By Amy Heard
Copy desk chief

I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised Tuesday upon reading The Rope. I picked up a copy from the floor in Carroll Science and carried it with me over to the SUB to get my morning coffee. I planned on reading it with my caffeine boost, but I wasn’t really looking forward to it. After last year’s second-semester edition, my expectations had been very much lowered.

I started reading and caught myself actually snickering. The Aggies were appropriately picked on, the Collins fire was satirized, and President Kenneth Starr made his usual appearance. The Lariat made its traditional appearance, but this time the piece was at least comical, unlike last year’s attack that smacked of personal dislike for the then editor-in-chief.

These are the kinds of articles I like to read in the school’s only inappropriate, off-the-record, bordering-on-sacrilegious newspaper. Personal attacks, sorority stereotypes and excessive typos (even to make some kind of point) are childish and, quite honestly, boring to read. If the NoZe brothers want people to continue picking up their randomly produced paper from the floor of buildings on campus, they need to focus on wit and satire.

I haven’t been at Baylor long enough to have an opinion, but I have been told by other students that the brotherhood used to mean more. My understanding of the NoZe brothers is that they’re a prank society, but all I’ve ever seen is college guys (and girl) with noses, and the occasional statue with a painted nose. I was glad to see that the Student Foundation billboard was spray painted — at least that took initiative and forethought.

What I would like to see is the revival of the NoZe brothers as they apparently used to be. I want to hear, at least every once in a while, of something the brotherhood did that at least slightly pushed the limits.

A secret society based on pranks shouldn’t limit itself to painting Judge Baylor’s nose. Shake things up around Baylor. Lord knows we need it.

Amy Heard is a senior English major from San Antonio and is the Lariat’s copy desk chief.