WE THOUGHT YOU KNEW

We had an interesting visitor here at the office the other day, and boy was
he mad.

He took issue with a piece which appeared, in the opinions section by the
way, in last week's paper. For those of you who don't already know the
difference, the opinions section of the paper contains just that -- opinions.

In this case, it contained a humorous memoir in which staff writer Michael
Ellis described the first time he ever smoked marijuana. Our visitor, who
we are allowing to remain nameless for the time being, couldn't believe
that the university or our editor would allow us to print such a filthy
piece of trash using his tuition dollars. (About a third of The Echo's
operating funds comes from a student activity fee.) He couldn't believe
that we would ignore all the vicious and violent crime that is caused by
marijuana use. You've seen the gruesome headlines: "Man smokes pot, eats
donut, passes out." How could we print such socially reprehensible material
without at least assuring our readers that we don't all think that way
around here?

But don't despair. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for our
deviance. You see, a couple of hundred years ago, this guy named James
Madison and some of his wig-wearing buddies put together a little ditty we
like to call the Constitution. Then, they looked at it a couple of times
and decided that it needed a few adjustments.

They didn't feel like starting the whole thing over, so they came up with
something called the Bill of Rights, which is just a fancy title they came
up with for the first 10 amendments (that means changes) that they made to
the original Constitution. One of those changes was something they called
the First Amendment. It goes like this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech
or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assembler, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Translation: we can and will print anything we so choose (see "Echo Guide
to the Apocalypse" below). And there isn't a single thing the
administration can do about it. In fact, The University of Minnesota once
tried to censor its budding student journalists by cutting its funding.
Well, those crazy Gophers sued the Powers That Be. And, wouldn't you know
it, Richard S. Arnold of Little Rock, chief judge of the 8th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in St. Louis wrote an opinion in the paper's favor. He
explained that a university doesn't have to have a newspaper but, if it
does decide to have one, must forever refrain from influencing the content
of that newspaper.

But don't worry. There's hope for you, too. You see, this wonder we call
the First Amendment doesn't just apply to us. It applies to all of you as
well. We'll respect your First Amendment rights just as much as we would
fight and die for our own.

If you want to complain, write a letter. For your convenience, we print our
address somewhere in the section every week. Look out for it. It'll be
there. Along with whatever else we want. We Promise.