Tuesday, October 19, 2004

by Micaela Baranello
Gazette Reporter

Democratic Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards spoke to a large and energetic crowd at the Haverford Field House yesterday. Throughout his speech and responses to audience questions he emphasized the Kerry-Edwards ticket’s focus on health care costs (the nominal focus of the event), the importance of world-wide alliances and the claim that the Bush Administration is distanced from reality.

Edwards was preceded by a small stampede of local and state-wide Democratic candidates, including Swarthmore’s congressional candidate, Paul Scoles, Attorney General candidate Jim Eisenhower and senatorial candidate Jim Hoeffel. As the audience waited for Edwards to arrive, a short dance party erupted to such campaign classics such as “Love Train,” and “Hey Ya!”

Edwards was introduced by Jill Fenton, a Republican war veteran supporting the Kerry-Edwards ticket. Edwards was greeted by an enormous ovation and first condemned Bush’s speech in New Jersey that morning as “resorting to politics of fear,” and that “the last two people who think things are going well in Iraq are George Bush and Dick Cheney.”

On homeland security, Edwards emphasized that the Bush ticket has not done enough, mentioning insufficient inspection of plane, train and ship cargo; lax security at chemical plants; inadequate intelligence translators; and the lack of a unified terrorist watch list. “This isn’t leadership. This is incompetence,” he said. His proposals included increased inspections, intelligence reform implementing all of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, and a decrease in pork barrel spending.

On the national security front, Edwards discussed the current instability in Iraq and perceived weaknesses in the army and perceptions of America abroad. He proposed to increase the army by 40,000 soldiers and “unite nations to win the war on terror.” He also said that “John Kerry will not be diverted from Osama bin Laden,” and that a Kerry administration would work to secure loose nukes and close loopholes in nuclear non-proliferation treaties. “Everyone will be more secure in a world where America is more respected,” he said.

Edwards described the Bush administration’s approach on health care as “Don’t get sick.” He promised to curb rising health care costs, fix Medicare and make good insurance benefits available to all without the creation of additional government programs. He described the Bush administration as being consistently on the side of big drug companies and insurance agencies and that he “can’t be with [these industries] and still be with you,” He also mentioned that a Kerry administration would fund stem cell research. Audience questions focused on health care.

“This is the most important election of our lifetimes. The American Dream is on the ballot,” Edwards said. The crowd seemed to agree.

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by Andrew Quinton
Gazette Reporter

Dr. Ali Ali-Dinar, Outreach Director of the African Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, came to Swarthmore yesterday to present “A Call For Peace in Darfur”, a talk on the continuing war and genocide occurring in the Darfur region of his native Sudan.

A nearly full Scheuer Room listened to Ali-Dinar describe the history of ethnic conflicts in Sudan and explain the peculiarities of the current situation in Darfur that have made Darfur a well-known name while other conflicts went on unbeknownst to the world. Like many post-colonial African countries, Sudan contains many different ethnic groups. Sudan also has the more unique attribute of being the home of many Arabs. Only the narrow Red Sea lies between Sudan and Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. After years of Arab immigration and the mixing of the Muslims and the natives, it is usually hard to tell who is considered “native” and who is not. British colonial policy and migration patterns left the primarily Islamic north and the primarily native south locked in a bitter civil war from 1955 to 1972. Fighting continued in the South once the war ended as southerners strived for independence from a nation that was being ruled from capital Khartoum under increasingly strict Islamic law. Ali-Dinar stressed that the fighting has always been largely political in nature; the mixing that has gone on between groups has kept pure group conflict down.

Ali-Dinar noted that the government’s chief concern is staying in power, and to do so, it must keep its main army together. As peace treaties slowed down the conflict in the south, the army had nowhere to go, and Dinar says that they were sent to Darfur to keep them occupied. In April, 2003, two rebel groups in Darfur attacked the main army and did a good deal of damage. Despite the fact that 60% of the national army is from Darfur, Khartoum reacted by ordering the army to attack civilians, which has resulted in the genocide that has the world up in arms. In addition, native Darfurians claim that genocide had been going on unnoticed for years before the world finally took notice. 300,000 are dead thus far and 10,000 more dying each year.

The continual fighting in cities and towns has forced residents to set up camps. Dinar said that the camps themselves are fairly safe, but the residents are woefully underfed, and if they dare venture off to cut wood for fires or to attempt to find more food, they are liable to be attacked. Dinar also noted that much of the money being donated to the refugees from around the world doesn’t actually make its way to the people need it. A section of Western Sudan is occupied by refugees from Chad, and as “official” refugees, those people are able to subsist decently. In contrast, there is a lack of organization in the efforts to serve the Darfurian refugees. Along with the drain of funds mentioned above, this lack of organization results in the Darfurians given only rations of wheat, oil, and lentils. Dinar took several minutes to stress the importance of understanding that each individual caught in the conflict has a story of hardship.

The government reaches out to small groups with ambitious and angry leaders, Dinar explained, enlisting them in their efforts to control and kill the citizens of Darfur. “More is to come,” he said, noting that the government has an interest in continuing war as a way of legitimizing its rule and maintaining power. He concluded with 15 minutes of video he took when recently visiting two of the refugree camps. There was no audio, but Dinar told the stories of the people we saw on the screen-a family of six struggling to build a structure out of mud to supplement their small tent, a schoolteacher forced to lie about her ethnicity and flee the city. A question and answer period followed the presentation, which was sponsored by the Deparment of Peace and Conflict Studies, the Black Cultural Center, and SASS.

For more information on the war and genocide in Darfur, visit www.darfurinfo.org or www.darfurgenocide.org. There is also a site on Blackboard with updates on the genocide; email Mark Hanis (mhanis1) for more information.

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* The US military struck suspected safe houses and weapons-storage sites likely used by terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Falluja on Monday night. According to a statement from the military, “multiple secondary explosions indicate a significant amount of explosives or ammunition inside the houses.” In addition, the statement indicated that the strikes would prevent attacks planned by al-Zarqawi using explosive-laden vehicles in the coming weeks. Al-Zarqawi and the Unification and Jihad terrorist group are believed to have carried out a string of recent attacks on Iraqi civilians, Iraqi police officers, and US military personnel. The US State Department offers a $25 million dollar reward for the capture or death of al-Zarqawi, the most wanted known terrorist in Iraq.

* An Anglican church commission released a report on Monday criticizing the decision of the US Episcopal Church to consecrate a gay bishop and “called on the church to apologize and refrain from promoting any other clergy living in a same-sex union,” according to CNN.com. As outlined in the report, when they consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire last November, Episcopal bishops “acted in the full knowledge that very many people in the Anglican Communion could neither recognize nor receive the ministry as a bishop in the church of God of a person in an openly acknowledged same-gender union.” The commission also called on the Episcopal Church to instate a moratorium on promoting individuals in a same-sex union until “some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges.” The conservative stance taken by the commission is not unusual for the Anglican church, a conference of which in 1998 declared gay practices “incompatible with Scripture” and voted 526 to 70 to oppose gay ordinations and same-sex blessings.

* India’s most wanted criminal, known by the name Veerappan, was killed Monday evening during an extended exchange of gunfire according to police in the state of Tamil Nadu. According to officials, police received information on his location on Monday and, upon arriving at the location, fired warning shots at a car before gunfire broke out. Veerappan was accused of killing 120 people, many government officials, and engaging in extensive poaching and smuggling operations. Having been wanted for decades, a task force was set up in an attempt to capture him in 1993. In July 2000, Veerappan broke on to the international stage when he kidnapped one of India’s most popular movie stars, Rajkumar, but then released him unharmed in November. Veerappan had been in government custody briefly in 1986, but was released after paying a $2,000 bribe.

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Study Abroad program visit: University of Melbourne, Australia
Sharples Room #5, 12:00 p.m.

Keith Poole lecture: “Political Polarization and Income Inequality”
Science Center 101, 4:30 p.m.

Mathematics and Statistics Colloquium
Science Center 199, 4:30 p.m.

Planned Parenthood patient escort training
Kohlberg 228, 4:30 p.m.

Study Abroad program visit: University of St. Andrews, Scotland
Pearson 113, 4:30 p.m.

Cinematic Feasts Film Festival: “Halbe Treppe/Grill Point”
Science Center 101, 7:00 p.m.

Feminist Film class screenings: “The Match That Started My Fire”, “Fuses”, “Dyketactics”, “Gently Down the Stream”, “Monsters in the Closet”, “Annie”, “The Color of Love”, “It Wasn’t Love”, “Sex Fish, Coming Home”, and “She Don’t Fade”
LPAC Cinema, 7:00 p.m.

Film screening: “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”
Science Center 199, 7:00 p.m.

Self-defense class
Kohlberg 115, 7:00 p.m.

Shaolin Kung Fu class
Upper Tarble, 8:00 p.m.

Taking exams at Swat
Kohlberg 226, 8:00 p.m.

Swarthmore International Relations Organization & Model UN meeting
Kohlberg 116, 8:30 p.m.

Tango class
Upper Tarble, 9:30 p.m.

Student Council meeting
Kohlberg 230, 10:30 p.m.

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Guidelines for the Fiction Writers’ Workshop, English 070B:

Students interested in the Fiction Writers’ Workshop, English 070B, led this year by Betsy Bolton, should submit a brief printed sample of their writing (complete stories if possible, or excerpts up to a maximum of 5,000 words – no more than 15 double-spaced pages) to Carolyn Anderson in the English Department office, LPAC 202, no later than Friday, Nov. 5, at 4 pm. Please do not send your submissions via email.

The Fiction Workshop is limited to 12 members. Students who have taken previous Fiction Workshops ARE eligible to apply to this one.
Final decisions about admission to the Workshop will be made by Friday, Nov. 12, at 4 p.m. and will be posted on the bulletin board outside of the English Department office, LPAC 202.
Students may apply to both of the English Department’s Spring 2005 creative writing workshops but if accepted to both may enroll in ONLY ONE that semester.

Students will be selected for the workshop not only on the basis of their own writing, but also with an eye to creating a group that will work well together. If you write in different styles or idioms, you might want to include examples of these different styles within your portfolio, even if that means including parts of different stories rather than an entire piece.

Guidelines for Poetry Workshop, English 070A:

Students interested in the Poetry Workshop, English 070A, led this year by Peter Schmidt, should submit a brief printed sample of their writing (up to 10pp. only, please, one poem per page) to Carolyn Anderson in the English Department office, LPAC 202, no later than Friday, Nov. 5, at 4 p.m. Please do not send your submissions via email.

The Poetry Workshop is limited to 12 members. Students who have taken previous Workshops ARE eligible to apply to this one.
Final decisions about admission to the Workshop will be made by Friday, Nov. 12, at 4 p.m. and will be posted on the bulletin board outside of the English Department office, LPAC 202.
Students may apply to both of the English Department’s Spring 2005 creative writing workshops but if accepted to both may enroll in ONLY ONE that semester.

Students will be selected for the workshop not only on the basis of their own writing, but also with an eye to creating a group that will work well together. If you write in different styles or idioms, you might want to include examples of these different styles within your portfolio.

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SPORTS UPDATE

The men’s cross country team earned third place at the Williams College Plansky Invitational this past weekend. Senior James Golden led the Garnet with a tenth place individual finish. Other Swarthmore runners placing in the top 25 were Jim Kreft ’06 (14th), Lang Reynolds ’05 (17th), Keefe Keeley ’06 (18th), and Adam Hunt ’06 (25th). The Garnet will attend the Centennial Conference Championships on October 30 at McDaniel, beginning at 11:00 a.m.

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Today:
There are no contests scheduled for today.

Tomorrow:
There are no contests scheduled for tomorrow.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants.”
— Albert Einstein

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