Page 4
Opinion
The Clarion | January 26, 2007
Alternative version
of sciiool spirit
by Josie Guinn
Opinion Editor
It has very recently been brought to my at
tention that people here at Brevard College al
legedly don’t have any school spirit.
Take me for example; I don’t go to any of the
athletic events on campus.
However, I am an active participant in Seren
ity, the women’s a capella group here at Brevard.
I am now a member of both concert chorus and
chamber choir.
So maybe I don’t show school spirit in the
traditional way, but I still participate in things
on campus.
One of the reasons that I don’t go to sporting
events, lectures, or other events on campus is
because I don’t have the time to do so.
I’m a full time college student with 18 hours
of classes this semester I also work at the AEC
and the local movie theater I don’t get a lot of
free time. So when I do happen to get a free
moment. I’m usually far too tired to go and
spend it at a sporting event that I don’t have a
chance of being able to follow anyway.
Another thing that greatly limits my school
spirit is rather simple. I don’t live on campus.
Nor do I even drive. Having to rely on my par
ents or others for a ride constantly isn’t the
greatest thing in the world, but for right now,
it’s not that big of a deal.
However, if I wanted to go to all kinds of
other events on campus, it would require a lot
more effort for others than I really want to put
them through.
So while I might not be the most active par
ticipant of events on campus, I do still partici
pate in them. And I show my school spirit by
staying at this school and respecting my teach
ers for the work that they have to do on a daily
basis.
Maybe it’s not traditional, but it works for
me. My critics need to realize that there is more
than one way to have school spirit.
7/?e Clarion
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Amethyst Green- Sports Editor
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Editor in Cliief
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Managing Editor
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Contributors
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Megan Murph
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Dead man
spea icing
by Keefe Callaway
Contributor
It is extremely disappointing as a student at
Brevard, with no finite political party adher
ence, to witness the college allowing the hijack
ing of the true spirit of the Dr Martin Luther
King Holiday by a minister intent on using the
event as a platform to spew her own personal
anti-war, anti-Bush political rhetoric.
The event was intended to celebrate the epic
life of a historically iconic man who almost
single-handedly shaped the history of America,
Dr Martin Luther King. However, this was
frankly not the case Monday evening at the
Porter Center
More than the disappointment I had from the
gross disrespect to DrKing’s legacy that the
speaker showed, by assuming she knew what,
“DrKing would have thought” about current
events of today, is the pain I had from the way
I believe she twisted an absolute inaccuracy of
the relationship between his pacifist and non
violent civil disobediences and the anti-war
movement of today.
King’s study and respect for the utility and
effectiveness of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent
tactics in acquiring rights for Indian people and
then their role in ending English colonial rule
was an important part of King’s guidance in
shaping the nature of the ever vigilant but anti-
violent civil rights movement of the 60’s. The
non-violent character of his leadership, as op
posed to other civil rights advocate groups like
the Black Panthers, certainly contributed ex
ceedingly to the eventual successful events that
led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act and
other governmental concessions granted to
Blacks in the courts.
However, bastardizing his stated non-violent
personal philosophy to conveniently attach to
an “anti-war for any reason” type of pacifism,
so that someone can use a national holiday to
make a personal political attack is disingenu
ous at best and despicable at worst.
DrKing advocated non-violent, civil disobe
dience in the face of internal American social
injustice. Would he have advocated it in the face
of an invasion and murder of 3000 of our people
by a group of religious zealots, not bent on chang
ing our foreign policy, not bent on converting us
to another faith, but determined to kill us? I
will not make the same mistake that the speaker
did and guess what he would have said about
the events of 9/11. Truly we cannot know what