Deckhead:

Heroes & Villains

Body:

What a week it’s been! We here at H&V didn’t think we were going to make it out of bed alive Sunday morning — and, no, it wasn’t because of a rambunctious Valentine’s Day formal. To our chagrin, the good folks at Gannett told us that we had come down with VILLAINOUS gastroenteritis (Is this even a condition?). As we lay in bed, contemplating our sorry state, we tried to forget all the scrumptious chili we ate at the HEROIC chili cookoff last Saturday. Luckily, though, we’ve since licked the illness, and we’ve never felt better.

Deckhead:

Editorial

Body:

Every Day brings more news of the bloody civil war that continues to tear apart Iraq. Sunni-Shiite tensions have polarized not only Iraqis, but American Muslims as well, including college students in the United States.

Deckhead:

Editorial

Body:

While superstars like LeBron James have long been baited by companies such as Adidas and Nike, Cornell has made it clear that, in the long term, it did not want its official merchandise associated with these two giants. Under the influence of COLA and the Cornell chapter of the United Students Against Sweatshops, the University committed itself to improving working conditions in factories across the globe when it signed on to the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP) in April.

Deckhead:

Editorial

Body:

Exactly 367 days ago, the Cornell campus witnessed a hate crime, carried out by one of its very own students, Nathan Poffenbarger ’08. Since then, Poffenbarger has been indicted, convicted and sentenced to 16 months to four years in prison. The incident spurred accusations of “institutional racism” at Cornell, one of the more serious concerns students have raised in recent years.

Body:

In less than two days, a petition calling for a re-examination of the University’s policies for inclement weather closings solicited over 1,400 signatures, ranging from faculty and staff to students and alumni. Thomas Bruce, director of the Legal Information Institute in Cornell’s law school, began circulating the petition shortly after the half-day shutdown last Wednesday.

We at The Sun applaud the effort made by Bruce to confront Cornell for the severe flaws in its closing policy, and hope that the University is truly intent on developing a safer one long before the next snowstorm hits. Last Thursday, The Sun pointed to only a few of the many problems with Cornell’s shutdown, including the outrageous expectation for thousands of students, faculty and staff to travel treacherous roads to work, the poorly timed decision to finally close, as well as the ineffective notification system for the closing.

Deckhead:

Heroes & Villains

Body:

There’s only one word that can truly sum up this week — SNOW! Despite the VILLAINOUS inconveniences, classes were HEROICALLY canceled Wednesday after a storm dumped two feet of the fluffy white stuff all over Central New York. Here at H&V, we much enjoyed drinking HEROIC tequila (Viva Cuervo!), making snow angels and sledding down Libe Slope on stolen Alice Cook House lunch trays (shhh … don’t tell!). Kind of reminds us of the classic flick Snow Day (2000) which featured that super catchy Hoku song.

Deckhead:

Editorial

Body:

The University may have granted the wishes of thousands of Cornell students yesterday when it canceled classes, but the decision to shut down at 12:05 p.m. was poorly executed. It was not the first time in recent memory that Cornell was threatened with a severe snowstorm, and yet the University dealt with the situation as if such inclement weather was alien to Ithaca.

Deckhead:

Editorial

Body:

In 2003, Cornell joined a number of other distinguished universities in filing an amicus brief supporting law school professors who had challenged the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment. This controversial amendment stipulates that military recruiters may retain their access to university campuses while still practicing the anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. But should the standard negate all the good ROTC does on campus?

Body:

When we at The Sun realized we were probably the only ones to read more than just a few pages of the 114-page Economic Impact Report released by the University last week, we became curious about whether we could quantify our own role in the Cornell community. Although we don’t have the extensive manpower and resources to dedicate an entire year to studying the impact of our 126-year-old newspaper on the local economy, several of our reporters took it upon themselves nevertheless to try and compile our very own economic impact report.

Deckhead:

Editorial

Body:

Every major newspaper across the Northeast has been running the same news flash on its front page: a photo of Drew Gilpin Faust with a caption that reads something to the effect of, “Harvard introduces first female president.”