As you may know, thousands of high students have been skipping classes this week to protest new federal laws that will try to stop illegal immigration into the United States. With all the protests, sign-waving, and school-skipping, we feel like perhaps the community is confused about how the United States works. We wanted to take this opportunity to explain it to you.The United States is like a library. The library is open to the public and can be visited by anyone. The library welcomes all visitors.

If a guy walked into The Main, stuck his hand in the cash register and pulled out more than $1,600, people would probably think there was something wrong with that.But if the student body, over the course of the school year, walks out of The Main with plates, bowls, forks, spoons and knives that cost Sodexho, TCU's food service provider, $1,660 to replace, nobody even thinks twice about it.

The TCU baseball squad will play in the first Mountain West Conference preseason tournament in San Diego on Thursday afternoon against Brigham Young. The Frogs will also face the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, San Diego State and Air Force in games scheduled through Sunday.

Seven of the nine MWC schools in the conference participate in baseball. The preseason tournament is designed to compensate for the fact that each team will not play each conference opponent an equal number of times, head coach Jim Schlossnagle said.

Athlete - "Tourist"If you combine reflective lyrics, rich guitar tones, the soothing quality of Joel Pott's voice and an assorted blend of percussive instruments, you wind up with "Tourist," the sophomore...

Islands - "Return to the Sea"Islands is the resurrected project of former Unicorns Nick Diamonds and J'aime Tambeur, and it's full of all the same odd sounds, melodic breaks and quirky lyrics as its prior...

About 50 students practiced proper dining etiquette Wednesday night in the Bass Building Living Room as the director of catering services demonstrated techniques ranging from silverware use to table manners.Kathryn Carter said students lose touch with their dining skills once they enter college.

"Because students live in the dorms, they don't get the chance to sit down at the dining table," Carter said. "All of a sudden after graduation, they are thrown into a business setting and haven't practiced etiquette."

A program started more than 10 years ago finally has the money to start making its goals a reality. The Center for Urban Education was given a $93,000 grant by TCU's Vision in Action initiative. The center...

The philosophy department's Green Honors Chair lecture scheduled for today was canceled because the speaker had to tend to his ill mother-in-law, a TCU philosophy professor said.Owen Flanagan, a philosophy professor at Duke University, was to speak to students about how meditation affects the brain during his speech, "The Bodhisattva's Brain: Neuroscience, Virtue and Happiness."

Phillip Galvin, a TCU philosophy professor, said he was disappointed Flanagan could not attend the lecture, but he understood the situation.