Op/ed: Associate Dean Margaret Weekes will be missed by SPA students
(11/26/13 8:32pm)
I wasn’t going to come to AU. I was planning to go to Tulane University, study history and enjoy everything about Bourbon Street.
Delivering American University's news and views since 1925 | Monday, September 25, 2023
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I wasn’t going to come to AU. I was planning to go to Tulane University, study history and enjoy everything about Bourbon Street.
This past Friday, I hung out with one of my buddies to eat pizza, talk politics and laugh at Sarah Palin. We went through our routine of taking up interesting political topics and eventually wound up discussing homosexuality. My friend asked if I knew that Bill Richardson had once said that being gay is a choice. I couldn’t believe it. This was a man who ran for president — in a Democratic primary. How could he have been so naïve? After extensive Googling, I discovered the governor later claimed he made a mistake. The problem is that thousands of people in America make this mistake every day. Many religious groups have created camps dedicated to turning gay people straight. As I thought of these groups, something sparked in my mind: What if they were right? What if being gay is a choice?
When John Ashcroft became Attorney General of the United States in 2001, he announced the Department of Justice’s initiative against “public corruption.” However, evidence has developed that the Department of Justice has been the source, not the opponent, of this corruption. Specifically, a study has come out that demonstrates that the Bush Administration’s Justice Department, under both Ashcroft and Gonzales, committed political profiling on local Democrats. This is a violation of the individual’s freedom to speak and associate and cannot be allowed to stand.
I’ve always been tired of hearing about celebrities avoiding lawful punishment because of their Hollywood status. That’s why I was glad to hear ABC News report on a certain celebrity who, after years of avoiding the law, has finally been convicted of his crimes. Yes, Christopher Columbus, it’s about time. The jury, comprised of fourth grade students at a Pennsylvania school, found the defendant guilty of terrible crimes and sentenced him to life in prison (No word as of yet about any chance for parole). But these 10-year-olds aren’t the only ones to lay judgment on the Italian explorer. All around the country, people are casting aside Columbus and his federal holiday. For example, Brown University, in a surprise liberal move, has removed the holiday from their calendar, replacing it will a ‘fall break.’
As part of the recent conservative tea partying, the Values Voters Summit came to Washington to join the fun and festive protests against our government. As I read the list of sessions the summit held, passing topics such as “ObamaCare: Rationing your life away” and “Truth Tolerance: Countering the Homosexual Agenda in Public School,” I was shocked not to see anything about the usage of the death penalty in America. Unfortunately, a 2008 Gallup poll explains why such a topic wouldn’t be included. Much to my astonishment, 64 percent of Americans still support the death penalty. In a nation where the vast majority follows a religion founded on the principles, “Thou shalt not kill” and “Turn the other cheek,” how can such a solid majority condone government killing of its own citizens?
As you might have heard, Richard Nixon was a crook. He was behind one the largest scandals in our government’s history, but that isn’t the action that has had the most devastating impact on America. Richard Nixon is a crook because he brought us into a pointless, tremendously expensive and impossible war: keeping people from smoking pot.
Nuns love John F. Kennedy. My father used to say that anyone who uttered a word against the fallen president better be prepared to have a ruler smacked upside his face. Luckily, this is a Methodist campus, so that particular measured threat (yes, I do puns) isn't much of an issue. I can safely criticize a ridiculous political move that solidified during Kennedy's time and has continued for over forty years: the Cuban Embargo.
I have never been a fan of Rhode Island. It's the runt of our country and last of the original colonies to accept the Constitution. Plus, I was rejected by Brown. Communists. Yet Rhode Island has one redeeming quality: legal private prostitution. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island decided that prostitution can be legal in the privacy of a home.