The 54th Grammys took place on Feb. 12 and showcased some really troubling aspects of our society. No, I'm not talking about Katy Perry's crimped blue hair, but rather Chris Brown and our attitudes toward abuse. It was right before the 2009 Grammys that Chris Brown beat up Rihanna, and, since then, Brown hasn't been invited to the event.

  February may be best known as the month of love, but it also happens to be a time for spay and neuter awareness. Countless cats and dogs who are born on the streets as strays will never experience love or the gentle touch of a human hand. Pet overpopulation is an unfortunate reality.

In a year when our national leadership is being contested, the world is being brought together for the London Olympics and the universe may be destroyed in December, we as students shouldn't forget how important the next leader of our University is.

As state auditor, it is my duty to evaluate the performance of state government. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that state government has wasted a lot of taxpayer money trying to destroy a flawed but valuable asset. Vermont's legislation to close the plant in 2010 was carefully worded to forbid the PSB from considering the plant's application for a Certificate of Public Good. 

Campus is always full of activity. If you have an interest there's probably already a club for it, anything from knitting to riding bikes to Quidditch. But the hard part of being a college student is weeding out the actual news from the club announcements. I would have called myself a well-informed person before I left for college, but now I don't have time read the paper in the morning — and I mean the real newspaper that contains world news not just strange tidbits about college life.

I myself am a cadet in the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps. I venture to say that everything about myself runs contrary to Mr. Naylor's stereotypical view of the American soldier as the race-hating, ignorant foot-soldiers of the American empire in last weeks letter to the editor. 

In last week's letter to the editor, a Mr. Thomas Naylor suggested that ROTC at UVM did little more than "train professional killers," and in doing so contributed to an underlying culture of violence to which the recent SigEp controversy, and seemingly every other bad thing that has happened at this school in the last two decades, may be attributed. I take this opportunity to speak to something with which I have firsthand experience, and correct Mr. Naylor's gross mischaracterization of UVM Army ROTC.

Using the incident involving a terribly worded survey question written by one member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, Mr. Thomas Naylor lambasted UVM as a "place where wealthy kids from the Northeast who can't get into the Ivy League come to play in the snow." What, Mr. Naylor, does ROTC have to do with what happened at Sigma Phi Epsilon? Was the SigEp member also part of ROTC?  I have it on good information that he was not. 

Skiing all the time eventually became a chore, so I decided to find other activities to keep entertained. However, many years have passed and I have run out of new activities to try and evidently I have become a winter-hating couch potato. This winter season I am making an effort to get my skiing legs back and do a few runs with my loved ones and friends. I think more students — or winter-haters in my case — should try it, too.

May I suggest that more students live on campus for their four years? Ditto on riding the bus, walking and commuting.