Bravo to LGBTQ activist Dan Savage. The founder of the “It Gets Better Project” came to the Tempe campus to speak with students about his efforts to help LGBTQ youth feel more comfortable in their own skin. The project started as a way to convince gay high school students that the harassment they face now won’t last and that life will, in fact, get better as they get older. But we shouldn’t wait for a few years to pass to start accepting people regardless of their sexuality — we should start today. “If everyone were just nicer to each other, everyone would feel included and wanted. It’s so easy to do — you don’t have to go out of your way to be nice to people,” Garrett Lewis, co-president of ASU’s LGBTQ Coalition, said.
Boo to the new Super Soaker water gun. The new battery-powered toy eliminates the arduous task of pumping squirt guns. It seems technology just keeps chipping away at our childhood, making kids lazier and lazier. Next, they could get rid of the running and hiding aspects of squirt-gun fights, making it so we just have to sit in our recliners and point guns at each other. If nothing else, the battery-powered Super Soaker is coming just in time for our Legislature to lift a ban on automatic water weapons.
Bravo to comedian Ellen DeGeneres. If you weren’t around campus on Tuesday, you missed quite the spectacle. Crews from DeGeneres’ talk show rolled into Tempe as a part of their “Big Truckin’ Deal” tour. Students competed to win cash prizes by finding things that started with A, S and U. The winning team wore Afros, sunglasses and underwear for their items and even composed a song for Ellen. That’s certainly clever, but you know what’s better? Wearing an Afro while reading a State Press in your underwear. But you’re already doing that, right?
Boo to the flu. It’s that time of year again — unfortunately, not the most wonderful time of the year. With germs and sickness everywhere, you should be extra careful and wash your hands even more often now. The University sent out a notice to teachers telling them to be a little more flexible in their attendance policies, because flu can leave a student out of class for a while. If you are sick, make sure you rest up and get better before coming back to school. While we think sharing is important, sickness is one of the things we feel is not necessary to give to others.
Bravo to the new partnership between Mayo Clinic and ASU. The Department of Biomedical Informatics will move to Mayo Clinic’s Scottsdale campus near the end of the summer. While our state Legislature is slashing both education funding and students’ faith in elected officials, ASU can keep moving forward with partnerships like these. Several new degrees will emerge from this relationship. Even in the toughest of times, ASU is still finding a way to blaze a new path.
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