Voice from Hell
Robert Caton
Cap Times Staff
Well, campers, coming up with an
actual topic this time around proved too
difficult for me. (Yeah, yeah, I
know...the guys hauling raw pig iron
around with their bare hands at the
foundry are really shedding tears for me
and my tough job, but, what can ya do?)
So, after literally MINUTES of deep
thought as to this edition of the old
"Voice", I have decided to fall back on
the old standby... Things That Piss Me
Off!
Am I the only person in the world
that is sick and tired of the senior boxing
league? How can you expect guys who
get hit in the head, A LOT, as their job
to be able to make rational decisions
about when to stop getting hit in the
head? Getting hit in the head is like
playing "Quarters" with shots of
Tequila...eventually you end up playing
to lose without even realizing it
Hopefully, seeing Sugar Ray Leonard
get stomped by Terry Norris on February
9th will prevent other meatheads with
depth perception problems like Larry
Holmes from going back into the ring.
Sure, people point to George Foreman
as an example of a great comeback, but
what these inbred morons refuse to look
at is the fact that Foreman has fought
opponents that would sport losing
records even if they only fought gay
quadruple amputees.
When champion Evander Holyfield
crushes Foreman, hopefully the old
guard will go back to doing commercials
Letters
negotiations with Kuwait, and when
Kuwait refused dialogue he threatened to
invade. The whole world knew and yet
nothing was done. The Bush
administration cynically turned a deaf
ear, even to Iraqi foreign minister Tariq
Aziz's promise to target Israel in battle.
Iraq never forgot the real issues in this
war.
We watched this conflict brew from
the beginning and I wonder if we are
willing to accept responsibility for what
we know to be true. Let us not forget
that we armed this dictator. The Iraqi war
machine was fueled and subsidized by us.
We sustained and applauded Hussein
throughout the Iran/Iraq war. Now we are
being held hostage by our energy needs.
As a nation, we are incapable of giving
up the standard of living we are
accustomed to. Especially the gas
guzzling needs inherent with the
excesses of the 70's, 80's and into the
90’s. Lastly, are we so egocentric that
we think we are the only ones who
understand the history and cultural
heritage of the Palestinians and all of the
Arab-Christian countries; their ill
content dating back to the Ottoman
Empire! We obviously believe our
country has all the right answers.
Try to imagine a United States that
seeks peaceful resolutions. What if the
for Lifecall and Depends, and we can
look forward to Mike Tyson being
champ again.
Poor, poor, Penn State University
...the big mean ogre in Harrisburg is
cutting funds. Gosh, they might actually
have to raise our tuition! What an
improbable event! Does this football
program disguised as a university really
think we are so stupid we don't realize
tuition hikes are as much a fact of life as
Warrant videos playing every 11.3
minutes on MTV? After all, how else
can our beloved football team travel to
such exotic locales as Alabama and
Michigan if students, for whom the
poverty level is only a far away dream of
prosperity, don't get screwed out of more
and more dollars?
What truly annoys me is that this
tuition hike will probably pay for the
State College International Airport. Yes,
you heard me right. Sources in our own
fair University confirm that an airport
(costing about...A LOT) will be put up.
Well, it just wouldn't be fair to the poor,
long-suffering football players to have to
endure a bus ride all the way from State
College to Harrisburg to get their
chartered jet, right? What's your
problem? Don't you think it's worth
having to pay off your student loan until
2137 as long as our football players
have it easy?
Well, campers, that should about do
it for n0w...1 should always come in to
write this slop without any idea where
it's going...it's a lot easier to get the
venom flowing.
Until next time...
U.S. shared the issues in the Gulf with
the European community, especially the
Palestine problem? Even if the world
closes its eyes the Palestinian people
will not go away. There is no "away" for
them. Next, is it so absurd to imagine
authentic negotiations among the Middle
East countries themselves? Maybe even
support a commonwealth like Europe
has designed, creating rich shared
resources, spirituality and cultural
diversity. This common market may
bridge the cavern between the "have's and
have not’s."
Finally, I am not suggesting
disloyalty to a strong and beautiful
country. Rather I challenge all of us to
use critical thought on our President’s
administration and their actions in the
Gulf. We have come a long distance
from the last war we fought, haven't we
learned that peaceful solutions can be
viable solutions? When the first load of
40,000 body bags return, draped in U.S.
flags, will we still be cheering "Dulcc et
decorum est pro patria mori?" (it is
sweet and seemly to die for one's
country).
Debra Ghaly
Elementary Education
Person-to-person
U.S. soldier calls buddy
Jeff Berrigan
Capital Times Staff
I got a collect phone call the other
day - from Saudi Arabia (that oughta be
a nice bill).
It's 3:30 Monday morning and my
roommate answers the phone and says
"Collect call from where?!... Hold 0n...
JAZZY!" I answer the phone not really
knowing what's going on. I recognize
the voice but can’t place it. Then I
realize it's one of my boys stationed in
the Persian Gulf. Boy did I wake up in a
hurry!
His unit got lucky and was stationed
near a phone outside the Kuwait border
and he decided to give his family and
friends a call and let us know how he
was doing. It’s the first time I've really
paid attention to what someone was
saying for three months (no offense to
any of my professors).
For a while now the war has been
relatively low key, at least in my eyes.
No longer do we have that 24 hour
coverage, with quivering voices from
scared news reporters. But this phone
call I got from my friend who is
stationed in the Saudi Desert put the war
in a whole new perspective for me.
Just the sound of his voice told mehe
was scared. When I asked what it was
like over there he said, "Man it's dirty,
REAL dirty!"
He also added that the Saudi's are so
far behind us, technologically wise, it's
incredible. "It's like they live in biblical
times," he said.
Letter to the Editor
With every passing day since the
Gulf War began, my phobia over the
sound of jet planes flying over our
campus makes me shudder, for during
that fleeting second I seem to forget that
I am here in the U.S .A., safe and sound
for the time being. I wondered if it was
that my heart was feeling the collective
voices of those out there bombing and
being bombed. What each of them,
knowing and feeling, yet, must hide
away in their hearts: that they are
killing human beings, ones just like
themselves, not just fighting the
"enemies," in order that the goals of each
side can be met-to destroy the other. My
heart cries out for them wondering how
each of them would be haunted by those
troubling thoughts regardless of the
victory or the noble causes that each of
them risks their lives for. So many lives
and so much are at stake for one
irresponsible madman's (Saddam
Hussein) aggression.
The decisions in life arc never simple
and nothing comes from a vacuum. I
imagine the decision of a leader of a
great nation as this must not be an easy
one, especially ordering the young men
to go risk their lives for another country.
For those who argue that the American
When I asked him if he and his unit
have seen any "action" there was a long
pause as he said, "You don't know the
word fear, until someone starts shooting
at you." It is then I realized the war IS
for real. The United States isn’t just
giving Iraq a spanking, we're giving
them a war.
We see on television certain soldiers
being interviewed and them saying that
morale is up and that they are ready to
fight. So I asked my boy how the troops
were doing and he said, "Morale is up,
but that doesn't stop you from being
scared... especially at night when you
don't know what could happen.”
The topic of conversation did move
around and he did tell me that he thought
the camel was the "biggest, ugliest,
smelliest animal" he has ever seen! I
then asked him if there was any grass
over there and after a pause he laughed
and said, "Yea there are some patches of
grass... but don't ask me how they grew
it!" At least he had some humor left in
him.
After about twenty minutes he said
he had to go and let some other guys use
the phone. He left me with three special,
yet frightening, words, "Pray for me!"
Well he doesn't have to worry
because my prayers are with him, all my
other friends in the Gulf, and all the rest
of the troops.
Right before he hung up I said, " I'll
see you when you get back", and he told
me "Yea, we'll play some basketball or
something, see ya Jeff." .
I hope we get the chance, I just hope.
interest in oil pushed us to this war, I
have to ask, "what angelic human being
does anything out of no seif interest?"
Further, the issues involved here are
much more complex as we are all aware.
For those who condemn Bush,
proposing peace, I must .also ask, "who
isn't for peace?" Personally, on the
practical side, the Bush administration's
decision to go to war on Iraq seems to
have enough valid reasons, and like
many Americans I back our troops out
there.
What troubles me so much then, is
not that our troops are involved in a
Middle Eastern conflict, seemingly a far
away affair, but rather that an inevitable
confrontation between one nation's
people and the people of the Coalition
became necessary ultimately; that like
many petty squabbles that each of us
engage in with different people from
time to lime, we (human beings) weren't
able to work things out in a less
destructive manner. All civilizations that
we built along the way have come and
gone through many destructive
confrontations such as this one. Thus
history reminds us of the many human
atrocities that we have perpetrated upon
See Letters on 9