opinion
wednesday 10.19.11
6
Editorial
‘Occupying’ won’t get you anywhere More than 3,000 people have “occupied” Wall Street for the past month. Really, they are milling about Zuccotti park in Manhattan, and the rest of the world has followed suit. These “protests” have broken out in many major cities and small towns around the world. London, Rome and Los Angeles saw large protests last week, and an Occupy Abilene event is scheduled for early November. The Occupiers claim to be the voice of the people mistreated by big business. According to their
website, they are “the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the one percent.” But, the actual demands of the masses range from better government oversight to canceling personal student loan debts. Parts of their platform have a legitimate place in political discourse; the rest is tripe born of a restless generation and a bad economy. Though they don’t have organization or reasonable demands, the protesters do have numbers
and the Internet on their side, which the Egyptians showed us this summer is powerful. On Monday, Facebook listed more than 125 Occupy-related pages, and one of every 500 Twitter hashtags was #OWS. But this isn’t Egypt. We don’t have a crazy dictator in office, and our political process works fairly well. The protesters’ complaints and pathetic pleas for the government to solve all of their problems won’t change any minds or policies unless they become involved in policymaking through the tra-
ditional routes. Running for public office may be less fun than camping out with your friends, but it’s much more effective. Many of the protesters are young, unemployed and have a college diploma sitting with the rest of their belongings in a bedroom at their parent’s house. They are fed up with a tough job market, outrageous student-loan debt and the prospects of entering the real world. As our generation enters the world of taxes, public policy and personal responsibility, we need
Oh Dear, Christian College
Ben miller
the issue The Occupy Wall Street movement is protesting class disparities, though their demands are unclear.
our take The movement is immature and will not inspire real change in our government.
to realize it is our turn to inf luence our government. Generation Y doesn’t want to grow up, but we still want our way. A child sees throwing a fit as the best way to achieve a desired result, and that’s why a New York City park looks like an elementary
school yard. Throwing a temper tantrum to achieve a goal is a juvenile tactic, and sitting in a park for a month, living on donations, is nothing more than that. contact the optimist at jmcnetwork@acu.edu
column
Double contractions: A linguistic revolution well, this is awkward
mark smith
column
Steve Jobs created the iPhone. Einstein had his theory of relativity. Coke invented happiness in a bottle. Journalists don’t usually offer new ground breaking innovation. Until now. Well, ground breaking and innovation may be too strong of a choice for words. But I do bring something new from my line of work. Double contractions. As soon as I wrote that I realized that sounds like it would have to do with a pregnant woman going into labor with twins. And now that I have your attention I will explain my actual proposal. Should’ve, he’d and wouldn’t are grammatical nothing standing in the way teriorated in two decades of contractions. It’s a simpligrad school in favor of the fying tool to shorten two of a little swing time. The Student’s Associa- youthful precision of a pre- words into one. tion would become the city med student. And as for a fire Why stop there? council. People might care department, we are the only Let’s say you are a femore now that they are in generation that rightfully male and you have a charge of things bigger than appreciates the gleaming friend named Joe. You are glory of a little blaze. I say let talking to him about gothe structure of meal plans. Some of you may worry ‘em burn. ing to a concert, and he Students, now that you mentions that he’s going what we will do without professors. Simple. Gradu- have been sufficiently con- to invite a mutual friend, ate assistants will teach all vinced, we must begin chas- Bob, to go with the two classes. I don’t know about ing them out as soon as pos- of you. You may or may you, but all of my GA’s have sible. The elderly and the not have an enormous been knowledgeable and children will be easy, you can crush on Joe and are tryhelpful. They do much more pretty much talk them into ing to get him to go with than just grade papers and anything. However, we must you alone because you unite to defeat those middle just know he will fall in play Angry Birds. As you leave your classes, aged men and women who love with you. So you say, which would begin after have ordered us around our “He’dn’t want to go to a lunch, you could return to whole lives and now plan to Taylor Swift concert.” Joe, your recently abandoned, use the welfare money that impressed with your imfully furnished houses for we rightfully earned work- pressive use of the double some good ol’ collegiate fun. ing night shifts last summer. contraction, agrees to go If we are willing to work to the concert. UnfortuLines will be shorter and drives will be quicker after together and get our hands nately he brings his girlkicking out our leisurely-na- dirty, we could quickly shave friend you didn’t know tured preceding generation. this city’s average age down about. That’s awkward. Some may fear our new to the mid-20’s. Only then Then Bob finds out about lack of infrastructure, but I will we no longer simply live this plot against his hapcontend that all will be fine. in Abilene. piness, because you both We will live in the col- know he loves T-Swift. With all the 30-something meth addicts gone, we won’t lege town. The moral lesson here need police. When it comes is don’t talk about people to medical emergencies, I when they’aren’t present. contact singer at will gladly forgo a 40- yearThe lesson influenced by indis08a@acu.edu old who has physically denovation is the fluid usage of
An Oddest Proposal: College town WHOA! IS ME
DAVID SINGER
Students of Abilene, Despite our three universities, the phrase “college town” does not immediately conjure up thoughts of the Key City, most likely due to our downtown-closes-at-9 attitude. Areas like Austin, Dallas or Lubbock are the true youth-friendly locales. We need this to change. So I petition we do something. We must become a literal college town. By that I mean a town solely owned, operated and inhabited by post-puberty, pre-adulthood men and women. I mean a city that caters to our every need because it is more for-us-by-us than a matching blue and yellow sweat suit. I mean a place where even Sherlock Holmes could not sniff out the scent of a single senior citizen. So I implore you, students of Hardin-Simmons and
McMurry, abandon your false gods and join us in making this city ours. Together, we can immensely improve the Big Country by ousting anyone old enough to remember when there wasn’t an Internet. Classmates, you seem a little hesitant to raise your torches and pitchforks and chase soup-kitchen-volunteering-grandmothers and crew-cut-with-a-touch-ofgray-business-men out of town. So I offer the benefits. Have you been looking for a job? Good news: 100,000 positions just opened up. Take your pick. You could work the checkout counter at Bed, Bath and Beyond or even as a real estate agent in our town’s soon-to-be-wideopen housing market. And remember, the kids are gone, too. So when you are done greeting people at the entrance of Walmart, there is
the double contraction. I came up with the idea of double contractions about two years ago. But that’s all it was then, just an idea. Now is the time to distribute, infiltrate and saturate the masses for the promotion of this idea, and ultimately, my own name, a term that brings up 37 million results in a Google search. If you add in David, my middle name, to that search the results go up to 200 million, because logically that makes no sense. You probably think I’m done with my new offerings to society. There’s no way I could talk about searching my own egotistical name on Google before finishing my latest and greatest innovation services announcement. Well, you’re mostly right, but I do have one last thing to add for the bettering of mankind’s daily life. Elsewhere is a word. It essentially means somewhere else. Therefore, logically, elseone and elsethings should also be added to the English language. Yeah, I’m mostly going to stand behind my double contractions idea. That still sounds like a woman pregnant with twins going into labor. Mark’s note: Apparently Shakespeare used double contractions almost 400 years ago, if and when he was alive. I mean, there’s a movie coming out to prove he wasn’t even a real person. So maybe I am the first real person to use double contractions, which makes me think I’m cooler than I really am. What I’m trying to say is no one uses double contractions though they should, and I hate reading Shakespeare plays. The end. contact smith at mds10a@acu.edu
hashtagACU 7:10 p.m. Oct. 18
9:45 a.m. Oct. 18
I just saw a freshman wearing a letter jacket. First off it isn’t that cold. Secondly, YOU”RE IN COLLEGE!!! @overheardACU
“to me the divorce rate is like, depressing.” – some dumb girl in my Families In Society class. #theACUdifference @ overheardACU
@BrotherDill
@bumblebeebutler
12:36 p.m. Oct. 14
In the bible building waiting for class and a random guy comes up and asks to pray for me right there. This is why I love acu. @overheardACU
@R_ricker
11:48 a.m. Oct. 18
11:25 p.m. Oct. 15
11:28 p.m. Oct. 14
Stereotypical ACU students: we use our iPhones for “This Little Light of Mine.” @overheardACU
The King and I was incredibly enjoyable... But ultimately imperialistic and a little racist. #ACU #homecoming
@Chelsea_Chaney
@bdill12
Words used in English department chapel: sundry, heretofore, prattling, imperceptible. #pretentious? #ACU #ACUdifference
@reKRUNKulous
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