Apparently, Independent Counsel Robert Ray did not hear that the U.S. Senate acquitted the president. Either that, or he considers himself above its judgment. William Jefferson Clinton became the second president (and the first elected chief executive) to face impeachment proceedings when he stood trial on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Both counts were voted down by the Senate. Clinton was cleared and acquitted. End of story, right? Wrong. Despite this, Ray, who has already spent $3.1 million on his investigation over the past six months, is considering indicting Clinton once he leaves office on Jan. 21, 2001. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that he plans to spend an additional $3.5 million on his efforts to prosecute the president. "There is a process, and a prosecutorial judgment has to be made," Ray told The Post. "That responsibility is to determine whether a crime was committed and, if so, whether it is appropriate to (seek an indictment). Even with regard to the president of the United States, that process should be followed." Ray should follow the lead of most Americans and let the issue die. He claims no man is above the law, not even the president. This was proved by impeachment, where a verdict of not guilty was returned. The Post reported that former Independent Counsel Ken Starr suggested to the House Judiciary Committee in November 1998 that he had not reached a conclusion on whether the evidence against Clinton was enough that a "fair-minded jury would convict based on these facts, with the witnesses." Enough said. Let's move on.
Math - calculators = learning A study released Wednesday by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics stated that students in the United States need at least one hour of math per day in elementary school and continued math education throughout high school. Apparently, kids aren't getting the math skills they need. Imagine that! The American schools failed us again. Or did they? Is it really the schools that are failing our students, or is society allowing this to happen? I tend to agree with the latter. Too often, society finds the easy solution to the problem. If your kid can't quite seem to understand his or her multiplication tables, hand him or her a calculator. If you can't quite remember exactly what to do with that extra number when you do some long division, grab a calculator and round to the nearest tenth. Calculators have come to replace the mind when solving simple math problems over the years, and nearly every student is allowed to use calculators in the classroom. For students like myself, using a calculator throughout my education was a godsend. I hate math, and the calculator offers aid. However, the fact that I and millions of other kids around the country have been allowed to use calculators has had an adverse effect on our education. Case in point: I can't do long division. I know, maybe I'm the extreme case, but have you tried to do long division lately? I assumed I knew how to do it until I was tested by a third-grader two years ago. I was angry that I couldn't help the young kid do her math. My initial reaction was to grab a calculator. I did know how to do long division for a little while. When I was growing up, we had to master it, but once we mastered it, we were handed a calculator and never looked back. So, whose idea was it to start using calculators in the classroom? Well, that would be the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the same group that said this week that we need more math. More math? Today's students are way ahead of where their parents were when they were in high school. My parents didn't take advanced calculus and trigonometry in high school. The problem is that schools are going too quickly. Now that I have finished my math career, I can say with almost 100 percent certainty that I will not use calculus ever again. What I might use is a little bit of long division. Of course, I don't remember how to do that because I had to hurry up and do calculus. So who is the council trying to help? I bet calculator companies love it. Along with its recommendation to add more math to our schools, the council said calculators should remain in all classrooms but not be used as a primary source. Well, that's an intelligent idea! Of course students won't use them as a primary source. First, they will try and do the problems in their head. Then, they will turn to the calculator. Hey, this might work out after all. With all the money schools will save on pens and paper, they can buy students calculators. The thing is, we can't stop kids from using calculators now. If we do that, our children will come to us for help with their math, and we won't be able to help them. So, I guess for now we will have to sit back and let the council tell us how much time to spend on math - a figure I'm sure it uses a calculator to determine.
James Zwilling is a news-editorial journalism
major from Phoenix.
God makes for a pretty popular story. Apparently so do atheism, agnosticism, objectivism and pantheism, all of which are undertones echoed in recent articles at TCU and national publications in the United States. From Time to Newsweek magazines and even in our own Skiff, stories about God and religion (or lack thereof) abound. But topics inevitably turn to Christian theology. And once that is breached, talk turns to Jesus Christ. But the coverage about Christ is nothing new. Neither is the disbelief and questioning. Marx once stated that religion is an opiate for the masses, while Nietzche proudly proclaimed, "God is dead." Kant and Descartes echoed similar views, and even Lennon urged the world to "Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if we try." But everyone is searching for sense in the world. We all desperately seek answers to eternal questions dealing with our origins, our meaning and purpose in life, our own morality and our eventual destiny. These are questions inexorably tied together and ones that every individual in the history of the world has tried to answer. And they are eventually answered or ignored in some way, shape or form. I'm glad that Skiff columnists can tackle deeper issues involving the community, the world and God instead of droning on about "TCU bubbles," lousy cyberwraps or even lousier parking. Questioning is merely the pursuit of better understanding. Atheism, which means a disbelief in God, was a view recently expressed in an Image magazine column. Of course, as the writer states, no atheist possesses "horns or hooves" and neither do most take on a nihilistically fatal view of the world. The writer rightfully claims to be "ethical and humane" and is probably more genuine than some Christians I know. But a problem lies within the definition of the word "ethical." The most common and current definitions take on a sort of congenial moral relativism where "good and ethical" become whatever is conveniently definable by the individual. I think it might be ethical to punch someone in the face every time I disagree with him or her, but a person would answer, "That's not ethical because that's not a good action. You shouldn't behave like that." But why should I act good? It is no use to say "Because it's right," for that is simply circular.
By avoiding moral codes of absoluteness, there is neither a right nor a wrong. It is merely an opinion that claims to have fact while, at the same time, debasing the very fact upon which it rests. Why live a "good" life when good, according to this view, is subjective? There is no point. Instead of finding true order without absolutes, one is answered with random chaos. Everyone possesses some measure of faith. And by believing there is no God, one places his or her faith in that statement. C.S. Lewis once wrote, "In the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist ... that the whole of reality was senseless, I was forced to assume that one part of reality, namely my idea of justice, was full of sense. Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning." But going a step further, another common bond that some of these writings share is the belief that Jesus was a good and moral teacher. This was definitely true but also does a great disservice to his life. And, as Lewis again said, let's not indulge any of that patronizing nonsense. The Jesus of both the Bible and of history claimed to be the son of God and to forgive sins. Christ told the Jewish leaders "before Moses was, I Am." That leaves only two options: You believe it true, or you believe he was a raving lunatic. It does us no good to say "Jesus had it together morally" and then to ignore what he proclaimed in his teaching about himself, God and the world. One particular column claimed that Jesus "got it." I would instead venture to say that Jesus Christ "gave it." The foundation for Christianity, the whole crux of the Christian faith, lies within the biblical belief of his resurrection and atonement. Christianity stands alone by proclaiming an individual who was both God and man, who willingly died a humiliating (and tortuous) death and then conquered death by rising again. Here also this individual forgives sins, gives eternal life through trust and promises a personal relationship with God: much more than being just a "good guy." Christ said, "I am the way, the truth and the life - no one comes to the Father except through Me." That is the definition of a Christian. He wasn't being intolerant or exclusive. He was being just and righteous. It is here where true freedom and reality can be found because it is tied to an ultimate absolute. It is here where immeasurable grace supersedes whatever human restrictions we would foolishly like to put on God. You can believe Jesus was a "good and right teacher," but what lies beyond that? That depends on your faith, which is the assurance of hope and the conviction of the unseen. In this particular column, arguments, questions and controversy are bound to arise. There are many angles left unaddressed, and most of the others are just barely touched upon in this limited space. The main objective was to present what has already been written 2000 years ago and to ultimately challenge individuals to stay on the quest for answers. For if they seek, they will surely find. Instead of pontificating on how Jesus Christ could change to meet our needs and what he should do for us, perhaps we should try to see what he claims to already have done. Instead of looking to the actions of others or following what soothes our own sense of values, why not grab a Bible and read for ourselves what was written about him? Imagine if we did just that. It's easy if we try.
Kevin Dunleavy is a junior advertising/public
relations major from Spring, Texas.
I placed the Star of David on my shirt, hugged my friend and went about the business of the day. I didn't think about what the star really meant or how others might have felt wearing it. Later in the day, while sitting in class, I felt the strange urge to take the star off. After all, the life of one gypsy boy, a victim in the Holocaust, had little to do with my everyday life. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to take it off. I suddenly felt the pain of having to wear one. My fate, however, is not sealed like Joseph's. His fate was inescapable. He died along with 6 million others in history's most confusing and tragic event. This is TCU's Holocaust Memorial Week as many of you have realized by the yellow flags, which are solemnly displayed in front of Sadler Hall. Their rows resemble a graveyard, and when walking by, one feels quieted and perhaps perplexed about how to feel about them. Each flag represents 10,000 people murdered systematically in the Holocaust. Many of these people not only were murdered but also suffered. Suffering is at the heart of this week's events. We must ask ourselves, how do we approach suffering, and what kind of meaning can we glean from it? I quote Victor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of "Man's Search for Meaning," who states, "Man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain, but rather to see meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition that his suffering has meaning." This is one of the most valuable statements I have ever read, and it is at the crux of how we should remember the Holocaust along with other events which our history has suffered. As human beings, we must be prepared to accept suffering and then give it meaning. We must suffer our history and our faults. We must suffer the civil rights movement, we must suffer the Civil War, and we must suffer our personal losses. Holocaust victims and survivors know this well: at the heart of human meaning and at the heart of truth and acceptance is suffering. We must use these incidents as memorials to our pain. Through this suffering, we come to better know what happiness and joy truly are and can cherish more sweetly a world of life. Many lights were extinguished during the Holocaust. This week, we honor that memory by suffering again. We can honor that memory by stopping by the flags, by praying and by remembering our own personal sufferings, for these are the keys to understanding the suffering of others. The Holocaust and our daily lives aren't so far apart. Someone asked me if I thought wearing that little yellow star would really help. My only response is in my acceptance of my own suffering so that I may reach out to those who have passed and honor their memory by never repeating similar atrocities. Through this method, we can take incidents in the past and problems of today and reconcile and heal them with our pains. I end with a piece of a poem by Louise Glück, who writes, "Human beings must be taught to love silence and darkness." Stop by the flags, if only for a moment, and remember our history and redeem our suffering.
Matthew S. Colglazier is a freshman English
and news-editorial journalism major from Fort Worth. |
An atheist's view of being "ethical and humane" is impossible
without a set absolute standard from which he or she is deriving this definition
of "good." If "good" were left up to the individual,
then arguably Hitler was good because, in his own demented mind, he saw
himself as thus. Of course, any rational person would be quick to point
out that Hitler was an embodiment of evil, but that is because we know
that genocide is not good and ethical and that it broke some unspoken law.
So, of course, we know Hitler was not a good man, but how do we know this?
Perhaps from our standards, but from where did we derive them?
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