Added July 20th, 2009:
    This is an article I'm very proud of, as it actually represents me getting the "scoop" on what would become a hot button issue. Shortly after I resigned from the paper, the Rec Room would clarify their television viewing policy so that nothing that had a rating of TV-PG or higher could be watched. Most controversially, this ended up banning The Simpsons. A librarian for the school whom I had talked with often actually wrote a letter to the paper over this making some very salient points.

    This article began when Brendan Kennedy (who was NOT a senior in a bit of research failure on my part) approached me with the news that he had been stopped from watching WCW Thunder. In hindsight, not being allowed to watch what was possibly the worst wrestling show since the "pink room" final days of the AWA might not have been that bad a thing to have happened. And non wrestling fans, if you want an explanation of that reference, contact me. It's too off track to go into here.

    I first brought up the issue as a suggestion for another writer during a Point Weekly staff meeting, given that this was a piece that required journalism and I had never taken a single class on the subject. The advisor (whom I had known since he was an advisor to the 1996 mission trip to Côte D'Ivoire I had gone on) deflected the topic back to me saying that it "required the special talents of Dave Hines" (a line that had also gotten my piece on the food in Department Chapels reflected back to me). This left me in a dilemma of whether to do the piece as straight journalism, or as the mixture of journalism and opinion it ended up being. I chose the latter because I didn't want to violate any principles of journalism I didn't know.

    For me, the most awkward part was that I knew both Jon Nelson and Kamee Eggers. While they weren't friends I was hanging out with per se, they were definitely friends of friends, and we both definitely knew each other. When I told them I was there representing The Point Weekly, their expressions immediately changed. But I'd like to think I did a good job of balanced coverage on the issue, even though it's pretty obvious how I felt about it. I really appreciated their openness on the issue and willingness to state the motivations behind the decisions involved.

    The reference to "two day vacations" comes from the, at the time and perhaps current, PLNU school policy of punishing many major infractions with two day suspensions from campus. For students who didn't live locally, arrangements were typically made to house them with a faculty member.

    And as would be expected, many people ignored my admonition to not ask me about Val Venis. A friend of mine recently asked me why I didn't include ECW in my analysis. For one, I didn't become a fan of ECW until after they closed down. For two, they weren't involved in the issue and I'm not even sure their show was available locally. And finally, it actually would have done a lot of damage to my point as a ban on watching ECW would be much more understandable.

    Even though it really dates the articles, I still really like the summary of a lot of the major current plotlines in WWF and WCW. I was really impressed that the paper left peculiar but correct formatting in, by keeping TAKA Michinoku's first name capitalized, or italicizing the Spanish word luchadors.