Forum

On Tuesday, Missouri held its Republican Primary. Rick Santorum was the winner, meaning that he gets declared delegates in the Republican National Convention. Or rather, he would have, if the Missouri Primary counted in the greater election. Tuesday’s primary served no real purpose.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the United States government for violations of the Freedom of Information Act related to the Obama administration’s refusal to release any sort of information relating to the assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, two American citizens who were ranking members of al-Qaida.

After merely three days, Susan G. Komen for the Cure bowed to public outrage by repealing controversial funding cuts to Planned Parenthood. The foundation justified its original decision by pointing towards a change to its grant rules that banned funding for organizations under local, state or federal investigation.

I have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Foursquare, Google+, Spotify, Turntable.fm, Bonfyre and Pinterest accounts. Although I’ll be the first to admit that my online social life may be slightly excessive, I doubt my experience is uncommon.

I have been ashamed of my alma mater since it gave an honorary degree to Phyllis Shafley, whose hatred of women’s rights [and gays] brings disgrace to a liberal arts university.

Recently, the College of Arts & Sciences decided to change the requirements for the Dean’s List for its students. Previously, students in the College of Arts & Sciences were only required to have a semester GPA of 3.5 in order to receive the honor for that semester. Starting in the current spring 2012 semester, the requirement will be a GPA of 3.6 in order for a student to make Dean’s List.

The recent revelation that Lunar New Year Festival was allocated $5,500 by Student Union for a fireworks display has enraged many students. Criticisms leveled against LNYF and Student Union were that the spending was wasteful, that SU privileges cultural groups over all others and that $5,500 was an obscene amount of money to be spent on an event.

A few days ago, a well-known documentary maker, Josh Fox, was forcibly removed from a House of Representatives committee meeting he was filming for an upcoming documentary.

In an act of unusual brilliance this week, the U.S. Senate passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law to bar members of Congress and their staff from acting on private information in regards to trading financial stocks.