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Show Views&Opinion Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009 Page 12 Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com OurView Trying to make sense of health care reform H ealth care. Oh, those two dreaded words. These words are thrown around in debate as sort of a political buzzword. The system is going through big measures of reform in hopes to cut costs and create a more effective program. But honestly, what is health care and how does it affect us, Aggies, in Utah? President Obama’s Web page states he is working to create a health care plan that will be beneficial to every citizen of the U.S. He said he’ll do this by reforming the health care system, promoting scientific and technological advancements and improving preventative care. Preventative care includes things like cancer screenings and better nutrition coupled with investments in electronic health records can help save lives, the site states. “A better system is also essential to rebuilding our economy,” it states. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, during his visit in Logan said Obama has tried to let the House and Senate create a health care bill from which a health care plan can be constructed. Neither body could agree on an affordable, realistic bill. Bennett said Obama set a deadline for these legislative bodies to have a bill prepared, which was before the August recession. More information about progress on the health care reform process can be found at www.healthreform.gov. “Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year,” Obama said Feb. 24. So let’s get this straight. Obama says he wants to create a program that will fit every U.S. citizen, but Bennett said no one has been able to come up with a bill so far. If politicians can’t grasp the situation enough to decide on an outline of a program, the rest of us are in for a headache. And let’s be honest, not many of us have really tried to work our way through the health care program’s intricate details. At least not seriously. Many USU students are young and health care is far from their thoughts. These students, however, are getting close to or have already reached that point where being educated on what health care is and how it’s used is important. The problem is, with all this information flying around – different plans, different ideals, different politician’s motives – health care becomes so muddled and confusing that deciphering the concept is too much to stomach, especially after spending an hour doing assigned reading for an upper-level physics class. I feel a headache coming on. We want to help you make sense of health care, which is why we’re recruiting some expert help from someone who actually understands it. Submit your questions to us online at www.aggietownsquare.com and look for the answers in a future Monday edition of The Statesman. Japan’s new rulers H ow do you say “throw the bums out” in Japanese? That’s what Japanese voters did on Sunday, booting the Liberal Democratic Party that has ruled almost continuously for more than half a century and leaves now with the world’s second-largest economy in sorry shape. The newly elected Democratic Party of Japan is an eclectic mix of leftists and defectors from the ruling party. Its ability to run the country is untested, and its leaders have yet to explain how to pay for their populist campaign promises. Nevertheless, this page sees the election upset as a potentially positive development. A one-party state is bound to grow stale; competition is as important in politics as it is in business. The outgoing Liberal Democratic Party helped turn Japan from a post-World War II wreck into a global powerhouse. In league with industry and a powerful government bureaucracy, the ruling party oversaw decades of growth that offered its citizens lifelong jobs with housing and health care. But that system has been unraveling since the Japanese economy collapsed in the 1990s. Now, government scandals, recession, unemployment and an aging population’s deep anxiety about the future have prompted voters who normally value stability to reject the known and embrace the promise of change. Although the Democratic Party has never held power, key members come from the political elite, starting with leader Yukio Hatoyama, who is expected to be named prime minister. His grandfather is a founder of the justdefeated Liberal Democratic Party, and Hatoyama himself was a legislator. Other party members also have served in the Legislature or held Cabinet posts. At the same time, the party and the country should benefit from an infusion of new political blood, including many first-time legislators and more women. About a third of the 480 seats in the lower house will be filled by newcomers. This kind of change is necessary but not sufficient to fix Japan’s problems. During the campaign, the Democratic Party promised support for families with children as well - See JAPAN, page 13 ForumLetters No sympathy for Vick To the editor: An opinion article appeared in The Statesman contending that Michael Vick should be forgiven and receive a “second chance”. Yet, this article glossed over Vick’s crimes so allow me to examine this view a bit more critically and make a few points. To begin with, the view simply states Vick performed “horrible” actions, yet this word is not strong enough to describe Vick’s vicious, cruel and sick torture tactics. He not only bought, bred and trained dogs to fight, he used bait dogs, pry bars (to rip their mouths open during fights), Rape Racks, and several other fighting tools. And if the dogs were not good fighters, him and his buddies (all part of Bad Newz Kennels – which is quite a catchy name for someone to come up with who later claimed he was regretful that he ran this business) electrocuted, drowned and brutally beat dogs in order to kill them. Secondly, the view argued that the values of our society seem backwards because Vick’s crimes received so much attention. The article also implies that Vick’s 21-month sentence was excessive, yet it is not even one month for each dogs’ life he ruined. When Vick’s dog-fighting ring was busted, investigators cited three key points of evidence: the fighting arena itself with bloodstained walls, carpets and kennels, 56 injured and A Letters to the editor • A public forum scarred pit bulls and 10 deceased dogs’ bodies. When this evidence was revealed, Vick’s dog-fighting business had been active for six years. We will never know the actual count of lives lost or the number of dogs who lived their lives suffering at Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels, but 21 months sure seems a lot shorter than 6 years to me. Thirdly, Vick has RECEIVED his second chance. He spent less than two years in jail, and he is now free. Wait, that is not enough, fans want protestors to leave Vick alone so he can rebuild his all-American “image”. Yet, have any of you Vick fans considered why these protestors do not want him in the NFL? The NFL in America is part of our culture and to let a man with this sort of charter in the NFL is devastating to many American citizens. Lastly, Vick is not the least bit remorseful. If he were, maybe he would have stopped after he killed the first dog, or maybe after the 100th fight, or maybe after the first year, yet he never stopped until he was caught. Being convicted is what he is sorry for, not for the lives lost, not for the money he made, and not for the example he set for all of his young fans. My point is this: before you forget Vick’s actions at least investigate his crimes or spend two minutes looking at the pictures of the dogs that survived Vick’s fighting ring and try to imagine their suffering. Kelsie Martinez As a matter of faith s a boy, the only parts of those museum field trips that didn’t bore me to death were dinosaurs and anything involving ancient legends. The stale smell of the building and broken cassette-player guides couldn’t have contrasted more with the glory and violence on the canvas. Whether they showed the fury of Zeus, or the might of Ra, I dreamed of being with these incredible figures (sometimes combining them with the dinosaurs), watching them battle for command of the universe. Few things can spur a young lad’s imagination more than a bunch of monstrous reptiles throwing lightning at one another. The day I discovered old Zgrade Godzilla movies, my life couldn’t have been more pristine. In school and church however, my wideeyed questions about the gods and monsters were always dismissed with adults’ fake smiles and rolling eyes. They just answered that these old tales were merely ways of “explaining things they couldn’t understand.” This phrase was always used regarding a scientific account, referring to weather events or medical anomalies. Eventually I swallowed the pill that these awesome stories were just dodges of reality or reason by a bunch primitive brutes. My church at the time though, which was of the literalist variety, inadvertedly refused to let my wonder fail me. I began to question why one faith was less legitimate than another, if the general rule was that the account was merely a cover up for limited technology or other tools. Sitting at my window at night, watching lightning dance beautifully across a black sky as a storm mercilessly pummels the land, I refused to believe that things could be so simple, so cut and dry. As I’ve grown in my experience – in the loss of loved ones, feeling the earth shake from an Iraqi car bomb, or the joy of experiencing real beauty – my understanding has grown with me. Most of the arguments between my fellow soldiers in our oven-like barracks were about faith and in another way, truth. This has been true throughout our history, leading to some of our greatest art, philosophy and heroes, as well as our most horrific wars. Faith and religion, I’ve come to realize, are about more than overactive imaginations or ignorance of scientific methods. It is about humanity’s pursuit of the bridge between our world and nature and that of transcendence (or divinity). The stories, parables and beings present in religion are our ways of explaining these things to ourselves, regardless of the presence or lack of scientific empirical evidence. Christ talked to his followers in parables for this same reason, to show the nature of divine will and how we relate to it, as well as each other. He was not speaking of God as a physical man operating a vineyard that we will one day see with the Hubble Telescope, that was never his point. Just as it was with Christ’s life and the parables he left us, it is with religions around the globe. It doesn’t matter whether it is the self sacrifice of the great Norse allfather Odin so that he might gain true knowledge, the self immolation of Hercules on a pyre to atone for his great sin or the near murder of Isaac by his father Abraham’s hand to fulfill his covenant with God. From profound loss to immeasurable joy, along with my deep intellectual revelations, I have learned of their truths regardless of any prejudice. These stories are about the deep truths of our existence, the cost and impact of our decisions. Religion can be subject to mistaken reasoning, which often is, with devastating consequences. However, this takes nothing away from its wisdom and truth, and the guidance and hope it seeks to give us in our dark hours. The billions in the world who have devoted their lives to faith of any kind, I realized, are no different than I was, looking to explain what they could probably never grasp through reason alone, what they could never understand. In the words of St. Anselm, “For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, – that unless I believed, I should not understand.” Will Holloway is a senior majoring in philosophy from Salt Lake City, Utah. His column will appear every other Wednesday. Comments can be sent by e-mail to will. r.h@aggiemail.usu.edu AboutUs Editor in Chief Patrick Oden News Editor Rachel A. 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