Football
Hurricane fans have until 11:45 a.m. (Eastern) on Friday to bid on a chance to “Run Through the Smoke” with the Miami football team for the Nov. 15th Homecoming game vs. Syracuse as part of the school’s ongoing auction, at www.hurricanesports.com/ebay Other items, currently available for big through mid-day on Friday include: The locker used by Hurricane star Clinton Portis, who had 120 yards rushing Sunday for the Denver Broncos. A team poster signed by the 1997 Miami team, which represents the beginning of UM’s comeback as National Champions and a Div. 1A dominant football program! A hat signed by the current Hurricane coaching staff, sure to be a collector’s item for years to come.
Proceeds from the auction help support the University of Miami athletic department. The auction is part of a nationwide program with eBay Sports and OCSN, which partners with Miami and 144 university athletic departments and conferences to manage and maintain Official Athletic Sites. During the season, college football fans who show team spirit by buying licensed merchandise and memorabilia will make their dollars go the distance. From September through December, eBay Sports will track the amount of money collectively spent per team and release weekly top 25 standings. When the contest ends in January 2004, eBay will give the school that generates the most in sales a $25,000 donation to be used toward a scholarship-scoring a major victory for education.

Soccer
Freshman Shannon Sanguinetti scored the game-winning goal as the Miami soccer team beat South Florida 2-1 in Tampa, Fla. Sunday afternoon. The Hurricanes improve to 3-2-0 overall while the Bulls fall to 1-2-0 on the season. Miami was on the board first as freshman Kristen Chapman scored on a 20-yard shot deflected off of a USF player 13 minutes into the match. The Bulls responded ten minutes later as Laura Tucker scored from Katie Reed’s corner kick. The Hurricanes came out strong in the second half with 11 shots in the period to just three shots by the Bulls. The winning goal came at the 79:09 mark as Sanquinetti headed in a ball that bounced around in the box off a previously deflected shot. The Hurricanes out-shot the Bulls 20-12 for the match with Miami goalie Alex Alford making five saves.

Volleyball
The University of Miami Volleyball team fell to No. 20 Santa Clara, 3-2 on Saturday afternoon at the Wildcat Classic in Tucson, Ariz to record their second loss of the season. The Hurricanes (5-2) outplayed Santa Clara (5-1) in nearly every statistical category but could not edge out Broncos in the end. Santa Clara took the first game, 30-27 to jump out early to an early lead. Miami led the second game 28-20 before falling 31-29 to the Broncos. The Hurricanes struck back in the third game, 30-26 and tied the match up in the fourth game, winning 30-22. Santa Clara captured the victory in the fifth game, edging out Miami, 15-13. “This was a very hard fought match for us,” Head Coach Nicole Lantagne Welch said. “It was disappointing to lose because we had some chances to put it away and we just couldn’t do it. I think we just got a little bit tentative tonight.” The Hurricanes’ loss was highlighted by the play of junior outside hitter Elizabeth Tyson, who turned in 22 kills on a .308 hitting percentage and collected 16 digs for 24 points. “Elizabeth really had an outstanding match tonight,” Lantagne Welch said. “It was good to see her rebound from a disappointing match last night.” Junior outside hitter Valeria Tipiana had 16 kills in the match, along with 16 digs for 19 points. Tipiana was named to the Wildcat Classic All-Tournament team for her efforts over the weekend.

Question: are you pro-choice? Do you call yourself a Democrat as well? Democrats are, after all, supposed to be pro-choice and favor abortion, but what exactly does it mean to say you are in favor of it?

Back in October of 1997, President Bill Clinton vetoed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Partial-birth abortion, or “Intact Dilation and Evacuation,” involves killing a baby (or mildly put, “fetus”) by jamming scissors into its head and sucking out its brains therefore caving in the skull with half of its body already out of the mother. Fortunately, due to the efforts of President George Bush and the bill passed by Congress and Senate, this act may be banned in September.

Not only does President Clinton acknowledge partial-birth abortion but the government funding of it. Would you really like to see your tax dollars go toward women aborting babies? Then again, would you like to see the money go toward the education of abstinence? In addition to these attributes of pro-abortion, Democrats are for minors getting an abortion without parental consent. Would you really feel that it would be all right if your child had such a surgical procedure without your knowledge? On the other hand, you should allow them to have privacy, right?

Evidently, being a Democrat can mean you are against abortion. Democrats did help pass the bill to ban partial-birth abortions. Then why do they call themselves Democrats? Some Republicans voted against the banning. Then why do they call themselves Republicans? It is easy to say that the labels mean nothing but even more difficult to prevent them from influencing when we vote. Considering abortion, how can one really side with one party without agreeing with the other?

The bottom line is that we should be careful about choosing which side of the abortion argument: Democrats or Republicans. There are still many variables, like the exact definitions of privacy, abortion and child. Just because Republicans (particularly our current president) are against abortion does not mean that they have the perfect view. Is abortion OK if the woman was raped?

In the end, banning partial-birth abortion and being against all areas of the procedure just makes Republicans look a lot less dimwitted and a lot smarter. Hopefully, September of 2003 will be the month that killing babies (“fetuses”) by suction of brains will be officially outlawed. This will be one thing that President Bush may be commended for.

Naomi Hall can be contacted at cagedancer@mindspring.com.

The freedom-loving world will remember the events of September 11, 2001 with tears, sadness and a fervent determination to crush the enemies of liberty. The terrorist perpetrators will remember September 11, 2001 as the beginning of their global eradication. Al-Qaeda’s dream attack on America played out as nothing less than their worst nightmare come true. In the words of our President, “We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th: the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.”

September 11 was merely considered a pawn move in the larger plot of converting America into an Islamic fundamentalist nation. An attack intended to demoralize America and crush its spirit uplifted it to heights not seen since WWII. An attack intended to make America appear weak in its defense of freedom and civilization bolstered our resolve to seek out and destroy all threats to it. More than half of Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership and over 3,000 terrorists have faced death or currently assist the U.S. in unraveling future plots. Ninety nations now accept their duty of crushing the evil plague of terrorism that has sickened our world.

And from the ruins of the Twin Towers, Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania emerged the accounts of selfless heroes who died before they had to so others would live. America must never forget Todd Beamer and the passengers of Flight 93 who saved our Capital Building or White House by bringing down their plane in that Pennsylvania field. America must never forget the 418 uniformed police and firemen who received their last rights and charged into an almost certain death so 25,000 could evacuate the towers. America must never forget the bravery of countless non-uniformed citizens who sacrificed their lives by allowing others to evacuate the towers before themselves. America should look upon these individuals as true role models and heroes of our nation.

America cannot risk calmly sitting back and naively hoping that attacks of September 11th’s magnitude or greater will never again occur. The Bush Administration’s policy of proactively and preemptively hunting down terrorists and disarming state sponsors of terrorism must continue to ensure life and liberty for all Americans. We as Americans owe it to ancestors (who sacrificed for our economic and political freedom), ourselves and future generations to do everything possible to preserve the liberty so easily taken for granted. Nothing will slow the steady proliferation of democratic ideals throughout the globe. No one person or thing can defeat the inalienable, God-given rights and desires of self-determination and freedom.

Pete Trombadore can be contacted at petetrombadore@hotmail.com.

The United States is currently faced with many pressing issues. War, unemployment, and terrorism are all serious problems that are constantly on the minds of our nation’s leaders. Why was it so important to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama judicial building?

In a time so critical to our nation, people in Alabama are worried about ensuring the separation of church and state because it’s constitutional (facetious emphasis). I’m sorry, which part of the Constitution is that? The first amendment, I’m sorry, no. That’s right it’s not in the Constitution. Nor is it in the Bill of Rights. There is also nothing about the separation of church and state in the federalist papers, if you were wondering.
In fact, the courageous men that founded this great nation did so as Christians who wanted to ensure that this government would make certain the freedom of religious practice. The first time this idea of separation of church and state was addressed was in 1947. In this case in a New Jersey town, the state was reimbursing parents for the cost of transporting their children to school and the Court found it to be unconstitutional for parents whose children went to parochial schools (a Catholic school in this instance) to be reimbursed.

In this case the Court identified what the framers meant when they wrote that Congress shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion.” It was interpreted that they meant that the government could not in any way support a religion. That means, of course, no tax funding for anything religious and so on.
Off this tangent we arrive at my point. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and other private donors bought the monument of the Ten Commandments. It was not paid for by the state. Although I must say it was not his place to do so, the monument caused no harm to anyone. And if anyone says that it causes emotional distress give me a break.

Many monuments exactly like the one that now sits in a dark room at the Alabama judicial building can be found in Washington D.C. federal buildings as well as at Congress. As long as that monument causes no harm, there is no constitutional basis for its removal. I think James Madison would have some monumental words to say about this if he were still alive.

Ernesto Zaldivar is a freshman majoring in Political Science. He can be contacted at SavageErnster55@aol.com.

On this second anniversary of September 11th, as Americans, we reflect on the tragic events that took place. We think of our loved ones and cherish our time with them. We volunteer, donate blood and light candles in remembrance. At the same time, American Muslims are reminded that there is still much work to do.

A report released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent Islamic civil rights advocacy group, indicates that anti-Muslim incidents in the United States increased by 15 percent after September 11. The CAIR report, the only annual study of its kind, details incidents and experiences of anti-Muslim violence, discrimination and harassment during the past year.

In addition to the direct acts of discrimination and violence, the report looks at the impact of post-9/11 government polices, often related to the U.S.A. Patriot Act, that have had a negative impact on American Muslim civil liberties. Those government actions featured in the report include the March 2002 raids on Muslim families and businesses in Virginia and Georgia, the Special Registration program for Muslim visa-holders, and the “voluntary” interviews conducted with thousands of Iraqi-Americans. The report also outlined the increase in Islamophobic rhetoric by evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
Florida was reported to be amongst the states to have the largest number of religious and ethnic profiling and workplace discrimination.

Even here in Miami, American Muslims have continued to experience the backlash. A former UM student was followed three times on US-1 and I-95, once directly to the UM Coral Gables campus. Campus security had to get involved and ask the gentleman to leave.

Students have also been specifically targeted at airports, with relatives being asked humiliating questions and to remove certain articles of clothing, such as shirts and headscarves, in public. Even simple things, such as checking on financial aid, turns into an ordeal, with some Muslim students being tagged as “international” students.
Students on campus were the targets of crticism, racism and discrimination in the weeks and months following September 11th. One student was kicked out of the UC for harassing Muslim students.

Islam has the second largest following and is the fastest growing religion in North America. As a country, we are becoming more aware, if not of Islam’s basic teachings, then the importance of learning more about those Americans around us. It must also be remembered that for many Muslims, when told to “go back home,” this IS home.
As we remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001, on this anniversary, let us honor those who are no longer with us by making the world better for those that are still with us.