Day: February 6, 2008

(U-WIRE) For the past two years, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had claimed that the pirating of copyrighted movies on college campuses accounted for a staggering 44 percent of monetary losses to the movie industry. But the organization recently disclosed that the real figure is closer to 15 percent, an admission that could undermine its efforts to aggressively combat illegal filesharing among students.

(U-WIRE) Modern text messaging technology boasts the ability for users to chat with friends on the go, send in the choice for a favorite American Idol contestant or even order a pizza – and in the wake of this year’s presidential primaries, text messages are being used to urge young people to get out and vote.

So, let’s talk about the Jaeb. Last week, while racing from one class to another, I had to stop at the computer lab to print an assignment. Although many Jaeb labs are usually occupied by business classes, I have always managed to do this sort of thing quickly and arrive in class with no one the wiser.

Last semester, my Native American history professor, Constance Rynder, posed a question to me concerning one of my editorials, which dealt with the overzealous nature of political correctness in the United States. She asked what I thought of universities and cities with Native American mascots or parades featuring fictitious chiefs, wondering if tribes were justified in their fight against the use of such imagery.

In the heat of the primary election season-and what an interesting season it is proving to be-we hear a lot from politicians of various stripes about the importance of values, principles and standing for something. Therefore, we naturally engaged this week in a little introspection and found ourselves stuck asking the same question: what do we value at the University of Tampa? What are our principles, our commitments; what do we stand for as a citizen? From one angle, the answers seem deceptively simple.