Randal's Rhetoric

Goodbye, My Friend

2009-09-17T21:26:00.000-07:00

I found out today that I lost a friend. I had not known him long, and we exchanged more punches than words in the few short months we lived in the same state after we met. As a second-degree black belt, he was my senior both in rank and age, but he was easy to befriend. He had a quirky sense of humor and an easy-going personality that belied the tragedy in his life. His undeniable charisma caused students young and old to love him as an instructor, and I admired him as a sparring partner and a friend.

The recent recession was more than just the highlight of the evening news to my friend, and he was forced to pick up and move on in search of opportunity. I was comforted by the fact we would be able to keep in touch, but although I quickly befriended him on Facebook, we never really got a chance to talk again.

Death is a fact of life, although for me it seems to also be an unintentional writing muse. We all bury family and friends, but for someone in my line of work, there is also the occasional student or former student who leaves the world much too soon. Between losing students and losing friends, death can become a grim fixation. I guess even before entering the teaching profession, the loss of my paternal grandparents pulled the rug from beneath my happy-go-lucky feet and left me staring into the abyss.

Speaking of grandparents, I have delved back into genealogy recently, which means I have spent a fair amount of time walking back and forth among rows of tombstones, looking for my ancestors’ final resting places, or the resting places of other people’s loved ones, for whom I volunteer to locate such graves and take a picture. My wife finds this pastime utterly morbid, but I do not feel that walking through graveyards is macabre. A cemetery is rich in history, and I find it a joy and a challenge to pull people’s life stories back into relevance when they were one step from eternal obscurity.

It seems there has been an endless stream of moments in my adult life which have forced me to reflect on the brevity of life and the human desire to make a difference. I have walked among rows and rows of headstones, many with writing worn away by wind and rain. The people whose graves those stones mark, their contributions to society, and often their vary identities, are lost forever to history. Those we lay to rest have trusted their fragile identities and contributions to posterity to our memories. I watched my friend make the world a better place, one front kick at a time. While I did not know him long and did not scratch the surface of his identity, I did watch him make a meaningful difference in several people’s lives.

As a former newspaper editor and a current English teacher and writer, I used to be a true believer in the written word. I believed very strongly that there is something magical about well-written prose, and therefore freedom of speech (especially written speech) is a powerful and empowering right. As a college newspaper editor, I believed perhaps too strongly in such magical properties of writing, leaned too heavily on perceived invulnerability to consequence, and relied perhaps too naively on the belief that simply exposing perceived injustice would rectify that injustice, that simply writing the correct words in the correct order would spark the incantation that would cause evil to burst into flame and turn to ash, like a vampire ambushed by the golden rays of dawn. Along with those powers, I may have even thought that recording my memories of someone would contribute in small part to their immortality on this Earth.

I am not sure if I believe writing is as magical as I once did. As I have grown a little older, both my beard and my viewpoints have taken on shades of gray. I find myself asking questions more than giving answers. It seems to me an evil that my friend is dead, but no amount of writing will change this fact. I doubt I have ever written prose that has truly changed a man’s opinion, and I doubt much less my ability even to do my friend’s memory justice. In fact, this is a poor attempt at memorializing a man who seemed larger than life, yet who I all too late realize I did not really know. But as I go through life, I find there are a select few people I have met who have truly inspired me, in whom I have found some facet of their person I wish I could emulate. Mr. Cody Weeks had a charisma and a gift for teaching that truly inspired me, and for that I am grateful. Rest in peace, my friend.

Website: The Demigods are Dead

2009-09-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

Edward Moore Kennedy was laid to rest this past weekend. Along with this passing of a historical figure came the usual reflection of a life lived in the limelight. Superlatives sprinkled the plethora of eulogies; euphemisms by the dozens polished over the rougher edges of a life run ragged by the living. I write about this event neither to canonize nor to critique its person of focus, but to delve meaning from the event itself. What does this mean for most of us who were not related to nor represented by Senator Kennedy?

For us the living, those unscathed this time by personal grief, this event is yet another point of reference in the historical backdrop of our lives. The media has been recounting, over and over for the past few days, the profound events marking the milestones in Kennedy's life. Personal for him, historical for us, the death of one brother in war, two by assassination, a series of bad choices which ended a woman's life and his own aspirations, all are events which have ignited countless conversations at dinner tables and in classrooms, events which have helped to define a generation.

I am not of that generation. What I feel at these events of growing frequency, is the severing of links to a past I never knew. Black hearses and antique caissons carrying the players of our historical drama, as "I remember when" fades from all too many voices lost forever. History becomes two-dimensional right before our oft-distracted eyes.

What events will mark my time here? The historical and the personal do not intertwine for me; I am an observer only. I have seen space shuttles explode and towers fall and world leaders meet their natural death. I was around before there was Internet. I've lived under six presidents, two popes, and one King of Pop. I loved baseball before the players' strike — before steroids.

I take comfort in seeing Rep. Patrick Kennedy misquote a Robert Frost poem in the eulogy he prepared, reciting from "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," while claiming the quote was from "The Road Less Traveled." A grieving son is entitled to make mistakes, as are we all. But there is something profound about scions of history stepping off of their pedestals and acting human unexpectedly. The demigods are dead; I've watched the marble figures of tomorrow shed yesterday's flesh and have their last parade. President Nixon, Princess Di, Mother Teresa, President Reagan, Pope John Paul II, President Ford, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy, and others, all have made their final curtain call as I looked on from afar.

Watching these celebrity services is watching our lives previewed on a grander scale. We will all have our turn to grieve in the pulpit, and we'll all have our turn to lie in the box. Most of us will mourn without an honor guard, without a midnight vigil, without streets lined with people, without pilgrims to the grave. We will hurt no less, have lost no less, love no less. We watch, over and over again, as the story unfolds. We are observers of life. I don't want the milestones of my life to be a parade of flag-draped caskets down Main Street, nor the honey-tongued eulogies of tabloid celebrities. I don't want my cherished memories to be of historical events watched on the television screen. When someone asks me, years from now, where I was when notable events yet to come unfolded in their due course, I hope I can tell them I was somewhere else, doing something worthwhile, leaving the observing to someone else.

Humor/Character Analysis: If I Were A Drinking Man

2009-07-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

I wonder if all aspiring writers create characters based on how they feel from time to time. I've often fantasized about being a drunk. I'm not referring to a closet drunk or a partying drunk or a recovering alcoholic. I'm talking about a can't-walk-straight, tripping-over-trash-bags, whiskey-bottle-in-a-paper-bag, crying-in-the-corner drunk. It isn't that I want to drink — I rarely do. It is one of those rare moments when the way I feel crystallizes into a storybook character that I could draw or describe. While you'll never find me drunk, there are occasions when someone could ask me how I feel, and I could point to the unshaven, foul smelling hobo lying in the gutter and say, "that is how I feel."

Maybe the attraction is that drunks don't have to explain themselves. You can sort of tell by looking that they didn't just win the lottery. You don't ask them how the family is doing, because you are afraid to hear the answer. You can tell from a distance that something is terribly wrong. The look is as effective as wearing a signboard that says, "My life is a mess." I don't need the long-term complications of being a drunk. I don't need the addiction or the social status or the health problems. Maybe there is a certain aesthetic to being a drunk: some people write poetry to express themselves, some people paint, and some people wet their pants and stumble down the alley looking for sympathy and pocket change.

I believe Hollywood has made such a cliché about escaping your troubles with the bottle, that a drunk has become the perfect metaphor for feeling desperate and hitting rock bottom. The stereotypical hobo stumbling down the streets of the big city with a brown paper bag is a modern rendering of the biblical Job, a man who has lost everything: family, friends, employment, possessions, and even a reason to live. A drunk is the closest real thing to a zombie — the living dead. Of course, I haven't yet hit rock bottom, although there have been times I've felt close. Most of the time, our darkest hours could always get worse, but this doesn't make them any less dark.

Maybe instead of wanting to be a drunk, I am comforted by the fact that no matter how bad a day I have from time to time, there is somebody somewhere smelling like Jack Daniels and urine and having a much worse day than I am. Truth be told, I don't really like to drink. I don't have a religious or moral problem with drinking in moderation. But as far as acquired tastes go, I don't even drink coffee — never liked the stuff. I will choke down a beer for the sake of fellowship and conversation. When I do occasionally drink, I like sweet cheap wine and mixers. I'll drink Smirnoff Ice and Mike's Hard Lemonade, strawberry daiquiris and margaritas. My uncle said I'll rot my teeth before I ever rot my liver. I've actually tried putting sugar in red wine like Fozzie Bear in the Muppet Movie — it doesn't work. I guess I'll stick to writing poetry.

Website: A Moment of Self-Reflection: To Whom Much is Given...

2009-01-07T01:14:00.000-08:00

At the age of 30:

Alexander the Great had already been ruler of Macedonia for ten years; Elizabeth I had been queen for five years, Elizabeth II for four; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has passed his peak of success and was five years from death; John Keats had already been dead four years, his epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Audie Murphy had won the Congressional Medal of Honor nine years before, at the age of 21. And I am spending my third year teaching literature to a captive audience that is not just indifferent to the subject matter, but loathes and fears it.

It has been well-noted, even by those whose indelible mark has been left on this human race, that we may be denied the opportunity to accomplish that great and noble task, instead left to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble (Helen Keller), that we can do no great things, only little things with great love (Mother Teresa). And truly it seems that any profound discoveries on my part were simply the scripted acts of my own personal coming of age story, a story unknown to me at the time of performance, yet performed by all on the invisible stage solely for the amusement of those who've come before, those who tend their own bitter disappointment by watching the same disillusionment consume the lives of others.

There are millions of us, born into this world at different times, with only a few asked to give back at a level where their contribution cannot help but bring notice. To whom much is given, much is expected, and relative to millions of starving, unfortunate souls I have been given much indeed. Yet to an undeniably large number, I am but a delusion away from mundane, and therefore should happily carry on with my small tasks without a second thought. Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life attempts to convince those of like mind how no man is a failure who has friends. How many of us can claim to have as many friends George Bailey, real friends who would throw their money on the table in a crisis?

And so here I sit. Framed certificates on the wall remind me of accomplishments someone once thought worth acknowledging with a bit of time and parchment, framed photographs capture groups accomplishing something briefly before the members went their separate ways. Barring unforeseen unfortunate circumstances, modern medicine will give me another 30 years to accomplish what I could not to this point, even if that ends up being simply to come up with a few more real friends. And if I should be so lucky to stumble upon my contribution to posterity in the meantime, then I should rest in satisfaction that maybe someday, 36 years after I have passed on, a special group of people throughout the world will raise their glasses in simple affection and appreciation every year on my birthday and make a toast, as is done to this day for Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of The Lord of the Rings.

Website: A Moment of Self-Reflection: Making the Internet a Better Place?

2008-12-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

Having just recently celebrated my 30th birthday, I feel like I have spent my life to this point trying in vain to mine accomplishments of significance from a vein of long-perceived potential. You ever feel like you deserve a pat on the back, but receive that proverbial kick in the family jewels instead? Sure my birthday was accompanied by the usual condescension, the plethora of cliché comments which still amount to, "don't worry, you're still young and too naïve to know any better." Not even an advanced degree has helped land me ahead of the learning curve in the eyes of others. I think gaining respect for any wisdom obtained during my eventful life will be a fruitless venture even if I live to be 100, provided there is someone around who is 101.

You might be asking yourself at this point if this is just a random rant of self-pity, or if I may surprise you by hiding in between the lines something you may actually care about, if you give me that much credit. As I finished up making my website Section 508 compliant, someone was nice enough as usual to rain on my parade with some questions that really got me thinking. How many visitors to my site are going to find it necessary or even helpful that my site is WCAG Priority 1 compliant? How many visitors, she asks, come to my site period, and what do I get out of it? Is it worth putting hours and hours of my time into maintaining a website that few will visit? Who needs my approval in the form of a website award? How come the International Internet Awards Community, as we call ourselves, consists of little more than a dozen familiar faces? Do we carry on this charade merely to stroke our own egos and gain the seemly much-needed approval of others through our awards programs?

Perhaps we as a community need to look hard at our purpose statements and really put some more thought into this aspect up front. Most of us in some way claim to be doing this to "make the Internet a better place." However, many of the awards I have applied for have not done a thing for my site, much less the Internet, whether I have won or lost. If an Award Program doesn't give feedback, then it doesn't need to exist, because hopefully no one in this community thinks that simply giving or withholding their approval of a website is making the Internet a better place. I for one am going to try to include even more helpful feedback in my future evaluations.

In addition to feedback, we need to really get beyond just giving awards to each other. I don't think there is a problem with giving each other awards, but if we are the International Internet Awards Community, then we need to find out where the rest of the world is hiding. Perhaps we need a third party nomination system to draw people with quality websites who don't come to us. I think there is so much talent in this community; we could really make the Internet a better place if we could find a way to unobtrusively share our design and content skills with the Internet community at large.

Website: Let it not be said from this point forth…

2008-11-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

The deluge of applications we have received due to our Award Sites! rating has put me a bit behind in terms of our award program, but this is a good problem to have, so I just ask our applicants to be a little extra patient with us as we work out the kinks. Friends and family have noted multiple times that my October article has been posted long after the autumn days of October have passed us by. Since my November article did not materialize due to my unexpected lack of free time the past month or so, I imagine I will have to make up for it with an extra-long article containing my November/December sentiments.

My first commentary for this period would have to be on the United States Presidential election which took place on November 4, 2008. I voted for John McCain because I agree with his social policies more than those of Barrack Obama, and I feel like we do have a cultural battle going on in the United States which can shape the kind of world our children grow up in. Having a child of my own, this is no longer an abstract concept to me, but a reality I must factor in to my decision-making.

This being said, I decided before the outcome of the election that I was less concerned about this outcome than I have been the previous two elections. Unlike Al Gore or John Kerry, I feel Barrack Obama is an honest, decent person who is concerned with more than just “a life-long dream to be President.” While there are unfortunate consequences of the election of Barrack Obama (I am undoubtedly going to be disappointed with any Supreme Court nominations), I feel that the historical significance of this election truly marks the turning of a page in our history. I feel that for the most part my generation is above the race factor. I see Barack Obama as a man, not a black man. But now I truly feel we as a nation are moving past the racial strife which has clouded our politics for so long. Let it not be said from this point forth that America is too racist to elect a black man President. With the percentage of white people who voted for Mr. Obama, there is no longer a question that America has moved forward on the issue of race.

Also, I find myself more liberal economically than my social politics would suggest. I believe everyone should work, earn their keep and contribute to society. But in a society where it’s not what you know but who you know, I do not feel that we as a society are fair to the working-poor. CEOs should not be making the money they are making while entry-level workers cannot feed their families. While there should be incentive to get an education and move up the corporate ladder, there is not a just wage system. I cannot quit a job where I am unjustly compensated and work elsewhere, because the entire system is corrupt. Republicans complain about the redistribution of income, but the only reason income needs to be redistributed is that it isn’t distributed fairly in the first place, and in our capitalist free-market society, redistribution of income after the fact through taxation is the only way government can attempt to right this wrong, which is what government is supposed to do. If we as a society were the morally impeccable Christians we claim to be, we wouldn’t need government to interfere, but we are not.

Website: October Brings New Accolades to Randal's Sanctuary

2008-10-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

October has brought new accolades to Randal's Sanctuary. Our award program, Writing Matters Web Excellence Awards, is now once again rated 3.0 by Award Sites! I also published an article on Award Sites!, "A Common Purpose." The award program also obtained a level three rating from Alice Pandora's Award Ratings, shortly before she closed her program due to personal illness. We now have a rating of 2+ with UWSAG. I will now focus on serving my applicants by critiquing their sites and helping them to improve their writing. Applications have definitely picked up after receiving the ratings noted above, so my appreciation goes out to the evaluators.

I remember in college my friends used to laugh at me when I would inform them of things which I found unjust, or perhaps just grossly inefficient or irritating. One of those things which I have noticed lately is the practice of the local McDonald's charging for condiments. McDonald's is the only fast-food restaurant I have encountered which will not give you sauce for your fries without charging for it! There are no exceptions, and the staff acts like you are asking them for a twenty-dollar bill. They will call their manager who will be quite hateful with you. I should have known better, because the little red sign on the drive-thru speaker clearly states that, "in order to keep our prices low..." or similar phrase that all stores use right before they are getting ready to rip you off. It wouldn't bother me if they would just come out and tell the truth. "In order to make our profits higher..."

My creative writing class I spoke about last month was canceled this semester due to lack of interest. I am hoping to teach the same class during the spring term. On a positive note, I have finally received my permanent teaching certification, having passed both Praxis tests and finished all education requirements. The first quarter of school is winding up for us on the 17th, I am excited about the change in curriculum a new quarter brings. I am also looking forward to adding a curriculum section to this site where you can borrow my thematic units for 9-12 grade English.

For this site, I find the American Civil War has touched my academic life in several ways, so I eventually will be adding a page about the war in relation to my education and my reflection on its continued fascination to so many. I will continue improving this site as time permits.

Website: September Brings King Arthur and Poetry Out Loud

2008-09-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

September has come, and with it, the academic year is back in full swing. I've started a King Arthur unit in my English III classes, and my English IV classes are currently memorizing poems for the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest while they keep track of the headlines from the online editions of three newspapers and three cable networks, information which we will use to discuss media bias and data collection, and which they will use to form their own opinions and write essays on their point of view. My art class found me lacking in studio skills, while I found that I am not quite as bad as I remembered, and my illustrations of one-point perspective, a.k.a. "vanishing point" perspective, are more than sufficient to get the point across.

I have already delivered homebound services to three children this year, which leaves me with a fairly tight schedule but a bit fatter paycheck at the end of the month, plus the not-to-be-understated good feeling you get from making a tangible difference to students who really need the extra effort. I also have joined the church choir, and although it adds another thing to my already hectic calendar, it provides me with a musical outlet I have been missing since my Madrigal Singers days ended in 2001. On September 30, 2008, I will begin teaching a creative writing class to adults every Tuesday night from 6-8 pm. I am excited to see what new writing will come out of that, both from my students and from my own muse.

As far as the website goes, everything is updated, and the awards program is back in full swing. I have several pages in my mind I want to add, as well as streamlining the navigation system, finishing the 508 compliance, and adding access keys.

Website: Randal's Sanctuary Celebrates 10th Anniversary by Resurrecting Awards Program

2008-08-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

Life comes at you so hard and fast that I didn't even realize I'd had this website for 10 years until August 2008. I first posted this site as a second semester freshman in college. It had a black background, a guestbook, and a dancing baby graphic among other things. Shortly thereafter, I began my awards program (which has always focused more on well-written content over technical design skills) and started soliciting people to take a gander at my site. Writing and the Arts have always been central to my life; I can map my life to this point entirely in literary milestones. There was the Christmas Essay in first grade, your classic "true meaning of Christmas story" that so many children wrote before such a thing became taboo. Then I finished my Civil War research project in fourth grade. I made a film strip that had an audio cassette you played along with it, turning the film to the next slide at the beep. I also started a school newspaper in fourth grade, recruiting a staff and interviewing famous wildlife artist David Plank. My newspaper lasted into the next year; I still have the notes from when my staff decided to mutiny because I was too bossy! In fifth grade my interest in poetry was truly ignited when a Shel Silverstein like poem that I wrote was published in Creative Kids Magazine. I entered the school poetry contest in sixth grade and took first place. My fifth grade teacher said I would have my own poetry book published by the time I was thirty... So while I've been lucky enough to have poems published in several magazines, it took me until now, less than four months before my 30th birthday, to have my poetry book, Leaving Home: Discoveries and Reflections of a Once-Sheltered Heart, ready to go.

Death and Self-Reflection

2008-06-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't written on this blog in a good long while. It used to be that I enjoyed posting my life on the internet for all to read, but as I get older I am less and less inclined to rant off the cuff for the amusement of others. I have had various experiences in the last few months which made me think of this blog, so I will share some of these.

Death has come up fairly often it seems recently, the first time I suppose with Dr. Gary Thomas dying of cancer at the first of this year. I have shared before my conversations with Dr. Thomas, lets just say I was hoping for a resolution to that conflict which will never come now (at least not from him), and thus I needed to move on and forget his rude treatment of me (which I should have done long ago). Don't get me wrong, I haven't obsessed about this for years; I'm not the character in Groundhog's Day that scratches names off of a long list of revenge targets he has maintained since high school. It's just that the issues surrounding my confrontation with the Chancellor are still popping up every couple of years at the Missouri Miner, so naturally, the personal insults endured resurface as well.

One of my students discovered his mother dead this past year, and I went with a group of teachers to the funeral and watched this very young man forced into a role well beyond his years. Yet, when this student stood up to speak, his maturity and insight into his own situation were impressive to all. Additionally this senior had been recruited into the Marine Corps prior to this tragedy, and it was extremely touching to see three Marine recruiters in dress uniform attend the memorial service. Semper Fi fellas.

Death has entered the lives of my best friend and his wife these past couple of weeks. Both have had to confront the untimely death of a co-worker, and thus both have had to stare their own mortality in the eye and practice some unwelcome self-reflection we are forced into when similar circumstances occur in our lives. Brain aneurysms don't seem as rare when you personally know four or five people who have succumbed to them.

I have been concerned about my own health as well lately. I am 100+ pounds overweight and thus my blood pressure is a little up, and I've developed some breathing difficulties (sleep apnea), which combined with my ever-present allergies, try very hard to make life difficult. I am confident that diet and exercise will fix these problems and am actively working on improving my lifestyle, but skin cancer has also been on my mind recently (probably because it has been in the news recently), and having always been prone to nasty sunburns, I find myself constantly looking at my arms and back for what I fear is the inevitable melanoma. While I have no melanomas to report, you might add anxiety and hypochondria to my list of ailments.

Anyhow, other than that, nothing much is going on for me. Brushes with death and illness force us to reflect upon our own mortality, and such occasional reflection is not necessarily a bad thing. Especially if it helps us to improve our well-being. Speaking of which, I will let you know as I drop this unwanted extra weight. The decade of Fat Randal is coming to an end.

When Marine Corps Generals Can't Speak Their Mind

2007-03-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

Why must expressing the viewpoint that homosexual behavior is immoral always be followed by "regret" if not "remorse?" Reading comments by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace regarding the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, I cynically predicted to myself that all of the usual groups would be demanding an apology in the morning. But what I did not truly expect is that he would actually give them one. But did he really give them one, or did they take whatever token statement he was likely forced to subsequently express and spin it in the mainstream media? What happened to freedom of speech and freedom of religion? Just once can there be people who are not afraid to say what they think and spit in the eye of those who try to smother their viewpoints? I believe in the premise of the civil rights movement, but what have we created when every time anyone speaks their mind about anything, they are forced to get behind a podium and apologize for offending this movement or that?

2000-2002 Missouri Miner EIC weighs in on the Student Free Press at UMR

2007-02-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

As submitted to the Harvard Crimson in response to their article, "Paper Plans To Sue Over Cuts" in their February 20th edition of The Harvard Crimson: Online Edition.

It is with surreal fascination that I watch the Missouri Miner student newspaper at the University of Missouri-Rolla inch ever closer to a landmark legal battle for the first amendment rights of the Student Free Press. In these past few years since leaving my two-year term as the Missouri Miner's Editor-in-Chief, I have kept fairly close tabs on the paper I poured my heart and soul into for four years. I have also tried to keep abreast of happenings in Student Press Law circles, watching different university newspapers overcome hostile administrations and student governments who try to silence the persistent nuisance which is the collegiate press, students who have the gall to expose the truth at times when the truth is especially inconvenient.

The latest budget cut by the UMR Student Council came as no surprise. I spoke at length at Student Council open forums during my tenure as Editor-in-Chief from 2000-2002, one time defending the student-run radio station from an attempt initiated by the Student Council President to format the radio station to their liking. Yes, the Student Council President thought he should be able to dictate what the DJs played on the air merely because the station received student activity fee money. I also on more than one occasion defended the Missouri Miner against proposed budget cuts, and at the time this defense was relatively easy and the opposition proposing these cuts notably weak. While campus media organizations firmly held their ground and the respect of the majority of the student body, there was a vocal minority in Student Council that were jealous of the influence the media wields, especially on a small public university campus. The Student Council's repeated attempts to railroad the campus media organizations have always had this in common--media organizations by nature wield power and influence, and the Student Council does not have the control over the media that they enjoy over the extracurricular clubs on campus. Jealousy and envy, combined with an unhealthy disdain for anything not specifically math and science related, have made the campus newspaper a repeated target of the UMR Student Council.

Speaking of power and arrogance, enter stage left an administration that disdains the Student Free Press. I can feel some sympathy for administration officials; you are the primary target of a newspaper whose perceived job is to wait for you to screw up and let everyone know. Dr. Gary Thomas didn't make us wait very long. Dr. Thomas began the current movement to try to make our modest but exceptional public institution into "one of the best engineering schools in the country." As a non-engineer, it looks to me like hubris for the administration to think that destroying the University's non-engineering programs will make our school more competitive with big-named schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the California Institute of Technology. Our engineering programs are unquestionably excellent; however, I fail to see Dr. Carney's logic in placing all of our eggs in a steadily shrinking basket. And while those pursuing engineering degrees from this institution only stand to lose a multi-dimensional education that will better prepare them for the broader world, those of us who received non-engineering diplomas should be justifiably livid at having our hard-earned degrees further marginalized after our departure. But instead of fixing what's broken on the inside of our beloved alma mater, the past two Chancellors have concentrated on, pardon my crude euphemism, polishing the turd. In their tunnel-vision quest to achieve their grandiose visions, a student-run newspaper has been an especially trying pain in the posterior.

The University has for several years managed to keep a leash on the campus newspaper. The Chancellor delegated his token position as Chairman of the Student Publications Media Board to the Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs, a pretentious man who wielded intimidation like a club to beat into submission anyone he perceived as a threat to his ego. An added bonus was the Vice-Chancellor's antipathy for "freedom of speech;" I still hear the chilling sarcasm as the words hissed through his teeth. The Vice-Chancellor congratulated me on being elected to the Editor-in-Chief position by jokingly (or not) threatening to shut off our water and power should we print anything bad about him in the paper. Add to this equation the Assistant Vice-Chancellor, a sycophant who tried to dissolve the Student Publications Media Board to avenge coverage of the incoming Associate Vice-Chancellor, who just happened to be up to her neck in a civil lawsuit and related ethics investigation regarding her work as a psychologist and counselor. This was the University administration in 2001, and it's makeup hasn't improved much since.

It should be no surprise that the shady Associate Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs from 2001, who is now entangled in a second personal civil lawsuit, is also the current Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs who is front and center in the administration's endorsed cut of Student Fee monies and in attempting to blackmail the Missouri Miner staff by offering to return a portion of the illegally revoked funds if the Miner staff would agree to make certain content changes in the paper. Somehow the Missouri Miner in five years has fallen from having a tenured faculty advisor who would consistently go to the mat for the student press, to having an appreciated but non-tenured faculty member as one of three advisors imposed on the paper, the other two being a "journalism advisor," filled until recently by the head of the University's Public Relations office (who immediately resigned when the Missouri Miner was forced to threaten the University with a lawsuit), and a currently vacant administration advisor, whose purpose I can only shudder to imagine. With all of these events and changes in the last five years, I can only scratch my head at the University's statement that they support the constitutional rights of the Missouri Miner.

Not only are the first amendment rights of the Student Free Press in danger at the University of Missouri-Rolla, but they are disrespected and despised by a self-important university administration and Student Council. This is the third time in five years (of which I am aware) where the Missouri Miner has been forced to mull the possibility of suing the University of Missouri-Rolla. Once again the collegiate press is forced to rely on the courts to protect its freedoms when our government officials expect power and arrogance to rule the day. It's no wonder that even the Harvard Crimson is waiting to see what happens next.

Press Release: Legal Action Pursued Against the University of Missouri-Rolla by Campus Newspaper for a Content-Based Funding Cut

2007-02-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

This is the actual press release sent out by the Missouri Miner staff. I have reproduced it here verbatim with their permission. -Randal

ROLLA, MO. --- *The Missouri Miner*, the student newspaper of the University of Missouri – Rolla (UMR), is pursuing legal action against UMR for first amendment violations due to censorship and cutting one-third of the newspaper's annual budget.

On November 7, 2006 UMR's Student Council voted to cut funding to *The Missouri Miner*, citing grammatical errors, opinionated content, and asking that the paper does not print as many copies.

"This cut has the potential to be extremely crippling," says Christopher Stryker, the Editor-In-Chief of *The Missouri Miner*. "What's more concerning is that they made it clear the cut was to encourage us to alter our content to fit their standards for what Student Council and the administration thought a student newspaper should be producing."

The Missouri Miner was given less than 24-hours to prepare before the Student Council meeting in which Student Activity Funding was decided. Michele Martin, then Editor-In-Chief, and Wendy Moore, Business Director, were each only allowed the opportunity to speak for four minutes opposition to the cut.

The vote was not in the newspaper's favor.

After Student Council voted on the funding cut, it was later approved by UMR administration including Vice Chancellor Debra Robinson and Chancellor John F. Carney III.

"We knew all along that this was a threat to our freedom of speech," says Michele Martin current Advertising Director of *The Missouri Miner*. "Though we have been laughed at, we have been attempting to deal with this internally in order to reach an amicable solution with the administration."

Since the approval of the cut, Christopher Stryker has taken over as Editor-In-Chief.

"We have been trying to work with the administration to resolve things but it has begun to feel like we were negotiating with a gun to our head," says Stryker. "It doesn't seem like we were going to resolve anything with the processes we have been going through. While we have tried to avoid it, legal action is the only recourse we see left."

An ultimatum has been sent to the University of Missouri President Elson Floyd, the Board of Curators, Chancellor Carney, Student Council and other involved parties asking for full restitution of funds and a signed agreement stating that all future funding of recognized media organizations will be carried out constitutionally. This letter requires the issue to be resolved by 5 p.m. on Monday, February 19, 2007, or legal action will be further pursued.

"It is our hope that the university resolves this issue before next Monday," says Stryker. "It is the right thing to do."

*The Missouri Miner* exists in the 8th district where cases such as Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth, et al., 529 U.S. 217 (2000), Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), and Stanley v. Magrath, 719 F.2d 279 (8th Cir. 1984) have laid the way for their action.

A New Perspective

2006-11-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

I have been recently blessed with my first child, a daughter, and I find my life uncomfortably changing. It is definitely a new chapter in my 28 years; however, I don't know to what the change will lead or how it will define my life. I am anxious to find some peace.

Reflection on Media Literacy Course

2006-05-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

Learning Letter Reflection from Graduate Course on Media Literacy.

High Points of Learning:

There is a real and concrete problem that is addressed in media literacy. In Dr. Fox's book, Harvesting Minds, it's the exploitation of children in schools by companies trying to make a profit with adverstising dollars. Along those lines, advertising companies use propaganda techniques to deceive consumers into thinking the products they sell have bigger promises to make, promises that they can't possibly fulfill. Companies want you to think they have altruistic motives and/or a genuine concern that extends beyond their profit margin. These points were very well covered and discussed in this course, and I learned a lot from these discussions and readings.

Questions that Linger:

What are the applications of media literacy beyond television and commercials? How do we apply the deconstruction techniques we use so successfully in examining television and commercials to other mediums or when the unspoken bottom line is abstract ideology (influence, power, social change) instead of tangible monetary profits? I believe the implications we talked about extend far beyond the relatively narrow focus we have maintained, and I am eager to take the information we have learned and apply it with a broader brush. I think we've shown that media-literacy goes beyond a simple propaganda-busting technique, but what are it's boundries and limitations, or does it have any? Does media-literacy have value beyond labeling and dismissing perceived anti-"progressive" sentiments in our media, and how do we tap into that value?

Free Speech Should Be Protected: A Letter to the Maneater

2005-09-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

Published in The Maneater, September 16, 2005.

I am responding to Dan Friesen's column, "Thou Shalt Watch Your Language," and Angad Nagra's guest column, "Serious Debate Needed at Speaker's Circle," both of which appeared in the Sept. 13 edition of The Maneater.

I am hesitant, somewhat shamefully, to use a religious label to identify myself. This hesitation does not exemplify a weakness of faith, but a fear of being grouped ideologically with such people as the religious extremists who feel compelled to exercise their First Amendment rights in the middle of our campus. While Brother Jed and I may believe in the same God, our understandings of God are both very different and (whether he admits it or not) very incomplete. Henry David Thoreau said, "The universe is wider than our views of it," and I believe this statement is accurate in every aspect and true for all people.

I understand Brother Jed verbally attacked Friesen's father, and thus it seems Friesen felt Brother Jed's children were fair game. I fundamentally disagree, however, with Mr. Friesen's narrow list of options for the children's development. Whether you believe in a benevolent God who gave you free will, or the absence of a God to restrict innate free will, it is an observable fact that you and I (and the Brother Jeds of the world) have free will to make our own choices. This free will extends to the children of Brother Jed.

They may follow their father's fire and brimstone version of Christianity, or they may form or adopt their own viewpoints as they gain intellectual maturity and independence from their father. Life is a journey where there are many opportunities for choices, and many choices from which to choose. While they are seldom argued, there are more sides to issues than the two extremes.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said we must be especially vigilant in protecting the freedom to express viewpoints we detest. This freedom extends to the "angry fear-mongering" you describe. Nagra, who wrote the guest column, cannot truly speak for a conveniently silent "silent majority," nor do the opinions of a majority strengthen or inhibit one's fundamental right to speak. The characterization of a debate on the political issues Nagra mentions as more important than the rhetoric of Brother Jed is merely the opinion of the columnist - Brother Jed probably feels his topic is more important.

As the former editor in chief of a college newspaper, I understand only too well the active restraint involved in allowing the dissemination of viewpoints I detest, and in refusing to allow an ideological discussion to degenerate into a battle of personal insult. Despite being repulsed and offended from time to time by the speech of others, free expression is one of the most vital facets of our liberty. The volume of Brother Jed's rhetoric is not the cause of Friesen's complaint, I believe his true objection lies with the content of Brother Jed's rhetoric. Brother Jed's rhetoric is protected speech and must be allowed to continue, whether you and I agree with its content or not.