The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 14, 1997 Page: 2 of 20
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laked
Better paths would make walking to
class in rainy weather easier.
It is difficult enough to get to class in the morning, hut when it t ains and
the campus pebble paths resemble the canals of Venice, it becomes
virtually 'impossible. '
There is no reason t hat students should b.e unable to walk .between
buildings without being forced to wadtMhrough a three-inch — or deeper—
puddle. Important and oft-traveled pathwaysJiJke those between the resi-
dential quadr angle and the Student Center and those between Sewall and
Ray/or halls, are among the worst on campus.
We realize that Houston is not only rainy, but one of the flattest cities in
the United States (only about a foot of slope per mile). Moreover, the soil
is horrible, leading to differential settlement and the undulating paths we're
all familiar with, Path repairs are barely keeping up with sinking soil. For
every pothole fixed, another appears, despite the efforts of long-suffering
grounds crew to unclog drains in the rain. Hut there must be a way to
improve the situation
Some solutions- might be simple: short lengths of pipe, for example,
could allow the water to flow under paths ratluy than over them, and some
paths could be elevated more. Perhaps it's simp'ly a matter of expanding the
path replacement program. We're afraid that moi'e money might be re-
quired, but then again we're not some impoverished public school. Perhaps
we could call up some of our wealthy friends ... how does the Anne and
t hailes Duncan Path sound? And, just possibly, we could get the City of
Houston to fill in that man-made lake known as Entrance 8.
In any case, the freezing feet, ruined shoes, flooded engines and soaking
pant cuffs are getting to be too much. Do something. Please.
Let Us in
Speakers are irrelevant if few
students who want to hear them can.
l: i n
i i 1 tS is 1 I
H I
X^^pinior
(J&
ptnionS
o
2.
Speaker^ ot repute are finally coining to Rice. Last week, Rice hosted
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and eminent scholar Cornel West.
The future looks bright as well. In mid-March, William F. Buckley will
film an episode of "Firing Line" on campus with Jerry Brown, Michael
Kinsley and Eugene Linden. Flashy lawyer Alan Dershowitz will be speak-
ing at Commencement 1997, and fail 1997 will bring us Rice alum and
Pu I it/.ei Prize-winning author Larry McMuftry.
Kudos to the Office of the Presi-
dent and other administrators for at
trading the prest igious speakers Rice
deserves. *
That said, we think that students
are not beingvtrtated as well as they
could be in attending such speeches.
There were, for example, some problems accommodating students for
Albright's speech. Marry students who wanted to see Albright in the Grand
Hall were turned away. Rice may have had a good reason for not accommo-
dating more siudfnts. but this action, no matter what the reasons behind it
are, sends out tjie message that at Rice, students just aren't as important as
faculty, staff and Houstonians in general.
There is no avoiding the fact that high-ranking visitors such as Mayor
Bob Lanier, former Texas Senator Lloyd Bent, sen and Albright have earned
a higher status in society than mere college students. But as the high
student turnout for Albright's speech demonstrates. Rice students are not
apathetic. Yet the efforts of many students to attend the speech were in vain;
more seating space should have been provided. Rice needs to recognize
that its students want to hear the words of wisdom that important speakers
can impart, and that such speeches are valuable learning experiences.
Letter Policy
TO SUBMIT—letters may be sent in by ...
e-mail: weller&rice.edu
campus mail: Letter to the Editor, c/o The Rice Thresher
U.S. Mail: Ixiter to the Editor, The Rice Thresher,
6100 Main St.. MS-524, Houston, TX 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 acceut anonymous letters, but names may be with-
held by request in special circumstances.
r>. We reserve the right to edit for length, spelling, grammar
and style.
*
9/ y
Letters to the Editor
To the editor:
A discussion has followed hot on
the heels of my recent column in the
Thresher, "Rice practices closet rac-
ism" (Jan. 24), on the racist implica-
tions of the discourse of the stranger
that pervades Rice. My attention is
drawn to a particularly ad hominem
attack directed at me last week in
"Racism complaints overstated."
I have no particular desire to re-
spond in kind to invective masking
it self as argument, or to in tantalizing
pop-psychology masquerading as
authoritative biographical disclo-
sure. As well, 1 have no desire to
respond to the litany of charges
against me.
However provocative and inflam-
matory the claims made under the
guise of truth were, they have no
bearing on the specific arguments I
attempted to advance in my column.
But I will encourage, in the name
of simple decency, all those who
purport to take my column as their
context, to respond, however criti-
cally, to the contentions I make in
that essay, and not to straw argu-
ments they wish I had made.
Let me state by way of example
that the word "white" is not featured
anywhere in my article, whether in
reference to any students or univer-
sity officials or even to "us" (who-
ever that is). Nor does my argument
hinge on whether or not I was of-
fered apologies (whatever the func-
tional and formulaic utterances that
stand in for apology may be).
Nor does my argument turn on
the lack or presence of police sensi-
tivity trainings (whatever these rou-
tine gestures actually amount to).
Indeed, the police department (and
the Graduate House for that matter)
was not the subject of my article as
such. I was addressing larger issues
pertaining to the pervasive race-in
fleeted siege mentality on this cam-
pus. To engage an argument on a
reductive reading of a couple of
decontextualized sentences is to
miss the point entirely, whether de-
liberately or accidentally.
To read a culture of racism as a
problem confined to the police de-
partment is to miss my point ... al-
most entirely.
Apollo Amoko
Graduate student
Department of English
To the editor:
I see that Allen I^ewis of the Rice
Republicans, like many of his flat tax
supporting contemporaries, seems
unable to distinguish between a tax
rate and the means used to compute
taxable income ("Flat tax system
would make April 15 simple, .fair,
easy," Feb. 7).
Hie re is nothing inherently com-
plex about the tax rate in use today.
With only four tax rates, computing
tax owed is straightforward, and is
even simpler when one uses the tax
tables so graciously provided by the
IRS.
The problem of course, is the
calculation of the amount of income
to be taxed, and it is this area that is
always conveniently ignored by the
.flat tax supporters. In their world,
everyone is a salaried wage earner;
hence the claims of a "postcard-sized
form" and 10-minute tax sessions.
Unfortunately, life is not nearly that
simple. i:
An example shows why the pro
flat tax arguments make no sense.
Consider a wage earner making
$30,000per year, and a self-employed
delivery driver who grosses $30,000
per year. In the first case the wage
earner has no expenses associated
with earning $30,000. At the pro-
posed 17 percent rate, this person
would pay about §5,100, and the ef-
fective tax rate is obviously 17 per-
cent.
There is nothing,
inherently complex
about the tax rate in
use today.
The delivery driver has a much
different experience, though. With
expenses for gas, oil, insurance and
depreciation for the delivery vehicle,
this person might take home only
$20,000 of the $30,000 he grossed.
Yet Lewis would have this indi-
vidual pay the same $5,100 in tax for
an effective rate of 25.5 percent.
Unless Lewis is willing to allow for
expense deductions in the earning
of income, then the flat tax will be
very unfair.
Yet it is precisely the expense
deductions that make the tax code
so complex.
For every delivery driver there is
another who owns cattle, or an oil
well, Of stocks .or a restaurant and
bar.
Each of these businesses has its
own set of allowable business ex-
pense deductions, each one "com-
plicating" the IRS code. Even Rice
University is covered by the tax code.
Would Lewis just ignore non-prof-
its, or would they still be required to
file statements of income and ex-
penses to prove they are operating
as a non-taxable entity?
In actuality, if the flat tax were to
pass, there would be far more con fu-
sion, lobbying and sweetheart deals
as all the special interest groups
flocked to Washington to try to get a
better deal in the new tax code.
If lewis is truly committed to a
simpler tax code, he ought to con-
sider a consumption tax. No forms
to file, no April 15 deadline and best
of all, a consumption tax encour-
ages savings over expenditures.
Wipe Herbert
Brown '97
To the editor:
"Backpage 1997 — Read by ev-
eryone. Respected by those who
know."
Sorry to burst your bubble, BPEs,
but you're getting a little out of touch
with your audience. Icite Nate Blair's
sequel to the controversial
Backpage, in which he claims that
that page simply expressed an un-
dercurrent of campus thought.
I found that defensive column
more taughable than most of the
insipid drivel on a typical Backpage.
My professors made jokes dispar-
aging theoffending Backpage; it ob-
viously embarrassed the vast major-
ity of Rice's population, and yet Blair
claims to have been the bold spokes-
man for a mftogynist campus.
Imagine my mortification, then,
when I see that Howard Stern—and
God only knows who else — has
that Backpage to associate with our
school.
And instead of an apology to Rice,
the BPEs£/oa< in the notoriety, The
rest of the campus (Remember us,
guys? The ones who read the
Backpage?) had generously let your
disgrace rest in peace; for some rea-
son f had assumed that perhaps yoli
were tired of being hated and would
return the gesture of peace. * .
Ha, ha! What a wacky reader I
am, But Howard Stern is the least
effective (though most appropriate)
speaker to invoke jp your ongoing
struggle to justify that Backpage.
Stern's rambling comment is
nearly humorously self-contradic-
tory.
He begins inauspiciously by
"comparing" meal's and women's
senses of humor and decides that
women or, to quote Mr. Stern,
"girls" — are too uptight and, in
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Beard, Marty & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 14, 1997, newspaper, February 14, 1997; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246560/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.