By Sheila Dugan on February 1, 2007
Nick Saban, former coach of the Miami Dolphins, recently received a $4 million a year contract, plus bonuses for bowl games, from the University of Alabama. In October, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) signed a $6 billion, eleven-year contract with CBS to broadcast the NCAA basketball tournament. The deal includes rights to [...]
Posted in National | Tagged February 2007, Volume V Number V
By Sheila Dugan on November 16, 2006
In vogue the past couple of years, the documentary as an art form has deviated from the predictability of a Ken Burns-style documentary and has sought to provoke, not just educate, its audience. The successes of Michael Moore’s films and others of that ilk prove it is not just a video to be forced [...]
Posted in Culture | Tagged November 2006, Thanksgiving, Volume V Number IV
By Sheila Dugan on October 20, 2006
If you happen to be a homosexual male, you are barred from donating blood with the claim you are at a higher risk of obtaining HIV, which causes AIDS. Contaminating the blood supply is nothing to dismiss lightly, but one wonders if this precaution unfairly targets a segment of our population. If so, should not [...]
Posted in Brown University | Tagged October 2006, Parents’ Weekend, Volume V Number III
By Sheila Dugan on October 6, 2006
At first it appeared as if Brown students were taking fashion cues from the rapper Nelly, choosing to place a band-aid above their eyes instead of below. Instead this was a response to an incident taking place on Brown’s campus wherein a black male student was [...]
Posted in Brown University | Tagged October 2006, Volume V Number II
By Sheila Dugan on September 1, 2006
As I read Watchdogs of Democracy? written by Helen Thomas, at times I felt the greatest crime of President Bush was his failure to charm her. The way she writes of state dinners as if it were her senior prom, describing her “long, black velvet skirt, with a matching jacket, and a fancy satin [...]
Posted in Culture | Tagged September 2006, Volume V Number I
By Sheila Dugan on January 1, 2006
In politics, having the label “Washington Outsider” can lend legitimacy to any campaign where the qualifications of the candidate are suspect. It becomes easier for a candidate to create the illusion that they are a true reformer, even though their platforms are merely reworked versions of plans that were implemented beforehand.
Last Spring, Jennifer Lawless, [...]
Posted in Brown University | Tagged January 2006, Volume IV Number I
By Sheila Dugan on March 1, 2005
After November 2nd, the Republican Party magically transformed itself from a group of white men smoking cigars at the country club to a mess of slack-jawed yokels with their eyes cast towards the sky looking for signs of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Analyses of the 2004 election made much of the fact that [...]
Posted in Essay | Tagged March 2005, Volume III Number I
By Sheila Dugan on March 1, 2005
In an op-ed to the New York Times, William Broyles Jr. writes of allowing “other people’s children” to fight our wars. Noting the scarcity of politicians’ family members fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Broyles ends his column by advocating the return of the draft; only then “chance, not connection or clever manipulation, would determine who [...]
Posted in Essay | Tagged March 2005, Volume III Number I
By Sheila Dugan on April 5, 2004
Next to photocopied pictures of Billy Collins and his poems, my high school poetry teacher stapled an op-ed written in response to Sam Hamill’s decision to not attend Laura Bush’s symposium about poetry. It was supposed to make us, students at a public arts high school, think about the artist’s role in political dialogue: should [...]
Posted in Essay | Tagged April 2004, Volume II Number V
