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‘Boro Reaches Out – Students Aim to Provide Orangutan Care

At 5 p.m. on Dec. 3, Colleen Reed, from Orangutan Outreach, will inform students at Edinboro University about the fact that orangutans are facing death, torture, abuse, capture and are being illegally sold as pets at an alarming rate.

“People need to know,” said Katrina Spirko, the orchestrator of the event and a senior at Edinboro, majoring in elementary education and early childhood education, with a minor in environmental studies.

Spirko has always been interested in the great apes and became personally involved when she discovered Orangutan Outreach through her research.

According to their website, some of Orangutan Outreach’s main goals are to protect orangutans in their native habitat, to promote public awareness of conservation strategies, and to fund rescue efforts of orangutans.

Orangutan Outreach is based largely on volunteering and provides the opportunity for people to adopt orangutans and sponsor them as they go through the rehabilitation program, Spirko explained.

Last Christmas, Spirko and her boyfriend adopted Luna, the youngest and smallest of the apes at the Sintang Orangutan Center (SOC) in Indonesia, one of the centers that Orangutan Outreach sponsors.

“With her fluffy hair, her big bright eyes and her Mona Lisa smile, Luna stole everyone’s hearts,” Richard Zimmerman, executive director of Orangutan Outreach, posted on their website.

But, last April, Zimmerman received a devastating phone call. Luna had gone missing.

“I remember the day I heard about it,” Spirko said. “I cried. I love her so much and even though I’ve never met her, I feel like she’s really special [to me].”

According to Zimmerman’s blog, police and army officials were involved with the search as well as a team from Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) and Center for Orangutan Prevention (COP), which are all based in Indonesia.

“[We’re] working tirelessly to find information about Luna,” Zimmerman said, as they made regular sweeps through local villages and sought out leads on local smugglers and wildlife traffickers.

Spirko receive up-to-date emails and notices from the Outreach center and she said that when Luna first disappeared, they sounded really determined to find her. “She was supposed to be protected,” Spirko said.

Femke den Haas, founding director of JAAN, wrote, “It is simply not believable that a baby orangutan can just ‘disappear’ like that.”

But now, after months of searching and trying to figure out what had happened to her, a memorial has been posted on the Outreach’s website. According to Spirko, it seems like they’re losing hope of ever finding her again.

“She may very well have been captured by wildlife smugglers and sold,” said Zimmerman, “She may even have been smuggled out of Indonesia by now.”

In order to help raise awareness of what is happening to the great apes, Spirko and members of Students of Edinboro for Environmental Defense (SEED) are organizing a presentation.

“I hope the room is packed and that people will be willing to donate,” said Spirko. “I want people to know [Luna’s] story, because if she is dead, I don’t want her to have died in vain. For me personally… it’s a shout-out for Luna.”

More information on Orangutan Outreach can be found at their website, www.redapes.org.

The Jewish Christmas Tree Seller

October 3, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

It was the day before Christmas Eve in New York City. Blaring car horns traveled through the alleyways and down the streets, while the sounds of Frank Sinatra’s “White Christmas” drifted out of store entrances, beckoning to the passing shoppers. White flakes danced on the wind as they swirled down from the thick, gray blanket of clouds. Children’s faces were turned up to the sky with their tongues hanging out in an attempt to catch the small, cold morsels, while parents and grandparents held tight to their coat sleeves so as not to lose them in the stampede of Christmas shoppers.

Amongst all the hustle and bustle of the city, a small, round man shook his head as he watched passers-by scurry from door to door as if they could keep the cold at bay by moving faster. Sitting in a little run-down shack, surrounded by racks of soon-to-be Christmas trees, Elias watched as young Islamic women made their way up the stone steps of the new Islamic Cultural Center across the street. Elias rolled his eyes, “America; the land of the free,” he muttered with a harsh laugh. “I guess that makes New York the city of diversity.”

Elias looked like your stereotypical Jew: a gartel was hanging from his waist, a kippah was perched on his head, and he was sporting a thick, curly beard. But, while he looked the part, Elias certainly didn’t act the part of a devout Jew. While other Jews didn’t observe the Christmas holiday, Elias could be found every Christmas season on his little portion of the sidewalk, surrounded by rows upon rows of trees.

Turning, he straightened his cloth belt and glanced around at the mixture of prospective buyers wandering among his blue spruce and white pine trees. Moms and dads stood in small groups while their kids ran helter skelter, pointing out various trees they thought would be the perfect size for their house. Elias heard their giggles and laughter ringing through the air as the wind whipped toward him. Pulling his coat closer around him, he burrowed his face down into his beard, trying to defrost his nose.

As he watched a small boy in an oversized blue winter coat, wearing a fluffy coonskin cap pulled down low over his ears, bouncing around like a jumping bean as he pointed out the perfect tree to his chuckling father, Elias thought. “This is the life I want for Tina and me.” Just then he caught the disapproving glance of the Jewish rabbi as he hurried past on his way to the synagogue to pray. Every year, during the Christmas holiday, Elias always felt like throwing his head back and screaming to the wind, “This is America; the land where anyone can be anything they want to be!” So what if his girlfriend, Tina, was a Christian and believed that Jesus was the Messiah? So what if the Jews and Muslims that surrounded his little Christmas tree stand didn’t agree with his beliefs?

Yet, Elias acknowledged the rabbi with a nod, all while grumbling under his breath, “Judgmental old coot.”

Let Go

September 13, 2011 / Anna / 3 Comments

The lines of traffic seemed endless. Fumes from hundreds of exhaust pipes choked the air surrounding Anthony Peccari as he brooded in his idling blue Ford Ranger. His normally slick blonde hair stuck up in odd places, his dress shirt was untucked and rumpled, his suit jacket tossed carelessly on the passenger seat. A blast from the car horn next to him jerks him back to reality. Mindlessly glancing up at the red light, he let his thoughts drift back once again to when he had received the devastating news that afternoon.

It had started out as any other day at the newspaper office. Scrolling through his emails, he had noticed a shadow fall across his desk. Looking up, his eyes met those of his boss, a balding, middle-aged man, wearing a gray suit jacket, with a strip of a white dress shirt stretched tightly over a rotund stomach peeking out between the lapels. A feeling of foreboding crept over Anthony’s senses, so what happened next was a blur. All he could remember was a terrible numbness taking hold of his brain and a cold shock shooting down his spine as he felt the words “downsizing,” “letting you go,” and “pack up your office” hit him like a ton of bricks.

Even now, while sitting in traffic in the middle of the city, he felt as if a mighty force was running into him and his whole world was spinning like an out of control merry-go-round. The sound of sirens and someone talking to him brought him back to the present. He was on his back on the hard asphalt, staring up at the sky. Well, it would’ve been the sky if a paramedics’ face weren’t blocking the view. Slowly fading back into unconsciousness, the words she had been trying to say to him came through in bits and pieces: “accident,” “red light,” broken leg.” His last thought before he gave in to the darkness was “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about going into work tomorrow.”

EUP continues efforts to raise enrollment

September 8, 2011 / Anna / 1 Comment

EDINBORO, PA – Records show that the number of new freshman and transfer students for Fall 2011 at Edinboro University has dropped since last year’s census.

“This is not surprising, given the declining demographics in northwestern Pennsylvania,” said Jeff Pinski, associate director of university communications.

In 2010, Edinboro boasted 1,628 new freshmen and 464 transfer students. This year, according to Pinski, the total number was 1,584 freshman and 412 transfer students.

Even though the number of new students may be lower than it was in 2010, “undergraduate enrollment pretty much kept pace with last year’s record numbers,” states Pinski.

On opening day of classes, the number of undergraduate students was 6,826, compared to the 6,840 of last year.

“Also interesting is that our total enrollment on the first day of class, was 8,434, which exactly ties the second highest enrollment year ever [during Fall 2009],” said Pinski.

The efforts of the communication and marketing department at the university are part of what make these numbers possible.

“We are constantly promoting Edinboro by informing news media of university, faculty and student success stories and events, as well as launching major media advertising campaigns,” said Pinski.

The communications office tries to cover every aspect of advertising and communications in order to get word out about the university.

Television, radio, magazine, outdoor advertising, and social media targeting a key audience are some of the venues that are used.

Another reason Edinboro has gained more new students is because of the work of Craig Grooms, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, and his co-workers. They are busy every day of the year promoting our university through a myriad of activities, said Pinski.

“Our undergraduate admissions office does a tremendous job in working with school districts, media, students and families,” said Kimberly Kennedy, Director of Residence Life and Orientation.

Due to these efforts, Kennedy said that, “overall, our numbers are up slightly over last year for students residing on campus. We opened approximately 40 students over last year’s census.” The total number of on-campus residents is 2,181.

Grooms and his co-workers promote the university at college and career fairs, like the one this past week that was located in Erie, in order to get a chance to talk face-to-face with the students and their parents, counselors, etc., said Pinski.

Conducting visits to high schools throughout Pennsylvania as well as parts of West Virginia and New Jersey, the Office of Admissions gives prospective students information about the university and encourages them to give out their contact information.

That way, said Grooms, we can send out more information and keep in contact with them throughout the rest of the year.

“We host numerous visit opportunities for perspective students and their families during both semesters and throughout the summer,” said Grooms.

October 1 will be the opening of the Fall Open House program. Grooms and his team also partner with different departments on campus for various events.

Yet, the official “freeze” date for admitting new students is not until September 20. So, the final numbers are currently “fluid and in a state of flux, as enrollment always is immediately before and for several weeks after the start of any new semester,” said Pinski.

While this year’s records may never equal last year, the university may still gain several more students.

(Taken from The Spectator, Vol. 3, Issue 1)

Friends Can Be Found in the Oddest of Places

July 13, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

“If the history of Polly’s girlish experiences suggests a hint or insinuates a lesson, I shall feel that, in spite of many obstacles, I have not entirely neglected my duty toward the little men and women, for whom it is an honor and a pleasure to write, since in them I have always found my kindest patrons, gentlest critics, and warmest friends.”

Louisa May Alcott wrote this paragraph in the preface to her book An Old-Fashioned Girl. The story is about young Polly Milton, who grew up in the country and visited her city friend, Fannie Shaw, from time to time. Alcott introduces the characters when they’re in their early teens and tells her readers about the differences of the two worlds. Polly is completely shocked at Fannie’s ideas of fun, while Fannie can’t seem to understand how Polly can bear to live without any finery or money.

Alcott then jumps ahead several years and brings Polly to the city to live near the Shaws in a quaint little boarding house run by Miss Mills. Teaching music to young girls keeps Polly busy, but throughout the next few years, both Fannie and Polly learn several different lessons, such as being true to yourself and standing by your friends through thick and thin.

Now, the reason I bring up Alcott’s book isn’t to talk about what a great read it is. I want to show how the author can easily become a reader’s best friend through the books that she writes. Alcott has that magical touch that helps her to relate to her readers, as well as becoming their trusted mentor by giving them advice within the pages of a well-written novel.

Alcott has always written in each of her books that she regards her readers as her dear friends and critics and I would say that I consider her to be one of my best friends and advisers from classic literature. An Old-Fashioned Girl is a great example of how Alcott has become a dearly loved friend to all of her readers in the way that she can make them laugh and give them advice at the same time.

For example:

Alcott apologizes for shocking her readers with the truths about the young people of America and says this:

“I feel bound to depict my honored patrons as faithfully as my limited powers permit; otherwise, I must expect the crushing criticism, ‘Well, I dare say it’s all very prim and proper, but it isn’t a bit like us,’ and never hope to arrive at the distinction of finding the covers of ‘An Old-Fashioned Girl’ the dirtiest in the library” (pg. 203).

Not wanting to offend her young readers, Alcott slips in that small explanation of the reason why she depicted young adults in such a way. She felt obligated to write about life as she saw it and hoped her readers would benefit more from it; and it’s true! As she had hoped, her books are read over and over again and never seem to go out of style.

But there are also random spots throughout the book that catch you off your guard and leave you laughing until tears come trickling down your cheeks:

“She did not mean to flirt; but somehow ‘it flirted’ itself,’ and she couldn’t help it” (pg. 207).

And:

“Her telltale face answered for her, as well as the impulse which made her hide her head in the sofa cushion, like a foolish ostrich when the hunters are after it” (pg. 307).

While these descriptions may seem like they were just put in for laughs, they tell the truth as well. Flirting with cute guys is in a young woman’s nature and it’s hard to resist it when the opportunity arises. And when someone discovers a secret love, our first instinct is to hide our “telltale faces.”

Alcott understood her audience well and knew how to get their attention. She told them the truth about themselves without being overly offensive or blunt. She just observed the society around her and wrote her characters accordingly.

Even though she lived over a hundred years ago, her books still hold truth for young girls today. Our society may have change and “modernized,” but girls still go through puberty and have little fantasies about the future. Alcott covers all those points in An Old-Fashioned Girl. She knows that we all want to be accepted and appreciated for who we are, but warns that putting on airs and striving to be fashionable is not the way to do it.

Just like Polly discovered in her life journey: working hard, becoming who you were meant to be, and being a friend is what will give every woman what they desire in the end: love.

“Let Us Bring You Into Our World…”

April 29, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

The paranormal has always been one of Chad Calek’s interests.

“Instead of going to spring break, I was going to the Waverly Hills Sanatorium or the Villisca Axe Murder House. I was going to all these haunted places to investigate them,” he said.

More than 200 students, faculty and visitors gathered on Friday to hear Calek speak in the Frank G. Pogue Student Center’s Multipurpose Room. Calek spoke about his purported encouters with ghosts and showed footage he and his team recorded for the television show “Paranormal State.”

In “Good vs. Evil” – Calek’s first episode on the show – Chip Coffey, a psychic, and Ryan Buell, one of the directors, told Calek there was a demon in the basement and suggested he check it out.

While sitting on a chair in the middle of the basement, an ominous growl came out of the darkness.

Calek radioed upstairs and asked if anyone else had heard it. “Yeah, man, [we] heard it,” they replid.

The growl came again and Calek told the team upstairs, “There’s something down here, bro.”

“People ask me how I could just sit there and listen to the growling without moving.”

Calek laughed as he described the situation to the audience.

“Well, the truth is, the growling came from between me and the stairway out… If that thing had come from behind me, I would’ve been flying through that door like a pissed off Sasquatch!”

Calek has been investigating such phenomena since the age of 12, when his family was torn apart by paranormal attacks.

His parents and siblings had told him they had been experiencing things, but Calek had seen and felt nothing.

Calek said he would shout into the air to provoke the ghosts to show themselves when the family wasn’t there; he wanted to be a believer and not think that his family was crazy.

One night at 3 a.m., Calek woke up to his father reciting Scriptures.

According to Calek, when he looked into his parents’ room, he saw his mother’s hair was being pulled by something that wasn’t there.

She also had mild burn marks on her skin and was speaking in Latin, said Calek.

“It’s when you’re looking into the eyes of your mother, and it’s just not your mother and everything that’s going on is just shattering your entire belief system,” Calek said.

That was the moment that he decided to investigate the paranormal.

Throughout their time with “Paranormal State,” Calek and his team have encountered paranormal activity in Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Villisca Axe Murder House as well as churches.

“Our goal is to go out and challenge the biggest [and] most scary, horrifying places around, document that footage and show the people have the power,” said Calek.

This will be the last season on “Paranormal State” for the team. Calek and Buell have been working on a documentary film called “American Ghost Hunter,” which will be released June 2.

“It came out 10 times more intense than we had imagined,” said Calek. The film covers the paranormal activity his family experienced for more than two decades.

According to Calek, “the stuff we captured is the most compelling evidence we have for the paranormal.”

Calek and Buell realized people are going to have questions and will want answers once they see his film.

That’s when they decided to tour around the world with the film. They intend to give their audience a taste of their world.

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will be two of their even locations this year.

The Student Philanthropy Council sponsored “Student Philanthropy Day: Trail of the Dead Tour 2011” and made it possible for Calek to come to campus.

Visit his website at: http://www.wolfmanproductions.com/chad_calek.html

Women in Literature Panel

April 16, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

EDINBORO UNIVERSITY – In honor of Women’s History Month, four students participated in a “Women in Literature Student Panel” on March 31 in the Frank G. Pogue Student Center’s Multipurpose Room A.

Discussion focused upon women authors and characters don’t receiving the recognition that they each deserve.

“Recognizing the importance of women in literature… is an important step in a journey to developing a more dynamic view of the role of women in society,” said Morgan Larchuk, vice president of Sigma Tau Delta at Edinboro University.

Corey Saxton, a sophomore English Literature major, analyzed the characters in Virginia Woolf’s book To the Lighthouse and how they display the concept of the ideal woman.

Saxton said that Woolf’s perception of the “perfect woman is… so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the mind and wishes of others.”

Yet, this could create a problem for women writers who want to publish their own work. According to Saxton, Woolf states: “this perception of women… stands in the way of any female author wishing to express her true thoughts on morals, sexuality and human relations.”

Next, Edward Jackson, a junior secondary education and English major, introduced and spoke about Judy Blume and how her writing impacted literature.

“Overstated moral lessons have caused [Judy Blume] to become the center of censorship controversies,” he said.

“Judy Blume’s books have not only directly touched generations of readers,” Jackson stated, “but have also helped to pave the way for a whole genre of realistic fiction for young people.”

The panel also examined the stereotypes in the stories. Larchuk talked about why stepmothers in fairy tales and other types of stories are seen as “usurpers” (taking a position that doesn’t belong to them) and “deviants” (lack of fitting in with the social norms).

Since the stories were written down a long time ago, many of the ideas from that time are still passed around, she said.

“Women who did not represent the traits of conventional femininity are cast as villains because cleverness, will power and manipulative skill are allied with vanity, shrewishness and ugliness,” Larchuk said.

“While fairy tales may seem innocent and cute, said Larchuk, they send an underlying message to women who don’t conform to expected role women are supposed to play in society.

“But not all independent women are pictured as evil. Megan DeLancey, a sophomore English major, ended the panel with a discussion on one of the best known characters of the Harry Potter’s series: Hermoine Granger.

“Since 1997… one witch has shown what it takes to be an amazing role model to girls and women alike,” said DeLancey. “[She demonstrates] what it means to be herself and stand up for what is right.”

“As readers follow Hermoine through the her years of growing up and learning at Hogwarts, she teaches them that girls don’t need to wait for a man and don’t need one to complete them, DeLancey pointed out.

The panel was held by Sigma Tau Delta in order to show the importance of women in literature and stories. According the program, Women’s History Month is a time when many of us look forward to hearing new ideas and broadening our perspectives on women throughout the world and throughout history. by

Houdini Rises From the Dead

April 3, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

QUEENS COUNTY, NY – Harry Houdini has done it again.

A small crowd of people quickly gathered as the 137-year-old escape artist slowly dug himself out of his grave in Machpelah Cemetery in Queens County, N.Y. on March 24.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a hand coming up through the grass at his grave,” said Magdaline Mallas, an astounded student from New York State College, who had been walking by the cemetery with a group of her friends when it happened. “But then a couple of the guys I was with ran up and started digging and soon helped him out of the hole.”

Toby Bayside, one of the young men who helped in digging Houdini out, said he just stood in one spot for several minutes after Houdini had emerged.

“I thought it was one of those Halloween hands that people use for decorations,” he said. “But after I grabbed it, it was very obvious that there was someone attached to that hand.”

Questions buzzed through the air as hundreds of onlookers saw Houdini standing before them, a little pale and weak, but very much alive.

“It went according to plan,” chuckled Houdini as he dusted himself off and took several deep breaths.

Houdini said that he planned this mind-blowing escape for years before his supposed death on October 31, 1926.

“Now, I don’t want to give away all the details,” Houdini said with a smile when asked about how he had planned this escape. He did say that he had a bronze casket made for a new death-defying act that he was going to perform sometime in 1927.

Houdini was going to be placed in a strait jacket, sealed in the casket and then buried in a tank full of sand. But he said that he was unable to perform this act because, in 1967, Houdini supposedly died of peritonitis, a result of a ruptured appendix.

This death-defying escape act was very similar to his first “buried alive” stunt, noted Longfellow Hana, a Houdini expert from New York City.

In Santa Ana, Calif., in 1917, Houdini was buried six feet underground, without a casket, and nearly died from the effort of digging himself out, Hana said.

But, Houdini said that it was his second “buried alive” stunt that helped him the most.

On August 5, 1926, Houdini was placed in a sealed casket under water in a swimming pool for an hour and a half. Just by controlling his breathing he was able to endure and complete that feat.

“It has everything to do with controlled breathing,” Houdini explained. Refusing to discuss anymore details about how he pulled off this feat, the magician smiled, “This is what I’ve been looking forward to all these years: the expressions on people’s faces when I rise again out of my grave,” he said.

(Pictures from YellowMagpie.com)

—April Fools 🙂

To Burn or Not to Burn

March 31, 2011 / Anna / 0 Comments

Burning tires instead of coal and hydrofracking the Marcellus Shale are not the best energy options for our environment, said Dr. Sherri A. Mason, in her “Tires-to-Energy, Hydrofracking, and the Case for Renewable Energy” lecture in the Frank G. Pogue’s Student Center Multipurpose Room B on March 17, 2011.

“Nothing is perfect,” Mason, a chemist and environmentalist from State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia, emphasized as one of her main points of her lecture.

She spoke at Edinboro University in response to the proposed tire-to-energy plant that will be located in Crawford County. She also addressed the current drilling for natural gas in northwestern Pa.

Currently in the United States, 40 percent of our energy use is to generate electricity, she said, and this is done through a process called combustion.

“Ideally,” Mason pointed out, “you want nothing except carbon dioxide and water” as a result of complete combustion. But, that’s not always the case.

Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, are a huge group of completely unoxidized compounds that are released during any combustion process. “Whether you’re talking about what’s coming out of the tail end of your car, or a cigarette, or a campfire,” Mason said. “You’re going to have a significant amount of VOCs being released.”

Comparing the results of burning tires to burning coal, you find that tires produce less air pollutants and they contain a lot more carbon than coal does, Mason explained. Carbon is what helps to produce the energy for our electricity and an abundance of carbon means a higher energy level.

Yet, tires also contain a large amount of fixed carbon, or soot. “It’s the part that can’t be burned,” Mason said. The affect that fixed carbon has on us is that it’s been found to be mutagenic (relating to DNA mutations), carcinogenic (cancerous) and teratogenic (relating to birth defects).

One argument is that the plants aren’t going to release very many toxic particles. “The key to pollution is dilution,” Mason joked. “But it’s not about the quantity… It’s about the toxicity of the quantity… That’s why they’re labeled ‘hazardous air pollutants.’ If they weren’t toxic, we would probably call them something nicer.”

So, Mason said, the other solution would be natural gas, which is considered to be one of the cleanest of the fossil fuels. Located in the Marcellus Shale, which can be found in northwestern Pa, there is about 1,500 trillion cubic feet of gas underground, according to Mason.

In order to get the gas out of the shale, gas corporations use a method called “hydrofracking,” Mason said. They mix water with sand and synthetic chemicals in order to crack the shale and bring the gas out, called “fracking fluid.”

“The fracking fluid contains chemicals that would be considered illegal in warfare,” Mason pointed out. Now, that’s about several millions of gallons of water that no one can use for anything else.

Major change is needed and, according to Mason, investing in renewable energy sources wouldn’t cost us any more than what we are already paying. “The barriers to a 100 percent conversion to [solar and wind power] worldwide are primarily social and political. Not economical and not technological. We can afford to do this. What’s stopping us is us,” Mason emphasized.

We have the resources and the money to make the change. According toMason, the only thing that we have to do to start the changeover is to get our politicians on board.

“In the end, they have to listen to us if we speak loudly enough,” she said. “But we have to change the social aspect, we have to communicate.”

What Happens Next?

December 9, 2010 / Anna / 0 Comments

One election can easily change the future of an entire country. With the Republicans capturing the majority in the House of Representatives and with a Democratic president who hasn’t shown a willingness to modify his current plans for America, it leaves us wondering what will happen next.

With hot topics like the economy, reducing our country’s deficit, and Obama’s healthcare plan being discussed, and both parties not willing to budge from their position, could the federal government be headed toward a repeat of the shutdown that happened in 1995?

On November 2, an estimated 90 million voters came out to vote nationwide. That marked a 42 percent increase from the 2006 midterms. The Republicans 60-seat gain in Congress revealed the frustration of Americans at the government’s sluggish decision-making as they try to revive our dismal economy.

The Democrats had their plans all laid out to get a stimulus and healthcare bill passed, but now the Republican opposition looks to bring them to a grinding halt. If both parties remain unwilling to compromise or move from their positions, we will see a reenactment of the government shutdown of 1995.

When the financial year had ended on September 30, 1995, Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican-run government hadn’t come to an agreement on a budget for the next year. Since Clinton was unwilling to negotiate the budget cuts that the Republicans desired, Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House, expected the president to give in to his treat to not raise the debt limit. It didn’t happen that way.

By November 14, after politicians from both sides met the previous day to try to resolve the issue, Dick Armey, the House Majority Leader, told Clinton that since he was not willing to accept their budget for the next fiscal year, then they would instigate a government shutdown. The effects of the shutdown were seen immediately seen when different areas of the government were unable to continue working the next day.

The situation was resolved by a temporary spending bill that handled the $800 million needed to pay the laid off government employees, but a second shutdown took place shortly thereafter because of repeated clashes between President Clinton and Congressional Republicans.

Everyone was blaming everyone else. The Republicans blamed Clinton for not agreeing to their budget plan and Clinton blamesd the Republicans for not listening to his suggestions. However, one small, but very untimely, slip of the tongue by Gingrich finally ended the stalemate. He said that he caused the shutdown because Clinton forced him and one of his colleagues to sit at the back Air Force One. The public sided with Clinton and this event helped him to win the 1996 election for the Democrats.

The entire government shutdown of 1995 could have been avoided through both sides being willing to work out a compromise instead of refusing to move from their positions. A government shutdown could be avoided in 2011 if the Republicans and the Democrats work together and combine their best ideas in order to fix the country’s economy.

Set at 14.3 trillion in February we will soon be reaching the debt limit by spring of 2011. Obama and the Democrats argue that if the limit of debt is raised it will open up more opportunities to improve the country’s economy.

They contend it will allow us to borrow more money in order to create more job opportunities through federal aid, to make the necessary changes and reforms to the current tax code and will increase the probability of restoring our economy sooner rather than later.

However, soon to be Speaker of the House John A. Boehner has already told the New York Times that the Republicans have not agreed to support increasing the debt limit in the past and they do not intend to start now.

If the recent elections serve as an accurate gauge of the country’s opinions, then Boehner and the House Republicans have the full support of Americans. Raising the limit on the amount of money we can borrow from other countries will dig us even deeper into the hole that’s been getting worse and worse with each passing year.

The other issue on the table for discussion is Obama’s new healthcare plan. President Obama stated that Congress has to make a decision as soon as possible on the new healthcare plan before taxes go any higher.

Indiana Congressman Mike Pence told CNN that American citizens don’t want a healthcare that forces them to buy insurance and raises their taxes. He says that the Republicans won’t completely throw the idea of a new healthcare plan away, they’ll just vote through a lower-cost option.

The bottom line is that both Republicans and Democrats need to willingly move toward each other as they try to fix the fiscal mess that the country is in. Not everyone will be happy or satisfied, but the end result would be a much better option than a government shutdown.

Unfortunately, today’s political environment is far more divisive and partisan than it was in 1995, and with both extremes in firm control of each respective party, compromise will be immensely difficult. With the stare down about to begin, it’s impossible to tell who will be the first to blink.

For an inside look…. Reactions to the 2010 Midterm Elections

These are two videos from abcnews.com that elaborate a little more on where Obama thinks the government is and what is happening during the meeting of the Democrats and Republicans.

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Anna's Alcove

Let's do life together!

Author: Anna (page 9 of 9)

‘Boro Reaches Out – Students Aim to Provide Orangutan Care

The Jewish Christmas Tree Seller

Let Go

EUP continues efforts to raise enrollment

Friends Can Be Found in the Oddest of Places

“Let Us Bring You Into Our World…”

Women in Literature Panel

Houdini Rises From the Dead

To Burn or Not to Burn

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