Opinion

Absence of toughness

I am writing this with 11 minutes to go in the third quarter, but this game is over. OVER. Perhaps we should rename ourselves the Gentle Irish. Or the Fighting Amish. Because we show no visible evidence of toughness, mental or physical. We are plenty athletic, but are devoid of heart. We win three games in a row and think we're really something. We didn't want to play Michael Floyd "unless it was an emergency???" Talk about not respecting your opponent. And we've been working on the option "since last summer???" If that's true, the entire defensive staff needs to be fired today. We do not need more talent. We need a complete attitude overhaul.

Who knows the road down which Fall Break leads?

I spent Fall Break of my senior year studying for the LSAT's. What a waste.

A new NHL great

It's an argument that should not even be an issue. It's like arguing about the weather or the solution to a simple mathematical problem. Some things are just obvious. In this case: who is the best player in the National Hockey League?

Hats off Judge Phillips

A federal judge recently took an enormous step towards correcting one of the most heinous injustices present in our society. On Tuesday, United States District Judge Virginia Phillips issued an injunction ordering the government to immediately cease enforcement of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding openly gay U.S. soldiers serving in the armed forces.

Attack unjustified?

Its always been my dream to be the target of a Viewpoint attack, but I never thought my Scholastic essay "On Guilt" would be the reason.

Something bigger and better

Young people growing up in low income communities are in need of great teachers and role models. And the stakes are higher than ever. Only one in 10 students growing up in poverty will attend college. And for those lacking a college degree, many doors of opportunity are firmly shut.

Awaiting the neurocentury

"All men by nature desire to know," said Aristotle. The allure of knowledge — peering both inside ourselves and into the vast expanse beyond has occupied some of the most famous thinkers in history. Space has commonly been designated "the final frontier" of knowledge. Ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Archimedes made the first bold attempts to understand the night sky. More recently, intellectual giants such as Newton, Einstein, and Hawking have advanced our knowledge of the universe further. We now have a framework for its very beginning — the Big Bang.

The one reject box of crayons

Being an English major and after writing for and working at The Observer for over three years now, I've essentially been trained to become increasingly aware to word choice and how it effects how you are perceived. Outside of the classroom, my experience doesn't come from interviews for a news article nor does it come from editing the wide variety of emails that are submitted to Viewpoint daily. Instead, mine has come from being one of the few female sports writers and living with my three roommates.

The rationality of dining hall guilt

In this month's issue of Scholastic, Chris Milazzo suggests in his essay "On Guilt" that it's irrational to feel guilty when failing to clear one's plate in the dining hall. Milazzo flippantly reasons that "my unfinished sandwich, eaten or not, will not save the starving babies" and therefore, we need not worry about the food we waste in the dining hall.

On uncritical acceptance

If you were swayed by either Mark Easley's "Vote the Bums Out" (Oct. 7) or Ryan Sullivan's "Time to Remember" (Oct. 11) you're not paying attention. American politics has historically been a complex chain of causes and effects acting on tangled web of issues, and never moreso than now.

A quiet sacred place

As I watched the Notre Dame claim a victory, I could not help but think of Coach Weis and his wife Maura, Charlie Jr. and sweet Hannah. I was watching the game with my precious son and his wonderful neighbors at Hannah and Friends Farm in the beautiful Eck Rec Facility. My son just recently became a resident there this summer.

The new Civil War

There are, in the perpetual war over abortion, two myths.

Cravin' more...

I recently picked up a copy of Scholastic, partially out of pity for seeing them idle in the dining hall for so long. Of the few articles I read, there was one discussing the University of Notre Dame Class of 2014 Facebook group, expressing the writer's qualms with one particular upperclassman. This column is a defense of that man, the myth, the legend.

Cemetery of the unborn

My thanks to the students responsible for the white crosses on South Quad commemorating the unborn children who are killed each day in our nation by abortion. You are to be commended for reminding us all what a tragedy abortion is.

Friends of Aaron Martinuzzi

Dear Notre Dame community,

Time to remember

As I began to read the first three lines of Mark Easley's "Vote the Bums Out" (Oct. 7) I was wondering why he was writing the article just before the November 2010 elections. I thought it was a good idea, but the arguments were a bit outdated. Weren't these arguments more applicable to the midterm elections of 2006? Didn't we already vote the bums out in 2006 and 2008 with the a new Democratic majority and president? As I continued to read, I realized Mr. Easley was talking about voting the Democrats out. That's when I started to disagree with Mr. Easley. His framework is fine, but the content appears a little bit off. So, I'll try to fix it a bit.

Pep band pride

Dear Members of the Notre Dame Marching Band,

There but for the grace of God go I

The saints among us

In my first three columns, I spent time calling out people — freshmen — to not plague our campus with irregular behavior, dining hall goers to get their act together and the football team to live up to their pledge of always giving 100 percent. I intend to do the same here but in a different light, one not intended to make you laugh but one intended to make you think.

Gleek convert

I'm not going to lie. I was reluctant to jump on the Glee bandwagon when the show's popularity skyrocketed last fall. I had seen the pilot months before the fall premier, and while I was amused by the show's basically ridiculous premise, I really wasn't sure how I felt about network TV's first foray into the cultish, campy world of show choir.