1991_09 The Daily Collegian September 1991

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The Daily Collegian • September 6,1991
The Dally Collegian
Editor in Chief
Jam Ballinger
Managing Editor
Shannon Wentworth
News Editor
Krista Lemos
Copy Editor
Debbie Richards
Sports Editor
Doug McLeod
Graphics Editor
Claire Anselmo
Photo Editor
Hector Amezcua
ArtSpeak Editors
Jason Terada
Todd Heth
Staff Writers
Michelle Martin, Stacey
Dennehy, Erin Yasuda,
\. Scoff Walker, Syed Zaheer
Heidi Burkhardt, Aimee
Fisher, Kimberly Wright
Sports Writers
Chris Cocoles, Richard
James, Daniel Evans, David
Donnelly
Staff Photographer
Carl Burdick, Derm
Chambers
Staff Artists
News Aide
Denise Envoy
Columnists
Contributors
Eric Burney
Business Manager
Khalid Rashid
Advertising Manager
Brenda MarieWhitla
Advertising Production
Manager
Lance Jackson
Published since 1922
by
THE ASSOCIATED
STUDENTS, INC.
Editorial Headquarters
Keats Campus Building
Newsroom    278-2486
Sports 278-5733
Moertising 278-5734
As 1 trudged my way up the
mighty steps of the kingdom of
thejoyal Administration, fear
enveloped my soul. My mind
could only conceive the worst
scenario. Ifs not often I enter
Joyal expecting good tidings.
But Wednesday was a differ¬
ent day, everything was going
swell. My mountain bike
hadn't been melted by the sun's
furious rays yet and my classes
were, for the most part, getting
out early.
I waited outside Room 115,
the housing quarters for
Bulldog University's all
powerful Evaluators. And it
was in that office that I met her.
Her words flowed majesti¬
cally out of her lovely mouth.
She glowed in her cubicle like a
goddess. She answered my
piercing questions with opti¬
mism. I could have swom that
1 saw a rainbow coming out of
her mouth when she continu¬
ously responded to my
inquiries.
Her name is Esther Ro¬
driguez. And yes, I think she is
a goddess. Thafs because, after
too many thousands of years in
the collegiate realm, she
confirmed my suspicions that I
will be exiting the portal, that I
will be graduating in the
spring.
Tell me I'm hallucinating, I
telepathetically told her. I
mean, this isn't happening to
me. Forces I could not control
had been keeping me in this
university for eternity, I
thought. Alien beings had
somehow used me as their
experiment. They were trying
to see how long a human male
can stay in college knowing
he'll never graduate. How
could Esther know that they
had released me from their
tight, alien grip?
I guess Esther knew because
she deciphered my "Official
Evaluation Form" with the ease
of a professional. Esther
skimmed over my General
Education Requirements
section with speed. Past the
Core, through the Breadth and
over the Capstone. Her
motions were glorious.
I rephrased my earlier ques¬
tions, to see if her answers
would change. Yes, 1 should
graduate next semester, Esther
confirmed.
My excitement may be
viewed as silly, ridiculous and
even stupid.
Everyone graduates sooner
or later. Everyone gets that
piece of paper that helps you
make tons of money in great,
full-time jobs.
But for a 24-year-old guy
who has been out of high
school since '85 and has
witnessed his younger sister
earn her college degree before
him, well, 1 don't think I should
be criticized for my schoolboy¬
like, giddy persona.
I thanked Esther for her in¬
credible wisdom, her most ex¬
cellent professionalism and for
simply being a nice person to   -
speak with. Although not eve-
ryoi.L> at the Joyal is polite,
friendly and courteous, Esther
Rodriguez was a strong
exception.
As I past the other 20 or so
souls waiting outside the
Evaluations Office, I couldn't
help but smirk. I had this
attitude like, "Hey, man, I'm
graduating, how "bout you?"
I saddled up on the old
mountain bike, cyded past the
forest of people in the free
speech area (making sure that
campus police officer didn't see
me), and headed home.
Hey, I know Ghana i was a
pretty cool dude and all, but I
think Esther Rodriguez should
have her head bron2ed, too.
Maybe e could put her on
the other side of the library.
Mr. Welsh is a contributing
columnist for The Daily
Letters to the Editor
ASI, Collegian called idealistic
It was with some regret, if
little surprise, that I read the
editorial in Thursday's CoUe¬
gian and noticed the complete
lack of direction on the part of
the authors. Their "faith" in
some metaphysical coalition
that will end the budget crisis
for ASI with "...peace and har¬
mony..." just shows how little
the student paper has changed.
In fact, the writers seem
(once again) to be contradicting
themselves: Last semester our
20 percent CSU fee increase•'
was severely attacked by The
Daily Collegiate who is now
bad-mouthing a 50 percent ASI
fee decrease. They argue that
the amounts of money involved
are more important than the
principles. I agree — in a
backhanded sort of way. The
50 percent cut is a good start,
but absolute dissolution of the
ASI should be the ultimate
goal. The criticism of certain
ASI officers started the article
off right by showing the
incompetence and idealism of
the ASI, which still refuses to
acknowledge its budget cuts.
But the editorial quickly dis¬
solved into a thinly-veiled as¬
sault on the campus organiza¬
tion YAF, which The Daily
Collegian has been attacking for
some time. I'm not involved
with YAF in any way, but I will
say that any organization
which supports fiscal responsi¬
bility and is on the bad side of
the ASI (and The Daily Colle¬
gian) obviously is doing some¬
thing right. If s time individual
students finally got the right to
do as they wished with their
own cash.
Mike Alexander
Save the reserves, be fiscally responsible
Here we go embarking on yet
another year of ASI fiscal irre¬
sponsibility. Well, not yet.
There may still be time to
redeem the incorrigible. ASI,
because of the YAF referen¬
dum, has been forced to make a
vast cutback—50% oyer a
period of three semesters. Yet,
just as we did last semester
with the budget cutbacks (and
they were significantly
smaller), we are proposing to
use our capital reserves as a
buffer. Do you think we forget
so soon why we do not {and
did not) take funds out of
capital reserves to cover the
deficit of one year? Or do we
try to pull this one on the new,
batch of students coming in?
Well, if no one else warns
them, I will: The budget
cutback goes into effect
whether we take out of capital
reserves to garnish it or not —
we just end up depleting our
capital reserves (which also
serves as a revenue through
interest) Shall we give it maybe
three to four more semesters
until this vast account is
depleted in order to keep our
clubs going for this relatively
small period of time?
WeU, for those of you who
have an ounce of intelligence,
the semblance of responsibility
and a ghost of a conscience, the
choice should be obvious.
(Save the reserve!)
Chris Glass
Andres is a
president for
the people
I'm writing to commend 77k
Daily Collegian for the fine
article Shannon Wentworth
wrote on Andres Montoya. As
a fellow brown brother, a true
carnal, of Andres' I feel pride In
his accomplishment of being
elected ASI president And I
was also happy to hear him say
tha t he intends to be a "tool"
for the students who voted for
him: The power of the
president is thepower of the
students."
With Andres as our presi¬
dent it is clear to me as a
st j dent that we have a capaW,
intelligent person to lead us.
Who will refuse, "to be
restricted by traditional
avenues. J am not afraid to go
outside of the traditional
avenuesofchange..." Give
them hell Andres — estamos
con us ted.
Cartes Jesus Alvurez
hijoae la gente