Page 64 - Phoenix1999-2000

Thursday, November 18, 1999 - Page 8 COMMENTARY Recent accidents raise Alpha Phi Omega Condom Subscriptions Who would have thought that you could concern over air travel Congratulations to Alpha Phi Omega! Here at The Phoenix we wish you the best get condoms through campus mail? It cer- Edward Schultheis questions the throttle approaching sonic speeds. of luck in forming your new service frater- tainly is an innovative idea. Protecting both safety of air travel in light of It definitely doesn't seem too controlled nity. the privacy and the lives of people, it seems tragedies. to me. It then climbed before ultimately We're glad to discover yet another ser- that the folks in ASAP are really taking an feet into vice group on campus. No one can ever say interest in serving the campus. Tuesday night, r telephoned my mom to plummeting the remaining 20',000 and crew. the sea killing all the passengers WMC doesn't care! It is also good to see that ASAP is not tell her to have a good flight the next morn- Nobody really knows anything except just relying on condoms as their main mes- ing. She was leaving to go to Atlanta on a that on that fateful October morning, 217 Scapin sage. business trip, and I thought it would be good people lost their lives off the coast of Nan- Recognizing the need for education and to call her because she was going to be gone tucket Island. Those of us who got to see the play this awareness is a large part of their focus. fora while. But as Boeing points out, of the 18 mil- weekend got a hard laugh at the actors in Their concern for their peers is admirable. I really didn't think anything of it until lion flights carrying 1.3 billion people in Scapin. Silly slapstick, riotious raucous, the end of the conversation when she said, 1998, there were only 100fatai accidents and and "zanni" operatic ditties were just a few "Say a prayer for me." that serious accidents are "exceedingly rare." of the escapades that made us roll on the Hopkins in the dust, It didn't hit me until just then that it Tell that to the 217 passengers that are floor with laughter. seemed that planes are falling out of the sky resting at the bottom of the cold, desolate To those who haven't seen it, we sug- Catholic dead ahead every month nowadays. Atlantic Ocean. gest you buy a ticket as soon as possible. In the past year, we have had multiple Well, things certainly are exciting There is another question posed on the There's only one more weekend you can tragic accidents including John F. Kennedy's around campus these days. The mood webpage: "What causes commercial jets to see it, and it's a great break from studying. and golfing legend Payne Stewart's crashes, crash?" around campus since last Saturday'S win against Hopkins is that of expectance. as well as numerous military aircraft acci- Kind of sounds like a kid asking his par- The playoffs are just around Cameras in the lab for the Green Terror. the comer dents. This brings up a valid question for us: Is ents where they came from. That is most defi- nitely a hard answer. At first, the thought of cameras in the And what better corner could that be flying safe anymore? Boeing had this answer to give: "There's computer lab sounded a little suspicious. than Hair Stadium? Some experts might tell us that these are rarely a single cause. Usually it's a combi- What need would the school have to put To say that hosting an NCAA Division just a random mass of accidents, but it must nation ofthings ... lt's sort of like having all cameras in the lab? III playoff game is exciting is to not do the be horrible 10 tell that to the families of the the holes line up in randomly selected, Was the school spying on its students? scenario justice. Exhilarating might be a accident victims. stacked slices of Swiss cheese: perhaps not On closer inspection of the issue, it can better word choice. I did some research on the Internet, and I impossible, but the chances [of accidents J are be seen that there is another explanation Congratulations to the football team on came across Boeing's "official" statistics on extremely remote." for the cameras being present. They could a third straight conference title, and thank its website. Lately, Boeing has been under The problem, however, will only seem to be there for our personal safety while us- you for bringing us a home playoff game. government scrutiny because they make get worse in the future. According to Boeing, ing the lab. By the way, if you see a lonely Phoenix most of the planes in service today, includ- at current projections, air traffic is expected ATM machines have cameras for your staffer walking around the stadium with ing all the 700 series planes. to double in the next 20' years. protection, so why shouldn't our computer programs in hand next Saturday, do that Some of the questions on the site kind of If the current projections of accidents re- lab? staff member a favor and buy a program. made me smile slightly to myself. For ex- main the same, "major accidents would oc- Especially since people are going to be ample, "wbere's the safest seat on ajet dur- cur roughly twice as often 20' years from there are all hours of the night by them- All of the above were written by ing a crash?" now; about once a week somewhere in the selves, it is a good idea. The answer was one that I anticipated -' world." Not a verjtcomtorung'projecrton-roco Hidden security cameras may make you the editor in consultation with ''There's no evidence that anyone part of an say the least. think of Big Brother, but in reality, we're the editorial board. aircraft is safer than another." As we approach the time of year when better off with them in place. Something startling about the latest ac- more people travel by plane than any other cident, involving EgyplAir Right 990', is that time, there have been many questions raised no one really knows what happened. about the safety of air travel. off the mark by Mark Parisi made a "controlled to the flight recorder, the plane Once again, tell that to people who have per- as Boeing put it, "it's very safe." According However emergency from decent" 33,000 feet to 19,000 feet in about 10' sec- ished in the past due to "safe" air travel. onds. I think I'll give simple advice to all the It doesn't because, seem to be controlled the season, )6oR ~AA1' SuPoIt'S tAA'I t-If.>.V£ltD for the plane to drop that fast, it would have people flying home this holiday "I will say a same that I gave to my mother, >ou -ro "'filE LOCAL WA"1!"1<.\N(;, HOLE'. to be in an almost vertical position at full prayer for you." eur-rHrRf.'S No WAY YoW..t:eotMNCt' Laws seek to control thought 1"1£, -tHEy fI'A'Ot"YOU 'ORINK ... Jeremy Keil questions the attempts the reasoning behind new ishing thoughts and not actions. are pun- Under hate crime laws, people law proposals. ished not for their actions, but for their thoughts and motivations. They are punished The other day 1 received an email encour- for what the prosecution believes are a aging me to support "hate crime" legislation. person's thoughts and motivations. I found this interesting, since I previously It is impossible for the state to read a thought that all crime was caused by hate, defendant's mind, and defendants should not but I guess I was wrong. be punished when the state attempts to do Hate crime legislation can do nothing but this. This is why people are punished for their harm. First off, there are already laws on the actions and not their thoughts. books that punish people for harming an- I am very wary when the government other. Passing one more law to cover the wants to control what we believe, and this is same crime is not going to help any, and poli- what hate crime legislation is about. Our ticians know it. country is based on the notion that people The only reason they propose such legis- are free to believe whatever they want. lation is in order to feign compassion for That is what keeps our freedom. That is homosexuals and minorities. If they actually what makes America so great. I am very sorry told the truth, that government cannot pre- that there are people out there who kill oth- vent hate, they would be labeled as ers because they don't like who they are, but uncompassionate. government can not change this. Therefore they must come up with some H has happened since the beginning of scheme to make it look like they are doing time and will continue until the end. It is something. What worries me most about this despicable the way people can treat each legislation is not that politicians waste time other, but it is far more despicable that the and money pretending they are fixing some- government believes it has the right to tell thing but that these people are proposing pun- us what we can and cannot believe in.