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(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Dear Mr. Knight,\nWell, you're back. Hi.\nIt seems only last year that you were fired for repeated physical violations and ethical misconduct. What was it you said about how women might as well enjoy it if they're being raped? Right.\nBut wait! It was indeed just last year that you were fired. Yes, now I remember. It had something to do with your not being able to stick to a simple agreement with the University.\nTo tell you the truth, Mr. Knight, I thought you would handle this with a modicum of dignity. After that embarrassing "riot" and your embarrassing farewell speech, I thought you might slip gracefully into your twilight. Then, secure with your many laurels, you would sneak off to Canada and hunt ducks. You know, live out those golden years with your wife and tackle box.\nBoy, was I wrong.\nHere you are, back in the news again. I read last week that your lawyer alerted IU President Myles Brand that you might sue him, the trustees and, by logical extension, the University. \nCoach Knight is with us once again!\nThis is your plan for your big comeback? Just like Norma Desmond climbing out of her decrepit house on Sunset Boulevard, you're ready for your return. I suppose you've come to the conclusion that if you can't pal around with the basketball team on the court, you can at least pal around with the trustees in court. This lawsuit, which I'm sure we can both agree is ridiculous, is just your way of coming back home to IU. And your way seeing your picture in this very paper. Just telling the students and faculty, "Hey, I'm still relevant."\nRight.\nI won't preach to you, Mr. Knight. I'm not going remind you about grace and good manners. But I will give you a history lesson. \nDo you remember what we used to call you? That's right. "The General." How much do you know about real generals? You know, the ones in the Army?\nHave you read about Gen. Douglas MacArthur? After winning fame and glory in World War II, he was appointed to lead the U.N. forces in Korea. The ostentatious leader, who never went anywhere without strapping a couple of pistols to his hips, drove the North Korean forces behind enemy lines and then pushed north towards China. When the Chinese fought back and threw U.S. troops into disarray, President Harry S. Truman, realizing that America didn't need a war with Communist China, denied MacArthur's request to bomb Chinese bases.\nInstead of following orders, MacArthur made the dispute public, embarrassed the president and was relieved from duty. When he came back to the United States, he rode the wave of his World War II fame and continued to behave with embarrassing pomposity.\nSound familiar?\nOr what about Gen. George S. Patton? They called him "Blood and Guts" Patton. His furious assault on Nazi Germany won the war in the European theater, but when it came to peacetime, he was a disaster. His tendency to make outrageous remarks that offended the Germans, the Europeans at large and the Russians, led to the denial of his request to fight the war in Asia.\n(A good thing, too, since he would have served wit MacArthur.)\nYou see, Mr. Knight, you're not the first general to buy into your own immortality. But the same vitality that fuels a general in war doesn't always serve his country. The same brazenness that empowers him on the court doesn't always serve his University.\nMr. Knight, I know you love this school. Why else would you raise thousands of dollars for what will some day be called the Herman B Wells Library?\nBut despite your love, you've let your wounded pride embarrass us again and again since your long overdue departure. Whether it's an interview on ESPN or this silly little suit, you haven't passed up an opportunity to throw sand in our eyes. You've led the rest of the country to believe that IU means basketball, not books. You've encouraged the impression that we're just a bunch of cornhuskers who come to college to watch you throw tantrums and chairs. Thanks, but Indiana just doesn't need that kind of help.\nSo, before you decide to go ahead and sue the University, take a look at the last days of real generals like MacArthur and Patton. Can you manage a more graceful exit, Mr. Knight?
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Dear Dr. Brehm,\nDon't worry about making friends once you get to Bloomington. Just about everyone has something they think you need to know, and I've been given lists of important issues to bring to your attention. \nFunny … no one seemed this interested when I was writing about national politics. It just goes to show that when you poke sacred cows, they start to moo.\nAnd moo they did. You ought to know, Madame Chancellor, that your arrival is wildly anticipated. A new leader for this campus means more to us than just your name on the University Web site. It seems people expect you to bring about a revival of sorts. New concerns and cries for help are pushing out of the ground like earthworms after a spring rain. Everyone with an investment in the University has pretty high expectations for you, Dr. Brehm. I just thought you should know.\nRebuilding the Academic Community\nI just returned from the latest in our fabulous Patten Lecture series. I'm sure you're familiar with this 60-year-old program that brings famous men and women of letters to little old Bloomington. Patten lecturers usually give a few talks, attend classes in their area of specialization and buddy up with faculty and a few lucky students. Past guests have included such superstars as Noam Chomsky and Toni Morrison.\nThis week's luminary is Catherine Stimpson, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science and a university professor at New York University. She's one of those rare but real public intellectuals, and has come to Bloomington to discuss the nature of genius. Stimpson is known as an articulate speaker and a sensitive writer. She's one of those trailblazers who's attracted a devoted following in the academic world. She's kind of a David Bowie of the arts and letters. \nAll of which led me to wonder, as I listened to Stimpson speak, why the Fine Arts Auditorium was only half full. Surely, for such a star, we could have managed more than a sparse showing. \nStill more troubling was the fact that of the thousands of undergraduates on this campus, only about 10 showed up. Looking around at the empty seats, I realized that it was the undergraduates -- the real blood and bones of the University -- who were absent. \nMy mother likes to remind me about the importance of showing up for special events like this. "It's just like when I came over for Founders Day, and not one of your friends was taking his family to the ceremony," she said. "These things are your culture, Duncan. You know, civilization! And if nobody shows up … then where are you? These ceremonies, rituals, events … they're important."\nWith my mom's words echoing in my ears, I couldn't help but worry that undergraduates have stopped showing up. I'm not just nervous about the Patten Lectures, although it's too bad so many people miss out on a program that brings the world to Bloomington, of all places. \nA lot of undergrads don't show up at the symphony, the IU Art Museum, or the Lilly Library … even though our campus is famous for all three. Sometimes, it seems like showing up to class is a bit much to ask. \nOf course, there's enough blame to go around. A healthy dose of ivory-tower-attitude infects the campus … We've all had that one professor whose shock seethed out of his pores upon learning that no, undergrads don't turn their brains off between orientation and graduation. He's the one who thinks of himself as a gate-keeper, whose task is to protect his academic discipline from our careless, grubby grasp. Needless to say, this attitude doesn't encourage students to embrace the intellectual culture of the campus. \nBut we are the ones who don't show up. Come on, kids! Where's the intellectual curiosity? You know, that thing that's fueling your passion to learn about the world around you. Where are the future philosophers and research scientists? The artists and writers? Not in the museums, and certainly not attending the Patten Lectures. \n"But Duncan, we don't have time for all of that!"\nOK, that's what I'll tell the staff at Kilroy's when no one shows up there this weekend. \n"Sorry, they're all home hitting the books." My concern is, Dr. Brehm, that we're not living up to our campus.\nWe've surrounded ourselves with treasures, built palatial concert halls and dragged Stimpson down from New York City. For every exception, like bell hooks and Peter Jennings, there are hundreds of half-empty galleries, audiences and special events. Undergraduates, who are the backbone and the majority of this University community, aren't showing up. \nIf my mom is right, Dr. Brehm, that means the culture of the academy is in trouble. \nBloomington's campus needs a renaissance badly, and maybe you're just the one to kick it off.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Dear Dr. Brehm,\nAs you prepare to take on the duties of Bloomington chancellor, I feel the need to tell you I can't imagine IU without basketball -- try as I might, I simply cannot. \nWhen I came to IU from Lexington, Ky., (home to another university and basketball team), I had to defend my choice to dozens of kind folks afraid that I would develop an opium-like addiction to red, white and Bobby Knight. \nAs anyone who has read my columns can tell you, that certainly hasn't been the case. But even though I haven't become the rabid fan my friends feared was the product of a Hoosier education, sports have been a part of my IU experience.\nAnd although you'll be our new vice president of academic affairs, Dr. Brehm, you probably won't escape the scary side of Hoosier Hysteria. This week, panic-stricken administrators will be praying not too many people die in the havoc wreaked by the "Greatest College Weekend Ever." So, like a gerbil trying to raise its voice above the lion's roar, I thought I'd let you know that some of us didn't riot.\nI'm sure you saw the chaos on CNN. \nYou might have tuned in to ESPN for Mr. Knight's farewell speech. And if you had been reading the IDS at the time, you would have noted that some students came to Bloomington to be closer to their beloved General.\nDr. Brehm, this is not another column about Bobby Knight's pitiable behavior, his lamentable mode of departure or the despotism of his 29-season reign. \nI don't want to beat a dead horse. But you've got to hear from the thousands of us whose hearts are filled with regret. We're the ones who watched in horror as the reputation of our fine institution stumbled into the gutter of exploitative cable coverage. We're also the ones who said to ourselves, "Dear God, what must the rest of the country think of us." \nI'll admit that this line of thought wasn't limited to admirable concern for our community. I can remember a few people saying to me, "I don't want to put IU on my resume if this place is synonymous with rioting basketball nuts." \nGoing to IU is a bit like living in Kentucky. Whenever there was a natural disaster in the Bluegrass state, most of us would mumble a collective prayer:\n"Please, God, if this makes the national news, do not let Peter Jennings and his cohorts interview some ignorant hillbilly standing in front of a decimated trailer. I know that Appalachian culture is rich, and that not all mountain folk are ignorant. But God, I am tired of leaving the state and telling people that yes, we do wear shoes and use the subjunctive. Amen."\nSimilarly, some of us say a certain prayer for the Cream and Crimson:\n"Please God, let people know that IU is not home to 30,000 sports maniacs who devote themselves to a false-god coach and who riot instead of reading "King Lear" or learning about mitochondria. Can you engineer an ABC news story about IU's participation in the Human Genome Project? Or perhaps compel USA Today to print a story about the Lilly Library? It's not that I'm a snob, God. It's just that I don't want to go to graduate school, meet a smart and sexy girl, tell her where I went to undergrad and hear her say, 'Oh, you mean the place where they had the basketball riots?' We're pretty smart people, and some of us care more about 'Middlemarch' than March Madness. Amen."\nWe're not asking much, Dr. Brehm. Just a complete revitalization of the national reputation of this university. Our best-kept secrets are scholarship and excellence. A professor friend of mine who once taught at an Ivy League school told me that students here more than hold their own when compared to our counterparts back east. And whenever we welcome guests like Dean Catherine Stimpson of New York University's Graduate School, these educational insiders always call IU one of the nation's finest universities. \nUnfortunately, ESPN didn't listen to me when I pitched a two-hour special called, "Indiana University: Academic Excellence and College Sports on One Campus." \nSo in the meantime, I'm still praying: \n"Dear God, You and I know this school is not full of vacant-eyed basketball fans who shave the letters I and U into their chest hair. Just tell that to the world"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Be odd.\n That was going to be my advice for the first week of school. An alternative to all of the wholesome "go to class, go to office hours, go to the Health Center, and while you're at it stop by Career Development Center" sermons that are delivered from classroom pulpits, resident assistants and your parents. \nAll of the aforementioned is great advice. But as I was walking to class, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if everyone took a chance this year." If people started showing up at marimba concerts and folk dancing at the Union? If people wrote great papers about the nexus of themes in 'Days of Our Lives' and Dostoevsky? If professors decided to lead their class outdoors and wake them up with a jog around Ballantine!?" \nAnd then I remembered my shoes. My shoes and Jim Jeffords. \nFirst my shoes. . . I always seem to catch on to trends as they are dying. So yesterday, when I realized how sweaty August was going to be, I decided to store my shoes, and run to the store and buy some flip-flops. \nFlip-flops. . . beach sandals. . . the attire of my youthful summer, now made popular by Madison Avenue's brightest minds. So I dragged myself into that purveyor of performance fleece, that bearer of board shorts. . . the TV-commercial refuge of Morgan Fairchild and that strange woman with the heavy black glasses. . . and the depository for clothes that couldn't quite fall into the Gap. \nI listened to the Old Navy sound system blast the one Nina Hagen song we all know. \nBut alas, their stock of "two dollah, no hollah" flip-flops had been ravaged by the summer crowds, more alert to what's hip. I could have bought some fuchsia sandals, or an attractive hot pink pair. But I have some dignity.\nSo I ran around the mall, doubling over in shock at the prospect of paying 10 dollars for some Malaysian rubber handiwork. Finally, I walked, no, ran to KMart. KMart. Blue light specials. Childhood memories of a South as yet polluted by Wally-World. \nAnyway, I ran to the back. To the shoe section. To a quandary. Because the only decent sandals carried by "big red K, little blue m-a-r-t" were emblazoned with the following logo: "Baywatch Gear." \nUh-oh.\nAs much as I respect David Hasselhoff's acting career (especially the work he did opposite of a talking car in "Nightrider"), I was a bit worried about buying shoes emblazoned with the name of a show, the cultural contribution of which is dwarfed by the good it's actresses did for the silicone industry. But it was late, I didn't care, and I assumed no one would notice the tiny tag. \nUntil I walked to class today. \nAnd as the cheap rubber flipped and flopped against the pavement, fear gripped my heart. What if someone does notice? What if I'm sitting in class and my shoe slips off, and one of my professors (the one who addressed the Modern Language Association, or the one who spoke at the Folger Library) sees that my shoes carry the "Baywatch" brand.\n And if this is how I feel when I'm wearing an embarrassing pair of sandals, imagine what it must have felt like for Jim Jeffords, senator of Vermont, to walk down the halls of the Senate after shifting the balance of power? Remember Jeffords? The one who decided that George W. Bush's agenda was too extreme, too radically right? The one who was called an opportunist when he declared independency from his own party? The one who has been shunned by his former friends, and half of his current colleagues? The one whose principled commitment to centrism has made him the object of hatred, and raided the ire of Republicans in his home state of Vermont?\nIn a town that demands party loyalty, and looks askance at anyone who walks out of step; In a Washington D.C. that preaches innovation and originality, while it practices segregation, exclusion, and cultural policing, Jim Jeffords decided to do something odd. In doing so, he stirred up some trouble, disturbed the powerful and reminded everyone that loyalty to principal far outweighs loyalty to party. \nAnd he is paying for it.\nBe odd. It's worth it. I like my funny shoes, and Jim Jeffords is my hero.\nBut be ready to pay the price.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Who's the television president?\nBill Clinton wins that one hands down, right? \nOnly if you ignored the 2000 push to market George W. Bush as the low-acid orange juice alternative. Tastes good, and won't make you queasy in the morning. But ever since the ceiling caved in on the new economy ... or is it that the floor fell out from underneath? Whatever. Ever since everyone on Wall Street started talking to their rubber duckies, our un-duly elected president has been at the center of a ratings crisis. As a result, it's getting harder and harder to tell who's in charge: the Chief of Staff or a White House team of television producers.\nIn this Sunday's New York Times, several Bush strategists are quoted on their programming plans for the fall. The article noted that in this time of economic worry Bush would "... give more economic prescriptions, diluting what was initially planned as a season devoted largely to his education agenda and talk about values."\nOne White House heavy admitted that Communications Director (or VP of Prime-Time Programming) Karen P. Hughes "had a whole fall offensive lined up for all this character and values stuff." But now Ms. Hughes admits that we are maintaining some flexibility in October. \nThat's the Washington equivalent of making sure there are enough reality shows in development, just in case the Great Race falls flat. And indeed, George the Lesser seems to be doing just that. The administrators cite polls indicating that Americans don't think Mr. Bush is a very commanding leader. And instead of attempting the impossible and turning him into a real president, the White House staff is intent on their only option: making him look like a real president. \nOne central debate in this effort involves whether or not to program the president into more majestic White House galas. Many of his advisors think this would make the president look more presidential. Others worry that Dubya would be swallowed up -- and look out of his element -- in such settings. \nIndeed, Ms. Hughes voiced a concern that there had been too many medium-sized events that did not always generate favorable coverage for the president. \nWhereas disgusted journalists and grandmothers bemoaned the Bill and Monica Show, the Bushes are more like a major network: a corporation full of people desperate to make us think that blow-dried air-heads know enough about the news to keep watch over the world. \nThere were the days of black and white, of that old bird Senator Preston Bush, followed by the preening peacock, G.H.W. Kennebunkport Bush. Then, for a few minutes, or what I like to call the nineties, we changed channels. It was more like the infancy of MTV than the solid Walter Cronkite days at CBS. \nAnd now we've got this turkey, who the White House network worries looks out of his element in Washington, D.C. He's the President, for heavens sake. Isn't the capital supposed to be his element? Convinced that Dubya's more at ease on his ranch, some desperate advisors are suggesting moving the capital to Crawford ... Texas, that is. \nYou know, like when the Brady Bunch would go on those zany trips to Hawaii and the Grand Canyon? But as we're gearing up for the fall ratings sweeps, it's becoming more and more clear that GW's affiliation is more WB than PBS.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Infinite Justice. That's what we might be calling the war. \nIt's a pretty tall order, but it goes right along with President George W. Bush's promise to "rid the world of evil-doers." I'm just waiting for him to stand in front of the White House, and, to the strains of thunder and lightning, proclaim that "By the Power of Greyskull, I am President He-Man."\nBut that would be silly. It's much more likely, and more in keeping with Mr. Bush's tone, that he will saddle up one of the four horses mentioned in the Book of Revelations, and rough ride the varlets out of this life and into the next. \nThe fact is, the administration's rhetoric has been largely unacceptable. Ever since the president's first statement to the nation, when he assured the American people that we will "get these folks," it's been a downhill slide of mangled civic discourse. \nI'm not supposed to say this. For the last two weeks, the Bush approval rating has been hovering between 80 and 90 percent, and the press accordingly refuses to find fault with the White House. Even politicians are avoiding criticism of George W., for fear of looking like partisan snipes in the wake of national tragedy. Anything but positive commentary on the president has been treated like the worst kind of anti-patriotism.\nBut when a duck quacks, you can't call it an eagle. And the phrase "infinite justice" was the mallard call heard 'round the world.\nIt's odd that such a pious man, who revealed during a debate that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ, would presume to deliver the final judgement. I don't know where the president goes to church, but my pastors, preachers and Sunday school teachers have always been adamant that "infinite justice" is the domain of a powerful and merciful God and not the former governor of Texas, thank Heavens. \nLikewise unacceptable is the president's use of the word "crusade." Let's not forget that the first Crusades involved hordes of Christians slaughtering as many Muslims as they could in a madcap attempt to liberate the holy land that happened to be someone else's home. So while the American association with the word crusade has more to do with Indiana Jones than with a religious war, the Islamic community happens to see things differently. \nPresident Bush seems to be grasping for words that will contain and describe the anger he and the entire country feel, but in reaching beyond the human world and into the vocabulary-realm of holy wars and end-time judgement, he has dragged us dangerously close to the brink of fanaticism. If this war becomes a matter of religious vengeance rather than a means of creating a safer world, we will have already lost. \nWe are all stumbling for words to describe what has happened to us. This weekend, I was in Mitchell, Indiana, for the Candlelight Tour of Spring Mill State Park that kicks off the Persimmon Festival. You can't get any more American than that. In this restored pioneer village, with candlelight demonstrations and gospel quartets, we were celebrating the creativity, perseverance and spirit of 19th-century pioneers. In other words, a very positive celebration of America (for now, I won't get into the Native American issues). In the midst of the festival, a friend overheard a conversation between two good ol' boys, one of whom said that it was a good thing that the town had the Persimmon Festival, as a means of getting back to normal.\n"Yep," said the other man, "But it's a new kind of normal." \nFar more than the warlike nonsense of "Infinite Justice," this simple eloquence suggests that we have to tread carefully, minding our words and our actions. The president would do well to listen to this man from Mitchell, Indiana.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
"Terrorism worldwide. . . has plummeted since the end of the Cold War and in the United States, it is virtually nonexistent. U.S. Intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials have yet to document a single serious threat to the United States involving terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction. And many arms control officials and scientists say the chances of such an attack are close to zero."\nThis comes from a year-old issue of the liberal magazine, Mother Jones. The article by Robert Dreyfus, titled "The Phantom Menace," goes on to say that "like the farcical fallout-shelter drills that marked the height of Cold War hysteria in the 1950s, the anti-terrorism mobilization may have more to do with fueling fears than safeguarding citizens. The effort is wasting enormous sums of federal dollars without any serious evidence that such programs are actually needed." \nThe magazine, with an unfortunate cover depicting a man in what looks like traditional Islamic head garb, dropped into my lap last night, thanks to one of my roommates. Suddenly, I was engrossed in Dreyfus' angry diatribe against a Defense Department so hungry for resources that it was willing to take advantage of a trumped up terrorist threat. He calls the terrorist threat "made to order" for a "national security establishment, adrift with few enemies since the end of the Cold War." \nDreyfus estimates that between 1996 and 2000, counter-terrorism spending amounted to $38.5 billion, and would include another $11 billion in the year 2001. Much of which, he argues, was a waste. \nThe worst part was that staggering figure: $38.5 billion. It suggests that the effort to make the United States terrorist-proof has been under way for quite some time. Even the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, despite its perpetration by U.S. citizens, spurred Congress to pass legislation intended to squelch foreign terrorism. \nThere's nothing new about trying to prevent terrorism on American soil; the government's been at it for at least the last six years, and $40 billion didn't do anything to prevent September's attack. \nOf course, a great deal of the effort and resources went toward stopping hi-tech terrorism. Indeed, that's the focus of the article: the threat of biological nasties like anthrax, and nuclear nasties like black-market Soviet plutonium. \nNo mention of commercial aircraft. \nWhile the article may now seem dreadfully short-sighted, it raises at least one prescient point: how do we plan for terrorism? I'm afraid we still haven't answered that question. \nIt's been an odd war, what with the president holding high-profile media events to announce the freezing of terrorist assets and other steps experts aren't sure will accomplish very much. And yet, the most stunning event took place Thursday, when President George W. Bush spoke at O'Hare International Airport, lauding the new safety measures in effect and encouraging Americans to "Get on Board!" \nUnderstandably, it's the president's job to help revive the struggling air-travel industry, but insuring airline safety now is like getting ready for winter in Minnesota: a given. The real question is what we're doing to prepare for the kind of terrorism that strikes in shopping malls, on buses and at sports events (to mention only a few places targeted in England, Israel and other hot-beds of terrorist violence). \nThe greatest misconception about this war we are fighting is that our enemies are cowering in Afghanistan. Everything we're learning about the 19 men who carried out the events of September 11th points to the fallacy of that belief. The enemies are spread across the globe, some of them living in the United States, and in this war they will certainly attempt to bring the battlefield to our streets, cities, and neighborhoods.\nAnd as Dreyfus accidentally reveals, we haven't yet figured out how to plan our defense.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Now that we have bombed Afghanistan, we must ask whether throwing devastation at an already devastated country has really done anything to prevent terrorism, punish a global network of anti-American terrorists and enlarge our understanding of a confusing international web of cause and effect.\nThe answer is that war is a ham-fisted way to get something done. To make progress in the advance toward peace, this country must give credit to the subtlety and nuance of the global network. \nDefense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell are trying to put together a coalition to fight terrorism. Here's an idea of the kind of reactions they might receive:\nDear America,\nWe are delighted at the prospect of your war on terrorism. We hope you are serious about your commitment to ridding the world of terrorism, because you won't be able to do that without helping us fight the Basque Separatists, whose violent nationalism lead to the deaths of at least 800 people by the end of the 1990s. This group of misguided freedom fighters just hasn't come to grips with the fact that Spain cannot afford to grant everyone their own state. Imagine! \n -- Spain\nDear America,\nA war on terrorism? We hope the first front is here in Northern Ireland. To be sure, we were on a good run, what with the power sharing agreement and meaningful dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. But now, my red, white and blue friends, those IRA thugs are refusing to disarm, despite the 2000 disarmament agreement. Surely you can agree that if you're wanting to rid the world of terrorism, you have to start here! \n -- Northern Ireland\nDear America,\nWe are confused. When, in less than four months, more than half a million people were killed in the ethnic cleansing of 1994, the United States did next to nothing. Is this not terror? Is this not worthy of an international coalition?\n -- Rwanda\nDear America,\nSo now you know. You know what it is like to step on a bus or a plane or into the shopping mall, and wonder if you will leave alive. And you wonder why we fight so hard to prevent the Palestinians from taking even one inch. As the bombs explode, you will begin to understand why we cannot tolerate their tactics.\n -- Israel\nDear America,\nWe find it hard to believe you are waging a war on terrorism after supporting the terrorism of Zionists. The man you call the current prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, is nothing but a white-haired terrorist. You need look only to his service in Israel's guerrilla "war for independence" for proof of it. \n -- Palestinians \nDear America, \nSo now the Taliban is an oppressive regime? Now they are worth destroying? We find this odd, as we have been the victims of a thousand acts of terror since the Taliban captured our capital in 1996. \nWe have been locked in our homes and in the strictest forms of religious dress. We have been subjected to the vilest forms of punishment, including death by stoning. Those of us with degrees cannot use them, and we cannot send our daughters to school. Women who once worked as doctors and lawyers have to be escorted outside the home. \nAll this, since 1996. And yet, only when the terror is dropped at your doorstep have you decided to take an interest in the plight of our women. We certainly mourn for your loss, and we are grateful for American intervention ... but forgive us if we are suspicious of your sudden compassion.\n -- The women of Afghanistan
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Why is it that people who want peace are the object of such derision? I'm speaking chiefly about the occupants of IU's peace camp, but also about our national inability to conceive a response that is anything less than annihilation. Is it because we're only given the tools with which to imagine war? \nIn an excellent essay, the critic Elaine Scarry suggests that in terms of their responsibility during war time, American citizens have been castrated. In her words, we have been marginalized and infantilized. \nShe cites the following reasons:\n• The president has at his command weapons of such destructive power and convenience that he no longer needs the direct help of drafted soldiers.\n• The president can create international coalitions to fund a war; he no longer needs to do so with American tax money. \nAnd because Congress has become so eager to authorize an act of war, the president no longer needs to work for the approval of our elected representatives.\nScarry was writing in the mid-1990s, so we can add to her list the recently shown fact that when running for office, the president does not need a majority of our votes in the first place. Since the president hardly relies on Americans for anything, we are far removed from any real decision-making. Add to this that it's already difficult to consult the public during wartime, and it becomes clear why war on the home front has become a one-way conversation with the television.\nThe Gulf War consumed Scarry's attention, and she suggests that "the whole population sat watching in fascinated immobility." \nNot much has changed.\nThe problem with television is that it implies a condition of inevitability. Rarely, if ever, do Dan Rather and Peter Jennings give us the impression that war, or anything else, is optional. The news is rarely about what could happen, a discussion of the possibility and not the impossibility of change. \nThe playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith suggests that we have lost our metaphoric capabilities, that we can no longer look at something and imagine what it could be. That's because Americans are now in the business of being told what is. \nThat's why, when I sat watching the Peace Campers in Dunn Meadow do a peace dance for the Indianapolis news media, I couldn't help imagining the segment's intro. Just imagine someone with big hair, a big smile, behind a big desk: "Let's turn now to Bloomington and Indiana University, where a bunch of hippies are dancing around a drum in pursuit of a hopeless cause: peace."\nAs the peace dancers pounded out a rhythm and chanted that war was not the answer some passers-by behind me yelled out, "Then what is the answer?"\nAs Americans, I don't think we are able to imagine an answer other than war. Peace has been painted as cowardice, laziness and treachery. Novelist Alice Walker's suggestion that we fight terrorism with love was practically hooted at. \nColumnist David Broder wrote with incredulous adulation of the president's sending food along with the bombs (cold comfort to someone whose house gets hit). \nAnd at a press conference, President George W. Bush actually said he can't fathom why anyone would hate America, forgetting that when entire countries are starving, the wealth displayed on television's "Dallas" (one of our most popular exports) must not play too well outside the United States.\nAs far as the war goes, the rest of us are out of the loop. Thank God we've got TV to tell us that America is blameless, righteous and out for the kill!
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
If it were a movie, I'd call it "Thunder in the Heartland." That low, rumbling noise is coming from Martinsville.\nIt all began with Martinsville Assistant Police Chief Dennis Nail's letter to the Martinsville Reporter-Times, in which he ruminated on all the things that just plain tick him off. An article WHEN from the Associated Press quotes Nail: "It offends me when I have to give up prayer in school. Once again because it might upset Hadji Hindu or Buddy Buddha ... When I look around I see no Mosque, or fat, bald guys with bowls in their laps. I see churches. I'm offended when I turn on a television show and without fail a queer is in the plot just like it's a natural thing."\nOf course, Nail's spicy rhetoric has occasioned a flood of response. Once again, the bedraggled citizens of Martinsville are lining up on opposite sides of the fence. Some are actively affirming the town's image as a haven of bigoted sentiment, with a town meeting participant quoted in the Times-Reporter suggesting that "all homosexuals should be put on a boat and sunk." And then there are the Martinsvillers whose mantra seems to be that "it's not really that bad." \nLet's not rehash the Martinsville debate because that's not nearly important as the legitimate concerns of people like Dennis Nail.\nThat's right, you heard me. I think Mr. Nail is definitely on to something. And it's not just the jazzy alliteration he's got going with "Hadji Hindu or Buddy Buddha." No, his whole concept of intolerance is gripping. Astonishing in its clarity and insight. I mean, why not insist that all school children pray to the Christian God, and while you're at it use television to portray homosexuals as the fiendish freaks they really are? Or better yet, eliminate "the gays" from primetime altogether.\nOf course I'm just kidding. And of course I don't agree with anything that Nail has to say (even though I am genuinely amused by his inventiveness with derogatory names). But then what do we do with his comments? Call him bad! As in, "Oh, Mr. Nail, you are a bad man, and your views are bad. Thank God we are not bad, like you!"\nNope. It's so tempting, but oversimplification has bedeviled the champions of a tolerant society for too long. So often, when people who champion diversity hear a bigot, they decide that it's acceptable to turn off their ears. I've experienced this countless times, watching the most educated individuals fall into a trance, endlessly repeating a string of useless phrases: "Oh, that's just wrong ... so terrible ... can't believe there are people like that left in the world ..." \nThat's why we have such a long way to go. If only the open-minded were also the open-eared, we might begin to hear that low, rumbling thunder. It's the sound of people who feel threatened. It's the sound of people who think they are trying to defend a way of life that seems under attack. They don't feel like the American tent is getting bigger; they feel like they're being pushed out in the rain to make room for Hadji and Buddy. \n And while we may not agree, it's worth the effort to listen to their fears. Fears have a funny way of turning into hate or even violence. When people take offense at the very idea that the Sept. 11 attacks are a reason to listen more carefully to those who hate America, I can't help but hear thunder on two fronts. Listening to Dennis Nail is not to agree with him. It is an effort to understand the people on the margins, and to diffuse their anger before it gets even uglier. Likewise, we cannot turn our ears off when it comes to the current international situation. It's never as simple as "We're good, you're bad." Listening to each other is the first step to reaching beyond an oversimplification. The challenge is hearing each other over the thunder. And I don't mean the kind of thunder that comes after lightning.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
One thing is for sure. I have stopped doodling "I love Laura Bush" in my comp book. This shocking new development took place after Mrs. Bush gave the president's weekly radio address last week. From the comfort of the first couple's home in Crawford, Texas, where they are busy stuffing turkeys and running a war, Laura Bush let the Taliban have it for their human rights abuses. \n"I'm delivering this week's radio address to kick off a world-wide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by ... the Taliban ... Afghan women know, through hard experience, what the rest of the world is discovering: The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists. ...Women have been denied access to doctors when they're sick. Life under the Taliban is so hard and repressive, even small displays of joy are outlawed -- children aren't allowed to fly kites; their mothers face beatings for laughing out loud. Women cannot work outside the home, or even leave their homes by themselves."\nTestify, Mrs. Bush.\nBut of course, you're a little late. The Taliban came to power in 1994, and their human rights abuses have been under attack by organizations such as Amnesty International since 1997. Through both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Afghan women have been the object of the United States' blind eye. \nAnd now, we've rescued them, and it's time to pat ourselves on the back. This Thanksgiving is different. It's not about Americans thanking their god, their community or their family for a host of blessings.\nIt's about Afghanistan being thankful for the United States. \nHow dare the Bush administration send Laura Bush to the airwaves to suggest that we've fought valiantly on behalf of the oppressed? Let's make one thing clear: The United States did not go into Afghanistan with Afghan women in mind. \nPresident George W. Bush bombed Afghanistan, armed the Northern Alliance and sent troops to the area because the United States had been attacked by a group of terrorists who were most likely connected to Osama bin Laden. This man is reported to have been in Afghanistan at the beginning of the war, and the Taliban has been accused of harboring him.\nThat is the long and short of it. \nIt boggles the mind that our government would cast about to make excuses for this war. And it is disgusting that we would use the real maltreatment of Afghan women to burnish our image as the protectors of freedom and justice. This attempt at a Captain America act, along with the president constantly referring to bin Laden as "the evil one," is part of a really sick effort to reduce the complexity of this war to that of a third grader's comic book.\nWhether or not the kind of war we have been waging is the appropriate course of action is beside the point. The point is, we cannot wave our flags and our sabers with gleeful grins, make a run at\nAfghanistan, and go home satisfied that because we are America, we have once again saved the day. What about the fact that for the first month of the war, we encouraged the Northern Alliance to do what they could to the Taliban, and now we're asking them to please not set up a government until the United States has put together a coalition of ethnic groups that don't necessarily want to work together?\nAnd what about the fact that Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Kahn released a statement reminding the world that the Northern Alliance has an "appalling human rights record?" These are the guys who are saving Afghan women from all that oppression?\nOr the fact that bin Laden could very well have crossed the Afghan border into Pakistan, where thousands of Pakistanis support his radical beliefs? \nFortunately, we've got Laura Bush to remind us that as complicated as these things are, a dose of mindless revisionism helps the turkey go down.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
MLK day is short, celebratory and over before the ice-cream melts. And that's how us white folks like it.\nBut if Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a short-lived celebration, then Black History Month is an unfulfilled commitment.\nThat's right. Black History Month. You know…this month?\nJust as a reminder, this month is February. It's the one with 28 days, sometimes 29 and has been designated as a month during which we pay special attention to the history of black people. I can imagine two reasons why white folks would forget about it.\nReason Number One: It ain't Christmas.\nEven if you are a Yuletide humbug, you can't help but notice when the red ribbons wrap themselves around the street-lamps. \nUnfortunately, there is no decorating committee for Black History Month. Kente cloth swags aren't festooned anywhere. Since there aren't any decorations for Black History Month, it's understandable that we forget about it and move on to Valentine's Day.\nReason Number Two: White Folks Don't Want to Go There.\nMonday I went to an event sponsored by the Black Law Student's Association. They had invited Judge Viola Taliaferro to speak. I was one of four or five whites in the room, and despite the overwhelming warmth of Judge Taliaferro and the unquestionable kindness of everyone present, \nI felt just horrible. Maybe part of this was due to my pigging out at the reception afterwards. I did take more than my fare share of ham-wraps and pineapple chunks, but I can't blame the lonely pangs of firmly rooted pain entirely on my embarrassing appetite.\nThe truth is, whenever white folks find themselves in a crowd of black folks, their stomachs clench, their breathing shortens or their heart-rates pick up. Most of the time, it doesn't have anything to do with hate or fear. It's good old guilt, and it goes like this: \n"Oh God, oh God, I don't want to be here. There are black people here and I know what they are all thinking. They think I'm part of that legacy of hatred and injustice. Truth be told, maybe I am. And Lord, I just feel so guilty."\nThe prevailing wisdom is that guilt is normal, but unnecessary, and no one should feel they have to bear full responsibility for white oppression.\n But on the other hand, if white folks are going to join in honoring Black History Month, they have to embrace some of that guilt. It may seem like studying black history requires us to study the history of white villainy. Our ancestors did some miserable things and white folks continue to live in a country that was founded on the backs of slave laborers. Every study shows that on average, we live off the fat of the country, while so many blacks live off the scraps. Generally speaking, our houses are nicer, our salaries are better and our young men are not disproportionately imprisoned.\nJudge Taliaferro suggested that the barrier we face today is not explicit race-prejudice, but rather an unwillingness to engage in honest dialogue about how we feel towards each other. I'm going to suggest that white folks just don't want to go there, not because we don't want to learn about black history, but because we're afraid we'll learn about white privilege. We're afraid we'll learn about ourselves.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Dear Mr. bin Laden,\nAlthough Thomas E. Ricks of The Washington Post (Feb. 25) reports that you might still be alive and kicking in the rugged territory between Afghanistan and Pakistan, you seem like a distant memory over here in the states. I wonder if they're still selling Osama voo-doo dolls in Times Square.\nI thought about buying one of the dolls, but to be honest, they were pretty kitsch. Osama, you have got to work on product design. Who's your agent? Let me send him the contact information of the people who created the Slobodan Milosevic lunch-box line. Those lunch-boxes were classy, and they appealed to a broad demographic range.\nThe truth is, Osama, your name recognition has gone down the tube. Americans have a short memory, and not even the World Trade Center fires were hot enough to sear your image into the conscience of the greater public. Here's a transcript from a focus group interview I conducted recently.\nModerator: "So, what comes to mind when I mention the name Osama bin Laden?"\nParticipant 1: "Osama bin Laden…isn't he the CEO of Enron?"\nParticipant 2: "No, you dope. He's one those Canadian figure skaters."\nParticipant 3: "You're both wrong. He's the guy in Georgia who threw all of those bodies in his back yard instead of cremating them. He owned the bin Laden Family Crematory."\nModerator (slightly uncomfortable): "Well, that's a bit closer."\nParticipant 4: "Osama bin Laden…Isn't he the president of Iraq?"\nOsama, let me tell you, Saddam is stealing your spotlight. Al Qaeda isn't even part of the axis of evil. Really, Osama, would a press release have been too much to ask for? At the very least, Americans want a book tour. Don't worry, we can a get a ghost writer for the book. That "rambling fanatic" style doesn't work too well in print. \nYou may not know this, Osama, but the big thing in America right now is bleach. Our college kids are walking around in jeans with ridiculous splashes of white on the thighs, and anyone who's anyone at all has started bleaching his teeth with a home whitening kit. Do you think we could work on getting your teeth capped? All that "rugged terrain" and "harsh weather" we keep hearing about hasn't been kind to your smile. And over here, it's all about the smile.\nAnd do you think we could get you into the office for a fitting? Those bleach-stained jeans are really going to say to people, "Look at me, I am trendy! I am the scourge of the free world!" But keep the headgear. It's very ethnic. Very in-your-face-Arab-extremist.\nAnd what about a Web site? And a cook book? Have you considered an interview with Barbara? Barbara Walters will net you a huge ratings score, but you've got to promise her some tears. \nI hope you're taking this seriously, Osama, because America really is forgetting all about you. What should have been a concentrated man hunt and a criminal investigation is turning into a world war with axis, allies and boundaries that are getting blurrier by the minute. We've got government officials targeting everybody from North Korea to radical environmental protection organizations. You've been demoted from leading man to bit player, and that's nothing to joke about. Have your people schedule a meeting with my people, and we'll see if we can get you on Leno. \nHey! It worked for Dick Cheney.
(04/24/02 5:21am)
Goodbye.\nThis is my last column for the Indiana Daily Student. It has been a privilege to write for you over the past three years. Thank you for reading. \nAnd now, let me quickly tell you how to change the world. \nI know. It sounds arrogant, coming from a 22-year-old who can't change a tire. I'm going to tell you how to change the world? Absolutely.\nBecause we all have hunches that we hide, about what works and what doesn't. Because it's trendy to believe that we can't change the world. Because the world mostly changes in frustratingly slow, small steps, and it's easy to lose hope. \nBecause I have about 300 words left in this paper. \nHere's the deal.\nFirst off, even though you're not Einstein or a Bush, you have power. You're reading this, which means you're literate, and therefore one step ahead of the game. I'm also assuming that you don't have diphtheria, rickets or severe malnutrition. See? You're in a more powerful position than most of the people in the world.\nHeck, you've probably got access to the Internet, a good library and a decent education. That's it. You have no excuse not to change the world.\nNext guideline: Your talent does matter. Artists, plumbers and professors can all change the world, one way or another.\nNow remember, it's a tall order, but not an impossibly tall one. You won't see the results of your work instantly. If you are changing the world by raising a kind, tolerant child, then you'll have to wait years to see if things pan out. The same is true for curing cancer. I'm not sure which is more difficult, but both are worth trying. Don't be thrown off course by the slow going.\nAnother important rule: Smile. Smile a lot, and if someone tells you your smile isn't sincere, tell them you enjoy smiling too much to worry about being insincere. If you worry about being sincere, you will risk false sincerity, and that's deadly.\nOn the same note, be kind. And don't apologize, unless it will really help. If you make a mistake, fix it. "I'm sorry" is of limited usefulness.\nRemember that injustice tastes bad. Spit it out, and don't be that guy who says, "This is awful. Try some." Instead, let people know about it. At the risk of being annoying, keep speaking out against an injustice until it stops, even though you may start to sound repetitive. For example, "There are no women faculty members in the Theater and Drama Department... there are no women faculty members in the Theater and Drama Department..."\nSome battles may seem hopeless, and you will have to decide when to fight and when to fold. Remember that at one point in his life, Harry Truman sold hats. If he didn't give up, then you should at least think twice about it.\nOn the other hand, learn how to say goodbye. It's hard, especially saying goodbye to someone or something you love. But it can be wonderful. I lost my father eight years ago and I still say goodbye to him every day. When you say goodbye, your soul gets a little older and a little stronger. Saying goodbye reminds us everything is fleeting, even we will die someday, and we should enjoy sunny breezes, flowers just before the frost and meals with family and friends.\nThis is what gives us the strength to change the world, to help more people to stop struggling through the struggle of life and to start enjoying the struggle through life. \nGoodbye.
(04/22/02 4:02am)
Does the President ever chat online with his mavens of environmental mischief, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Environmental Protection Agency Director Christine Todd Whitman? What if… \nBushie1304: You there, Christie?\nSludge81: Yep, Pres. What's up?\nBushie1304: Just finished apologizing to the Canadian Prime Minister. Again. Some people can be pretty darn touchy. It was an accident, after all, and who's gonna have to save their butts if al Qaeda ever messes with Toronto?\nSludge81: I know what yr talking about. Those Canucks can't stop yakking about all the air "pollution" that keeps floating from our Midwest factories up to their forests. \nBushie1304: Guess they're scared something's going to happen to their precious oak trees. \nSludge81: Don't you mean maple trees?\nBushie1304: Yeah, that's right. Maple. lol.\nSludge81: :)\nBushie1304: They should see Texas. I mean, we haven't got that many trees down there, and it looks just fine. And who says you need maple for syrup? My mommy used Aunt Jemima, and I turned out just fine. And they can change the darned flag to a couple of hockey sticks. \nChainsaw901: Hey!\nBushie1304: Gale, what's the haps?\nChainsaw901: omigosh! I know this is going to sound awful, but 9/11 is the best thing to ever happen over here at interior. We're about to close some of the biggest deals ever on mining rights, logging rights and grazing rights in our national parks, and all the peaceniks are too worried about Afghanistan to protest my war on goody-two-shoes enviro-nuts. I mean, it's a tragedy, but as long as everyone is looking the other way, we can really make some money off all of this old growth stuff.\nBushie1304: I know what you mean about 9/11. It's a darned shame, but you should see what Johnny Ashcroft and I are getting away with.\nChainsaw901: ;) awesome. I wish I was having the same luck on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, a.k.a. the big wasteland with enough oil underneath to keep the nation going for a whole two months. But it looks like those blind idealists in the Senate have enough votes to at least temporarily halt my plans to drill, drill, drill.\nBushie1304: :( That's too bad. \nBoogieman10x: Darn tootin', it's too bad.\nBushie1304: Hey, John (Ashcroft, the Attorney General).\nBoogieman10x: The Senate is filled with a bunch of tree-hugging hippies who must be subverted or destroyed.\nBushie1304: Calm down, John.\nBoogieman10x: First we will install our own people in the Senate, then we will have them amend the Constitution to reflect the divine wisdom of the Old Testament and the more conservative highlights of the New Testament, and then we'll outlaw dancing. Darn it, I've got to get to a meeting with Mrs. Reagan. B4N.\nSludge81: Boy, that John is a character.\nBushie1304: Yr right. Remind me not to invite him to my wife's birthday party. She loves dancing. \nSludge81: :-0 omigosh, you guys, I just realized something. Isn't Planet Day this month?\nChainsaw901: You mean earth day?\nBushie1304: I dunno. We never celebrated in Texas. April was always reserved for Oil Day festivities.\nSludge81: I better look into this. I probably have to give a speech or something. CYAL8R.\nChainsaw901: Good luck, Christie. You can promise to save a species, if you want. I don't think it's too hard to change directions on that, in case we find out we need the habitat for a subdivision.\nBushie1304: :-) lol.
(04/17/02 3:51am)
The weather has made up its mind, and spring has sprung. Every time the warm end of the second semester rolls around, I want to kick off my shoes and wade into the Jordan River (not quite as transformative an act as wading into the other Jordan, but nonetheless…), creep down Kirkwood for some ice cream, or just sit under a budding tree and stare at the view. \nAnd yet, it's so irresponsible. I've always resented my tendency to not only stop and smell the roses, but also to fall head first into the flower bed and stretch out in the sun. What with finals, a job to hunt and goodbyes to say, small indulgences amount to big distractions and nobody can afford big distractions right now. \nAnd with a dubiously designed war on terrorism, a dubiously capable president, and a dubious "shadow" government operating in an undisclosed location, it seems premature to celebrate anything, even the undeniable fact that tulips are blooming in Bloomington. \nI mean, come on. A shadow government? That's just scary. Bunnies and chickens and flowers are cute. But they aren't the antidotes for ballistic missiles and conflict in the Middle East and uncounted fatalities.\nAnd yet, in spring's beauty, we can find the beginnings of peace. \nIt often seems like a guilty pleasure to enjoy yourself in the shadow of world events, as if we have a choice between being socially conscious and being happy. A lot of gloomy movers and shakers -- peace supporters, politically active operators and even my mother -- have given me a solid stare, and warned that "there's not a lot to feel good about lately." \nOf course, there are plenty of people who don't seem overwrought, who jump into a tidal wave of thoughtlessness, sunshine and beer, having long ago given up serious contemplation of the geo-political crisis. But they're not the ones I'm worried about, and they're not the ones who should be having all the fun.\nI'm worried about the rest of us, those who recognize the weight of our American responsibility to engage ourselves in world affairs, and at the same time feel helpless to change the particulars that plague the starving, the sickened and the threatened. I'm worried about anyone who has ever felt guilty when celebrating Springtime in the shadow of international violence.\nGuilt is a dead end. \nIf it's peace we're after, let's have joy as the bedrock of our peace practice. Anger and outrage are fine in their place, but they're no kind of foundation. We can, however, build on joy. \n I'm convinced of this more now than ever, especially after having attended an April 14 performance given by a group of actresses called "The Cave Project." These brave young women have assembled to explore the world around them and, at an interactive festival, they reminded me of the necessity of joy.\n On the walls of their performance space, they hung scraps of paper with joyous thoughts on them, and invited their audience to do the same. Below I've listed a few of my favorites from the show. \n Joy can help us bring peace into our own lives, and that's a first step to bringing peace into the lives of others. It may seem like a small beginning, but if we cannot create happiness for ourselves, how can we hope to create it for the world?\nSmall dogs in sweaters.\nMom tap dancing.\nThe smell outside 10 minutes before it is about to rain.\nStars.\nDancing with abandon.\nStrawberry shortcake cyclones.\nLive music.\nSomeone else's 2-year-old.
(04/10/02 4:53am)
The president is deputizing you and your grandma. Get ready to serve.\nAccording to The New York Times (April 8, Bumiller), Dubya used a Tennessee speech to push TIPS, short for Terrorism Information and Prevention System. Now, let it be known that I am all for terrorism prevention. I slip my shoes off with glee when asked, and if I have to get to the airport at three in morning for my noon flight, I'll do it for the greater good.\nBut I'm far from enthused about TIPS. The president is calling on all ship captains, utility workers and anyone else out and about to report whatever suspicious comings and goings they see, in the hopes of creating a nationwide network of grannies and gas meter readers who will be ever vigilant in the pursuit of safety.\nDoes this have the potential to take a turn for the worse, or what? Now every nosey neighbor and annoying nudge will have an excuse to poke into your backyard privacy and I will have to live with the fact that while I walk naked around my apartment, someone may be waging the war against Al Qaeda on an intrusive dog-walking and top-secret reconnaissance mission.\nIt used to be that I could depend on the American Civil Liberties Union to look out for me, fight off the pesky un-constitutional intrusions and raise a ruckus when the government tried to infringe on the right to privacy and send civilians to do the jobs of government officials, who have to have warrants for most of their snooping. But after Sept. 11, the ACLU is a dead dog, having died at the feet of an administration enjoying its stay in the polling stats stratosphere. I am sick and tired of turning on the television, only to see simpering civil libertarians and snide constitutional scholars conceding that, well yes, we may have to accept some invasions of our privacy and limitations of our rights in order to facilitate our safety.\nAnd these guys are the liberals! By the way, whatever happened to the right wing's commitment to keeping the government out of our lives? Did I miss a memo about that principle only applying to abortion and big business accounting practices?\nBut apparently, the campaign oratory about keeping government in its place doesn't apply to TIPS. \nThe biggest problem with the creation of a police state is that it simply won't work. No matter how tightly we box ourselves into the trappings of fascism, the so-called "forces of evil" will find an opening and exploit it. It seems to me that we have two choices. Under the specter of terror, we can live in an open society that puts a premium on privacy. Or, under the specter of terror, we can live in a tightly regulated society that sacrifices privacy for the false promise of security. In neither scenario will we be arguably more or less safe.\n Regimes that have promised absolute security -- and, of course, it's the fascist states that spring to mind -- have never been able to deliver peacefulness and in the process of trying to make good on the impossible, have crushed the spirits of their people. \nThe TIPS program may seem a small, innocent step in the direction of reduced privacy, but remember… someone may be watching you.
(04/03/02 4:17am)
Mom says we should support our boys.\n She was talking about the game. The basketball game. But she might as well have been talking about any number of conflicts going on around the world. I am often told I should be better about supporting our boys in Afghanistan. I wonder if I should do the same for our boys in Yemen, training that country's army. Or our boys at Guantanamo Bay, guarding the interminably imprisoned Taliban soldiers, force-feeding the hunger strikers who are protesting their uncertain fate. And then there's the ultimate boy we're all supposed to be supporting: Our boy wonder in the White House.\nI heard him on the radio the other day. Pitiful. The man can't speak. That's the fact of the matter, regardless of what anyone says about the President having stepped up to the plate, grown into his job and learned on the fly.\nThat's why it's irritating every time someone tells me that we ought to be supporting our boys. Of course we support the individual soldiers, but our boys do create a marvelous buffer between the administration's mush-mouthed leader and the consequences of his decisions; once the president sends in "our boys," it seems that we can't complain about the objectives of their mission without being accused of disrespecting their self-sacrifice and courage.\nThat's ridiculous. It's the lamest firewall between a president and responsibility I have ever seen, but it's working like a miracle. We are supposedly fighting a war, and are ostensibly on high alert for more terror attacks. There is a catastrophic war going in the Middle East. After foolishly pulling out of peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Bush administration is now grudgingly, bumblingly trying to make up for lost time.\nAnd yet the pep band keeps playing for the president, whose approval numbers dip but don't plunge. Maybe when the four horsemen of the apocalypse come riding out of the West Bank, someone will take notice…\nBut no, we've got to support our boys.\nThat works for basketball, but I'm not sure it's a slogan that furthers a rational foreign policy, or even a reasonable debate about the administration's loopy logic.\nAnd when we're not being asked to support our boys, we're being told to listen to God.\nCoach Davis has a strange habit of thanking God for our basketball victories. I was brought up to believe that God divided his time between world peace, curing the sick, and punishing little boys who wouldn't go to bed on time. As much as I would like to think that God is on our side when the Hoosiers sweep down the court, I think it's ridiculous to assume that God's going to make a choice between teams. Or that God cares about basketball at all.\nThe same goes for the old U.S. of A. This administration in particular has insisted that God has chosen sides in the war against terrorism, against the Taliban and against Palestine on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and alternating Thursdays, with divine condemnation directed against Ariel Sharon the rest of the time.\nI happen to think that God is on the side of the children being blown to smithereens, or shot on their way to school. And on the side of our boys, thrown out into the world by a president who I'm not convinced understands that world.\nThank heavens for the circus on Kirkwood, our boys on the court and for God's favorite ball game. It does not even feel like there's a war on.
(03/27/02 4:52am)
Thomas Hart Benton is in the House. Or at least, he is still in the classroom.\nMonday, Chancellor Sharon Brehm announced that Benton's controversial mural will remain on display in Woodburn 100, accompanied by diversity education and the One for Diversity Fund, a program dedicated to financing multicultural artwork around campus. More on that in a minute.\nFirst, let us pause to thank Brehm and her cohorts for having the sense to protect the mural, which promotes a progressive message to the occupants of a lecture hall. A lecture hall, mind you, in a state University. A state University, mind you, in Indiana, where the legacy of the Klan still bites.\nIf an ignorant so-and-so wanders into that classroom (not that there are any such persons on this campus), Brehm has assured they will still encounter a piece of public art that, while it may not change their mind, may well challenge them.\nPerhaps I'm overly optimistic to give public art that much credit. But even if the forward-thinking message in the mural is ignored by those who most need to see it, Benton's aggressive treatment of Indiana history will at least instigate campus debate.\nLet us also thank the Black Student Union. I absolutely disagree with anyone who wants the mural to come down or be covered up, but I don't think that was really the group's goal. I am thrilled by its political acumen and use of University procedure to get people talking about race in the classroom and on the campus.\nSpecial kudos go to BSU political action chair Shannon Waldon, who made the decision to turn the group's complaint into an act of political theater. Told to e-mail the group's grievances to the Racial Incidents Team, she assembled a battalion of more than 25 students that marched across campus to file the papers.\nIn a March 5 IDS story by Alex Hickey, she explained that "Showing up as a group shows a more powerful dynamic. It shows we're serious and stand firm behind our position."\nBravo, BSU. I hope you all continue to keep the University on its toes. This should be the first in a series of issues that you tackle, and not the last we hear from you.\nAnd now, a word on the One for Diversity Fund. Let us make a request of Brehm, Shannon Waldon, and all other campus leaders who may influence the Fund. This program could be fabulous, or it could be a flop. It could challenge the University community, or it could be just another opportunity to host receptions at which various campus luminaries unveil bland, unchallenging pieces of art.\nThe current trend in American public art is to avoid controversy and risk at all cost, lest someone be offended. But risky art incites dialogue, initiates change and is a lot more interesting to look at.\nLet's hope the program commissions work that deals honestly and aggressively with cultural issues which are meaningful to the campus.\nLast week, letters to the Editor of this paper revealed an undercurrent of racial unrest right here in the heart of IU. Can new works of art forcefully explore that unrest, help to educate those ignorant of it, and broaden our sense of community possibility?\nOnly if Brehm and others are ready to stand behind a public art fund that is daring, ingenious and a little dangerous.
(03/21/02 5:35am)
Black students shouldn't have to share a classroom with the Klan. \nThe crimes of the Klan -- past and present -- are so vile that the Black community has a right to feel assaulted by white-sheeted men, even if they are an artist's image and not the real thing. \nBut…\nArt is safest locked away in someone's private collection. Saving that, stow it in a museum. Whatever you do, don't put it on public display. Keep it off the streets. Remove it from the facades of public buildings. And don't put it in a classroom.\nIf you have to throw up some public art, make sure it has no political content. Try to avoid art with an explicit message, because members of the public will find something to dislike. Even if you try sending a noble message, someone will complain.\nAnd as for those Thomas Hart Benton Murals? Get those Klansmen out of Woodburn 100, along with that little black girl in the hospital bed. Yes, she's there to commemorate the budding integration in Indiana, but tough cookies. She's part of the miserable kit-n-caboodle.\nThis is a university classroom we're talking about. Not a museum, not a private gallery and not a closet. Expurgate, eradicate or throw a velvet shroud over that painting.\nFrom Woodburn Hall to the world! Let's make this a national campaign.\nLet's get rid of the history we want to forget. Why should our dark past be on public display?\nThat Vietnam Veterans Memorial? It's right in the middle of the National Mall, reminding all the tourists of a war we lost and we're trying to win a war right now. And how about those big spotlights in New York that are nestled downtown, pointing into the night sky? Is it really necessary to pinpoint that World Trade Center mess? I'd much rather pretend it never happened. And anyway, New York is a city, not a big art museum.\nAnd neither is Woodburn 100. Let's see what happens if we can sponge away public references to Indiana's bloody Klan past, because forgetting our past means it never happened!\nOkay, I'm NOT serious. Surprise.\nI agree that Black students have reason to be upset by images of the Klan in a classroom.\nBut I have no sympathy for anyone who wants to get rid of a good piece of public art. We need controversial, political public art and public art that speaks to the darkest, bloodiest episodes in our past.\nPublic art stirs civic dialogue (have you read the opinion page lately?), it reminds people about the struggles of the oppressed, and it instills a sense that we live in a world broader than our own individual experiences.\n So don't cover it or send it away. And if we turn Woodburn 100 into a center for diversity education (which won't happen, because the University is lecture-hall hungry), then fewer people will receive an education about Indiana's bloody past. Right now, Benton's message, which is one of progress and remembrance of things past, gets the big audiences it deserves.\nThe Black community in America has a marvelous tradition of speaking truth to power. Black Americans who celebrate the memories of Martin and Malcolm understand what it means to speak truth to power. The people who take classes in Woodburn 100 may be young, and they may not be rich or famous, but they are the members of the most powerful group in the world: students. I implore the Black Student Union and the University to allow Thomas Hart Benton to continue to speak truth to power.