Opinion

Thanks Career Center

Hope everyone has a great time at the Career Fair! Unfortunately FTT and fine arts majors like myself will be on our own in trying to find jobs. Thanks Career Center!

Life lessons

This past summer, I interned at the South Bend Tribune. I did all kinds of fun things for work, including reviewing an REO Speedwagon concert (ticket list price: $70, my "press pass" price: nada) and spending several evenings interviewing women in the South Bend Roller Derby league and desperately wishing I was awesome enough to join.

Dearest SBPD...

Dearest SBPD,

Kirk's firing

Lou Holtz once said, "You don't go to Notre Dame to learn how to do something, you go to learn how to be someone." Over my three years at Notre Dame this sentiment has proved true. For the first 18 years of my life my parents served as the most prominent influence, but as I embarked on my journey to college, I left my parents convinced that at Our Lady's University I would be in good hands. I was right. Here, I have had the pleasure of not only learning from the most brilliant minds in America, but also getting to know these men and women on a more personal level. My involvement in ND Response and Right to Life has given me the opportunity to meet and become friends with the Kirk family.

Dreaming of Dumbledore

For the first time ever in my life, I am reading the Harry Potter series. As a child, my parents were against the books, so I never had the opportunity to read them. Now that I'm back at school, a good friend has loaned me all seven books, and I am working through them one by one.

Planters of Peace

"The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now."

The party patrol

No hypocrisy in expecting safety

"If there was no underage drinking, there would be no underage drinking busts, and the cops would have that much more time to serve and protect against more serious crimes" ... Why in the world should the police prioritize this way? Allow me to rephrase with a little hyperbole (since I have already participated in "hypocrisy of the highest order." "If there were no jaywalking, there would be no jaywalking busts, and the cops would have that much more time to serve and protect against murderers" ... Shouldn't our police protect us against major crimes before protecting against minor crimes? Is it unreasonable to expect to be protected from others before being protected from ourselves? Breaking into a vehicle is a perfect example of a crime that is harmful to the rest of society. Unless drunks are spilling out of a house or there is an unacceptable amount of noise coming from a party, there is no real harm that is being brought to society by throwing a party. Once the police force decides to protect us from external harm, I will stop complying about them misappropriating their resources.

What has changed?

One topic has dominated campus conversation for the past week, and it has nothing to do with the start of fall classes, the Dillon Hall pep rally or Brian Kelly's new spread offense.

That kid in class

So syllabus week is over and now it's time to actually pay attention and get down to business in class. Unfortunately, this also means interacting with our fellow students. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people that I meet in my classes with whom I end up forming substantial friendships.

Playing judge'

Dear Ryan Kreager,

A different interaction

Starting with the incident on July 17, and certainly picking up following the first full weekend back at school, Notre Dame students' "interactions" with South Bend police has been the talk of campus. Some of the debate has come to focus more on the issue of whether underage drinking is a crime worth pursuing by the police when other crime is rampant in the city. To those who think that certain Notre Dame students say the South Bend police is oppressive just because they want a free pass to drink underage, I offer a story that isn't about to make the front page of The Observer.

Take responsibility

So far there have been multiple articles in The Observer and other news sources about tension between Notre Dame students and the police. The students quoted in The Observer articles have only seemed to express their frustration that the South Bend Police Department is wasting their time on such trivial things like underage drinking. If that were the case that would be frustrating, but in every article I've read the parties in question seemed to already have illegal activity happening. A previous article in the Aug. 27 edition of The Observer discussed a fight breaking out at a party and moving into the street. In addition, the front page story of the Aug. 30 edition cited a party where students were trespassing into a nearby pool.

Share the Alma Mater

I am from the class of 1975. I love the Notre

The system is broke; Let's fix it

Can someone please start a charity fund that donates money to help the unemployed get job training for every time a politician says he or she is not a part of Washington culture? My first thoughts every time a guy in a suit, excuse me pleated khakis and a working man's collared shirt, says he wants to be sent to Washington to change the culture of D.C. is how stupid must the U.S. public be to buy this as genuine? Despite your political beliefs you are likely equally baffled as to why politicians can say with a straight face that they will "shake up Washington." Yet, they will get away with it and win their elections (Only seven incumbents in all of Congress have lost in a primary so far this year), not because people are dumb, but because there are no real options. Pessimism is attacking the soul of the United States. We need to start finding ways to stop it.

Drinking age needs another look

True hypocrisy

To Ryan Kreager, and anyone else who agrees with him,

Not above the law

To Joe Deter, and others scrambling for a poor excuse for underage drinking,

Striving after nothing

"Whoever exalts themselves will be humbled. And whoever humbles themselves will be exalted."

Priorities

Dear Ryan Kreager,