The Wichitan - Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls Texas

MIDWESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY | November, 10, 2004

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Staff Editorial: Just saying 'no' is still the Answer

What ever happened to “Just say no?” This message was everywhere in high school and elementary. Once you make it to college a more appropriate slogan is “Go ahead and try it, you’re only in college once.”
In the Oct 27. issue of the Times Record News, Wichita Falls Police Chief Dennis Bachman attributed the city’s rise in violent crimes to the out of control use of methamphetamine.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 2003, 6.2 percent of high school seniors reported using methamphetamine and 35 percent of national users are between 18 and 23 years old.
Why is methamphetamine a problem in Wichita Falls?
Methamphetamine is made in illegal labs from such household items as lithium batteries and cough syrup. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration 9,300 labs across the nation were busted last year. According to the National Synthetic Drug Action Plan, methamphetamine is the most widely abused synthetic drug. The street price of methamphetamine is about $25 per “hit.”
This inexpensive price and availability makes methamphetamine a quick and cheap fix for college students. According to the Koch Crime Institute meth may irreversibly damage the brain leading to depression, suicidal impulses and schizophrenia.
If meth is a serious problem in our community, it needs to be stopped.
Last week, the White House unveiled a plan to stop the flow of chemicals used in methamphetamine at the international level.
To help stop methamphetamine traffic locally, as students we can “just say no.”
If you know anyone who has a drug problem, help him quit. To talk to a drug counselor on campus call 397 – 4618.

Letter to the Editor

Thank you for your article on our annual Celtic New Year. I'm glad we had such extensive coverage.
I do, however, want to mention a few discrepancies. Caedmon's Hymn and the fertility prayer were church sanctioned works,both written in Anglo Saxon, not Celtic. In its 7th century evangelical efforts the Church included pagan rituals in its calendar and moved the date of All Saints' Day from spring to October 31st. After all, what could be a better time to contact the saints than the evening when there was virtually no division between the secular world and the spirit world. Hence, we have All Hallows (Saints') Eve or Hallowe'en. George III, who lived some 1,000 years later, had nothing to do with Samhain.
John Barleycorn is the English name for a custom that the Celtic and the Teuronic tribes practiced before the birth of Christ when the harvester who cut the last sheaf in the field rushed to the fire to burn it before it died, sacrificing one life so that others might live.
Arvilla Taylor, Department of English

High School is all the Education you Need
Richard Carter | For the Wichitan

All that you really need to know about life can be learned in high school.
Considering the rising cost of university tuition, and the lackadaisical attitudes of the state legislature, school administration and student government about tuition increases facing collegians, perhaps high school is where many students should have actually ended their education.
Just kidding.
But I do believe that the major social and cultural issues—that we face in life--are first experienced during the best four years of our lives.
         And the best thing about high school was that whenever you screwed up back then, the worst thing that could happen is that you got marks off on your “permanent record.”
       High school was like shopping at Wal-Mart, King Saver, United and Albertsons, all in the same day. It’s like all of the cultural and social cliques rolled into one big three-ring shopping circus.
        It’s like what city streets used to be before it became uncool to actually walk and say hello to the hoi poloi and the vagrants
Why do I like the film, “Mean Girls,” so much? Because, the script emphasizes one of the major lessons to be learned from our high school years. That lesson, of course, is to not talk about people behind their backs.
Of course, this is also an issue relevant to life in small towns. I mean, trash talking happens a lot in high school, but it’s also second nature in places like Hooterville and lesser points beyond.
          Further off on a minor tangent, let’s cut to a small dream of mine which is to move to Henrietta and live on a farm for a year or two.
Consider the privacy I could have to paint, write, do research for a book project and play music as loud as I want to.
Even better, I would be 20 minutes closer to the metroplex.
          But as my friends remind me, whenever I get that dreamy look in my eyes and threaten to go all “Green Acres,” is that everyone in small towns talks copiously about everyone else.
Now, my response to these sensible naysayers is: don’t people do that same stuff in the big cities like Wichita Falls.
The argument goes back and forth between star-struck me and the naysayers, before the whole thing is forgotten and passes unresolved.
But now that I’m writing this, I’ve finally realized the solution to this small town/high school dialectic. It’s not the places or high school that is at fault, but rather the people doing the trash talking.
          It’s the lame types who try to destroy other people behind their back. And, they do it to make themselves look better.
I can’t believe that it took so long for me to figure that out.
Why do some people consider it self-improvement to cut people behind their backs? Well, normally I would go to Freud* for the answer to such psychological issues. But we don’t need high-powered Austrian intellect for this one.
Rather we can suss that out easily in this short commentary column. Well, we’ve sort of already sussed that out (the backstabbers are lame), so maybe we can figure out what to do about it.
So what should you do if someone lays a major league trash job on you? Should you confront the clown and threaten him or her with some version of hell? Should you take the high road and let it go. Or, should you suggest that this person do something better with his or her time?
Really, you shouldn’t do any of those things, because those idiots are never worth your time. Rather, learn to sit back knowing it’s all been taken care of.
I’m hearing some of you ask, “But, how RC, how?”
Because karma is a ruthless bitch, and she never forgets jack.
This statement, idea, notion is easily the most valuable lesson that anyone should have learned, or perhaps discovered, after matriculating from high school. Those idiots that terrorize other people and make life a nightmare for the innocent are going to get theirs, eventually.
Talk to anyone who’s ever gone to a high school reunion and they will describe some ‘whatever became of?’ stories that will crack any recovering doofus up.
So rather than be upset, we should all laugh a little, knowing that decent people have the most powerful force in the universe on their side.
And the best thing is you don’t have to tithe a single farthing.

*Freud wouldn’t have observed that “backstabbers were lame” in his writings. I mean, he was making a living off of aging society women before the miracle of face-lifts and high carb diets. You know those bitches were working overtime hacking up people left and right.

From this Point Forward, it's all About me
Jason Kimbro | Staff Reporter

It is a hard life we lead as college students.
There are some of us who go to class day after day then go to work night after night just so we can be told that a B.A. or B.S. or whatever is useless nowadays and that we must go even further to get a Masters that will probably be just as useless by the time we’re done with that.
I, myself, may not have the worries of a job to account for my stress but I am cursed with the need to be over-involved. Being a part of over ten organizations is a dubious task at times, but I feel that I need to continue.
And so here I am, finding myself over-worked and burned out. I have to reach the halfway point of my third year in college and already I am prepared to throw in a towel.
Ah, but what to my philosophical ear do I hear? It is the voice of drive, the screech of determination bearing upon my soul and my brain its weight of redundant energy, telling me to keep on keeping on for it will all pay off in the end.
This time the voice is a bit faint.
After succumbing to my own lack of financial savvy and my own deficiency in time management, a wall has been erected between my will and the source of determination’s influence.
I have been wrought with sickness, thus I lost a day of classes. This will represent the first time I have missed a test, therefore the first time I will need to make it up. This is but another brick in that wall. Pink Floyd is quite the muse.
So what can be said to all of those out there who are beginning to feel that urge to give up? What words of wisdom can I give to all of those whose voices of willpower are not quite as vociferous as the compulsion to walk out?
Probably the same big of warbling we have all heard many times before, ever since our pristine years in elementary school:
Drink your milk, don’t use drugs, get seven hours of sleep each night, don’t take candy from a stranger, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, what matters is how you play the game, and of course, give it your best.
And that is all that it really comes down to, giving it your best shot, even if your best includes giving up.
So here’s the point of this little piece of impetus propaganda: if giving up is a significant part of your best shot, is giving your best the best thing to do? I would have to say no.
When I first began school here at Midwestern State, I was worried about keeping a 2.5 GPA. Now I have approximately a 3.84 and am an officer in six organizations, three of which I probably have no business being an officer of.
I am constantly whining about the state of affairs between men and women these days and I am finding myself to be sick and weary more often than when I was during my times of sadness and drudgery back in the late 1990’s.
I think it is time for a change. I am going to continue doing the best I can, but one big difference is that I now know what my best is. No longer will I be overloaded with all the things that everybody else would like me to do, including some of these officer positions that have been laid upon my table.
I am going to continue being a nice person without being the “nice” guy and I am going to find a way through the barbed wire of life with the least amount of cuts possible.
Yes! I am going to make it after all! Nothing’s gonna stop me now! I’ll get knocked down, but I’ll get up again! Nothing is ever gonna keep me down! It’s the eye of the tiger and the will of the fight! If you like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain! Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the band to come!
From now on I am going to concentrate on the things that matter to ME! No more spending of substantial proportions of my money on keeping others happy! I am going to spend more on myself!
No more of keeping my room messy in opt for other things! I am going to clean my room so I can feel happy (yeah right)!
My motivation is now for number one. I have given myself enough to this world, now it is time for me to give myself more than just beer and cheese and high cholesterol.
I am going to take the time to work out and get in shape.
I am going to take the time to buy what I want when I want it (well, after the turn of the year because of those damn loan retractions).
AND, I am going to not worry about the plight of love and labor and good grades.
I, Jason Alvie Kimbro the first, am gonna give it the best try I can without sacrificing my own happiness and that is what everybody should do.
We should all be so hedonistic.
Hey, it’s okay to be hedonistic as long as what makes you happy doesn’t involve the pain of others. That’s a far cry better than my old motto: it’s okay to be hedonistic as long as making other people happy is what makes you happy.
Watch out world, here I come! Save me a spot in the back row.