Published since 1915 by the students
of Xavier University
— STAFF EDITORIAL —
Looking to the stars
The most popular show on TV these days is the dreamy medical melodrama “Grey’s Anatomy.” The stars of the show get the constant press coverage that publicists only dream of. But lately the Golden Globe-winning drama has had the kind of coverage that isn’t exactly golden. Two of the stars of the show, T.R. Knight and Isaiah Washington, are still in a war of words. Knight, who came out of the closet last year, is in the center of a scandal involving Washington and his mistaken usage of the derogatory word for homosexuals.
The public has been responding negatively to Washington’s remarks, as they should, and the stories on the Web are hugely popular. While the “Grey’s Anatomy” set is probably as awkward and uncomfortable as a dinner at the Dorothy Day House hosted by Matt Finger, we at the Newswire could really care less.
We are not defending what Washington said, either. What he said shows a horrible lack of respect and integrity and he deserves all the anger he has received. However, this will not be the last time a celebrity says something incredibly stupid that they most likely regret.
Remember when Mel Gibson got drunk and rambled on about Jewish people? It was all over the newspapers, TV, radio and the Internet. But, while he was mouthing off at a police officer, events much more catastrophic and interesting were taking place all over the world. But, no one cared because Mel Gibson had drunkenly run his mouth into a sea of regrets.
Celebrities should not be taken seriously, especially when they are asked to say things that weren’t written for them. It’s perfectly plausible for someone to get piping mad at people who have a way with words or a career in making their words their own personal power. Writers like Jon Irving and J.K. Rowling are paid to put their thoughts into words, and Oprah Winfrey makes billions from a talk show. But, celebrities are not. They’re paid to make movies, TV shows or music. They’re paid to be entertaining, not to comment on different religious or minority groups.
And sometimes what celebrities have to say is incredibly pathetic. For example, Donald Trump called Rosie O’Donnell “fat” and a “loser.” This astounds the Newswire because we find it shocking that a man with billions of dollars to his name couldn’t come up with any other colorful words except for “fat” and “loser” to describe someone. This isn’t the third grade! Someone needs to remind Trump that there is such a thing as a thesaurus.
We know for a fact that celebrities say some pretty idiotic things (example: “is this chicken or is this tuna?”) but we at the Newswire believe that the students of Xavier University should ignore what celebrities have to say and listen to the people who are authorities on the subject, or who have real relevance in the real world. We should show concern for the bigger issues out there. It is important to realize that something that someone said on a TV show is not nearly as important as the ongoing struggle for equality and acceptance.
The cross at Bellarmine
I am drawn to Bellarmine Chapel for countless reasons, not the least of which is the tremendous charisma that the chapel and its parishioners exude.
I walk through its large glass doors and immediately feel welcome, and also sense that numerous others from many walks of life experience that same feeling as they enter. I take a seat and take note of the congenial ambiance of the room, and cannot help but enjoy myself.
And then, as if blindsided like the unsuspecting Troy Aikman of years past, I am hit by an immense sense of privation. At first I’m perplexed as to how this emotion could beset me in the midst of such exuberant joy. Then, halfway through the homily, it hits me: there is no crucifix.
I look up behind Father B’s head and I can only see two crossbeams that support a canvas, a canvas which has been so boldly decorated with a star of Jerusalem and a drawing that somewhat resembles a menorah.
The joy that I had felt not 15 minutes earlier had been replaced by a sentiment of loneliness and exclusion.
Here I was, a Catholic in my own Church, there to worship my savior and redeemer, and at the center of my Church was a staggering void where the central event in history is supposed to lie (there is a reason that history itself is divided by the crucifixion).
Its removal had the same effect that the removal of the central beam of a house would have on its living room: it collapsed. No longer did I sense the immense feeling of inclusion that had so strongly drawn me there that day. Now I felt as if my Church had estranged me in my own land.
The Church is the only place left for Catholics to find sanctuary from the incessant persecutions, subtle and overt, of the modern world, but even that can be turned on its head.
Now you may ask why the crucifix is such an enormous deal. How is the cross any different? First, from a purely pedantic perspective, the two crossbeams in Bellarmine Chapel rarely ever stand alone and are constructed with the purpose of providing the substratum of a canvas.
The very fact that they hold something up, and do not stand alone, is exemplary of the deficiencies in the cross, because it is not the center of the church, but is merely the candle’s candlestick. Even from an architectural standpoint, the cross is not the focal point of the church.
Architecture creates atmosphere which has an effect, whether or not we like to admit it, on the minds of those who occupy that structure. Notre Dame (no, not the school, the Frenchies’ Notre Dame) will always reign more majestic than the Cincinnati Art Museum. The Sistine Chapel will never fail to give a visitor a much greater sense of God’s immensity, whereas Bellarmine Chapel will repeatedly make God seem more personal than St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Secondly, from a theological standpoint, the crucifix represents the central event of Catholicism, and it is the central figure that unites us in our worship.
In a sense, it serves as a portal into the divine, allowing us to connect with what makes Catholics unique, and by its absence, the object of our worship becomes convoluted, and the attention is turned more on the congregation than God Himself. Ask yourself next time in mass at Bellarmine if you feel closer to God or to your neighbor.
It seems that the primary purpose of the extirpation of the crucifix from its roots has a subtle objective. Bellarmine Chapel sometimes seems to be more of a communal worshipping ground than a Catholic Church, where people from every religion are welcome to come worship whichever deity they hold true.
In an exorbitant attempt to give Bellarmine a greater aura of welcome, it seems that the central figure of Christianity has been sacrificed (yet again). However, by removing the crucifix from the Church, Bellarmine has effectively separated Catholics from their religion.
Without a focal point, we become like the Jews in the desert. I understand that Xavier wants to preach an unmitigated acceptance into spirituality, and it is certainly an exemplary effort, but, as harsh as it may sound, it is better to include Catholics in their own Church and estrange all other religions, dancing the dangerous fence of imperiousness, than it is to estrange all religions equally.
Whether the absence of the crucifix in Bellarmine is a conscious choice by the authorities or not is superfluous because that absence conveys meaning. Our lives as Catholics serve a binary purpose: to live our own lives well and to bring others to the truth.
It may seem that attendance numbers is a good measure of the proliferation of the Word, but it cannot come at the sacrifice of the Church’s original members. Even if we bring others to Bellarmine Chapel and introduce them to Catholicism, we are only doing them a disservice and an injustice because they are not being introduced to the Catholic Church, but to a convoluted echo of it.
And while people may say that Catholics at Xavier can still be Catholics with or without the crucifix, the truth is, without the crucifix, no one would be Catholic.
Luke Olsen
Class of ‘09
How you would change the core
First, I want to say that I enjoyed reading the article in this week’s Newswire. It touched on a subject that affects everyone.
I also have some suggestions if the core is to be changed or even if it does not change. First, the advisors need to know what classes fulfill requirements, such as the E/RS elective and the E Pluribus Unum class.
Also, the core needs to be clearer. For example, many freshmen and sophomores are under the impression that you only need six credits in philosophy and theology, each. However, hidden in the requirements, Phil 100 and Theo 111 do not count for these credits.
Another big problem I and other students have is with the Honors program. There are so many Honors required classes, but they are all filled immediately and very few Honors students get in. There need to be more Honors classes offered, especially in spring when there are virtually none.
Again, the Honors advisors need to know what classes fulfill the requirements and what students need to do to upgrade and such.
These are just a few “problems” I have with the core. I really do not want it to change much, but there needs to be more communication between the faculty, administration and students.
Heather Skrzypiec
Class of ‘09
The State of the Union is our responsibility
Matt Finger
Op-Ed Editor
Tuesday night marked President George W. Bush’s seventh State of the Union address, and the first time he has made such an address with the Democrats in control of Congress, putting Bush on the ropes.
Although both the Bush administration and the Grand Old Party have lost their sense of grandeur with the voting public, has Bush become a lame duck President? And if so, what lies ahead for the land of the free, home of the brave?
Many would argue that Bush was always lame, but that does not necessarily mean that he has always been a duck, which is probably good, because we all know what happens when the Vice President goes hunting (people get shot).
Early in Bush’s administration, in a pre-9/11 America full of hanging chads and talk of the first evil empire since the Soviet Union (the New York Yankees), the Bush administration focused on issues such as tax cuts and stem-cells. There was no Axis of Evil, Hurricane Katrina or a mouthy Hugo Chavez, and Al Gore had retreated to his basement to grow a beard, so we were neither inconvenienced nor did we know the truth.
Then the inconceivable happened, and the relatively tranquil ocean of America was disturbed by a violent tempest. It seemed as though everything changed at once, and it has yet to return to the way it was, for better or for worse. The years since 9/11 have brought with them a shift in policy. Issues such as stem-cell research, abortion and health insurance were seemingly put on hold, only to resurface during elections.
I hate to beat a dead horse, even though the horse isn’t really dead, but today it is hard to deny that America’s problems abroad, namely the war in Iraq, take precedent over issues on the home front. The headlines are dominated by subjects like China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, numerous struggles in Africa such as the genocide in Darfur and the fight against AIDS, and of course our relationship with foreign oil.
With Tuesday’s address Bush, adorned the exact same suit as John Kerry (Men’s Warehouse Winter Sale, I presume), made an apparent attempt to re-shift our focus back to domestic issues. Topics such as our consumption of petroleum, which Bush wants to cut by 20 percent by the year 2017, the cost of health insurance, and the concern over illegal immigration occupied much of his speech.
But what will the State of the Union be when it is our turn to run the show? Not to sound pessimistic, but you have to ask yourself if there is any hope for the environment, if we will ever be able to force peace on the Middle East, and if we will ever be able to solve the problem of expensive health care.
And what about our generation? The Baby Boomers are getting old; there is no doubt about that. But they have been around for a while, and in that time they have managed to create an apparently endless web of troubles that we, the next generation, are going to be changed with handling.
So what are the issues that our culture gap generation should be concerned about? Well, as saddening as it might be, we are almost done with our college years, so the cost of tuition has almost run its course in our life. But it is not the same for our children, who face staggeringly high tuition rates. It will be an uphill battle to assuage these rising costs, but the burden of educating the next generation falls on our shoulders.
As aforementioned, the Baby Boomer generation is reaching retirement, and our generation is faced with the task of providing care to the preceding generation. The only question that we must be weary of is whether or not we will do a better job of taking care of our parents’ generation than they did of taking care of theirs.
With the Greatest Generation, namely our grandparents’, reaching their 80s and beyond, and the Baby Boomers preparing for geriatrics, our generation will very soon find itself having to juggle problems with Social Security, the cost of health care and health insurance and a sudden decrease of workers in the workforce.
Also, our roles abroad and as a major player in the world economic market are going to be hot topics with which our generation will be confronted.
American influence currently holds sway amongst the peoples and governments of the world, but this influence is losing popularity as well as clout, and it will be our task to deal with our role abroad accordingly.
The issues which face America today, many of which Bush outlined on Tuesday in his address to the nation, in many ways foreshadow the issues that we will be confronted by when we are no longer the next generation, but rather the present generation.
Health care, the cost of education, immigration, the economy and our role as a world power are not problems that will magically vanish, as much as we wish they would. We can only hope that the leaders of today take responsibility for the actions that will affect us tomorrow, but we as a generation cannot ignore the issues that will face us when our parents are gone and we find ourselves accountable for the State of the Union.
The State of the Union is corrosive
Pat Stevenson
Asst. Op-Ed Editor
The other day, I was reading the results of a poll conducted by CNN on the eve of the State of the Union address, which found that 63 percent of the American populace disapproves of the job performance of George W. Bush.
Certainly, this should be an alarming statistic to everyone. When nearly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of a President they elected just over two years ago, there is something seriously amiss. However, I was more disturbed by my initial reaction of delight to this news than I was by the news itself.
I have never cared much for President Bush’s policies, but that is beside the point. The bigger question is why people like me take satisfaction from the overwhelming majority of the American people condemning their leader.
Any reasonable person would agree that a bad president is bad for America. America is such a successful nation due in large part to the leadership of presidents such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and William Henry Harrison (to a slightly lesser extent). Conversely, America has suffered due to the poor leadership of presidents like Warren Harding and Richard Nixon.
So if the American people see President Bush as more like Nixon than Lincoln, shouldn’t we all be very upset? I like America quite a bit, so why am I not more angry with President Bush for leading our country in a manner which two thirds of its citizens disapprove of?
On the surface, the answer seems rather simple: people like me get to say “we told you so.” Whenever we see the latest report of low approval ratings, we aren’t happy because the country is being mismanaged, we are happy because the demonstration of incompetence on the part of the Bush administration vindicates what we have been saying for the past several years.
For example, if President Bush announced that Osama bin Laden was captured, the insurgents in Iraq defeated and Kim Jong Il disarmed, this would obviously be an unqualified triumph for the United States as a whole. However, I suspect many people would be secretly disappointed because they want the Bush Administration to be remembered as a failure.
Such a mindset would be extraordinarily caustic and arrogant, as it would indicate that people like me care more about being right than we do about the general welfare of America. Are we simply this self-serving? Do we really care more about our own personal pride than the future of our nation?
I don’t think so. I think we really are deeply concerned about the future of our nation, but we have no reason to believe that the Bush Administration gives a damn about what we think. Over the course of his presidency, Bush has shown an astounding ability to ignore public opinion and to do whatever he wants.
Maybe the reason people like me get excited when we see Bush’s low approval ratings is because we think that he might eventually listen to us and start representing the will of the American people. Of course, Bush is more averse to listening to the American people than Michael Vick is to giving up his weed at airports.
So what is the State of the Union? Does anyone care?
Med X files
James P. Konerman, M.D.
Medical Director/Physician McGrath Health & Counseling Center
The Question of Date Rape
Dear Doc,
Can you share what one should do if you fear you’ve been sexually assaulted?
Signed,
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
Some women wake up in strange surroundings and fear they’ve been sexually assaulted.
This may occur due to the “date rape” drug or alcohol intoxication. The first inclination is to take a shower.
• DO NOT take a shower!
• DO NOT change clothes.
If you feel you were assaulted either contact the police or go the University Hospital in Clifton area.
University Hospital can evaluate you and collect medical evidence. The campus police can collect evidence at the scene.
McGrath Health &
Counseling Center
(513) 745-3022
Matthew Finger 
Op-Ed Editor
Pat Stevenson
Asst. Op-Ed Editor
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