Last Updated: 9:57 pm, July 28, 2010

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5/19
2010

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Visit by Russian delegation provides chance for gaining new perspective

By snehaviswanathan

The visit by members of the Moscow School of Political Studies was a unique and informative opportunity to exchange information of interest to both the delegates and the CHS students and staff.

Senior Madeline Docherty attends a discussion with visiting Moscow School delegates. The group of delegates visited CHS on April 28. (Caroline Stamp)

Senior Madeline Docherty attends a discussion with visiting Moscow School delegates. The group of delegates visited CHS on April 28. (Caroline Stamp)

On April 28, CHS faculty, staff, and students were given the privilege of meeting with delegates from the Moscow School of Political Studies, which facilitates seminars about various social and political issues for professionals from Russia and around the world.
The delegation, which included heads of departments from various Russian universities, visited CHS and other sites in the St. Louis area to understand differences in local governance, education, and other cultural and political aspects of cities in America compared to those in Russia.
During the seminar at CHS, the delegates were interested in the range of the class size, the subjects that students study, and the prestige associated with teaching in the United States. In return, they answered students’ questions about similar issues related to education.
In Russia, many schools have grades from first to eleventh, and the class size is usually between twenty and thirty students. A typical school week in Russia is six days, and some schools have two shifts during which students can attend classes.
Most secondary schools, which include eleventh and twelfth grade, have a single special focus, which is often math, physics or biology, and has a strong influence on students’ future educational or career plans.
According to the delegates, students don’t have much flexibility when choosing classes, and they don’t have the same classes every day.
Unlike the American college application process, the Russian college application process is based on the requirement that students decide to pursue a set field in advance. One of the translators said, “A university [in Russia] doesn’t have a variety of things; it’s a university of ‘something’.”
While there is no Russian equivalent of the standardized testing such as the SAT or the ACT, Russia recently started a system in which students have to pass a state exam in the required areas of Russian language and math in order to graduate from secondary school. Students may take an additional five subject tests in other subjects.
The subject exams which students choose to take depend on the focus of the college that students wish to attend. The result of this nationwide exam gives students the privilege to apply to a university. Russian students may be entitled to scholarships if they receive high scores on the exam, just as American students are.
Toward the middle of the discussion, the topic turned to politics. The delegates said that while United Russia is the ruling political party, three other major parties are the Liberal Democrats, the Social Party, and the Communist Party, which still has a number of adherents.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the delegates have noticed a trend of young people planning their futures in economics and law because of significantly reduced government control in those areas.
The delegates shared similar perceptions of America.  Some of the most frequently mentioned terms included “competition,” “high level of economic development,” “a very powerful military,” and “mother of the global economic crisis.”
The images the delegates held of American politicians are highly dependent on propaganda. During the 2008 election, most Russians received a stronger message from Obama.
Though the time allotted for the visit only allowed us to discuss two main topics, the visit by members of the Moscow School of Political Studies was a unique and informative opportunity to bring interesting information to both the delegates and the CHS students and staff.

Published:

5/19
2010

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BP accepts responsibility for oil spill, seeks cleanup solution

By apoorvasharma

More than a year ago, in February 2009, British Petroleum plc (BP) filed a plan for possible problems for its Deepwater Horizon oil rig. It concluded that problems would be unlikely, and, as stated in the plan, “due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.”
Now, however, a significant adverse impact is exactly what the world has seen with the oil leak, which is set to become the largest ever in U.S. waters.
The Deepwater Horizon was an offshore drilling rig, which was collecting oil from the seabed, approximately 5,000 ft. underwater, for BP.
An explosion sunk the rig, killing 11 people, and also breaking the pipe. This leak is still releasing oil at an approximate rate of 5,000 barrels a day, which translates to be 2.5 gallons every second.
President Barack Obama has ordered a review of the event and barred new offshore drilling licenses until this review has been completed, in order to prevent future disasters.
Currently, the U.S. government is focusing on dealing with the current disaster. The government held BP responsible for the spill and is forcing them to lead the clean up measures. BP accepted these terms and has pledged to try its best to clean the spill.
“We are taking full responsibility for the spill, and we will clean it up, and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them,” BP CEO Tony Haward said. “We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that.”
BP, however, was not completely responsible. Although it was the main developer of the oil field, the Deepwater Horizon was leased to BP and also run by the oil company Transocean.
Even so, BP has indeed taken an aggressive role in cleaning up the oil slick. With the federal government’s help, BP has tried using oil dispersants and other chemicals to recover the oil, but their effects have been limited.
The depth at which the oil is being collected means that it is capable of mixing somewhat with the water to create a thick liquid that is harder to burn, or evaporate. Oil-consuming microbes also have a hard time getting rid of the substance. Thus, many of the common clean up methods are severely limited.
Efforts to try and close the leaks using remote controlled undersea vehicles have also failed.
BP engineers decided to try to funnel the leaking oil to the surface for collection, but the domes that were built to act as funnels were rendered useless when gas crystals formed on them, preventing them from sinking into the water.
Fortunately, BP has a plan B: drilling a relief well. This well would intersect the main oil well and allow BP to pump in liquids that would stop the leak. Although preparations have already been made, the process will take two to three months and cost $1 million.
This delay will significantly increase the consequences for the environment, as well as the economy that depends on the environment. Already, 400 species are threatened by the oil spill. The delay will allow the oil to spread even further, and increase this threat.
The threat on the edible marine life is also a threat to the fishing and shrimping industries. Initial estimates predicted that the fishing industry alone would suffer a $2.5 billion loss.
If the oil reaches the Florida coast, then the tourism industry could faces costs of $3 billion, because of the plethora of beaches that would need to be shut down. In preparation for this, staging areas have been set up on many susceptible beaches.
President Obama has committed to helping this crisis come to a close and acknowledges that it might take some time. But he is determined to keep supporting the relief efforts.
“I’m not going to rest — and none of the gentlemen and women who are here are going to rest — or be satisfied until the leak is stopped at the source, the oil on the Gulf is contained and cleaned up, and the people of this region are able to go back to their lives and their livelihoods,” Obama said.

Published:

3/18
2010

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Effects of Mexican drug wars on spring breakers

By Tom Evashwick

Spring break is a time to relax, a time to forget about the stresses of school, a time to get a tan (read: sunburn).

Among the most popular destinations to kick back and relax is Mexico.

However, with the recent surge in violence due to the war between drug cartels and the Mexican government, being carefree may actually be unwise for those going south of the boarder.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has had a staunch anti-drug position, and he has escalated efforts to have 45,000 law enforcement officers working against the cartels full-time.

In Acapulco, tourists have been confined to a three-square-mile area because of the violence. Thirty people were killed in a single day last week.

Nonetheless, Clayton students and families going to Mexico still feel as though they will be safe.

“We aren’t going to one of the border towns or one of the places where there has been drug-related violence,” Debbie Root, mother of senior Eve Root, said.

Senior Emil Thyssen, who will be traveling to Playa del Carmen with a group of 17 students and families, said the recent developments have altered his plans.

“I’m definitely worried,” Thyssen said. “I’m staying at a resort, so a lot of my time would’ve been spent there, but we were also planning on going into town. That has changed.”

Root says that that while safety is always a factor when going to Mexico, but this trip, her third for her children’s spring breaks, will be different.

“Especially at this time, you have to remain vigilant,” Root said.

Thyssen said that even the students have worries about their safety. He added that some of the parents debated canceling the trip.

“We are all taking this very seriously,” Thyssen said. “We know that we have to always be in big groups if we do decide to go into town even though the region we are going to has been nothing but safe recently.”

About 20,000 people have been killed in the drug wars.

Experts believe about 70 percent of illicit drugs in America come from Mexico, namely marijuana and methamphetamine.

Published:

1/31
2010

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‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy may see change under Obama

By Jacqueline Leong

The military may, sometime in the near future, be welcoming openly gay men and women into its ranks. Though the ‘when’ is unclear, the ‘what’ is readily anticipated by gay-rights groups all over the country.

President Obama had promised to put an end to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military gay policy—from as early as his campaign days. Under the current policy, homosexuals and bisexuals serving in the U.S. military are not allowed to openly declare, nor act upon, their sexuality.

Those who do are charged with breaking the policy and are honorably discharged from the military services.

David Dresner, of the youth movement “The Right Side of History”, a grassroots movement which strives for equal treatment of all people, regardless of sexual orientation or preference, strongly supports a repeal of the policy.

“It’s a blatant form of discrimination,” Dresner said. “It’s disgusting. I don’t see why sexuality should have anything to do with it.”

Gregory Magarian, Professor of Law at Washington University, agrees.

“You get a group of people saying, ‘We want to put ourselves in harm’s way to serve our country’ and you say, ‘You aren’t allowed to do that because you’re gay’?” Magarian said. “That makes no sense.”

Obama has met some criticism for not acting fast enough. The gay community is ready for a “quick repeal” of the law, said Fox News.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen right away,” Magarian said. “But will happen, perhaps within the decade.”

Dresner agrees, though he hopes for a shorter wait.

“Do I think it will be sooner?” Dresner said. “Yes. It’ll happen in the next few years. Saying that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ will be ended in the next decade is like saying that in the next ten years, it’s going to rain.”

In a recent speech addressing the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group, Obama attempted to reassure impatient listeners.

“We have made progress, and we will make more,” Obama said. “Do not doubt the direction we are heading, and the destination we will reach… we are moving ahead on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country, we should be celebrating their willingness to show such courage.”

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was initially implemented in 1993. At the time, it was viewed a compromise that improved upon the previous policy that allowed the military to investigate suspected gays, and discharge those found ‘guilty’.

Magarian believes that gay rights have come a long way since then, and most Americans are much more open-minded than they were decades ago. Even so, he says there is a “significant minority” that still opposes gay rights.

However, Magarian refers to the prime “stumbling block” keeping Obama from changing the policy sooner as military “turf-protectiveness”—resulting in tension between the Pentagon and the White House.

“Obama doesn’t want to be perceived as trying to show anyone up,” Magarian said. “I gather that many military leaders do not like to have policy dictated to them in things they consider integral to their realm.”

Those “things” are essentially morale and trust in the Army.

“The Army believes that there is the possibility that someone who is sexually attracted to his own brothers or comrades-in-arms leads to less trust,” Magarian said. “Such justifications don’t seem plausible to me, but do to military leaders.”

Most universities, according to Dresner, have ‘equal opportunity’ rules that forbid employers that discriminate against gays to recruit on campus. But because of the Solomon Act of 1995, which enables the government to deny funding to institutions that prevent military recruiting on their grounds—despite clashing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and university ‘equal opportunity’ policies.

“That’s basically forcing universities to knowingly break their own non-discriminatory laws because of funding,” Dresner said. “That’s a problem.”

What bothers Magarian most about the policy are also the intolerant implications that segregating people of different sexualities implies.

“To suppress a part of one’s identity means being treated as less than a human being,” Magarian said. “Sexual orientation is predominantly unconscious.”

Magarian equates the policy to a scenario somewhat resembling “telling Jewish people to pretend not to be Jewish”, except that he argues that one’s sexuality is an “immutable characteristic”.

“There’s nothing wrong with being straight,” Magarian said. “To say that there is something wrong with being gay—that’s pretty harsh. [In the military] the rest get to talk about ‘my wife this, my girlfriend that’—but gay people don’t?”

In addition, anti-gay discrimination doesn’t stop at ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, Dresner pointed out.

“In 29 states, you can be fired for being gay,” Dresner said.  “In 32 states, you can be evicted from your apartment. [Legal] barriers make starting a family for a gay couple so much harder.”

However, it is clear that many, including Magarian and Dresner, view the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ as a start.

Although he admits that changes in military gay policy may take time, especially when such an issue is viewed by many as lesser compared higher-priority issues such as economic problems, Magarian is sure that in time, they will arrive.

“It’s going to come,” Magarian said. “We have moved incredibly far in the direction of gay rights in the last 15 years… it will happen, that is one thing I am truly sure of.”

Published:

1/27
2010

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Nationwide airport security tightens

By laurableeke

Since the attacks of September 11, flying has become increasingly difficult. Security has been heightened exponentially, as has the time it takes to get from the parking lot to your gate.
On December 25, passenger Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lit an explosive on fire aboard a trans-Atlantic Northwest Airlines flight, but it failed to detonate. The United States believes this was “an attempted act of terrorism”.
According to government investigators, Abdulmutallab was able to smuggle the explosives onto the plane by hiding them in his underwear, where screeners are not allowed to search.
In response to this recent scare, new detectors have been built to detect explosives hidden in clothing. According to NBC news, only 19 U.S. airports have received these machUS NEWS TSA-AIRPORTS 1 FLines.
The Transportation Security Administration wants to distribute more of the whole-body scanners, but it has met resistance. Opposition from parties including civil liberties groups, passengers and some members of Congress have made it difficult to install more scanners.
The American Civil Liberties Union argues that the scanners are too revealing. While members of Congress believe passengers should have a choice between the whole-body scan and a pat down, passengers at Lambert airport must already remove sweaters to be put through the scanners, or agree to a pat down.
“There are pat downs,” a Delta Airlines pilot said. “And there is a flood of new security equipment coming in the near future. There will be full body machines, and most people will be required to go through them.”
Passengers are worried that the heightened security measures will slow security down even further.
“Initially it will [slow down security],” the Delta pilot said. “But the TSA is run by the government, and the government will spend more money on a more efficient security system.”
The few body scanners that are being used in American airports are stationed at international airports only. Because Lambert is not an international airport anymore, it has not yet received the scans.
“Only international airports have the full body scan right now,” a Lambert Airport TSA member said. “Once they are able to create more we should be getting them.”
In the days following the Christmas Day attack, new policies were put into place for international flights. Passengers were only allowed one carry on bag and they were not allowed to have anything in their laps or leave their seats for the last hour of the trip.
“I think we have a very safe system,” the Delta pilot said. “And it always gets better.”
President Barack Obama addressed the airport security problems in a speech delivered several days after the December 25 attack. He said there would be many improvements in airport security and the government is training Homeland Security Department agencies to move to the federal Air Marshall Service. Obama also said that the United States is still at “war” with al-Qaida.
“The U.S. government had the information — scattered throughout the system — to potentially uncover this plot and disrupt attack,” President Obama said. “Rather than a failure to collect or share intelligence, this was a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that we already had.”
The President stressed the importance of remaining strong as a nation, and not to be cowardly in the face of terrorism. He said that as a nation we must remember our American values and use them.
“Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses,” President Obama said. “But we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don’t hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.”
The President also focused on the idea that during this time Americans must remain connected and united as a nation, and that we must work together to keep our country safe.
“For now is not a time for partisanship,” President Obama said. “It’s a time for citizenship — a time to come together and work together with the seriousness of purpose that our national security demands.”

Published:

1/27
2010

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Relief organizations step up programs to deliver food in Haiti

By preetiviswanathan

WORLD NEWS HAITI 59 RAThe 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010 and left immense destruction and tragedy in its wake has prompted numerous relief efforts around the world. The World Food Programme (WFP), the largest humanitarian organization worldwide, has already delivered 86 tons of food to Haiti, and hopes to acquire and deliver fourteen million ready-to-eat meals over the next few days. While the scale of the operation for all organizations delivering aid is enormous, the WFP had been operational in Haiti before the earthquake.
“The WFP already had a stronghold in Haiti, which meant that when this disaster happened we were in a good position to begin delivering emergency assistance very quickly because we had around 200 staff members already working in Haiti,” said Graham Bell, Youth Outreach Coordinator for the WFP.
The WFP currently has four food distribution points in Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince, and more are planned to open in the following week. With the amount of devastation, however, setting up the distribution points itself has been quite difficult.
“Essentially the city and everywhere in Port-au-Prince is devastated by the earthquake,” Bell said. “People sleep on the streets and it’s very congested, so it’s not easy to organize in those situations. We’re dealing with people who have lost everything, who don’t have healthcare, who don’t have running water, who are pretty much desperate, and they’ve lost relatives. Our job is to try and to deliver food to the people who need it as quickly as possible. It’s not an easy task with the lack of infrastructure and the confusion amongst the population. That’s the biggest challenge.”
Bell said the amount of food that the WFP is delivering now just within Port-au-Prince is than it was across the entire nation before the earthquake.
“We had warehouses and stock, but with the situation the way it is the usual operation can’t help in the way that it did,” Bell said. “And now, in the aftermath of the earthquake, it’s looking to feed two million earthquake survivors for the next six months. Prior to that in the whole of Haiti, about 1.8 million people were in need of food aid, and now we’re looking at 2 million just in the area of the earthquake.”
“The port itself is still closed and probably will be operational again early next week,” Bell said. “We [the WFP] had an extensive operation before, so we do have channels to get food in to people. The main emergency right now is food and water, and so all our efforts right now are aimed at making sure that we have more distribution points around in the places where they’re needed.”
Other organizations, such as the Free Rice website, which is owned by the World Food Programme, are also focusing their efforts on donating rice to Haiti, although prior to the earthquake they generally gave more rice to countries where it was a staple food.
“We have put into place mechanisms that Free Rice uses that assist the Haiti crisis situation as well,” Bell said.
Schools across the country can also join the worldwide aid contribution efforts. The World Food Programme has set up a special campaign for students and for schools called Students Helping Haiti. The page dedicated to the campaign can be found at the URL http://www.wfp.org/Haitian-student.
“The whole idea is that schools who are raising money for Haiti can sign up and say they want to be a part of it,” Bell said. “At which point we put their name into the donation page and the schools can donate money as it comes in and keep a total of what they’ve donated, and all of that money goes to emergency food aid for Haiti.”

Published:

1/21
2010

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When it comes to teenagers, what is ‘Cruel and Unusual’?

By ninaoberman

The concept of the “teenager” is relatively new in society. Historically, children were treated as adults as soon as they reached puberty. Only within the past century have governments created a special category for adolescents.
Advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in recent decades have scientifically proven the need for this grouping. By pinpointing the prefrontal cortex as an undeveloped area of the teenage brain, scientists have found physical proof of adolescents’ impulsive behavior, impaired judgment and susceptibility to peer pressure.
Yet this designation of an in-between period has profound implications for the legal system. If teenagers are more easily swayed by emotions and impulses, are they as culpable for crimes as adults are?

Nina Oberman

Nina Oberman

No, according to the United States Supreme Court. In 2005, a ruling in Roper v. Simmons abolished the death penalty as a punishment committed for crimes for those under the age of 18.
Speaking for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated that adolescents have “an underdeveloped sense of responsibility…resulting in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions…their character is not as well formed as that of an adult.”
Following this decision, however, the courts have turned to sentences of life in prison without parole as a punishment for teenagers who commit certain heinous felonies. According to an Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) publication, 2225 juveniles have received this sentence in the United States.
“Juveniles commit murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and other serious crimes—particularly violent crimes—in numbers that dwarf those of America’s international peers,” said Heritage Foundation representative Charles Stimson. “There is an overwhelming national consensus that life without parole is, for certain types of juvenile offenders, an effective, appropriate, and lawful punishment.”
Yet maintaining a balance between public safety and individuals rights is, as always, tricky.
The United States is the only country in the world to condemn children to life in prison without parole. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country except the United States and Somalia, forbids the practice entirely.
Mae Quinn, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Civil Justice Clinic at Washington University, feels that the United States is lagging far behind most countries in juvenile justice.
“I taught this summer in Honduras about the U.S. juvenile justice system,” Quinn said. “They were shocked. This is a country rife with political turmoil and gang violence, and they were shocked by the sentencing of juveniles to life without parole.”
As she taught progressive ideas, Hondurans questioned why her own country had not adopted these practices.
“The first question I heard was always ‘If you are such a leader in the world of juvenile justice, then why has your country not signed the Convention of the Rights of the Child?’,” Quinn said.
The EJI, based in Montgomery, Alabama, is committed to fighting against the sentencing of 13 and 14-year-olds to life in prison without parole in the United States. Executive Director Bryan Stevenson brought two cases before the Supreme Court in Nov. 2009.
The first, Sullivan v. Florida, involves a 13-year-old who was sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual battery. The second, Graham v. Florida, involves a 16-year-old who was sentenced to death in prison for committing armed robbery while on parole.
Both cases are non-homicidal; however, Stevenson is hoping that the Supreme Court’s decision will ultimately make permanent imprisonment of children constitutionally impermissible in all cases.
“The essential feature of a life-without-parole sentence is that it imposes a terminal, unchangeable, once-and-for-all judgment upon the whole life of a human being and declares that human being forever unfit to be a part of civil society,” Stevenson said in his petitioner’s brief. “Roper [v. Simmons] understood and explained why such a judgment cannot rationally be passed on children below a certain age. They are unfinished products, human works-in-progress.”
Melissa Sickmund, Chief of Systems Research at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, agrees that there is a fundamental flaw in the reasoning behind this punishment.
“Juvenile justice in this country is founded on the notion of rehabilitation,” Sickmund said. “Our science shows us that kids are not finished developing yet. If somebody can still be changed, we have an obligation to try to change them.”
Indeed, the recognition of adolescents’ capacity for growth in the United States began before brain scans were invented. In 1825, The Society for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency was founded to advocate for the separation of juvenile and adult criminals.
The British doctrine of parens patriae—Latin for “the State as parent”—was used as a rationale for benevolent intervention on behalf of child offenders. Juvenile courts flourished for the first half of the 20th century, seeking to rehabilitate adolescents rather than purely punish them.
But beginning in the 1980s, demands for harsher punishments surfaced as juvenile crime rates rose.
“Imagine you are a legislator in 1994 and there is a vote before you regarding a law that will make it easier for more juveniles in your state to be tried as adults in criminal court,” Sickmund said. “The newspaper is filled with headlines like ‘Public demands adult time for adult crime’. Do you vote in favor of the law? Probably, because you did not have courses on adolescent development, and you would like to be re-elected.”
Teenagers now can be easily transferred from the juvenile system to the adult system. According to the 2006 National Report on Juvenile Offenders and Victims, 45 states have transfer provisions that require no minimum age for a child to be moved to adult court.
“The focus [of Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida] is on certain sanctions being unconstitutional,” Sickmund said. “But functionally it is about whether or not kids can be transferred to criminal court. ‘Juvenile’ is just a term. Once you are transferred, you are an adult for all intents and purposes.”
But treating a child as an adult can have devastating consequences—even if he is not sentenced to life in prison.
“Do you want to surround a young, impressionable individual with violent adults and place him in an environment where he could be victimized?” Sickmund said. “Or do you want to place him in a facility where he is being counseled and educated?”
Some adult facilities choose to separate teenagers from older inmates in an attempt to avoid physical and psychological harm.
“I have a client who at the age of 15 was transferred to the adult system,” Quinn said. “For fear that interaction with adult prisoners would be dangerous, he was held in solitary confinement for years with very little interaction or age appropriate activities. This can turn out to be extremely psychologically damaging.”
Attempts to integrate or adapt young offenders in the adult system are thus usually unsuccessful.
“I think we should do everything we can to keep these young people in the juvenile system,” Quinn said. “The adult system does very little good for juveniles. It should be a last resort, and right now, it isn’t.”
Yet preventing the transfer of youth to the adult system raises important and difficult questions. How young is too young? How can we tell the difference between an innately flawed individual and someone with the ability to change?
“Any time you are being asked to draw a line, it starts becoming arbitrary,” Quinn said. “This demonstrates the imperfection of legal systems when is comes to dealing with hard questions. Who is a child, and who is an adult? As good as the justice system may be, it cannot always come up with precise answers.”
The Supreme Court’s decisions in Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida will have critical consequences the future of juvenile justice. Life without parole is unlike the death penalty, but the definition of “cruel and unusual” changes as society progresses.
While the framers of the constitution intended for the eighth amendment to prohibit torture, the standards of punishment are changing. And when it comes to teenagers, everything is more complex.
“The prosecutors will make these young people out to be the worst monsters on the planet, and the advocates for abolishing life without parole will diminish the gravity of the crimes,” Sickmund said. “The truth lies somewhere in between.”

Published:

12/17
2009

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One Laptop per Child in Uruguay

By apoorvasharma

Unlike many of its neighbors, Uruguay puts a lot of stress on education. All education – even college and post-graduate studies – is free. However, Uruguay doesn’t come close to having amounts of resources comparable to those of the U.S. It comes as no surprise, then, that it is there that the One Laptop per Child program (OLPC) is making great strides.
According to the BBC, the government of Uruguay has provided over 362,000 students with the small but rugged laptops offered by OLPC. The whole project, dubbed “Plan Ceibal,” cost the government $260 per child – including the costs of maintenance and training.
The project revolutionized many families’ lives in Uruguay, as more than 70 percent of the laptops were given to families who didn’t have access to computers before. In this manner, the government of Uruguay and OLPC have given children access to a whole new digital world as well as the Internet.
Yet the OLPC project involves much more than giving out laptops. As is stated in the organization’s mission statement on OLPC’s website, the true goal is to inspire more children to learn, and give them the tools to do so.
The mission of the project is, “to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.”
The statement goes on to explain how these laptops can accomplish the goal.
“When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education,” it says. “They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.”
The laptops have the same clear focus as the organization themselves. The devices, named XO laptops, have been designed from the ground up to be optimal for their task.
Their hardware is built to be rugged and last several years. It has heavy duty antennae, giving it the ability to better access Internet connections. Also, the multi-purpose hinge allows the XO to take various forms, including the traditional laptop style, a form for reading books, and a tablet form. These facilitate various forms of learning, making the XO a very versatile piece of equipment.
Perhaps more important than the hardware of a computer is its software, as it is what defines the user experience with the product. The XO comes with a customized Linux operating system called Sugar, as well as several programs that are designed for learning.
The Sugar operating system is designed specifically for child use. Thus, it is very simple, and neatly organized. It features 3 main views: neighborhood, group, and home. These show the broad network of nearby XO devices, the users’ favorite nearby XO devices, and the software on the computer respectively.
The software that is bundled with the XO provides both educational and entertainment options for students. olpc-uruguaybwIt comes with a word processor that is capable of networking, allowing different computers to access the same document. It also has many music creation programs, an Internet browser, some graphics programs, as well as games.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the XO is its Mesh Network. This system allows the XO to expand the range of its wireless Internet connections. As soon as one computer is connected, it broadcasts that connection further using its own antennae. Thus, computers far away from the access point can also be connected to the Internet, if there are XOs closer to the access.
All of these features make the XO a perfect computer for fostering education in developing nations.

Published:

11/24
2009

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NASA moon mission uncovers water source

By dylanschultz

In a mission that took roughly a week in early October, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) tested the moon for any signs of water in an ingenious way. By forming a crater near the southern pole and taking pictures, spectrometer readings, and other careful measurements, scientists hoped to discover the presence of water or ice on the moon.

NASA scientists decided to search at the moon’s southern pole because it is in permanent shadow. The sunlight hasn’t reached these areas for what is estimated to be billions of years. Due to the lack of atmosphere on the moon, any small elements or compounds that are vaporized will simply float out into the vacuum of space. The ice at the South Pole does not have enough energy to evaporate in these “cold traps” and would remain on the moon.

According to the NASA website, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) impacted the surface of the moon on Oct. 9, 113-days after launching on June 18. The satellite covered the 5.6 million miles from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to its final destination at the moon’s permanently shadowed South Pole.

The data was collected by LCROSS from an impact made by an upper stage rocket that traveled with the satellite. The collision with the moon’s surface created a large crater, tossing up debris and, just as scientists had hoped, ice.

The mission was a success. Centaur, the upper stage rocket attached to LCROSS, separated about 54,059 miles above the moon’s surface. LCROSS collected data and pictures from Centaur’s initial impact for four minutes before impacting the moon itself.

The event was broadcasted on television nationwide. Millions of Americans tuned in to watch history in the making. However, the launch didn’t live up to some peoples’ expectations.

“I thought it was pretty anticlimactic,” CHS science teacher Gabriel de la Paz said. “It was mostly just a big cloud of dust.”

The significance of the experiment lies in space exploration. Scientists would like to know if the moon could possibly sustain life. This would allow colonies to form easily without constant expensive transportations of basic goods such as food, water and oxygen.

In opposition to many who believe that the value of water on the moon would be great, de la Paz thinks that the efforts are unnecessary.

“The amount of energy to get stuff to the moon is probably more than the amount of energy we get from stuff from the moon,” de la Paz said.

Scientists see the moon as a stepping-stone to explore the rest of the solar system. It would serve as a practice environment for explorers to use to learn how to work safely in harsh surroundings. From the moon, possibilities seem endless.

Published:

11/24
2009

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MRSA is a dangerous threat, but generally overhyped

By Jacqueline Leong

MRSA goes by many names. Besides being formally known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, it is also sometimes known as a “superbug”—and if that weren’t enough, some say that it can be found not only in locker rooms or hospitals, but, unlike it was previously thought, in the kitchen as well.US NEWS MED-MRSA 2 SE

A July article in Prevention Magazine claimed that MRSA can now be found in food, specifically in your burger, chop, or tenderloin. According to the article, workers in meat processing plants began showing symptoms of MRSA infection. Research has found MRSA-tainted meat in not only the United States, but in Europe and Canada as well.

So should you be worried?

“I think the news media hypes [MRSA] up more than it should,” said John Middleton, Associate Professor, Food Animal Medicine and Surgery at University of Missouri. “That said, I think people should be aware of it.”

Unlike other strains of staph bacteria, MRSA, as its name suggests, is resistant to methicillin, or synthetic penicillin, among numerous other standard antibiotics. This makes it harder to treat MRSA infections without resorting to antibiotics, which are much more potent. Though it was once more of a hospital-acquired disease, MRSA has in recent years become more of a community-acquired disease. Its symptoms can include the formation of pustules and reddish bumps on the skin that resemble spider bites.

A study which Middleton helped to conduct found MRSA in households in both human and animal hosts. Approximately a quarter of all sampled humans had staph; 20 percent within this number were found to have MRSA. Of the sampled pets, 13 percent had staph, however 23 percent within this number were found to harbor MRSA.

Unlike Prevention, however, Middleton isn’t sounding the alarm.

“We found the same identical strain [of MRSA] in a household pet and a person in four out of about 600 households,” Middleton said. “Not infected, just colonized.”

MRSA, Middleton said, is actually much more common in people than one might think. He estimates that perhaps one out of every four people in America is colonized with S. aureus (general staph), and about one in four of those people harbor MRSA.

“You could have MRSA right now, and not know it,” Middleton said. “You could become colonized and never show any symptoms.”

Another uncertain factor in the study was the issue of cross-contamination.

“We can detect MRSA in a dog or pig or horse or human,” Middleton said. “but we don’t know who infected who. We think that MRSA mostly originates in people, but we can’t be sure. There’s only so much we can tell.”

An exception to this rule is the discovery of a strain of MRSA, known as the ST398 strain, which originated in pigs and spread to humans.

Whatever the case or origin, Middleton agreed that MRSA has been found in food, in both meat and dairy products.

“The fact that we isolated [MRSA] in the food doesn’t say where it came from,” Middleton said. “But it is probably mostly post-harvest contamination.”

That is to say, most MRSA found in food isn’t really from the food itself. It’s from an infected worker carelessly touching his nose—MRSA flourishes in the nasal passages—during work, or not washing his hands.

“It does boil down to hygiene in processing and handling,” Middleton said. “And if there was a pig colonized with MRSA whose pork became contaminated during slaughter, cooking would likely kill the bacteria. It’s like drinking unpasteurized milk. It might be colonized with MRSA. The MRSA dies during pasteurization.”

Whether the MRSA entered your meat through a colonized pig or a sneezing meat handler, Middleton recommends one simple tip: wash your hands, especially after preparing or handling raw food.

“It’s not like walking into Jack in the Box and eating a hamburger and getting e-coli,” Middleton said.

In addition, take note: the bacteria can enter the body through open skin. Avoid touching raw meat with a cut hand.

However, there are bigger things to worry about; the “superbug” label given to MRSA is mostly a media-given nickname, according to Middleton. Though it can be fatal, most people are only colonized, not infected.

“Worse than influenza?” he said. “Probably not. Compared to swine flu, it’s likely less insignificant.”

So the MRSA in your meat may not be as bad as they say—if you know the facts. So do yourself a favor and wash your hands. It won’t just save you from a potential MRSA infection, but scores of other infectious diseases—like swine flu—as well.