Opinion

Looking for ways to burn calories this winter? Searching for a new recreational activity to keep you busy? Officials have reinstituted open swim hours for students, faculty, staff and alumni at the Forest Park pool this fall.  “We found a person to work during (open hours),” said Kirk Martin, facilities supervisor for physical education and athletics. The pool was only open for swimming classes over the summer. No open hours were scheduled the first half of summer because the physical-education department went over budget on part-time employees and had to reduce staff, Martin said. […]

Fall is here, and every year about this time, I start to regret the things I didn’t do over the summer. This year, I can’t even fall back on hot temperatures as an excuse. The weather was pretty mild. Nor can I pretend I was bored with what St. Louis had to offer. It’s only my second year in the city, and there’s a lot I haven’t seen or done. I certainly kept busy this summer, after the stressful but awesome rush of marrying my awesome wife in March. I took two classes (getting college algebra out of the way once and for all) and put in 30 hours a week at my retail job. […]

There has to be a law against police stopping you whenever they feel like it, and their only excuse is, “You fit the description.” Whether I’m traveling in a car, riding a bicycle or just walking down the street, I’ve fit the description on more than one occasion. Somehow I resist the temptation to even get upset about racial profiling. If I said what I wanted to say to whomever decides that I fit the description, then one thing would lead to another, and before you know it, I’d be in cuffs. Or the trigger-happy police, who just can’t wait to carry out their own form of swift justice, would be rolling out a stretcher. Why should I be another statistic? […]

The beginning of fall semester at Forest Park was just as chaotic as other semesters, filled with misunderstanding, disorganization and impatience. Let’s start with the Financial Aid office. Most of the time, students have a simple question: “How do I get financial aid?” The simple answer is, “Fill out your Free Application for Federal Student Aid, then submit it before the deadline.” No problem, right? Then why the interminable waiting? […]

I used to think I was a liberal on most issues, staking out positions before even hearing both sides. After all, conservatives are the guys who don’t want gay people to get married, right? But recently, I’ve changed my mind on a few things. I’ve learned that social ideologies are very different from fiscal ideologies. Being a conservative fiscally doesn’t mean you are a bigot. […]

The time has come to write my last Editor’s Desk column for The Scene. I wasn’t sure what to write about, except to say that my decision to leave Forest Park and the student newspaper has been bittersweet. In the past two years, I have grown as a person and learned more then I expected, about myself and where I want to go in life. Advisers Teri Maddox and Lane Barnholtz have been two of the key players in all of this. I started working for The Scene during my first semester at the college, and I have enjoyed it a bunch, everything from late nights laying out the paper to trips across Missouri for conferences and office potlucks. It’s been stressful and fun. The staff truly has become a tight little group of friends. […]

A few weeks ago, The Scene received a book with a letter asking for a review. I knew absolutely nothing about it, but I took on the challenge of reading it, which excited me. The book, called “God Loves Ugly & Love Makes Beautiful,” was written by Christa Black, a songwriter and violinist who has toured with the Jonas Brothers, Michael W. Smith and Jennifer Knapp. I assumed it was a self-help book and that it wouldn’t keep my attention. But I was surprised at how well it was written and how much I could actually see myself in Black’s story. […]

What’s your privacy worth? On June 6, what might normally have been a national U.S. debate became a worldwide uproar when the British newspaper The Guardian published a story alleging gross privacy invasion by the United States government. Former government contractor Edward Snowden allegedly provided the paper with Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) documents that showed national communications-service providers, such as Verizon, had been forced to hand over millions of phone records for U.S. customers. Snowden had obtained the documents, he told news sources, while working on national-security projects. […]

As warmer weather came around, so did natural disasters. In the past few weeks, flooding and tornadoes have left many people without homes. I watch the news, and I feel like changing the channel when it’s time for weather reports. Oklahoma has been hit with back-to-back tornadoes, reminding Missourians of the 2011 Joplin tornado and others that have hit our area. The first tornado hit the small town of Moore, Okla. It operated in the same manner as the Joplin tornado, devastating everything in its path. […]