The Journal Days

Over the next three weeks I will be traveling on a remarkable vacation through the Mediterranean. The trip itself will serve as one long celebratory bash for my mother's birthday, my 21st birthday and my parent's anniversary.

The only really big decision then comes in how to document the events.

The first notable device to perform these actions is the Canon Rebel XSi I purchased last week (it should arrive in VA on Wednesday [this is me... excited]).

I decided on it over the Nikon alternatives after some pretty thorough consultation with my photographer colleagues at the Technician (my newspaper). As far as their concerns, Nikon provides the better kit lens, but Canon has less expensive and a larger range of compatible lenses.

Additionally, I was able to find a superior deal on a Rebel XSi (an upgrade over the XS and a much better camera than the Nikon D60).

Taken together, the choice of my XSi for about $600 was a really good deal.

So, I will be doing a lot of photo documentation on my trip (see below). Pending training by said photographers*

In addition to visually documenting my trip, one of my old professors made an interesting proposition. He recommended that I buy a nice journal before I go and jot down some notes every night before I retire to bed.

I think this is a brilliant idea. Not that I am trying to supplant this blog. But, in honesty, I have not kept up with it that well since Christmas and I'm not even sure I'm going to take my computer on the trip.

Regardless of the capacity to write in the blog, I think I would keep up with a physical journal much better. If nothing else, it will serve as a record that I can read in 20 years to see how I used to write.

Not as much in the sense of content, my newspaper work has shown me that I have the ability to write effectively, but I want a way to capture the way in which I experience the trip (a sort of introspection... maybe).

In any case, I am excited about the trip (it begins this Sunday with a flight to Rome). More will be posted later this week.

My last three technician articles

The stench is back

Russell Witham, Viewpoint Editor

Can you smell it in the air?

No? Perhaps you took too much Zicam and are suffering from anosmia (loss of smell). If so, I envy you. This place stinks.

Budget cuts, Nielsen and JLO's rotting corpses, Mary Easley and the inevitable start of "mulching season;" we're starting to sound like the Cuyahoga river (see dictionary: something that was burned more than Mary Easley's reputation).

But don't worry -- things are looking up. The University is only being asked to relinquish 10 percent of its state funding. What a great relief, we're only out $53 million. But hold on a second. $53 million dollars is more than the total endowment of Peace College, UNC-Wilmington and High Point University.

How will we ever recover from this?

I've got it. Let's hire Joe Jackson to do our public relations -- no one can dance on a dead person's parade like he can.

Better yet, why don't we just get down to business and make these cuts? All we'd have to do is hire 400 or so auditors to evaluate the elimination of 300 administrators. That way we could have an extra hundred staff members on campus next year to rationalize why the positions that were eradicated failed to serve "core academic units." We could call them executives-in-residence.

I'm not sure I even know what a core academic unit is. Oh wait, it must be those thrifty First Year College and New Student Orientation programs.

This is the same NSO that successfully increased its spending this year while on a mission to cut costs, and this is the same FYC program that claims "to promote both self-discovery and awareness of others through assignments, class activities and advising sessions."

Those sound like activities that should be accomplished during some personal time with a hooker and a psychologist (hopefully they aren't one in the same).

Heck, the University already sponsors shrinks. Why don't we step it up to the next level and turn that brand new FYC building into the "Bureau of Self-Discovery?" I guarantee costs would go down and approval ratings would go through the roof.

Don't fret. We aren't the only one in ruins. Chapel Hill is joining us with a $60 million cut of its own. I reckon it'll be hurtin' mightily when its endowment is reduced to a paltry $2.3 billion -- perhaps the students will only be able to hold celebratory bonfires on Franklin Street once a year instead of the usual two or three times.

It's not that we're bitter. We're not resentful at all that Chancellor Thorp and Chapel Hill's other administrators spend their time procuring grants instead of flying around on McQueen Campbell's private jet -- ahem, Oblinger.

This campus is definitely headed in the right direction, right through the pothole of innovation and straight into a set of road spikes. On the bright side, the 10-percent cut might reduce some of this year's mulching budget.

Still, things could be worse. We could be in California.

Then again, at least we'd have clean air and a macho leader.

*For the blog readers*

Former Chancellor (JLO) James L. Oblinger resigned from service at N.C. State this summer following federal allegations of impropriety in the hiring and subsequent raises given to former first lady Mary Easley (gubernatorial).

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I'm coming out

Russell Witham, Viewpoint Editor

For years now, I have been afraid to talk about my burden in public. I've lived in constant fear that around every corner one of Al Gore's hooded cronies would be there to beat me with the tire iron of environmentalism.

But in the shadow of an 18-percent budget cut and unparalleled corruption within the University, I think I can actually fly under the radar and sneak my self-righteous beliefs past you.

And so the time has come, today I'm going to do it. I feel safe enough to come out of the closet and declare that I don't believe in the Global Warming fraud.

Now before you reach for the ground and pick up a stone, let me clarify my position. I am against the media propagation of the scientifically unproven ills of climate change.

The planet is getting warmer in certain locations -- any chimp with a thermometer can figure that out. What I want, what I feel the American populous deserves, is to receive unbiased and fair coverage of a recent and evolving issue.

In a perceptive expose in The New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Dawidoff wrote about the scientific views of the renowned physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson.

Dyson made much of his fame as a researcher in quantum field theory and other advanced physics -- notably through his work on unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory.

In later life he has delved deeply into all modes of science and public policy.

Despite a lifetime of groundbreaking and historic contributions, he is now being ridiculed as a heretic for denying many of the dangers of global warming.

James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Al Gore have relied so much on models and atmospheric physics that they fail to address basic biology. The question we should be asking is: why is global warming bad?

In "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore seems to enjoy relishing in the melting snows of Kilimanjaro, the thawing Peruvian glaciers and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Gore is great at showing off his whiz-bang charts but fails to ponder if more carbon dioxide and warmth will destroy the world's eco-systems or simply make the Earth warmer (since when was warmth a bad thing, Florida sure does seem to get some love.)

Glaciers have receded and grown for millions of years, for us to think we have the power or the right to stop them the way they are today is illogical.

Basic biology teaches us that carbon dioxide is fundamental for the life cycles of most of the vegetation on this planet. Why then would it be heretical to query that a warmer climate and higher levels of carbon dioxide would lead to increased vegetation, as Dyson has?

I'm not saying that global warming is good, nor am I saying that we should send excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to save the planet. But the media has no right to dictate either way.

In the words of the great Malcolm X, "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."

The media has declared war on free thinkers like Freeman Dyson, exerting populist rage over the death of polar bears and the rising oceans.

Perhaps we as a society should demand that the media stop telling us about the impending doom of a real life "Waterworld" and instead address why so many in our own nation are homeless and without insurance during this recession.

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The education phenomenon

Russell Witham, Senior Staff Columnist

Since before I could walk, I have spent my summers in Swansboro, N.C. The slow pace of the town and the warmth of its residents were an indelible part of my childhood. Despite spending nearly a third of my life in this state, my home (according to the IRS) is in Annandale, VA. This means I have to pay $12,475 more per year to attend the University than a North Carolina resident does.

While I do feel as though I should have some sort of claim to “in-state” tuition, I grudgingly pay my $18,000 per year because this was a choice I made. A choice for “innovation,” one might say.

I could have gone to one of the many great colleges in Virginia, but I decided N.C. State was right for me (we’ll go ahead and ignore the fact that I didn’t get accepted to those great Virginia schools).

But is there any difference between my experience and that of an illegal immigrant — aside from the not having to jump across fences and deserts to get home?

We both unofficially live in the state of North Carolina and neither of us writes a check each year to Gov. Bev Perdue.

And that is why neither me nor any of the illegal immigrants in this country deserve in-state tuition.

While we all must pay taxes on basic consumption items, these dues come nowhere close to the level of income tax paid by residents of this state.

That income tax fuels the North Carolina general fund, which in turn funds 46 percent of our education at the University — tuition itself only pays for 15 percent.

The extra money I pay to go to the University is nothing more than an adjustment for the fact that I didn’t contribute to the 46 percent. So in reality, we all are paying the same amount to go to this school, the funds simply come in through different revenue streams.

If illegal immigrants are granted in-state tuition in North Carolina, as is currently the case in 10 states, N.C. tax payers will in effect be subsidizing the cost of college education for illegal immigrants.

Legal North Carolinians already pay for secondary education and health care for illegal aliens. Why don’t they start paying for college education as well?

On second thought, it does seem awfully American to pay for foreigners’ benefits when there are jobless and hungry citizens of our own country who are hanging on for dear life during this recession.

Perhaps these facts are why I found those protesters at UNC-Chapel Hill last week to be so moronic.

As much as I love a good protest, perhaps this is the French side of me — the demonstrators at UNC failed to understand where education funding comes from.

Illegal immigrants shouldn’t receive in-state tuition because they haven’t paid for it, the same way in which I haven’t paid for it.

Still though, it would be nice for a few more handouts from President Barack Obama. So here’s to hoping he bails me out. My lack of funds almost constitutes a bank of its own.