Ayers's past will not dictate his lecture
One of the things that I am most proud of during my eighteen years at
this university is my success (thanks to a grant from the Campus Life
Enrichment Committee) in bringing Russell Means to campus in the fall of
2000. Well known by students and locals alike for his television and
movie career (The Last of the Mohicans, Pocahontas, Wagons East, Natural
Born Killers, etc.), Means spoke to a standingroom- only crowd in the
ballroom of the Russell Union—the largest crowd up to that point to
attend a CLEC event.
The purpose of his visit was to call attention to the plight of native
people in this country and to urge students to be sensitive to issues
embroiling Indian communities today. He followed his talk with a
book-signing, autographing copies of his recently-published
autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread, for eager students and
enthusiastic members of the Statesboro community.
At no point during the weeks prior to Russell’s appearance did students,
faculty, alumni, or community organizers raise any objection to his
impending lecture on campus.
No one seemed to mind that he was a founding member of the radical and
militant American Indian Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, that he
organized and participated in the fire-bombing of a federal building in
Custer, South Dakota, that he helped organize the take-over and
occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC in 1972,
that he aided Indian activists when they defaced Plymouth Rock and
scaled Mount Rushmore, and that he helped organize and participated in
the seventy-one day occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973—a
event that included firefights with federal marshals, FBI agents, and
soldiers from the National Guard. Finally, no one seemed to mind that he
joined Larry Flint in 1983 in the pornographer’s unsuccessful bid for
the Republican presidential ticket in 1984. That was then; this is now.
Perhaps Russell, unlike Bill Ayers, benefited from the fact that his
name had not surfaced in the media during the recent presidential
campaign season. Perhaps he, unlike Bill Ayers, benefited from the fact
that he was a well-known actor. Or perhaps (and Russell would cringe at
this idea) he, unlike Bill Ayers, benefited from the fact that he was an
Indian. The point is, he came and spoke about cultural sensitivity—not
about militancy—and those who heard him learned from his comments.
Since Russell’s visit in 2000, Georgia Southern has been fortunate to
have a wide variety of speakers, performers, and politicos on campus.
We’ve had a sitting president, a former secretary of state, a nephew of
a slain president, an astronaut from Apollo 13, a witness to the
Cambodian “Killing Fields”, and more television personalities, poets,
academics, activists, scientists, artists, athletes, comedians, and CEOs
than can be easily listed.
They’ve come in all shapes, sizes, colors, ethnicities, religions,
sexualities, and political leanings. Students here have been fortunate
to be exposed to purveyors of a wide variety of ideas, opinions, and
life experiences. That’s what a university is all about; that’s why it’s
called higher education.
This past week, Dr. Angela Davis addressed a full house at the
Performing Arts Center as part of the university’s celebration of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Her captivating talk served to
inspire all who listened to recognize the unsung heroes of the Civil
Rights Movement and to acknowledge the need for continued efforts to
realize Dr. King’s admonition that justice is indivisible.
Not surprisingly, there were no recruitment flyers for the Communist
Party or the Black Panther Party; no appeal to buy weapons; no attempt
to turn students into Democratic Socialists.
Next week, Bill Ayers, a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior
University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will return
to campus—this time in a university sponsored event—to talk about the
free exchange of ideas in a democratic society. With first-hand
experience in issues involving censorship and free speech, Ayers is
well-qualified to offer his insight on academic freedom.
Despite what some self-styled pundits would have you believe, students
hoping to learn how to make pipe bombs will be disappointed. That was
then; this is now.
Do clothes make the man, or does a man make the clothes? The old adage
has little to do in the realm of reality or politics. Or does it? Take a
look around and see that more often than not, people reveal a piece of
themselves by what they wear.
While it may not be their soul under a magnifying glass, we can see
whether or not a girl might carry with her the baggage of high
maintenance or if a guy owns one too many Merle Haggard albums.
The only thing we know about the people around us most of the time is
what we see them wearing. The days of animal skin shawls and one cowboy
suit have long since passed. Today, the eyes absorb most of what we know
about people.
If we are to believe that everyone’s mom no longer picks out what they
wear, then we are also to believe that every person who is not stark
naked and streaking through the quad and into the gymnasium has picked
the fabrics on their body and have chosen to represent themselves in
that way.
Now, this article is not a reenforcement fashion police laws or a call
to men everywhere to return to the days of gray suits and fedoras, but
instead, this is a question of people.
Why do we feel the need to immediately judge a book by its cover?
Actually, skip the cliché and admit that we judge people, before we ever
speak to them or ask them our favorite judge-of-character question, and
take our stance. It’s as if we are watching a movie, whether or not they
are a villain or a hero.
Is this reaction justified? Can we actually look around us, knowing what
we know of ourselves and what we know of other people, and assess a
person on their appearance? Our favorite not always so historically
accurate fairy tales say no, but what does reality say?
In most cases, we take the stance of, “Until proven wrong, I will hold
this opinion.” The downside to this logic is that we are never proven
wrong, or not proven wrong by 90 percent of people we never meet.
Everyone has at least one scenario of hating someone and then finding
out that the person is a photocopy of his or her interests. We all know
of boyfriends and girlfriends who started out this way and then realized
they were—dare I say the word at this young age—in love.
Man is an interesting creature because of the world he creates for
himself through the people he chooses to let into his reality and those
he chooses to alienate.
The world, as perceived by the individual, is constructed by millions of
observations and often these observations fail us, but that doesn’t
change the fact that appearance matters. First impressions are key and
unless it’s a room full of Matt Murdocks, then the first impression
comes from threads.
By now, President Obama will have given his State of the Union speech.
My deadline is too early to give an assessment of the speech, but given
recent events, more than a token amount of the speech will be devoted to
bipartisanship. Whatever said, several things are needed to be done for
the future of our country.
First, we have to stop the blame game, especially in our elected
officials. As I mentioned last week, the Left has done its hardest to
say the whole mess was tied into current political dialogue. But beyond
tragedies, we also must deal with the constant blaming of the other side
for the current rough situation.
Pelosi even blamed Bush for the Democrats’ loss in November, saying that
his “failed policies” made it impossible for the party to live up to
people’s expectations (while conveniently ignoring the number of
promises they made, or the fact that their rise in 2008 was buoyed by a
new, charismatic face on the scene who had little else going for him
than that).
If I had a dollar for every time a Democrat blamed Bush since he left
office, I’d be able to pay off the deficit. The more we focus on laying
blame, the less focus on actually solving the problems before us.
If someone actually did something (as in, “Jared Loughner shot twenty
people and killed six of them,” not “Sarah Palin did an obscure ad with
cross hairs next to Gifford’s name”), then said they did it and moved on
with the aftermath. Enough abstract enemies and giant problems; focus on
what’s really the matter.
Related to that, we need to actually admit when we’re wrong. For example
let’s look at man-made global warming. It’s basically so disproven that
humans are making the planet warmer that the proponents actually changed
terms last year to “global climate change.” Now they are saying the old
data supports the new theory. The problem is that the old data supports
no theory other than “Sometimes it’s hotter than normal, some days it’s
colder than normal.” And yet no one wants to admit they were wrong; they
just change the name and keep shouting the same nonsense as before,
which now makes even less sense. I’ve had to admit I was wrong before.
The rest of us can as well.
Finally, something that summarizes everything that’s been said, let’s
hear it for a return of common sense. Let’s hear it for solving domestic
issues with words and votes, not intimidation and violence. Let’s hear
it for admitting that sometimes debate can get heated, but that said
debate isn’t responsible for every disaster. Let’s hear it for actually
taking time and thinking before you speak.
I started this article over about five times so I made sure it was what
I really wanted to say. Before you do or say something you may regret,
take the time and think about it. We can all do with a bit more time in
our lives, but no matter how little time we have, there’s always time
for common sense.
President Barack Obama called for unity in his State of the Union
Address saying “We will move forward together, or not at all.” For the
first time in history, members of opposite parties sat together after
tragic events in Arizona shook the political world. The President and
the Republican response presented two different tones.
While the Republicans response, led by Congressman Paul Ryan, chair of
the House Budget Committee, aimed for realism, it kept in line with the
seasons talking points.
Obama declared his belief that our nation’s best days lie ahead. He
touched on personal stories of Vice-President Joe Biden and Speaker of
the House John Boehner, both of whom lived the American dream rising up
from minimum wage jobs becoming political leaders.
This theme continued as Obama described how the world has changed, and
how America must evolve to meet the demands of a “new age.” Innovation,
education, and research and development were topics of interest.
Highlighting his “Race to the top” program, which granted Georgia 400
million in grants to the education system for new reforms, he
underscored the need for a new level of respect for those who educate.
Obama called for a new generation of entrepreneurs to develop
technologies that will drive an evolving economy and bring prosperity.
He stressed the need for America to regain its upper edge in the areas
of education, science, and information technology.
In order to do this Obama argued passionately about the central
political question of our time. What is the role of government? His
speech sets the stage for a new year of political debate.
On one side, Republicans, backed by a tea-party fueled conservatism,
take control of the House of Representatives with the goal of cutting
100 billion dollars in spending before the fiscal year ends in July.
On the other, a beaten back Democratic party, led by a President who
appears to have shifted, a significant measure to the center. His pitch
to the American people called for interests groups to work together for
long term well being of the country, setting goals of doubling the
country’s exports by 2014, and achieving eighty percent of our nations
energy from renewable energy sources by 2030.
Echoing Ronald Reagan, President Obama urged a renewed faith in the
belief that America holds a special place in the world, and that we all
must work together to spread peace and tranquility both domestically and
internationally.
The Republican response, which repeated major themes of the election
narrative, failed to mention Medicare and Social Security, the top two
deficit contributing federal government programs.
The Presidents call for everyone to share the burden of climbing out of
the recession and the Republican response of a facade of spending cuts
lead to the assumption that one of two things will happen.
Republicans and Democrats will work together and make the tough
decisions necessary to solve our problems or the governing progress will
become increasingly grid locked.
This could give way to further decreased confidence in the governments’
ability to handle our long-term debt. Democrats and Republicans may have
sat together at the State of the Union Tuesday, but whether they stand
together the next session of Congress will determine the new level of
civility.
Opinions today are falling bland. Everything finds its way to politics
eventually, right? People have to side somewhere on some issue and take
a stand, and when someone decides to play the middle they simply seem,
ignorant or indecisive instead of American.
There is hardly a media news outlet today that is not telling the people
how to perceive an issue. Rupurt Murdoch wants Fox News to tell people
how to think, but they are not the only ones. The days of fair and
balanced news are gone, and the days of yellow journalism are back.
The political ear is turning dull because there is an overload of
politics. Politics matter, Hitler knew this, even the dumbest person in
a political science class knows this, but in the modern world there is a
tendency to think it is all that matters.
Unfortunately, red and blue, political colors not patriot colors, shape
our lives in ways we don’t even realize. We vote and move on, and this
is not a noble quality.
However, as endless a bounty as politics offers, they are not the only
thing in this world that matters and at times, we seem to forget that.
Suddenly, how the government creates jobs is more important than jobs
themselves.
What is the first news source that comes to mind? Regardless the name,
it is highly likely that the news outlet is bias, whether it is
partially or entirely. I find myself in a conundrum because I realize
the importance of the political atmosphere but often end up tuning out
important daily issues because of the mass media approach.
How long does it take for a political issue to be beaten into the
ground? Not long at the pace media moves these days as the internet
takes hold of the first word, passes it along down the media pipeline to
television sources and grey haired news anchors and is then circulated
at a rate that would drive a mad man sane.
What is worse is that the “truth” is tainted. The news becomes a matter
of opinion and is released to the public with the slightest tweak, or
omission,of a fact so that it seems credible.
To use a cliché, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing
the world he didn’t exist. If the news does not find a way to stay
unbiased, then it is nothing more than a devil tempting the masses to
lean one way or another. Despite the obvious oxymoronic nature of this
article, opinions just cannot compare to news sources.
With the nature of the current news market, personalities such as Bill
O’Reily and Keith Olberman should not be leading the tide of their
respective parties, fueling the fire that is people.
News sources, whether it is television or print, hold a great power over
the people they are meant to serve. They control the distribution of
facts. With their ear on the grindstone, they connect us to the rest of
the world. This engagement between news and the people creates a bond.
At no point can this bond ever be broken or manipulated for any reason,
political or not.
While most of us our cramming in Henderson making last minute flash card
checks I would like to remind our reading audience that today is
December 7, 2010 and sixty-nine years ago those words were uttered with
much more gusto and much more meaning when Franklin D. Roosevelt
exclaimed that December 7th would “live in infamy.”
As I write, sources both political and media alike report that today
Democrats will finally cave in to an irrational, illogical argument by
Republicans to either A) Permanently extend all Bush Tax Cuts or B)
temporarily extend all Bush Tax Cuts. To really drive home the point of
Irony here is a chilling reality of what the Bush Tax Cuts mean for the
“typical American Worker” via Louise Story and Gretchen Morgenson of the
New York Times.
“Worried that lawmakers will allow taxes to rise for the wealthiest
Americans beginning next year, financial firms are discussing whether to
move up their bonus payouts from next year to this month. If Congress
does not extend the Bush-Era Tax Cuts for the highest income levels, a
typical worker who earns a $1 million bonus would pay $40,000 to $50,000
more in taxes next year than this year, depending on base salary.” – NY
Times 12/5/10
Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal Constitution shows how that average
tax savings could be used in his Tuesday column.
“Those additional taxes saved by that “typical worker” would cover
unemployment benefits for a year for three Americans left jobless in the
wake of the fiscal crisis, a crisis created in large part because of
Wall Street greed and carelessness, a crisis eased considerably because
the U.S. taxpayer and the Federal Reserve lent Wall Street firms
hundreds of billions of dollars at considerable risk.”
What typical American worker pulls home a one million dollar bonus? A
finals hot cocoa on me for the conservative who defends this position.
Now, I know what many might be thinking. This is America, what everyone
makes is the outcome of one’s individual accomplishment. I’m not simply
calling for income redistribution that would be ludicrous of me. These
tax cuts which will overwhelmingly benefit the fewest of the few are a
direct irony of the conservative narrative presented over the past
eighteen months.
Consider Senator Bernie Sanders passionate December 2nd floor speech in
which he points out that “In 2007, the percentage of income going to the
top one percent was 23.5% of all income, more than the entire bottom
fifty percent. “
Republicans have adamantly condemned federal spending as the number one
issue for the nation. How is then that they can legitimately argue for
an “expenditure” of seven hundred billion dollars over the next ten
years.
It’s no wonder billionaire investor Warren Buffet says, “People at the
high end -- people like myself -- should be paying a lot more in taxes.
We have it better than we've ever had it," Well played Sir!
With tax issues most likely looming far above our campus’ buzz, I do
wish our Eagles good luck with finals and Godspeed to Spartanburg
Saturday.
The recent Wikileaks postings may seem like an early Christmas for those
who dislike Obama. After all, many of the documents point to issues
within the administration and paint it in an unfavorable light. However,
I don’t personally have the time to get into the Barack-bashing.
On one hand, some of the documents seem to confirm various suspicions
some of us have had for a while. I’ve been saying from the time North
Korea started lobbing shells a couple weeks back that China had likely
had it with them and sought to cut ties with the fledgling dictatorship.
And the fact that there are some Saudi leaders who want to bomb Iran and
others who are supporting al-Qaida isn’t really news.
However, other documents, if accurate, redefine political science in
ways we haven’t even begun to fathom, to say nothing for the nature of
the site itself.
On a specific level, for instance, is one document which purports that
Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, is dying of cancer.
Why is this significant? He doesn’t believe in the use of nuclear
weapons and considers them anti-Islamic, which was a bit of quiet relief
for many security analysts in recent months as Iran gets what it would
need to build such devices. However, should he die, someone new would
come into power and they might not feel as beatnik about the whole
thing.
In a larger sense, though, the Wikileak release on Sunday makes
America’s foreign affairs position a whole lot less steady. Should some
of it come out? Possibly. There are over 250,000 documents; I’m sure at
least one of them was something the public desperately needed to know
about. But the information wasn’t something everyone in the world needed
to know about, particularly not the people we’re dealing with abroad.
Some of those items contained information that those governments may not
have known that we knew.
It seems like a childish game or some bit from a movie that the late
Leslie Nielsen would’ve used, but in intelligence and diplomacy, the
whole “I know that you know that I know that you know that I know”
shtick actually can be a reality. It’s not enough to know your
opponent’s secrets; you need to know what he knows about your
intelligence, because that can change how he acts.
If I am the President and I know about a plan for a Chinese missile
shield in North Korea, I may decide to form my foreign policy toward
China based on that intelligence alone. But if they know that I know
about this shield, they may switch things up on me while I’m not
looking. On the other hand, if they don’t know that I possess that
knowledge, I can act upon it as I see fit.
This leak just took some of that advantage away from us without anything
in return. Hence why you don’t see me dancing in the street celebrating
Julian Assange, Wikileaks editor-in-chief, as a saint in the struggle
against Obama. It’s not just the career of one president that he’s
affecting – it’s the safety and bargaining position of the entire
country.
Unfortunately, the leak has already happened. There are calls from both
sides of the aisles to prosecute any leakers and renewed calls of
outrage against the Australian editor – who may have well secured a spot
as Time magazine’s Man of the Year. That won’t help solve our problems,
though. The page has turned on U.S. foreign relations; it’s time to keep
reading and pray we can get it all on before someone turns the page
again.
On Monday, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston spoke to the Atlanta
Rotary Club vowing to protect Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship despite of a
looming budget deficit of up to $2 billion waiting for lawmakers in
January.
Ralston also said K-12 public schools in Georgia already have sacrificed
as much as they can stand in budget cuts since the recession began three
years ago.
Political rhetoric aside, how can Georgia’s elected leaders manage to
balance the budget next session, while maintaining the already slim
funding to both the K-12 and higher education systems in our state?
Without some serious political fortitude, alternatives for keeping the
HOPE Scholarship and Pre-K programs funded in the future appear dismal.
For the first time ever, demand for scholarship money by an increasing
student population (See Drive for 25K) has outpaced state lottery
revenues, despite record-setting lottery proceeds which fund the
programs.
Are we all left to despair?
Recently, The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State
University published a 103 page report making recommendations to this
problem. A first idea, to drop either HOPE or Pre-K as a funded program
by the Georgia Lottery Corporation, would be a jarring political blow to
whatever party proposed it, although it would immediately make the
program left to be funded, sustainable.
Delving a bit deeper, the studies’ other ideas are aimed at reducing the
number of people able to benefit from HOPE, either by increasing the
academic requirements or introducing some type of needs-based
assessment.
None of these proposals to cut beneficiaries or spending in the program
take into consideration the positive effect full four years tuition has
on our state.
HOPE has been known to show positive results in pushing high school
students to get better grades, go to college and, most importantly, keep
an educated workforce right here in Georgia.
So what is there to do?
In 2009, two Atlanta Underground developers came to the state lottery
board with the idea of expanding Georgia’s entertainment industry
through a unique downtown experience that would use upwards of five
thousand video lottery terminals, generating $150 million per year in
revenue for HOPE and Pre-K.
Their long-term plan included a proposed 29-story hotel and
entertainment complex estimated to bring in another $300 million into
the state lottery coffers.
For the greater metro area, this could mean 2,000 jobs and the potential
of billions in economic impact. The lottery board at the time chose not
to vote on the proposals at all.
These proposals would largely attract dollars from Georgia’s upper and
middle class as opposed to the current state lottery which often skews
towards low income residents.
I’ve never been an adamant opponent or proponent of decreased gambling
laws, however considering the harsh options like increased tuition rates
available to lawmakers, saving the HOPE Scholarship and Pre-K programs
in Georgia are well worth the controversial revenue streams gambling
dollars represent.
Senate hearings are scheduled to begin today about the results of the
yearlong study of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
Finally, people in Washington seem to be displaying some form of common
sense. It’s becoming obvious even to them, now that there’s data to back
it up, that the 17-year-old policy is out of date.
The Pentagon’s review was released Tuesday and found that repealing the
policy would have little, if any, negative long-term impact. It also
found that the majority of servicemen didn’t think they’d be adversely
affected if people were open about their sexuality, and if they felt
they would be, the reasons were often based on stereotypes and
misinformation.
Now what remains to be seen is the action the Senate will take before
the lame-duck session of Congress ends.
Bluntly, if the senators have any sense of what’s in their best
interest, they’ll pass legislation for the policy’s repeal. Obama wants
it, the data supports it, the House has already put the issue to rest,
and no one really seems to want the courts to make this decision.
They need to recognize that discrimination in the military is still
discrimination, and in 2010, it’s time for it to stop. Very few people
today would even consider discharging someone because of their race, and
10 years from now, no one will think twice about this.
First, I wish that everyone out there had a wonderfully delicious and
restful holiday. There is no time similar to spending it with family. Or
if you couldn’t be with your family, you can always borrow someone
else’s family and eat someone else’s food.
So after that long week of good food, old friends and the usual family,
you wake up with your feet dragging when you think of what lies ahead.
Only two weeks left! One is a normal week, and the next is the dreadful
finals week.
There’s something about that L-Tryptophan that makes us not want to do
that studying over the week. Or maybe it’s because it is a whole week.
To expect college students to be able to remember previous lessons, or
to assume that we studied the chapter during a 10-day holiday break is
almost insulting. When Memorial Day weekend comes around we have trouble
keeping up with the work, so an additional seven days here means it’s
definitely not happening.
It is no secret that nothing gets done until that Sunday before. Even
those of us who want to be good students and have a set plan to get it
done fall into the trap of eating that turkey and getting knocked out
for the count.
But teachers, though you assign the work, it’s not your fault. We all
know those people who thought they were going to exercise all week to
combat the amount of calories they were going to gulp down, but never
went.
We are all guilty of putting everything off during the breaks, because
to us it is exactly that, a break.
I do not wish to tell anyone to stop being procrastinators when I am one
myself. I only want to congratulate those who are successful with their
accomplishments during the break, and to those who are less successful
in their proposed endeavors, do not be stressed or concerned because you
treated the time exactly how it is — a break.
So even though we have to be jump started back into the vicious world of
studies, papers, finals, tests and the very intriguing lesson plans, we
will find our way and get back into the swing of things.
So from me to all of you, good luck on your finals and on anything else
which might be due. I wish everyone well with the last two weeks. Keep
on trucking, GSU.
When I was a kid, I remember getting a new VCR that allowed us to slow
motion the videos we were watching. Back then it was a cool toy, to see
the action go by frame by frame (especially cool for Star Wars
lightsaber battles). But now, there are times I wish I had that button
for my real life.
Patience is one of the more underrated virtues in our society. These
days, we’ve been bombarded by an ever-growing list of technologies
designed to make time seem to speed up. And sometimes those things are
good – I couldn’t see life without the internet, especially come
research time.
But other times we take the speed that the world seems to be moving at
and try to keep up, not realizing what we’re missing as we go through
life at a thousand miles an hour. Sometimes, we need to learn to wait.
It’s a hard thing to do, admittedly. I certainly have trouble, wanting
the clock to speed up in class or wanting break to get here. But there
are also times when we need to learn that things don’t just happen.
The world isn’t designed to give us what we want on demand. We have to
work for the things we want, and we have to be willing to wait. The more
dependent we grow on instant gratification, the emptier we make our
lives. It also creates a dependence on those things that make life fast
– how many of us cram our papers and assignments because we have the
ability to? Odds are, most of us, including me, do that, and while for
some of us the adrenaline helps us work, for most of us it’s a dangerous
habit.
Imagine if you could get everything you wanted right now. You just had
to wish for it and you’d have it. Great, right? But really think about
it – you’d have everything you say you wanted, but would you really be
satisfied? Or would you find out that you still want more, and more, and
more?
But now imagine that you worked and waited to get something – a
relationship, a job, even just a CD that you had to wait four years for.
How much more will you appreciate it?
The world around us is moving by much too quickly. We need to find the
time to stop and smell the roses. Making it through life and actually
taking the time to live are two separate things, and it’s time we
realized that.
If you take your time and enjoy the world around you, exploring it for
what it’s worth, you’ll have a much richer experience.
With only a few leftovers in the fridge left, it’s time to shed the
Thanksgiving relaxation and get back to work. (Hello Henderson!) This
jolt back to reality is striking most in D.C. where many policy issues
have been left on the table after the “shellacking” of the midterm
elections.
Emergence of Republican resistance to the new START Treaty has left me
dumbfounded. This treaty reduces a vastly unneeded nuclear arsenal
between Russia and the United States which currently control 95 percent
of the world’s nuclear arms. It also resumes the practice of on-site
American verification, including up to 18 short-notice inspections per
year, continuing the Reagan Doctrine of “Trust, but verify.”
Republican Senator John Kyl of Arizona, the Republicans’ top point man
on START, has signaled strong opposition to the treaty being passed in
the “lame duck” session.
Perplexing at best, Kyl’s motives appear overwhelmingly political.
Senator Richard Luger (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Senate
Foreign Relations committee, which passed the START Treaty with a
bipartisan mark of 14-4 has appeared publicly disappointed with many
colleagues for using a national security issue for political posturing.
Maybe this is because every major military, political, and foreign
relations expert has backed the treaty including former Secretaries of
State Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger and former Defense Secretaries
William Cohen and James Schlesinger, among others.
One has to wonder, what is the reason behind this senator’s opposition
to the treaty? I can only of think of three reasons why Senator Kyl
might be opposed.
1. A genuine concern for the treaty! Senator Kyl and other leaders have
pointed out and insisted on the president increasing funding for
security and technology upgrades for America’s nuclear facilities. The
president listened, increasing its nuclear modernization budget by
nearly $5 billion ($84 billion total) over the next 10 years.
This seemed to be one of the only logical objections to the new START
Treaty passing and was met with warm consideration by the
administration.
2. The START Treaty is being used for political leverage. On Sunday’s
Meet the Press, Senator John Kyl, stated, “If the leader of the Senate,
Senator Reid, were to allow a couple of weeks for full debate and
amendment of the resolution of ratification, then theoretically there
would be time.”
By holding hostage President Obama’s top foreign policy goal,
Republicans can threaten any other legislative goal like Bush Tax Cuts,
The DREAM Act, or the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy.
3. Republicans are going for the kill shot. After a devastating midterm,
the president’s popularity is consistently hovering under 50 percent.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, “The single most
important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a
one-term president.”
If the START Treaty passes, it will be viewed as a major success for the
president and possibly slow momentum the Republicans have enjoyed.
National security has been a top priority for this nation over the past
10 years.
In fact, it was a “lame duck” session of congress which approved vast
overhauls of our intelligence agencies, creating the Department of
Homeland Security in December of 2001.
If the Senate cannot pass the START Treaty before the holiday recess, I
would kindly remind the President of Article II Section 3 of the United
States Constitution.
That should be the roadblock sign heading into the 112th Congress. I
just got the update that Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif. was elected as Minority
Leader of the House Democratic Caucus by a vote of 150-43.
As expected, John Boehner (R - Ohio) was elected Speaker in-waiting of
the House of Representatives, our nation’s third-highest office. I see a
few problems for President Obama’s statement that he wants to work
harder on partisanship next session.
The Democratic caucus is considerably more liberal with the losses of
many conservative Democrats, the so-called blue-dog democrats. In fact,
our congressional district represents the last of a dying breed, the
white male Southern Democrat. The state of Jimmy Carter, Zell Miller and
yes, Roy Barnes, once produced a plethora of talented centrist
democrats.
I do not envy the position John Barrow is in. As redistricting
approaches, this may present a geographical challenge even more
difficult for Democrats to become once again the “Big Tent” party.
Speaker Pelosi has been the ammunition for millions of dollars spent
reversing Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 handily.
I don’t expect a young Congress to shy away from personal attacks in
policy debates, which brings me to my second point.
Come January, the new Congress will have 106 new members who are walking
into the partisan policy debates on some issues which are very
complicated. Many are this week attending orientation sessions about
their salary and benefits, taking tours of offices and participating
policy panels in specific areas.
To put this into perspective, if we estimated that there are 1,200
professors at Georgia Southern, that would mean roughly 292 professors
are new. Getting acclimated to a new environment will impact the
effectiveness of our elected officials.
The Republican Party will have to decide what its priorities are and
stay consistent with the agenda.
High goals such as repealing health care reform, which would take a
difficult 51 votes in the Senate, would more than likely get vetoed by
the president, thus requiring an impossible majority overrule.
The most striking narrative that voters attached to this cycle was
federal spending.
If the Republican leadership cannot present clear and logical ideas of
cutting federal spending, then I would think the millions spent to oust
conservative Democrats was wasted.
I know that professors would be quick to remind me, I am too young to be
able to analyze the last Republican takeover in 1994, but I can’t help
but relate the two cycles. If this analogy rings true, there are still
questions to be answered.
Will the Republican Congress continue the familiar legislative
exclamation of “No” and push us to a second federal government shutdown?
John Boehner, I wouldn’t recommend this!
This isn’t all on Republicans either. Clearly this is a fork in the road
for the 44th president. He needs to come down from the high tower of
strategy and make realistic goals because in January, a turn will have
to be made. The question is, does he turn in the “Carter” direction, or
the “Clinton” direction.
Alrighty guys, it has taken an entire semester for them to get it right,
but finally they have started getting some new faces on those old dusty
bus routes. I was graced one day this week with a bus driver who had a
sense of purpose and urgency.
Not only that but I was shocked and thrilled that she, like so many
other people on the bus and drivers on the road, was getting mad at the
dumb pedestrians.
To provide a small comparison to the changes that have been made,
imagine a time when buses would see a pedestrian walking in the
direction of the road, the bus would come almost to a complete stop
about 50 feet from that individual, and there are so many people on
campus that this does take a nice chunk of the class that you are
already late for.
And we all know that we are guilty of getting caught up in our own day
that we forget that bus’s brakes are squealing with the ferocity of a
mother eagle behind us trying to be polite and safe.
There are still a few things which I would suggest be changed, such as a
route for those coming from Eagle Village and Southern Courtyard to get
to the RAC in a more direct path. With the current system, those
unfortunate students will have to get on the Blue Route only to have to
wait again for the Gold Route.
I still see the Blue Route buses coming on campus more frequently than
the Gold Route, though this just reflects my own biases because of my
usage of the Gold Route.
Still a very big problem with the buses is the lack of understanding
that we, as students, student workers, faculty or just commuters, have
somewhere to go. If the bus is full, let’s go.
It is truly frustrating when I get on a bus and make it all the way to
the Union only to take the longest turn around the round-a-bout in human
history. I mean seriously, how many times have we been in the Guiness
record books for that?
Anyway, sorry if I sound like a broken record to all my readers out
there, but I get passionate about the complaints and concerns I have
heard from you guys from a bystander’s observations.
Overall, I am not completely happy with the system. I do believe we have
some more work to be done, but I have to say well done, First Transit.
You guys are listening and changing things the best you can.
Thank you and continue providing us with the steadily improving service
you have change to best suit us. To every bus driver working for GSU,
keep up the good work.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched an assault on alcoholic
energy drinks yesterday.
In a year long study, the FDA claims that the caffeine in the energy
drinks masks the effects of alcohol and makes the drinker unaware of how
intoxicated they are.
Calling beverages such as Four Loko, Moonshot and Core High Gravity HG a
“public health concern,” the FDA could not find reasonable information
to support the claim that the addition of caffeine to these alcoholic
beverages was safe.
While the FDA cannot outright ban the drinks, they have given several
major companies a 15-day ultimatum to remove certain substances from
their products or they will take serious action.
After years of not regulating fake health products, the FDA cracks down
on these alcoholic drinks because of the “wide-awake drunk” they
produce. Although this may sound like a partier’s wet dream, the
ultimate effect the drink produces is a Malatov cocktail that sells the
drinker out short.
What happens is the caffeine runs out and leaves the drinker with more
alcohol than they meant to consume, supposedly, so sorry the party is
over as the cops kick in the door and bust the rave.
The drink had a good run here in the ‘Boro, as I noticed numerous people
drowning in the beverage as part of their “pre-bar ritual.”
Very soon, what made these drinks potent will be gone, and the only
thing left will be that sour taste of liquid sweet tarts.
Though I’m sure the drinks will try and recover their edge, more than
likely the days of brightly colored alcoholic cans is over.
Information for the drink is listed on the can, but essentially a Four
Loko is the equivalent of three cups of coffee combined with three
beers.
So who is to blame for the crack down? What would you know, four
underage college students who ended up in the hospital.
In October 2009, four students of Central Washington University drank
several Four Lokos, combined with numerous other alcoholic beverages,
and found themselves blacked-out drunk.
The drink was clearly designed for the younger generation as our
“pick-me-up” is more often than not a Red Bull rather than the good old
fashioned cup of Joe.
However, like most problems, it comes down to the consumer. While
cigarette companies were trying to market to children with their cute
and cuddly cartoon characters, these drinks marketed a product to
underage drinkers who don’t know how to drink responsibly.
This is college, a place notoriously known for lacking the words,
“responsible drinking,” and this time its lead to the death of a
beverage, not a good beverage mind you, but the passing of a product
nonetheless.
So, a final salute to the drinks that no one ever actually liked,
because after 15 days those drinks that made people feel like a Super
Saiyan at night and Hercules in the morning, will be going, going gone.
I had said on Thursday that I didn’t plan to discuss politics these last
few weeks of class unless the lame-duck Congress did something worth
talking about. Well, the Senate just took up a measure that is
definitely worth talking about; and unlike my previous entries, this is
a bipartisan measure I’m railing against (so much for bipartisanship
being good, eh?). The measure I’m discussing is the Combating Online
Infringement and Counterfeits Act, scheduled for a first vote this
Thursday. And frankly, it’s one of the most dangerous things I’ve seen
come out of Washington in a long time, and I was actually up there when
they passed the DISCLOSE Act this summer.
The official deal with the bill is that it allows the Justice Department
to work with the Courts to “blacklist” websites that are “dedicated to
infringing activities.” This list would be sent to internet providers,
who would be “encouraged” to block the sites in question. Sounds simple
enough right? Well, it is – it’s simply censorship without due process.
Now, rather than each company taking each website to court over each
specific infraction and possibly losing the case, the site just has to
cross the line once and the company can convince the court and the
Justice Department to have them blacklisted.
Wait, let me check something.
Yeah, the American flag is still flying. For a second I’d thought I’d
been sent to North Korea.
I don’t care if the goal is to take on sites that are doing patently
illegal activities like allowing one to download movies without paying
anything to their distributors. If this law passes, there is no Youtube.
Youtube already has to take down copyright matter if it’s found, but has
no obligation to hunt it down proactively (which is good, because that
would take years, if it could be done at all). But now, even if they
clean up after they’ve been alerted, they can be shut down in the
interim. This also could extend to Fair Use of Intellectual property,
such as viewer-made reviews of movies and music with sample clips
interjected, or those videos of soldiers dancing to Lady Gaga (an
abomination to watch, I grant you, but still permitted).
This doesn’t even get into other legitimate uses of online clips, such
as showing them in class as a demonstration of a topic being discussed.
And that’s a media giant backed by Google; what about start-ups and
smaller sites that don’t have corporate protections? This doesn’t even
get into parodies, fan art, and other instances of not-for-profit
tribute to works. Even if that isn’t banned under the new law, stifling
fan participation in the creative process could be the next step.
It doesn’t help the law, in my eyes, that the driving forces behind this
legislation are groups, not individuals citing that they’ve been driven
out of the business by YouTube videos.
This, of course, after President Obama and the Democrats said that
they’d cut back on lobbyist influence last election (to be fair to
Obama, of course, his official stance is still anti-internet censorship;
it’s entirely possible he’ll stick to both of those guns and veto this
bill if it does get passed to him).
Many of these companies have already instituted draconian measures of
their own that are highly disproportionate to the crime being committed
– and it isn’t the artists who are getting all of that money. Think the
songwriter of that illegally downloaded hit gets that $100,000 from the
company after they target the downloader in question?
This bill is bad enough in itself, and if it’s passed the precedents for
internet censorship are staggering. Write up to your Senators and
Congressmen, for the sake of all of us, and for sanity.
Thanksgiving is a week away. First, every shopping mall will begin
playing Christmas music incessantly and second, the Christmas War is
here.
The war I am referring to is not over the last parking spaces or the
small riot outbreaks between consumers. This war is a front in the
so-called Culture Wars, or the ongoing conflicts between a return to the
traditional American some sort of white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism values
and those who would rather forget that “In God We Trust” is on every
United States bank note.
The politically correct crowd fired the first shots in the Christmas War
when stores began instructing their employees to wish their customers
“Happy Holidays” instead of the traditional “Merry Christmas.” This
change was not mere alliteration. Considering not everyone in America is
Christian, the powers that be made the rather illogical conclusion that
these non-Christians did not celebrate Christmas and determined
illogically that they would be offended if wished them Merry Christmas,
and if customers are offended they would stop shopping, meaning less
money.
The religious right naturally saw this combination of faulty logic and
avarice as an assault on Christianity. The result is the ongoing
Christmas War which occurs every December for the last decade or so.
The political correctness has denigrated the time of year by renaming
anything with Christmas to holiday; i.e. holiday season, holiday spirit
and even holiday tree.
Meanwhile, the religious right continues its crusade to “put the Christ
back in Christmas” by going as far as boycotting stores that say “Happy
Holidays.”
The funny thing is that most historical and even scriptural evidence
points to Jesus being born in the spring. Almost everyone agrees that
December 25 is a fairly arbitrary date which the Vatican picked to give
Christian converts a feast to celebrate in place of the birthdays of the
pagan gods Sol and Mithras.
This Christmas War is ridiculous. Even non-Christians celebrate
Christmas. The holiday lost a lot of its religious significance,
considering most associate Christmas with Santa Claus rather than the
Jesus. An orgy of consumerism has replaced the actual orgy of
Saturnalia, seven days of pagan celebration.
The true meaning of Christmas has been all but forgotten. Perhaps more
importantly, “Happy Holidays” demeans all traditions attempting to
celebrate a universality that does not exist. Jews did not invent
Hanukkah because their kids were complaining that the Gentile kids were
the only ones that got gifts in December.
All these festivals are just interchangeable “holidays” and does not
appreciate the individual. To achieve genuine tolerance and
understanding is to understand and appreciate the differences between
Kwanza, Hanukkah, Christmas, and other comparable holidays.
So this Christmas, don’t be afraid to say “Merry Christmas” to your
Christian friends, “Happy Hanukkah” to your Jewish friends or even “Io
Saturnalia,” for some real funny looks. Ending the Christmas War and
appreciating this diversity is a very real way to put Christ back in
Christmas. After all, I seem to remember some angels mentioning
something about “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men,” but I could be
wrong.
--
http://www.gadaily.com/index.php/opinions/37-column/2376-ayerss-past-will-not-dictate-his-lecture%3E
Via InstaFetch
One of the things that I am most proud of during my eighteen years at
this university is my success (thanks to a grant from the Campus Life
Enrichment Committee) in bringing Russell Means to campus in the fall of
2000. Well known by students and locals alike for his television and
movie career (The Last of the Mohicans, Pocahontas, Wagons East, Natural
Born Killers, etc.), Means spoke to a standingroom- only crowd in the
ballroom of the Russell Union—the largest crowd up to that point to
attend a CLEC event.
The purpose of his visit was to call attention to the plight of native
people in this country and to urge students to be sensitive to issues
embroiling Indian communities today. He followed his talk with a
book-signing, autographing copies of his recently-published
autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread, for eager students and
enthusiastic members of the Statesboro community.
At no point during the weeks prior to Russell’s appearance did students,
faculty, alumni, or community organizers raise any objection to his
impending lecture on campus.
No one seemed to mind that he was a founding member of the radical and
militant American Indian Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, that he
organized and participated in the fire-bombing of a federal building in
Custer, South Dakota, that he helped organize the take-over and
occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC in 1972,
that he aided Indian activists when they defaced Plymouth Rock and
scaled Mount Rushmore, and that he helped organize and participated in
the seventy-one day occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973—a
event that included firefights with federal marshals, FBI agents, and
soldiers from the National Guard. Finally, no one seemed to mind that he
joined Larry Flint in 1983 in the pornographer’s unsuccessful bid for
the Republican presidential ticket in 1984. That was then; this is now.
Perhaps Russell, unlike Bill Ayers, benefited from the fact that his
name had not surfaced in the media during the recent presidential
campaign season. Perhaps he, unlike Bill Ayers, benefited from the fact
that he was a well-known actor. Or perhaps (and Russell would cringe at
this idea) he, unlike Bill Ayers, benefited from the fact that he was an
Indian. The point is, he came and spoke about cultural sensitivity—not
about militancy—and those who heard him learned from his comments.
Since Russell’s visit in 2000, Georgia Southern has been fortunate to
have a wide variety of speakers, performers, and politicos on campus.
We’ve had a sitting president, a former secretary of state, a nephew of
a slain president, an astronaut from Apollo 13, a witness to the
Cambodian “Killing Fields”, and more television personalities, poets,
academics, activists, scientists, artists, athletes, comedians, and CEOs
than can be easily listed.
They’ve come in all shapes, sizes, colors, ethnicities, religions,
sexualities, and political leanings. Students here have been fortunate
to be exposed to purveyors of a wide variety of ideas, opinions, and
life experiences. That’s what a university is all about; that’s why it’s
called higher education.
This past week, Dr. Angela Davis addressed a full house at the
Performing Arts Center as part of the university’s celebration of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Her captivating talk served to
inspire all who listened to recognize the unsung heroes of the Civil
Rights Movement and to acknowledge the need for continued efforts to
realize Dr. King’s admonition that justice is indivisible.
Not surprisingly, there were no recruitment flyers for the Communist
Party or the Black Panther Party; no appeal to buy weapons; no attempt
to turn students into Democratic Socialists.
Next week, Bill Ayers, a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior
University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will return
to campus—this time in a university sponsored event—to talk about the
free exchange of ideas in a democratic society. With first-hand
experience in issues involving censorship and free speech, Ayers is
well-qualified to offer his insight on academic freedom.
Despite what some self-styled pundits would have you believe, students
hoping to learn how to make pipe bombs will be disappointed. That was
then; this is now.
Do clothes make the man, or does a man make the clothes? The old adage
has little to do in the realm of reality or politics. Or does it? Take a
look around and see that more often than not, people reveal a piece of
themselves by what they wear.
While it may not be their soul under a magnifying glass, we can see
whether or not a girl might carry with her the baggage of high
maintenance or if a guy owns one too many Merle Haggard albums.
The only thing we know about the people around us most of the time is
what we see them wearing. The days of animal skin shawls and one cowboy
suit have long since passed. Today, the eyes absorb most of what we know
about people.
If we are to believe that everyone’s mom no longer picks out what they
wear, then we are also to believe that every person who is not stark
naked and streaking through the quad and into the gymnasium has picked
the fabrics on their body and have chosen to represent themselves in
that way.
Now, this article is not a reenforcement fashion police laws or a call
to men everywhere to return to the days of gray suits and fedoras, but
instead, this is a question of people.
Why do we feel the need to immediately judge a book by its cover?
Actually, skip the cliché and admit that we judge people, before we ever
speak to them or ask them our favorite judge-of-character question, and
take our stance. It’s as if we are watching a movie, whether or not they
are a villain or a hero.
Is this reaction justified? Can we actually look around us, knowing what
we know of ourselves and what we know of other people, and assess a
person on their appearance? Our favorite not always so historically
accurate fairy tales say no, but what does reality say?
In most cases, we take the stance of, “Until proven wrong, I will hold
this opinion.” The downside to this logic is that we are never proven
wrong, or not proven wrong by 90 percent of people we never meet.
Everyone has at least one scenario of hating someone and then finding
out that the person is a photocopy of his or her interests. We all know
of boyfriends and girlfriends who started out this way and then realized
they were—dare I say the word at this young age—in love.
Man is an interesting creature because of the world he creates for
himself through the people he chooses to let into his reality and those
he chooses to alienate.
The world, as perceived by the individual, is constructed by millions of
observations and often these observations fail us, but that doesn’t
change the fact that appearance matters. First impressions are key and
unless it’s a room full of Matt Murdocks, then the first impression
comes from threads.
By now, President Obama will have given his State of the Union speech.
My deadline is too early to give an assessment of the speech, but given
recent events, more than a token amount of the speech will be devoted to
bipartisanship. Whatever said, several things are needed to be done for
the future of our country.
First, we have to stop the blame game, especially in our elected
officials. As I mentioned last week, the Left has done its hardest to
say the whole mess was tied into current political dialogue. But beyond
tragedies, we also must deal with the constant blaming of the other side
for the current rough situation.
Pelosi even blamed Bush for the Democrats’ loss in November, saying that
his “failed policies” made it impossible for the party to live up to
people’s expectations (while conveniently ignoring the number of
promises they made, or the fact that their rise in 2008 was buoyed by a
new, charismatic face on the scene who had little else going for him
than that).
If I had a dollar for every time a Democrat blamed Bush since he left
office, I’d be able to pay off the deficit. The more we focus on laying
blame, the less focus on actually solving the problems before us.
If someone actually did something (as in, “Jared Loughner shot twenty
people and killed six of them,” not “Sarah Palin did an obscure ad with
cross hairs next to Gifford’s name”), then said they did it and moved on
with the aftermath. Enough abstract enemies and giant problems; focus on
what’s really the matter.
Related to that, we need to actually admit when we’re wrong. For example
let’s look at man-made global warming. It’s basically so disproven that
humans are making the planet warmer that the proponents actually changed
terms last year to “global climate change.” Now they are saying the old
data supports the new theory. The problem is that the old data supports
no theory other than “Sometimes it’s hotter than normal, some days it’s
colder than normal.” And yet no one wants to admit they were wrong; they
just change the name and keep shouting the same nonsense as before,
which now makes even less sense. I’ve had to admit I was wrong before.
The rest of us can as well.
Finally, something that summarizes everything that’s been said, let’s
hear it for a return of common sense. Let’s hear it for solving domestic
issues with words and votes, not intimidation and violence. Let’s hear
it for admitting that sometimes debate can get heated, but that said
debate isn’t responsible for every disaster. Let’s hear it for actually
taking time and thinking before you speak.
I started this article over about five times so I made sure it was what
I really wanted to say. Before you do or say something you may regret,
take the time and think about it. We can all do with a bit more time in
our lives, but no matter how little time we have, there’s always time
for common sense.
President Barack Obama called for unity in his State of the Union
Address saying “We will move forward together, or not at all.” For the
first time in history, members of opposite parties sat together after
tragic events in Arizona shook the political world. The President and
the Republican response presented two different tones.
While the Republicans response, led by Congressman Paul Ryan, chair of
the House Budget Committee, aimed for realism, it kept in line with the
seasons talking points.
Obama declared his belief that our nation’s best days lie ahead. He
touched on personal stories of Vice-President Joe Biden and Speaker of
the House John Boehner, both of whom lived the American dream rising up
from minimum wage jobs becoming political leaders.
This theme continued as Obama described how the world has changed, and
how America must evolve to meet the demands of a “new age.” Innovation,
education, and research and development were topics of interest.
Highlighting his “Race to the top” program, which granted Georgia 400
million in grants to the education system for new reforms, he
underscored the need for a new level of respect for those who educate.
Obama called for a new generation of entrepreneurs to develop
technologies that will drive an evolving economy and bring prosperity.
He stressed the need for America to regain its upper edge in the areas
of education, science, and information technology.
In order to do this Obama argued passionately about the central
political question of our time. What is the role of government? His
speech sets the stage for a new year of political debate.
On one side, Republicans, backed by a tea-party fueled conservatism,
take control of the House of Representatives with the goal of cutting
100 billion dollars in spending before the fiscal year ends in July.
On the other, a beaten back Democratic party, led by a President who
appears to have shifted, a significant measure to the center. His pitch
to the American people called for interests groups to work together for
long term well being of the country, setting goals of doubling the
country’s exports by 2014, and achieving eighty percent of our nations
energy from renewable energy sources by 2030.
Echoing Ronald Reagan, President Obama urged a renewed faith in the
belief that America holds a special place in the world, and that we all
must work together to spread peace and tranquility both domestically and
internationally.
The Republican response, which repeated major themes of the election
narrative, failed to mention Medicare and Social Security, the top two
deficit contributing federal government programs.
The Presidents call for everyone to share the burden of climbing out of
the recession and the Republican response of a facade of spending cuts
lead to the assumption that one of two things will happen.
Republicans and Democrats will work together and make the tough
decisions necessary to solve our problems or the governing progress will
become increasingly grid locked.
This could give way to further decreased confidence in the governments’
ability to handle our long-term debt. Democrats and Republicans may have
sat together at the State of the Union Tuesday, but whether they stand
together the next session of Congress will determine the new level of
civility.
Opinions today are falling bland. Everything finds its way to politics
eventually, right? People have to side somewhere on some issue and take
a stand, and when someone decides to play the middle they simply seem,
ignorant or indecisive instead of American.
There is hardly a media news outlet today that is not telling the people
how to perceive an issue. Rupurt Murdoch wants Fox News to tell people
how to think, but they are not the only ones. The days of fair and
balanced news are gone, and the days of yellow journalism are back.
The political ear is turning dull because there is an overload of
politics. Politics matter, Hitler knew this, even the dumbest person in
a political science class knows this, but in the modern world there is a
tendency to think it is all that matters.
Unfortunately, red and blue, political colors not patriot colors, shape
our lives in ways we don’t even realize. We vote and move on, and this
is not a noble quality.
However, as endless a bounty as politics offers, they are not the only
thing in this world that matters and at times, we seem to forget that.
Suddenly, how the government creates jobs is more important than jobs
themselves.
What is the first news source that comes to mind? Regardless the name,
it is highly likely that the news outlet is bias, whether it is
partially or entirely. I find myself in a conundrum because I realize
the importance of the political atmosphere but often end up tuning out
important daily issues because of the mass media approach.
How long does it take for a political issue to be beaten into the
ground? Not long at the pace media moves these days as the internet
takes hold of the first word, passes it along down the media pipeline to
television sources and grey haired news anchors and is then circulated
at a rate that would drive a mad man sane.
What is worse is that the “truth” is tainted. The news becomes a matter
of opinion and is released to the public with the slightest tweak, or
omission,of a fact so that it seems credible.
To use a cliché, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing
the world he didn’t exist. If the news does not find a way to stay
unbiased, then it is nothing more than a devil tempting the masses to
lean one way or another. Despite the obvious oxymoronic nature of this
article, opinions just cannot compare to news sources.
With the nature of the current news market, personalities such as Bill
O’Reily and Keith Olberman should not be leading the tide of their
respective parties, fueling the fire that is people.
News sources, whether it is television or print, hold a great power over
the people they are meant to serve. They control the distribution of
facts. With their ear on the grindstone, they connect us to the rest of
the world. This engagement between news and the people creates a bond.
At no point can this bond ever be broken or manipulated for any reason,
political or not.
While most of us our cramming in Henderson making last minute flash card
checks I would like to remind our reading audience that today is
December 7, 2010 and sixty-nine years ago those words were uttered with
much more gusto and much more meaning when Franklin D. Roosevelt
exclaimed that December 7th would “live in infamy.”
As I write, sources both political and media alike report that today
Democrats will finally cave in to an irrational, illogical argument by
Republicans to either A) Permanently extend all Bush Tax Cuts or B)
temporarily extend all Bush Tax Cuts. To really drive home the point of
Irony here is a chilling reality of what the Bush Tax Cuts mean for the
“typical American Worker” via Louise Story and Gretchen Morgenson of the
New York Times.
“Worried that lawmakers will allow taxes to rise for the wealthiest
Americans beginning next year, financial firms are discussing whether to
move up their bonus payouts from next year to this month. If Congress
does not extend the Bush-Era Tax Cuts for the highest income levels, a
typical worker who earns a $1 million bonus would pay $40,000 to $50,000
more in taxes next year than this year, depending on base salary.” – NY
Times 12/5/10
Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal Constitution shows how that average
tax savings could be used in his Tuesday column.
“Those additional taxes saved by that “typical worker” would cover
unemployment benefits for a year for three Americans left jobless in the
wake of the fiscal crisis, a crisis created in large part because of
Wall Street greed and carelessness, a crisis eased considerably because
the U.S. taxpayer and the Federal Reserve lent Wall Street firms
hundreds of billions of dollars at considerable risk.”
What typical American worker pulls home a one million dollar bonus? A
finals hot cocoa on me for the conservative who defends this position.
Now, I know what many might be thinking. This is America, what everyone
makes is the outcome of one’s individual accomplishment. I’m not simply
calling for income redistribution that would be ludicrous of me. These
tax cuts which will overwhelmingly benefit the fewest of the few are a
direct irony of the conservative narrative presented over the past
eighteen months.
Consider Senator Bernie Sanders passionate December 2nd floor speech in
which he points out that “In 2007, the percentage of income going to the
top one percent was 23.5% of all income, more than the entire bottom
fifty percent. “
Republicans have adamantly condemned federal spending as the number one
issue for the nation. How is then that they can legitimately argue for
an “expenditure” of seven hundred billion dollars over the next ten
years.
It’s no wonder billionaire investor Warren Buffet says, “People at the
high end -- people like myself -- should be paying a lot more in taxes.
We have it better than we've ever had it," Well played Sir!
With tax issues most likely looming far above our campus’ buzz, I do
wish our Eagles good luck with finals and Godspeed to Spartanburg
Saturday.
The recent Wikileaks postings may seem like an early Christmas for those
who dislike Obama. After all, many of the documents point to issues
within the administration and paint it in an unfavorable light. However,
I don’t personally have the time to get into the Barack-bashing.
On one hand, some of the documents seem to confirm various suspicions
some of us have had for a while. I’ve been saying from the time North
Korea started lobbing shells a couple weeks back that China had likely
had it with them and sought to cut ties with the fledgling dictatorship.
And the fact that there are some Saudi leaders who want to bomb Iran and
others who are supporting al-Qaida isn’t really news.
However, other documents, if accurate, redefine political science in
ways we haven’t even begun to fathom, to say nothing for the nature of
the site itself.
On a specific level, for instance, is one document which purports that
Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, is dying of cancer.
Why is this significant? He doesn’t believe in the use of nuclear
weapons and considers them anti-Islamic, which was a bit of quiet relief
for many security analysts in recent months as Iran gets what it would
need to build such devices. However, should he die, someone new would
come into power and they might not feel as beatnik about the whole
thing.
In a larger sense, though, the Wikileak release on Sunday makes
America’s foreign affairs position a whole lot less steady. Should some
of it come out? Possibly. There are over 250,000 documents; I’m sure at
least one of them was something the public desperately needed to know
about. But the information wasn’t something everyone in the world needed
to know about, particularly not the people we’re dealing with abroad.
Some of those items contained information that those governments may not
have known that we knew.
It seems like a childish game or some bit from a movie that the late
Leslie Nielsen would’ve used, but in intelligence and diplomacy, the
whole “I know that you know that I know that you know that I know”
shtick actually can be a reality. It’s not enough to know your
opponent’s secrets; you need to know what he knows about your
intelligence, because that can change how he acts.
If I am the President and I know about a plan for a Chinese missile
shield in North Korea, I may decide to form my foreign policy toward
China based on that intelligence alone. But if they know that I know
about this shield, they may switch things up on me while I’m not
looking. On the other hand, if they don’t know that I possess that
knowledge, I can act upon it as I see fit.
This leak just took some of that advantage away from us without anything
in return. Hence why you don’t see me dancing in the street celebrating
Julian Assange, Wikileaks editor-in-chief, as a saint in the struggle
against Obama. It’s not just the career of one president that he’s
affecting – it’s the safety and bargaining position of the entire
country.
Unfortunately, the leak has already happened. There are calls from both
sides of the aisles to prosecute any leakers and renewed calls of
outrage against the Australian editor – who may have well secured a spot
as Time magazine’s Man of the Year. That won’t help solve our problems,
though. The page has turned on U.S. foreign relations; it’s time to keep
reading and pray we can get it all on before someone turns the page
again.
On Monday, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston spoke to the Atlanta
Rotary Club vowing to protect Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship despite of a
looming budget deficit of up to $2 billion waiting for lawmakers in
January.
Ralston also said K-12 public schools in Georgia already have sacrificed
as much as they can stand in budget cuts since the recession began three
years ago.
Political rhetoric aside, how can Georgia’s elected leaders manage to
balance the budget next session, while maintaining the already slim
funding to both the K-12 and higher education systems in our state?
Without some serious political fortitude, alternatives for keeping the
HOPE Scholarship and Pre-K programs funded in the future appear dismal.
For the first time ever, demand for scholarship money by an increasing
student population (See Drive for 25K) has outpaced state lottery
revenues, despite record-setting lottery proceeds which fund the
programs.
Are we all left to despair?
Recently, The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State
University published a 103 page report making recommendations to this
problem. A first idea, to drop either HOPE or Pre-K as a funded program
by the Georgia Lottery Corporation, would be a jarring political blow to
whatever party proposed it, although it would immediately make the
program left to be funded, sustainable.
Delving a bit deeper, the studies’ other ideas are aimed at reducing the
number of people able to benefit from HOPE, either by increasing the
academic requirements or introducing some type of needs-based
assessment.
None of these proposals to cut beneficiaries or spending in the program
take into consideration the positive effect full four years tuition has
on our state.
HOPE has been known to show positive results in pushing high school
students to get better grades, go to college and, most importantly, keep
an educated workforce right here in Georgia.
So what is there to do?
In 2009, two Atlanta Underground developers came to the state lottery
board with the idea of expanding Georgia’s entertainment industry
through a unique downtown experience that would use upwards of five
thousand video lottery terminals, generating $150 million per year in
revenue for HOPE and Pre-K.
Their long-term plan included a proposed 29-story hotel and
entertainment complex estimated to bring in another $300 million into
the state lottery coffers.
For the greater metro area, this could mean 2,000 jobs and the potential
of billions in economic impact. The lottery board at the time chose not
to vote on the proposals at all.
These proposals would largely attract dollars from Georgia’s upper and
middle class as opposed to the current state lottery which often skews
towards low income residents.
I’ve never been an adamant opponent or proponent of decreased gambling
laws, however considering the harsh options like increased tuition rates
available to lawmakers, saving the HOPE Scholarship and Pre-K programs
in Georgia are well worth the controversial revenue streams gambling
dollars represent.
Senate hearings are scheduled to begin today about the results of the
yearlong study of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
Finally, people in Washington seem to be displaying some form of common
sense. It’s becoming obvious even to them, now that there’s data to back
it up, that the 17-year-old policy is out of date.
The Pentagon’s review was released Tuesday and found that repealing the
policy would have little, if any, negative long-term impact. It also
found that the majority of servicemen didn’t think they’d be adversely
affected if people were open about their sexuality, and if they felt
they would be, the reasons were often based on stereotypes and
misinformation.
Now what remains to be seen is the action the Senate will take before
the lame-duck session of Congress ends.
Bluntly, if the senators have any sense of what’s in their best
interest, they’ll pass legislation for the policy’s repeal. Obama wants
it, the data supports it, the House has already put the issue to rest,
and no one really seems to want the courts to make this decision.
They need to recognize that discrimination in the military is still
discrimination, and in 2010, it’s time for it to stop. Very few people
today would even consider discharging someone because of their race, and
10 years from now, no one will think twice about this.
First, I wish that everyone out there had a wonderfully delicious and
restful holiday. There is no time similar to spending it with family. Or
if you couldn’t be with your family, you can always borrow someone
else’s family and eat someone else’s food.
So after that long week of good food, old friends and the usual family,
you wake up with your feet dragging when you think of what lies ahead.
Only two weeks left! One is a normal week, and the next is the dreadful
finals week.
There’s something about that L-Tryptophan that makes us not want to do
that studying over the week. Or maybe it’s because it is a whole week.
To expect college students to be able to remember previous lessons, or
to assume that we studied the chapter during a 10-day holiday break is
almost insulting. When Memorial Day weekend comes around we have trouble
keeping up with the work, so an additional seven days here means it’s
definitely not happening.
It is no secret that nothing gets done until that Sunday before. Even
those of us who want to be good students and have a set plan to get it
done fall into the trap of eating that turkey and getting knocked out
for the count.
But teachers, though you assign the work, it’s not your fault. We all
know those people who thought they were going to exercise all week to
combat the amount of calories they were going to gulp down, but never
went.
We are all guilty of putting everything off during the breaks, because
to us it is exactly that, a break.
I do not wish to tell anyone to stop being procrastinators when I am one
myself. I only want to congratulate those who are successful with their
accomplishments during the break, and to those who are less successful
in their proposed endeavors, do not be stressed or concerned because you
treated the time exactly how it is — a break.
So even though we have to be jump started back into the vicious world of
studies, papers, finals, tests and the very intriguing lesson plans, we
will find our way and get back into the swing of things.
So from me to all of you, good luck on your finals and on anything else
which might be due. I wish everyone well with the last two weeks. Keep
on trucking, GSU.
When I was a kid, I remember getting a new VCR that allowed us to slow
motion the videos we were watching. Back then it was a cool toy, to see
the action go by frame by frame (especially cool for Star Wars
lightsaber battles). But now, there are times I wish I had that button
for my real life.
Patience is one of the more underrated virtues in our society. These
days, we’ve been bombarded by an ever-growing list of technologies
designed to make time seem to speed up. And sometimes those things are
good – I couldn’t see life without the internet, especially come
research time.
But other times we take the speed that the world seems to be moving at
and try to keep up, not realizing what we’re missing as we go through
life at a thousand miles an hour. Sometimes, we need to learn to wait.
It’s a hard thing to do, admittedly. I certainly have trouble, wanting
the clock to speed up in class or wanting break to get here. But there
are also times when we need to learn that things don’t just happen.
The world isn’t designed to give us what we want on demand. We have to
work for the things we want, and we have to be willing to wait. The more
dependent we grow on instant gratification, the emptier we make our
lives. It also creates a dependence on those things that make life fast
– how many of us cram our papers and assignments because we have the
ability to? Odds are, most of us, including me, do that, and while for
some of us the adrenaline helps us work, for most of us it’s a dangerous
habit.
Imagine if you could get everything you wanted right now. You just had
to wish for it and you’d have it. Great, right? But really think about
it – you’d have everything you say you wanted, but would you really be
satisfied? Or would you find out that you still want more, and more, and
more?
But now imagine that you worked and waited to get something – a
relationship, a job, even just a CD that you had to wait four years for.
How much more will you appreciate it?
The world around us is moving by much too quickly. We need to find the
time to stop and smell the roses. Making it through life and actually
taking the time to live are two separate things, and it’s time we
realized that.
If you take your time and enjoy the world around you, exploring it for
what it’s worth, you’ll have a much richer experience.
With only a few leftovers in the fridge left, it’s time to shed the
Thanksgiving relaxation and get back to work. (Hello Henderson!) This
jolt back to reality is striking most in D.C. where many policy issues
have been left on the table after the “shellacking” of the midterm
elections.
Emergence of Republican resistance to the new START Treaty has left me
dumbfounded. This treaty reduces a vastly unneeded nuclear arsenal
between Russia and the United States which currently control 95 percent
of the world’s nuclear arms. It also resumes the practice of on-site
American verification, including up to 18 short-notice inspections per
year, continuing the Reagan Doctrine of “Trust, but verify.”
Republican Senator John Kyl of Arizona, the Republicans’ top point man
on START, has signaled strong opposition to the treaty being passed in
the “lame duck” session.
Perplexing at best, Kyl’s motives appear overwhelmingly political.
Senator Richard Luger (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Senate
Foreign Relations committee, which passed the START Treaty with a
bipartisan mark of 14-4 has appeared publicly disappointed with many
colleagues for using a national security issue for political posturing.
Maybe this is because every major military, political, and foreign
relations expert has backed the treaty including former Secretaries of
State Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger and former Defense Secretaries
William Cohen and James Schlesinger, among others.
One has to wonder, what is the reason behind this senator’s opposition
to the treaty? I can only of think of three reasons why Senator Kyl
might be opposed.
1. A genuine concern for the treaty! Senator Kyl and other leaders have
pointed out and insisted on the president increasing funding for
security and technology upgrades for America’s nuclear facilities. The
president listened, increasing its nuclear modernization budget by
nearly $5 billion ($84 billion total) over the next 10 years.
This seemed to be one of the only logical objections to the new START
Treaty passing and was met with warm consideration by the
administration.
2. The START Treaty is being used for political leverage. On Sunday’s
Meet the Press, Senator John Kyl, stated, “If the leader of the Senate,
Senator Reid, were to allow a couple of weeks for full debate and
amendment of the resolution of ratification, then theoretically there
would be time.”
By holding hostage President Obama’s top foreign policy goal,
Republicans can threaten any other legislative goal like Bush Tax Cuts,
The DREAM Act, or the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy.
3. Republicans are going for the kill shot. After a devastating midterm,
the president’s popularity is consistently hovering under 50 percent.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, “The single most
important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a
one-term president.”
If the START Treaty passes, it will be viewed as a major success for the
president and possibly slow momentum the Republicans have enjoyed.
National security has been a top priority for this nation over the past
10 years.
In fact, it was a “lame duck” session of congress which approved vast
overhauls of our intelligence agencies, creating the Department of
Homeland Security in December of 2001.
If the Senate cannot pass the START Treaty before the holiday recess, I
would kindly remind the President of Article II Section 3 of the United
States Constitution.
That should be the roadblock sign heading into the 112th Congress. I
just got the update that Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif. was elected as Minority
Leader of the House Democratic Caucus by a vote of 150-43.
As expected, John Boehner (R - Ohio) was elected Speaker in-waiting of
the House of Representatives, our nation’s third-highest office. I see a
few problems for President Obama’s statement that he wants to work
harder on partisanship next session.
The Democratic caucus is considerably more liberal with the losses of
many conservative Democrats, the so-called blue-dog democrats. In fact,
our congressional district represents the last of a dying breed, the
white male Southern Democrat. The state of Jimmy Carter, Zell Miller and
yes, Roy Barnes, once produced a plethora of talented centrist
democrats.
I do not envy the position John Barrow is in. As redistricting
approaches, this may present a geographical challenge even more
difficult for Democrats to become once again the “Big Tent” party.
Speaker Pelosi has been the ammunition for millions of dollars spent
reversing Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 handily.
I don’t expect a young Congress to shy away from personal attacks in
policy debates, which brings me to my second point.
Come January, the new Congress will have 106 new members who are walking
into the partisan policy debates on some issues which are very
complicated. Many are this week attending orientation sessions about
their salary and benefits, taking tours of offices and participating
policy panels in specific areas.
To put this into perspective, if we estimated that there are 1,200
professors at Georgia Southern, that would mean roughly 292 professors
are new. Getting acclimated to a new environment will impact the
effectiveness of our elected officials.
The Republican Party will have to decide what its priorities are and
stay consistent with the agenda.
High goals such as repealing health care reform, which would take a
difficult 51 votes in the Senate, would more than likely get vetoed by
the president, thus requiring an impossible majority overrule.
The most striking narrative that voters attached to this cycle was
federal spending.
If the Republican leadership cannot present clear and logical ideas of
cutting federal spending, then I would think the millions spent to oust
conservative Democrats was wasted.
I know that professors would be quick to remind me, I am too young to be
able to analyze the last Republican takeover in 1994, but I can’t help
but relate the two cycles. If this analogy rings true, there are still
questions to be answered.
Will the Republican Congress continue the familiar legislative
exclamation of “No” and push us to a second federal government shutdown?
John Boehner, I wouldn’t recommend this!
This isn’t all on Republicans either. Clearly this is a fork in the road
for the 44th president. He needs to come down from the high tower of
strategy and make realistic goals because in January, a turn will have
to be made. The question is, does he turn in the “Carter” direction, or
the “Clinton” direction.
Alrighty guys, it has taken an entire semester for them to get it right,
but finally they have started getting some new faces on those old dusty
bus routes. I was graced one day this week with a bus driver who had a
sense of purpose and urgency.
Not only that but I was shocked and thrilled that she, like so many
other people on the bus and drivers on the road, was getting mad at the
dumb pedestrians.
To provide a small comparison to the changes that have been made,
imagine a time when buses would see a pedestrian walking in the
direction of the road, the bus would come almost to a complete stop
about 50 feet from that individual, and there are so many people on
campus that this does take a nice chunk of the class that you are
already late for.
And we all know that we are guilty of getting caught up in our own day
that we forget that bus’s brakes are squealing with the ferocity of a
mother eagle behind us trying to be polite and safe.
There are still a few things which I would suggest be changed, such as a
route for those coming from Eagle Village and Southern Courtyard to get
to the RAC in a more direct path. With the current system, those
unfortunate students will have to get on the Blue Route only to have to
wait again for the Gold Route.
I still see the Blue Route buses coming on campus more frequently than
the Gold Route, though this just reflects my own biases because of my
usage of the Gold Route.
Still a very big problem with the buses is the lack of understanding
that we, as students, student workers, faculty or just commuters, have
somewhere to go. If the bus is full, let’s go.
It is truly frustrating when I get on a bus and make it all the way to
the Union only to take the longest turn around the round-a-bout in human
history. I mean seriously, how many times have we been in the Guiness
record books for that?
Anyway, sorry if I sound like a broken record to all my readers out
there, but I get passionate about the complaints and concerns I have
heard from you guys from a bystander’s observations.
Overall, I am not completely happy with the system. I do believe we have
some more work to be done, but I have to say well done, First Transit.
You guys are listening and changing things the best you can.
Thank you and continue providing us with the steadily improving service
you have change to best suit us. To every bus driver working for GSU,
keep up the good work.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched an assault on alcoholic
energy drinks yesterday.
In a year long study, the FDA claims that the caffeine in the energy
drinks masks the effects of alcohol and makes the drinker unaware of how
intoxicated they are.
Calling beverages such as Four Loko, Moonshot and Core High Gravity HG a
“public health concern,” the FDA could not find reasonable information
to support the claim that the addition of caffeine to these alcoholic
beverages was safe.
While the FDA cannot outright ban the drinks, they have given several
major companies a 15-day ultimatum to remove certain substances from
their products or they will take serious action.
After years of not regulating fake health products, the FDA cracks down
on these alcoholic drinks because of the “wide-awake drunk” they
produce. Although this may sound like a partier’s wet dream, the
ultimate effect the drink produces is a Malatov cocktail that sells the
drinker out short.
What happens is the caffeine runs out and leaves the drinker with more
alcohol than they meant to consume, supposedly, so sorry the party is
over as the cops kick in the door and bust the rave.
The drink had a good run here in the ‘Boro, as I noticed numerous people
drowning in the beverage as part of their “pre-bar ritual.”
Very soon, what made these drinks potent will be gone, and the only
thing left will be that sour taste of liquid sweet tarts.
Though I’m sure the drinks will try and recover their edge, more than
likely the days of brightly colored alcoholic cans is over.
Information for the drink is listed on the can, but essentially a Four
Loko is the equivalent of three cups of coffee combined with three
beers.
So who is to blame for the crack down? What would you know, four
underage college students who ended up in the hospital.
In October 2009, four students of Central Washington University drank
several Four Lokos, combined with numerous other alcoholic beverages,
and found themselves blacked-out drunk.
The drink was clearly designed for the younger generation as our
“pick-me-up” is more often than not a Red Bull rather than the good old
fashioned cup of Joe.
However, like most problems, it comes down to the consumer. While
cigarette companies were trying to market to children with their cute
and cuddly cartoon characters, these drinks marketed a product to
underage drinkers who don’t know how to drink responsibly.
This is college, a place notoriously known for lacking the words,
“responsible drinking,” and this time its lead to the death of a
beverage, not a good beverage mind you, but the passing of a product
nonetheless.
So, a final salute to the drinks that no one ever actually liked,
because after 15 days those drinks that made people feel like a Super
Saiyan at night and Hercules in the morning, will be going, going gone.
I had said on Thursday that I didn’t plan to discuss politics these last
few weeks of class unless the lame-duck Congress did something worth
talking about. Well, the Senate just took up a measure that is
definitely worth talking about; and unlike my previous entries, this is
a bipartisan measure I’m railing against (so much for bipartisanship
being good, eh?). The measure I’m discussing is the Combating Online
Infringement and Counterfeits Act, scheduled for a first vote this
Thursday. And frankly, it’s one of the most dangerous things I’ve seen
come out of Washington in a long time, and I was actually up there when
they passed the DISCLOSE Act this summer.
The official deal with the bill is that it allows the Justice Department
to work with the Courts to “blacklist” websites that are “dedicated to
infringing activities.” This list would be sent to internet providers,
who would be “encouraged” to block the sites in question. Sounds simple
enough right? Well, it is – it’s simply censorship without due process.
Now, rather than each company taking each website to court over each
specific infraction and possibly losing the case, the site just has to
cross the line once and the company can convince the court and the
Justice Department to have them blacklisted.
Wait, let me check something.
Yeah, the American flag is still flying. For a second I’d thought I’d
been sent to North Korea.
I don’t care if the goal is to take on sites that are doing patently
illegal activities like allowing one to download movies without paying
anything to their distributors. If this law passes, there is no Youtube.
Youtube already has to take down copyright matter if it’s found, but has
no obligation to hunt it down proactively (which is good, because that
would take years, if it could be done at all). But now, even if they
clean up after they’ve been alerted, they can be shut down in the
interim. This also could extend to Fair Use of Intellectual property,
such as viewer-made reviews of movies and music with sample clips
interjected, or those videos of soldiers dancing to Lady Gaga (an
abomination to watch, I grant you, but still permitted).
This doesn’t even get into other legitimate uses of online clips, such
as showing them in class as a demonstration of a topic being discussed.
And that’s a media giant backed by Google; what about start-ups and
smaller sites that don’t have corporate protections? This doesn’t even
get into parodies, fan art, and other instances of not-for-profit
tribute to works. Even if that isn’t banned under the new law, stifling
fan participation in the creative process could be the next step.
It doesn’t help the law, in my eyes, that the driving forces behind this
legislation are groups, not individuals citing that they’ve been driven
out of the business by YouTube videos.
This, of course, after President Obama and the Democrats said that
they’d cut back on lobbyist influence last election (to be fair to
Obama, of course, his official stance is still anti-internet censorship;
it’s entirely possible he’ll stick to both of those guns and veto this
bill if it does get passed to him).
Many of these companies have already instituted draconian measures of
their own that are highly disproportionate to the crime being committed
– and it isn’t the artists who are getting all of that money. Think the
songwriter of that illegally downloaded hit gets that $100,000 from the
company after they target the downloader in question?
This bill is bad enough in itself, and if it’s passed the precedents for
internet censorship are staggering. Write up to your Senators and
Congressmen, for the sake of all of us, and for sanity.
Thanksgiving is a week away. First, every shopping mall will begin
playing Christmas music incessantly and second, the Christmas War is
here.
The war I am referring to is not over the last parking spaces or the
small riot outbreaks between consumers. This war is a front in the
so-called Culture Wars, or the ongoing conflicts between a return to the
traditional American some sort of white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism values
and those who would rather forget that “In God We Trust” is on every
United States bank note.
The politically correct crowd fired the first shots in the Christmas War
when stores began instructing their employees to wish their customers
“Happy Holidays” instead of the traditional “Merry Christmas.” This
change was not mere alliteration. Considering not everyone in America is
Christian, the powers that be made the rather illogical conclusion that
these non-Christians did not celebrate Christmas and determined
illogically that they would be offended if wished them Merry Christmas,
and if customers are offended they would stop shopping, meaning less
money.
The religious right naturally saw this combination of faulty logic and
avarice as an assault on Christianity. The result is the ongoing
Christmas War which occurs every December for the last decade or so.
The political correctness has denigrated the time of year by renaming
anything with Christmas to holiday; i.e. holiday season, holiday spirit
and even holiday tree.
Meanwhile, the religious right continues its crusade to “put the Christ
back in Christmas” by going as far as boycotting stores that say “Happy
Holidays.”
The funny thing is that most historical and even scriptural evidence
points to Jesus being born in the spring. Almost everyone agrees that
December 25 is a fairly arbitrary date which the Vatican picked to give
Christian converts a feast to celebrate in place of the birthdays of the
pagan gods Sol and Mithras.
This Christmas War is ridiculous. Even non-Christians celebrate
Christmas. The holiday lost a lot of its religious significance,
considering most associate Christmas with Santa Claus rather than the
Jesus. An orgy of consumerism has replaced the actual orgy of
Saturnalia, seven days of pagan celebration.
The true meaning of Christmas has been all but forgotten. Perhaps more
importantly, “Happy Holidays” demeans all traditions attempting to
celebrate a universality that does not exist. Jews did not invent
Hanukkah because their kids were complaining that the Gentile kids were
the only ones that got gifts in December.
All these festivals are just interchangeable “holidays” and does not
appreciate the individual. To achieve genuine tolerance and
understanding is to understand and appreciate the differences between
Kwanza, Hanukkah, Christmas, and other comparable holidays.
So this Christmas, don’t be afraid to say “Merry Christmas” to your
Christian friends, “Happy Hanukkah” to your Jewish friends or even “Io
Saturnalia,” for some real funny looks. Ending the Christmas War and
appreciating this diversity is a very real way to put Christ back in
Christmas. After all, I seem to remember some angels mentioning
something about “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men,” but I could be
wrong.
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http://www.gadaily.com/index.php/opinions/37-column/2376-ayerss-past-will-not-dictate-his-lecture%3E
Via InstaFetch
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