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(02/14/06 5:51am)
World War V?\nHuh?\nDid you miss World War III? And for that matter, World War IV? Well, in the views of some historians, World War III was the Cold War, and World War IV is the current War on Terrorism, so named because of each conflict's global nature. There are even those who posit a fifth World War on the horizon, between China and the United States.\nIn light of this viewpoint, consider the odd reaction to a declaration by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian to dissolve the National Unification Council, a largely defunct organization that supposedly works to re-unify China and Taiwan.\nAt this point, it's probably good to have a brief history lesson. In 1949, when the Communists won the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist government escaped to the island of Taiwan. The United States continued to recognize the Nationalists as the real China until President Jimmy Carter cut ties with it in 1979. Here's where it starts getting weird. See, the United States simultaneously supports a policy of recognizing one China, the People's Republic of China, yet continues selling arms to Taiwan with assurances of protection in case of attack from the mainland.\nSo where does World War V come in? Well, as Taiwan moves closer to independence under the rule of President Chen (no relation), the Chinese posturing to reclaim Taiwan grows stronger. Chen, in an effort to boost his popularity amid increasing problems for his administration, continues his contentious moves toward independence, breaking his campaign pledge to continue the NUC. Meanwhile, China continues its hard-line policy concerning Taiwan as a breakaway province that needs to be recovered.\nIn an attempt to pander to businessmen who demand access to China's markets and still placate establishment conservatives who see China as a communist threat, the United States has successfully held fast to a nonexistent China policy for the last 30 years. The "One-China" policy, though it might have been a political necessity in 1979, is today an anachronism, especially in light of the autonomy that Taiwan holds. \nBy supporting an inherently unstable policy, we have created a dangerous situation time and again. We have committed ourselves to both sides of this conflict, and our diplomatic theatrics have built a time bomb in the Taiwan Strait. Our China policy seems to involve lots of crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, as evidenced by our haphazard response to the NUC announcement. We once again admonished "any unilateral changes to the status quo."\nProblem is, the status quo, as it stands, is untenable for the long term.\nNow, the perpetuation of the "status quo" has pushed the United States into a foreign policy corner. The hawks already want war, and with military experts feeding the flames with grand strategy, we might very well find ourselves in a war with China before 2020, while more than a billion people stand in the crosshairs of any possible conflict.\nThe NUC response is one of little consequence, but when Taiwan takes significant steps toward independence, what will the United States do? Do we really want world war? \nWe absolutely must rethink our China policy before the hypothetical becomes a reality.
(02/07/06 6:09am)
For all the ink the "cartoon crisis" in Europe has generated, there are a few oddities that make the situation weirder than your typical international spat. Some believe the Islamic reaction has been understandable, finding reason in the violence. Others see a cataclysmic collision of liberal democracies and Islam, two wholly incompatible structures, whose values cannot be merged.\nYet, few of these commentators have noted the thoroughly bizarre quality of the whole affair. For one thing, the cartoons in question were first printed in the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, in September 2005, including the most controversial depiction, showing the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb for a turban. Curiously, however, the widespread outrage hasn't surfaced until now, despite the supposed outrageous nature of the cartoons.\nHere's something else: The two "sides" of the conflict are sitting on ridiculously silly positions. The liberal democracies of Europe are crying that they are exercising free speech to offend others. Are these the same liberal democracies that extensively legislate anti-Jewish hate speech and hold an extremely broad definition of slander and libel? \nMeanwhile, the response of much of the Middle East has taken the stance of political correctness -- that one shouldn't insult anyone else. Excuse me? These are the same folks who regularly allow disgusting anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli cartoons and editorials to appear in their papers? The same ones who don't lift a finger to prevent angry mobs from burning down foreign embassies? The hypocrites on both sides are making an anthill into a mountain. \nAdditionally notable, the spread of communications technology has played an integral role in the dissemination of the images. In another time, the cartoon would simply have been published, protested, apologized for and forgotten. But an extensive campaign to raise outrage has been perpetuated throughout the Muslim world, powered by e-mails, online newspapers and news articles, in order to frame the crisis as a cultural showdown rather than a complaint against a private newspaper. \nSo what's going on here? Why have these cartoons, satirical jabs at self-censorship, become the focal point for this struggle? \nWell, Islamist extremists have picked their fight very well. Depicting the Prophet Mohammed in an image is considered idolatry by many Islamic scholars, and those spreading the hatred know well the power of the image. Any image, particularly one with such striking offense, can be easily molded to fit outside the context of the original cartoon and article. One measly cartoon has become the symbol of Islamophobia in Europe, and the offender has become whole systems of governments, not just one cartoon in one paper.\nBy spreading the offensive images, it's fair to say the instigators have ironically replicated it far more than the original newspaper ever intended, but in the process they have made their violent reactionary ideology sympathetic throughout the world. The actions of those who burned down the embassies are indefensible and the printing of the cartoon was probably in bad taste. \nBut the whirlwind of outrage surrounding one satiric cartoon is tragically misplaced (seriously, burning the Danish embassy?) and we must be wary about the frightening ease with which Islamists have manipulated this situation to their \nghastly favor.
(01/25/06 5:08am)
Universities always evolve, and ours is no exception. Public universities, in particular, face the daunting challenge of losing the state funding that made them public in the first place. With the budget difficulties facing IU, it makes sense to re-evaluate our priorities, and President Adam Herbert has made it clear that the life sciences are now the "highest University priority."\nThis sets off plenty of alarms in the brain of an English major who loves the humanities. When English professorships are being cut and College of Arts and Sciences faculty members are worried about their relevance within the IU system, a statement such as Herbert's can rile up some hostile feelings. \nYet, the University has to go where the money is, and guess what folks -- research grants and high-tech jobs aren't the first things that jump to mind when I think humanities. As budget pinches get tighter, I think the humanities departments of COAS will see significant obstacles, but I think it's a hit we must be willing to take.\nAny belief that the humanities stand at the center of IU life is illusory. As the university continues its transformation into an increasingly private enterprise, it has to seek out funding wherever possible. To assure the continuation of public funds, an emphasis on the life sciences makes IU relevant to legislators in a quickly expanding field and creates the possibility for job creation and retention within Indiana. Also, research grants are more likely to go to the life sciences, because honestly, the political science department doesn't typically need million-dollar labs.\nSome fears concerning liberal arts at IU are totally unfounded. The idea that the humanities departments will collapse is quite silly, and as IU Chancellor Ken Gros Louis correctly pointed out, more funding for the life sciences means more funding in general. I don't think IU's priorities represent a zero-sum game, where one department's gain is another department's loss. \nI do, however, recognize that a reprioritization of academic fields signifies a necessary and altogether natural shift in the life of a university. There has always been a balance between the traditional, humanities-based classical education institutions and scientifically based, professional research ones. For the past two decades, we have steamed ahead in the research direction, and now, IU is firmly on board.\nWhat I see as the greatest challenge in this new direction is the role of the professor. A focus on the life sciences invariably means a focus on graduate studies and research as the yardstick of a faculty member's worth. If a professor will be judged on research ability rather than educational ability, I worry that teaching, especially on the undergraduate level, could suffer markedly. If we decide that research is the goal of a university, where does that leave the actual education?\nIt's easy to perceive some kind of prizefight between science and the humanities that the humanities are in terrible danger of losing, but this is simply not the case. Such shrill cries are ignorant of the decisive moment that the University has reached, and if we do not change with the times, we will surely be left by the wayside. I do want the humanities to remain strong at IU, and I have no doubt that COAS (and probably a few professors) will be around until the end of time, but if we don't get the funding, we'll have one hell of a time trying to support them.
(01/24/06 5:46am)
We love to laugh at the misfortune of others. It's a piece of human nature. That's why blooper reels, banana peels and "Family Guy" are funny. We have even incorporated a German word to describe this very phenomenon, schadenfreude, into semi-common usage. I mean, that's all "The Daily Show" really does.\nYet, when this extends to the real political realm, I think we get into rather murky territory, both abstractly and pragmatically. As a liberal, I feel a certain duty to make catty comments about President Bush constantly. Every time he poorly conjugates a verb, I grin. When a bad Bush policy initiative stalls, I laugh. But sometimes, the liberal hate of the Almighty Bush becomes our own misfortune, making us both hypocrites and idiots.\nWhen Iraq had possible weapons programs, the United States acted unilaterally, with a massive military operation and a very loose coalition of allies. Liberals, myself included, howled, "We should've gone to the international community! We should've gone to the United Nations! We should've negotiated!"\nNow, Iran has a possible nuclear weapons program, and the Bush Administration seems to have learned a lesson. We're negotiating through the European Union, working multilaterally and trying to avoid bringing a direct threat to Iran. We're trying to delay and weaken a U.N. Security Council resolution that would bring sanctions or military action against Iran. We're trying to exercise subtle and nuanced foreign policy towards a complicated enemy.\nSubtlety? Nuance? I'm sorry, did I miss something? Yes, I know that this dovish behavior might simply be a result of the Iraq debacle, but it is exactly how we pinko liberals wanted to handle things before the Iraq war, isn't it? We should be positively gleeful for this occurrence.\nYet, last week, we had Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., saying that "we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations." Come again? So when Bush invades Iraq, he's a unilateral gun-slinging cowboy, leading the gang who couldn't shoot straight, but when Bush negotiates with Iran through Europe and multilateralism, he's an impotent, bumbling wuss? I love to watch Bush fail, but when it comes to Iran and nuclear weapons, I'm less eager to giggle.\nMeanwhile, Democrats elsewhere are simply confused. We're so eager to ambush this administration for its various crimes, but when it does something we agree with, we're at a loss for words. We want Bush to be wrong so much that we're backing ourselves into a corner, and also advancing the viewpoint that there are very limited options when it comes to dealing with Iran.\nI'm not sure how to deal with Iran or whether I agree with the president. Luckily, college undergraduates don't decide foreign policy for this country. We just complain unrelentingly about it, and it's just so easy to score a few points on Bush while he's not around. Yet, before the United States judges with the schadenfreude of our partisan glee, it must evaluate all plans dealing with Iran, because any blunder or miscommunication on our part could lead to a nuclear Iran.\nAnd that won't be funny for anyone.
(01/18/06 5:25am)
Confirm\nSam Alito is an unabashedly pro-government, pro-establishment tool of The Man, who hates freedom, black people and criminal suspects. Regardless, this is not reason enough to keep him off the Supreme Court. He has an excellent judicial mind and unassailable credentials. Besides, since his confirmation is guaranteed, my opinion hardly matters. The man should sit on the Supreme Court, even if he is a tool.
(01/17/06 6:26am)
During 2005, two rather alarming stories got plenty of column space and air time across the country. Stories with names like "Hollywood box office woes" or "The press is in decline" found their way into American media outlets. With domestic box office receipts down about 5 percent, soothsayers told of a dismal future in which we no longer see movies or read newspapers.\nSuch predictions seemed scary. And would be, if they were true.\nFirst of all, Hollywood execs make their money from the international box office and DVD sales, so slower ticket sales didn't hurt their wallets any. Also, a decline had to be expected after the historic box office year of 2004, which included the unprecedented success of "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11." A drop in sales and revenue during one year hardly indicates a massive sea change in the state of movies. And let's not kid ourselves -- the $8.9 billion Hollywood raked in domestically isn't chump change.\nMeanwhile, newspapers have been declining since the mid-1940s, but that hardly means that people just don't care about news any more. With the expansion of Internet news sources, and the success of networks like Fox, people clearly want to know what's happening in the world. Most of the worry stems from an inability to grab new or young readers\nSo why are these non-stories stories at all? For one thing, the media loves to report about itself. Nothing gets people watching movies and reading papers like bemoaning their decline. Regardless, the appearance of these non-stories stands as a testament to the media's need for self-perpetuation. Neither of these stories address the real problems affecting movies and newspapers. Instead, they weep tears of self-pity, ignoring any actual introspection about making better and more original movies, or writing better and more well-researched articles.\nThe problem, then, isn't that movies are selling fewer tickets, but the movies released weren't that appealing. Even flooding the market with DVDs, which can make up some of the cash, can't fix the crappy quality of movies. No matter what star power supports a movie, if it really, really sucks, it doesn't make money (see: "Fun with Dick and Jane").\nSimilarly, newspapers have found themselves indicted and investigated, while the quality of their reporting failed to prove much more compelling than alternative news sources. If your product isn't better than the competition, you simply can't be surprised when sales are down a bit.\nFears about the disappearance of cinema or the printed word, then, are sorely misplaced. Each is just experiencing a change in medium and format, as well as a general decline in quality. That doesn't mean that newspapers or movies are just going to vanish. It just means that journalists and film industry folks should quit reporting bull plop non-stories to fill space and just do their jobs well. As long as each medium provides a picture of the world worth seeing, we'll pay to take in the view.
(12/08/05 1:53am)
What ever happened to Saddam? We dragged him out of that spider hole, and there was that little gaffe with Saddam in his undies. But since then, where has that genocidal maniac been? Well, in case you didn't know, he's currently on trial, in what can only be described as one of the weirdest courtroom proceedings ever.\nSo far, there have been two assassinated defense attorneys, an attempt to fire rockets at the courtroom and a period of extended oratory by Saddam's half-brother during which he screamed, "Down with the dictators! Long live democracy!" The defense's strategy involves ignoring Saddam's fairly transparent crimes, whereas the prosecution is only charging Saddam with an obscure 1982 act of tyranny against the Shiite town of Dujail.\nSaddam's half-brother slapping guards with a notebook? Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark lecturing the judge? A judge falling asleep during the trial? Saddam was a despicable dictator, and his people deserve swift justice. How has his trial devolved into an episode of the "People's Court?" If the whole reason to go to war against Iraq was to stop Saddam, what is he doing in this joke of a trial?\nFor one thing, the setup of the Iraqi Special Tribunal takes the format of past war crimes tribunals, and then fuses it with Iraqi civil law. The bizarre process uses a five-judge panel as primary investigators, and it doesn't follow many previous conventions for war criminals, most notably by trying him in Iraq under the interim government. \n No one takes this trial seriously. Many in Iraq assume that Saddam is as good as dead and that the international community has rigged the trial. The interim Iraqi government cannot lend any legitimacy or security to the trial by being barely able to keep its head above water. Judges can't keep order in the courtroom because their authority in Iraq exists because of America's presence. With America's military as the only thing holding Iraq's fragile civil society together, it's hard to see how this trial can be taken seriously.\nMany have cited the Saddam trial as a reproduction of the Nuremberg trials after World War II, but this comparison is flawed. Saddam's trial is not a failure because it's a tribunal instituted by an occupying force. Saddam's trial fails because of its inherent conceit: that Iraq has a functioning government fit to try its ex-leader on charges of mass genocide and crimes against humanity. While the United States might have symbolically handed Saddam over to the Iraqi government, they're still our soldiers who guard his cell.\nWe cannot afford to pass judgment poorly. The world and the people of Iraq, especially Witness C, deserve a trial, not a circus. Witness C, identity hidden for fear of retribution, testified that his whole family was taken prisoner by Saddam's security forces and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, where his father died. Saddam angrily questioned the witness, without significant interruption from any judges, demanding to know how he remembered all this information.\n"This was a great sadness to me, and I cannot forget a great sadness," said Witness C.\nNeither should we.
(12/01/05 4:38pm)
I am a liberal. I am a huge Hubert Humphrey-loving, bleeding-heart, tax-em-till-they-squeal, peacenik liberal who voted for John Kerry grudgingly because I didn't think he was far left enough. I also think every woman in this country has the right to have an abortion.\nYet, I think we should overturn Roe v. Wade.\nWhy overturn the court case that protects first-trimester abortions under federal law? It seems like a strange move for a liberal, but hear me out.\nFirst, it's on shaky constitutional ground. When Judge William Pryor, a man who I generally despise, called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law," he might have been overlooking a few cases (notably Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed "separate but equal" facilities), but he wasn't entirely wrong. \nThe reasoning behind the Roe decision, as concisely as possible, states that the Constitution affords a right to privacy and that this implied right also gives the woman a right to have an abortion. Now the Constitution doesn't explicitly state a right to privacy, but such a right is implied by the wording of the Constitution, particularly the Ninth and 14th Amendments, along with assorted others. That's fine, and a right to privacy clearly lives in the spirit of the Constitution. But by extending this right to privacy to a right to an abortion, we've stretched the parchment of the Constitution awfully thin. Maybe I'm the exception, but I can't really see the unambiguous logical connection from privacy to abortion.\nSecond, contrary to what Roe's most adamant supporters claim, if Roe were erased from the books today, abortion itself would not be in any danger of vanishing. Assuming Roe were overturned, the power to decide abortion's fate would be delegated to the states, which could theoretically pass laws to ban abortion. Yet, in a November Gallup poll, only 16 percent of respondents believed that abortion should always be illegal. And even in a state like, say, Utah, which has a significant pro-life slant, a law outlawing abortion outright would be pretty unpalatable to the majority of people.\nThird, Roe has allowed us to entirely polarize an issue that shouldn't be polarized in the first place. In the same Gallup poll, 56 percent of respondents believed that abortion should be legal under certain circumstances. There are all sorts of discrepancies and arbitrary judgments that must be made to form a personal opinion, and in this society, such opinions have become dangerous.\nJust ask President Bush who he should appoint to the Supreme Court: a well-credentialed, experienced jurist with years of experience on the federal bench, or a personal lawyer with little to no Constitutional law experience whose only credential seems to be a non-existent opinion on abortion? Why should such a gray area of legal and moral interpretation serve as a "litmus test" of a person's character? Instead of clearing things up, Roe only obscured things further, forcing opinions beneath the surface.\nDecisions about abortion rights, like it or not, belong in the realm of state legislatures. No matter how much I believe in preserving and expanding abortion rights, the ends cannot justify the means. Roe should go.
(11/17/05 7:07pm)
On Tuesday, in a historic special session of Bloomington faculty, a resolution was passed which demanded a complete overview of IU President Adam Herbert's job performance. After a swirl of accusations about President Herbert, including the still unfilled chancellor position, it appears to be high noon between a frustrated faculty and the highly criticized president.\nSome have painted attacks on Herbert as racist, a white faculty fighting a black president. Others describe it as an attempt by Bloomington faculty to retain control of a University that increasingly turns a blind eye to faculty concerns. Sounds like real drama. Too bad we don't give a damn.\nI've been keeping up with the news on Herbert and talking with professors about the situation, and honestly, I find it hard to take sides on the issue. How do you take sides on something that seems so petty? Assuming the faculty vote takes place, what outcomes could there be? Let's take a look.\nPossibility 1: College of Arts and Sciences Dean Kumble Subbaswamy is named IU-Bloomington chancellor. At this point, getting the job would be almost insulting. None of the tensions now inflamed by some of the faculty's drum-beating would go away, even if Subbaswamy took the offer, which seems doubtful at best. So this one's probably not going to happen.\nPossibility 2: The faculty votes that the board of trustees review President Herbert. Now, time and energy will be wasted in a comprehensive review of a president who's barely gotten the chair warm. If he stays, which is more likely, he'll have a revolt and a review hanging over his head forever. And if he's fired, IU has two huge positions to fill with no direction whatsoever.\nPossibility 3: There's no review. Faculty are still discontented. Nothing changes.\nWhere does this leave students? None of these outcomes help us with our everyday gripes and complaints, let alone more complex problems. Across higher education, including at our University, huge questions loom. How will college be made affordable? How can we give undergraduates a great education while promoting research among faculty and graduate students? Why should a university exist in the first place? \nAnd none of these questions can possibly be answered, so long as the faculty calls for a coup against President Herbert. It's not that I don't care about the issue, it's that I am repulsed by the effects of the process. If the concern with Herbert is that such questions haven't been tackled with enough initiative, what kind of initiative will he have now that the faculty has passed a de facto no-confidence resolution? It is unfair to students, and to the University as a whole, to continue the trivial, bitter turf wars over IU's bureaucracy.\nThe best outcome for this unfortunate turn of events is a fourth possibility: an opening of honest dialogue between the president and faculty about concerns in the IU community. While the Bloomington faculty are only a limited voice in the vast IU system, there are still channels through which such concerns could have been brought without aggressively attacking Herbert, a man who, while somewhat culpable, is not solely responsible for the challenges facing IU. You don't need to fight a war or start a revolution to enact real change. A continuation of this cycle of negative discourse will lead to regrettable settlements, negative publicity and no real answers for the questions that matter.
(11/10/05 4:40am)
By the time this column goes to print, it will have been two weeks since violent protest demonstrations began in Clichy-sous-Bois, a Paris suburb. The spark that caused the riots was nominally the death of two young men on an electrical substation, but since then, the burnt hulks of cars and injured civilians have become symbols of the North African Muslim underclass living in France. People across France and around the world are asking, "How do we stop the riots?" But before the last of the fires is extinguished, they will also be asking "Why?"\nAs much as French politicians repeat the cliché that violence is not the answer, there can be no doubt that racial fissures, which have long existed in France, have harshly and violently asked the question. For years, France has derisively refused the American model of multiculturalism with universalism -- that is, all people who enter France are assimilated and become French. Under this theory, all inequalities should be equalized, but like most theories, (including American multicultural diversity) it has flaws, and these flaws have never been more present than when scores of North African youths torch Peugeots. \nOK, it's easy to poke fun at France. I study the language and culture, and I still ridicule the French all the time. The berets, the arrogance, the throaty laugh -- it's all too good a target. And especially after international opinion shamed America for its racism supposedly exposed by the Katrina response, there is some bit of American self-righteousness that makes me want to point and laugh at the French again. To blow this off as another example of those "crazy French," however, would be unfortunate and an altogether trivial response. \nFor years, France has simply shrugged off implications of racism by pointing to its welfare systems and its various tools to level the playing field. In doing so, the bulk of white Français have refused to believe that those who have been pushed into a racial underclass have anyone to blame but themselves. Alas, the benign neglect with which the French government has treated its citizens is as damaging as institutionalized racism because it uses the guise of race-blind treatment to ignore the needs of its neediest citizens.\nPeace is not simply the absence of conflict. In fact, I would argue that peace is an active noun, like "struggle," a discourse of our problems in a legitimate sphere. By acting as if such problems had simply evaporated, the French government's dream of socialism ignored the volcano bubbling underneath its feet. This is no time for America to get haughty, however. It was only four years ago that Cincinnati burned, and any race riot apologists who think this "wake-up call" will be good for France in the long term need only turn their eyes to Newark, N.J., and Detroit to see the kind of attention you get after extensive riots. \nIt might be easy to talk about "how far we've come" in race relations, but even beginning the cycle of benign neglect that lay the tinder for the French riots would undo any progress we've made. Sometimes it might feel like we are done confronting racial problems. But if the French riots teach us one thing, let it be this: No matter who we are or where we come from or how much we think we've accomplished to erase our prejudice, we are never done.
(11/03/05 3:30am)
There's been a lot of hunger in the news lately. \nSix Chinese asylum applicants in Sydney, Australia, haven't eaten since Oct. 20 to protest their detention, and 27 inmates at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been hunger striking since mid-August. Meanwhile, North Korea and southern Africa appear to be nearing uncontrolled food crises that will require emergency aid. \nAll these stories got me thinking, well, how hard is it to not eat? I mean, I have avoided eating for a 24-hour fund-raising fast before, but I wondered, could I go through with a hunger strike? What does it feel like to fast for an extended period? To me, as part of the upper-middle-class with a house full of food, real unadulterated hunger exists only in the abstract. Well, no more. On Oct. 20 at about 8 p.m., I stopped eating. For the next 100 hours, I did not eat one calorie of food.\nFirst of all, let me say that not eating is damn hard. Not only did I have to avoid the mounds of food that sit around in my house, but my housemates harangued me for my idiotic quest. Also, while most hunger strikers don't do much during the day except sit around, I still had to drag my body to class daily, and Ballantine seemed farther each time. I can't even imagine how hard it would be as a Guantanamo inmate, captured and interrogated for more than three years, to look at a plate of food and refuse to eat it.\nFor about the first 48 hours of the fast, I felt really hungry, and everything reminded me of food (I really wanted bacon), but after that, it became a thoroughly visceral experience. I was tired all the time, substituting naps for meals and drinking water constantly to give my stomach the illusion of being full. Meanwhile, my mental state got hazier and even basic physical activities like playing the piano became real chores. Toward the end, I reached this bizarre, balanced place where I no longer desired food and began to feel quite soulful. But by the fourth day, I knew I shouldn't go further and ended my fast with a small meal of chicken soup.\nI didn't have this column in mind when I fasted, and it is a bit of a departure, to be sure. Normally I write about issues of newsworthy import, but sometimes, in all the hubbub about scandals and disasters, I worry we forget about the humanity behind the headlines. When we hear the term "food crisis" or "hunger strike," it's hard to comprehend the unforgiving, physical nature of hunger. For me, it took 100 hours without food to understand. \nLook, I'm not finger-wagging. I'm not your mom telling you to appreciate your food because "children are starving in Africa." But whatever it takes, I hope everyone can recognize the enormity of hunger, be it in Africa, Guantanamo or Bloomington. \nDon't believe me? Try fasting.
(10/27/05 4:32am)
Ah, the Bush administration -- pinnacle of diplomacy! Having finished his grand tour of burning bridges across Europe and the Middle East, it looks like President Bush is turning his attention to China. In America, China is regarded with a skeptical eye: What are those shifty Chinese up to this time? With booming economic growth and an expanding military, as well as an increasingly active role in diplomacy, it appears China is posturing to become a world superpower.\nPrior to making his own trip to China in November, Bush sent bulldog Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to China to soften up the ground. Rumsfeld's ham-handed visit represents another of Bush's foreign policy bungles. China is just as skeptical of American intentions, and Rumsfeld's rather ridiculous visit points out the unnecessary posturing by both sides.\nDespite unprecedented access to Chinese military facilities, including its nuclear weapons sites, Rumsfeld still managed to get in a jab at China's military budget, complaining that while the Chinese declared to have spent only $30 billion on defense, Pentagon estimates put that number at $90 billion. Sounds like a lot, right? Yet, despite its gargantuan military, that still puts China in second place in defense spending to our fair nation, which last year spent $440 billion on defense. And China's the one posing the threat?\nIt's probably important to note here that just because I have slanted eyes doesn't mean I love China. In fact, my parents immigrated to America from Taiwan, a territory at which China has pointed a few hundred ballistic missiles, and is a nice place to visit every now and then. China has piles of human rights violations and just issued a statement reasserting the will of the Communist Party as the will of the people. By essentially ignoring existing trade laws, China has aggressively pursued economic growth at the expense of just about everything else.\nRegardless, America's policy toward China is still flawed. Rather than viewing China as a threat, as it is being framed by chicken-hawk Huntington devotees, America should see China as an opportunity. Yes, China is building a stronger military and economy. Who are we, though, to complain about an ascendent China? Can't a country do what it wants to stabilize its region, just as we do in our neck of the woods?\nThe problem with America's China policy is that we have no China policy, at least nothing coherent, as evident by Rumsfeld's cryptic comments about China's "mixed signals." As long as we vacillate between threats and incentives, we will never be able to attain a more meaningful dialogue with China. How can we expect anything but mixed signals from China when mixed signals are all we ever send?\nWhat happens to China and other nascent first-class nations in the next 25 years will be paramount to the security and well-being of the United States. Opening up China economically and politically should be a priority, and when the secretary of defense makes vague comments about the possibility of a Chinese threat, Bush's historic visit to China stumbles prematurely. No matter what our China policy ends up being, can't we have something better than Rumsfeld's "we'll see"?
(10/20/05 3:50am)
In a week of news dominated by Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, it was probably hard to notice the aftermath of the year's worst natural disaster: the Kashmir earthquake Oct. 8. So far, the death toll stands at about 41,000, which makes it the deadliest natural disaster since the December 2004 tsunami in South Asia. Relief efforts are staggering along with weather and terrain hampering efforts (not to mention the fact that Kashmir is among the most disputed territories on earth).\nSo where's the attention? Surely American tragedies like Hurricane Katrina deserve coverage simply because of proximity and political influence, but America has essentially turned a blind eye. There are plenty of international political reasons, particularly because India and Pakistan, the two countries most affected by the quake, have been adversaries since they formed in 1947. Regardless, the muted response from the U.S. media, government and people has more to do with a perceived superiority than any political reality.\nDespite New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's early estimates of tens of thousands dead, Hurricane Katrina did not kill any more than 2,000 people. Such a loss is significant and heart-rending, especially for those who believe that the strongest country on Earth should've been able to do more to stop the carnage. Yet if 79,000 brown folks die in a place that sounds more like sweater material than a geographic region, we don't bat an eye. To give an idea of the magnitude of that death toll, all IU campuses combined enroll 78,063 undergraduates. Imagine if every student on an IU campus died in a cataclysmic event. What kind of reaction would America have?\nThree thousand Americans died in a terrorist attack, and we declared war on terror. God knows if 79,000 Americans died in an earthquake, we'd declare war on plate tectonics.\nWhile we sit on our hands, hundreds of thousands still sleep outside waiting for aid that cannot reach them. The World Food Program estimates that 500,000 people have received no aid at all, while 2 million people have been left homeless. The Economist called America's reaction to Katrina "the shaming of America." But the squalor of the convention center in New Orleans is nowhere near as far-reaching and devastating as the damage in Kashmir.\nI guess my question is this: Where's Kashmir's benefit concert? Where's the wristband that says "I aided the Oct. 8 earthquake relief fund"? And with the tenuous diplomatic situation between Pakistan and India making it harder for aid to reach survivors, why wasn't the United States striking a deal between the countries to allow free movement across the de facto border as soon as it happened? \nThe unfortunate political situation in Kashmir shouldn't mitigate our response to the disaster. If anything, the increased direness of the situation demands our immediate attention. I implore anyone who reads this to seek more information about how to aid victims of this catastrophe. If we expect others to care when disaster strikes here, we must shirk our "America First" attitude. They might not be Americans, but every Kashmiri victim has a mother, a father, a family, a dream. Surely that must count for something.
(10/13/05 3:16am)
In his best-selling book, "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America," Bernard Goldberg does exactly what he promises: he offers a list of people who "screw up" America. He cites important folks like Maury Povich, Anna Nicole Smith and John Green. (Don't recognize Mr. Green? Surely you remember the man who hucked his lager at Ron Artest.) Many on his list would probably be more likely seen in Entertainment Weekly than Time magazine. \nGoldberg's list, however, highlights the increasing anger at celebrities who affect the inseparable worlds of culture, society and politics. Goldberg derides what he terms "the United States of Entertainment," and apparently wishes that sensible, learned people who comprehend complicated issues should be the ones leading the country, not a horde of uneducated celebrity know-nothings. Surely, Goldberg argues, Ludacris and Sean Penn should shut up already and let the real leaders do the leading.\nYet perhaps the distinction between politicians and entertainers isn't diminished because Al Franken and Co. suddenly gained some sort of political credence, but because politicians are making their arguments indistinguishable from those of a cretin celebrity. \nCalifornians didn't want another greedy lawyer muddling up their state house, so they elected a movie action hero. Last presidential election was determined by which candidate could better dress up as a "war president." And when Americans voted to pick our "greatest American" on a Discovery Channel special, the winner was Ronald Reagan, an actor-turned-president.\nThese uncanny connections between politics and culture aren't that unreasonable when you think about it. When a candidate needs to be elected, what does he or she need? Political star power. When a musician is promoting a record, what does he or she need? A campaign. What is an election but a popularity contest?\nAmerican individualism, which allowed our country the remarkable success that we've had, also gives us a culture that worships the cult of celebrity. Surely a media organization has a choice between a celebrity's comments on the war in Iraq and an administration official. If Barbra Streisand's political views really were irrelevant, however, there wouldn't be ratings enough to justify running them. \nMaybe celebrities should provide better examples for us, but their views are only accepted because politicians have failed to prove that they are much different. With the shifting justification for the war in Iraq, the inability of Democrats to come up with better arguments than "Bush sucks" and the failure of government to provide during disaster, people have come to trust celebrities, whether political or cultural, as a pertinent voice in the greater discussion.\nAdmittedly, Goldberg's main tack in his book is to derail what he sees as a buildup of negative culture, but Babs is not to blame. He rejects arguments that we, the people, are the ones who screw up America, but if we accept the idea of a democratic nation, then we have only ourselves to blame. Shakespeare, the greatest entertainer and social commentator of all time, said it best through Cassius in Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves"
(10/06/05 3:49am)
Alan Matheney died at 12:27 a.m. Sept. 28.\nSixteen years earlier, an Indiana jury convicted and sentenced Matheney for a brutal and unforgivable crime: bludgeoning his ex-wife, Lisa Bianco, to death with a shotgun. His last-minute appeals were passed over, and after admitting remorse for his crimes, he was executed by lethal injection. He became the fifth person executed in Indiana this year, the most in a single year in since the state resumed the death penalty in 1977.\nMurder and the death penalty exist on a different plane than other crimes and punishments. Thus, the death of Alan Matheney is not something to ignore, but a problem we must confront.\nThe debate about the death penalty has raged since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it constitutional in 1976 in the Gregg v. Georgia decision. Many argue the death penalty is deserved; it's an eye for an eye. Yet, we don't rape rapists or beat batterers. Others argue that if it offers the victims' families solace and closure, defendants should die. If, however, families of the victims determined all punishment for the offenders, every rapist would end up as dead as a murderer. That's why we have law in the first place. \nThere are many who try to logically argue for the death penalty. They cite the drop in violent crime since the reinstatement of the death penalty. Yet the drop in murder and violent crime has occurred in all states, not only the ones that have executed capital offenders. The bulk of statistical evidence suggests homicide rates and the death penalty are unrelated.\nAlso, capital cases have found themselves notoriously riddled with factual errors. Illinois, my home state, imposed a moratorium on the death penalty after several inmates were freed from death row on DNA evidence. If a state will use the gravest of punishments, there can be no margin for error. Nevertheless, as humans, we will inherently produce such error, and the death penalty is an act that cannot be taken back. What are we to make of our seemingly justified state-sponsored killing?\nWe aren't sure where we stand (according to 2004 Gallup poll data.) Seventy-one percent of Americans, an overwhelming majority, are "in favor of the death penalty." Yet, when the question is worded just a little differently, presenting the option of life in prison, the results are a near-even split, with about half supporting each side. Hardly a ringing endorsement.\nIt seems that we've become resigned to the fact that the death penalty is just what you get for murdering someone else, and we must have better reasoning than that. We absolutely have to start thinking hard, legally and morally, about why we execute people and why our state executes its citizens.\nNext week, IU will sponsor a series of events about the death penalty, and I recommend everyone on campus attend at least one event. Whether you believe the death penalty should be exercised far more often or God doesn't want us to execute criminals, or even if you don't know what to believe, the fact remains that Alan Matheney died Sept. 28.\nAnd we killed him.
(09/29/05 4:03am)
Alot of jokes have been cracked this week at the expense of the FBI's new anti-pornography unit. Many of the jokes came from within the Bureau's field offices, including these gems: "Things I don't want on my résumé, volume four," "Honestly, most guys would have to rescue themselves" and "I guess this means we must have won the war on terror. We must not need any more resources for espionage."\nLast month, the Bureau began recruiting for this new anti-obscenity squad, prompting some to coin it the "war on pornography." Mind you, the task force would not track child pornographers or other explicitly illegal acts. Rather, it would investigate the actions, finances and movements of legal pornographers in an effort to gather evidence against the "manufacturers and purveyors" of obscene material. \nRidiculous as it might seem, we should take serious notice of this new war on an abstract noun. For better or worse (probably for worse), hard-core pornography has become ubiquitous in American culture. And while Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and Co. probably didn't envision the First Amendment protecting an American's right to see S&M orgies on DirecTV, pornography is speech, however obscene it might be. \nNevertheless, the FBI investigating legally- and constitutionally-protected activities is not my real concern. As long as there is an FBI, there will always be constitutional questions involved, and we'll have plenty of time to yak about First Amendment violations if any of these cases reach open court. My concern is that the FBI should be busy protecting us from terrorists and criminals who pose a direct threat to our safety and well-being, not legal purveyors of morally questionable material.\nIn the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI's role as an investigatory body for domestic terrorism and foreign terrorists within the country has become paramount in our national defense. Furthermore, there are whole new frontiers of cyber-crime, while the old Mafia and gang wars have yet to fully pass. I thought the mistakes of Sept. 11 demonstrated that such a period in the nation's history of crime and justice demands an FBI that has its priorities straight. \nWould the average American family like to see less porn out there? Probably. But I think it would like to see more terrorists put on trial more often. I think America would like to see more good police work, such as catching career criminals. I think America needs an FBI that rises above the bumbling agency it has been. With the world a dangerous place and national security the No. 1 priority, how important is it that the FBI go hunt down some guy recording dirty movies on his HandiCam? \nWill eight agents and two supervisors severely dent the war on terror? No. Will a field office to investigate obscenity be a significant distraction? Probably not. Is it still stupid? No doubt about it. If, by shifting one agent from the war on terror to the war on pornography, one terrorist gets through the cracks, we've failed. The FBI would do better to quit chasing porn-purveyors and take care of security that really matters.
(09/22/05 4:29am)
After being ignored by the Bush administration since Sept. 11, 2001, North Korea and its nuclear program are back at the negotiating table. For the past three years, six-party talks have been deadlocked as North Korea continued to accelerate its program. Monday, North Korea promised to drop all nuclear weapons and current nuclear programs and to get back to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as soon as possible. But faster than you could say "kimchee," the North Koreans demanded they be given a civilian nuclear reactor before they would end their nuclear weapons program. \nIn case you're not quite up to date, here's the deal: North Korea wants nuclear weapons and nuclear power to dig itself out of its ongoing economic disaster. Meanwhile, the United States, China, South Korea and Japan don't want North Korea to have nuclear weapons because Kim Jung-Il is an unbalanced, megalomaniacal dictator. And with North Korea's latest demand, it looks as if the recent agreement has hit another crippling hurdle.\nAnd so it goes. We negotiate. North Korea signs a piece of paper. They toss it out the window. Rinse, repeat. The first treaty was signed in 1993. The last was not agreed upon Monday. How can we ensure nuclear weapons aren't built in North Korea? We're obviously not going to give them a civilian nuclear reactor. Simply continuing the unending series of talks with North Korea with the same issues on the table (humanitarian aid and security guarantees) also gets us nowhere. And a preemptive strike, whether legal or not, is simply unfeasible, especially considering what happened the last time we invaded North Korea.\nWhat can we do? We can't just offer appeasement at every turn, and any agreement will have to include the dismantling of any and all nuclear activity in North Korea, as well as significant cutbacks in intermediate- to long-range missiles. If we are serious about eliminating nukes in North Korea, we have to take real action now and offer the North Koreans the one thing they can't get anywhere else: normalized relations with the West.\nSince 1953, when the trade embargo was enacted, North Korea has been bereft of any real economy. Many people in the country are malnourished, and official malfeasance is at a disgustingly unacceptable level. North Korea is using nuclear weapons to bargain with the world to help fix its country, but North Korea doesn't need security guarantees. It needs free trade and diplomacy with the West, making its nuclear aspirations far too risky if it really wants to right its ship.\nWe have every right to cut off North Korea. We're an independent nation-state, and it'll be a long time before North Korea directly threatens us. \nRegardless, we must engage North Korea because it's our duty as the world's most powerful country, a title we will not hold forever. We should quit acting superior and start being superior. If we're serious about eliminating nuclear threat, then we must open up North Korea with real engagement, not empty treaties.
(09/15/05 5:05am)
As the news media turns their attention toward hurricanes and Supreme Court justices, it seems that Africa always gets the cold shoulder. Sure, it's heart-wrenching to see starving infants for a little bit, but then it's time to move on. Meanwhile, the situation in Niger remains dire, and not necessarily for obvious reasons.\nThere are really two disasters happening in Niger. The first and immediate problem is the current food crisis. From watching basic news coverage, one might say Niger's current problem is famine. The United Nations and countless other aid organizations seem to think so. Yet Niger's own President Tandja denies that claim. He could be right. The food crisis in Niger is nothing new. According to the BBC, one in four Nigerois children die before age five -- a staggering statistic in a country with a relatively low HIV-infection rate. \nThis isn't a famine. It's everyday life in Niger. \nThe solution isn't to dump more food into Niger. Whatever food manages to avoid the hands of corruption and waste will only sustain the country for a short time. Throwing non-specific aid packages at the problem might ease our guilty consciences when the media show us dying babies, but it is not a realistic solution to Niger's problems.\nThe series of misguided and misappropriated aid packages comprises the second, and more catastrophic, disaster in Africa. Some say aid is the way out of poverty. Many, including British Chancellor Gordon Brown, have suggested Africa needs a Marshall Plan. Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria has noted that the world has given Africa the equivalent of five Marshall Plans since 1945, and Africa's situation has not improved. \nThere's basic economics behind this. If we give food to Niger, the country's farm prices go down, giving even less incentive to grow anything more than subsistence crops. Then, if we force African nations to pay back their development loans, they have to sacrifice the well-being of their people to keep foreign aid pouring in. Some things a government cuts might be an emergency food stockpile, which Niger did last year. And the very concept of governments giving to governments means waste at every level, eventually getting only a fraction of the original aid to the people who need it most .\nHow do we fix the problem? I don't know. I wish I had a magical solution for fixing 50 years of mistakes in foreign aid. I think, however, the first step to accepting the challenges of the new century is to declare that what we have been doing is wrong. As aid dramatically increased between 1975 and 1995, growth in Africa significantly decreased. \nFrom Jeffrey Sachs to Bono, everyone speaks as if they have the solution to "save Africa." Africa doesn't need "saving." That's an inherently colonial concept. We need to start asking the hard questions and realizing we have to set aside our guilt-induced place as world savior. \nUnfortunately, there are no easy answers in a complex world. Simply cutting off all aid is not an option, but clearly our course of action thus far has been ill-advised. If we just continue with handouts, Niger will continue to suffer.
(09/08/05 4:56am)
If you haven't been watching the news lately, the tirade you issued on NBC's Hurricane Katrina telethon has become a flashpoint for reactions from people ranging from Condoleeza Rice to the Los Angeles Times editorial board. You took the outrage felt across political and social boundaries and summarized it into seven simple words: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."\nAfter more than a week of outrage, the Bush administration is finally taking notice of its horribly ineffectual response to Katrina. Whether by feigning surprise like Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff or by blaming residents like FEMA Director Michael Brown, nothing it says can make up for the woeful lack of response to a massive human disaster. \nIf thousands of poor, immobile, mostly black people are stranded in a flooded, infested, flammable city, the federal government can't do anything but sit on its hands for days. Meanwhile, if you're a white female high school student on vacation in Aruba, the national news media and a significant FBI presence come to help you out. If you're a pretty white woman who's in a permanent vegetative state, Congress and the president will come back to Washington to pass a special law just for you.\nBut if that hurricane comes, wait a couple days. They'll get back to you.\nDoes Bush really not care about black people? I don't know, Kanye. None of us are President Bush, so none of us can really say. Nevertheless, you hit it right on the button when you said that race had an effect on the government's reaction, whether consciously or not. \nBush might be obligated to do the best he can for the country, but like it or not, he does the best he can for the constituents who voted for him. And with 88 percent of black Americans voting for John Kerry in 2004, I bet a contingency plan to protect the people of New Orleans wasn't on top of Bush's priority list.\nStill, Kanye, even though I agree with what you say and find the Bush administration's handling of Katrina contemptible, I think you could've picked a better time to say what you did. Did you have a national audience? Yes. Are you right? To some extent. You might have sparked a debate, but I think the method in which it was created was slighting to those dead who have made New Orleans their final resting place. Rather than making the issue about the people that Bush is ignoring, you've made the issue about you.\nKanye, what I'm saying is, the words that get the most airtime shouldn't be yours, but those in New Orleans, Biloxi, Miss., Mobile, Ala., and the rest of the affected region. As much as I love your work, I think all of us must do what we can and get people to safety and security until the waters recede. Then we can tear Bush and his incompetent cronies a new one together.\nWith love, \nPeter Chen\nP.S. I loved "Late Registration"
(09/01/05 4:57am)
This is our tsunami," Biloxi, Miss., Mayor A.J. Holloway said of Hurricane Katrina to multiple news services Tuesday.\nThough the death toll from Katrina is not yet established, it appears the damage is extensive. Hundreds have likely died and damage estimates range between $9 billion and $26 billion. The size of such a hurricane is uncommon in modern weather history, and its damage payout may be among the largest ever.\nBut just for a moment, let's compare the Indian Ocean earthquake and resulting tsunami of late 2004 to Hurricane Katrina. Total estimated dead from the tsunami according to the United States Geological Survey: 283,100. Total estimated dead from Hurricane Katrina: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands," said New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Wednesday. Seems like an unfair comparison.\nThe tsunami-Katrina metaphor is a little shaky. Yet, this quotation made it successfully into CNN, USA Today, Reuters, and The New York Times, as well as countless foreign publications, without so much as a peep of complaint. Holloway's heartfelt but erroneous statement has become yet another manifestation of American ego.\nIt isn't unreasonable that our government should respond to Katrina more actively than it did to the tsunami. After all, a problem close to home is more real than one far away. But is one American life really worth a thousand foreign lives? When 3,000 civilians died in America, we started two wars and demanded justice. When hundreds of thousands were murdered in Sudan, we covered our harassed reporters more than the genocide. \nDoes a country have to help its own citizens first? Of course. A modern liberal democracy should help promote the general welfare of its people. Nevertheless, our government's obligation to protect Americans first should not change the value of a human life. Every dead body had a mother and father, had a past, had a life. Why is it so easy for us to write off the foreign dead?\nThe media is always the easy answer, but the media print and broadcast what we want to hear. The real culprit for the inflated worth of an American life is within the American psyche. We believe we are exceptional, that we're special, that our lives are somehow more worthy because of where we live. \nNow, I am a patriot, and I believe we live in the greatest country in the world, but a human being is a human being. Having the arrogance to value a human life based on property, nationality or religion is fundamentally wrong. \nMy heart goes out to those affected by Hurricane Katrina, but my heart also goes out to the scores of people who die every day in America, the children dying of starvation in Niger, the men and women dying in Darfur, the victims of the tsunami, the victims of all tragedy everywhere. Life is life. Let's not toot our own self-important horn. Let Katrina's catastrophe be a lesson in humility: human life is fragile, and we must treasure it no matter where it calls home.
