Screw This


The Daily Targum
By James O’Keefe
Published: 12/8/2003

This goes out to all the Rutgers students who have been screwed like a 60-watt light bulb, like a demented organ grinder, like a lug nut off a flat tire. This goes out to the innocent first-year scholars who experience more bureaucracy here than the DMV on Monday morning, more red tape than a Kmart on Christmas. This goes out to all those who finally have adapted to things such as bus and registration paradigms that are as inefficient and cumbersome as square snails.But as you might know, it's not just the clichéd RU Screw that can fill you with more rage than a lion in heat. It's the small things - the silly things - the little moments comprising your everyday routine that torment you. Things that administrators and the public could never understand. I've held my pride in for too long. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, which gets its satisfaction from surprising me with an array of vexations from its bureaucratic bag of antics, will now feel my wrath.This goes out to all those people who despite their last-minute sprinting, will always miss that A, EE or LX, by 15 seconds, no matter what the time, place or situation. They will watch that bus, operating on arbitrary time intervals, merrily accelerate onward just past their reach. Those faint green letters on the rear will mock their disappointment, and they will think what could have been if only they had taken the stairs instead of waiting those precious seconds for that malfunctioning elevator.This goes out to all those people who think those "handicapped" doors in front of the computer lab on College Ave. just don't make any sense. Like others around campus, I have never seen them work properly, and once I saw them close on a helpless man who was actually in his wheelchair pushing that ridiculous blue switch. You are obliged to open them manually, requiring more strength than if they were just regular doors. Uncanny.Maybe laxatives aren't in the food at Brower. Perhaps, like the "Captain Commons" faculty person exclaims on posted napkins, (notice the goofy, super-hero-like terminology), it is the juice we drink, not the glop we consume, that makes us jet for the lavatories. But how are we supposed to drink all this juice when those funky, slow machines are always spitting out diluted water? Regardless of the mysterious source of one's digestive stimulation, how are we supposed to relieve ourselves when the dorm bathrooms are being cleaned at the most inopportune times, leaving us desperately darting around the dorm floors frantically searching for toilets like squirrels.Then there are those brown paper towel dispensing devices in the bathrooms that also makes less sense than the story line of "Dude, Where's My Car?" They are always empty, and if they aren't empty, the towels get stuck coming out. The completely modernized bathrooms are void of the more clean, reliable, and environmentally friendly hand dryers. The dirty, old bathrooms are filled with them. If there are infrared heat-sensing laser beams on toilet stalls that automatically flush for you, why can't they have hand dryers that just blow warm air?This goes out to all those students who lined up and waited patiently his or her turn to sell all those expensive, seldom-used books you bought with irrelevant material not on your exams. It's your turn, the moment of truth. You encounter the book nazi who screams, "These books are no good! No buyback for you!" You tilt your head in shame, stuck with those worthless hundred-dollar investments. You reflect on the candor, the brutal mercilessness of the book nazi who shot your high economic spirits down like a clay pigeon in the sky; whipped you like the four-eyed kid in the schoolyard!And what is with all the pornography? From chairs in the lecture halls to the desks in Alexander library. Kudos to anyone who can concentrate on studying with penises and vaginas sprawling every inch of your workspace.What is with those dreary looking students checking your backpack when you leave the library? What purpose does this serve? Do they even care what's inside? All that is required of me is that I wave my backpack around giving the illusion that they are checking it! Same thing with the buffoonery of writing down guest's names when they enter dorms ... for only five hours out of the day! The only time they've checked my key is when I've offered to show it to them! Will someone please show me the administrative geniuses who come up with these foolproof ideas for my safety?The Hurtado Health Center seems to be more of an assembly line, an illusion of caring, another bureaucratic requisite than anything actually useful for the protection of my health. It took them a year to remove that "Immunization Hold" from my transcript, even after I sent them letter upon letter verifying what they wanted. Those exclamation points online made me feel more like a rabid tiger at a circus than a student at a university.And those lottery numbers. They claim they're random, but I tell you they are cursed, perhaps staged. It seems only the previously fortunate go to the exact room with the exact person they want, while those who were in tripled dorm rooms, or moved around campus like pawns on a chess board, get screwed. How equitable.This goes out to all the victims who've had mailbox partners who haven't checked their mail in six months, giving you a tiny stuffed box filled with his outdated newsletters that you must constantly sort through every week. Yet this itself is a daunting task, considering you must carefully remove letters without them falling into the abyss on the opposite side. That is - if you can actually open those puny doors with the outdated combination mechanisms.This goes out to the Rutgers students who are changing their minor simply because it is so challenging to get in the appropriate classes, dealing with departments that can't figure out what requirements they want for the major, programs with ambiguous rules for admission, smelly old men hogging televisions in the Red Lion Café and cars that are magnets for parking tickets.But we must understand Rutgers is a state of mind, our distinguishing collegiate privilege, and a piece of cake for what's to come in our lives. However frustrating all of this nonsense seems, however loud the laughs coming from gravesite of bureaucratic theorist Max Weber are, we must remind ourselves not to retreat, not to go quietly into the night. We must use bigger scissors when encountering red tape, perhaps listen to the inspirational "Chariots of Fire" as we run faster to those buses, and write columns in The Daily Targum commenting on all that insanity abundant with odd similes stranger than a gang of drunken mimes.

NJO: Originally appeared in Rutgers University's newspaper The Daily Targum, later posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

The Miracle of life


The Daily Targum
By James O’Keefe
Published: 9/19/2003

Each time a man ejaculates, 500 million sperm - a number exceeding the population of Europe - eagerly swim forth. Ingrained in each one of these feisty chromosome-filled tadpoles is the incessant, instinctual, dire need to pursue and discover the pot of gold over the rainbow. Every human being was at one time a mindless, helpless, microscopic piece of bean sprout-looking matter with a mere chance of one in 500 million (all other things being equal) of fertilizing our mother's egg. But somehow in a world of six billion, each one of us has beaten these astronomical odds. We are walking and talking exceptions to a statistical impossibility; virtual pieces of art sculpted from bare nothingness; manifestations of an oppressed chance in a world where we can't even win the raffle at a little league baseball game. But not all sperm are created equal. Take a look in the mirror. You are essentially looking at an Olympian. You sprinted through dark canyons, solving mazes and using inherent superpowers to break through shells of steel. You emerged triumphantly winning the gold medal in a race of 500 million. First place receives a bright journey filled with meaning, truth and accomplishment. These special sperm grow up to become doctors, lawyers, puppeteers, and professors - perhaps curing a disease, becoming president, preventing a war or writing a thesis on kangaroo psychology or what-have-you. The other 499,999,999 (give or take a couple) vanish into the dark recesses of an unacknowledged life they never get to live.It amazes me that an entire species is composed of these Olympians - those special sperm who beat unthinkable odds and come from nothingness with no probability of ever existing to persevere over those statistical detractors. Right now take a look around you at the people who take their lives for granted. Look at them. They don't even consider how incredible their journey has been. They don't realize how much of an impact they will have on the world around them. Everybody has an impact on the world around them. If Christopher Columbus's mother didn't have sex with her husband on the exact day she did, in the exact form she did, the whole fate of the western world would be changed forever. When Columbus was a sperm he could have decided he would give up on his way to fertilizing the egg, tired of meandering through tunnels of darkness with no egg in sight. A different, less adventuring sperm could have mistakenly bumped into him and fractured Columbus's tail. The other sperm could then reach the egg, and Chris could have grown up with different interests to become a jester, instead of a skilled entrepreneur like Columbus. The entire free world would have ceased to exist as it does now. Perhaps Japan or the Swedes would have discovered us. Native Americans could have lived in tranquil serenity for another hundred years. Perhaps we would turn into a communist breeding ground. But whatever the outcome, everybody would be having sex in different ways with different people in different places. Maybe there would be no melting pot. Entirely different people would have been born. Life on earth would be irrevocably changed into a new paradigm that would have stayed the course of human history forever. Perhaps we should really accredit the discovery of the "New World" to the less adventurous sperm not getting in the way of Columbus.As you can see, this isn't just a reproduction phenomenon. It is also connected to fate. We choose a path, take it and one thing leads to another. One could eternally retrace steps not taken and roads less traveled to no end, realizing there were so many people and places not encountered. That is why when I'm talking to anyone, I realize how amazing it truly is that I am with that person, at that time, in that place, when things could have turned out completely different in infinitely many ways. A 100-year-old man has discovered so many forks in his journey, so many twists and turns since he was conceived. There will be generations of people affecting the world due to the choices he made; due to the fact his parents decided to immigrate to America. He has made an eternal ripple on the pond of time. Billions of people, just like him, operate all over earth. We meet in subways, at Starbucks or in school. If we change our desire for coffee one morning, or our decision to take the F instead of the EE, perhaps we'll be missing out on potential friendship or some type of epiphany; deciding to have a cappuccino could change our lives drastically.Now you can't live your life like this. You would probably never choose your major here at Rutgers. You would never marry anyone ever. You would obsess over every decision you have to make. But the next time you hear a mathematician belittling your chances of winning the lottery, tell him both of you were once facing odds approaching 1 in 500 million. You were both one of about 10 trillion sperm produced in a man's lifetime. Explain that you both beat the impossibly small likelihood of meeting each other in a universal realm of infinite space-time. Perhaps he'll look at you, shrug, and say, "You've got a point." Whatever you believe in, whatever your origin and whatever ideology you ascribe to, you cannot deny the miracle of life. Believe in yourself and in your ability to achieve impossible things, because you already did.

NJO: Originally appeared in Rutgers University's newspaper The Daily Targum, later posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

18-0

That was the vote count when the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer in the 1990s, and it should have been the vote for John Roberts yesterday, instead of 13-5. The two Bill Clinton appointees are every bit as liberal as Judge Roberts is conservative, and they were just as unforthcoming during their confirmation hearings on how they would vote on specific cases.

Instead, five Democrats voted "no" yesterday. Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy claimed they didn't know enough about how Judge Roberts would rule on specific precedents. Joe Biden was, well, Bidenesque. Dianne Feinstein apparently thought the candidate had been nominated for Chief Family Man instead of Chief Justice. "Rather than talking to me as a son, a husband, a father -- which I specifically requested he do -- he gave a very detached response," she said yesterday. Imagine that: A judge who is restrained.

NJO: Originally posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

What to do When your Girlfriend Dumps You

It's a sad fact of life, but at some point in your life you will get dumped by a girlfriend. And, no guy likes to get dumped, especially by someone you cared for and loved. But, love is a two-way street. Both parties have to love and nurture a relationship to keep it alive. It's no good to be involved in a one-way relationship with a woman that you love and she does not love you back.
I know you're going to feel like shit in the beginning after your girlfriend breaks up with you. But, you will get over her a hell of a lot easier if you will take these steps to get over her and get on with your life:
Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself and try to scheme up ways to get your girlfriend back. Don't make any efforts whatsoever and whatever you do, don't call her or write her. You need to block her out of your life completely and pretend that she does not even exist on this earth anymore.
If you have any pictures of her laying around, on the wall, or in your wallet, hide them in your attic or somewhere where you will not likely see them. Even better, throw them away or burn them. You could be nice and return them to her if you desire.
Here's a good ritual to get her out of your system: Sit down and write her a letter telling her pissed off and hurt you are about her dumping you and tell her good bye and you don't want to ever see her again. Don't mail this letter, but just set it aside somewhere. This is just a good way to vent your feelings and make you feel better.
Block out of your mind all the good times you had. Just focus on the negative and bad times (her bitchy moods, her always nagging you, standing you up for dates, refusing to have sex with you, telling her you love her and she does not say anything in return, her not returning your calls, her flirting with other guys when you go out, her unsightly nose hairs, her fat ass, all your arguments, etc.). After some serious thinking, you may come to realize that you had mostly bad times and things worked out for the best by you getting out of an unhappy relationship.
Be sure and hide or destroy any love letters or cards she may have given to you.
Return any gifts she may given to you. You don't need the reminders of her and I would consider throwing them away or donating them to the needy.
Don't listen to the crying in your beer songs or songs that you shared together. Listen only to upbeat music that will cheer you up. Laying around listening to sad songs is only going to make you feel worse.
If you can, avoid going to places that will remind you of your ex.
In conclusion, keep real active and busy and spend a lot of time with your friends. And most importantly, get back in circulation and start dating again. And, don't be choosy and particular when you start dating again. Date any and all single women. You need to get back in the groove and don't hold out waiting for some Playboy Playmate type to come along

NJO: Copied content from www.getgirls.com, posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

Inside the Mind of the Rutgers Professor, Part VII: Sex

Sex

The sexual revolution is a mess. While the professors accuse much literature of being racist, all is sexist. Feminists at Douglass College can’t decide whether they should support pornography for sexual liberation purposes or oppose it due to the degradation of women. They celebrate women’s sexual identity all the while espousing the absence of differences between men and women. The lesbian philosophy at Rutgers has been one of censorship rather than liberation, especially in relation to the grease trucks and the banning of The Medium in previous years. In summary, the Ladies Against Feminism, an anti-feminist group, says it best; “men and women are not identical creatures. Are we equal in human worth? Yes. Equal before the throne of grace? Absolutely. Equal in dignity? Indeed. But when it all boils down to it, if you insist that “equal” means exactly the same, you will have to fly in the face of biology, historical fact, Biblical truth and just plain common sense. In many ways, woman is not equal to man; and, by the same token, man is not equal to woman. They are different creatures with differing roles. Will we complement each other in our distinctive, God-given roles, or will we tear each other to shreds in a territorial dispute? L.A.F. promotes the former.”

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.

Inside the Mind of the Rutgers Professor, Part VI: Equality

Equality

The decline of the Rutgers man (“man” being used to denote male or female human). There is no such thing as a “Rutgers Man” anymore. There is no such thing as a renaissance man. Rutgers does not produce gentlemen as well as scholars, does not shape students anymore, at least not in the way it should. While professors play the role of brainwashers, the administration promotes a form of sensitive homogeneity, using academic methods like “creative ambiguity,” where both sides strongly disagree but come to mutual agreement. The administration’s focus is primarily on skin color, ethnicity and non-western religions. The colorblind demands of the civil rights movement have mutated into the color consciousness of today. Since professors believe that all civilization and culture come directly from race and we are all created equal, the Rutgers anthropologist believes all civilizations and cultures are created equal. The Professor has become so obsessed with race, he will often ignore an argument, instead making ad hominem attacks on the basis of the arguer’s race or social status only. Professor James Livingston of the Rutgers History Department, a self-described “Marxist, Socialist, Feminist and Pragmatic Postmodernist,” made such attacks against the editors of The Centurion last fall, accusing the paper of “White Hysteria.” (Professor James Livingston is a white man who makes around 100,000 dollars a year).

Statewide Affirmative Action mandates demanding quotas on race have produced a segregated campus. Livingston College for blacks and Hispanics. Rutgers College for whites. White students are contemptuous of black students and athletes with lower admissions standards and doubt their merits, even though they deny doing so. Attempts to level the playing field bring standards down. English Professor William Dowling has spoken of the decline of academic standards and demanded the university return to its traditional, historical roots. Dr. Dowling has also published a list of works that are considered the great English Classics. In an August 25, 2003 article in Sports Illustrated, he pointed to a football player named Nate Robinson who was accepted into Rutgers with a combined SAT score of 800.

The University wanted none of it.

The “Academic Oversight Committee” demonized Dowling in a Targum column later in September, where they accused Dowling of calling football players “morons.” One student, then Rutgers College sophomore John Little, resorted to an ad hominem attack and accused Dowling of being a “racist.” His April 24th, 2001 quote (for Dowling’s 2003 article was not the first in which he questioned the University’s acquisition of sports players) about Dowling embodies much of the Marxist philosophy: “Professor Dowling only recognizes one style of learning. One leftover from the days when only the wealthy could attend college. Not all students can achieve academically in a typical classroom setting, thus making athletics, drama or art a valuable tool in the teaching process. The lessons that these activities teach students are numerous and every bit as valuable as anything is that can by learned in the classroom.”

The white Rutgers students, faculty and Administration feel uncomfortable talking about campus segregation between the colleges. They do not like it because it does not fit in their prevailing view that all the races get along and their university has become fully integrated, when in fact is has not.

What results is a barrage of aesthetic “diversity” reassurance and sensitivity training. There are dozens of caucuses, programs and councils to beat the importance of skin color and multicultural sensitivity into the segregated students minds. Diversityweb.rutgers.edu says all Rutgers students needs to be welcomed, valued and respected,” but the administration’s plans to emphasize distinct “cultures” (races) only promotes hostility between them. Heck, there is even an Institute for Executive Leadership and Diversity (http://diversity.rutgers.edu) at Rutgers University. At an “Algeria” award conference for Rutgers College student organizations on May 3rd, 2005, more than half of the awards were for cultural organizations, lauding skin color and little else. The Centurion was peculiarly absent from the “Excellence in Student Media” award ceremony.

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.

Inside the Mind of the Rutgers Professor, Part V: “L”iberal arts

“L”iberal arts

The average Rutgers student doesn’t care about wisdom or truth. He cares about what he can do with his degree. Rutgers Philosophy of Mind professor Colin McGinn, one of the most respected philosophers in the world, advised a prospective undergraduate in philosophy last year to avoid going getting a graduate degree in philosophy, because, as he stated, there’s “nothing he can do” with a doctoral degree.

But without the great revelations, epics and philosophies from Plato, Aristotle, etc. (things some professors would consider prejudice) as a natural part of our perspective, a career in a field such as finance or law has no meaning. Ask a student in any field, what he thinks about spirituality, relationships with others or the human condition, and he will recite quotes off internet websites, or a bit of pop psychology from a movie or a gossip column. If a student can say something of importance, it is due to his dedicated reading outside the classroom.

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.

Inside the Mind of the Rutgers Professor, Part IV: Prejudice

Prejudice

Professors at Rutgers, particularly in the psychology department, have become obsessed with eliminating prejudice – and not necessarily the illogical and unjust biases that dominate the connotations of prejudice. The wise prejudices like common sense, moral principle and empirical fact have been eliminated with the incorrect justification they are related to racial discrimination.

Everything the Rutgers student knows upon entering the University must be replaced, everything learned in the household, community, and religious texts. “Preconceived” or “inflexible” ideas must be abandoned. Only then is the Rutgers’ student’s mind empty, and only then can the brainwashing begin.

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.

Inside the Mind of the Rutgers Professor, Part III: Literature

Literature

Since the 1960’s, professors have been abandoning the great books curriculum. The classics, by authors such as Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Cyrus, Theseus, Moses, Romulus, Rousseau have been replaced with third-rate Marxist hogwash, justified by the assertion that the societies that produced the great texts were racist and sexist. What the professors fail to mention is no great literary work was produced during the 1960’s, one of the saddest times for the American Academy.

In high school, students are flooded with transcendentalism, self-reliance, Thoreau, Whitman, Angelou, Kwanza, Japanese internment camp memoirs, etc. Absent, with the exception of the Odyssey and perhaps selections from the Theban trilogy, are the great texts of western civilization. Many students realize that if Maya Angelou is great literature, there is nothing to be learned from literature. Unimpressed by what they are told are the “best of books,” they shy away from reading at a very early age. The Bible, being the foundation for many cultures, and containing numerous literary forms, is all that’s left, and the conservative culture is trying very hard not to let go. (This could be a partial motivation for the Bible thumpers in the South and parts of the Midwest).

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.

Inside the Mind of the Rutgers Professor, Part II: Relativism

Relativism

Rutgers Professors believe there is no such thing as truth. Moral and ethical truths are a matter of cultural constructs and personal experiences. Human action has no value; a terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. If we free ourselves from the moral principles custom and religion bind us to we shall become what Nietzsche called Übermensch, or “Superman.” A Rutgers relativist may wish to justify genital mutilation, genocide and Stalinism with a statement like “who’s to say who’s right?” From this pseudo-thought stems the ridiculous but prevalent notion that proponents of injustice are victims, due to a lack of social, financial, or racial privilege. Therefore, according to the relativist, societies are responsible for the actions of freethinking individuals. After all, “evil” as we have known it is an outdated Judeo-Christian concept, and if relevant, only applies to deeds, not people. “Good” is never defined. Judgment is the only cardinal sin. The irony of the professors’ view is that the relativist position itself is the opposite of relative. It is absolutist! Any moral axiom, for instance, “don’t have sex with babies,” is wrong according to your professor, because it labels an action as wrong. This clearly violates his own view of moral indifference – the view itself is a contradiction.

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.

Inside the Mind of the Rutgers Professor, Part I: Multiculturalism

Indoctrination has Led to the Decline of Our College Experience

BY JAMES O'KEEFE

Multiculturalism

Every student at Rutgers is required to take a “non-western” course in the humanities or social sciences, though there is no required course in “western” humanities or social sciences. The multiculturalist administration wants to incorporate “excluded” works of literature, art, and philosophy into our curriculum that have been unaccounted for due to prejudices of our culture. To the multiculturalist, appreciation for American Culture is completely baseless, founded only in prejudices and propaganda perpetuated by ignorant, racist dead white men. Furthermore, the multiculturalist says principles like natural rights, which unite us, are not grounded in any sort of truth, but are arbitrary and hostile to “diversity” and our differences. Although the word “multiculturalist” sounds like an appeal to a sense of community, to them, an isolated non-Westerner is more “cultured” than a Southern American Christian, even though the Southern American Christian is far more exposed to people with different beliefs and lifestyles. Thus, eventually culture turns into a sort of non-conformist individualism – exactly the type that is celebrated by Davey Thoreau. This explains the contempt American liberals have for rural folk in the heartland with common virtues and a strong sense of community and tradition. It also explains the contempt for patriotism and civic virtue. One often sees Rutgers students in class or on a bus, walking or sitting with their heads down, drowning out their environment with music playing on their Ipods. These students have evolved in educational institutions that have enforced so much independent thought, they find solace in isolation, in virtues they can find only in themselves (thanks to Instant Messenger, students rarely need to leave their dorm rooms). The emphasis on the self is further promoted by the influence of Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud and his perverted philosophies. Students sometimes congregate (due at times to things like mandatory meal plans), but state universities like Rutgers, despite their numbers, are remarkably lonely places. This is because the virtues that bring us together, like respect for the (or any) concept of God, allegiance to the ideals of Country, and reliance upon ethics to govern our actions toward one other, are despised.

The multiculturalist connoisseur desires a “transcendent” view, a “cultured” view, a “different” view, other than that native to his homeland. Multiculturalist Rutgers professors have become eccentric elites, sadly out of touch with American culture, family and purpose.

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.

Dear Freshmen, ahem... "First-Year-Students"

A year ago, this publication did not exist. Since then we have violated 37 copyrights in our satire of The New York Times, done a review of the most decorated liberal professor doors, investigated the rampant fiscal and electoral corruption of NJPIRG, documented our speech code, and investigated faculty contributions to political parties to find out professors gave 104 times more money to John F. Kerry than George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. We have exposed the Stalinism of Rutgers favorite son, Paul Robeson, and printed the appropriate forms to relinquish your United States Citizenship if you are ashamed of your American identity. Additionally, we have filed a “bias incident report form” on one student who wrote “Die” all over one of our issues. We sent Valentines to NJPIRG requesting our money be refunded while documenting threats made to us by our old faculty advisor who told us “not to f*** with him.” We investigated our bureaucracy to find over 33 distinct offices, committees, programs, projects, caucuses and councils that advance nothing but diversity of skin color. As a response to Campus Censorship of the Grease Trucks' sandwiches, we attempted to ban Lucky Charms from the dining halls in a form of satirical protest. We, tragically, succeeded. And we got it on tape. We interviewed Bret Schundler for Governor and confronted a Professor who chased a student out of his classroom because he disagreed with the professor’s worldviews. We responded to the "Vagina Monologues" with the “Penis Monologues.” At Tent State, we counter-protested with patriotic country music and an affirmative action bake sale where we sold brownies for less money to minority customers. Students signed our petition to ban water. Anarchist ninjas assaulted us when we told them about the state scandals. Professors have tried to expel us when we exposed their lies, and the administration has disavowed us when we printed the truth. We have been assaulted, betrayed, and, at times, ignored. But we will never surrender in our pursuit to challenge the academic monopoly of thought. We will never surrender at trying to get students to look at both sides of an issue. We will never surrender in upholding our motto, Veritas vos Liberabit.

Read on.      - THE EDITORS

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.