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•THE WEST GEORGIAN, WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 14, 1987
Opinion
THE WEST GEORGIAN
West Georgia College, Carrollton, Ga.
Chris Hay 5............... Editor
Joe Callahan ... News Editor
Tray Baggarfy....... Managing
Editor
Beth Cannon ... Ad Manager
Joe Cumming.....—. Advisor
*
Problems solved by
school officials
Ever get the feeling that our beloved administration is a
stagnate body only interested in sweeping up your money?
Well, think again. While we were away for the holidays,
the administration took action in response to three pro
blems brought to public attention by students last quarter.
Cobb Hall residents insisted they hadn’t been given a
fair shake because of certain deficiencies they cited to
Plant Operations and Student Services. Soon the ball got
rolling as Bob Townley from Plant Op and Dr. Bruce Lyon,
vice president of student services and an administrator
who continues to impress, met with the students from Cobb
and listened to their grievances.
Reportedh many of the problems in Cobb have been cor
rected and residents are much happier.
Another problem loomed large in SGA meetings. Many
senators, under the leadership of Vice President Jay
Stewart, insisted that students crossing West Georgia
Drive across from Bowdon Hall in the mornings were risk
ing their lives because of the abundant traffic. A crosswalk
was desperately needed, they insisted.
After discussion with Chief Tuttle at Public Safety, who
said he’d “look into the problem”, the need was confirmed
and the crosswalk was painted onto the road. Now students
crossing the road will be a little safer. Thanks to all parties
involved.
Finally, with the addition of anew gymnasium last
quarter came problems concerning the basketball equip
ment designated for intramural play. Ruth Dicks, director
of intramurals, said the equipment provided was simply
not suitable for the intramural-style play because the risk
of injury was too great. Near the end of last quarter, Lyon
and Townley said they would look in to the matter.
In a memo received at our office, Lyon said the pro
blems have been cleared up. It seems, with these three ex
amples in mind, that the WGC administration is indeed
responsive to student needs. Hopefully, this trend will con
tinue in the new year.
Hopes and dreams
for the New Year
Because every newspaper columnist and editorial board
in the country has offered “New Year’s Resolutions’’ for
1987, we felt obligated to offer our hopes for the New Year
at West Georgia.
*lncreased enrollment for WGC.
*An error-free edition of The West Georgian.
“•“Construction of WGC’s own football stadium.
*Next year’s No. 1 spot for West Georgia in Playboy
magazine’s annual “Top 40 Party Schools” poll.
“•“Progress on the Performing Arts Center.
*A resurrection of The Chieftain, West Georgia’s annual.
*An end to plagiarism in The Eclectic.
*Rain in the summertime.
Debaters continue
impressive record
The mighty WGC debate team continues to impress. At
the beginning of winter quarter they swept through
various tournaments in Califoria and showed impressively
in each one. They defeated reputable schools like Dart
mouth, Northwestern University, and the University of
Kansas in the process.
The debate team has forced other schools to view West
Georgia as a respectable school with a fine program. Led
by Dr. Chester Gibson and Mr. Mike Bryant, the WGC
debaters made the elimination rounds twice and finished
ninth out of 50 teams in the University of Fullerton
tournament.
James Sizemore proved a star of the team by being nam
ed one of the top ten individual debaters in all three
tournaments.
The team continues their schedule wth a tournament at
Dartmouth College Jan. 24-26. They have also been invited
to Harvard University (yes, the Harvard) to compete in a
tournament with the nation’s best teams. We wish the
team continued success and the best of luck.
The Staff
Asst. News Editor
Leisure Editor
Sports Editor
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Is drinking age a help against DUI?
Drinking is a conspicuous, traditional
aspect of college life. It always has been and
always will be. This doesn’t mean it is
necessarily right or wrong, just omnipre
sent. Diaries from hundreds of years ago
speak of college students quaffing large
amounts of alcohol, and this practice will
probably still be around when there are in
stitutions of higher learning on the moon.
■
It seems that many people see the
stereotypical college student as a crazed
party-hound who gets by in classes only to
satisfy parents who supply cash flow for the
alcohol supply. This student supposedly
doesn’t care about learning he only signs
up for classes he’s being forced to take and
then heads for the nearest bar.
Unfortunately, this stereotype played
right into the hands of many special interest
groups intent on deep-sixing the DUI pro
blem. As the public outcry against the pro
blem grew louder, more people envisioned
18-20 year-olds as the sacrificial lambs. Col
lege students were also touted as frequent
DUI drivers.
This argument, at least on the West
Georgia campus, is simply not valid. In a
Fighting the battle to learn Spanish
As another quarter got underway last
week, I found myself again standing in
drop/add lines even though I had registered
early and had my schedule in order. Why?
Because I have found passing Spanish 102 to
be a feat near to achieving world peace!
I
I am beginning to think that if God had in
tended for me to speak the Spanish
language, he would have placed me in a
family somewhere south of the Rio Grande
and not due east of the Chattahoochee. I
simply do not like Spanish and it does not
like me.
Now, for a brief history of my relationship
with this language. It began about two years
ago when I decided it was time to start
fulfilling that requirement in my major that
(for some reason) says I must have 103 and
104 in foreign language -and for me that
meant taking 101 and 102 because I did not
have a language in high school. (Maybe I
should have turned around at that minute
and changed my major).
After attending the class for a few days
Beware of vicious mental blockage
I just sat and leered at the massive array
of wadded-up paper, while sending obscene
messages to the typewriter in an effort to
fulfill my writing responsibilities for this
paper.
Joe
No controversial topic would I endure
developing into prose I was at a standstill
in the thought process.
A mental blockage, caused by not enough
sleep or too much drink, began working on
me in 1964 when I was born. I was brought
into this world with nothing on but my mind,
yet, to this day, I think someone had my
dimmer switch activated.
Photo Editor
Asst. Sports Editor
Office Manager
story published this summer in The West
Georgian, public safety officials said on the
record that college students were a minority
of all those they arrested for DUI.
But it seems our campus is a rarity in
Georgia, because state lawmakers,
reportedly intent on slowing down the DUI
problem, passed a law which raised the
drinking age to 21. The theory apparently
was that people between the ages of 18-21
were more irresponsible when it came to
drinking, and thus should no longer have the
privilege.
With the passage of this law came a sort of
neo-prohibition on campuses like West
Georgia. Greek life and residence hall life
were caught up in its wake.
And with this new anti-drinking crusade
came an interesting possibility. A young
person of 17 can now enter West Georgia
College and be legally prohibited from
drinking alcohol through nearly four years
of college.
But now a monkey wrench has been
thrown in the gears of the machine. Accor
ding to a story published in the Times-
Georgian, the number of motorists driving
under the influence in Carrollton is on the
rise. City Police Chief Lloyd Hester said his
department made 512 DUI arrests in 1986
compared to 480 in 1985. “It’s not that much
(of an increase) compared to several years
ago,” said Hester, “but compared to last
year it’s up.”
But wait a minute. Wasn’t one of the
underlying theories behind a raised drink
ing age a slowdown in DUI? And, if so,
hasn’t the law miserably failed in its main
purpose?
In its efforts to stop drunk driving, the
and deciding it was not for me at that time, I
dropped it before I got too deep. Once I final
ly stayed with 101, I failed it. The next
quarter I jumped right back up on the horse
and pulled a “C”. However, it’s been very
rough sailing since then. I have been
through 102 twice and have yet to get out. I
am hoping the third time will be the charm.
Being a Mass Communication major, I
need these classes to graduate. In the time I
have been at this school, I have completed
my core and my journalism classes, and
have fulfilled half of my marketing minor
classes. All I need to do now is learn to
speak, write, draw, eat, and sleep Spanish.
At the rate I’m going, I will be eligible for
my retirement pension before my 104 final.
I find it difficult to pinpoint certain pro
blems I have. I go to class, study, do lab
work, and pray at the mailbox a week after
classes. So far those prayers haven’t been
answered.
I guess this quarter I will have to double
up on the studying, class attendance, lab
hours, and praying.
Even with the recent failures grade-wise,
I feel I have learned quite a lot. (I thought I
had learned enough last quarter to pass the
class, but the teacher felt differently). I
have learned to count in Spanish, to say “I
do not speak Spanish”, and even to say beer
(cerveza), party (fiesta), girls (las chicas),
and pessimistic (pesimista).
I can’t imagine how anyone is expected to
pick right up on anew language in a matter
of ten weeks when there are so many things
to be learned. For those of you who are un
This brain fatigue, as I call it, came quick
ly last week, and, for my sake, I hope it ends
soon.
When I say soon, I mean now. I know
something is wrong when I watch “My Fan-
Lady” and “Rocky” I, 11, 111, and IV all in a
row. I didn’t know whether to sing like a
punch-drunk Philadelphian or w'ear my
polka-dotted boxer shorts and dance.
You know you have a mental blockage
when:
1. You forget where you parked your car,
so you wait until everyone leaves to find it.
2. You forget your girlfriend’s name.
3. You try to figure out the question,
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
4. You watch “Mr. Rogers’
Neighborhood”.
5. You leave your fly unzipped.
6. You read old Hallmark cards in your
spare time.
7. You try to eat hamburgers with
chopsticks.
8. You talk to yourself.
9. You think the Atlanta Falcons and
Braves are contenders.
10. You think that Ronald Reagan wasn’t
Kenneth Shiver
MarK uriggs
David Gulledae
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state legislature apparently never con
sidered the possibility that 18, 19, and
20-year-olds could learn to drink respon
sibly. Conversely, legislators feel that 18
year-old males are responsible enough to be
drafted into the armed services, to operate
machinery and weapons paid for with tax
dollars, and to defend our country.
It’s true that the drinking age was raised
to 21 only last September, and four months
is hardly a justifiable amount of time to
judge the effects of the drinking age law.
However, Hester pointed out that 110 of the
total 512 DUI arrests more than 21 per
cent occurred during the months of
November and December, after the legal
age was raised to 21.
With the aid of a handy-dandy calculator,
we can find that Hester’s office averaged
roughly 43 DUI arrests every month in 1986.
After the drinking age was raised to 21, this
number jumped an alarming 29 percent to
55 a month during November and
December. Although these numbers do
reflect the traditional holiday drinking
binges, an increase of nearly one-third more
drunk drivers per month seems a little
steep.
And these numbers are only too likely to
rise. Hester said his department is going to
begin cracking down even harder on drunk
drivers, which will surely lead to a similar
move by our own Public Safety. With more
emphasis on catching DUI offenders, more
of them will inevitably be caught. What
good, then, will the drinking age law be do
ing to control the DUI problem?
a used car dealer “I have a trade for
you.”
So if you have acquired these habits, a
brain malfunction has occurred. Do not
panic, just follow three simple steps. First,
go to bed for three days. Second, eat three
good meals each day after waking. Finally,
watch the movie “Pee Wee Herman’s Big
Adventure”, and you will feel like you do, in
fact, have a brain.
During this quarter probably 90 percent of
the student body and faculty will get mental
blockage during winter quarter because
everyone is couped up in their apartments
and dorms ready to get out. Everyone pro
bably would agree that this quarter should
be best for academics, but, personally, I
have found that my grades falter during this
span. I blame it on burnout.
I am warning everyone of mental
blockage because if it catches you it could
destroy your academic prowess.
Hey, I wrote this without much trouble.
Maybe I am over this disease. Change the
channel to “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”
while I zip up my fly.
Then again, I may not be over it yet.
Advertising
The West Georgian is a full-size
newspaper published every Wednes
day during-the academic quarter.
The advertising rate for local adver
tisers is $2.50 per column inch. For
further information or to {dace an
ad, call Beth Cannon at 854-1366.
familiar with Spanish, I will throw out some
things to be learned in this so-called “easy”
language.
You begin by learning the subject pro
nouns. Instead of saying “I” for yourself,
you say “yo”. The other pronouns are “tu”,
“usted”, “el”, “ella”, “nosotros”,
“vosotros”, “ustedes”, “ellos”, and
“ellas”. Sure, we’ve seer, those words
before and can easily begin communicating
on that basis.
As you move on into the study of this com
plex language, you see such creatures as the
preterit, dipthongs, the invariable form of
“hay” (not like the horse eats - something
else I guess), gender of nouns, contractions
“al” (not a guy’s name), and “del” (I think
that pertains to the taco restuarant), “ser”
and “estar” and “para” and “por” in
contrast.
Well, you get the picture. But when the
rules say you will take these classes to
graduate or don’t worry about getting that
diploma, there isn’t much you can do.
The other day I was picturing myself sud
denly coming alive and pulling an “A” in all
these classes when someone came up and
rained on my parade. “Did you hear they’re
talking about making us take a departmen
tal final before we get out of those Spanish
classes?”
That was the last nail in the coffin. In fact,
my obituary will be in the paper soon. With
my luck, however, it will be written in
Spanish and no one will know when to show
up for the funeral.