The Right Response to Katrina
The effects of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita will be felt long after New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast are restored to their former conditions.
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The effects of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita will be felt long after New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast are restored to their former conditions.
Lost in these ceaseless accusations as to whether United States government officials dropped the ball before Sept. 11, 2001 is the legitimate debate about how effective the war in Iraq has been in combating global terrorism. Never was this more apparent than during the most recent presidential news conference on Wednesday, April 14, the first such gathering in six months. On several occasions, members of the press baited President Bush to confess mistakes and each time Bush responded by saying, more or less, that the United States was doing God's work.
As I stepped outside of the moldy airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a proverbial deluge of poverty-stricken children mobbed me and my family. The distance from the decaying lobby hall of Port-au-Prince International Airport was a mere matter of feet and yet I was instantly swarmed by eight year-olds, each offering menial services, such as carrying my carry-on bag, as barter for change. It was August of 1996 -- the onset of the first and most salient of my three trips to Haiti. At the time I was a 14-year-old, long-haired (alternative phase) adolescent, traveling with his two siblings and parents, both of whom are physicians, as we followed what can best be described as a medical and humanitarian vocation.
I like the media, I really do. I just have problems with them -- and not because of a perceived right-wing bias or because Ace was voted off Real World"Road Rules "Inferno." No, my problems stem from the media's sensationalism and detrimental sociopolitical influence. Before I continue, let's flash back to last fall.
As Howard Dean approached the podium two nights ago to address his political foot soldiers, a sense of perverse anxiety and curiosity must have resonated throughout the crowd -- anxiety over a distant third-place finish Dean suffered at the Iowa caucuses and curiosity over what steps the good doctor would take to revitalize his once promising, now plummeting, campaign.
In a peculiar twist of fate, Pete Rose, famed baseball star and gambling aficionado, admitted to a decade of sequential lies about his propensity for deleterious betting binges and actually lost the adoration of the baseball hierarchy. Anyone who knew Rose's saga -- his famed career as an unmatched hitter, his passion for the baseball, his on-field temperament and ultimately the gambling addiction that ruined it all -- held firmly to the belief that the reclamation of his life as a baseball hero (in this case his election to the Hall of Fame and perhaps his reentry into the managerial fraternity) depended upon his coming clean, admitting his shortcomings as a person and acknowledging the damage he did to the sport's integrity.
Since President Bush and Co. recently announced that they were turning over to Iraqis increased security and governing responsibility , there have been several ominous developments that have deepened my anxiety over this Iraq calamity (for lack of a more objective term). To begin with, amid a wave of anti-American attacks the enigmatic Trent Lott dropped this little sound bite: "Honestly, it's a little tougher than I thought it was going to be [in reference to Iraq]." Then he added, "If we have to, we just mow the whole place down and see what happens." Holy crap! I know the contention that sometimes in order to pick yourself up, or in this case to resurrect a massive nation rebuilding project, you have to hit rock bottom first. But Lott's quote is a tad bit inhumane and obtuse for my endorsement.
Everything seemed to be falling into place for the Democratic Party. The month of October saw some of the most redemptive and satisfying political highs Democrats had enjoyed in months. Rumsfeld sweating through the memo leak saga, the President's popularity evaporating like crushed up Oxycontin from under Rush Limbaugh's nose, Republican congressmen questioning Iraqi intelligence reports, the Yankees (the Republicans of baseball) losing to the Marlins (symbolically the Democrats) -- these were signs of a Republican apocalypse.
If there is such a thing as a certainty in Arab-Israeli bio-politics it is this: even the most mundane of compromises are subject to failure. The landscape is simply not conducive to constructive politics -- no matter how significant Israel's concessions, Arab leadership won't be satisfied; no matter how great a concession Israel appears to be making there is inevitably a circuitous nature to it. However, the standards of inactivity and rigidity have been redefined by recent developments in the West Bank, specifically the inability of the Israeli government to put up a separation wall without inciting Palestinian outrage. Having proved unable to coexist peacefully, Palestinians and Israelis now seem destined to disagree violently on how to separate themselves. In doing so, the two cultures have finally proved wrong the idiom, "good fences make good neighbors."
Not to take the side of the tiger but I think Roy Horn, half of the Las Vegas duo Siegfried & Roy, had it coming. Roy was attacked by his favorite pet tiger the other day during a show and is now in critical condition. All the hearts in the world go out to Roy for a fast recovery but come on: who plays with a tiger and doesn't expect to get mauled?
My mom always chides me for not reading the newspaper enough, which is ironic because I write for one. So I decided to subscribe to "The New York Times," take a glance at current events, and hopefully regain the love of my mother. Low and behold, there are many interesting news stories circulating our nation. For starters: California's recall seems to be taking political accountability to a new extreme, a hazardous Iraqi war is draining our defense department, the Democratic primaries are redefining pointless bickering and joblessness is at a 70-year high.
A bomb went off at a Yale University Law School on Wednesday, May 21. This incident, coupled with bombings in Saudi Arabia and Casablanca, and an escalating Middle-East dynamic, have inevitably led to the reemergence of a culture of fear -- even in isolated Hanover New Hampshire.
Attention all Democrats: please pardon Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the third ranking Senator in the GOP, for his self-incriminating verbiage. The obnoxiously conservative Senator spewed a bit of verbal garbage at the Associated Press the other day, when he equating homosexuality, with incest, bigamy and polygamy. Santorum said the following:
Here's to hoping the Supreme Court members are ardent followers of political history. If so, here's to hoping they remember Dwight D. Eisenhower's inaugural address on January 20, 1953 where he said: "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." Finally, here's to hoping the Supreme Court and Executive Branch heed Eisenhower's advice on the eve of the post-war legislative forum; a forum dominated by the University of Michigan's affirmative action case. For if they are ardent followers of political history, and do remember Eisenhower, then they will see this case as a reaffirmation of privilege's establishment in our society and the absolvement of our principles.
My friend's father owns and operates The Colonial Funeral Home right outside New Haven, Connecticut. The business is known for its somewhat tasteless and offensive ads, but the company makes up for its edginess with credible service and honest prices. One day my friend's father and I were discussing why people are so susceptible to getting ripped off on funerals. "It's easy to sell someone a product when they're not in their normal state of mind," he told me over a cup of coffee and an open casket.
Welcome to the new genre of reality television. A masterpiece production of Shakespearian tragedy, a war we can watch at any time of the day. The only drawback -- every channel looks the same. War isn't just being fought on the front lines, it's being fought in our living rooms. Something disturbs me about this Hollywood-like coverage of the Iraqi war. Has the moment come when watching the news implied watching death and destruction? Are American media outlets objective enough to be interpreters of such a historical event? Only two weeks in and we can answer the latter -- it has become evidently clear that American media will sensationalize the war. Unfortunately, this sensationalism not only serves as an insult to the gravity of the situation but also as a dissipation of an opportunity to reveal war's horrors.
Does this scenario sound familiar to you?
For all the talk of weapons of mass destruction, political regimes, oil and military technology, the success of the U.S.'s proposed regime change in Iraq will depend upon ideology the most. Further, the ability to mold the correct ideology will shape international relations for decades to come. The Bush administration has thrown all the cards on the table -- not only for future elections but for future diplomacy. During this time of political and economic globalization, the administration must be wary that failure in Iraq might have serious ramifications on international relations. Rarely has an administration risked so much on such an uncertain cause.
Over the past two years there have been myriad constants at Dartmouth. For instance: DOC Trips will determine your first-year friendships, girl's fro-yo addiction will spread faster than most STDs, complaints will be made by various op-ed writers and dinners will be held every Tuesday night at Dean of the Tucker Foundation Stuart Lord's house. It's been this way, every week, for the last two years, and it should be this way for a long time to come.
It was 1994, and I was sitting in the second tier of my high school's auditorium. I remember it distinctly because the whole event was so comical. In front of me were the three candidates running for eighth grade class president, each candidate unique in their own regard. The final candidate to make his presidential speech that day was Haydon Mixsell. Haydon was not the most qualified of nominees. In fact his campaign had the duration of a marathon-like two days. Someone had convinced him to run and seeing nothing better to do with his time, he agreed. His speech is what clinched the presidency. Haydon stood on the podium for about 25 seconds, stiffened with stage fright, unable to articulate the most basic of words. Finally, with embarrassment setting in, Haydon made a valiant attempt to salvage his fleeing opportunity. With the eloquence and profundity of President Bush himself, Haydon pleaded with his classmates to elect him because: