The British Government has learned that Social Security recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. That’s right, folks. That F.D.R. social program designed to keep Grandma from starving to death is actually a terrorist and a tyrant that has deployable, militarized weapons of mass destruction. We cannot wait for the smoking gun because Social Security is an imminent threat.

The risk of inaction presents a horrific scenario. Since its inception, Social Security has collected more in taxes than it has given Grandpa. In 2018-which is practically tomorrow-this will change. Don’t think the terror stops there! If we do nothing, the system will become insolvent in 2052! Don’t you see the imminent danger?

Don’t worry. We have a solution. We always have a solution. From the people who brought you the USA PATRIOT act and war without end, we present to you privatization! Whoops, sorry, they’re telling me that you people don’t like that word. Rove is saying to use “personal investment accounts” instead. Here’s how it works: We take your money and put it in a private stock market account because nothing ever goes wrong with the stock market. As for Grandma, she’ll still get her check because we’re going to borrow $2,000,000,000,000. Don’t worry about all those zeroes; China will be happy to oblige.

Never mind that the CEO who rakes in millions per year pays the same amount into Social Security as an engineer making $87,000 per year, and never mind that simply raising that flat-rate cutoff to something like $110,000 will fix it until our children die. That’s not the point. This is part of a broader war on the terror of using tax money for people.

There are those who say that our plan is designed to fail so that we can finally rid ourselves of that pesky social program that’s worked so well. They say our plan is overreaching, brash and short-sighted. We call them liberals. These are the same people who told you that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Pssh. Shows what they and their Howard Dean know!

You may as well like our plan because we’re going to keep using your tax dollars for propaganda until public support for privatization is high enough that we don’t have to worry about a “throw the bastards out” campaign in 2006.

Disclaimer: The author is a paid “consultant” with the Santorum/Gingrich ’08 PAC.

Chris Fisher can be contacted at c.fisher@umiami.edu.

It has been the year 2005 for a month, and I realized long ago that keeping New Year’s resolutions aren’t an adequate way to judge my progress thus far, because I usually forget them or rationalize them away. For example, my resolution this year to give up caffeine lasted a whole 13 days.

I’ve taken to doing a more objective analysis: I do a Google search for myself. The results are pretty good aside from the masses of links generated by failed attempts at blogging. At least all the links are about me in some capacity, dating back from high school. Then it strikes me as kind of creepy that anyone could very well do a Google search for my name and find out that I dropped in semis at the University of Texas-Austin debate tournament during my junior year of high school. I remember when the internet was this evil demon where I wasn’t supposed to reveal more than my first name, and even that was dangerous. It also required that I knew how to work a computer. Now the internet is cuddlier and simple, mouse-click friendlier. Now my first and last names are plastered in at least 10 unique places.

Yet, I really don’t care. I can even bolster my Google list through places of the Facebook variety and the eleventy billion different blog sites where I can record every single thing I’ve done ever. Yah know, set the record straight for all of random people perusing around who I probably won’t even meet. It seems in a world of six billion some odd, it’s getting really easy to get lost in the crowd. It doesn’t help that there is this reciprocal curiosity to look at all of these blogs, profiles and homepages, feeding this need for voyeurism when there isn’t anything new on reality TV. Or maybe I’m just being too thoughtful and the internet is really just a glorified dating service slash mall.

Still, my name is still out there and there is only one logical solution: stop telling people in my non-virtual reality my name. Then, they can’t do a Google search for it! However, it also makes all sorts of other things much harder too, like cashing checks or continuing to write this column. Then I wonder if I am more afraid of people I actually know or this imaginary army of creepy internet people that is constantly looking at my high school debate results online. Either way, having my extensive Google r

As the United States prepared itself for the 2004 presidential election, I did as well. From the moment I realized that I would be eligible to vote in the 2004 election, I began to tune myself into the issues that concern our country and the rest of the world. Like many young, apathetic students, I felt I never had time for the daily events of the world and our nation. Once my country officially recognized me with the right to vote, I understood that I could no longer hide behind a veil of ignorance.

With knowledge of current events, I find myself at a crossroads. As I witness my country use its military might for both “presidentially-assured, positive” destruction in the Middle East and for selfless aid in the Southeast Asia region, I cannot help but ponder over the hypocrisy of our country’s choices. These are the two faces of American foreign policy.

So, I write here today to ask college students a simple question; something that the citizens of the ’60s did not think twice about. Why is it that in our current time of war, we seem so indifferent to make our youthful opinions known? Do we not care about life beyond our country or our state or our city or our college? Are we satisfied with the policies of our country? In a military quagmire that slowly begins to mirror the Vietnam War, why are we miserably apathetic? Do we need a draft before we begin to strongly protest the Iraq war or how our government is handling its world power? Where is the outrage?

The nation is divided in half between red-staters and blue-staters. Fifty percent of the U.S. wanted change, but in the end more was lost than hours in line at the voting booths. Was that fire for change left at the voting booth? The flame ought to burn brighter than ever. Not even those who pushed for round two of our current administration could possibly be satisfied with the current mess we are in now.

As we continue the process of burying our service men and women, we at home sip Starbucks and listen to our iPods. I ask that you turn off that iPod, put down that PDA and hang up that cell phone. It is not too late to turn on a news broadcast, read the newspaper and search the Internet. It is time to educate ourselves of the current events in this nation and beyond. College is the time to form our own opinions. This country is built upon freedom of speech, religion and press and the right to assemble. Never forget this and never allow anyone to impede upon these unalienable rights. Make your youthful opinions known; peacefully protest, write articles, send letters, create songs, start web blogs. Let your voices be heard; there is always someone who is listening. This is how we make change in America happen.

Sam Rega can be contacted at s.rega@umiami.edu.

Re: “Dr. King, your famous ‘dream’ is dead,” 1/26

“Dr. King, your famous ‘dream’ is dead” is yet another trite, oversimplified column on the “negatives” of affirmative action from someone of limited exposure’s perspective.

Dr. King did fight for the equality of all people; he also fought for all people to be given the chance to succeed and develop their full potential. All affirmative action tries to do is level the playing field ecognizing that there once was institutionalized sexism and racism in our society, and that remnants of those prejudices still exist in many parts of this country. Affirmative action does not strive to be an injustice, it strives to correct, or at least help ameliorate, the many injustices that have been inflicted on many people throughout this nation’s bloody, black-and-blue history.

Affirmative action programs at the university level recognize physically and mentally disabled persons and athletes-basically anyone that has something different to add to the composition of the student body to ensure diversity.

In terms of accepting ethnic students with different GPAs and SAT scores, I may be the first African-American person you know to say, “Yes, it does happen.” If you look at the quality of schools in the neighborhoods where the majority of ethnic students and lower-income white students come from, there’s no question that these students have experienced an educational disadvantage. They may not have had all high-tech computer labs, or a full set of textbooks in their classrooms, to attain the 3.8 GPA in high school, but that does not mean the same students could not compete at the college level with their upper-income white counterparts whose families had the resources to pay for a $1000 SAT-prep class.

I’m not at all ashamed to be an African-American on this campus, or to admit that I am helped in some way by affirmative action programs. I do not feel devalued in any way, and do walk on this campus with my head held high because I know I’m intelligent, creative and hard-working and an asset to this university-I have earned my place here, regardless of what naysayers believe. I am thankful affirmative action programs also recognize that fact and have taken measures to ensure that myself, as well as other students, are given the opportunity to make the most of their potential. Affirmative action’s only aim at the university level is to try to bring in the most awesome, diverse student body the university can have for that particular year. And to address the comment on Dr. King’s dream being “dead,” I must say I sharply disagree. Being an African-American person, I see the very essence Dr. King’s dream-that we all be treated equally as spiritual and human beings-implemented everyday of my life. I see the dream every time I am able to go to lunch with my group of multiethnic friends and we can all dine together at the same table; or perhaps when I go shopping in any store in Sunset Place I desire without fear of being harassed; or maybe its something as simple as walking on the grounds of this campus, which used to be segregated only 50 years ago, to attend my classes.

Bridgett R. Brown

Pamphlets distributed throughout Iraq warned voters that their lives would be at risk if they voted. One promised that the insurgents would “wash Baghdad streets with voters’ blood.” But the people were determined to vote. They would not let fear stop them from voicing their opinion. They swore that they would go and vote, even if they died at the polling site. They passed by snipers on the way to the voting booths. Through metal detectors, explosive detectors and many other security checkpoints, they continued in an attempt to ensure that their voices were heard.

Here in the United States, our voting conditions are not always ideal. People have been on the wrong voter lists, at the wrong precincts, missing absentee ballots and waiting in six-hour lines in order to vote. However, we don’t have the fear of death on our shoulders when we proudly walk in to the polls. We can go to the voting sites knowing that while some may disagree with whom we may be voting for, they most likely will not disagree with our partaking in the act of voting.

Due to threats of suicide bombers, car bombs and small-arms fire, Iraqi officials were forced to restrict travel, close borders and order curfews throughout the country. No one was allowed to carry weapons, or even drive a car. Many voters didn’t even know where they were voting, or for whom, until Election Day, all in an effort to protect the 13 million registered voters. Despite the attempts at protection and prevention, the day was not without tragedy. A rocket hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, killing two Americans. There were explosions at polling sites across the country, killing Iraqis as well as U.S. soldiers.

However, voting is merely a baby step towards rebuilding Iraq. Some say the elections were scheduled too soon, given the level of insecurity in many parts of the country. Others point out that Iraqis had limited access to information on the candidates before Election Day. These criticisms are valid and deeply troubling, but they do not take away from the courage shown by those who voted.

Those who braved the conditions to vote were forced to have their fingerprints taken with ink that would remain for days. A U.S. officer was quoted by CNN as stating their “worst nightmare would be to have voters’ fingers chopped off.”

Think about the passion that abounded throughout this country, even on our campus, this past November when we were fortunate enough to be able to vote for our President. Would you have been brave enough to risk your life to vote? Would it be worth it to you? Instead of the sporting the trend Sean John “Vote or Die” shirts, would you be willing to “Vote or Die Trying?”