VIEWPOINTS

Staff Editorial: Pick it Up

If you are an MSU student, faculty or staff member then this is your campus, henceforth it represents you.
It represents you to anyone who comes to visit, to your professors, to your parents, to future students, members of the community…to anyone.
If you owned a home would you want to step out on your front porch and see your own personal yard, the grass you might have just mowed yesterday, covered in candy wrappers, fast food bags, soda cans and papers? It doesn’t seem to bother those who walk out of their dormitories.
Walking throughout any part of campus you can turn your head in any direction and nine times out of ten count more than one piece of trash holding what could be a beautiful piece of land hostage. What’s ironic is that 9 times out of 10 you can turn your head in any direction and also see a trashcan.
There are trashcans on the outside of every door on campus, in almost every room on campus and even strewn randomly about the empty space on campus.  Trash must be awfully heavy these days if people on campus can’t bear to carry it the few extra steps it might take to make it to the nearest trashcan.
What’s even more grating is when there is trash scattered around the trashcan itself! Everyone enjoys a game of trashcan basket ball, but if you don’t make the basket and you’re to exhausted to pick up the piece of trash, than you need to spend more time in the Wellness Center, or perhaps on a real basket ball court getting in shape.
It is not uncommon for those who visit college campuses to comment on the appearance of the campus. Are you going to feel good about yourself or your campus when your friends and family come to visit you and make leave you with comments of how dirty your campus is?
Here are three ways to prevent this from happening:

1.Throw away your trash
2.If you stumble over a piece of trash, pick it up and throw it away.
3.If you throw something in the trash and miss, bend over and pick it up and place it gently in the trash and don’t beat yourself, it happens to the best of us.



Individualism lost in Official Organizations
Konnie Sewell | Opinion Editor

So, um, there I was, eating lunch in the student center with a friend, when a girl came up to me.
"You're with The Wichitan, right?" she asked.
Well, I couldn't have gone and lied to her, could I have? No matter how badly I wanted to.
Turns out she was a little offended about the column I wrote about incompetent teachers, but that's okay. She's entitled to her opinion, and like I told her, if her mom really is a good teacher, then there's nothing for her to worry about.
But I digress.
When she approached me, I wanted to hide. Under the table, around the corner — somewhere, anywhere, just so I wouldn't have to answer the question of whether I worked on The Wichitan or not.
Fifty different excuses ran through my mind. What? No, of course I don't work for the paper, I just look like the girl that does. Or, I used to work for the paper. Maybe it was an older issue? Maybe I just have one of "those" faces...though I'm not exactly sure what good saying any of those would have done me, except maybe dig a six foot hole in the ground with my name on it.
So there wasn't much to do except tell her the truth and stop over-reacting. Yeah, that's me in there, for better or for worse.
You'd think I'd be a little more proud of my job, wouldn't you? But the truth is, I have this odd aversion to groups.
Oh, I love interviewing and reporting, and I work with some wicked cool people. But the more you associate yourself with a larger group, the more people start to pigeonhole you.
I don't like to be categorized. I'm not a can of soup, so don't label me. I have my own thoughts on things and I can function well on my own. I can tie my own shoes and everything.
But when you become part of something larger than yourself, people don't tend to see that. All they see is the group, not the people holding it up.
It's why I won't join the American Civil Liberties Union. Sure, I believe in freedom for everyone and the defending of that freedom. There's always the chance, though, however slim, that I might not agree with methods used. Or that I just might not particularly have an opinion on a certain issue at hand. I don’t know how anal anyone else is about these things, but I’d feel like a crap member. Would it be ethical for me to stay a member, then?
I suppose in a way it would. Every voice should be heard, even the dissenting ones, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable not whole-heartedly supporting something big and important like the ACLU.
I also wouldn’t feel comfortable with people turning their noses up at me in disgust and thinking that I’m some kind of politically correct zealot. Because...that’s not who I am. Then again, I’m also not a saint who goes rushing to aid of any lost soul in need. I’m only human. No matter what the person’s views on the ACLU, I’d probably be that bad kind of member people think of when they talk about “those few bad apples.”
I also won’t join the National Organization for Women for similar reasons. NOW has a special, fuzzy feeling-inducing partnership with the producers of the film “North Country,” which wasn’t as great as I’d originally hoped it would be. I’m not comfortable completing the phrase “I am a” with “feminist.”
On the surface, at least, the issue of gay marriage seems like one I’d immediately endorse, but I find myself having no substantial opinion on it, perhaps because I don’t know enough of the legal issues involved. And the war in Iraq? While NOW officially believes baby did a bad, bad thing by invading the country, my brain almost exploded once trying to work itself around all the different issues and viewpoints.
Republican or Democrat, you ask? Neither. Not an Independent, either, for that matter. There are some things I’m extremely liberal on, some things I’m extremely conservative on. And, contrary to everything I’ve written in this column so far, I don’t feel I straddle the fence on enough issues to declare myself happily Independent.
I don’t know, maybe this whole all-or-nothing concept is the wrong way to go. But, really, what’s the point of being involved with something if you’re not willing to go all the way for it? It’s not apathy I feel; more like the opposite, an uneasy feeling of complete ambivalence.
There isn’t any Half-Ass Association of America (HAAA) out there to join. Not that I’d join it anyway.



Proposition 2 Blatant Attack on Civil Liberties
Christian McPhate Staff Reporter

On November 8, the horror of a society possessed with an overzealous demonic conforministic spirit will reveal itself. Proposition 2 is on the docket for voters approval; it is a nightmare waiting to become reality.
Proposition 2 is a law inhibiting the fundamental rights of millions of American citizens. A proposed addition to the nightmarish landscape of the Texas Constitution; it’s perpetuated under the fanatical fever of conservative republicans.
The advocates of Proposition 2 stated that it’s a law, which will “protect” the institution of marriage. The proposition will enact in the state constitution a banning of same-sex marriage.
In essence, this makes it damn near impossible for future “enlightened” generations to change the law. However, the proposition not only constitutionally bans gay marriage, but also all forms of civil union between same-sex couples.
The advocates of Proposition 2 explained marriage is a decree under the sacred watch of God, and Homosexuality is an abomination to God. Therefore, we as responsible conservative Christians must make it our holy quest to persecute these abominations.
It’s sad that a religion based on a fundamental principle of love can breed so much hatred toward “sinners.”
Besides, I thought separation of church and state was still in practice. How do advocates of this law get around this facet of our governmental existence?
Under the banner of “protecting the sacred union of marriage.”

Yet, how are they exactly protecting the sacred union of marriage? Last, I checked, gay marriage was not recognized in the state of Texas. The law forbids it. How can it be considered a threat to the social union of marriage?
Hell, the social union of marriage is not threatened by gays; it’s threatened by divorce.
In the past 5 years, over 635,00 divorce cases were filed in Texas alone. Why not protect the institution of marriage against this costly nightmare?
I believe what a person does in their own home is their business. I mean who am I to judge. I seemed to recall in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Jesus talking to his disciples about the consequences of a judging attitude.
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
 I can understand people wanting to protect the historical union of marriage, but how can we deny civil unions to same-sex couples?
Gays are American citizens that work, pay taxes, pay insurance premiums, pay social security, and contribute to the capitalistic vampiric machine like everyone else. Why should they be denied the legal right afforded to “straight” married American citizens?
In Texas, the political arena is dominated by conservative white Christian males who voted for Bush by an overwhelming margin of 75 percent. No one else in the world has enjoyed such overwhelming support from a dominant group.

Yet, when one talks to the Christian supporters there is no mention of the rise of budget spending, the deepening of the deficit well, the bloodshed of war torn Iraq, the expansion of federal powers under the assumed banner of “protection,” or the discrimination of civil liberties. 
There is fanatical obsession running rampant in our country. An obsession over the issue of same-sex union and it's blinding people to the future nightmare of this conforministic way of thinking.
What’s next? Shall we prohibit music that goes against the teachings of the Bible? Better yet, enforce restrictions on people destroying their “living temples” with smoking and drinking. Shall we enforce our belief system on a third world society of “uncivilized” people?
Oh, wait! We are already enforcing these types of prohibitions on humanity. What happen to freedom of choice? Have we gotten so wrapped up in our boxed in realities that we lost contact with the meaning of freedom of choice? The conservative Christians are all for freedom of choice as long as it falls under their concept of God.