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Show Friday, October 14, 2005 Editor in Chief: Maria Villaseiior Editorial The Signpost editorial staff Phone: 626-7121 J1 WOULP TAf£ A TO S T » MAYOR Class time doesn't finish early, late A folder is slammed shut, a pen clicked closed, a backpack zipped up and a coat shuffled on. It sounds like the end of class, but there are still a few minutes left. Classes don't finish when it starts getting close to 10 minutes to the hour; they finish when the professor finishes his or her lecture. Though students may not mean to be rude or disruptive, getting ready to leave before class is over signals to the professor and fellow classmates that what is being said isn't important and not worth paying attention to. Students aren't able to take notes if they're putting their binders away; but professors are still finishing the class period with meaningful information. Not only does preparing to leave affect professors, it also distracts other students in the classroom. Fidgeting students take the attention^ff of the professor and focus it on the end of class. Once students know they're so close to getting out of a lecture, it can be hard to redirect their attention to continue to take notes. Often, other students just take that signal as the end of class and start packing up and getting ready for their next class. Although some students are regularly at fault for not respecting class time, some professors arc also equally to blame. Several professors seem to be unaware that students have another class following and may have to walk to the other side of campus. Those professors extend their lectures well after class time is officially over. Few students will walk out of class while a professor is still speaking, but they aren't paying attention to what the professor says - only to the clock and calculating if they can make it on time to their next class. Those drawn-out professors show disrespect to their students' schedules and to other professors. Few professors appreciate their students walking in late - but that is often due to their colleagues' over-blown lectures keeping students in class. For those students who shuffle between the Social Science Building and Iind Lecture Hall, 10 minutes is barely enough to make it to class on time. When professors decide to go "just a few" minutes over to include meaningful information that can't wait till the next class period, they're causing the student to lose meaningful information from their next class. Classes start and end at a specific time, and both students and professors should be • aware that is all the time they get. The two parties should make the most of that time to learn or teach and respect the needs of the other. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Kashmir earthquake: The calculus of horror Political process almost purely symbolic There is all this talk about democrats and republicans, as if voting for one or the other is going to make a huge difference in what happens. It is not hard to see that very little can be. changed by trying to work within this circus that is run every four years by the public relations industry. Invariably, a candidate is chosen from the same party- that of the rich elite. Superior delusion tactics win every election. Voters spend little time discussing policy in a way that is intelligible. We hear plenty about supposed personal qualities that will make each man or woman such a great leader and choose someone whom we think has "family values" or will improve the economy and healthcare, but no one can explain specifically what either candidate is actually going to do. Just look at what happened to welfare under a supposedly liberal Bill Clinton. Today - under the man whose supporters believed would stop at nothing to ensure everyone's safety - we are in even more danger as we fuel nuclear proliferation as well as help build up militant resistance When the ground began to shake on Saturday morning, many among the 4.5 million people of Pakistani-con trolled Kashmir thought war had returned. Given their tragic history, it was not an unreasonable assumption, but this time it was geology at work, not geopolitics. An earthquake measured at 7.6 on the Richter scale rocked Kashmir, one of the world's poorest and most politically tense regions. UN1CEF said 40,000 people may have died in the quake and its aftershocks. In the calculus of horror, it falls somewhere between last December's Asian tsunami, which killed 232,000, and Hurricane Katrina, which killed about 1,200 people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, But there is a special element of tragedy to a natural disaster in Kashmir, if only because man had already made such a mess of it. The region became a stepchild in 1947, when British India's largely Muslim northwestern states became the new nation of Pakistan, and its largely Hindu states to the south and east became a newly independent nation. Kashmir, a disputed region in the far north, was divided along the so-called "Line of Control," and since has been the scene of four wars and an ongoing nuclear staredown. The earthquake did not honor the "Line of Control," but, instead, wreaked havoc on both sides. But with its epicenter 60 miles north of the capital of Islamabad, Pakistan took the brunt of it. At least 11,000 are thought to have died in Musaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's side of Kashmir. Hundreds of children sitting for examinations in their classrooms died as their schools collapsed around them. Development in Pakistani Kashmir had been minimal because Pakistan viewed the area as a front-line military staging area Housing and infrastructure were built on the cheap, with roads designed for military needs, not civilian access. As a result, rescue and relief operations faced major problems gaining access to towns and villages in the mountains. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the most urgent need was for helicopters. President George W. Bush, who had been criticized for his slow response to the tsunamis last winter, acted swiftly, pledging eight military helicopters and an "initial contribution" of $50 million. Even before the earthquake, Bush had been looking for a way to show support for Gen. Musharaff, a military strongman who faces considerable opposition in his country from conservative Muslims for his alliance with the U.S. war on terrorism. For Musharaff, the earthquake brought some perversely good news: Many members of the outlawed militant group Lakshar-e-Toiba were reportedly killed in the quake. He also got an offer of help from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In 2001, after an earthquake in India's Gujharat state, Musharraf made a similar call to India's then-Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. That gesture led to a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders, one credited with dialing back tensions in Kashmir. First of all, I would like to congratulate War between the two nations would make an earthquake, even one that kills 40,000 "Underwhelming Minority" on getting people, look minor. It would be well if India and Pakistan took this one as another opportunity 100 percent on their pop quiz they to come together. posted all over campus. Second, I would like to say that I do not hate liberals; I simply disagree with liberalism passionately and fight against the idea Weber State University -i^ A weDerotate university of liberalism. "UM" has done nothing more than to show that liberalism is the party of hypocrisy. Sure, it's fine for liberals to scream, yell and use their "free speech," Editor in Chief Maria Vilfaseftor 626-7121 but the second a conservative opens Managing Editor Jason Staley 626-7614 their mouth against them, all hell breaks News Editor Blair Dee Hodges 626-7655 loose - as in the "pop quiz" example. Sports Editor Jeremy Tyler 626-7983 It is true liberals are the minority. Copy Editor Kristen Hebestreet 626-7659 Conservatives, on the other hand, are the Features Editor Jestca Medellin 626-7621 overwhelming MAJORITY and as long as Entertainment Editor David Fairchild 626-7105 morals, ethics and principals stand in this Business Editor Lisa Mann 626-7624 country, it will stay that way. (In defense of Photo Editor Mo Williams 626-6358 that, it is conservatism that's true; not the Graphics Editor Brady Leaver 626-7661 person, as people tend to do stupid tilings). Online Editor Nick Litster 626-6358 Advertising Manager Brandy Lee 626-6359 Office Manager Georgia Edwards 626-7974 Advisor Allison Hess 626-7499 Distribution Austin Adams 626-7974 Publisher Dr. Randy Scott 626-6464 Signpost Fax 626-7401 don't benefit. Where are the free market principles in that? 1 guess it's like most From the Left things - the rules only apply to the powerless. The American automobile By Martin Marr industry, as one of countless examples, columnist | The Signpost was only able to flourish with devastating effects on the environment with our policy of attacking and because it was helped significantly in its exploiting anyone we want. It's not successful efforts to dismantle a large that the administration didn't know part of public transportation. Thanks to this would happen; it's just that our our fine leaders, the once beautiful Los safety is not a high priority to them Angeles is now an ecological wasteland. in comparison to oil, the control of This is how our economy has been run which is as important as controlling from the beginning. cotton was during America's first days So why are we sitting here putting of industrialization. our energy into bitter fights over who We need not look any further to should run this country? That has see the extent of the elite's intentional already been decided without any exclusion of the population than to input from the peasants. No matter the widely accepted belief that free what our differences are ideologically, market enterprise is responsible for our we all want a society in which we success. How many of those who swear actually participate. Our focus as the by free enterprise, as it is "the only way," powerless - liberals, conservatives, know our economic system is very similar to the communist model in that radicals - should be to seize from the there is extensive state intervention. powerful what we all agree must be in Several corporations have even been the hands of the nation's citizens. Until saved from complete collapse by what then, we can sit around and talk all Noam Chomsky describes as "corporate day, but it doesn't mean anything. We'll welfare," which is the massive subsidies still just be a bewildered herd led into for which we the people pay,-yet surely anything by the elite. Letter to the Editor Liberalism - party of hypocrisy The Signpost - The Signpost Is published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the semester. Subscription Is $9 a semester. The first copy of The Signpost Is free, each additional copy Is $.50. • The Signpost Is a student publication, written, edited and drafted by Weber State University students. Student fees partially 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 and the writer's signature. Anonymous letters will not be printed. • The Signpost reserves the right to edit letters for reasons of space and libel and also reserves the right to refuse to print any letter. Letters should not exceed 350 words. Bring letters to the editorial office in SUB 267, mail to: The Signpost, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408-2110. Attn: Editor tn Chief, email theslgnpost@weber.edu UM claims their free speech was violated when it was they who violated Weber State policy and then had the gall to defy Weber's decision in taking the fliers down. You cannot post fliers without the approval of Weber State (especially with duct tape, also against school policy). Do the rules not apply to UM? Liberal or Conservative, brown, white, red or black; the law is the law and applies to everyone, even "UM." Now I would like to offer a "Get Martin Marr out of America" program. All proceeds will go toward buying Martin a one-way ticket to Iraq so he can be united with his terrorist friends, as he is blatantly anti-American. Mr. Jason Wright is also a poster child for the liberal agenda. I wonder if he ever thought to put any blame to Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans or if he just joined the liberal bandwagon of blaming Bush for everything. The problem with the liberal mentality is that it puts sole dependence on the federal government and giving handouts to everyone. Their motto could be: "Why teach men to fish when you can just fish for him and make him completely helpless?" Mr. Nagin knew three days before of the danger and did nothing about it. He also made a fool of himself on national television by screaming and swearing. Now mink back to Rudy Guliani when Sept. 11 happened. Was he screaming? No, he was calm and responsible; not devoid of reality and stewardship as Nagin was/is. So liberals, I am sure, will retaliate against my comments, but that is fine; it is free speech and I support that. But please, do it legally and according to school policy. - Phill Mo n son, WSU student The Signpost wants to know i what you think. j Seiid us a letter \-l v ^ J (shorter than 400 words) : with your name and phone number to: THESIGNPOST@WEBER.EDU |