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Februrary
2, 2001
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| Thanks be to Student Government |
John Ashcroft: a civil rights liability |
Conservative Corner: School vouchers make the grade | |||
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The
Orient has not recently cast itself as student government's greatest
fan. Yet, credit must be given where credit is due. This Monday
the faculty will vote on a measure to begin Thanksgiving break after
students' last classes on the Tuesday before turkey day on Thursday.
This proposed alteration of the academic calendar has only come
before the faculty due to the consistent efforts of Bowdoin's student
government. |
The
introduction to Erik Sprague's article gave me the impression that
I was about to read a flippant, uninformed piece. I was not disappointed.
Equating the election to a game of Command and Conquer is silly,
as the battlefield Sprague refers to was actually states' electoral
votes, which have nothing to do with the geographical area Sprague
seems concerned with. To continue the juvenile analogy, one could
point out that George Bush certainly didn't dominate if "troop numbers"
(American voters) were counted, as Al Gore won the popular vote.
Sheer numbers are sadly as useless in determining the presidency
as square miles, however, as Bush had the advantage in the Electoral
College. The College, of course, is a system designed more than
two centuries ago as part of a racist ploy to grant more power to
the southern slave owners. Allowed by the Three-Fifths Compromise
to count their non-voting slaves as fractional people in determining
their states' representation, bigots scored a victory. On the topic
of bigots, I would now like to shed some light on Attorney General
Designee John Ashcroft. |
Last
Wednesday, President Bush made good on his number one campaign promise
to try to achieve meaningful education reform and put forth his
plan to help better educate our youth. Yet, almost instantaneously
after the announcing of his plan by White House Press Secretary
Ari Flescher, the Democrats began criticizing it and, in turn, laid
out their own plan, a plan that is, in many regards, similar to
that of Bush's, but with language strongly in opposition to a school
voucher program, leaving little room for compromise. |
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