Having his face pasted on every billboard, poster and magazine cover throughout campus is just the beginning of the Dalai Lama rush. Whether you have been eagerly waiting for this visit or you just sold your ticket on eBay and are looking forward to a day off from school, His Holiness is coming and will affect every student on campus.
When the beginning of next week rolls around students will see thousands of unfamiliar faces, as the outer stretches of the Buffalo community converge on our campus. With such an inflow of people, the resources that students rely on each day will be essentially paralyzed.
30,000 students and community members will descend upon campus throughout Tuesday for a marathon day running from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Transportation will be limited and hectic to say the least, and students that think they can go about their daily routine will be harshly reminded of their misconception.
The Coventry and Webster entrances will be temporarily closed to traffic, while University Police will regulate others. In addition to entrances, Lake LaSalle, Arena, Alumni, Stadium, Slee, Baird, or Special Event lots will be blocked off to usual parkers.
Something as simple as getting lunch will also provide another element of chaos for the day. Food concessions will be available at the Stadium as well as Putnam's, but it's probably safe to say that those who don't pack a homemade lunch will spend an aggravating day waiting in Fall-Fest-caliber lines.
Although the feature speech is on Tuesday, the visit is a three-day Lama affair. Roughly 6,500 people, 3,500 being members outside the UB community, will be filling Alumni Arena, as well as precious parking space, for the interfaith service on Monday. Even if you don't care about this congregation of religious speakers, this event will be happening on a school day; so while students with mid-afternoon classes are fighting for parking, another surge of commuters will be in the hunt.
Brace for impact, UB, the Dalai Lama is coming.
Bulk up or pull out
Government indecision is costing too many lives overseas
With an alarming increase in violent insurgency and the U.S. troop level surpassing 147,000, Americans who feel they are desensitized to all news about the war in Iraq may begin to take notice again.
Those in opposition to the US are mounting costly attacks throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. In the last month alone, over 1,500 violent deaths occurred in just Baghdad alone, and a jump in military casualties has brought the total of fallen service members to 2,675. On just Tuesday and Wednesday this week, 90 Iraqis were killed or found dead and two American servicemen lost their lives in the insurgent-rampant Al Anbar province.
The bottom-line is what we are doing in Iraq is not working. The soldiers and military police aren't making progress, they're just trying to survive, and Iraqi police are not stabilizing crime, they're cleaning up the bodies and dealing with the aftermaths. We are in a standstill in Iraq, and the government needs to make decisions, now.
It's time to either bulk up or pull out, Washington, because right now indecision is our enemy.
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
