Good morning, all, and welcome to the first of what will hopefully be a long-running series here at the Furman Underground.  The concept is simple.  Cheers and Jeers is a way of bringing you the news, about Furman and our greater world community, in a thoroughly biased fashion; cheers for those things that have brightened our days, and jeers to those that bring forth in us feelings of unbridled annoyance.

Cheers and Jeers starts… NOW!

Quote of the Week: “He is handsome, young and also suntanned.” – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in congratulating Barack Obama on his victory in the 2008 US Presidential Election.

CHEERS to the beautiful autumn weather.  I know the temptation this time of year is to shelter your butt inside, crying about the cold, but take some light reading (perhaps Fundamentals of Sociology, or a perennial favorite, City of God by St. Augustine) and spend an afternoon out by the lake.  Your toes will be frozen, but at least your soul will stay warm.

JEERS to the internet.  I mean, honestly.  More than just a hindrance to vital sources of information and student resources for the many people who are on campus everyday, the internet failage is keeping me from my daily dose of stupid internet memes.  The fun of “The Yes Dance” is tempered significantly by the 30 minute wait time to load a 5 minute video.  However, CHEERS to the move to AT&T being enacted tomorrow!  Maybe Furman can use some of their vast financial resources to get in on the ground floor of new White Space technologies in the future…  Or maybe that’s just another Google pipe dream that will never get out of beta.

CHEERS to Furman’s chapter of CCM for their upcoming discussion of worker policies at Wal-Mart, and a discussion of options for low-income families who see stores like Wal-Mart (stores which illegally infringe upon their workers’ rights to organize and go to great lengths to avoid assisting their workers in finding healthcare) as their only option.  Raise your wafers to CCM; it’s time more groups on campus stepped up to the plate on social justice issues.

JEERS to Kissletoe 2008, if only on the grounds that we don’t need any more creative ways to spread disease here at Furman.  We’re already the biggest petri dish in the world.  But, on a more basic level, do you really want to show your children the Guiness Book of World Records when you’re old and flaccid, point to that page, and say “When I was your age, we had large makeout sessions, and someone somewhere thought it was important enough to put in a book.”

CHEERS to puppies!

What are you cheering and jeering about this week?