We are about to bury the future. She was only 17. Her history is short.   Jasmine Benjamin was part of the VSU family.  She was the future of VSU, just as all are who read this. You are part of the VSU family as well, regardless if you are a student, a member of faculty, staff or a community ...

Midnight.  That’s the time Valdosta Mall dictated that stores open on ‘black Friday.’ My friends own a little Mom and Pop business kiosk in the mall.  They are retirement age and decided to open this business to give them extra income and flexibility in their golden years. But all is not golden when it comes to holiday shopping and the ...

Congratulations, Mr. President, on maintaining your seat. Now that the election is over, we can get back to normal. What is normal?  I ask this because normalcy as it pertains to the highest office in the land has taken a definite turn in the last decade.  Sure, when Nixon staged a burglary, the office took a bruise.  When Clinton “didn’t ...

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” –          Daniel Patrick Moynihan.   What is it about science that makes religious people cringe?   When Georgia Representative Paul Broun told his fellow churchgoers that evolution and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell,” I was so in awe of his arrogance and ...

Where are the destruction, the apocalypse, and violence rampant in the streets? I have been waiting for these things to happen, since they have been foretold by opponents of same-sex marriage. Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore said this past weekend that same-sex marriage will cause our country to self-destruct because it destroys the foundation upon which this nation is ...

It’s hard to be a statistic. I never thought that I would be bullied as an adult, but I have. I thought once I left school—the mosh pit of bullying—I was home free.  Turns out home wasn’t as safe as I imagined. My neighbor and I had become pretty close after he moved in at the beginning of the year. ...

We are about to laugh ourselves out of an education. We are so busy laughing at the latest thing that Biden says, or pointing a finger at the latest way that Romney is alienating his supporters that we’ve stopped focusing on the issues.  When you go to the poll in November, we are collectively about to determine the direction of ...

South Georgia Pride from VSUspectator Music and food. Games and raffles. Rainbow flags and drag queens. All of this and more could be found at the South Georgia Pride festival held Saturday at John W. Saunders Memorial Park. South Georgia Pride, which began in 2008 as a venture of VSU’s Gay-Straight Alliance, has since branched out to become a non-profit ...

“It’s sick-nasty,” Sean Wilkinson, CORE graduate assistant said. “You and three of your closest friends in a canoe, armed with buckets. You go around dumping gallons of water into the opposing person’s boat, sinking them, having them float up from the bottom.” Wilkinson is obviously a fan of canoe battleship, one of CORE’s signature events. Wilkinson’s enthusiasm for all things ...

It’s official: Don’t ask, don’t tell repeal had exactly zero impact on the military. Nada. Nil. Nothing. A study released by the Palm Center on Monday showed that the military has suffered no damage because of the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” The academic study from a research branch of the Williams Institute at University of California Los Angeles ...