Open letter to UT football players
Longhorn football players,
We, the University students, alumni and faculty, would like to thank you for your years of hard work, sacrifice, sweat, blood and tears that you go through to make us proud each Saturday under those multi-million-dollar lights. You, alongside the rest of our great athletics program, are some of the brightest and most visible stars we have at this proud university. Though not all of you make it to the NFL, or other professional leagues, during your time on campus, we are always in awe of you and regard you as celebrities. We live and breathe your stats, and we brag to our friends how we went to high school with you and if we've been lucky, have shook your hand once or twice. Sure, we rip you for missing a tackle or fumbling, but we also cheer our hearts out when you redeem yourself in clutch time and we defend you on message boards all over the Internet.
So, now that you know we love you so much, please call us when you're too drunk to drive. I'm sure you'd be able to find one designated driver in 46,000 students that would fire up our poor little beater cars for the chance to usher you home. It'd be our honor. It would also mean that we wouldn't have to worry about another drunk driver out there that could kill someone with one little slip-up.
The Longhorn Nation
Green commitment
Thank you Daily Texan for drawing attention to the rising energy costs in the Aug. 27 article "Besides oil, natural gas costs rise." In addition to managing its energy production to address the impact of costs, UT is managing energy use as well.
Between October 2007 and January 2008, the University was committed to upgrading close to 195,000 light fixtures on the main and J.J. Pickle Research campuses to improve energy efficiency. In addition to the lighting project, the University is repairing and/or replacing 185 steam traps that are causing energy loss, as well as upgrading more than 8,000 plumbing fixtures to save water and the energy required to produce it.
Estimated savings from these energy and water projects are $2.5 million per year. The initial savings will pay for the upgrade and repair projects within six years. The university will then reinvest those dollars in ongoing energy and water conservation efforts.
By managing energy use, the university is also reducing its carbon footprint. The current lighting and steam projects will reduce the footprint by an amount equal to planting 74 trees every year, plus water savings from the plumbing upgrades are expected to reach at least 70 million gallons annually.
Managing energy production and use are only part of the story. Various organizations throughout campus offer opportunities to participate in conservation efforts. Joining the UT Sustainability Network, the Campus Environmental Center, the Green Horns and department Green Teams are just some of the ways individuals and groups can support the University's efforts in becoming a sustainable community.
Thanks again for highlighting this important issue. It's my hope that more members of our community will become involved in energy conservation activities. Those interested can call 471-0492 for more information.
Al Lewandowski Demand-Side Energy Management & Conservation manager
Praising sexual repression
The Aug. 28 piece "Putting Sex on the Table" made the insidious and subversive claim that our society is too "sexually repressed." Jessica Staggs claimed that teen pregnancy and scandalous political affairs were, in some way, a manifestation of our society's inability to speak openly about sexuality. As sexual repression is the surest sign of civilized society, Staggs can only be advocating a return to barbarism - the state of nature in which our Eros is the master of our Logos.
Far from being detrimental to society, our sexual repression is the one thing that allows our society to function. Herbert Marcuse wrote about this very topic in "Eros and Civilization," in which he inadvertently showed that sexual repression is inextricably linked to civilization. Sexual repression is a societal manifestation of the individual struggle for self-mastery. Every rational animal is locked into an eternal struggle to overcome, tame and subdue the bestial passions within themselves. Only through this struggle for self-mastery can our true humanity, as a rational being, emerge. Therefore, humanity is not merely the instinctual and "natural" urges that flow from our loins. Instead, it is the proper arrangement of our reasonable Logos over and above our passionate Eros. The celibate ascetic rather than the uncontrollable Don Juan is the truest embodiment of all that is excellent and noble within mankind.
So I ask Ms. Staggs to rethink her liberal views of sexuality in favor of a more rational and self-controlled view of humanity, in which reason governs sexual desire and responsibility is held in higher esteem than sexual libido. Only when our politicians embody this ideal and refrain from extramarital affairs will we be free of scandal, guilt, shame and pain.
Ryan Haecker History senior
Be the first to comment on this article!