Fighting to sway opinions

U8, you're great

Pray for peace in the Middle East

Useless drivel?

Recombobulator: the finale

Opinions: the year in review

What I've learned...

The mountains and the valleys

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

The man from Nantucket
Colin Butler
Managing Editor

Robert Frost once said, "The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office."

These words have never rung truer for any one man than me.

I won't bore you with the particulars of my time here, but I think I'll pass on a little bit of wisdom – afterall, I've spent four years at Western, so why not give away all my secrets and maybe prevent another soul from repeating my unfortunate "midget pub crawl incident" of second-year.

The first thing to remember – and this is tough – is beer does not give you superhuman powers. You may feel as if you're charming, invincible and vested with a panache unheard of since Scott Baio's best days, but you're wrong. The sad truth is, the only thing you're vested with is the stupidity of 10 normal men. Simple rule: if you can't operate heavy machinery, you can't fight evil.

Speaking of superheroes, Western president Paul Davenport is the coolest – not only has he forgotten more than I'll ever know about economics, he drives a solid-gold car and he's a French knight.

Western should make a Paul Davenport action-figure with tuition-raising action and four pre-recorded catch phrases, such as "Real business-cyle theory is the belief that real changes, as opposed to nominal ones, in supply-side factors are primarily responsible for fluctuations in economic activity." Whoa, he's smart and stuff.

Another thing to remember about university life is not many people know much about tanks. Go figure.

The most important thing to remember about university though is it's not as important as professors would make you think. It's pretty cool to be able to have complex thoughts and communicate them to others, but much like beer – university does not give you superhuman powers.

The most valuable lesson I've learned here is that a university education doesn't make you a better person. I've seen too many puffy-chested louts with up-turned noses walk around town like they have blue blood just because they went to university.

They, like many here, have no respect for the blue-collar "schmoe" who cleans the floors around this place, sells you your "rip-off" textbooks and drives your drunken ass home after a night at Jim Bob's.

I'm not saying you spit on them, you just pretend they don't exist.

Try talking to them, thank them, you'll find most of them are a lot more enlightened than professors, they have real experiences – stuff you can't find in a library – stuff you can actually use.

Whoa, I just got serious there.