Archive for January, 2008

Putting the rad back into tradition

Why don’t Aquinas students attend sporting events?
A typical men’s basketball game has more students playing in the game than in the stands.
Correct me if I am wrong, but there isn’t a real sense of pride of Aquinas sports. In the case of both mens and womens basketball, success is present, both teams winning in dominating [...]

Happiness is possible in winter with skiing and snowboarding

Each year the coming of winter evokes different responses. At the sight of snow many mutter expletives about the cold or shed tears at the painful death of fair weather. There are those who crawl into tanning beds or hole up in balmy bedrooms plastered with palm tree posters, attempting to exist in an alternate [...]

The price of human life

Several months ago, in a particularly blinded moment of youthful idealism, I introduced a resolution in the Student Senate that would, among other things, denounce the war in Iraq on behalf of the student body. In my youthful idealism, I neither saw it fit nor necessary to poll student opinion. After all, as a representative [...]

Pederson named Educator of the Year by ISC

If there’s one person on earth who might enjoy the sound of a plate shattering or a vase hitting the floor, it may be Ron Pederson.
As we sit in his office, tucked into the back of the Art and Music Center and cluttered with sculpture, paintings and sketches, the Aquinas College art department chairperson and [...]

Intelligence is acted, not learned

NOTE: Controversial advertisements accompany this column. They should be viewed only by mature audiences.
Last week, a professor of mine brought my class’s attention to the fact that there’s a lot of danger in not understanding the context of the mass media we consume.
I think about how many mornings I flick on the T.V. in the [...]

Planning Commission dashes little pig’s dream

The Grand Rapids Planning Commission yesterday ruled against the second of three little pigs in requiring that he brick his house of sticks.
“We’re disappointed,” said a lawyer for the defendant following the decision.
“And we plan to appeal. My client will not let this halt construction. Not by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin.”
The city panel, led [...]

Low turnout, questionable numbers mark Michigan primaries

On the outside, it looked like a very good night for Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney.
On the inside, the reality of both candidates’ primary wins in Michigan yesterday is a bit more complex. Senator Clinton won with 55% - a healthy majority in the delicate game of politics, to be sure, and yet a [...]

“Atonement” comes up big in boycotted Globes

Boycotted by striking screenwriters and sympathetic actors, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association held its 65th Golden Globes awards ceremony in atypical fashion last night, following an anti-climactic press conference format that cost the industry millions in lost network and advertising fees. Despite the uncharacteristic lack of glitz, glamour and embarrassingly intoxicated acceptance speeches, however, the [...]

Movie Review: No apologies necessary from “Atonement”

Under the masterful direction of Joe Wright (”Pride and Prejudice”) and based on Ian McEwan’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name, “Atonement” - in theaters now and nominated for seven Golden Globes - is an epic of uncompromising beauty, romantic intrigue and psychological complexity. The film is momentous by any measure, its dialogue richly [...]

The Saint endorses two presidential candidates

Perhaps we’ve come to expect too much. And yet, following the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, we aren’t asking much. So, then, it follows that perhaps we’ve come to expect too little. But that surely cannot be the case – after all, we’re Americans. If any nation looks forward to pessimism, it’s us.
Pessimism aside, [...]