Fantasy...What?

Ladies and Gentlemen, are you ready for your 2007 season
of…Fantasy Congress? Yes indeed you heard me right my friends,
Fantasy Congress, where you pick and trade your members of Congress in
order to maximize your team. I know the curiosity is boiling, here's
how you play:

Each team is divided into 5 sections, Allstars (Senior Reps),
Supporting (Median Reps), Rookies (Junior Reps), Upper Senators
(Senators with seniority than more than half of the Senate) and Lower
Senators (Senators with less years than half the Senate). Statistics
are accumulated for four different sections for every member of your
team, Legislation, Cosponsor, Maverick and News. Legislative success
gets you points, such as taking action to move bills, the more
important the legislation the better. Voting and attendance will be
taken soon (so says the site). We always love those members who says,
"Stick it!" to partisan politics and goes with their gut, the Maverick
Score is for them. News of course is pretty self explanatory.

There are three actions you can take, benching, trading, and a
pick-up (picking up a Congressman from the Free Agent Pool or Waiver
Pool). It's pretty simple overall, I've picked a team for fun,
started a league and just let things run its course checking in every
once and a while.

My sample team which has done pretty good:

Hillary Clinton (D)--Lower Senator
John Kerry (D)--Upper Senator
Chris Smith (R)-Allstar
Harry Reid (D)--Upper Senator
David Wu (D)--Supporting Lineup
Mike Enzi (R)--Lower Senator
Ron Paul (R)--Supporting Lineup
Raul Grijalva (D)--Rookie
John Conyers (D)--Allstar
Phil English (R)--Supporting Lineup
Mike Simpson (R)--Supporting Lineup
Jason Altmire (D)--Rookie
John Boehner (R)--Allstar
Judy Biggert (R)--Supporting Lineup
Dennis Hastert (R)--Allstar
Melissa Bean (D)--Rookie
Paul Gillmor (R)--Allstar
Tim Murphy (R)--Rookie

Check out all the madness today at www.fantasycongress.com

The Psychosis of Killers

We are the most educationally bloodstained nation in the world. The
occurrence of Virginia Tech and Delaware State chronologically so
close to each other displays and alarming fear to Americans, "Could
this become a reoccurance? A developing trend that will regularly
dominate headlines?" But perhaps the most alarming thing about this
is what the Secret Service, when analyzing shootings declares the lack
of signs or patterns to predict shootings.
If you were to look at a list of the violent atrocities committed
against educational facilities you begin as far back as the University
of Texas at Austin massacre in 1966 then there are twenty violent
occurrences until Columbine and then twelve from there to our current
shooting in Delaware. Thirty-two total major occurrences. Canada
lists six total. Israel: two. Finland, UK, Germany, Australia and
Lebanon, all sharing one. There is no doubt that we have an enormous
problem unique to America.
With this in mind, what can possibly be the answer? College campuses
can average six-tenths of a mile in total geographical distance. Tens
of thousands of students, how do we control a population that is
completely, and rightfully endowed with the privileges of citizens?
The only apparent answer, for now is to be on the defensive.
Universities must be prepared to lock down an entire University in a
matter of minutes. If you look at the incident at Virginia Tech the
first informing of students via e-mail was at 9:26 a.m. which is a
heavily scrutinized response. Was it an effective means to protect
students? Many proclaim it is heavily inadequate to ensure safety.
Nextly, at Virginia Tech they assumed that the shooting was isolated
and domestic in nature, obviously not a correct response either.
Until answers can be fully investigated, college shootings are not
going to suddenly stop with Delaware, unfortunately the next decade
will see their fare share.
Universities must take the threat of the potential shooting very
seriously and in the highest regard for the safety and well being of
their students. A communication system capable of instantaneously
relaying information to the entire campus, as well as to the
surrounding community must be built. Students must be well informed
how to react if a shooter should occur.
Above all, we must not allow campuses to be crippled by such anxiety
that ensues from the idea of educational violence. Is gun-control the
answer? Perhaps, but most of all we must be more restrictive of
violent media exposure to our youth. Everybody is very conscious of
sexually explicit exposure, but parents are perhaps the most lax on
violent video games and movies. We as a society are just beginning to
learn about the psychological effects of violence on the minds of not
just the youth, but all of society, (more discussion about this
later). Most of all, we must protect our universities not only in
their nature as places of free thought, but also as places of freedom,
importantly a freedom from fear.

Isaac Bennion

Back in 2004 I was walking down the hall talking with my friend Julianne, I asked her who she was voting for in the general election. “Oh definitely Bush!” she exclaimed, I continued to ask her why. I expected a well thought out, logical answer, considering a careful weighing of platforms and national issues, instead I was disappointed when she proclaimed, “Well, I know he’s old, but he’s just so much more attractive than Kerry!” I laughed, thinking it was a joke, but then she turned and asked why I was laughing, it was then I realized…it was no joke. But unfortunately my friend Julianne was doing better than most Americans, according to the non-profit Pew Research Center in a study released in September of 1999, showed that 56% of Americans couldn’t name a single Democratic candidate for President. For Republicans it wasn’t much better, only 63% could recall the name “Bush”, and that counts those people who mistakenly identified Bush 41. So what? I’ll admit that politics are about as exciting as watching Al Gore’s an Inconvenient Truth. Is low voter turn out really the fault of the populace? Well let’s take a look at what voting does.

So voting, why is it a big deal? We hear that voting is important, good citizens vote, blah, blah, blah, we’ve all heard it. But what does voting actually do? The 15^th, 19^th and 26^th Amendments, simply put, places the steering wheel of America into the hands of a voter so they can choose where to go and what to do. Voting takes a pool of ideas and chooses which is best for Americans. This pool of ideas is known as “pluralism” or discussion by ideas. Pericles stated that discussion was “indispensable preliminary” to political action. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states that “the art of legislation” was impossible without reasoning and dialogue. Modern philosophers such as Rousseau and Mills agree. Rousseau stated that pluralism is essential to the formation of a “general will” and in On Liberty Mills outlines a philosophy known as “government by discussion”. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis stated: “Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. ... They believed that ... the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of American government.” Now, I think that last phrase is pretty shocking, “The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.” So what we should truly be afraid of are an uninformed people?

Now let’s be realistic, is America really that uninformed? I decided that I would go straight to one of the biggest suppliers of information to the people, the news. I started at MSNBC.com and found some pretty shocking stuff. I looked up the recap of 2006 and these were the Most Viewed Stories of last year: Yankees Pitcher Dies in New York City Plane crash, Croc Hunter’s Last 5 Moments on Tape, ‘Croc Hunter’ Steven Erwin killed by Stingray, Murderer of JonBenet drove flashy car and wedded teens, and the most viewed story of 2006, Brittney Spears is Pregnant Again. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Steve Erwin the, Croc hunter, and I definitely think his death is newsworthy, but should Brittney Spears beat out the death of Al-Qaida leader al-Zarqawi, the ability of terrorism suspects to challenge detentions, the Amish Shootings, the North Korea Nuke Tests, the U.N. Report on Iraq Casualties in October, the Mid-Term Elections?!?! I know that everybody isn’t crazy about politics but I am, but something as important and life changing as the Mid-Term elections looses out to Brittney Spears? We have become a society of “Info-Tainment”, we’re more caught up about who’s going to be the next American Idol than who is our Representative to Congress. Pursuant Inc., a public opinion research company found that 35% of voters on American Idol believe that their votes count as much if not more than those votes cast in a U.S. Presidential election. 35%?!?! So what’s the bottom line? In my opinion we’ve just delved into a deeper problem than low voting turn out, we’ve dived into the problem of people just not participating not only in the Republic, but also not participating in the Marketplace of Ideas that fuels the quality of life in that Republic. I believe it is the duty of citizens to positively contribute to the Marketplace of Ideas, or the pluralism in their society. Great philosophers as I stated before, Aristotle, Pericles, Mills and Rousseau all tell us that discussion, the interchange of ideas is essential to the Democracy. To go back to the car analogy, not only are we not voting, we’re driving the car that has all of it’s windows blacked out except for a small peep hole which is has a view out the side of the car but not out the front! We are so distracted by the whirl of information around us that we don’t look ahead but look out the side at things, which in all retrospect won’t matter in a few years. Ralph Waldo Emerson relates a story from his childhood. As a child, Ralph Waldo once watched a sawyer cutting up some wood. The task was beyond young Emerson’s strength, but finally he saw a way to be useful. “May I,” he asked, “do the grunting for you?” I, in a lot of ways, am like Emerson. I am so willing to partake of the wood that is chopped to keep me warm, but I’m not willing to do anything but the grunting. Democracy takes a lot of work I hate to admit, but I believe it’s true. Democracy suffers when those who are responsible for keeping when those who are primarily responsible for keeping the government free of oppression and corruption.

I came across something interesting when I was reading through some Supreme Court Case Law. When researching the Rights of Students I came across the Case American Library Association v. United States. Fascinating case, Congress passed the Children Internet Protection Act, which required Libraries to install content filters on their computers. The Supreme Court came back with a very interesting conclusion, what they stated, is not only was there a right to broadcast information, such as free speech, and press, but there is a right to receive this information. I mean, this makes sense, what is the Marketplace of Ideas if there are only Vendors and no Consumers. This puts the nail in the coffin that we as citizens have an obligation to be well informed and involved in the Democratic Process.

But there was something else that was interesting that I came across when I was researching. It was a theory presented by some Radio Talk Show Host from Arkansas, but before I dismissed it, I took a look at it. He presented the idea of a “Technocracy”, a Republic well advanced into Technology. What he states is that we have become very technologically involved, that it is easy to broadcast ourselves, and that we become not only shallow partakers of the Marketplace of Ideas, but also shallow givers. Let me tell you a story by FDR to illustrate my point. Roosevelt was at one of the hundreds of important White House functions one day, he detested the polite small talk of these social functions, and it of course is tedious. He maintained that those present on such occasions rarely paid much attention to what was said to them. To illustrate the point he would sometimes amuse himself by greeting guests with the words, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.” The response was invariably one of polite approval. On one occasion, however the president happened upon an attentive listener. On hearing Roosevelt’s outrageous remark, the guest replied diplomatically, “I’m sure she had it coming to her.” With the age of “myspace.com” and “Survivor” and “American Idol” we become swarmed with shallow and sometimes trivial information. No longer does a manuscript have to be checked, no editing, no significant ideas. Information is now no longer a stream that is easy to manage, easy to handle, it’s become a flood. The flood of Hyperpluralism, to much information for individuals to likely handle, destroys whatever pluralism survives. I mean, in each of our lives we can see it, taking hold. To me, the rise of the Hyperpluralistic Teledemocracy was when the results of American Idol started cutting in to Fox News at 10 at the very end.

In conclusion, the comical Steven Cobert sums it up best, “Media has gone from an old boys club to an ecochamber. To get attention you don’t need to be right, you just need to shout.” All of us complain that the media is sensationalized, that everything is Yellow Journalism, that everything is “Infotainment”, everything is bad, and no good, all is controversy, and some very important issues are passed over. Who is the primary fault for this? We are. We consume media that comes in a candy-coated shell; everything chewed up and digested for us. We make our lives so busy that we are distracted, we multi-task, everything screams at our attention. It is important through this hustle and bustle to remain well informed and an active participant in democracy. As Winston Churchill once said, “Apathy, complacency, illness, chatter or indifference may often be faults. On election day they will be crimes.”