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Students Honor Trayvon Martin

Students gathered in front of Baron-Forness Library on “Trayvon Tuesday”, April 17, to remember the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old who was killed in Sanford, Florida.

“Justice in general has always been served, but is it really happening when it’s supposed to be?” asked Marlan Jones, a sophomore communications major with a minor in political science, who was leading the event.

According to a New York Times article, it happened like this: It was a dark, rainy night, on February 26, when Martin entered the Retreat at Twin Lakes on his way back to the house he was staying at in Sanford, Florida.

A neighborhood watch had been created in August 2010 due to earlier episodes of robberies, said the article. The guidelines were that the volunteers for the watch should not possess police authority, should not have any firearms, and should only be the eyes and the ears for the police force. George Zimmerman, 28, was chosen for the job.

That night, Zimmerman had a licensed, 9-millimeter handgun and when he spotted Martin walking past his vehicle, he became suspicious and dialed 911, according to the New York Times.

There aren’t many details about what exactly happened during those next six minutes from 7:11 to 7:17 p.m., but what the newspapers were able to find out was that Zimmerman told Martin to stop moving and Martin started running, so Zimmerman set off in pursuit.

What happened after that is unclear. Some say that Martin punched Zimmerman first, while others say that Zimmerman tackled Martin, but no matter how it started, both men ended up wrestling on ground, according to the article.

Someone screamed for help and no one is really sure who it was, but then a single shot was fired and then silence filled the night.

When Zimmerman took it upon himself to chase after Martin, he stepped out of the guidelines that were set for the neighborhood watchmen, according to the New York Times.

Despite the charges filed against Zimmerman on April 11, one student who attended the on-campus remembrance said he was not convinced there was enough evidence to find Zimmerman guilty.

The thing is, said Jones, you’re innocent until proven guilty; however, it seems like you’re guilty until proven innocent.

The Stand Your Ground Law “allows people to use deadly force when they feel a reasonable threat of death or serious injury,” according to a CNN article. In answer to the accusations that he fired too quickly instead of trying to reason with Martin, Zimmerman says that he shot in self-defense with no intention to kill.

Yet some students in the group were saying that because Martin didn’t stop when Zimmerman called for him to stop, he broke the law, so he was just as much in the wrong as Zimmerman was.

While all of suspicions and accusations are flying around in this case, one of the students in the group said that it’s great that more light is being shed on it, but at the same time, the family has to relive it every day and they really can’t seem to escape it.

It’s on the news every single day, so instead of being able to go through the grieving process and getting the chance to move on, it’s being drug out further than it would’ve been otherwise. The student said he could not even begin to imagine how hard it must be for the parents to see their son being talked about on TV.

Most of the students in the group were trying to view the story from both sides. Maybe Zimmerman felt that it was his duty to protect the neighborhood and had some motive for pulling the trigger that night, they said.

After the discussion, Jones asked for a moment of silence to be held to commemorate the death of Martin.

On April 23, Zimmerman was released from jail on a $150,000 bond. Later that day, his attorney, Mark O’Mara announced that Zimmerman would enter a not-guilty plea.

–Anna Tielmann (Taken from The Spectator Vol. III, Issue 25)

Campus Pinpoints Details in Occupy

April 12, 2012 / Anna / 0 Comments

Students from Edinboro University and Mercyhurst College discussed the humane conservative viewpoint of the Occupy Wall Street Movement with Dr. Michael Federici, from the political science department at Mercyhurst, during a panel discussion in the R. Benjamin Wiley Arts & Sciences Center on April 5.

“The problem when we’re general (in our discussions) is we miss the subtleties that allow us to see similarities between things that are seemingly different,” said Federici in his opening comments.

Federici said that humane conservatives tend to take the word “conservative” seriously, in that they believe there is something worth preserving and conserving.

For example, the integrity of the community is important to conservatives and in relation to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, there are several areas of common ground that Federici pointed out.

Concentrated economic power is seen as destructive to local communities, Federici said.

“I’ve seen over the course of decades, small family-run businesses be replaced and forced out by big, giant corporations,” said Federici. “We would call that the ‘Wal-Mart Problem.’”

The Occupy Wall Street Movement claims that they are fighting against the combined power of major banks and multi-national corporations and their influence over politics, Federici said.

Yet, Federici said he doesn’t agree with the way that the Occupy Wall Street Movement demonizes the tens of thousands of people that work there.

“That is precisely the kind of language that I think polarizes politics and discourse,” Federici said.

The idea that it’s possible to transform the entire world is another example of language use that Federici doesn’t agree with. “The very talk of massive, wide-sweeping change is unrealistic and likely to do more harm than good,” he said.

“I think it makes more sense to focus on smaller, local goals that are attainable and to stay within your own community, first and foremost, when it comes to political reform,” Federici stated.

Federici also didn’t agree with the idea that more democracy is better. When we talk about rights and democracy, Federici said, I think you’ve lost touch with how the real world operates

“Political action requires a certain degree of intelligence. Not only intellectual intelligence, but practical intelligence that comes with time and maturity,” said Federici.

In response to Federici’s comments, Sean Fedorko, a recent graduate from Mercyhurst who holds B.A.’s in both Political Science and Philosophy, said that he agrees with what Federici said.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement wants localization and empowerment, Fedorko said.

So, thinking about empowerment in relation to self-interest, Fedorko said, “this is the kernel that really rests in the similarities between humane-conservatism and OWS and maybe (can show) how… these two groups are advocating a very similar goal from very different means.”

The people involved with the movement are advocating a way to regain power because they see an imbalance of power, said Fedorko.

“They seem to be failing, however, due to their knee-jerk reaction to political, economic and social institutions that are failing to foster the good life for the majority: the 99 percent,” Fedorko pointed out.

I think that if the activists were to articulate that what they’re advocating isn’t to seize control of Wall Street and punish them, said Fedorko, but trying to reintegrate Wall Street “as individuals who have sort of lost the way to a community that we all need to foster.”

Brian Barton, a senior majoring in Political Science at Edinboro University, responded next by saying that one of the unifying characteristics of humane conservatism and the movement is the skepticism toward the government.

The problem that conservatives had with the bailouts in 2009 was the government interference in the market, Barton said. They felt that the government was deciding who would be the winner and the losers rather than just allowing the marketplace to decide.

The government intrusion in the marketplace has extended our current economic drought, said Barton, and that’s why I find myself supporting some of what the movement is advocating.

Suzanne Boone, an undergraduate majoring in sociology at Edinboro University, has had a personal experience with the Occupy Wall Street Movement and, in her response to Federici; she said that it’s important to have these conversations in order to get different perspectives on the issue.

“We all have a common thread that holds us together as human beings,” Boone said. It’s all about having respect for the other person and holding that conversation with them about their views and what they’re going to do about them.

“Every single person has to be responsible for the decisions that they make,” said Boone, “and to change the things that they can change within their little area.”

–Anna Tielmann (Taken from The Spectator Vol. III, Issue 23)

Financial Crisis Studied

March 20, 2012 / Anna / 0 Comments

Students and faculty who attended a presentation on February 29 on the U.S. financial crisis, discovered the reasons behind the recession and why the situation hasn’t been improving faster than it has been.

“It didn’t come out of the blue,” said Dr. Samuel Claster, assistant professor of sociology at Edinboro University. “It’s been a 30 year period of corporate deregulation of the banking industry and the financial system as a whole.”

Our economic system has a series of economic and political subsystems and in order for them to each function properly, they have to mix with people’s values, beliefs, attitudes and everyday lifestyles in a process called “socialization,” said Claster.

“Investment banking is the largest industrial sector in America and has been since the late 70s,” Claster said, “but a society cannot sustain when wealth is concentrated in that one economic sector.”

Yet, one of the problems with this is that the system pushes its problems on the citizens and hinders our ability to critically examine and question those in power and domination, Claster pointed out.

This then turns into “irrational functioning,” Claster explained.

America has one of the most advanced health care systems in the world, for example, but is 25th compared to other nations with the number of citizens because of our insurance industry, he said. This is the result of us “living in a society where the many are ruled by a few,” Claster said.

This can be seen in the way the mortgage system works.

In the video “Crisis of Credit Visualized” that Claster showed, Jonathan Jarvis, an interaction and media designer, says investment banks link families with a mortgage lender.

Investment bankers then borrow money and call up the various lenders to buy mortgages, which they then divide up into portions and sell to their different investors.

So, says Jarvis, when the homeowners default on their mortgage, it creates a problem. No one wants to buy a house that isn’t bringing in a profit and then “the whole financial system is frozen.”

“What caused the major collapse illustrates the interconnectedness of the banks in our entire financial system,” said Claster.

On September 7, 2008, the government took over and bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the major mortgage lenders, and on October 3, 2008, the Senate passed a revised version of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

“It’s a capital injection,” said Claster, “and what that means is that some of it is loans to come later, but for now they had to get money to the banks immediately.”

According to MotherJones.com, a news website, the banks were considered too big to fail, so one of the solutions was to make them bigger, such as have Wells Fargo buy Wachovia.

Other problems added to the crisis. Fraud, which is also known as “robosigning,” and Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS), said Claster.

“Robosigning sounds fancy, but it’s actually criminal,” said Claster. It’s when a person gets paid to sign the names of six or so bank presidents to hundreds of different loans without their consent. These are actual legal documents and this happens all over the country.

MERS may be an efficient way to keep track of the thousands of housing mortgages, “but it values efficiency over customer service,” Claster said. “People don’t know who owns their mortgages, they have no contact with them and they don’t know where the actual titles to their mortgages are.”

In 2010, the Frank Dodd Act was put into play. It created a lot of government regulatory councils and commissions so that they could redesign our regulatory system. “Yet, the things that have happened can happen again because new bubbles will burst,” said Claster. “Critics are pushing to break up the banks and stop making them bigger because what we’re actually doing is socializing our problems and privatizing our profits.”

The government also struck a $24 billion deal with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and other major banks,” said Claster. Seventeen billion dollars would be set aside for credit forgiveness, while $5 billion would be put into cash payouts to those who have been foreclosed upon.

Claster asked, “Is the administration saving the system and making real good economic policy and reform or is it all part of a political strategy that keeps the two party system rolling on?”

Claster stressed that Americans must not always trust governmental decision-making. “We have experience and we have the expertise,” Claster said. “We can’t leave it to the people who rule this country.”

–Anna Tielmann (Taken from The Spectator, Vol. III, Issue 19)

APSCUF Negotiates New Contract

February 23, 2012 / Anna / 0 Comments

Amidst Governor Tom Corbett’s proposal of cutting our funding and the possibility of tuition going up again next year, Edinboro University’s faculty unions and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) have been working to negotiate a new faculty contract for the upcoming year.

“What’s nice about it is for all that it’s hard to sit down and work it out, once it’s worked out, we’ve got the rules,” said Dr. Jean Jones, president of Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculty (APSCUF) at Edinboro.

“It makes things a little bit easier once the contract is negotiated. It’s all clear that this is what we’re going to do and how we’re going to proceed for the next couple of years,” said Jones.

There are 46 articles in the contract that deal separately with hiring and firing faculty, number of work hours, sick leaves, online courses, number of classes that an individual professor should be able to have and more, explained Jones.

The faculty contract expired on June 30, 2011 and they have been “going to the table” and sitting down with the union leaders on one side and the PASSHE leaders on the other, trying to come to an agreement on a new contract that both groups can sign off on, said Jones.

“We have been working under the terms of the old contract since it expired,” said Kenn Marshall, the media relations manager for PASSHE. He said PASSHE is aiming to benefit both sides of the negotiation as well as the students at the campus.

According to the PASSHE website, the 14 universities in the PASSHE system pride themselves in offering the lowest costing, four-year degree programs in the state. Currently, the annual in-state tuition is $6,240.

“Nearly 120,000 students, 90 (percent) of whom are Pennsylvania residents, are enrolled at PASSHE universities,” said the PASSHE News Post.

So, as faculty, when it comes down to contractual issues, said Jones, APSCUF wants to protect as much as they can. She stressed good working conditions, how many temporary faculty are working, how often we’re putting classes online, and class size, as examples.

Another worry that has been added to the contract negotiations is Governor Corbett’s proposed state budget cuts.

Jones said she didn’t know if the potential budget cuts will affect the class sizes or the faculty members, but as a union president, she said she was worried about faculty jobs.

“If there was any fat, we’ve cut the fat. We’ve cut into the muscle and I think we’re now down to cutting the bone,” Jones said. “I don’t know where we can possibly find the money to make up for the shortfall.”

Financial costs are always an issue when it comes down to the contract, said Marshall.

He said 75 percent of the finances are personnel-related and reduction of the funding will have an impact on our contract negotiations.

However, contractual concerns aren’t the biggest concerns right now, according to Jones.

We’ll work out our contract, said Jones. “This isn’t about money for professors. This is about us really loving this institution and us being really worried about its future.”

–Anna Tielmann (Taken from The Spectator, Vol. III, Issue 17)

Vets Honored for Duty

December 10, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

During the annual Veterans Day observance on Nov. 11, Edinboro University Fighting Scots Battalion R.O.T.C. Honor Guard fired off a 21-gun salute by the Reeder Hall flagpole in tribute to the veterans that have served the United States.

“Pride in one’s military service is a bond shared by nearly all who have worn the uniform of their country,” said interim President James D. Moran in his Veterans Day address at the Diebold Center for the Performing Arts.

“Veterans Day is a day of remembrance, a day of recognition, a day of honor for those who have served and sacrificed to protect my family and yours,” Moran said.

Moran said that there are currently 23 million living veterans that span the generations from World War I to the present. Just this year alone, there are 70 new freshman cadets in the Fighting Scots Battalion at Edinboro.

According to Captain Jeremy McCrillis, the students in the Battalion have been working on and practicing the traditional flag-folding and 21-gun salute for about a month.

“They did an awesome job,” he said.

“We want to do it right,” said Lt. Col. James Marshall. Employed at Edinboro University since August 2010, Marshall says that the main goal of the R.O.T.C. is academic success.

“[Academics are] first and foremost. But we also want to prepare them for life,” he said. We want to help them find good career options that will motivate them to do their best.

More than over 100 students, as well as current and retired faculty and staff from the university, are also serving or have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, according to the university’s website.

The audience at the ceremony was made up of men and women from the “Greatest Generation” – those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II – as well as young adults from the latest generation.

They “represent [our] nation during history’s most recent wars,” Moran said. “Our debt to these heroes can never be repaid, but our gratitude and respect must last forever.”

Kahan Sablo, vice president of student affairs, was also in attendance. Describing past Veterans Day tributes that the university organized, he said, “We’ve been doing this for a long time. Last year, I received the flag [since] President Brown was travelling.”

A moment of silence was held during the ceremony in respect for the veterans who had served and are still serving our country.

“This Veterans Day – 10 years after the 9/11 tragedy – is a significant milestone in [our] lives,” Moran said.

Moran went on to explain that Veterans Day was originally called “Armistice Day.”

In 1919, President Wilson designated a day to celebrate the agreement signed in the Palace of Versailles that signaled the end of World War I – the war “to end all wars.”

“Let us never forget that our soldiers have liberated Buchenwald, halted genocide in Kosovo, and fought to end starvation in Somalia,” said Moran. “Let us not forget their sacrifices for the preservation of freedom at Pearl Harbor, Okinawa, Omaha Beach, [and] Pork Chop Hill.”

Moran credited veterans with perserving quality of life in America.

“Through their blood, their service, their courage, and their sacrifice, our veterans have given us freedom, security to live in the greatest nation on earth.”

– Taken from The Spectator (Vol. 3, Issue 11) on November 17, 2011

To Burn or Not to Burn

March 31, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

Burning tires instead of coal and hydrofracking the Marcellus Shale are not the best energy options for our environment, said Dr. Sherri A. Mason, in her “Tires-to-Energy, Hydrofracking, and the Case for Renewable Energy” lecture in the Frank G. Pogue’s Student Center Multipurpose Room B on March 17, 2011.

“Nothing is perfect,” Mason, a chemist and environmentalist from State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia, emphasized as one of her main points of her lecture.

She spoke at Edinboro University in response to the proposed tire-to-energy plant that will be located in Crawford County. She also addressed the current drilling for natural gas in northwestern Pa.

Currently in the United States, 40 percent of our energy use is to generate electricity, she said, and this is done through a process called combustion.

“Ideally,” Mason pointed out, “you want nothing except carbon dioxide and water” as a result of complete combustion. But, that’s not always the case.

Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, are a huge group of completely unoxidized compounds that are released during any combustion process. “Whether you’re talking about what’s coming out of the tail end of your car, or a cigarette, or a campfire,” Mason said. “You’re going to have a significant amount of VOCs being released.”

Comparing the results of burning tires to burning coal, you find that tires produce less air pollutants and they contain a lot more carbon than coal does, Mason explained. Carbon is what helps to produce the energy for our electricity and an abundance of carbon means a higher energy level.

Yet, tires also contain a large amount of fixed carbon, or soot. “It’s the part that can’t be burned,” Mason said. The affect that fixed carbon has on us is that it’s been found to be mutagenic (relating to DNA mutations), carcinogenic (cancerous) and teratogenic (relating to birth defects).

One argument is that the plants aren’t going to release very many toxic particles. “The key to pollution is dilution,” Mason joked. “But it’s not about the quantity… It’s about the toxicity of the quantity… That’s why they’re labeled ‘hazardous air pollutants.’ If they weren’t toxic, we would probably call them something nicer.”

So, Mason said, the other solution would be natural gas, which is considered to be one of the cleanest of the fossil fuels. Located in the Marcellus Shale, which can be found in northwestern Pa, there is about 1,500 trillion cubic feet of gas underground, according to Mason.

In order to get the gas out of the shale, gas corporations use a method called “hydrofracking,” Mason said. They mix water with sand and synthetic chemicals in order to crack the shale and bring the gas out, called “fracking fluid.”

“The fracking fluid contains chemicals that would be considered illegal in warfare,” Mason pointed out. Now, that’s about several millions of gallons of water that no one can use for anything else.

Major change is needed and, according to Mason, investing in renewable energy sources wouldn’t cost us any more than what we are already paying. “The barriers to a 100 percent conversion to [solar and wind power] worldwide are primarily social and political. Not economical and not technological. We can afford to do this. What’s stopping us is us,” Mason emphasized.

We have the resources and the money to make the change. According toMason, the only thing that we have to do to start the changeover is to get our politicians on board.

“In the end, they have to listen to us if we speak loudly enough,” she said. “But we have to change the social aspect, we have to communicate.”

What Happens Next?

December 9, 2010 / Anna / 0 Comments

One election can easily change the future of an entire country. With the Republicans capturing the majority in the House of Representatives and with a Democratic president who hasn’t shown a willingness to modify his current plans for America, it leaves us wondering what will happen next.

With hot topics like the economy, reducing our country’s deficit, and Obama’s healthcare plan being discussed, and both parties not willing to budge from their position, could the federal government be headed toward a repeat of the shutdown that happened in 1995?

On November 2, an estimated 90 million voters came out to vote nationwide. That marked a 42 percent increase from the 2006 midterms. The Republicans 60-seat gain in Congress revealed the frustration of Americans at the government’s sluggish decision-making as they try to revive our dismal economy.

The Democrats had their plans all laid out to get a stimulus and healthcare bill passed, but now the Republican opposition looks to bring them to a grinding halt. If both parties remain unwilling to compromise or move from their positions, we will see a reenactment of the government shutdown of 1995.

When the financial year had ended on September 30, 1995, Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican-run government hadn’t come to an agreement on a budget for the next year. Since Clinton was unwilling to negotiate the budget cuts that the Republicans desired, Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House, expected the president to give in to his treat to not raise the debt limit. It didn’t happen that way.

By November 14, after politicians from both sides met the previous day to try to resolve the issue, Dick Armey, the House Majority Leader, told Clinton that since he was not willing to accept their budget for the next fiscal year, then they would instigate a government shutdown. The effects of the shutdown were seen immediately seen when different areas of the government were unable to continue working the next day.

The situation was resolved by a temporary spending bill that handled the $800 million needed to pay the laid off government employees, but a second shutdown took place shortly thereafter because of repeated clashes between President Clinton and Congressional Republicans.

Everyone was blaming everyone else. The Republicans blamed Clinton for not agreeing to their budget plan and Clinton blamesd the Republicans for not listening to his suggestions. However, one small, but very untimely, slip of the tongue by Gingrich finally ended the stalemate. He said that he caused the shutdown because Clinton forced him and one of his colleagues to sit at the back Air Force One. The public sided with Clinton and this event helped him to win the 1996 election for the Democrats.

The entire government shutdown of 1995 could have been avoided through both sides being willing to work out a compromise instead of refusing to move from their positions. A government shutdown could be avoided in 2011 if the Republicans and the Democrats work together and combine their best ideas in order to fix the country’s economy.

Set at 14.3 trillion in February we will soon be reaching the debt limit by spring of 2011. Obama and the Democrats argue that if the limit of debt is raised it will open up more opportunities to improve the country’s economy.

They contend it will allow us to borrow more money in order to create more job opportunities through federal aid, to make the necessary changes and reforms to the current tax code and will increase the probability of restoring our economy sooner rather than later.

However, soon to be Speaker of the House John A. Boehner has already told the New York Times that the Republicans have not agreed to support increasing the debt limit in the past and they do not intend to start now.

If the recent elections serve as an accurate gauge of the country’s opinions, then Boehner and the House Republicans have the full support of Americans. Raising the limit on the amount of money we can borrow from other countries will dig us even deeper into the hole that’s been getting worse and worse with each passing year.

The other issue on the table for discussion is Obama’s new healthcare plan. President Obama stated that Congress has to make a decision as soon as possible on the new healthcare plan before taxes go any higher.

Indiana Congressman Mike Pence told CNN that American citizens don’t want a healthcare that forces them to buy insurance and raises their taxes. He says that the Republicans won’t completely throw the idea of a new healthcare plan away, they’ll just vote through a lower-cost option.

The bottom line is that both Republicans and Democrats need to willingly move toward each other as they try to fix the fiscal mess that the country is in. Not everyone will be happy or satisfied, but the end result would be a much better option than a government shutdown.

Unfortunately, today’s political environment is far more divisive and partisan than it was in 1995, and with both extremes in firm control of each respective party, compromise will be immensely difficult. With the stare down about to begin, it’s impossible to tell who will be the first to blink.

For an inside look…. Reactions to the 2010 Midterm Elections

These are two videos from abcnews.com that elaborate a little more on where Obama thinks the government is and what is happening during the meeting of the Democrats and Republicans.

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Category: Government

Students Honor Trayvon Martin

Campus Pinpoints Details in Occupy

Financial Crisis Studied

APSCUF Negotiates New Contract

Vets Honored for Duty

To Burn or Not to Burn

What Happens Next?

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