Students and travelers face frustration

A New York Times article on the controversy surrounding the use of an expletive to make a political statement in The Daily Collegian, Colorado State University’s student newspaper, purports to discuss a “free speech issue” among students but neglects to do one essential thing: print student opinion on the decision. The article describes the hearing that will be held for the editor in chief of the newspaper and shares the opinion of the administration. Granted, none of the editorial staff were willing to talk to the Times, but shouldn’t the opinion of average student readers be included? The statement was made to drive them to activism, according to David McSwane, the paper’s editor. This issue is one of students speaking out, so where are the other students who ought to be speaking out?

Well in advance of the holiday travel season, the Washington Post prepares travelers for the worst. Its article on lost and damaged baggage reports that airlines have hit an all-time worst over the course of the last five years. The article clearly sides with the passenger, beginning with a lede that details the frustration all travelers feel when flying. However, by the end of the article, the report includes airlines’ efforts to improve and even names United as the most effective at transporting luggage of all the major airlines this summer. The accompanying graph is a helpful illustration of the increasing trend among lost luggage.

An article in the Boston Globe today profiles a student forced to take a trip for a reason he never imagined: to rejoin his deported father. The article offers a sympathetic look at the U.S.-born, East Boston-raised student at Boston Latin Academy, who must leave the U.S. and move to Colombia, his parents’ native country, where his father was deported to in the fall. The article does not focus too much on the legal aspects of the family’s move—it is possible that that information was too sensitive to the family’s situation to reveal—but it does describe David Arias as a typical American teenager. Details of his feelings of connection to East Boston—originally, he didn’t even want to leave his friends there to attend BLA in seventh grade—and particularly of his preference for speaking English and fears that his Spanish is not fluent enough show a distinction between his generation and his parents’ that is not often made in discussing immigration.