With two drug and alcohol-related deaths of Hampden-Sydney students within a year, the time has come to reevaluate entertainment options available on campus. The weekends at H-SC have become a ghost town with no opportunity for entertainment but football games and frat parties whenever they appear. This leads to one of three choices for public entertainment on campus: party, do nothing, or go home. This in turn leads to the taking of substances either as part of the party action or from pure boredom.
This culture on campus has led to …

                 Even though smoking marijuana comes with many negative health effects and legal consequences, consumers demand it. Government decree is not enough to stop the forces of supply and demand or keep innovative, profit maximizing entrepreneurs from creating marijuana substitutes that provide a marijuana-like high without the associated risks. One of the most common substitutes is K2 or ‘Spice.’ K2 is typically used as incense, composed of herbs and a few synthetic compounds, and designed to replicate marijuana when smoked, except it’s legal.
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Last week, a Detroit news station ran a story about the dangers of privatization in the foster care business. They interviewed a grandmother who was trying to adopt her grandchildren, but the supposedly “private” adoption agency  refused to let her adopt them. Why? The adoption agency stands to make between $5,000 to $10,000 for in-state adoptions, but only $3,000 for out-of-state adoptions, and the grandmother just happened to live out-of-state. The news station was quick to berate the private adoption agency, accusing them of trying to make a quick buck. …

Editor, The Tiger:
Let me start this article with an admission: I am biased. As a former Marshal, or Pledge Master, and current Rush Chair of Theta Chi. I am, therefore, ideologically committed to the idea of Fraternal Organizations. I will attempt to be self-aware enough to check that and approach this article as purely a student.
Every week I, like all students here, spend hours upon hours secluded in academic buildings, computer labs, and the library attempting to gain an education that rivals any offered in the world. The incredible faculty …

Christopher Turpin’s recent opinion piece, “The Libertarian Ideology is a Joke,” actually made a rather stunning case for a libertarian ideology. In his opinion piece he claimed that: “people are not infinitely smart or wise,” “man is fallible”, “we need laws,” and he implied that governments are often willing to sacrifice trade relationships for war.  We must take these claims as a given, for they are, in reality, true. However, Mr. Turpin has reached very different conclusions, than the libertarians, given these facts.
Mr. Turpin claims “people are not infinitely smart …

On behalf of the Student Finance Committee and in the spirit of increased openness and transparency, we have decided to publish all allocations for the Fall Semester 2011 in The Tiger.  Overall, $109,096.00 was allocated amongst clubs and organizations for this semester.  This amount, teamed with approximately $102,000.00 left over from previous semesters, has left a number of clubs and organizations in very strong fiscal standing. The SFC has been as fair as possible throughout the auditing and allocation process, and consulted the Student Senate following the distribution of funds. …

Often times one hears the concept of a free market dominated by self-interest as the catch-all solutions for our modern societal ills.  This is especially true at Hampden-Sydney where libertarianism seems to be the go-to ideology for everyone wishing to seem “controversial.” The basic tenets state that society needs no real regulation—especially government regulation—because all people are self-interested.  This means that they will only do what is best for them.  Self-interest will prevent corporations from becoming greedy.  It will prevent governments from acting aggressively toward each other.  True practitioners of …

In recent years the student body, and more specifically the fraternities, have come under increasingly intrusive regulation. These regulations include: filling out forms for social events, being forced to close at 2 a.m., cleaning fraternity front lawns by 9 a.m., etc. The intention of these policies is to facilitate a safer and cleanlier environment on our campus’ party scene. However, it seems that no one has stopped to ask if these policies have actually made us safer. I would argue that these policies have actually encouraged more risky behavior.
The regulations …

I am willing to bet anyone reading this column either owns or has used an iPod. The widespread use and knowledge of Apple products illustrates the magnitude of past Apple CEO Steve Job’s influence and the success of Steve Job’s company. I do not need to explain any further why Steve Jobs is an important figure, but his affinity for Hampden-Sydney might seem a little fuzzy. Even though a man, who was the son of a Syrian Muslim and German-American graduate students, and who cited his experiences with LSD as …

It seems that the one thing Americans of all political ideologies can agree on is the importance of a solution to the economic uncertainty that has gripped the United States since 2008. Therefore, it is no surprise that we look to the government to get our economy growing again. Unfortunately, our desire to believe that some all-powerful being holds the answers to our problems makes us vulnerable to the fallacy that the government can create prosperity by manipulating of markets. However, any introduction to economics class can tell you that …