The older Asian gentlemen were giggling like schoolgirls. Pointing up at the clock – one of the large, nearly invisible, white goliaths that embellish the North Classroom – the two seemed nervously amused that the hands read 6:15 when the time was really nearer to noon. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but “how stupid to have a clock and not fi x it” was pretty clear from their body language.

Truth be known, until the jovial pair remind-ed me, I had long since stopped noticing the errant timepieces. The clocks had become one with the rest of the buildings for me, providing no more information than a door or window. But these two foreigners had the strange idea that the clocks, being more than just ornament or ar-chitecture, were actually meant to tell time.

“Welcome to Auraria,” I wanted to tell them. “We do things differently here.”

To understand why the clocks do not work, one must understand the philosophy behind Au-raria and how complicated it is running a three-school campus with only the students’ success in mind. With so many higher priorities, the campus can’t get around to every little thing, and sometimes the clocks are neglected.

The maintenance of the entire cam-pus is the responsibility of the Auraria

Higher Education Center, the organization in charge of pretty much everything on campus. Overseen by the Auraria Board of Directors and funded by state institutions and student fees, AHEC not only runs the parking lots, rents out the Turnhalle and keeps the grass growing on the soccer fi eld, but also tirelessly sees to it that even the lights turn on. Whether it’s for a semes-ter parking pass or a banquet in a conference room, toilet paper in the bathrooms or tar on the roofs, AHEC answers the call.

However, they are not miracle workers. There are many areas in which Auraria must

prioritize what best serves the student, forgoing the chance to make an easy buck to pay for some needed maintenance. And really, how would an accurate clock serve the students? It comes down to making tough choices, choices AHEC makes out of love for the students.

How can we really complain when we are asked to pay so little for parking? Can we ques-tion where the resources are spent when we enjoy the soft comfort of the best toilet paper money can buy? Does anyone doubt the care that went into choosing the diverse array of Tivoli food vendors? When we see the cute little elec-tric trucks they drive around, can we turn and moan about something so trifl ing as whether or not the clocks tell the correct time?

The clocks will run on time, if AHEC can fi nd the time to fi x them. Auraria’s priority is to give students an inexpensive, pleasant and ar-chitecturally pleasing experience, not to make sure every little gadget on campus is working.

The two laughing strangers can keep their rigid concept of clock maintenance! This school operates on the higher principle that making education affordable for everyone is more impor-tant than time or profi t. The clocks on campus should be left broken as testimony to this higher calling.

THE METROPOLITAN • PAGE 10 • MATTHEW QUANE • MQUANE@MSCD.EDU

InsightEMILE HALLEZehallez@mscd.edu

Auraria’s big clock block

ANDREW FLOHR-SPENCEspencand@mscd.edu

Equine equality

Adam Goldstein • goldstea@mscd.edu

“ ”Time fl ies like the wind. Fruit fl ies like bananas. – GROUCHO MARX

Where were you when you found out Bar-baro died? I was in an editing class, wondering why a dead horse landed on the front page of the Denver Post. In the egalitarian, mint-julep-sipping arena of horse racing, I was a fl ea-bit-ten outsider adorned in an old potato sack. But thanks to a cleansing shower of obituaries, I am now able to converse fl uently with the likes of derby regular Pamela Anderson or the omni-present Colonel Sanders.

But we’re all a little too choked up to talk.Barbaro, winner of the 2006 Kentucky Der-

by, fractured a leg bone during last year’s Preak-ness Stakes. Before dying early last week, his struggle to survive captivated a nationwide au-dience of equestrians and general idiots.

Unfortunately, all this mourning falls short of progress. I’m encouraged that the life of an animal has touched so many humans. How-ever, it took centuries of eugenic dabbling and speciesim to get to this point – and we haven’t come close to realizing the hypocrisy.

According to ESPN writer Pat Forde, we need “an industry-wide resolve to examine horse racing and make it a safer sport.”

I couldn’t agree more. An estimated 800 thoroughbreds die in North America every year due to injuries, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals reports. A “safer sport,” in my esti-mation, would be one ridden with stick ponies.

Like Anderson, a faithful patron of the so-called sport, thoroughbreds are made blatantly top-heavy. Unlike Anderson, “They are really running on the tip of a single fi nger … it’s a delicate system,” said Jason Bruemmer, an as-sociate professor of equine sciences at Colorado State University. He contends that if horses are cared for and trained properly, racing is not in-herently detrimental to their health.

Since thoroughbreds weigh a half-ton and run on appendages reminiscent of stilts, one must wonder how conscionable it is to force these ani-mals to compete for our amusement and gambling addictions. Though many horses are well cared for, there will always be people willing to race un-healthy ones in order to line their pockets.

The outpouring of sentiment from Barbaro’s death is misplaced. Had he not earned $2 mil-lion from the Kentucky Derby, he likely would have been euthanized long before January or possibly sent to one of the remaining U.S. horse slaughterhouses. So let’s take all this sadness, turn it into some healthy dissent and direct it at the real cause of Barbaro’s demise.