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Show "Blessed is he who can live and learn, and not just live." T. Jefferson U Monday, Jan. 29,2007 797-176% statesman@cc.usu.edQ www.utahstatesman.com o Utah Statesman! Muddy shoes or a shaky building? There are just some things in life that - as new adults - you have to live with. These can vary from taking responsibility for our schoolwork to eating our vegetables even if we really don't want to. For any USU students who have to use the north end of campus, it now also includes trudging through the snow as they make their way around the fence ^ --. around the oldest of the engineer- Our View Staff # ^ SUDDEN ^APPEARANCE,... THE mm. Nat ! View r ^ d Di Lewis Assistant News Editor h Arie j 6 Holly Mitchell Assistant Features Editor Manette Newbojfi Sports Editor ? Seth Hawkins Assistant Sports Editor >s Samuel Hisldp Diversions Editorr Steve Shinnfly A general waste of our time Disagreement is not disloyalty u Copy Editor Letters to the Editor even started!) Why can't we discuss how good the team is doing or how exciting the game was? If you're going to a basketball game, why are you To the editor: so worried about what the The general education person next to you is chantrequirements for gradu- ing? Shouldn't you be payation are a joke. In fact, ing attention to what's going the idea that any student on down on the court? I'm glad visiting teams nationwide escapes college with a "well-round- don't like to come to the ed" education is laugh- Spectrum because of the able. Will someone please fans. I'm proud to be part explain to me how courses of the Sixth Man. I go to such as: Masterpieces of the games to be entertained Music, History of Interior and enjoy good basketball. Furnishings I & II, Family Fans are going to do what Finance, or Natural Disasters they are going to do and if are preparing me for a that's not your way of supcareer in engineering? I'm porting the team, then find sure the first question out your own way or just stay of my potential employer's home. If you don't want to mouth will be, "Can you tell be offended, then I suggest me a little something about going to football games. As that chair you're sitting on?" sad as this is, you'd be hard or "What is the basis of the pressed to find anyone very enthusiastic - I mean, offensary in view of an emerging fujita scale?" sive - there. To the team, I national consensus on Iraq. As a senior I've taken want to say a big thank you Consider these results of 18 total credits of "gen- for being great representaa USA TODAY/Gallup Pol! eral education," which tives of Utan State and maktaken in January. amounts to $1,974.63 in ing us real fans proud to be * Some 50 percent of those tuition, $265.00 in student Aggies. Keep up the amazsurveyed said "the United fees, $200.00 in books, and ing work! States can't achieve its goals $1,200 for an apartment in Iraq regardless of how which results in a grand total of $3,639.63. I'm glad many troops it sends." Chrissy Johnson * Eight in 10 said the war has that for $3,639.63 I now gone "worse than the Bush know hurricanes are bad, Beethoven made music, administration expected." * More than 70 percent said chairs come in a variety of the president "doesn't have shapes, and I finally know '• a clear plan for handling the how to add and subtract To the editor: to balance a checkbook. I situation in Iraq." * And 61 percent torpedoed want 4 months of my life I love Aggie basketball. I don't attend as many as I the idea of deploying an addi- back. tional 20,000 troops to the war zone. Jordan Sefcovic The message of the American people couldn't be mpre clear-cut: get us out, Mr. President, and get us out now! ' What's tragic is that the To the editor: Bush cabinet appears to be thumbing its nose at us by Am I the only one tired of cocking a snook at Congress. hearing negative comments If our elected representatives connected to Utah State's pass a resolution opposing sports teams? Can Aggie fans the war, reflecting the senti- ever find anything good to ments of a vast majority in this say about the games? Does country, shouldn't the admin- anyone remember football istration, then, be obligated to season? The team had to heed the will of the people? beg people to attend, but After all, the same American all anyone could say was taxpayer dollars that fund this "Our football team isn't very war also support our institu- good, but just wait until bastions of government. If our ketball season!" Now basinterests aren't represented by ketball season is here and those institutions, doesn't that all we hear about is - what's trifling bf our political will that? Not how amazing it amount, essentially, to taxa- was that Jaycee Carroll lifted tion without representation? us down the stretch or how Must we, as participants in Chaz Spicer made a clutch this democracy, continue to 3-pointer or how tense the allow such flagrant abuse of entire Spectrum was when it looked like our Aggies could power? At the risk of sounding rev- pull it out against Boise olutionary, I believe it's time State. No, we hear about we voted with our pocket- how - omigosh - offensive books by adopting the pro- Aggies fans are! (I certaintest tactics first invoked by ly nope these poor, tender American colonists in 1765. souls never attend a profesOur message must be unmis- sional sporting event. I've takable: no taxation without been to Jazz games where the entire arena booed the'representation. That's food for thought as referees before the game April looms. how to position America to meet every challenge that confronts us," the president thundered. "We'll show our enemies abroad that we are united in the goal of victory." Yes, yes, but haven't we heard this spiel before? And what good has come from it? In fact, has it not been only a month since the last consensus report on the war - authored by the esteemed Iraq Study Group -- was all but rubbished? Wasn't a large pullback of troops not a key recommendation of that panel? Oh, and didn't vice president pit-bull not tell CNN that "the administration is committed to moving ahead with its plan to send more troops to Baghdad, even if Congress passes a resolution in opposition"? Set against this backdrop of executive unilateralism, 1 fear that a bipartisan panel might amount to no more than a bureaucratic smokescreen, distracting the American people from the administration's escalating entanglement in the Middle East. It would, despite its harmonizing purpose, serve only to lend a Leon D'Souza is a USU graduveneer of legitimacy to an ate and a former Statesman obviously illegitimate war. columnist. Comments can be More to the point, such a sent to leon@cc.usu.edu. panel seems wholly unneces- News Editor Features Editor How about hitting them where it hurts? There was something deliberately deceptive about President Bush's latest call for a bipartisan "special advisory council" to facilitate an exchange of ideas in the political war against militant fundamentalism. Speaking to Congress -- and indeed, the American people - in his 2007 State of the Union address, the incorrigible White House czar -- our nation's most autocratic ruler in recent memory -- argued passionately for the need to present a united front in tackling that intractable migraine: the global war on terror {and implicitly, its most obstinate battlegrounds in Iraq). "We • Elizabeth Lawyer BAUNCE ^ThisMshould come as no sur- n 'prise; our campus is constantly changing as old buildings give way to new and better ones. The fact that a new engineering building is coming to campus is great. The old building was hardly used and hazardous. We're excited to see that USU's excellent engineering program will continue to grow and get better facilities. Such growth is worth a little sacrifice and understanding from the student body. However, it should also be worth a little planning from those involved. Plans to construct a concrete walkway have been put off until the weather is better and the need has passed. If it's too cold to create an alternate route, it should have been done earlier. Laying some particleboard was a step in the right direction. However that same board is now covered in ice and is just as slippery as traipsing through the mud. While Widtsoe Hall was being built, the dividing wall that kept people out of the construction site was placed so that the sidewalk from the Animal Science Building and Old Main could still be accessed by students. While things could have been planned better, the time for such consideration seems to have passed. Now there is nothing for us to do but look forward to the new, state-of-the-art building that will be erected. Except for the 50 percent of the student body who will graduate before the construction is done and the fences come down. We just have to grin and bear it. 1 Editor in Chief LETS Rebekah Bradw&y Photo Editor would like, but I do love the crowd, the games, the players and the fans. What I don't like is the assumption that if you are going to be a "true loyal Aggie Fan" you have to agree with everybody who shouts negative comments at the games. I don't see why people who don't like the comments are perceived as traitorous, disloyal, contemptible losers. I find the idea of publicly singling people out ana attacking them for their views as a mob mentality. Please, enjoy your chants and jeers at trie other teams, if you like. But I ask you to think that if just because someone expresses their opinion to the contrary of what you think, does that mean that you have the full right to publicly attack them. Don't say anybody is less blue because they don't like the chants at .the basketball game. How many choir concerts, band and orchestra concerts, club sports, debates, lectures, symposiums, workshops, etc do we miss, or really don't want to go to? How much money to we voluntarily give to support this university? Don't question somebody's loyalty just because they don't like what you're saying in the Spectrum. You have no right. None of us do. Daniel Allred Be happy - it's basketball season ' • • ' . V . ' ; - - • . • " , ,-•• The Statesman has a new podcast of the week's highlights every Friday. Check it out at www,utahstatesman.com/podcasts. Also, look for the Statesman staffs weekly panel discussions in Aggie Voices. ^ Jamie Crane Assistant Photo Editor n Tyler LarseVi. Editorial Board >" Elizabeth Lawyer Di Lewis [J Seth Hawkins Steve Shinney Holly Mitchell " d q About letters • Letters should be limited ^o 350 words. c| • All letters may be short- A ened, edited or rejected q for reasons of good taste,J redundancy or volume ofc similar letters. o • Letters must be topic ori-b ented. They may not be '' directed toward individu-^ als. Any letter directed tcA specific individual may be edited or not printed. • No anonymous letters will be published. Writers must sign all letters and 'include a phone number or e-mail address as well as a student identification number (hone of which is published). Letters will not be printed Without this verification."''^ • Letters representing groups — or more than one individual — must have a singular representative clearly stated, with all necessary identification information. • Writers must wait 21 days before submitting successive letters — no. exceptions. • Letters can be hand delivered or mailed to The Statesman in the TSC, Room 105, or can be e- d statesman@dffusu.edu or click on www.utahstatesman.com .i 'for more letter guidelines and a box to sumbit letters. Online poll What do you think about the cheering in the Spectrum? • It's gone way too far. • It occasionally gets too rough. • It's fine if it goes no further. • We could push it a little further. • We need to be a lot louder. Visit us on the Web at www.utahstatesman.com to cast your vote. Check out these links on www.utahstatesman.com: Archives Dining Guide COMINGJ Comics Activities and events Classifieds Wedding/Engagements Slide shows & Video |