College graduates should mind their manners

By Arianne Custer 
Published: May 16, 2011 for the Daily Titan


There used to be a day when parents found it unacceptable for their children to behave unruly in front of others at the dinner table. In fact, it was an etiquette taboo not to have table manners. A child was to follow certain inherent rules in front of family, friends, dinner guests and even strangers.

Dinner at home, just a few generations ago, used to go like this. First you would wash your hands and then set the table with actual silverware and dinner plates – usually without even being asked – simply because your mother told you it was dinner time.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Call for action at Cal State Fullerton

On behalf of the editorial staff of the Fullerton Sentinel, we would like to offer our support for higher education. Many of our contributors are teachers and students who understand the challenges before you because we are living through them.


The Fullerton Sentinel does not support the Declaration to Defend Public education because, among other reasons, it does not hold anyone accountable.

That said, please consider the following message from the Fullerton Sentinel to the CSUF students at tonight's rally:

California State University at Fullerton has been mismanaged for decades. Now in the midst of an economic depression we see the results of poor financial planning and what it is like to live hand to mouth.

Whether it is the faculty early retirement program which causes a significant burden on the coffers or poor leadership from the president, CSUF students are at the epicenter of a major institutional shakeup.

Each of you are the hope of tomorrow. You are the leaders of tomorrow but your state needs you today. It is time to learn about the CSU budget. Its time to learn about CSU funding. Its time for you to take all of your knowledge and ambition to do fix this broken university system.

Declarations do not change state or university budgets. Pounding your fists will not stop the incessant waste of your tuition to pay for "conferences" for administrators. You must root out and embarrass the university's leadership to affect meaningful and lasting change. You must become smarter than they are and a PhD will not grant you the common sense you will need to wage a battle over budgetary policies.

The Fullerton Sentinel extends to ALL CSU students an opportunity for insightful change instead of blind change.

Only one question remains, who among you has the fortitude and character to lead the charge of higher education?

Show us that leader.

The Fullerton Sentinel

Daily Titan: College campuses should not integrate men and women in dorm rooms

By Jessica Druck
Published: February 23, 2011

Have you ever seen an episode of The Real World? You know, that show on MTV where seven strangers move to a city they’re new to, share a seven-bed apartment, possibly form romantic relationships (or just hook up), ally together and gang up on others and the couple breaks up seven times in a four month span, all while trying to get along as a house because no one knows anyone else?

Add a school mascot, midterms and Top Ramen, and you have a parent’s worst nightmare of a coed dorm. Of course, MTV’s The Real World is a rather embellished depiction of what can really be found in a coed dorm.

I can’t speak for all schools, but they are a bad idea.

Cal State Fullerton does not offer coed dorms, but according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, as of March 2010, about 50 colleges in the U.S.—some of which are Ivy League—are permitting mixed-gender dorm rooms to undergraduate students.

Freshmen and sophomores—at least most of them—are not mature enough to live with the opposite sex. Hell, some 30-year-olds aren’t even mature enough.

Promiscuity is huge today; just turn on the CW and watch an episode of 90210 (I did this for research). Look at what those teenagers are doing and they are in high school.

Sexual harassment can be a problem as well. I’m not saying everyone is vulgar, but I am saying that some are more sensitive to jokes which can be taken the wrong way, leading to harassment.

Speaking of harassment, while many people may feel completely comfortable walking around exposed, some may feel displeased by having to find your bare body on the couch watching TV. That alone can be some form of harassment.

Some colleges, like CSUF, offer coed floors as opposed to just dorms and even that might be overbearing for students.

Seeing someone with no shirt can be offensive. It may be religious or personal values, but those values should be respected.

And when it comes to values, what do young adults who moved out for the first time really cherish?

Freedom: the freedom to leave dirty socks on the floor, not do the dishes and date whomever they want, even if that includes rooming with their girlfriend or dating their roommate.

If breaking up is the least of your worries, come talk to me after you have to see him or her every morning while eating your Captain Crunch. Talk about awkward.

Freshman year is stressful. At 18 and 19, it’s hard enough to be yourself, so your living arrangement should be comfortable.

College campuses need to focus on what is really necessary for students, and coed dorms aren’t.

We may not be smart but we are confident

By Ally Bordas
For the Daily Titan
Published: November 16, 2010
(re-posted here without permission)

Being educated is not important. As long as our government is confident, as long as we are confident, then we will make it in this world. Confidence is much more important than any education system.

What good is education really? I mean, seriously, with the budget cuts, ridiculously low employment opportunities and a worsening economic downturn, what is the point of school?

According to Open Innovation, education does not teach you the joy of living, “it only creates people who can earn their livelihood but it does not give any insight into living itself. It is not only incomplete, it is harmful too because it is based on competition.”

John Schulte, a retail tycoon, says “just because you don’t go get a degree does not mean you can be ignorant on your subject matter, it only means you’re not paying the university/college to tell you to read books on the subject.”

Let me tell you, it’s not a joy when I am sitting on the floor in a lecture class crammed wall to wall with people while my professor reads off of the power-point slides that I can clearly read myself. Like I can’t read two sentences on a larger-than-life screen with my own two eyes? Way to insult my intelligence.

I learn more from protesting the educational system than sitting in a classroom learning about it.

The educational system seems to capitalize on the student population, creating business drones that can quote statistic books but cannot hold a conversation about Marxism or history.

Our government is confident in us as American citizens so being educated is a footnote on the many lists of U.S. “successes.”

Dr. Roberts from Global Research says, “The U.S. owes its image of success to: (1) the vast lands and mineral resources that the U.S. “liberated” with violence from the native inhabitants, (2) Europe’s, especially Great Britain’s, self-destruction in World War I and World War II, and (3) the economic destruction of Russia and most of Asia by communism or socialism.”

“The U.S. nation is a failed state,” Roberts said.

Great Depression: FAIL.
Korean War: FAIL.
Vietnam War: FAIL.
Cold War: idiotic and FAIL.
Desert Storm: FAIL.
US Bank bailout: FAIL.
Recession: FAIL.

Um, should we really be confident in the U.S. with all those bomb fails? Maybe we should stay in school? Anyone?

“After 20 years of off-shoring U.S. production, which destroyed American jobs and federal, state and local tax base, the U.S. unemployment rate, as measured by U.S. government methodology in 1980, is over 20 percent. The ladders of upward mobility have been dismantled,” Roberts said.

Oh of course one could not forget the war against terrorism: EPIC FAIL.

According to Roberts, “the ‘war on terror’ completed the constitutional (and) legal failure of the U.S. The U.S. has also failed economically. Under Wall Street pressure for short-term profits, U.S. corporations have moved offshore their production for U.S. consumer markets.”

The extent of these failures is all hearsay, but in general, our country as a whole did not slam-dunk all of these wars and other issues.

Our government has installed fear in order to gain control. Now, a terrorist threat is “a creation of (our) own government (and) is sufficient justification for naked aggression against Muslim peoples and for an agenda of world hegemony,“ Roberts said.

Not only have we lost many, many young American lives at the hands of ignorant American dictators, we have lost billions of dollars, global credit and have been claimed as “brutal.”

What kind of confidence can be had after all of these failures? I mean how can the government function while drenched in blind confidence and narcissism? It’s disgusting.

Now we are left with no confidence and no need for education. What the hell do we do? We have become chained to our government; giving our leaders every fiber of our being… can you feel the heavy weight on your chest? That weight is the realization that our rights have become sickeningly limited. That weight is the realization that we are doomed.

So what can be done? Roberts gives us the pessimistic version, “the American people are lost in la-la land. They have no idea that their civil liberties have been forfeited. They are only gradually learning that their economic future is compromised. They have little idea of the world’s growing hatred of Americans for their destruction of other peoples.” Ouch. That hurts, especially if you are not “educated enough” to understand what that means.

We can go to school and become one with the grad school kids that use their degrees to be top-notch bartenders. We can educate ourselves on… I can’t remember what my lecture professor has taught me thus far.

But then again, we are the country of dreams, so my unending optimism forces me to believe that my college degree will aid me in some way. Yes, our government is very arrogant, but I am forced to believe that in the end, education is a great tool to aid me in becoming a confident being, ready to throw down against ignorance.