TCU students finally have the opportunity to make a change. The Academic Affairs Committee of the House of Student Representatives sent an e-mail message to the student body Monday night, asking students to decide whether they want to have a study day in the middle of finals week. The current exam schedule groups two study days together on Thursday and Friday, creating a four-day weekend. The proposal would move one study day to the Wednesday of finals week, allowing exams to be administered on the previous Friday. There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides, and students and faculty members have voiced their opinions. Some students enjoy the current schedule because it gives them a chance to travel or relax before beginning the stressful finals week. Some professors like the idea of the revised schedule because it gives them the opportunity to administer their finals to graduating seniors the Friday before finals week. But any way you look at the proposal, a couple of things are certain: One, we are not getting any additional time, just restructured time. Two, nothing - not even a more convenient finals schedule - can force students to study. We all have different study patterns: Some of us study better with large blocks of time, some with small segments of time and some after a four-day break. Therefore, the decision is a personal one. But it is still a decision that rests in our hands. So regardless of how you study, at least let your opinion be heard. Otherwise, you have no right to complain if the finals week schedule does not fit your study pattern.
Crop alterations feed economy Commerce-driven genetic mutations produce lower-quality harvest Eaten a strawberry lately? Did you know that little crimson aphrodisiac possibly contains genetic material from a fish? Sounds strange, but it's true. According to "A Tale of Two Botanies," an essay by Amory and Hunter Lovins, co-founders of the Rocky Mountain Institute, more and more crops are being subjected to a weird variety of experiments. Most of these experiments, which many improperly term "genetic engineering," involve extracting genes from crops like corn or potatoes and stuffing them into other random plants to see what happens. You may be thinking, "So what? That's great. Look what technology can do." Yes, look at what technology can do, but the story doesn't end with gene splicing. It starts with genetic experimentation and progresses to genetic mutation. It turns out pollen can airlift spliced genes to other crop fields, allow "free love" to take its course, and then, what do we have? Mutant weeds that are herbicide resistant. Insecticides that build up in soil, making other products overflow with toxins. Products we are eating every day. And why is the Department of Agriculture approving such tampering? The Lovinses claim these genetically altered and rearranged crops are highly lucrative and overabundant. Already the Department of Agriculture has allowed the release of 50 genetically altered crops, though another 4,500 crops have been tested. If you've eaten corn lately, chances are high you've eaten some genetic material from other life forms. Most consequences of these experiments are still unknown. The Lovinses' contention with this free reign over the genetic materials of plants and animals goes beyond simple dislike. In their words, transgenic manipulation is "not engineering; it's the industrialization of life by people with a narrow understanding of it." But this is the American way. Whatever is patentable, available, doable - let's do it! Because we can do it, let's forgo that inconvenient step in the middle called critical analysis, and just go for it! This reminds me of another example of tampering with life in an amoral manner: Nuclear fission, where the unintended consequences far surpass super-weeds or mutant corn. Nevertheless, despite the differing types of aftermath, the underlying purpose and intention are the same. It is the irreverent attitude toward the profundity and complexity of nature which halts a balanced use of our natural resources and, consequently, a balanced distribution of them. As the Lovinses wrote in their essay, "Their economic value is oriented not toward helping subsistence farmers to feed themselves, but toward feeding more livestock for the already overfed rich." And who are the overfed rich? Could it be me? Is it me, who prances around Albertson's, combing through 50 different kinds of apples and 500 varieties of cereal? The abundance is not, in itself, bad, and the fact that we have accessibility to such wealth is not necessarily bad, either. It is the combination of all of these. The situation we are in economically and agriculturally could sicken any one of us if we just spent one week in Haiti or in one of the numerous countries who harvest the very crops we eat. The Lovinses' solution to this problem seems a bit vague: "For crops, the best choice would be fairer distribution of food." However, just fairly dispensing food would not eliminate the irreverence toward the mystery of life. It would merely allow the consequences of the irreverence to reach everyone. While it seems too late to halt the surge of overproduction, it is not too late for us to adopt a more wise and balanced approach to life. It seems the fundamental problem is not gene splicing, but in researchers' commerce-driven mentality. While abundance may seem a sign of prosperity, I vastly prefer quality over quantity. And besides that, I like knowing the strawberry I ate yesterday is a real strawberry.
Anita Boeninger is a junior social work
major from Colorado Springs, Colo.
If Hollywood has taught us anything, it has taught us to be careful for what we wish. That is the obvious lesson learned from movies about genies. Jafar wished to be a genie, and he got stuck in a bottle. Shaq wished to be a genie, and he got stuck in an insipid movie. Real genies are even worse. I know this guy who met a genie at a bar once, and after he made his wishes, he inadvertently came away with a pianist who was only 12 inches tall. So I refrain from making wishes, because I don't want to get some sort of cloyingly ironic interpretation of my wish, just because I failed to run the verbiage of my wish by an attorney. For instance, I'll bet that someone (not me, of course) thought the weather was a little warm on Tuesday and wished that the wind would blow and cool things off. Boy did that backfire for whoever made that wish (which wasn't me, by the way). In any event, I'm certain that person is terribly sorry for wishing a tornado into existence. He or she didn't think it would come true, so of course, he or she didn't think about the language and neglected to stipulate what kind of wind. Specific stipulations are important beyond making wishes. Precision and particularity rule American life, and I am very worried about this. Specificity is necessary in many respects. It keeps the onions out of your Whataburger and the frilly sheets off of your bed. In spite of the usefulness of specificity, it has changed the direction of American fortitude. Rather than assembling stuff through trial and error, we now follow manuals. Because of American reliance on specific instructions, we have become a nation of cretins who get lost easily and break out in cold sweat if ambiguity raises its fog-shrouded, Janus-like head. As such, I am afraid that our nation may fall far behind other countries that are more adept at flying by the seat of their pants without the aid of explicit instructions. Clearly, the citizens of the United States need to move away from having their lives spelled out to them through explicit instructions, but as far as explicit language goes, we might as well embrace it. For example, the forbidden synonym for crap should be permitted for use in all forms of media, particularly certain collegiate newspaper columns. I don't know the etymology of this word, which British people pronounce "shite," but why it is any dirtier or offensive than "poo" is beyond me. In fact, I think the former sounds better than the latter. Try saying "bullpoo," "horsepoo," "dumbpoo" or any other permutation, and you will see what I mean. "Bullshite" and "dumbshite" don't seem to work either. I imagine that the British in particular and Europeans in general are too cultured to make up compound words with "shite," but you see my point. I think there is only one way to go with it. As for Europeans' general cultural superiority to us American yahoos, I think it's entirely unfounded. Take the French, for example. For whatever reason, they are vanguards in the fields of fashion, cinema and fatty foods. They look upon us with disdain, but I say their scorn is unmerited. I mean, no people who hold Jerry Lewis in high regard have any business deciding who are philistines and who are not. Not only that, but French people like fart jokes just as much as Americans - perhaps even more so. I determined this from an infomercial selling a French prank video that was too purile and scatological for U.S. television. The "Just Kidding" video features dirty French guys deflating whoopee cushions at bus stops and phone booths. C'est tres stupide si vous me demandez. In any case, be careful of what you wish because you might find your downtown leveled when you just wanted a breeze. Besides, what would anyone want with a 12-inch pianist anyway?
Steve Steward is a senior political science
major from Lodi, Calif., and he likes fart jokes just as much as the French
do.
This letter is in response to the March 22 column on parking issues at TCU. Throughout this year, I have been annoyed with TCU Police officers and their relentless attempts to hand out tickets. I don't know if it is solely out of boredom, but all they do all day is drive around in their Durangos and search for reasons to hand out tickets. Why they even need such an all-terrain sport utility vehicle, I will never know. I think they could sufficiently perform their duties on a bicycle, considering a bike would not cost the amount of two year's tuition. I have had two encounters this year with the "Parking Police," and both have been ridiculous attempts at badgering me into giving this school even more of my money. The first was a ticket for "impending traffic" while I dropped off my friend in front of a sorority house. Who knew that pulling over to drop someone off was a ticketed offense? Needless to say, the unfounded ticket was appealed that same day. From the first day I moved into the residence halls, everyone unloaded their belongings by parking, with hazard lights on, in the drive behind Sherley Hall. Had it ever been publicized that this was wrong, I might have never loaded my luggage into the car in this manner. Of course, 15 minutes into the loading process there was a manilla-yellow ticket on my windshield declaring my $50 fine. I guess the policeman or woman was lucky enough to spot something to do while aimlessly driving through campus. In conclusion, I would like to say that the TCU Police department's job is to enforce the rules, and, sure, many of the tickets given are deserved. I am merely stating that some incidents are not out of "ignorance." There is no need to talk down to the "ticket-holding" population of this school.
Lesley Lang freshman biology major
Thanks: To the Alcohol and Drug Education Center for making information readily available to a student in need of information for a research paper.
Spanks: To the guy who cut in front of people waiting in line Friday for the Tom Brown/Pete Wright Residential Community sign up. He'll get his just desserts. - Curtis Muniz sophomore neuroscience major
Thanks: To the Academic Affairs Committee of the House of Student Representatives for the proposal to move one study day to Wednesday. - Curtis Muniz sophomore neuroscience major
Spanks: To the city of Fort Worth for its newest pork project: $2,000 speed humps. The city has erected more than 70 humps ($140,000), with more on the way. It is good to know Fort Worth has no hungry children. It is good to know that all schools in the Fort Worth Independent School District have current textbooks and modern computers. Oh wait.
Thanks: To the TCU men's track and field 400-meter relay team. The quartet of juniors Roy Williams, Anthony Amantine, Kendrick Campbell and senior Johnny L. Collins II edged the University of Oklahoma by three-tenths of a second over Spring Break, bringing TCU its first NCAA indoor relay title ever.
Spanks: To Residential Services for not organizing the Tom Brown/Pete Wright Residential Community sign up. Students waiting in line for six or more hours is simply inexcusable. Get organized!
Thanks: To students who actually voted online about the finals week schedule. If students respond to such surveys, the administration will be more likely to respect students' opinions.
Spanks: To the campus groups that send too many campus-wide e-mail messages every day. HINT: We just delete them. Maybe if we were not bombarded by every little thing, we would read them.
Got something to say? Send your 'thanks & spanks' to the Skiff at (skiffletters@tcu.edu). Be sure to include your name and a phone number. |
The TCU Daily Skiff © 1998, 1999 Credits |