| Cheers Jeers Just a few rants and raves Contrary to popular belief, Skiff staff members do get out once in awhile. And when we do, we see little things that merit our commentary. Or maybe we just feel like putting our two cents in. Cheers - to the 306 students who voted in the Student Government Association referendum Thursday. Jeers - to the some 6,500 other students who didn't vote. Cheers - four words: Frog Calls is in! Jeers - to the people who monitor parking lots during football games. The monitors admitted vehicles without the appropriate parking sticker into the Worth Hills lot, and then proceeded to charge Worth Hills residents when they had to park in other lots because their lot was full. Cheers - to Programming Council for a successful Family Weekend and for bringing Goo Goo Dolls to campus during Homecoming Week. Jeers - to people who don't remove their parking stickers from previous years. That's why razors were invented! Cheers - to the Horned Frog football team for winning Saturday's game against the University of Tulsa. Jeers - to an employee in the eatery formerly known as Pizza Hut who mocked students who missed Sunday's midnight closing time by just a few seconds. Cheers - to the other employees who allowed the same students to enter and to pay for their midnight snacks. It's called customer service. Here's to hoping the powers that be continue the good things and fix the bad. Cheers.
Drinking is not parents' problem The meaning of "A&M" in Texas A&M University's name could now stand for "Alcohol & Mommy." After all, the two now seem to go hand in hand. A&M administrators changed their policy last month on underage alcohol consumption. Now parents will be notified when their underage son or daughter is caught on campus with alcohol. Congress modified the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in October 1998, which allowed - but did not mandate - universities to notify parents of minors who receive alcohol violations. But TCU has been doing this for years, said Angie Taylor, director of the alcohol and drug education center. "It's part of our contractual relationship with the student," she said. "Because TCU is a private school, we were in a position to (notify parents)." Taylor said that on their first violation, students can work off a fine through community service, and parents will not be notified unless the violation is accompanied by an extreme situation such as a fight. On the second and third violations, a copy of a letter notifying the student of the consequences is sent to his or her parents. "What we hope happens is the parent has a dialogue with the student, and the parents become more involved in issues in the student's life," Taylor said. "Usually that catches their attention." But even if the letter does pique the interests of the parents, about 30 percent of the student body is not from Texas. What steps can these parents take to ensure their son or daughter is drinking responsibly? Most likely, parents are too busy to fly in town to teach their son or daughter a drinking lesson. And a phone call or an e-mail can only provide so much guidance before the student deletes the message and returns to life as usual. In college, students learn not only the theories of physics, but also the rules of adulthood. So it's not exactly helping students grow up when university officials run to Mommy and Daddy to tell on Junior about what he did last weekend. And it doesn't teach Junior to take responsibility for his actions when Mommy and Daddy rush in to rescue him from his "problem." Granted, alcohol abuse is a serious problem that merits guidance from others. But notifying parents upon the student's second violation is not enough opportunity to let the student try to solve his or her own issues independent of parental interference. The second violation should be the point at which the student must both pay a fine and perform community service. TCU should increase the weight of the punishment more gradually than the rate its current policy allows. As it stands now, the policy involves parents too soon to allow the student to learn the lesson himself. TCU's new mission statement says the university's mission is "to educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community." Surely in TCU's attempt to prepare students to be "responsible citizens," students could be given a chance to accept responsibility for their own actions. As other colleges face this same problem, TCU administrators should re-examine this policy. College students - who at 18 are legal adults - should be treated accordingly. There's no doubt that parents should take an active role in the education of their son or daughter. But the university should give the student more of a chance to learn from personal mistakes before parents are brought into the situation.
Opinion Editor Laura Head is a junior news-editorial journalism major from Shreveport, La. She can be reached at (lahead@delta.is.tcu.edu). Road trips fuel friendship Water-skiing in October seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, I was eating a nice hot lunch while the sun shone in the windows of The Main. This is what college is all about, so what could be more fun than a road trip to Oklahoma and a day on the lake? So that is how I found myself strapping on a life jacket in the middle of Lake Murray. Had I been thinking, the icicles hanging off the ends of my life jacket would have been some sort of warning, but my mind had been on Fall Break since Labor Day. I stood on the edge of the boat, took a deep breath, and plunged in. The water was cold. Really cold. Not Texas "It's-only-70-degrees-so-I'd-better-wear-a-sweatshirt" cold but cold, like having brain freeze all over your body. There's something about cold water that increases the size of the competition gland in a guy's brain. Add other guys and two girls in a speedboat, and you can almost see the competition gland swelling. So when somebody brought up the idea of "tube wars" - a battle between two inner-tube riders to see who can stay on the longest - I needed only a small amount of convincing. Sure, I was finally dry after my first icy plunge. Sure, the sun was going down and the water was getting even colder. Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio's frozen body from "Titanic" had just drifted by. It didn't matter. All that mattered was one thing: becoming king of tube wars. The stage was set for our epic battle. It didn't matter that this guy was a good friend and fraternity brother of mine. In the water we were mortal enemies. This was no longer a simple little competition between buddies. Oh no, we had crossed the line. This was right up there with good vs. evil, freedom vs. bondage and TCU vs. SMU; one of those momentous, defining events in a person's life. We jumped in the lake (dodging the ice-fishing Eskimos) and took our respective inner tubes. With a signal to the driver, we were off. Something happened to me as the battle began. I was no longer John-Mark, calm and cool journalist. I was now the new and improved Aqua-JM, a mythic superhero capable of overcoming an inner tube enemy by sheer force of will alone. He was my archenemy Water-Rat-Rav, a tuber so malicious that I was the only this standing between him and world destruction. Evil as he was, I found myself actually feeling sorry for him. "Poor, soggy WRR," I thought. "He has no idea how superior I am. Maybe I should take it a little easy on him. After all, he's pretty slow and " WHAM! I'd been hit from the side! That water rodent hit me when I wasn't looking. He was too weak, though. It was going to take more than a little hit to bring me down. He must have sensed that, because this time he pulled our tubes together and started climbing on me. Was there no end to this treachery? Now he was all the way off of his tube and hanging precariously off mine. All loyalty was off. If he was going to play dirty, so was I. I took advantage of his precarious position and, bracing myself, threw hard to the right, giving my former friend a face-full of cold Lake Murray water. Victory! He was off. The world, for the time being, was safe. Not for long, though. The rat wanted another round. Fine, I thought, if he wanted that kind of punishment. Again, he jumped onto my tube. I threw again, but this time he was ready. Hanging on to my life jacket, he wouldn't be thrown off. This was getting intense - I could feel myself slipping. He was just too much for me this time. With a sudden, painful flip, I lost control, sending us both skidding across the water and reeling into the cold, dark deep. The world was over. I had failed. When we surfaced, much to my surprise, the Earth was still standing. I had lost, but it wasn't the end of society as we know it. Rather than battling it out on inner tubes, we were congratulating each other through chattering teeth on a great run. I guess the adrenaline rush of flipping across icy water had put things into perspective, and we were friends again. And I have a feeling it is experiences like water-skiing that will keep us friends for a long time. As long as he remembers that Superman's alter ego was a journalist, too.
John-Mark Day is a freshman religion major from St. Joseph, Mo. He can be reached at (jmday2@delta.is.tcu.edu). Letters to the editor America has unique culture, rich history all its own In his column, "Down With McDomination: French stand up to American Imperialism," Matthew Colglazier makes a number of assertions that I can only disagree with. He claims, "In America we have already watered down our culture, and now we have only the rest of the world to infect." May I ask for an actual example? Our American culture may not be the "refined taste" of the English or French that Colglazier desires, but why should it? American culture has its own life and history, developed from the infancy of the colonies to the present day. We are a culture of rebellion and individuality, competition and striving to be the very best. Secondly, Colglazier claims that "all Americans have to offer to other countries are poorly-made cars and Quarter Pounders." Is he ignoring advanced medical products, computer technology, airplanes and grain? "These places (the American suburb) will also commercialize and become overrun with chain stores, strip malls and McDonalds." I suspect that this is what Colglazier believes will occur in Millau, France, as well, with the opening of a McDonald's. There is a theory that every major country in the world has adopted, including France: capitalism. If the consumer won't buy, the producer won't produce. It's the most basic principle of modern economics, and it even holds true for McDonald's in France. Yes, it is that easy. Finally, I call on Colglazier to stop his attack on American culture. Be proud to be an American - I promise you, it's not a bad thing! J. Austin Hancock junior advertising/public relations major
BSM's choice to host speaker last week shows lack of ethics I am surprised and horrified by the letters some Baptist students sent in response to the article concerning the Baptist Student Ministry-sponsored incident on National Coming Out Day. I agree that Baptist students had the right to promote their lecture featuring someone who challenged the validity of the event organized ON THE SAME DAY by the TCU Triangle. However, that is not the point. It goes beyond what you can do or what you cannot do. It is about what you should or should not do. That is a basic principle that some call ETHICS. I believe what happened that day was the equivalent of having a white supremacy rally during Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Theoretically and legally, the white supremacist group would have the right to do so. Would it be appropriate, though? Let's be honest here and admit that what happened that day was a sad demonstration of prejudice and ignorance. That the event was held on a college campus, a place that is expected to promote intellectual growth, makes it all the more upsetting. Instead of attacking each other, how about spending some time getting to know your brothers and sisters? Gay, straight, black, white, Christian, Jewish, atheist: We are all people and probably have more in common than we realize.
Marcos Balter M. Da Silva senior music theory/music composition major
New Main hours make finding seats, healthy food difficult I would like to express my concern with the new hours offered by The Main and the new Pizza Hut/Stems and Staples area. While the area itself is quite nice and new, especially with the new computer terminals, it does not help solve the problem of finding a seat during rush hours. Also, because of the new hours The Main is open, it is impossible to find a hot meal on campus after 8 p.m. Most days I do not have time to eat until after that time, and I feel I am not alone in this. I strongly urge the powers that be in the dining services to reconsider the change in hours that The Main is open. Smoothies, candy bars and beef jerky are not enough to fill someone up when they have late-night hunger. Trey Johnson junior music education major |
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