitories and an animal hospital. Highly qualified world experts – including Smithsonian scientists, Mason faculty […]
Ricky Gervais and Ideological Bias

Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:43 pm Comments are Disabled

One big shortcoming of Twitter is its limited space to express views. Ultimately, 140 characters will never be enough to truly convey great ideas; after all, items like the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Gettysburg Address, “I Have a Dream” speech, and others sure couldn’t fit in Twitter-imposed barriers. Maybe that is why certain statements seem so off. Comedian Ricky Gervais is a good example. As religiously-engendered violence continued in Muslim countries, Gervais remarked “I see Atheists are fighting and killing each other again, over who doesn’t believe in any God the most. Oh, no..wait..that never happens.” While Gervais’ comment may require further explanation, it seemed sufficient a statement for many as it got posted on Facebook, receiving over 20,000 likes and over 6,000 shares. Yet his remarks are bizarre in light of history. Gervais was born in 1961, meaning the first 30 years of his life there existed the Soviet Union. This was a regime that had its share of large-scale killing to stamp out religion and whose leadership violently punished those who did not adhere to their atheism-based worldview sufficiently enough. In early twentieth century Mexico, here was plenty of secularist-driven violence against the Catholic Church. The extent of […]
Center for the Arts: Students Should Take Advantage of Access

Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:41 pm 1 comment

In the months leading into my Mason career, my mother and father often reminded me to attempt to get all of the perks from my out of state tuition. I found a perfect venue for that at the GMU Center for the Arts. Any holder of a Mason ID is able to get at least one free ticket for most performances featured at the venue. The Center of the arts, apart from featuring Mason’s very own theatrical and musical ensembles, pulls in the likes of the American Symphony Orchestra and even the Royal Drummers and Dancers of Burundi. Indeed, the College of Visual and Performing Arts has a selection that’s just as diverse as Mason itself. Continuing on that point, the College of Visual and Performing Arts selects the program for the year, and strives to create “an academic environment in which the arts are explored as individual disciplines and interdisciplinary forms that enhance and strengthen each other.” Certainly a very admirable goal, I would say. The College of Visual and Performing Arts has aptly named the program of artists who pass through Mason “Great Performances at Mason” and great they are. Mind you, however, this is not like attending […]
Repetition is Not Always the Answer

Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:40 pm Comments are Disabled

This world continues to have the same conflicts with a different name and leader. This has always been something that baffled me because as members of the human race, we cannot learn from our mistakes. Wars, attacks, and persecution have been going on since the beginning of time and will not end until we come together to avoid our past mistakes. Let’s start this look back in 1490 when Ferdinand and Isabella felt the only way to resolve the problems of Spain was to create a land with a single people. This resolution involved the expulsion of the Jewish and Muslim population in the country to create their perfect Spain. A similar situation happened in the United States as expansion across the vast countryside began. This conquest did not just involve inspecting unvisited sites. The conquest that celebrated expansion actually involved killing, raping, and displacing the Native American population. The U.S.’s goal was to expand and create an America that would make this country the best one on earth. The Native Americans were not a part of this picture similar to the Jews and Muslims in Spain. This ethnic cleansing continued with Adolf Hitler’s systematic killing of 12 million people. […]
Honesty: Always the Best Policy

Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:38 pm Comments are Disabled

Take a moment to picture a chaotic world. It is easy actually; all it takes is for you to imagine living in a society where honesty is non-existent. We hear it over and over again: “You can’t have a good relationship without trust.” Though it is a cliché, it is inevitable to imagine that without honesty, the last bit of sanity that remains within society would vanish. What would you do if you were being lied to constantly? If honesty and truth were erased from the values of society, how would the human race function? To say the least, it wouldn’t. Honesty is one of the most important policies because without it, humans would be helpless. Asking someone you have never met before for something as simple as directions requires honesty. Taking classes requires honesty from the professors – if the material being taught is a lie, what is the point of going to school? Then of course, there are relationships. Without honesty, it is impossible to build any sort of relationship – or a successful one at least. Without a speck of honesty, the human race would most likely collapse. Being able to trust others reduces stress tremendously. It […]
The Goods of Social Media

Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:37 pm 1 comment

We live in an iWorld. If you just take a look around campus, everyone is either on their phone or their laptop typing away with them all somehow interconnected in a parallel universe. Nowadays, social media and technology has become a prominent part of our everyday lives with using Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, the iPod and the iPhone. Social media provides a mean for information, entertainment and persuasion. In the past decade alone, social media has been responsible for the introduction of new ideas and inventions, the start of revolutions against tyrant governments, and the increase of human to human interaction. Social media has become a pathway used to communicate. It is the way we let others know what’s on our minds, a way to figure out what’s on other people’s minds and ultimately a way to share ideas in an interactive manner. Facebook and Twitter are effortlessly accessible; whether on your laptop or your smart phone, messages can be sent out within seconds. And within a couple of more seconds, replies, favorites, or even “retweets” start flooding in. This creates an interactive dynamic where people can interconnect, link and transfer information between one another. The ease of use of social […]
The Carouser Report: Coming Back to Reality

Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:25 pm Comments are Disabled

I feel alive when I go to parties. The grip social media holds on me is lessened with every swig I take. In my pocket I carry the control device, which dominates my daily life. It becomes a useless piece of gigabytes after several drinks. Trying to use the keypad becomes impossible. A simple sentence is turned into random coding that will never be deciphered. I am free. The people that surround me, in our celebration of collegiate camaraderie, are all I have now. Social media is a black hole. The lives we once lived have been sucked deep within. We spend our days wired to a social network from which there is no unplugging. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are part of our daily routine, and there is no escaping the internet- ego we have created. But come Friday evening, a storm gathers on the horizon. We gather for our ritualistic festivities, and begin losing ourselves in a frenzy of fun. Soon enough we’ll be nothing more than cavemen. We lose the ability to coherently use technology. Lightning cracks and notifications cease. Perhaps in the process of going to parties and getting a bit sloshed, we’re leaving the daily realm […]
Cabrera Gives Students Advice for Successful Leadership

Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:10 pm 1 comment

What does it mean to be a good leader? Though the term leadership is often defined as the process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal, its connotations range from a variety of complex concepts and opinions – each of them valid, but shaped through different lenses. Put quite simply, though, we are all leaders. “Every day, we are leading and we are following,” said Dr. Angel Cabrera, speaking at his first Presidential Leadership Dialogues on Oct. 2. “When you decided to follow someone, why do you decide to follow them? Who do you decide to follow?” Cabrera defined leadership in much more manageable terms, suggesting that each time we are in an unfamiliar place, we look to others who seem to know what they are doing – even in minute situations such as finding a restroom. We subconsciously ask ourselves two questions: Does this person have knowledge? and Does this person have values? “Every time you follow someone, you are assuming a risk,” Cabrera said. Using “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a historical piece written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, Cabrera spoke about the intricacies and the complexities of being a […]
Romney the Clear-Cut Winner in Debate No. 1

Editorials October 8, 2012 at 12:22 am Comments are Disabled

Following the first presidential debate, two things have been made clear. The first is that Mitt Romney knows what he is talking about and he will have a bigger impact than expected. The second is that Barack Obama cannot stand alone. Romney was quick on his feet with thought and he was professional as well. He made statements and backed them up with statistics. Whenever Obama called him out on something, Romney had no problem explaining it and disproving Obama’s claim. He did this through the unfair treatment he received from moderator Jim Lehrer, who would cut him off and enforce time limits only on Romney. The President spoke for four more minutes than Romney in a debate where each speaker has the same time limit. The same cannot be said of Obama. He stumbled and mumbled his way through the night. He couldn’t maintain eye contact with Romney when Romney was speaking. Right from the start when the President asked the moderator to move on to another question and then proceeds to give a rebuttal, it showed that he was uncomfortable and on the run. Obama did not even know the details behind the policies he is pushing, saying […]
On Stage With Obama

Editorials October 8, 2012 at 12:14 am Comments are Disabled

Being approached discreetly by a woman telling you to leave a line that you have been waiting in for at least 20 minutes seems like the beginning of some cheesy spy movie, but that is exactly what happened to me at the Obama Campaign Rally here at Mason and lead to one of the best experiences I have ever had. After arriving a little later than I should have and only realizing this after I got there and the line was already weaving through campus past the Johnson Center. After being in line for a while without getting anywhere, everyone around me began to talk about the possibility of not getting in and I was crushed. Here I was with the luck to actually get a ticket and I was not going to get in to the first Presidential campaign I ever had the chance to attend. That is when a well-dressed woman walked up to me and asked if I would like to sit in the stands behind the President on stage. Her hushed voice and only a green post-it note made me hesitant to get out of line and head down to the front of the line. I […]