Comments on: Boycott Bear’s Den http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/09/09/boycott-bear%e2%80%99s-den/ The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:42:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: twitter http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/09/09/boycott-bear%e2%80%99s-den/#comment-2038 twitter Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:06:57 +0000 http://www.studlife.com/?p=3651#comment-2038 you guys are both douches, but i agree with the critic not the author you guys are both douches, but i agree with the critic not the author

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]]> By: Randy Brachman http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/09/09/boycott-bear%e2%80%99s-den/#comment-594 Randy Brachman Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:18:44 +0000 http://www.studlife.com/?p=3651#comment-594 I disagree wholeheartedly. That is not the purpose of college. The purpose of college is much the same as the purpose of every formal moment of my life before college: preparation for life on my own. College is about juggling independence and responsibility. College is about obtaining skills and knowledge (not all of which is academic) which will be necessary after college. College is about refining one's sense of individuality and purpose. Those questions at the end of my last post were rhetorical. They were not meant to be answered. Instead, I was saying that the discussions that I assumed (correctly, it turns out) that you think are most relevant are not discussions that I can contribute to in any meaningful way. If all of the experts disagree, what hope do I stand of coming to some concrete conclusion? I disagree wholeheartedly. That is not the purpose of college. The purpose of college is much the same as the purpose of every formal moment of my life before college: preparation for life on my own. College is about juggling independence and responsibility. College is about obtaining skills and knowledge (not all of which is academic) which will be necessary after college. College is about refining one’s sense of individuality and purpose.

Those questions at the end of my last post were rhetorical. They were not meant to be answered. Instead, I was saying that the discussions that I assumed (correctly, it turns out) that you think are most relevant are not discussions that I can contribute to in any meaningful way. If all of the experts disagree, what hope do I stand of coming to some concrete conclusion?

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]]> By: Jordan http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/09/09/boycott-bear%e2%80%99s-den/#comment-579 Jordan Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:52:57 +0000 http://www.studlife.com/?p=3651#comment-579 The subject of your study at college may be more important than the inconveniences you face at Bear's Den. No doubt you are able to buy food from Schnucks -- even if it means taking the bus or being on foot for an hour -- or to be patient with the long lines at the cafeteria. My reply to your last three questions is: Yes. You are in college -- what could be more important than fighting your self-professed ignorance? Isn't this something college is supposed to do for you: Have you research current events, develop and refine opinions on them, and articulate those opinions in an essay or article? The subject of your study at college may be more important than the inconveniences you face at Bear’s Den. No doubt you are able to buy food from Schnucks — even if it means taking the bus or being on foot for an hour — or to be patient with the long lines at the cafeteria.

My reply to your last three questions is: Yes. You are in college — what could be more important than fighting your self-professed ignorance? Isn’t this something college is supposed to do for you: Have you research current events, develop and refine opinions on them, and articulate those opinions in an essay or article?

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]]> By: Randy Brachman http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/09/09/boycott-bear%e2%80%99s-den/#comment-576 Randy Brachman Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:46:31 +0000 http://www.studlife.com/?p=3651#comment-576 1. Perhaps Jordan should have looked up the word "aggravation" yourself before correcting me. If he'd bothered, he would find out that according to dictionary.com, the word can mean "annoyance; exasperation," and according to merriam-webster.com, it can mean "irritation, provocation." Sometimes words have more than one meaning. Ain't English grand? 2. Now, Jordan, I don't know if you live on the South 40. I don't know if you attend Washington University in St. Louis. I don't even know if you're human or not. I am human, though, and I need to eat in order to simply stay alive. Not to mention how much I enjoy it (and I do). And I do live on the South 40. What, then, I ask, could possibly be more relevant than the most convenient means of my very survival, and that of my peers? Should I talk about Obama's health care plan, a plan which I can never hope to understand, let alone have any effect on? Should I wax romantic about a war half a world away being fought for reasons no one really understands by people I don't know? Should I use my precious space to go on a jeremiad about the economy and how reckless consumerism and misunderstandings of proper risk assessment and debt management could have sent life as we know it down the drain, presuming all the while to know things that people who have spent their whole lives studying economics don't? I'm assuming you can read, because you managed to read at least one word that I wrote. If that's true, then you read the headline of this article. If you are not a person who would consider going to Bear's Den often, if at all, then you really should have figured that this article would not apply to you. As for wit, chacun a son gout, as they say. I will say that there were more jokes in the original draft of the article, but they got cut out somewhere along the line. 1. Perhaps Jordan should have looked up the word “aggravation” yourself before correcting me. If he’d bothered, he would find out that according to dictionary.com, the word can mean “annoyance; exasperation,” and according to merriam-webster.com, it can mean “irritation, provocation.” Sometimes words have more than one meaning. Ain’t English grand?

2. Now, Jordan, I don’t know if you live on the South 40. I don’t know if you attend Washington University in St. Louis. I don’t even know if you’re human or not. I am human, though, and I need to eat in order to simply stay alive. Not to mention how much I enjoy it (and I do). And I do live on the South 40. What, then, I ask, could possibly be more relevant than the most convenient means of my very survival, and that of my peers?
Should I talk about Obama’s health care plan, a plan which I can never hope to understand, let alone have any effect on?
Should I wax romantic about a war half a world away being fought for reasons no one really understands by people I don’t know?
Should I use my precious space to go on a jeremiad about the economy and how reckless consumerism and misunderstandings of proper risk assessment and debt management could have sent life as we know it down the drain, presuming all the while to know things that people who have spent their whole lives studying economics don’t?
I’m assuming you can read, because you managed to read at least one word that I wrote. If that’s true, then you read the headline of this article. If you are not a person who would consider going to Bear’s Den often, if at all, then you really should have figured that this article would not apply to you.
As for wit, chacun a son gout, as they say. I will say that there were more jokes in the original draft of the article, but they got cut out somewhere along the line.

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]]> By: Jordan http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/09/09/boycott-bear%e2%80%99s-den/#comment-566 Jordan Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:51:48 +0000 http://www.studlife.com/?p=3651#comment-566 1. "Aggravate" means to make worse; the work Mr. Brachman is looking for in the last paragraph is "irritation," or perhaps "frustration." 2. Whatever irritation or frustration Mr. Brachman encounters in Bear's Den is probably but a small source of distress and anger for him. Although I enjoy the local focus of this article (cf. Mr. Posner's pieces), I wouldn't mind seeing a more relevant, deeper article from the Student Life Forum. Or, at least, a wittier one. 1. “Aggravate” means to make worse; the work Mr. Brachman is looking for in the last paragraph is “irritation,” or perhaps “frustration.”

2. Whatever irritation or frustration Mr. Brachman encounters in Bear’s Den is probably but a small source of distress and anger for him. Although I enjoy the local focus of this article (cf. Mr. Posner’s pieces), I wouldn’t mind seeing a more relevant, deeper article from the Student Life Forum. Or, at least, a wittier one.

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