Author Topic: Freak Power  (Read 2647 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Sal Atticum

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 7121
  • Karma: 38
  • Gender: Male
    • Campus Dakota
Freak Power
« on: September 26, 2006, 06:59:13 PM »
Now this is what I want to see at this school!

Article
Quote from: Chris England
We're lacking Freak Power!
Chris England
Posted: 9/26/06
Dear UND, I have a confession to make. Actually, I'm a bit disgruntled. It's not that I don't like you, UND. Your campus is nice in the spring, your vending machines consistently well stocked, and oh, but that Engelstad Arena is a classy venue. It has marble floors, or so I've been told.

Yes sir, UND, you've got a lot going for you. Still, something is awry, something is missing from these hallowed halls of Dakotan academia. Perhaps I should explain. Maybe it's my fault; maybe I watched too much footage of Berkeley during the '60s. Perchance I pay too much attention to those uppity French students, constantly protesting and what have you.

It's just that I thought that college would, you know, not be so vapid, so utterly ... uninspiring. I thought we would sit on the grass and read books. We were going to talk of life and philosophy and politics. We were going to be the insatiable idealists of our time, firebrands, the movers and the shakers.

My mistake.

Substantive student commentary is virtually nonexistent. Every day, people pick up The Herald, remove the sports page, and discard the rest. Yesterday, I swear, I heard someone propose a maximum wage! Those goddamn American workers and their living wages; we'll teach them! Where is your youthful, utopian passion, UND? I ask you, where is your quixotic fervor?!

Have we sunk so low?

In France, students move the government. In Iran, they shake the ground. At UND, the most we can muster is ... "Rush Sigma Chi!" Did I miss something? When did I enroll in The Nancy Regan School for Young Republicans?

UND, let us consider our rather extensive natural resources. Let's be interested. Let's be hungry. Let us be America's next holy litany. Let's have fewer frats and more fraternity. Let's smoke marijuana in Muskogee. Let's run a moderately successful campaign for sheriff in a rural mountain community on a platform based entirely of charisma, massive social liberalization and disturbing non-sequiturs.

Freak Power!

We can do better. We are too angelic to be callous consumers and cultural parasites. Are we lice or are we men? Why aren't we asking the big questions? Why is UND going D-I when teacher salaries and retention are low, and our library clearly mediocre? How many books could that money buy?

Why do 30 million Americans live in poverty? How many billions must our nation spend on "defense" before it's enough? What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have work to do. We have the ability, the opportunity, and therefore the responsibility to decide what we want our world to be and how to bring that world into existence. Anything less is embarrassing, and we should, in a great many ways, be embarrassed.

There is, as they say, a time for every purpose under heaven. This is the time in which to assemble ideas, to move and shake, to decide what we think. Now is not the time for tacit acceptance.

Never again will we be in a situation which allows us to daily mine the minds of thousands. There is no excuse for institutionalized apathy. Sincerely, Chris. ? Copyright 2006 Dakota Student

Rock on!  Does this guy post here yet?
JUST EXTRA POLISH. I DO SOME WORK WITH EXCELL SO I KEEP THE CAPS LOCK ON :-P

 

With Quick-Reply you can write a post when viewing a topic without loading a new page. You can still use bulletin board code and smileys as you would in a normal post.

Name: Email:
Verification:
Type the letters shown in the picture
Listen to the letters / Request another image
Type the letters shown in the picture:
What color is an apple, it starts with an r?:
What is 5 plus 5?:
Which Dakota has the city of Fargo:

realistic
anything