SPEAK UP: The Orion welcomes letters to the editor at whitneyurmann@gmail.com.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
A6
theorion.com/opinion
EDITORIAL
No contest for taxis in battle with Uber Uber is coming to Chico and drunk, poor college students are jumping in glee. All the while local taxi services are pounding their fists in anger. Uber is a great service. It provides an easy and relatively affordable means of transportation for anyone with a smart phone and typically doesn’t demand waits like local taxi services. They are also constantly offering great promotional deals. It also provides jobs to just about anyone. The downside of Uber coming to Chico is not that it will affect the taxi companies here in town, because there are plenty of stumbling students and citizens not wanting to walk home from a night at Riley’s. The downside is safety. Uber does not require a fingerprint scan and only takes the past seven years of criminal history into consideration for any person who applies so long as they have a vehicle that passes the company’s standards. In a college town that has a history of sexual assault and increasing crimes rates, the idea of anyone having the access to cart around young, drunk people in their own vehicle is frightening. In early October, a man was convicted of rape when he pretended to be a woman’s Uber driver and took her to an area where he assaulted her. There is even an online database of Uber drivers who have committed assaults while on the job. Uber could be a great service for a college town like Chico. It has great potential to eliminate intoxicated pedestrian actions and provide students with safer transportation during the weekends. However, until Uber requires full background checks, students should stick to the several taxi services that Chico offers to let Uber know that the only way they will utilize its services is if it can ensure safety. If users of the transportation service demand even fingerprint scans, they have a 99 percent chance of being safer than it is without the scans. The days of waving down a cab on the street may be over, but cab companies are still the surest bet to get you home on Friday night until the California Public Utilities Commission can ensure mobile ridesharing applications like Uber are safer. The unsigned Orion editorial is the collaborative opinion of the editorial board.
Katherine Kurz/The Orion
Tired of trolling tyrants If you have ever witnessed a fight, or at least an intense argument, you almost always see another person getting in between the fighting. Once the third party arrives, one of the arguers starts to talk more trash knowing there is now a
I personally have seen people Just because a person gets be all talk online. Some say if to hide behind a screen name they ever saw their enemy in doesn’t mean they should person, it would get ugly. Yet act like a different person. It when they shows immado meet, or turity and is a are in the little pathetic. A good rule for the Internet same place If you can’t should be if you can’t do it in in real life, handle a situaperson, don’t do it online. they act tion in the real like the world, don’t
someone, wouldn’t you want to see them in pain? As cruel as that sounds, seeing a person’s reaction— positive or negative— is better than sitting behind your laptop thinking, “Did it work?” A good rule for the Internet should be if you can’t do it in person, don’t do it online. If you don’t want to talk about
barrier and they are somewhat protected. That’s basically what Internet haters are. That one person who feels they are the most powerful, but only when someone, or something, is between them and their opponent. With Twitter arguments, mean Facebook posts or Youtube comments, there’s always that question of, “Would this person say this in real life?”
Twitter beef never happened. How about all the nasty comments people leave on celebrity Instagram accounts? I feel like if someone were to comment on a picture of Stephen Curry saying he’s the worst basketball player ever but then see him in person, they would have a totally different attitude. They would probably ask for his autograph.
controversial topics with someone over coffee, don’t post it on Facebook. If you can’t fight your battles in person, don’t tweet someone thinking it’ll solve the issue. Hiding behind a keyboard just shows how weak you really are.
Brittany McClintock
Staff Writer
try to act like a boss on the Internet. Most of the time, people can call another commentator’s bluff. The Internet can bring out the best in a person, but it can also bring out the worst. Acting like a top dog just to bring a person down is never the right thing to do. You don’t even get real satisfaction. If you want to hurt
Brittany McClintock can be reached at opinioneditor@theorion.com or
@b_mcclintock17 on Twitter.
Colleges put under the gun to increase student safety Katelyn Martin
Staff Writer
An entire generation has grown up with the thought that school shootings can happen across the country. Most of my childhood took place in a nation post-Columbine High School massacre, and I consequently grew up hearing about various school shootings as my parents watched the news. When the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting took place in 2012, my mom held me tight as we watched the news coverage. We grieved for the families who lost their loved ones to yet another sad act of gun violence. Since the shooting, there has been an average of nearly one school shooting a week, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. Nearly two weeks ago, the Roseburg shooting at Umpqua Community College shook me when I realized my brother only lives about an hour away. While I have attended public schools all my life, it had never truly occurred to me that one
of the sad, deranged men the media so often describes could walk onto my campus and shoot up a classroom. Unfortunately, this is a real and terrifying reality in a country with vastly unregulated gun laws. Many preschools and elementary schools make it so that visitors must be checked in before proceeding onto campus. While this hasn’t stopped gunmen before, it is a precaution. However, attending a state university makes it nearly impossible to control who goes on and off campus. Very little is stopping someone from grabbing a gun, walking onto campus and into the library or a classroom. Shooters in the past have been chalked up to be mentally unstable, and there are endless excuses made for them. Many of them have the same privileged background and were able to obtain their weapon of choice with little difficulty. Media coverage merely makes shooters famous and gives them unnecessary attention. By focusing on the shooter, rather than preventing
Adriana Macias/The Orion
the situation from happening again, media is merely buying into another shooting. The Chico State community was recently sent an email assuring students and faculty that the school is taking necessary measures to stay safe and out of harm’s way with gun violence. Unfortunately, though, I don’t feel safer because an email told me I should.
If America is so tired of these school shootings and supposedly stands united with the victims, why does it not band together to help end the casualties altogether? Katelyn Martin can be reached at opinioneditor@theorion.com or
@kristinacsuc on Twitter.
THUMBS Thumbs up to Coco the gorilla for getting kittens for her birthday. Coco has been using ASL to tell her handlers how much she wants a baby and they surprised her with two she has now adopted as her own. Unconventinal families are the new normal.
Thumbs down to a cyclist for shooting a combat dog that served in Iraq because the man thought the canine was a threat. You know guns are a problem when people on the street are grabbing for them at any sign of danger, including a doggy veteran. Bark in peace, buddy.
Thumbs up to the City of Chico Parade of Lights for putting on a great demonstration Saturday night. Among the trailers were Greek Week floats, air conditioning companies and even Butte Humane Society had a bus. Basically, it was one long advertisement.
Thumbs down to Donald Trump when he asked a student at Harvard University if he was from South Korea. The student was born in Texas, but that’s hardly the point. Trump proved yet again why he should be the frontrunner in a reality TV show rather than an election.