They won’t get invited to the most prestigious parties. A regular Thursday night bash? Sure. End of the semester cotillion, nah.
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Checking in on the free speech brigade
The Texas A&M University professor had just returned home from giving a routine lecture on the opioid crisis at the University of Texas Medical Branch when she learned a student had accused her of disparaging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick during the talk.
In the few hours it took to drive from Galveston, the complaint had made its way to her supervisors, and Alonzo’s job was suddenly at risk.
A few hours after Texas A&M started looking into the complaint, course leaders at UTMB sent an email to students in the class saying Alonzo’s comments “about Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and his role in the opioid crisis” did not represent the opinion of the university.
The email also included a “formal censure” of Alonzo, although it did not specify what she said that was offensive.
What did she say that earned the formal censure?
No one can really tell
When students at UTMB received the email hours after the lecture, several started texting each other, trying to figure out what Alonzo had said that was so offensive.
According to one student who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the school, some students wondered if it was when Alonzo said that the lieutenant governor’s office was one of the reasons it’s hard for drug users to access certain care for opioid addiction or overdoses.
A second student who also asked to remain anonymous for the same reason said Alonzo made a comment that the lieutenant governor’s office had opposed policies that could have prevented opioid-related deaths, and by doing so had allowed people to die.
A third student who also spoke on the condition of anonymity said Alonzo talked about how policies, like the state’s ban on fentanyl test strips, have a direct impact on the ability to prevent opioid overdoses and deaths. A push to legalize the test strips died earlier this year in the Patrick-led Senate despite support from top Republicans, including Abbott.
All of the students interviewed said they felt Alonzo’s comments were accurate and they were not offended by anything in the presentation.
On March 21, two weeks after she was placed on paid leave, Alonzo received an email saying her leave had been lifted.
The following day, pharmacy school Dean George Udeani said in a memo to Alonzo that during the lecture she “related an anecdote and an interaction with a state official.”
“I understand that your comment did not assign blame. However, some members of the audience felt that your anecdote was offensive,” he wrote.
“While it is important to preserve and defend academic freedom and as such be able to discuss and present to students and the public the results of research observations and strategies, you should be mindful of how you present your views,” Udeani said.
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My distance vision is still 20/20 but I can’t see up close for shit. So I tried some progressive lenses with the idea that I could just keep them on instead of constantly taking reading glasses on and off. But the magnified area of the lenses is just wayyyyyyy too small. It’s like trying to read stuff through a tube. 90% of the purpose of the glasses is for when I’m on the computer and they’re just useless for that.
So I guess I’m stuck with reading glasses.
It took me two attempts at progressive lenses before they stuck. But now I’m pretty well accustomed to them, and it’s wonderful to not be constantly lifting my glasses in order to read something.
#oldmanthoughts
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Do you use them when on the computer? Are you tilting your head around constantly? Only being able to see one portion of the screen at a time drove me nuts.
I’m getting to the point where I just don’t wear my glasses most of the time. My distance vision isn’t that bad, so I only really need glasses when I want a sharp image for watching TV, etc. But glasses seem to mess up my near vision enough to be annoying when I read.
Are you talking about progressives or bifocals/trifocals? Progressive lenses have continuous power so there shouldn’t be a tunnel effect as you describe it. I don’t like wearing glasses but progressives work fine at the computer and in general.
They will simply up the chemtrails. Nothing you can do.
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This.
I watched ‘Bama Rush’ with my teenager, hoping that it would forever break her from wanting to be in a sorority…instead she now wants to be in one more than ever. 
My sister was in one and now her daughter is off to college this fall and she is following right along in her footsteps. I cannot see a single long-term benefit it provided to my sister, and she has not really identified any, but she’s sure there were tons.
Isn’t the entirety of the benefit making connections?
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I suppose, for job prospects and what have you. She now works at her husband’s company, which could have been accomplished without even going to college.
I was in a frattastical frat at a college that has a very big Greek scene. We used to exclaim “I buy my friends, not my drinks”, a nod to the fact that we had bartenders working at every bar in campus town and often paid very little or nothing at all for a round of 10 vodka-sodas.
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Progressives. Supposed to be +1.75 for reading, no adjustment for normal vision.
They were from Warby Parker, who apparently will just give me my money back. So there’s that.
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I actually have a second pair of work glasses that is only close- and medium-range that I use for the computer, and that pair is great. I don’t notice anything abnormal about how I need to hold my head when I look at the screen or look down to read stuff on my desk. But I can’t use them for driving or normal walking around because they blur my distance vision.
(Of course, I am a moron and bought exactly the same frames for the work pair and the full progressive pair, so if I’m not wearing them they’re indistinguishable from one another. As a result, I’m frequently confused about which pair I actually have in my hands. Even worse, I occasionally realize after the fact that I’ve been driving around with the no-distance work pair.)
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Loving the combined frat culture and reading glasses topics. Shows perfectly where we are as a group.
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Can’t you put some kind of mark on one of them?
Could I? Of course.
Will I? Of course not.
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- Mark one pair of glasses.
- Consistently forget which one is which.
- ???
- Profit
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Will you buy a third pair?
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If contact lens are an option, get them. So much better than glasses.
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