Technology Makes Life Easier,
“I just need to finish setting this up so we can get started…” The students followed the mouse pointer on the massive projected image as if in a daze. They’ve been waiting for about ten minutes while the professor attempted to set up the single most useless piece of technology ever: a radio frequency “clicker.” The idea itself is not bad: students enter the hall, click their remote control-type device, and their attendance is recorded. Also, the clickers could be used throughout the lecture as polling devices.
Unfortunately, two semesters of ill-fated testing and hours of lost lecture time have made it obvious that the clickers are useless. Perhaps if each student were to enter a shielded vacuum chamber and point a single device directly at a receiver things might work, but otherwise, it’s futile.
As a last resort, the clicker “expert” comes in to tap a few buttons and jiggle a cable before shrugging and leaving. By now, the lecture is almost over and instead of supplementing a fascinating lecture with an interactive quizzing session, we leave with neither.
-Tom Fadial
Dear Generation,
This is a brief response to the drivel bordering on near libel printed about me in last week’s issue of Generation.
Dear letter writers: I love you too. By the way, which tree to you hug before drinking your daily soy milk?
Okay, but to be a tad more serious... my piece was a humor-laden opinion piece, not a well-reasoned argument. It was not intended to be a serious criticism of liberalism and as such I took quite a few liberties. If I did play loose with some facts, I only did so to improve the quality of the humor.
Having said that, I would like to list a few facts however: First, “gay marriage” is an oxymoron because the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by President Clinton, says so. Read it if you don’t believe me.
Also, the Bible clearly tells us that liberalism is a sin and the U.S. Constitution does not mandate a separation between church and state.
Siding with our enemies entails things like endorsing communism, socialism, and cutting defense budgets.
If you’re going to quote the Bible, please make sure you understand what it says before you claim to have such knowledge. Also realize that many people who claim to be adherents of a certain religion aren’t followers at all, but mere spectators. There are examples of this in all religions.
And as for the person who mentioned the straightjacket: Tell Satan he can stick it where there’s no light when [you] meet him.
Cheers,
Fabio Albertin
Dear Fabio & Friends,
Let me start by saying that this is the last response we will be publishing on the letters page. Take it to the personals, kids.
Next, I’d like to share a few musings on your facts. The Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 does not say that gay marriage is an oxymoron. It simply says that it is illegal.
Also, I’ve been searching my Bible frantically looking for the passage about liberalism being a sin, but no joy. I have the Gideon, though, are you on the King James? We’re working on Ten Commandments over here, how many are you running? And the Constitution? We don’t have anything like that in ours, but I think I saw one of those pinko PBS specials that said something about they wrote that like, at least twenty years after the Bible. Shall I download the service pack?
Your original editorial was, to me and many others, completely bereft of humor. You compared liberals to parasites, vermin, and vampires. You name-drop Douglas Adams as a hater of liberals, but you’re talking about a man who depicted Ronald Reagan as a product more dangerous than toxic waste. And finally, you speak of Bible passages about “homosexuality and other immoral behavior (emphasis mine).”
Which is all true. So I guess I owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you for pointing out that entire class of people I might have otherwise respected are morally inferior because of the kind of people they are physically attracted to. Dodged that bullet.
You’re hilarious.
I Wish I Knew How to Quit You,
Jacob Drum
Associate Editor
