Private Meeting with Roland Burris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PYbQig8aWo&feature=channel (Video 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiPdBipEzcg&feature=channel (Video 2)

Last week, current Illinois Sen. Roland Burris had a private meeting at ISU with a small number students. The meeting was intended to be no media allowed; however, I was able to get a small video camera in undetected. Unfortunately, in the posting process I lost a large part of the footage; the two videos posted to the links above was all I could salvage, enjoy.

Freedom From Religion

Let me begin this article by stating I am no longer a religious person. There may seem a bias in what I will write, but that is because this is my own personal belief and I feel very strongly on that belief. While I will not get into a long lecture on why I do not believe in God, or any god for that reason, since I am sure there will be another chance for me to discuss that topic.

Instead I will be talking about our schools and a piece of legislation which has made its way back into the headlines. The Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act although just deemed unconstitutional in January by the Illinois court system has found its way back to legitimacy. How you may ask, well just change a couple words and problem solved, no more religious context. Really? Do you think that actually works for intelligent people who actually look at what you do down in Springfield?

Let me explain. On January 21, Judge Robert W. Gettleman stated that the law “…is a subtle effort to force students at impressionable ages to contemplate religion”. Gettleman continues with more on why his interpretation of the law is unconstitutional by stating “a teacher is required to instruct her pupils, especially in the lower grades, about prayer and its meaning as well as the limitations on their 'reflection’”.

The law has since been changed to The Student Silent Reflection Act taking out the obvious religious reference from the title. Let’s bring back an oldie from the election and state “You can put lipstick on a pig…”. Now I understand many people find nothing wrong with this; that religion shows no harm since we are founded on the basis of Christianity as so eloquently stated by anyone who believes that snakes can talk and that some guy 2,000 years ago can create zombies out of old friends (this is Lazarus for those of you cannot follow).

Let me go ahead and talk about the implications of these types of statements on our foundation on a religion. “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.” Sounds like some radical left-wing nut doesn’t it? Well it somewhat is, his name is Thomas Jefferson. Not obvious enough for you? How about John Adams stating, “The government of the United States in not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

13% of US citizens claim to be non believers of any religion. May not seem like much so who cares if they get offended, right? Well what if we decided to leave out the Civil Rights movement in history classes? Only 13% of US Citizens are black, so who cares if they are offended? We need to make sure that both Jews and Muslims rights are not infringed upon when it comes to dress, but they combined only make up less that 2% of the population.

What I am stating is there is such a double standard in our country to protect the rights of those who have a religious foundation but anyone who questions that guy in the sky must have something wrong with them so who cares. Schools are the one place where people are the most impressionable and we need to keep religion where it belongs, mythology and literature classes. Let me end on this question, what would John Adams or Thomas Jefferson think of this law being placed?

MILK

By: Katie Boundy

Although not widely released, the 2008 movie Milk is a portrait of one of the most influential characters of the 20th century. Harvey Milk was elected to board supervisor of San Francisco in 1977, the first openly gay elected official in the United States.

The 1970s were brutal for people like Harvey Milk. Some medical professionals considered homosexuality to be a mental illness. Gay men were attacked on the streets and could be sent to prison for having consensual sex with other men. Interracial marriage had only been legalized a few years before – the thought of legal gay marriage was preposterous.

Harvey Milk was elected by sheer determination. He moved to San Francisco in 1972, where he simply ran a small camera store. He never had political aspirations, but his brilliant speaking skills and sense of humor won him popularity in the neighborhood, and he ran for State Assembly in 1973. He was defeated in 1973 and again in 1975, but was elected to a city supervisor position in 1977 amid strong support from the gay community, senior citizens, and ethnic minority groups.

As supervisor, Milk’s greatest victory was working to prevent the passage of Proposition 6, also called the Briggs Initiative. John Briggs, a California congressman, wrote legislation that would have required that homosexual teachers be fired from their jobs. Most polls showed that the initiative was certain to pass by a wide margin, but in the final days before the vote, the gay population mobilized thousands of activists who were able to turn the tide. Many people opposed it because of the threat to privacy and civil liberties, and the initiative was defeated by over one million votes on November 7th, 1978.

Because of his lifestyle, Milk was a political target and received occasionally severe threats to his life. He recorded a will on November 18th, 1978, in which he stated with eerie foresight, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” Nine days later, after only 11 months in office, he was assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former board member with whom Milk had major policy disagreements. White first shot and killed Mayor George Moscone, and then cornered Milk, shooting him five times, including twice in the head.

White was acquitted of both murders and sentenced to less than 8 years for manslaughter. On May 21st, 1979, riots erupted against the light sentence in what is known as the White Night. Protestors threw rocks and burning objects at City Hall, and riot police stormed a gay bar, beating innocent patrons. The bar fight spilled into the streets and lasted for hours. In the end, over 160 people had to be hospitalized and the damage to the city totaled more than one million dollars.

Harvey Milk left a legacy not only for San Francisco, but for all of America. He inspired Cleve Jones to begin the AIDS quilt, and paved the way for more civil rights legislation. His election inspired people across America and his words will endure for generations: “Without hope, we give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”

What’s Your Excuse?

By: Chris Williamson

All too often we hear of people saying that students just don’t care about other people, or that we have no desire for civic engagement. Now to paint all college students with this wide of a brush really shows ignorance on their part, but being a college student, I have to say sometimes there is some truth to the picture which they are painting.

I look back to election night when the students of ISU marched through the streets chanting “Obama, Obama” and “Yes we can!” I guess my question was too many of these students, did you? How many of those students volunteered to make phone calls at the campaign office, or on weekends walked door to door, registered voters, or made trips out to Indiana or Iowa to canvass for the campaign? The more important question was how many of these students voted?

Now this may be a cynical look at election night. A great thing happened for our country and the world in my opinion. I had one of the greatest satisfactions ever in my life seeing those returns come in and watching the sweeping win. It may seem somewhat pointless to make this argument, but how much better the victory would have been if all of those students were knocking on doors giving the campaign such a visual representation of what college students are really like.

I know how active college students are and what differences they are making every day. The only thing is how visual are we? Why does this stigma still exist that students are inactive? Is it because when it comes to the most noticeable time to be active we chose not to?

To which I have to ask to ISU as a whole, what’s your excuse for not being active? To those who are active, thank you. But to others, what is your excuse? Is it that you do not have time? Do you not know how to get involved? Do you just not care? Being very active on campus with volunteering I know how readily available opportunities are for students to get involved. To which I have to ask once again, what is your excuse?

I do this as a wake-up call to our university community to be more active and visual in the community. And by more active, I mean more people need to be involved, not just the same people doing more. That same President which so many came out to show support for has asked for our help in rebuilding our country. Will you take up that call, or keep living the same life you did before November 4th? Get involved, get active, and show to the rest of this nation that we are ready to take our nation back and we will be ready when our time comes.

NOISE: What Films Can Tell Us About Civics

By: Travis Boundy

As any ISU student with an apartment overlooking a parking lot at will tell you, car alarms can be one of the worst offenders when it comes to noise—right up there with your neighbor’s Sunday-night-subwoofing. Just imagine what it must have been like for fictional movie protagonist David Owen, the main character of Henry Bean’s 2008 dark comedy Noise. David Owen is a New York City lawyer struggling to cope with a city full of alarms that plague him when he is at home and at work.

Owen discovers that he can accomplish nothing when car alarms are going off, and finds them impossible to ignore, despite the pleadings of his wife, who fails to understand his problem. Here is a display of one of the major themes of the film: impotence. Owen yells at the alarms, pleads for them to stop, but gets no response in turn. This theme is seemingly appropriate in our modern world, where many Americans feel that they are afloat in a sea of helplessness, where nothing is what it seems. We watch our institutions crumble around us and ask, “What can we do?”

Allegory or not, Noise has David Owen asking the same question, but his initial reaction was to commit a series of vigilante acts under the alias “the rectifier,” a masked hero on the side of the people, who broke into cars at night and silenced car alarms, often resulting in significant property damage, but always a good laugh for the viewer.

Unfortunately, the villains that most of us feel we have to contend with aren’t handled as easily as car alarms. Banks fail because of bad loans and investments, and we watch them receive cash handouts from our government, with a stunning lack of regulation that leaves us feeling sort of helpless. Then think about Rod Blagojevich, who was willing to sell a vacated senate seat. Think about Bernie Madoff. The list goes on and on, and ‘we the people’ start to feel like we don’t have a fighting chance.

Owen eventually gives up on “the rectifier,” after he gets arrested several times, and is forced to leave his wife and spend a month in prison. His marriage ruined, he realizes that there has to be a better way to solve his problems than simply destroying property. So Owen and his assistant decide to petition for an initiative on the New York City ballot, which would change the laws regarding car alarms and make it illegal to let alarms sound for extended time periods.

Harris Brings the Fight for Same-Sex Marriage to Illinois

By: James McClister

All over the country, select politicians have been fighting for the rights of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered; and more specifically, their right to marry. At the head of this movement in Illinois is openly gay State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) who has recently announced his intention to propose the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act which would “provide eligible same-sex and opposite-sex couples with the same treatment as those in a civil marriage.”

Rebounding from the failure of his 2007 Civil Union Bill, the Chicagoan representative is back with an even bigger and an admittedly more difficult goal. During a phone conversation Rep. Harris legitimized my concerns that it is unlikely that he will get full support for his Act; however, if after a roll call for support he feels that the Act has the stench of inevitable failure he will purpose, once again, his Civil Union Bill. Rep. Harris has assured full confidence that his Civil Union Bill will be accepted and passed, if in fact he is forced to go that route.

The obvious question at this point is, why does Rep. Harris have full confidence in his Bill, one which was rejected only two years ago; how does he intend to rally support? Rep. Harris was quick to respond, with an unfaltering confidence, that he is taking advantage of our generations most versatile communications tool…the internet.

Rep. Harris informed me that he is gaining support through internet organizing. As a part of a larger plan, he is milking the booming popularity of Facebook.com in his group “Illinois Students for Marriage Equality Bill” where he boasted a robust 13,000 supporters; however, upon research it was discovered that the group had only 9,602 members, a none-the-less impressive number.

It is exciting to finally see the publicized fights for gay rights come to the heartland. And hopefully, with the support of students and the media, Rep. Harris will not have to settle for his Civil Union Bill.

Who is Michael Steele

By: Jonathan Moore

The Republican National Committee made history on Friday, January 30th by electing its first African-American chairman, Michael Steele. After receiving 4% of the African-American vote and less than a third of the Latino vote in the 2008 Presidential election, it seems that the Republican Party is making an attempt to reach out to minority voters. But if this is all they are planning to do to reach out to minority voters and to expand their Party’s reach, then they are going to have very similar results in the upcoming elections with African-Americans and Latinos. African-American voters care about much more than the color of the chairman’ skin; they care about getting a good job, a good education for their children, affordable healthcare and economic opportunity. African-American voters have been refusing to vote for Republicans because Republicans haven’t been speaking about issues that concern the African-American community. To the extent that they have been talking about these issues, they have been on the wrong side of the argument. In order to win support among the African-American community, the Republican Party must address the issues that African-American community cares about the most.

So, who Michael Steele? Steele can be described as a moderate with a slightly conservative bent. He supports issues such as Affirmative Action and has been quoted in 2006 as saying, “Affirmative action programs still necessary to close divides” (Len Lazarick, The Examiner, "Power of the individual" Apr 28, 2006). On this issue, African-Americans may find him attractive. However, on other issues, his stances may be more controversial. He opposes Universal Healthcare and has been quoted as saying, “I don't need government dictating socialized medicine” (The Examiner, "Power of the individual" Apr 28, 2006). He also favors limited government control on welfare (Interview by Brian Lamb on C-Span's Q&A Feb 27, 2005).

Whether you agree with Steele on a number of issues, I think it is fair to say that Steele’s election is historic and it will certainly open up a debate in the African-American community. Hopefully, this is the first of many attempts by the Republican Party to reach out to the African-American and address the issues that many African-Americans are facing.