Recent Posts

• From the Vault: Film Points in the Right Direction

  Lifestyle March 29, 2010 at 12:47 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Dylan Hares, Staff Writer Let’s take a short trip back to movies from the ’90s that, despite not having access to a multi-million dollar budget, were actually written well. In fact, there were so many well-written movies that many went under the radar. One of those is 1997’s Grosse Pointe Blank. Grosse Pointe Blank is a film that sits in the “dark comedy” genre. It blends together action and comedy while taking a provoking look at the human psyche. Martin Blank (John Cusack) is a hitman who hesitantly revisits his childhood suburb for his 10-year high school reunion in order to sort out the problems in his life. Work is hell, life is hell and hell follows him back to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where after 10 years, he runs into all sorts of characters from his past. John Cusack is the kind of actor who always seems to be thinking of something witty or probing to say in any given conversation. From the get-go, every line in the movie is sarcastic and funny. Joan Cusack plays Martin Blank’s assistant, and when he asks her, “Did you go to [your reunion]?” she cooly replies, “Yes, I did. It was just […]

   

• Showing Off Your Pride:

  Lifestyle March 29, 2010 at 12:42 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Ramy Zabareh, Staff Writer Spring has sprung, and the flowers are blooming. You know what that means — Pride Week is just around the corner! Pride Week is intended not only to educate the many diverse campus communities about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) culture and issues, but also as a medium for the expression and celebration of the Mason LGBTQ community itself. Pride Week will last from Sunday, March 28 through Saturday, April 3. While it certainly is a time to celebrate culture and identity, Director of LGBTQ Resources Ric Chollar reminds us that there is a more sentimental value to Pride Week. “Historically, the LGBTQ community had been associated with shame and lack of social acceptance,” said Chollar. “This [Pride Week] is a way to acknowledge the members of our community as actual contributors to the overall Mason community, and to counteract the historical perception of the LGBTQ community.” Preparation for Pride Week started in December 2009 and is being organized by a planning team of around 30 people. This group includes about 20 students and faculty or staff from the Multicultural Research and Resource Center (MRRC), Women and Gender Studies, Student Activities, the Office […]

   

• Black at Mason Part I: Students talk about first-hand experiences

  Lifestyle March 29, 2010 at 12:41 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Deena Smith, Staff Writer George Mason University is an institution that prides itself on having a largely diverse student body that respects and welcomes all walks of life and cultures. Although I respect this diverse label, it is quite a stretch. The minority groups are spread so thin and so few in number that most everyone in a minority group knows one another. Since the percentages are so small, they tend to stick together and not branch out into different racial groups. Anyone can see this for themselves by walking through the Johnson Center during lunch time. As a black student, I admit that most of my close friends are black, but I do have friends from a wide range of ethnicities and races. I wondered — has being a black student at predominantly white institution had a large effect on my sense of “blackness”? After interviewing an eclectic group of African American Mason students, I have gained a large insight into the opinion of being black at Mason. Students said that getting involved in organizations made the most difference in how welcome they felt at Mason. “I immediately got involved with Mason Ambassadors and met many students,” said […]

   

• Board of Visitors takes a stand: University upholds previous nondiscrimination policies

  Editorials March 29, 2010 at 12:36 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Gleason S. Rowe, Student Representative Board of Visitors The George Mason University Board of Visitors (BOV) took a firm stance this past Wednesday on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s letter regarding nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation. Specifically, Cuccinelli believes that universities that have policies enumerating sexual orientation as a category under which discrimination is prohibited should remove them due to the fact that the commonwealth has not included such categories in its policies. He stated in his letter that “Such invalid policies create, at a minimum, confusion about the law and, at worst, a litany of instances in which the school’s operation would need to change in order to come into conformance.” His recommendation has undoubtedly had contentious reaction throughout the commonwealth. Soon after the attorney general’s letter was received, Rector Ernst Volgenau, the leader of the Board, took action. He promptly drafted a statement on behalf of the Visitors and himself stating that “the Board of Visitors extends its full and unconditional support to all members of the university community and encourages continued focus on diversity and mutual respect that has become our hallmark.” Rector Volgenau’s response was swift and well-received but there was more definitive action to be […]

   

• The U.N. and its role in the world: How it affects and shapes our modern politics

  Editorials March 29, 2010 at 12:34 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Justin Lalputan, Staff Writer A few years back, when I first watched Hotel Rwanda, I was completely shocked and horrified. I was just finishing the 8th grade, and while I’d heard of the Holocaust and cases like it, this movie was raw to me. One of the scenes in the movie that got to me was when a news reporter was talking about apathy. People actually knew that this was taking place, but there was no intervention by the United Nations to save the people who were being killed, and as a result, thousands died. One of the goals of the U.N. is to keep peace. Well, how can you claim to be keeping peace if there are people killing each other left and right in some places of the world? Take the situation in Darfur for example: innocent women and children are raped every day, and nobody comes to help them. Even with the attention that many celebrities have brought to Darfur, still nobody has come to help these innocent people. Sure organizations and individuals send aid such as food and water, but will that make any difference in people’s lives? Speaking in the short term, yes, it […]

   

• Student Government elections: Presidential and vice presidential candidates discuss their platforms and policies

  News1 March 29, 2010 at 12:31 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Hayley Roder, Broadside Correspondent While interviewing the ten candidates for George Mason University student government president and vice president, one common theme transpired: advocating for the student body. The five tickets — Shane Smith and Rich Everett, Jillian Ferron and Mark Murphy, Sean Hobaugh and Evan Massengill, Lynn Gold and Dominic Pody and D’Leon Barnett and Jacky Yoo — have proposed different campaign platforms, but they all arrive at a similar goal: to let the voices of the students be heard. “Advocating for the students is our number one priority,” Smith said. “There’s been a disconnect between student government and the university administration, and we want to advocate on behalf of the students.” Gold echoed a similar statement. “Our main responsibility [as leaders of student government] would be to serve as the primary representative for students — to the administration, to the state legislature — to let them know what the students want and need to lead Mason into the future.” Another common theme was transparency. “Really, you only hear from student government once a year [during election time],” Massengill said. “We don’t hear what student government is doing for us daily or weekly, or even monthly.” Hobaugh agreed: […]

   

• Patriot pigs to raise funds for the university: Students encouraged to save up spare change in piggy banks, then give to Mason

  News1 March 29, 2010 at 12:30 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Rashad Mulla, Broadside Correspondent George Mason University is targeting an untapped group for private financial support: undergraduate seniors. Through the Patriot Pigs program, a first-year project of the Office of Annual Giving, seniors are encouraged to collect spare change in a green piggy bank issued by Mason and give the funds to the school. So far, the school has distributed 4,000 piggy banks and received more than $1,000 from the approximately 100 already turned in, said Jewelle Daquin, assistant director at the Office of Annual Giving. The program is optional, and the school accepts donations of any amount. Patriot Pig donations, like regular private donations, can be restricted or allocated to the department or program of the donor’s choice. Student reaction has been mixed. Combined with rising tuition costs and other mandatory fees, some students disagree with the premise of the program — asking undergraduates, many of whom do not have full-time jobs, for money. “I feel like paying for tuition and the other fees for labs should be enough funding, alongside state and alumni contributions,” said Adam Katkhouda, a senior accounting major. “I don’t think they’re asking the right people. Undergraduates are not that well-off.” Chuck Soo-Hoo, a […]

   

• Catholic Campus Ministry Hosts Pro-Life Week: Participants encourage issue to be looked at philosophically

  News1 March 29, 2010 at 12:28 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Ethan Vaughan, Asst. News Editor George Mason University’s Catholic Campus Ministry carried out its pro-life week starting last Monday, with special events at the campus chapel and elsewhere aimed at promoting pro-life views. Organizers said that the event’s goal was to take the pro-life message, with which Mason’s Catholic students are already well acquainted, and disseminate it to the school as a whole. “We’d been talking about this throughout the year,” said Katie Robinson, a junior English major and a member of CCM’s Bellarmine Board, which functions as an activities coordination body. “We’ve done a lot at [the] chapel to educate and raise awareness, and we wanted to take that to campus as well.” From Monday through Thursday, CCM participants set up a kiosk in the Johnson Center, where they used an innovative method to attract students. “We had a sign that said ‘Free Brownies,’” Robinson said. “We knew if we just said we were pro-life a lot of people wouldn’t come, so we offered free brownies and then passed out flyers and talked to anyone who wanted to talk to us.” The flyers included an advertisement for Olivia Gans, a pro-life speaker who came to campus on Saturday, […]

   

• Trouble the Water comes to the Bistro: Controversial film discusses injustices after Hurricane Katrina

  News1 March 29, 2010 at 12:27 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Helena Okolicsanyi, Broadside Correspondent Kimberly Rivers Roberts will always remember where she was on Aug. 29, 2005, and so will thousands of individuals still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, as documented in the film Trouble the Water. Roberts, who was in New Orleans when the storm struck, filmed her experience during and after Hurricane Katrina with a camcorder she bought for $20 just days before the disaster. She transformed the raw footage of her ordeal into Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize-winning and Academy Award nominated documentary Trouble the Water. Roberts, along with her husband Scott and their 2-year-old daughter, came to George Mason University’s Johnson Center Bistro to discuss what happened to them during Hurricane Katrina. Kimberly Roberts spoke and then answered questions from both a student panel and audience members. She discussed the role of the media, the lack of government response during and after the storm and how New Orleans is today. The event allowed students and faculty to understand what occurred during Hurricane Katrina and the effects still felt even five years later. Roberts talked about surviving the hurricane and the legacy the storm still holds in New Orleans and her Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, one of the […]

   

• George Mason unveils GBAY: Students receive scholarships through auction

  News1 March 29, 2010 at 12:25 pm Comments are Disabled

  By Kevin Loker, C2M Exectutive Editor When the idea of an auction that would raise money to fund scholarships for students in financial need came up in passing conversation in the halls of the Admissions Office this past January, Dean Andrew Flagel suggested to two interested Mason Ambassadors that if they really wanted to make everything work smoothly, they should wait and take some time to plan the event for next year. One of those students, sophomore Dani Miller, did not agree. “No, we’re doing it now,” she said. And so started a two-month frenzy of speedy brainstorming, continuously securing supplies and co-sponsors and sleeplessly orchestrating a huge collaborative and campus-wide volunteer effort. The end result is “GBAY,” George Mason University’s first annual bidding match in which a student can win such privileges as being chauffeured in the Mason Dining golf cart to and from class for a week and, at the same time, help fund a fellow student’s way through college. “It’s been a lot of hard work, but the rewards are worth it,” said Brittany Burkhart, Miller’s fellow Ambassador and co-organizer of the event. “It’s great for everyone in the Mason community because they’re really giving back to […]