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Show Monday • January 19, 2009 • • • • ' • • . • * - . ! * * . « , - > } & > . • • ' • • - - Opinions ••'' . - • . . ' • • •• • ^ ^ ^ ^ _ " ' " • ' - • • a ' ^ ' ' ^ * ^ s J ^ ' . ' • • • ' • . • • • AW ' Orwellian Department of Defense deserves complimentary Department of Peace JOHN DITZLER Opinions editor With President Barack Obama's historic inauguration as the United State's forty-fourth President, many are hoping another historic and welcome change will follow along on the new president's coattails, in the form of a new Executive Branch, Cabinet-Level Department of Peace. At present count, thirtyeight city councils around the country, representing 13 million citizens within their boundaries, from Los Angeles, CA, to Minneapolis, MN; from Chicago IL, to Atlanta, GA; to Utah's own Moab, have all drafted and passed resolutions calling on the Federal Government to initiate a new Executive Branch, Department of Peace. Multiple legislative proposals for a US Department of Peace have been presented in the Federal Congress in past years. Most recently, US House Resolution 808, was introduced in the 2007 - 2008 session of the 110'" Congress. Sponsored by former Presidential Candidate and current US Representative, Dennis Kucinich, HR 808 has since garnered over 70 fellow members of the US Congress as co-sponsors. However, the idea for a Campaign for the • • • • • • • • U.S. DEPARTMENT OF • • Image courtesy of The Peace Alliance Campaign to Establish a U.S. Department of Peace US Department of Peace is not a new idea. Our Founding Fathers discussed the idea of a Department of Peace at the time of the nation's formation. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence and representative for Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress, outlined a "Plan of a Peace-Office." Rush wrote: "Among the defects which have been pointed out in the Federal Constitution by its antifederal enemies, it is much to be lamented that no person has taken notice of its total silence upon the subject of an office of the utmost importance to the welfare of the United States, that is, an office for promoting and preserving perpetual peace in our country." Sections 2.7 and 2.8 within current US House Resolution 808 read: "During the course of the 20th century, more than 100 million people perished in wars, and now, at the dawn of the 21 st century, violence seems to be an overarching theme Letter to the editor To the Editor: I wish to address an issue that is of great concern to many students here at UVU. I have attended this university every Fall and Spring semester since 2005. In all that time there has not been a single semester when my schedule has remained unchanged between the time of my registration and the first day of class and I am getting very frustrated by this system. Like many students, 1 always make very deliberate choices when deciding which classes to register for. I look for specific professors, select times that won't interfere with work, and most important of all, as a student with a disability, I try to choose classes that are in easy distance of one another. Despite my careful planning, it is inevitable that my professor suddenly teaches at another time, that my room has been moved to the furthest possible corner of campus, or that the class itself no longer exists for that semester. I know I'm not the only student who has faced the dilemma of trying to go to school full time and discovering in the eleventh hour, when most classes are full, that all their well laid out plans were fruitless and that now their schedule is full of holes. Last semester I registered for a professor whose classes always fill up quickly. I had waited three semesters to take his class, so I signed up for him on the first day of registration and then arranged my whole schedule around it. Two days before the semester started, the Professor swapped class times with someone else who taught two hours earlier. When I tried to change times with him. the professor informed me that he refuses to sign add cards and then quite literally closed the door in my face before I could explain my situation. I have talked to students from other universities who say they never experience these issues because their schedule is set in stone from the first day of registration. Why can't UVU get with the program? It is maddening to have to check over our list of registered classes every few days to see if they remain the same, which, unfortunately is the only method to avoid showing up to a vacant room, since I have never once received any notice of a single change made to my class schedule. I am baffled by this slapped-together method of organizing an accredited university. Is there anything that can be done about this? Sincerely, Lauren Lee To the Editor. I am writing in hopes to increase the driving safety on campus. I have been a student at UVU for the last two years, and during this time 1 have witnessed at least 50 to 60 nearmiss accidents in and around the roundabout. I believe the problem is because drivers are not following or do not know the laws for entering or driving in a roundabout. The laws are simple enough, and consist of only four basic rules. According to the 2007 Utah Driver's Handbook (pg 10), the four basic rules are... First, and foremost, Always Yield to traffic in the roundabout. This means you do not try to hurry and enter the roundabout if a car is coming your way. Second, all roundabouts are entered into from your right and run counter clockwise. This means the driver to your right has priority for entering the roundabout. Third, always yield to pedestrians. Finally, you need to signal entering and exiting a roundabout; this allows drivers behind you to react appropriately, like slowing down, when they know you are leaving the roundabout. I hope this helps any of those individuals who were not aware of the law, and I wish everyone safe and accident free driving! - Deborah Henry Letters to the editor requirements uvu.review, opinions®] gmail.com UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE* www.dopcampaign.org • Letters must be turned in on Wednesday by noon in order to be printed in the next edition. • We make no guarantee that letters will be printed. • Letters 300 words or less have a greater chance of being published - anything longer will be edited for content. • Please provide an electronic copy regardless of whether or not you wish to submit a hard copy. • All letters become the property of UVU Review as soon as they are submitted. in the world, encompassing personal, group, national, and international conflict, extending to the production of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction which have been developed for use on land, air, sea, and in space. "Such conflict is often taken as a reflection of the human condition without questioning whether the structures of thought, word, and deed which the people of the United States have inherited are any longer sufficient for the maintenance, growth, and survival of the United States and the world." All human beings presumably desire peace. Perhaps none so thoroughly as the men and women in military uniform, and their families and friends. If it is agreed by most that war should always be a last resort, and if Americans truly "support the troops," we will invest every resource we collectively have at our disposal to averting war, whenever possible. To refer to all the actions, collectively, of the US Department of Defense, as just that, actions of defense, is dubious at best. Orchestrating preemptive strikes under the auspices of a Department of Defense is reminiscent of the classic dystopian novel J984 by George Orwell wherein the citizens of the fictional country of Oceania are informed by their government that, in fact: "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength." To conflate the presentday United States and the fictional world within 1984 would be a mistake. There are very obviously significant differences between the two. However, even a partial overlap is disturbingly dangerous. This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I am reminded of these words concerning peace by the man that devoted his life to the cause, and ultimately lost it to violence in Memphis, Tennessee 40 years ago: "True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice." Dr. King gave his life confronting violence with peace, and he reminded us in those words that peace is not just the state of something that happens on its own, it has to be worked for. |