Oberlin students, unite!

While living in our blissful little liberal bubble known as Oberlin College, it is very easy to forget just how intolerant it can be outside the confines of the Oberlin campus. However, the Oberlin community will face this reality if the Westboro Baptist Church make good on their threat to picket the campus in self righteous indignation to our hiring of Mike Muska. The rationale behind this group's protest is a response to Muska's stature as the first openly gay athletic director in the country. In preparation for this organization's arrival, the College and the President's office have taken numerous proactive steps which will dissipate the negative effects such a protest by militant zealots is likely to provoke. A task force has been created to organize speakers, discussions, and counseling, coupled with an inter-faith religious service at a nearby church for those wanting religious counsel unsullied by the Westboro Baptist Church's hatemongering.

Despite the obvious negatives inherent in a visit by such a reprehensible group, the possible arrival of the Westboro Baptist Church also carries with it the potential for many good results. For one, this will be a perfect opportunity for the Oberlin community to support our new athletic director. Muska is a very well qualified addition and an excellent choice to head the Oberlin athletics department and it is important that he receive support by not only the administration but by -the student body as well.

Most importantly, the demonstration by this organization allows Oberlin students, faculty and administration to unite and put our ideals to the test. We, the Oberlin community, pride ourselves on many things: open-mindedness, compassion and respect for others being primary among these. In response to these visitors the campus must not degenerate to the level of this organization. Instead, we must respect the church's right to speak, while at the same time maintaining composure and in turn showing them we are beyond their hateful dissidence. Only this response will show the Westboro Baptist Church that the Oberlin community does not appreciate the vengeful discourse of a group preaching hate.

Town, students need equal fire protection

So, you're living off campus. After two or three years of dorm life, you decide it's time to venture out to the (ahem) real world and try your hand at paying water bills and sorting out the monthly "who the hell in this house knows someone in Antarctica and why did they talk to them for 2 hours?" phone bill.

Or, maybe not. Maybe you were going to sign a lease with one of the black-balled landlords who had fire-code issues with the town and the College. Maybe Nancy's proclamation that "no Oberlin student shall live in an off-campus house owned by a landlord with questionable fire escapes and immoral smoke detectors" dashed your apartment dreams on the rock of fire safety.

Obviously, there were problems with the off-campus houses last year- a total of four fires claimed two town residents' lives, completely gutted two houses and incinerated thousands of dollars in property. That is undebatable. However, it should be noted that one house was an unlicensed rooming house, two were rented by less than five students, making them exempt from the more stringent fire regulations, and one was a private, non-student residence. Think about that. It suggests that the less severe fire regulations really did affect the safety of the buildings.

The apartments that are supposedly off-limits to students are still rentable by anyone else.

Are we lucky to have the "powers-that-be" making sure we don't sign a lease to a house that has more of a chance burning down around us, or are we being told that we can't make up our own minds about the potential risk of fire? If these houses are so unsafe, should anyone be allowed to live in them? If having Nancy around to take care of us and advocate for us in this matter is so paramount to our safety, what about the safety of others who might choose to rent those apartments? If the cost of upgrading these houses is so astronomical, will we even rent from the owners once the houses are deemed safe if they raise the rent to pay the repair costs? And, what about the older houses that were, in essence, "grandfathered" in without making all the changes to be consistent with the fire codes of today? These are all questions that students, administrators, landlords and all potential renters need to consider when deciding how to further handle the enforcement of fire codes.