A Week of Firsts

By: Eugenia Finizio

This week I did two things I have never done before.  I used Facebook to contact someone I have never met, and I e-mailed GW.  How are these two acts related, you ask?  By one article in the Wall Street Journal that is getting far less praise or PR than it should be.

This article, written by a freshman at GW, was published in the WSJ on November 11th.  I read it because my dad sent it to me, which is sad because my dad is a 56 year-old lawyer living and working in Pittsburgh and he heard about the article before I did.  If the topic is a GW green initiative, a celebrity coming to campus, or anything related to Colonial Inauguration, our university will shout from the rooftops.  But when a smart, young student has an article published in a national newspaper, nothing happens.  So I decided to do something about it.

I was moved by the article not because I tend to be conservative (although I do), and not because I agree with everything the author said (I don't), but rather because it was smart, funny, and realistic.  She took all the babble that has surrounded this election, especially the whining from the right, and turned it into real talk.  She said what most Republicans won't say, and I applaud her for that courage.  I'll go so far as to say that democrats would thoroughly enjoy her article.  If nothing else, it's a well-written opinion piece by a girl that is more than half the age of most WSJ writers.  With a line like "The GOP is like a supermodel who's been doing photo shoots under fluorescent bulbs without any makeup," how can you not at least want to read further?

I've never met or heard of the author, and so I did what any 22 year old would do.....I messaged her on Facebook.  I am usually staunchly against this sort of cyber behavior, but I wanted the author to know that someone read her article and learned from it, and so I hit send.  The author wrote back and seemed genuinely grateful for my message.  Thanks Mark Zuckerberg, you killed it with that invention of yours.

After contacting the author, my adrenaline was pumping and I did something I never thought I would do.  I e-mailed a generic GW e-mail address and told them what I thought.  The fact that 1,266 people found this article important enough to comment on it, yet GW did not find it important enough to mention in one of the many emails or newsletters they send out to students every day really rubbed me the wrong way.

Even if I never get a response and no one at GW reads this article, at least I know that I did what I could to spread a thoughtful piece of writing around this campus.  I stood up for a student that I barely know, and I have one more Facebook friend to prove it.