When you voted the Unity slate into office, did you know it was full of America-hating, self-serving, two-faced hypocrites? I didn't, but the slate certainly made its tendencies evident when it purposefully passed a radically gutted ""pro-America"" resolution. The resolution only served to patronize those seeking its passage while maintaining the slate's own radical leftist agenda.

Pat Leung
Guardian

In light of the Sept. 11 assaults on America, the UCSD Freedom Alliance felt it would be appropriate to conceive a monument of student unity through a ""pro-America"" resolution.

Drafted by Conservative Union President Vince Vasquez, the wording was eloquent and the message simple: The A.S. Council, on behalf of the majority of the student body, reaffirms its support of our nation's leaders, the servicemen and women seeking to improve our way of life, our flag; and, as proud Americans, we honor the firefighters and police officers who lost their lives on Sept. 11.

The full resolution can be viewed on request at the A.S. offices in the Price Center.

This is hardly a controversial message; Americans have never been so united. To demonstrate that supporting America is not a partisan issue, the Freedom Alliance consulted with the College Democrats at UCSD, who initially supported the resolution after changes were made in response to their and the A.S. Council's request. The College Democrats withdrew support the day the legislation was scheduled for a vote.

The Freedom Alliance thought that however leftist the A.S. Council may be, it could join together and pass legislation that would satisfy most UCSD students.

The A.S. Council demonstrated how underhanded it could be, however, when Vice President External Dylan de Kervor announced a series of amendments effectively gutting the resolution.

The term ""Americans"" -- apparently a dirty word -- disappeared. Along the same lines, the idea that our soldiers are fighting to preserve our way of life was nixed because, as de Kervor stated, the council does not think the soldiers are doing so. Worst of all, any support for our flag -- the same one that symbolizes our most cherished liberties -- was removed without explanation. After a delayed roll call vote, the A.S. Council passed a hollow shell of the once-meaningful resolution.

Why did the A.S. Council strip the heart and soul from the resolution? It is all well and good to claim support for our nation's leaders and soldiers, but by denying the patriotic ideals that they strive to preserve, the resolution is just an insulting waste of paper.

Were the changes made to avoid hurting the feelings of the handful of foreign exchange students on this campus? Hardly, and even if that were the case, the A.S. Council would merely be composed of incompetent rather than self-serving extremists. A resolution was proposed that the vast majority of students on this campus would agree on, including foreign students.

Why would foreign students be offended by supporting a country generous enough to open its doors and provide them with a top-notch education and the same civil rights as its citizens? It doesn't make sense that this would offend them, and if any people hate America that much, then maybe they should not have made the decision to attend school here.

But the decision to nix parts of the resolution was not made out of consideration to anyone who might take offense to it; that, at least, would have been a misguided attempt at nobility.

Rather, the decision was made because of the utter disdain this council has for the United States and its principles. During an A.S. Council session, Vice President Internal Jenn Brown declared that the American flag represents a history of hatred and bigotry. I am sure Brown would be delighted to autograph the meeting's transcript along with her new book, ""Why the United States Is Responsible for All Evil Throughout the History of Humanity.""

How about de Kervor, who actually proposed the amendment? She was quoted in the Jan. 10, 2002 issue of the Guardian as saying, ""The same flag has flown over plantations and internment camps.""

As for A.S. President Jeff Dodge, he said at one meeting that the term ""Pro-America"" was too divisive, and the resolution was thus renamed the ""Sept. 11 Resolution.""

The Freedom Alliance fails to comprehend why ""Pro-America"" is so divisive in a country where the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all anyone seems to agree on. Maybe the members of the Freedom Alliance were flattered, however, to discover that if the resolution had passed without the disgraceful amendments, Dodge would have exercised his first-ever veto.

The senators are far from exempt from blame here, since they voted to approve the amendments. Whether they despise the United States as much as their colleagues or they are just a bunch of sheep following the lead of their superiors makes no difference to me. The senators are either deliberately wrong or lack the fortitude to make a stand for what is right. Whether it be through disgust or apathy, they really dropped the ball.

There are those who feel the A.S. Council should not have spent time on the resolution because its sentiments are self-evident. I can respectfully disagree, but what is suspicious is not that a lot of time was spent on it, but that the A.S. Council went so far out of its way to drain its spirit. What could possibly motivate the A.S. Council to destroy something it had spent so much time on, unless it disagreed with its sentiments in the first place?

Whether you are as passionate as I am about the issue at hand should not occlude the question of whether the students can trust their elected council. The A.S. president and two vice presidents certainly did not campaign on such vicious, anti-American quotes. Perhaps they feel that being a crafty politician entails lying to their constituents.

Once this is published, the A.S. Council members will probably release some sort of statement skewing the realities of their lies. They will not tell you that they did not want to go on record striking down a ""Pro-America"" resolution, so instead they passed a radically gutted version, figuring no one would research what really occurred and expose them for what they are.

I cannot help but wonder whose interests the A.S. Council has in mind, but they certainly are not those of the student body.

I read somewhere that within four seconds of meeting someone, the brain has already formed its initial impression of that person. That's all the time you have before someone's subconscious has made a preliminary sketch of who you are.

Maybe it's a part of human nature to want to judge people so quickly, being that it's practically unavoidable. We do, as a matter of course, rely on generalizations and stereotypes. We group, we label and we define. And oh, how some people cling to those groups, labels and definitions. There are people who love to label, and those who love to be labeled.

There are people who depend on gathering others into easily defined groups and people who count on existing within those group definitions. When the world is busy being divided into social strata and classes, it's pretty much guaranteed that first impressions will matter.

Perhaps it's because I moved around a lot that I seem a bit over-sensitive to the whole issue of believing too much in first impressions. There's nothing like being the new kid to make you realize how eager people are to judge, and judge quickly.

And maybe if you never had to get up in front of a bunch of 30 or so random kids and briefly tell them who you are and where you came from (I will never for the life of me understand why middle school and high school teachers inflict this particularly ridiculous form of punishment on new students), then you won't understand exactly how fast those impressions are made and accepted.

After attending three high schools in three semesters, I feel somewhat qualified to testify to the fact that we give way too much credit to first impressions. People aren't always who they at first seem to be. They can't be figured out in four seconds. We're way too complex, way too intricate, way too multifaceted. Trying to judge too quickly with not enough information is just asking for trouble.

After all, isn't it really first impressions that keep loads of kids in Dimensions of Culture week after week? Aren't first impressions what lead to racism, sexism, discrimination? I wonder, is it possible to avoid all that? Maybe, just maybe, if we all tried really hard, we wouldn't have to give in to those first impressions. Maybe we wouldn't have to judge.

Or perhaps that's too naive of me. Perhaps that's just letting my oh-so-traumatizing new-kid experiences mess with my otherwise unaffected reasoning (Actually, the other day someone told me that I seemed well-adjusted considering how much my family moved around, once again confirming the fallacy of first impressions). But we shouldn't have to give in to initial impressions. We should know better.

Most of us are smart enough to consider ourselves more than how we dress, what music we listen to or the first few words out of our mouths. Those generalizations and biases create false representations that stick, and the inability to surpass that is a fault indeed.

Don't judge too quickly. We judge too quickly, and that's not OK. We rely too heavily on first impressions. We give in to the first label that comes to mind. It's not laziness, per se. It's not because we're too busy to take the time to really understand someone before forming a reliable representation of his or her personality. It's not even because the human mind forms an impression after four seconds of interaction. We allow ourselves to believe in first impressions because we want it that way.

We like to be shallow. We like to believe in the validity of the superficial, when really we know that this method is completely unfair. We're so eager to categorize. You like her or you dislike her, he's cute or he's gross, she's funny or she's boring as hell.

In reality, the lines between categories are blurry, the divisions are unclear, and people can't be judged accurately right away. We forget that there is a middle ground.

If we simply choose to look deeper than initial impressions and surface appearances then first impressions have been entirely superseded.

Don't give in to the shallowness of quick judgments. Don't give those first four seconds too much credit. People are more than your first impression of them.

For whatever reason, the quarter system has found a long-standing home, integrating itself into the academic foundation of UCSD.

Arriving at college, we are rarely inspired to ask about the reasons behind the implementation of such a system, but perhaps those questions are long overdue and yearn to surface.

As a Revelle sophomore, my experiences have already driven me to my knees with one fist aimed at the sky, crying bitterly, ""God, oh God! What is wrong with me? Why am I forever doomed toward failure in my chem classes?!""

Well, perhaps I threw in a bit of exaggeration, but I'm sure you can relate to this feeling of distress. The conclusion I finally reached is this: I loathe the quarter system.

Let us begin by examining the quality of our education under the quarter system.

This 11-week journey rushes us through a tornado of classes, labs, exams and dizzying amounts of reading.

Throughout this journey it's not uncommon to find classes proceeding at a rate of one or perhaps two chapters a week.

Because a 50-minute class period is obviously too short an amount of time for the professor to impart all of the essentially profound wisdom of physics, students resort to reading textbooks late into the night.

If the textbooks we buy really say it all, then why go to class?

This rebellious question does offer very practical implications; I confess that I developed a secret habit of averting class, though I am currently in recovery.

Though these endeavors were more out of sheer laziness than to prove a point, I inadvertently stumbled upon a shocking discovery -- it can be done.

Classes could be passed without attending lectures, or in other words, I found lectures a bore and quite unnecessary.

What my experiences led me to was this: Because of the expediency of the quarter system, in some cases, the quality of classes (and the necessity of them) falls short of the standards we should expect from an esteemed university.

It isn't that the quarter system is entirely ineffective.

If the purpose of such a system is to educate, then to a certain degree the quarter system has done so.

Though many students feel that classes proceed at highly accelerated rates, adaptation to this is possible.

For these reasons, we fall into complacency, blaming other factors instead of the quarter system for our academic struggles and failures.

However, the challenge we face is to ask ourselves, ""Do we deserve better out of the university?""

Practical alternatives, such as the widely used semester system, prove to be effective competitors of the quarter system.

The renovation of the academic foundation of this university has been long overdue, and perhaps now its time has come.

Editor:

The Guardian printed in its Jan. 10 article regarding the ""Pro-America Resolution"" that the Unified Campus Coalition is part of the Freedom Alliance. This is an error, either on the part of your reporter or on the part of the interviewee.

For any confusion that I personally may have caused by failing to take action to correct earlier inclusions of the UCC under the umbrella of the Freedom Alliance, I duly apologize.

While most members of the UCC, along with most students at UCSD, agree with the basic America-supporting tenets of the Freedom Alliance's beliefs, there are those within our organization that I am sure do not support them.

As our goal is to encourage the mutual respect for differing opinions on this campus so that we may learn from each other rather than merely fight with each other; it would be against our ideology to support one specific side of a conflict.

Having said that, I do not believe that it would be a misrepresentation of our members' beliefs to say that our members support the ideal of a diverse and benevolent America as well as the belief that we can only achieve this ideal by first interacting with others who think differently from ourselves.

Through interaction, we believe respect will be developed and our American ideal can then be truly fostered throughout the land by learning to see all others as unique individuals rather than as simply members of ethnic, religious, racial or political classes.

I hope that it is now clear that the Unified Campus Coalition is a nonpartisan organization. We encourage students of all political ideologies to participate in our club and UCC-sponsored events, such as our inaugural event, ""A Religious Experience"" which will be held Jan. 30.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to clarify our club's position.

-- Brian Brook

Co-Chair

Unified Campus Coalition

Author overlooked merits of affirmative action

Editor:

In regards to The UCSD Guardian, vol. 105, issue 2, page 4, the opinion section titled ""Fighting the wrong battle ..."" by Daniel Watts:

In his article, he criticizes preferential treatment as a way to achieve campus diversity. I believe some of his arguments are flawed.

He first states that ""racism is not a factor in UC admissions policy because the current policy has been colorblind since the passage of Proposition 209."" Being colorblind in this case is a bad thing.

The racial distribution throughout many high schools (such as our own San Diego ones) are very stratified. And as Watts points out, some schools do not have the advantage of AP courses or S.A.T. prep classes.

Thus, no matter the caliber of the student, they are unable to compete with students who come from the privileged schools. Being ""colorblind"" is being blind to these disadvantages among certain high school students.

He also criticizes the statement ""People must say we work harder!"" by responding ""heaven forbid anyone should engage in hard work.""

This statement from the rally (which I attended) was completely taken out of context. The presenter was referring to affirmative action opponents who claim that ""the reason minorities are not getting into college is because they just don't work hard."" As I have already shown, sometimes it's determined by what school you live by, not how hard you have worked.

Watts also says that colored people are heard plenty around campus. He refers to the Cross Cultural Center and lists several SAAC organizations.

But why do you think we need those organizations in the first place? For the most part, they are the only places we can share as a minority community.

And Ross Frank is only one of a very few that have direct contact with Chancellor Robert C. Dynes. It is not a folly to argue that affirmative action is ignored if Dynes' staff consists of two or three minorities compared to 10 or 20 non-minorities.

In all respects, I do agree that the 4 percent plan in addition to outreach efforts are good ways to increase diversity.

But preferential treatment is still necessary to combat the racism that has prevented a truly diverse campus between all minorities (I've heard many students say, ""We have a lot of minorities, look at all the Asians."") They fail to realize the number of African Americans or Native Americans.

-- Aldrin Lumbreras Warren sophomore

University officials announced last week at the UC Regents meeting that they may raise tuition to ensure annual salary raises, which keep professors¹ income competitive and help attract and retain high-quality lecturers. The announcement came in response to the tightened budget Gov. Gray Davis submitted two weeks ago.

In the budget, Davis denied the regents¹ requested $125 million, granting only $44.8 million for merit increases of 1.5 percent for qualified professors and staff, and opting to allocate $64 million toward enrolling 7,100 full-time students over the next year.

The Guardian applauds Davis¹ move and believes that Davis clearly has California students¹ interests in mind.

Some of the most deserving faculty and staff will still receive raises ‹ they just won¹t be the across-the-board increases the regents requested. It is unlikely that the university will lose a significant number of current or potential employees in these hard times because of a half-percent cut to the raises. However, it is certain that the UC system will lose those 7,100 students forever if the money for enrollment growth is not allotted. These students will not wait a year or two to attend a UC school; they will enroll elsewhere. Davis has put the money where it will accomplish the most right now and in the future.

However, the Guardian vehemently opposes the regents¹ consideration of passing the financial buck to UC students to pacify UC professors.

Without the raises ‹ which some faculty and staff would receive, but at a lesser rate and for a limited period ‹ professors would experience no actual financial hardship. However, a tuition hike would hurt students, who draw meager incomes to begin with and are further affected by the slowing economy. For some students, a tuition increase would mean the difference between being able to attend a UC school and not being able to. We at the Guardian doubt that UC employees would face such a crisis.

Any tuition increases should go directly to improving the individual student¹s educational experience. This is especially important because the University of California is enrolling far more students than it ever has before ‹ making college life more difficult than it has been in previous years.

In summary, if the regents insist on annual increases across the board, they should consider other funding sources than their already-strapped students¹ wallets.

Recently, Yahoo News published an article on the crash of a marine plane in Afghanistan. Seven marines, aged 21 to 37, died when their plane mysteriously collided with a mountain while attempting to land at Shamsi, Pakistan, around 25 miles northeast of Panjur, Pakistan.

The marines were based in Miramar, Calif., making the tragedy hit a bit closer to home for some of us. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in his down-to-earth way, was quoted as saying, ""It just breaks your heart.""

President Bush commented as well, mentioning the prayers offered to the families of the marines, but he also concluded that the cause we are now engaged in is just and noble. The cause is freedom and this nation will not rest until it has achieved its objective.

However touching this may be to those disconnected to the wars raging in the world today, no cause can be noble and just when it costs the lives of so many others along the way. The death toll is still being tallied for the World Trade Center catastrophe, and so far it has reached nearly 3,000.

Bush seems to have a major grudge about this, and rightly so. Nevertheless, the retaliation against the infamous Taliban forces has brought more sketchy situations than solutions. There have been more than 200 deaths directly related to explosions, gunfire and raids in Afghanistan, the list consisting of civilians as well as fighting forces. The United States consistently backs itself up with reasonable suspicion regarding the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and the Al Queda network.

Tony Blair, the prime minister of Great Britain, has promised the United States strong support in the efforts to bring bin Laden to justice and find an end to world terrorism, but he himself has admitted to a lack of supplies for the poor families in the war zones for the winter.

In fact, it is estimated that there is a need for more than half the current supply in order to see more than 100,000 people through the rough season ahead. Food is not the only necessity; shelter from the sub-zero temperatures might be hard to come by for those who have had their homes destroyed by misguided bombs.

This holy war seems to be drifting farther from the definition of ""holy"" every day. Americans often forget that billions of people do not have the freedoms they do as outlined in the Bill of Rights, and one may not protest discrimination as easily in places such as Somalia and India, where 12-year-old girls and younger are sold into prostitution to feed their families. These atrocities have been happening for thousands of years while Americans sit in their kitchens complaining that they want chicken instead of beef. And suddenly, when their peace is threatened, they send young marines out to track down and capture or kill the offender.

The truth is that America has had its nose in the Middle East since the early 1950s when U.S. intelligence assisted in deposing Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mussadeq, one of the leading advocates of nationalizing the oil industry.

The Gulf War of 1991 and Operation Desert Fox raise serious questions of purpose concerning whether our troops entered Kuwait to protect the people or more to protect our assets in the oil field. Kuwait exports $13.5 billion, mainly in petroleum. The United States is one of its main trading partners.

Politics in Israel raise issues as well; America and Israel have been allies for over 50 years. When Arab-Israeli peace negotiations became supervised by the United States in 1980-1982, Sinai settlements were the main topic of discussion. The United States urged land settlements to halt, but having assets in Israel curbed any action that might have occurred.

Settlement-building continued, and still continues today. We often lash out at the Palestinian retaliation of Jewish leadership even in the face of violent attacks by the Jews toward Palestine. Instead, a slap on the hand and a stern talking-to ensues.

What will happen now that America has called for a stop on terrorism? Of course this is a good idea, and America has done a fairly good job at calling for peace in fighting countries. With the support of our military and presidential authority, however, there can be no clear definition of what punishable terrorist acts are. A retaliation against a dominating and threatening regime might be considered terrorism to the government in question. And the United States has given quite an impression as to how leadership should treat those who have different ideas of running things.

To refer back to the war in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance is said to have killed 300 to 400 prisoners of war in Mazir-i-Sharif on Nov. 25 with the aid of U.S. air raids. The prisoners had supposedly taken over stored weapons and began to fight their way out of the fortress.

One may see the need for defending oneself against a trained, armed militant, and the call for backup from America seems reasonable.

However, a few things do not add up. First, the large number of killed prisoners could not have all gotten weapons from one storage facility. The break-in would have been too obvious, and guns are not all stored in the same room allowing for easy access. Secondly, if there were such great amounts of weaponry in the room, why was it being guarded by one Northern Alliance soldier? Thirdly, there also are accounts of some of the prisoners being tied up, so those fighting to escape couldn't have numbered 400. The evidence toward a strong revolt is a bit shady.

As a side note, there is some question as to the unconfirmed confession of a senior officer who reportedly executed 160 Taliban captives by lining them up in groups of six and using light machine guns on them.

There has been no more word on the subject from American Intelligence. Was any of the killing done with a good reason? The stories are too weak to say either way. It seems that evidence against a massacre of the prisoners is lacking.

Are we a country responsible for freedom or fear?

Most recently, the latter has been ranking highest as families are turned from their homes and bombs explode in the dead of night.

The double standard has stood for a long time. We want to help other people and yet continue to turn them away at our borders. Empty words grow old, and citizens of this country are numb to the news of the growing number of deaths.

At this point in the game it is becoming more difficult to determine what is ""just and noble.""

No book has influenced the course of history more than what has come to be known as the Bible, the collection of stories that tells of the rise of the people of Israel, their oppression under various empires and the later journeys of the original followers of Jesus across the Middle East.

However, more important than the scientific and historical quality of the Bible is what it reveals about God to the people who read it. The intent of the Bible is to teach the descendants of Abraham and the followers of Christ about their collective relationship, or covenant, with God. It is true that many varieties of this relationship exist within the Jewish and Christian worlds; by and large, the purpose of the Bible is to teach us about how God wants us to live.

Unfortunately, this creates problems for students at a public college who wish to or are required to study this book. One cannot effectively read a book about God where it is discouragd to talk about him in the theological sense. We have to find a balance between two extremes. The question is whether we can find a balance between the two at this university.

To explore such a question we must, as our professors would say, go to the text. Let us take the story of Adam and Eve, and let us assume that the story is not to be taken literally. The authors of this story were trying to convey what they understood about God and the imperfections of the world to their readership, the people of Israel.

In the story, God creates everything in perfect harmony, with the exception of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The fruit of this tree contains the ability to know what God knows: that there is evil in the world and it is readily attainable by mankind. At first, humans do not know this, but they know that they have been told not to eat the fruit. They eat it anyway.

Now this is where interpreting and analyzing the story gets interesting. Why would God put the tree there, have it grow fruit, but not expect anyone to touch it? That doesn't make sense. In the beginning, Adam and Eve lived in a state of ""ignorance is bliss,"" prancing naked through the garden without a care in the world. After they consume the fruit, Adam and Eve gain the knowledge of good and evil, and accordingly, the power to choose between the two. This may sound tragically ironic, but they don't know that the serpent's temptation to eat the fruit is evil until after they have eaten the fruit! While this makes their relationship to God more distant, it also makes it more meaningful. Instead of being forced to live under God, mankind must choose to have faith in God.

Thus, the relationship between man and God is enriched. Loving God becomes a challenge for people to accept and attempt, not simply a given. Maybe God wanted Adam and Eve to gain the knowledge of good and evil so that faith would be a difficult choice and not a simple order from a superior. Maybe God wanted everything to be perfect and then to have mankind come full circle, challenging itself to choose good instead of to live blindly in forced good.

While such an idea may be interesting to think about and valuable to a person who wants to believe in God, it will never be seriously discussed in a lower-division classroom here at UCSD.

Why? Because in asking such questions about the Bible, we have crossed from the boundaries of literature and entered the endless expanse known as theology, a discipline strictly prohibited in the confines of religious discussion in the classroom.

At most schools, students have the option to major in theology. Here, there is a small but noble department called the Program for the Study of Religion, which offers a survey of faith systems from around the world.

That isn't bad -- in fact, it is a wonderful thing to study -- but the lack of true theological discussion in lower division or general classes on campus is quite apparent.

There will never be any law or item of public policy that will be able to define exactly what should or should not be discussed. Rather, to deepen our own education and add to our understanding of the sacred texts we read, we will need to open our minds beyond what we may presently think possible.

We must learn to treat the Bible and its counterparts in other religions for what they are: tools for understanding ourselves and our relationship with God. Not every student has to be a person of faith; all that is necessary is people who are willing to examine a sacred text for what it is trying to say. Surely, continuing on our present course of education is equal to cheating ourselves out of the true meaning of the books we read.

Could we discuss Homer's epics without discussing the roles of the gods and their relationship to men? Certainly not.

Similarly, we cannot read the Bible without seriously discussing God. As it stands, effective education about the Bible is impossible. Unless we can change how we read the book in class, we are basically wasting our time. Quite frankly, having the chance to study the Bible openly with my professors is something I wish I had.

The United States is sending troops to the Philippines for war games, where they will apparently practice on live targets: the Abu Sayyaf, which is a Muslim group claiming to fight for an independent Muslim state on the island of Basilan in the southern Philippines.

Abu Sayyaf has been named a terrorist threat by the current president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The United States will deploy about 650 troops to ""practice"" army tactics against the Muslim militants, who have demonstrated their loathing for human life most recently by kidnapping about 70 people since May.

American tourist Guillermo Sobero was among those allegedly beheaded by Abu Sayyaf in the past months. Two American Christians and a Filipino nurse are still being held on Basilan. Recently released hostages are reported to have seen the couple and described them as ""not just skinny, but bony.""

This is not a matter of terrorism, but of humanity.

However gruesome the past has been, the future is sure to reveal several more doses of reality. American troops are the best in the world, and to help control the inhumane acts performed by the Abu Sayyaf, it is sensible for the Philippines to ask for help from the strongest.

The history of the Abu Sayyaf includes the decapitation of several of its hostages and the kidnapping of children, a grandmother and many foreigners. A raid on a Christian village in 1995 killed 53 inhabitants and soldiers. Extortion, piracy, robbery and ransom kidnappings provide money for the band, but it is believed that support also comes from Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

However, if one knows the history of American troops in the Philippines, there is no denying the complications between the two nations. The mid-1980s brought the ""peaceful"" overthrow of President Ferdinand Marcos, and Arroyo now faces possible impeachment for cooperating with the United States in its efforts to fight terrorist activity on the islands.

According to the constitution of the Philippines, foreign troops are prohibited from participating in combat missions on Philippine soil. U.S. troops left in 1992 after Mount Pinatubo erupted and destroyed an American base. The Philippine Senate refused to renew the lease for a second base. Many Filipinos would be happy if the U.S. presence never returned. However, that would be an inconsistent move in American policy.

When militants first took American hostages, the United States refused to pay a ransom, and that is the source of conflict. It is not always possible to pay each group of terrorists for the safety of citizens, but when the group is then linked to Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, the story changes. It is noble for troops to help a struggling country when their president requests it, and we do not seem to be helping out of outright greed, but one has to wonder.

President George W. Bush seems to know exactly what is prohibited in the restrictive constitution, and he agrees to stay out of combat, per se. Nevertheless, the troops will assist in training the Philippine forces and will accompany the forces on patrol through rebel territory. They will be armed and prepared for any defense. This situation makes it easy to blame the rebels for starting any attack.

Questioning the morality of the United States is not a new thing for people of all nationalities to do. Even Americans do it. Even so, one cannot help thinking of all those brutally killed by these freedom fighters called the ""Bearers of the Sword,"" and this recent step to halt such cruelties should be commended.

As questionable as the tactics of our troops may appear, Abu Sayyaf cannot go unpunished for the atrocities it has committed against innocent people.

Dear Attorney General Ashcroft:

While the world anxiously awaits your decision on the fate of Zacarias Moussaoui, Lotfi Raissi and the hundreds of suspected Al-Qaeda detainees, I respectfully offer this one piece of advice: Don't take the easy way out and give them the death penalty.

I do not base my advice on any of the traditional arguments. You are most likely fed up with hearing those from the leaders of the European Union or those fervently against it in the United States, who say that the death penalty is antiquated, barbaric and inhumane.

I believe the death penalty is too good and too easy a punishment for those terrorists.

If the suspects are found guilty of their numerous terrorist and conspiracy charges, they do not deserve the gift of death. In fact, Mr. Ashcroft, if you decide to give them the death penalty, you will betray every victim of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Those terrorists were sent on a jihad, a holy war, on a mission of martyrdom.

Osama bin Laden addressed this mission of martyrdom, as evidenced from the transcript of the tape printed Dec. 13, 2001 in The Washington Post.

In it, bin Laden was quoted as saying, ""The brothers who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation, and we asked each of them to go to America, but they didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter.""

It is clear from the words of bin Laden that he sent willing followers to the United States to fight a jihad, which they knew would end their own lives. The 19 terrorists on the planes fulfilled their ""martyrdom operation,"" sealing it with not only the deaths of thousands of innocent people, but also with their own.

But if Moussaoui, Raissi and the hundreds of other suspected Al-Qaeda detainees are found guilty, they must remain alive. We should not grant them the means to complete their mission, which is achieved through death.

Every minute of every day that the terrorists remain alive will serve as the perfect justice, for breathing the air of the hated United States will serve as a constant reminder that they were captured before they could complete their operation of martyrdom. The only true, harsh, just punishment is to give them a sentence of bitter life, knowing they have failed in their beloved jihad. It would be the perfect justice.

For this reason, the death penalty is completely out of the question. Only through life will the terrorists truly suffer. It is incumbent upon you, Mr. Ashcroft, to now fashion the perfect punishment for those ""evildoers.""

If it is your wish to punish those found guilty with the same measure of suffering that they inflicted, then I propose two separate plans, depending on what outcome you desire.

The convicted terrorists could be sentenced to help with the cleanup of the World Trade Center, thus helping to rebuild the very symbol of America they tried to destroy. The convicted could then clean the new building every day until they die. There could be no worse punishment for them, because they will wish to be dead.

However, if you prefer a more traditional approach, please take a look at my other plan.

Under this plan, those found guilty will be transferred to serve out the rest of their lives in the worst prisons of New York. Of course, these transfers need not be done secretly; in fact, I think that some publicity would be helpful.

In the hierarchy of prison life, child molesters are the most despised prisoners and most tormented by other inmates. But that will change, I believe, with the transfer of these terrorists to New York prisons, where feelings of anger and grief have left no New Yorker untouched. There could not be a better way for these terrorists to be punished, except to be terrorized daily by the very people they sought to terrify and kill.

I recommend that no terrorist that is or will be tried in connection to the Sept. 11 attacks be granted the option of the death penalty.

Death is too good for them. Death will vault those terrorists to the coveted plateau of martyrdom. The worst punishment of all will be the sentence of life.

Respectfully yours,

Parisa Baharian

This year is special for most European countries. For members of the European Union, all but three currencies, the histories of which in many cases go back hundreds of years, are being replaced by a new currency: the euro.

Pat Leung
Guardian

The old currencies will not disappear at once. In France, for instance, it will be possible to use francs until Feb. 17. In Italy, the lira will circulate until Feb. 28. Germany, unique among the European countries, decided to go cold turkey; on Jan. 1, the German mark disappeared forever.

The birth of the new currency marked the tone of this New Year's Eve. Almost all the huge, public square parties that were organized by both large and small European municipalities to welcome the new year had the euro as a central theme.

The new currency was publicly inaugurated by the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, who bought -- with euros, of course -- a bouquet of roses for his wife at 12:01 a.m. Throughout the night, curious Europeans crowded ATMs to have a first look at the new notes.

The euro will become so much a part of Europeans' daily lives that people will have trouble remembering the pre-euro days. But from the point of view of relatively detached observers who will probably use the euro only while on vacation, what considerations can we make about it?

First, the euro's introduction indicates a remarkable capacity to promote and accept social and cultural change. I doubt America could implement a similar measure now. Imagine the likelihood of the United States eliminating the dollar to share a currency with Canada and Mexico and you will have an idea of what I mean.

The euro's birth opposes the many euro-skeptic signs that have been produced recently. The prospect of a unified Europe is still far away, and the division over recent issues of international politics shows that as a political entity, Europe is still ""a geographic expression."" The impression, however, is that after 2,000 years of warfare, Europeans have understood that they cannot progress without one another.

The second consideration arises from a slight twist in the observation just made -- there are few signs of political union, but the economic union has been arguably accomplished.

It is hard not to see a confirmation of the primacy of economy over politics today, an indication of the incipient crisis of politics. Financial scandals and financial concentrations -- the Enron bankruptcy being the most recent -- have dramatically revealed this problem in America: The economy has become more and more independent of political and democratic control. It is now a force with its own objectives, its own institutions and considerable independence.

The ease with which the euro has been introduced amid great political and social differences is another sign that business prevails over politics in Europe, too.

Even in Europe, we can expect the political agenda to be increasingly dictated by economic interests. This matter is not trivial. Centuries of struggle have given us the legal instruments to monitor and control the political power, but the global reach of economic interests is so recent that, to this day, the collectivity is defenseless against them.

For example, I can fearlessly say terrible things about the U.S. president because the First Amendment protects me. However, if I publicly criticize specific products and invite people not to consume them, I risk multiple lawsuits.

The European ""third way"" was originally meant as a conciliation of the needs of capitalism and the primacy of politics, intended as management of the common good. The speed differential between the economic and the political integration of Europe makes one wonder if the overbearing power of economy that we are witnessing here is extending faster than we thought.

My third and final consideration is strictly personal. With the introduction of the euro, certain currencies will disappear that had a special significance for me.

While I understand the importance of the unified currency and see its inevitability, I will miss the colorful beauty of the Dutch guilder, with notes that look like abstract paintings, and the crisp and crackling paper of the French franc.

Most of all, I will miss the 50-franc note. While other countries were busy celebrating dead presidents and members of the royal family, the French decided to put the Little Prince on the 50-franc note, the character of the eponymous children's book written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I can think of no better homage to the French than this little boy standing lonely on his tiny planet, surrounded by stars.

I have come to the disturbing conclusion that over half of the world's population consists of freaks. For the sake of clarity, we shall call these people by their formal title: women.

Don't get me wrong - I am a woman and, therefore, a freak. This is because (I don't want to get too subtle here) all women are just plain retarded.

OK, I know what's going on right now. Every guy reading this is nodding and thinking, ""My God, she's right. Women are freaks."" Meanwhile, every female is doing either one of two things. They are either in the throes of a full-on hissy fit (which is so not helping you disprove my point), or they are coming to grips with the fact that I'm right. If you fall into the latter category, I congratulate you for your emotional maturity and astuteness. But you're still a freak.

What is my reasoning for making such a rash and socially reprehensible statement? Ha! I'm glad you asked!

My main basis for the assertion that women are weird (and this should have been obvious from the beginning) is Leonardo Di-fucking-Caprio. Whoever made that man a sex god has to be absolutely insane.

But I have other reasons, too. And they aren't George Clooney. (Two words: Gag me.)

For example, why do women always have to pee? Surely our bladders can't be that much smaller than men's. I mean, just because our ovaries happen to be taking up space in there doesn't mean that our bladders are the size of M&Ms (though that does conjure up a lovely mental image, doesn't it?).

And not only are we in the bathroom every five seconds - we're there in groups. Groups! Why? What the hell is so scary about being in the bathroom alone? I have seen the student body at this school, and let's face it, it's not like our asses are so small we're afraid of falling in.

Maybe I'm being a little critical of women on this point, though. So we bond via urination. After all, men bond by beating the shit out of each other and then comparing car engines. (By the way guys, ""engine"" is not a synonym for ""penis."" Trust me, I looked it up).

But that brings me to another point: Women can't drive. And there are actual statistics to back me up on this point - women are the cause of more accidents than alcohol and Barry White combined.

OK, that I made up. But it is a proven fact that women cannot operate cars like normal human beings. This is because females somehow got the idea that automobiles were meant for personal grooming.

Ladies, I cannot say this enough: You are not supposed to put on makeup in the car. You are not supposed to apply and/or dry your nail polish. And you are definitely not, under any circumstances, supposed to daydream about George Clooney.

The car was meant for going as fast as you can without getting in the way of other people. In other words: Quit driving like a woman and just drive. Repeat after me: It is OK to change lanes ... Signaling is my friend ... I can go the speed limit.

OK, let us examine the evidence so far. Women can't hold their urine, walk into bathrooms unless enforcing the buddy system or drive. But it gets worse.

Why is it that the estrogen-inclined people of the world get tired after one throw of a football (assuming, of course, they weren't too afraid to break a nail), but they can shop for hours without skipping a beat?

Say you're a woman at a mall. You step into a store and spend at least an hour circling at least twice looking for the perfect article of clothing. You don't find it, but that other shirt is just ""to die for."" You spend 20 more minutes looking for it in your size. You head to a dressing room. You disrobe. You try on said shirt. But wait! What's this? It's too small? Well then it's back on with the clothes and back out to find a bigger size, and now it's back into the dressing room and holy shit aren't you tired yet? Do you have any idea how much energy you have wasted on this shirt that just makes you look fat? (And that looks exactly like the one you have hanging in your closet or that you wore the night before ... etc., etc.)

All right, I may be getting carried away. All I know is, the bathroom and the mall are simply not places that people should be spending the majority of their waking hours. Especially not if there is drag racing to be done.

But perhaps the most convincing argument that women are abnormal is just the stuff they say in regular conversation. For example, the question ""Do you think that girl is prettier than I am?"" should never ever be asked. Yet women ask it! All the time! It may vary to include ""Do you think I'm fat?,"" but it's pretty much the same nonsense.

And why can't girls ever say what they are angry about? It's not a cliche - I have actually heard women use the phrase ""Well if you don't know why I'm mad, then I'm not going to tell you."" Give me a break!

But my all-time favorite is the patented ""AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! A spider!"" Umm, has it escaped your attention that you are approximately 5,000 times the size of that arachnid, and that it is crawling away from your gigantic ass? That spider has absolutely no intention of attacking anyone, let alone a hysterical woman. Guys, next time just tell us to shut the hell up and kill it ourselves.

So basically -- I cannot stress this point enough -- women are freaks. Now if you'll excuse me, I've had to pee for the last six paragraphs.

WHEREAS over the past few months, the UCSD campus has been inundated by the passage of many gravely worded resolutions;

WHEREAS such resolutions, such as the much-contested ""Resolution Supporting our National Institutions"" passed by the A.S. Council on Nov. 28 and the many resolutions passed by college councils regarding the controversy over The Koala, have no executive power or binding influence over the activities of those bodies or the quality of student life here at UCSD;

WHEREAS those aforementioned bodies exist in order not only to represent student opinion but also actively work to address student concerns and needs;

WHEREAS the needs of the students at UCSD are, as always, demanding of full and forceful attention;

WHEREAS one such issue of concern should be the continued unwillingness of the administration to address students' needs for parking, since new structures filled with half-empty faculty floors and ever-overflowing student floors are continually being built;

WHEREAS in the absence of additional parking on campus, students could benefit from expanded shuttle services as have been proposed but not enacted by such bodies as the A.S. Council;

WHEREAS the A.S. Council is intended to represent the will of the students, and the will of the students is consistently insufficiently valued by the administration (as was the case with the recent change to passing period length), and more vocal opposition on the part of the A.S. Council could result in students' needs being better served;

WHEREAS college councils must now devote time and effort to ensuring quality commencement ceremonies for their students as the administration has discontinued all-campus commencement, heightening the importance of the ceremonies of individual colleges;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Guardian decries the wasted time spent on such resolutions when much more pressing issues demand the attention of bodies representative of UCSD's students;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we support, should the bodies offer that they have nothing better to do than heatedly debate and then eventually pass useless resolutions, proactive efforts to improve the quality and character of student life at UCSD;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that any more attempts by students or organizations to propose and pass such pointless resolutions instead of advocating action on an issue of concern will be met with unbridled scorn and ridicule from this body;

AND BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that we distribute this document to the students, faculty and staff of UCSD, and to the community at large.