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(03/22/06 5:04am)
Let me be blunt: The war in Iraq was despicable three years ago, and it remains despicable today. We justified the war with faulty intelligence and dogmatic propaganda, planned the post-war period with revolting irresponsibility, and severely damaged our credibility and integrity as a moral nation-state with our invasion and occupation. As Iraq boils with civil war and the American public gets increasingly disillusioned, we must ask, "What have we learned?"\nFirst of all, let's ignore weapons of mass destruction. There were none. Rumsfeld says so, I say so, let's move on. Second, Saddam was not actively helping al-Qaida. The 9/11 Commission has well-established this fact. To say otherwise at this point is simply dishonest. \nThese days, the administration line is that we invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein, build a new nation, and make the world a safer place. But in light of the current civil war and terrorist activity, that "Mission Accomplished" banner was probably a little early.\nYes, hindsight is 20/20, but at least it gives us the ability to learn from our mistakes. The military operation was a stunning success, but we bungled the post-war occupation. The sectarian differences in Iraq were played down to sell the war. As a result, we were unprepared for the backlash of Sunni-Shiite clashes and failed to fully assert our authority early. When you topple a country that has only known dictatorial rule, you can't just disband the army, police and government agencies. Now, we're paying for it dearly, trying to hold together a fractious state without a functioning civil society.\nFurthermore, the disintegration of our moral authority has been alarming. The Abu Ghraib torture chamber, however isolated the incident, along with the Defense Department's contemptible refusal to record civilian casualties in the conflict, eroded any high ground we might have held. Yet, the administration has noted that Iraq today is better than it was under Saddam Hussein, and that declining American casualties demonstrate an improving situation. \nBut instead of American troops dying, innocent Iraqis get killed. The same day that President Bush trumpeted three years of American progress, nine Iraqi men were found shot in the head outside an Iraqi police station, bringing the Baghdad body count to 186 in the previous eight days. At its lowest estimate, www.IraqBodyCount.org estimates that 33,710 Iraqi civilians have died since the beginning of the invasion. I'm sure all of their families are happy to hear American casualty counts are down. So what now? Don't listen to the hysterical cries of "Bring'em home!" Bringing our troops back now dooms Iraq to a terrible fate. I am no war apologist by any means, but we must pay our penance for our irresponsible actions. We have devastated a country and its infrastructure, and we have a responsibility to hold the country together. \nHere, the administration's own dogma has undermined its position. How can you sell the necessity of American troops when the war's already won? We've won the war so many times: when Saddam's statue fell, when we unfurled the banner "Mission Accomplished," when the Iraqis held elections and signed their constitution. Now, civil war embroils Iraq, and we need to ensure that we contain the situation, but it's hard to justify after these endless victories. It seemed so easy to win that we expected no sacrifice on our part. \nOur war conduct needs to change drastically if we are to succeed in the end. We need to ensure Iraqis that we will not build a permanent military base. We need to quickly rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq. We need to set up real, concrete goals to be reached, followed by American withdrawal. \nWe all caused this horrific disaster. We owe it to the Iraqis to clean it up, even at the cost of American blood.
(03/21/06 5:21am)
Before the toxic dust settled Sept. 11, 2001, we had already named the spot where the towers fell. We called it Ground Zero, because the ground had been erased, and from the nothing, we would rise. Ground Zero was where the world had changed, and Ground Zero was where we would build anew. \nMore than four years later, the scar of dirt and concrete still mars Lower Manhattan. The statement "United We Stand" has devolved into farce now, as developers, politicians and bean-counters wrestle over the plans for the former World Trade Center site. \nThe current battle is a free-for-all between the Port Authority, which owns the property, Larry Silverstein, who owns the lease, New York Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who control the money, and the 9/11 families, who believe they hold some sort of monopoly on emotional capital. Other players have come in and out, and the current gridlock might yet be resolved, but the bottom line is this: Ground Zero is still empty. \nPataki placed a cornerstone for the new Freedom Tower on Sept. 11, 2004, but no significant construction on the site has been completed, save for Silverstein's new World Trade Center 7, whose 2.6 million square feet of office space have yet to find a tenant. \nNo one can agree on exactly what they should look like, though a number of trite and uninspired designs have been proposed. The final design for the ironically named "Freedom" Tower has a base like a bomb shelter and looks like it climbed out of "1984." \nAdditionally, the separate 9/11 memorial causes its own problems, as the victims' families find it unsuitable. The idea of looking down at two gaping holes in the ground seems unpalatable to many, yet work has commenced on the memorial anyway. Consequently, instead of building up, we're digging \ndown again. \nMeanwhile, the current hold-up concerns the funding for the project, especially the total lack of prospective tenants for 10 million square feet of real estate. Also, Silverstein stubbornly demands control of the project, despite not having the funds. He's got a right to be a little peeved. As soon as he picked up a 99-year lease for a piece of property, it was all destroyed, and he had to pay rent on a smoking pile of rubble for four years. But now, his desire to make it a good investment has stalled the project indefinitely.\nAlas, the slow pace of progress is expected in a committee-based governance of consensus. But for many of us, who wanted to believe that 9/11 stopped the squabbling somehow, the hole in the sky grows deeper every day. We wanted to fill that hollow absence with something, anything that would replace what was lost, but the bickering and the hole remain. \nI want so much to be angry at them, to scold and scream for agreement, but maybe all this petty bickering demonstrates just how difficult it will be to rebuild, and how woefully incapable any building is of replacing what was lost. Surely something will be built on the site eventually, and when it's finished, there will be much bickering then, too. \nYet no matter what is built, the gaping hole will remain, in the sky and in our hearts.
(03/07/06 6:05am)
There seems to be some fear that IU's proposed increased admissions standards will prevent it from fully representing the state of Indiana for an exclusive goal. Civil rights attorney and visiting IU professor Alvin Chambliss has noted that increased SAT standards will work against efforts to diversify the university. Tom Mortenson, head of the Postsecondary Education Opportunity research group, complains that the poor's access will be limited by these changes and "(the push for higher standards) denies the talent and the ambition of kids who are born into less-fortunate circumstances." \nWhile these complaints are valid, they ignore the essential conceit of a university. Every university is an inherently elitist institution. IU hands out exams and grades, and if you get enough credits and fulfill certain requirements, you get a little piece of paper that says, "I am more valuable than you, nondegree holder!" \nIt's a selective process, and it makes sense that IU should choose students likely to succeed at the University, especially because IU does not have unlimited resources. Whenever IU chooses between applicants to attend the University, a choice is made about the makeup of the \nUniversity that will produce the best degree-holders. \nTo those who complain that higher standards will prevent IU from accurately and diversely representing Indiana, I would point out that the process of selecting freshmen classes already distorts the makeup of the state. Whether we select students to ensure diversity throughout the campus or whether we select them based on SAT scores, we are artificially creating the environment that best fosters learning. As a result, there is a higher percentage of Asians on campus than in the state or country. But do we start kicking Asians out to best represent the state? Obviously not. Admissions departments should pick the students who they feel will succeed at IU, so the proposal stresses college prep rather than simply test scores.\nTo be fair, I'm lukewarm about using SAT scores as the final word on admissions, but it's well-noted in the proposal that the SAT guideline would be a suggestion, and the proposal takes care to emphasize performance in the classroom in terms of credits and grades rather than simply standardized test scores. Furthermore, the changes are not as drastic as some claim. The top 40 percent of your high school class instead of the top 50 percent? Six semesters of high school science instead of two? These proposed guidelines aren't exactly revolutionary, not to mention the fact that they wouldn't be enacted until 2011, and even then, the change would be gradual. \nResponding to Mortenson, I would say kids born into less-fortunate households do get a raw deal in much of capitalist American society, but having low standards at the state's flagship university doesn't help them succeed. A college degree means something because it is exclusive, and assuming poor kids can't perform well in school and need the bar lowered for them is far more condescending than demanding higher standards. \nWhy not try to raise the test scores and grades of poor children instead? Why not raise the bar instead of \nlowering it?
(02/28/06 5:42am)
A university president clashes with an entrenched, frustrated faculty. The faculty scream for his head. The president decides to step down after five years. Quick, which college am I talking about? IU or Harvard?\nAfter Harvard President Larry Summers' resignation, the role of the embattled university president took another fateful step, and his fall seemed to mirror the fall of IU's own Adam Herbert. To be fair, differences abound between the two examples. Harvard is an inordinately well-endowed private university that many consider the flagship of American universities, while IU is a huge state school that rarely gets national limelight and that has various budget problems Harvard has rarely faced. \nYet, the fight among ideologies, between a university helmed by the faculty and a university helmed by an iconoclastic president, represents a fundamental crisis in the life of American universities. At Harvard, some say that Summers was the wrong man for the job, unable to manage the faculty. But this criticism forces the question, "Who is the right man for the job?" \nShould the president defer to the faculty at all times? How much "respect" does the president deserve? Conversely, how much does the \nfaculty deserve? How does policy divide among the trustees, the president and the faculty? To claim simply that backward, reactionary professors forced Summers out at Harvard or that Summers was incompetent and deserved his fate ignores the complexities of these questions. \nFor years, professors have felt the squeeze, with the freewheeling intellectual heyday long past and university boards demanding control of their research and curriculum. Herbert and Summers both found themselves called in to universities in transition and became agents of change, as well as lightning rods for criticism. Rarely are professors ever called "conservative," but here, they wanted to resist the changes that years of inexorable evolution have wrought. \nIt stands to reason that professors should have control over the fate of the university. After all, when you look at attending a university, Ivy League or Big Ten, you care more about having great faculty than having a great president. Yet, the organizations that choose the presidents, that decide the direction of the university, like the Harvard Corporation or the IU board of trustees, have largely marginalized the faculty input.\nIt's important not to view these two conflicts as simply coincidental, arguments about a chancellor job search and sexism. Such clashes between faculty and presidents are manifestations of a larger problem, an uncertainty with the direction of higher education. The club atmosphere that once flourished in universities has given way to the university as efficient corporation, and the professor has become just another employee. \nI don't mean to be an apologist for the rash, irresponsible behavior of faculty here, but the erasure of faculty from decision-making is dangerous. If the entire goal of a university is the pursuit of knowledge, how can we succeed when the pursuers are pissed off? The faculties at IU and Harvard chose the wrong target in their presidents, but their concerns are real. Herbert and Summers are not the first casualties of the brewing conflict, and odds are, they probably won't be the last.
(02/21/06 5:45am)
Big Bird needs our help. That's right; Jim Lehrer, "The American Experience" and that big yellow bird have all become targeted by President Bush's new, severe budget cuts.\nWhenever budgets need cutting and belts need tightening, public broadcasting is always an easy target. When there are 300 channels providing a wide range of programming, it's quite easy for free-market adherents to say that PBS should simply vanish. So, to no one's surprise, when Bush proposed his budget, 13 percent of the public broadcasting budget was gone. \nThirteen percent doesn't sound like much, but that's $53.5 million. That's a whole lot of pledge drives -- although it's no more than a drop in the bucket for the federal budget -- and since all TV stations have to reconfigure for high-definition by 2009, we're cutting at the wrong time.\nWhy fund PBS? When we're fighting a War on Terror, paying retiring boomers' Social Security and trying to salvage public schools, it's easy to question public broadcasting's purpose.\nYet PBS provides essential programming that no one else on TV is willing to put on. "Frontline" provides the best documentary filmmaking on television today, while Tavis Smiley and Charlie Rose each broadcast extensive interviews with newsmakers. All of this simply adds to the excellent educational programming that PBS has for children and adults, from "Sesame Street" to "Nova." \nOK, say the free-market advocates; but if these shows are so good, they should succeed on network TV or cable just the same, right? "Sesame Street," for example, makes money on Tickle-Me Elmo dolls, but when the program was just starting out, think about the unbelievable risk PBS took by running a kid's show that centered on foam puppets who sang about counting and the alphabet. If such a show were pitched today to Nickelodeon, it would never run. \nIt's hard to think about PBS as risk-taking, but the promise of federal funding allows PBS to provide a unique experimental service to television. There would be no multi-part miniseries without the revolutionary "Masterpiece Theater." There would be no cooking shows without Julia Child. There would be no educational children's programming without "Sesame Street." And while each of these shows was supported by local viewers, each individual station needed funding from the federal government to keep afloat . \nWatching PBS helped make me who I am today. I grew up with Mister Rogers and Elmo, watched Ken Burns documentaries and classic movies with my parents and laughed with "Monty Python" reruns on late nights. \nNow, when commercial stations like CNN and Fox News broadcast "truthiness" as news, when every show is just another spin-off or imitation, when carbonated, sugared drivel passes as educational children's programming, we need PBS more than ever.\nLet me end with a little anecdote. In the early 1970s, some PBS affiliates needed a movie to play royalty-free. So they picked up a forgotten Frank Capra Christmas film called "It's A Wonderful Life." In doing so, PBS saved an American classic for a country that needed it badly. Now it's our turn to return the favor. Donate to your local affiliate and write your congressman today. Help save public broadcasting.
(02/21/06 12:50am)
A newly declassified 2003 document from the Pentagon, still moderately blacked out, has revealed the grand scheme of future Information Operations. Authored by various analysts at the Pentagon and signed off by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it represents a striking shift in the priorities of Information Operations in our military. One of the main conclusions of this "roadmap" document, that "We Must Fight The Net," represents a shift in our approach to warfare. \nMost of the document outlines a grand plan for the future of Information Ops. Information has long been a piece of military strategy and tactics, from specific intelligence to general deception. Info Ops was also recently exposed to be guilty of planting pro-American news stories in Iraqi papers, and the negative publicity might be at least part of the reason for this document's declassification. \nWhile this "roadmap" document has lots of information on the future of Psychological Operations and public affairs officers, the most ambitious -- and perhaps most frightening -- piece of the document concerns Electronic Warfare. The authors declare that the United States must "dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities." \n"Dominate the electromagnetic spectrum?" "Fight The Net?" When did the Pentagon start sounding like a bad James Bond villain? We've developed plenty of defensive and preventative electronic measures, but now it appears that we are taking the offensive. \nAccording to the document, we need the electronic attack capability to "deny, degrade, disrupt and destroy" enemy networks and sensors and to protect ourselves. Are we now, as the document purports, in an age of weaponizing the Internet and other public networks? Certainly the authors describe the Net as something worth fighting, and this presents plenty of problems.\nSuch an explicit intention to escalate the still-young art of electronic warfare represents nothing less than the commencement of a new arms race. It might sound silly, but consider that fairly amateur electronic attacks can shut down Web sites, causing economic damage, or severing communication lines between troops, causing traditional military damage. With so much at stake, it's understandable to try to look to the future and stay ahead of the curve. Living in the Information Age, it would be foolish to avoid information warfare.\nThere exists a danger, however, in focusing on information-based warfare, which befalls us each time we move into a new area of technology. Just as an over-reliance on air warfare brought us the folly of winning war from the air, an over-reliance on information warfare could leave us woefully behind in the basic tactics of troops on the ground. War is dirty, bloody and chaotic, and you can't win it from behind a desk.\nAlso, with the increasingly fuzzy lines that separate national from international, domestic from foreign, friend from foe, who's to say information warfare couldn't be waged internally? From Bush's domestic wiretap order we see that a determined administration can easily engage in information warfare within our borders. \nVisionary though this document might be, it might prove to be dangerous if we bull-headedly plow in the wrong direction. We must tread carefully or risk the weakening of an already strained military at the expense of an unproven pipe dream.
(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"