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Show OPINION LETTERS ' DAVE BARRY Fifth security phone essential to students’ safety A rolling stone... MHere is a letter to the editor concerning a topic before SUUSA and one that’s important to the entire student body. It’s fall semester 1998. Jane leaves the library as it closes. Due to the increase of students here at SUU, parking close to where you need to be is a nightmare, especially in the library parking lot. Jane had to park down below the Centrum, where, of course, there was parking. She begins her trek to her car and soon realizes that there are no other students or gets She around. people nervous, but having no other choice, continues. As she gets to the P.E. Building she begins to feel very uneasy. All of the sudden she hears footsteps behind her, her heart skips a beat and fear rises. She turns around and there is a man behind her, watching her very intently. Her blood runs cold, she’s is ready to cry and she knows that no one else is around to help her. Does she have any hope? Here is the part where you the student body of SUU and SUUSA get to finish the story. There are two options for an ending. Option #1: Jane sees the security phone ahead and knows that she can reach the phone, hit the button, and curtail a potential attack by the light and noise of the COMMENTARY phone. Option #2: Jane hurries her pace, but he matches her stride. She knows that she does not have a prayer [0 in outrunning him and so she silently prays that she is just being overly paranoid. Jane is brutally raped. This is just one case scenario. security phones. 2. Assessments of the campus and the growth estimates put the number of security phones needed to between eight and 10. 3. Adding a fifth phone now will save money by ordering five phones and having all installed at the same time. 4. The phones will be used to prevent One that may possibly have attacks (just by being present) already happened. We, the and to bring help in case of an student body and SUUSA, have attack, to report incidents of the ability right now to prevent crime or vandalism, and for hapever from situation this emergency situations. 5. The pening or from ever happening phones have an added feature, again. A bill is before SUUSA security cameras that will for the purchase of a security video vandal and attackers. phone that will be placed by The bottom line—the phone the P.E. Building and the is needed now. If “bugs” need Centrum, up to $5,000 will be to be worked out during a trial allotted. Four phones are being period, as the Senate is pur-chased through other concerned, then it’s best to do funding. Two phones will be the trial period with the five uad, placed near the upper-q phones. The time to act in one by the Business Building now! Talk to and write you and the east side of the Student Senators. Let them know Center, and the other one on Attend stand. you where the north side of campus as on held, meetings Senate you exit the Sharwan Smith Tuesday at 5 p.m., in the Student the to go and Center Student Confer-ence Center. Center parking lot. the beginning of Senate At y and necessar are The phones there is an open forum where cover other parts of campus, yet the southwest portion of the audience, you the student, have the opportunity to stand campus is left untouched and and be heard. Take a stand and wide open for attack. Hence, let them know you are not the need for a fifth phone. willing to let a price be place We 1. facts. some Here are on your safety and virtue. four-year only the are university in the state of Utah Jennifer Baldwin that does not have blue | So get this: I partied with Mick Jagger. Well, OK, perhaps “partied with” is too strong a term. Perhaps a better term would be “was in the vicinity of.” But still. Mick Jagger! The way this happened was, I got a fax from a public-relations agency inviting me to a party being given by a person named Chris Blackwell, who is very famous although I honestly still don’t know why. The invitation said: “Among the guests expected are The Rolling Stones.” Of course I wanted to go. I have been a gigantic Rolling Stones fan since the Spanish-American War. I asked a friend, novelist Paul Levine, if he wanted to go to the party, and he said yes, despite the risk that I would, in this column, mention his forthcoming book 9 Scorpions,which Paul describes as “a story of seduction and corruption at the something whose work “is in like museums all over the place.” and an actor named Antonio something who had been in a Calvin Klein underwear commercial. So anyway, Paul and I were sitting in a corner, a pair of fossils, when the front door opened, and guess who walked in, in all his rock-idol glory? That’s right: Elvis. No, seriously, it was Mick Jagger. When I saw him, I felt a thrill, because suddenly, there was somebody at the party who was even older than I am. He's only a little older, but he has been living rock-star years, which take a much greater toll. In person, he looks like Yoda wearing a Mick Jagger wig. But he seemed like a pleasant enough person, as near as I could tell from watching a crowd of “avant-garde” people trying to get as close to him as Supreme Court.” possible while pretending not Marlin Hotel and immediately my way in there and strike up a Paul and I arrived at the determined that we were the oldest people who had ever set foot in there by a good 30 years. The party featured very loud music and many “avant-garde” people lounging around amid the new hotel decor. We did not see any Rolling Stones. But there were several famous people on hand, including: An artist named Kenny to. I considered trying to push conversation with Mick, , but it was 10:30 p.m., way past my bedtime. So Paul and I left. But [ enjoyed the evening. The way I see it, I was, briefly, hanging out with an actual Rolling Stone. If you see it differently, get offa my cloud. Dave Barry is a nationally syndicated columnist. The First Dog may prove to be Clinton’s only friend Buddy is a good name for the president’s dog. He needs one, now more than ever. , At his press conference this week, Buddy’s owner quoted, yet again, that ancient adage of Harry Truman: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. But like many cliches, this one endures because it's true— particularly for second-term presidents. It always happens the same way. The close friends and associates who come to Washington with any new administration are seldom around five years later. Some have been indicted. Others burn out. Many return to the case, it's almost impossible to know whether people like you for yourself or what you can do for them. The only friends you can really trust are the old ones, the ones who knew you when. Steve covered the last years of the Reagan administration, and so many of the president’s intimates were gone that he hated staying in Washington and rattling around the White House. He headed for his ranch in Santa Barbara every chance he got. better pay and better hours of private life. The president, in a sense, is left behind. Look at the position of White House chief of staff. COKIE & STEVE ROBERTS Panetta, Erskine Bowles. And Bowles is itching to get COMMENTARY Clinton has already had three—Mac McLarty, Leon back home, where his family has season tickets to the University of North Carolina Tarheels. Last week we attended a going away party for two old friends who came to Washington at the dawn of the Clinton administration. They held a fund-raiser for the We got a glimpse of presidential restlessness last summer. Hillary was out of town, and the president was his presidential trek, and after serving in top positions during Clinton’s first term they were heading home to California. Their replacements won't have anything like the same history with Bill or Hillary Clinton. Once a president loses friends like that, they’re hard to replace. Jack Kennedy once said that the White House is a lousy place to make new friends, and he was right. A president never meets people casually, and in any he and his wife Heidi were having dinner with us, the president announced he might join the party. We laughed it off until a delegation of Secret Service agents showed up at the resturant and told us the president-would be arriving shortly. A few minutes later he strolled in, took off his coat in the August heat, and stayed for almost two hours. Clearly he had no interest young governor of Arkansas when he was just starting talking with Mickey Kantor, his former trade representative and Commerce Secretrary. The conversation turned to plans for the evening, and when Mickey said in returning to an empty White House. During that evening, the president talked a lot about his daughter Chelsea, and her imminent departure for college. People forget that the First Family is still a family, and an empty nest can be just as empty on Pennsylvania Avenue as it is in Altoona, Pa. Which brings us to the First Dog. A new puppy is a pretty good substitute for a new friend, or a departed daughter. Dogs don'’t care if you're a president or a postman. They don’t read the polls or listen to the pundits. Unlike Newt Gingrich, they come when called. And they probably think Rush Limbaugh is the name of some doggy snack. When our daughter Rebecca left for college, she bought us a dog. It was an obvious attempt to stop us from visiting her every other weekend, but it worked. Today our slow, smelly old bassett hound named Abner is still around, still greeting us at the door on cold winter nights when the house is dark with loneliness. A pet, a sniff, a lick—they make a real difference. We must warn the president: The scene is not always idyllic when you come home to a dog. Abner recently chewed through several layers of styrofoam to get at a Christmas cake our son had sent us from London. So Buddy, listen up pal. If you keep the president happy he’ll do a better job. His place in history might well rest in your paws. Cokie and Steven Roberts are nationally syndicated columnists. |