Collegiate Press Roundup 10-8-10

We present our regular review of selected student journalists and editors. This week, they're onto celebrity presidential candidates, fired news anchors and anti-terror weapons.

1. While acknowledging that the members of the Westboro Baptist Church are indeed delusional wackos, the editors of Boston University’s Daily Free Press conclude that their obnoxious rantings are protected by the First Amendment.
2. At UC/Irvine’s New University Online, an op ed writer ponders the future of research libraries, which seem to be going the way of dinosaurs and buffalo.
3. Former CNN reporter Rick Sanchez should not have been sacked for popping off as he recently did, says a columnist for The Lantern at OSU.
4. Several recent incidents lead the Tuesday Columnist for PSU’s Daily Collegian to conclude that there’s a long way to go before anti-gay intolerance is eradicated.
5. A writer for the University of Alabama’s Crimson White thinks that the issue is more complicated, and faults the hedonistic lifestyle promoted by high-profile gay celebrities.
6. Earlier this week, celebrity tycoon Donald Trump announced that he was considering a run for the presidency in 2012. Are you kidding, asks a writer for the University of South Carolina’s Daily Gamecock.
7. If his party is going to get shellacked at the polls in November, a Young Democrat writing in Vanderbilt’s Hustler thinks it will be due to GOP fear-mongering and demagoguery.
8. Although terrorism is a very real threat, a writer for the Daily Minnesotan thinks the use of unpiloted drones in Afghanistan or Pakistan is probably not the best way to combat it.
9. Writing in The Hilltop at Howard University, a student political analyst thinks that departing DC mayor Adrian Fenty deserved to get thumped at the polls.
10. Marijuana should be legalized, says an opinion writer for The New Hampshire.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using it responsibly, and legalization would also bring in some hefty tax revenues.
11. Why would an already heavily burdened pre-med student want to spend so much of his valuable time writing for the student newspaper? One such offers an explanation in the Notre Dame Observer.
12. A writer in the Tulane Hullabaloo thinks we’ve been using the wrong approach to the problem of illegal immigration, and proposes an alternative that he thinks will make everyone happy.