The Rice Thresher, Vol. 96, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, December 5, 2008 Page: 2 of 20
twenty 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:
EDITORIAL
the Rice Thresher
friday, december 5,2008
the Rice (Ihresher
Emergency alert system
only works if used
Probably everyone would agree that Rice's comprehensive
alert system would be good for notifying students of impend-
ing natural disasters, campus closings and crimes in the sur-
rounding neighborhoods. But what about the on-campus
presence of a gun-wielding man fleeing the Rice University
Police Department?
We feel that when a man accused of physically assault-
ing his undergraduate girlfriend evades police custody by
vaulting from the roof of Brown College (see story, page 7),
students should be notified of his whereabouts, and we don't
mean in an e-mail an hour later. Nevertheless, we are very
appreciative that at least some college masters provided the
electronic communication, considering others did not even
bother with that limited notice.
We consider the lack of common response among the mas-
ters relatively excusable, because we find it disturbing that
the administration put the burden of distribution of informa-
tion as important as the whereabouts of an escaped criminal
on the masters in the first place. The point of setting up the
university-wide alert system in the first place was to make
it easy for those at the highest level of the administration to
contact students immediately in the event of an emergency.
That said, we fully believe that sending a timely text message
to every registered phone on campus would have been much
easier and more considerate than trying to disseminate infor-
mation through multiple parties and hoping it would arrive
intact and simultaneously to each and every student.
Speaker choice good, but
system needs more fixes
How is it that Stuyvesant High School can book This Ameri-
can Life radio show host Ira Glass for its commencement and
Rice University cannot? We have a few ideas about this.
Today, the Commencement Speaker Committee announced
that the speaker for the 2009 Commencement will be Zainab
Salbi, the founder and CEO of Women for Women Interna-
tional, an organization that helps female survivors of war to
rebuild their lives through providing them financial assis-
tance and education (see story, page 1). Though Salbi's father
served as Saddam Hussein's personal pilot, Salbi herself is
not associated with Hussein, as is evident from her body of
humanitarian work.
As a candidate for commencement speaker, Salbi is a good
choice. We are sure her credentials will make her a great
speaker and that her heartfelt service is something Rice grad-
uates can surely learn much from.
But we have to point out the truth, and sometimes the truth
hurts. How many people have heard of Salbi, and how many
have heard of Ira Glass? For the past few years, Rice has been
moving in the direction of achieving greater name recogni-
tion. If Rice wants to be a well-known, top-tier university, it
should book well-known, top-tier speakers.
And Rice has a tendency to choose commencement speak-
ers who are less well known—sometimes these speakers are
our own alumni. A year ago, discontent brewed when students
realized that the Commencement Speaker Committee began
assembling late in the fall semester and had former Rice Presi-
dent George Rupp mere weeks before the event ("Former Rice
President Rupp chosen for Commencement, " Mar. 21). Real-
izing that this was unacceptable, this year's Commencement
Speaker Committee assembled in April and booked the speak-
er a good six months beforehand.
And while this year's effort was an improvement over the
fiasco of last year, we think the committee can do more to book
speakers that are better known. The way we can achieve this
is by forming Commencement Speaker Committees earlier —
not just a few months earlier, but two years earlier. In order to
book someone on the level of celebrity status, a few months is
just not enough time. If this committee were formed during the
sophomore year of a class—that is, two years before they grad-
uate—there would be enough time for these committees to find
qualified and available speakers to speak at commencement.
Again, it's not that Salbi is a bad choice; she is a good
choice, and an improvement over last year's hastily picked
speaker (Rupp graciously accepted the position last minute,
and frankly, we should have been thankful anybody spoke at
all). Choosing Salbi shows that the Commencement Speaker
Committee has made great changes in their selection process
in that the speaker was chosen a good half-year in advance
and that the speaker is not from the Rice community. We just
want to puint out that we can — and should — always be look-
ing for ways to improve.
ATE mnrassgy vara
I Don? HAV£
Any mey.
TOWNlT
F/ND TH/rr
1 cwi.pr', w
Bur Y00
ANYTH/N6,
... /
Im
LETTERS TO TH E EDITOR
thresher-ops@rice. edu
Holocaust mention
disrespectful, glib
To the editor:
When I worked on the Thresher, I
always enjoyed reading Caroline May's
columns. It was great to have a regu-
lar conservative writer who was not a
mouthpiece for the Rice College Re-
publicans, but an independent voice.
While I almost never agreed with her,
May's columns helped me refine my
own arguments, and she was never
afraid to express her own opinion. She
stirred up campus and made people
angry, and it was great. However, her
column two weeks ago was beyond
the pale ("Global warming consensus
only, not fact," Nov. 21).
Her arguments about global
warming are not the issue. Instead,
her flippant use of the Holocaust is
not only reductio ad Hitlerum of the
worst kind, but also horribly insult-
ing. For May, the systematic murder
of millions of innocent men, women
and children seems to be nothing
more than a throwaway line in a cli-
ched political rant. Unless politicians
are marching millions of people into
death camps as part of a racial cleans-
ing initiative, the Holocaust has no
place in a political argument. This
sort of rhetoric belongs on the Back-
page, where post-ironic mockeries of
political discourse are appropriate.
But in the opinion section it is just
sad. By calling such arguments "elo-
quent," May shows that she is either
ignorant or horribly cruel.
If it is merely ignorance, May is
lucky enough to live just a few blocks
away from the Houston Holocaust Mu-
seum. Perhaps she could visit the mu-
seum and write her next column about
how the suffering of millions is not a
tool for her own personal agenda.
Evan Mintz
Former Thresher Executive Editor
Hanszen'08
Art installations
reflect artistic value
To the editor:
The argument that the donations
for Fondren's Lino Tagliapietra instal-
lation could have been put to better use
on the Marching Owl Band ("Funds for
campus art nice but misplaced," Nov.
14) is singular and fallacious.
Brought to fruition through the mu-
nificence of Elizabeth and Albert Kidd,
this project is a promising preview of
art to come. Like other privately fund-
ed projects at Rice such as the John
and Anne Grove, the Kidds and Rice's
Arts Committee probably enjoyed spe-
cial freedom in their selection of this
project; that's just how private money
works. If the MOB is feeling jealous or
neglected, then maybe it should try to
be less controversial in order to im-
press outside donors. If the Kidds had
wanted to support the MOB, I'm sure
they would have.
Everyday practical problems
should be handled through other de-
partments at Rice. Suppose the Kidds
had donated $500,000 to keeping tu-
ition down for students. In today's
market, would that really have made
a difference for all students for long?
Special donations are for special
projects, not general ones. These or-
namental boats make a long lasting
statement about the value of art and
metaphor, and at least this message
is subtle and symbolic enough to be
generally appealing and inoffensive.
O see letters, page 3
Lily Chun & Dylan Farmer
Editors in Chief
NEWS
Sarah Rutledge Editor
Catherine Bratic Asst. Editor
Margeux Clemmons Asst. Editor
Cindy Dinh Asst. Editor
Jocelyn Wright /Issf. Editor
Zach Castle Designer
Jenny Sun Designer
Melissa Tsang Designer
OP-ED
Amanda Melchor Editor
Kay Fukui Cartoonist
SPORTS
Natalie Clericuzio Editor
Yan Digilov Editor
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Julie Armstrong Editor
Joe Dwyer Editor
COPY
Nick Schlossman Editor
Ryan Stickney Editor
Anna Wilde Editor
CALENDAR
Sean McBeath Editor
PHOTOGRAPHY
David Rosales Editor
Ariel Shnitzer/4ssf. Editor
Lauren Schoeffler Asst. Editor
WEB
John Michael Cuccia Editor
Stephen Wangdssf. Editor
BUSINESS
Sarah Mitchell Manager
Yvett" Pan Payroll Manager
Jessie Huang Subscriptions Manager
Gustavo Herrera Distribution Manager
Sergio Jaramillo Distribution Manager
Charles Avry Distribution Manager
ADVERTISING
Joseph Ramirez Ads Manager
Thomas Yeh Ads Manager
Tiffany Kuo Classified Ads Manager
BACKPAGE
Timothy Faust Editor
Eric Doctor Editor
The Rice Thresher, the official student news-
paper at Rice University since 1916, is pub-
lished each Friday during the school year,
except during examination periods and holi-
days, by the students of Rice University.
Letters to the Editor must be received by
5 p.m. the Monday prior to publication and
must be signed, including college and year if
the writer is a Rice student. Letters should not
exceed 250 words in length. The Thresher re-
serves the rights to edit letters for content and
length and to place letters on our Web site.
Editorial & business offices are
located on the second floor of the Ley Stu-
dent Center:
6100 Main St., MS-524
Houston, TX 77005-1892
Phone (713) V<8-4801
Fax (713) 348-5238
E-mail: thresher@rice.edu
Web site: wwwricethrpsher.nrg
Unsigned editorials represent the major-
ity opinion of the Thresher editorial staff.
All other opinion pieces represent solely
the opinion of the piece's author.
The Thresher is a member of the
Associated Collegiate Press. Way to go Kay
© Copyright 2008
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.
Chun, Lily & Farmer, Dylan. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 96, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, December 5, 2008, newspaper, December 5, 2008; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443148/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.