Students speak out about what’s on their minds in 142 words, and you’re invited! If you have a random rant, email it to me at anderseb@grinnell.edu. After all, complaining in a public forum is always more fun than doing it alone.
As far as I know, Iowa has never been subject to the British Window Tax. So why is it that so many restaurants have four walls, a door, and NO WINDOWS?? To me, there is something very suspicious about a restaurant without windows. They look more like the warehouse from “Reservoir Dogs” where Mr. Orange and Mr. White try to discern each other’s identities and someone eventually loses an ear. Thankfully, most people who go into such restaurants get steak or margaritas and manage to walk out with ears intact. Well…there was just one instance of a missing ear, but alcohol was involved so security tells me it doesn’t count. So, I guess these places must really be restaurants and not buildings inhabited by the notorious Iowa mob, but I’m not opposed to taking up a collection and getting them windows.
—Jess Ward ‘04
So Dr Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia, is retiring this month. So how do we feel about that? Well, contradictorily. Sure, he’s the architect of one of the most successful national industrialization schemes in world history, has maintained peace between Malaysia’s ethnic groups and has proposed at least one of the world’s zaniest Jewish conspiracy theories. Just as easily, Malaysia could well have fallen down the path of civil war and widespread rural poverty. But, it should be noted, he was never particularly elected, and not infrequently has people arrested for things such as ‘sedition.’ So as we say goodbye, is it acrimonious? Fond? Bittersweet? Well, at least we know it’s goodbye.
—Sam Eckstut ‘05
Why have people been so damn obsessed with security lately? People are so eager to prevent Big Bad Things from happening that they don't realize that all the small Bad Things caused by heightened security add up to multiple Big Bad Things. Yes, there were some sexual assaults. But they were off campus. We don't even know the details, but, at any rate, they weren't rapes. These non-life-threatening crimes taking place OFF CAMPUS are not enough to justify a 24 hour lockdown, a widespread sense of paranoia, e-mail and poster spam from security warning me to walk in groups at night and beware of bogeymen and, worst of all, increased presence of police citing students for petty alcohol offenses ON CAMPUS. Chill out. Grinnell is a small town, not a criminal metropolis. People should not have to live in fear here.
—Norman Perlmutter '07
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