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Inaugural Thoughts
"All of this stress about our country’s future as well as my own has got me thinking: why doesn’t my school provide some sort of political outlet for its students?"
By Rachel Krantz
This Thursday, as President Bush will be sworn in for four more years, thousands of protesters will march through the streets of San Francisco. While I’d rather be there, protesting history as it occurs, instead I’ll be in class, studying history as it happened 200 years ago. And that same night, instead of improving my likely bad mood with Jon Stewart, I’m required to attend a ‘Junior College Kickoff Meeting’. As if four more years of President Bush isn’t enough for me to worry about.
But all of this stress about our country’s future as well as my own has got me thinking: why doesn’t my school provide some sort of political outlet for its students? In an attempt to be too politically sensitive to its students, my teachers have usually all but ignored current event connections in their classrooms. And it’s not just my teachers. During the run-up to last November’s election, it seemed like most students at my school cared more about the next episode of ‘The OC’ then the next Presidency. The column I wrote for the school paper with one of our right wing students is pretty much the only written record of the debates that at least some students were having. On Election Day, it seemed even some of the most apathetic students were swept up in the political excitement. But the next day, when the results were in, most shrugged their shoulders. My friend cynically joked that ‘National-Care-About-the-World-Day’ was over.
So while I probably won’t cut class this Thursday for the Inaugural protest, I’m hoping we can at least turn on a TV at lunch and watch the 40 million dollar party the President is holding at our expense. And if I really get lucky, maybe, just maybe, a teacher or two will stop being so politically correct.
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