Published since 1915 by the students
of Xavier University
Published since 1915 by the students
of Xavier University
— STAFF EDITORIAL —
As the Xavier community continues to mourn the loss of Phil Bates, an alumnus and parent of a current student who on Aug. 27 was murdered outside his North Avondale home, students and staff alike must remember to take precautions when venturing off campus.
Bates, who lived at the corner of Rose Hill and Clinton Springs, approximately a mile from campus, was the victim of an apparent random robbery attempt, the most tragic of which to occur over the past 10 days.
On the evening of Aug. 28, a person was robbed by two teenage males with a handgun while walking along Redway Ave., approximately 1/3 of a mile from campus.
On Aug. 30, four students living on Dana and Ledgewood were victims of theft by deception, by a man requesting money for his impounded vehicle.
Also on Aug. 30, two students in the 1900 block of Cleneay and the 700 block of Dana caught a suspect sneaking into their apartment through an unlocked window or door.
While students can feel safe walking around campus, the murder of Phil Bates and other recent events serve as tragic reminders that the neighborhoods surrounding campus can be quite dangerous.
Xavier’s Dean of Students, Luther Smith, in conjunction with senior senator Sara Thomas and SGA, has devised a new shuttle system in an attempt to increase safety for students traveling off campus.
The new system involves two different routes, grey and blue, that each contain six different pickup stops and run on a loop every 15 minutes.
Critics might argue for the old system in which students could call a dispatcher to send a shuttle to their front door. However, the newly designated stops are located such that students should not have to walk more than a block or two to catch a ride.
Using the shuttle when traveling off campus is one of several pieces of advice offered by Campus Police.
Students are also encouraged to walk in groups in well-lighted areas, to be aware of their surroundings and to report any suspicious activity to the police immediately.
Students living in surrounding areas are reminded to lock their apartment doors and windows at all times and should ask their landlord about security.
We at the Newswire are not exactly going out on a limb in saying that Cincinnati and Norwood police units need to improve the safety conditions for the Xavier community in the areas surrounding campus.
In continuing a recent history that includes a shooting in the Kroger parking lot and young hoodlums on scooters mugging students on Dana Avenue, the senseless murder of a prominent local figure such as Phil Bates is just another sad mark.
While the Newswire does not want to promote a culture of fear, and would like to commend Campus Police for their work to keep the university safe, there is no denying the fact that students put themselves at risk as soon as they venture outside the comfy confines of campus.
As a result, students must take caution while in the surrounding areas and be mindful of the potential dangers.
It is possible that last week will be the impetus for local police units to redouble their efforts to protect the community, but regardless, we must still follow these simple steps to lessen the chances that we become the targets of crime.
Matt Finger
Op-Ed Editor
Welcome to the first issue of Finger’s Quickie, a portion of your life dedicated for the sole purpose of listening to me rant. Consider yourself trapped.
Ryan’s Pub: home to the buffalo-chicken wrap, the Muskie burger, and the systematic destruction of basic human rights.
Yeah, you heard me Ryan, whoever you are. I’m calling you out. Who do you think you are, the Vicar of Christ? NO!
For those of you who don’t know what this demon pub has done, it would be my pleasure to give you the low-down.
Once upon a time, Xavier University students would get hungry. When this hunger became great enough to conquer laziness, they would skip, merrily, of course, to the Gallagher Student Center.
Here, in their atrium of joy, these students would frolic into Ryan’s Pub, a magical place filled with buffalos and chickens and popcorn.
Nestled in their happy place, the students enjoyed a plethora of entertainment, good food, and pleasant servers, all on the tab of their parents.
For, you see children, in Pub-land, no one used money. Instead the college folk used delightful little cards with their pictures on it. This way the students never had to carry cash. Helpful this was, especially since they lived in one of the most crime-ridden areas in America-land.
All was well, until one day when someone high up in the world of Xavier politics, we’ll call him Gargamel, decided that the servers at the Pub of Ryan were not worthy of life.
So Gargamel, in an attempt to starve the servers, would not let students tip using their magic cards! Soon, all the servers wasted away, for they had no paycheck to get groceries with, and their tuition was being raised again. Thus was the end of the servers at Ryan’s Pub.
OK, story time is over kiddies, let’s get dirty. This is ridiculous. Xavier University you should be ashamed of yourself. Students have always been able to use Board Points to tip servers at Ryan’s Pub.
To do it any other way is just bad logistics. Us students carry our All Cards for a reason, and it’s not so that we can check out books from OhioLink any time we want. It’s because the All Card is convenient and effective, and because Ima Muskie is kind of cute.
We, and by we I mean our parents, pay a lot of money for our meal plans. We know they’re overpriced. You’re not fooling anyone Gargamel. And only a small portion of this food tariff goes into Board Points, which is OK since most of the time students are hustling to use the points left on it at the end of April.
Unfortunately Xavier has restricted us from buying products in bulk, such as cases of drinks at the end of the year.
And now we can’t tip either? We’re not allowed to show our appreciation for reliable service? No one wants to carry around cash, mainly because no one has it. We live and die by the All Card, and we’re not even the ones you’re hurting the most.
The servers are the real victims here. Not only are they working for some less-than-mediocre wage dictated by the same cheap bastards who are doing this, but now they will more than likely be able to forget about tips from students all together because the board points are gone and so are the potential tips.
I’m not sure what Xavier had in mind when they made this change, but it has had negative effects.
People are confused and frustrated with the new need to carry cash, and servers are distrought at the lack of income.
Xavier should reverse the policy and allow students to use Board Points for whatever they choose. After all, it is their money.
Pat Stevenson
Asst. Op-Ed Editor
I have developed a system of gathering my news when I wake up. It involves checking the away messages of everyone on my buddy list.
If people reference an event in their away message, it qualifies as news. The more away messages that reference an event, the more important the event is.
I don’t know why more mass media conglomerates don’t adopt some form of this system, as it allows you to quickly determine: a) what news items the coveted 18-24 year old demographic cares about and b) how much they care about them.
In the past week, my system has determined that college age people care about the de-planetization of Pluto slightly more than they care about Steve Irwin being killed by a stingray. However, both events barely registered a flicker when compared to the reaction that the remodeling of Facebook got on Tuesday morning.
Naturally I had to see what all the fuss was about, so I logged onto my Facebook account, and I found the new format to be almost totally unrecognizable.
Facebook now looks like a news blog, and refers to the various online activities of your Facebook friends as “stories.”
An actual news blog is expected to offer valuable information, commentary and analysis. This Facebook “news” blog is absolutely nothing like those blogs.
Those blogs offer information and insightful perspectives on a broad range of subjects. The Facebook “news” blog offers more information than I care to know about the online activities of my Facebook friends.
One of the “news” items on my Facebook blog today included a riveting “story” that involved a girl I sort of knew in high school leaving a message on the wall of a girl I barely knew in high school.
As fascinating as that was, it paled in comparison to my excitement when I discovered that Jon “Arab” Salman had joined the group: “I’ve been written up and I don’t give a f---.” This is stuff that I absolutely need to be made aware of.
It gets even scarier when you view a person’s profile, where you have always been able to see the likes and dislikes which they have made public.
However, with this new update, it allows you, the anonymous viewer, to see any and all recent activity that this person has engaged in on Facebook.
You can view which event invitations the person has accepted or declined, which new friends they have added or even rejected, what edits they have made to their profile information and any other action they have taken in the realm of Facebook.
Probably the most twisted part about this new Facebook is that you can view what changes have been made to one’s relationship status.
For example, if you were dating someone and you were dumped, the rest of the world would be able to see that you are “no longer in a relationship.”
One comment I always hear people make when they discuss Facebook is the possibility that “stalkers” can access personal information while maintaining a great deal of anonymity.
One can find out an enormous amount about someone they may or may not know, while never leaving any record of having perused any information.
While certainly Facebook could be a terrifyingly effective tool for people such as these, I don’t think that this is necessarily the greatest hazard of Facebook.
Frankly, creepy, stalkerish people have always existed. It’s just that before Facebook, they had to be a little more creative in their voyeuristic methods.
The problem with the new Facebook isn’t that it makes being a stalker easier than ever, since Facebook now gives you incredibly easy access to information that one would probably only care about if they were in fact cyber-stalking a person.
The real problem with Facebook is that it’s going to turn the rest of us into stalkers with its prominently displayed detailed information about people we don’t know that well.
According to Alexa.com, Facebook is the 16th most trafficked website in the United States, which is even more remarkable when you consider that people who log onto Facebook are almost exclusively college students.
I am really uncomfortable with the idea that this mainstream of a website possesses this much information about this many people.
On the whole, I am a big supporter of information. I think having information is a good thing, but as with anything, too much of a good thing is bad.
I flat out don’t like that you can briefly meet a person who seems to be interesting and attractive, Facebook them and find out everything about them. I don’t think that’s a healthy or normal social progression. It seems to me that the process of getting to know someone should occur through conversation and dialogue, not through logging onto a website.
At the very beginning of the Academy Award winning film Crash, Don Cheadle’s character has a line where he laments how people in Los Angeles are so separated by glass and metal that they crash into each other so that they can feel something.
I think this line has a level of relevance to a society that is increasingly separated by technology.
I wonder what the consequences will be if we continue this trend away from interactive socialization and increasingly rely on impersonal methods to get to know people.
I don’t like this trend at all. I don’t like it one bit.
As a Xavier alumna, I have enjoyed renting out apartments in a building across from campus to Xavier students.
Over the years, I have met many wonderful young people who have gone on to become outstanding professionals in many fields.
As a landlord, I also get to see a side of people that I wish were not there. So I was doubly surprised at a recent response from an XU student.
I have a building with similar apartments. Identical in size, they offer a variety of decor, so students have always preferred one over another.
Last spring, I showed several apartments to a sophomore who I will call Mary.
Mary expressed a preference for one of them and I urged her (as I inform everyone), that I cannot hold an apartment on a verbal agreement.
I told her that she must get me the necessary paperwork and deposit to hold her spot, and to not delay because another student had already expressed strong interest in that particular apartment.
The response that I expected was: “Okay, I’ll rush and get the paperwork back to you so that I can have it.”
Mary’s response? “Oh, if someone else prefers this one, let him have it and I’ll take a different one.” This kindness was towards someone who she did not even know, and who would not even be aware of her generosity.
I have thought so much about this. If everyone were like Mary, there would be no fights, no wars. “If you want that, I’ll take something else.”
I had the pleasure of meeting Mary’s dad recently. I asked if he wanted to hear something really nice about his daughter. He did!
But, after I told him the story, he just looked at me waiting for the ending for a couple of minutes.
You know the look, where someone is waiting for the punchline after you have already finished the joke?
I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t totally responding with shock, and then I realized: Hey! He raised this young lady and assuredly sees examples of her kindness on a daily basis. This kindness was nothing new to him. He must have been waiting for me to tell how she did something totally earthshaking.
Well, to me, she did.
Mary’s kindness to a total stranger has inspired me to also do random acts of kindness. I hope that her story will challenge other students to do this, too.
Jayn Meinhardt
M. Ed. Xavier, 1970
Matthew Finger 
Op-Ed Editor
Pat Stevenson
Asst. Op-Ed Editor
The Xavier Newswire
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