“Well I wonder do we learn. Seems we’re making the same wrong turn…” —”Listen” Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Do we really listen to each other? It’s either a yes or no answer. I am going to let you, the reader, make that decision.

There are some things that I have finally begun to understand in my column in listening to what someone else is trying to say.

In a “comfortable” environment like ISU, new ideas are exposed with overt friction between conservatives, and liberals are no longer immune to its ramifications.

Being that we are finally absolved of McHubs and unresolved from the Carrie (I am a personal mess) Chapman Catt laughable name-change fiasco, we are finally listening to one another.

Enacting modern formulas from both the Left and Right, things here at ISU must start to change. I am not going to tell you what to activate, for that must be decided on your own.

I am first and foremost a journalist who happens to write an editorial column on Fridays which makes people equally pissed/pleased at the same time. That is my job!

Being a progressive liberal at ISU can be very challenging, but I am more determined to retain my Eastern leftist ideals. What ideas that are expressed in my columns are based from my own personal experiences. No matter how unpopular they are, I have a right to write.

Making everything easier for everyone with radical technological improvements makes it more feasible to shut oneself out from the entire world and limits our abilities to engage in plain listening. We must relearn how to communicate from within the confines of one’s personal space. Responsibility for observing the outside arena must be accepted by those who are willing to look beyond their own backyards.

If others completely choose to fully insulate themselves from reality, it is his or her own personally-made perogative. I find it to be a sad commentary. Time to wake up and take off the blinders!

Hallmarks in communication between columnists and reader are questioning issues that are in need of clarification.

Readers, too, have a right to challenge a columnist or to demand a correction from the Daily if mistakes were made in a story. That is your action as a reader. So, there is no need to be afraid. It’s OK.

I am open to listen to your views regardless of political/social stripes.

Now that I am a new columnist, I find myself being compared to former Daily columnist David Mosby.

Although another person might find it flattering, I have mixed feelings about being labeled a “copy” of him.

Am I supposed to be? Absolutely not!

Even our columns are totally different. He protested against mean-spirited congressional Republicans. I will write about other things (including an occasional swipe at the Republican meanies). His experiences are not mine. So, how could I be accurately compared?

I was brought up as a straightforward Easterner. He was raised as a polite Midwesterner. Even the beliefs, politics, and value systems that we were taught by our families are individually unique.

If I was writing on something for this page last semester, I would not want to know what he was doing before seeing it on Wednesdays. Just like he would not appreciate me leaking information in his column. There would have be mutual pissed-offness in the Daily newsroom. I would have refused to know until publication.

Since David has already graduated, I don’t see myself meeting him anytime soon in discussing my role as successor as the “Minority/Progressive” columnist on this page.

He had his tenure at the Daily; now I will officially commence mine. I feel that I must apologize for what I’ve already written… but I am not going to. It’s not part of my job!

The main purpose of a columnist is to actively provoke and agitate readers like you. For those who are truly unhappy with this column, skip me and read someone else. Otherwise, please stick around…We’re going on a joyride….

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Adrian DeVore is a senior in food science from Newark, N.J. She has a B.A. in English from Rutgers University (Douglass College).