The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 9, 1987 Page: 3 of 20
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THRESHER Opinion Friday, October 9,1987 3
Campus safety concerns need to be dealt with
Sunday evening, 1 a.m. The traditional trek
back to Hanszen after moving my car to the
stadium lot. But, as occasionally happens,
someone had forgotten to turn on the lights, and
the walkway between Hanszen and the gym was
totally dark.
Monday evening. Same situation. No ^ghts
again. The walkway in question is far too long
to cross in darkness, especially if I had been by
myself. Somebody could easily lurk in the shad-
ows, just waiting for someone to walk by. And
just as I would not see him until too late, no one
could see me if I were in trouble.
This thought is a sobering one, and campus
security should be apriority. I refuse to believe
that the administration is not concerned for the
safety of the students. But, turning on the lights
is simple, and there can be no excuse for not
doing so.
I honestly believe that I could trust almost all
of the Rice students and staff. However, as my
mother used to say when asking me to be in by
1 a.m., "Of course I trustyou, dear. It's the other
drivers who scare me." Though we at Rice tend
to forget it, there is life beyond the hedges. It is
the people who do not belong on campus that
scare me.
Life is not safe. People are robbed and at-
tacked (or worse) every day. A case in point: the
front page of Tuesday' s paper carries two stories
of murder, one of a murder trial, and one of a fire
blazing beyond control. We live in a dangerous
world, and we need to give ourselves what little
protection we can.
We know that dark areas are conducive to
crime. And yet, this past week I've noticed the
lights off in the walkway already-mentioned, in
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Editorial Staff
Editor-in-Chief Michael J.Raphael
News Editor Michele Wucker
pine Arts Editor Jen Cooper
Sports Editors Keith Couch, Joel Sendek
Production Manager Maiy Elliott
Feature Editor Lisa Gray
Backpage Eds... Jenny Berry, Lizzette Palmer
Photo Editor Dennis Kelley
Senior Editor Spencer Greene
Typesetters Linda Burns, Allison Krauth
Assistant News Editor Anu Bajij
Assistant Fine Arts Editor Jobn Montag
Assistant Production Manager Gavin Ckrkson
Beyond the Hedges Mary Ashkar
Graphic Artist Steve Lait
News Staff Dan Blantcn, Claire Gojmjum
Leigh Anne Duck, Katy Feibleman, Suzy Feinberg
Katie Fleming, Shelley Fuld, Paul Haiti, Samantha Hendren
Jim Low, Doug Park, Elise fcrachio, Jscl Poinac
David Stivers, Judd Volino, Sue Ycm
Fine Arts Staff Paul "Turdface" Angles, Robert Bartsch
Jasmin Eick, David Nathan, Karen Nickel, Mike Raphael
Russell Ross, Eric Salituro, Louis Spiegler
Sports Staff Sarah Bailyn, David Cumberland
Wes Gere, Brian Holmes, Jim Humea, Tony Mason
Steve Nations, Robert Nevill, Anthony Wills
Photography Staff R. Claussen, Lawrence Cowsar
Michael Gladu, Ajay Kwatra, Carla Mendiola
Lisa Opper, Harold Turner, James Yao
Production Staff Anne Bullen, Dina Dempsey
Wendy Erisman, Andy Hunt, Wynn Martin, Paul Phillip*
Bob Rhode, Edward Stewart, Sanjay Vyas
Courier Anns Chang
Fidelity consultant G. Hart
Business Staff
Business Manager ...Carlos E. Soltero
Advertising Manager Lee Finch
Asst. Business Manager Mike Alexander
Ads Production Beth Jennings
Staff Assistant Stuart Morestead
Circulation Christine Gibson
The Rice Thresher, the official student newspaper at Rice University
since 1916, is published each Friday during the school jear, except
during examination periods and holidays, by the students of Rice
University. Editorial and business offices are located on the second floor
of the Ley addition to the Rice Memorial Center, P.O. Box 1892,
Houston, Texas 77251. Telephone (713) 527-4801 or 527-4802. Adver-
tising information available upon request. Mail subscription rate per
semester: $15.00 domestic, $30.00 international (via first class mail).
The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of anyone
except the writer. Obviously. And they thought editors never stooped to
write Fine Arts.
©1987, The Rice Thresher. All rights reserved.
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GUEST COLUMN
by Laura Dew
J lot (by the Ley Student Center), and by the
library. And these are the places where I ordinar-
ily go. Who knows what problems I would find
if I looked for them? Rice students are up at all
hours, and when coming home from Mudd late
at night, a well-lit walk is imperative.
Must we at Rice simply wait for something
terrible to happen just to assure ourselves of
some degree of safety?
Another hazard is caused by people who
leave doors unlocked or propped open. Usually,
at least one door to the Hanszen Old Section is
open, even after the campos have come by at 2
a.m. to lock up.
Is it just that people don't want to carry their
keys? The inconvenience of carrying your keys
seems like a small price to pay to insure safety.
My friends at other universities must always
carry theirs—in fact some of them would face
fines of up to $50 for leaving doors propped
open. That's a pretty hefty sum of money, but
also a good deterrent.
The architecture building, Anderson Hall,
sometimes has a phone book in the door; the Ley
Student Center a rug. When I am alone in the
Campanile Office at 3 a.m., it would be nice to
know that no one who shouldn't could get in the
Ley Center. That's why I'll be glad when they
install the card system that was supposed to be
implemented during freshman week. In the
meantime, I '11 just keep pulling the rug out from
under the door.
The other big problem on campus is the fire
alarms. As I was sitting in my room the other
day, tearing my hair out over impossible French
tenses, a fire alarm went off. I continued to study
the pass6 surcompos6, and the thought that there
might actually be a real fire never crossed my
mind. Finally, after about five minutes, some-
one turned off the alarm and that was that. No
one gave the relatively minor incident a second
thought.
The problem is that if there had been a real
fire, no one would have known. We become so
accustomed to the fire alarms going off without
reason that we barely pay attention to them any-
more. Their purpose is to warn people of fires,
not to provide dnrnken amusement. Keep it that
way. Pulling fire alarms for fun is dangerous and
silly.
Rice students need to take some degree of
responsibility for their own safety. Everyone
locks their car doors, why not their rooms and
dorms? Perhaps if we take some precautions, the
administration will follow suit.
And make sure that the lights that should be
on, are.
Laura Dew, a Hanszen college junior, is co-
editor of the 1988 Campanile.
Evolution does not bother Christian
Totheeditor:
I wish to respond to Anand Kumar's letter
(Threshing it out, October 2). His letter demon-
strates a serious error that has gone uncorrected
for too long in the public rhetoric of the Evolu-
tion/Creationism controversy. This error is
simply the idea that Evolution and Christianity
are incompatible or mutually exclusive views.
For the record, I am a Christian. I am also an
evolutionary biologist. I have never experi-
enced the slightest difficulty in reconciling my
beliefs. The great majority of Christians that I
know also accept the fact of evolution, without
in any way compromising the relationship with
God which, as Kumar correctly points out, is the
truly wonderful characteristic of Christianity.
An acceptance of a physical mechanism for
the formation of the Earth and the development
THRESHING IT OUT
letters to the editor
of the life on it does not mandate a rejection of
the existence of miracles brought about by
God's will. Nor would any physical explantion
of a miraculous event necessarily make that
event less miraculous. The miracle can lie in the
timing of an event as well as in its mechanism.
If a Christian prays for the recovery of a sick
friend, he does not regard it as a rejection of God
if a cure then proceeds according to known
medical practices. If he prays for rain, he fully
expects that any meteorologist will be able to
explain the sequence of events in the resulting
storm. Similarly, if he accepts evolution as the
mechanism by which life on Earth was shaped,
Doonesbury
OKAY, LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT
THE C-C-CHARACTER SCORE'
BOARP! Its ONLY OCTOBER, AND
] THE BOYS OF WINTER ARE ALREADY
TWO DOWN! 4.
he need not reject the idea that God so designed
the physical laws of the universe that such a
process occurs, or that He guided its course.
Many Christians are disturbed by the appar-
ent disagreement between Genesis and evolu-
tionary accounts of the world's origin. There are
any number of biblical literalists ready to tell
them this difference is insurmountable. How-
ever, a careful reading of the actual creation
account in Genesis reveals striking parallels
between it and modern ideas of cosmology (the
"Big Bang") and evolution.
All that is necessary is to accept this account
as an allegorical description, couched in termi-
nology comprehensible to the almost stone-age
writers who had to set God's word to paper.
There is considerable Biblical evidence of the
see Bible, page 4
BY GARRY TRUDEAU
ANP THAT DOESN'T EVEN INCLUDE
PAUL LAXALT, WHOW-P0NT
SUSPENP HIS CAN PI mo/ FOR.
CHARACTER REASONS,
BUT SHOULD HAVE, /
HAVE! ^
OF COURSE, NOW THAT HE'S OUT
OF THE RACE, THERMS NO POINT
IN RETELLING THE STORY OF
P-P-PAUL'S "NEVADA PROBLEM"!
OH, UiHAT THE HECK! 1983:
LAXALT GOLFING PARTNER
AL PORFMAN IS RUBBED OUT
IN A SUBURBAN PARKING LOT..,
SPEAKING OF
FBLLOUJ REPUBLI-
CANS,! THINK
BUSH'S SO-
CALLED "UJIMP
FACTOR" IS A
5-^* B-B-BUNCH
OF HOOEY,
DONT YOU?
LETSASKWE
MAN IN THE
STREET,
STREET!
I'M
AFRAID
I CANT
WINK OF
ABETTER
WORD.
W-W-WELL! WIPE THE
EGG OFF MY FACE'
NO, 1
THINK
IT'S VERY
REAL
"WIMP
SAYS IT ALL!
r
HATE TO VOTE
FOR A GUY
OUT OF PITY.
HISPE0
Pie KEEP
CONFUSING
COMBAT
COURAGE
U/ITH MORAL
COURAGE.
SS'SO! WITH 13 MONTHS
TO GO, IT'S TWO DOOUN,
UJITH JESSB JACKSON
j ON PECK, ?
: DECK
AS WE ALL KNOW, CHARACTER
ISA TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE!
SO WHERE DO I STAND? DO I
HAVE A CHARACTER P-P-PROBLEM?
NOWAY, SAN JOSE J f
IF THERE'S ANYTHING UB CAN
ALL AGREE ON, IT'S THAT I'M
A C-C-CHARACTER! HA! A
LAUGH A MINUTE FOR JUST
PENNIES ^
.. ACK! CAUGHT
If QUOTING MYSELF,
QUOTING MYSELF!
OOPS, DIP TTAGAIN!
r
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Raphael, Michael J. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 9, 1987, newspaper, October 9, 1987; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245674/m1/3/: accessed July 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.