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Unbelievable. We Aggies are a family and Aggies watch out for other Aggies... until you hold a view that doesn't jive with the crowd. Then you're "garbage" or you should "go to tu, where you belong". I have two seven year olds and a four month old and I hope they all want to go to the University I love, to a place that gives me a feeling like no other even now, 15 years after I graduated. And I hope the mindset that anyone who doesn't agree with "us" is trash is nowhere to be found by then. It's f'n shameful for a place that aspires to be a world class university.

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This might be a good point if double bubble was not a 'sip.

This is exactly what the admin wants, or wanted...a complacent student body that never knew BONFIRE, and as such would not really care if it was brought back.

BONFIRE was the largest bringing together of Aggies there was. The last couple of years it burned on campus had more in attendance than the game against tu.

I personally witnessed at the '97 BONFIRE a four generation family of Ags, the oldest couple of gens with tears in their eyes.

New army is just damn pitiful, if they can rationalize away the SPIRIT and BURNING DESIRE.

If, and IF you can rationalize "racism" into the equasion, then you have listened to, and bought into the modern day of Obama. If you don't like it, put the R tag on it.

BONFIRE should return, with more supervision.

You young ones have bought what has been sold, unfortunately.

There is not a student, builder of BONFIRE, or player on our Football Team that should not be able to see or feel what we did as Old Army. And don't put the R tag on it, as all were included and enjoyed.

BONFIRE was part of Texas A&M, and the State of Texas.

But you go ahead, new army, and rationalize it away via labels, etc.

[This message has been edited by Old Sarge (edited 9/11/2009 11:32p).]

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As I stated, the culture has not changed. The resistance to any information that doesn't back the status quo is loud and drowns out common sense.

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Bullsh*t. A&M has continued to change before, during, and after the Bonfire collapse. Most have been for the good and a few have not been so good.

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There are real victims to a close-minded culture, so paranoid of outside information, that they shout down and ridicule said information and those who attempt to make a difference. The result is disaster.

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Severe hyperbole there. Those at the Student Bonfire have shown that a Bonfire can be safely built and an appropriate safety-minded atmosphere is not only possible, but maintainable.

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Tim Kerlee is one of of those victims. Look at that picture...crushed and twisted legs...and ask yourself if there is any tradition worth the risk that something like could happen. That's someone's son lying there, mortally injured, due to a cultural defect that wouldn't allow anyone to be heard that could have prevented his and the other deaths. That's a huge chunk of a family's life being torn away from them because of some culturally immature notion that "tradition" for tradition sake has value. Only those posturing, for the benefit of their ego, would answer that question with, "yes, it is worth it".

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1. I new Tim. I had class with him. I was at his funeral.

2. I agree that no tradition is worth someone's life.

3. #2 is a bullsh*t comparison as every action involves risk. How many people die playing football? How many people die driving to college? How many die doing all sorts of mundane, simple things that we do every day? The important thing is not to remove every risk out there, but to mitigate as many risks as possible to the max extent possible. Again, Student Bonfire has shown that Bonfire can be done with minimal risk to life and limb. So is one person's life worth it? No, but let's be realistic. We take calculated risks every day.

4. Saying that Tim died because no one would listen is misleading. Some people pointed out the problems. Others whined about the pollution. Others complained about the noise when bonfire burned. Still others thought the wood was being misused and should have been given to the homeless to build homes. My point is that there were a lot of people who thought the Aggies' efforts were bad with respect to Bonfire and those who had legitimate complaints and possible solutions were lost in the mix. This (regrettably) happens in any large organization.

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If what makes Texas A&M communitiy "special" is mindless tradition that puts members of the community at risk of death and serious bodily injury, then it isn't as special as many want to believe.

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1. Bonfire was far from "mindless" and was not the only tradition out there (still isn't).

2. I guess football gets some special exception for you? Rappelling? ROTC? Skiing? Driving? as well? All of these involve a "risk of death and serious bodily injury."

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If Texas A&M is to be special, it is the people that make up Texas A&M that have to be special...not some out of control annually repeated activity. If you need tradition to be special...you ain't.

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You assume that the activity will always remain out of control and can't be controlled. Student Bonfire has proven the opposite to be possible.

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Try to be a bit more analytical here. The Duke episode ended up in shame for the Duke faculty.

To compare a racial a charge n 2009, which can be rightly trivialzed these days (see the Cambridge, MA incident recently) to McCarthyism, where people's lives were ruined, shows you are out of touch. To call it the "New McCarythism" is crazy. Do you think the whole white guilt, racial tension thing is anything other than hundreds of years old? Open your history book friend. This is not a new topic.

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So, you don't think the Duke coach who was forced to resign or the three players whose parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending them and dropped out of college had their lives ruined?

What's the first thing Nancy Pelosi did to discredit the Tea Parties, she called the people attending racists. How does the left fight back against the people who oppose Obama care, they call them racist. If the DMN is against Bonfire returning, they say it was a racist tradition.

All I'm saying is that the left is using racism to promote an agenda. If you don't see that you're out of touch.

Bonfire's gone for good. Cherish the memory, but move on. It's never coming back.

Old Sarge is right. I built bonfire in 98 and watched it burn. It is one of the best things I have been apart of in my life and I will never forget it. The problem with people my age is that we were very young when it fell and were likely to "buy in to what was being sold".

The rumors of rampid alchoholism in my oppinion are completely false. Not once did I see someone provide beer at the stack or cut. Racism and sexism did not occur any more than at any social gathering I have been to in College Station or anywhere else south of the Mason Dixon line. Unfortunately we should have learned a lesson from 1994 and we didn't. That is the problem I can not get out of my head. If anyone can tell me what was done to make sure the stack didn't fall again after 1994 I may be able to rest easier.

That being said I fully support student bonfire and believe they are doing it the way it should have been done after the first fall. Bonfire made my freshmen year something I will never forget and it is part of the Spirit of A&M. May it live on forever.

I'm going to get flamed for writing this, so I expect it. I'm not defending Michael's column, but I wanted to defend him.

I knew Michael Landauer at A&M and, though I haven't seen him for years, he was a friend. He is a good man and a good Ag. I knew him from the Battalion, where we were both opinion page columnists. I like to joke that, in most semesters, I was the "token" conservative columnist, but truth be told Michael had opinions that were often conservative. But Michael never took a party line on anything. His opinions were never knee-jerk, but were generally carefully considered. I know he loved A&M, but I also know that there are things that frustrated him about his school. Disagree with him if you want (which I do), but understand that I do not think he is trying to take down A&M and I do not believe he has a political agenda here.

He is also right on one key point: Bonfire, while the most unifying force at A&M in our time, was at the same time divisive. I've never completely understood why, but there were many on campus who were adamantly opposed to it. Again, I'm not defending them, just stating that those Aggies were always there. But they are still Aggies...

Having said all this, I miss Bonfire.

Don't let the burning desire die. It's what made TAMU different from any other University in the world.

[This message has been edited by MaroonoutAg05 (edited 9/12/2009 12:00p).]

Dont let it die.