VIEWPOINT
Mission keeps focus on quality learning

by Bitty Reilly
south news editor

   TCC’s mission states the district should provide affordable and open access to quality teaching and learning.
   Since its inception 40 years ago, TCC has produced four campuses and breaks ground today on a new campus in downtown Fort Worth.
   The campuses offer an array of facilities making each a small community within a larger. Cafeterias, gyms, libraries, learning aids, computer labs and tutors help make the learning process easier.
   Since the beginning, the devotion to its mission shows in the diversity and commitment to education from the college that keeps on serving.
   From infancy in swimming for babies to seniors in horticulture, TCC provides continuing education and enrichment in many ways.
   Early high school enrollment provides dual credit. College for Kids brings elementary and junior high students to campus.
   Other transitional programs include Cornerstone Honors Program, Women in New Roles and Tech Prep.
   Student groups offer a variety of clubs to join including Phi Theta Kappa, Latino Student Union and field-specific professional groups.
   Intramural activities like jogging clubs and flag football teams are available to TCC students, faculty and staff. Each campus hosts a center with more leisure time areas to watch TV or play a game of pool.
   While enjoying the cornucopia of events, students in TCC academic programs can obtain an Associate in Applied Sciences or an Associate in Arts. Students can choose fields of study in computer science, radio TV broadcasting journalism, music and more.
   Education at TCC applies to diverse groups of people, including full-time workers. The college offers online courses and instructional television classes to ease schedule conflicts. These classes make getting a degree while working or raising a family an attainable goal.
   Individuals in impoverished situations can qualify for financial assistance to help pay for tuition and books. Scholarship programs like the Tarrant County College Foundation can contribute to personal expenses incurred in college.
   TCC offers guaranteed transfer of credits to qualified students to any public-supported Texas college or university.
   Happy 40th, TCC, the college that makes all this, and much more, possible.

Controversy arises over Sept. 11 film

by Bitty Reilly
south news editor

   The running question noted in last week’s edition of People magazine addresses “whether America is ready for Hollywood’s take on 9/11” with its movie United 93.
   The movie, based on the events of Tuesday, Sep 11, 2001, has released a trailer.
   After viewing the trailer, which consists of a few scenes of the soon-to-premiere movie, some people have said the timing is too soon and subjects our scars to the reopening of badly healed wounds.
   Are any of the critics of the same populace who bask in R-rated horror movies and the endless series of mind numbing, intelligence-sapping, over-stimulating television shows?
   Of course, critics also include people who have not seen the trailer, which mostly shows radar screen blips, voiceovers and an airplane aisle.
   If this event had not happened in our history, this trailer would not even get a note in the most bored person’s review.
   Perhaps, this negative response tells us the reality of the event is too real. Even prime time television, which includes the often age inappropriate audiences, would not air a series on the topic.
   Just for the record, what is too soon to confront one’s own demons?
   Some family members of those on the doomed flight have seen the film and approve its showing although they said it hurt to watch it. If the victims’ survivors saw the trailer or film and are all right with the film or characterization of their loved ones, does anyone else really matter?
   What about not going to see the movie if it bears too much realism or grief for one’s soul to sustain?
   Here is another question for the record. Would the reopening of a wound that caused the majority of the nation to bond and stand up with pride to protect their country be a problem?
   Wait, did anyone see the television media coverage that day? The entire populace seemed continuously looped to the atrocity with no censorship.
   What about the educational human culture benefits of altruism this movie boasts?
   As always, if people do not approve, they could try walking to the park or getting an education by reading a book, newspaper or magazine. They can turn the pages of offensive materials without question instead of sitting on their ever growing judgmental posteriors while watching movies or television and sucking up butter-flavored high calorie foods.
   The important note here is that Flight 93 is a movie. We’ve already lived the reality, and the movie is already made.

Newspapers hold place in society

by Bitty Reilly
south news editor

   With Texas A&M reopening its journalism major and most newspaper companies using active recycling procedures, some still suggest the newspaper business is doomed by the Internet.
   But writing should be delivered on paper, and writers should control where their work goes.
   Conservationists recently deemed newspapers wasteful and obsolete. One friend routinely e-mails me articles about struggling newspapers. I admit I am intimidated. I would sell my work to the highest bidder, and if they put it online, I could not say much. I strive to be better, but I don’t worry about the printed newspaper’s demise just yet. I have a secret weapon … homeless people.
   Transients use newspapers. They read them—yes read—they use them as blankets, eye covering, padding or absorbency in a pinch. Transients also do something they are not given credit for.
   When they wake up, they wad up their bed and toss it in the trash. A guy on Maple Avenue even tries to clean my windshield with his old ones. That doesn’t work so well, but he tries.
   Okay, the newspaper was a tree and should have been recycled. But, wasteful? When some people get up, they don’t even bother to make their bed with its cotton sheets, washed in chemicals and gallons of water; its comforters composed of man-made fibers or wool from a hapless captive sheep on a smelly farm that mass-produces for profit without thought to animal comfort.
   These beds are in houses in communities with hundreds of tract homes. Talk about tree abuse.
   Besides, maybe there ought to be as many recycle bins as there are trash receptacles. After all, we have them on our campuses. I watch thousands of trees bulldozed to make way for new communities of people in houses with unmade beds and empty recycle barrels.
   People lick the screens of computers and television news channels instead of tasting nature while sitting on a park bench to read the newspaper.
   And don’t forget the tactile and olfactory aspects. The Internet can never convey the feel of a newspaper. The Internet can’t give off any more scent than burning wires. If you smell a Word doc. or Netscape Web site, you should promptly call the fire department because you’re sitting in an electrical fire.
   The pages of the newspaper should not be allowed to fall by the wayside of the past. If you do not believe this, try to show a kid how to play with Silly Putty on the monitor screen. Better yet, try to read the news when the power goes out.

Wanted: courtesy among humans

by Bitty Reilly
south news editor

   When did society deem rude, socially unacceptable behaviors worthy of acceptance? Why do some people seem so fond of others’ publicly demoting fellow man?
   Should we feel ashamed of characters on political radio talk shows who make a joke out of clip cropping opposing political position callers?
   Television characters who make a mockery of fragile egos, some restaurant person who torments his customers or teachers who make a living by talking down to students inexplicably seem acceptable. 
   I once met a woman who pulled that attitude among students, including me. Her name escapes me although I think I had a few pet names for her—those also escape me. When I entered the classroom at 10 a.m. Monday, she still had the morning bears.
   I walked into her office one Tuesday after a particularly horrid Monday, and she began griping about why I had not picked up my assignment, which she graded and made available the previous day.
   I told her my sole purpose in life was to get even with her and make her mad so I could hear her talk to me as if I were an inferior scumbag moron. After all, I must have made more then her by at least $40,000 a year, and I was sure she was bitter.
   Her approach toward me changed, but rumors of her asinine rules and procedures still surfaced. My evidently never-before-posed question “Who taught you that speaking to other human beings in that manner was acceptable?” also made the gambit among her superiors and other mutual acquaintances. We were separated before there were any further confrontations.
   The unacceptable social actions of others would be easier to understand if I thought that society has not yet learned how to act. However, most of our ancestors were more adept at etiquette. They used the kindness of calling-on, courting and complimenting.
   Since our elders did not have cell phones to call people back and harass them after one mean thing was said, did they choose to be less uncaring?
   The social ways, from the elite to the lower class, should be similar. Politeness is always acceptable. Pretentiousness is not becoming.
   Echo did not ever get the wish for Narcissus to love her—Narcissus ended up dead.