Spring Break
Letters to the Editor
Student vigilance at UConn is nothing but a juvenile farce
Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Commentary
I believe that student vigilance at the University of Connecticut has recently turned to something of a juvenile and petty farce, law enforcement witch hunts if you will. An e-mail I received the night of Feb. 7 solidified my convictions concerning this utter absurdity, as I read the laughable words written by UConn Public Safety and Emergency, "the male approached a female from the opposite direction and came within several feet. This made her feel uncomfortable as if the male was to close. The female turned around and left the area. The male left in the opposite direction. There was no exchange of dialog. If you have any information or witnessed the incident please call UConn Police at 486-4800."
Now what, in the name of lunacy, has our community been reduced to, when coming within a few feet of a woman warrants a panicked, and even more astonishingly, entertained appeal to the UConn police. It is possible, I will concede, that this man could very well have been Jack the Ripper re-incarnated, Charles Manson escaped from prison, or even Michael Myers materializing out of the wild imaginations of movie watching, skittish little girls. More than likely, however, this incident exemplifies the slow descent into childish paranoia that, when we were 6 years old, manifested itself as the terrifying boogeyman in our closets.
It has been a very long time since I have found myself so disgusted at the state of human idiocy that I felt it necessary to write an article describing its depth. However, when logical contemplation of an incident fails to produce even a hint human rationality, I feel it is crucial to bridge the information gap and highlight facts that might make a sensible understanding of the issue more feasible than the current mental feeling I have of trying to eat soup with a fork.
So please, if somebody has information regarding an aggressive movement on the part of this man, a possible exchange of threatening remarks, or maybe even a hint of something legally incriminating by any stretch of the wildest Stephen King imagination, I would be grateful for you to come forward and replace my current state of disorientation with something that resembles a reasoned human thought.
Now what, in the name of lunacy, has our community been reduced to, when coming within a few feet of a woman warrants a panicked, and even more astonishingly, entertained appeal to the UConn police. It is possible, I will concede, that this man could very well have been Jack the Ripper re-incarnated, Charles Manson escaped from prison, or even Michael Myers materializing out of the wild imaginations of movie watching, skittish little girls. More than likely, however, this incident exemplifies the slow descent into childish paranoia that, when we were 6 years old, manifested itself as the terrifying boogeyman in our closets.
It has been a very long time since I have found myself so disgusted at the state of human idiocy that I felt it necessary to write an article describing its depth. However, when logical contemplation of an incident fails to produce even a hint human rationality, I feel it is crucial to bridge the information gap and highlight facts that might make a sensible understanding of the issue more feasible than the current mental feeling I have of trying to eat soup with a fork.
So please, if somebody has information regarding an aggressive movement on the part of this man, a possible exchange of threatening remarks, or maybe even a hint of something legally incriminating by any stretch of the wildest Stephen King imagination, I would be grateful for you to come forward and replace my current state of disorientation with something that resembles a reasoned human thought.
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