The Crier
Thursday, November 20,2008	Issue 11	Fall	2008
What’s Happening in Student Government?
By Anthony Popkin
Each week your Student Association Government Assembly (SAGA) meets to discuss issues and concerns that affect students, college-wide. You may be asking, what is SAGA? As any other governing body, it is comprised of several different levels of government in order to keep a form of checks and balances.
It consists of the Executive Board, the Student Senate, and the House of Representatives; each plays a significant role in allowing communication between students, staff, faculty, and administration.
Below are some of the topics highlighted and discussed during the meeting held on Thursday November 13th:
Guest Speaker
Nancy Latour, Associate Dean of Business Administration and Computing, came to SAGA to attempt to recruit students to help with the spring 2009 Southern Tier Science Fair. Volunteers will take part of Cornell’s virtual world to help mentor high school students in developing science fair projects in the virtual world.
In all, 26 mentors are needed. Two mentors will team up after training and help up to 20 students that may be located in one of the many middle schools located in the Southern Tier. Once training is complete, mentors must complete one to two hours a week on working with middle school students.
If you are interested in being a mentor, you can see Nancy Latour in C201 and ask for more information. Applications for those that are interested are due by December 15, 2008.
President’s Reception
Members ot SAGA attended a reception held at the President’s residence to meet with the President and members of the Senior Stafflast Friday. The event occurred from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and promoted numerous topics of discussion that included residence on campus, green campus initiatives, snow removal, budget cuts, and more.
Smoking Designation Policy
Your SAGA recently voted on the concept of having a smoke-free environment on campus, essentially pushing smoking to the parking lots. This initiative has been a continuous topic of discussion at CCC and SAGA voted in favor of the concept by a vote of 16(for):5(against):0(abstentions).
Senator Ratification
Student Dan Gustina was ratified as a member of the Student Senate last Thursday.
Gustina is interested in transferring to major in cultural anthropology in three more semesters. Gustina was interested in becoming a senator in hope of making changes. His short term goals include creating a fair and balanced atmosphere, to be unbiased, and to promote dialogue between faculty and students. His long-term goal is to gets students interested in activities that occur on campus.
The Never-ending Smoking Ban Debate
By Lindsay Woodruff
It seems that ever since I became a student here at CCC, the biggest issue on this campus has been smoking. There have been discussions in student government and the administration, as well as a college roundtable discussion regarding this matter last spring, and much to my dismay as the editor of this college's newspaper, it has been the only hot topic throughout the campus that I’ve had to really publish information about. I’ve printed opinion pieces from students about proposed angles to the smoking ban. I’ve printed the thoughts and some content of SAGA’s discussions, and recently I published a more in-depth look at the zoning proposal, complete with a campus map with pretty red lines on it to signify where the smokers would have to go to in order to smoke.
I’ve kept my mouth shut until this point, but since the concept of sending smokers out to the parking lots has recently been favored by SAGA, I figure I might as well speak up. Frankly, I think the whole idea is stupid. I am not a smoker, which is surprising if you take a look at the people I spend my time with - seeing the majority of my friends without a cigarette nuzzled in between their fingers is almost as rare as seeing me without a cup of coffee. I've recently given up telling them that smoking is bad for them. They know. They might even care a little bit, but my opinion on the matter is not going to affect their personal choice. As a nonsmoker, I don't particularly like being around smoke, and I certainly worry about the health of these chain-smoking people that I have grown to love, as well as worry about the health of people in general who are exposed to second-hand smoke, but the fact of life is that you cannot exile ordinary people on the street to their own corner to smoke. Therefore, I don’t think that it is fair to discriminate against people on this campus that just so happen to have a nagging addiction by exiling them to our parking lots. Not to mention that there are a lot of other negative factors involved with pushing smokers all the way out to the parking lots, such as cime limitations for students and professors who are in between classes, the piercing cold of upstate New York winters which make up the bulk of our academic year, and the possibility that attempts to enforce this ban will just lead to conflict. (In case you’ve never had to deal with a smoker who is in a desperate need for a nicotine fix, they aren’t always very pleasant to be around...)
I also feel that leaving this decision up to SAGA is a bit unfair. As Tony Popkin mentioned in his column" What's Happening in Student Government?”, this new proposal was approved 16-5. That means that 21 people were in charge of deciding if over 3,000 students have the right to smoke wherever they want. Since this is a small commuter college, not many students are really aware of the discussions that occur during the weekly SAGA meetings. In fact, a lot of students don’t really know what SAGA is or what it does, which is one reason why we have a weekly column dedicated to informing the students of Student Association’s recent work, but even though this information is put out there, it only serves the students if they take the time to read it. I feel this decision may have been better decided by a vote from anyone on campus, but that may just be because I'm an advocate of fairness and giving a voice to the people who have to deal with certain decisions. (Democracy is a funny system, isn't it?)
Story continues on page 2.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Page 2
Spoken Word Artist Joaquin Will Take the Stage at CCC
The CCC Accivicies Programming Committee presents: Spoken work artist Joaquin.
Joaquin Zihuatenejo is a poet, spoken word artist, and award-winning teacher. Born and raised in the barrio of East Dallas, in his work Joaquin strives to capture the duality of the Chicano culture. Sometimes brutal, but always honest, his work depicts the essence of barrio life, writing about a youch that existed somewhere between the streets of the barrio and the dream wanderings of a boy who found refuge in a world of stories and poems. Joaquin is a National Poetry Slam Finalist, Grand Slam Spoken Word Champion, and HBO Def Poet. For seven years, Joaquin was an award-winning English and creative writing teacher for ninth and eleventh grade students inspiring a new collection of poems from the classroom entitled Stand Up and Be Heard. For the last three years Joaquin has taken a break from his teaching position to tour North America teaching workshops and performing his one-man spoken word show at hundreds of colleges, universities, conferences and poetry slams. He has shared a stage with Saul Williams. E. Lynn Harris, Alicia Keys, and Maya Angelou among others. He recently published and produced of fire and rain, a book and accompanying CD that is a spoken word collaboration with award-winning poet, Natasha Carrizosa.
Joaquin’s performance will take place on Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 12:30 p.m., Triangle Lounge, Commons Building on the CCC Spencer Hill Campus. Bring your lunch and enjoy the snacks and drinks provided during the program. For information about this event contact: Nancy Agan at 607-962-9507.
By Anthony Popkin
Cool Kids Storm the Commons with the Young Spirit Dancers
Not even a dreary and rainy day could prevent Cool Kids from bringing more than 200 attendees to the Commons Building this past Saturday for another fun-filled event. You may be asking, exactly what would bring this many people out of their homes to avoid Saturday morning cartoons? The answer you may be looking for is the Young Spirit Dancers.
From 10:00 - 11:00 a.m., the Spirit Dancers, sponsored by the Activities Programming Committee, performed various social dances to the delight of many eager children hoping to also get their own chance to show some moves. The group is an Iroquois dance group that ‘‘dances in traditional authentic costume - they bring story, dance, music and tradition to audiences across the East!”
As the show began, the children at first seemed to be leary to get on the floor to dance, but as the show went on, the dancers seemed to draw children and parents as it was all about fun and dancing and not whether one was dancing right or not.
There were numerous dances that occurred through the event which included the welcome dance, the stomp dance, the fish dance, the new woman shuffle dance, the war dance, the round dance, and the alligator dance. The names of many of the dances, explained by Wayne Tallchief, the main narrator, honor and are named after nature.
The new woman shuffle dance pays honor and respect to Native American
woman, for, Tallchief explained, “without them there would not be men.” Another dance, the war dance, was performed when men would perform for war. This dance was justly exhilarating as the beat of the dreams echoed through the Main Dining Room and the men danced with a passionate energy.
As each dance moved on, more and more children and parents participated in the even until it was finally time to slow down the dancing and explain the dress that the dancers wore. The men start with a headdress where a feather's direction indicates which clan each Native American is from. Their dress also includes ribbon shirts, sashes, leggings, dear toes, which make noise to keep a beat when dancing, and moccasins.
The women wear a skirt similar to the kilt men wear, leggings, moccasins, broach or barrette (sometimes containing a decoration that explains clan), and a cloth top that resembled a pajama top.
As the end of the event came, it seemed that parents and children attending the event were able to leave with a little more knowledge of Native Americans while having smiles on their faces from the fun of dancing.
If you were unable to attend this event, Cool Kids will be back next semester with two separate events. The first will be at 10:00 a.m. on March 21st from 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. with REPTILE MANIA, and the second will be the Cool Kids Ecofest on April 18th from 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. For more information visit the Student Life office or look for bulletins around the college.
The Never-ending Smoking Ban Debate
Continued from front page...
This campus itself takes only a few minutes to navigate, so perhaps even a designated spot on campus that is farther away from walkways would be sufficient to keep the second-hand smoke away from people who do not want to ingest it while still allowing the smokers a place that isn’t as far out as the parking lots. Regardless, the main issue that upsets me here is that smokers are not bad people, and they are certainly not animals, so they should not have to be herded out to a separate pasture in order to have a quick cigarette in between classes. Sure, some of them need to get used to the common courtesy of stepping 50 feet from building entrances to smoke and disposing of their cigarette butts properly, but for the most part, banning a personal lifestyle choice such as smoking is discriminatory and overall, not very nice. I understand that the number of college campuses that have smoking bans is increasing. I understand that a smoking ban leaves the campus cleaner with the lack of cigarette butts on the ground and obviously less smoke floating around in the air. I know that there are pregnant women, overzealous health nuts, occasionally children, and nonsmokers on campus, and I know that smoke is unpleasant to breathe in unintentionally, but for the few seconds that you spend walking by it, I suggest you do what I do - hold your breath.
Don’t get me wrong, if the majority of smokers on campus don't mind walking out to Mecca to have a cigarette, then that's fine. I just know that most of the smokers I’ve spoken to about it have gotten a bit upset about the proposal. Smokers, feel free to let me know if this doesn’t bother you, and nonsmokers, let me know if you are truly incapable of holding your breath for a few seconds.
Opinions on this issue are welcome
(Drop us a line at crierneuospaper@yahoo.com\
Thursday, November 20, 2008
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The Benefits ofTorture
By Calvin Givinner
Should torture be a valid method of obtaining information? Torture is perhaps one of the more controversial methods that the United States has used for obtaining information from criminals.
It is not looked upon with great anger by some in the world who believe that torture is a brutal and unnecessary resource. I happen to agree with people such as Michael Levin, the author of“The Case for Torture,” an insightful look at the value of being able to use torture. There are many reasons to ban torture, but the pros outweigh the cons. Torture, no matter how much we may hate to have to use it, must be used.
Perhaps the most critical time to use torture is when civilian lives are in danger. Michael Levin has given an excellent example of this with his description of a terrorist who planted a bomb in Manhattan and refuses to tell authorities where the bomb is located. If innocent lives could be saved only by torturing the terrorist into disclosing the bomb's location, then shouldn’t we go ahead and cause him pain until he does? I think so. It is important to think the way these mothers did. We should not make judgments based on how we think we should react in a certain situation; we should make judgments by placing ourselves in the situation. It’s easy to condemn torture when the result does not affect us directly. Also, it seems worthwhile to torture to save hundreds of lives, but it may not be deemed worthy to torture to save fewer lives. How can ten lives be deemed less worthy than one hundred? Any one’s innocent life is worth torturing a terrorist for.
Terrorists are different than the people they threaten in that the terrorists know what they are getting into, while victims do not ask to be in their situation. This means, according to both the author and I, that the terrorist has no rights. He gave up his rights when he decided to harm innocent civilians. Since the terrorist forfeited his rights and threw out every semblance of civilized warfare, he should not be treated like he has rights. Torture should certainly be used to save those who he has threatened with determined and cold malice. But how do we know that the man we are torturing is the right one?
In this age terrorists proclaim themselves as such every day on television. Arabic television networks air videos show terrorists give their dangerous messages every day. It is not too difficult to make sure torture is only used on those who are obviously guilty.
Torture is vital in today’s world. With masked gunman threatening everybody who believes in the western way of life it is important that torture can be used to protect those who we love. Look around you, at all that you know and believe in. Would you compromise those around you because you believe torture is barbaric? If you found out that a bomber has placed a bomb in your girlfriend s house and the only way to save her was to give the terrorist shock treatment, would you do it? Do any of us want to torture? No, only sick people want to torture. Unfortunately we find ourselves in a position where we must, absolutely must, torture.
The Absurdity ofTorture
By Michael Coates
It has been argued by some (who shall remain nameless, but whose argument is printed somewhere in the vicinity of this rant) that torture is a valid and necessary means of extracting information from terrorists, dissidents, and the all-around unpleasant people who despise our nation so.
This argument is most often made from a utilitarian perspective, founded upon the assertion that the suffering of prisoners is outweighed by the potential benefit to society. A favorite example of this logic is a contrived scenario, often involving the death of hundreds of innocents which, it is argued, can only be prevented by torturing a terrorist into revealing the location of a bomb, etc.
While this argument seems strong on the surface, it is flawed in two vital areas: first, that torture does not, actually, serve the greatest good of society, and second, that torture is not actually an effective means of obtaining accurate information.
On the first point, society must always be considered as a whole, so that the lives of a minority, even a cuddly minority like a busload of infants, can not outweigh the interests of the vast majority. Because of this, the lives of several hundred innocents hardly amount to much when considering society as a whole. While it could be argued that saving a hundred infants is in the interest of the greatest good to society, the means by which the infants are saved must enter into the consideration. While saving lives is always in society’s greatest interest in theory, in practice it is not necessarily so.
No man is an island, as the old cliche has it, and it is the same with nations: no country exists in a vacuum, and in the modern era the actions of any nation are open to criticism by all other nations. Because every nation must trade with at least some of the others, must have markets for its products and allies in times of war, no nation can afford to alienate the others, nor hold itself aloof from the judgment of the global community of nations.
This presents us with a problem, because torture is widely condemned in all the most civilized (which is to say, wealthy) nations; to engage in torture openly would (and has) expose America to the scorn of her allies, and perhaps alienate her from some of them. Certainly, openly endorsing torture isn’t likely to win us any new support for our military endeavors.
To secretly practice torture, on the other hand, is both illegal and immoral, and holds the still greater danger of discovery. America, viewed the world over as the second coming of Camelot, could not retain even a fraction of her reputation should it be discovered by the international community that we secretly tortured anyone, for any reason.
What is at issue here is the utility of sacrificing the moral high-ground to our enemies; by torturing even the most hardened terrorists for information, we essentially lower ourselves to their level in the watchful eyes of the world. This, in turn, can only create sympathy for the cause that the terrorists in question espouse, further threatening the good of the republic.
The issue of legality, often ignored in these arguments, is also a hefty one.
The Constitution of the United States denies the power to order cruel or unusual punishment to the entirety of the government. Because the highest law in our land explicitly forbids cruel or unusual treatment, torture is absolutely illegal: even the President himself has no authority to order the torture of prisoners, in war or any time else.
This argument can be taken a step further in view of utility.
In effect, since torturing prisoners eventually leads to public sympathy for the nation’s enemies either in America (Che Guevara) or abroad and thereby makes it easier for terrorist organizations to recruit fresh tod-der, the use of torture can be seen (albeit indirectly) as giving aid to our enemies in time of war.
And the Constitution defines giving aid and succor to the enemies of America as treason.
All of this is fascinating, certainly, but there is one tiny, insignificant detail being left out: the question of whether torture is actually effective in securing accurate information in moments of necessity.
To keep this brief, it’s not. The thing about people is that they either have the tolerance for pain to deal with torture, in which case they will say nothing or offer false intelligence, or they don’t, in which case they will say anything (seriously, anything) to make the pain stop.
Most people fall into the latter category: this fact has given us some of history’s most nauseating episodes, like the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials.
The sort of terrorist that most endangers our nation, however, is most often a person of the first type; being willing and eager to die for the cause, an even barely competent terrorist operative is as likely to spit in our eye or send us to the other side of town as he is to ever reveal the location of a bomb or the details of a plot.
Torture doesn’t work, torture is morally wrong, torture is illegal, and to argue for it is both offensive and absurd. If, as our friend has written, nobody really wants to use torture, that can only be because they know it to be wrong.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Page 4
Upcoming Events
Thursday, November 20 - Intramurals & Recreation
12:30 - 2:00 p.m., Gym
- Student Association Open Forum
“Sustainability”
1:00 - 1:50 p.m.,Triangle Lounge
Saturday, November 22 - Women’s & Men’s Basketball vs. Niagara
1:00 &. 3:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 23 - Campus Ministry Fundraiser: Interfaith Concert of Abrahamic Communities
4:00 p.m., First United Methodist Church, Corning
Monday, November 24 -Friday, November 28
No classes
Thanksgiving break
Saturday, November 29 - Tree Lighting Celebration
4:00 - 6:00 p.m., Centerway Square, Corning
- Parade of Lights
6:30 p.m., Market Street, Corning
Interested in joining The Crier?
We accept articles, photographs, announcements, or creative writing from students, faculty, and staff!
Submissions can be emailed to criernerwspaper@yahoo.com
Meetings are held Tuesdays at 12:40 in our office in the lower level of the Commons (feel free to email for directions) You do not necessarily have to attend a meeting to submit articles
(We pay $10 per published article and $5 per published photograph)
The Crier Staff
Editor
Lindsay Woodruff
Assistant Editor
Jacquelyn Goebel
Treasurer
Michael Coates
Secretary
Caitlin Woodruff
Student Association Representative
Sasha Wilkins
Advisor
Paul McNaney
Reporters
Michael Coates
Calvin Gwinner Anthony Popkin Lindsay Woodruff