Letters to the Editor

Bring back program to help campus kitties

This week's cartoon

Here's an early welcome to our new Vice President of Student Affairs

Editorial Board

Ron Howard is evil ... or maybe just a bad director

Staff Column

Just like Joaquin Phoenix in 'Signs,' I will swing away

Staff Column

Paying more for a cheap, natural resource is the best

Staff column

Like it or not, Twitter saved my friend's afternoon over Spring Break

Staff Column

This week's cartoon

If strangers were harassing students in classes, would you want to know?

The situation that occurred March 9, involving the three non-students on campus harassing students in a classroom, is no doubt troubling.Matt Pettit has done a great job of alerting his fellow students to what happened in his letter to the editor at right, and we thank him for it.We wanted to ask you what you thought of the situation, and whether you think an AU Alert would have been an appropriate step.Our attitude here is that we would have appreciated an e-mail from the school with the amount of detail Pettit provided in his account.It is a shame we had to hear of this situation from a fellow student before it was addressed by the University.A heads-up via AU Alert and an order to leave campus would have been ideal, but an e-mail to students acknowledging the situation even happened at all would have been sufficient.It would have looked better to admit something happened than to shrug it off as no big deal, because to the students in that classroom, it was a big deal.Students, do you think this was handled well?If not, what would you have liked to have seen from the University?And if we are blowing this out of proportion, just let us know.

Food Waste Audit will show what many know: we should compost

Auburn University is having a Food Waste Audit April 22 to determine how much compostable food waste and noncompostable food waste students and restaurants on campus throw out each day.This data will help Recycling and Solid Waste Coordinator Donny Addison convince the University it would be in its best interest to start a composting program on campus.We remember being in elementary school and having a compost pile out behind the cafeteria.It was every little third-grader's duty to go out back and dump their food scraps on the pile, which would then be composted and used in flowerbeds around campus.With us being an agricultural school, surely a use could be found for such material.

Letters to the Editor

Student asks what is an 'imminent threat of violence?'Editor, The Auburn Plainsman:After giving Auburn University administrators ample time to inform you of a potentially dangerous situation on campus Monday, March 9, 2009, I have decided to tell you myself.This letter is intended to:-- Inform the Auburn Family of events that happened on our campus.-- Inform you of the official Auburn University response and their current position on the situation.At 4 p.m., three young men not registered for the course entered a political science classroom.They sat at the back of the room and began asking questions and making comments about guns, the war in Iraq, and similar topics.They were not sitting together but were sitting strategically around the back of the room.The students were very uncomfortable and afraid.

Those not already on it may want to join the vinyl record bandwagon

Staff column

April 9's cartoons

Self-appointed pay raises for state legislators coming out of our wallets

Editorial

Rejecting tea and taxes for all the wrong reasons

My appetite for tea has now been spoiled. What a tragic loss.Well, while that's not entirely true, I've been slightly amused lately (in an annoying sort of way) listening about the Tax Day Tea Party and the "revolution" it is stirring.

An emergency room visit featuring awkward jokes, irony and X-rays

Maybe some nursing students can help me out with this.I want to know about the standard procedure for small talk with patients, specifically if you are taught that the stock answer for when a patient greets you and asks how you are doing is "Better than you!"I had three staff members at the East Alabama Medical Center give me that same exact joke when I was getting X-rayed recently for what turned out to be a broken clavicle.I imagine that if this line of dialogue is in a text book somewhere, there's probably a disclaimer stating, "Do not use this for any patient suffering an injury more serious than a broken clavicle.

Start making "change" for my bailout, please

The last time I checked we lived in a free country. So, why does it cost so much to live here?My lame joke is an attempted criticism of the economic meltdown my bank account has been experiencing the last few months.This wasn't caused by the stock market plunge or billion dollar bailouts for companies I'd never heard of until CNN's correspondent made me feel like a Google search was appropriate.

Keep the faith, but de-legislating it was a good move

Shalom everybody.For those gentiles who aren't aware, today marks the beginning of Passover.Passover is a Jewish holiday celebrating God's sparing of the Hebrews when he killed the first born of Egypt.So how does a Catholic person like myself know today is the start of Passover?No, it's not because I have a 365 puppies-a-year calendar, displaying all the major holidays.