VIEWPOINTS

Staff Editorial: Double Standard
The Wichitan Ready for Court

This summer The Wichitan will be shopping for a lawyer.
The newspaper, after consulting with the Student Press Law Center in Washington, plans take legal action against MSU.
The reason is simple: the Student Allocation Committee insists on holding its deliberations in secret when it gathers each spring to decide what to do with $2.1 million in student fees.
Since that’s your hard-earned money these committee members are spending, we think the proceedings should be conducted in the open for anybody to attend.
The MSU administration is hiding behind an attorney general’s opinion, which states that as long as the committee is “advisory” then it needn’t be open to the public. History shows the committee is far from being merely “advisory” as the administration would like you to believe. In fact, although MSU President Jesse Rogers has the power to dicker with the committee’s recommendations he doesn’t. He rubber-stamps them as does the Board of Regents. The administration – at The Wichitan’s request – could not produce one instance where committee-recommended funding was reduced or money was shifted from one organization to another by Rogers.
Here’s the way we read this: The administration is willing to go to court to keep you from knowing what happens to your money.
Let’s talk about that attorney general’s opinion. Keep in mind the attorney general’s opinion is just that, an opinion and not the law. It doesn’t mean the administrators must close the meeting. Nowhere in the opinion does it say that harm will come to anyone if this public business is conducted in the public arena. What administrators and committee members should realize is that the air of secrecy is sometimes more damning than the reality of what actually goes on.
That leads us to another point about perceptions and reality. Keith Lamb, associate vice president of student affairs, is not only an adviser on the committee but he also heads five of the 24 organizations that receive your student service fees.
During the interview sessions, Lamb, like representatives from all other organizations, presents his individual requests to the committee. However, unlike other representatives, Lamb gets to stay in the room during deliberations.
This is clearly a conflict of interest and double standard.
Student committee members say they don’t want to deliberate in public because of fear of retaliation by a disgruntled student or professor connected to an organization. How much more will they be intimidated by an administrator such as Lamb who is sitting at the table with them?
Not only can his very presence be daunting, but Lamb has the opportunity to clarify matters about his organizations or make other arguments during the deliberations. We can’t tell you if this has happened but since the doors are always closed we can’t help but wonder.
It has been said that people get the government they deserve. It’s certainly true in a democracy and that’s where you come in. If no one is willing to speak out, students deserve to be left in the dark while these committee members (and maybe advisers)  play with your money.
Contact one of the following administrators and The Wichitan and voice your opinion. Any letters to the editor to The Wichitan will be published in the fall.
President Jesse Rogers – jesse.rogers@mwsu.edu
Howard Farrell, vice president of Student Affairs – howard.farrell@mwsu.edu
Keith Lamb, associate vice president of student affairs – keith.lamb@mwsu.edu
The Wichitan – wichitan@mwsu.edu



Rambling Brains won't let her Sleep at Night
Nicole Ford | Opinion Editor

Why don’t brains come with off switches?
As I lie on my bed, staring up at my dark ceiling, I was forced to ask myself this question. I’d been trying to get at least some small amount of sleep so I wouldn’t be a walking zombie the next day.
But while my body was screaming at me for rest, my mind was running in circles and battling off sleep quite successfully.
I’m not entirely sure that every subject that popped into my head was useful.
There was a list of things to do: calls I had to make, layouts I had to do, professors I needed to talk to, topics I needed to talk to my professors about, clothes to wash, and homework to do. Oh yeah, and class to attend.
No big deal. I have friends who have a lot more to do than that.
Then my mind jumped to the new 78-year-old pope. Even though it’s been two weeks since they chose him, I’m still floored by the decision. Just why do you elect a 78-year-old man? It’s quite possible that he’ll be dead before his apartment is renovated. 
That, I’m pretty sure, was a useless thought.
I skipped subjects yet again, this time to my waiting reading list. At the moment I have 12 books on the list, everything from Homer’s “Illiad” and Dante’s “Divine Comedy” to Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons” and J.D. Robb’s “Naked in Death.”
That’s my personal reading list, and I would very much like the time to get to it. I also had Arthurian Romance stories to read for world literature.
That thought triggered the image of Lancelot and Gawain running around the forest in their armor doing whatever it is knights do and reminded me of the time I was a knight for Halloween.
I had a gray plastic breastplate and a cheap plastic sword that I’m pretty sure I used to terrorize the dogs. I also used it to get into play fights with my friend, the boy next door. I beat him most of the time because I was a tough little kid and he was a sissy. I wonder what ever happened to that sword.
My mind turned yet another corner, ignoring my desire for sleep. That Halloween I was about eight, and we were living in a little neighborhood in Las Vegas. I played with the boys, because they had the cooler toys. Seriously, why would I play with bimbo Barbie inside when I could be playing with Hotwheels outside? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. We had our toy guns and our trusty bicycles, and we were cowboys or cops. We were also racers or stuntmen or explorers of that vast, open desert across from our houses.
In the summer, ice cream trucks would drive around. The square, white ones with stickers plastered to the side and the distinctive music beckoning us to spend our nickels and dimes were always coming and going. In 100-degree weather, we would run barefoot down that blacktop street and catch up with the truck from blocks away.
Oh, the good times.
And yet another wandering, pointless thought keeping me from my much-beloved sleep.
Of course, my brain didn’t stop there. It turned, instead, to thoughts of my other great love – motorcycles.
A friend of mine, Bill, loves bears, and he’d painted one of his two cruisers with claw marks and paw prints. He called it “Claw.” He recently chopped and rebuilt it, and I have yet to see the finished version, since he lives in south Texas.
My mom has a dragon etched on her bike’s windshield, and dragons painted on her gas tank and side covers. She also has a tiny bell, a good luck charm of the cruiser world, with a dragon twined around it.
I decided my theme would be wolves. I’ve loved the animals for as long as I can remember, and I was rooting for the wolf in stories like “Little Red Riding Hood.” To this day, I can’t watch “Dances with Wolves” because the wolf gets shot.
Because I enjoy thoughts of motorcycles, even at one in the morning, I decided to follow that road a little further.
I’ll have wolf eyes painted on the front fender and a running wolf etched on my little windshield. I’ve got to have a wolf howling at the moon, others running in a pack and some paw prints somewhere. It will take a little time to get the money, but, in this at least, I can plan ahead.
While thinking that thought, I decided maybe I’ll get a tattoo to match my wolf-themed bike. I’m not much on pain, but if I can find a design I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life looking at, I’ll do it.
And my dad is daring me to do it; he said that if I get one, he’ll get one. It was the same thing he said when we got our ears pierced when I was about 7. I no longer wear earrings, but dad has, among others, a skull, a marijuana leaf and a little hot pink hoop he likes to wear.
About an hour after I’d climbed into bed to get some sleep, my brain still hadn’t shut off. I got up, flicked on the light, and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen to write a column; which was another useless thought, as I ended up scrapping that column for this one.
So, I’m still waiting for some brilliant scientist to invent an off switch for brains.
In the meantime, I guess I’ll go without sleep and hope my mind runs out of gas before my alarm singing “Margaritaville” wakes me up in the morning.



Five Years of this and You'll be Stupid
Camron Rushin | Editor-In-Chief

When I was in high school, I was the editor of the school’s paper. I wrote a weekly column called “The Cynical Reporter” for two years. Five years ago when I wrote my last “Cynical Reporter,” I said I would probably never write a column again. I was burned out. Well, here I am again. As far as I know, this is the last column I will ever write.
When most graduating seniors write a “farewell” column, they write about how much fun they had and all the friends they made, and give a list of all the lessons about life they’ve learned. I’m not going to do that.
I first thought about writing a column on all the things I hated about college, but then I thought, “Why end on such a sour note?”
I thought about writing a column on how much college has changed my life. But that would pretty much be a column about all the things I hated about college.
So, I’m going to write a column about how college has made me stupider than I was before. Back when I was in high school, I had it all figured out. Now, I just don’t know anymore. 
Back in the day, my brain used to be sharp. I had the answer to all questions inside a Rolodex in my brain. Everything was in alphabetical order, and I could whip out an answer quickly. Now, if you ask me something, I have to think a minute before I can come up with an answer. And sometimes it’s not the right one. Somehow my Rolodex has become out of order and cluttered with junk I really don’t care to know.
It seems like I started college so long ago I can’t even remember some of the classes I’ve taken. I remember sitting in a calculus class at one time, but if you asked me if I remembered how to differentiate an equation or use the chain method I couldn’t even tell you what that stuff means anymore. I probably never knew anyway. I look back and try to think about what all those professors were saying and now, in my mind, it all sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher talking.
My short-term memory has gotten so bad I can’t even remember what I did yesterday.
My short-term memory has gotten so bad I can’t even remember what I did yesterday.
I’ve become so stupid I’ve forgotten all the advice my parents gave me before I came here. My mom told me to never trust a girl. I’m sorry, mom! I’m stupid. It will never happen again. For some reason, my mom sure knows a lot about women.
My dad told me to always eat right and exercise. I skipped out on that, too, and I’m still the same size – maybe even smaller – I was when I graduated from high school.
I’m so stupid I actually accepted the job as editor of The Wichitan after I had been managing editor for one year and it nearly killed me. It will be nice when my bowel movements return to a solid form.
I’m so stupid I thought the student body would be concerned about where its money was going. On a campus of 6,000, I can’t believe we don’t have a full page of “letters to the editor” every week. But, I guess, to be able to write, one must first be able to read.
I’ve become so stupid I can’t even think of any more reasons why I’m more stupider than I was before.
Anyways, I graduate in like a week. I told my mom that as soon as I graduate I’m admitting myself to Red River state hospital or Rolling Meadows nursing home. I hear at either place I get a sponge bath. So I’ve got that going for me.
So, I bid farewell to you, MSU. You may or may not be missed. I am leaving my throne, and hopefully my successor will look out for her fellow students the way I have.  Someday they may start listening.