The Horace Mann Journal

The Horace Mann Journal

!e Horace Mann Journal | Issue 21

JournalTHE$

HORACE$MANN

Opinions on Current Events and Politics

Issue:,2

From The Editor The Horace Mann Journal

!e Horace Mann Journal | Vol. II !e Horace Mann Journal | Issue 12 3

Benjamin Davido!Editor-in-Chief

Morgan,YaroshFaculty,Advisor

Lucy GolubAssistant Editor

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the second issue of the second volume of this year’s Horace Mann Journal. I hope that you enjoy the articles written by your classmates on an ar-

ray of topics ranging from synthetic meat to Iran and their nuclear ambitions. "ese articles deal with the problems that our society is facing. In the recent months there has been deplorable violence in Syria, President Barack Obama has come out in sup-port of gay marriage, and J.P. Morgan Chase has lost 2 billion dollars reviving calls for further regulation. Current events are extremely relevent in the lives of Horace Mann students. "e opinions presented here in this magazine are meant to teach readers about important events that have occurred lately. It focuses on events that you have likely missed. I hope that the articles stir debate and that they represent fully the spirit of Horace Mann. Enjoy.

Sincerely,Benjamin Davido!

Editor-in-Chief

Ananya Kumar-Banerjee 4Synthetic Meat

On Sports Daniel Jin 6

"e Iraq War Cara Hernandez 15

Joanne KuangAnimal Abuse 18

"e Olympics Siddharth Tripathi 20

Ella FeinerIran and the Bomb

Siddharth Tripathi

22

24

26Alexander Sherman

Sarah Zeng

Alexander Cohen

28

30

Occupy Wall Street

Costa Concordia and Sunken Ships

For Equality

Anonymous and Cyber Terrorism

32Binah SchatskyKeystone Pipeline

China Labor Abuse Grace Ackerman 34

The Horace Mann Journal The Horace Mann Journal


For those of us out there who have a sincere love for our environment, but still love our meat, decid-ing whether or not to be

vegetarian or vegan can be tough. "e meat-eater is responsible for wasting usable resources. Accord-ing to a German study conducted in 2008, the meat eater is respon-sible for more than seven times as much greenhouse gas emissions as the vegan’s diet is. In other words, if every American skipped one meal of chicken a week and sub-stituted vegetarian meals instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the equivalent of taking half a million cars o! the roads. Chicken certainly isn’t beef, but that does show that meat eating has a major a!ect on our environment. "e choice can be tough; meat or our environment? Someday, you may not need to make a decision thanks to a Dutch Scientist at the Universi-ty of Maastricht in the Netherlands. He o!ers a (slightly expensive) solution. Dr. Mark Post wanted to create an environmentally friendly way to supply our growing popu-lation with meat. He wanted to start with an American classic: the burger. Dr. Post used stem cells (An undi!erentiated cell of a multicel-lular organism that is capable of giving rise to inde#nitely more cells of the same type) from a cow, and

put them in a petri dish. He grew the cells for quite some time before telling the public about his great scienti#c venture. His goal is to use the bovine stem cells (stem cells from a cow) to create meat that looks and tastes like beef. For those of us who are human, this might sound strange, and be even stranger to consider eating it. When asking everyday people about their take on this new way for the world to supply its growing population with food, there were mixed answers. While some people stated that they would, “endure it to save the en-vironment”, others said that they don’t want their meat from a lab. Dr. Post and other scientists agree that this is an important step to take toward saving the environ-ment. Scientists say that you could create 1 million times more burgers from a single cow through Post’s process than through basic slaugh-tering. And although this is true, Post’s current burger isn’t quite “burger sized”. "e petri meat is currently 3 centimeters long and weighs about half a gram. To give you an idea, a paperclip is about a gram. It isn’t much of a burger. Post promises to have this burger ready by October. Although sci-entists have worked very hard to create this “stem cell burger”, they need more than hard work to make this burger edible. Scientists have to grow the

fat that gives the “meat” its $avor separate from the meat it self. "e meat isn’t exactly appetizing either; it’s a sort peach color. "e scientists that work with Post want to put ca!eine into meat, which would cause it to turn red. (It would do so by forcing the cells in the “meat “ to create myoglobin, which would cause to meat to look red.) And, for good measure, this burger costs about 330,000 dollars. "at’s a lot of work and money for something so small. So, you may wonder. Why go to all this trouble?Post explains that the demand for meat worldwide is going to at least double in the next 40 years. If we want to keep up with that demand and be environmentally sustainable, this is a very good option. Will this ever be more e%cient than the way we get our burgers today? "e answer: right now we’re not looking at much further progress in this area; the #nancial support is still low. And even if the team had everything they needed, it would still take about 15 years to get this idea to market. But, Post and others have the right idea. If we want to save our environment while still provid-ing food for our growing popula-tion, we need to work hard. And although the process may be lucra-tive, Post and other scientists are working to preserve the planet, and our species.

Ananya Kumar-Banerjee

Synthetic Meat



If you have ever turned on your TV to the MLB chan-nel to see a replay of an old game, you might have asked yourself: “What? Is this really

baseball?” "e same is true for the NFL, the NBA, and also profes-

sional tennis – sports today are far di!erent from the way they were years ago. If you have seen histori-cal baseball games, you would have seen that Mike Scioscia’s “small ball” with the Angels was baseball. Pitchers used to throw 88-90 miles

per hour and pitch complete games in 50% of their starts. "e NBA was once dominated by big men, and the NFL at one point was #lled with big hits and solid tackling. For bet-ter or for worse, these are all things of the past. Some analysts fear that

Daniel Jin

On Sports pro sports will never be the same again, while some are happy for the evolution of professional sports. You can weep because the old era is over, or you can celebrate that the new one has come. Baseball is o&en considered America’s national pastime, with many citing that all American’s know how to play baseball and it has been around longer than many other sports. However, baseball’s past has been almost forgotten, and many Americans have prob-ably never heard of the name Bid McPhee, let alone Ty Cobb. If baseball is really the true American pastime, how come people read James Patterson instead of David Halberstam? Times have changed, and baseball is no longer even America’s favorite sport. "ese days, baseball is o&en regarded as boring due to the long waits be-tween pitches, lack of exciting plays to replay, frustrating double plays, and teams being so close to mak-ing something happen only to end up with nothing. Everybody points to baseball as the sport that is #lled with waiting. "e truth is, a base-ball player is always working hard, whether they are on the #eld, at bat, on base, or in the dugout. When position players are waiting for their turn to hit, they are never just sitting on the bench talking about the latest movies with other players. Most of the time players spend in the dugout are use for studying the other team’s defense and pitching. Hitters o&en observe the umpires to see the strike zone they are call-ing. Pitchers and catchers take note of the strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies of the opposing hitters.

Or at least that was the way the game used to be. In recent years, it has become exceedingly rare to #nd players who focus 100% on baseball during games. Most players nowadays do not care what happens when they are not on the #eld. "is is evident every time a pitcher throws Ian Kinsler an inside fastball or every time Vlad Guer-rerro jumps out of his shoes trying to hit a Felix Hernandez change-up. Compared to Tom Glavine, Gary Maddux, George Brett, Ichiro, Pete Rose, David Eckstein, Chipper Jones, and the great players who were able to make adjustments in the game’s past, this is not high quality baseball. As Yogi Berra says, “you can observe a lot by watching.” Finesse pitchers like Glavine and Maddux, o&en labeled “Picas-sos”, have become a paucity in the MLB today, as radar gun obses-sions have made every team carry a bunch of $amethrowers who do not care for anything but the heater. With the steroid era, #nesse pitch-ers may never be successful again in the league. Former Padres’ general manager Kevin Towers used to alter Petco Park’s radar gun to irritate the opposing team’s pitchers. In the 1980s and ‘90s, nobody would even care to see how hard they threw. “We used to dial it down,” Towers said. “I know for a fact that every time Brad Penny pitched for the Dodgers in San Diego it was prob-ably the lowest velocities he ever had. He liked velocity. He’d stare at the board. He was throwing 95-96, but we’d have it at 91 and he’d get pissed o! and throw harder and harder and start elevating.” Perhaps

there is a reason why Penny sports a 1-5 record with a 6.47 ERA in 10 career games at Petco. Towers also confessed that the Padres would purposely raise the speed for their pitchers because “we felt it gave us an edge.” "e MLB has since installed a pitch fx technology to record data instead of relying on human beings like Towers. Most pitchers in the league today are like Penny in being velocity-obsessed and it hurts only them. As many pitchers in the past had masterfully mixed pitches and locations to mess with hitters’ minds, not many pitch-ers today use these tactics. Mariano Rivera, arguably the greatest relief pitcher of all time, only throws one quality pitch – his cutter. In 2011, he threw 87.3% cutters, a percent-age pitchers in the golden age of the game would never reach for any pitch with the possible exception of knuckleballers like the Niekro brothers. Tom Glavine must have thrown at least six di!erent pitches over his career and was famous for “painting the black,” using changes of speeds and pinpoint control to pitch on the outer part of the plate and slowly throwing farther o! the plate until the batter expands the strike zone and swings at a bad pitch. A&er the MLB introduced QuesTec, a technology to track the location of each pitch thrown in a game, umpires stopped calling the pitches that were close to the edge of the plate strikes, afraid that they would call a ball a strike and be proven wrong by QuesTec. In a study by Tobias Moskowitz and Jon Wertheim, it was found that umpires are more likely to call close pitches strikes in 3-0 counts than

Tom Glavine



0-2 counts because they are afraid to change the result of an at-bat, something which should not have a place in the game. QuesTec must also be credited in destroying the art of pitching and changing the way baseball is played. QuesTec has been opposed by many, and the World Umpires Association has tried on several occasions to have QuesTec systems removed from ballparks. Similarly, Curt Schilling once smashed a QuesTec #eld cam-era with a bat, showing how frus-trated pitchers are with the system. In John Feinstein’s book “Living on the Black”, named a&er the style of how Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine pitch, he talks about the di%cult adjustments Glavine had to make when QuesTec was #rst used. Glavine credits former New York Mets’ pitching coach Rick Peterson as the one who taught him how to cope with the new system. Glavine began a style that is known as East to West, surprising veterans who were used to Glavine staying on the outside corner. In the ‘80s and 90’s Bob Tewksbury and Dave Stewart had seemingly revolutionized the game by knowing every hitter and their strengths and weaknesses and always giving them what they were not expecting, only to see it be revolutionized again by people like Nolan Ryan who only had a fastball and maybe also a curveball to just run the gas all over hitters. Luis Tiant, perhaps the most tacti-cal pitcher of all, was famous for mixing pitches, speeds, and even sometimes arm angles to confuse batters, a little like Billy Chapel from Michael Shaara’s posthumous novel “For Love of the Game”.

Pitchers like this were once the type of pitcher that every team wanted on its sta!, not some one-dimen-sional player with one pitch who expects to be a quality MLB hurler. Mark Prior’s could-have-been great career was cut short by injury because he altered his motion to throw harder. Kerry Wood also once had the potential to be one of the greatest ever. "e new style of overpowering pitching will only lead to more horrible instances like Prior and Wood’s in the future. Bud Selig also must be mentioned when the topic of #nesse pitching comes up. Selig did almost noth-ing to regulate steroid rules in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A&er the 1994 player’s strike, baseball’s popularity was greatly deteriorat-ing. Selig then decided that the best thing he could do was to allow ste-roids in the MLB so scoring could increase, something he thought was an ingenious idea. "e problem is that Selig had forever prevented #nesse pitching to become an art again. In 1991, the year before Selig had become the MLB commis-sioner, the MLB average earned run average was 3.91. By 2000, the league ERA had exploded to 4.77. "ough 2010 was considered the second “Year of the Pitcher,” the league’s ERA was 4.09, actu-ally higher than 1991, which was considered an average pitching year at the time. Knowing more scor-ing would help increase the game’s popularity, Selig allowed steroids to be used by baseball players. Statis-tically, Selig is correct. Of the top 20 best-selling jerseys from 2011, only four were pitchers. "ough the game in the ‘90s was much di!erent

from baseball in the Golden Ages, it was still baseball, and Selig was succeeding to make it popular. Un-til the Mitchell Report was issued, Selig had not done anything to stop steroids. However, he does deserve credit for making baseball much cleaner today. Besides allowing steroids, Selig has also made unnec-essary suspensions due to steroid use. J.C. Romero was suspended for 50 games prior to the 2009 season for taking a banned substance, though he was cleared to take it by nutritionists. Romero had found a supplement called 6-OXO Extreme at a store in New Jersey that had not said that the banned substance was in it. "ough Romero had the evidence, Selig had not cared and suspended Romero. More recently, Ryan Braun was not suspended by the MLB though he had tested posi-tive for high testosterone and PEDs. Braun had testosterone levels more than twice as high as anyone else in baseball history and did not get suspended. If a less famous player had tested positive, there is not a chance that the league and arbi-trator Shyam Das would not have suspended him.As scoring has been in$ated, the bunt and the stolen base have greatly declined. In the ‘80s, play-ers like Vince Coleman, Rickey Henderson, and Tim Raines were famous for winner games with their speed and bunting. Many dead ball era players, like Eddie Collins, Mike “King” Kelly, and Billy Hamilton were noted for their exceptional foot speed and bunting ability. Today, Mike Scioscia is known for his “small ball,” utilizing bunting to win games. Scioscia uses his team’s

speed to win, but he does not have one player who dominates the game with baserunning like Collins, Hen-derson, and Maury Wills once did. Today, there are much fewer players who can win with speed. Just last year, on of the most proclaimed players in the game, Carl Crawford, had a down year and everybody is calling the Red Sox signing him a horrible decision. But “small ball” is now becoming prominent again in the MLB. "e way the Atlanta Braves sought a&er Michael Bourn before last year’s trade deadline made a giant leap forward for speedsters in the MLB. Jose Reyes was one of the most-watched free agents on the market during the o!-season behind sluggers Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder and Japanese phenomenon Yu Darvish. Jacoby Ellsbury #nished second in AL MVP voting and received the most votes by a position player. Pete Williams wrote in the 2010 MLB magazine, “Like Transform-ers, Bon Jovi, and other relics from the ‘80s,, the stolen base has made an unlikely comeback in recent years.” Today, many pitchers uti-lize slide-steps in order to give the runner less time to get a good jump on the pitch. Supposedly invented by Former White Sox pitcher Floyd Bannister, the slide-step is now pre-venting many players from success on the base paths.Today, many people think that big men are just the guys who do the dirty work on the boards on NBA teams. "ey would be surprised to see that only three MVPs from the 1955-56 season to the 1985-86 sea-son were not either power forwards or centers. Since then, only four big men have won the MVP. Actually,

not many big men these days are even willing to play center. It is said that Kevin Garnett listed his height as 6’11’’ to avoid playing center, though he was actually 7 feet tall. Chris Bosh, standing 6’11’’, plays power forward despite being two inches taller than his team’s starting center, Joel Anthony. Power for-wards generally have more versatil-ity than centers, and that is prob-ably why Tim Duncan similarly prefers to play the 4 spot instead. "e versatility of playing power forward is probably in$uenced by the European style of play, a&er international players began to in-tegrate into the NBA in the ‘90s. In Europe, many big men play on the perimeter, as opposed to posting up in the paint as early big men in the NBA did. "ough some may say that some great players don’t play center because their three point shooting ability will not be utilized, this is clearly a lie, as Manute Bol, Arvydas Sabonis, and Mehmet Okur have all been adequate three point shooters who were still able to shoot threes at center. "ough Tim Duncan, arguably the greatest power forward of all time, is prod-ded for his great post play, many other great power forwards do have skill sets that are similar to a small forward’s, including Dirk Nowitzki, o&en considered one of the greatest international players to ever play the game. "e rivalry between two big men, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, was once was the heart of NBA basketball. In the 2010-11 sea-son, only two centers placed in the league’s top 20 scorers – Orlando’s Dwight Howard and New Jersey’s Brook Lopez. "e post game has become much less powerful today

and the role of the center is fad-ing. A game that once boasted immensely talented big men who drew double teams each night and averaged 25 points a game now exhibits teams with starting cen-ters like Andris Biedrins, Brendan Haywood, Zaza Pachulia, Darko Milicic, and Timofey Mozgov – all of whom are utter failures in fol-lowing the path paved by the greats. Last year, the Miami Heat went all the way to the NBA Finals with Joel Anthony as their starting center. "is year, the Lakers have talked about trading Pau Gasol, one of the best post players currently in the league, much to the dismay of Kobe Bryant. "e front o%ce has already made a huge mistake this year, trading o! reigning Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom for virtually nothing (a #rst round dra& pick from the defending NBA champs) because he asked for a trade. Kobe asked for a trade in ’07, and he’s still in LA. Gasol is still putting up good numbers this year, though he Mike Brown is limiting his ability by playing Gasol in the high post, like Lamar Odom. However, Ga-sol’s strength lies in getting the ball in the low block in the paint and using his signature spin move past his defender to get to the rim. "e switch from Phil Jackson to Brown has been devastating for the Lakers this year, and the lethal low post combo of Bynum and Gasol that made the team among the NBA’s elite in recent years seems destined to end. While Kobe has been one of the best players in the NBA for the past few years and is probably one of the greatest of all time, it was the Bynum-Gasol duo that was most e!ective for the Lakers. According



to TNT analyst and NBA Hall of Fame #nalist Reggie Miller, “"e game has evolved. "e notion that you had to have a dominant center to win championships is not the case anymore.” An ex-Pacer famed for his proli#c three point shoot-ing, Miller later added, “Personally to me, the change really started in 1992 with the Dream Team and in ’96 with Dream Team 2 because if you look at the European big men they are not as dominant as a Shaq or a David Robinson or a Hakeem Olajuwon. "ey are more pick-and-pop players. Now that

they’re in the NBA, that’s where the game has started to evolve.” Miller’s words hold true – Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki were famed for their pick-and-pop o!ense in Dallas in the early 200’s. Nowitzki, a Ger-man, comes from a country where the big men are not dominant post players but rather more perimeter shooters. Former Atlanta Hawks guard Steve Smith has said that the e!ect of the zone defense is caus-ing the role of the center to dimin-ish and has constantly stressed the importance of coaches teaching young players the art of post play.

“No one is teaching the big guys the fundamentals,” Smith said, “and we don’t glorify a guy rebound-ing, playing defense and playing down in the post. I think it’s a lost art.” "e question basketball fans need to ask is, will we ever see another Shaquille O’Neill, another Wilt Chamberlain, or another Tim Duncan? “With all due respect to Dwight Howard, we will never see [another Shaq] a guy who domi-nated from block to block,” Miller said. “It’s all about highlights now. It’s not about dominating. It’s about looking good.”"e NBA coaches have also #gured out their own way to take away the opposing team’s post game. It is called “Hack-a-Shaq-ing,” with its inventor supposedly Don Nelson, former Dallas Mavericks’ coach. It may be an ingenious idea to slow down the other team, but it is comparable to the excessive fouling and stalling that led to the NBA’s implementation of the 24-second shot clock in the 1950s. Hall of Fame basketball writer Jack McCallum is reported as saying, “"ere is little doubt that the NBA’s competition committee will have to do something about the unsightly practice of Hack-a-Shaq used to an absurd degree by the Spurs in this year’s [2008] playo!s. Yes, Shaquille O’Neal, or any NBA player, should be able to stand at a line 15 feet from the basket and make, say, six of 10 shots. But the spectacle of one team inserting a player into a game to deliberately grab another and send him to the free-throw line – Popovich did it #ve times to O’Neal and twice to backup center Brian Skinner in the #rst half alone Tuesday night – is a rhythm-dis-

turbing stratagem that should have no place in the game…"e NBA has always been quick to change rules that keep the game fresh. And getting rid of this tactic, perhaps by giving the shooting team the ball back, is overdue.” It has been 15 years since Nelson #rst applied the tactic as Hack-a-Rodman. To this day, the NBA has done nothing to change it. Hack-a-Shaq has already moved on to other players, and it looks like it will live on for quite some time. "e tactic has died o! a little since the 2008 playo!s and progress has been made. On Janu-ary 12 this year, the Golden State Warriors and new head coach Mark Jackson used the strategy against All-Star center Dwight Howard, forcing him to shoot a record-setting 39 free throws. Howard sank 20 of them, #nishing with 45 points and 23 rebounds in a 117-109 Magic win. In the #nal game of the 2000-2001 season, O’Neal sank all 13 free throws he took against Denver, causing him to scream, “It doesn’t work any more!” at the opposing bench. Having the NBA outlaw such tactics would be a great improvement to the game and will raise the level of basketball for the years to come. Along with the responsibilities of NBA centers, the role of point guards has also changed drastically since the earlier years of basketball. "e traditional point guard is the $oor general who can dish the rock aptly to all of his teammates and handle the ball very well. But re-cently, many point guards have be-come the team’s #rst scoring option. So far this year, 5 of the league’s top 25 scorers are point guards, a vast improvement from the years that

Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell played. Now, instead of traditional pass-#rst point guards like Steve Nash, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, and Andre Miller, tweeners dubbed “combo guards,” a combination of a point guard and a shooting guard. "ese players are o&en thought of as too short to play shooting guard, but not as pure point guards. While the label “combo guard” was once a cynical title, combo guards are now valued by NBA teams a&er the success of Dwyane Wade. If Jamal Crwford cannot play shoot-ing guard at 6’5’’, how come Allen Iverson could at 6’? AI eventually moved to point guard, as his tre-mendous passing ability was all that coaches cared about and not his style of playing the game. A&er Iverson, the NBA has already seen many more natural shooting guards playing the point guard position only because of their passing. For example, Rodney Stuckey plays point guard only because of his passing ability, though he is more suited for the 2 guard position. Teams now value point guards who shoot the three and not players who can run an o!ense and create opportunities for his teammates. Steve Nash, arguably one of the greatest point guards ever, did not get a scholarship from a Division I school in college. Darius Morris, a pure point guard standing at 6’4’’, was not taken in the #rst round of last year’s dra& because he did not score 20 points a game at Michigan. It is arguable that he could have been one of the nation’s top scorers if he wanted too, but he chose to run his o!ense for his teammates instead. He may have been over-looked because he did not have

the scoring options at Michigan than his competitors had at their schools. One of the great under-valued things that Morris can do is to evaluate which one of his team-mates has the highest percentage shot and when, something that not even some of the NBA’s best, like Russell Westbrook, can do. West-brook just pushes the ball up the $oor before throwing up a di%cult shot or handing the ball to Kevin Durant, who can make defenders look stupid. Westbrook manages to average over 8 assists a game, only because he has Durant on his team, who is one of the best in the game for many years to come. In college, whenever his team needed to score desperately, Morris would use a great change of speeds and quick-ness to get to the elbow, where he would pull up and take the shot. Morris is a player who can score when he absolutely has to and can also create shots for his teammates; a type of player teams no longer respect as much as they once did. Morris has not seen signi#cant playing time in the NBA, another one of Mike Brown’s faults. He may not be worthy to be a starting point guard on most NBA teams, but the starter for the Lakers is Derek Fisher, a poor decision-making player who has absolutely noth-ing le& in the tank. Compared to Fisher, Morris is Gary Payton. If given the opportunity, it would not be surprising if Morris, with his leadership skills and his work ethic, becomes a great player while many players dra&ed before him fall. Morris is probably not going to become the next John Stockton, but he has a bright future ahead of him. Another more well-known



point guard who could have scored more than he wanted to is Magic Johnson. At 6’9’’, Magic could even play center sometimes. If you looked at some old replays of Lak-ers’ games from the ‘80s, you would have seen that the #rst thing Magic did a&er he brought the ball up the court was to pass it to either James Worthy or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Nowadays, when point guards bring the ball up the court, they #rst try to get past their defender to get an open shot for themselves. "is is why every former Phoenix Sun and former Dallas Maverick calls Steve Nash the best teammate you can ever play with. Nash’s court vision and sel$essness makes his teammates better and makes him the ideal teammate for any player.In the NBA, the pace of games has dropped o! since the earlier years. In the 2010-2011 season, the Denver Nuggets were third in the league with a pace factor of 97.9 possessions a game, and probably would have been #rst in the league if they had traded star forward Carmelo Anthony earlier in the year, as Anthony used a lot of time to get to the basket, thus lower-ing the pace. 20 years ago, under coach Paul Westhead, the Nugggets averaged 113.7 possessions a game. Today, Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni is noted for his unorthodox point guard-favored “run-and-gun” game plan. Last year, D’Antoni’s

team averaged only 98.1 posses-sions a game, practically defeating the purpose of his game plan. Jack McCallum published a book about D’Antoni’s supposedly fast o!ense in 2006 titled “:07 Seconds or Less,” talking about D’Antoni and his fast pace. However, D’Antoni’s league-leading pace of 95.8 possessions a game in 2005-2006 was actually 17.2 less possessions than the Suns had in the 1985-1986 season, which only had the 16th most possessions out of the 23 teams in the league that year. D’Antoni’s teams may be fast, but not as fast as the entire NBA once was.Before Ricky Rubio, before Danilo Gallinari, before Pau Gasol, and even before Dirk Nowitzki, there were two European players seen as pioneers of basketball – guard Drazen Petrovic and center Vlade Divac. "e two Yugoslavian play-ers were best friends before the Yugoslav War caused them to lose touch, and the praise they received for their contributions can not be forsaken. Petrovic, who was killed in a car accident when he was just 28 years old, was dra&ed by the Portland Trail Blazers in 1986, found no playing time at #rst, with the Portland backcourt #lled with names like Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, and Danny Ainge. As the Blazers decided to rely on already established stars in the NBA rather than Petrovic, who was seen as a

gamble since he had only played in Europe and not yet in the NBA. Petrovic ended up being traded to the New Jersey Nets in 1991. While Petrovic had not found any minutes early on, Divac had adjusted to the American style of play and had become a fan favorite because of his public charm and his natural cheer-fulness. Because of his likability, Divac was used for many television projects and was used greatly for marketing. Magic Johnson recalls that the only things that Divac could say when he #rst came to the NBA were “coach” and “ham-burger”. Divac made an immedi-ate impact, being selected to the All-Rookie team in his #rst season. He soon became the Lakers’ start-ing center and had a solid career, being selected to the All-Star game in 2001. Divac was noted for being a great passer for his size, and was elected to the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2010. In the NBA, Divac had been a good player, but not a great one. But what matters is that he opened the door for other European play-ers to follow through into the NBA. To this day, Divac remains the only player born and trained outside of the US who played over 1,000 games in the NBA. While Divac had never become a proli#c scorer in the NBA, Petrovic scored more than 20 points per game in his two full seasons in New Jersey before his death. However, being

a foreign player, he never became a household name. In fact, while placing as the 11th leading scorer in the league in 1992-1993, he failed to make the All-Star team. Unhappy with the lack of recogni-tion, Petrovic had reached a verbal agreement with a Turkish team for the next season before the accident. A&er death, Petrovic was praised by commissioner David Stern. “Dra-zen Petrovic was an extraordinary young man, and a true pioneer in the global sports of basketball. I know that a lasting part of his athletic legacy will be that he paved the way for other international players to compete successfully in the NBA. His contributions to the sport of basketball were enor-mous. We are all proud of the fact we knew him,” Stern said. Petrovic had helped make way for the many European stars a&er him, including his former Yugoslavian teammates Toni Kukoc and Dino Radja. In 1995, a tired, worn-out, and injury-stricken former Lithuanian super-star, center Arvydas Sabonis, joined the Blazers. In their second time dealing with international players, the Blazers had learned their lesson. Sabonis averaged 16 points and 10 rebounds in his third NBA season before declining due to age and his poor health. If Divac and Petrovic had never played in the NBA, other European players would likely have never gotten a chance to succeed.

In the NFL, tackling is seen as a lost art. Once upon a time, tackles were almost never missed and safeties like John Lynch, Steve Atwater, Ronnie Lott, and Jack Tatum rarely passed up chances to make a big hit to force a fumble. Not only do big hits cause fumbles, they change the momentum in games even if the ball-carrier holds on. "e exclu-sion of big hits in the NFL now has been apart of the game adapting to a more mainstream style of play that attracts more fans. Not many people watch the game with the intention of seeing injuries. "ough they are preventing injuries, the NFL has gone overboard. "e game has now become a bit wimpy, but it may be better than rugby-style football that the NFL once played. Even if it meant taking James Har-rison away from the game, the deci-sion to ban helmet-to-helmet hits was correct. However, some of the other rules Goodell has enforced make no sense. With defenseless receiver penalties, the NFL takes away big hits from the secondary. "e rule pretty much states that if you hit a guy too hard, it will be a penalty. "is means that everything that Jack Tatum ever did was illegal. “"e Assassin” was most famous for his hit on former Vikings’ receiver Sammy White in Super Bowl XI. If some of the current NFL penal-ties were around in Tatum’s career, his hit on White would be illegal

because White did not have time to defend himself before he was hit. Tatum’s job was to prevent White for making the catch for a reception. Based on the rules back then, Tatum did his job. He even knocked o! White’s helmet in a huge hit to the shoulder – not even to White’s head. If Tatum could not touch White until White had both feet on the ground and was able to defend himself, Tatum would have to defy physics in order to do his job. Another one of Tatum’s hits le& Darryl Stingley paralyzed for life. Again, the hit was legal at the time. With the new rules, quarterbacks today are now given a huge advan-tage, explaining why Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers put up such incredible numbers this year. “Now, if you blow air on a quarterback, it’s a penalty,” ESPN’s Cris Carter says. Is Drew Brees, who set the all-time record for passing yards in a season last year, more talented than Dan Marino? If you think so, you are probably wrong. "e NFL has made it so that quarterbacks today can play better than they ever could. Football is now more a business than a game. People like scoring. People watch-ing games earns money. "e NFL knows this, and makes the game focused on scoring to attract more fans. People once watched games to see the big hits. People now watch to see touchdowns. "e players



can only be held to a partial blame for missed tackles. "e NFL even made a rule to limit the number of padded practices a team can have to 14. If you only have 14 times to practice tackling on real people, you aren’t going to tackle very well. "is rule was actually considered as a big win for the players because less hitting equals fewer injuries. “It’s less wear and tear on your body,’’ Eagle’s cornerback Domi-nique Rodgers-Cromartie said. “I mean, you can play the game a lot longer as far as not wearing out your body.’’ Rodgers-Cromartie should know how the less wear and tear feels. A former Pro Bowler with Arizona, he has done nothing since being traded to Philadelphia for Kevin Kolb. It seems typical of athletes today to take the easy road and do less work.Once, players used to play with everything they had. "is breed of player has become virtually extinct today. "is can actually be seen as an improvement, though. Such players have been injury-prone due to their hard-nosed style of play. Former Brooklyn Dodgers’ out#elder Pete Reiser was carried o! the #eld a record-setting 14 times over the course of his career, depriving him of a ticket to the Hall of Fame. If Reiser had stayed healthy over his entire career, he might have put up numbers remi-niscent of Tris Speaker, and maybe could have overtaken Ty Cobb in the career batting average category. Today, not many players would do what Reiser did just to win a game. "is can be attributed to the growth of media coverage of sports and just the media by itself. "e attitude of athletes used to be, “if the trainer says you can play, you play.” ESPN’s

Mike Golic talks about how he tricked Notre Dame’s trainer into allowing him to play with a dislo-cated shoulder. Joel Youngblood once played with a broken leg. Steve Nash earned himself the nickname of “One-Eyed Stevie Wonder” for playing through a tremendous amount of blood in the 2007 West-ern Conference Semi#nals against the San Antonio Spurs. Big egos and money-loving athletes are now ubiquitous in sports. Golden State Warriors’ coach Mark Jackson be-came head coach prior to this sea-son with no experience in coaching before receiving the job. "ough one can say that Jackson had great leadership skills as a player which makes him a great coach, he is not the best coach. Jackson, as a former point guard, should be able to de-sign an o!ense to succeed. Jackson entered the business for the money, as many sel#sh money-loving athletes do these days. An example of the opposite to such situations is Jerry Sloan. Sloan worked his way from a scout to an NBA champion head coach. Sloan had to work to get there. Jackson only needed a name.As hockey has failed to change much, it has remained the fourth-most popular sport in America. Hockey is generally more violent than other sports. Perhaps the lack of popularity of hockey in the U.S. is due to the game’s roots not being in America, as is with soccer. NHL commissioner Gary Bettsman has not done as much as Roger Goodell to reduce in their respective leagues, thus making hockey not as popular in America. It sounds ridiculous, but if Betts-man banned hitting a player into the boards, it would have equaled

Goodell’s “defenseless receiver” penalties. "ough the Sedin twins are noted for being not tough as hockey players, they have enjoyed success in the NHL. What many people fail to realize is that not everybody in the NHL is as tough as Zdeno Chara or Shea Weber. Martin St. Louis has had a great career with the Tampa Bay Light-ning and is far from the biggest guy on the ice. Jarome Iginla, one of the top players in the league, is also one of the classiest players in the league. Ryan Kesler has even eliminated the trash-talking from his game to give fans a better view of hockey as a game instead of just him and his emotions."e NHL is still hockey, though, the MLB is still baseball, the NBA is still basketball, and the NFL is still football. Some of the leagues will never be the same as they ever were, and some may stay the same. In the end, each sport is still pretty much the same, and the names will be the only things that will change. "e new superstars will come, and old ones will go. Stadiums and arenas will always be $ocked with fans, and the media room always swarmed by reporters. Some lesser fans may never be able to tell the di!erence between each era of sports, and some bigger fans will be disgusted by change. "e players will simply adjust to the new styles of play, and, at the lard of it all, change will only make sports more interesting and bring a new taste once in a while.

On December 17th, 2011, the last of the U.S. combat soldiers stationed in Iraq were pulled

out, marking the “o%cial” end of the almost 9 year war. "is war was one of the longest wars in our U.S. history next to the Afghan and Vietnam Wars. "e Iraqi War le& about 4,500 U.S. servicemen and women dead, as well as tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and citizens alike. "ere is some pub-lic and media speculation that the war may have ended, but the peace never started. "ere were several goals that the United States tried to

reach during this war. One was to prevent Iraq from becoming allies with terrorist organizations like Al- Qaeda. Another was to get rid of the alleged WMDs (weapons of mass destruction.) I think that we did not accomplish the goals we set out to complete. We may never be able to prevent terrorism ties, and we went on a wild goose chase across the seas for something that was never there. "e Iraq War started on March 20th, 2003 and ended De-cember 17th, 2011. "e war began with an invasion of Iraq under the authority of President George W. Bush, and the United Kingdom’s

Prime Minister Tony Blair. Before the war started, "e U.S. and U.K. came to the conclusion that Iraq had WMDs (weapons of mass de-struction) that threatened the two countries and their allies. Iraq already had a very long history with the United States, which dates back to as early as 1979. "e same year that was this year when Saddam Hussein be-came president of Iraq. It was also during this year when the United States put Iraq on the list of coun-tries that support terrorist groups. In 1980, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Iraq had been purchasing acquiring

Cara HernandezOn the Iraq War



weapons, dating back to the mid 1970s. Also in 1980 year, the Iraq-Iran War started. In 1982, "e United States was neutral in the war, but they signed an agreement with Iraq that said that our country will do whatever it took to prevent Iraq from losing the war. President Ronald Reagan removed Iraq from the terrorist-supporting list. "is meant that Iraq was eligible for U.S. duel and military technology. "e Reagan and Bush administrations started forming a closer bond with Sadaam Hussein. "e United States sup-ported Iraq by supplying billions of dollars of credit, U.S. military intel-ligence and advice, and made sure the right weaponry got to Iraq. "e United States decided to support Iraq instead of Iran for a couple of

reasons. 1) Iran was a huge enemy of us. "ey completely hated and disagreed with America. "ey also overthrew the American-support-ive leader and replaced him with an anti- American Islamic cleric. 2), if Iran grew any stronger, it would have be able to get into the borders of Iraq and take over. Iraq is where a lot of oil is. Where there is oil, there is money, and where there is money, there is power. "is could have been a possible hidden goal of the U.S. In 1983, President Reagan secretly allowed Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia to trans-fer U.S. weapons to Iraq. In ‘83, the United States was aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran, and that Iraq had been using poison gas against Iran

as well. At that point in time, Iraq was beginning to develop chemi-cal weapons. "e relationship between the U.S. and Hussein grew stronger, and Bush and Reagan sent military advice to Hussein person-ally. In 1984, Iraq continued to use chemical weapons and nerve gas on Iranian soldiers, medical examiners note. One year later, in 1985, Iraq labs sent the Commerce Depart-ment a letter saying that Iraq had developed ballistic missiles. "e Reagan administration approved the export of biological cultures that are used in biological weap-ons to Iraq that are capable of reproduction. Over 70 shipments of these types of biological cul-tures took place between 1985 and 1988. "e Bush administration also

authorized another 8 shipments of these cultures that the Center for Disease Control classi#ed as: “hav-ing biological warfare signi#cance.” In March 1988, news was brought to the president that Sadaam Hus-sein used chemical weapons and gas on the Kurds. A year later, Iraq o%cially became the world’s larg-est producer of chemical weapons in the world. International banks cut o! all loans to Iraq, so as a response, President Bush issued National Security District 26, which included a 1 billion dollar loan to Iraq so they could buy and develop WMDs. "is was suspended on August second, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait. Between July 18th, and Au-gust 1st of 1990, the Bush adminis-tration approved 4.8 million dollars in advance for Iraq in technol-ogy sales (mostly computers) for weapons to Iraq’s ministry. A&er the Gulf War- In 2001, the Halli-burton Corp. sold $23.8 million of oil industry equipment and services to Iraq, and it was actually found out on June 23rd of that year, that the #gure was actually 75 million dollars. "is cooperation sold these things to Iraq to help Iraq build up its oil-industry empire.Before the Gulf War in 1990, Iraq was already in possession of about 500 tons of yellow-cake uranium. In late February of 2002, Ambas-sador Joseph Wilson found out that Iraq was NOT attempting to pur-chase more uranium from Niger, though the U.S. government under former President Bush insisted that they were. Because of this, the U.S. government justi#ed military action against Iraq. In September 2002, the government said that Iraq

was attempting to purchase high- strength aluminum tubes, used most commonly for nuclear bombs and to enrich uranium. "ese items were prohibited under the U.N. monitoring program. In early September of 2002, the CIA contacted Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister who was paid by the French as an agent. Sabri said that Sadaam had hidden poison gas among tribesmen, and nuclear research was already underway. "ere was no clear evidence that any WMDs were being stored, and uranium enrichment facilities were being built. "e U.S. still insisted that WMDs were being built, so in late 2002/ early 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq. "e war had o%cially started, on March 20th, 2003. On March 19th, 2003 at 9:34 pm eastern time, the invasion of Iraq began. "e U.S. called the mission “Operation Iraq Liberation” but then changed it to “Operation Iraq Freedom”. "ough the idea of war was dreadful for most of the world, many countries, including our allies, sent support to us to help #ght this war. Almost forty other governments sent Special Forces, troops, supplies, security, equip-ment and much, much more. "e U.S. had 248,000 soldiers, Britain sent 45,000 soldiers, Australia sent 2,000 soldiers, and even Poland sent 194 soldiers. Also, the Kurdish Peshmerga may have sent troops in quantities up to 70,000. "e Kurd-ish were the group of people liv-ing north of Iran that were being gassed by Hussein. "e U.S. coop-erated with the Kurdish forces to support the invasion. A&er we invaded, we found

out (to our surprise), that in fact there weren’t any WMDs at all. But, while we were there, we did topple the Iraq government. We captured Iraq president Sadaam Hussein, who was tried in the Iraq court of law, and was executed. He was hanged December 30th, 2006 a&er being found guilty of crimes against humanity. A&er this, we helped Iraq establish a new government and our soldiers helped re-establish an Iraq police force and army. Our soldiers trained their soldiers and policemen. Our U.S. soldiers were being withdrawn starting in 2007, and the last of the soldiers le& Iraq on December 17th, 2011. As to the goals that we tried to accomplish, we may never succeed in preventing ties between Iraq and terrorist groups. "ough Sadaam Hussein is dead, time will tell if the Iraq government and people will develop a friendly relationship with the United States. In terms of getting rid of the al-leged WMDs, there weren’t any. We found that out when we got there. In total, I believe that the U.S. only accomplished one of their goals partially, but, they did succeed in toppling the government and rebuilding it basically from scratch. "ere has been some sectarian unrest taking place in Iraq. Sectar-ian unrest (or violence) is when violence takes place between two di!erent communities/ groups of people. "is is very common in religion and race. In Iraq, there has been sectarian unrest between Muslims and Christians. "ere has been sectarian unrest between Hus-sein and the Kurds, and Iraq and Iran.



Animals have had a long history as actors in Hollywood #lms, and were part of theater since the beginning. "e #rst moving images made were of galloping horses. (I got that from the time article.) Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, and

Old Yeller are some old time favorites. But there has always been a great amount of controversy on this issue. Some people think that animal actors do not get abused during #lming, and animals add a special e!ect to the movie. But others believe that casting animals to work in #lms for human enjoyment is cruel and inhumane.

!eTerrorOf AnimalAbuse

By Joanna Kuang

Even in the 1900s, movies were made featuring animals. Two movies that harmed animals in the making were Electrocuting an Elephant, a short #lm that shows exactly what its title states, and Tar-zan and the Apes, where an actor stabs a drugged lion to death. Back in the 1900s, there were also a lot of western movies being made. Most of them included horses, many of which were treated terribly. "ey did not have rules regulating the treatment of animals on set or rules for their safety. People made the horses perform in tough action scenes typical of westerns that were o&en dangerous with no regard for the horses themselves. "e notori-ous1939 western Jesse James gained fame for being exceptionally cruel to the horses it used. A common method during the time to cause a horse to fall was to use wire-tripping, where they would put invisible wires or other objects in a horse’s path so that when it jumps or runs into it, it trips and falls to the ground. "is practice killed 8 horses in Jesse James. In the movie, a horse carrying a rider also jumps through a plate glass window, shat-tering it on itself. But the most infa-mous scene in that movie was when a horse was ridden o! a 70 foot cli! into the Lake of the Ozarks blind-folded, with a cowboy on its back. "e horse died, and the public was horri#ed when they saw that scene. "at pushed the American Humane Association to look over #lms to ensure the proper treatment of ani-mals. Today the AHA still reviews #lms and TV shows according to their 100 plus pages of guidelines. How-

ever, the AHA only reviews certain #lms and they are made up of vol-unteers. Films are not obligated to let them in to watch. But if the #lm passes all the guidelines, they can run the tagline “No animals were harmed in the making of this mo-tion picture” in its credits. "at has pushed many movies to allow the AHA to review them. Even recently, however, movies like the Zookeeper and Water for Elephants have reportedly been abusing the ani-mals. In Water for Elephants it was revealed that people used electric shock devices and hooks to torture an elephant. "at was especially ironic because the #lm was partially about saving an abused elephant. "ere are also bene#ts to having animal actors though. Animals don’t need to be talked to or to be asked if they are feeling ok with doing something in the movie. "ey are not picky about food or lodging, etc. so the movie crewcan save a lot of money on them. Also for audiences a movie can be more enjoyable with a real animal actor on screen because it is fun to see how animal actors interact with the human ones. Sometimes the animal also plays the main character so without a real animal it wouldn’t feel so real. Animation is never the same as a real life animal. But even though there are certainly bene#ts to having animal actors, I think the cons outweigh the pros. It is not right to make animals, who don’t have a voice, act in a #lm or TV show just for the pleasure of humans. "ey don’t get paid either, so what’s in it for them? Sure, there are some awards given to animals, but they don’t know

what an award means! "ey have to work for many many months with a trainer, learning special moves that they have to perform over and over in front of a camera until it is just right. It is cruel to put an animal through all that without their permission. "ey can’t choose whether to act or not or what to do. "ey are treated as props and ob-jects. Also, some movies use exotic animals such as lions and gira!es. "ose animals belong in the wild, not in a pen being ordered around by people. It is very hard to train wild animals and some punish-ment is necessary for the animals to learn their part. And of course they always run the risk of being abused by humans, sometimes even killed. Animals should be removed from the entertainment industry completely. Besides acting in #lms and movies, animals are also made to perform in circuses. "at is so wrong of us to make nonhuman creatures do things for our enjoy-ment. "e movie Rise of the Planet of Apes last year used computer technologies to create all of the apes in the movie. Not a single live ape was used. I think this is the right approach for people who want animals in their shows. "at way audiences can see the animals but no real animals were actually made to do any acting. Yes, the comput-er-generated animals might not look exactly true to life, but in the future, there will certainly be more advanced technology, and we will hopefully be seeing more of fake animals and less of real ones. "at way, everyone’s happy. Even the animals.



I vividly recall the ceremony of the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing, China. "e spec-tacular displays, the majestic opening and closing ceremo-

nies, the dragon dances. Everyone unanimously agreed; the 2008 Olympics were the most striking so far. Will any country be able to put up a better show? “"e 2012 Sum-mer London Olympics is so close, but it seems like it has been an eter-nity since the last one” I thought. I ponder the last Olympics in 2008. Besides wanting to hold the Olym-pics for glory and prestige, why would a country want to hold the Olympics? I decided to search the topic on Google. I began to read… "e London Olympics are scheduled to take place in Lon-don, England from 27th July to 12th August, 2012. London will become the #rst city to legitimately host the modern Olympic Games three times, having earlier hosted the Olympics in 1908 and in 1948. It will cost nearly $15 billion to host the event. "e host country for the Olympics, doesn’t host the Olympics just for the Glory. "e host country in spite of the huge costs involved in holding such an event comes out ahead in tour-ist spending. Also, in showcasing to the whole world what it has to o!er. "is will create many golden

opportunities to attract foreign businesses. It is also to improve dilapidated cities, and increase jobs. "e British organizers have set an ambitious target to make this one of the best and most recognized Olympics ever. A&er all, the 2008 Olympics in China mesmerized the world and set the standards to a new level. Also, one of the most prominent goals for the organizers is to improve one of the most challenged areas in London, "e East End. "e other targeted cities are Greenwich, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham For-est. "ese cities are poor and embryonic compared to the rest of London. "e British organizers plan to trans-form these areas and hope to make them “equal” to the rest of London. London’s public transportation has improved so much in preparation for the London Olympics. Ex-pansion of London Underground’s East London rail, improvements to the Docklands Light Railway and the North London Line, and the beginning of a new “Javelin” high-speed rail service, using the Hitachi Corporation’s “bullet” trains are all welcome additions. Also, pub-lic transportation to the East End

of London will be upgraded by a Channel Tunnel shuttle. “We have already achieved results that eluded previous hosts” the London o%cials realized early on. “Wow” I think to myself ”. "is is really interesting. I start to think that the 2012 Summer London Olympics will have a huge e!ect on the economy

and impact it in many diverse ways. First, workers will bene#t from the games. “"e London Organizing Committee expects that contractors will employ a workforce reaching 100,000” - Bloomberg Business Week said. "is will a!ect the econ-omy because with more people hav-ing jobs in these recessionary times

Siddharth Tripathi

bombasticview.com

!e London Olympics and its Bene"cial E#ects

means more opportunities which will lead to many more people be-ing contented. Also, many parts of London will have been upgraded. "e East End of London will now be up and running. Business will increase. "e Economy will swell. "e 5000 Olympic Village homes will be converted into homes for

teachers and nurses a&er the games. "e Olympic Park will be trans-formed into a huge urban park, the largest in Europe in the last 150 years. Lastly, many places in Lon-don such as West#eld Stratford City will improve and the con#dence in the rundown areas will increase.

"e upcoming Olympics have cre-ated 27,000 jobs in the construction phase but the shopping complex will also provide 15,000 jobs in the coming years. Many people will have jobs. "is means that they can make money. "is will a!ect the local stores and businesses. With more people making money,

they will then use it to buy luxury items from local busi-nesses that may or may not be on the stock exchange. If the stores are listed on the stock exchange then the stocks of the big companies will go up. General business will $ourish. "e British have thought of themselves as part of the Eu-ropean Union. But in the past, when Euro was suggested as one common currency for the European Union, Britain said no thank you, we will keep our pound. Europe is still trying to work its way out of the Greece, Ireland and various other eco-nomic collapses in countries that are part of the European

Union along with the steep decline of the euro, their currency. With Germany and France taking charge and leading the way, what kind of leadership role will England be le& with on the European continent? Will the British economy go into another recession or will the bright

optimism that comes from antici-pating a successful summer Olym-pics boost the national pride and save the British economy? Overall, I think the 2012 London Summer Olympics will be a success and triumph in trying to be one of the greatest Olympics ever. I think these Olympics will lead to a great change in London’s infrastructure and the British economy. With thousands of people travelling from other countries to watch the Olympics, the advertis-ing money spent by big companies to promote their goods, London and Britain overall will become a new place with many additions and improvements. It will become more modern and advanced, with all the new technology that they have incorporated such as the new “Javelin” train service. Also, London’s economy will swell and become even more successful. “I can’t wait until the 2012 London Olympics” I think in my head. "is will de#nitely set the standards for the Olympics to a new level.



Iran, a Middle Eastern coun-try known for causing unrest and producing massive amounts of oil, wants to start a nuclear program to “pro-

vide extra energy for the nation.” Right now, they only have one op-erating nuclear power plant Since Iran is run by an aggressive dicta-tor who speaks out openly against

Israel and the West, the American government and its allies are scared that Iran will use the power to build nuclear weapons. Iran says that they are only interested in nuclear power to produce clean energy for their nation, but U.S. government o%cials are skeptical. Since Iran produces so much oil, they don’t really need the energy resources for their coun-

try. "ey can run on fossil fuels alone. But, the oil, which is a non-renewable resource, will not last forever (especially with the growing population), and Iran doesn’t want to burn through its limited supply. Also, their oil #elds need repairs, which will cost a lot of money for the country. Why is it fair for the U.S. and Russia to have nuclear energy while Iran burns away its oil

Ella Feiner

Iran and "e Bomb

reserves? "e U.S thinks that since Iran is very anti-West, and that they shouldn’t be given the opportunity to build nuclear weapons, which could possibly be used against us. During his 2005 presidential cam-paign, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad spoke out against future relations with the United States. He told the country that the United Nations was “one-sided, stacked against the world of Islam.” He defended the nuclear program and ac-cused the U.S. and other world powers of trying to limit Iran’s indus-trial and technological development, not just in the #eld of nuclear energy. We are scared that Ahmadinejad will take advantage of the nuclear power to make weapons, and then use them against us.

But somehow, it doesn’t seem fair that we have enough pow-er over Iran that we can make their decisions for them. A&er all, we are both countries, and countries are supposed to be equal. Although Iran does not have as much power as the U.S., they should still be al-lowed to make their own decisions. "eoretically, we should be the ones prohibited from nuclear weapons, because we’re the only country that has ever dropped a nuclear bomb! Although we don’t trust Iran to

make good decisions, that doesn’t mean that we should have the pow-er to make decisions for them. But through the UN Security Council, we can. "e UN Security Council is an organization responsible for maintaining international peace and security. It has #&een di!erent countries as members, #ve perma-nent and ten elected for a two-year term. "e #ve permanent members are Russia, China, the United King-dom, France, and the United States. Each of the permanent members has a veto power, and the U.S. has exercised it eighty-two times. "e Security Council’s solution to the Iran problem is to make the Middle East a nuclear free region. "ey are scared that nuclear programs will spread and cause a race, which could develop into a war. "is is the ideal solution, but there is always a catch. If the Middle East were to become nucle-ar free, Israel would have to give up its nuclear weapons. "e U.S. does not want this to happen, because Israel would become much weaker. "ey could easily be defeated in a war with their Arab neighbors. As a temporary solution, the council is threatening to place oil sanctions limiting exports on Iran if they don’t comply. "e goal is to scare the country into behav-ing, but this won’t work for long. We’re nervous that if we restrict their oil exports, Iran will retaliate, and this will be very destructive. Personally, I don’t think that Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. "ey are a hostile country, and they wouldn’t just use the power for blu%ng. In the real world, it de#nitely makes more

sense that wealthy democracies like the United States, Russia, and France have veto power over other countries’ decisions. But theoreti-cally, this seems unethical. I think that in order to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, we have to do more than just sanctions. Ahmadinejad is de#-nitely not scared to bomb us, but nuclear bombs are very powerful and could harm millions of people. I think that we need to send U.S. military troops into Iran, to observe the nuclear activity. "is would be a lot less dangerous and destruc-tive, but just as e!ective as a nuclear bomb. In the sixth grade, we are currently almost #nished reading Animal Farm, by George Orwell. A&er the animal’s government becomes corrupt, their only com-mandment is “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than oth-ers.” "e UN Security Council is basically saying that some countries have more rights than others, and therefore have a lot more power. When you think about it this way, somehow commanding Iran doesn’t seem like such a quick decision anymore. I am certainly not trying to say that we should trust Iran or any other dictatorship in the Middle East with a huge amount of respon-sibility and power. A&er all, Iran would only use nuclear bombs to blow up the U.S. and Israel. But in an ideal world, where all countries are equal, either all countries or no countries should be allowed to have nuclear power. "at, to me, seems like the perfect solution.



“We are the 99%” shouted hun-

dreds of demonstrators as they noisily carried out protests, holding up posters showing their disgust with the 1%, the rich bankers on Wall Street, and their greediness and sel#shness. "eir actions, has led us to face the consequences of their foolhardy actions and the present economic catastrophe. "is protest that started o! being small and not that meaningful has now grown into a globally inspired movement, now known as Occupy Wall Street. It all started with David Graeber. He moved from London to New York and frequently visited 16Beaver, a scholarly activist salon, located near Wall Street. People would discuss topics such as strug-gles of common people and eco-nomic unfairness. Like many other people in America, Graeber had been genuinely moved and inspired by the occupation of Cairo’s Tahrir Square. In mid July he published an article in Adbusters asking what it would take to ignite a protest like that in the United States. "rough-out the summer, the exact question buzzed around 16Beaver. When a local group called Operation

Empire State Rebellion called for a June 14 occupation of Zuccotti Park, only four people showed up. But, this was only the beginning of a major global phenomenon. "e group started plan-ning the occupation of Wall Street on September 17, 2011. Before the protests, Graeber organized classes about people’s legal rights and non-violence resistance when con-fronted by police. "e group end-lessly discussed what demands to make or not to make. "is is called a general assembly because decision is made by consensus. Also, they made a cool sign language to con-verse with one another. "e protest-ers speci#cally are against econom-ic unfairness, high unemployment, greed, and corruption. "e gather-ing of four ultimately increased. On September 17, 2011 nearly an hour before the 3 pm scheduled start, the word spread to go to Zuccotti Park. 2,000 people collected on the now famous patch of benches and trees. Zuccotti Park is a privately owned park so the government couldn’t ask the protestors to leave. "e protesters therefore would not be vulnerable to the police or harassed by the government. Even the courts ruled in their favor. Zuccotti Park was bustling with thousands of people march-ing around and “taking over” Wall

Street. Protesters used video’s of arrests to increase support online. A Brooklyn so&ware developer released an “I have Been Arrested” app for smart phones to help pro-testers alert family about their situ-ation and their whereabouts. "e New York City Pad, Police, and riot o%cer’s had to take control. "ey arrested many people and also used batons to hit the people. One o%cer used Pepper Spray on some college students. His job was eventually taken away for unnecessary vio-lence. Everyone involved in the creation of Occupy Wall Street have been surprised by its amazing suc-cess. Graeber doesn’t give the credit of success of this movement to its planners but to luck and perfect timing. It seems as everything was meant to be, being at the right place at the right time. All of the pro-testers opinion have not all been the same, but overall the intended general message is coherent; better jobs and less pro#t for the banks. However, in my opinion banks are the total opposites of what the 99% percent think they are. Certainly there should be more regulation but the banks are already faring badly and their pro#ts are down. "e funny part is, the reason why the 99% think the economy is so bad isn’t even true. It’s because of in-

Siddharth Tripathi

Occupy Wall Street and Wealth Disparity

crease in globalization worldwide. I think Occupy Wall Street will end up going down in the history books as a fruitless though well intended protest. In conclusion my opinion of Occupy Wall Street has mixed feel-ings. First, it started o! having one main purpose which was to protest against Wall Street but as time went on, the focus changed to other is-

sues of people’s daily life. To sum this up, this basically means there were no focus and the concentra-tion and the determination in my opinion was not there. On the other hand, it was successful in catching the attention of the government and the world by re$ecting the gen-eral frustration of the 99%. Overall, it was too loosely knit and a leaderless revolution. History has

told us, to be successful, a leader needs to guide and show the way for example, George Washington, and Mahatma Gandhi.



Beautiful blue seas, abundant sunshine, #rst class accommoda-tions along with #ve star restaurants. "ese

things are major selling points for a Cruise Ship, however, since the Costa Concordia sank outside of Giglio, Italy on January 13th, many questions regarding safety are still being asked, with fewer answers be-ing found, whether above or below

water. Approximately 100 years ago, the infamous Titanic crashed into the iceberg causing the death of over 1,000 people. Since then, strict safety procedures have been imple-mented by the cruise ship industry. It seems obvious that despite these claims, there are still many risks to going on a cruise ship. Captains who make ill advised decisions, un-prepared crews, and ships tainted with rampant illness to name a few.

Early on the morning of January 13th, smiles lit up the faces of more than 3,200 passengers as the Costa Concordia set sail on a voyage through the Mediterranean. "e ship was on a course until reportedly the ship’s captain Fran-cesco Shettino, decided to go closer to the coast to give the passengers a better view. However, the ship came too close to a rock and scraped its hull, severely damaging it and

Alexander Sherman

http://topuspost.net

"e Dangerous Seas began to sink. Panic soon took over as passengers and crew alike fought for safety. Unbelievably, Shettino was one of the #rst o! the sink-ing vessel, supposedly having little understanding of the severity of the situation. Shettino is seemed to be a coward by many for abandoning ship. He le& while approximately 300 people were still le& on board. Many survivors and people thought that the death of the many pas-sengers could have been prevented, if the crew had been well trained and prepared. Passengers who were on the boat had life jackets on, but the crew was ill prepared and now was without the direction of its captain. Eyewitnesses said that

when the ship started to fall over, “everything was falling o! it’s shelves and then the heavy TV started to fall o! of its shelf and there was an obviously large amount of gravitational force” from the ship tipping over. Luckily, some made it out without su!ering any injuries. Many pas-sengers mentioned that the crew failed to direct them to stay calm. Even some of the crew told the passengers the stay on board even when the ship was sinking. What was obvious was the total disorganization of the crew and the lack of pre-paredness. "e last straw was when the crew had

no idea how to lower the lifeboats into the water causing many of the them to violently fall o! of the boat. Unfortunately, as of January 28th the death count is at 17. "is, of course was not the #rst time that this has happened, instead of incidences decreasing, they are increasing. In 2010 and 2011, there were 15 incidents in all compared to 12 incidences for 2003 to 2009. "ese incidences include collisions, capsizing, and pirat-ing. However, one drawback that is rarely ever mentioned is illness. "is means a viral sickness within an isolated space and which can spread very quickly and very easily. If this happens in the middle of

the ocean, it can be very di%cult to treat and may lead to the cruise having to turn back. Without a quali#ed crew and captain mak-ing sound decisions, hundreds of people can turn violently ill. A&er analyzing the data are the seas really safe? Many cruise ships companies present data of the amount of passengers com-pared to the amount of incidents. If put in a ratio, the percentage of people who are injured or die on cruise ships would be very minute. However current data suggests that there is room for improvement. In my opinion, I would be much more comfortable knowing that the captain and crew are quali#ed and know what to do in case of an emergency. Also another safety measure that should be taken is cleaning and sanitizing the ship well before each trip to minimize the chance of disease and unsani-tary conditions and #nally, letting the passengers know safety proce-dures incase of an emergency. Fi-nally, is it worth going on a cruise? while there are beautiful views, and the nice rooms and such, but there are also many risks. For me a nice sandy beach will do just #ne. How-ever the decision is now up to you. Do you think it is worth the risk?



Sarah Zeng

Humans are of course, the smartest animals on the planet. Ani-mals such as mon-keys and dolphins

are also considered to be very smart as well; however, few people know that birds are actually also very intelligent too. "e pigeon and the crow are prime examples of smart birds, and there is an active debate regarding which species is smarter. Pigeons have excellent memories. Before telegraphs, phones, and emails were invented, people widely used pigeons to deliver messages and communicate with others. Pigeons could deliver the messages fast, without getting mixed up or lost in the process. "ese birds were used to send messages during World War 1, and were very important because of the messages that they sent. In the 1800s, pigeons were used as one of the major methods of communi-cation in many countries, such as China. Another one of the pigeon’s talents is that it can count. Scien-tists discovered in a recent experi-ment that pigeons also knew that three was more two and one was less than #ve, a skill scientists previ-ously believed only primates had. Crows, like pigeons, are also known to have good memories, though their talent for using tools is more widely known. In fact, did you know that crows can make some tools better than chimpan-zees? New Caledonian crows (a

type of crow that lives in New Cale-donia, an island in the Paci#c) can make tools to capture insects that are in hard-to-reach areas. Studies also found that New Caledonian crows can use tools to test some-thing unfamiliar before touching it. For example, researchers from Oxford University introduced the crows to items such as rubber toys and watched how the crows reacted to the objects. Many crows used a stick to poke and probe the object #rst, instead of using their beak or claw. I don’t have an opinion on which bird is smarter, because they both have di!erent strengths. "e crow has good memory, but so does the pigeon. "e pigeon can count, and the crow can make tools. "eir di!erent strengths remind me of an old fable: there is an antelope and a rat. "e antelope has a big ego and boasts to the rat: “I am fast and I can jump high. Can you do that? No. What can you do? Nothing as good as what I can do.”"e rat believes what the antelope says, and quietly mutters: “Well, I can do...I can do...” Just then, a lion leaps to-wards them. "e rat quickly dashes into his hole and hides while the antelope leaps and gallops in terror. However, his fast abilities did not help him escape, and the rat, who was not as fast nor could jump as high as the antelope, was safe. "is fable shows us that ev-eryone has di!erent strengths, just

like the pigeon is smarter than the crow in some ways, and the crow is smarter than the pigeon in other ways. Which bird is smarter really depends on your own opinion. Humans have di!erent strengths too. Some people were born with an athletic talent, and others are extremely creative. "at changes their personality, and maybe even their grades, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are all talented. If someone is from Africa, and another is British, that doesn’t change their talents and hobbies, though it might change their inter-ests culture-wise. "ey will both be di!erent because they came from di!erent backgrounds. "e person that’s from Africa could have excel-lent grades, but not be very good at a sport, whereas the person from Britain could be athletic, but not very creative. "e two people both have di!erent strengths and weak-nesses, but that doesn’t make one better than the other. Di!erences of race, ethnicity, religion, and economic class can divide hu-mans, even though they shouldn’t be divided. Humans need to look beyond prejudice and see their own similarities. "e crow and the pigeon are the same. "e two birds have di!er-ent abilities; therefore they are both skilled. So in the end, everyone is equally talented, but just in di!er-ent ways.

A Fable and Equality



There is a new threat to our nation, Anony-mous. Anonymous is a group that started in 2003 as Internet hack-

ers. At that time the group was only interested in causing trouble on websites, but now they are inter-ested in making political statements by attacking major websites. "ey are a threat because they are leaking some of our nation’s most secure #les and information. In January 2012 Anony-mous hacked the websites of the United States Justice Department, major entertainment companies, and trade groups. "ese hacks were in response to a shutdown of Megaupload, a site where people can store documents and music anonymously. In August 2011 Anonymous created a protest, which included more than a dozen of the Anony-mous hackers and a small group of San Francisco residents. "is demonstration was a protest against the shooting of a 45-year old man. "is protest started peacefully, with people chanting things and signs being held up, but then got out of control when some of the protes-tors tried to disrupt the transit system at Bay Area Rapid Transit station. "is group is recognized for the Guy Fawkes masks the support-

ers wear when they protest.Some other major websites that Anonymous has hacked are Mas-terCard, Amazon, PayPal, and Visa. All of these major websites cut o! #nancial services to WikiLeaks, and Anonymous is a supporter of WikiLeaks. On Christmas 2011, mem-bers of Anonymous revealed that they hacked the private intelligence #rm, Strategic Forecasting Inc. Anonymous released a client list and over 30,000 credit cards. Anon-ymous used money from those credit cards to donate between $500,000 and 1 million dollars to charities, such as Red Cross, Care, which helps #ght poverty around the world, and the EFF. "is is more than just taking down a website. "is is releasing people’s personal information. Even though Anony-mous is donating to charities, they are taking money from hard work-ing Americans. "ey should be arrested for this and should have to compensate the people that got their credit card numbers hacked, and that got their personal infor-mation leaked. Anonymous appears to be unstoppable, the FBI issued search warrants and investigations into Anonymous. "ey were unsuc-cessful in stopping Anonymous. "e U.S. government needs to take

more critical actions to try and stop Anonymous before they do something really destructive to the U.S. government or its citizens. Anonymous seems to be hacking and destroying websites for their own personal gain and maybe the gains of a few others, but not for the gain of most Americans. Anony-mous says that they are the 99%, but ironically they are just helping themselves and a few others, by committing their unlawful hacks and protests. "ey are threatening some of our nation’s most secure databases and websites. At one demonstration, Anonymous supported Occupy Wall Street. Anonymous seems to be similar to Occupy Wall Street. Anonymous attacks websites and performs demonstrations even though their exact intentions are not completely clear. "ey need to be shut down and stopped. "eir acts should be considered unlawful and unacceptable. At one time Anonymous, put out a video with one of their members in his Guy Fawkes mask and he was not speaking. It was computer-generated speech. He talked about how the U.S. Senate passed a bill, named the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 that they say ef-fectively ends the Bill of Rights in

Alexander Cohen

America. In their video, Anony-mous calls it the most traitorous act ever passed in the Senate. "ey say that this bill gives the U.S. govern-ment the power to assassinate U.S. citizens with exemption from the law. Anonymous says that the U.S. Senate wants the military to lock up citizens without trial. In the video they show propaganda pictures of the government wanting citizens to be quiet and that the government wants people just to work and not to think. "ey also show Obama telling citizens to be quiet and they say how he promised peace and order in return for obedient silence. Anonymous believes that this propaganda is true, but it is not true about our government today. Anonymous seems to be trying to instill ideas into citizens’ heads to get people to support their cause. "ey even use some pictures of propaganda to make it seem like

Obama and the Senate are trying to silence our free voice.Despite Anonymous doing many bad things, they have hacked West-boro Baptist Church. "is church is an anti-gay and an anti-America church. In a way Anonymous did a good thing by hacking some of their sites. "is hack was also a bad thing because Anonymous still released some of their members’ personal information and still did hack a website.Anonymous is a very active group and doesn’t seem to be stopping their protests, hacks, and propagan-da videos anytime soon. "ey have stolen money, released personal information of thousands, hacked into U.S. government websites, and hacked into other major websites. "ey are becoming a growing threat to the security of our nation and are trying to turn U.S. citizens against the Senate and the rest of

our government. Since our govern-ment cannot seem to stop Anony-mous’ hacks, they should try to stop Anonymous when they protest. "en,dbh, our government should #nd who their leaders are from the arrested people. "e real solution to stopping Anonymous is to just try harder. Instead of just investi-gated and issuing search warrants, our government should take more severe actions. Recently, the FBI got a hacker formerly involved with Anonymous to help them to hack into Anonymous. "e hacker, known as Sabu on the internet, exposed Anonymous’ inner work-ings. "is hacking and information to the FBI led to charges placed on #ve people that are thought to be some of Anonymous’ leaders. If the FBI keeps doing this and gets other hackers to help them, then the FBI could completely stop Anonymous.

Anonymous



Keystone Pipeline

Binah Schatsky

In November of 2011, Trans-Canada, proposed a 7 billion dollar, 1,700 miles long oil pipeline. "e pipeline would transport synthetic crude

oil from the Athabasca oil sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada, to multiple destinations in the U.S, which include re#neries along the Gulf Coast of Texas, and re#neries in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Mon-tana. TransCanada claims that the pipeline would carry 700,000 barrels of oil, and would provide an estimate of 20,000 jobs to build it, however, other sources suggest otherwise. A study done at Cor-nell University estimated that the project would provide only 2,500 to 4,650 temporary construction jobs. Because of the amount of crude oil that is severely damaging to our ecological environment a rupture in the pipeline could lead to a number of problems. Because of the path that the pipeline takes, a single rupture could cause crude oil to spill over into America’s heartland and into the source of drinking water for 2 million people. NASA’s top climate scientist stated that fully developing the oil pipeline would mean “essentially game over” for the climate. President Barack Obama denied the proposal with the opin-ion that the route of the pipeline would cross over too many ecologi-cally sensitive areas in the Midwest. "ese areas would not be able to take the amount of Greenhouse gas emitted from the pipeline. He also responded negatively to the House Republicans demand for the deci-

sion of whether or not to carry out the project to be made in under an election years time. Obama declared the decision “rushed and arbitrary,” as he also wanted to al-low TransCanada time to think up another, more ecologically sensitive pipeline route. "is decision caused much controversy. Many had the opinion that the pipeline would increase jobs and would easily transport oil to places that would pro#t from re#ning the oil into gasoline, diesel, etc. So therefore the project should be carried out. Others argued that the pipeline would increase gaso-line prices for Americans because of the expense of producing the oil that was to be carried through the pipeline. "e production of oil sands is the most expensive pro-duction of oil in the world, and the keystone pipeline would be creat-ing a signi#cant over capacity for oil sands in the U.S. "e growth needed in the oil sands production to #ll the pipeline would only occur if oil prices keep rising. "e ris-ing oil prices added to the already expensive production of oil sands would cause the prices of oil and gasoline to skyrocket. "ose against the pipeline also argued that the extraction and production of oil in North-ern Alberta would cause extreme greenhouse gas emissions, far more than the amount from drilling for conventional oil. In my opinion, the project is a bad idea. I believe that because of greenhouse gas emis-sions, the pipeline would be too damaging to our natural habitat,

and ecological beauties. Currently, because of previous stress put upon our environment (pollution, ha-bitual destruction, etc.) our envi-ronment cannot a!ord to withstand any more pressure put upon it by the pipeline, and its greenhouse gas emissions. I have always been an extreme supporter in the health of the environment, and since I was about seven years old, my brother and I have ran bake sales in the city streets outside of my apart-ment building to raise funds for environmental health. To have one monstrous, industrial project be the start of the downfall of the health of our ecosystem would be simply heart breaking. Our ecosystem is in too fragile a place for people to take a risk, and follow up with this project! My opinion against the Keystone Pipeline is in no way a statement against providing jobs. But, I believe that there are other ways in which employment can be found, besides temporary construc-tion jobs that will lead to raised gas prices. "ere are many people who could be easily employed if posi-tions existed that helped to protect and preserve our environment. "e keystone pipeline is a looming threat to the health of our ecosys-tem, and we, as a nation should not be depending upon it, simply for moneymaking purposes, to a single company.



Almost everyday, you probably use a cell phone. Something you might not think about when you use

your cell phone is where it was made. If you have an iPhone, you might want to think a little harder.

IPhones are made in China in some of the most appalling sweatshop factories in the world, and the workers in these sweatshops are severely mistreated. In an attempt to improve and extend monitoring (as a result of public complaints of Apple not caring about their work-

ers), Apple found that 90 factories demanded their workers to work for 60 hours a week, which is 20 hours beyond the Chinese law limit. Five cases of child labor were also reported. "e Industrial Revolution was a time around the 1850s where

Grace Ackerman

Apple Labor Abuse

advancements in trade, transporta-tion, industry, and agriculture were occurring. It was also the begin-ning of factories and sweatshops. In those days, the workers had little to no protection because they were all lower class whose govern-ment didn’t look out for them. "ey needed some money (and didn’t get paid very much), and factory work was the easiest. "e sweat-shops back then were usually in tight, dingy, un#t spaces for work-ing in. Sick or injured workers were quickly replaced and not too hard to #nd. Fast forward a few decades when multiple attempts have been made to improve this issue, and we are once again faced with the same problem of mistreatment of workers in sweatshops. Filthy work areas, little pay, and overwork are a few of the many recurring problems that we face today and must get rid of. Apple has pro#ts of $13.1 billion¬–so why be so harsh on their workers? Because of the im-mense popularity of Apple in the world, excruciating pressure has been put on the companies’ sup-pliers to boost production in order to keep selling their products. As a result, a spate of suicides from overworking, explosions, and poisonings has occurred. How does your iPhone feel to you now? Something clearly needs to be done about this situation, but what? If the factories are shut down, a large chunk of our economy and many other countries’ economies will take a major nosedive. If noth-ing is done about the factories, the mistreatment of the workers will continue, which is a huge violation

of human rights. What is the right thing to do in this situation? Well, the economy is signi#cant, but so is the safety and protection of the workers. "erefore, the best option would be to meet somewhere in the middle, like shortening the number of hours of workers by a good 20 hours per week so that there aren’t anymore suicides or disasters from being overworked and raising their pay to reward their long hours. "e Chinese government really needs to take action because these workers deserve their fair human rights to everyone else in the world. "ere has been talk about moving the factories from China to America because many people believe that American companies should only hire American work-ers. "is seems logical and is also the way many companies work. However, this might hurt the Chinese. Is it worth it to do this to China and take out a portion of their industry and save the workers, or is it better to leave the situation as it is? A good balance would be to move maybe about half of the factories to America, so that it is fair on both sides–China gets to keep their workers and industry, while America employs workers with better conditions. If one of the two options had to be cho-sen, it would most likely be to just keep the factories in America (if it weren’t so expensive to set up new factories in America). It isn’t right for the workers to su!er, but the is-sue of #nances might outweigh the improvement of the conditions in China. Apple is undergoing some-thing just like Nike and Foxconn,

receiving lots of criticism for making their employees work long hours at a harsh, labor intensive job. "ese two very popular compa-nies were denounced just like Apple has been–harsh working conditions for their workers and long hours. When Auret van Heerden, presi-dent of the Fair Labor Association spoke with Michael Bloomberg about these a!airs, Bloomberg seemed to understand. Bloomberg remarked, “Most big corporations have their ‘Nike movement’ at some stage, when they realize the di%cul-ties of maintaining their standards, particularly in an increasingly global economy.” We can see that Bloomberg understands and ex-pects that the situation is going to improve. Apple received quite a bit of outside pressure. Consequently, they joined the Fair Labor As-sociation as the #rst technology company. "ey have also worked with multiple Chinese labor rights advocates and environmental groups. Apple agreed to allow outside monitors into its suppliers’ factories. "ey are beginning to realize their wrongdoing and taking action for the mistreatment of the workers. “Most people would really be disturbed if they saw where their iPhones came from,” said an un-named former Apple executive. If everyone really knew what kind of treatment the workers that made their technology had, no one would really want an iPhone or any Apple product. A boycott is clearly too much to ask, but awareness is the next best step.

The Horace Mann Journal

!e Horace Mann Journal | Vol. II36

The Horace Mann Journal

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