With a Puff of Smoke

By RS

Student Opinion

 

     Day to day, anyone who frequents the campus at Northern Oklahoma College, can see the many clouds of smoke rising about twenty-five feet from any given entrance.

     These are the smokers of today, though their numbers are dwindling, they are there none-the-less.

     Gone are the days of “social smoking”. We now live in a health-conscious era, a time when McDonald’s serves salads and yogurt, a time of diet sodas and light beer, also a time of restriction.

     Smokers have unwillingly been restricted and blacklisted from public areas. When I look around the campus at NOC I see my fellow smokers complying with the restrictions and laws, and now I believe it is time for a commendation!

     As I said, day-to-day you can see any number of people enjoying a much awaited cigarette before or after class, but what happens when it rains or snows? Smokers have accepted that all smoking must be done outdoors, but are we honestly expected to be drenched or frozen while doing so?

     The days that we experience rain or snow, these poor people can be seen huddled in the masses under any awning available. This usually means an awning right next to a door, and sadly it warrants disgusted glares or exaggerated coughs as people pass going to or from class. Why should this be necessary?       

     This campus provides salt for icy sidewalks to prevent injury, and yet there have been no awnings or lean-tos installed over benches to provide shelter for those who wish to enjoy a cigarette?

     I find it unfathomable to think that Northern Oklahoma College could not afford something so incredibly simple for its students, staff and faculty.

     Some of you, particularly the non-smoking party may be saying to yourselves, “Go, smoke in your car.”, but I now want you to ask yourselves if you have time between every class to run, not walk, to whichever parking lot you happened to find a spot in and sit for ten minutes? It’s just not always possible now is it?

     The smokers of this campus pay fees and tuition like everyone else and forgive me if I am wrong, non-smokers do not particularly enjoy walking through a cloud of smoke.

     I believe that it would be better for everyone if some sort of lean-tos were installed in a few locations on campus.

     We do live in a time of health, but we also do, and always will live in a time of rights and choices. With a puff of smoke I say, smoke on NOC and hopefully this wrong will be righted!

 

We Must Stop Policing the World and Pay More Attention to Our Own Problems?

August 20, 2008

By: JENNY DAVIDSON

Editor

Once again the United States seems to be policing the world, namely the Russia and Georgia conflict. I personally do not agree with what Russia has been doing in Georgia, but that is not our conflict – yet! Our economy is tanking, and our military is already stretched thin due to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have got to stop and get a grip before things get even more out of control. We need our military back home securing our country…namely our unsecured borders.

Who are we, the United States, to say or do anything to Russia for invading another country when we did that same thing in Iraq? We have lost so many allies due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it’s not like we have too many left that would be supportive if we go up against Russia, not to mention Iran. This administration is always bickering back and forth with Iran.

The US needs to remember that the U.S. does not always have the answers, and we are not the world police. We have to let other countries work out their own conflicts.

We need to bring our soldiers back from Iraq and let the Iraqi people take responsibility for their own country. I do agree that we should help rebuild what we destroyed when we “invaded” their country, but I do not want to see the U.S. set up any kind of long term base there.

We keep sending money and commodities to foreign countries when we have homeless, starving Americans who cannot get any real help from our own government. And believe me… it is going to get much worse. The poor, sick, and the elderly in America are barely surviving at this point. The price of everything has skyrocketed in the past few months and there is no end in sight. The rich seem to keep getting richer, (at least so far), and the poor are on their own, as usual.

I am constantly hearing public officials and politicians commenting that people should “save” their money… for their future. Someone please tell me how an elderly person, living on Social Security payments of less than $600 a month, can “save” anything? Constantly rising costs of basic necessities, food, medicines and utilities, has made it impossible for the poor, sick or elderly senior citizen’s to make it from month to month. They are forced to choose between food and medications while they sit in homes where they cannot even afford to heat or cool due to the high costs of utilities.

It is time for the U.S. to wake up! We have to start taking care of our own and stop policing the world. At the rate we are going, we will soon be the “third-world country” needing serious help just to survive from our almost non-existing allies. Think about it…

Good Luck Mr. Kelly Wray…

NOTE: I want to take this opportunity to tell our previous instructor, Mr. Kelly S. Wray, that we wish him all the best in his new position as UCO’s Manager of Student Publications, and Adviser to The Vista, UCO’s student newspaper.

We will miss you Mr. Wray!

Who Am I?

GRAEME LAWSON

June 9, 2008

 

Am I really just the intermixing of the teachings of my parents and the intertwined genes that makes me unique? Sure, we want to be unique in our own right in some way, but is it really being unique and individual if you are the culmination of upbringing and genetics? There is no certain formula that will show us the true character that we possess, and perhaps that is why the college environment can be so hard for some.

 

We spend our lives being taught how to be by our parents and then we come to this place. All of our upbringing and principles that we think are our own are questioned and picked apart ruthlessly by our professors and peers. This is a good thing. If not for this picking away at us, we would not learn what it is that we truly do and do not believe. The only way to test out something new is to use it, and the same applies to the morals and beliefs of a person.

 

The in-depth and ruthless studies that your peers put into you teach you about yourself. After all, the only way to learn about yourself is to have to explain yourself and your motives to a large group of people who will judge you for the rest of your life based on your answers.

 

How on earth does one live in his environment? Simply put, all you have to do is come to college with an open mind and the idea that you may or may not be right. Once you can admit that you have shortcomings in your beliefs, you can go about changing yourself to better fit the morals and ideals that you hold true. After all, everyone hates a hypocrite.

Gentle Persuasion

GRAEME LAWSON

June 9, 2008

 

Since the dawn of human society, the art of persuasion has been just that, a subtle and careful art, used by every man for the better of, somewhat selfishly, himself. The art of persuasion is perfected over age until eventually we become better at it. I have always been gifted in this field, but why is a total mystery. Still, it is a great thing to be gifted in.

 

My most memorable moment in the world of persuasive argument involved my high school principal and the introduction of paintball as a club at the school. I sat down with her on a Wednesday morning to talk about the ramifications of such an organization. We sat in this woman’s office for about two hours while she shot arguments opposing mine across the table, which I countered, in my view, admirably.

           

This leads me to my most important point on the topic of persuasion. People often think that persuasion has no boundaries, so “twisting the truth” so to speak is okay. For me, any conversation in which I have to persuade someone takes on its own challenge for me. I see it as an opportunity to test my intellect and perfect my delivery. Simply put, the art of persuasion is not about lying or about twisting facts to suit your argument. It is about anticipating every single rebuttal and every single counter argument that your opponent is going to make. Persuasion happens when you can appeal to a man’s sense of logic behind his sense of conviction. Persuasion is the art of taking a person’s views, and subtly altering them to make him or her question their belief, once you have that questioning, then you must carefully reiterate your argument to the point at which your opposition begins to fully understand and believe what you have to say. This is how persuasion should work.

Pacifism

By GRAEME LAWSON

 I had words today with a pacifist. I am not a pacifist. He was telling me that the world’s problems would be gone if there was no violence, and I contemplated this for a while. The statement is no more preposterous than the puritan idea of a perfect enclave set in the old USA.

It is a wonderful feeling to think of such a blissful utopia as possible. However, it is not so we are forced to think of the facts that actually surround the issue. Man had a tendency toward violence. This is undeniable and inescapable.

War is a necessary tool of peace. Some general once said that, when looking for peace, a nation must prepare for war, and this is true. To protect our way of life from those that wish to do us harm, and there will always be those that wish to do us harm, we must be prepared to strike quickly and efficiently to suppress the enemy that comes.

As people, combat has existed for many, many thousands of years, and we will never escape the pain that comes with it.

Like communism, Pacifism is an ideal associated to the principle that people will be willing to drop their way of life. This will not be.

As a society dependent on resources, we will fight for the control of them in an attempt to take them for ourselves. Essentially, what it breaks down to is that greed is the number one factor in the existence of humanity and society. 

As humans, it is our innate tendency to take what it is that we need. And as humans we need to realize that the pain and suffering that is real amongst us will not go away with the invention of an ideal that professes non violence. 

Generation X

GRAEME LAWSON

I was watching a music video today by a very politically inclined band, and I came to a startling conclusion about the overall standpoint of my generation. I have noticed that we are very much the “yes generation.”

 

To explain this, I will have to explain the history of the generation that precedes my own, known as “generation X.” This was a generation of profound social reform in terms of so many different aspects of society.

 

Generation X managed to do away with the social oppression of black people and their amazing leaps on a technological level which in turn led to a more stable world economy.

 

Now I coined the term “Generation Yes” to talk of my own generation because the word yes is the one my generation uses when we are told to accept something. We do what we are told. We are merely content to sit on the laurels of our elders and that is what we are taught to do.

 

Don’t complain or change anything because we have built you the perfect system — all of this in spite of the repetition in history that we see when just one generation becomes stagnant like ours. Millions of Jews were killed because Hitler had a population of people that were willing to listen to anything, and that is what is being slowly bred today. We sit back and watch the world turn on the rusted and broken cogs that somehow manage to keep on working. Our own image that will be jotted down in books form now till the end of time is one of a generation that’s imply sat down and took what we were told at face value.

 

The world does not get any better if we simply sit by and watch some of the outdated practices of the time before us do their work. The way to making society better is to change, but because of the way we are now taught, change is not something that is accepted.

Schools Out!!!

By NOEL SHABAN

 

Although I am happy about school being over, I am not overjoyed about having to move out. I had no idea how much stuff I had in my room.

Piles and piles of stuff. Clothes….. oh my goodness how did u get so many clothes?

And shoes? Wow, drawers full of them.

Food, I have no idea how I accumulated the food that is in my room. I started out with a few boxes of a college student’s best friend … ramen noodles, then cereal, Little Debbie’s, soup and crackers, granola and trail mix, and tons of candy.

Cleaning out my room and sorting out my belongings shows me how much of a pack rat I am! While cleaning, I got rid of three heavy duty trash bags full of trash and three full of clothes, shoes, purses etc. My new resolution is to not buy something I will wear only once, and to not buy more than I can eat, and to not keep papers that have no purpose.

Hopefully, if I stick to my guns, my new life style will be more organized and will even save me some money, which is something we could all use.

Now that I have moved out, I have vowed to never return to that old life style and I’m anxious to see how long my new life style lasts.

Addiction

May 7, 2008

 

Graeme Lawson

Addiction

 

 

     In the world today, it is very easy to fall into habits that one may find morally reprehensible. To the extreme of this, we find such things as illegal narcotics, alcohol, and cigarettes, but I hope to concentrate on the other end of the spectrum, encompassing such things as skipping class, or perhaps a tendency to leave assignments to the last minute. Whilst it can be argued that these neglectful behaviors are certainly not addictions, many people will tell you that often, they can be just as hard to quit. People can go to rehab or alcoholics anonymous meetings to help them through extreme addictions, but have you ever seen a clinic helping people overcome apathy or procrastination? Granted these may not kill you, but they can ruin your life fairly well given that the basics of education are founded on the principle of hard work and a tenacity to keep on top of your workload. Considering it from this perspective, procrastination and apathy can be more lethal than marijuana has the potential to be.

     They say that a person can relieve themselves of a bad habit by acting in the opposite of the said action 21 times. How does one combat something consistent in a manner that implies counting occurrences when the subject’s life is seemingly one occurrence? We find sometimes that a good way to combat this apathy is to assign personal values to the work that we should be doing. If a subject has personal meaning to the person doing it, then this person will most likely be more adept at identifying with the material and completing it in a timely manner.

     Whilst it may be true that a bad habit can be cured by contradicting it 21 times in a row, this does not work in the ways of procrastination or apathy. We must find that special something that makes a subject personally important to us and in so doing make our work ethic reflect that importance in a positive light.

Freshman Year Went So Fast

By NOEL SHABAN

Staff Writer

 

It’s hard to believe that the end of the school year is almost here. My first year away from the nest, with me being able to make my own decisions, staying up as long as I want, going to the store at any hour of the night I want, and coming and going as I please.

I’m a little worried about being home all summer, because I have gotten so used to being my own boss and not having to follow many rules.

It’s weird to remember the day I moved all of my stuff into my room and realized that I wasn’t going to be alone in my room–I would have a roommate. Now, as I pack, I begin think of memories that I had with my roommate and all of the fun times we had.

Life is a funny thing. I remember wishing the year was over just as I was moving in, and now that it’s over I am wishing the opposite. In a way, it’s like I wished the year away.

This year has helped me to be more responsible and made me more mature to make my own decisions. I came here only knowing one other person and will leave knowing half of the population of this town. I’m glad that I made the decision to come here, because I have had many opportunities to get involved in many different things that have helped me adapt to college life.

It’s fun to joke about how small this town is and how we don’t have anything to do and how no ones ever heard of this place. Last summer, when people would ask me where I was going to school, I would say, “Northern Oklahoma College in Tahlequah.” And everyone would say, “Oh, okay, I think I have heard of it.” One day my mom heard me say that and began to laugh. Then she corrected me.

So I started my college career in Tonkawa, not Tahlequah, and I am anxious, yet a little sad, that my first year is coming to an end.