OPINIONS THE UNIVERSITY STAR
quoteof the day
Thursday, February 2, 2006 - Page 10
“Our nation can’t give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the whole world and see themselves equal to the entire globe.”
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— Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to supporters following President Bush’s State of the Union address. Ahmadinejad said his country would resist pressure from the United Nations to give up its nuclear programs. (Source: FOXNews.com)
Opinions Contact — Joe Ruiz, staropinion@txstate.edu
THE MAIN POINT
Bush’s claims of success just a veneer to disastrous year The tone for President Bush’s State of the Union address was set before he ever entered the House of Representatives chamber at the Capitol on Tuesday night, when anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in the Iraq war, was handcuffed and arrested by Capitol Police for “unlawful conduct” after revealing a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan at her seat in the gallery. She had been invited to the speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif. Dismissing dissent continued to be a theme throughout the president’s address, even as he promised to address differences with his critics “in a spirit of goodwill and respect.” The past year saw his cronies tragically botch the response to an enormous natural disaster, his party plagued with allegations of rampant corruption, his war exceed 2,000 American casualties with no end in sight, bipartisan condemnation of his policies of torture abroad and suspension of Fourth Amendment rights at home, the near disintegration of a cornerstone American industry and record-low approval ratings. Yet to hear Bush speak, you’d think this had been a year of unbridled U.S. successes with few malcontents. Examples abound: • On trade policy and the economy: “We are seeing new competitors like China and India. This creates uncertainty, which makes it easier to feed people’s fears.” Yet reconsidering our economic policies would be “economic retreat” that would lead “toward a stagnant and second-rate economy.” As opposed to our current first-rate economy, in which American automakers are forced to lay off tens of thousands of workers to avoid extinction. • On the devastation in New Orleans: “The answer is not only temporary relief, but schools that teach every child, and job skills that bring upward mobility, and more opportunities to own a home and start a business.” This statement followed a litany of federal assistance currently being administered to the region, yet there was neither acknowledgement of nor apology for the woeful absence of that all-important “temporary assistance” that could have saved so many lives immediately before and after Katrina. • On wiretapping: “If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.” Here again, the issue has been distorted beyond recognition. Contrary to the president’s implication, requiring a modicum of reasonable suspicion and judicial oversight (secret and after-the-fact judicial oversight, even!) for the government to spy on Americans is not the same as rejecting domestic surveillance wholesale. Perhaps the greatest disconnect between rhetoric and reality was evident after the president recited the foundational dogma of his foreign policy: “Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror.” One of the brave new democracies Bush cited was the Palestinian Authority, where the terrorist group Hamas just took power in an electoral landslide. Pressing ahead oblivious to the contradiction, Bush called on Hamas to “recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace.” Right. And Cindy Sheehan might be invited to dinner at the White House. It seems that even when everything is going against him, Bush can’t seem to imagine a world in which he might occasionally be wrong. If the American people are paying attention, perhaps he’ll get a much-needed reality check in November. The Main Point is the opinion of the newspaper’s editorial board. Columns are the opinions of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the full staff, Texas State University-San Marcos Student Media, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication or Texas State UniversitySan Marcos.
New Orleans, La. — Jan. 31, 2006
Jeffery Cole/Star illustration
Campus, world full of real survivors I’ve been giving Keep dreaming. some thought to That emptiness fear lately. scares the hell out I’m turning 30 in of me to be hona few months and est with you. Too find myself stuck many people get in an existentialial pulled under befunk. It’s hard to cause of it. There SEAN WARDWELL feel good about are those who don’t Star Columnist your life when you have the luxury of are much older technological illuthan the kid sitting next to you sions of contentment. They and your friends from when get crushed by a reality they you were 18 have jobs and can’t afford to ignore. They families. I know that I’m at have kids that need to go to the least going somewhere, and I doctor and need food. They know that I’ve had a good life. have no time for life because However, Texas State can be a they are too busy trying to pretty lonely place when the keep alive. Some turn to drugs. bars and parties lose their lus- Some turn to God. Some just ter, and the only thing you are turn up dead and alone. Some left with at the end of the day don’t turn up at all. is that small voice questioning Peppy column so far, huh? where you are heading next or Well, I’m not in the pep busieven if you care about where ness today. These things hapyou are now. pen, and they are far too real, We have passion. We have and we spend too much time intelligence. We have our in- trying to pretend they don’t. dividual ghosts constantly at Perhaps we need to spend our sides whispering in our more time being uncomfortears. We have our iPods, the able. I know people on this Internet, Starbucks Coffee campus who have literally had and all manner of material to run for their lives. Some of gadgets. Yet something is lack- these people have had life exing. There’s an emptiness that periences that go so far beyond is palatable and somehow we the pale that you wouldn’t be think if we toss more money able to sleep for a week if you in it, it will eventually fill up. went through a fraction of
what they went through. I’m talking about horror and suffering that is just unimaginable. They’re here. They’re your fellow students. People who sail through things effortlessly don’t impress me one bit. I love the underdogs. I love the people who have to get up every morning to go to a job they hate and go home to a dilapidated shack at night. Why? Because they keep doing it. Despite hardship and toil, they get it done for themselves and their families. They get it done knowing that Horatio Alger was full of crap and upward mobility is becoming a thing of the past. We should make presidents out of such people. I’m bringing all this up because I don’t think we go far enough in our culture to fully embrace the horror. It’s always someone else’s problem. Nobody seems willing to take responsibility anymore, not for causing the strife, but for stepping up to try and fix it. Fixing it means more than sending 10 bucks to the Red Cross, then patting yourself on the back for being such a magnanimous chap. To fix a problem you have to first intimately know it. You have to
look it right in the eyes and let it look into you. You have to know it in your soul. The people I was referring to know this, and that’s why I trust them more than I will ever trust the social gazelles that seem to get everything the easy way. Call it bitterness. Call it class warfare. Call it whatever you want. But, please, prove me wrong. When it all comes crashing down, that’s who I want at my back. They know ugly, and they know how to face it. In fact they usually give a determined grin, look fate in the eye, and say, “What else you got?” If you think this is a bummer, I really don’t care. Your comfort level simply does not matter to me. This column isn’t for you. Go read something else. This column is dedicated to the survivors. Those people are my heroes. They help me manage my minor fears by showing me some major ones. I don’t think they get enough ink so this is my minor love note to them. So keep swinging folks, keep right on swinging. I know it isn’t easy, but in the words of Sam Cooke, “It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come.”
Rants about class served with a sides of Super Bowl, Oscars What did you think of the State of the Union Address? “I thought it was pretty good. He did a good job when he was talking about how the Democrats did not necessarily initiate the Social Security Act and then saying ‘now you have all these problems,’ and everyone stood up and clapped.” — KRISTOPHER RAVEN mass communication junior
“I didn’t watch it, because I think Bush would piss me off. I don’t personally care for anything he has to say. I don’t think anything he says is important.” — AMY BERG sociology sophomore
“I was looking forward to it all week. I watched it twice. I tried to get my friends to watch, but they said they’d rather shoot themselves in the head. I watch it every year.” — RYAN HAECKER history freshman
Compiled by Jason Buch
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Hello you ’Cats right away. While of Bob. OK, right she is unpacking off the top I have a her chalk, I spring bone to pick. That’s into action. what she said! Seri“Um, profesora? ously, folks. I was I don’t think we in Spanish class the know what we are other day and la supposed to be doSHAWN A. profesora was muy ing in this class.” FREEMAN tardy. It’s still early I totally get the Star Columnist in the semester and skinny on what is most people don’t going on for the know each other yet, so the entire class. La profesora does usual awkward comments have a plan, and it’s a good were floating around. one. Here’s my point, none of “Hey did you get the book those girls asked her. I did it yet?” “Do you have a class for them, and do you know before this?” Serenity, now. what? Not a one of them slept Eventually people started with me after class. Not one. talking about what we are doThe good thing about my ing in the class, because so far Spanish class is that I see a we all feel like we aren’t do- high amount of crack on paing anything. Suffice to say, a rade. Gals, when you pull your clear vision has not been pre- shirt down over your jeans sented by la profesora up to after you sit down, that’s genthis point. When I say people erally a smart move, because were talking, it was four of the yes, I am totally looking. That seven hottest girls in the class other guy who slides by on and a couple of guys. his looks and doesn’t have to “What are we supposed to worry about asking girls out be doing?” “Has she taught us because they fall in his lap anything yet?” “I’m confused.” — he’s also looking. That girl You get the picture. So la pro- — yeah, she’s looking too. fesora comes in and does the Anyway, is everybody ready whole “Buenos dias” thing like for the bowl of super? If you five times in a row because, of watch it at my house, here’s course, nobody answers her what you can’t do. First and
foremost, you can’t talk during team introductions or commercials. I want to know what school the players came from, and we all know that the commercials during the bowl of super are the best ever. Terry Tate — office linebacker — enough said. The other thing you can’t do is take the big piece or the last piece of anything. If you watch the game at a guy’s house who for whatever reason needs to have washboard abs, I’m sure this isn’t the law; but at my house a good way to get your ass cracked is to take the last delicious deviled egg or the last Shiner. Even taking the last celery stick isn’t a good idea around me. As far as my pick goes, growing up in a non-pro football city, I don’t really have a team per se so I generally cheer against teams rather than for them. I basically don’t ever want to see the following teams win: the Dolphins, Ravens, Chiefs, Eagles, Giants, Buccaneers, Saints, Rams or 49ers. I also don’t like for any team to win for too long. I hated the Rams for being so good that when I picked them to lose in the 36th bowl of su-
per, it was only because I was tired of seeing them win. This year I got tired of seeing the Patriots and that Michigan Wolverine quarterback of theirs win bowls of super, so when they lost to the Broncos of Denver this year I was glad. Is it sad that I cheer against teams? Probably. Even in my favorite sport — Formula 1 — I have a few teams I cheer for, but one team I always cheer against: Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and that damned Michael Schumacher. Devil his due, but I just don’t like him. Only 37 days until Bahrain. Oscar nominations came out this week. I can’t figure out how Munich got nominated for best picture. Meanwhile, The Aristocrats and 40-Year-Old Virgin get snubbed by the Academy. Did you know that the Ambiguously Gay Duo was voiced by Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert? And finally, for those of you on misplaced modifier alert: A transfer student said to me yesterday as we walked through The Quad, “What is with the statue of the horses with the naked guys on them with huge balls?”
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