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Show sos.Aet.l0 Fantasy writer visits WSU ... page 4 ffj,B, ggf, (rE43 t) BR tow I 11 OBE 1 STAT i Lillard earns All-American honors ... page 6 BRAIID0 111U 11- AT A GLANCE EDITORIAL FEATURES SPORTS CLASSIFIEDS 2 3 4 6 9 VOL 82 ISSUE 79 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2012 WWW.WSUSIGNPOST.COM Si gnP Ti 0 St WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Senator makes headlines in Arab media By Laurie Reiner news reporter I The Signpost During the past week, Weber State University has been receiving phone calls from international media trying to speak with one of the newest elected student senators. "Zaynab Alshakhiss is one of three females from Saudi Arabia ever to hold a position like this in the US," said Aaron Newman, the senate adviser. More than 12 media organizations have contacted Alshakhiss about her new senate position. She was recently elected into the international student senate position and will be on the senate officially starting in the fall semester. "Every news media from the Arab-speaking world just really contacted the campus wanting to get more information," Newman said. Alshakhiss has been in Utah since 2008 and moved here to go to school. She is majoring in computer science and plans to go back home to Saudi Arabia once she gets her degree. See Alshakhiss page 5 Waterfall leaks onto Bell Tower Plaza SAAC to host fundraiser EMI By Cozette Jenkins asst. news editor I The Signpost -Ad PHOTO BY JERRICA ARCHIBALD THE SIGNPOST A Weber State University student watches as water from the Bell Tower Plaza waterfall cascades over the sidewalk. The waterfall began sending water across the plaza Tuesday afternoon. The Weber State University StudentAthlete Advisory Committee will host a dance Friday night to benefit the African Heartwood Project's efforts to help 29 Liberian refugee children return home. The children currently live at the Refugee Orphan Home at the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana established in 2008 by the African Heartwood Project's founder, Andy Jones. According to Andrea Lauritzen, the WSU athletics academic advisor, Jones visited the refugee camp many times and then opened the orphanage in 2008 for the abandoned children living on the streets. "There are four people who run the home in Africa," Lauritzen said. "They educate, clothe and feed the children. The kids are taking part in helping themselves, too; they do little projects to raise money for themselves so they can get things they need and a few extra nice things that aren't essentials, like hair ribbons and socks." The Buduburam Refugee Settlement is in the process of being closed down permanently, so the African Heartwood Project is trying to move the orphanage to Liberia to provide a safe environment for the children. See SAAC page 5 WSU professor rewrites history By Rusden Scott news reporter I The Signpost Thirty-eight Soviet nuclear warheads fired on US cities, more than 1,000 US nukes decimated the entirety of the USSR, and the island of Cuba bombed into oblivion by US forces. And all this because of a plane that flew one week late. At least that's what could have happened, according to Eric Swedin, a Weber State University history professor. Swedin spoke about his new book, a what-if history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Monday night at the Lindquist Alumni Center. The first half of Swedin's book, titled When Angels Wept, is a historical account of the events surrounding the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, an event which Swedin said is "arguably the most important event of the 20th century." The latter portion of the book is what Swedin calls a what-if history. It details a history of a Cuban missile crisis and ensuing catastrophic nuclear war that could have been had just one small detail in history been changed. Swedin first gave a brief history of events leading up to the crisis, starting at the end of World War II. Tensions mounted to a boiling point, and in 1961, three months after John E Kennedy was elected president, a Cuban military force trained and funded by the US was wiped out in a US-orchestrated attempt to wrest control of Cuba from communist leader Fidel Castro. "It was a massive fiasco," Swedin said, "an embarrassment to the Kennedy administration." Cuba and the USSR responded to the bungled attack, known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, by secretly building missile bases in Cuba capable of striking the continental US. In October 1962, photos from a U2 spy plane alerted the US to what was happening in Cuba, marking the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US discovered there were Soviet ships loaded with missiles heading to Cuba and needed to make a deSee Cuban page 5 PHOTO BY AMANDA LEWARK THE SIGNPOST Weber State University history professor Eric Swedin discusses the ways the Cuban Missile Crisis might have ended differently. Swedin's recent book creates a what-if history of the crisis. |