Terrible lie

A “fact” that more than likely is not even true could be the deciding factor in the Democratic presidential nomination process and possibly the presidential race as a whole.\nAllegations have abounded – originating primarily from conservative magazines and chain e-mails – that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is a Muslim, and he studied in a madrassa while living in Indonesia. He is also accused of being a “Muslim plant” acting as part of an elaborate plot to tear the United States apart from the inside. “What better way to start than at the highest level, through the President of the United States, one of their own,” reads one such e-mail.\nObama has had to go as far as having a letter written up and signed by members of Iowa’s clergy attesting to his Christianity.\nIn the immortal words of Bart Simpson, “That is wrong on so many levels.”\nFirst of all, Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He is a Christian. He even wrote a book, “The Audacity of Hope,” the themes of which are based largely on his Christian faith. He did live in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, as a child. That doesn’t mean he’s a follower of Islam, though – his mother is from Kansas and his father is from Kenya, and neither one was religious, though his stepfather was born a Muslim.\nIn the real world, Obama is a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, home of the “best choir in town,” according to Obama himself. He says that he was a skeptic until his 20s, when he converted after working with churches as a community organizer.\nThe rumors persist, though, thanks to people like Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh, who evidently are still taken seriously by some people. The repetition of these rumors by talk-radio hosts and their followers via e-mail only makes them spread more, no matter how much Obama refutes them or how few real facts they are based on. Even spell-check has been brainwashed – it just told me to change “Obama’s” to “Osama’s.”\nI have a question, though. Why should this be a problem? Why should Obama’s campaign be hampered by these allegations? Why would he be a less viable candidate if he were, in fact, a Muslim? \nThere seems to be a myth in contemporary American culture that Islam is evil and that Muslims are “the enemy.” I would assume that the pattern of thinking here is that since the people who were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks were Muslims and claimed to be acting in the name of Allah, that all Muslims are therefore evil. That’s horrifying and just not true. It would be like saying that since Manifest Destiny – the will of “Divine Providence” for the United States to expand – led to the deaths of Native Americans, Christianity is evil.\nThe high level of intolerance and low level of rational thought in this country are starting to become an issue. Stop the hate, think for yourself and pay attention. Otherwise, this nation could be in for a rude awakening.First, the lack of a substantive break (or even a simple three-day weekend) in the fall semester means that everyone is at the end of their ropes come Thanksgiving. This means that people are likely to just write off the two days of class before the break and make it a full week of recess. Third, upon returning from Thanksgiving, having had their fill of food and family, students’ attention spans never quite recover as the countdown to winter break starts in a meager two weeks. These last two weeks of the semester, when all should be their most productive, are reduced to attempts to keep focused on immediate goals rather than the impending semester break and holidays.\nAs a solution to all of these problems, I propose that we begin the semester in the first week of August. We can then proceed to have a full-week break at mid-semester as well as finishing the semester before Thanksgiving. This would mean no two weeks at the end of the semester, no more two days of class the week of Thanksgiving and everyone would have a chance mid-semester to pause and collect themselves for the push through the second half of the semester. This cannot solve the general issue of the closeness of the holidays, but such a plan addresses some of the major difficulties in the schedule of the fall semester. Why not make Thanksgiving a time of family, and not of school, by ending the semester?