OCR Text |
Show Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010 Page II Views&Opilli011 Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.utahstatesman.com A bout U S OurView y Editor in Chief You're an Aggie, now act like one ou go here, you cheer here. There have been numerous sightings of USU students sporting BYU - and other schools' - apparel. To those students who feel this is appropriate behavior, we say, "What the hell is wrong with you?" Nobody wants to sit next to a zoobie in class and smell that awful stench that permeates from a supporter of a school that does not allow its students to make their own righteous decisions. These students let the school choose how far a member of the opposite sex can walk into their apartment or how little facial hair a male can have on his face. It is even a campus that is covered in grass on which students are not allowed. For these individuals who favor this type of atmosphere - and who should be in a mental ward - you deserve the snide comments you may get in class. In fact, you deserve a lot more than that. Show some Aggie pride. Be proud to be a student at USU. Go to the games and cheer for the school you pay for your education. There must be some reason you are here at USU. It could be we have a better academic program that you are interested in or you just didn't want to live in "happy valley." Just because your mommy and daddy, or even your second great-uncle twice removed are all BYU alumni, we don't care. Take off that BYU t-shirt and adorn yourself with real clothing - Aggie clothing. We could come up with an entire list of brutal, horrible things that could theoretically happen to those students who feel the need to betray their school and cheer for BYU. Slushies in the face, toilet swirlies and being hung by your underpants from the flag pole are the elementary school versions of the situations you may find yourself in if you tend to flaunt any BYU pride. Avoid it. Burn that BYU t-shirt. If you don't, then you can't complain about what may or may not happen to you. Utah State athletics are rapidly on the rise, so be a part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. We understand that you may like or even, unfortunately, support BYU. In fact, you may like BYU enough to have a a poster of their cheerleaders hanging above your bed, but show some loyalty to the school you attend. If for no other reason, we at least let you walk on the grass. Speaking up for the twelve percent Last week the Logan City Opposition Council voted to invite more drug dealers into our city by Research stomping on our individual freedoms and turning 12 percent of USU students into criminals. I'm referring to the recent banning of Spice in USTIN HINH Logan and my complete and utter disdain for how our cornmunity has responded has pushed me into writing this article. All of you sit on your high horse and look down upon those who have recreationally used drugs for no other reason because you are "morally right." I pride myself on being one of those 12 percent who has used Spice within the last year and I can tell you that the stories and examples used by those pushing to criminalize this drug are nothing short of outright lies. Spice is a substance like that of Marijuana in that a synthetic THC compound is sprayed on a relatively harmless plant. But that's what makes Spice one of the safest drug substitutes out there. It is to the brink of medical impossibility that anyone can overdose from Marijuana and Spice. THC is a completely safe compound. This is why for those trying to quit drugs altogether, Spice is a good stepping stone instead of going straight cold turkey. Yes, there are cases of people committing stupid acts, but those people are already stupid. Stupid people do stupid things regardless of whether they are high on Spice or not. It's just like the issue with firearms. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Why then do drugs get treated differently? A Statesman columnist recently wrote that "If you give an inch, they take a mile. If we allow this sense- and judgmentinhibiting drug to be sold in stores, it is one step closer to legalizing marijuana and even harder drugs likes meth and cocaine..." Good. 1111.s J CI See DRUGS, page 12 Benjamin C. Wood News Editor Catherine Meidell Assistant News Editor Megan Bainum Features Editor Courtnie Packer Assistant Features Editor Kellyn Neumann Sports Editor Adam Nettina Assistant Sports Editor Matt Sonnenberg Copy Editor Chelsey Gensel ForumLetters Get educated about inversion To the editor: On Friday September 24, 2010, the Sigma Chi fraternity held a dance marathon to raise money for cancer research and generously offered a tuition waiver as a prize for competing at a small cost. The Statesman, however, did not deem this event worthy of an article. Instead, the school paper chose to run one out-of-context photo with an inaccurate caption. Sigma Chi had even asked the newspaper not to run this photo because it was taken at a blatantly inopportune moment. The girl featured in the photo had jumped on a male friend to give him a hug, the two weren't dancing, but the photo was presented without explanation and in a biased manner. The person who chose to insensitively use this photo had some apparent motivations of making the fraternity's event look bad and even neglected to mention in the caption that the danceathon was, in fact, for charity. Sorry cancer research is not something you deem Photo Editor Carl R. Wilson Letters to the editor • A public forum worthy of a serious article or, at the very least, honest and unbiased journalism. The men of Sigma Chi endeavored to do something charitable and generous for the student community and they are being misrepresented and disrespected in return. The organizations on campus shouldn't have to worry about having their charitable efforts conveyed in a negative light by the student newspaper but, unfortunately, they do. Also, in a single caption the Statesman failed to spell words correctly: it's "waiver" not "waver". Erin Anthony Finding the life of the mind When students commence their college eduFaculty cation, they often believe Voices that it will change their lives in a practical way. They will study to become engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, entrepreneurs, along with myriad other noble and behavior. Wolfe's literary useful possibilities. But how experiment takes Charlotte many also arrive at unifrom her austere, morally versity in search of the life upright family and drops of the mind? Tom Wolfe's her in the midst of a liberal, novel "I Am Charlotte elite University campus, in Simmons" pursues that very a coed dorm, with a sophisquestion by asking us to ticated roommate, and to consider what the life of the make things interesting, he mind is: is the human mind gives Charlotte the desire hardwired so that every for social success. Because aspect of a human life is Wolfe is a fair man, he prodetermined by biology, or vides Charlotte with the do environment and eduopportunity for status at cation have an impact? In Dupont, in both academic fact, the novel is something and social spheres. Wolfe of an experiment in the registers Charlotte for a neudebate between nurture roscience class and nature, and makes newly revived "There has been her social life by the field of much discussion interesting sociobiology by hooking and remarkable about the literher up with a advances in ary merits of 'I handsome but neuroscience. Am Charlotte notorious frat There has boy, as well as Simmons. It won been much disa star basketan award for the ball cussion about player. the literary worst sex scene Charlotte merits of "I in literature the quite literally Am Charlotte believes she year it came Simmons". It finds the life won an award out." of the mind for the worst as a star stusex scene in litdent in Dr. erature for the year it came Starling's Introduction to out. Whatever its stylistic Neuroscience class. The merits, the book raises a question the professor asks vital question for college the class to consider from students. It is an age old the start is whether human question: who am I? beings are genetically deterWolfe takes Charlotte mined animals with a ratioSimmons, an academinal mind; much like a rock cally successful, socially with consciousness, which isolated girl from Sparta, has no ability to change a small town in the hills of the arc of its flight once North Carolina, and gives thrown, but only the capacher a prestigious academic ity to rationalize the path scholarship to the fictional nature has chosen for it or elite campus of Dupont whether external influences, University. Wolfe's objective like good teachers and great in the novel is to determine books, and the free will to the relative significance act on what we learn, can of Charlotte's enviable really change the trajectory IQ and her environment of our lives? in forming and influencIs Charlotte the same ing her ambitions and her Charlotte Simmons from beginning to end? Charlotte arrives at Dupont as a brilliant, dedicated student, exhilarated by the prospect of finding the life of the mind and a cohort of likeminded geniuses, of which she had been deprived in Sparta. But Wolfe suggests that Charlotte changes teams as she becomes suffused in the sexually charged culture of Dupont University. Charlotte sadly suffers a fall from her academic eminence when she is quickly diverted from her quest for knowledge by pedestrian distractions - boys and frat-house parties. Before her academic fall, however, Charlotte inadvertently has a profound influence on one of the star basketball players at Dupont University. Jojo Johanssen has followed the path of other athletes, into dumbed down courses, like "Stocks for Jocks," an economics course created just to get the athletes through their undergraduate education with cooperative teachers. Charlotte, who mistakenly signs up for one of these specially designed courses in French literature for athletes, chastises Jojo for succumbing to peer pressure instead of owning up to his obvious interest in the books. She recommends that Jojo take a course in philosophy if he wants to get a real education at Dupont. The result for Jojo is something of a conversion, a kind of Platonic turning of the soul towards the desire for knowledge. Even in the face of resistance and mockery from the basketball coach, who takes to calling him Socrates, Jojo dangerously takes up the life of the mind in a course called the "Age of Socrates," in response. Jojo finds he likes philosophy, that Plato and Aristotle speak to him I See MIND, page 12 Assistant Photo Editor Alison Ostler Web Editor Tyler Huskinson Editorial Board Benjamin C. Wood Catherine Meidell Courtnie Packer Adam Nettina Chelsey Gensel Tyler Huskinson About letters • Letters should be lim- ited to 400 words. • All letters may be shortened, edited or rejected for reasons of good taste, redundancy or volume of similar letters. • Letters must be topic oriented. They may not be directed toward individuals. Any letter directed to a specific individual may be edited or not printed. • No anonymous letters will be published. Writers must sign all letters and include a phone number or email address as well as a student identification number (none of which is published). Letters will not be printed without this verification. • Letters representing groups — or more than one individual —must have a singular representative clearly stated, with all necessary identification information. • Writers must wait 21 days before submitting successive letters —no exceptions. • Letters can be hand delivered or mailed to The Statesman in the TSC, Room 105, or can be e-mailed to statesman@aggiemail. usu.edu , or click on www.utahstatesman. corn for more letter guidelines and a box to submit letters. Online poll What do you think about the blinking A on Old Main? • Love it. It draws your attention to campus. Hate it. Old Main looks like a trashy casino and it should only shine blue on special occasions. • No Opinion. Visit us on the Web at www.utahstatesman. corn to cast your vote and see results from this straw poll. |