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Show WWW.NETXNEWS.NET MONDAY • FEBRUARY 13 • 2006 o 1— in—fcJ^^^^^^W My name is Matt, and I'm an oiloholic It is no secret that President Bush has had his fingers in more than one oily pie. To Guest Writer say that his family has a vested interest in The other morning I woke up with "the oil is a screaming understatement. Bush shakes." I peeled off my blanket only to oil ventures have been shown to reach realize that 1 was drenched in sweat. My as far as the bin Laden family. Nearly head throbbed, my teeth chattered, and I the entire Bush administration has ties to felt like I had been repeatedly kicked in oil in one way or another. Dick Cheney the back by a group of unruly skinheads. practically bleeds black gold, and I knew what was happening — I was Condoleeza Rice recently received the going through oil withdrawals. rare honor of having an Exxon oil tanker I immediately ran to the garage and named after her. turned on my car. The sound of the Could it be that President Bush and engine, signaling the combustion of gas, his administration have had a change brought hope of relief. Within seconds, I of heart? I would like to believe it, but was tearing down the street. As billowing I have heard the "we care about the clouds of exhaust poured from my environment now" song-and-dance tailpipe, 1 began to feel better. My hands before from them. All of the President's steadied, and my heartbeat began to State of the Union addresses have been regulate. My chills melted into warmth, peppered with this kind of familiar turning the pain into tingling ecstasy. I rhetoric. In 2003, he asked Americans to knew that I should not be driving, but 1 "join [himl in protecting the environment had to have a fix. in ways future generations could not have It did not occur to me that 1 had a imagined." Two years later he passed problem with oil until I heard President an energy bill, which has been heavily Bush's recent State of the Union address. criticized by environmentalists. To be In the homestretch of an otherwise fair, the bill did make some concessions unsurprising speech, the President said, for the expansion of more sustainable Nick Johnson "We have a serious problem. America is resources, such as nuclear energy. But in Opinions Writer addicted to oil, which is often imported the end, it did little more than to continue from unstable parts of the world." I lining the pockets of big oil business Why do we celebrate St. Valentines Day? have thought about this statement and through subsidies. The president is right, Valentines Day is a total scam, and I will tell you why. just what the president's meaning and the way he is protecting the environment First, girls don't have to do anything for it. Guys on the will likely be unimaginable by future motivation might be. other hand have to go to great length and great cost for their respective girls. They must anguish over whether It is hard to escape the irony here. generations. their gifts are sending the right message. It is all too easy Having the president tell us that we are It seems that President Bush's to err on the side of too much or too little. There is also the ' addicted to oil is like a heroin dealer emphasis may be less on protecting the added complication of girlfriends. They are prone to feel telling junkies that they have a problem. slighted if you do nothing, yet a delicate balance must be achieved. Let's not forget roses. Who established this convention anyway, and why has it achieved such universal standing? Each color rose sends a different message, not to mention they are horrendously expensive. How did this come to be? Philip Gordon cultural intervention. February is not exactly the height of the growing season. Communications Dept. Chair Repeating it, boldly, flagrantly, someNow there is even a company in Salt Lake that will write times joyfully, sometimes painfully, is to sappy love messages on the rose itself! I can't wait until Why does The Vagina Monologues wrestle the meaning of "woman" away this becomes mainstream. have to have the word vagina in it? The from the misogynists. It is part of the Chocolate gets more expensive this time of year as well. intent of the use of that word is not to of- struggle against sexual violence. Regular Hershey's milk chocolate is not good enough this fend, or to be "dirty," but to undirty the The social science literature is clear on time of year. It is good enough for Christmas (Christ's word, to take it back from the pejorative this matter. Making women's sex organs Birthday), but it is not good enough for St. Valentine. You connotations that equate women's sex"unmentionable" is obscurantism falsely must purchase exotic chocolates shipped from far away places, like Europe and San Francisco. I am going to let ual identity with shamefulness. This is dignified by the name "modesty," and it no trivial matter. The shame associated has a range of devastating effects, from you in on a little secret: it all tastes the same! Seriously, with the word is related to the perpetu- the late diagnosis of illness through the $18-a-pound Ghiradelli's and See's chocolate is the same ation of sexual violence against women. inability to experience sexual pleasure as the Hershey bar you buy in aisle two at the grocery It feeds the hatred of women by making to the host of calamitous consequences store. An even greater travesty is those stupid candy hearts. them simultaneously objects of desire of hidden sexual violence. Research They taste awflil; like chalk, in fact. and disgust. It inhibits discussion about shows that children who can correctly Valentine's Day is the quintessential "Hallmark holiday." sexual violence, and thus the account- identify their sex organs are less likely It is strategically placed right after you start to make a financial recovery from the Christmas season; this is no ability of victimizers and the healing of to be victims of sexual abuse. In a study victims, by making it that much more I conducted with a colleague at the Unicoincidence. If you don't think treachery is afoot here, difficult to talk about sex crimes. versity of Illinois in the early 1990s, we then get this - 1,000,000,000 cards are sold on Valentines Of course, I understand that it is a found that rape victims identified the Day! Abillion wretchedly overpriced, mass-manufactured, provocative word, attached to anxiet- practice of putting their experience into impersonal tokens of your love. ies, awkwardness, and contempt. But words and sharing it with others as their Finally, have you ever noticed that the initials of those attachments are not necessary, au- primary means of recovery from their Valentines Day are V.D.? (The gift that keeps on giving tomatic, and eternal. They are cultural. attacks. every Feb. 14.) So happy V.D. Day. Saying the word is meant to be an act of The specific features common to Thanks a lot, St. Valentine. Matt Wright why o/lt why environment and more on encouraging the use of domestic oil. A good example of this has been the administration's campaign to utilize the oil resources in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In a nutshell, the plan is to drill for oil on one of America's last pristine ecosystems. If carried out, it is also likely to affect the sacred lands of indigenous peoples, such as the Inupiat tribe. In exchange, the United States stands to gain a supply of oil that, very generously estimated, would keep up with demand for about six months. Current estimates suggest that it may be closer to half that. For these reasons, the Senate blocked a proposal to include language in a bill that would enable the ANWR plan to go forward. However, in a recent interview with Rush Limbaugh, Vice President Cheney stated that the administration will continue to push for drilling. It seems that the administration is concerned less with the environment and more with taking advantage of opportunity, wherever they may find it. Since the president's address, I have been working on my addiction to oil. I have started taking the crowded 811 bus to UVSC from my apartment in Salt Lake. There, fellow commuters discuss our problem and begin to take steps toward recovery. They say that knowing is half the battle, and had it not been for the State of the Union address, I may have never known. For that, Mr, President, I thank you. What's in a name? When a rose is not a rose Find a new topic Idler/ lo the editor I am a UVSC student and I read the school newspaper every week. I usually enjoy Ammon Van Orden's articles, but his most recent one, "Falling from grace" wasridiculous.If UVSC is so concerned about becoming it's "own" school and breaking away from BYU and becoming an individual university, why is it that, with out fail, every issue of the UVSC newspaper has an article or top ten list regarding BYU and/or the LDS church. Is UVSC so boring that you have to make fun and criticise BYU just to fill up some space in your newspaper. If you are so concerned with being your own, why not write things that are about UVSC. I would much rather see a hundred more articles about Ronnie Price riding the bench in Sacramento than I would the police report at BYU or the latest happenings there. Bottom line is, BYU is a great school in this valley, UVSC wants to be, but is wasting all of it's time poking fun at what is going on at BYU. Dig deep and find something going on here at UVSC. Kyle — Kyle Flanagan LETTERS TO THE EDITOR * E-Mail letters to uvscopinions@homiail.coin * The NetXNews room is located on campus in SC220. * All letters become property of NciXNews and may be edited for content, specifically clarity, length or other concerns at the discretion of [he Opinions Editor. * Letters between 50-250 words are encouraged and those letters marked by their succinctness arc more likely to be published. * Letters must be accompanied by full name, address, and phone number for verification purposes (contact information will not be published). Falling from grace response In response to Ammon Van Orden ('Falling from grace at BYU'), I would like to point out that BYU is first and foremost a religious school, whose mission is to educate members of the church in a gospel setting. Whether non-members attend BYU or not depends on whether they meet all of the admission criteria set forth by the school, and one of those requirements is that you have not actively opposed and/or renounced the teachings of the church. Why? Fairness, and mercy! It would not be fair that a qualified member of the church who pays tithing, which helps to subsidize the education of BYU students, should be denied admission while Halcrow is admitted even though he has renounced the teachings of the Church. The reason that 98 percent of the BYU student body is Mormon, and only two percent are not is because those two percent are replacing hundreds of qualified Latter-day Saints. Using Van Orden's analogy, it is because the Church is reaching out to the one that two percent are not members, but the Church is not going to exclude one of the 99 who are members from attending BYU in favor of the 1 who is opposed to the Church but wants to benefit from what the Church has to offer. 100 percent of the student body could easily be taken from a list of qualified members who apply to BYU but are routinely denied admission and there would still be thousands of qualified members waiting to get into BYU. Why should they (as qualified or more qualified) be denied while Halcrow is accepted? sexual assault: the shock and denial; the pressure to keep silent; the misattribution of responsibility; the maze of fear and shame victims are forced to navigate; are all addressed and worked through in the act of talking to supportive people about them. In telling their stories, victims take control, come out of denial, name their assailants, absolve themselves, heal relationships, begin to trust, and help other victims progress from states of denial, misunderstanding, and turmoil, toward states of acceptance, understanding, and newfound strength. Although the play sounds, at times, crude, there is sometimes a high purpose to low talk. Violence and silence are related. Speaking is healing. The body is sacred, but do we sanctify something by obliterating the word for it? The prohibition against speaking publicly about sex matters does not restrict sex practices or sex crimes. It restricts only understanding of, and healing from, violent sexual experiences. Bryan Horn It is obvious that when Sean Hannity paid us a "free" visit, he did an effective job at brainwashing Bryan Horn of the College Republicans, and it only cost the school around $50,000. What a deal! Bryan made some very uneducated comments about the Patriot Act and it is more than obvious that he has never read the Act and that he has no idea-what it is really about. My personal term for the Patriot Act is, "the fundamental ripping of the Constitution to shreds." Read it yourself. I can't think of anything worse for freedom than this Act. Basically, all the government has to do is accuse of you being an aid to terrorism (they don't even need evidence) and the Bill of Rights no longer exists for you. No right to a lawyer, to due process of law, no right to speak or call witnesses in your own defense, no habeas corpus, no visitation rights, no right to a trial by jury, nothing. After accusing you, the government can lock you up in prison somewhere indefinitely, they can torture you, they can try you by holding a military tribunal (think of when the USSR entered Berlin during WW II), and they can even execute you. And that is only the beginning of what the Patriot Act is really about. So for people like Bryan Horn who blindly follow corrupt leaders like a lamb to the slaughter, I implore you to open your eyes and see them for who and what they really are. —Matthew Gamer —Edward L. Lalone |