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(10/10/08 8:17am)
WATCHING the vice presidential debate last Thursday, it seemed obvious to me who delivered the more impressive performance. Joe Biden was articulate, confident, and well-informed; he delivered every answer straightforwardly and without hesitation. Sarah Palin stumbled over her words, made frequent use of filler phrases like “as I’ve said before” and folksy sayings like “you betcha,” and at times left questions completely unanswered. Yet, making the rounds on Time, Newsweek and CNN the next day, it seemed like everybody was praising Palin’s performance. And sadly, the praise essentially consisted of: “Good job, Sarah — you didn’t screw up quite as bad as we all thought you would.” The bar was set so low for Palin that even her jumbled, frequently incoherent performance exceeded expectations.“Polls indicated [Palin] didn’t win — but the absence of gaffes meant she didn’t lose either,” wrote the Associated Press in an article from October 3rd. What? Shouldn’t the criteria for succeeding in a debate for one of the most important offices in the world be slightly more stringent that just managing not to look like a complete idiot? It’s not a victory, or even a draw, just because she got through the debate without making any serious mistakes. That should be a given. A candidate for the vice presidency should be eloquent, clear, and always up to date on current events around the world. Palin is none of these things.What Palin, is, however, is a just a regular woman — a weakness that the GOP is marketing as a strength. “Palin is on the ticket because she connects with everyday Americans,” an anonymous McCain advisor told Newsweek. This message is resonating with the red states, who see Sarah Palin as one of their own, somebody they can relate to. They like her winks and shrugs, her use of charming colloquialisms, they even like that she doesn’t seem to know much more about politics than they do. Palin herself, when asked about the sometimes downright hostile reaction to her candidacy, told a radio host: “I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying, ‘You know what? It’s time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency.’” No it isn’t. There’s a reason Joe Six-Pack isn’t the President, or even Vice President, of the United States of America: Joe Six-Pack isn’t qualified for the position. The presidency of this nation is arguably the most important and most powerful job in the world, and the Vice President is just one wrong bite of a pretzel away from being required to step into that office. How has that suddenly become a position that any schmuck off the street is ready to fill? Somehow, it’s become a liability to be too articulate, too smart, too well-informed. Some people have criticized Obama for his high-falutin’ language and Harvard education, calling him an elitist who can’t understand everyday folks. Sarah Palin understands us, they say. Sarah Palin isn’t any smarter, or richer, or more informed than we are; she’s just like us. Elite — that’s an insult now. To be elite is to be the best; when did it become a bad thing to be the best? We want elite doctors to heal us, elite lawyers to defend us, elite athletes to represent us, but not elite leaders to govern us? This is a phenomenon that we just don’t observe in any other field. You wouldn’t want the pilot of your international flight to be just an average dude; you’d want him to have the highest possible level of training for the job. You’d want only the best, most reliable, most qualified contractor to remodel your home. You wouldn’t want Joe Six-Pack performing your brain surgery, so why would you want him (or her) heading your country?When did mediocrity become a virtue? When did being average trump being extraordinary? Sarah Palin is the lowest common denominator. “She’s an ordinary person,” her supporters say, “and that’s why I’m voting for her.” They love her ignorance, they revel in her unawareness. They don’t care that she has almost no education relevant to the challenges a McCain-Palin administration would face. They don’t care that she knows almost nothing about Middle Eastern history, doesn’t understand the economy, and has trouble naming a single Supreme Court case except Roe v. Wade. Somehow, the fact that she’s totally unqualified has become a virtue because we, as a nation, have come to shun excellence in our politicians. It’s become more important to be relatable than to be qualified.There’s no doubt Sarah Palin is an ordinary person, a woman who’s a member of the sizeable demographic of conservative moms in the United States. Her folksy charm and down-to-earth attitude are endearing to many, but being a regular Jane doesn’t make Sarah Palin a good choice for higher office. As with the top dogs in any other field, the commander-in-chief should be the best of the best, the most qualified, the smartest, the most informed, the one with most intelligent ideas — and that just isn’t Palin.Michelle Lamont is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint Writer.
(10/03/08 7:40am)
AS A NON-SMOKER, it’d be logical for me to wish to see cigarette smoke as far removed from the public arena as possible, but the restrictions on smokers’ rights are getting to be absurd. Already, smokers can’t light up in bars, restaurants, public buildings and, in some states, even outside on the street. Now, the state of Pennsylvania has taken it one step further by banning smoking on all public university campuses. The ordinance bans smoking inside and outside all university-owned buildings, including classrooms, residence halls, university-owned apartment complexes, and even campus sidewalks.The new rule has sparked a lot of controversy. Some students applaud the new regulations, signing petitions in support of the ban and lauding the benefits of reducing smoking amongst young people. Others have staged “smoke-ins,” protesting the smoking restrictions that they feel are a violation of their personal rights. No one with a television set is unaware of the dangers of smoking. It’s impossible to watch even Dora the Explorer with your little sister without seeing one of the dozens of painfully “hip” anti-smoking advertisements. Even if you somehow managed to miss these commercials, upon purchasing any pack of cigarettes, you’d be confronted with a Surgeon General’s warning that states in bold, black lettering: “Smoking leads to heart disease,” or the decidedly less subtle, “Smoking kills.” Despite these warnings, an estimated 25.9 million men (23.9 percent) and 20.7 million women (18.1 percent) in the United States choose to smoke, according to the 2005 National Health Interview Survey. And, as adults and law-abiding citizens of the United States of America, choosing to smoke is their prerogative. Many who oppose smoking do so on the grounds that second-hand smoke harms others in the vacinity of the smoker and not just the smoker himself. Those who applaud the ban support it because it reduces these dangerous environmental emissions, which can lead to lung cancer and emphysema even amongst non-smokers. Second-hand smoke is a legitimate concern in libraries and classrooms, where students often spend hours at a time and would be forced to endure extended periods of breathing in cigarette fumes, but smoking has already been illegal in these indoor areas for quite some time. Passing a smoker outside on the way to class is, at worst, going to result in a vague whiff of the scent of cigarette smoke, nowhere close to the exposure necessary to result in long-term health consequences. According to the Surgeon General, even living with a smoker and breathing second-hand smoke on a near-constant basis only inceases the risk of contracting lung cancer by 20 percent. (Being a smoker yourself increases the risk of lung cancer by 10 to 20 times — 1000 percent to 2000 percent — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) The reality is that the outdoor aspect of the ban may in fact do more harm than good.If smoking is banned in public spaces like sidewalks, beaches or parks, smokers at least have the refuge of their own homes. However, for the collegiate set, campus is home. These smokers are addicted; Simply making their addiction illegal will not magically allow them to suddenly quit cold turkey. According to TIME magazine, about one in five college students are smokers. While I, as a non-smoker, don’t fully understand what motivates this 20 percent to pick up a potentially deadly habit, I, as an American, believe very strongly in their right to make that choice. Banning smoking on college campuses is not only an infringement on personal rights, it’s impractical and impossible to enforce. College students are adults who decide their own housing, their own class schedules, their own work schedules and their own careers. They also have a right to make their own choices concerning their health.While the ordinance doesn’t prohibit students from being smokers, outlawing smoking anywhere on campus essentially leaves addicted students no choice but to either break the rules or travel several blocks to potentially dangerous non-student areas to indulge their habit. How many of us know of a friend who chain-smoked her way through a three-test week, standing outside Clemons in the cold with a cigarette ember glowing between her fingers? Imagine this same girl having to walk east of 14th street just to satisfy her addiction — it’d be dangerous, unnecessary and far more frightening than a transient tendril of cigarette smoke. Of course, the ban also leaves students the option of quitting, but that would be underhanded and manipulative. Wouldn’t Pennsylvania like us to believe that their ban has nobler intentions than forcing smokers into giving up the habit? There are plenty of good reasons to quit smoking. Your own health and the health of others are among the chief concerns, along with financial reasons ($5 a pack!). But the bottom line is that the decision to quit must be a personal one, motivated by personal choices. Continuing to restrict smoking in public areas may help lower the number of Americans who choose to smoke, but it does so in a decidedly un-American way.Michelle Lamont is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint Writer.
(09/26/08 4:00am)
I CAN ONLY imagine how it must feel to be Marc Verica right now. Originally confined to the bench behind Jameel Sewell and Peter Lalich, the third-year quarterback is suddenly looking at starting every game this season.On September 18th, quarterback Peter Lalich was permanently released from the football team after violating the terms of his drinking-related probation by consuming alcohol. Lalich, who turned 20 in May, had received a misdemeanor in July for underage possession of alcohol in his bloodstream.Athletic director Craig Littlepage and head coach Al Groh both expressed regret over the situation, but stated that they “remained united” in their decision to release Lalich.There’s no question that Lalich messed up — twice — but permanently dismissing him from the football team is a gross overreaction. Jameel Sewell, the quarterback who proceeded Lalich, is currently on suspension because of poor academic performance. This University is primarily a place of higher learning, yet the total neglect of academic pursuits receives a lesser sentence than a misdemeanor unrelated to either academics or football. It took several legal cases — including a ticket for reckless endangerment, a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and possession of marijuana — before Marcus Vick was even suspended from the Virginia Tech Hokies. Assuming that Lalich is honest in rescinding his admission of marijuana use during his probation, his crime is one of the most common on college campuses nationwide. Obviously there’s no debating that Lalich broke the law, and it’s right that he face consequences like any student. According to Dean of Students Allen Groves, students who are arrested for underage possession of alcohol are referred to UJC for a possible sanction decided by their peers. “The University does not condone underage drinking,” Dean Groves stated, “but we’re also not naive. We want students to obey the law, but we also focus on educating those underage students who do choose to drink on ways to avoid harming themselves or others.”The University administration does everything it can to regulate a pasttime that’s impossible to stop. The University’s policy is an excellent example of disciplinary action that reflects the relative mildness of the crime, whereas the athletic department’s reaction is unfairly harsh and ignores the reality of college culture. Obviously, Lalich should have respected the terms of his probation. But odds are, he probably thought that it just wasn’t a big deal — he probably felt the same total lack of concern that most of us feel when we show fake IDs at Coupe’s or stumble drunkenly down Rugby Road. Lalich even stated that he thought the terms of his probation were only that he not get arrested, not that he abstain from alcohol. This misperception belies an assumption on Lalich’s part, and undoubtedly the part of many others, that the biggest concern regarding alcohol consumption isn’t whether or not you’re of age, but whether or not you get caught. The law in this case is broken so casually that most of us under 21 even forget that what we’re doing is illegal if we’re out drinking at a party. College drinking culture is so pervasive, so widely acknowledged, that most of us drink assuming total impunity — even in broad daylight before football games or out on a porch as cop cars meander by.College students get two conflicting messages about underage drinking. We know it’s illegal, but the media portrays it as a timeless tradition in movies like Old School, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder and Superbad. We read statistics about it in the Stall Seat Journal and get pamphlets on what to do if our friends get alcohol poisoning. All of these things essentially acknowledge that underage drinking is pretty harmless as long as we’re not endangering ourselves or others. We recognize the severity of an arrest for violent crime, but the message seems to us to be that it’s actually okay to drink underage as long as we’re responsible. The idea that it might have serious legal ramifications seems ludicrous to many of us, and in most cases, a single night in jail is the severest retribution we might face. Peter Lalich likely didn’t expect to face any serious consequences, either. What happened to him was the ultimate unfairness: one person being punished for a crime that innumerable others, in and outside of sports, get away with every day. Lalich may not be your average student, but he’s still a 20-year-old kid who is going to make mistakes in the pursuit of a little collegiate fun. Regardless of its legal status, the college drinking culture is well-known, and it is generally met with a “kids will be kids” mentality that merits little more than knowing smiles from alumnae who remember their own fraternity heyday. In Lalich’s case, an offense that he had every reason to believe would be met with a scolding, or at worst a suspension, was suddenly an unforgivable infraction. What are we to make of these mixed messages? Is underage drinking a harmless college pastime, or a crime worthy of permanent dismissal? There’s no question that Peter Lalich made a mistake, and he deserved to face consequences. However, the severity of Lalich’s punishment wasn’t warranted given the relative harmlessness of his crime.Michelle Lamont is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint Writer.
(09/19/08 4:34am)
ON THE morning of September 15, Pope Benedict XVI administered the sacrament of the sick to hundreds of ill and dying worshippers in Lourdes, France. During the mass, Benedict urged the attendees, many of whom listened from wheelchairs or cots, to “accept death at God’s choosing,” a message which reaffirms the Vatican’s belief that all life should continue until its natural end.The Pope urged those in attendence Monday to reject the temptation to choose euthanasia in the face of extreme suffering. In several European countries, physician-assisted suicide is already legal. The Pope is right to encourage the faithful to make the choices they feel are in accordance with their faith, but many Christians are understandably conflicted when it comes to addressing the moral questions that modern science poses. It is safe to say that scientific advancements have now far surpassed the guidelines outlined in religion text. That’s why voluntary euthanasia is an issue that needs to be considered objectively and scientifically.The Pope’s speech in France highlights an interesting paradox in the Christian argument against voluntary medical euthanasia: namely, that the insistence on allowing God’s plan to unfold is undermined by the allowance of medical intervention to save lives while refusing medical intervention to end them. It is common in medicine to artificially prolong life, so the argument that speeding up the dying process is “defying God’s will” is invalid. If that is true, it is also defying His will to prolong life through the use of breathing machines, pacemakers, chemotherapy, organ transplants or even any number of common drugs like medication for heart disease.This paradox exists because Christianity upholds the sanctity of life, but it doesn’t believe in any sanctity of death. Consider, for example the 2005 debate concerning the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. Schiavo, who was then 41, had entered a persistent vegetative state at age 26, and had since become entirely dependent on machines to survive. Schiavo’s husband claimed that she had asked to be allowed to die if she should ever be unable to survive on her own, but Schiavo’s parents insisted that their daughter would have wanted to live. The issue became a media frenzy regarding Schiavo’s right to die versus her right to live.While Schiavo’s case wasn’t an issue of physician-assisted suicide, the argument was the same: It would be wrong and bad to choose death deliberately when one can choose life, even a truncated and miserable life. Those opposed to removing Schiavo’s feeding tube argued that allowing her to die would be un-Christian. Life, they claimed, is an absolute value, and it is an obligation in all cases to preserve that life. Life is good, therefore death is bad. This one-size-fits-all approach ignores personal choice and unique circumstance. Isn’t it far more compassionate to allow the sick to choose just how long they’re willing to tolerate a life with little or no quality? Life is a good, but it is a limited one, and on some level we all recognize that. That’s why termination of lifesaving care, if specified on public record, is legal in America. If Terri Schiavo had made a documented statement that she wished to be taken off of life support if she should ever enter a persistent vegetative state, her wishes would have been granted without a decade-long court battle. But, ironically, if Schiavo herself had been well enough to explicitly ask to be allowed to die, her request would have been denied.Many concerns have been raised regarding the legalization of euthanasia. For instance, would legalizing euthanasia put undue pressure on the financially unstable to end their lives rather than seek expensive medical treatment? Hopefully not, since the 2008 presidential election has essentially promised a revised healthcare system that would provide insurance and affordable medical care to all citizens within the next few years. Others are afraid that some might wish to terminate their lives because of emotional pain, but doctors can easily refuse to administer the treatment to those they feel unfit for it. Some worry that it might lead down a “slippery slope” to involuntary euthanasia of patients who wish to continue receiving lifesaving treatment. However, there is a clear moral difference between terminating the life of a consenting patient and terminating the life of a patient at the request of others without his consent or against his wishes. There is no evidence to suggest that allowing voluntary euthanasia in the interest of compassion and at the patient’s request would lead to widespread murder. The “slippery slope” has yet to materialize in countries where euthanasia is already legal, or in Oregon where the Death With Dignity Act has allowed the terminally ill to self-administer lethal doses obtained by their physicians since 1997. Since Schiavo’s case was decided, the issue of “end of life choices” has largely fallen off the radar. And it’s a shame, because this is an issue that could affect any one of us, without warning, at any time. It could be our parents or our siblings or even ourselves who are the next to enter into a long, painful battle with a disease that slowly robs us of our independence before our inevitable death. Why should they, or we, be forced to endure an undignified end to a dignified life? Arguments in right-to-die cases often mention a “culture of life” which protects all life at all costs. This implies a universal approach to an extremely personal matter that can only be decided by the individual. Each of us has our own unique limits for what we will and won’t bear at the end of our days. Those who agree with the Pope’s message deserve the right to die on God’s terms, but those who disagree deserve the right to die on their own terms. The law should recognize this, and allow for the choice of legal euthanasia in cases where a patient believes continuing to live would be far crueler than dying. Oh, and just so that it’s on public record: If I’m ever in a persistent vegetative state, please remove me from life support.Michelle Lamont is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint Writer.