There was a documentary on CNN last night called Unwelcome: The Muslim Next Door. It’s about the attempt to build a Mosque in Murfreesboro, TN and the reaction of the residents there.
Now I’ll concede upfront that there’s something of a bias in the story. I don’t know that it’s a lot, though, because most of the people opposing the action didn’t need any help in looking foolish.
The reality is that this is a simple zoning and planning issue. The congregation bought 15 acres of property on the edge of town and want to build a complex that is very much like many other churches. It’ll have a community center, a gym, a pool, and a sanctuary. All told, it’ll be about 53,000 square feet – a mere pittance compared to some of the mega-churches found in even moderately sized communities.
A local real estate developer and her husband are funding the bulk of the opposition. Neither did themselves any favors on camera, coming across as racist bigots.
As a lawyer, I also have to say that I am ashamed of their attorney’s actions on behalf of our profession. Let’s overlook the fact that he went to court looking like a cross between PeeWee Herman and a 1974 Used Car Salesman in mismatched suits, shirts and bow-ties. Eccentricity in personal style is allowed in attorneys, within reason, and done well it lends panache’ that is often lacking in courtroom presentations.
An attorney has an obligation, however, to put forth good faith arguments in support of their position. I have frequently been asked, “How can you defend someone you know is guilty?” The answer is easy – I’m not necessarily defending them, they are merely the vehicle to be used to defend a principal or concept.
Their attorney, rather than looking at whether the rules were followed with regard to issuing their building permits, chose instead to question the beliefs of the Muslim faith and to raise the issue of Shari law, which is both irrelevant and inapplicable. If this were an evangelical church seeking a similar permit, no responsible attorney would even consider questioning the tenets of Christianity in the argument, and it should not have happened here.
I couldn’t help but think of the old adage lawyers learn early on – “If the facts are with you, pound the facts. If the law is with you, pound the law. If neither the facts nor the law are with you, pound the table and yell like hell.” Other than stirring up racism, bigotry and hatred, their attorney presented a poor case and he should be thoroughly ashamed of himself. I have confidence that an appellate court (as they’ve indicated an intent to take the matter up on appeal) will verbally thrash him for his irresponsible arguments and hopefully assess the costs of litigation against those bringing the lawsuit.
In a zoning case, the principal is that everyone has to be treated the same. A request to build a Mosque shouldn’t be treated any differently than one to build a Baptist Church. (And, in praise of the elected body in Murfreesboro, they didn’t treat it any differently. They were the ones that came across as relatively sane on television, saying they didn’t consider what the Muslim beliefs are, but rather whether the building met the appropriate zoning and safety codes).
The reality is that EVERY church, especially if located in a residential neighborhood, is a pain regardless of the denomination. Churches are no longer the quiet little white chapels that are occupied only on Sunday mornings. They now are major commercial complexes that have schools, day care centers, numerous meeting groups and loudspeakers to blast their music and message to the neighborhood. They create huge traffic issues in surrounding neighborhoods and property values for residential locations immediately adjacent to large churches tend to plummet, regardless of the denomination.
Let’s also remember that they’re doing all this tax free, competing with businesses who are doing the same thing (day care, concerts, providing counseling) and paying their taxes.
As someone who dealt with church construction projects from a municipal perspective for over 20 years, I can tell you that the ONLY group more difficult to deal with than a church is Wal Mart.
Interestingly enough, both claim omnipotence, although the source is slightly different.
Wal Mart because they are huge and will crush anyone who gets in their way. Churches because they claim they are doing “God’s Work” and if you don’t immediately capitulate you must be aligned with the devil. The most frequent tactic I observed, when a church was told that they must meet some particular building code or other ordinance, was to immediately try to shut down the City Hall by flooding the telephones with calls from all their senior members. It usually didn’t work, and tended to be counterproductive. After all, staff couldn’t deal with finding a solution to their issues if we were busy dealing with all the frivolous telephone calls.
Here’s the reality, though. A church or a mosque is a building where large numbers of people gather. As such, it falls into the category of a “Place of Assembly”. It therefore is treated the same as any other auditorium and must have appropriate parking, ingress and egress and safety features such as emergency lighting, sprinkler systems and adequate wiring. A crowd of people will attempt to rush from a burning building whether it is a church or a rock concert and the whole purpose of zoning and building codes is to insure that these activities happen in an appropriate location and the safety of the participants is guaranteed.
The content of the message delivered from the podium is irrelevant.
If the opponents to the construction of this mosque felt that it would be better located because there are inadequate traffic signals, roads or fire hydrants near that location, I could wholly support their opposition. Sometimes, even the best intended projects aren’t suited for a particular site.
That’s not the case here, though, and there was never any argument made that the location was inappropriate. The attempt to block this project, which will continue in the courts, is based upon nothing other than raw bigotry and hatred, and those claiming to oppose the project for religious reasons should be ashamed of themselves.
Their shame is even greater given that some of their members have resorted to terrorist tactics such as arson of equipment used on the project and intimidation of the congregation to attempt to stop construction of the mosque.
Before you think, “Well, but that’s not all of the people opposing the construction who are burning their equipment and vandalizing their site,” look at the parallel; over and over in the interviews, 9/11 was brought up and how Muslim terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center – it wasn’t all Muslims, just a few radicals. It may not be all Christians in Murfreesboro attacking the construction of this mosque, but all are painted with the same broad brush just as all Muslims are blamed for the actions of a few radicals.
It goes both ways, folks. Not all Christians are bad just because there are a few wack jobs out there. Same goes for every other religious group. They've all got folks they wish would convert to something else.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day that has stuck with me. It said, “I like your Christ. I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” The quote was attributed to Ghandi.
The actions of the people of Murfreesboro opposing the construction of this mosque are reprehensible, and they should be ashamed. They also ought to think of their own interests. What major company, having a diverse workforce, would even consider locating there after this?
The other thing to consider is that prohibiting speech because of content is a slippery slope. Today, the majority is trying to silence the Muslims. Tomorrow, will it be the Catholics, Jews or Presbyterians?
If you can watch this documentary, I would encourage you to do so. I can’t find when it is playing next, but can’t imagine that such a well done piece will air only once.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2011/03/09/unwelcome.the.muslims.next.door.cnn.html
Monday, March 28, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Bigfoot
The news announced that some guy near Stony Point (which is in nearby Alexander County) saw a bigfoot yesterday. He even took pictures, although as grainy as the movie is, it could easily have been filmed by the same guys who shot the footage of the Loch Ness Monster.
In a day when virtually everyone (except those of us trapped with the Blackberry 8830!) has a high definition video camera on their cell phone there’s hardly any reason to have video that looks like it should be accompanied by a piano score with cards that flash up to remind you of the story line so you’ll know to watch for the heroine tied to the railroad tracks.
I suspect that the guy that shot the pics, though, is the same one who was last seen on television when he was quoted as saying, “Me and Momma heard a sound like a freight train, so we ran out the trailer to my mom’s house next door and climbed in the bathtub with the young'uns.”
The photographer maintains that what he viewed is a Big Foot, arguing that it was almost 7 feet tall and 300 pounds.
I got news for him. In some counties, you can find that at the Wal Mart on any given Friday night.
In a day when virtually everyone (except those of us trapped with the Blackberry 8830!) has a high definition video camera on their cell phone there’s hardly any reason to have video that looks like it should be accompanied by a piano score with cards that flash up to remind you of the story line so you’ll know to watch for the heroine tied to the railroad tracks.
I suspect that the guy that shot the pics, though, is the same one who was last seen on television when he was quoted as saying, “Me and Momma heard a sound like a freight train, so we ran out the trailer to my mom’s house next door and climbed in the bathtub with the young'uns.”
The photographer maintains that what he viewed is a Big Foot, arguing that it was almost 7 feet tall and 300 pounds.
I got news for him. In some counties, you can find that at the Wal Mart on any given Friday night.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Hotels and Newspapers
Is there any luxury to compare with lying in bed (usually on a weekend morning) with a hot cup of coffee and the newspaper and without a list of chores or an agenda for things you have to do that day?
I think that’s one of the things about travel that is enticing to us. It’s not possible to get up and go do the laundry or clean the kitchen or mow the yard. You may as well read the paper and enjoy it.
When I was a little kid, my brothers and I used to bounce into mom and dad’s room and climb on the bed with Dad to make him read the Sunday comics to us. I don’t know that we understood a lot of it, but we loved climbing up in bed (and, of course, all over him). I suspect this also kept us out of Mom’s hair while she made breakfast and then started to get ready for church.
The paper in bed now is a bit different. I still read the comics (usually first – followed by Dear Abby or its equivalent) and I can read our home paper every day through the wonders of my laptop computer. Electronic editions that are available now mean I don’t have to catch up with the stack of papers when we get back home. In fact, more often than not I read the paper online even if I am at home.
I still like the local papers, too, because it helps confirm that in some ways we are all alike. Everyone tends to have similar problems, and sometimes you learn a new way to address it.
When you travel, though, you can lounge about absolutely guilt free and have a slow start to the morning. There’s no lunch to pack, no calendar to check and although there may be email messages regarding work, they usually can wait a bit for anything to happen. It is a luxury we tend to deny ourselves when at home.
So this morning, having passed 10:00, we remain ensconced in the hotel room appropriately coffeed (it requires going up the street, but that’s a minor inconvenience) and just enjoying the fact that the only chores we have – tidying up the dirty clothes from yesterday evening, primarily – can wait.
After all, we’re out of town.
I think that’s one of the things about travel that is enticing to us. It’s not possible to get up and go do the laundry or clean the kitchen or mow the yard. You may as well read the paper and enjoy it.
When I was a little kid, my brothers and I used to bounce into mom and dad’s room and climb on the bed with Dad to make him read the Sunday comics to us. I don’t know that we understood a lot of it, but we loved climbing up in bed (and, of course, all over him). I suspect this also kept us out of Mom’s hair while she made breakfast and then started to get ready for church.
The paper in bed now is a bit different. I still read the comics (usually first – followed by Dear Abby or its equivalent) and I can read our home paper every day through the wonders of my laptop computer. Electronic editions that are available now mean I don’t have to catch up with the stack of papers when we get back home. In fact, more often than not I read the paper online even if I am at home.
I still like the local papers, too, because it helps confirm that in some ways we are all alike. Everyone tends to have similar problems, and sometimes you learn a new way to address it.
When you travel, though, you can lounge about absolutely guilt free and have a slow start to the morning. There’s no lunch to pack, no calendar to check and although there may be email messages regarding work, they usually can wait a bit for anything to happen. It is a luxury we tend to deny ourselves when at home.
So this morning, having passed 10:00, we remain ensconced in the hotel room appropriately coffeed (it requires going up the street, but that’s a minor inconvenience) and just enjoying the fact that the only chores we have – tidying up the dirty clothes from yesterday evening, primarily – can wait.
After all, we’re out of town.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Springtime in NYC
So we’re walking down the street in NYC.
Yeah, it’s between classes and the weather is great so we took a weekend off.
Anyhow, we’re walking down the street in NYC between 5 and 6 in the evening. A guy – probably early-30’s – is ahead of us in a suit, he’s obviously coming home from work. Since it was St. Patrick’s day, he was probably in a hurry to go celebrate with his friends.
Anyhow, as we walk along, suddenly there’s a “thunk, crack” noise and his cell phone hits the sidewalk.
It’s a universal sound to anyone who owns one. We seem intuitively to know when this electronic baby’s cry happens, that our lifeline to the universe has left our person and has whacked the ground.
It’s almost inevitably followed by a single loud word, almost always starting with “F”, that comes from the realization that $400 worth of electronics just landed in a puddle or bounced off a concrete sidewalk.
The other interesting thing we learned – our friend ordered a book online from Barnes and Noble, at about 9:30 in the morning.
In NYC, if you order by 11, it is delivered THE SAME DAY.
That’s just amazing to me.
It’s beautiful out, off to explore the City shortly.
Yeah, it’s between classes and the weather is great so we took a weekend off.
Anyhow, we’re walking down the street in NYC between 5 and 6 in the evening. A guy – probably early-30’s – is ahead of us in a suit, he’s obviously coming home from work. Since it was St. Patrick’s day, he was probably in a hurry to go celebrate with his friends.
Anyhow, as we walk along, suddenly there’s a “thunk, crack” noise and his cell phone hits the sidewalk.
It’s a universal sound to anyone who owns one. We seem intuitively to know when this electronic baby’s cry happens, that our lifeline to the universe has left our person and has whacked the ground.
It’s almost inevitably followed by a single loud word, almost always starting with “F”, that comes from the realization that $400 worth of electronics just landed in a puddle or bounced off a concrete sidewalk.
The other interesting thing we learned – our friend ordered a book online from Barnes and Noble, at about 9:30 in the morning.
In NYC, if you order by 11, it is delivered THE SAME DAY.
That’s just amazing to me.
It’s beautiful out, off to explore the City shortly.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Noble Beast
When you get to be half a century old (well, almost), you’re bound to have a bit of history. There are loves in your past that you can look back and remember fondly. Some you share or have shared, either as a memory with your current circle of contacts, or some experienced them first hand.
One of the main loves of my life came into the world as a tiny bundle of fur on January 1, 1986. Bull was the firstborn of his mom’s first litter of puppies, and my friends Doug and Barbara had asked if I wanted a puppy even before they were born.
I was just out of law school, and although I’d adopted Alice, a German Shepherd who’d gone to law school twice (once with her first mom, once with me), it wasn’t quite the same as a new baby.
Although I had papers that said Bull was a full-blood miniature poodle, it didn’t take many weeks to figure out that his mother was a mere trollop. There were some questions about parentage – Pancho the Chihuahua lived there and was the most likely suspect. He survived Doug’s wrath with his life, but threats that have been made against philandering Romeos were carried out in his case. He was off to the vet in short order.
That never fit, though. Bull was too big, and the body shape was wrong. His name started as "Bull of the Woods", because he was the only male in the litter and so much bigger than his two sisters. Eventually the truth came out and one of Doug's sons admitted that he’d stopped by the house with Oscar – the ancient standard dachshund – one day. I guess you could say he had one last “Hurrah”. Nothing happened to him, though, because he died of old age not long after, most likely with a smile on his face.
Bull almost didn’t survive puppy-hood. I lived in a rural area outside of town, and one day when he was out doing his business my attention wandered and I couldn’t find him for hours. He came home with Alice later, covered in oil and muck. He’d apparently fallen into the sludge pit of an oil well about a quarter mile away.
For those that don’t know, the production of oil and gas is accompanied by some nasty chemicals. Sludge pits are open ponds near producing oil wells. They frequently have lots of petroleum products in the “water”, along with mercury, nickel, and a variety of heavy metals that tend to be pretty toxic.
The stuff wouldn’t wash off. Not knowing what to do, I called Grandma.
“Roll him in corn starch. That’s what I do to Grandpa when he’s sticky”.
This, along with several more baths, seemed to help, but not long after we went to bed he was gasping for breath and it was obvious that he needed more attention than I could offer. One of the advantages of living in a small town out in the country is you not only know the vet’s home number, you know where he lives.
So Bull got lots of drugs and special baths every half hour for the next day and a half. Mind you, at the time after I paid off my student loans I was making less money than the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds. This was commitment.
Bull survived. In fact, he went on to live a long, full life of over 20 years. I still catch myself being careful when I put down the recliner so I don’t run over him (old dogs don’t move that quickly) or thinking that I’ve heard him bark and need to take him out.
He made the trip to North Carolina with me, content to share a McDonalds Happy Meal with the cockatiel and parrot every few hundred miles. He got most of the burger, but left the pickles behind.
Interestingly enough, a couple of years ago we had a friend of a friend over for dinner. The lady is psychic (not psycho – psychic!). I’d never met her before and had reservations about the psychic business, but later in the afternoon I walked into the den and she looked up and said, “Did you have a little black dog?”
There’s no way she could have known this. There were no pics out, he hadn’t been mentioned at all. He’d been gone a couple of years at that point.
I told her that I did, and she said, “Well, his energy just walked through here looking for you. He thinks you were a good friend.”
Bull was a good friend, too. And five years ago today at the age of 20 years and 4 months, he left this plane of existence to go wherever good dogs go and wait for me to join him eventually.
It was, and remains, one of the saddest days of my life.
One of the main loves of my life came into the world as a tiny bundle of fur on January 1, 1986. Bull was the firstborn of his mom’s first litter of puppies, and my friends Doug and Barbara had asked if I wanted a puppy even before they were born.
I was just out of law school, and although I’d adopted Alice, a German Shepherd who’d gone to law school twice (once with her first mom, once with me), it wasn’t quite the same as a new baby.
Although I had papers that said Bull was a full-blood miniature poodle, it didn’t take many weeks to figure out that his mother was a mere trollop. There were some questions about parentage – Pancho the Chihuahua lived there and was the most likely suspect. He survived Doug’s wrath with his life, but threats that have been made against philandering Romeos were carried out in his case. He was off to the vet in short order.
That never fit, though. Bull was too big, and the body shape was wrong. His name started as "Bull of the Woods", because he was the only male in the litter and so much bigger than his two sisters. Eventually the truth came out and one of Doug's sons admitted that he’d stopped by the house with Oscar – the ancient standard dachshund – one day. I guess you could say he had one last “Hurrah”. Nothing happened to him, though, because he died of old age not long after, most likely with a smile on his face.
Bull almost didn’t survive puppy-hood. I lived in a rural area outside of town, and one day when he was out doing his business my attention wandered and I couldn’t find him for hours. He came home with Alice later, covered in oil and muck. He’d apparently fallen into the sludge pit of an oil well about a quarter mile away.
For those that don’t know, the production of oil and gas is accompanied by some nasty chemicals. Sludge pits are open ponds near producing oil wells. They frequently have lots of petroleum products in the “water”, along with mercury, nickel, and a variety of heavy metals that tend to be pretty toxic.
The stuff wouldn’t wash off. Not knowing what to do, I called Grandma.
“Roll him in corn starch. That’s what I do to Grandpa when he’s sticky”.
This, along with several more baths, seemed to help, but not long after we went to bed he was gasping for breath and it was obvious that he needed more attention than I could offer. One of the advantages of living in a small town out in the country is you not only know the vet’s home number, you know where he lives.
So Bull got lots of drugs and special baths every half hour for the next day and a half. Mind you, at the time after I paid off my student loans I was making less money than the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds. This was commitment.
Bull survived. In fact, he went on to live a long, full life of over 20 years. I still catch myself being careful when I put down the recliner so I don’t run over him (old dogs don’t move that quickly) or thinking that I’ve heard him bark and need to take him out.
He made the trip to North Carolina with me, content to share a McDonalds Happy Meal with the cockatiel and parrot every few hundred miles. He got most of the burger, but left the pickles behind.
Interestingly enough, a couple of years ago we had a friend of a friend over for dinner. The lady is psychic (not psycho – psychic!). I’d never met her before and had reservations about the psychic business, but later in the afternoon I walked into the den and she looked up and said, “Did you have a little black dog?”
There’s no way she could have known this. There were no pics out, he hadn’t been mentioned at all. He’d been gone a couple of years at that point.
I told her that I did, and she said, “Well, his energy just walked through here looking for you. He thinks you were a good friend.”
Bull was a good friend, too. And five years ago today at the age of 20 years and 4 months, he left this plane of existence to go wherever good dogs go and wait for me to join him eventually.
It was, and remains, one of the saddest days of my life.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Can You Hear Me Now?
We had dinner with our friend Roger last Friday night. Dinner with Roger usually involves shouting.
Not because he’s argumentative – well, no more than the rest of us, and that’s just for sport.
It’s because, like many of us who have a bit of grey in their hair, he has trouble hearing.
I SAID, ROGER HAS TROUBLE HEARING.
It’s a problem that’s compounded when you get in a cavernous restaurant with a lot of ambient noise, especially if they insist on live music somewhere in the place. As a result, the question answered frequently isn’t the one asked.
Here’s something I don’t understand – if you’re in a bar or a club, yeah, you are there for the music. If you’re in a white-tablecloth restaurant with other people, why would the owners think that you are there to hear music so loud that it isn’t possible to talk to the people across the table?
I don’t blame him at all for the confusion – I can’t hear either and am every bit as guilty of answering the wrong question as anyone else. Plus I forget to speak up and use my “outside” voice inside the restaurant, which compounds the problem for those I’m with.
Friday night held a breakthrough announcement, though.
Roger is being fitted for hearing aids, and we got a run down on the process. It’s a lot more complicated than just raising your hand when you hear the tone and sticking an electronic bean in your ear.
Lest anyone think that I’m making fun of Roger, let me correct you. I’m envious.
My ears have rang for at least the last 5 years, loudly enough to wake me from a sound sleep at times. Lately, one has changed tones and instead of ringing a nice C-E-G resolved chord, they now are about half a tone off of each other resulting in something unresolved in a minor tone.
Plus it means I have to up the bars on the television another notch or two. Unfortunately, my hearing loss isn’t yet to the point that hearing aids would help, nor will that stop the ringing.
Anyhow, Roger has gone through several rounds of testing and has had wax impressions made of his ears. Commercial wax, not ear wax. This isn’t a do-it-yourself project.
The amazing thing is that there’s about as much variety in hearing aids as there are in automobiles, and you have to select type, style, color and – most importantly – price range.
These puppies run anywhere from one to five thousand dollars.
Each.
The cheap ones are what you hear whistling at a funeral with a largely geriatric audience, accompaniment to the hymns in a dozen different keys and time signatures and wives elbowing their husbands and giving them “the look” that means “FIX IT NOW”.
Do women’s hearing aids never whistle?
When confronted with the choices, Roger went midrange – not the cheap ones, because he was in sales for years and knows that you get what you pay for, but on the other hand there’s no need to get something that channels interplanetary aliens in 16 different languages and provides GPS services via satellite.
Something that allows dinner conversation and means others can be in the room without wincing while you’re watching television is the goal.
So I’m envious. Roger will get to watch television without driving everyone else from the house and can hear dinner conversation again.
I’d be happy if I could just get the ringing in my ears back in tune.
Not because he’s argumentative – well, no more than the rest of us, and that’s just for sport.
It’s because, like many of us who have a bit of grey in their hair, he has trouble hearing.
I SAID, ROGER HAS TROUBLE HEARING.
It’s a problem that’s compounded when you get in a cavernous restaurant with a lot of ambient noise, especially if they insist on live music somewhere in the place. As a result, the question answered frequently isn’t the one asked.
Here’s something I don’t understand – if you’re in a bar or a club, yeah, you are there for the music. If you’re in a white-tablecloth restaurant with other people, why would the owners think that you are there to hear music so loud that it isn’t possible to talk to the people across the table?
I don’t blame him at all for the confusion – I can’t hear either and am every bit as guilty of answering the wrong question as anyone else. Plus I forget to speak up and use my “outside” voice inside the restaurant, which compounds the problem for those I’m with.
Friday night held a breakthrough announcement, though.
Roger is being fitted for hearing aids, and we got a run down on the process. It’s a lot more complicated than just raising your hand when you hear the tone and sticking an electronic bean in your ear.
Lest anyone think that I’m making fun of Roger, let me correct you. I’m envious.
My ears have rang for at least the last 5 years, loudly enough to wake me from a sound sleep at times. Lately, one has changed tones and instead of ringing a nice C-E-G resolved chord, they now are about half a tone off of each other resulting in something unresolved in a minor tone.
Plus it means I have to up the bars on the television another notch or two. Unfortunately, my hearing loss isn’t yet to the point that hearing aids would help, nor will that stop the ringing.
Anyhow, Roger has gone through several rounds of testing and has had wax impressions made of his ears. Commercial wax, not ear wax. This isn’t a do-it-yourself project.
The amazing thing is that there’s about as much variety in hearing aids as there are in automobiles, and you have to select type, style, color and – most importantly – price range.
These puppies run anywhere from one to five thousand dollars.
Each.
The cheap ones are what you hear whistling at a funeral with a largely geriatric audience, accompaniment to the hymns in a dozen different keys and time signatures and wives elbowing their husbands and giving them “the look” that means “FIX IT NOW”.
Do women’s hearing aids never whistle?
When confronted with the choices, Roger went midrange – not the cheap ones, because he was in sales for years and knows that you get what you pay for, but on the other hand there’s no need to get something that channels interplanetary aliens in 16 different languages and provides GPS services via satellite.
Something that allows dinner conversation and means others can be in the room without wincing while you’re watching television is the goal.
So I’m envious. Roger will get to watch television without driving everyone else from the house and can hear dinner conversation again.
I’d be happy if I could just get the ringing in my ears back in tune.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
A College Conundrum
OK, so we get a call from the man-child yesterday. It seems the decision regarding college may have just gotten more difficult.
The difficulty arrived in the form of a letter announcing his acceptance – to Oklahoma State University.
When I suggested a few weeks ago that he apply to OSU – my alma mater – it was as much to needle him as anything, so I was a little surprised when an application packet went off.
Now, since it’s a contender and he’s truly interested in it, we are confronted with the fact that it’s a full $10K a year more than going in-state to college.
On top of this, we’d need to make arrangements to go and visit. The boy should actually see the campus before he decides that’s where he wants to spend the next 4 years of his life, after all.
As might be expected, not all parental units have met the news with the same degree of enthusiasm, even if we discount the financial aspects of the transaction.
It’ll all work itself out however it’s supposed to, though.
Oh, and for comparison purposes – a year of in-state expenses at a North Carolina state college is estimated at somewhere between $12,500 and $16,000, depending on the school. A year of out-of-state expenses for an NC student going to an Oklahoma college is $26,000.00.
There’s a pretty substantial difference there, so unless they come through with a whoppin’ financial aid package (which is unlikely), this is probably going to go on to be an unrealized dream. If there were no cheaper alternatives available, say because his heart was set on studying Paleolithic art on the Western Prairie and they had the only program like it in the world, it’d be one thing.
But this is engineering and as most of us who’ve got a bit of grey hair recognize, other than your first job where you got the diploma from is hardly relevant, at least among the contenders we have here.
So we’ve put it back on him. We’re paying for the equivalent of an in-state program and if he wants to do otherwise, he needs to find funding.
The difficulty arrived in the form of a letter announcing his acceptance – to Oklahoma State University.
When I suggested a few weeks ago that he apply to OSU – my alma mater – it was as much to needle him as anything, so I was a little surprised when an application packet went off.
Now, since it’s a contender and he’s truly interested in it, we are confronted with the fact that it’s a full $10K a year more than going in-state to college.
On top of this, we’d need to make arrangements to go and visit. The boy should actually see the campus before he decides that’s where he wants to spend the next 4 years of his life, after all.
As might be expected, not all parental units have met the news with the same degree of enthusiasm, even if we discount the financial aspects of the transaction.
It’ll all work itself out however it’s supposed to, though.
Oh, and for comparison purposes – a year of in-state expenses at a North Carolina state college is estimated at somewhere between $12,500 and $16,000, depending on the school. A year of out-of-state expenses for an NC student going to an Oklahoma college is $26,000.00.
There’s a pretty substantial difference there, so unless they come through with a whoppin’ financial aid package (which is unlikely), this is probably going to go on to be an unrealized dream. If there were no cheaper alternatives available, say because his heart was set on studying Paleolithic art on the Western Prairie and they had the only program like it in the world, it’d be one thing.
But this is engineering and as most of us who’ve got a bit of grey hair recognize, other than your first job where you got the diploma from is hardly relevant, at least among the contenders we have here.
So we’ve put it back on him. We’re paying for the equivalent of an in-state program and if he wants to do otherwise, he needs to find funding.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Western Carolina University
Last Friday was a red-letter day. All the parental units climbed in the car with the firstborn son to travel three hours each direction and look at a college.It’s been narrowed down to two for T-bird. Western Carolina University or University of North Carolina – Charlotte (although we’re still pending on that list). It was time, though, to make a trip and do an in-depth tour of the campus at Sylva.
http://www.wcu.edu/
All of the adults came away excited. Maybe it’s the retrospect of remembering what it was like to be on campus, to learn new things when that was your primary focus in life, and to revel in the discoveries of new adulthood.
Maybe it’s the awe of the options available, ones that were unheard of when we were in college, like a campus where wireless internet is available virtually everywhere. Food options go waaaayyy beyond mystery meat in the cafeteria and entertainment options which were probably available, but which we failed to use (guest lecturers, visiting artists, etc.)
The parents would all have signed up in a heartbeat, wary only of the thought of having to share a bathroom with 7 other teenagers.
Well, that and fear of drawing the top bunk in the dorm room. That could have been worked around, though. Age and cunning will always prevail over youth and skill, especially when we've learned the most important adages of sharing a dorm room:
1. Never mess with your roomate, because
2. You gotta go to sleep sometime and
3. Paybacks are hell.
In part, we learned what we know that they don’t know. (“They” being young adults).
Things like where your college campus is a whole lot less important than what’s available there. The fact that WCU is trapped in a small town in the mountains is, to most of our minds, insignificant. I doubt that I left the campus at Stillwater more than a dozen times during the two years that I lived in the dorms, and most of those trips were to go places that are now available on campus.
To my mind, it’s better to be at a campus in a small town because there’s a lot more tolerance of the students and some of their hijinks than there is likely to be in a large city, where the college isn’t a major employer outside of their immediate neighborhood.
Anyhow, we took the tour. Chris, our guide, answered all the questions we had (parents having made lists of our concerns and things to discuss, the student being more laisse faire in his approach). Now we wait to see what UNC-Charlotte says and what the student decides.
But for a while, we got to remember what it was like to be a student, even if the memories were filtered somewhat by rose-colored glasses.
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