Time's up
Quiz will test your news wisdom

One week ago today, we gave a current events quiz on local and national news in an attempt to bring those of you who mentally took off early for Spring Break back to campus. Because the pop quiz was given during midterms and Mardi Gras, we did not make the questions as challenging as they could have been.

Nonetheless, it's been a week, and you have had plenty of time to do your research. And, as always, don't try to keep this test on file for your friends because we make new ones each semester. Here, at last, are the answers to last Thursday's news quiz:

 

1. The new dean of the M.J. Neeley School of Business is:

Answer B) Robert Lusch

2. Which talk show host recently decided to quit after 15 years of airtime?

Answer C) Kathie Lee Gifford

3. Dennis Rodman played basketball for which local team until Wednesday evening?

Answer A) Dallas Mavericks

 

There you have it. If you answered all three correctly, congratulations. If you missed one or more, pick up a newspaper every once in awhile or put the television on a channel besides MTV, E! or Comedy Central. A subscription to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is only about $25 per semester and is well worth the investment.

Staying abreast of current events makes us better-educated individuals and more entertaining conversationalists. There's only so much we can learn in the classroom. Ultimately, we must self-educate, and one of the most effective ways of doing so is keeping up with what happens on a daily basis in the world around us.



Taking race relations personally
Changing racist attitudes starts with changing ourselves

In recent days I have become perplexed and authentically concerned by race relations on our campus and, more generally, race relations in society. Having recently received mail concerning TCU's conference on race taking place in April and the offering of comprehensive scholarships to local non-white students, the issue of race and the TCU community is once again offering hope and a personal void for me.

Race relations in our academic community and the American community in general seem to have more to do with people's personal feelings as opposed to formulated thoughts. Personal feelings alone usually dictate our behavior. Looking at statistics and research are a part of our formulations, but pure feelings seem to overshadow these. These feelings, born from our upbringing and experience, along with literature, art and ideas about race, are sometimes so raw it's impossible to understand each other.

At times, I feel that being white is like being guilty of some ancient crime. I try to understand these feelings. I wonder how the pigment of my skin and others who share it could set definitions, history and limitations so plainly drawn out in reality. I wonder how my skin has affected my intellectual development and what I can do to change myself or at least understand why my soul and the souls of others ache with an unidentifiable feeling.

Other times, I forget about my whiteness. It's easy enough to do on this campus and in the life I have known. The majority of my experience has been "white," where interactions with other races have been reduced to nothing more than guarded conversation and awkward glances. My unspoken white consciousness throws my intellect around in a thousand different directions and through such turmoil, I fail to find understanding. I fail to find what the pigment means, what the word "race" even represents.

What's noteworthy about these feelings is that I believe and hope that I'm not alone. I hope others struggle and feel as if there is a missing piece to their education and to their souls. And that within the modes of black and white there must be another element which closes the gap and shines understanding upon feelings which, like ancient ghosts, haunt the American consciousness. I hope there are others who feel like I do and want to change.

Those of us who grow up white and liberal, open-minded and concerned with the issue of race seem to have a unique struggle in front of us. We are not black and can never have the opportunity to experience that, but we are also not stupefied in racism and so are, in essence, stuck in the middle without an easy solution. Because I am not black, I must try to reach an understanding along two paths. The first path is experience, and the second path is academic. As students, we must begin a process of searching for identity, and race is a large portion of whom we are. We must admit this and cherish its sacredness. On the other hand, we must strive to destroy our prejudices of others. As intellectuals and protectors of the lucid and precise mind, it is our sacred duty to reach these breakthroughs, to open the swinging door to which we equally and oppositely push against.

It is this struggle which should define our practices of study and habit. We must be completely conscious of the problem which we face instead of politely ignoring each other.

I was alarmed at some of the recent responses of students in the Skiff on plans to observe Black History Month. The two most disgusting examples were, "eat fried chicken," and one wretched comment about having "relatives in Jasper." While these answers truly made me sick, they should be a red light to all students who want things to change and who know now that things must change. Never mind college students. Human beings should not think such things. It made me sad to be a student here, but it also inflamed a desire which I wish to communicate to you.

Now is the time for leaders to step forward and demand more classes that deal with race - all the races, not just black and white. Now is the time to send a message to the so-called leaders on campus who see that ignoring such comments and, thus, ignoring each other is a crime and a shame. We have the opportunity here to pave the way for new programs and set an example of race relations being worked out on academic and personal levels. I wish for those who do not feel the struggle to open their eyes, and for those who do, to join each other in protest and do something to change ourselves - the hardest but most noble thing a human being can do.

 

Matt Colglazier is a freshman news-editorial journalism and English major from Fort Worth.
He can be reached at (mscolglazier@delta.is.tcu.edu).


Lenten sacrifices interfere with Spring Break debauchery

Tomorrow, Spring Break begins. For those who are too poor or boring to care, Spring Break entails a week of semi-sanctioned collegiate hedonism, the likes of which the aforementioned poor or boring people will never experience.

But for those of you who have saved enough money or at least made a convincing fib to your parents as to why you need $300, Spring Break will be a week that you will never forget, provided that you can remember it in the first place. Before you all get on that shady, third-rate airline to Cancun, however, please recall that yesterday, many of you went to church and allowed a priest to smear ash on your forehead, in conjunction with a commitment to some targeted abstention.

That's right - Lent, unfortunately, coincides with Spring Break.

Whoever thought up Lent was really mean because he scheduled it to begin with Spring Break. Thus, for centuries, people have had to choose between debauchery and God. In my opinion, the choice is pretty easy: Take the former to give the latter something to punish you for. Some people agonize over this choice, but others look for loopholes.

I'm not Catholic, and I only have a tenuous grip on the church's tenets, but from what I understand, Lent involves abstaining from a particular vice as a show of deference and reverence to God. If I observed Lent, I would give up beer. I have several lesser vices, but beer is the biggie. Not only that, but I like beer a whole lot, and spending 40 days or so without malted hops would be quite a test of faith for me. But then I hear about people giving up Coke and chocolate for Lent. How hard can that be? I can hear the conversation now.

"Yeah, I've given up Coke for Lent. It's been tough, but I've managed so far."

"Wow, you're really strong in your faith - hey, how about another margarita?"

"Only if you serve it with a side of sloppy, drunk, promiscuous sex!"

I guess that's how to do Spring Break on a Lent budget, but the whole thing sort of reeks of the proverbial easy way out.

Now I'm not criticizing hedonism or debauchery at all. Off the record, I am encouraging it. I do wonder why anyone would bother making a paltry sacrifice for Lent, though. Does it really help one's soul to do something that doesn't require a lot of willpower? And what about when Lent is over? If one considers one's sacrifice a vice and renews one's participation right after Easter, what has one gained?

Returning to my hypothetical beer denial, if I hit the bar on the Monday after Easter to make up for lost time, what would I have proven to God? That I can go a month without beer, that's what! I suppose that might impress my mom, but I imagine that the Big Guy is a little harder to wow.

Furthermore, why would anyone bother to make a sacrifice if they're going on Spring Break anyway? Spring Break is all about wearing a sunburn, a Señor Frogs T-shirt that will disintegrate in the wash and washing down pelican tacos with gallons of tequila. I don't see how Lenten sacrifices fit in with any of that.

But then, maybe Lent is all about the spirit of abstention, and the actual sacrifice isn't important. If one respects one's faith, then maybe minor sacrifices are a means of observance that won't result in religious failure. Better to set achievable standards than to set ones at a level to which none can reach. And God is forgiving. If this were not the case, then no one would go on Spring Break unless they had already consigned themselves to eternal damnation. I guess it's the thought that counts.

 

Steve Steward is a senior political science major from Lodi, Calif., and, in actuality, cannot afford a week of public intoxication.
He can be reached at (haoledubstyle@hotmail.com).


Fiction takes step toward reality
Possibility of being in two places at once is strange, exciting

Gone are the days of existing in just one place at a time: turns out all those science fiction novelists aren't so far off from depicting reality. It has just recently been found that an object in space can exist in two places at once.

While theoretically this has been possible for decades, it wasn't until last month that physicists in Boulder, Colo., confirmed this rather quirky reality. Instead of boring you with quantum equations, I'd rather talk about the fantastic implications of this occurrence called decoherence.

For example, I am presently writing this article and wishing I were somewhere else at the same time. Well, that's not really decoherence, but imagine what it'd be like to experience decoherence as a college student during the year 2050.

You walk into class, sit down and wait for the lecture to begin. With the lovely technology provided by your plug-in (and fragrant) Decohering Amplifier ZD-2900, you are also still in bed, savoring a whole extra hour of sleep. Your professor looks at you strangely. "Why didn't you turn in your paper?" she asks.

"Well, I was trying to decohere while typing my paper, and the Amplifier malfunctioned, and I ended up sort of in and out of this strange field of vibrating electrons for about 12 hours last night. Pretty trippy."

"That's no excuse," she barks. "Just because you young people feel the need to decohere yourself every freakin' day, doesn't give you the right to forget about assignments."

"My gosh," you say, "You are sooooo 20th century."

Another great implication of quantum mechanics (in the simplified social work major lingo I am so adept at) is that a particle, until observed, does not have a definite position. According to a recent New York Times article by George Johnson, a particle can pretty much exist in many positions at once. Taking this idea to the extreme can be interesting, along with other implications of decoherence.

Some scientists suggest that actual alternate realities exist. All the possible timelines as they could've happened somehow did happen. It's like something off of "Star Trek." So perhaps in some sense I am experiencing an alternate timeline where I didn't get up this morning and yelled at my roommate when she didn't turn her alarm clock off, got into a fight, heaved a stale bagel at her face and permanently damaged her left eye and didn't write this column. Wouldn't that be nice for all you bored readers out there.

Decohering could have some other ramifications. Inevitably, some people would become addicted to using decohering Amplifiers just as people have become addicted to the Internet.

"What did you do last night?" a friend asks.

"Whoa, man, I was scattering every atom in my body all across the universe. It was like, wow. I've never felt so one with space before."

Or, another scenario: "Do you mind if I borrow your glade Decohering Amplifier tonight?"

"Sure, just make sure the curling iron isn't plugged in at the same time. Last time I used them at the same time I ended up frying my eyes out."

Whatever the implications of decoherence, whether bizarre, gruesome or fascinating, the fact remains that quantum theory and real life aren't so far apart. Also, this column proves that it's really close to Spring Break.

 

Anita Boeninger is a junior social work major from Colorado Springs, Colo.
She can be reached at (atboeninger@delta.is.tcu.edu).


 
Editorial Policy: Unsigned editorials represent the view of the TCU Daily Skiff editorial board. Signed letters, columns and cartoons represent the opinion of the writers and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the editorial board.

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