The Rice Thresher, Vol. 92, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, April 1, 2005 Page: 3 of 24
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Rice University Woodson Research Center.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
THE RICE THRESHER
OPINION
FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 2005
Rice Voices
Democrats need to wake from moral coma
P98t, hey Democrats, over here.
Remember how you lost the elec-
tion in November? Remember how
all the pundits said it was because
you didn't have strong
moral values? Well, here
is a chance to reclaim your
stake in morality—and you
are missing it.
See this woman here?
Her name isTerri Schiavo.
She has been in a con-
tinuous vegetative state for
15 years. She can breathe
on her own, her heart
beats on its own and
she can move her eyes,
but that's about it. Her
doctors say she has no chance
of recovery.
For seven years, her husband has
been fighting to have the feeding
tube keeping her alive removed. He
maintains she would not have wanted
to live this way. Her parents believe
she can recover and believe that she
has communicated to them that she
wants to live.
The problem is Schiavo has no
"living will," no "advance medical
directive." We don't know for cer-
tain what she wants. As a result,
open season has been declared on
whose values get to be imposed on
her — instead of her own. Unfortu-
nately, whichever side wins this battle
will set a precedent and be more able
to assert its values next time.
In a case as emotional and complex
as Schiavo's, one would think the
country would be as divided and po-
larized as it was over the election. Yet
polls have shown that 70 percent of the
American public opposed Congress'
intervention on Schiavo's behalf. The
Republicans and the religious right
are telling us why Schiavo should
live; Democrats should be telling us
why we should let her die.
David
Axel
Obviously, taking this position
requires a delicate touch. Defending
life does not take much justification,
since most of us would rather live
than die. And arguments
such as "all life is holy" are
simple, dogmatic state-
ments that are easy to
digest and that work well
as sound bytes.
Arguing to let Schi-
avo go is a much more
in-depth and emotional
endeavor, one that can-
not be adequately ex-
pressed in one-liners on
talk shows or in letters to
the editor. Since dogma
cannot easily justify such a posi-
tion, any argument in favor of
Schiavo's death opens up a quag-
mire of religious, medical, ethical,
personal and emotional issues that
should be considered but are simulta-
neously none of the public's business.
The argument is complex and the
patience and sensitivity required to
make it are not inviting either.
Yet to counter the Republicans
on values, the argument must be
made. Life and death issues such
as the removal of Schiavo's feeding
tube are delicate, but they are hardly
one-sided. If all people agreed on
how to handle cases like Schiavo's,
then medical ethics would be a very
boring subject. But the reality is that
the question of how to best fulfill the
wishes of a patient whose wishes are
not known is one of the most contro-
versial and multifaceted problems in
our society today, and we continue to
wrestle with it.
Should we hold fast to life no
matter what? A republican in favor
of saving Schiavo's life would argue
yes. Yet any attempt to save her life
now really only delays the inevitable;
Schiavo will just spend years barely
conscious until she dies just like the
rest of us. It seems no one is making
the counterargument that sometimes
it is better to let go and hold fast to
the belief that the dying are going
someplace better.
Democrats used to pride them-
selves on being the champion of
the little guy. Schiavo is the little
guy now, and everyone is fighting
for what they believe are her best
interests, except Democrats. Schiavo
might want to live, but she also might
want to be left in peace. If this is the
case, Democrats should be trying to
defend her against those who seek to
prolong her life against her will.
Arguing to let Schiavo
go is ... [an] emotional
endeavor, one that
cannot be adequately
expressed in one-liners
on talk shows or in
letters to the editor.
The Democratic Party has a
unique opportunity to restake their
claim to being a party of values. It
should stand up to the religious right
in Congress and in the media and tell
us why it is not just acceptable but
morally right to let this woman die.
It will be difficult and complicated,
but it is the only way to reassert the
values of the Democratic Party in
the face of the moral monopoly the
Republican Party has claimed.
There is no better time than now.
David Axel is a Brown College
junior.
Guest column
Meat not only delicious; key to fame, fortune
Over spring break, a man wiser
than I said to me, "If God hadn't in-
tended for us to eat cows, he wouldn't
have made them out of beef." I reckon
that is true. But I have a
more comprehensive view
on why meat is awesome.
Simply put, we have an
obligation to be carnivo-
rous, and we must not
merely limit our diets to
rodentia.
There's no doubt that
we live in a progressive
alimentary era. When
someone starts with the
word "rice" in a culinary
context, the now-appro-
priate response is that vegetarian
protein substitute "and beans." In
the midst of a more broadmin-
ded, liberal era of People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals activ-
ism. cryogenic pet preservation and
vegetarian proliferation, I can only act
from my stubborn conservatism and
point indefatigably to the past.
Why are statues of Abraham
Lincoln gracing national recreation
areas?'Hie Emancipation Proclama-
tion merely freed slaves in the South,
outside the geographic bounds of the
Union. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln
actually has statues because he — as
the legend goes — once demolished
the entire hog population of Illinois
in five platefuls.
After all, Dr. Hannibal Leeter
gained his fame and fortune from
appreciating a healthy helping of
liver and Chianti. Jurassic Park fea-
tured gratuitous, grisly and gorging
tyrannosaurs and raptors instead of
herbivorous stegosaurs. Indeed, it
is natural that Gollum preferred his
food "raw and wriggling" instead of in
a stew with starchy "po-ta-toes."
Perhaps we should adhere more
strictly to this biblical example: The
sheet from heaven "contained all
sorts of four-footed animals, as well
as reptiles of the earth and birds
Matt
Dunn
of the air. A voice then told Peter,
'Get up, Peter, kill and eat.'" (Acts
10:12,13). Heck, the consumption of
meat is historically necessitated in
the Christian tradition.
Additionally, there is
enormous social value to
being a carnivore. When-
ever I am feeling particu-
larly inadequate about my
bachelor status, I can
immediately validate my
existence in the most
masculine of circles by
simply opening a package
ofbeefjerky and letting that
musky, manly odor waft
around the vicinity.
Nothing makes you feel more
like you have finished the titanic
struggle of hunting down a vicious
wild boar than opening the Wild
Boar roast beef package you just
purchased from the deli section. And
nothing inspires the dogged pursuit
of a dream more than the eye of a
tiger — the last known survivor
stalking his prey in the night. The
presence of meat also corroborates
a man's masculinity to the extent
that he is willing to don an apron to
produce some quality steaks. I mean,
George Foreman — point made.
Plus, meat makes you feelgood in-
side, whether you are male or female.
As you annihilate a smoking herd of
gazelles at Fogo de Chao or crash
Baker's Wild Game Night, something
about masticating smoked llesh of
beast makes you feel strong like a bull
— never mind that bulls do not eat
meat. It is a common ecological lesson
that consumers obtain their energy
from their diet, so could I not also in-
herit the raw, power ful and noble char-
acteristics of a mighty bison by sitting
down and aggressively ordering a
buffalo burger?
Finally, I offer as evidence The
Lion King-. It took about 50,000 veg-
etarian wildebeests to take down the
mighty meat-devouring Mufasa.
Don't get me wrong. I love my
vegetarian friends dearly and re-
spect their dietary decision. I have
no doubt that I could preserve my
health by carefully and meticulously
balancing my tofu and soy with other
supplements, and a nice garden salad
can really make a salutary meal.
But I just cannot get an inspiration-
al scenario — the one cross-country
runners love—out of my head: Every
morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the fastest lion
or it will be killed. Be the lion.
Matt Dunn
freshman.
is a Martel College
Guest column
College applications should
not be Sisyphean endeavor
The recent influx of prospec-
tive students on campus has
brought back a flood of deeply
repressed memories from my
own college applica-
tion experience. The
days of innumerable
and tedious questions,
torturously unoriginal
essay prompts, bank-
breaking application
fees and the intermi-
nable, agonizing wait-
ing are not so far behind
any of us.
I remember when
my senior year English
teacher, in a character-
istic fit of sadism, assigned Albert
Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus to
the class shortly before admis-
sion decisions were announced.
The story's hero is punished by
a god and forced to roll a boulder
up a hill for eternity. Every time
he reaches the hill's summit, the
boulder rolls right back down to
the bottom with Sisyphus in its
wake. If any students in my class
did not sympathize with Sisyphus'
eternal, pointless struggle, I did
not know them.
In Camus' version of the story,
Sisyphus finds a sort of inner peace
in the futility of his existence. Most
seniors handle their college appli-
cation stress by hearing from their
schools one way or the other and
then deciding which one to attend,
but that was not really an option for
me. My own admissions process
was more similar to Sisyphus'
struggle than that of most.
The first year I applied to col-
leges, I was a 15-year-old high
school senior. I filled out 19
pages of applications to my top two
universities (Harvard and Rice)
and sent a Web application to my
dad's alma mater (the University
of Chicago) at his request. I got
in to the University of Chicago
and was rejected from Harvard.
Meanwhile, somewhere between
Ohio and Houston, my Rice appli-
cation disappeared. After several
calls to the Admission Office and
the U.S. Postal Service, I realized
I would have to go through the
entire application process once
more. The rock I had been push-
ing uphill started to roll down
right past me.
I had been planning to take a gap
year after graduating, but used a fair
amount of my time of f reapplying to
Rice, as well as seven other schools
for good measure. In addition to all
Julia
Bursten
of the work of completing a regular
application for each school, I had to
track down recommendations and
transcripts at a school from which
I had already gradu-
ated and write letters to
each university explain-
ing why I was not in
school and what I was
doing instead.
This time, Rice re-
ceived my application
and after an ironically
fitting stint on the uni-
versity's waiting list — I
had been waiting for over
a year already; what
was a few more weeks,
right? — here I am at the top of
the hill holding onto my rock. The
absurd amounts of time, stress
and money I went through to get
here make me appreciate my Rice
experience more than I would have
if I had simply been admitted the
first time around. But is that reward
worth all the extra effort?
I'm going to go with no. College
admissions are stressful and time-
consuming enough as is, and very
few guidelines exist for students
who have followed non-standard
educational paths. I can only imag-
ine the ordeal that home-schooled
students go through. It seems
college admissions committees
should be working to make the
application process easier rather
than harder.
Undoubtedly, the ratio of
qualified, talented students to
slots in the freshmen classes
at America's top universities is
growing, and that is not news to
any admissions committees. But
narrowing application pools by
requiring miles of red tape will not
suffice. Increased bureaucracy is
just cruel to both the applicants
and the admissions commit-
tees who have to sift through
the applications.
Instead of torturing everyone
involved in the process, college
admissions committtees should
consider creating shorter, less bu-
reaucratic applications with more
questions specific to the univer-
sity's standards — questions like
the beloved Rice box or "How do
you feel about flooding?" or, most
importantly, "How much postage
will you pay for the opportunity to
attend this uah>r ,ityv
Julia Bursten is a Ijovett College
freshman and assistant arts and
entertainment editor.
the Rice Thresher
Amber Obertneyer
Editor in Chief
Nathan Black
Senior Editor
NEWS
David Brown. Editor
Risa Gordon. Editor
Kirti Datla, Page Designer
SPORTS
Matt McCabe, Editor
Stephen Whitfield, Editor
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Jonathan Schumann, Editor
Julia Bursten. Asst Editor
COPY
Elaine lee. Editor
Carl Haminarsten, Asst Editor
CALENDAR
Cameron Day, Editor
Stephanie Zimmerman. Cartoonist
OPINION
Evan Mintz, Editor
Searcy Milam, /tss< Editor
PHOTOGRAPHY
Marshall Robinson, Editor
Alex Sigeda, Editor
Rachel Davis. Asst Editor
BUSINESS
Debbie Miller, Business Manager
Elaine Lee, Payroll Manager
Sawyer Bonsib, Subscriptions Manager
Zeynep Eroglu. Office Manager
Patrick Spicer, Distribution Manager
Bryan Steinfeld, Distribution Manager
ADVERTISING
Matt Hamilton, Ads Manager
Michelle Grossman. Asst Ads Manager
Rob Paek, Classified Ads Manager
The Rice Thresher, the official student
newspaper at Rice University since 1916.
is published each Friday during the school
year, except during examination periods and
holidays, by the students of Rice University.
Editorial and business offices are located
on the second floor of the Lev Student Center,
6100 Main St., MS-524. Houston. TX 77005-
1892 Phone (713) 348-4801 Fax (713) 348-
5238. E-mail: thresher<&rice edu Web page:
www ncethresherorg
Annual subscription rate: $50 domestic.
$105 international. Nonsubscription rate: first
copy free, second copy $5.
The Thresher reserves the right to refuse
any advertising for any reason Additionally,
the Thresher does not take responsibility
for the factual content of any ad Printing
an advertisement does not constitute an
endorsement by the Thresher
Unsigned editorials represent the majority
opinion of the Thresher editorial staff. All other
opinion pieces represent solely the opinion of
the author The Backpage is satire
The Thresher is a member of the Associated
C ollegiate Press and the Society of Professional
Journalists. May my evil reign of a thousand
semesters begin! Sex. drugs and S&M!
© COPYRIGHT 2005
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.
Obermeyer, Amber. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 92, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, April 1, 2005, newspaper, April 1, 2005; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443016/m1/3/?q=%22%22~1: accessed June 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.