Editorial: SB 65-70, Summing Up

by: Joshua Howell

We at A&M have a penchant for self-regard. Not only must every good deed, no matter how miniscule, be trumpeted as if it were some herculean effort, we  have failed at what many believe is our core mission: A&M, we are incessantly told, is home to  the friendliest students in the nation.

But if you have to say it out loud…

For 13 of the past 17 years, The Princeton Review has ranked Texas A&M as one of the 20 most “LGBT-Unfriendly” student populations in the country. Recently, in a kerfuffle that garnered national media attention, we secured a spot on The Princeton Review’s list for next year.

The offense centered on The GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill (SB 65-70), which was introduced to A&M’s Student Senate in early March. Authored by Northside Senator Chris Woosley, the bill requested that “students who object to funding the GLBT Resource Center through their student fees and tuition for religious reasons be allowed to opt out from funding the same.”

With its anodyne wording, few realized SB 65-70 would eviscerate the goodwill A&M earned when Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. But ignorance is no excuse. On campus and in the media the bill was rightly seen as targeting one of A&M’s most vulnerable minorities.

The Huffington Post, MSN Now, LGBTQ Nation, San Antonio Express News, and The Eagle all covered the proceedings.

The Human Rights Campaign lambasted the bill as “a direct attack on members of the LGBT community at Texas A&M.” It reasoned that the bill’s implementation would segregate LGBT Aggies into “second class citizens” by “significantly reduc[ing] resources for a much needed institution.”

Perhaps the best response, though, came from Campus Pride, which issued a low-key opinion with which The Left whole-heartedly agrees -- “while SB 65-70 claims to promote religious freedom, we cannot ignore that it only allows students with one religious belief to control how their student fees are used: only religious traditions that disapprove of LGBT interests are given a voice... Whatever the intentions of the bill may be, the effect is clearly discriminatory.”

The Left would add, however, that “religious freedom” does not entail exemptions to rules which are generally applicable. It is a constant refrain of this news site, and deservedly so, that religion is a worldview like any other: the religious can mobilize, advocate, elect, and -- we too often forget -- be compelled to do things they aren’t otherwise inclined to do.

Arguing otherwise is to push for a gross political entitlement never before recognized.

To quell the ensuing indignation -- while simultaneously missing the thrust of it -- Woosley changed “The GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill” to “The Religious Funding Exception Bill.” The new version requested that “students who object to funding various services through their student fees and tuition for religious reasons be allowed to opt out from funding the same.”

The altered document passed the Senate with 35 votes for, 28 against, but was vetoed by Student President John Claybrook. In a confident, well-worded explanation, Claybrook noted that “what this bill represents still remains and must be done away with,” and that “[n]ow, more than ever, is the time to show great resolve and come together”.

Alas, A&M’s faculty was latent in its response; they did not “come together” until after the veto. Two statements stood out.

The first came from the Department of Anthropology, which strongly reaffirmed their “commitment to diversity and support of groups that have felt discrimination on campus,” as well the “GLBT community and the GLBT Resource Center.”

The second came from University President Bowen Loftin, who, in a rather lukewarm email, said that A&M’s recent discourse “has, in some cases, lacked civility and discounted each individual’s right to free expression of their ideas and beliefs.”

Dr. Loftin’s email was poorly timed; an hour later The Dallas Voice broke a story that at least one LGBT Aggie had received a death threat.

In an interview with The Left, Camden Breeding, an activist and senior at Texas A&M, confirmed the incident: “All I can say about the threat is that it was a phone call that threatened death upon ‘faggots,’” he said.

Lacking civility, indeed.

Student Senators recently upheld Claybrook’s veto. Shortly thereafter, a motion to censure Woosley was brought to the floor, but didn’t get the necessary votes for a second.

While solid efforts at rehabilitating A&M’s fractured ego, these legislative moves will not elicit the media attention SB 65-70 did in either of its forms; they will not repair the self-inflicted damage done to our university’s reputation.

We as Aggies must do better.

On: The Bombings in Boston

The Washington Post: Every Gun Control Proposal Fails in the Semate

by: Joshua Howell

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” -- Mr. Rodgers

It is true, if not always affirmed, that the measure of a country’s response to terrorism is akin to the measure of an immune system’s response to disease: It is not solely a matter of prevention, but of perseverance once sickness has prevailed. In terms of the latter, America has succeeded with steely resolve.

At the time of this writing, three have been killed and 176 injured in the Boston Bombings. The news media is still uncovering stories of bystanders inundated with shrapnel. An article has gone viral describing two brothers who each lost a leg in the explosion but nevertheless survived.

Incrementally, information is being revealed that will shock one from their complacency as a defibrillator will resuscitate the heart:  At least one of the bombs was constructed out of plain household and hardware supplies, a.k.a. commodities readily available to the public. We are told that ball bearings and nails were used specifically to maim the living, and that the explosive was placed in a 6-liter pressure cooker. The bomb was dropped into an inconspicuous backpack.  

Yet amidst the tragedy, steal away some inspiration:

For every Martin Richard that might yet come -- and they might, there are 17 who remain in critical condition -- there are a plethora of those who rushed in to provide aid. Carlos Arrendondo was one. The Washington Post reports that after witnessing the bombing, Arrendondo “ran across Boyston Street, jumped the security fence,” and immediately began assisting the disabled. He moved survivors to ambulances and at one point “tore strips out of a sweater he found lying on the ground” to create a tourniquet. His quick thinking saved at least one person from bleeding out.

For every Krystle Campbell there are a score of marathoners who, though tired and wan, immediately diverted their efforts toward the nearest hospital so they could donate blood.

And for every Boston University graduate student (the name has yet to be released), there are hundreds donating support in other ways. Households in the Boston area are providing comfortable accommodations for family members of Monday’s victims, so that the visitors might be with their kin as they convalesce.

This week, the 23,000 runners who participated in the 117^th Boston Marathon will be dwarfed by the number of Americans who will join Run/Walk for Boston events. These symbolic marathons are redundant evidence that while terrorism need not be faced with defiance, only stoicism, defiance can be conducive to the country’s psyche.

Anyone driving through College Station, Texas tonight, a city right on the cusp of rain, will see students from Texas A&M engaging in an impromptu run to show support for Boston. They are in all manners of garb, their bodies different shapes and sizes. Some are natural runners, others aren’t. All are Americans, undeterred. Today they show that when attacked, the brave  don’t scurry away in fear, they double down, they come together.  Their actions echo the words of Bill Iffrig, an elderly runner knocked to the ground by one of the blasts: “Terrorists, whatever they are… I don’t have time for it.”

For its part, the media has been comparatively tame -- by and large, information has eked out slowly but accurately.

The biggest journalistic faux pas emanated from (where else?) CNN, when John King “reported” -- quotation marks seem necessary when a report is erroneous -- that  a “law enforcement official” had identified “a dark-skinned male” suspect.

But his misstep is a far cry  from when NPR and MSNBC and Fox and -- feel free to take a breath -- CNN mistakenly “reported” that Representative Gabrielle Giffords had died two years ago during an assassination attempt. King’s mistake also doesn’t carry the heft of when news organizations mischaracterized the ruling on the Affordable Health Care Act.

Everyone else seems to have been on their game.

Still, for this writer’s money, David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post had the best line of the media blitzkrieg: “When the smart thing to do was run away, many ran into the smoke instead.”

Ran into the smoke.

Two days ago, some person or group initiated a terrorist attack during the Boston Marathon. Judging by America’s stark lack of fear, it was wholly unsuccessful. 

The Best of Wednesday

The Washington Post: North Korea's Kim says he wants Peace with South
The New York Times: County Refuses to Release Public Gun Permit Records
The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Blast Delayed Sandy-Aid Vote
Reuters: Hillary Clinton Leaves New York Hospital with Family, Aid
CNN: One Year Later, Iraq War's Legacy Remains Unclear

David Gregory interviews President Obama

                                        Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

On: Challenging the NFL
by: Joshua Howell

Broadly speaking, the rules of football exist for four reasons: to define what is quintessential to the game, to protect its players from ruinous injuries, to maintain the acme of competiveness and to codify the ideal of sportsmanship.

The first is what distinguishes football from, say, baseball—though a bit of roughhousing in America’s favorite pastime would be amusing.

The second—safety—is why certain types of tackles are illegal. “Targeting,” in which a player lowers his head and launches himself at his opponent, often leads to concussions—a.k.a. brain damage—and is therefore disallowed.

The third—maintaining competiveness—prohibits teams from securing indefensible advantages. In college football, after a penalty is assessed, there is a ten-second runoff. The reason: Penalties stop the clock, and toward the end of the game, during which each second is more important than the last, stopping the clock becomes so imperative that losing five yards might be deemed a worthy sacrifice. There is, however, nothing the defense can do to stop the offense from incurring a “penalty,” and thus the ten-second runoff was added.

The fourth—sportsmanship—is grayer than the preceding three, though no one would argue that coaches should be free to curse at referees, nor should excessive celebrations or taunting be permitted.

Which brings us, inexorably, to an obscure procedure regarding the ability, or inability, of head coaches to request official reviews on plays. It does little but complicate what is otherwise a straightforward game.

The rule was recently applied in a matchup between the Detroit Lions and the Houston Texans. During play, Texans running back Justin Forsett fell to his elbows and knees while carrying the ball. There the play should have ended, but the referees did not blow their whistles, play continued, and Forsett went on to score a touchdown.

In effect, it was little more than a simple officiating error—it happens, even when the replacement referees aren’t on the field. So doing what seemed reasonable, Lions head coach Jim Schwartz threw his challenge flag, asking for an immediate review of the play. Two minutes later, after much, if odd, discussion, the referees broke the news: Scoring and turnover plays are automatically reviewed unless the coach throws his challenge flag. Therefore, the touchdown would stand and the Lions would be given a 15-yard penalty per regulations.

A month later, Packers head coach Mike McCarthy threw a challenge flag on a supposedly lost fumble—a turnover play, which should trigger an automatic review.

Conceivably, Coach McCarthy’s punishment should have been the same as Coach Schwartz’s. However, because the process to initiate  the automatic review had already commenced, the play could be reexamined, though Coach McCarthy and the Packers would still be charged with a 15-yard penalty.

If the reader is confused, he is not alone.

First and foremost, kudos to the officials for having a strong understanding of the rules and applying them judiciously; they are professionals in every sense of the word. But referees should not be the sporting equivalent of Supreme Court justices, who hand down rulings from Mount Olympus based on obscure legal technicalities.

No one watches football to sort through these complications. Football is not chess, which requires one to have a deep knowledge of the game’s complexities to enjoy. The sport exists so that fans might decompress after a week’s worth of tedious work. It gives men a chance to escape to their respective man caves, beers in hand, while their wives and girlfriends watch… Downton Abbey? The Real Housewives of Wherever?

(My apologies to the many female lovers of the game, I only joke. Unless, that is, you are a Longhorns fan, in which case your opinions are irrelevant and my “apologies” are insincere. Thanks and gig ‘em.)

When the NFL’s Competition Committee considers revising this burdensome challenge bylaw, they should ask themselves four questions:

Does it guard something inherent to the game? No, deeming it “auxiliary” would be flattering.

Does it protect the players from injury? No, it has nothing to do with protecting players.

Does it make the game more competitive? No, it circumscribes competition by ensuring certain plays will be called incorrectly.

Does it codify sportsmanship? No, unless throwing a red flag two feet onto a field is unsportsmanlike conduct, in which case football has bigger problems than this.

If need be, have the coach lose one of his three challenges due to his ignorance of the rules. But with due respect to the Competition Committee, the question of whether this belongs in the game is easily answered.

Best of The Weekend

The Washington Post : National Uproar Over Woman's Death Triggers Public Conversation about Rape
The Indian Express: Rape Victim Suicide: "What did they open first, shirt or jeans," asked cops. 
The BBC: George H.W. Bush Moved out of Intensive Care
ProPublica: How Bad is our Debt Problem, Anyway? And Will a Deal Fix It?
Star-Telegram:  Women said she Pushed Man to Death Because She Thought he was Muslim.

President Obama Makes a Statement on Averting Tax Hikes for Middle Class

Special Election Update: Kerry Supports Markey

It seems like the 2012 election season just ended, and even the most hardened political junkies are looking for a well-deserved hiatus from the perils and stresses of election season.  However, the political beast never sleeps, and there is already another important election on the horizon.

With President Obama nominating Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to be his new Secretary of State, it is quite likely that there will need to be a special election to fill Mr. Kerry's seat after his (likely) confirmation.

While there has been some speculation now for a few weeks about who would run, there has not been any definitive answers from people who were being looked at to run (ignoring a denial from Ben Affleck, who was being floated as a possible Democratic contender).  That is, until Thursday.

Taking advantage of a slow news day (what with the lack of fiscal cliff talks and anything one might consider substantive going on), Rep. Edward Markey (D-07) has declared his intention to run for Mr. Kerry's vacant Senate seat pending Kerry's confirmation.  Mr. Markey, who is the Dean of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation and the second-longest serving member of Congress from New England, is considered by many to be a staunch Progressive.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-07)

Following this announcement, Mr. Kerry said that he would publicly support Mr. Markey, and was followed shortly afterward by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  This puts a slight stranglehold on the Democratic side, as it is not quite likely that anybody would be able to gain much traction against him.  Even so, there are two other Democrats thought to be currently considering the race:  Rep. Stephen Lynch, who is somewhat unpopular with Democrats for voting against the Affordable Care Act; and Rep. Mike Capuano, who attempted a run for Senate in 2010, but lost in the primary election to Attorney General Martha Coakley (who, of course, then lost to Republican Scott Brown).

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-09)

Rep. Mike Capuano (D-08)

At this point, on the Republican side, there has been nothing but rumors and speculation.  The most common name to pop up is current Senator Scott Brown, who lost his re-election bid to Elizabeth Warren.  If Mr. Brown were to run, it would be his third general election for the same position since 2009, something quite uncommon for an event that usually only happens every six years.

Sen. Scott Brown (D-MA)

At this point, it is somewhat useless to speculate over how a general election would go.  However, it will be interesting to see how this race will turn out with all the nation's attention on it.

More updates to come as the situation progresses.

The Best of Wednesday

The BBC: George HW Bush in Intensive Care After "Setbacks"
The New York Times: Morsi Admits "Mistakes" on Egypt's Constitution 
The Economist: The Big Picture -- The World is Getting Wider. What Can be done about It? 
The Atlantic: The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control)
The Washington Post: Things Better Left Unsaid

Morning Joe's Series: Knowing Your Value

Season's Greetings

I think that it may be safe to say that many people reading this will have a merry Christmas.  While this may be true, we as a society should remember those who will not, for whatever reason.  We should remember the soldiers who won't be home, causing emotional strain on both themselves and their families; the single mothers who don't have the resources to give their children anything special; and for those across the world who don't have the luxury of celebrating the holidays.

While you enjoy one of my favorite holiday songs, please remember the less fortunate among us, and perhaps think of taking some time in the coming year to help improve their situation.