The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 83, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 16, 1996 Page: 2 of 20
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. ^i"l '(■■■>1—
2 FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 16 1996
THE RICE THRESHER
Communications Decency Act is a
congressional farce.
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mi 3Interne*
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(tmgress shall make no late respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the (iuvernment for a redress of grievances.
— First Amendment of tin- United States Constitution
Knier the 104th Congress of the United States'of America.
Kxit the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Ihe Telecommunications Act of 1996 that President William J.
( linton signed into law last Thursday is, for all intents and purposes, a
very good hill, but Section 502 of the act, commonly referred to a*>.the
( oiiimunicalions I)ecency Act, is, quite frankly, a larce and an outright
breach of the First Amendment.
Alter the bill was signed, a mass movement swept the country where
individuals as well as corporations (Netscape for one) turned their
pages black and their text white iis protest. The Thresher was a proud
member of thai movement. The Thresher n\ny in fact have a more vested
inteiest id the act than most journalistic publications due to the unique
nature ol lhe Backpage.
l-or von see, the bill says that the laws which have governed print
journalism lor so rnanv years-do not govern Internet publications and
material While the Internet is definitely a hybrid of television and print
media, publications on the Internet should be governed by the same
laws as their printed vet sion.
1 o say that an organization is liable for anything that could be called
indec en! that is readily accessible to children under the age of 18 is just
llal wrong. The laws governing obscene materials in print media have
been bat ked up by so many court decisions that you can't even count
them easily Bui apparently, this history and precendence has been lost
on the 1') Jlh < ongress
Almost anything can la argued to be indecent since no guidelines
exist ha the determination of indecent materials In that respect, every
thing from discussing abortion I'o the "We hate Barney" newsgroup to
:i publication with one < tirse word could be held liable.
I .ttckilv, someone in ( ongress actually has the brains to realize that
Congress overstepped its hounds. If they hadn'U the CDA would have
been I lie biggest blight on tfie United Stales' record of freedom and
democrat y in Ihe modern era. Ninety-live percent of the Telecoiuniuni-
• at ions Act of !'•'' !, n ul\ is good, but without the line item veto, I'resident
i 'linton had to sign the bill into law in order to get the good legislation
moving
pllllOnCL. Fortunately lor Clinton and the
congressmen who passed the bill
O 505-21, two senators have stepped
lorward l o battle the const it ut tonal
\'tolations presented by the bill
Senator Patrick l.eahy (D-Vl.1 and
natoi Kusm-II I eiugold (I > Wis.) introduced an amendment into the
" n.tte tliat would repeal "Section 1)02, a section ol the hill encouraged
and iiitrodin. ed bv Senator James Fxon (l)-Nebj, arid reinstate the
previous section which appeared in the telecommunications Act of
IPM It the amendment is not passed or il Chief Justice William
Kehuquisi and his follow Supreme I ourt justices don't declare Ihe law
unconstitutional, it will be a sad day lor freedom. A sad day indeed
Letters to the Editor
Erratum
In last week's staff editorial, the Thresher said that the Rice Program
Council was creating by-college appropriations funds for the future. In
reality, the RFC implemented decentralized appropriations fundi? this
year, and they are-done through each committee chair and their
respective budgets. The committee chairs are the college representa-
tives. The Thresher regrets the error.
Letter Policy
TO SUBMIT - Letters may Indent in by
e-mail: ling/r"owind rice.edu
campus mail: Letter to the Fdjtor, c/o The Ru e Thresher
U.S. Mail Letter to the Kditor, The Rice Thresher,
<>100 Main St.. MS-524, Houston, FX 77005-1892
in pel son: Thresher (Hfice, Second Floor, Student Center
DEADLINE Deadline tor all letters is 5 p.m. on Monday. letters
received alter ihe deadline are generally not considered for publi-
cation until the following week. 4
RULES
1 All letters must include your name, college, year of
graduation anil phone number.
2. Short letters (200-500 words is a good guideline) have a better
.... chance of being published than long ones.
I .otters received viy campus or U.S. mail must be signed. If you
are not submitting via e-mail, we strongly recommend that you
submit letters on a Macintosh or IBM-formatted disk.
P We do not accept anonymous letters, but names may be withheld-
by request in special circumstances.
5 We reserve the right lo edit for length, spelling, grammar and
style.
To the editor:
Student contribution in rebuild
ing the pub Fxpansion of library-
hours during finals. Major expan-
sion of the Silver Saver Card and
Newcomers Guide. Successful
changing of graduation honors
policy. Selection and training of new
college officers. More blue lights.
The Hobby shuttle for midterm and
Thanksgiving breaks. Online home-
coming elections. Envision grants.
Campus recycling and the Green
Fights Plan. BYOB registration of
Senate meetings. Financial, emo-
tional and spiritual support for ev-
erything from the Pride rally to the
Senior Committee to the Lunar New
Year festival to Hakeem's speech.
And yes, toilet paper
To George Hatoun, this appar-
ently seems like very little accom-
plished.
But tlje Senate has done this and
many other fliings.which might not
make his column hut which affect
the lives of all students.
Maybe il he devoted more space
in Ins column to describing those
accomplishments than to twisting
Katliv Noack and jay Fundling's
words completely out of context, we
might have more to discuss.
According to Hatoun, one of the
Senate's "crowning achievements"
was "levying a shuttle tax on all un-
dergraduates."
Hatoun neglects to point out sev-
eral facts, some of which he reported
on in the Thresher in May,
The Senate was able to defeat a
larger parking fee (from $96 to $80);
the Senate helped change the shuttle
bus system: the Senate brought the
university to create a new Parking
Committee to help set long-term
policy.
Some basic facts need to be
known.. '
The Senate spent September and
October setting long-range goals,
putting together some ideas for the
rest of the year and discussing some
issues to try to decide.
Members of the Senate then
spent the entire year working on
those issues.
Yes, many of them came to a
head at the end of the year — as they
should.
Senate nieutbersjalked (and con
titnie to talk) to students and admin-
istration, suggested policy arid took
action.
Hatoun gave four examples of so-
called new issues: Sammy the Owl,
Internet elections, pass/fail desig-
nation ai^d blanket tax.
These are instructive because
they show that Hatoun hasn't been
keeping up.
Sammy the Owl began last se-
mester; Internet elections started at
homecoming] we've been discuss-
ing.pass/fail since September; the
blanket tasclSn't a Senate issne at all.
Iu the end, Hatoun's comments
about the SA were outright wrong.
The Senate's not perfect, but it
completed" a lot this year, without
worrying about elect ions or impress-
ing George Hatoun.
Joel Grus
SRC President
SRC '96
Laura Moodey
SA Secretary
Brown '98
Seott Ruthfield
SA Parliamentarian
Ix>vett '97
and 1 7 other Senate m«?tnbe*s
Criticism of college system merely
To the editor:
Last week's Thresher saw an edi-
torial from Amy McKay ("College
system limits social life at Rice"), an
attack ol the college system.
Her letter was rife with inconsis-
tencies and surprising assumptions.
I would like to begin with two
corrections.
One, McKay states that there are
only two campus-wide dances.
Fsperanza, Archi-Arts and Rondelet
still exist, along with college-spon-
sored parties with dancing almost
every week.
Two, she says there are "a lew"
campus-wide organizations. The
1995-95Student Handbook lists 115.
McKay has an interesting take
on tjie lot of the freshmen at Rice.
First she states that, "We are basi-
cally locked ... into the same set of
90 or so people for four years," im-
plying that each college class is iso-
lated not only from peers at other
colleges but also from older stu-
dents in their own college.
This is patently false. The college
system, from O-Week on, helps to
bring students of different ages to-
gether.
McKay seems to agree, describ-
ing the freshmen's arrival as "re
freshing"
And then she goes on to propose
a freshman dorm. Odd. At a time
when many say that O-Week is too
patronizing to freshmen, I wouldn't
think the message to send is, "You're
not ready to socially interact with
college students. Go live by your-
selves, freshmen."
McKay continues by propagat-
. ing the wonderful stereotype of Rice
students as antisocial.
"The typical Rice student does
not have the effervescent social
skills, or at least does not use them,
to regularly meet new people at par-
ties," of classes, as she also says.
Now I might not be "efferves-
cent," but I still think I'm capable of
striking up conversation with a rela-
tive stranger.
But more to the point, what does
this have to do with the college sys-
tem? If there were no colleges,
people would go to parties alone to
meet people? Classes would be in-
tellectual singles bars? Doubtful.
Similarly, I hardly think "the
sheer inconvenience of maintaining
a friendship with someone at an-
other college" would he alleviated if
we called the colleges dorms.
But regardless, I think a friend-
ship is worth' an occasional five-
minute walk.
The last and perhaps most puz-
zlingof McKay's arguments con-
cerns the very friendships she so
wants to foster.
She states that "if you don't flTeet
your significant other early on in
your college, you probably never
will."
Another surprise 1 thought th
most people were at Rice.to get an
education, grow and hatefully mak<
some good friends, wy, if you fall i
love, great, bjit for the mate mar
might 1 suggest UT?
But just as she bemoans a lack of
enduring, passionate relationships,
she suggests shuffling the colleges
every year.
In this way we meet more people,"
get more friends and "new ideas for
parties."
I've got some damn good friends,
and I'd be pretty irritated if I were
told we were all heading to different
colleges for our last year at Rice.
But, I suppose if there were a
cool, new, campus party (maybe Fate
'80s), it would all be worth it.
Opportunities abound to meet
new, interesting people within and
without one's college.
All it takes is a nominal amount of
effort to say hello or pick up a phone,.
McKay's editorial is just another
example of someone using the col-
lege system as a scapegoat for his or
her own apathy.
Travis Dunbar
Jones '96
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Klein, Charles & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 83, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 16, 1996, newspaper, February 16, 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246532/m1/2/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.