The presidential campaign season has been running for nearly a year and growing in intensity - and there's still more than a year to go.Surely, I'm not the only one already tired of hearing about the upcoming election. The news is filled 24/7 with campaign stops, speculations and the latest gossip on the myriad of candidates vying for their party's presidential bid.

The 2008 race is the first non-stop campaign in U.S. history, said Charles Colson, who was special counsel to Richard Nixon, with campaigning beginning the day after the 2004 election.

About 70 million people watched on Sept. 26, 1960, as a handsome young senator charmed the cameras while his opponent dripped sweat and appeared confused beneath his receding hairline during America's first televised presidential debate. The young senator, John F. Kennedy, knew how to take full advantage of television - the latest in technology - to outshine his opponent, then Vice President Richard Nixon.

It's time to help pitch in at the on-campus apartments.Residents of the Tom Brown-Pete Wright apartments have been provided with individual recycling bins in their apartments in hopes of initiating a campus wide movement, a resident assistant said Monday.

Ryan Hambley, one of the RAs who put the program in motion, said the idea for individual recycling bins was brought up at an RA brain-storming session.

The SGA House of Student Representatives is calling for new members.The elections will occur Sept. 6 to fill vacant seats left open after the spring elections, SGA President Jace Thompson said.

Thompson said the spots open for election are two positions for first-year student representatives, one position as an education representative and one as a health and human sciences representative.




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Universities used to be places of demonstration, political discussion and a general challenging of society and ones' beliefs. Think of University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s. What happened? It seems now more than ever - and especially at TCU - students are taking a step back and coasting through their four, five or even six years here without ever really listening to what the other guy has to say. There is an attitude of apathy that permeates our campus. While TCU is changing on the outside, it's imperative that we start looking inward.

The Gatorade Sports Science Institute is funding a kinesiology research project by providing $19,000 - but the research will not involve Gatorade. the kinesiology department chair said.Joel Mitchell, chair of the kinesiology department, said the research attempts to study the effects of exercise and fluid on sodium levels in the human body.

Gatorade, which contains sodium, would be an additional variable and, therefore, water is being used, Mitchell said.

Readers might remember Steve Best, the University of Texas at El Paso associate professor of humanities and philosophy who came to TCU in spring 2005 to defend the Animal Liberation Front, a group the FBI rightly considers a terrorist organization. For example, the ALF members have claimed responsibility for bombing university biomedical research facilities in their quest to "liberate" animals.

A new face is already turning heads around the Ed and Rae Schollmaier Basketball Complex nowadays during men's basketball practices.Kornelija Kairyte's resume and experience in both overseas and professional basketball was able to secure her a job as the director of basketball operations for the men's program.

The position became available after Sean Woods, then the director of basketball operations, filled a vacant assistant coach position left by Chris Crutchfield's July departure to Oral Roberts University.

A professor in the philosophy department at Princeton University, coined the term "speciesism" which is analogous to racism and sexism.Professor Peter Singer says animals have traits which make them different from humans, inherited from genes and DNA, and yet are viewed as inferior.

Being more intelligent does not make one superior.

As Jeremy Bentham, an 18th century reformer wrote about animals, "The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?"