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Show Sept. IS, 1 f state|sman@|:c.uJu.edu AboutUs OurView Editor in Chief Arie Kirk Football schedule sensible for USU News Editor Debra Hawkins Assistant News Editor Rachel Christensen T here has been too much losing in the USU football program during the past two decades. Saturday night's disaster against the Utes just adds to the agony. Therefore, the new scheduling philosophy that USU Director of Athletics Scott Barnes has implemented makes sense - and hopefully winning sense in the years to come. USU and the University of Utah agreed to take a break from their annual game in 2010 and 2011. With Saturday night's events freshly in mind, this is a breath of fresh air. The reasons for it are at least two-fold. First, the Aggies need get more balance on their schedule. In other words, to be able to win games. The Idaho State Bengals will take the Utes' place on USU's schedule in 2010. Notre Dame will fill the Aggies' slot on Utah's schedule. The obvious benefits of this are beatable teams for USU and a high-profile school for the Utes. Barnes' philosophy mirrors that of USU head basketball coach Stew Morrill schedule beatable teams to increase team morale and confidence. Does winning games, even if against a patsy opponent, increase a team's ability to beat more difficult opponents? Mori-ill's record at USU would testify to that this is possible. Secondly, to sustain a winning program, Barnes believes the Aggies need to have six home games every season. Though attendance at football in recent years has hardly given the Aggies home-field advantage, Barnes is right. The 2008 season is the first in which the Aggies have had six home games since 1998. That is 10 years too long. Furthermore, in 2009 USU only has five home games and plays on the road at Utah, BYU and Texas Tech. Clearly, a schedule like that in the current team's circumstances is an instant recipe for disaster. One less game of travel to provides an advantage for any team. At the stage the program is in right now,, it needs any advantage it can get. Also, one more home game gives the community more opportunities to see the Aggies play, which can help increase a fan base and stadium revenue. The program now has state-of-the-art facilities, yet little success. Barnes said this is not a USU-Utah issue. Rather, it is part of a strategy to get the program off the ground and more frequently into the win column. USU is headed in the right direction to get there. Features Editor Courtnie Packer Assistant Features Editor Amanda Mears Sports Editor Sammy Hislop Assistant Sports Editor Tim Olsen Copy Editor THE DIFFERENCE Forum Lett C rs To the editor: It was Sept. 9, 1994. I'd driven non-stop from Logan to the NASA Kennedy Space Flight Center for nearly 40 hours, then slept restlessly in a small pup tent atop my sleeping bag. In the sweltering heat of the Florida summer, 'slept' probably isn't the right word. Now I stood under the corrugated steel awning of the press stand for Kennedy's twin launch pads. Three miles away, the sound from Space Shuttle Discovery's rocket engines vibrated that corrugated steel against its metal framework. The popping rumble from the engines and the buzz from the awning made it difficult to hear the acclamations of awe. As I watched her rise, literally into the heavens, I squinted against the painful brilliance of the fiery plume. It hurt, but I would not look away. The experience overloaded all my senses. And my emotions! In her payload bay was an experiment. An experiment I built over several years. And I built it in the basement of Utah State's SER building. Since that culmination of my education, I've orbited satellites around Earth and landed robots on Mars. Lisa Christensen Letters to the editor • A public forum I read the article in Monday's Statesman about the chartered flight for USU's football team. The Statesman reported assistant coach Jeff Copp as saying, 'the time saved and the benefits to the players and coaching staff are well worth the price.' The price, Mr. Copp, is less funding that could go toward science, technology, engineering, mathematics and other worthy educational programs. And I, sir, respectfully disagree that a couple hours of extra sleep is well worth that price. Mark Wilkinson Campaign, complaints heat up E lection frenzy is at full pitch; incoming Trail political blog overdid it in using the word partisan fire was smoking in my inbox "slash" to describe her line-item veto of funds when 1 returned from a Wyoming hiking for pregnant teen-agers; Palin did cut some proposed funds, but, overall, the program got trip. Unsurprisingly, the No. 1 topic was John more money. McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, a Speaking of overdoing it, a political carrifle-toting, moose-skinning, snowmobiling, toon by Pat Oliphant that appeared on washBible-believing, Alaskan mother of five - as ingtonpost.com Wednesday prompted comexotic to this area as Barack Obama's biracia! plaints from about 350 readers who said he heritage and his childhood in Hawaii and lampooned their faith. The cartoon showed Indonesia would be elsewhere. Palin speaking in tongues, an aspect of worFirst, readers complained that an all- ship in some Pentecostal churches, and then Obama front page on Aug. 29, the day after God telling St. Peter that he didn't understand his nomination acceptance speech, wasn't what she was saying - "All I can hear is some matched by an all-McCain front page on Sept. dam' right-wing politician spouting gibber5, the day after his speech. Ed Thiede, assis- ish." tant managing editor for the news desk, said Readers were right to complain; I will deal that happened because "Aug. 28 was a day . with political cartooning in another column. with less news competing for Page 1, while Political cartoons and comics aren't selected Sept. 4 was a more competitive day." at washingtonpost.com the way they are Then McCain and Palin's large Fairfax for The Post in print; they are automatically County, Va v rally was on the Metro section posted. front page Thursday; a June 6 rally for Obama Some readers complained that The Post at Nissan Pavilion was on Page A1. Thiede prominently displayed the story reporting said, "We had a busier day with more compet- the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter ing for A1 play Wednesday, including a main Bristol. Yolanda R. Smith of Crofton, Md., art package commemorating the opening wrote that "what this has to do with her public s the free world tries to formulate an effective response of the Sept. 11 memorial." These are logical persona is beyond me." The McCain camto Russia's recent incursion into Georgia, the focus answers in a newsroom, but they don't cut it paign released the information, and Bristol understandably remains on how to ensure the with- with Republican-leaning readers, especially and her boyfriend were on stage the last night drawal of troops from Russia's democratic southern neighbor. when, as I've reported, Obama has had a But policy-makers might want to consider for a moment how preponderance of Page 1 stories and photos of the convention. That was news. Last week, most of the complaints were we got to this point. throughout the paper. about a story Tuesday by James V. Grimaldi The situation in Georgia is the culmination of a failed Many readers think The Post is trying to and Karl Vick about per-diem payments that post-Cold War policy toward Russia. Central to this failure skewer Palin. While some opinion writers Palin and family members received while livhas been ignoring the inherent connection between internal have, news coverage has not been overtly ing in their home in Wasilla, an Anchorage freedom and external aggression. As democracy was rolled negative. The Post's duty is to report anything suburb. Palin goes to the capital in Juneau back within Russia, the world abandoned an approach that pertinent about Palin _ the least known of the had been so effective during the later stages of the Cold War, candidates. She did have changing views on [lSee HEAT, page 13 when relations with the Kremlin were linked to the expansion Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere." An item in The of freedom inside the Soviet Union. Linkage began in 1974 with the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which tied preferential trade terms with the United States to the freedom to emigrate from the Soviet Union. It continued with the Helsinki Accords in 1975, which helped shine an international spotlight on Soviet human rights abuses, and it reached its apogee with the remarkable moral clarity of President Reagan, who made the level of Soviet tyranny a barometer of superpower relations. This policy was a spectacular success, mobilizing world opinion to bring the Cold War to a peaceful end. The establishment largely mocked the revolutionary notion that foreign policy pressure could be used to help to transform the U.S.S.R. from within. Fortunately, for me and millions of others, leaders such as Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat, and Reagan, a Republican, disagreed. They believed that such a transformation was not only possible but essential to their nation's security. They correctly understood that regimes that do not respect the rights of their own people do not respect the rights of their neighbors. In late 1987, on the eve of Mikhail Gorbachev's first U.S. visit and less than two years after I was released from the gulag, I helped spearhead a massive rally in Washington to demand freedom of emigration for Jews trapped behind the Iron The real problem with Russia A CRITICBMOF SARAH RALIN IS SEXIST/ v I I See RUSSIA, page 13 ASKING 5UCH QUES11ONSIF SHEWASNTA 5WDK(N'-HOT Photo Editor Cameron Peterson Assistant Photo Editor Tyler Larson Web Editor Seth R. Hawkins Editorial Board Arie Kirk Debra Hawkins Courtnie Packer Sammy Hislop Lisa Christensen Seth R. Hawkins About letters • Letters should be limited to 350 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. 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