A public forum with a question and answer session is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 5 in the Student Union Building. All students are invited to attend this meeting at 3:30 p.m. in the Jordan Ballroom.

“We will likely continue to evaluate expenditure reductions and student tuition and fee increases to support our future operations and to fund any new initiatives,” President Bob Kustra said.

COURTESY/ MCT

Top five reasons to become involved:

5. The temporary status will change in three months.

“As with any holdback, the action is temporary and must be acted upon by the Legislature when it reconvenes for its 2010 session in January,” said Otter in a recent press release.

Kustra stated this holdback was anticipated and appropriate financial plans have been made to cover this on a one-time basis. However, “we are on the last notch of our budget belt-tightening,” Kustra said in a statement to the campus community.

4. Democrats offer an available solution.

“It really is a question of priorities,” said Senate minority leader Kate Kelly.

She stated a solution favored by the Democrats would be to use the $274 million in reserves or the $50 million in unspent federal stimulus funds. This money has been saved to use in the state budget for next year.

3. Campus salaries have increased for 13  employees.

“All raises over which the governor has jurisdiction have been approved,” said Wayne Hammon, budget chief for Otter.

More than 800 state employees have received a pay increase since May, including 13 at Boise State. Kustra donated his $37,000 to charity.

2. Funding is available to manufacture assault-style shotguns.

“If this is not cause for optimism, I don’t know what is,” said Otter in a speech outlining Project 60 and Idaho’s state of recovery.

He mentioned three companies in the Treasure Valley that are working together to manufacture 5,000 shotguns per month in Meridian. The shotgun production and new rifle line are based on an arms manufacturing company in Turkey and will be marketed globally.

1. Campus meals exceed student expectations.

Sen. Laura Rogers announced the results of student feedback at the ASBSU meeting on Tuesday.

“Some stated that cutbacks should start in the athletic department where approximately 150 prepared meals are delivered to the football team before each home game,” she said.

Each meal is individually ordered and prepared by request.

Cost savings and revenue generating suggestions are encouraged prior to the meeting by emailing aacrosen@boisestate.edu.

Related posts:

1. State lawmakers plan to analyze budget holdbacks
2. President Ruch discusses funding inequity today
3. Proposed funding cuts changed after Senate hears strong opposition

Fully automatic rifles can only be justified in cases of protecting oneself and property. An example would be protecting oneself from foreign invaders. Albeit far-fetched, there still exists causation for the ownership of fully automatic weapons. Automatic guns could also prove helpful in warding off criminal intruders or, in other extreme cases, protecting oneself from a tyrannical government.

“If the military is able to own these weapons I should be able to as well,” Boise State student Austin Marsh said.

From the point of view of outlawing these weapons, not much can be said. Sure they are dangerous to society in the wrong hands, but would prohibition of these automatic rifles keep them out of the hands of criminals? Do the drug laws keep marijuana out of the hands of millions of high school students? No.

As long as there are buyers seeking military grade automatic weapons, there will be a market for distribution and sale. There is a reason factories continue to be built in order to manufacture AK-47 rifles. It is because a large worldwide market exists for these weapons. Be they gun enthusiasts in Kansas, terrorists in Afghanistan or the Venezuelan military, automatic gun purchasers exist.

According to guncite.com, assault weapons account for only about 1 percent of all gun crimes.

Further, automatic rifles do not cause violent crimes; they merely provide a means to commit violent crimes.

A good example would be a murder in a time period before the existence of guns. There are many cases of multiple murders and violent crimes committed by individuals who did not have access to automatic rifles.

If violent crime exists regardless of military grade assault rifles, then where could a solution to violent crime lie? Perhaps we could increase our funding on the education system where we can improve the lives of children and give them opportunities that lead away from drugs, gangs and violence. Maybe as a society we should stop craving bloodthirsty forms of entertainment, which can desensitize us to violence.

Whatever the answer, outlawing the sale and purchase of automatic weapons is needless and will only allow law enforcement to create a new form of criminal act. The new criminal act will need its own funding for arrest, search, seizure and adjudication. The expanding police and incarceration costs over the last few decades need to be controlled more than automatic weapons.

It already costs $31,325 a year to hold a single prisoner according to detnews.com. Think of how many more people will be incarcerated for a right that is granted to them by the second amendment and at that price. How does that make sense?

Do we really want the government to intervene in our lives in any more ways then it already has?

The government isn’t our mommy, people. We need to start taking responsibility for our own actions.

ERNEST DUNLAP
ARBITER JOURNALIST

Related posts:

1. U.S. government chooses guns over textbooks
2. Don’t look to government for security
3. Statues’ new clothes waste of government funds

S I X

Don Bishop’s town house had the stylistic features of a former age. The property was fully modern due to costly restoration. An August evening enhanced its pseudo Georgian elegance making it look ageless and almost eternal.

Percy Fenton received a frisson of pleasure seeing figures and faces at the upstairs windows. Jenny let him in and the sight of haversacks ropes and ice picks reminded him of his canvas bag. He kissed her on both cheeks. He laughed and hugged her and she tugged at his beard.

Welcome you great bear, Jenny held one of his hands for longer.

You look fantastic. Come on do a twirl, he laughed at his own suggestion.

You silver-tongued old devil trying to charm a girl into submission, she poked his stomach and took away her other hand from his. How much? she asked with an open palm a swagger of the hips and pushing out one cheek with her tongue.

O you’re frisky as ever Jenny, he laughed.

I’m not in bad shape for forty, she put a finger to lips silencing the additional number. How’s Imelda and your beautiful daughters in far off Carlinwood? Why dont you ever get Imelda to come with you?

Well, he looked down, I think Imelda likes a break from me. She encourages me to go on my sorties more than I want to.

Don’s voice called from upstairs where the shuffling of feet and talking got louder.

Send Fenton up here!

Did you have dinner? she asked quietly as he put a hand on the stair railing.

I did, he lied.

Anyway we’re going to look after you, she smiled at his lie of convenience.

Upstairs he recognised DB Poboyler and of course Don who introduced DB’s partner and another friend dressed in fashion gear conspicuous among the casualness of the other two women present. Doris Gerrard manageress of a chain of bookshops talked with Ivor and DB about a printing company.

DB had a finger in several pies. He was a perfectionist copy editor occasional book reviewer. He had written advertising copy and was a successful literary agent for Sci Fi and Fantasy fiction. He and Dorris Gerrard were known to be more than longstanding friends. The others were from the lucrative professions and were preparing an assault on the Himalayas to coincide with the millennium only months away. Some had climbed Snowdonia Mount Blanc and one chap had got no higher than the Cairngorms. There was an agreed in-joke that Don would join the expedition. He had prop forward experience, Ivor said. It would toughen him up for the new century, someone else laughed. The climbers had gone through an exercise not far from the city during the morning and afternoon which gave added reality to their proposed Himalayan adventure.

Everyone present knew about Don’s previous marriages especially the first from his twenties which ended in a particularly disharmonious break-up. Jenny understood his extrovert personality. He ordered people around playfully, they laughed and agreed that he and Jenny made a great partnership under one roof. She listened to his loudness and long speeches with an understanding look and laughed with a placid face at the under Graduate jokes, few of them were new and all of them anti-feminist. He had once put an Ad in the Personal column of an evening newspaper: Lady golfer to go the full round including a hole in one must be good in the rough for man with nine iron and his own balls. She only endured his hangovers because he drank festively at most. He might binge for two days including eating and then remain as sober as a hermit for a month. His drinking was part of nostalgia for lost wild and often dangerous weekends of youth. He’d survived without major tragedy and latterly getting loaded under controlled conditions made him feel young with the advantage of age and the consequences were a morning after thumbing a copy of Hundred Best Cures For A Hangover. Having read Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square drink issues were clear, sober and only slightly drunk; whereas for the hero of that book clarity of mind was exacerbated by drink leading to doom. Don often used a line from Hamilton having filled out a form scribbled a cheque or signed his signature: ‘It may turn out to be the best thing I’ve written and it’s certainly the best thing I’ve read’.

Percy was ordered to cancel his Bed & Breakfast booking at the Railway Hotel by Don and Jenny. He asked about his canvas bag. He wasnt concerned about the newspaper, he added laughing. Don expected him to call for his luggage after the seminar but when he didnt return to the bookshop Don the good ole soul had brought the bag home. It was downstairs. They had a quick word about Julian Bone’s shedfilled library and then Percy went downstairs to phone the hotel.

An offhand reference to Percy’s piece of luggage shed supreme importance on the subject – as is often the case in conversations over a few drinks – and every piece of equipment belonging to the climbers was brought upstairs for inspection. This included ropes which had ornamental beauty and ice picks which had sculptural presence. The music changed from Nigel Kennedy to Duke Ellington and Ivor and Susan in her haute couture put on a floor show. There were cheers and whistles at her pirouettes showing a scant red undergarment above tanned thighs since she was fresh off a flight from Antibes. Ivor shadowed her dance shouting about their pooled expenses for three sweltering weeks away.

Susan’s party piece went out of vogue and Don started up a train around the room. The train somehow changed into a climbing expedition which gained in reality with the use of climbing harness and ropes. Eventually five survivors remained tied to Don performing a bizarre ballet of mountaineering.

This may well become twenty first century dance, Susan prophesied from in front of the fireplace to those who rested on chairs and the sofa watching the display.

Don’s ensemble used the floor as if scaling a precipitous peak. After many orbits Don unhooked himself from the rope and collected an ice pick for added realism. This caught on with the others giving increased spectacle to the performance. Five ice pick wielding dancers scaling the north-west face of the floor to a Duke Ellington soundtrack. The drunken dancers miraculously avoided injuring each other. The double dagger look of the ice picks was menacing and the more sober spectators would have preferred the ice picks were made of plastic instead of steel. As one ice pick clanged off another Don added a more daring edge crawling along the floor. As a coup de grace he raised his pick and stabbed the floor with a dull thud. The point stuck in the polished pine precisely as it had been fashioned to do. It wasnt enough that the floor shook with the vibrations of this primitive dance but the others imitated him and ice pick after ice pick pierced the floor without cracking a board. Each incision only made a nail size hole no greater than if they had hopped around wearing golf shoes with new Slazenger studs.

Jenny watched with relative ease. There wasnt a spare ice pick in the house left at that stage in any event. So the dance of the ice picks took its course. No one was skewered or cut. No avalanche of snow or in this case bottles and glasses fell. No tempers flared up as would have with Don’s first wife who might have fantasised about being high in the Himalayas with him dangling below her on a strained rope as she gripped an ice pick choosing a lean section of his back for a fast deep incision.

The dancers won cracking applause and wiped perspiration from their faces. Ivor was well stewed by then and while a young man chatted to Susan the malapropism or more accurately the ivorism of the evening was created. He asked one of the mountaineers: Say if you are trying to estimate the fungability of a Himalayan value? What Ivor had attempted to ask included something about a Himalayan valley not value. Threatened by a lack of rock climbing ability he pursued a lengthy interview with the climber and had posed a question of ultimate gobbledygook content.

What did ‘fungability’ mean? Jenny asked Don and Percy and DB who tried to discover if the word was a word. Several dictionaries had no listing of the word. Percy defined fungability as the art or action of being able to funge. But what did ‘funge’ mean? Don said Ivor could have meant ‘fudge’ as in fudging dodging avoiding. Did he mean what was the possibility of avoiding a dangerous Himalayan valley? Ivor wasnt much help saying he didnt mean that at all. Ivor stuck to his guns. Not his ‘gums’ as perhaps one would have expected from someone totally drunk.

Is an inkoholic a prolific novelist who writes on foolscap with an ink pen? DB Poboyler asked his image in the mirror over the fireplace and broke into hysterical laughing. The party was becoming nonsensical under the influence of alcohol. This was a minor confufflement compared to a scene outside in the street. A young man picked litter from a bin and scattered it around kicking the bigger pieces. The young man shouted opened and closed gates along the street, drummed on parked cars with his fists and most dangerous of all was his lunging (lungability?) across the street bringing cars to a sudden stop. Then Jenny recognised the freak in the street as Don’s nephew Todd Yorke.

Percy and DB briskly followed Don downstairs and they eventually led Todd pinioned into the room. First off there was a shouting match between Don and Todd. Fairly strong language was used by the Bookseller and the Medical student. Todd bragged that his hopes had been to connect with a speeding car because he didnt fancy living any longer. His drunken rant articulated with strangled pauses ended the festive gathering. Susan held his hand and he hectored her about Carmel an expert Prescriptions pharmacist. Carmel and he were finished kaput finito terminal. He had refused to sit through a movie which was a milky cup of tea in his view and Carmel found this attitude mean spirited. They left the others watching the movie and outside the cinema failed to achieve a settlement of their differences over a pizza of peace. Todd drank the most wine in Leaning Tower of Pizza almost two bottles red as blood, he insisted. He waved away questions and guests made their goodbyes to Don and Jenny.

Percy broke the silence which lay heavily on Todd Don and Jenny. He believed that the cause of Todd’s distemper was the result of excessive wine consumption. Jenny volunteered to brew up her best coffee. The talk was slow repetitious and restricted which would have rendered Ivor’s earlier piece of drinkspeak almost rational. They were sozzled befuddled tired and bewildered. Todd got one of Don’s prize cigars and lit it up as if it were a cheap cigarette.

He agreed that excessive wine consumption had combusted inside of him into a fit of splenetic angst and frenzy. The wine had boiled his liver mixed with the passions of the blood and erupted among the debris of the initial dispute with his paramour consequently leading to a strong desire to jump off a bridge or blow his brains out or inflict gaseous inhalation under insulated conditions ensuring a comatose demise from asphyxiation and further down the road rigor mortis.

Percy submitted the humanly acceptable thesis about what was wrong with a fellow cursing the day he was born as well as this vale of tears this valley (not value!) of life within shouting distance of the valley of the shadow of death. Wasn’t the Good Book filled with people who tore their hair and garments and poured ashes on their heads. Jeremiah Job Noah King David Solomon even Moses in his youth.

Don demanded to know the cause of his distress. Was it College? Life didnt depend on his becoming a doctor. Yet his recent exam results were everything a student could wish for. While he lived in the city whether he became a busker or a brat he was still under his uncle’s guardianship even though he was over twenty one. Jenny offered Todd coffee. Realising they now had another guest she went to phone Mrs Fuller and at this late hour. Still it had to be done.

Todd began a choppy monologue about his recent horror of discovering that the human body seemed highly corruptible combustible and perishable so where within the tottering structure could any knowledge claim an imperishable death defying substance or transcendental element or elements?

Over to you Percy, Don said sipping the coffee.

Well, Percy inhaled loudly, I can’t discourse on the finer points of medicine philosophy theology and science at this late hour. However while I defend your right to free will we havent heard any logical reason from you, except some views on anatomy of a savagely reductive nature.

Who are you to lecture me, Todd said nastily. For all I know you could be hiding behind a false beard talking about the Good Book and other goofology.

Don was quick to reprimand his nephew and demand assurances that he would not inflict any harm upon himself. Todd apologised to Percy but declined the guarantee about personal safety whereon Don intended to phone for medical services while Todd merely drew a finger across his own throat and convulsed into laughter. Jenny pressed him to drink some coffee and Todd this time was willing and asked for three lumps of cyanide in it. Another silence descended on the room or whatever way a silence falls it fell. Don paced the floor feeling depressed as he trod on the holes made by the ice picks. Percy drank his coffee like a trouper and mentioned the visit to Julian Bone in Moanbane View.

How many in total? asked Don in a stupor.

Let’s see it comes to a few thousand, was the answer after a long delay. I’m taking a few hundred myself, Percy added.

Are you opening a shop beyond in Carlinwood? Jenny inquired. It’s first come first served, Don said to her without looking. Todd?

What? the nephew grunted.

What about Carmel?

What about her, he stretched.

Could you Carmel and a few friends do a job for me?

When?

Actually to-morrow because you promised to tend the stall at the bookfair on Sunday. Remember? Well what about Monday then.

I suppose so, Todd shuffled in the chair. To-morrow is Saturday, he informed them superiorly, and I have to do the afternoon shift at the Garden Centre.

Jenny will you open at ten or when you can? A peevish faced Don was already booking a late sleep in for himself. Last day of the seminars we might do more good festival business? he looked at Percy hollowly.

Let’s call it a night I’d sleep on that floor I’m so tired now, Jenny said and Don looked down at the ice pick marks wiped his mouth and was glad Todd hadnt noticed them.

KEVIN KIELY
Special to the Arbiter

Related posts:

1. Journey East, Part 3
2. Journey East, Cont.
3. ‘Journey East,’ part five

[ I ] ‘August Bank holiday’

ONE

The cream and red spines of his father’s Penguin books made him pause. At random with two fingers he tugged out a paperback. Blowing dust off the top edge of “Scoop” by Evelyn Waugh he opened and read the closing sentence concerning owls and rodents. From another shelf he opened “The Plague” by Camus and began to read at random. Through the iron-framed windows of the livingroom, For Sale signboards declared to passing readers that Craddocks Auctioneers were selling the house. Craddocks had had 4 Moanbane View on their books for nearly a year. The property, according to them was a handsome bungalow in need of renovations with front and rear gardens, a spacious kitchen, bathroom with separate WC, three bedrooms, livingroom and diningroom, all beautifully appointed.

Julian M. Bone sat in his father’s studded leather chair resting his feet on the accompanying antique footstool. The fireplace with some cracked tiles was the largest ‘unbooked’ space in the room. The floral fire screen’s spray of roses rotted eternally in a perpetual sunset. On the mantelpiece the Ormolu clock was stopped. The coal scuttle’s handle was broken showing tin teeth. A length of braid hung from the lamp beside the TV. The coffee table with inlaid chess-board wobbled because of loose dowels. A brass pot holder topped off a nest of tables. Wedding presents of his dead parents were locked inside a glass cabinet. He had long since removed other ornaments and photographs to the pokey attic, except for the dusty wedding photo of Alec and Margaret Bone. Julian M. Bone was the gloomy curator of this bungalow of a Pharaoh’s tomb.

Nine sheds of books cluttered the rear garden. It was the island of a bibliomaniac in the undesirable rocky sea of suburbia. Still, he didn’t live in the bath. Wear a bowler hat. Smoke cigars and drink kummel. Nor did he listen to flight-deck conversations with air-traffic controllers on a short wave radio. He kept no pigeons. He spent no longer in the bath than was necessary. He had no hat.

At mid-thirties he quit working as a solicitor. Not for sensational reasons of fraud, embezzlement or bankruptcy. He didn’t have a hysterical nervous breakdown at the office, attacking clients and filing cabinets armed with a large stapler. He hadn’t flung a typewriter at a glass door or cut telephone wires with a guillotine, normally used for straight edging paper. He didn’t post a large envelope of coffee to a High Court Judge. He wasn’t a kerb crawler. Or a gambler by phone or a writer of letters to newspapers on topical subjects.

Besides the book habit he had no personality disorder or queerness of attitude and behaviour at all. Solitude was of his own seeking. Almost asocial, he wasn’t exactly an outsider. He didn’t feel neglect, rejection or marginalisation. Looking back neither in anger or with a cross face, he couldn’t find rational answers as to why he had stopped work for the position of reader in residence at the Alexandrian library of his own making in 4 Moanbane View.

He hadn’t contacted or heard from Elmer Farquhar in years. Elmer Farquhar, the genuine Machiavellian with whom he had rubbed shoulders in the world of statute and fine print, clause and foreclosure, appeal and probate, consultation and estoppel, instruction and bail, seal and sentence. They had parted in a businesslike manner. Shook hands over Julian’s lump sum and met at the office party on three subsequent occasions and then the rest was silence.

So at age 33, Julian began thumbing and turning, spine tingling, cover jerking, frozen in awe, stooped in profundity, bursting with laughter nearly in tears rising in esteem, floating away adrift on the style beyond in sublime at the corner of the wisdom in touch with the truth from books.

Often as he wandered from room to room he felt like a small animal in a laboratory maze, not so much resembling Kafka’s dung beetle or one of the wise vivid creatures whom Alice met in Wonderland and through the looking glass. Sinbad made room for him on the magic carpet. Gulliver shared a few laughs and a lot of terror, including when the cats were as big as tigers. Julian achieved his vocation of becoming a solitary glum.

I think I’ll stay put, he often said to his brother Harry who invited him over. Naw, I think I’ll stay put. The thought of taking on the journey is a turn off.

I can drop over there and collect you, Harry would offer.

You’ll start no engine tonight on my account. What we say on the phone now is what we would be saying if we met.

Let’s face it Jul, you enjoy your own company since you’ve retired. Admittedly you retired at a mighty young age. I think you revel in your own set up. More than that, you sound as if you love it. Harry often said this during their infrequent meetings as they sipped whiskey while his wife Kate got out stuff from the freezer for the micro wave.

Juls’ hero was the walrus moustachioed ice blue eyed fink from Leipzig. He recently thought of Friedrich Nietzsche as a fink. He wanted to write a thesis on Nietzsche but Law delayed him and finally swallowed him up. He blamed Nietzsche for ruining his early romantic life. In the first affair he had left her. In the second she had left him. However, far from being lovelorn cloaked in a non-pitying stance he did not become unrequited through an iron resolution of the will.

A woman might move into orbit in the future? Had he an unquenched appetite for lights and retro music in a third world brothel? Had he an appetite for cocaine, kif, mescal peyote, hopi, hashish or marijuana? Did he want to rock climb in North America? Gamble in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo? Steal in Milan? Plant a bomb in Berlin? Become a hitman in a designer suit with credit cards and light luggage in Los Angeles? Join a treasure hunt in Peru? Or archaeologists in Mexico? A UFO society in San Diego? Buy a time share in Acapulco or Jamaica? Join a syndicate of classic steeple-chasers in Kuwait? Become a name in Japanese stocks? A pickpocket in Rome? Go ballooning in New Orleans? Become a stuntman in France and attempt the forty car leap on a motorcycle with a camera strapped to his helmet? Drive through a tunnel of fire? Collect guns? Banknotes from every country? Clips of matches? Become a gigolo? A bodyguard? A private detective?

He rose from his father’s chair and the springs creaked making him blink. What to do? Since premature retirement he’d proved he could not be idle hanging like a spider on a web for hours. Or sliding down a rope of silk now and then to eat a fresh fly? Whatever ecstasy was left for him in reading kept agony and angst at controllable levels. After thirteen years of obsessional reading, all volumes had become slim volumes. The chatter and whispering from between the covers didn’t speak in volumes anymore. But he was not off the hook of Bookdom. Like an uncured addict a first novel a new book of poems, a latest biography were alluring. He particularly relished the gaucheries of a false start first novel, the barely mobile prototype with its wrong wirings and workings on show amongst the obvious influences of its construction. A few writers broke ranks with youth and got that first novel written without the faux-naif of youth. Youth was the bitch. He bit his lip with glee reading the slice of life novel that was heavily autobiographical except for brief balancing fictional details and of course the names and addresses barely disguised.

His theory about literature in general came from the EUH, eccentric university of himself. He presumed that plagiarism was the true father of tradition. Art was very dependent on how to borrow artistically. Talent could be supplemented by raiding the masters. Shakespeare kept open to every influence. He agreed with the bard that all the world’s a stage but personally believed that the audiences vary. Ben Johnson was the greatest pseudo Shakespeare. Shakespeare was the nightmare of Shaw. Shakes lifted the five act format from Seneca. Milton’s sonnets were Stratford bound. Wordsworth pinched Milton’s blank verse for his majestic Prelude. Wordsworth begat a host of pastoral siblings including contemporaries and on through Hardy, De la Mare down to Hughes, Hill, R.S. Thomas. Shelley sang again in Algy Swinburne. Tennyson never left Keats’s perch. Dante found posthumous roots in Rossetti. Blake inspired Wyndham, Lewis and other pen-brushers. Swift was the daddy of every socialist novelist not least early Shaw, George Gissing and George Orwell.

He rubbed his face ending the Eng (Brit) Lit theoretical flow from percolating in the subconscious where the points of reference related to precocious reading. A beggar woman at the door one day waited while he got her an orange from the kitchen. Lot of books, she said having come into the hall out of the rain. You must like reading, she added. He smiled dumbly giving her the fruit.

The hall was narrower because of shelving on both sides. A copy of “Bookman” was on the worn carpet. Picking it up the remote date met his unruffled glance. He opened a dog-eared page and a sentence was underlined. By him? Presumably. “To read some of the latter is like listening to a canary in a room full of typewriters at work: you catch occasional notes of a song amid the metallic and staccato click of the machines.” Shoving the periodical, high above books on a shelf, he pushed away rather than in the pea-green kitchen door. The fridge lit up when opened. Two eggs sat in their groove along the top of the door. Three tomatoes were in a cellophane bag. An omelette perhaps? The open carton of milk smelt fresh enough. Then the enamel bin marked BREAD contained a stale crust. This sight killed his appetite. He coloured a treacly cup of coffee with a sprinkle of milk.

Through the greasy Venetian blinds the view was brown garden sheds. A crazy colony of nine and above them green rooftiles of the backing row of bungalows that was Moanbane Grove. Hazy August sun attempted to shaft the clouds unsuccessfully. Having swallowed sufficient coffee noisily a different thirst needed quenching with tap water. The tang of water mixed with caffeine in his throat and stomach made him stick out his tongue and wince. The passageway led from the kitchen to the front door as it had done for ninety years since the house was built.

In the livingroom he eyed a bottle of Sandeman a present from Christmas past standing behind the fire set. That particular well was running low. Impulsively he set out for a newspaper to Maynards, taking the long pastoral route along a lane with wild flowers growing out of the cracked sunken footpaths. Past a grove of tangled, conifers, serrated with mudpaths, clumps of nettles and flowering weeds. A cat ran, a dog barked, a sparrow took off, another bird blew a note or three and insects went for inch-long walks. There was a touch of the pantheist about Julian Montgomery Bone.

KEVIN KIELY
Special to the Arbiter

Related posts:

1. Journey East, Part Seven
2. ‘Journey East,’ part four
3. Journey East, Part 3

Asa H. Coon told another SuccessTech Academy student that he did not believe in God, that he only worshipped Marilyn Manson, a popular musician that frequents dark themes such as violence and suicide. The argument this started soon escalated into a fight and Coon was suspended. On Oct. 10, 2007, two days after the argument, Coon came back to school and shot and injured two students and two teachers before killing himself. Thankfully, no one else died. The influence of the media in his decision is very clear. The role of society in shaping killers is much clearer with Seung-Hui Cho, perhaps the most notorious shooter.

Seung-Hui Cho had a difficult time growing up. His parents were non-English speaking immigrants. As a child he was well liked but didn’t socialize very much. His elementary school teachers praised his English and math skills. He began to hate school at an early age, despite his good performance.

In middle school he began to develop slight antisocial behavior and was teased for his shyness and his speech, which was unusual due to his home environment. In eighth grade Cho was diagnosed with selective mutism, a social anxiety disorder that left him unable to speak in certain social situations even though he was capable of understanding and speaking the language. Cho was ridiculed for his shyness and lack of friends more and more as time went on and he was even singled out by a high school teacher and humiliated in front of his entire class. He began to resent, and even hate, the people that subjected him to this degradation.

In college, Cho began to tell fantastic lies to either cover up or divert attention from his complete lack of friends. He began stalking girls, usually communicating only through instant messaging or lines of poetry, unable to actually hold a conversation. Cho was removed from a poetry class due to his violent and obscene poetry and his strange behavior in class. On Dec. 14, 2005 Virginia Special Justice Paul Barnett stated that Cho “presented an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness.” Cho was released as an outpatient. By law, it was still legal for him to buy firearms.

Sixteen months and four days later, Cho shot and killed 32 fellow Virginia Tech students and then killed himself. Before the final attack, which ended with his suicide, Cho sent a package to NBC News with video files, pictures and documents. These pictures and videos portrayed Cho as something of a hero, posing valiantly with his semi-automatic pistols. A picture of hollow-point bullets was captioned “All the shit you’ve given me, right back at you with hollow points.” Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist that took part in the investigation, stated that the “videos do not help us understand Cho. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character.” The police said that the media package offered little help when it came to learning and understanding why the massacre took place.

I disagree.

As a society, it seems that we are geared to produce such cases. School shootings become more and more common every year and bring more safety regulations.Gun laws do nothing to slow the rate of increase. Allowing guns on campus would do nothing to prevent these shootings. Even in a best-case scenario, one person will be left dead. In a society where reaching out to strangers violates a social norm and is considered invading their personal space, people will be ostracized.

In a society where the violent outlaw is glorified, and the idea of the loser gaining fame through a desperate plan is a social ideal, violent outbreaks are a logical result. How do we combat something that is a direct result of the culture it comes from? How do we prevent something that might be created by our daily behavior or the movies we watch? These are the questions that we need to be asking ourselves if we truly want to prevent school shootings.

It may be that the answer is raising awareness about the issue or setting up programs to help those with anxiety disorders communicate in a more human fashion. If students are provided with means to positively solve simple problems within their interpersonal relationships it may be possible to prevent such desperate acts of hatred. Guns do not save people. Guns kill people. When dealing with a human problem, guns can never be the answer.

MARCUS HELEKER
Opinion Writer

Related posts:

1. Guns are not the answer
2. Guns in teachers’ hands save lives
3. Please, no guns on campus.

What causes these massacres or, more precisely, what creates these killers? Do we blame psychosis or mental illness? Do we blame parental neglect or extreme bullying? Maybe we should blame ourselves.

While they were once unpredictable and isolated instances, school shootings have become much more frequent and deadly. Psychosis and mental illness, while still definitely a factor, no longer seem enough of an explanation. Parental neglect and extreme bullying are present in many of the shootings, but still don’t seem to be the root of the problem. The source of the problem must be deeper, in the structure of American culture itself. After all, this is not a problem in the rest of the world. There have been more than twice as many school-related shootings in the U.S. than in the rest of the world.

One common theme in most, if not all, cases is the idea of the “outsider.” Every killer feels they’ve been a victim of some injustice or another and somehow comes to the conclusion that violence and/or suicide is the only solution available. This feeling of outsider-ness is something that everyone faces at some point and is not itself the problem. The problem is the cultural norms that create, prolong and intensify this feeling of outsider-ness and the way it is romanticized and idealized by the media.

Cultural norms are exactly what they sound like, behaviors and reactions that are normal in a given culture. In America, the norm in most settings is to be as polite as possible while respecting everyone’s privacy and personal space.

This can create a pervasive feeling of isolationism for individuals or small groups without means to directly interact with other people. If you don’t think this is true, try to start a prolonged conversation with a stranger in an elevator, sitting in close proximity to a stranger on a bench or make steady eye contact with someone you don’t know.

If this doesn’t make you feel a bit awkward, then you have not completed the socialization process. Now imagine if you had a speech impediment or social disability.

Some people are unable to cope with the isolationistic tendencies of our culture. They find it hard to make friends or speak to people they don’t know.

When small conflicts arise, these people are unable to solve them without confronting the person or turning to someone else for help, both of which would seemingly break a social norm.

Confronting the person they have a problem with or asking someone else to mediate would require them to invade someone else’s privacy and possibly break the polite-as-possible norm. For a person that is already adverse to social interactions this is nearly impossible. When this person is faced with a conflict that they cannot solve, they take the same escape we all do: fantasy. “I should have said this!” For the social adverse, this soon becomes, “I should have done this!” In the extreme cases of isolationism and social anxiety it goes beyond this to, “I should do this!” This progression is only made worse by the media.

Looking at the media, specifically the media directed at teenagers and young adults, a few common themes seem to permeate everything. The idea of the outcast standing up suddenly and making a name for himself is one of the most utilized of these theme. In cinema, you have “Revenge of the Nerds,” a movie about a group of losers and outcasts form a fraternity and then through a well-formulated series of events make their way to the top of the food chain. In “The New Guy” a loser who is shamed before his entire school changes schools and puts into action a semi-elaborate plot that begins with beating up the toughest kid in town to make a good impression on everyone. In addition to these teenage movies, there are the classic westerns in which the quiet antihero rolls into town and kills all the rich jerks that prey on the poor.

In music, you have My Chemical Romance, with lyrics like “I spent my high school career, spit on and shoved to agree . Bring out the old guillotine, we’ll show ‘em what we all mean.” There is an online comic based on lyrics by the U.K. band Bullet For My Valentine about a person who was victimized his entire school career. He captures the person that beat him up and murders him.

The protagonist states that killing the bully makes all the childhood scars “disappear.” Even more disturbing than the comic was the stream of comments praising it.

These media stereotypes are dangerous and, in conjunction with anxiety disorders, may lead directly to violence.

MARCUS HELEKER
Opinion Writer

Related posts:

1. Guns are not the answer, Part 2
2. Violent video games don’t kill, guns do
3. Media attention contributes to school violence

Will a reunion of Guns N’ Roses’ original line-up coincide with the highly anticipated “Chinese Democracy” record release? More pieces of the puzzle were revealed this week from Axl Rose, former guitarist Slash, and photographer Ross Halfin.

On Feb. 12, The New York Post’s page six reported Axl Rose and friends showing up at the nightclub Stereo around 5:30 in the morning. The club was closing, but Rose was so eager to keep his 44^th birthday party going he offered an exclusive listening party for the new CD to keep the club open. The owners agreed, Rose had his driver go back for the CD and the party continued until eight in the morning.

Two days earlier Slash spoke about the record release on the UK’s Virgin Radio Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show. This is the second time in a month Slash has gone on the radio to talk about a new record by a band he is supposedly not in anymore.

Here is a piece of the conversation, Slash said, "Yeah, it's going to happen. I've been made aware it's been heard. I'm really excited. It's been a long time waiting to see what the next step around the corner was going to be for him (Axl Rose), we know where everybody else is, but we were wondering what he was going to be doing. It's coming out in March.”

Guns N’ Roses photographer Ross Halfin may have revealed Slash’s motivation for the publicity campaign Feb. 3 on his Web site. Halfin stated that the original lineup of Guns N’ Roses and Metallica will perform in England at the Downloads Festival in June.

With Axl Rose having recently talked about a possible festival date, this post has the music world anxiously awaiting the next word on the situation.

And with both of Guns N’ Roses’ former drummers in the news this week, the question of who will be pounding the skins at the reunion show is looking like a mystery.

The Web site Metal Sludge.tv, recently did a 20-page interview with original drummer Steven Adler. He talked extensively about his drug problems and the bitterness he still feels since being thrown out of the band 15 years ago. Ironically, a couple days later, Adler fired his entire band in the middle of a European tour.

This erratic behavior is nothing new. Just a few months earlier, Adler had brought in all new people and fired all the original members of his band ‘Adler’s Appetite.’ He has continued his European tour with a Guns N’ Roses tribute band as the replacements and according to former bandmates on Metal Sludge.tv, Adler has relapsed back into drugs.

Steven Adler’s replacement Matt Sorum seems to be the more stable choice. And have the inside track considering he plays drums in the band Velvet Revolver, with former Guns N’ Roses members Slash and Duff.

But Sorum’s original band, The Cult, will kick of an American tour with an appearance on the CBS Late Show Feb 24. With this prior obligation will Matt Sorum be available to play drums for a reunited Guns N’ Roses?

Will Steven Adler be given a second chance? Will Guns N’ Roses play a reunion show this year? And will we ever see “Chinese Democracy” get released? All these questions and more will be answered; stay tuned.

Greg Wallace
Culture Writer

Related posts:

1. Rock ‘n’ roll news and rumors
2. Rock ‘n’ roll news and rumors
3. Rock ‘n’ roll news and rumors

It is easy to see violence in the news and think it is getting worse. While violence in American media has dramatically increased, the actual rate of violent acts committed in the United States has significantly declined.

For example, violent crime rates have been dropping since 1994 and reached the lowest level recorded in 2004. Obviously, violence is not increasing because of negative media influence.

Do you remember the years of

the school shootings? People believed the shooters of Columbine were heavily influenced by the video game “Doom.”

Students that have carried out horrible school shootings show little emotion after being apprehended. No remorse, no tears and no words of sorrow escape the shooter’s lips. This lack of emotion was blamed on video games and violence in the media.

However, violent video game and Marilyn Manson did not directly cause their problems. These problems come from lack of love, discipline and respect for life.

Violence in the media does not cause people to walk out the door and kill. Sometimes it is psychological, other times it is learned in a violent home.

If parents do not properly discipline their children, one can argue an outside influence could aid in child aggression. Nevertheless, it is unfair, and wrong, to assume that media violence directly causes it.

I believe the problem lies in our American culture. The Japanese play video games equal to Americans yet their homicide rates are incredibly lower. People here deal with their problems differently.

Educating the youth in communication skills is a great way to proactively combat the negative media influence toward aggression. In many places this is already being done.

I don’t believe America really wants to take the necessary action to stop violence and death. In one year Japan had 15 people murdered by handguns. New Zealand had 2 people killed and the United States had 9,390 deaths caused by handguns. It’s too easy to find the gun closet in many homes.

The number one thing we could do is enforcing stricter gun laws, but Americans will never give up their handguns. Stricter gun laws would solve more problems than a boycott of video games.

This is the real problem, not the things of graphic nature shown on TV and video games. Has TV caused you to act violently? I believe most of us will answer no. Then how can we think TV causes everyone else to act violently?

Media violence is not the real cause of homicide in America.

The problem is deeply rooted in our culture, home and lifestyle.

TRENT CUTLER
Opinion Writer

Related posts:

1. Researchers say video games may be key to teaching youngsters
2. Video Games Live provides a hypnotic adventure
3. Video games and art: The debate for artistic recognition continues