There is an issue at Villanova that truly needs to be looked at, and it may have serious ramifications.But wait. Are you a liberal? Geez, you’re not a conservative, are you? Which is it? You don’t want to eat lunch alone, do you?The time has come to transcend these stupid labels. Before 9/11 it was okay to divide politics in such a simple and, really, asinine way. It was the 90’s. We’d won the Cold War, and we had nothing to worry about. Who cared about fact-based, informed decision-making? Screw the world! What’s the worst that could happen?Well, of course, now we know that there’s more to concern ourselves with in the world than the hot-button issues that fire up the emotions on both sides of the spectrum. Off to the right and off to the left, man can live on rhetoric alone, but the rest of us live in the middle, living everyday lives. We need to put the divisiveness behind us and start working together. And that brings me to the issue at hand. Allegations have been made in The Philadelphia Inquirer regarding State Sen. Vincent Fumo funding a scholarship right here at Villanova, his alma mater, with money taken from the Delaware River Port Authority. To clarify that, state money, taken from tolls, went, among other places, to VU. State money went to a private school. Now, this issue doesn’t necessarily fill one with the righteous indignation typified by the right/left, but it does make one wonder; what kind of scholarship will it be? Academic? Athletic? Or will it be reserved for strict croneyism?Mr. Fumo’s children are in high school. Will they be wearing Nova blue in the near future? And do the commuters of the Tri-State area know that it’s their toll money that will be paying tuition? Mr. Fumo’s wrongdoing aside (that is not in our jurisdiction) we must ask; can the University in good conscience accept money from such a source? Will we look the other way? Should we?If the whichever-wingers want to continue using this forum to bicker, that is their decision, but I feel it should be used by the rest of us as a place for rational discussion of this important issue.

Thank you,Dan Gallagher