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Show Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010 Page 11 Views&OpirliOrl Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.utahstatesman.com OurView Happy Veterans Day MAKES RDEIIC StIKAES. BECOMES SEEMS LIKE GREAT AboutUS REALLY SEEKS COOL. PRESIDERS 'BRARTISANSkiR" E very day we walk amongst a crowd of faces we forget seconds after passing. We rarely contemplate their roots, their motivations or the indirect impact they may have in our lives. What do we think when we walk past a man or woman dressed in a camouflage suit or an uncreased collared shirt and a service cap, always complimented with perfectly polished shoes? Our colleagues who serve in the armed forces do stand out on campus, but the way the military impacts them and their families' lives is often forgotten. Chances are, every person on campus knows at least one person who has protected or does protect our country, whether it be in the Marines, Navy, Air Force, Army, National Guard or Coast Guard. Is the man wearing combat boots who sits in the third row of biology the same man that left his new wife for six months to serve in Afghanistan? Do enough people recognize that this man's sacrifices are one of the reasons Logan sleeps soundly at night? Every day USU students are flying to the Middle East, suspending their schooling and saying goodbye to their families, friends and homes. We live among veterans, many of whom are in their early 20s, still trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. Many of our professors have served as well. Perhaps we do not verbally express our appreciation to those in the armed forces that we see because we cannot comprehend what they experience during an average day, whether they are on active duty or inactive. Every year, USU has a celebration to honor those veterans in our area. We would like to urge everyone to support the men and women in uniform who support our community and our country every day Supporting veterans can be as easy as acknowledging their service: extending your hand, looking them in the eye and saying "thank you." Give someone who is missing a deployed loved one some company. Donations to soldiers overseas are easy to become involved in. Making an effort to commemorate Veteran's Day our lives is a simply task, but first, we simply must remember that veterans are largely the reason why we often feel peace in our surroundings and have hope for more peace in our country. End the gridlock by ending the filibuster Two weeks ago there was Opposition a brilliant opinion piece in the Statesman explaining how the Research Republican takeover of the House of Representatives will lead to gridlock and stagnation. The issue I have, however, is that this is not how things JUSTIN HINH have to be. I believe that there is a way to end the gridlock between the Republican and Democrats. Next year, the Senate will reconvene with 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans. Even though Democrats control the majority in the Senate, Republicans are poised to force the government to a dead stop through the use of the filibuster. The filibuster is a parliamentary procedure that prevents a bill or motion to be voted upon by extending debate indefinitely. An example would be the recent health care bill. The Republicans used a filibuster to delay the bill for months, causing the Democrats to compromise heavily - such as dropping the public insurance option - and leaving a bill that didn't satisfy anyone. But there's been a growing voice in the Senate to end the filibuster. Using the so-called "Constitutional Option," also known as the "Nuclear Option," a simple majority in the Senate can change the rules to eliminate the filibuster outright. The right of the Senate to change their rules comes from Article I, Section V of the Constitution, which states that "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings." Based on the Supreme Court ruling United States v. Ballin (1892), changes to Senate rules need only a simple majority - 51 votes. This is how we eliminate the filibuster. The Democrats next session will open discussion to change the Senate rules. The proposal to eliminate the filibuster will be then put on the table for debate. The Republicans cannot filibuster this proposal because in order to fulfill their constitutional duties, the Senate must be able to, well, determine their own rules. If the Republicans try to do so anyways, the chair can rule against the filibuster and move on to allow a majority vote to amending the rules. Only then can the filibuster be eliminated once and for all. The Constitutional Option is not a new proposal and has been used by both parties before. Richard Nixon - Republican - and Robert Byrd - Democrat - both argued in favor of this option. In 1917 the threat of using the Constitutional Option forced the compromise to allow cloture, the ability to end a filibuster, to exist. In 1975 the threat again lead to changing cloture from two-thirds of the Senate (67 Votes) to three-fifths I I See OPTION, page 12 MLMED WI? Editor in Chief Benjamin C. Wood News Editor Catherine Meidell Assistant News Editor Megan Bainum MAKES MORE ARIES. Features Editor Courtnie Packer YOU Too USE ARE ARE. Assistant Features Editor Kellyn Neumann Sports Editor Adam Nettina Assistant Sports Editor Matt Sonnenberg Copy Editor Chelsey Gensel Photo Editor ForumLetters Start your own organization To the editor: USU already has many student organizations, but it could still use more. Student organizations are a great way to meet new people with similar interests, and a great way to gain leadership experience that looks good on a resume. The more organizations the University has, the more leadership opportunities there are for students. And do you know what looks even better on a resume than "President of Club Whatever"? "Founder of Club Whatever". I invite anybody reading this to find an organization they are interested in, and try to get a chapter started at USU. For example, Learn To Be is an organization that lets Letters to the editor • A public forum college students tutor younger children over the internet. By going to learntobe.org you can learn more about it and set up a chapter at USU. There are even websites like dosomething.org that are giving away $250 startup grants to new clubs with ideas for charitable projects. Assistant Photo Editor Alison Ostler Web Editor Tyler Huskinson Editorial Board Benjamin C. Wood Catherine Meidell Courtnie Packer Adam Nettina Chelsey Gensel Tyler Huskinson David Willis About letters Remembering days of unspoken ideas It is the summer after our third year at the University 4-3-4 Faculty of Szeged, Hungary. About two dozen of us are hudVoices dled together in a small, unadorned room with whitewashed walls. Massive chunks of the paint are missing, creating a unique map of an undiscovered chatter freezes. We all look world. We sit on the edges in his direction. Somebody of squeaky metal bunk beds laughs a little uncomfortyou would see in World War II military barracks, four on ably, but then somebody yells out from the corone wall and four on the ner, "C'mon, don't tell me opposite wall of the rectanyou've read it. It's blackgular room. The middle of listed. Everything worth each bed sags like a fishing reading is blacklisted. That net after a successful draw. sucks, man." The silence We are the catch. We deepens. Somebody slaps are mostly unaware of a mosquito on his forearm. our being the "Bloodsucker!" catch, having he says a little a grand time, "We all knew louder than completely that somewhere necessary. The absorbed in there was a long air fills with a debate. We laughter again. argue about list of black"Do we the quality of listed books we have more the food, the didn't wever beer?" yells out quality of our somebody else, education, the talk about. We and a commostate of our lived 'Fahrenheit tion ensues as country and 451."" those in the how much we back try to should be getclimb over outting paid for preparing high stretched limbs to get to the school students for their stash. The general chatter history college exams. At picks up again. "Have you the end of high school, all read it?" I turn to George, students take the state-prethe future independent hisscribed matriculation exam torian perching next to me. in the main subjects: math, He smiles. literature, history and a lan"We all want to have read guage. To advance to colit," he says and I leave it at lege, students take subjectthat. We'll talk later. specific entrance exams at In 1948, the Hungarian their prospective university, elections were fixed - a unique to the institution. widely unreleased fact at The average college accepthe time, among many othtance ratio is 5:1. In history, ers - to help the Communist 9:1. Party into power, and that's So, we, seasoned college how things remained for 40 students, quiz the next genyears. The above event haperation on all imaginable pened somewhere in the historical facts and teach middle, in 1976. We grew up the young ones how to think reading between the lines, as historians. Because we understanding most things know. This particular night, from half-finished sentencwe end up giggling about es, cognizant of what we how naive our charge is. knew had been filtered by One voice rises above the the State. It was taught to us chatter. that for our own good, we "I mean, they don't even were not being subjected to know about Big Brother," petit bourgeois, individualsays a gaunt, bespectacled istic filth like Bram Stoker's young man. The general Carl R. Wilson "Dracula," or to its sub-par cousins like "Tarzan" - one of my father's favorites - which were called tarp novels from being sold for a few fillers at the market, spread out on huge tarps before the Second World War. These books were simply not published for a few decades, though we would not face persecution or jail for suspicion of possession. There was, however, a very different group of books that could easily make the owner disappear: "1984", "Animal Farm", "Doctor Zhivago", "The Bible", and any and all of Solzhenitsyn's books, for instance. Many Hungarian authors either defected to the West or translated classics. The older, the safer: the "Odyssey" and the "Iliad" proved to pass the political correctness filter. We all knew that somewhere there was a long list of blacklisted books we didn't ever talk about. We lived "Fahrenheit 451." I did hold a smuggled copy of "1984" in my hands one day, and with my heart pounding in my throat, read as much as I could on the spot before the owner, George, ripped it from my hand and shoved it under his mattress. His roommate was returning from town, a nice young man with a permanent smile on his face, whom we all knew was a rat. As much as we considered ourselves the future intelligentsia in that crowded room in Szeged, Hungary, we, hired to cultivate young critical minds to become brave thinkers, did not have access to knowledge deemed potentially dangerous to the mainstream culture. We were taught to feel and act collectively, so we grappled - in silence - with our own questions: What were we supposed to teach, then? What were we teaching to the next generation? Susan Nyikos is a lecturer in the english department. Take the time to express your views in a letter to the editor. Submission box found at www.utahstatesman.com • Letters should be limited to 400 words. • All letters may be shortened, edited or rejected for reasons of good taste, redundancy or volume of similar letters. • Letters must be topic oriented. They may not be directed toward individuals. Any letter directed to a specific individual may be edited or not printed. • No anonymous letters will be published. Writers must sign all letters and include a phone number or email address as well as a student identification number (none of which is published). 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