Introspection for a new semester

Introspection for a new semester
Damn the Man

The first step as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender. That is the time when they are easily molded and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark.
— Plato

Nick Bahl

Welcome to “Freshman Orientation 1010.” Today we’re going through a few things you should know about college, but first, I will introduce myself.
Now that you’ve looked at my picture, it’s time to read my name – good you’re catching on! I promise that you will see flyers up all over campus telling you to boycott me for a number of reasons in the next year – don’t be left out! Why will this happen, You ask? Well, people either love me or they hate me, and as you continue to read this you’ll understand why. Isn’t it so much easier to keep your friends close and your enemies closer when there’s no middle ground? Now, I’ll tell you why I’m here, but I’ll have to be blunt because I don’t know any better way to be truthful, and I’m always truthful. Are you ready?
I am here to stir thought – God knows some of us need it! I offer opposition to what our professors preach as “right” and “wrong.” You see, I preach anti-propaganda and this often angers the herd. I give facts and offer other ways to look at these facts, because even though our professors preach – and it is preaching in the same sense it’s used in religion – about free thinking and open mindedness, they do so only to make us vulnerable to their propaganda. Our professors are purposefully trying to forge the world into what they think it should be. The difference between politicians and professors – both are corrupt – is simply a matter of degree, but a degree of what?
Professors choose to take the low road; their way doesn’t require reality-based implementation of ideas, ideals, and solutions – Noam Chomsky comes to mind – nor does it require appeasement of the masses through efficient responses to their needs and desires. Our professor’s road only requires the manipulation of young and tender minds so that someday – why doesn’t this day ever come? – these minds will try what they are unwilling to do themselves.
If we are to be molded by intellectuals – a majority of our professors, and all of them I am talking about, are intellectuals, which means they are “all theory and no action,” and as a result naive themselves – we have to be persuaded into being more naïve then they. Does this sound like a slippery slope? We have to be convinced that reality doesn’t factor into ideals, that all people have, are capable of having, and should have, a passive, “stoner,” mentality, and that all people are rational – beyond cultural, ethical, religious, and biological resistance – enough to work together. We have to be convinced that all people are capable of working together toward one goal, that they are the ones who should lead us to this goal – there aren’t leaders if everyone’s equal and they claim that they fight for equality! – and that this goal is world peace. I can count the number of times the entire world has worked together – toward our own destruction – on one finger and this started the day desire evolved. Would you like an example of how professors spread their germs?
Shopping for books in Auraria’s library is always interesting, as you know or will soon find out. For me, it’s interesting to see what’s considered required reading for certain departments. A couple days ago I was trying to purchase my books for the third time, and I stumbled upon the history section. Michael Moore and Howard Zinn – at least Zinn admits that he’s as biased as Heaven – are required reading this year in the “history” department. Where are Rush Limbaugh’s books? I don’t even read that one-sided nonsense, with or without balance, in the political science department, and here it is being preached as objective fact. When did the losers (pun intended) start writing the history books?
Naïveté is ignorance, ignorance is bliss, and bliss is easy to spot. Americans work together less and less as a result of irrelevant New Deal politics – the American dream is no longer earned, it’s said to be provided as if it’s a right we’re granted somewhere! – and this “open-minded” propaganda our professors spew. Now don’t get me wrong, thinking for yourself and being open minded are two of the best things you can accomplish, and that’s the point of this, but only when you’re willing to work hard for the American dream instead of claiming it as your own before you earn it. Does anyone understand that the world doesn’t work without hard work?
Knowledge is the only intangible means to an end that we’re going to gain by being in school. Understanding can and should be the result of knowledge. Understanding and experience make us wise. Knowledge and understanding can be used as a means to productive and counterproductive ends, as many of our professors and all intellectuals prove. Wisdom, by definition, can only be used as a means to productive ends. What these ends maybe are still undiscovered, but why shouldn’t we try to uncover them?
Socrates is famous for, among other things, standing up and declaring that he knew nothing. John Keats later followed suit by saying, “I know nothing, I have read nothing and I mean to follow Solomon’s direction of ‘get wisdom – get understanding’ – I find cavalier days are gone by. I find that I can have no enjoyment in the World but a continual drinking of Knowledge. …There is one way for me – the road lies through application, study and thought.”
Who’s willing to help the world by becoming wise through application, study, thought, and experience? Let’s start this year off right by wandering away from the herd – it doesn’t matter what shepherd you follow – by taking everything we’re told with a grain of salt. Would it make sense to start with what I have just said?

Headlines

It’s still the Economy, Stupid
Joel Tagert
The Metropolitan

Every student here has George Bush and Bill Owens to thank for $400 missing from their wallets this year.
That’s right: Four hundred dollars. That’s the cost of a new iPod. That’s this January’s rent. That’s forty meals out. That’s twenty-five new CDs. That’s six months’ auto insurance.
Doubt it? Do the math: in the fall of 2002 I paid $1798 in combined tuition and fees for fifteen credit-hours. This fall, I’ll pay $1921 for fourteen credits. When adjusted for the one less credit, school is almost exactly two hundred dollars more expensive this fall than last.
Welcome to addition a lá Bush. The formula looks like this: Big tax cuts + big Iraq war = more for the rich and less for the poor.
Oh, George and Bill will protest and say, “It’s not our fault; it’s the poor economy!” Sorry, guys, but face the facts: The poor economy IS your fault.
The Republican Party could have made a genuine attempt to rejuvenate the economy and prepare for a sustainable future. They could have given real government support to education, renewable energy, and affordable medical care.
Instead, they have stuck with a failed program of tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, military adventurism, prison construction, and the starvation of social uplift programs.
Here in Colorado, we have the spectacle of Bill Owens attacking Amendment 23 – which mandates fixed yearly increases in K-12 spending – while stubbornly defending TABOR – which severely restricts government spending and its methods of gathering revenue, and thereby limits government’s ability to respond to economic downturns.
TABOR has also had many other unfortunate effects, perhaps foremost among them that it affects social programs unequally. Corrections spending has skyrocketed even as education spending has plummeted. Construction will begin soon on a new prison on the former property of The Rocky Mountain News, even as Denver’s state colleges face enormous budget shortfalls.
Nationally, the problem is even worse. Bush has forestalled actual cuts in the education budget by passing a bloated budget that creates an unprecedented government debt, but funding for his ballyhooed No Child Left Behind program is nevertheless a fraction of what was promised. Meanwhile, the increased government debt will drive the economy further into the dust.
In a recent speech to members of Moveon.org, Al Gore quoted economist George Akerlof, who described Bush’s policies as “a form of looting.” This is exactly on target. Bush himself has never been poor and cares nothing for the poor. He cares far more about $10,000 a plate fundraising dinners like the one held at Wings Over the Rockies in Denver this month.
It’s little surprise that the Democratic presidential nominees who challenge Bush’s regressive policies – nominees like Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean – are steadily gaining support, as Bush’s approval ratings steadily drop. In another year or so, we may say that George’s presidency was just like his father’s: he had his war, but it was the economy that mattered.

Headlines

Concealed on Campus
by Elena Brown
The Metropolitan

Say you’re sitting in class and daze off, we’ve all done it, and while your gaze drifts around, you notice a student sketching, another text messaging. And then you see the butt of a gun in an open backpack or purse.
Is there anything you can do?
Well, you could go to the teacher and express your concerns, but thanks to Colorado law the teacher might also have a gun. It’s now within your legal right to carry a registered concealed handgun if you have a permit. And you can carry it everywhere: At the gas station, into a movie theater, while shopping and on campus. All you need is $152.50 and be 21 to get the permit.
According to the MSCD Institutional Research, about 60% of Metro’s 20, 368 students could qualify for the permit. Add the average student age to be 28 at UC D and the percentage shoots up. Out-of-state students have to check with the Colorado Reciprocity to see if the permit you got in California is allowed here ( it’s not, but it’s a go if you’re from Kentucky ).
Although this Wednesday, the Auraria Board will vote to either permit the permit or ban all weapons entirely. I just don’t understand why one would feel the need to bring a gun on to campus. Have you seen the angry student who didn’t get the good? Or the teacher that can’t seem to take control of their class? And not to mention the level of stress this campus has during finals week. The human element combined with bullets does not bode well.
What ever happened to my right to feel safe? I don’t want to sit three chairs away from a student with a gun. Nor do I want to talk about my grades with a professor with a loaded gun. Some businesses, like Colorado Mills mall and Six Flags at Elitch Gardens, have posted NO FIREARMS signs only to be boycotted by a local pro-gun website that has posted the names of businesses with no gun policies and encourages people to take their business elsewhere.
There are those who believe that Colorado would be safer if law-abiding citizens could carry guns, “It’s a right to self-defense,” they say. But let’s look long and hard at accepting this policy on campus.
What’s a person to do when walking alone at night on a college campus? Well, you call Nightrider, through the campus police or the Parking department. The Nightrider service runs Monday through Friday until 10 at night. They provide an escort service and scheduled pickup to the parking garage, the bus or the light-rail. The service requires no permit, only a student ID.
To all you pistol-packing, gun-totin concealed collegians: Keep your firearms off my campus. And to the Auraria Board: Vote well, my right to safety and comfort is in your hands.

Headlines

Bjork, goddess of trance inducing music
Lindsay Sandham
The Metropolitan

OK, so this may be a little biased since I’ve been a huge Bjork fan since her first album, “Debut”, but after seeing her at Red Rocks, Aug. 18, I’m convinced that she is, indeed, a goddess.
Wil Oldham, a.k.a “Bonnie Prince Billy,” opened the show and barely held a candle to an inspiring performance by the Icelandic music diva.
Bjork, accompanied by an orchestra and a big, beautiful harp, captured the audience from the moment she set foot on stage, decked in white heels, black leggings, an outrageous black tutu, and a sequined black top with large green ruffles covering her left shoulder.
Hopping around on stage like the freaky chick she is, the audience was hypnotized from the opening song to the encore.
At one point, I looked around and discovered a sea of emotional faces, people crying, girls shouting their love for Bjork and as always, at any concert, a lot of really drunk people.
I was in a hypnotic trance throughout the entire performance, and I refused to even let myself go to the bathroom for fear of missing anything.
As much as I enjoyed watching the performance, I equally enjoyed closing my eyes, for then I could have been anywhere; on a gondola in a sea of Iceland-white clouds, under a palm tree on a deserted island, or even at the edge where reality meets imagination.
Having been such a huge fan for such a long time, every song evoked different memories of different times in my life, and by the end of the show I had explored the entire gamut of emotions.
I got the feeling this was much the case for several other concert-goers; the girl next to me sobbed for almost the entire show as she sang along with all her favorites, and I saw a grown man with his head in his hands as she chanted the emotionally-stirring lyrics to “Pagan Poetry”.
To top it all off, several numbers included flames and fireworks on-stage, along with an amazing display of stage lights.
The only complaint I could possibly have was that the show was much too short, yet I can only imagine the toll it must take on her, belting out inspirational lyrics in an all-encompassing vocal range.
I overheard a variety of attitudes about the concert, but the general perception was, “That was the most amazing show I’ve ever seen”.
Granted, almost any show at Red Rocks is awe-inspiring, but this one takes the cake for me and is officially The Best Concert I’ve Ever Seen.

Headlines

To pee or not to pee
Tim Dunbar
The Metropolitan

Note to the squeamish: This column is about a certain bodily function. If you do not have or cannot admit to having bodily functions and/or talk of such things bothers you, I advise you to stop right here, put the paper down and seek therapy. Otherwise, feel free to keep reading. Thank you.
The geniuses at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology apparently have a little too much time on their hands these days. A student there has come up with a new video game designed to help men aim better at the urinal. Hmmm.
One of MIT’s technoids and the inventor of the game, Dan Maynes-Aminzade was quoted (in The Week) saying “If you look in any men’s restroom, there are usually splashes all over the floor. He goes on to claim that “it’s a well-documented problem. Maynes-Aminzade’s game, “You’re in Control” (if you don’t get the pun, email me at dunbar@mscd.edu and I’ll explain it to you) has sensors in the porcelain – the impetus behind the splashing problem, if you ask me; but more on that in a moment – which displays, on a computer screen at eye level, the results of the game. Apparently Mr. Hyphenate and his partners feel that aim, or lack thereof, is what causes those “splashes all over the floor.”
After consulting Annette Yuri, an R.N. at Denver Urology Clinic and Dr. Ben Green, a psychiatrist, I learned that urine leaves the male human body at an average of eight to ten c.c.s per minute at 30 c.c.s per ounce Once you divide c.c.s per minute by the cross-sectional area of the urethra and apply a very complicated mathematical formula you (well, maybe you; certainly not me) can translate the number into miles per hour.
Which tells me, someone who knows a little something about basic anatomy but virtually nothing about mathematics, that urine leaves the male human body —and feel free to quote me here; I did my research, so I know from whence I write — really, really fast.
Taking into consideration that whole “an object in motion stays in motion until it comes in contact with a stationary force” thing, my contention is that aim is not a factor in what I’ll call Messy Bathroom Floor Syndrome. No, the problem is velocity. Urine whizzes (no pun intended) out the tiny urethra at speeds unknown from a distance of only a few inches and WHAM, right into a hard, unforgiving porcelain surface. Splashing is inevitable, messes unavoidable. Show me any man in khakis or, God forbid, white pants who has just finished in the restroom, and I’ll show you a man with wet spots on his pants. Does he not aim? Of course he does, diligently even, but to no avail.
So my suggestion (and the entire point to this diatribe, in case you were wondering whether I had one and when I’d get to it) is this: Instead of wasting their time and tuition creating a silly game, which Maynes-Aminzade’s partner claims will “bring some of the fun into peeing,” how about spending the time and effort in creating a better surface on which to pee. Or better, a urinal that eliminates the need to aim and therefore the problem of splashing? Heck, they’re MIT; how about creating something that will eliminate altogether the need to go?

Headlines

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