While many have hailed the passage of health care reform in the House (H.R. 3692), much anger remains after the passage of a last-minute amendment, the Stupak Amendment. Pushed for heavily by Catholic bishops, this amendment greatly restricts the use of federal funding for abortion.

While one obviously does not have to be Catholic or even religious to oppose abortion, Catholics, other Christians (including this Lutheran) and many other religious people were concerned that they may end up funding abortions with their taxes in flagrant contradiction of their religious beliefs.

When I made my debut in the Opinion section, I advocated a different type of diversity: diversity of thoughts and ideas. Since then, I have avoided that topic, as I consider it too much of a cliché, but a few years later, the time is now ripe to revive this concept with a new twist.

No matter who they side with, those who fail to consider the diverse array of perspectives in composing their arguments are destined to produce poor sketches of their own arguments.

Everyone loves to hate Congress. Despite recent improvements, Congress still only boasts an abysmal approval rating of 21 percent, according to the latest numbers from the Gallup report. Last year, Rasmussen Reports had their approval rating hit single digits, making George Bush seem quite popular in comparison.

I previously wrote about the Student Assembly's community clause, which, in a bid to increase student participation at its meetings, would grant voting rights to students in attendance. Since then, I took the plunge and attended my first-ever S.A. meeting. It is not exactly on the list of 161 things to do before you graduate, but I can now say I did it.

Arguments often take two distinct forms: ones that have strong merits, reasoning and evidence, and others that are arguments for the sake of having an argument. Defending the former to the death typically works, but defending the latter to the death often digs a person into an even bigger hole.

Back in my debating days, I took on an Arab opponent in one round who would not back off his argument. He did so even as the flaws I pointed out would force him to advocate racial profiling while I, a white person, took a stand against discrimination. Needless to say, it was an easy call for any judge to make, much less the elderly black women that was judging the round.

A department has merged. A visual facility has been cut. A library is closing.

Across the pond, universities throughout the United Kingdom have either closed departments or are considering closing them due to a lack of funding.

Edinburgh — This past weekend, I finally reached the age of 21, the all-so-important milestone of my college career. However, I have been quite indifferent about this myself. Now do not get me wrong, I enjoy a good drink; it is just that studying abroad in Scotland, I can already legally do that since the drinking age is 18.

In writing about this, I certainly was not going to compose the typical collegiate opinion piece whining about the drinking age with age-old arguments repeated in the billion prior articles. And while I recall and respect former columnist Mark Coombs’ defense of the teetotaler in “Turning Wine Into Water” (April 19, 2007), I do not fall into that category.

Scott Eckern is the artistic director of the California Musical Theater. Or at least he was. As artistic director, Scott has worked with many in the LGBT community and even has a lesbian sister. Whatever their orientation, Scott showed love and respect to whoever he worked with.

However, Scott also favored Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California, and to that end he donated $1000 to the campaign. Now this money was Scott’s personal money. He never insisted that his views represented the California Musical Theater, and he never imposed his personal beliefs on anyone before or after the donation.

On the campaign trail in the primaries, Obama spoke of living in a post-partisan, post-Bush world, one where the President works with everyone to bring about changes to fulfill the hopes and dreams of American people. While I agree in principle with Obama’s rhetoric, I agree to disagree on which candidate will best fulfill the ideal Obama proposed.

Both candidates can talk about reaching across party lines and cite examples, but McCain has shown a record of reaching across party lines under any circumstance. Obama can claim to have worked on bipartisan measures, but he cannot say the same when people agree to disagree.

Fifty-thousand dollars. That sum of money could not pay for four years of tuition alone at Cornell University, and an individual person donating that much could not even get half of a classroom named in his honor. It is enough money though, to cause some people to raise a fuss when the Veritas Fund for Higher Education donates it for the promotion of intellectual diversity.

Basically, intellectual diversity is the novel concept that one should understand a diverse variety of viewpoints. That’s hardly a radical or conservative notion. When someone does not have an intellectually diverse viewpoint, you can often tell by some of the silly arguments they make.