— STAFF EDITORIAL —
Food for thought
We’re very worried about Xavier’s selection process for a new food service provider.
The following points are making us especially nervous:
Xavier can’t—or perhaps, won’t—reveal certain financial aspects of their relationship with Sodexo, the current food service provider. Is there something they’re trying to hide?
The three food service providers being considered for the new five year contract—Sodexo, Aramark and Chartwells—all have rather glaring faults. Sodexo provides the food at four of the Princeton Review’s 10 worst colleges for dining. Aramark gave the president of Tennessee Statue University over $9,000 in gifts (bribery, anyone?). Chartwells served students raw chicken and then attempted a rather clandestine cover-up of their mistake.
Xavier administrators rejected a bid from Bon Appetit Management Company, widely considered to be the premier food service company in America.
Look, we’re not going to pretend to be experts in dealing with food service providers. We run a college newspaper, not a campus dining service. We know students, not food service megacorporations.
However, since we know students, we know exactly how important it is to have good dining options on campus. We feel that many administrators at Xavier are underestimating this. Xavier administrators would also be remiss to underestimate the importance of the quality of campus dining to prospective students.
Many talented, energetic young people will avoid a college that serves mediocre food. We’re quite sure that Xavier administrators fail to fully understand this concept.
Guess who does understand this concept? Xavier students. And guess who are severely underrepresented on the committee that will pick Xavier’s new food service provider? Xavier students.
Beginning to see the problem here?
At last count, the committee is comprised of eight administrators and three students. Since administrators are employed in large part to protect Xavier’s bottom line, is there any reason to believe that these administrators won’t simply pick the most financially palatable option for Xavier, regardless of the quality of service they provide? We’d like to think not, but this scenario seems increasingly likely.
There’s a pretty simple solution to this problem. Put more students on the committee so the people who are actually affected by this decision are given some semblance of meaningful representation.
If this scenario is somehow unreasonable, we have another option. Administrators picking the food service provider that will be serving Xavier students for the next five years should be prepared to get their food from that same source for the next five years as well.
Because if it’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for them.
Right?
Can guys and girls be just friends?
Beth Hesse
Copy Editor
There’s a question I have been trying to answer ever since high school: Can guys and girls be just friends?
My favorite movie of all time, “When Harry Met Sally” explores this topic in-depth and reaches a conclusion I tend to agree with, namely that guys and girls cannot be “just friends” for the entire duration of their relationship. Something always gets in the way.
There’s the awkward unrequited love that shows up. Your best friend is a guy and you think everything is great. Then, out of nowhere, he says he likes you. What can you say other than mumble apologies? Your friendship, whether you like it or not, has changed. You feel uncomfortable and find yourself unconsciously spending less and less time together. It gets even worse when you start dating someone else. If your friend still has that crush on you, the chasm just gets wider. You can cling to the hope that you will be friends again; sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t.
Attraction is another major barrier. First off, if you’re friends with someone, chances are you are attracted to them on some level. It’s no surprise that friendship often breeds love. There are theories in psychology that speak to this, that there is a tendency to be more attracted to someone the more you are with them and that people tend to form relationships with individuals who they see as intellectual and attitudinal equals. I can speak from experience that this is a true phenomenon. The first guy I dated seriously was one of my best friends. Fortunately, our situation did not match the one I described earlier, and the mutual feelings led to a long relationship and even a good friendship today. Although this is a special case, I bet you have friends that you think are cute. Even if this attraction is never vocalized, I argue it is very difficult to be and stay really good friends in such a situation.
Finally, significant others do not take kindly to their boyfriend or girlfriend being close with a member of the opposite sex, especially if this person is not bad to look at. More often than not, the girlfriend gets picked over the female friend. If your guy friend’s girlfriend doesn’t like you, more likely than not, you will be seeing him less and less. If and when the girlfriend goes away, it’s hard to regain the respect you lost for your guy friend for not defending your friendship. Cynical, but true.
All these reasons have led me to think that Harry Burns is right: Guys and girls can never truly be friends. Perhaps “good friends” is more appropriate, but I maintain that things get in the way of strictly 100 percent platonic relationships between the sexes.
— LETTERS TO THE EDITOR—
Should color really be the issue?
I confess, I own a red (yes, I’m aware it’s red, I’m not colorblind) Jason Love shirt. I wore it to the George Washington game with pride, and I cheered for my team until I was hoarse. I cheered for Jason Love as he made his one and only career double-double. Maybe it’s just me, but I fail to see an issue here. Granted, XU’s colors do not include red, but how is supporting a player now an offense that has the entire campus riled up? Instead of attacking loyal XU fans who happen to stray from the standard blue for one game, how about we turn our attention to the “fans” that show up in attire that doesn’t even mention Xavier in any way? Or, how about we attack those who merely stand in the student section looking bored and chatting with their friends?
Or why don’t we ridicule the Generation X shirts that are baby blue? Do my eyes deceive me or is Xavier blue a shade of navy? Also, I would understand the frustration if there were a designated shirt to be worn to games. I don’t appreciate being accused of violating the “unity” of the student section when no unity has ever existed. I also don’t appreciate being yelled at in the stands by fellow Xavier students who claim to hate the shirts, yet after Jason Love played exceedingly well they somehow decided they wanted to order the offending apparel. From now on, I would advise picking on the fickle fans, not those who love the team, regardless of what color shirt they wear.
Catherine Alexander | 2011
Parking problems
At 6:30 p.m. March 5, I came back from getting a quick dinner and was unfortunate enough to get stuck in Cintas traffic. I drove through R1 and R2 and found no where to park so I called campus police. They told me they had been through both lots, cited many cars and asked people to move. They asked me to try again and then to try the commuter lots. I did so with no luck, so I called the police again, and they asked me to try the Woodburn lot, where the only spot I found was a faculty-only spot and the police told me I was not allowed to park there. After some more driving around I found a spot in R2 half an hour later.
I then decided to count the spots for resident students. In R2 I counted 317 spots, eight of which were illegal, only 158 vehicles there had parking permits, 159 had no permit and none of those cars had any type of citation. At 7:30 p.m. I moved to R1, where I counted 274 spots, only 38 of those were occupied by non-permitted cars, of the 38 only six had citations. I was finished with my counting by 7:50 p.m. With 197 vehicles without a permit, and only six of them having citations, this makes me as a student feel very insignificant. I pay a lot of money to come to this school, and even more for my parking pass. I fully expect that if I pay so much, Xavier should care enough to give me a spot.
Michael Lanner | 2010
Torture is immoral, inhumane and illegal
Congress has passed a law restricting the use of torture in interrogating (suspected) terrorists. President Bush vetoed the bill. In so doing, President Bush has made the United States the only country in the world to openly condone torture, morally and legally. The reason given by the President: “This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe.”
Torture should not and cannot be allowed; the proposition that torture is immoral, inhumane and ineffective should be apparent to all.
Torture is immoral. All religions in the world condemn inflicting instrumental pain on others. The Bible tells us to love our neighbors. The Koran promotes human dignity at all costs. Buddha preached ways to avoid human suffering. “Twenty-seven religious leaders, including megachurch pastor Rick Warren, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, have signed a statement urging the United States to “abolish torture now–without exceptions.” (Washington Post, June 13, 2006).
Bush stands alone to claim that torture is moral, without recitation of any moral authorities.
Torture is inhumane. Bush is of the opinion that water-boarding is not torture, and not inhumane. Bush’s dismissive attitude towards torture betrays his insensitivity towards human suffering and is totally out of touch with reality. As an ex-riot platoon commander, I can attest from experience that the hollow eyed, hateful look of the torturer and the hurtful screams and helpless posture of the tortured tested our conscience and scarred our souls. Torture is dehumanizing to the tortured as well as the tortured.
Bush stands alone to claim that torture is humane, without empathy or sensitivity.
Torture is against the law. The Bill of Rights of the US Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause implores us to treat all people with fairness befitting a civilized nation. The Geneva Conventions and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights made torture a crime against humanity. The U.S. Army Field Manual outlaws the use of torture and other inhuman treatments of POWs.
Bush stands alone to claim that torture is legal, without consulting the International Convention Against Torture or listening to his own Attorney General.
Torture is ineffective and counter-productive. The current U.S. Army Field Manual states that “Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.” If in doubt ask yourself: how do people (innocent or guilty) react under torture? Would they tell the truth, or would they say anything to reduce the pain and suffering? How do the torturers know whether elicited information is true of false? What if the tortured person is the wrong person; what then? How would people feel and act if they knew their loved ones are being tortured, especially wrongfully? Would they seek revenge by turning to terrorism?
Bush stands alone to claim it is effective, without any experiential, logical or evidential support.
Before I close, I invite President Bush to reflect upon Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative”:
1. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
2. “Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature.”
3. "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.”
Does Bush wish torture to be a universal and legitimate practice all over the world? How might that make the world, including America, a better–moral, humane, safe–place to live?
Kam C. Wong | Chair
Criminal Justice Department
Katherine Monasterio
Op-Ed Editor
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