Thursday, December 12, 2002 :::
 
Trent Lott is under a lot of scrutiny these days, ever since he remarked at Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party that he supported Strom's bid for presedency in 1948. Of course, Strom was running on the Segregationalist ticket. Now, they're taking a closer look at a time when Lott was fighting to keep blacks out of his national fraternity (Sigma Nu).

The fraternity arguement interests me. I found out, for example, that my own fraternity (Phi Delta Theta) used to have a line in the national charter that said "no persons that are not of full Aryan blood" could be admitted. As a Jewish student, I'm happy to see that things have come a long way from older times, but Lott's statement is eerie in that it suggests that racism is very much still a part of American politics. Are we proud of the old Southern mentality in this country? Is Lott proud of Strom Thurmond's lifetime of fighting for segregating blacks from whites?

::: posted by Andrewski at 6:15 PM

Wednesday, December 11, 2002 :::
 
If Finals Hell hasn't distracted you too much from the world of Berkeley political ethics, you might have been at the protest against Tom Bates at Tuesday's city council meeting. The mayor, of course, admitted to having trashed copies of the Daily Cal in a story printed in the Daily Cal last Friday. The story, however, could be found in the Cal Patriot a few days before.

I've reconsidered my stance on Tom Bates. As pathetic I think the act of stealing and trashing copies of the newspaper was, it may be too much to ask that the mayor resign immediately. After all, what he did was childish and stupid, but it wasn't done out of malice. Bates just really, really wanted to win, and he thought that throwing away newspapers would help. Bates wasn't trying to thwart Free Speech. After all, the guy has provided 24 years of service to Berkeley, and won the election by a considerable margin.

But I still think Bates should pay for his stupidity. I think he needs to do something to prove that he isn't some shameless old Grinch who furiously waves his fist at the First Ammendment. Maybe if he were to provide funding to start more publications on campus, or to support the Daily Cal through additional funding or resources. But first, he should pay the fine for petty theft.

::: posted by Andrewski at 1:28 AM