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Tubsday, August 31, aoio | Thb Rbd a Black
OwM Bwnutt | Editor in Chief editor@randb.oom
Cany O’Neil | Managing Editor me@randb.com
Courtney Holbrook | Opinions Editor opintons@randb.com
Our Take
Majority opinions of The Red & Black’s editorial board
Enough is enough
Football players'run-ins with the law
have gotten incredibly out of hand
Stop it, OK!? Just stop!
Stop driving with suspended licenses, stop
drinking and driving, stop getting kicked out of
bars underage.
University football players need to real
ize that there is a strong spotlight pointed as
squarely at them as an ACC police officer’s
flashlight. Like it or not, by signing on as a
Georgia Bulldog, everything they do is news in
the sports world.
Now, bad apples of the football team, please
make an effort to stop getting arrested.
Eight of you have seen the inside of a jail cell
this year it’s getting ridiculous.
If you are a football player, you have an
incredible opportunity to represent your
University and possibly make some big bucks in
the future. (I mean, have you seen a journalist’s
salary!?)
You have also garnered the admiration of
thousands of kids across the state who aspire to
be just like you.
Don’t throw it all away for that one drunken
escapade downtown.
I’m not going to sit here and judge you. We’re
all in college and we all appreciate the amazing
nightlife Athens has to offer. Full disclosure: I’m
headed to Pauley’s in a few minutes to work on
my beer card.
Party all you want just stop doing it under
age or behind the wheel of a car. Remember
that you represent your University, your team
mates and your coaches both on the field and
off. And when you screw up, everyone looks bad.
It’s time to realize you are not immune to get
ting arrested.
It’s time to realize the incredible opportuni
ties offered to you by the University.
It’s time to stop disappointing the 10-year-old
kid who wants to be just like you someday
minus, of course, the probation officer.
Daniel Burnett for the editorial board
Mailbox
E-mail and letters from our readers
WNEG treated
unfairly by R&B
I read the recent opin
ion regarding the “failing”
WNEG news station.
To make sure there’s no
misunderstanding you
do realize that the sta
tion’s audience reaches
out beyond Athens, cor
rect?
That for many of us in
northeast Georgia, it is
the only source of local
news?
The opinion expressed
in your paper just seemed
like a vicious, unfounded
jab at WNEG.
Just because you or
other students in Athens
don’t watch it doesn’t
mean that everyone
doesn’t.
ALLISON MARTIN
Senior, Toccoa
Music performance
Egg recall reveals
animal abuse
I was happy to see cov
erage of the largest recall
of eggs in U.S. history
(“Dining Hall Omelettes
Safe for Salmonella,” 30
August).
Although UGA’s eggs
may be safe from salmo
nella, they are definitely
tainted with cruelty.
The recall of a half-bil
lion eggs from just two
farms is clear evidence of
just how different factory
fanning is from our typical
ideas of animal agricul
ture.
Eggs produced on fac
tory farms are from hens
who spend their entire
lives in a space the size of
a single sheet of printer
paper.
Hens are crammed
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eight to nine at a time into
a single “battery cage,”
which is so small that they
can’t spread a single wing.
They often become
extremely aggressive
toward one another.
To keep the hens from
viciously pecking one
another, workers do not
choose to give the hens
more space.
Instead, they cut off
their beaks shortly after
they’re bom.
When the birds' pro
ductivity declines, their
throats are cut while
they’re still conscious.
They are then dunked
into defeathering tanks
full of boiling-hot water,
sometimes while still alert.
Ninety-seven percent of
the eggs produced in the
United States come from
these conditions.
Eating eggs supports
this cruelty.
Hopefully, as a nation
that loves our animals, we
will remember that chick
ens have emotions and
feel pain just as our dogs
and cats do.
If we truly believe that
animals should be spared
from needless cruelty, we
will forgo omelettes.
DREW WINTER
p*t*2, Gross* Point*
Coflog* Campaigns
Assistant
LETTERS POLICY
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Opinions
jMSw
Worry about talent, not orientation
I’m a huge fan of
Sunday talk shows.
From the “The
Georgia Gang” in the
morning to ABC’s “This
Week” in the early after
noon, I love shouting at
the TV over coffee and
eggs.
Between that and the
Sunday New York Times,
I’m glued to the sofa for
hours.
During my time spent
with TV and newspapers,
I’ve seen and read Ken
Mehlman defend
Republican policies
countless times.
I’ve heard him pro
mote the legislative agen
da of the OOP
He defended a consti
tutional amendment
restricting marriage to
heterosexual couples just
to get the base to the
polls on election day.
On Wednesday,
Mehlman came out to the
world as gay.
Mehlman was the
chairman of the
Republican National
Committee.
This made him the
most powerful non-elect
ed Republican In the
party.
Mehlman is a lawyer. A
good one, he has a
Harvard Law degree.
Watching him argue, I
thought: I hate the man
for his conclusions, but he
makes his conclusions.
He makes them
extremely well.
Loss of 95.5 The Beat music is no big deal
Atlanta's hip-hop radio sta
tion, 95.5 The Beat, went off
the air recently.
Certain friends of mine voiced
their outrage that a music station
was being replaced by old white
guys talking about boring old white
guy things.
Though I understood their view
point, I found myself wondering if
it really was such a tragedy that
95.5 went the way of the dodo.
I started to question whether or
not the loss of traditional radio in
its entirety would be such a bad
thing.
Perhaps, due to such over
whelmingly better alternatives. It’s
about time to give up our radio sta
tions to old white guys talking
about old white guy things.
Maybe it’s time to admit that
radio stations are really not as
great as we remember them when
seen In the light of our current
technology.
Radio long ago stopped being
the purveyor of all things new in
the music world.
The station 95.5 The Beat had
already become an infinite loop of
Katy Perry and KeSha punctuated
by the occasional drone of Tom
Shane from the Bhane Company.
They were far from being the
only culprits.
Rock stations eventually resort
ed to playing Nickelback, Band-
That-Sounds-Like-Nickelback and
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J Samuel
MELLER
From 2005 to 2007,
Republicans marched to
his drums.
A gay man ran the
Republican Party for
years.
Today, I applaud
Mehlman, as should you.
Good for you, Ken! Get
out of that closet!
But the applause is
bittersweet.
There have been peo
ple willing to speak truth
to power.
For every man or
woman who was too
afraid to tell his friends
and family what their sex
ual orientation was,
someone activists or
politicians was ready to
speak for the fearful.
But Mehlman didn’t do
that. He was scared. He
wanted the job.
He freely admits that
he lied to friends and
family when directly con
fronted about his sexuali
ty.
It’s a sad day in
America when competent
people have to hide who
they are and what they
think for fear of retribu
tion.
Many public school
teachers have been fired
because of relatively tame
Facebook pages. Now,
Jacob
m Andrews
the singer of Nickelback as heard
on the “Twilight” soundtrack.
Anyone actually searching for
something new or even mildly
inventive now runs to the Internet,
where free services such as
Pandora and Grooveshark have
made it easy to discover new art
ists —with little to no commercial
interruption.
The glut of commercials is
another harbinger of the death of
radio.
The fact is that we live in a soci
ety growing progressively less
patient with advertisements.
This extends beyond the realm
of radio.
Thanks to being spoiled by all
this technology, I grow frustrated
when I have my viewing or listening
experience Interrupted.
It’s not particularly fascinating
to be forced into listening to terri
ble actors reading horribly written
dialogue promoting laundry deter
gent.
Unfortunately, a radio station’s
primary method of making money
is through its advertisements.
And they are also its most
annoying feature.
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unions recommend that
no teacher should have
one.
God forbid your child
is taught by a well-edu
cated, unpaid and over- ‘
worked 20-something
who was caught drinking
with her friends in front
of a camera.
And Muslim-
Americans? Do you think
that they want to
announce their religion to
white, middle-class, con
servative Christian
males?
Reading the opinion
pages of The Red &
Black, you’d think that
Muslim students would
give this campus a wide
berth in the future.
Who cares about who
you are? It’s what you do
that makes all the differ
ence.
Or in Mehlman’s case,
what he didn’t do.
Or in President Bush’s
case, what he knew and
didn’t care to know.
Bill Maher outed
Mehlman on Larry King
Live in 2006.
So what did President
Bush know, and when did
he know it?
I'd like to think that
President Bush knew that
Mehlman was gay, or at
least had suspicions.
He probably didn’t
care. Asa politician, it
should have been more
important to him that
Mehlman performed well
as the RNC chairman.
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And, dare I say it, we
should all take a page out
of President Bush’s book.
Let’s care about how
good a job a person can
do, not who they are.
Let’s care about how
people treat their friends
and family.
Let’s build our com
munities so that they are
more inclusive, rather
than excluding the com
petent people with whom
we disagree.
Some people don’t
want to be inclusive. They
have books that tell them
that some people must be
cast aside for the good of
all people.
But the rest of us are
going to need more than
a few lines in an old book
to understand why.
Our government, poli
tics and economy have
failed us both the
working public and the
students at this
University.
When they talk about
the “Lost Generation” in
the newspaper, those
writers are speaking
about you and me.
At this present rate,
you’ll have no job, no
place to live and crippling
debt when you graduate.
So let’s try not to
exclude our best and
brightest for reasons such
as homosexuality.
Samuel Metier is a
second-year law student
from Norcross
Even radio talk shows are slowly
being crushed by the Internet.
Sure, you could tune In during
your morning commute to listen to
some people talk about whatever
subject they want.
But you could also log on the
Internet and download the latest
episode of any one of the numerous
podcasts available to you.
Podcasts don’t cost a thing, and
they give you the freedom to listen
and learn about whatever subject
you want.
It helps that, in my opinion, they
are about a thousand times more
interesting than any current radio
talk show.
I want the entertainment I fol
low to be, you know. Interesting.
I assume other students at this
University do as well.
The growing number of portable
music players coupled with the
growing number of ways to connect
those players to your vehicles
means only good things for you and
me.
There is no reason to mourn the
loss of a more rigid service that
forces you to listen on its terms
instead of your own.
Besides, if I have to listen to
“California Gurls” one more time,
my head will explode all over my
car radio.
Jacob Andrews is a senior
from Marietta majoring in English
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