I’m writing in response to an April 3 article titled “Central Texas plagued by rabies.” As a citizen of Waco and a person that works with the feral cat community in our area, I would like to offer a few words in response to the article about recent rabies cases in McLennan County.
This morning while I was getting Starbucks, the cashier annoyed me to no end.
Why, you may ask?
She was just too excited. She had the biggest grin on her face, like giving me my Passion Tea drink was just the best part of her day. I do believe it could have been me not having enough caffeine in my body at the time to deal with someone’s exuberance, but it was also the fact that since I wasn’t in a good mood, anyone else being in that good of a mood was just annoying.
Texas has made a good start in terms of the statutes of limitations as it relates to sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and continuous sexual abuse of a young child. In Texas, these crimes are treated the same as murder.
Texas has a total of eight crimes that have no statutes of limitations: murder and manslaughter, sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault of a child, sexual assault if DNA is collected, continuous sexual abuse of a young child, indecency with a child, leaving the scene of an accident that results in the death of a person, trafficking of persons, and continuous trafficking of persons.
Last week, the Associated Press deserved the criticism it received when it adapted the official AP Stylebook to exclude the phrase “illegal immigrant.” Arguing the world “illegal” can only describe an action, the AP instead mandated writers use “living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission.”
The change affects hundreds of newspapers across the country, as AP Style is the industry standard for journalism.
In response to the April 4 editorial “Comprehensive finals get an F for effectiveness,” I would encourage the author of the editorial to dig deeper and consider research about the effectiveness of comprehensive exams. For instance, findings of two recent studies by Natalie Lawrence (2013) and Szpunar, McDermott, and Roediger (2007) indicate that simply preparing for cumulative finals results in improved retention of material, especially if students have already been tested on that material in a midterm examination earlier in the semester. Indeed, this “retesting” method discourages cramming for a one-time “brain dump” because the student knows that he or she will see the material again on a cumulative exam. Moreover, the repetition improves long-term retention.
I am writing to comment on “Comprehensive finals get an F for effectiveness,” published April 4, based on my 19 years of experience as a student and 43 years of experience as a professor of mechanical engineering. When I was a student, my most challenging study was done for comprehensive final exams, which most in engineering are. I am certain that my most significant learning took place putting the whole course together, and this capstone learning experience was when the concepts were finally tattooed onto my brain.
Throughout our short history, the trend for the U.S. government during times of war is to restrict constitutional freedoms while increasing the power of the government itself.
For example, the Patriot Act, signed by former President Bush in 2001, significantly loosened the restrictions on government agencies’ intelligence-gathering methods (i.e. wire tapping) as a response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Jim Crow laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 that disenfranchised the country’s black population and perpetuated legal discrimination of all minorities.
Education is a right that many people take for granted, which is sad because people in other countries dream of that opportunity. As college students we should understand how valuable education is because it allows us to get ready for the real world.
