5 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(04/07/04 12:00pm)
Flying in the face of professional courtesy and solidarity, it is once again time to flaunt an opinion criticizing the media.
In case you missed it, the past two issues of Time Magazine online have been dominated by coverage of the Fallujah incident.
To sum up the two articles, to be released in the April 12 issue, detailing the event, four civilian members of Blackwater USA, one of 20 private companies who, according to the Pentagon, are hired to provide security for nonmilitary personnel in Iraq, were killed on Highway 10 in Fallujah.
All four, who had served in "elite fighting units in the U.S. military," were in an SUV that was struck by two grenades on a road where it was reported insurgents had set up ambush points.
Three reportedly died instantly while one was beaten to death with bricks by a mob. The SUVs were then burned with the bodies inside while the viewing public held signs reading "Fallujah, Cemetery of the Americans" and chanted "We are Fallujah. We are brave. Who asked you to mess with us?"
Who indeed.
Why is the media to blame in this scenario? A recent editorial by Tony Karon, also of Time Magazine, hit the nail on the head, if you will pardon the cliche.
"Part of the Fallujah incident's impact came from the fact that most of the media chose to describe the four civilian victims as 'contractors,' a word that conjured an image of engineers helping to rebuild the shattered country," Karon wrote. "In reality they were hired guns, former U.S. special forces guys subcontracted by the military to provide security ... testimony, perhaps, to a military personnel shortage in Iraq being addressed through outsourcing."
Once again, by employing any methods necessary, the media is striving to rally public support for Bush's continued advocacy of a violent presence in a country whose population is noticably less than thrilled with the American presence.
Karon conveys that the nature of occupation requires U.S. retaliation to avoid an image of weakness likely to inspire future attacks.
By conjuring an image of the murder of 'innocent civilians' by the Iraqi insurgents, the media ensures that the current administration's promise "to 'stay the course in Iraq,'" a promise that may "involve years of committing U.S. lives" with no tangible return, will not be instantly rejected by the already wavering American population.
According to one Time article by Michael Duffy, the facts of the matter are that "the work of the four American civilians slaughtered in Fallujah last week was so shadowy" that neither their families nor a Blackwater spokesman could pin down exactly what they were doing.
In the same article the Pentagon admits that "with U.S. troops still having to battle insurgents and defend themselves, the job of protecting everyone else in Iraq - from journalists to government contractors to the U.S. administrator in Iraq - is largely being done by private security companies stocked with former soldiers looking for good money and a taste of danger."
The media and the government would have us believe that civilians willingly placing themselves in harm's way, living in hotels and making up to $15,000 a month for their troubles (more than most U.S. military personnel make), are "innocent" casualties of war.
We must recognize the dangerous direction in which we are allowing ourselves to be led.
These security agents are pampered by their Pentagon-supported employers and willingly sign on to work on the front lines while the American public is led to believe that their deaths are more tragic and worthy of a greater distress than the consistent loss of military personnel.
According to Duffy, a Pentagon offical claims, " ... they are not on the U.S. payroll. And so they are not our responsibility." And yet the government is using their deaths as an excuse to launch a full-scale retaliatory strike.
U.S. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy head of operation in Iraq, said, "We have to win this war in Fallujah one neighborhood at a time. We're going to do it on our terms, on our time, and it will be overwhelming."
And, with the media's continued support, Bush will be able to perpetuate his bloody campaign without a Vietnam-era inspired rejection of our questionable and unwelcome presence in Iraq and his consistently lacking foreign policies.
~ Kristen Anastos,
Editor in chief
(11/11/03 12:00pm)
One of the most unpleasant memories of my, short, 21 years of life is of myself at 17 staring into a coffin at my friend Jeff. My recently-deceased-due-to-a-self-inflicted-gun-shot-wound-to-the-head-with-his-father's-gun friend Jeff.
No one told us, but I could guess where he put the gun - his lips looked funny, and he always had very nice lips.
Suicide changes everything when you are that age. Maybe it changes everything at any age ... but I wouldn't know that. All I know is what I saw and what I felt.
There were five of us from my high school that knew him. We found out by phone the night it happened that he was dead, but, in a fantastic tribute to our generation, he sent "The Note" via e-mail. When we saw each other the next morning in school we lost it.
None of my friends had ever seen me cry before, nor have most of them since. It hits you like nothing else can.
It isn't like your dog getting put to sleep or a grandparent slowly succumbing to cancer. You don't see this one coming.
Everyone deals with suicide differently. Some of my friends embraced the event for what it was and coped by letting anyone in ear-shot know how they felt.
We were a little concerned that others might try for a repeat performance, unable to deal with the reality of a person you care about just being ... gone. Some of us locked the feelings that surfaced in a little box to carry around inside us.
Mostly you move on. But one day, stuck in traffic on Rt. 22, his favorite song starts playing on the radio and you can't help but replay those times.
Why couldn't you see it coming. Why couldn't you stop it? Why didn't he realize that it was over for him in a second but the rest of us get to be jaded for, with any luck, 70 more years?
I don't know how we can prevent teenage suicide. I think the adults of this world have less of a clue about it than I do.
They think we have it easy but we push ourselves and each other and get pushed by them harder than most people care to acknowledge sometimes.
The good thing is, we all know that this occurs. However you are feeling, everyone around you is feeling, has felt or will feel exactly the same way.
I love it when people say that committing suicide is the coward's way out. For days after it happened I sat imagining his father's gun in my hand - could I pull the trigger? What went through his head right before he pulled it? How difficult must it be to consciously decide to give up everything that we take for granted when we wake up in the morning?
I used to fall asleep and wake up convinced I heard him calling my name. It was not a pleasant few months. Even now, four years later, no matter how many times I roll it around my brain, the whole situation still confuses me.
I suppose if you have never been in that frame of mind it isn't a place you can consciously choose to go ... maybe that is why those of us left behind have such a hard time accepting it when loved ones feel there is no choice left except to end their lives.
Perhaps it sounds selfish, but it is the best thing I can think to say to anyone who is harboring suicidal thoughts. Please, think about what you are leaving behind - who you are leaving behind.
I feel like I should be making a point with this. Some grand message to help save all the lost adolescents in the world looking for any shadow of an excuse to save them from the hell they precieve themselves living in.
I don't think I have one.
To be honest ... I am bitter. I am bitter and angry that at 17 I had to deal with this, am dealing with it still and that we live in a world where at 16, Jeff felt he had nothing left to live for.
I have never really talked about this before. I have only written of it once. If you take anything from what I might have said in these three columns let it be this:
Your high school and college years will, at some point, inevitably feel like hell. There is no denying that and no escaping it.
Forget all the things your counselors and teachers taught you about watching for suicide and simply be conscious of each other.
We are stuck in a generation gap that demands we look out for our own.
Don't let your friends end up like Jeff and don't condemn your own conscience to the bitterness and confusion I may carry with me for the rest of my life.
(08/25/03 12:00pm)
While freshman class numbers have allowed for significant residence hall reorganization, a new early arrival system has increased the safety and organization of upperclassmen arrivals.
Freshman move-in day
According to John Stafford, director of Residence Life, this year's freshman move-in day went smoothly.
"The buildings were ready and looking good and there were no big issues," Stafford said.
"It was a bitch, but I thought it would be a lot worse," Lee Whitesell, freshman physics and philosophy major, said.
Several campus organizations, including Army Reserve Officer Training Corps. and Inter-Greek Council, volunteered their time to help the movers.
"All the people helping were very helpful," Matt Corbett, freshman law and justice major, said.
According to Stafford, "the economy finally caught up with us," because fewer freshmen chose to attend after their acceptance.
In response to this, several changes were made in both the freshmen residence halls and in off-campus transfer housing.
In Travers and Wolfe Halls, a significantly smaller overflow of freshmen has allowed Residence Life to re-open floor lounges.
In previous years, several of the floor lounges were converted into quads to accomodate the overflow.
Residence Life was able to open up half of the first floor of Travers to transfer students, making it half co-ed freshmen and half co-ed upper classmen transfers.
This split was possible because a sample group of upper classmen who previously lived on campus currently reside in the Pennington Rd. transfer houses.
According to Stafford, next year the incorporation of transfer students into the on-campus community will continue.
More Pennington Road transfer houses will be opened up to upperclass women who had previously been living on campus.
This option, available in cooperation with the Trenton State Corporation, will only be available to women because, according to Stafford, due to the gender differences between men and women, "women tend to be less damaging in smaller spaces."
The same percentage of housing will be left available on campus for transfer students who want to live there.
Early arrival procedure
Upper classmen who moved
back early did so under proce dures very different from those of previous years.
"The caliber of the rooms in August was not where we wanted it to be," Stafford said. "We wanted to raise the bar."
Reorganizing the early arrival schedule allowed Residence Life to close the buildings over the summer and provide facilities with more time in the rooms, according to Stafford.
This year's move-in schedule reduced the number of move-in days to seven, moved the check-in time to the afternoon instead of the evening and organized the check-in area for all upper-class residence halls into one place.
Unlike previous years, all early arrivals, with the exception of commuter athletes, were placed directly into their Fall 2003 housing assignments.
According to Stafford, this system makes it easier on both the students and facilities. Students no longer have to switch rooms at the end of the summer, and facilities only has to clean the rooms once.
"It was definately better," Lorraine Johnson, junior English elementary education major said. "There weren't many cars, so there was parking. Registration was pretty easy, you just had to pick up your key."
While all freshman buildings are on a normal lock schedule, upper class residence halls remained on a pre-opening locking schedule until Sunday, Aug. 24, for safety and liability reasons, according to Stafford.
"There hasn't really been any security besides swiping your card to get into your building, but at least there's that," Johnson said.
According to Stafford, aside from a few mechanical problems, the new system "has really worked."
(04/01/03 12:00pm)
In an effort to remedy the underlying race issues that have risen within the Student Government Association (SGA) since the announcement that five minority members were being impeached, President Chris Portera announced his decision to delay the trial hearings until the organization's communication problems could be addressed.
Since the members were first notified of their impeachments, two, Tiffany Meredith, sophomore class secretary and Octavia Smith, senator of culture and society, have resigned and will no longer be involved in the trial hearings.
In place of the scheduled trial hearing Monday night, Portera informed the SGA of the reasons behind his decision.
"This is quite possibly the most difficult moment of my life," Portera said. "For the past two years I have watched the SGA bounce around the issue of race."
According to Portera, the impeachment and senate trials have nothing to do with race and that he made the decision to delay them so that the entire organization could take advantage of the opportunity to work on their communication problems.
"Tonight we were to deal with a recall that had nothing to do with race," Portera said.
"I am tired of bending around this issue," Portera added. "Why is it that when five black members of one organization are impeached, the issue of race is raised but not discussed?"
Rohit Thawani, student trustee, agreed that the main issue behind all of the organization's problems is communication.
"We really have to figure out what was communicated wrong," Thawani said.
"The members with the five worst attendance records were all of a similar race. We acted according to the rules; we had to do what we had to do," he added.
Thawani said that while, in the end, it looked like the impeachments were strategic, race was in no way a consideration.
"I thought it was inevitable that this would come up. The race card was pulled and now we have to talk about why these things are happening," he added.
Before deciding on a course of action, according to Portera, he brought his concerns to Kevin Maldonado, student organizations coordinator, Wanda Anderson, director of Campus Life, Mary-Elaine Perry, dean of Student Life and College President R. Barbara Gitenstein.
"Chris always seeks out a lot of input," Thawani said. "Ultimately it was his decision, but it was a decision he had the right to make."
Thawani added, "I agree with what he is doing. Chris has a lot of pressure on him. We really have to find out what was communicated wrong."
As a result, according to Nadia Gorski, SGA vice president, Perry will look for a person to act as a facilitator of a discussion of race, diversity and communication issues at Wednesday's meeting, previously scheduled as the second day of impeachment trials.
"After discussing with administration and the executive board, we realized there were issues internally, communication wise and diversity wise, that need to be addressed," Gorski said.
"We recognized that these are more pressing issues. If people feel we can't do our job for the students then something needs to be done, which is why we are having this workshop," she added.
"I was surprised at the change of events, but I appreciate what Chris is trying to do," Lauren LeBano, senator of education, said.
"He is trying to make sure the members keep focused on the right issues. I admire that he took time to address that," she added.
"While every senator has the right to express their feelings," Gorski said.
"Chris is president for a reason. I am putting my trust in the fact that he made the right decision and I think that he did," she added.
"Nothing with impede this organization from moving forward," Portera said.
At this time there has been no date set for the impeachment trial hearings.
It has yet to be announced whether the Wednesday workshop will be a general body meeting.
SGA general body meetings are held every Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in the Brower Student Center, Room 202.
(03/25/03 12:00pm)
"I've got promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."
Mr. Gray summed up the lives of the four main characters of "Dreamcatcher" pretty well when he uttered those 12 words.
Lawrence Kasden's latest venture, adapted from Stephen King's novel of the same name, chronicles the lives of four men - Henry (Thomas Jane), Beaver (Jason Lee), Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Jonesy (Damian Lewis) - who are inexplicably tied to their past and to a fifth friend who made their future possible.
As children, they performed a surprisingly heroic act, their self-proclaimed 'finest hour,' by saving a mentally challenged boy, Douglas Cavelle (Donnie Wahlberg), from high school bullies.
Through a connection afforded only by the innocence of youth - Duddits, the name the boys use for Douglas, gives them a supernatural gift that ties them together forever, even though they don't understand why. When the movie opens, the boys are all grown up and utterly dissatisfied with their lives. They meet at Hole in the Wall, Beaver's cabin in the Maine woods, for their annual hunting trip - Henry contemplating suicide, Beaver, a personal and professional failure, Pete, an alcoholic and Jonesy recovering from an accident that killed him twice. Around them, a game of beat-the-clock begins between the military and a deadly alien force.
As the story unfolds, the main characters begin to examine their abilities and their relationship to Duddits. They slowly come to realize connections between the men they have become, the questionable humanity of the boy they left behind and the bizarre series of events unfolding in the woods around them.
When they reach the end of the road, which just happens to be in Massachusetts, they get the opportunity to perform the second great heroic act of their lives. Reunited with Duddits, once again, the culmination of the choices they have made since childhood become apparent in one last poorly animated wrestling match of good vs. evil.
To be fair, the first hour was, for the most part, true to story . but the decency ended there. This is a perfect example of why I am so skeptical about seeing movies adapted from novels. I am sure they all thought they were doing King justice, but I don't see how. Kasden substituted plot and characterization for action and gore.
For example, in the second hour you find out that Jonesy is trapped inside his own head, watching helplessly as Mr. Gray (an alien, if you didn't already catch that) borrows his body to complete his otherworldly mission. Talk about an internal conflict! Definitely one of the most important aspects of characterization in the novel, not to mention one of my favorite parts. It was disappointing to see how little screen time it received. If something is written as well as this part is, it needs to occupy more than five minutes of the plot.
While I felt the characterization of the main characters, as well as their relationship to Duddits and each other, was sinfully underdeveloped, I thought Morgan Freeman (Colonel Curtis) and Tom Sizemore (Owen Underhill) really gave their characters life.
In the short time allowed for character development, Freeman gives a convincing performance personifying power on the verge of insanity, while Sizemore capably handles his struggle between loyalty to his outlandish mentor and the chance to follow a psychic stranger and save the world. It sounds so corny when you say it out loud.
Not for nothing, the bathroom scene where Beaver gets killed by a shit weasel is truly amazing. Yes, Beaver gets killed, and yes, I did just say shit weasel. Allow me to explain. Tiny little aliens get ingested by unsuspecting humans and gestate inside the body. When they are fully developed, they chew their way out through your . well . you get the picture. In short, the Beav gets his face eaten by a giant muscle with way too many teeth. Suspenseful to the end - even though I knew what was coming.
If you are looking for action and some poorly conceived alien shenanigans this is definitely the movie for you. If, on the other hand, you are in the mood for plot and - gasp - characterization, spend your $7.50 at the video store renting "Red Dragon."