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Thursday, April 17, 2025 — Houston, TX

Life's a Mitch: Keep your pens inked, or fingers above the keys

By Mitch Mackowiak     8/27/15 12:07pm

Welcome one and all! Since I took the yoke of Opinions Editor, we have run a few self-ads encouraging readers to write opinions articles. Please note the change in tone of the ad, from a request to a reminder:

 

As the calls of slammed trunk doors die away



and towers of boxes and bins dwindle

Between brimmed buckets of announcements

poured over our bewildered ears and eyes

I wish to share with you some hopes.

If you want to shout your thoughts from a roof

Fondren’s will garner widest audience, but

I hope you think the Thresher a good roof.

 

If you have saved some public monologues

snuck in the corners of your mind, you will

find columnists welcome to the Thresher. 

 

Should recent news spark your strong reaction

the act of writing allows thorough thought

and I hope you think thoroughly through us.

If your convictions fall on ears unhearing

or everyone seems out of earshot

plenty of eyes study newsprint, like yours.

 

You need no invitation to write us

but, as any teacher might subtly threat, 

should no one raise a hand, I shall call you

as empty opinion sections are lies.



More from The Rice Thresher

OPINION 4/15/25 10:16pm
What it’s like to be undocumented at Rice

I’m scared and don’t know how to stop being scared. For years, the fear of deportation loomed over every moment of my life. I developed a phobia of police officers — just seeing one made my stomach turn. The thought of someone discovering my undocumented status was enough to send me into a spiral of anxiety. Even now, despite having legal protections, those fears persist, reminding me that freedom is fragile.

OPINION 4/15/25 10:14pm
Rice should commit to protecting its international students

Last week’s news that five international students – three current students and two recent alumni – have suddenly lost their visas should alarm anyone who values this campus’s global community. The federal government’s “Catch and Revoke” program has already revoked the visas of hundreds of students from universities across the country, raising widespread fears about the stability of international study in the U.S. 


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