Lift Up Your Hearts!

Very interesting article. I'm amazed at how clueless I have remained through the college years. Living in an all girls quiet hall helped a lot, I'm guessing. Half of the stuff in the article I sort of knew happened, but still much of it came as a shock to think that's what went on in the building I lived in for four years. Maybe it's no great irony that Planned Parenthood is right next door. On the other hand, it makes me feel less horrible when I find out a personal story from one of my aquaintences. Not that it excuses them, I just have a little more understanding of the pressure and culture around them. Yuck, yuck. I do hope there's a way to homeschool college by the time my kids come along.

For Janet - people are already homeschooling college, so there should be even more ways to do that by the time your kids are old enough.

I did live in a coed dorm - coed by half-wing. I had friends who were "sexiled",friends who were promiscuous, and friends who were trying to be "good, Catholic" kids but got lots of pressure from others. A few of us made it through, although not entirely unscathed.

I hadn't ever heard the definition of "hooking up" before - not what I thought it meant. I don't know if I have ever seen that happen, unless you count people going to a frat party in a group, which always seemed like a good idea to me, friends to look after one another.
Granted that CMU might not be the typical school in this regard. Sophomore year I lived in an on-campus apartment, one intentional roommate, and our third left to Germany, so we got put with a freshman, who we got along with alright, but not great. My roommate did walk in on the third guy at one point - and we decided that wasn't allowed in our room. So, we saw very little of him after that. His parents thought he was going to church, and would call on Sundays to make sure he was awake, for a while we were more vague, but finally my roommate just said, "He's not here, he sleeping with Jeannie at her place". I think they had suspected as much, and certainly that he never went to the church they had picked out for him.
I don't think there was much else going on my tower. Freshman year, there was one guy who had a third (female) roommate in addition to the one (male) roommate he expected. And a couple other girls around occasionally, but it was definitely more the exception than the rule. Again, perhaps my dorm was different, due to having probably a third of the 30 guys purposely picked a dorm to live together, and I don't think many were in relationships.
I am still a fan of college life, I think that students who stay home, or immediately get in an off-campus apartment, or perhaps even the quiet/study dorms, miss out on the good parts of college. But, then again, I thought public school was alright for me too....

LETTER TO A SOUTH AFRICAN CORPORATE BLOG by Tom Dennen The world of the journalist is sometimes called THE FOURTH ESTATE. (Lord) Burke once observed, "there are Three Estates in the British Parliament, Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal and Commons; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important by far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or witty saying, it is literal fact - very momentous to us in these times." I believe that every young journalist worth his salt must eventually arrive at the question, "what should journalism be accomplishing, and according to what values? "Or, “what are the responsibilities of the Fourth Estate?” Today, it would seem that the Fourth Estate is in some disarray and its only hope for survival may, I believe, lie in the online web loggers who are seeking the truth while faced with the recent admission that, “On the second page of a report which reveals the White House engaged in warrantless domestic spying, the New York Times reveals that it held the story for a full year at the request of the Bush Administration.” - Raw Stories.com. “In an unusual note, the (New York) Times said in its story that it held off publishing the 3,600-word article for a year after the newspaper's representatives met with White House officials.” – Washington Post.com "Trust in journalists depends on accuracy, fairness and a readiness to acknowledge mistakes and apologise for them…Journalists should represent the governed, those without power, those without information - and that is no route to popularity with those who wield power." - Peter Cole, London Daily Mail. It is good to see that The Fourth Estate is certainly still here, there and everywhere today as usual. As usual? Yes! ‘Embedded’ in Afghani and Iraqi military invasion columns and everywhere else this mighty machine can put itself in to keep us informed. And the Internet seems to be where the news is today, not the New York Times. Thackeray put it best in his observation of this wonderful Fourth Estate, this global watchdog of ours, all these Weekend Witnesses, This Day’s Observers, The Times’, Chronicles, Clarions, Messengers or Daily Mails, Daily News’ or Bugles, under whatever flag she flies the colours that hold that rulers must be held accountable: "There she is - the great engine - she never sleeps. She has her ambassadors in every quarter of the world - her courtiers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's cabinets. They are ubiquitous." And privy to secrets great and small. And that I believe is the journalists’ trust, our responsibility. But in many ways that trust and responsibility has been taken from us. The media - television, newspapers and radio companies are just that - companies. Profit centres owned by corporate entities, all part of that ‘military industrial complex’ that Dwight David Eisenhower warned us about when he stepped down from the then prestigious office of the President of the United States in 1961. I believe, but hope not, that New York Time’s Ms Judith Miller may go down in history as a fatality of this new post-911 globalisation paradigm, not only of the new attitude toward the protection of your right to be informed from whatever source, but also the erosion of fundamental Democratic rights as outlined in the United States' Patriot Act. Tom Dennen 92 Essemont Avenue Greyville, Durban, A Place in the Rainbow, South Africa

Well, okay...but what does that have to do with the subject?

He who receives an idea from me receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me - Benjamin Franklin Your comment on my blog was (I guess) about a comment posted on an article that had nothing to do with the blog - Tom Dennen

Tom, I was delighted to read about you in the Prep news. Sounds like your old self. Wondered what you have been up to all these years-now I know- dont like to post my email out there will write or ask the Prep for yours, Wally

In response to your (now deleted) spam, I guess you have to expect more spam on an article with this title...

Good point, though the spam distribution in general seems quite unaware of the subject. I was thrilled to find out that the recent comment on Invisible Firefox wasn't the spam I expected it to be.