OCR Text |
Show I opinions A4 MONDAY • AUGUST 13 • 2007 Editorial Glass housing a stone's throw from campus Student housing is a hot issue on the minds of college students, and UVSC students are no exception. Location, cost, roommates and amenities are all important factors students need to consider when contemplating living arrangements. As of last April, new rules for BYU-approved housing went into effect that changed the boundaries to include only those student-housing facilities that exist within a two-mile radius of BYU campus. Good news for UVSC students, we now have more options at our disposal, more territory to call our own, right? Well, not exactly. Despite our cross-town neighbors reigning in their ideological dominion of student housing to a two-mile radius around BYU campus, many student-housing complexes in the Orem area that serve the needs of UVSC students are continuing to enforce BYU standards regardless. One such housing complex, Ventana, located at 1368 South 400 West in Orem, not only imposes BYU standards on its tenants but also offers a $50 rent discount to any tenants who, "endorse our rules and regulations by signing an agreement with a bishop or other approved endorser," as stated on their Ventana Web site. "This is Ventana's approach to attracting good tenants and a clean and safe environment." "Good," "clean" and "safe" they say ... a clever use of semantics that amounts to a rhetorical housing complex of cards. As John Milton wrote in his work titled THE AREOPAGITICA, "I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us." Included on Ventana's list of pre-approved endorsers is a pastor, a university (read "BYU") professor and a person whose only listed qualification is "business owner." Of course, Ventana tenants can use a spiritual advisor or mentor of their own choosing, but they have to file the paperwork and undergo an approval process of their own, according to Ventana's Web site. No longer able to cite the BYU Honor Code as reasoning, other housing complexes near UVSC campus that once formally possessed "approved" status are dubiously continuing to enforce what is now nothing more than antiquated dogma, as if nothing has changed. We at The College Times, both LDS and non-LDS alike, would like to express to any landlord, school administrator, state legislator, or Board of Regents member who believes they are doing a community service by making de facto religious standards official policy, that we judge such actions to be fundamentally unethical and a heinous violation of the basic human rights that our self-proclaimed "community leaders" pay lip service to whenever it serves their political purpose. If it would not be acceptable to be stripped of your liberty once you step outside Utah County, it is not acceptable to strip others of theirs once they step in. Like it or not, we are not a nation unto ourselves here. We would expect a culture comprised of people who claim to cherish constitutionally protected civil liberties to offer the same consideration to others. That pesky 14th Amendment ... you know, the one that applies the Constitution to the states, includes Utah County as well. And even though the word "state" will no longer be a part of our school's name as of July 1, 2008, this will still continue to be a public institution; deal with it. Lost Passport For: Mohammad Samir Hasan Mustafa Passport Number: H250249 Contact: (801) 864 -4300 Staff Infection Did you have any goals set for this summer? If so, what were they? Did you accomplish them? Brandon Schelin/CollegeTimes Longboards banned high horses still allowed continuum, sending the entire county hurdling through JaredMagill the vast expanse of time to Opinions editor a point 20 years in the past. Great Scott! We need a And the 2007 Nobel Prize for Science goes to the technician down at the CounUtah County Commission ty Commission headquarwho definitively proved ters to recalibrate their flux that time travel is pos- capacitor so they can start sible, but only in reverse. applying forward-thinking • soluThey t ions made It's' like saying we're going to curthe disc o v e r y to dose down the roads because r e n t issues, q u i t e there's a car accident/" rather inadvertently by unanimously than recycling attitudes passing an ordinance that from the "Trickle-Down categorically banned skate- •Economics" era? It's 1987 boards and longboards again: oh, the nostalgia. The new ordinance, on all Utah County trails which took effect on Aug. on Wednesday, July 25. 10, came as a knee-jerk reThough there are 21 sponse to complaints filed miles of scenic parkways by other trail users, primarily maintained by the county, one that stemmed from an inthe ordinance was specificident involving longboardcally intended to target a five-mile stretch of the ers in early July, in which Provo River Parkway span- a child was hospitalized. According to an Aug. 9 ning from Vivian Park to report in the Deseret Mornthe mouth of Provo caning News, County Comyon. That particular section missioner Gary Anderson of trail is, without a doubt, stated the commission the most popular site for longboarding in the UC. never intended for the orIt must have been during dinance to be permanent, the debate and deliberation but that the commission of the issue that the actual acted for liability reasons. However, Utah Code time-travel took place. As Section 78-27-63, which near as anybody can tell, it passed in 2006, bars all liappears to have been caused ability claims against counby the rapid-fire blabbering ties or municipalities for of one lame excuse after injuries which result from another, which continued until a spinning vortex of the inherent risks of certain legal jargon, rhetoric, and recreational activities on logical fallacies condensed property owned by those in the center of the commis- entities. The activities listed sion chambers until it had include rodeos, equestrian skateboarding, enough gravity to actually activities, roller skating, ice skating, tear a hole in the space-time My goal for this summer was to write a screenplay. I didn't achieve this goal, but I feel like I'm at an advantage for next summer with all the practice I've had at text messaging and inane emails. -Amy Wilson One of my goals was to take Driver's ' ed. and Indeed I did. I am not far from obtaining my driver's liscence This has been a HUGE goal. And I have accomplished it. -Robert Jones I wanted to study for the G.R.E. but then I realized that is boring so I watched reruns of C.S.I, instead. - Eleanor Takahashi Complete my general education requirements doing as little work as possible. -Jason Adkins fishing, hiking, bike riding and in-line skating. So, the liability excuse doesn't fly, unless of course, from our current vantage point 2006 has not yet happened. The commissioner might have made his point more effectively if he had, in homage of 1987, simply yelled the phrase, "Skaters suck!" while speeding past in ablack Trans-Am with his mullet blown back in the wind. In any event, it appears that those who prefer to ride around on high-horses will still be permitted on trails in the UC. In a July 26 report in the Deseret Morning News, associate Utah County engineer and county traffic investigator Paul Hawker rationalized the commission's discriminatory decision by stating that among the thousands of trail users per day from midmorning until late afternoon, longboarders do not make up enough of a majority to be granted the same rights as others. Though he destroyed his own credibility decisively enough by implying that marginalizing minority groups is a viable solution, it seems even more suspect that the person in charge of monitoring traffic on the trails made no mention of the hours between dusk and 11 p.m., a time when longboarders tend to outnumber all other user groups combined. Kevin Jones, a longboarder from Pleasant Grove who said he rides the Provo River Parkway with his wife and friends fre- I had two goals, one from this summer and one that I found that I made last summer. This summer my goal was to get an internship done. I interned at the Daily Herald. Last summer my goal was to impregnate my wife. She's due in November. Done and done. - Chad Hunt I wanted to lose 20 lbs., get back 20 years and read 20 books. 1 read the books. - Robbin Anthony My goal was to sell my house and move back to Orem-gas prices are killing me. I have not accomplised that yet. -JaredMagill It's my opinion that goals are not a good idea, they're merely another way of setting yourself up for disappointment - Brandon Schelin quently, disagrees with the ordinance. "It's' like saying we're going to close down the roads-because there's a car accident," Jones said. "This is the closest thing we have to a skatepark for longboarders: If they ban us from using it, people are going to be riding through traffic on 800 North. Is that what they want?" Brian Shuey, the man who, according to Deseret Morning News reports, organized a rally complete with a petition on Aug. 4, and met with county officials on Aug. 8 to propose solutions, says he is trying to play it cool. "It isn't a 'petition,' per se. It just represents the backing of people who believe we deserve the same rights as the others on the trail. We aren't trying to 'force' them to do anything, that being the purpose of a petition. We are just calmly trying to get our way back on the trails," Shuey said. Though we are not likely to see a reverse of logic resulting in other user groups being banned from trails to protect longboarders any time soon, it does appear that cooler heads will prevail and those who prefer to move sideways will have their rights reinstated. A hearing will be held on Aug. 29 at 100 E. Center St. in Provo in the County Commission Chambers, room 1400, to discuss plausible .solutions. Hopefully, once this issue is resolved we can all just chalk it up as "a blast from the -past." I have set goals every summer since I started pre-school. So, I spent all of my summers preparing for spelling bees, at gymnastics classes, etc. So, this summer 1 promised to not make any goals whatsoever. I didn't accomplish anything too impressive, but it was fantastic three months! - Mel Sundquist My goal was to get rich doing summer sales. I went and realized it's not what the managers tell you it is. The entire industry cares about one thing, money!! - Erik Frederickson My goal for the summer was to become well read... and I did. (Man, I love CALVIN AND HOBBES!) - Jason Pyles |