| Harmful humor It's a weekly tradition. One of our two opinion editors comes up with a topic for "Students Speak Out," and a copy editor intrepidly braves The Main at dinnertime with a tape recorder and digital camera. The question, along with the answers and mugs of the six students who were randomly selected, appears on the next day's opinion page. The process is pretty routine, but the survey conducted last week caught our attention. When asked how they were going to observe Black History Month, three students said: "I'm going to KFC," "Well, I play football with a black guy" and "I have relatives in Jasper." Michael Katovich, associate professor of sociology and criminal justice, said the comments probably reflect the students' ignorance and insensitivity. But when it comes down to it, these students rarely, if ever, own up to their remarks. While it's easy to dismiss these students' comments as harmless jokes, the fact is that it reveals an insensitivity and ignorance that, if left unchecked, manifests itself into razor-sharp epithets, hostility and sometimes, violence. But unfortunately, people say these "funny" things, their friends laugh and life goes on. They are confident that their sense of humor is shared by everyone. Well, it's not. As journalism students we are adamantly in favor of freedom of speech and the First Amendment. We all would like to live in a world where anything is acceptable to say. But because of the history of injustice in this country, that world doesn't exist. There is a right place and a right time to say things, and these students have obviously picked the wrong place and the wrong time to say this.
OPEC impacts U. S. pocketbooks Did you hear the faint sounds of laughter the last time you were at the gas pump? No, it wasn't your imagination. You heard the chuckles from far-off countries. It was coming from places like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Kuwait. So what's the joke you ask? Well, the joke's on you and every other American consumer who is paying through the nose for our most precious resource - oil. Oh yes! They were laughing, all right. They were probably in tears after watching a parade of gargantuan SUV's pull up to the pump to guzzle down gasoline. And without a doubt they were rolling on the floor when millions of Americans received their astronomical heating oil bills and truck drivers began protesting high prices. American society as we know it is dependent on abundant and cheap oil. This country is the world's biggest oil consumer. We must have it in order to live our extravagant and wasteful lifestyle. We have to have gasoline for our daily commute from our comfortable suburban home. And many of those same suburban homes require heating oil to keep their hundreds of square feet at a reasonable temperature. In other words, we are at the mercy of oil-producing countries. These countries are part of an organization called OPEC - the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Back in March 1999 they agreed to boost sagging prices by cutting back the flow of oil by 5 million barrels a day. So, with less oil being supplied the demand became greater and prices soared. Simple high-school economics and nowhere was the demand greater than in the good ol' USA. The repercussions of this agreement soon hit the American consumer where it hurts the worst - in the pocketbook. The price of natural gas went up 30 percent in two years, gasoline prices are at a nine-year high and home heating oil went up 133 percent in a five-week period. Frustration and desperation have already begun to rear their ugly heads. Truck drivers recently went to Washington D.C. to protest high gasoline prices and urge President Clinton to do something. A local television station has gone so far as to set up a gas hotline number where people can call to report where they found cheap gas in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The lowest prices found each day are broadcast on the evening news. But, not to worry, OPEC members are now choking back their last guffaws and wiping they eyes. It was a damn good joke but now it's back to business. The agreement reached last March expires next month and, more than likely, OPEC will raise output beginning April 1. Oil producers are already busy discussing how many extra barrels to release and when. However, the process won't be that easy. Iran, Kuwait, Libya and Algeria would prefer to keep the markets as high as possible and would be in favor of extending production cuts while other members favor easing the restrictions. This situation will not become the great oil crisis of the 21st century. Prices will eventually go back down to reasonable levels and Americans will continue to guzzle the world's oil at an alarming rate. We'll sell even more SUVs to fill with gallons of gas and build hundreds of more homes in the suburbs to heat. Americans have simply not realized that oil is a precious natural resource that we'll run out of one day. We're ignorant of this fact. We're downright gullible. We'll ignore this universal truth until our cars sit unused in the driveway and our homes become chilly in the winter. Eventually, the joke will be on us yet again.
Sarah Mullen Martinez is a senior advertising/public relations major from Fort Worth. She can be reached at (sarah92978@aol.com). Avoid e-mail victimization Of the amount of love expressed by the three main types of mail - voice, snail and electronic - people tend to, unknowingly, abuse their loving powers with e-mail. For those of you who still lag behind us in Cro-Magnon lick-the-stamp-times, e-mail is the greatest thing since the formation of the modern United States Postal Service delivery system. It's quick, cheap and for the most part, user friendly. No embarrassing yourself by standing outside your mailbox forlornly wondering, "How come she hasn't mailed me back yet?" The great networking abilities of cyberspace serve as a wired pony express moving at speeds that would cause our eyeballs to slam the back of our cranium if proper safety precautions were not taken. Now, with that understanding of e-mail, you wonder, "How is this e-mail thing abused? You can't process it." Not that way, silly. E-mail is abused by the force-fed overdosing of forwards. At first, since forwards count as e-mail, a person gets their hopes up. Then they come crashing down, eliciting such responses as, "Here we go again," "Damn, I hate forwards," or none at all because the unwanted e-mail now lays electronically crumpled, deleted and never read past the first two lines. Forwards have varied topics, such as the following: Bill Gates, the government, or some gigantic clothing corporation is giving away something. Bill Gates is giving away free copies of Windows 22,363 A.D.; Uncle Sam wants to bestow you some free cash, and (insert your favorite clothing manufacturer) just feels like presenting you with a gift certificate for the latest pair of styling tube socks. Well, instantly delete this from your inbox because they already have your money safely deposited in their bank accounts. But Uncle Sam will only give you money back on your taxes. Little Timmy, who lives in Gondawallaland is deprived of Happy Meals and would appreciate it if you donated a few dollars toward his Happy Meal Fund. These little tikes do not exist. Let your compassion do better things than make your friends make the extra effort of deleting one extra e-mail. Pass this on or you A) won't get rich and own a 40-foot yacht; B) will always have bad luck; C) will become impotent; D) anything and everything else. As far as surveys go, think about it. What does that say about you if you need to tell people about yourself through an extremely tiresome survey that contains no value whatsoever? If your e-mail buddies don't know your name, then you need to e-mail them more often. Now, you may get something worthy of forwarding. If it's got charm, charisma, humor and you've never seen it before in your life, by all means send it on. But first do not "forward as attachment" or send it with the hideous ">>>>" signs. Always forward as in-line text and clean the e-mail up. Spit polish if you need to. Just don't send a cluttered, unreadable e-mail. Also, protect your friends if you're mass e-mailing something by doing something called "Bcc," or blind carbon copy. This prevents people from hitting the reply all button and annoying everyone on your mailing list. I've met some evil people out there who collect e-mail addresses from mass forwards and then spam the collected e-mail addresses to death, filling up their inboxes with unnecessary garbage. Just say no. Just tell your 21st century digital brain not to hit the forward button without at least first thinking about the contents of the forward. Yes, going cold turkey to giving up an impulse like that may seem a little daunting at first. This miracle cure for forwarding will help you maintain contact. And you can tell your e-mail buddies all about the conversations you've had with the little people who come to you when it's 3:32 a.m. and you're studying for a test that will take place in five hours. Send them your electronic love. It could very well make their day when they hear about your conversations with little people.
Patrick Harris is a freshman graphic design major from Houston. He can be reached at (pjharris@delta.is.tcu.edu). Quote unquote Quote/Unquote is a collection of quotes found in the Skiff during the past week.
"The whole game started off rocky. Then it looked like we'd come back, but they just started hitting the ball." - Walter Olmstead, freshman first baseman, on the baseball team's third loss in a row to Baylor
"If people are still confused about who their representatives are and what we do, that is a problem we need to work on. It is a trial-and-error process to find what works." - Sara Donaldson, House of Student Representatives vice president, on the impression among students that House does not communicate
"Students need to know that I don't want to block this site from them. It is just my job to make sure we effectively use our resources. I can think of a better way to use campus resources than to trade MP3s back and forth." - David Edmondson, assistant provost for Information Services, on the decision to prohibit the use of Napster.com
"I can understand why Information Services put a block on Napster. To me, it's still frustrating that a 10-year-old can look at pornography over the Internet, but I can't listen to music." - Neilson Arbour, sophomore finance major, on the decision to prohibit the use of Napster.com
"The one thing that is great about the Pong Jam is that this is not stuffy academic poetry reading where everybody golf claps at the end. This is poetry about students' lives. It's like a conversation with someone in their dorm room, only with meter and rhythm." - Cathy Gabor, an English graduate student and co-organizer of the second semi-annual Pong Jam, on Thursday's event Letter to the editor In the recurring Skiff coverage of the Napster blockage, there seems to be a common theme. In the Tuesday article and Wednesday editorial, there are lines such as "Students pay for TCU Internet access, so they should be able to access what they want." Students pay for an education at TCU. Internet access is part of the TCU facilities, just like the TCU buildings are part of the facilities. Saying that students pay for Internet access and should be able to use it how they please is akin to demanding to host a party in one of the Sid Richardson lecture halls. The total amount of information Napster was sending and receiving was more than double all other uses combined. That means that all TCU web browsing, e-mail, IRC and regular file transmissions equaled less than half of what Napster was using. All that traffic was slowing the network down dramatically. Everyone is welcome to use TCU's Internet connection however they like, but it is important to remember that TCU relies heavily on the Internet to conduct classes and business. When recreational uses interrupt and impede productive uses, the recreational uses will need to cease.
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