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Our Perspective...
Final grades due for SGA
It becomes prudent at this time each year to take a look back at the year that was 2004-05 at Appalachian. Final grades are also being handed out, and The Appalachian sees no reason not to hand out final grades to the Student Government Association (SGA).
Legislation: C
The amount of legislation produced by SGA this year has been noticeably less than the numbers put forward in years past. This has had both positive and negative effects.
On the plus side, the Senate has spent less time this year debating silly, irrelevant issues that have no bearing on the lives of Appalachian students during their meetings. For example, two years ago the Senate voted on a bill supporting the allotment of more time to United Nations inspectors to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
However, less legislation also means fewer bills that are of high quality or real importance.
Just recently, a bill was passed to edit Judicial Affairs rules, making the consequences for smoking marijuana the same as drinking alcohol. Both substances have restrictions placed on them in residence halls, but the difference is, one of them is illegal and the other is not. When you turn 21, you still can’t smoke pot.
Agenda: A-
Makhyoun and Albu entered the year promising to transform student services, make SGA relevant and care for the environment and community. A few of their main goals were extending the hours of Belk Library, making SGA more visible on campus, implementing the Renewable Energy Initiative and working to reduce the usage of disposable paper and Styrofoam cups.
Check, check, check and check.
Both Makhyoun and Albu understood their respective roles as SGA president and vice president. If a big issue comes along, SGA’s opinion will not make too much of a difference.
This administration acknowledged this fact and took solace in small victories.
Relevance: B-
Before campaigning during last year’s elections, Makhyoun and Albu took a “grassroots” approach in gathering student opinion and modeled their platform accordingly. Instead of making lofty promises for more parking and no more campus construction, their goals were practical and achievable.
On the other hand, as elected leaders, Makhyoun and Albu lost points because their administration was more about advocacy, and less about actual representation. The Starbucks issue, for example, seemed to stem more from personal concern rather than student interest.
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| Melissa Markowitz | Editorial Cartoonist |
Doctorate not needed for Phil's type of advice
I declare war against the autonomous nation-state known as “Dr. Phil.” This insidious, cultural entity has grown too large for its borders. I think it’s trying to take over this country and it is only by sheer miracle that it hasn’t done so already.
Please realize that Dr. Phil McGraw and “Dr. Phil” and are two separate things. One is ostensibly a kind, charming, amusing family man who likes to golf, scuba dive and play tennis. The other is a machine, or has become one, manufactured for the processing of the American people into emotional vegetables.
I don’t much care for Dr. Phil. This board-certified and licensed clinical psychologist is probably a very nice guy, but ever since his debut on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” as an expert on human behavior, the popularity for his “no-nonsense” style has reached, well, nonsensical proportions.
The idea behind his famous approach is pretty simple. People appeal to him with problems that need to be resolved. He analyzes their situation and tells them brutally, frankly and simply what they need to do to fix those problems. Sounds like a good approach. Turns out that it’s quite the double-edged sword.
Increasingly these days, I find his “innovative” approach condescending and facile. His observations are always to the point, sure, but the point appears to be something along the lines of: “well, duh.”
People listen to Dr. Phil as if he is a bearded sage sitting atop a mountain spouting platitudes. He’s just saying what you should already know, you know.
Perhaps once upon a time, “Dr. Phil” was a necessary component of psychological counsel. I think it’s about time his approach went the way of the dodo. Granted, we Americans aren’t the most secure people, but still I have to believe that most people are smarter than Dr. Phil wants them to think they are.
Need some examples of what I’m talking about? Find his official Web site: www.drphil.com. Amidst the pages hawking his books, T-shirts, coffee mugs, baseball caps and picture frames (with logo), you’ll find some amusing vignettes lifted from his daytime talkshow.
Consider the parents distressed over the discipline of their hellion child. Mom and Dad openly admit their parenting styles are about as far apart as the North and South Poles. Dr. Phil’s response: “The first thing you’ve got to do is get unified. You have to close the gap so much that you speak with one voice.”
Or consider the mother who can’t control her raging daughter’s emotional outbursts. Both the mother and the daughter feel that the other person gives them no respect whatsoever, and that this leads to verbal disruption. Dr. Phil’s response: “This family is hurting. This family needs an intervention.”
Every time someone treats Dr. Phil’s advice like it is a deeply personal conclusion that they would have never reached on their own, a small part of my brain is chipped away and sucked into the screaming nether.
Grab a “Life 101” textbook and you could just about equal Dr. Phil’s depth and wisdom.
I can’t deny that the man is inspiring, though. In fact, he has inspired me to invent a coin-operated machine that slaps you upside the head and says, “Get your life together! Shape up! You can do it!” Judging by Dr. Phil’s popularity, I’ll be rich before the year is out.
While you are surfing around his Web site or catching his talkshow, keep an eye out for his son, Jay McGraw. He’s 25, but has already had somewhere around three books published. When I see or hear the counsel offered by Dr. Phil’s son Jay, I don’t think “family legacy” so much as “corporate franchise.”
In the interest of those who feel I have been mean-spirited or unfair, I’ll add the following: I admire Dr. Phil McGraw -- as I must admire any person so clearly earnest about their responsibilities and their ambitions -- but I no longer have much respect for “Dr. Phil.”
Time to take your own advice, Mr. Self-Help. “Get real.”
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Smokers: quitting now could add years to life
What if 400,000 Americans died this year due to something that is easily preventable?
What if one of them was your roommate, your dad, your next-door neighbor, your best friend, your girlfriend, your grandpa or your little brother? Would you want to help them?
What if you knew that in 15 years there would be 10 million deaths per year worldwide due to this exact same plague (www.cureresearch.com), would you want to help then?
Well all of the above is true, thanks to smoking.
Still want to help? Good.
I have never been a smoker. I’ve never even put a cigarette to my lips, but I do have a grandma that smokes, a mom that used to and tons of friends who have picked up this dirty little habit.
It’s not like biting your nails, it is a habit that kills you ever so slowly and hurts so many of the people around you. It’s a cancer-causing, smelly, teeth-staining habit.
But like all other habits, it can be broken.
I realize that it is hard to quit because it’s an addiction, but it is possible. According to www.be-health-smart.com, over 1 million people each year decide to quit and are successful. So I know you can do it. If you don’t smoke, help someone else quit. I know everyone and anyone reading this knows someone who smokes.
Help stop an epidemic that is plaguing our world. Help one person at a time.
I bet that if you are reading this and you’ve been smoking for 20 years you are thinking, “Quitting isn’t going to help me now, its too late for me so I might as well keep on puffing away.” But that’s not true.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 minutes after you stop smoking, your heart rate drops. Twelve hours after quitting, the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal and two weeks to three months after quitting, your heart attack risk drops and your lung functions begin to improve.
If you stick with it for a year, your added risk of heart disease is cut in half. Five years from now, your stroke rate will be reduced to that of a non-smoker and ten years from now, your lung cancer death rate is about half of that of a smoker. What more incentive do you need than life? A longer, healthier and eventually, a happier life.
The average smoker loses 12 years of their life. That’s a long time, a very long time. Those 12 years could be the birth of your grandchild, your 60th, 70th or 80th birthday or your 50-year wedding anniversary.
You don’t want to miss those things, and you probably don’t want your parents, your significant other or your children to miss those things either.
Mark Twain said, “To quit smoking is the easiest thing that I ever did. I ought to know because I’ve done it a thousand times.”
If this sounds like you or someone you know, make this time be the last. The Student Wellness Center and the Appalachian State University Health Services offer information, resources and group or individual counseling to help smokers quit. Information about these programs can be found at 262-3148.
If you are determined to do it on your own but you don’t know if quitting cold turkey is the best way to go then the Health Service Pharmacy offers nicotine gum and nicotine patches.
If you haven’t been moved at all by my non-smoking sermon, then maybe I can give you a monetary incentive.
If you go to www.ashline.org, you can calculate, based on brand, number of cigarettes smoked in one day and amount of time someone has been smoking, exactly how much money you spend on cigarettes every year and how much you have spent so far in your life.
Maybe you will reconsider my plea when you finally see the obscene amount of money that you have spent on harming their bodies.
You can assure yourself that if you save the money usually spent on cigarettes for the next two years, you can buy yourself a new car.
Whatever your choice is regarding this topic, I hope smokers at least keep a few of these statistics in mind while you puff your life away.
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Letters to the Editor
Editorial puts newspaper's foot in mouth
I agree with The Appalachian’s “Our Perspective” article (4-7-05) “in part.” The SGA administration has put in over 6,400 hours in “closed-door meetings, [making] phone calls, [sending] e-mails, and networking.” But, you forget that the SGA’s fundamental purpose is student advocacy.
Anyone who knows anything about advocacy knows that it takes more than a formal statement like legislation to accomplish anything. You also forget that the SGA operates primarily as an executive body, not a legislative one.
Legislation does not put on programming, it does not mobilize political resources, and it does not institute programs like Legends, Mountaineer Escort, or the campus Blue Light system.
If you want things to happen, you have to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself. You harangue the SGA for being “amateurish” with student’s money yet you forget that you are not professional journalists as they are not professional politicians.
You really put your foot in your mouth by asking, “Why weren’t they having this type of debate in September?” The senate did debate and fiercely.
From the end of September to mid-October, the senate went into debate three times over one piece of legislation and the appointment of two cabinet members and once again in November.
Part of The Appalachian’s duty, as the only print news media on campus, is to criticize organizations letting them know when they have strayed.
If this article’s critique pretends to fulfill this duty, then it is “too little, too late.”
Jason Radford
Director of External Affairs, SGA
Junior
ASU Box 14271
SGA criticism is trite
Your April 7 editorial was snide and trite. You lay all the responsibility of creating leaders on the SGA President, implying that her duties involve not only running senate meetings and working on legislature, but forcing the horse to drink as well. This is pap.
SGA, by definition, allows students to excel at their own pace, according to their responsibilities. To lay the blame for the recent lackluster candidates at the feet of the current leaders is silliness, because their responsibility is to create opportunities for people to excel – which they have. Remember, if you will, that no one hand-picked Nick and Miriam in order to “train and develop” them – they actually had a strong drive to develop themselves.
Watching The Appalachian trying to lambaste the current leadership for other people’s vague potential future failures is like hearing a six-year-old whine that Jimmy’s mom lets them eat popsicles. Also, criticizing SGA for efficient meetings is simply dumb.
Peter Van Schoick
Senior
ASU Box 15408
Column pleases NRA member
I just wanted to thank Kyle Conrad for the editorial on PETA in the April 7 edition of The Appalachian. I’m glad to see that someone has the guts to show PETA for what they really are. I’m also extremely glad to see at least one more Appalachian student admit that they are a card-carrying NRA member! Keep up the good work. You may not be well received in today’s liberal media environment, but we need more journalists who publish the truth without changing it around to suit them. Oh, and I just heard the other day that PETA is lobbying the Boy Scouts of America to discontinue their merit badge for fishing. Fun, aren’t they? Happy hunting!
Drew Howard
Senior
ASU Box 12307
Make excuses, but keep God out of it
In response to Ms. Sossamon’s letter to the editor, I would like to make a plea to her, as well as to the rest of the community. Whether or not you choose to eat animals (or abuse them, as many animal-processing corporations do) is your decision, but please stop using God as an excuse. Ms. Sossamon stated, “If God hadn’t meant for us to use them, He wouldn’t have put them here for us.” Well, if God hadn’t meant for us to eat nightshade, He wouldn’t have put it here for us. If God hadn’t meant for us to kill each other and blow up the world, He wouldn’t have given us the capability to make firearms and nuclear weapons. I am tired of hearing this argument. We all have free will, and most of us were given the intelligence with which to use it. It’s time for everyone to take responsibility for his or her own actions and leave God out of it.
Allison Matlack
Senior
Box 08912
773-8307
Board members belittle 'candidates'
The students and teams involved with “The Candidate” are doing amazing things for the Watauga Community. They are giving up time for themselves in order to contribute it to other people. After watching day one of “The Candidate’s” question and answer sessions, I have been left with a few questions.
One, since when did being a professional also mean being completely rude? The first session ended with me being astounded at the attitude and tone the faculty members used when addressing the students.
Two, isn’t this APPALACHIAN’S VERSION of “The Apprentice?” I thought the Board Members of Appalachian would want these sessions to reflect the caring attitudes and courtesy that Appalachian is proud to have.
Three, is Appalachian not big on equality? I have heard over and over that people deserve to be treated in an equal manner. I agree, and thought the faculty members felt this way. But, maybe not.
In one instance, a male student was asked to answer a question, and in his answer he used the word “prostitute.” He used the word in the most harmless manner possible.
However, the female faculty Board Member interrupted him to say he was being completely rude and the use of that word was unacceptable. Five minutes later, this same lady used the word “prick” with no shame.
I think the Board Members should have a meeting themselves and discuss the art of intelligent interviewing and courteous question asking.
This version of “The Apprentice” is not being done in order to “up” any ratings, it is being done to help the community that we live in. These students deserve our respect, not our comments and questions that serve only one purpose, to belittle. Come on Board Members, what would your mothers say?
Cathy Wilson
262-9712
cw46975@appstate.edu
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