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(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.
(08/25/05 5:16am)
If you've looked in a urinal around campus lately, you may have seen a curious screen under that urinal cake.\nLadies, you'll just have to take my word on this one. \nThey are typical urinal screens, but instead of a reminder to flush, they read: "You hold in your hand the power to stop sexual assault."\nIn case that adorable innuendo was unclear, they're talking about your penis, fellas. The extremely serious issue of sexual assault has been relegated to pee-target status. \nThe program was organized by Raising Awareness of Interactions in Sexual Encounters, a group of peer educators for the Office of Women's Affairs, in order to reach the audience of likely potential sex offenders, rather than traditional programs which aim for likely potential victims. Similar programs have been initiated at many other universities over the last five years, and reported sexual assaults have dropped during the last three years, according to the IU Police Department.\nRAISE received a significant mini-grant for the project, while past poster and advertising campaigns failed to get the desired mass response. Hoping to provoke a conversation, they built this project as an attention-grabbing, amusing way to reach the audience of males who are rarely made aware of their role in sexual assault.\nNow, I'd be fine with this if the message didn't imply that my penis was the one doing the thinking. Surely, my brain could make intelligent decisions and opinions about sexual assault. My heart could feel empathy and compassion for fellow human beings and deplore the despicable act of rape. Yet, does the urinal screen reach for the higher levels of thinking? \nNope. I just have to control my schlong to fight sexual assault.\nThis is not to say that the program's mission isn't admirable. In fact, while reported cases of sexual assault have gone down, there are still countless cases of unreported incidents. For too long men have stood on the sidelines of the issue, dodging guilt and making gags, without understanding the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. Regardless, a campaign such as this draws attention away from educating potential sex offenders and toward cheap sexual intimation.\nIt is often quoted, perhaps apocryphally, that men think about sex every 11 seconds. I hardly think we need any help from our peeing receptacle. Also, I'm not wild about the notion of urinating all over an important message. Rather than raising the level of public debate to an honest conversation about sexual assault, the urinal screen campaign lowers itself to a contemptible dirty joke unworthy of Andy Dick. Out of frustration, RAISE has ham-handedly tried to pass off its important message as sloganeering swill.\nDo men need to have a conversation about rape? You're damn right we do. In a modern, ethical society, one act of sexual violence is a stain on all of us. Regardless, there is no reason to stoop to the level of slovenly toilet humor just to start a conversation. Let's think and speak with our heads, and leave our penises out of it.