The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 80, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, September 25, 1992 Page: 4 of 20
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4 FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. 1992 THE RICE THRESHER
OPINION
Screw Yer Roommate dance not the solution to Rice's troubled social scene
by Fred Francis
The social scene at Rice is lethal for
the male ego. It consists of three op-
tions for those few of us who find
interest in the opposite sex. The first is
going to a Will Rice party—doing a lot
of smiling, pointing, and spilling your
drink as you try to make your way
through the narrow hallways which
are typically more packed than a box-
car in Germany in the '40s. The second
option can be found on a shirt entitled
"the natural lows of Rice": Walking to
Brown orjones, striking out, and walk-
ing back depressed—perhaps in a
partial bipedalstancewithyourknuck-
les dragging on the ground. The third
option is sitting at the Pub in a chair
that is not orthopedically correct and
hoping that you can spill your drink or
do something else stupid enough to
get the attention of both of the girls
who were there last Thursday night.
Upon later reflection, I'm glad I didn't
get the number of either of the ladies
present; it would be inappropriate to
date Rice faculty, even though techni-
cally, food service maintenance isn't
faculty.
Words of confidence came from
my roommate that evening; in his
drunken stupor, he reminded me that
I hadaguaranteeddate Saturday, com-
monly referred to as the "screw yer
roommate dance." The next day 1 be-
gan interviewing prospective dates for
my roommate, which turned out to be
an interesting dilemma, because I
could find his perfect match and still
not satisfy him—he'll probably insist
that hisdate walks with her h ind legs—
men are so picky. To be objective, I
decided to go with random selection,
meaning that I would find a nice,
attractive girl I know and set up her
roommate (whom I don't know) with
mine. After executing the dirty deed, I
returned to my roommate who used a
Ouija board and thanks to the 'mystics
of the great beyond' discovered the
identity of his date. He promptly yelled
at me, as he didn't want to date his ex-
girlfriend. But, he said that he could
deal with it. He told me, "Don't worry,
I won't jack you by using random
selection—I'll set you up with some-
one that I know."
At first I was relaxed and thought,
"Yes, there is a God and all men are
good." On my way to classes the next
day, I tripped down the stairs and
skillful ly managed to land on my head.
It was then that I had a horrible revela-
tion which made my theory of human
nature alter si ightly from the bel iefs of
John Locke to those of Thomas
Hobbes. This realization even altered
my natural pattern of sleep and now I
often find myself lying in a fetal posi-
tion continually moaning, "there's no
place like home, there's no place like
home..." I had realized that my room-
mate wasn't going to use random se-
lection simply because there was a
chance that it would work in my favor;
Yes, he was going to literally "set me
up"—not set me up as someone would
set up Dennis Eckersley or Rob Dibble,
but set up like Maximilian III. Know-
ing that the "screw yer roommate
dance," for me at least, was soon go-
ing to be categorized as one of the
"abysmal events of the '90s," I realized
that action must be taken, although
Oedipus had a better chance of avoid-
ing h is fate. If I could change this date,
I would be able to save a lot of money
on the personal therapy sessions thai
I'd need in 10 years.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that
I'm too picky, it's just that I'm not
interested in a girl whose only claim to
fame is that her parents were the only
survivors of the Three Mile Island ac-
cident who chose to continue living
there—besides, the whole idea of dat-
ing a girl whose feet had the unique
ability of a prehensile grasp justturned
me off, although I thought it was neat
that she glowed in the dark. I knew at
this point that I had only a few options
left. I talked to my college secretary,
but she said that I was acting immature
in trying to change roommates over
such a "moot point"—moot point,
hah—I should make her go out with
my roommate! So now it was time to
be brave. I was going to go straight to
the source—my roommate—and tell
him to 86 the date. But later that day,
when I accidentally touched my
tongue to a battery, I had another
divine revelation: if my roommate were
to change my date, he m ight wait until
the Friday before the dance and get
someone more desperate than me!
I considered getting one of my
suitemates to set me up, but then I
remembered their social standings
wereeven more frighteningthan mine.
One of them is a Chem major whose
hobbies include physics and math,
the other one is taking COMP 210 to
"have something amusing to do as a
means of passing the time between
study sessions." I decided to grit my
teeth and just wait nervously until
Saturday to see my date, although I
did go to the store and gel some pro-
tection—Mace.
My roommate has confirmed some
Marrou's vision Utopian
of the fundamental beliefs taught in
my Religious Studies class—especially
the one about "do unto others before
they doto you." Regardless, my room-
mate will eventually pay. He has to
come back to our room; he can't hide
forever. Although my odds of getting
set u p w ith a dream date are 1:0 (that's
supposed to be one to the empty set—
Academs, ask a SE friend to explain...).
I'll leave with a wise quote I once
heard which may help some females:
"When the skirts look shorter, the men
look longer."
Fred Francis could be your neighbor
To the editors,
Not knowing at all who Andre
Marrou and the Libertarian Party were,
my curiosity drew me to the speech of
the third candidate for the presidential
elections in 1992. Before the speech
even started, I was already strongly
surprised by the summarizing state-
ments made in the brochure which I
received upon entering the lecture
hall. Empiricism and common sense
always puts me on a high level of
alertness, when it comes to speeches
of politicians. The word IS the power
and demagogy starts here.
But when Marrou started his at-
tacks against the established system
and launched his "all-solving-pro-
gram," no "listening between the lines,"
no alertness for semantic refinements
Keep the doctor away.
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Tuesday, Sept. 29.
were necessary. His message was
straight, obvious and blunt.
I'll start with my conclusion. It was
dangerous talk! Let me tell you why.
Yes, a sound democratic political sys-
tem should consist of more than just
two well-fed, rigid parties. But this
alternative, the Libertarian Party, re-
minds me a little of those radical par-
ties in Europe, which started out small
and grew quickly, using blatant head-
line language to convey their goals
and to draw votes. He calls the Demo-
crats left-wing socialists, the Republi-
cans right-wing socialists. If he is re-
ally that intelligent (he had to stress
that three times during his speech),
then he should know that both parties
would find themselves sitting next to
each other within the spectrum of a
moderate conservative European
party.
A few comments on issuestouched
by Marrou. His overall reasoning is
based on the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights. He claims that Congress has
been curbing the individual rights by
adding more and more amendments.
Yes, a fundamental change is indeed
necessary in this country since the
present system is already obsolete.
But why insist on an outdated docu-
ment to solve problems which didn't
exist 200 years ago?
Education: Marrou claims to im-
prove the educational system by total
privatization. His only argument (that
evening) was that private education
was better (correct—otherwise it
couldn't survive) and cheaper (not
correct) than public education. He
could not answer the question why
American education (pre-college) is
still the worst of all industrial coun-
tries, having already (!) the highest
percentage of private schools.
Abortion: He thinks every woman
should be able to make her own deci-
sion about her own body. But he
himself rejects abortion (we heard
those things before...). To solve this
dilemma he proposes fetus-transplan-
tations and a decrease of costs and
restrictions for adoption. Are we ma-
chines. .. .?This reminded me of a theme
in Brave New World.
Economics: Probably the key con-
cern of this nation. Frankly, I couldn't
follow Marrou's juggling with billions
of dollars and his reasoning of how he
would abolish the deficit within 48
years. Common sense always toldyou:
Never trust a politician when he tries
to prove with numbers. They don't
mean anything and each point of view
has its own supporting figures. Marrou
blames the government for spending
all this big money for war games over-
seas(which is true). He compares U.S.
military spending with the spending
of Japan and Germany. Yes, they do
spend less money for weapons (still
too much) but they don't want to play
the world-cop-role either! Marrou
asked: why aren't there any German
or Japanese Peace Corps troops help-
ing the poor people in I louston, while
the Americans spend so much money
in helping out the world—but, there-
are no American Peace Corps feeding
the poor in Germany and Japan...
Marrou's vision might work in a
world of pure love, loyalty and non-
violence. But not in our world, not in
this country, the world's most power-
ful on its economical and political
slide. You gotta be at least a little
realistic—visions don't work. So, that
shows us that any alternative has also
to pass scrutiny!
Norbert Pralle
Graduate Student, Department
of Geology and Geophysics
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Kim, Leezie & Carson, Chad. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 80, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, September 25, 1992, newspaper, September 25, 1992; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245819/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.