University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, January 21, 2000 Page: 3 of 10
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(II^editorial
University Press • Friday, January 21, 2000 • Page 3
University Press
Editor............................................Christina Bor deman
Managing Editor..........................Lori Gayle Lovelace
The opinions that appear in editorials are the official views of
the University Press student management as determined by the
UP Student Editorial Board. Opinions expressed elsewhere on
, this page are the views of the writers only and are not necessar-
ily those of the University Press student management. Student
opinions are not necessarily those of the university administra-
i tion.
Editorial
Students should seek
artistic enlightenment
College is the time when we as students need to broaden
not only our intellectual selves, but also enrich our artistic and
creative souls..
Unfortunately, many of us are not taking advantage of the
numerous artistic opportunities the campus provides.
The music department holds a recital every Friday, but how
many non-music majors attend these on a regular basis just to
broaden their minds — or even for enjoyment?
The theatre and dance department performs throughout
each semester, but how many performances have we attended?
And last, the Dishman Art Gallery, one of the best-kept
secrets on campus, offers a series of exhibitions free of charge.
But how many of us know about these, let alone attend them?
Are we so wrapped up in our everyday lives that we have
become unaware of these opportunities that are practically
handed to us, or are we just reluctant to take advantage of the
ones we know about. It has now gotten to the point where pro-
fessors are having to make it a requirement or offer extra cred-
it to students who attend these artistic presentations.
The Dishman had an art opening Friday evening, with
a free reception, and was expecting at least 150 art students to
attend. How many non-art students attended without the inten-
tion of fulfilling a requirement or getting extra credit? How
many of us went to the exhibition with the soul intent
of broadening our horizons?
Beaumont is known for its oil boom. But if we take the time
to look around, we find that it also is booming with many forms
of artistic expression — especially our campus. Whether it is as
participant or audience member, we owe it to ourselves to be a
part of this artistic boom.
University Press
©2000 University Press
News
Editor..................
Managing Editor
Copy Editor.......
Features Editor..
Sports Editor......
..........................Christina Bor deman
..........................Lori Gayle Lovelace
..........................................Raj Kanuri
......................................Ashley Salter
..........................................Josh Cobb
Staff Writers.......
........Natasha Dailey, Jennifer Ravey
Daisy Hargraves, Kuntal Kotnis
Rajesh Subramaniam, Shay Bayly,
Tylerr Ropp, R.J. Enard, Greg Hayes
Photography
Photographers....
..................................Rachel McCain,
Mukund Yallambalse,
Robert Alvarado, Martin Drott
Advertising
Assistants...........
.......................................Amber Willis
Director................................................Howard Perkins
Assistant Director................................Andy Coughlan
Advertising Manager..............................Linda Barrett
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Time to make New Year’s ‘Revolutions’
WASHINGTON — On my first work
day of the new year, the first thing I heard on
my clock radio was a voice announcing
cheerily, “Today is January 3, 2000.”
My eyes popped open. For a moment, I
thought I had awakened in the Twilight
Zone.
“2000?” Isn’t that one of those years you
only hear about in science-fiction movies?
Isn’t that the amazing, hazardous, fasci-
nating and threatening era that is too far off
in the hazy future for us to worry about?
Well, wake up. The future is happening.
The view is less hazy from this side of 2000.
Less threatening, too.
My 10-year-old son Grady surprised me
when he admitted, as we lazily watched tele-
vision together on 01-01-2000, that he felt
relieved. “I was afraid the world really might
come to an end at midnight,” he said, some-
what sheepishly.
He had been taken in, despite assur-
ances to the contrary from his mother and
me, by news reports and wild speculations of
possible Y2K glitches, runaway nuclear mis-
siles, apocalypse-minded terrorists and vio-
lent crackpots driven by distorted readings
of Biblical prophecies.
Yes, the future was a threatening place
for many of us, Until midnight. Then the
world’s computer clocks rolled over from
1999 to 2000 and — well, the next sound
you heard was this big sigh of relief. The bug
didn’t bite much.
Instead, the 20th-century wonder called
TV was sending the world images of hope
and optimism bursting forth in happy faces
as explosively as the fireworks they were
watching.
In Times Square, recently converted
from skid row to pseudo-theme park, young
couples stood on manhole covers welded
shut as an antiterrorist precaution and
hugged each other. Their eyes seemed to fill
with hope and wonder as they gazed up
toward the fireworks and the world’s biggest
crystal ball, while Sting sang his new, star-
tlingly appropriate hit, “A Brand New Day.”
Yes, it is a brand new day. Too little has
been said about the palpable sense of the re-
newal that a new millennium (whether you
believe it officially begins this year or the
next) brings to a people.
We’ve been talking “revolution” a lot
around our house lately. Young Grady was
announcing his New Year’s resolutions
when he mispronounced it as “New Year’s
revolutions.” We’ve been calling them “New
Year’s revolutions” ever since.
Sounds oddly appropriate, doesn’t it?
The word “radical” has to do with roots and
refers to fundamental change.
Resolutions should be radical, like revo-
lutions. They should help us to improve our-
selves by directing us to stop, look at our-
selves and get to the root causes of whatever
is holding us back from becoming better
people.
A new century and certainly a new mil-
lennium calls for entire societies to make
resolutions, just as individuals do.
Americans have proved over the past
couple of centuries that we can do a good
job of improving ourselves, once we set our
minds to it.
First, we have to resolve to change.
I think we Americans should resolve in
the next century to advance not only techno-
logically and economically, but also socially
and politically.
We should resolve to move beyond today’s
political squabbles to get at the root causes
of our problems.
We should resolve to stop squabbling
about false issues like affirmative action and
get to the real issue, which is equal opportu-
nity.
We should resolve to move beyond race
and gender to ensure equal opportunity for
all those who are disadvantaged by income,
geography or parental connections, wherev-
er they may be.
We should resolve to look back a little
less to our old grudges and look ahead to a
new emerging America that is becoming less
white Anglo Protestant and more racially
and religiously diverse by the year.
We should resolve to make all of our
public schools “magnet” schools, magnifi-
cent academies that parents will fight to get
their children into, instead of trying to
escape.
We should resolve to end the root caus-
es of abortion by providing the health care,
day care, and other support that will give
pregnant women more of an incentive to
keep their children or put them up for adop-
tion.
We should resolve to start talking sensi-
bly about what we will do when the record
numbers of men and women we have put in
prison begin to come out.
We should resolve to refrain from judg-
ing our neighbor, as an old saying goes, until
we have walked a mile in their moccasins.
Those certainly sound like good revolu-
tions to me.
Letters to
the editor
Worrywarts are always with us
Individuals who wish to speak
out on issues should send a
letter fewer than 400 words in
length to Letters to the
Editor, P.O. Box 10055, LU
Station, Beaumont 77710, or
drop letters off at our offices
fn 200 Setzer Student Center.
The writer’s name, address,
phone number and social
security number must accom-
pany each letter. Letters
received without this informa-
tion cannot be printed. Letters
may be edited for length,
’■? grammar, style and possible
fti4ibet. Opinions expressed in
am not necessarily j
student man-
agement. Letters by the same
writer on the same subject will
not be published. Poetry,
reprints, anonymous letters
and religious debates will not
be published.
WASHINGTON — Have you
noticed that there is a type person who
absolutely must have something to
worry about?
Or that we seem to have more and
more of them in America these days?
For months, I’ve been up to my gul-
let in people telling me what a cat-
astrophe the Y2K bug would cause at
year’s end.
Well, the new millennium came
without the computers melting down,
the planes falling, the banks failing or
any other great disaster befalling us. But
are the worrywarts saying, “I was
wrong”? No, they were telling me that
“the real crunch” will
■miZZSZSl£!MMR
Or they were saying that the real
doomsday will be Feb. 29 because “the
computers won’t recognize Leap Day.”
These same fretters seemed almost
disappointed that no terrorists struck
the United States over the holidays.
UP COMMENTARY
Carl Rowan
King Features Syndicated Columnist
“It’s still coming — soon as we let
our guard down!” one told me. “And I
shiver at the thought it could happen
right in my own workplace.”
I was shouting for joy Monday
morning when trading began without a
bitch on the stock exchanges, especially
wjt$n4|he NASDAQ roared off to a 123-
i|R||i^ tfeal index; which s«tan
jpPmfiril'i Yf11T hiiUTtiiiiiiil i. lit hi l
ro^a loss of some ?0 points. The worry-
warts rushed onto the tube to tell us that
“the bubble finally is bursting. The
party’s over!”
The doom-and-gloom prognostica-
tors were still yakking when the NAS-
DAQ rebounded to an impressive 61-
point gain and a new high.
I couldn’t figure out whether the,
hand-wringers wanted people to sell out
their portfolios and pay Uncle Sam taxes
on all their gains, or whether they work
for savings and loans and want all that
money invested at roughly 6 percent
interest.
I’d swear that I’ve heard these same
Cassandras predicting a Wall Street col-
lapse for at least 10 years, and it’s appar-
ent that they’ll go on talking until they
get it.
Nothing is so good that it can’t
strike fear in the hearts of these timid
people. I mentioned to a visitor, “We
sure are lucky to have a record 72 tem-
perature in Washington on Jan. 3. Every
day like this puts us ahead of the winter
game.
“We’re not lucky,” she replied.
“This weather scares me to death. It’s
ominous. The hospitals will be jam-
packed with people sick with the flu and
all manner of diseases because of this
strange weather.”
I tried to switch the subject to some-
thing I was sure she would discuss with
pleasure: The surprise resignation of
Russian President Boris Yeltsin. After
all, I had heard her express worries that,
in a drunken stupor, Yeltsin might start
a nuclear war.
“I’m glad his finger is off the trigger,
and I’m glad the crook won’t be stealing
any more of my tax money,” she said,
“but I’m worried about this guy he
picked to succeed him He’s a former
KGB spy, I read. Now how far can we
trust a KGB agent?”
I’m sure blessed that I’m not a wor-
rywart, but the kind of guy who expects
to make the best out of any situation.
You j^now — the type who, if they give
you lemons, you make gin-and-tonics.
Well, to be truthful, I do have a tiny
concern. I have a plane trip coming up,
and I just know that seated beside me
will be some worrywart.
%
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Bordeman, Christina. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, January 21, 2000, newspaper, January 21, 2000; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth500596/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed May 31, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.