About 10 days ago, I thought my parents were dead.

I was sitting in my apartment, flipping through the channels with my housemate, when we found the national news. On the screen, hundreds of people were injured or dying because of an earthquake in Taipei, Taiwan, that killed over 1,600 people.

My father, who runs a chemical plant in Taipei, was overseas with my mother. And I didn't know exactly where they were, or how they were. I started checking wire reports and newscasts, looking for Americans with faces like mine.

It was one of the scariest moments of my life. So when they called me the next morning to say they were fine (and in Singapore, not Taipei), I was more than relieved.

Then I started thinking.

The only reason I cared about what happened in Taiwan was because I was connected to it. For the thousands of other Ohio University students whose parents were nowhere near Asia, the earthquake was just another newsbreak interrupting their soap operas or football games. To my compatriots, the thousands who were dying were "over there" - far away from the safety of their own classroom or apartment building.

To the detriment of my sanity, my brain took the idea even further. What about the important news happening nationally, or in our state? What about the news that directly affects OU? Do students really care?

The answer, for the most part, is no.

Within the last three months, Congress introduced a bill that would prohibit any person under the age of 21 from owning his or her own credit card. Therefore, about half of this school's population would not be able to reach for their Visas when they run out of cash.

Last month in Kentucky, a federal court upheld a decision to allow Kentucky State University to censor the school's student-run yearbook. In theory, the decision could lead to dress codes at universities, bans on student newspapers and an overall suffocation of our rights.

At OU, parents of freshmen students will receive letters when their children misbehave, even though we are all adults. While the university works on improving its "image" as compared to schools across the country, pictures of drunken OU students run on the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

A group of men and women called the Board of Trustees runs this university. They vote on how much tuition you will pay to go here next year, among other decisions that will affect each of you during your four, five, or six years here. But how many of you know they exist?

I've heard the excuses - phrases like, "I don't have time," "There's nothing available," or "It's all the media's fault, anyway...all they do is hide things from us." But the conversation of two passing students at any given moment revolves around the all-important weekend plans or the latest episode of Dawson's Creek.

The truth is it is our fault we don't know or care, because we have the venues available. The Post is a public forum - it exists because of the students, faculty, administration and community members. Student Senate meets weekly at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. City Council meets every Monday, and the Board of Trustees will convene next Friday. Everything from CNN to the Washington Post is available online, and thanks to the residence hall computers and computer labs we all have access (when they're working).

All you have to do is care enough to look.

Maybe your parents aren't going to Taiwan. Maybe they'll never leave the state in which they live, and maybe you have no desire to, either. But if you don't look outside your room and care about what happens around you, it won't be long before the news comes to find you.

Trust me, I know.

Swartzlander, Campus Editor at The Post, can be reached at es391197. Between the Lines runs on Thursdays.