The Banner ■
0rch
Opinions
The Banner -
Editorial
Don't let me down
On a serious note
We know it happens. We also know it happens far more than
we would like to think. But now the reality has hit close to
home.
That a student at a university right down the road is sus
pected of killing her newborn child is a terrifying and sadden
ing thought. A presumably rational, intelligent young woman
felt that she had no choice available to her other than the
alleged murder.
One would think that with the wide array of options and the
great number of people who would potentially been willing to
help — friends, family, counselors, doctors — that Christina
Marie Fiske would have felt more supported.
The “sexual revolutions” of the past decades have been aimed
at just such situations as Fiske faced. In fact, one of the main
motivating factors of the movements was to bring the taboo
issues of pregnancy, abortion and sexuality out from under the
table, making them legitimate, discussable topics.
What great flaw do we still have in our system of sexual
education and awareness that makes a college student feel so
trapped as to supposedly commit a murder?
There are a million questions we want to ask. First and
foremost, “why?” Did she feel alone? Did something specific
happen that made, her allegedly act so violen^y? Was there
someone who could have stopped it? What was she thinking?
What we need to realize is that there is rarely a justification
for the loss of a life. When Fiske supposedly committed this
crime that we see as utterly heinous, she left the realm of
rational thinking, and we will never be able to understand.
The question we need to ask is, “How can we keep this from
happening again?”
There are numerous legally defined choices for a woman who
finds herself in Fiske’s position. What seems to be missing is
the constant reinforcement that there will always be real-live
people willing to help.
Women, talk to each other, and yourselves, about what you
would do if faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Educate
yourselves on your options, and make sure that yoii know
people who will be unwaveringly supportive if the need should
arise. There are few dead-end roads in life, and in this case
there are always choices.
We are sure UNCA joins us as we mourn the death of this
child. Let us, the university as a whole, make a great effort to
ensure that every female here knows their power and ultimate
right to choose their course of action.
American Dream
As millions of American sit down in front of their television,
they find themselves bombarded with shows that do not even
bother to disguise the immoral values that Americans find
themselves slipping into on a daily basis. One of these is greed.
A recent show by this name, “Greed,” exemplifies everything
that humankind has been fighting since creation. Those base
instincts are being exploited and given the connotation of an
acceptable value. Where have we gone wrong?
At the beginning of a new millenium, the question of
whether or not humankind has truly progressed remains
debatable. When people lose the urge to fight and be aware of
media that subtly influences the ideaology of our nation in the
wrong direction, we have degraded ourselves and turned the
evolutionary tables.
Big cheese
Three major auto corporations. Ford Motors Co., General
Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG, said March 21 that
they are considering modifying the future sport utility vehicles
(SUV) to make them less dangerous to small, low-riding cars.
Just a few words of response to the companies’ kind consider
ations: thanks so much, it’s too kind and it’s about time.
Americans are obsessed with size. The bigger the better, in
everything from buildings and homes to cars. This fascination
with everything large is more prevalent on the roads than
anywhere else.
Look around while driving down the highway and notice
how many surrounding vehicles are trucks, vans and those oh-
so-popular SUV’s. Not surprisingly, a large vehicle is safer than
a small one. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Association
found that when trucks and cars collide, people in cars are
three times more likely to die than those in trucks. Tough luck
for the car drivers.
Until we get over our love affair with large, it’s nice to know
that soon, car drivers will not have to fear for their lives in the
midst of the more well-endowed.
Your television is not to blame
Matthew
Rossi
columnist
Lately, I’ve been thinking about
the poor underdogs of our world.
The people and things who, through
no fault of their own, have found
themselves the victims of persecu
tion. Frankly, I can think of no
single object in this world which
has been given a worse label than
that yelled at and ostracized device,
the television.
That’s right, ladies and gende-
men, your TV, your mind-rotter,
your idiot box has been the subject
of heinous insults for entirely too
long, and it is high time someone
ended the myth that televisions cre
ate stupidity.
Watching this season’s “must see”
TV, which included such gems as
the prime-time crap-fest we call
“Friends,” it becomes painfully easy
to understand why people think of
television as an idiot box. Indeed,
the quality of prime-time TV is
somewhere within the broad spec
trum of “hideously unintelligent”
and “full frontal and back lo-
botomy.”
But kids, it doesn’t have to be this
way. The television is not, in and of
itself, designed to be the temple of
mindlessness. In fact, it can hold a
very valid and instructional role in
For example, television played an
incredibly important role in foster
ing the United States withdrawal
from the Vietnam War. During
Vietnam, the United States found
itself up against an enemy which
was everywhere. The Vietnamese
were plain-clothes guerilla fighters.
They could be anyone anywhere,
from the litde old lady on the streets
to the small child who you just
innoculated. This, combined with
the fact that the Vietnamese knew
the j ungle far better than any of the
soldiers and had tunnels dug be
neath the ground through which
they could seemingly appear and
disappear at will, led to an incred
ibly high loss of U.S. soldiers, many
of them very young men.
And every night on the television
during the news, lists of the dead
would appear across the screen, long
lists of names of whoever had died
from that town.
We would enter villages and
slaughter men and women and chil
dren simply because they were sus
pected to be traitors. Essentially,
faced with an enemy who refused to
obey the standard rules of fighting
a war, we stopped obeying our
own rules of conduct, and per
formed all sorts of human rights
violations.
We bombed the jungles with na
palm, setting fire to anything in its
path, whether it was a tree, an en
emy, or a child. Along with the list
after list of names that came into
every home in America each night
at dinner came pictures and footage
from the jungle. It was through
these images that people began to
see the hideous things that were
happening because of this war, and •
because they could see practically
firsthand, the public opinion turned
against the war and people decided
an outcry was necessary to end the
But what would the protest move
ment have been without the mass
media coverage of the marches? To
this day, we know that Vietnam
was heavily protested, but we rarely
hear about the protests which oc
curred in response to other wars,
such as the Korean War and WWII,
although they were often just as
fervent as any protest against Viet-
The reason we remember
Vietnam’s protests is that they were
widely covered on the television. It
was a striking image every night to
see, along with the bloody front
line footage, students and adults
marching and organizing against
the very war which was costing
these lives. Arguably, without the
extensive coverage by the mass
media, the Vietnam protests would
not have been as successful as they
Also, along with being a force of
information and polirical change,
television has demonstrated that it
can be used to bring events of high
culture to people who would not
otherwise be able to see them. PBS
and the BBC are excellent examples
of this. PBS frequently airs oflf-
Broadway theatrical events on the
television, providing a means for
people who live nowhere near New
York to see these productions. The
BBC (British Broadcasting Com
pany) also does this.
In addition, they also perform
filmed productions of stage plays to
be aired only through television.
and they sometimes even commis
sion new plays to be written specifi
cally for the airwaves. Playwrights
like Tom Stoppard have found this
sort of production very useful in
furthering their names and careers.
So if television is not inherently a
venue for the inanities of popular j
entertainment, then why do shows
like “Friends” and “Dawson’s
Creek” seem to dominate the air
waves? It isn’t because television is
stupid, and it really isn’t even be
cause the people who come up with
shows are stupid. It is because the
viewing tastes of the general public
are incredibly simplistic (which is a
nice way of saying stupid).
You see, the people who come up
with shows base their ideas of what
will and will not work on what has
and has not worked in the past.
When “Friends” came out, the
people who created it had based
their ideas on surveyed tastes of
people in the demographic range
they were shooting for. That is how
they structured their characters.
Then, with the success of “Friends,”
they designed other shows based on
that ^structure.
The point is that the inventors of
TV shows do not exist in a vacuum.
They work in direct response to
what the American public asks for.
And the way we ask for it is by
watching one show and
other. If the American public
watched only intelligently written,
insightful shows, then the exeo
tives at the networks would have
respond by creating only intelli
gent, insightful shows. Otherwise
they would not make any money,
because nobody would be watch
ing. In short, I place the weight of
making popular entertainment
smart in your hands. Stop berating
your televisions, and if all that i
is mindlessness, turn it off
G
Seven-day procrastination therapy
Jennifer
Ross
columnist
1 will admit I procrastinate. In
deed, I am a pathological procrasti
nator. Every time this backfires,
whether it is a poor grade or just an
excess of stress, I vow to never pro
crastinate again. I’ve made a resolu
tion, a proclamation to procrasti
nate no more. But by mid-week I
have begun to slack off, and then by
Sunday, I am yet again pulling an
all night cram fest for a Monday
morning exam again.
“Why, oh why, do I do this time
and time again?” I ^k myself Unfor
tunately, I am only a pathological
procrastinator, not a schizophrenic,
so there is no ready answer. My
story would end here with me
caught in this endless, vicious cycle.
But thankfully, the procras
tinator’s best friend, the Internet,
holds knowledge about all things,
including procrastination. Even bet
ter, it is operational 24-7 for late-
night, frantic paper-writing ideas.
The first site I’m off to belongs to
the University of Guelph (http://
www.uoguelph.ca/csrc/learning/
procras.htm). According to this site,
students are the number one rated
procrastinators. This is due to three
reasons. The first is that there is
always a tremendous amount of
work to do. Regardless of how much
time a student spends studying, they
are never really “finished.” Second,
most students spend only a small
number of hours each day in class
or lab. The majority of their time is
unstructured.
And third, particularly in residence
halls, the numerous activities (such
as work, sports, hobbies, etc.) com
pete for a student’s limited number
of hours in a week. Studying is
often pushed to a low priority.
But besides mentioning the three
main superficial reasons why stu
dents are more prone to procrasti
nation, the University of Guelph
site has some theories about the
inner workings of a procrastinator.
Apparently, it is sometimes a form
of perfectionism.
When nothing less than an “A”
will do, many students create an
emotional out by procrastinating
on assignments. Then when the
marks are not up to their standard,
they can blame it on the fact that
they did the assignment in a hurry
and the low grade does not really
reflect their ability. In this way,
procrastination saves face.
According to the University of
Guelph, there are some temporary
cures to procrastination, but un
derstanding why you really pro
crastinate is essential for a long-
So now that I am convinced I
need years of therapy simply be
cause I procrastinate, I have de-
other site. Let’s check out a more
upbeat sounding page called “Pro
crastination: Ten Ways To Do It
Now” (http://www.ucc.vt.edu/
stdysk/procrast.html). This site dis
cusses how procrastination results
in wasted time, missed opportuni
ties, poor performance, self-depre
cation, and/or increased stress. But
in a neat analogy, this site relates
procrastination to physics’ law of
inertia (in which greater forces are
required to start change than to
sustain change, and a mass at rest
tends to stay at rest). Another way
of viewing this is that avoiding a
task only makes it harder to get
things going. I have to say this is
about the only thing I found of use
on this web page, however, because
after this the theme breaks into a
kind of Stuart Smiley “I’m good
enough, smart enough, and
doggone it, people like me,” thing
as a cure all for procrastination.
So, it’s quickly (very quickly) off
to one more site, so I am heading to
the “Seven Day Procrastination
Plan” (http://www-slc.uga.berke
ley.edu/CalREN/procras
tination.html). This page gives a
relatively simple seven-day cure to
procrastination. So, until we can all
afford the years of therapy that the
University of Guelph site recom
mends, this will just have to do.
This program employs seven tac
tics for seven days to help end pro
crastination. On Monday, one lists
the tasks they have been avoiding
and the benefits of completing these
tasks, being specific about the pay
offs and rewards.
On Tuesday, the large jobs are
broken into smaller, manageable
pieces that can be accomplished in
15 minutes or less. For example, if
a long reading assignment intimi
dates you, break it into two- or
three-page sections, list the sections,
and cross them off as you complete
them. This way your give yourself
the visual experience of getting
something done.
On Wednesday (I warn you.—
this one sounds a bit lame), you
write an intention statement on a
3-by-5 card and post it in your
study area where you can see i
often. For example, if you have
term paper you cannot seem ti
start, write yourself an intention
statement that says, “I intend
write a list of at least ten possible
topics for my term paper by 9 p-
I will reward myself with an hour of
guilt-free recreational reading."
On Thursday, tell everyone. Tell
your friends, spouse and room
mates. This is a pretty good way i
ensure that you are going to cariy
through with your course of action.
On Friday, find a reward. Doni
pick something that you were plan
ing on doing anyway, because a re
ward must be something that you-.
would genuinely withhold from your
self if you did not earn it. Whether it
is movies, clothes, or an hour reading
the latest AW York 7z>w«best seller,
you will find it is more enjoyable
since you’ve earned it.
On Saturday, the minute you no-:
rice yourself procrastinating, plunge
into the task you still need to do.
The site gives the good analogy of
leaping into a chill mountain lake
instead of gradually immersing
yourself step by freezing step. It s
less excruciating to just leap in, and
you can savor the feeling of having
the task behind you sooner.
On Sunday, decide on a task that
you have been continually pushing
to the bottom of your list. If yo"
realize that you really do not intend
to do it, tell the truth and drop it
Then you’re not procrastinating,
and you don’t have to carry around
the baggage of an undone task.
Now, I am not sure if these ideas
will really work, but in writing this
article, I gained the fresh resolve of
an smoker who just bought a pack
of nicotine gum. I’m going to quit
procrastinating; But not tonight
it is four in the morning and I aff
exhausted.
chievem
)methin
brated
,ithin 0
ory,” or
=und
YourM
ouched
hat con t
JNCA
)diernee(
The a
kt wha
ubtracti