VIEWPOINTS
f QlIQRiAt $ OPlNtQHS KTTf RS TO INI COtTOR
Despair may be reason
for conspiracy beliefs
■ OUR OPINION: The
emergence ol conspiracy
theories reveals mistrust
The Air Force fet carrying
Secretarv of Commerce Ron
Brown that crashed and
killed everyone on board In
Boania was malty the msult
of another U.S. conspiracy
aimed at removing blacks
from positions of influence
or (lower within the U.S
Government.
And AIDS was manufac
tured by white scientists to
wipe out African-Ameri
cun.
While it is unfortunate
enough that some Atman
Americans believe in these
so-called conspiracy theo
ries, the saddest part is that
n»<» relations have beans
had enough to allow even
the consideration of these
kinds of theories
Mom than 100 years after
the Civil War. and four
decades since the beginning
of Martin Luther king *
II— -—-—
Thu canyon has Jarred the
people of this nation into two
dutmtih paranoid camp$ of
'us and themor worse ret,
us vs, them,'
--j,
national battle for desegre
gation and civil right*, -we
the people- of the*** United
Stale* are still separated by
a « hasm of mistrust, anger
and despair. This canyon
ha* forced the people of this
nation into two distinctly
paranoid camp* of ”us and
them" — or worse yet. "u*
v*. them .**
The only way the differ
ent races will be able to
cro** over and move beyond
this gulf of mistrust we all
seem to have for each other
is to begin nmlly communi
cating with each other.
The alternative is that we
will continue to believe the
worst about eac h other
Navy continues course
of harassment hypocrisy
■ OUR OPINION: iexuai
harassment runs rampant
«n and oof af the military
Evan the way lha Navy's
latest sexual harassment
case was written up by Evan
Thomas In the April 29 edi
tion of Akrwfwmk smacks of
sexism
When “women were
caught having sex at Ban
croft Halt (the dormitory
complex that houses the
Naval Academy's 4.000
midshipmen in Annapolis,
Md.j. the senior midship
men (allegedly] offered
them a deal — have sax
with him. or face discipli
nary charges."
Though the midshipmen
is lining accused of having
"nnmxm sensual' mu with
one or more women, disci
plinary actions. if any,
against the other men
involved with the female
midshipmen weren't even
mentioned in the article
Mow ran we hold the
Navy (or any other branch of
the military) to any expect*
ed level of human decency
when civilian society still
has hypocritical attitudes
toward the behavior of sex
ist males7
It's lime for "boys" to
grow up and society to are
ata an atmosphere in which
that can happen.
w
Su rpri se, sur/>r ir>e.
*N»| (««-#
**■'***' •» »<«*.«, MU*
MyU 8* Twit
^ on. war
War, famine and pestilence — oh my!
'W' lankml and thet* bmform m# was a pair
m harmI lt» rider wm Dmih and Had** was
m ftdbmng dose tmhind him — tknmhtkmi
JL«m
It would appear in (hi* modem *g*> of pm*
parity end convenient# that the Four Horseman
of the Apt* slips* base relumed Wu. Famine.
Pestilent* and Death am among us once again
(Joe need only look to the world aa it is now to
mm thi* the violent * ami strife that plague our
inner due# and other nation* around the globe,
the starvation of million* in third world coun
triw*. the plague* that silently invade u* and
then kill without warning, and ultimately,
death, which feed* upon it all
No thia it not the wrath of God upon the
unbeliever*, but rather an undoing of our own
dtwign There simply are far too many of u*.
War. one may argue, may be due to two
thing* on* — man * inherent warlike nature
(yea. a* mm h a* we try to overcome or »uppre*s
it. it will a/wtm be a part of u*). and two — the
raged rat syndrom*
If too many nit* are put In a cage, they will
suddenly become overly aggressive They then
begin to kill each other off until the population
density of the cage reache* an equilibrium. and
lb* population is now controlled
One may then apply thi* model to the inner
cities. where the murder rate per capita is Mgh-r
than it la in rural area*. Thi* n probably due to
high population dentine*, and could explain
why New Yorker* are always bubbling fountain*
of joy.
War* will be fought over any thing — whether
il be land, an imagined insult, or soma twitted
vision of religious or ethnic morality Human*
are a war like people and will always continue
to he such
Famine i* when there i* too tittle to hied so
many On# may argue that it i* the myriad of
capitalistic imperial policies and such hum the
Weal, but it (till come* back to the tame thing —
too many people Our population grow* at an
exponential rate, meaning that soon, there will
literally be no room left if we continue to repro
duce at this rale.
Example take a thee* board and place • grain
of rice on the first square, than put two grains
on the next square, four on the next, and contin
ue to double the amount for each subsequent
square Since there are 64 square* on a diets
hoard you will begin with one grain on the first
square and end with over
0.000.000.000.000.000.000 (nine quintillion)
grain* on tb# laat square We haven’t even
added in all tb* rice on the other 62 square*
Are we beginning to see the poaaibililie* beta if
we don't put a curb on our growth?
If we don’t atop reproducing so much, then
other factors will alow us down. It is just the
way thing* work. If It Isn’t arm or famine, than
Mother Nature always has a far more insidious
method: pestilence,
Disease is what one may call Mother Nature’s
"big guns ” When the bubonic plague, or black
death, swept ac ross Europe in the Middle ages,
it wiped out between 30 and 50 percent of the
population in leas than two years War has never
been that effective, and famine rarely Is. There
is now a new plague quietly rampaging across
the planet — the Human Immunodeficiency
Vims (HIV).
Il U almost ironic that some
thing at incredibly simple at a
virus could wipe out tome
thing at "powerful" and “com
plex'* at we Homo sapient
HIV it actually quite effec
live at what it does It infacis
i!t host and then lies dormant
lor about 10 years before the
onset of AIDS. The immune
system in annihilated leaving
the body wide open
” m quu«? simple «— you get AJU3* you
di« Perhaps one of the reasons HIV ii so insidi
am is because one doMD*l know thst one is
infected until AIDS has set in and others have
already bean infected Tha cycle than repasts
Remember that chess board with tha rice on it?
Just wait, about to years from now it will really
hit tha fan.
Assuming that we do Anally And a vaccina for
HIV. o» even a cure, how banaAcial will that be?
Who's to say that something even worse won't
come along at hasn't come along already?
The new bug on the block is Ebola Instead of
10 years. Ebola wipes the host out in 10 days
first, flu like symptoms, then liquefaction of
internal organs, and then Anally tha host crash
es and bleeds out. i e.. one ends up bleeding out
of every ortAce as the virus attempts to "And" a
new host. The host becomes, in essence, a viral
milkshake
HIV. Ebola and other viruses don't care who
or what you are; black, whita. yellow, purple,
red or green. They don't know if you're gay or
®*le w female, moral majority or athe
1st They're equal-opportunity killiws They are
not plagues sent from Cod. but rather piques
sent from Mother Nature to thin out tha para
sitic simians reproducing like mad and raping
bar planet
In our attempt to dominate the globe we have
«»ly found (thoee with the wisdom to realise it)
that Mother Nature is in feet our master and that
everything we do ultimately comas back upon
us Nature will always have a way of controlling
I Bohnt'Oancy. a senior majoring in bio
chemistry, it a columnist for the Emerald E mail
jbehney+ghdston, uonfon sdu