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Show OPINION PHIL CHIDESTER MIKEROYKO COMMENTARY COMMENTARY It's a hunting we all will go It is, by any account, the strangest holiday of the entire year. Unlike Columbus Day or Presidents' Day, Civil Rights Day or the 4th of July, it pays no homage to important figures or events in our nation's history. It speaks nothing of our religious beliefs and celebrations, as do Christmas and Easter; nor does it hearken back to the sentiments of pagan times in a Halloween vein. Not even close. Welcome, instead, to the Harvest Holiday- the best excuse I know to go out and kill something. Now before you roll y9ur eyes, shake your fist at me and cast the rest of these comments aside in abject disgust with a few mumbled comments, let me note one thing. This isn't what you probably think it is. As far as the annual "Deer Hunt" and the famous Harvest Holiday are concerned, my only true sympathies lie ... directly along the proverbial fence right in between the avid hunters and the animal rights activists. I have never actually slogged through the cold mud and mean weather of October in search of that trophy buck. Growing up in a community that all but surrenders to the n eon orange frenzy once a year, however, I have caught at least a hint of the urge for triumph that drives men and women of all ages into these unforgiving hills. Animal rights activists and rifle-toting sports people alike, then, take heart. This isn't going to be another diatribe either in favor of or against the glories and excesses of the hunt. What I intend to do here, instead, is to take a quick look at the holiday itself - and the reasons why we have made of this annual trek a threeday vacation in the first place. As far as I can tell, anyway, the Harvest Holiday is the last significant bit of individuality left to those of us making a home along the American frontier. And that assertion is anything but a leap in logic: after all, while police officers on both coasts buy back guns to get them out of the hands of drug pushers and gang members, we sell ours on radio shows to the highest bidder- scheming all the while to upgrade our own personal weaponry Some shopping tips are obvious list in hopes of a more successful hunt. Life is, indeed, far different for us here in middle America -and as long as we have rifles to fire and prey to hunt, we can maintain that often tenuous grip on our own singularity, that sense of vital separation from a federal government that can seem too distant, too unabashedly urban, to ever understand the people of this, America's last frontier. Don't forget our instinctual craving for violence and the fundamental role it plays. We are a nation raised on rage, a people bred to brutality in all its particulars; and without an enemy as an easy target for our frustrations, we are all more than likely to turn on ourselves instead. It is a lesson that the political figures of America's dark urban centers seem to have forgotten-and one that will doubtless be far from the minds of the state's hunters on this chill Monday morning to come as well. After all, it is definitely very hard work tracking and bringing down a wild animal, even with the latest in scope technology. Even with a rifle bore the size of a paper towel tube, it is, after all, hard work. It's hard work packing 365 days' worth of violence into a single, frenzied weekend, even if the effort means fresh venison steaks and a rack to be proud of on the living room wall. It's hard work-and it's work that saves us all. So if you find yourself over the next couple of days bathed frequently in an unworldly neon orange glow, if you find yourself battling for parking space and shopping carts with large, scruffy denizens of the back woods, don't begrudge those figures their weekend in the sun. Even if th e hunters are disaffected urban dwellers from the West Coast, even if they are vacationers looking for nothing more than an opportunity to l et off a little steam in o ur southern Utah woods, don't begrudge them their once a year weekend in what little sun is left around at this time of year in Southern Utah. Welcome, one and all, to the Harvest Holidaythe day that speaks nothing of our religious beliefs and celebrations, and the day that is the last significant bit of individuality left to those of us making a home in the west, along the American frontier. The season is, officially open, the weekend in the sun fast approaching. And please, for all our sakes, make sure you kill something while you're out there. I seldom give shopping tips, but here is a piece of shrewd advice that might be handy for those of you thinking of buying a computer. Be sure that the computer you buy will do what you want it to do. In other words, don't buy a computer that won't do what you want it to do. That's because if you buy a computer that won't do what you want it to do, the things you want it to do won't be done. Then you will have wasted money. So I will repeat what should be a hard rule for any computer buyer: Before spending your money, be sure the computer will do what you want it to do. Don't buy a computer that won't do what you want it to do. I'm confident you are impressed by the wisdom and profundity of that statement. No need to thank me. That's why I'm here. But what's that you're saying? That my advice is stupid because it is so obvious? My feelings are hurt. I really thought I was being helpful. You see, I had just read a startling report on the computer purchases of the federal government. I was dismayed to discover that the government has wasted billions of dollars on computers that don't do what the users want the computers to do. One senator, William Cohen, of Maine, says that the government has been spending about $20 billion a year for the past 10 years. Sometimes they don't work because the people who bought the computers didn't bother to ask those who will use the computers what they want the computers to do. That could lead us to another important shopping tip: Always know what you want a computer to do before you buy it. Actually, that advice would apply to just about anything you buy. And I'm sure that once again someone is asking why I am giving out more stupidly shallow advice. But how am I to know that most people are that smart when our very own federal government doesn't follow these obvious guidelines? Here we have a United States senator drafting a n ew law specifically requiring the government to know what a computer will do before it is purchased. See, smarty. If it is so obvious, why do we have to have a new law? The law would also tell the people who buy computers for the government that if there is a computer on the shelf that will do the job, they should buy it rather than asking the com pany to start from scratch to design a computer that will do what the store model will do. I suppose that, too, seems obvious to many readers. Which is why most people buy their computers ready made, instead of hiring a team of engineers to spend millions of dollars to help them find Carmen Sandiego. For a decade or more, we have had government buyers going out and spending billions on computers that don't do what they are supposed to do. Why? I assume that it is because nobody told them: Be sure that machine will do what we want it to do before they bought it. A great cartoon-like light bulb would have gone on over their heads. And we would have saved many billions of our dollars. I wonder if the senator has thought about a law requiring government employees to flush the toilet? Phil Chidester is an SU lecturer in communication. Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist now writing for the Chicago Tribune. THE WATCHDOG Why all the mud near Student Center? Look for solution by end of month, says vice president • The grass on the south end of the Student Center is som ething of the past. N ow there is mud occupying this area and it is a hazard to walk t hrough this section . It is messy and soils the clothes. Why can't the school place gravel there so we can walk through this section without getting dirty? The best thing to do would be to place cement there, but all we need is a temporary solution until the n ew Library is constructed. With the snows com ing and goin g, t his section is just going to continue to get worse. Are we asking too much to have an area that we can walk on to go to and fro ? Aaron Anderson I •According to Vice President for University Affairs Michael D. Richards, "Several areas on campus have problems where some improvements would make access more conve nient. T h e university is currently bidding a concrete project to address four areas: (1) the southeast approach to the Student Center where a new ramp will be installed, (2) the path from the Student Center to the Library/Music plaza where a sidewalk will be constructed, (3) the east approach to the plant operations and automotive facility where a new sidewalk and ramp will be constructed, and (4) the stairway at the northwest corner of the current Library where a ramp will be installed. These projects should be completed by the end of the month. Site work to be done with the new Library will expand some of these improvements and construct them on a permanent basis, but until then, these interim walkways will alleviate some of the concerns many have expressed." Richards also noted that the work was forced to be put off until now because all resources were put into the General Classroom Building renovation and the move of the automotive facility. |