Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Letters to the Editor

Crawford high

I am writing to inform the GW community of the University’s laxity in enforcing its own rules regarding the possession of alcohol and marijuana in the residence halls.

Two residents of Crawford Hall recently were found in possession of marijuana and a beer keg (keep in mind that this is a dry dorm). Both students were convicted by Judicial Affairs of having broken University policy and were summarily evicted.

Since then, only one has been forced to leave, while the other has been granted three consecutive one-week extensions. The residents of Crawford Hall see this as not only a case of weak-spined University law enforcement, but a potentially dangerous situation with the continuing presence of the second offender.

These concerns have been voiced to Community Living and Learning Center without any significant response. We have only been told that we are not entitled to know (despite the fact that we pay to live in Crawford Hall and have an interest in our own safety) why the person in question has been allowed to say.

This sends a strong message to the students of GW that the University is not serious about enforcing its own rules.

-Mike Hankeyfreshman

TV-free dinner

As the spouse of a faculty member, I’m at J Street sometimes for lunch or dinner. The only problem is those giant TV screens glowing above our heads.

Most of us watch more than enough TV at home; it’s an assault the way television is popping up in more public places. I know it’s probably too much to ask for the J Street TVs to be turned off permanently, but how about just during National TV Turn-Off Week (April 22-28)?

If GW students and faculty ask for a TV-free J Street, we can all eat, talk and read in (relative) peace.

-David Shorr

Religion lesson

In the opinion piece “New logic, but there’s still no God” (The GW Hatchet, April 6, p. 4), the writer asserts of Jewish thought: “Those who do not follow the word of God (as expressed in Biblical law) will ultimately be damned to the eternal punishment of hell.”

Firstly, the concept of the religious gentile is and always has been an essential part of Jewish thought. Secondly, the very existence of hell is questionable even among orthodox Jewish philosophers. Thirdly, Judaism certainly does believe in the writer’s freedom of choice.

A kind and merciful person even without absolute morals, is considered righteous. To be righteous, the Jewish Torah only requires obedience to the seven laws of Noah. Noah was considered righteous, but not Jewish.

Certainly an Osker Schindler, for example, stands as one of the most righteous persons. Whether he was a follower of absolute morality or not, a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim or an atheist, all Jews who believe in heaven understand he has a place on its highest rung.

-Mosheh Moskowitzsophomore

God and choices

Life is all about choices, both good and bad. The Hatchet chose certain articles to put in its April 2 edition. I chose to read one of those articles. I chose to write this letter because Klaus Marre chose to state that there is no God since, according to him, if He existed He would not let certain injustices happen, such as genocide (“Injustices proof of no God,” p.5).

Problems like these are not God’s fault, though; they are the fault of the people who freely chose to commit these atrocities. That’s like blaming God for failing an exam you failed to study for. It would have been your decision whether to study or not.

The ability to make free-willed choices such as these is part of what makes us human. It is what keeps us from being helpless marionettes that an all-powerful puppeteer would manipulate in a farce that would pass for life.

If God did not exist, our lives would be meaningless blips in the face of an empty future. This useless universe Marre speaks of is not a theater with the earth as its stage. The fact that these surrounding galaxies and planets even exist shows us that beyond our realm of immediate understanding there is something, and some One, out there. And that Someone Is God.

-Leah Acostafreshman

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