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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
COMMENT OF THE DAY »
Will Holland, opinion editor dailyopinion@ou.edu • phone: 325-7630 • fax: 325-6051
In response to Monday’s conversation on abortion, “What’s the right approach to abortion?” YOU CAN COMMENT AT OUDAILY.COM
OUR VIEW
“Not that I don’t appreciate all perspectives on this issue, but when is a woman going to weigh in on this ‘abortion article series’ The Daily seems to be pursuing? As in most conversations about abortion, women’s voices are conspicuously silent in our campus
newspaper. I’m just plain tired of hearing men argue about a right they can’t exercise and about a situation that primarily affects a population they aren’t a member of. Say it with me: co-optation. -JenniferC
STAFF COLUMN
Things we’re Despite missing football, thankful for study abroad worth it Here is a short list of some of the things we are thankful for this year. No doubt, it’s been a tough year for some, but, as in years past, Thanksgiving 2009 will provide an opportunity to reflect on the good things in life. So here’s what we’re grateful for. Most students are finished enrolling for next semester with the newly implemented oZONE enrollment system, and, although it was not easy and sometimes frustrating, we got through it together. The people working to enact the new system were also open to feedback and responsive to student complaints. This football season is mercifully almost over, and the Sooner nation can collectively look forward to next year. Head football coach Bob Stoops should be at OU for a while longer (we hope), and, in the mean time, we can enjoy NFL football on Thanksgiving and the fact that the Oklahoma City Thunder is playing better in its second season than it did in its first. Personally speaking, we are thankful we have been able to put out a paper each day, despite swine flu threatening the health of some Daily employees. Student activism has seemed to be on the rise this semester, and we are happy to see that our generation is willing to be vocal about controversial issues, like abortion and the environment. We don’t know how much longer traditional newspapers will survive (or if we’ll have journalism jobs when we get out of here), but we are thankful we are still going strong today. We couldn’t do it without faithful readers or loyal advertisers, and we know it. So this Thanksgiving, we’re thankful for all of the above and any of you who are reading this paper. What are you thankful for? Let us know by commenting on this editorial online at OUDaily.com.
Editor’s Note: This column is part of The Daily’s seven-day series on students studying internationally, which ends today. See page 1 for today’s Culture Shock article.
Choosing to spend a semester at Middlesex University in north London was a tough decision to make last spring. Much of the difficulty was associated with my love for a certain athletic program for which MATT the university CARNEY is well known (hint: It’s the one where we’ve got more wins than anybody else in the modern era). I would be forfeiting an entire season of tailgating, feeling superior to high school friends in Stillwater, possible road trips and the chance to watch gigantic men pummel each other on a weekly basis, to be replaced by plates of fish and chips and other stereotypical things British people like (Susan Boyle, the band Muse and Guy Ritchie films all immediately spring to mind). Obviously there were important non-football variables that also factored into the decision. Questions kept cropping up, like: Will this set me back from graduating? Could I handle living in a foreign country? Can I make it that long without my roommates/close friends/ family? Long story short, I resolved to suck it up and take advantage of a rare opportunity to explore a place outside of America. Now granted, they still speak English in England (scholars
maintain that the language may have originated there), and the countr y’s government pretty much gave birth to the U.S. But for a kid who’s spent about 95 percent of his life in Oklahoma, this was a big step. “Cu l t u re s h o c k ” w o u l d n ’ t be the most accurate phrase t o d e s c r i b e my e x p e r i e n c e s in Europe’s largest Englishspeaking city, however. Culture shock happened when I went to Prague, in the Czech Republic, and Glastonbury (a little burb of 8,000, each speaking with an indecipherable accent and jargon) on the UK’s west coast. W h a t I ’v e e x p e r i e n c e d i n London has proven to be my first encounter with truly urban life. Greater London boasts between seven and eight million people, and the metropolitan area is estimated to be just less than twice that. My native Tulsa seems pretty miniscule now. Riding the tube, falafel lunches in Leicester Square and walks along the Thames all remind me that I’m just one in a gazillion people getting by in this enormous place. Sharing living space with locals has been interesting. I’ve found the English to be less dependent on mass media than your standard American college student. Few of my classmates keep televisions in their rooms, and the one set in our lounge boasts five channels. Cooking and conversation usurp the TV here, as well as the occasional trip to the pub where time becomes completely impossible to track, lost amongst old oak tables, comfy leather sofas and foamy pints of local brew. It’s usually around this time that I catch a lot of lighthearted grief for being American. If it ever gets out of hand, I’m always sure
to play the “Oh-yeah-well-whatabout-1776-and-1812-huh?” card. Every time it sparks an interesting conversation critiquing each culture, and we always answer at least two of the following questions: 1. You’re from a place near Texas? What are farms like? 2 . W h a t ’s t h e p o i n t o f a queen who’s nearly politically irrelevant? 3. You call it “soccer.” The rest of Earth calls it “football.” What’s up with that? Of course, with the increase in population comes an increase in social opportunity. Plays of all varieties run every night at Picadilly Circus and Covent Garden, and pubs, clubs and concert halls all hold their doors open well past the tube’s 1 a.m. closing time. Trafalgar S quare is transformed at midnight into the city’s biggest nighttime bus stop. It’s as heavily foot-trafficked at three in the morning as the ensuing afternoon. Creepy drunks (and sometimes just creeps pretending to be drunks, as one discovers) hassle passersby for their pocket change while packs of girls in miniskirts and stilettos roam about in search of the next club. That said, season tickets seem a manageable tradeoff for round trip plane fare and the chance to immerse oneself within a massive international city for nearly four months. But don’t expect me to favor watching Premier League “Football” to finding an American sports bar where I can watch my beloved Sooners clobber OSU this weekend. Some things will just never change.
Matt Carney is a history and professional writing junior. He is currently studying abroad in London.
STAFF COLUMN
Hollywood unfairly targets religion in movies, like ‘2012’ The movie “2012,” an all-out, physics defying, gratuitous festival of apocalyptic disaster, has been reviewed unfavorably thanks to its lack of plot. It has also been objected to on the basis of the on screen bias in the destruction of Christian monuments; never mind the annihilation of entire continents and billions of people. In the trailers, it shows SARAH the dramatic demolition ROSENCRANS of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel splitting and the crumbling of the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janeiro. The Muslim holy site, the Kaaba in Mecca, is shown intact, yet the destruction is only implied. Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who regularly defends Catholic interests in the media, complains that, “When we got word recently that the movie ‘2012’ depicts the Vatican being blown up, along with the famous statue from Rio, Christ the Redeemer, we were unmoved. Why? Because this occurs during the end of the world in a massive destruction. This kind
of sensationalism, we reasoned, is standard fare for director Roland Emmerich: He is the guru of the ‘blow ‘em up’ genre of movies. But now we’ve learned that while Catholics get theirs, Muslims are spared. Out of fear, of course.” Donohue goes on to suggest Hollywood filmmakers have a bias against Catholics because they abuse Catholic images and characters so frequently on screen. This is problematic for Catholics because it implies that their faith is dependent on certain symbols, and they are not worthy of the same respect accorded to every other religion. While anti-Catholic bias is not universal in Hollywood, it is still widely acceptable. Hollywood walks a fine line between artistic license and gratuitous bigotry. While the wholesale destruction shown on film implies that monuments of every religion and nation get destroyed, the ruin of the more famous ones has a greater visual impact. It would be hard to get Americans, the majority of whom are Christians, to care about the destruction of Muslim, Jewish or Hindu monuments. Of course many would have sympathy for their friends of different religions, but the destruction of the symbols that are significant for you is
more poignant than the symbols of those that are foreign. However, I suspect that the film’s director Roland Emmerich had motives that were less than elevated when he spared the Kaaba on screen. He commented, “I wanted to do that, I have to admit. You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have … a fatwa.” After the Mohammed cartoon controversy of 2005, he was probably being prudent. Muslims do not take even the imaginary destruction of their symbols lightly. Some might say Emmerich is a coward, but I really cannot blame him. However, Emmerich is not a friend of any religion. He says he is against organized religion, so destroying religious monuments may have been entertainment in his imagination. But he is wrong to think that the destruction of Christian symbols would also mean the destruction of faith. Any religion should be able to live beyond buildings and statues and the breakdown of natural and social order. If the believers are true, their faith will survive everything, even mass destruction and even the end of the world. There is not any need to boycott the
T=: O@A6=DB6 D6>AN Jamie Hughes Editor-in-Chief Meredith Moriak Managing Editor Charles Ward Assistant Managing Editor Ricky Ly Night Editor Will Holland Opinion Editor Michelle Gray, Merrill Jones Photo Editors
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movie. The critical reviews will take care of that. Hollywood has rarely been stellar in its depiction of religion though, which is usually as accurate as its physics. And it should be encouraged toward accurate depictions. Catholics are not all guilt-ridden secret sinners bent on world domination. Jews are not all rich. Muslims are not all terrorists. Evangelicals are not all narrow-minded, nutty preachers in ‘80s suits. However, that is the subject of another editorial. The fact remains that Hollywood does not respect religion or religious people and still has to learn the fine line between taking artistic license and employing malicious mockery. Regarding the end of the world: If you ask the Maya, no, the world is not going to end in 2012, as they do not use that calendar anymore. In addition, the Bible itself declares that no one can know that date. Enjoy the horror and special effects of “2012.” I will seek out lighter fare. Sarah Rosencrans is a zoology and biomedical science senior.
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