Old Column Ideas!
A few years ago I was the Opinions Editor of an online student newspaper with nearly zero readership. Here is a list of notes I made, collecting the themes of possible columns.
The List
Being on the Phone with Comcast is tiresome
Playing Phone Maze is Mortifying
Getting into Graduate School is a Hassle not made any more pleasant by the fact that no one can tell you exactly how many steps are involved or how close to the end of the process you are
The Food in the Ferguson Center is not as good as it was a few years ago
The Student SGA is just playtime for rich kids and blustery contrarians who won't live here soon anyway
First with the bans on outdoor furniture and cooking, and now with the possible ban on parking in lawns, the Tuscaloosa City Council seems to hate students. Without the University, this town would be a podunk nothing, and JVC and Mercedes would not have chosen to open factories here. So why is the city council so keen on making students' lives hard?
Boy, that Rec Center Sure is Nice
These longer library hours are a welcome gesture in the direction of becoming like a real university, but can't we keep the library open 24 hours a day, like they do at other (real) Universities like Clemson, Georgia Tech, The University of Arizona, and MIT and others? I'd be willing to work the 6 hours between 2 and 8, if the university would pay me a reasonable wage ($10.00/hour) for those hours.
Revenue: The Real Aim of the University
You might think that people who are in New College are flightier and more intellectually light-weight than people who are in the Business School, but if my experience is representative of the real state of affairs, you would be wrong.
Foreign Math Teachers: Clear-headed, hard-working, well-intentioned propagators of confusion and frustration
The Weird Awkwardness of Class: Is it caused by the spirit of anti-intellectualism prevalent here, or is the classroom setting an unnatural forum which forces people into a kind of interaction they would never otherwise willingly engage in?
Presence: The Unsung Led Zeppelin Album yields great rewards to the conneisseur bored with the other albums; Among these is "Hots on For Nowhere," a song possibly about Santa Claus, who lives at the corner of Bleaker and Nowhere and is empty of hope but full of regret and advice on how you can live your life so as to come to a happier end than he has.
The President is a Lying Coke-Fiend and an Idiot too, and you can tell that he's an idiot if you just watch him try to speak and you're not an idiot yourself.
I don't need the Nu-Metal playing during your porn movie, thanks.
Opinons pages around here usually seem written by people who don't read books. Honestly. How the hell does this shit get printed? (Answer: very few people care about the quality of life here, and jobs like opinions editor are there for the taking. Unfortunately, it's usually the case that unthinking lumps out to pad their resumes end up being the takers.)
The Onion is not as funny as it used to be, but the "I Just Wish I Could Stop Shitting Blood" Weekender that they printed after they were sued by The White House for using the Presidential Seal was pretty funny
Mark Twain: a better writer than I
The Scalp: Battleground in the war between my trictilomania and my fear of going bald
Check out Space Moose and The Pain, When Will it End?
Sophomores who spring City Cafe on incoming freshmen, as though they think they're letting them in on a great secret, are pretty funny
Figures of Tuscaloosan history: Josiah Gorgas, George Denny, Bear Bryant, Edward O. Wilson
The List
Being on the Phone with Comcast is tiresome
Playing Phone Maze is Mortifying
Getting into Graduate School is a Hassle not made any more pleasant by the fact that no one can tell you exactly how many steps are involved or how close to the end of the process you are
The Food in the Ferguson Center is not as good as it was a few years ago
The Student SGA is just playtime for rich kids and blustery contrarians who won't live here soon anyway
First with the bans on outdoor furniture and cooking, and now with the possible ban on parking in lawns, the Tuscaloosa City Council seems to hate students. Without the University, this town would be a podunk nothing, and JVC and Mercedes would not have chosen to open factories here. So why is the city council so keen on making students' lives hard?
Boy, that Rec Center Sure is Nice
These longer library hours are a welcome gesture in the direction of becoming like a real university, but can't we keep the library open 24 hours a day, like they do at other (real) Universities like Clemson, Georgia Tech, The University of Arizona, and MIT and others? I'd be willing to work the 6 hours between 2 and 8, if the university would pay me a reasonable wage ($10.00/hour) for those hours.
Revenue: The Real Aim of the University
You might think that people who are in New College are flightier and more intellectually light-weight than people who are in the Business School, but if my experience is representative of the real state of affairs, you would be wrong.
Foreign Math Teachers: Clear-headed, hard-working, well-intentioned propagators of confusion and frustration
The Weird Awkwardness of Class: Is it caused by the spirit of anti-intellectualism prevalent here, or is the classroom setting an unnatural forum which forces people into a kind of interaction they would never otherwise willingly engage in?
Presence: The Unsung Led Zeppelin Album yields great rewards to the conneisseur bored with the other albums; Among these is "Hots on For Nowhere," a song possibly about Santa Claus, who lives at the corner of Bleaker and Nowhere and is empty of hope but full of regret and advice on how you can live your life so as to come to a happier end than he has.
The President is a Lying Coke-Fiend and an Idiot too, and you can tell that he's an idiot if you just watch him try to speak and you're not an idiot yourself.
I don't need the Nu-Metal playing during your porn movie, thanks.
Opinons pages around here usually seem written by people who don't read books. Honestly. How the hell does this shit get printed? (Answer: very few people care about the quality of life here, and jobs like opinions editor are there for the taking. Unfortunately, it's usually the case that unthinking lumps out to pad their resumes end up being the takers.)
The Onion is not as funny as it used to be, but the "I Just Wish I Could Stop Shitting Blood" Weekender that they printed after they were sued by The White House for using the Presidential Seal was pretty funny
Mark Twain: a better writer than I
The Scalp: Battleground in the war between my trictilomania and my fear of going bald
Check out Space Moose and The Pain, When Will it End?
Sophomores who spring City Cafe on incoming freshmen, as though they think they're letting them in on a great secret, are pretty funny
Figures of Tuscaloosan history: Josiah Gorgas, George Denny, Bear Bryant, Edward O. Wilson