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The DNJ reports:

MTSU is joining other institutions across the state and nation in establishing a tobacco-free policy that will restrict the use of all forms of tobacco on its property.

It’s a mandate not everyone is happy about.

Megan Richter, an MTSU junior from Fayetteville who minors in art, said the change will be “hard on art students,” in particular.

“They put in long hours. They are up so long (because) they have to wait on things to dry,” she said. “They’ve got three-hour studios. People smoke.”

Richter has been smoking since high school.

“I enjoy the act of smoking; holding a cigarette,” she said.

Instead of more tobacco campus restrictions, Richter prefers more smoking spots outdoors on campus or for existing ash trays to be relocated.

MTSU President Sidney McPhee, in an online statement to the MTSU community, said the current policy allows smoking outdoors, 20 feet away from doorways, windows, ventilation, systems, walkways and gates. But the new restrictions will ban tobacco use regardless of whether you are inside or outside a campus building.

“Our new policy will restrict the use of all forms of tobacco products, including, but not limited to, cigarettes, pipes, cigars, chewing tobacco and snuff, as well as smokeless electronic cigarettes and other similar devices,” McPhee said.

At first, I thought it was a ban on the act of smoking on campus, but it’s not. According to MTSU President Sidney McPhee, the policy extends to smokeless tobacco and electronic “smokeless” cigarettes.

This policy is just really dumb. And it’ll be hard to enforce, I think.

CampusReform.org covered this story last week.

Thousands of words have spilled onto the pages of newspapers and into the blogosphere – both conservative and liberal alike – in the wake of what’s been called #WeinerGate. Here’s a round-up of blogs that have covered the story: The Other McCain and Ace of Spades HQ did wonders following the story as it broke last weekend. Of course, Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment followed it. Markos Moulitsas’ DailyKos writers had a field day. The New York Post had fun with headlines. Erick Erickson’s RedState. HuffPo. Slate’s Dave Weigel. It’s all over the place. If you’ve got an hour or so, read some of the arguments of both the right and the left (take not particularly at the comments on DailyKos posts). Also, the NY Post with my favorite headline.

There are a few things I want to discuss as it relates to #WeinerGate:

• Why conservative bloggers latched onto this story, and by extension, Andrew Breitbart’s role.
• Morality in Politics, and the difference between Democrats and Republicans.
• Redefining sex in the tech age.

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I discussed last week the maxim: All gains are incremental; some increments aren’t gains. This is just one of the more than 40 “Laws of the Public Policy Process” developed by Morton Blackwell, founder and President of the Leadership Institute. A movement conservative, Blackwell has trained over 100,000 conservative activists since he first got involved in politics in the ’60s.

Aside from the training the Leadership Institute provides, I believe there is some real wisdom in these “Laws.” So much so that I’m going to write about more of them in the days and weeks ahead. The first few are directed toward my libertarian friends, who – to their own detriment – sometimes reject the two-party system in their goals. Electoral success often eludes the most die-hard libertarian.

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This was found in the parking lot of the building in which I work: