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Ch*ndl*r Brawn | Editor in Chirp
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Erin McClain | Managing Editor
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I Opinions Editor
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Opinions
ESTABLISHED I Ml. INDEPENDENT ISM
Opinion Meter
A tv rap-up of the week’s ups and downs
ups t
EAT MOR CAVALIERS. So we didn’t get
asked back to the Outback Bowl. Who cares?
Now we re matched up against a better team
- No. 12 Virginia — in the Chick-fil-A Peach
Bowl. This means we’ll look all the better
when we show ’em what ACC really stands
for: Another Crappy Conference.
Hoo-doggiM! It’s been a book-crammin’,
class droppin', schedule-switchin’ hell of a
semester. Now we're four or five finals away
from winter break. We get two weeks off,
then we have to come back and do it all
again. Oeez!
Testing, testing, 1,2,3. Who knew profes
sors aren't supposed to give tests or quizzes
the last three days of the term? Not us — our
teachers have been piling it on. Speaking of
getting screwed by professors ...
A piece of harassment. The University
adopted a new sexual harassment policy
Monday. It doesn’t allow professors or TAs
to date students they’re teaching. If the
looks of the journalism professors are any
indication, this is a wise idea.
Gettin’ Tritty wit' it. Travis Tritt played at
the Classic Center on Thursday. He may be
the coolest thing ever to come out of Cobb
County.
Those little piggies want us to go home.
Ya better go out this weekend — when we
come back in January, every bar in Athens
will have to close at 2:45 a m. This sucks!
SpecTECHular. Forget studying for your
finals on Monday. The men’s basketball team
goes to Georgia Tech on Sunday afternoon
for a 3:30 game. Hope they’re scared —
there’s gonna be more red there than in
Santa's wardrobe. And we haven’t forgotten
what those stupid tools did to our hedges.
Spank the ‘Monkey.’ Get ready for more
quality programming from Housing 12. “The
Silly Spider Monkey Fiasco,” a sketch come
dy show, debuts next semester. Guess this is
a mid-season replacement for the dining hall
menus and public service announcements.
All Rhodes lead to Athens. The University
snagged its third Rhodes Scholarship in four
years this week. Beth Shapiro will study in
Oxford, England, for a year — just enough
time to lose a few teeth and come back look
ing all British.
Hit the Tulane road. Our offensive line
coach, Chris Scelfo, got the job as Tulane’s
head football coach. Good luck, coach, but
we’ll miss you.
Q
Strap on. Some of the campus transit
buses we all know and love got straps for the
hang-on bars. This may lessen the probabili
ty of falling into some fat, nasty guy’s armpit.
Hold on tight.
The most wonderful time of the year. No,
it's not spring break. It’s the holidays, y’all —
time to whip out the mistletoe and eggnog
and see who’s naughty and nice. Dear Santa:
All we want for Christmas Is for semesters to
disappear, for Georgia to whup Virginia in the
Peach Bowl, and — please, God! — for
Tennessee to go down like the Titanic on Jan. 4
Our Staff
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Letters should be no more than ISO words. All letters are subject to
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A lockout’s good for the NBA
lo it looks like the National
Basketball Association is
Fabout to cancel its entire
season It looks like the owners
and players can't get together on
a deal. It looks like millions of
pro basketball fans are going to
have to be satisfied with college
hoops this year.
Excellent.
It's time for the group of over-
glorified thugs and children
known as professional basketball
players to miss a year's worth of
paychecks and live like us nor
mal folk for a while. And it’s time
for the world to stop focusing on
these babies like they do some
thing more important than drib
ble.
Believe it or not, I'm a sports
fan. I love baseball, football and
basketball. I've been to a couple
of World Series and some NBA
and NFL games. I've spent most
of my life following and studying
sports, and my love for sports is
why I think it’s so important for
the league to go belly-up for a
while.
The sports world needs a pro
league to blow an entire season
and shoot itself In the foot. The
glory of pro sports — the glam
our, the lights, the money, the
adoration — has become so over
whelming as to be completely
out of proportion to the enter
tainment it provides. Our society
has managed to inflate the men
(and boys) who play professional
sports to near god-like status.
Like movie stars, we have cre
ated a cult of celebrity for profes-
CHIP RIGGS
sional athletes that is almost
impenetrable. These guys can do
pretty much what they want,
when they want, how they want
to whomever they want.
Sacramento Kings forward
Chris Webber and Golden State
Warriors guard Latrell Sprewell
are only the most obvious poster
boys of the devolution of profes
sional sports into mass chaos.
Webber has been arrested
twice for drug possession in the
last few months. We all remem
ber how Sprewell choked his
coach and then proceeded to file
lawsuit after lawsuit claiming his
civil rights were abused.
And what’s the punishment
the men received? Webber paid a
$500 fine in an airport after being
picked up for marijuana posses
sion.
Meanwhile, players have
begun attacking officials (see
Nick Van Exel, Dennis Rodman
and others), each other (see any
one of several New York Knicks
brouhahas) and foreign national
teams in exhibitions (the
University of Minnesota a few
weeks ago).
I know, this sounds preachy. I
don’t want it to sound that way
— I hate reading whiny "athletes
suck” columns as much as any
one. But I do need to point out
the evidence for my claims.
The NBA Is producing a gen
eration of overpaid, over-glori
fied, arrogant kids — and most of
today’s young stars are 23 or
younger — who add nothing to
society but the occasional dunk
and really bad rap albums.
It’s time for the league — and
the players who compose it — to
take a step back and re-assess
their importance to the world.
When Patrick Ewing, a guy who
makes more than $5 million a
year, says the players are fighting
for their lives and Kenny
Anderson whines when he has to
cut down to $250,000 a month in
hangin’ out money, it’s time for
some perspective.
Let ’em take a year off and be
out of the spotlight in April and
May, when the playoffs normally
occur, and maybe they’ll begin to
realize that the world doesn’t
revolve around them. The NBA
isn’t irredeemable, but it needs
something drastic. I hope this
absence from the spotlight will
be just the trick.
Heck, college basketball's bet
ter anyway, and baseball's spring
training is right around the cor
ner. We'll survive And the NBA
will be better off in the long run.
— Chip Riggs is a doctoral
student in speech
communication.
Mailbox
E-mail, letters and fares from our readers
Athenians don’t include students
Students have been at various
times encouraged towards civic
and political participation in
Athens life by various sources.
On Monday. The R&B entreated
students to "prove us wrong" by
attending Tuesday's Athens-
Clarke commission meeting
regarding the closure of late-
night dance clubs.
Though it seems that
University students were repre
sented by SQA and a handful of
other civic-minded student-
types, the editorial staff was
proved right. But of more press
ing issue to us as students Is
some of the comments elicited
by not-student residents In
attendance.
One resident declared, “What
they need to realize Is that this is
our town," and goes on to state,
"They're here for for or five years.
We are a family community and
we need to keep it that way.”
These comments If nothing
else should serve as a wake-up
call to the student body that our
voice In the community Is essen
tial. I find it highly irritating to
be treated as an extended hotel
resident. At last count more than
50 bars existed In downtown
Athens, providing economic sta
bility and atmosphere to this
city. And who’s buying the beer?
Students. We have artwork hang
ing In coffee shops and a diversi
ty of ethnic restaurants other
than Tico Bell, all of which in
large part owe their existence to
us, the students.
The University is the life blood
of Athens, and students are the
raison d’etre behind the school.
And civic-minded parents are
trying to tell us that we don’t
belong and we shouldn’t have a
My.
It angers me, after having
given so much to this communi
ty. which In our absence would
be more akin to Watkinsvllle, to
Questions or comments? Here's
where to point and click:
Letters I opinionsdrandb.com
News Tips I newsdrandb.com
R&B Online I sethmdrandb.com
hear these comments. Civic voice
seems less an Issue of proving a
student newspaper wrong and
more a matter of talking back to
a body of citizens who view us as
tenants.
Right now I call Athens my
home, and I Intend to have a say
in my community. I hope you will
agree that we as residents are
entitled to and capable of
demanding this right.
and-true professors In all our
classes, it could at least attempt
to train what it gives us.
► Standard mental health
examinations for the bus drivers.
Most of the transportation work
ers are very nice and helpful, but
some are cause for suspicion.
► An extra break during the
haul from Memorial Day to
Thanksgiving. Maybe classes
could be canceled the day before
the Florida game. Please?/?
>■ Santa, the squirrels are
driving us crazy. They must think
they own the place.
ALIYA TURNER
Freshman, Suwanee
Genetics
CHRISTIAN GUNNING
Junior, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Mathematics
There’s a reason most
schools use semesters
Dear Santa: Here’s
what students want
Dear Santa,
The girls and boys have been
good students this year, and we
think we deserve a little some
thing extra for Christmas. Our
list Is not long, and will only take
you a few moments to look it
over. So If you could try to do
something about maybe one or
two or these items, we would be
very appreciative.
► Employees of the University
of Georgia, Including TAs. profes
sors and food service workers,
should have a reasonable level of
English speaking skilLs. We have
enough stress in our lives with
out having to decipher pseudo-
English.
► If people are going to teach,
shouldn’t they have some sort of
teacher training? If the
University won’t provide tried-
I am so tired of listening to
people complain about
semesters. All I have to say to
those of you who had become
accustomed to quarters and
can't adjust to the change: Get
over it. There is obviously a rea
son why most of the universities
in the nation are on the semester
system.
In addition, The Red &
Black’s misrepresentation of
semester systems at other
schools does not improve the
student body’s opinion of
semesters. The chart of the aca
demic calendars for the
University, Florida and
Tennessee in Wednesday’s R&B
contained dates that are horribly
Incorrect.
If The Red & Black Is going to
contribute to the negative image
of semesters, at least use correct
comparisons.
LINDSAY FLETCHER
Sophomore, Dunwoody
Marketing and management
BLAKE MCCORMICK
Oh, gross!
Herpes is
everywhere!
T he other day I’m talking
to this friend of mine
who's pre-med. and I
can’t remember why. but for
some reason, the topic of her
pes comes up. And I'm pretty
paranoid about any kind of
germs, but she really freaked
me out here.
The first thing she tells me
is that you can get herpes
from kissing someone. My
reaction, verbatim: "Christ
Jesus!" I don’t take the name
in vain too often, but I about
crapped in my pants Not to
say that I go around making
out with people, but hell,
we’ve all been to New Orleans,
right? And what if somebody
breaks into my apartment and
uses my toothbrush? Huh?
What then?
To ease my concern, she
tells me, “Well, people with
herpes usually have visible
sores." And I’m thinking, if
there’s one thing that works
against visible sores, it’s
impaired vision. And I get
that sometimes. So she says,
“Well, don’t worry about it.
You don’t hook up with
skanky girls, do you?” And I
said, “On purpose or at all?"
Followed by awkward
moment of silence.
Crap! I don’t want herpes.
I’m not worried about my
lifestyle or anything, but after
talking to her I decided that
just to be safe, I would never
talk to another person and
never leave my room. For a
very long time, my biggest
fear was having my car boot
ed. But herpes eats the boot
for breakfast.
It's like, if you have a cold,
no big deal. It goes away. But
if you have herpes, then dude,
you have herpes. No way
around it. And you read these
headlines that say, "New
study shows 1 out of 2 college
students has herpes." What
University is this? The
University of Haiti? Are you
kidding me?
At what point in a relation
ship do you tell someone you
have herpes? Is that a first
date kind of thing? I don’t
know the etiquette for that!
I've heard, "Sorry, but I have a
boyfriend” about 100 times,
but hell! “Sorry, but I have
herpes?” How do you deal
with that?
Like there was this girl I
used to work with, and she
was a really big slut, and one
night I got really drunk and I
almost made out with her, but
I didn’t, but the next day, this
other girl goes, "Did you hook
up with her?” And I said, “No,
but almost.” And she goes,
“Dude. You know she has her
pes, right?” Dude! What the
hell?! Are you telling me I was
one beer away from having
herpes? I soiled myself!
And how do you apologize
for giving someone herpes?
What, is it like, “Sorry about
that? I forgot?" There’s no
way to make up for that!
One of my friends told me
that a buddy of ours once got
... unusually personal... with a
hooker. And I’m pretty sure
that I've drank out of the
same cup as him at some
point. What the hell!
It's like, you look back and
think that cooties was just a
stupid game, but no, it’s like
practice for herpes. Don’t
drink after anyone, don’t
touch anyone, don’t even
move! You might get herpes,
dude!
I don't know anything! Do
they exist singularly? Like
herpes are bad, but if you just
have one herpe it might go
away? And how fast does It
react? Is It like a snakebite? If
somebody gives you herpes,
can you suck out the venom
and spit it on the ground? I
don’t know! Somebody tell
me!
I'm not kidding. I’m seri
ously freaked out. Right now I
might come across as being
insensitive, but I really Just
want people to be carefUl.
Protect yourself! Get tested!
Herpes is stalking you at
every tum! Act with caution! I
love you all so much!
— Blake McCormick is a
senior in telecommunications.