The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 22, 1996 Page: 2 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
V'V/-:
M-':,
ff r
Iftefilll
W
THE RICE THRESHER
.Hill |H1III i' 1 111 jKiiiiifuliiBpi
Opinion
iPsf
OOTBALL
Our team deserves our support.
Tomorrow the football team takes the field for its final game of the
season. The team's performance has been getting a lot of attention this
season, and a win over the I Iniversity of Tulsa would give Rice seven wins
for the first time since 1961.
The Owls also have a chance of being chosen to represent the Western
Athletic Conference in a bowl game. Representatives from the Copper
Bowl will be at t he-game. Strong fan support, especially from the student
body, would aid the Owls'cause, ^ ~v"*
A bowl appearance would bring national attention to the university and
its athletic programs. However, this is not why you should support the
team.
Fifteen seniors will be honored at halftime. This class was one of the
winuingest since Rice's glory years in the 1950s. They will be going for
their 20th career win.
The entire team has surprised everybody but themselves with their
performance this year. Go to the game, make Signs, paint yourself blue
and scream your head off. And the next time you see that big guy on
campus, tell him what a great season he had. A little bit of support goes
a long way.
By focusing on the Backpage, the
meeting missed a great opportunity.
For those who do not know, students, faculty and staff attended a
forum on Monday to address an important concern: sexism at Rice
Advertised a,s a forum concerning the "Campus Climate for Women,"
Monday's discussion in Farusworth Pavilion was intended as a means to
bring to the forefront concerns about sexism on campus.
Unfortunately, the forum wasted an excellent opportunity to discuss
this issue. The forum focused almost exclusively on the Backpage.
Although some members of the Rice community may believe that the
Backpage contributes to sexism here, surely no one believes that it is the
main source of sexism.
While we feel that Monday's forum was quite productive in making
grievances heard, the forum could have done more by bringing up
concerns regarding sexual harassment among faculty and staff, as well
as such student concerns as date
rape Also, why was nothing said
about Night of Decadence, strip
pers at Hanszen College's Mardi
(Iras party, college minutes, Hay-
boy magazine founder Hugh
Hefner's role in the 1962 Campa-
nile Beauty Contest or the fact that
Rice originally banned women from campus after dark? These types of
issues need to be discussed ii we want to understand why some consider
the atmosphere here unfavorable to women.
Although ■Farusworth Pavilion was near-capacity with students and
faculty (including several college masters and RAs), even more would
have shown up if more publicity had been given lor this event. Other than
the letter to the editor in last week's Thresher and e-mail messages sent
to certain students, little was done to publicize the event. We had
expected that the organizers of this event would have wanted everyone
at Rice to show up. The best way to accomplish this would have been to
post fliers everywhere. Vet this was not done.
An open forum to discuss sexism and the climate for women at this
university is an excellent idea And when members of the Rice commu-
nity decide to hold one, the Thresher will be among the first to applaud
it.
pinionS
Letter Policy
TO SUBMIT — Tetters may be sent in by ...
e-mail: wPller " rtre.edu
campus mail: letter to the Editor, c/o The Rice Thresher
I S Mail: Tetter to the Editor. The Rice Thresher,
(il(K) Main St., MS-524. Houston, "DC 77005-1892
in person Thresher Office, Second Floor, Student Center
DEADLINE — Deadline for all letters is 5 p.m. on Monday. letters
received after the deadline are generally not considered for
publication until the following week.
RULES
1 All letters must include your^name, college, year of
graduation and phone number.
2 Short letters (200-500 words is a good guideline) have a better
chance of being published than long ones.
3. letters received via campus or U.S. mail must be signed. If you
are not submitting via e-mail, we strongly recommend that you
submit letters on a Macintosh or IBM-formatted disk.
4. We do not accept anonymous letters, but names may be with-
held by request in special circumstances,
5 We reserve- the right to edit for length, spelling, grammar
¥ PTTPDC Tn TUT? f?HITHD
Msjtls M 1 IvKd 1U 1 HHi JLJUM 1 VJIV
Baker's repeated use of fire alarm
unwise
To the editor:
People from Baker scheduled a
fire drill a few weeks ago which was,
eoincidenfally, the same time as
Baker's chug practice. This was an
obvious ploy intended not to test the
fire alarm, but to get people to at-
tend chug practice.
Normally this kind of trick
wouldn't bother me, except that the
fire alarm is a serious issue, it is
meant to be a life-saving tool, and
the responsible parties have abused
that tool. I used to jump directly
outside at the sound of a fire alarm,
but there have been times in my last
year and a half at Baker when the
alarm has gone off at 3 a.m. on a
weeknight because someone pulled
the alarm as a joke.
1 don't like being rudely awak-
ened at 3 a.m. by the fire alarm,
which is so piercingly high-pitched
and loud it could microwave one's
brain right inside their skull, and so
I have trained myself to ignore it. In
fact. 1 have applied every adhesive
known to man over the fire alarm in
my room to deaden the noise enough
so that 1 can bear to stay in the room
through all false alarms.
In short, abuses of the fire alarm
actually decrease the effectiveness
of the alarm in the event of an actual
fire. It's like the boy who cried wolf:
Who will pay attention when a fire
really does happen, when everyone
knows that the alarm has always been
an annoying prank in the past?
In short, abuses of
the fire alarm actually
decrease the
effectiveness of the
alarm in the event of
an -actual fire.
Yesterday evening I knew when 1
heard the alarm go off (exactly on
fhe hour) that it was not a real alarm,
and so I stayed in my room and con-
tinued to do my homework.
Usually fire drills last three or
four minutes before a Campus Po-
lice officer shows up and turns the
alarms off, but not last night. The
alarm lasted not five, not 10, but
nearly 20 minutes. I finally began to
get worried after five or six minutes,
so I went outside to find a bunch of
Bakerites chugging liquids, not a
single one of them concerned with
shutting the fire alarm off so that I
could continue my work in peace.
I was especially shocked to
stumble upon a Campus Police of-
ficer who informed me that the Cam-
pus Police had been warned of the
alarm beforehand and were appar
ently oblivious to the ploy to lure
Baker residents to the chug prac-
tice. Is this the kind of behavior our
Campus Police endorse?
Doesn't anyone realize that a
prank of this nature accomplishes
nothing and violates the rights of
those students who prefer their
peace and quiet? What ever hap-
pened to consideration?
I am severely disappointed by
the. lack of maturity.demonstrated
by the responsible parties (you know
who you are), and 1 hope that the
Campus Police will also exercise a
little more, common sense in the
future and realize obvious abuses of
the fire alarm before t hey take place.
My studies were rudely interrupted,
and the fire alarm was abused. Those
two things are entirely inexcusable.
Keith Kelly
Baker *99
Students throw beer cans
at Club 13, endanger
To the editor: -
As a regular member of Club 13,
1 enjoy the spirit of competition that
exists between runners and defend-
ers. I have no problem with — and in
fact I welcome — large buckets of
water, firehoses, water balloons and
any manner of defense meant to strip
us of our "clothing." We try to cover
your college with body prints, you
try to stop us and everybody has fun.
There are certain types of people,
however, who aren't satisfied with
water as a measure of defense. For
at least the second year in a row, we
were greeted at Hanszen College
this Halloween by students pelting
us with eggs. I'm sure 1 don't need to
tell people how much it hurts to get
hit by an egg going 60 mph when
you're naked.
And I definitely don't need to re-
mind the males out there that there
are certain very vulnerable places
that are unprotected from the on-
slaught of hard objects, and that
getting hit between the legs by an
egg can be at the least painful, and at
most sterilizing.
Still, even eggs, dangerous and
painfulthough they aMvar# ane*
pected hazard of the Halloween run.
What was unexpected, and utterly
unwelcome, was what we were
greeted with at Brown College. Be-
sides water (of which they had a lot)
and water balloons, people were
dropping full beer cans from the
roof of the building. Eggs hurt; beer
cans can very easily be fatal.
This activity goes far beyond
merely ruining the fun of the event
to making it extremely dangerous. I
personally was almost hit in the head
by a full beer can. I would not be
here writing this letter if it had been
several inches to the left. I am com-
pletely appalled that people could
possibly find it enjoyable to hurl
heavy, hard objects from the roof of
an eight-storybuilding.
I don't think I'm exaggerating
too much when I say that you can
honestly kill someone that way, or at
least seriously injure or maim them.
And yet I imagine these people some-
how feel justified because we were
naked.
The sad thing is that this is noth-
ing new. Last year Club 13 was sev-
eral times greeted at Will Rice Col-
lege by people throwing dangerous
itftUsvMyroommate was Tut in the
face with a rock by one of these
people. Let me repeat that to allow it
to sink in: Somebody hurled a rock
at his face. This just has to stop.
1 cannot understand the hatred
some people have for this event. If
you don't particularly enjoy, or even
understand, the thrill behind Club
13, nobody asks you to run it. If you
don't want to watch, if you are of-
fended by nudity or if you are re-
pulsed by the naked bodies of Rice
students, nobody requires you to
took. It's not as if we take anybody
by surprise; we do it every month,
same time, same places. Those who
don't like it can hide for five minutes
every month as we come by, or even
simpler, close your eyes.
But no matter what you may call
Club 13 — perverted, exhibitionis-
tic, disgusting—it is perfectly harm
less. I understand how people might
not enjoy it, and 1 can respect that
opinion. But deriving pleasure from
attempting to seriously injure a fel
low human being is sick, twisted
and downright wrong. Please, if you
insist on ruining everybody's fun, ^
least try to find a safer way to do it.
Steven l)e(#ennaro.
Baker '99
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Beard, Marty & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 22, 1996, newspaper, November 22, 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246554/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.