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Show .1L editorial Editorials editor: Patrick Parkinson Phone: 626-6358 ffl WITH AUTUE men sow ws. MORE RE$mtk ill OF WORK. Throwing stones in a silicone subdivision Everyone needs to be told when tliey are wrong. They may disagree, fully believing they are correct because of their personal perspective or agenda, even when facts and events are contradictory. Part of this phenomena of intentional ignorance is surely peoples' reluctance to admit being wrong, especially when a particular phenomena has a past or history they personally associate with themselves. Remember when it finally occured to you that maybe the Opposite sex may not have cooties, and what a wondrous gestalt that realization was for your personal life? You were wrong about the cooties concept, and you thought it was the real deal. You were wrong. Accept it graciously and deal with the reality. It's actually okay to make most mistakes, despite what others may tell you; it's one of the call signs of being a human being and we often learn more from our failures than we do our successes. The only real mistake people make is to stop questing for truth. Of course, in this day and age it may be harder to divine the truth than it was in the past. There is a perpetual barrage of messages from various sources, all demanding our attention and requiring choices to bemade-ev-erything from where to go at any .iMa 1 l Aaron Barnard "Notes in passing" point in time to what to eat now or later. These messages stem from sources having motivations of their own. Additionally, we are under constant bombardment from commercial messages encompassing every known medium and covering every product imaginable condoms in the restrooms, milk on the sides of busses, feminine hygiene products on television, cars in magazines, clubs on fliers, porn on the Net.. .you get the idea. Decision-making difficulty is elevated exponentially when it's necessary to try and figure out why a source is telling you their message, what exactly it is they want you to do and what the facts really are. This siege of messages has the effect of numbing people to the communication carnage around them, and they begin to shut themselves off in the castle of their mind from information which isn't easily integrated or is contrary to what they currently believe. New concepts are hard to deal with, really; at least we didn't have to make the cerebral leap from a flat Earth to a spherical one. People have become sick of making decisions and begun to tune out most of the messages and events that don't directly relate to their happiness, lifestyle and prosperity. What people are more prone to do is ally themselves with some group or organization whose principlesdoctrine perspective appears to match up closely to their own, then defer questioning and judgement to that body. It's from the same school of philosophy which states water finds the lowest channel and flows in it. This philosophy isn't hard to understand when you consider the total saturation of popular entertainment and the media, with accompanying messages. It becomes increasingly difficult to make decisions when messages seem to be contradictory in nature and intent to other messages, or even themselves. Experts in a technical area, but on one side of an issue involved will disagree with other experts. Who do you believe? The person who most closely echoes your own feelings and perspective. But how well did you really think about that which you're passing judgment? Today in U.S. history: 1620 Puritans set sail on the Mayflower destined for America. J 893 Cherokee Strip Day.. .over 100,000 homesteaders rushed to the strip between Oklahoma and Kansas to claim shares of 6 million acres of land opened by the United States government. 1923 First Catholic seminary for the education of African-American priests is founded in Mississippi. 1925 Blues legend B.B. King was born. 1991 A federal judge overturned a previous conviction and dropped all charges against former National Security Council Aide Oliver North. 71 Legislative awkwardness remains in ASWSU senate Continued legislative awkwardness appears to be the theme for the Associated Students of Weber State University senate for its 1998-99 session. The senate is not a place where senators "learn how to rule," as stated during last spring's elections. The senate affords, to those who are "chosen" by the WSU student body, the opportunity to be a leader and learn about governmental and legislative processes. Both the ASWSU senate and The Signpost are "learning laboratories." Staff members of The Signpost are told when they join that the rewards they reap from their positions are not the stipend or tuition waiver but the experience. The Signpost gives its staff members as close to a true newspaper experience as possible if a person doesn't make deadline, they may not get class credit for the story; the story might not run and they're threatened with termination. The senate gives its members the opportunity to experience legislative processes, negotiation and debate. While the senate is not exactly a small-scale version of other legislative bodies, for example, other legislative bodies do not require their members to submit a certain number of bills per session. One of the ASWSU senate's other oddities, and one which senators themselves had the opportunity to change this past ammmtlm, Monday, is a requirement of a three-fourths majority when passing bills that would change the ASWSU constitution or the Senate bylaws.A three-fourths majority is awkward and is not used by legislative bodies in the "real world." Most legislative bodies, including the Utah Legislature, the United States Congress, even the United Nations General Assembly, require a two-thirds majority when voting on bills and resolutions. Instead of changing to be more consistent with other legislative bodies, the senate voted to keep their conservative and awkward three-fourths requirement. In actuality, the change would have required that 1 1 rather than 13 senators vote in favor of a bill. In addition, The Signpost believes that many of the senators voted against the proposal not on the basis of its changing an awkward "quirk" of the senate's operation, but because the senator proposing the bill, John Allen Shaw, has been outspoken on several issues including diversity and dissolving the Senate outright. The Signpost believes the senate has let personal feelings, grudges and agendas cloud its vision on this issue, and that if the proposal had been made by a more conservative and less outspoken senator, the proposal would have had a greater chance qf passage. The debate and controversy have been shifted from the change proposed by the bill to who was proposing the change. By Taylor S. Fielding editor in chief-The Signpost Recipient. of the UPA General Excellence award Editor in chief Taylor S. Fielding 626-7121 Managing editor Tyler A. Holt 6267614 News editor Kari Lynn Harland 6267655 Campus affairs editor Julianne Hancock 6267659 Lifestyles editor Angela Wadman 6267621 A&E editor Debra Jandreau 6267624 Sports editor Joey Haws 6267983 Copy editor Angie Welling 6267507 Editorials editor Patrick Parkinson 6266358 Graphics editor Anne Gukeisen 6266358 Photo editor Graham Sykes 6267661 Advertising mngr. Rebekah Clements 6266359 Secretary Georgia Edwards 6267974 Adviser Dr. Sheree Josephson 6266164 Publisher Dr. Kathy Edwards 6266559 Signpost fax 6267401 The Signpost Ls published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during fall, winter, and spring quarters. Subscription Ls $9 a quarter. Ttic Sigtifxjst Ls a student publication, written, edited and drafted by Weber Slate University students. Student fees fund the printing of this publication. Opinions or positions voiced are not necessarily endorsed by the university. The Signpost welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must include name, address, telephone number, relationship to staff and the writers signature. The Signpost reserves the right toed it for rcasonsof space and libel and also reserves theright to refuse to print any letter. Letters should not exceed 350 words. Bring letters to the editorial office inUB267.ormailto: n'5i);npii.WeberStaleUniversity,Ogdcn.Utah8'M08-2l 10. Attn: Taylor S. Fielding. |