March 11th, 2010

lit professor brings love for writing, and free books, to muw students

Sarah Wilson
Editorial assistant

If you’ve ever been hanging out in the north side of Painter Hall there is a small table with a bookshelf at the bottom of the staircase. It holds pamphlets, flyers and occasional stacks of books left free for whoever should want them.

English professor Michael Smith often leaves some of his own books, in the hopes that students will grab one and enjoy the story as he did. This is why he has few books in his own home, an 1878 Victorian a few blocks off of Main Street near The W.

Smith and his wife Sabrea completely renovated the beautiful blue two-story home themselves and are still working on the upstairs balcony. They started renovation in the summer of 2007 and are currently set to be on the Tennessee Williams Victorian Homes tour in September. Michael and Sabrea met at a New Year’s Eve party and were married in 1999.

LIFESTYLES

Glenn Beck says leave churches that participate in charity
Joshua Lee
Columnist

My guilty pleasure is watching Glenn Beck, mostly because I am greatly amused by people with nonsensical charts written on chalkboard. Occasionally, however, I get to see things that leave me flabbergasted, even though I'm mostly immunized to his ranting. One of those happened last week when Glenn Beck asked his viewers to leave if they are involved in churches that support "social justice."

He went on to say that the guiding principle of all evil ideologies is that of social justice, including Nazis and "the Communists." It's apparently just a code word for villainy.

It's shooting fish in a barrel when you try to demonize something by literally just lying about the definition. "Social justice is about fascism" is on "up is down" level as far as factuality is concerned and just looking at it makes the part of my brain that fears oxymorons twitch.

OPINION

Let them rest in peace
Our View

Michael Jackson died in June of last year. That’s nine months ago, just in case you were wondering.

It seems, however, that the universe is incapable of accepting this fact.

Articles are still surfacing on the Internet about how he really died, who is to blame and what went on in his personal life. Most recently, one of his bodyguards came forward with intimate details regarding his many girlfriends and the kind of father he was. This is the sort of private material that would have been shocking and hurtful were Jackson still alive. Now that he is dead, however, it is fair game.

It is not only the king of pop who cannot die. Other celebrities, such as actor Heath Ledger and former model Anna Nicole Smith are still splattered across tabloid magazines. Their children are still the objects of custody battles, their estates are still being clawed apart in court, and their private pains are now open for public viewing. There has indeed been renewed interest in their works, but that interest is based on the simple fact that these people are dead, not for the merit of the work.

However, the blame lies not with the people behind the numerous television specials, articles and books. Rather, it is the fault of the fickle mob who gulp down all of this irrelevant tripe as though it were the water of life. These days, the obsession with celebrity culture is almost ingrained in people from birth, and it is second nature to dig up gritty, dirty details about people we hate to love and love to hate.

CAMPUS

Cooking away a Saturday
Juna’uh Allgood
Editor

Waking up at 8 on a Saturday and spending hours in a hot kitchen may not seem like fun but I have spent many Saturdays this way and not regretted a single one.

The culinary department offers one hour classes in a range of culinary areas. They each last two Saturdays and run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.. Over my college career I have taken many of these courses ranging from Cooking with Herbs to Meats and Fish and from Cooking Organic in Mississippi to New York Style Italian. I love to cook and these courses give me a chance to learn new recipes and cook with ingredients I would never have heard of outside of a culinary class.

Each class follows the same basic format. I trudge into the Culinary Department right before nine and join other sleepy eyed students. Usually, there’s a pot of coffee made in the kitchen which I always take advantage of, as I need caffeine to function before 10 a.m..

There’s always a short lecture on whatever topic the class is focusing on. Honestly, I think the lecture serves two purposes, to teach us and to wake us up before putting sharp knives in our hands.