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THE WEST GEORGIAN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1981
Opinion
Keep Our Guards Up
The last time we wrote about bomb threats in this space there had been only one
Now there have been more than we care to count One is too many
If it was a joke the first time, it wasn’t funny Now, with several episodes of the
same show, the danger has increased Each threat of a bomb in a campus building
is tending to harden each of us to the danger involved, to make us complacent
When it becomes commonplace, someone will get hurt, probably more than one
person “No big deal, it's just another bomb scare
Hopefully the officials who protect us, the campus police and the city police and
fire departments will not get complacent as well Hopefully the reaction time will ,
be just 'is quick as it was the first time Hopefully the methods used to deal with
such incidents will be just as efficient
The best thing would be for the culprit or culprits to be caught Then the
students, faculty, campus police, and this newspaper can get on to more important
things
Until then, let 's keep our guards up
Guest Column by Philip Paxton'
/ Can Dream Can't I?
Socrates and Pericles
would spin inside their graves.
If only they could witness
how the Psuedo-Greek
behaves
-Dr Thorndike Pierce, from
his celebrated Encyclopedia of
Human Pretense, Vdlume62s
I have always been puzzled by the
human animal Consequently, it was
natural that I should observe with a
keen interest the unique behavorial pat
teras of my fellow customers here at
Mountebank State College I have done
so I am now more perplexed than ever
To examine the shenanigans of the
entire student body would be too am
bitious a task with such limited space
In the interest of brevity, I will focus
my camera on that segment of the
Imputation which has supplied the most
provocative spectacles 1 am speaking
of the Psuedo-Greeks
\ .
By Psuedb-Greek, I mean, of course,
sonu-one who pretends to be a Greek
although the overwhelming evidence
indicates that he or she is not There is
an abundance of such imposters on this
campus I have talked to many of them
They are members of fraternities, they
tell me.
Do not misunderstand me. I have
nothing against fraternity, if it may be
broudly defined as people being
together In fact, being with others is
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THE
WEST GEORGIAN
Editor ln-Chief Michael Byrd
Managing Editor Mark McCloud
News Editor Debbie Godbee
Assistant News Editor Mike Mead
Entertainment Editor Jim Hammett
.Assistant Entertainment Editor Cooper Smith
Features Editor Michael Mattison
Assistant Features Editor Jeff Payne
Copy Editor Jenny Szimanski
Photo Editor David Edwards
Photographers Tracy Tate, Dale Bennett
Art Editor Alan Kuykendall
Sports Editor Brian Pietro
Writers Stan Hardegree, Art Hardy.
Deborah Penn. Twana Gardner.
Jeff Styles. Richard Parker.
Sharon dower. Kim Crowe
Scott Sickler. Bilques Sharif
Advertising Manager Dean Jennings
Accountant Leslie Groth
Office Manager Kim Stancil
Adviser Lisa McNemey
The West Georgian is published every Wednesday during the regular school
year Office hours are 1-4 p.m every weekday afternoon
Unsigned editorials reflect the consensus of opinion of the Editorial Board of
The West Georgian
the most important facet of human ex
perience It is only intersubjectivity
that makes our brief appearance on
earth bearable But I fear that club
forming brings together a few at the ex
pense of alienating many To illustrate
this point, consider that each fraternity
boasts that they are unique and
superior to the other fraternities The
act of joining a fraternity is an explicit
endorsement of that organization,
thereby communicating an implicit re
jectlon of the other fraternities This
sounds more like being apart than be
ing together to my uninitiated ears Is
this what we are to make of fraternity?
In my finest tradition I have diverged
from the point
The will to join clubs is not my con
cern here If someone needs a womb
substitute that badly, I acknowledge
their freedom to find one I want to
know why they masquerade as Greeks
I want to know why they use the Greek
alphabet to advertise This is what con
cerns me Why, for instance, do they
not pose as Chinese or Eskimos?
To solve his riddle, I have gone
straight to the fountainhead 1 have in
terviewed, at random, over 300 ersatz
Greeks on four different campuses
Roughly half of these were Mountebank
students The results were horrifying
When asked why they call themselves
Greeks, 93 percent said that they ad
nured the Greeks This is not sufficient
.
V
I've been to a few banquets, ana
most of them are boring The one
attended by the West Georgian crew
last Friday night had the potential of
being a bit dull, too Georgia Tech
made sure it wasn't.
The occasion was the 53rd annual
Georgia College Press Awards Ban
quet Nearly every college in the state
was represented by their newspaper
staffs, some decked out in double-knit
polyester best, others, like Jim
Hammett, in blue jeans and a hippie
flower shirt
cause, however I also admire the
Greeks, but I do not have the audacity
to pose as one The remaining 7 percent
explained that the idea of fraternity
originated in Greece This is, of course,
preposterous Brotherhood is as old as
brothers As far as fraternal organiza
tions go. Greek-letter secret societies
for students originated in the United
States The first fraternity. Phi Beta
Kappa, was established at William and
Mary College in 1776
Presumably, Greek letters were
adopted to abbreviate their secret mot
toes because there was at the time a
considerable interest in Greek culture
and language This is no longer the
case The Greek language is not even
offered in the curriculum of
Mountebank State College
I am convinced that the Greeks are
no longer admired by the Psuedis
Greeks All of my interviewees, when
asked, professed to hold Greek art in
high esteem Oddly, however. 9i per
cent of these could not name one Greek
artist Among the 9 percent who filled in
the blank. Homer and Anthony Quinn
were the most popular aaswers Only 3
percent could identify Sophocles (>nly I
percent could identify Euripides None
could identify Phidias
All of the sample population express
ed an equally high regard for the an
cient Greek philosophers Most of these
mentioned Socrates, Plato or Aristotle
as examples of prominent thinkers
How peculiar that 98 percent did not
know the century in which either man
was bom I did not consider this a dif
ficult task to name the century in
which Socrates was bom Perhaps I am
too demanding None could identify
Heraclitus. Protagoras, or
Empedocles. Two geometry majors
identified Pythagoras 1 was temporary
ly encouraged, fool that 1 am.
I was routinely discouraged again,
however, to discover that % percent did
not know what century is regarded as
the Golden Age of Greece. While still
dizzy from that blow. I received the
knockout punch. Given a map of the
Mediterranean. 87 percent could not
write the word "Greece" on the ap
propriate land mass Perhaps 87 per
cent should be encouraged that 13 per
cent can
It is obvious to me now that the only
characteristic remotely shared by the
authentic Greeks and the inferior brand
is an almost religious devotion to the
consumption of alcoholic beverages
This was a prevalent teature of the Or
phic religious cults in early Greece The
ritual often included human sacrifice as
additional entertainment Could it be
that the Psuedo-Greeks are emulating
these barbaric Greeks'’ Do they pre
tend to be savage Arcadian farmers or
sophistical Athenian statesman'’ l can
find no evidence to support the claim
that they are cognizant of either
Do not mistake my concern for con
tempt If I despised the Psuedo-Greeks.
I would make no effort to communicate
with them It is my simple intention to
expose the enigmatic development of
these organizations, for what was born
out of tribute now mocks itself
Face it. people If you tolks are
Greeks, then I'm an astronaut After
all. I know as much about aeronautics
as you do about the Greeks; namely,
nothing l hope that this offends many
of you sufficiently to prompt a serious
self-examination, but this is probably
too much to expect I will consider this
diversion a success, therefore, if only
one Psuedo-Greek picks up an Atlas
and looks for Greece 1 can dream,
can t I?
Byrd's Eye View'—
By Michael Byrd
Tech: Most Obnoxious
W e were lucky enough to sit next to
the group from the North Avenue
trade school Some of the other
Schools who were afforded the
privilege of being seated next to Tech
didn't consider themselves lucky I
wonder why?
They outdid themselves this year
Last year I wrote a column about how
obnoxious the Techers were at the
banquet They were more obnoxious
this year I liked it.
Sounding like Georgia fans after a
Herschel Walker TD, the 40 plus
"Technique” writers and editors
showed no reverence for anything
Yellow hats and stuffed bumblebees
were flying everywhere Maybe that
had something to do with the brevity
of this year’s affair
Most of the folks there were
looking down their noses at the table
full of our future nuclear engineers I
overheard one woman telling a press
official "I'm so embarrased by those
people I have nothing to do with
them. I want to apologize frr their
poor conduct ”
Well. I want to thank them They
were entertaining A few of the more
choice moments were
- When the speaker made reference
to the editor of a commercial
'
Once upon a time in a place far, far
away, there existed the magical land of
Wundagore This was indeed, a magical
place for all the inhabitants of Wun
dagore possessed wonderful powers
There were the plus-minus people who
worked the strange magic of numbers
and knew of the quantities of things
There were even the subject verb
pie who were able to manipulate the
words of Wundagore into higher mean
ings and they knew of the quality ol
things
The land of Wundagore and its people
lived in blissful tranquility for countless
years until a blessed-cursed thing oc
cured This was a wondrous thing, in
deed This is what happened
A subject-verb person (or SV for
short i was traipsing the meadows in
search of the quality of the strange
flowers that grew in this magical land
and came upon a living thing unlike the
other multi-colored. multi petaled
flowers It was a pale plant with one
large stem and petals forming a dome
shaped hat at its top It resembled a
footstool' This SV person iwho was, by
the way, a verb) was truly amazed and
delighted with her find and wanted to
know more about the qualitv of this
strange thing She danced around this
stool of a plant and examined it from all
sides She smelled the fragrance of it
and nibbed its soft, spongy sides Final
Iv, she decided that in order to know the
quality of the thing, thoroughly, she
must have a taste of it
Soooooooo. she promptly sat
down in the middle of this tranquil
pasture in the middle of tranquil Wun
dagore and munched of this stool
Ah, wonder of wonders’ New ideas
appeared to this verb person and the
qualitv of the world around her chang
ed Understandably delighted and con
fused, she ran back to her little hut m
the woods of this strange quali
iv with the SV person who shared her
hut ' who w as, by the way, a subject
She gave him some of the wunda-stool
and he took in the qualitv of it as she
had done He. too. noticed the change in
the qualitv of things around them They
begun to feel fnvilously merry and
danced around their little hut with
great joy and much carrying on for
days on end
The subject-verb couplet spread the
news of this new wunda-stool
throughout the magical land of Wun
dagore Soon, all the subject-verb
pie came to know of the different quali
ty of the world around them There was
a stirring throughout the land
Soon, even the plus-minus people
became intrigued with the wunda-stool
and wanted to know more about the
quantity of the things that were happen-
newpaper editor seated at the head
table and "his lovely wife seated next
to him " Straight line city The Tech
table roared Wolf whistles "Yeah,
wooooooooweeeee. loveleee Wouldja
looka there Hey, babee. hubba
hubba.” It sounds like they were
pretty lewd here, but it came off
pretty well Even the snobs laughed
And the lovely wife got a kick out of
it, too
- Tech balloons landing in
everyone's food They had them
printed especially for this banquet
Each read: Georgia Tech. 1981 GCPA
convention • "Most Obnoxious ” It
was even funnier when one of the
balloons transported cream pie to a
young lady's nice dress That s right.
I said it was funny She thought so.
too
- Hie speaker, attempting to land a
jab to the collective ego of Tech, made
reference to the fact that they didn't
have anything to compare to the
University of Georgia s Herschel
Walker Ha "We've got jobs," one of
them said Then the chant started
“Get a job, get a j0b...” The speaker
sat down
- Every time Georgia's newspaper,
the Red and Black, was announced for
an award, the Tech people screamed
"fix, fix .”
- For a while, an official-looking
woman stationed herself at the head
of Tech's table A hall monitor,
maybe’ She spotted a couple of beers
at the table Swiftly she descended,
collecting three half empty bottles of
Bud One of the drinkers quickly
Beats the Hell Outta Me'—
ByMichael Mattison
'Long, Long Time Ago—
/ Can Still Remember ...
mg in the land they, too. partook ot the
wanda-stool and lo ar.d behold, there
was a difference in the quantity of
things in the land ot Wundagore There
were more people living in Wundagore'
It seems that, when the people ate of the
wunda stool, the friviloty and mem
ment stirred up the hormones of the
magical people ot W undagore This was
a magic indeed'
And then— you guessed it the
children appeared. Children, unlike the
other people of Wundagore It seems
that certain verbs had gotten par
ticularly friendly with certain minuses
and the pluses ami the subjects had
become intimate and then— Oh. it was
an awful confusion'
Soon, there existed many different
kinds of people in the magical land of
Wundagore The kinds and types of the
legitimate and bastard children had
come to know many different qualities
and quantities of the world arohnd
them In addition to the subject verb
people, there were the adverb-adjective
people, the infinitive-gerund people, the
prepositonal-interrogative people, and
so on and so forth To the simple world
of the plus-minus people, there came
the exponential-fraction persons, the
decimal-pi people and many different
permutations
Oh. what confusion' How complex the
magical world of Wundagore had
become! There were many different
byproducts of the coupling that took
place and finally, different sections ot
the land of Wundagore w ere devoted to
the different aspects of quantities and
qualities of things
1 he magical land of W undagore has
become even more magical’ There
were such wonderous aspects of the
quantity-quality of things, that the sec
tions of Wundagore found each needed
a spokesman to update every one on the
marvelous discoveries of each par
ticular section So each group decided
on a person to become HEAD The
HEADS woulod meet and talk, and
magical thoughts on the quantity
quality of things arose out of these
meetings Oh. w hat a marvelous world
there was for the magical people of
Wundagore!
And then, of course, there arose a
need for a supreme HEAD The
supreme HE.AD would make sure the
different sections of Wundagore knew
what everyone was doing so everyone
would benefit from the different types
occurring in each section
The first few Supreme HEADS were
good and pure Wundagorians arising
from the common group ol people by
v irtue of their good and pure soul The
first Supreme HEADS were people fill
ed with special magic all their own
They were originally HEADS of their
opened another bottle, killed it, and
called her back "Here," he said,
handing her the empty
• One of the advisers from Floyd
Junior College apparently didn't think
the shenanigans were so funny. An
hour after the banquet, 1 found myself
in the motel room with about 25 of the
Tech people. A fellow I had seen
before at a college newspaper
conference entered the motel room
door with his mean looking dog
Nobody paid him any attention
because they were watching a Chief's
game on TV I tned to strike up a
conversation with him. but he seemed
preoccupied Then 1 saw why He had
a specially trained dog It was. shall
we say, "lifting its leg' on their wall
I heard the next day that some young
men did something similar to Tech's
door late in the night
Some of the stunts were a bit much,
even for me They did display poor
taste at times It reminded me of
grade school, when the class clown
was really getting brave He gets a lot
of attention, but I never wanted to
trade places with him when he got
caught But still, if someone wants to
stick them neck out and make a fool ot
themselves, why should I let it go to
waste I'd rather enjoy it and laugh
until I can't see
Tech didn t do anything spectacular
in the awards department. They won
their share Next year, I expect to see
the Georgia College FYess Association
officially recognize another award
category Most Obnoxious There will
be no competition
own special section and no one doubted
their know ledge of w isdom
The magical land ol Wundagore lived 1
in tranquil, growing bliss for many
years and the magic continued to flow
for everyone No one partook on the
wunda-stool anymore It wasn't need
ed The people naturally wondered on
the quality-quantity of things around
them
And then a strange thing happened
The people Ix-came so involved in the
magic of their own little section; they
were no longer interested in the magic
ol the other sections. The land of W'un
dagore became divided The HEADS no
longer met The people were deaf to the
magic of each other This was a very
subtle change that no one noticed until a
very bad thing happened
No one cared aixiut being Supreme
HEAD any more The- magical HEADs
of each section were too involved in
their ow n magic to care about the other
sections The Supreme HEAD began tc
be persons who w ere, more or less. re
jects from the different sections The
persons who became the Supreme
HEAD were strangely lacking in the
magic of any of the sections These very
un wondrous, un magical pe-ople seem
ed aware of their lack of magic and fel
that being Supreme HF!AD would com
pensate for this It seemed that ead
succeeding Supreme HEAD was mor
bitter about this state of affairs arid ir
stead of try ing to regain some of the ol>
magic, they just grew cynical an
callous, not to mention self-serving
There finally came to be a Suprem
HEAD who was very bitter about lack
ing the special magic of his section H
was not a wondrous person His nam
was HEAVY-HANDED AUTHORm
He was a small tellow with a smile pei
manently implanted on his face H
could no longer communicate with th
other HEADS or the people in his ow
section He was so bitter about his ot
vious lack of magic, he convinced th
people they should not refer to it a
magic any more but simply “ IN'FOR
MATION" The people and HEADS o
the sections didn't care They were to<
filled with the wonder ot the magic ol
their own sections HEAVY-HANDED
AUTHORITY, it is said, had a person
who gave him orders This person was
afraid of what the HEADS might do. so
he kept his name out of it and told
HEAVY-HANDED-AUTHORITY what
to do He was also not a wondrous per
son
Before the people realized what was
happening, the silent boss of HEAVY
HANDED-AUTHORITY had gamed
so much power, the people and HEADS
of the sections were fearful of talking
about their magic HEAVY-HANDED
AUTHORITY had already banished
some of them from the land
Continued on page 3