Americans Too Quick to Stereotype

Someone call 911, it’s 9/11 and the world trade center is falling. The Islamic extremists have achieved a sinister scheme.

Three Years later, I got a Muslim Jilabiah as a birthday gift so I decided to wear it out that day to show off to my friends at school. At first, when I got to the Dairy mart everybody was staring at me; I thought my outfit was the reason so I felt like a celebrity, smiling back to grimaced faces and standing upfront like a Soldier. On my way to school I noticed a policewoman following me all around, apparently she had been stalking me. Finally, she stopped me and asked why I was dressed like Obama. How ironic I didn’t know she meant Osama till she said something awful about the Muslim I could barely recollect. I was interrogated for a few minutes then she asked me to go back home and change my outfit. The rest of the day, I felt embarrassed, and I felt like the American community totally ruined my birthday; No one allowed me a lengthy conversation; they all tried to make it as brief as possible all because I was dressed like a Muslim. Some will say the Muslim deserves whatever treatment they get because majority of them support the extremists but why do people classify innocent Muslims as al Qaeda?

Traffic and Parking in Morgantown

If you are a student living on evansdale it is the hardest thing to try and drive downtown to a class. Yeah I know most of you say take the PRT but you always can't do that. It is only a two minute drive downtown but during the day it can take you anywhere from 30 minutes to an 1 hour to make it downtown. You have to leave extremely early to make it to class on time. This begins to become a pain after awhile. To top it all off once you get downtown you have to drive around forever looking for a parking spot. I think instead of building all these knew apartments downtown they should of built a huge parking garage. This would of been a lot more useful than the Moutaineer Plaza.


--cb

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Where does our essence of morality come from? Our natural inclination
to know that certain things are bad while others are good, do we
gradually come to learn "values" or are we naturally gifted with a
inate ability to decipher between right and wrong OR is there no set
moral basis, is morality circumstantial? if so how and what steps do
you go by to figure out which circumstances would change the commonly
held view? Basically why do people believe certain things are wrong
and right and how do we know who is correct?

-- Gum

Hot House!

Global warming is a very serious problem in the world today and has slowly been increasing its severity for the past century. Global warming refers to the increase in the average temperature of the Earth?s air and oceans. There are many causes and effects of global warming, some more severe than others. Some causes of global warming include: energy use and production, chlorofluorocarbons, agricultural practices, changes in land use, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, deforestation, carbon in atmosphere and oceans, permafrost, the tundra, and climate change. Effects consist of rising sea levels from increasing global temperatures, the increase in the intensity of extreme weather events, the change in amount and pattern of precipitation, and changes in agricultural yields, glacier retreat, and species extinctions. Although the many effects and outcomes of global warming concern most people, the causes and reasons for global warming is what people should be focusing on in the world.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is collected from power plants, emitted from cars, secreted from airplanes, and also released from buildings. Roughly forty percent of the United States? carbon dioxide emissions come from coal and the burning of fossil fuels. Nearly twenty percent comes from the burning of gasoline in cars and trucks.

Global warming cannot really be prevented or stopped now because it?s almost too late, but it can be slowed down. If the world population cared enough about the future, we might be able to do something about global warming. There are not enough people in the world worrying about global warming today. It is a big problem and people need to recognize it.

-- Northcutt

One of the Oldest Debates is Still a Debate...

Abortion is a topic very commonly discussed when looking at pros and
cons. Personally I don't think abortion should be an option for
anyone except those who are victims of rape. I feel like a mother
should not be allowed to punish her unborn child for something the
child had nothing to do with and no control over. Yes i understand
that sometimes the condom breaks or something goes wrong - but if two
people feel they're responsible enough to have sex then they should be
responsible enough to take on the responsibilities of a baby; and if
that means getting pregnant, then so be it. The fact of the matter is
that a mother is terminating her child's life because she doesn't want
to have to deal with the consequences of her actions. This isn't fair
at all to the unborn child, who obviously has no say in the matter.
Rape is probably the only instance in which I think abortion should
even be considered. If a woman is raped against her will - not asking
for any kind of risk of
a pregnancy - then she should be able to make the choice of what to do
with her body.

Becca Thomas

How High Will It Go??

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's our gas prices! To no one's surprise our gas prices are sky high and are continuing to rise. With the information I have gathered from economic studies, oil companies are acting as monopolies by merging together. The 5 major oil companies (BP, Exxon Mobile, etc) are controlling the oil supply so it doesn't live up to our demands. If the oil companies continue to do this, by the year 2010 we are going to be paying a little over four dollars for a gallon of gas. As you may know, monopolies are illegal in the United States; also the United States is not a complete capitalistic nation. I think it is time for the government to intervene and bring the gas prices from the sky, and back down to earth’s surface. Jordan Jones

When Is Being a Top 5 Party School A Bad Thing?

Very often when I go out to Frats or house parties it seems like
people are looking for trouble. Over the past weekend random people
have attempted to start fights with friends of mine over dumb things
like the line for the keg. What is the point of this? Coming from
Philadelphia I know that it is not worth it to get into a fight over
something as dumb as who gets their beer cup filled first. The past
night my neighbor was pushed down a flight of stairs at a house party
for accidently breaking a window. These actions are negative for all
parties involved. I think many of the students at WVU can say that
they or someone they know have been in a situation where trouble has
been started due to a miniscule event. I believe that the frat
atmosphere does encourage an attitude of many males attempting to
assert their toughness. Part of this could be due to the melting pot
that college creates. Many people from different places and most of us
are proud of where we come from. Overall I would like to see more of the students at WVU at with maturity in these issues and realize that all of us have a lot to lose.

-- Greenwood

WVU Unsafe During Bad Weather?

Even though the weather has been okay these last few days, I
think we all can agree that within the last month or so the weather
has been bad several times and can get bad again before winter is
over. I am sure that I am not the only one that has had their rounds
with the sidewalk on the days with bad weather. The news channels do
okay with predicting when the weather will be bad, so you would think
that WVU would pay attention to that and try to have the sidewalks
salted and/or cleared for us. I understand that it would be hard to
salt all of the sidewalks in Morgantown, but you would think they
would salt all of the main sidewalks downtown by the Mountain Lair and
such. Also, the janitors for the individual resident halls should salt
the walks outside the halls.
I understand not shoveling the sidewalks but salting the walks
the night before or the morning of a snow or ice storm would make
things a whole bunch safer. I have nearly fallen twice and my friends
have fallen several times too. These sidewalks are crazy when the
weather is bad and I just wish WVU would take some precautions to help
their students feel safe when they are walking on the sidewalks that
are on steep inclines and such.

C.Fowler