The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, June 24, 1999, Image 5

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    3-303
A2322
v » 105:no.141
Stowe
popularity before puberty
bung superstars earn their millions early, make college students wonder if they toil in vain
Aaron
MEIER
.ncesa:
aulitary.
juggles:
earmee ^ jl -y obody
omenar: jVI likes you
he mil::: p JL when you
ot detra e 21.” This line from
gtheir.jnk-182’s song
ell deliv A/hut’s my Age
. perfergaii i?” proves the
ho has md is wise beyond
:er and 5 years.
<ualprc: i n this day of the
idqler-oriented pop
creeni: ilttire, 23 is middle age, and a career in
on'su: iow business is pretty much over and
■ye-car ane by the time an actor or singer hits
proir: ie t>ig “3 - 0.”
s evide: What happened to the good old days
■ more: hen actors had to struggle and work as
aiters or bartenders before they had
iiishi ieir first big break? Nowadays, a high-
vs a ■ :hool diploma and a role in “Bye Bye
ierwi irdle” is all the acting credentials movie
tary.Hfjcecs and studio heads need to sign mul-
■ than -million dollar contracts.
lacked Meanwhile, college students are wast-
If Hheir lives away trying to learn things
'hen they are missing out on what might
-MrjfBie most lucrative years of their lives,
tike Killeen native Jennifer Love He-
lt /itt|age 20.
Recently, she just pitched a movie to a
tudio with no script, just a premise, and
hey threw $500,000 at her.
^■he idea of I lewitt having a great idea
E movie is as believable as her pitching
Jutragena products. Will she ever know
le anguish of a pimple? I think not.
I ve got a few good ideas for some
iioyies. I’d even be willing to settle for a
>altrv $100,000 per idea. Sure, I haven’t
hade my own music video where the
ole visual focus is my breasts as 1 jump
ip and down, but I’m sure we could
vork something out.
Using my summer studying time wise-
y, 1 recently hit the Internet to look up the
iges of pretty much every star who has
een in the news this past year. People
uch as Sarah Michelle Cellar, 22; Natalie
Portman, 18; and Seth Green, the grand-
daddy of the list at 25; have all had their
Clearasil taken away and have been
shoved into the spotlight. After some
painful math — including not only addi
tion, but also division — of the 28 people
selected, I found the average age was 21.35
years. Pretty sad considering the average
age of the entire American population is
getting older and is no where near 21.
LeeAnne Rimes, 17, had a hit song ti
tled, “How Do I Live Without You.” At
that age, the only person she shouldn’t
be able to live without is her parents not
some boy she met at a 4-H meeting.
Singer Brandy, 20, had a hit this year
with the line, “Have you ever loved
somebody so much it could make you
cry.” Miss Moesha might have a set of
pipes on her, but at such a tender young
age, the only song she should be singing
is a cover of Jennifer Page’s “Crush.”
VH1 has also declared Brandy to be a
“diva” alongside the likes of Tina Thrner
and Cher. This week, MTV has unveiled
an installment of their biographical se
ries “Biorhythm” featuring Brandy. How
long could the program actually be? She
was born, she started singing, and now
she’s fighting with Monica about some
loser. That’s pretty much all that can be
said. What are they going to do with the
remaining 20 minutes of the show?
Maybe they could start with Brandy’s
conception and pictures of her in utero.
But not all of the teeny-bopper upstarts
rely on perkiness and clean complexions.
Some are truly talented individuals making
their impact on society. And these people
are the ones who truly make the average
college student feel like a has-been.
Drew Barrymore, whose 17-year ca
reer makes her the grand dame of the
bunch, is only 24 years old and is one of
Hollywood’s top producers. Her produc
tion company has yielded three major hit
movies {The Wedding Singer, Ever After
and Never Been Kissed) in the past year.
She isn’t the only producer still sub
scribing to YM magazine. Alicia Silver-
stone, 22, and Melissa Joan Hart, 23, also
have their own production companies. /
Singer Lauryn Hill, 24, won seven
Grammy’s this year, tying a record set by
the legendary Carol King. Hill also has
two children, has a truly inspiring faith in
God and constant dedication to helping
political refugees. She makes an existence
where looking forward to the newest
episode of “Friends” seem pretty empty.
Young actors such as Edward Furlong, 22;
Reese Witherspoon, 23; and Kirsten Dunst,
17, have delivered strong performances all
before they were old enough to drive.
Dunst wasn’t even old enough to see
her own performance as the child-vampire
Claudia in the R-rated Interview With The
Vampire.
So while Jennifer Love decides which
one of her potential costars has the
biggest pecs and Lauryn clears away
shelf space for her Grammys, the rest of
us will suffer through an early mid-life
crisis wondering where we went wrong
in junior high.
Aaron Meier is a senior
political science major.
Laws based on age limits can
harm presumption of innocence
,the»0LUMBUS, Ohio (U-WIRE) —
i a recent speech in New Orleans,
mssc JGore advocated outlawing
sani and-gun ownership for those be-
iicen <veeu the ages of 18 and 20.
artooii®Incredibly, while those 18- to
dvet :0-year-olds cannot legally buy a
jedr; eei or purchase a bottle of wine,
ectoioey can walk into any gun shop,
awn shop or gun show in Ameri-
natcteiand buy a handgun,” he said,
j then Not too long ago, people would
hou ave thought the incredible part
? andGfa| that 18- to 20-year-olds could
ot buy a beer.
lindlti Not long ago in Ohio, the gov-
, roK rnor and state legislature had de-
caset-ided that 18-year-olds were re-
1( j un( jj-?onsible enough to consume
zan j Icoholic beverages, so long as the
Icohol content was below 3.6 per-
sur ?nt. meaning most beers and
'.^laly wine coolers were legal.
; s tiler states had no restrictions on
Icohol consumption at all.
But some bureaucrat in the De-
,, , artment of Transportation
w Ttanged all that in the 1980s.
S|he bureaucrat’s name was
lizabeth Dole. Dole decided she
kthec ioLld be the one to determine
to J 'ho was old enough to drink.
In other words, she wanted to
3 dke the national mommy,
wa: As Secretary of Transportation
jiMhid National Mommy, Dole threat-
jelinfned to take away the federal gov-
mment’s highway money from
lV as :ny state that did not raise its
jadi;:
drinking age to 21.
When Dole’s law passed in
1984, only 18 states had a strict 21-
year-old drinking age. Many states
resisted Dole’s mothering, but she
was determined, taking the issue
all the way to the Supreme Court.
“Gore thinks that
if one has
statistics then
one can ignore...
due process/'
She won, so Ohio dutifully
changed its laws to suit mom.
Recently, the 16-year-old driving
age has also been under attack. In
California, and five other states,
you can’t get full driving privileges
until you are 18 years old.
Behind all these petty age re
strictions is something more insidi
ous — a deliberate chipping away
of the presumption of innocence.
This presumption, rooted in Eng
lish common law, has been a part
of our nation since it was founded.
Yet Gore thinks that if one has
statistics then one can ignore that
pesky part of the Constitution that
talks about due process. He claims
“18-year-olds commit 35 percent
more gun murders than 21 -year-
olds, double the gun murders by
24-year-olds and four times the
gun murders by 30-year-olds.”
Another statistic could probably
be found showing that 30-year-
olds commit at least twice as
many “gun murders” as 40-year-
olds. Why not raise the age to 31?
And those 70-year-olds are sta
tistically much more violent than
90-year-olds, so why not raise the
age to 71? We’ve got to keep those
guns out of the hands of our 70-
year-olds. Studies show they can’t
be trusted.
A1 Gore’s style of logic can be
used to justify many other types of
government misbehavior besides
gun control.
In New Jersey, it was recently
revealed that blacks were much
more likely to be stopped by the
highway patrol because of police
statistics that say blacks are more
likely to have drugs in their cars.
There is not much difference
between these two cases.
If you happen to be a member
of a group that government statis
tics say is being naughty, you are
immediately under suspicion,
which slowly but surely degrades
the presumption of innocence
guaranteed to all.
Greg Weston is a columnist for
The Lantern at Ohio State
University.
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Websites selling assistance with
essays ill-advised, but not illegal
s com
merce
continues
to blast into cy
berspace, about
a dozen Web
sites now exist
to provide stu
dents with as- Caijlb
sistance on es- MCDANIEL
says for their
college applications. Assistance,
that is, at a price.
According to an article in yes
terday’s New York Times, some
admissions officials are upset by
the explosion of these Internet
services, which include business
es like MyEssay.com.
They fear the expensive fees
and marketing strategies of the
sites only intensify the nervous
trepidation with which most stu
dents approach their applications.
But it does not take a 2,000-
word essay to show these fears
are ultimately unfounded.
Really, concerns about the sites
are surprising because their ser
vices are nothing new. For in
stance, MyEssay.com allows stu
dents to submit a final draft of
their admissions essays to a board
of reviewers. After shelling out
$99.95 for the service, students
receive criticisms and suggestions
from the panel.
But the only things original
about this package are its elec
tronic medium and its outrageous
price tag.
Students who are really serious
about getting admitted into com
petitive colleges have always so
licited the advice of others — if
they are smart, that is. Besides,
many companies outside of cyber
space already offer help with writ
ing skills.
And universities must surely
be aware that parents, teachers
and peers are frequently enlisted
for their comments on applica
tions. Why cry foul when private
companies are enlisted as well?
In the Times article, one ad
missions official tries to explain
the supposed difference between
free advice and Internet writing
coaches.
“What bothers me is a lot of
these services are, in essence,
capitalizing on anxiety about the
application process,” said Karl M.
Furstenberg, director of admis
sions and financial aid at Dart
mouth College.
Furstenberg should face the
facts. The anxiety of the applica
tion process is real, and it is not
created by the sites. It is created
by a simple mathematical prob
lem — there are more applicants
than openings at most top-ranked
schools. Getting in is not easy,
and it will inevitably be stressful.
So the fears of officials like
Furstenberg simply do not add
up. But the bills students might
pay for the services do add up,
and quickly, and it is questionable
whether a few comments on an
essay is worth the money, no mat
ter who they are from.
For instance, MyEssay.com can
charge upwards of $100 for its
work. CollegeGate, a similar ser
vice, offers packages costing up to
$500. It certainly does seem silly
to spend so much moolah on a
few essay mark-ups.
Dr. Ed Funkhouser, associate
director of the Office of Honors
Programs and Academic Scholar
ships at Texas A&M, agrees.
“For the majority of students,
[the service] would not be any
better than talking with a high-
school English teacher,” he said.
“There is a sense that if you pay
more for the criticisms, they will
be worth more. ”
But this perception is certainly
far from true. In truth, students
could probably get critiques of the
same caliber from parents and
teachers for free. The sites might
be faulted for over-pricing its
largely unnecessary product.
But in the free market, this
fault is a company prerogative.
Whether or not they should be,
consumers are willing to pay for
their service, and the companies
cannot be accused of stealing can
dy from babies when the babies
are eagerly forking the candy over
to the tune of 100 smackaroos.
Where there is a demand, there
will be a supply.
However, despite this econom
ic fact of life, some admissions of
ficials go on to insist that the
prices are unfairly high.
“Not all students can afford to
pay these fees, and we think the
process should be as fair as it can
be,” Furstenberg said .
Interesting, coming from an
admissions officer for an Ivy
League school.
Students who can afford Dart
mouth will probably barely blink
at the price range at
MyEssay.com, and one should
more quickly wonder whether
making the best universities be
yond the financial reach of many
qualified students is fair.
Besides, services hoping to get
a slice of the college admissions
market have been around for
years. Companies like Kaplan and
the Princeton Review have sold
academic assistance — and quite
successfully — for some time. If
Kaplan and Princeton Review are
not unfair, then neither are essay-
aid websites.
In reality, the perception of un
fairness voiced by Furstenberg
and others should turn its focus
from the Websites to the college
admissions process itself.
Perhaps colleges should reeval
uate an application procedure
which puts so much emphasis on
one standardized test or one two-
page essay that students are will
ing to spend hundreds of dollars
to perform well on them.
But as things stand, the com
plaints being shouted about these
Websites do not stick.
TYue, most students would be
better off saving their money for
the washing machines in the
dorm than burning it on some es
say edits. Nevertheless, while us
ing the sites may be unwise, it is
not unethical or illegal.
Unless, of course, one dares to
ask whether the capitalist’s pen
chant for poor consumer spend
ing habits is morally questionable.
And while that thesis may be a
good topic to tackle in an applica
tion essay, it is beyond the ability
of college admissions offices to
answer.
Caleb McDaniel is a junior
history major.