One large voice
Why does L. Asher Corson claim to speak for the students? How exactly did he get a column entitled “One Small Voice” when it’s clear he’s quite loud? And when did the opinion page become a forum for tearing a person down week by week?
I have read The Hatchet since coming to GW but have been consistently disappointed with the biased tone with which the editorial and news sections have covered the SA. How do new students become so jaded about the SA and its allegedly corrupt and shady dealings? Where does the average GW student get their information about the goings-on of the SA? For passive members of the GW community – that would be most of us, me included – our only contact with the SA is through negative and unpropitious stories in The Hatchet.
Thus it came as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of the articles regarding the SA this year have been malicious. But only recently have the stories become vicious personal attacks. Corson’s editorial entitled “The scandal association” (Nov. 8, p. 4) is not only cutting toward Omar Woodward but is also unnecessarily cruel.
As I don’t personally know Mr. Corson I cannot speak to his relationship with Woodard but can only comment that I have read his column each week, watching it grow increasingly angry and more personal.
Having read The Hatchet only since last year I can only draw from my experience of coverage of former SA President Kris Hart, which I cannot recall as being this averse. An editorial page is for opinions and The Hatchet should be no exception. But it’s not the place for vitriolic personal attacks.
-Juliet Moser, sophomore
Focus on bigger issues
Most on-campus residents have lived on campus for more than one year. Obviously, freshmen are the largest exception. Every year there are complaints from students and parents alike that the weather is cold and the students want heat. Then randomly in some act of God we get a nice warm day, and now the rooms are hot and need air conditioning. “Stop the insanity!”
I lived on campus for four years and almost always had the same problem. Now I live in an off-campus apartment and guess what? They do the same thing. I think it’s lovely that people would like to avoid this problem in the future – quite utopian if I must say – but the truth is you can’t please them all. With HVAC systems like these you can only have air that’s cold or hot and on or off. My advice is when it’s a little chilly inside due to weather outside try wearing a few more pieces of clothing. When it’s warm inside try opening a window.
While the University isn’t faultless, issues such as this should remain low on the agenda given that not much can be done to control the weather. Perhaps we should be a little more concerned with exam schedules and class registration. Those can be controlled and are a bit more important for an institution of higher learning.
-Rebecca A. Hunter, graduate student
Reach out
Since the election last week many people have expressed “disappointment” with their fellow Americans for re-electing President Bush. Some have tried to assuage their feelings with the consolation that Bush voters were somehow inferior – a bunch of Bible-thumping, gay-bashing, closed-minded retards. Some are, but I’m certainly not.
Bush won the election because John Kerry squandered so many opportunities at almost every level. He failed to develop a single consistent strategy for the war. He failed to choose a running mate who added anything to his campaign. He failed to address the solid majority of Americans who take their faith seriously – many liberals mock religious people as backward fundamentalists. These Kerry shortcomings allowed many people like my parents and me, who were sort of uncomfortable with Bush’s massive federal spending and positions on some social issues, to vote for him anyway. Many people voted for Bush not because of gay marriage or abortion but because they just wanted determination, stability and consistency.
The most interesting numbers from election night were not the exit polls or the electoral votes, but the number of people who watched the returns on Bush-friendly Fox News – a 500 percent jump from 2000 and more than CNN and MSNBC combined. If the Democrats want to become a national party in time for 2008, they need to address this reality head on and speak directly to the voters who abandoned them in record numbers this year.
-Matt Baer, senior
