Help celebrate Mike V’s 14th birthday
Help the TAF Collegiate Club and Student Media celebrate Mike the Tiger’s birthday. Mike turns 14 this week, and in hopes of giving Mike the home he deserves, we will be holding a birthday party today for Mike from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. outside the PMAC. We want to keep Mike here, so we are asking students to come out and support Mike by giving us a donation of $10 and help celebrate his birthday.
We will have food, door prizes, music, and T-shirts. The T-shirts will be white to help the Tigers “white out” Florida this weekend. Everyone remember to wear white to the game, and come out and help us celebrate Mike’s life and help us give him the home he deserves.
Tiger Athletic Foundation
Collegiate Club Board
TV shows aren’t reality, just acting
Thanks to Emi Gilbert for having the common sense and clarity to recognize Bravo’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “Boy Meets Boy” for what they truly are – entertainment. I truly hope the general population does not take these programs as accurate representations of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) community. Rather, one can think of them as alternatives – gay-themed versions of “The Bachelor” and “Extreme Makeover.”
The problem with taking these shows seriously, whether one is straight or gay, is that attitude only further allows a culture of self-hate to breed in a still fairly unaccepted minority. Even as a gay man, I myself do not fit the images portrayed on these two shows, and thus I sometimes surprise people. However, their popularity only reinforces negative feelings I sometimes have for myself because of my weight, my income, etc.
I am not fit and rich and well-dressed like so many of Bravo’s men are. However, that surely doesn’t make me less gay. To some people, “gay” is only a surface image that they associate with those shows.
These shows are entertaining (or at least “Queer Eye” is), but if they are taken as singular images of gay America, both gays and straights only help reinforce these negative feelings and low self-esteem. When people take “Queer Eye” for the truth, many gays and lesbians, and especially those who are just coming out, feel more pressure to live up to that image than they do to learn acceptance of themselves and others as real individuals, not just images from a television show.
Don’t force practically unattainable images on gays already struggling for acceptance. Instead, accept and embrace every person, queer or straight, for who they truly are. Now go enjoy your show.
Gordon Walker
freshman
theatre
Fellow professor helps clarify tenure
Professor Rau’s review of the origins and value of tenure (The Reveille, 10/9/03) are among the clearer statements on this issue to appear during the current dustup over PM-35 and the new PS-109. However, he mistates an important fact. He says that “The administration’s unilateral move in the summer violates the precedent of having the Faculty Senate, which had devoted already many months to codifying the review procedure, come to a conclusion.” The part I have put into quotations is where he leaves facts behind. The Faculty Senate at its final meeting in May voted to send the proposed review process to the Faculty Council (the entire faculty) for discussion and decision. That is, the Faculty Senate chose NOT “to come a conclusion” on this issue, which has been hanging around for some years without resolution. Honest differences of opinion about the merits of the Chancellor’s actions, PS-109, etc. are fine, but let’s keep the facts straight about the historical record!
Paul E. Hoffman
professor
history