Opinion

There have been a lot of outbreaks recently. The peanut butter salmonella crisis. SARS, Mad Cow Disease, and something about spinach and tomatoes. OK, so those weren’t recent, but we were too lazy to think of actual recent ones because signs of an annual outbreak have reappeared at Saratoga. There are some who call this outbreak “Senioritis,” but we prefer to call it the “much-deserved-brain-vacation-itis.”

Imagine being able to save an entire year of college tuition, savings that could add up to over $40,000. With a three-year college program, students can complete their degree in just three years, while still leaving summers free for internships and job opportunities. Despite these seemingly limitless benefits, however, securing a degree after only three years of college is detrimental to undergraduate study.

Nadya Suleman is the mother to six children. Suleman is jobless. She has no husband. She relies on food stamps and disability payments to support her family. She lives in her bankrupt mother’s three-bedroom home that’s in pre-foreclosure. And oh yeah, Suleman just gave birth to octuplets, bringing her total number of children to 14.

While walking the crowded hallways during break, a girl adorned in a velour pink Juicy Couture hoodie elbows you on accident. As you reach up to open your locker, you get accidentally hit in the head by the Louis Vuitton signature canvas bag hanging on the shoulder of the girl next to you. During class, you can’t help but stare at the shiny Bathing Ape sneakers of the boy sitting in front of you and wonder, “Is this excess really necessary?”

Ever find yourself stuck at home on a Sunday night spending your time cramming for the upcoming biology test while trying to multitask and finish off a practice write for English?

For many students, this is an almost weekly occurrence thanks to the partial block schedule that requires students to attend all classes on Monday. As the school debates the pros and cons of moving to a full block schedule, the time is ripe to finally do away with the unpopular partial block system and solve the “Monday problem.”

As the first semester comes to a close, many seniors find themselves in a sticky situation: College application due dates approach and the dread of finals fills their minds with misery, while the light at the end of the tunnel—second semester—serves as an enormous hindrance to productivity. And as college application websites crash as a result of last-minute crunches, complaints echo across the country. These types of difficulties, however, are easily remedied with better planning.

The Sadie Hawkins Dance has always served as the cherry on top the delicious treat that is Spring Fling Week. For most students, it is the part of the spirit-based week that they enjoy the most.

This year, however, many have raised unnecessary complaints about the change of date for the annual Sadies dance: it will be held on Feb. 27, departing from its usual slot as part of the week-long celebration in March. The change, which was made by ASB in order to provide the school with another informal dance, is a positive one and receive students’ support.

It began as a normal conversation between two students in the Au Bon Pain café at Virginia Tech University. One moment, witnesses only saw a casual meeting between two friends; the next, one student was holding onto the other’s decapitated, blood-dripping head in one hand, and gripping a kitchen knife if the other. Even the police who quickly arrived and arrested the murderer were horrified by the scene.

Another murder incident struck Virginia Tech on Jan. 21, nearly two years after the mass shooting on campus that left 30 people dead and another 30 wounded. Although fewer people died in this latest incident, the horror is that another life was ended on the now infamous campus. This incident shows that despite the improvements in counseling and security for students attending the school, more efforts must be made to prevent violence from occurring here and at other campuses.

It didn’t take President Barack Obama long to begin righting the myriad wrongs committed by the disastrous regime he is thankfully replacing. Just 12 hours into his tenure as the 44th president of the United States, Obama signed a bill to shut down the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, notoriously used by the Bush administration to torture suspected terrorists, by the end of the year.

The move is refreshing to say the least, instilling confidence that the Obama administration is every bit the human rights proponent it billed itself as during the campaign. The stench emanating from the ethical and legal quagmire that is Guantanamo Bay, however, only grows more pungent in the aftermath of Obama’s veritable admittance that the events occurring in the prison directly violated the Geneva Convention.

Whether man sashayed into existence pre-made and gift-wrapped or has monkeys for his aunts and uncles is an argument that has pitted die-hard scientists against the born again religious for decades. A message to both of them: Leave it out of public education and let the poor kids learn science without snide remarks from the opposing side.