This week I won’t be writing the standard column in which I stand up on my soap box and preach about what I think is wrong in an effort to shed some dim ray of light upon the underbelly of the world we live in. Instead, I’ll just pose a few questions, supported by a brief explanation of why I pose those questions, and see if I can get any responses for the student body. So please reply to [email protected] or at reflector-online.com with any type of answer, well thought out or otherwise, to these questions in dire need of answering – if for no other reason than my own personal gratification.First, I’m curious as to why our culture, one of supposed unsurpassed opportunity for education, is quickly growing to be that of complete conformity? How did we go so quickly from the counterculture of the ’60s and ’70s to the rebellious, punk hatred of the ’80s and ’90s to the over-produced, over-polished, consumer-market based culture that we now revel in?
Punk bands are now produced by major record labels, dress like the standard emo kid and are about as punk as my grandmother. Well, at least Fugazi still has it right.
Now everything is about buy or sell and the popular fad at the moment, which does nothing more than produce clones out of kids. I’m not saying that heavy drug abuse and flannel shirts are the way to go, but originality is quickly dwindling, fated to go the way of the dodo bird.
Second, I’m curious as to how many people out there still support the war and our president. Now, to get one thing straight, I don’t consider myself either liberal or conservative. I’m too intelligent for that. Therefore, when I say that I don’t support the president, it’s based on objective conclusions drawn from his actions taken while in office.
Also, don’t confuse supporting the troops with supporting the war. Our troops are doing the job they have to do, and I hope every single person there returns safely. However, they are fighting a war started under false pretenses by a president who publicly declared in 2000 that he wanted to be a “war president” and a vice president who is still going with the weapons-of-mass-destruction plea. It just seems a little fishy that he had members of his cabinet searching for a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq after we were already there. And I’ve heard the Saddam-was-killing-people-and-we-had-to-help defense, and I agree; we should have helped, but you don’t put a fire out by throwing gas on it.
Lastly, I would like to know how many people feel as though they are being taken advantage of in college. Once again, talks of tuition hikes have begun even though most students can’t afford college without going into debt, thereby voiding half of the salaries they will make once they do obtain a degree that means less and less every day. Not to mention that there are now scandals accusing those people who raise tuition to the stocks of some major student loan corporations.
Furthermore, if we don’t want another big grassy patch on a campus that already takes 15 minutes to walk across, why can’t we vote not to get it? After all, aren’t we the reason for the existence of this fine scholastic establishment? For me, at least, I feel as though I’ve been running through a corn field backwards every time I look at my loan payments and every time I get a parking ticket (I’m up to eight now) because I’m late for class and can’t find a spot within a mile of the architecture building. I don’t have the luxury of living in the Cotton District.