November 2008 - Binghatmon Review

November 2008

Housing Update: Page 9

Binghamton Review Pip e of Drea BR ’s I m’s S lleg tam itim p acy

BR Tackles Bing’s Most Controversial Fraternity

Plus: Does your Professor Support William Ayers?

How to Reform Judicial Affairs

Reintroducing the Student Activity Voucher System CIW’s Wall of Perversion The Return of Instigations Truth and two staples

Binghamton Review, April 2005

Binghamton Review

In this issue...

Editors-in-Chief Adam Shamah Robert Edward Menje Managing Editor Rod Alzmann Copy Editor Yadin Herzel Business Manager Michael Lombardi Treasurer Daniel Rabinowitz Contributors Nehemia Stern, Alex Paolano, Samantha Mickle, Rachel Gordon, Eugenio Campos, John Jensen, Theresa Juergens, Matthew Hassell, Stephen Herman, Ariel Levin Waldman Graphics Michael Saltzman Godfather of the Review Louis W. Leonini Friends of the Review Dr. Aldo S. Bernardo The Leonini Family The Powell Family Mr. Bob Soltis WA2VCS The Shamah Family The Grynheim Family The Menje Family The Leeds Family The Lombardi Family The Packer Family

Binghamton Review is printed by Our Press, in Chenango Bridge. We provide the truth; they provide the staples.

Binghamton Review Binghamton University PO Box 6000 Binghamton, NY 13902

Founded 1987 o Volume XXII Number 3 o November 2008

8 11 13 15 18 21 24 25 26 27 28

Let Your Voice Be Heard by the Editors page How to fight the housing commission

8

Binghamton Review Sits Down with Grover Norquist Friendly Neighborhood Nazis by Mike Lombardi The West Side Neighborhood Association is a menace to a free society BR Special: Monopoly, Binghamton Edition!

S.A.V.ing the Student Activity Fee by Rod Alzmann The Student Activity Voucher System It’s All Greek to Me by Mike Lombardi Theta Delta Chi and Greek Life on Campus

Departments BU’s Gulag by Samantha Mickle 3. Editorial UJB Screws Students 4. Presswatch Federalist No. 86 by Publius 5. Instigations More on UJB 6. Letters Stop Saying Sorry by Robert Menje 30. Flashbacks White Guilt is no longer acceptable

Wall of Pervesion by Matt Hassel and Ariel Waldman CIW is sick Yay Terrorism! by Stephen Herman BU Professors for William Ayers

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Editorial

A Call To Arms

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merica’s President-elect is the most left-wing politician to ever hit the national scene. He won his election with an over 340 electoral vote landslide. The Democrats have captured large majorities in both the House and the Senate. The GOP is in its weakest state in decades. What do we, the soldiers of the conservative movement, do now?

Simply stated, we fight on. We do not compromise our principles. We do not lay down our arms.

We do not apologize for our beliefs. What we’ve always fought for is what we’ll continue to fight for.

American exceptionalism. National security. Small, unintrusive government. Morality. These are ideas that propelled the conservative movement for the better part of the twentieth century. These are ideas we must never abandon.

If only the GOP had stuck true to the things mentioned above, we would not be in this state right now. The past eight years have not been of conservative rule. Runaway spending, pro-amnesty zealots on both sides of the aisle, and talk of government as the solution to all of society’s ails are not our principles. They are the principles of the left, reworded and spit out by GOP strategists and politicians to disguise what they really are. If the Republicans ever hope to regain majority status, the only route is conservatism.

Sure, Obama’s mindless drones had much to do with the election results. Look at our campus’ reaction on election night. Hundreds of students

marching, chanting, “yes we can” in a creepy cult-like fashion. These people are beyond hope. But, beyond the University, in the real world where people actually have their own thoughts, conservative principles can win the people’s hearts and minds.

So, we oppose Obama when he tries to nationalize our healthcare industry. We oppose him when he tries to ration energy. We oppose him if he tries another bailout of the financial sector, and this time we make the point that it isn’t the government’s job to remove failure from the markets. We oppose his tax increases, not only on the clear economic grounds, but also on ideological groups; taxing ones wealth to pay for another’s lifestyle is not only unfair but also immoral.

And at the same time, we fix our own house.

Republicans like John McCain, a great man, but an incredibly flawed candidate and certainly no conservative, should never again be the poster child of our party. “Bipartisanship” and “compromise” must be rejected. Corruptocrats like Ted Stevens must be censured and exiled. Liberal senators like Lindsey Graham should be marginalized. Most importantly, the GOP needs to make its case to the American people and explain why conservative principles have always, and will always, make America great. I fear four years of Obama. But even more, I fear a lifetime of an unprincipled GOP.

-Adam Shamah

Our Mission

Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, student-run periodical of con-

servative thought at Binghamton University. A true liberal arts education

expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent

perspectives. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free exchange of ideas and offer

an alternative viewpoint not normally found on our predominately liberal campus.

It is our duty to expose the warped ideology of political correctness that dominates

this university. We stand against tyranny in all its forms, both on campus and beyond.

We believe in the principles set forth in this country’s Declaration of Independence,

and seek to preserve the fundamental tenets of western civilization. Finally, we un-

derstand that a moral order is a necessary component of any civilized society. We

strive to inform, engage, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Campus Presswatch

Campus Presswatch Pipe Dream October 24, 2008 Pipe Dream’s editorial board doesn’t believe that any publication but their own is “legitimate” enough to have racks for their distribution…

But there’s an additional function of the racks that has us thinking: they create legitimacy.

Now, we at the Review do not plan on ever distributing in any other manner than the one we currently use, but Pipe Dream’s ridiculous presumption that we are not legitimate is absolutely absurd.

The two biggest stories this year are as follows: (1) OCCT going broke, and (2) Mayor Ryan’s housing commission looking to warehouse students downtown.

Both of these stories were broken by Binghamton Review. Pipe Dream has yet to report on the housing story. Congratulations on toting up Campus Suites though, Pipe Dream. Legitimacy extends from quality reporting. This brings us to PD’s next quote…

A couple of weeks ago, the head of a major student group walked into Pipe Dream and said that some of his group members were confusing Pipe Dream with the Review.

The reason that people are confusing you with the Review is because we are doing your job. Pipe Dream claims that they are the “chronicle of the University.” Pipe Dream is charged with reporting on issues that affect students. There was a time when Pipe Dream used to do this. Now, it amounts to little more than a collection of university press releases and AP wire stories. If people are confusing Pipe Dream

and the Review, that either means that we are legitimate like you, or you are “illegitimate” like us.

Now, that we’ve made our point, there are several unbelievably arrogant and idiotic lines that you printed which we would like to mock to our greatest ability: More voices can enrich, but they also force the reader to be more critical.

Oh no! College students forced to think

Tunnel Vision:

The Vanishing Conservative in Campus Media How the Campus Press Covered this Year’s Election Season Pipe Dream Number of pro-Obama/antiMcCain editorials: 14 Number of pro-McCain/ anti-Obama editorials: 0

critically! What ever will we do? Save us, Pipe Dream. Save us from the leviathan of thought!

But not all words are created equal, a fact more easily forgotten when something is printed and placed in fancy bins for distribution.

Not all words are created equal. Do you mean this in terms of how many letters are in these words? How many synonyms they have? Are some worth three-fifths of a word?

This is not ‘Nam. This is journalism.

There are rules, guidelines that must be

4 followed on all ends.

What is this? Another Sam Riedel special? THERE IS NO PARALELL BETWEEN WHAT YOU FIRST STATED AND YOUR CONCLUSION. The lesson? Don’t believe everything you find in print — whether you find it in a bin or in front of Lecture Hall 2 with footprint marks on it.

So why again are racks such a big deal???

Q-Magazine October 2008

Apparently gays don’t have much going for them aside from their sexual orientation...

If you are ready to accept the fact that you’re gay, you are ahead of most angsty young adults going through the whole “finding oneself ” phase.

Ladies and gentlemen, identity politics at its worst. I, along with many other heterosexuals, have discovered that I am straight, why doesn’t that qualify as “finding myself ”? GBLTs (Gay Bacon Lettuce and Tomatos?) who think this way are not individuals; their identity does not extend past their being gay.

Prospect Magazine October 2008 Prospect violates the SA’s tax-exempt status by endorsing a political candidate...

The Binghamton Prospect has decided to endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Brilliant, sirs!

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Instigations Returns

OCCT Blues

Instigations

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hose familiar with the history of the Landau family and the Review (Landau’s two older brothers were both SA insiders with extreme ties to the campus left) have indicated to us that they are extremely surprised as to how proLandau we’ve been thus far on the major issues that have hit campus. Well, all good things must come to an end.

At the end of last month, Landau openly stated at a Research and Planning committee meeting that he intends to push for a ten-dollar increase in the student activity fee. Because $170 per student isn’t enough.

Not only does he want to take more of your money, he wants to throw the additional funds into the black hole known as OCCT.

Props to SA Vice-President for Finance Alice Liou for having the foresight to see that OCCT cannot survive in its current inefficient, wasteful state, and creating a committee to study to long term viability of the bus service.

Instigations’ take: OCCT is a waste of money. It costs students over $17,000 per week to operate eleven buses. It should be dissolved as quickly as possible. The university should work with Broome County to increase the availability of BCC transit for students. If that means no more student run bus service and no more student drivers, so be it. The $600,000 check the SA writes to OCCT each year could be used to serve students in much better ways.

One of the obstacles in the path towards this setup is the Graduate Student Organization (GSO). In a letter written October 13th, GSO president Jessie Kabwila Kapasula (Instigations award for the funniest name of all time) wrote the following: “We also value and are committed to protecting their student status. Blue buses are a symbol of student power, we need to nurture and protect their longevity because they are us.” Please. To your average student who is not an un-

Bingh amton Review - November 2008 hinged left-wing nutcase, the buses are nothing more than a way to get to and from class. No one cares who is driving the buses or who sits on its board of directors. If moving them under the university, or abolishing them all together and replacing them with city buses, is best for the students’ wallets, then it should be done, and quickly I might add.

policy. Thus it would be in the hands of group e-boards to decide exactly what is prudent to their group’s purpose and needs, and not in the hands of the VPF’s office. It would weaken the power of the SA Big Brother, which is always a good thing.

RA Singles are a Waste

YPIRG is showing once again why they don’t deserve a dime from a single student on this campus. First, a recap.

Until a couple of years ago, NYPIRG was given $5 per student per semester, amounting to a bit over $100,000 each year. Beginning 3 years ago, NYPIRG’s budget was slowly trimmed until last year, when the assembly shaved off $50,000 after Adam Shamah’s motion during the budget meeting. They now have a $14,200 budget. What are they doing with that $14,200? Nothing. Their position is that that money should be in NYPIRG’s off campus account, and should be used to pay the salary of one of their professional facilitators. Since Matt Landau has refused to sign off on this, and $14,200 isn’t nearly enough for NYPIRG’s infinitely talented professional staff, the money sits there untouched. If this is their position, the SA should cut them down to $0 next year. That $14,200 is being wasted, it could be used by any of the other 140+ students groups that actually contribute to this campus.

H

undreds of students are still living in forced triples.

How’s this for an idea?

Take away RAs’ singleroom privilege. They already get free housing and a free meal plan, isn’t that enough when there are other students being cramped into rooms not large enough for all of them? It’s not like there isn’t an overabundance of RA applicants. If the loss of their own bedroom is enough to make some people not want to be an RA, there are plenty of others who would be more than willing to take their place.

Student Group Freedom

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series of recommendations brought before the Student Group Council included “fundraised money freedom” for student groups. It was never voted on because SGC lost quorum, and would have to go through the Student Assembly anyway, but Instigations thinks this is a wonderful idea. The concept is as follows: student groups who fundraise their own money would be allowed to spend that money on anything they’d like, as long as it doesn’t violate New York State law or SUNY Board of Trustee

NYPIRG Wasting Money, What’s New?

N

Instigations is a column that ran monthly until the year 2000. Binghamton Review is happy to announce that Instigations is back and here to stay.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Letters

Letters

to

the editor To the Editor:

A pamphlet entitled “Know your rights! Know the code!” was recently distributed in my dorm building by members of the Office of Judicial Affairs. While I looked through this booklet I noticed that, despite the title, not even the vaguest reference was made to the rights afforded to Binghamton students. Instead, it only listed punishments for various offenses. The sinister implication of this is that the Office of Judicial Affairs does not want students to know their rights, but rather is more interested in intimidating them with the knowledge that Judicial Affairs will judge students harshly when they screw up. With this in mind, I wondered what opinion Binghamton Review holds on this matter, and what the best way to learn about my rights as a student of Binghamton University is, since the Office of Judicial Affairs is ostensibly not interested in letting us know.

- Pat McAree

Pat, you picked a great month to

write this letter. Check out the rest of the issue for two articles on University Judicial Affairs. Feel free to contact us in the future about any specifics that aren’t covered in this issue!

To the Editor:

The September 2008 issue of the Binghamton Review featured an article titled “Barack Obama and his terrorist friends. The infamous luncheon in question Ayers allegedly helped Obama start his political career was in 1995, not 1996, and the two served together on the PTA board in Chicago, not a “left-wing board.” Nowhere does it mention that Ayers has gone on to become a respected professor. Should his past hinder him and anyone who associates with him for the rest of his life? Does this mean that Republican Senator Norm Coleman should not be allowed to be in politics and that his actress wife is anti-American as well because he was caught in a photo burning the American flag during his days as a 60’s radical?

Instead of find new ways to litter the hallways of Lecture Hall with

6 your putrid joke of a publication, you’d be better off raising the quality of it instead of doing your absolute best to find ways to get people to dislike partisan conservatives even more. If you want to know why Obama is going to win this election, if you want to know why Republicans have lost control of both houses of Congress and have little hope of winning either one this year, you people have no further to look than your own juvenile, half-witted thinking.

Your brand of politics is becoming increasingly marginalized, especially after publishing such garbage.

The only fact proven by this article is that the author Robert Edward Menje is an immature bigot, a moron and quite frankly, a useless jackass whose “contributions” are a shameless, attention-whoring joke. A more respectable brand of conservatism on the campus of Binghamton University shall arise with a more competent Editor-inChief for your publication. But I won’t be holding my breath.

-I. Khan

The issue is not just what Ayers did, it’s that he is unrepentant. Whether or not he still believes in terrorism is irrelevant. He is still a radical Marxist who helped start Obama’s political career and who still works with him to this day. Republicans with ties to people like Pat Buchanan are said to have ties to “radicals,” but Ayers is legit? Check out page 28 for more.

Agree with us? Disagree?

Write us!

Email letters to the editor to binghamtonreview@gmail.com Binghamton Review, November 2008

Sorry, we’re from Binghamton Review.

We didn’t know college newspapers were supposed to suck.

Truth and Two Staples since 1987

We’re still looking for writers.

Email binghamtonreview@gmail.com or come to a meeting to get involved.

Meetings every Thursday at 7:30pm in the BR office (WB05).

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Uniting Students

8

Let Your Voice Be Heard Together, We Can Save Student Housing by the Editors

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ast month, Binghamton Review reported on Ken Kamlet and the Mayor’s Commission on Housing and Home Development. We broke the news regarding Kamlet’s series of recommendations that, if passed by the commission and implemented by the City Council, would effectively end student housing in almost the entire city.

A brief recap: About a decade ago, a group called the Westside Neighborhood Association was founded. The goal of this group has been to block students from living on the west side of the city. They have in part succeeded, as zoning laws have effectively eliminated student housing in one of the three residential districts, R-1. You may remember reading last year about several students who were evicted from their homes on Lincoln Avenue, which is in the R-1 zone.

Now, members of the city housing commission advocate applying the same zoning laws to the R-2 and R-3 zones, which in conjunction with the already anti-student zoned R1, in-

cludes almost all of the west side and a supermajority of the city as a whole.

About five years ago, the West Side Neighborhood Association (WSNA) and then-councilman Joe Sanfilippo hosted a neighborhood meeting to discuss the “problem” of student housing on the west side of Binghamton. Sanfilippo claimed at the meeting that the landlord-supplied student housing was so low in cost that no private developers could compete. His solution, endorsed by the WSNA, was to enact legislation that would eliminate student housing for more than 3 unrelated renters. This would force landlords to raise their rents, and would also cause a fall in supply of residential housing for students, making corporations like the Newman Development Group more likely to succeed.

One of the members of the housing commission, Ken Kamlet, is an employee for the Newman Development Group. Kamlet is the author of the report mentioned above.

Newman Group is planning to construct Campus Suites, a downtown

version of University Plaza. If these laws are enacted, there will be a dearth of student housing in the residential districts, and students will be forced to find housing elsewhere, such as on campus, in Campus Suites, in University Plaza, or in the downtrodden, commercial districts in the city.

What follows are several compelling points about the issue at hand and its relation to students:

Discrimination. There are some bad students. That doesn’t mean the city should throw the baby out with the bath water. Problems with late night noise, parties, etc., can be handled by the police. Students that have done nothing wrong should not be punished just because they are students. NYS legislators have gone so far as to include discriminating against renters based on their familial status.

NYS Human Rights Laws Section 296.5(a) states “It shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice for the owner, lessee, sub-lessee, assignee, or managing agent of, or other person having the right to sell, rent or lease a housing

Read old issues, learn about the staff, and send us hate mail at

www.binghamtonreview.com Binghamton Review, November 2008

accommodation, constructed or to be constructed, or any agent or employee thereof:

(1) To refuse to sell, rent, lease or otherwise to deny to or withhold from any person or group of persons such a housing accommodation because of the race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, age, disability, marital status, or familial status of such person or persons, or to represent that any housing accommodation or land is not available for inspection, sale, rental or lease when in fact it is so available.� If landlords discriminating against students is a civil rights violation, why should an entire city be able to do it?

Affordability. Students choose to live in the city for many reasons.

One of the primary ones is affordability. Housing in the residential districts is simply much less expensive than the

other options out there. It is less expensive than on-campus, University Plaza, and the proposed Campus Suites.

Students simply cannot afford to pay $200-$400 more per month.

Safety. Those who cannot afford to live on-campus or in the Newman Group properties would be forced to move into downtown or into Binghamton’s east side. Crime rates show that these areas are less safe for everyone, especially young college students.

Economic Implications.

People claim that the Newman Group project will spur economic activity downtown. Students contribute $8 to the economy for every $1 they spend.

Frankly, without students, the already blighted city of Binghamton would not be able to survive. If we are packed into housing downtown or in Vestal, and are forced to pay significantly higher rent rates, there is less money for us to

put into the city.

NYS Code. The WSNA Claims that they are protecting students from predatory landlords that try to pack as many students as possible into houses not suited for that number of people.

This is simply untrue. Students are not being crammed into houses like Irish immigrants in the 1900s. The city should be concerned with enforcing New York State code, and should punish landlords who are violating it.

Another case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Tonight, Thursday, November 6th, there will be an open forum before the members of the Housing Commission. It is imperative that as many students as possible attend. Check out the next page for more information.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Open Forum to

Student Save

Housing!

Today!

Forum before the City Housing Commission

Thursday 11/6/08

Let Student Voices Be Heard!

Come speak to the City Housing Commission and Mayor Ryan about the housing issue!

Even if you don’t want to speak, show up anyway. Our very presence is enough to have an effect. Strength is in numbers. If enough of us show up, we can change minds!

We are planning to arrive around 6:30pm at City Hall (38 Hawley Street). The forum will take place in the City Council Chamber.

OCCT Bus (Binghamton Route) departs Dickinson at 6:10pm Thursday.

Information Session in the Binghamton Review office (WB05) at 4:00pm today (Thursday)

Norquist Gets BR’d

11

BR Sits Down with the President of Americans for Tax Reform

Grover Norquist Binghamton Review: Can you tell our readers a little about the cost of government?

Grover Norquist: Cost of government day was set up because people were focusing too much on the deficit, which is the difference between how much the government takes in and how much they spend. That’s not an interesting number; it’s not even an important number.

What’s interesting is how much the government spends.

Total government spending is the deadweight cost of government. But you have to add to that the regulatory burden because as politicians realize taxes are unpopular, they shift it to regulatory burden. So instead of taxing GM and then paying them to make fuel efficient cars they just pass a law saying you have to make fuel efficient cars that are lighter and that people don’t want, which is why you have to pass a law. If people wanted this stuff they wouldn’t have to have a law. So, we make you put this in your car, an anti-smog device or something. So, that’s a cost put into their car – not a tax or spending so it doesn’t show up in the government’s books. But it’s a regulatory burden paid for by GM and then by consumers. So if you add the total government spending, federal, state, and local, to the regulatory burden, that’s cost of government day.

Add up federal, state, and local taxes you work until May to pay your taxes. That understates the cost of government because it doesn’t count deficit spending, it only counts the costs covered by taxes, and it leaves out the regulatory burden.

BR: What do you think Obama meant when he said, “when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody?”

GN: Well, what he means is it’s good for politicians.

The left’s model is “take money from people and get elected handing it out to people.” So, you want to loot as few people as possible, since they tend to be irritated at being looted, and spread some to as many people. The Democrats are unhappy with Social Security and Medicare because people think they’ve paid for them, you pay social security taxes and Medicare taxes. They’re insufficiently appreciative when they get stuff form the government. People on welfare know they didn’t do anything for it. People who get government grants know perfectly well they didn’t do anything for it. It’s only money that you get for no particular reason other than your congressman likes you that you remember to vote for. Guys on social security go ‘I’ve paid for that.’ they don’t feel they have to vote for some liberal because of that. So, he does want to take people’s money and use it to buy votes.

BR: What was your role in helping to create the Contract with America in 1994?

GN: I worked with [Newt] Gingrich and [Dick] Army when they were putting that together. That was actually

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Grover Norquist

12

a project, it’s much misunderstood. They went to the Republicans in congress and said “what are the bills that we have tried to get votes on that have broad support among Republicans but that the Democrats wont even let them vote on it?” Welfare reform, building strategic defense initiatives, requiring a 2/3 vote to raise taxes, term limits, issue like that. They picked ten and put them together so sometime people say that I or someone else wrote the Contract with America. It was actually compiled from real legislation that had been out there, in some cases for many years, bottled up by the Democrats. So the promise was: Elect a Republican congress and we will have votes on these ten things. Now the established press turned that into ‘we promise to pass these ten things.’ Well, that seemed a little bit odd since we didn’t have the votes for it all, and the senate was never part of the deal, and Clinton stood there with a veto. But, in the first 100 days they had voted on everything they had promised to have votes on and they passed in the house everything other than the constitutional amendments for term limits. And then eventually after three tries, we even got stuff like welfare reform signed by Clinton.

BR: What is your opinion on the fair tax?

GN: Economically, they are the same thing. The goal in tax reform is to move as fast as possible towards taxing income one time at one rate. Right now, we tax it when you earn it, when you save it, when you invest it, when you get a dividend, when you die; we take it in bites.

Part of the advantage of taxing income one time is that

the government then leaves you alone. The government doesn’t follow you around watching what you do to see whether you reinvest that money and then they want to take some more. So, earn a dollar, take some, and go away. You want to exempt all savings, and you want to abolish death tax and that’s a flat rate consumed income tax.

You get the same thing with a flat rate consumption tax. Here’s the challenge for the people who are for a retail sales tax, or fair tax. And that is if you are 20 years old and you are just starting your work in life it doesn’t mater to you if you have a retail sales take or a flat rate tax. But if you are sixty five and you spend your entire life paying income tax and you have saved up $500,000 and the government says “oh boy, we have a favor for you, we are not going to tax your income anymore because you are not working but we are going to tax you 30% on everything you buy.” I just paid income tax all my working life and now that I’m going to be consuming the rest of my life and I’m going to be taxed on consumption. It almost killed one of our Senators in South Carolina. DeMint because he was for the fair tax and they ran at him saying this person wants to have a 23% sales tax, which was true, but the Democrat didn’t say he wanted to abolish the income tax, they just said he wanted the sales tax.

I appreciate the energy and interest of the fair tax people. I think politically it is a dangerous idea because it can be used to defeat its advocates by pointing to the transition problems.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Interview continues on page 23

West Side Nazis

13

Your Friendly Neighborhood Nazis The West Side Neighborhood Association

by Michael Lombardi

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ot far away in our own city of homeowner, and finally, any and all pos- This would be tantamount to opening a Binghamton lies a fascist or- sible violations the properties may have forum encouraging people to steal cars or ganization. I am referring to incurred. Although this is not illegal, I rob banks. Once again, any neighbor obthe West Side Neighborhood myself assert that using practices like served doing this should immediately be Association, or as I colloquially know it: these against people who are not causing reported to the police to face all possible The West Side Nazi Association. I give any particular disturbance is completely consequences. them this title due to shady and quasi- and unequivocally wrong.

In closing I am shocked by the legal practices they have begun to imple- The final two practices listed practices this group is encouraging. By ment against Binghamton University on the website begin to drift outside the actively prying into people’s lives, and students living downtown on the West range of legality. First off the website sug- openly advocating breaking the law, they Side. This Association is not only a det- gests the license plates of the resident’s truly are a “Nazi” association. I propose riment to the City of Binghamton and cars should be written down and cross- a question to the WSNA. Who would our great university, but to the principles checked through records. I am not sure they rather have living on the West Side on which our country was founded. of the precise legal implications of this if they evict non-disruptive students and

The practices of the “Nazi” Asso- procedure but it is an absolute violation other tenants? Would they prefer a mulciation range from the shady but unfortu- of privacy rights and possibly constitutes titude of vacant homes? Unlike mainnately legal, to the legally grey and finally criminal stalking of the fourth degree tained rental properties, derelict houses an explicit and shockingly blatant viola- (NYS Penal Code 120.45). drive property values down. Perhaps tion of Federal law. All of these practices The final practice listed is a clear they would like drug dealers, criminals are spelled out on the group’s website un- and blatant violation of federal law, and or various other dregs of society? If these der the link www.westsidebinghamton. any student who observes it should im- practices are allowed to perpetuate, that org/research.html. This “research” they mediately call proper authorities. The is exactly what they will receive, and perspeak of is a detailed manifesto regard- website lists as clear as day to collect haps the nicest section of Binghamton ing how to spy on students living in the names from the mailboxes of homes, and will go to blight. We must stand against West Side to try and evict them. The le- run the names through databases. Tam- these predatory and discriminatory pracgal practices include reading the phone pering with mail is a felony violation of tices and kick the “Nazis” out of power book to see if the names linked to the ad- United States Federal Law and punish- forever. dress change from year to year. This is a able by lengthy prison sentences and ex- -Michael Lombardi is a sophomore possible indication of the property being tensive fines. This group is actually ad- majoring in Management. The WSNA is a rental home. The association also rec- vocating breaking the law on its website. trying to rezone his dorm room. ommends going on the BU housing list Collect Names: Names collected from the mail box of the property in question (if practical) are to see which proper- useful in establishing that residents are not related by name. They can be cross-checked against the ties are being offered Criss-Cross telephone directory listings year-to-year to establish transiency. You can also use web sites that allow you to enter a street address and obtain the name(s) of the person(s) at that address. for rent. Finally, they There are several searches available at reverseaddress.com. You can also use your favorite search suggest looking into engine, such as Google, specifying “reverse address” to find other sites. city records to see if: the properties have License Plates: It is helpful to collect these numbers from the tenants’ cars, which can be revariances, how many searched by the Department of Motor Vehicles. A form, MV-15, can be downloaded from the New bedrooms are in the York State Department of Motor Vehicles web site. Follow the instructions, and send it in, along with a check for processing fees. Response time is about two weeks. homes, who is the

The WSNA’s advice on how to “research” properties that may be inhabited by students.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

14

Binghamton Review wishes our readers a

Happy Guy Fawkes Day Remember, Remember, the 5th of November Binghamton Review, November 2008

Tired of sitting around, getting depressed by those rainy Binghamton nights?

Fear not, fellow students. Introducing...

Monopoly!

Binghamton Edition

The Official Parody Board Game of the Westside Neighborhood Association (screw you copyright law)

Here’s how it works: Pesky students are trying to move into Binghamton’s residential districts. Your goal is to stop them. Rezone all of the available properties before those noisy little bastards get ‘em. Disregard the economic and legal implications of this.

Don’t worry, powerful corporations, the mayor, the city housing commission, and even the University are on your side!

Binghamton Review

Campus Suites

Publishes, Go Back to S ta r t

Millions of dollars in ta x bre ak s

WSNA Members Stalk Your Cars and Read Your Mail Advance 5 Spaces

4 - d ay n o t i c e g i ve n for open for um bu t p l o t b a c kf i re s, s t ude n t s s h o w.

Yo u a r e f o u n d to h av e a special interest a n d a r e awa r d ed a commission s e at.

Binghamton

Mono

$ 1 7, 0 0 0 pe r wee k

P i p e D re am i g n o re s i s s ue . Yo u’re s af e f o r n o w.

Zo n i n g Appeals B o a rd

You get mugged on the east side.

Burden of Proof’s on you, bitches!.

Minus $200

Doug Draze n Elected M a y o r.

WSN A LOSES!

SA Of f ice $ 8 6. 5 0 p e r s t ude nt per seme s ter

Meth Lab opens in adjacent former student house.

Lose $50,000 in property value.

BR Of f ice D o n o t b u y.

Ne s t ing ground for s t ude nt re sis tance .

City Hall

EVICTED

Wa t c h o u t for flying fists of Irish mayoral f u r y.

Go Directly to Zoning Appeals Board. Do not rebut presumption.

Students stay in and study.

Your argument weakens significantly.

opoly Kamlet Edition

H u g e Wa s t e of Money

L i n c o l n Ave .

St u de n t f ree since 2 0 0 8.

Thank s, WSN A .

Uni ve rsi t y B i n gh am t o n Plaza Un i ve rs i t y Al re a d y i n yo u r p o c k e t

Double w h a t y o u’d pay for any other housing

Sp o r t s b a r $100? $50? $25?

Some one buy this!!!

o G

Financial Freedom

18

S.A.V.ing the Student Activity Fee The Student Activity Voucher System

by Rod Alzmann

$173. That’s how much you pay into the SA for a year of “membership.” Less than $40. That’s how many dollars per student actually goes directly to the more than 140 student groups over the year. Where the hell is my $133 going???

Before appearing angry and frugal by talking about such seemingly small amounts of money, allow me to preface: the SA began the year with a nearly $2,000,000 budget (FY 2008-2009). To be exact it was closer to $1.98 million, but the point is still there. Out of the $2 million dollars that students are required to pour into the SA’s coffers, less than $700,000 actually makes it directly to student groups.

It sounds more meaningful this time: where is my $1.3 MILLION dollars going?

No more grazing the issue. The SA is a bloated, wasteful beast that needs to have some fat cut out. Prime example: OCCT. To operate 11 busses for a year, it costs the students roughly $600,000, or approximately $17,000 per week.

The SA spent almost as much this year on 11 busses as it did on the thousands of students who participate in our over 140 student groups. Surely there must

be some way to stop, quite literally, burning our cash away so quickly.

Some of the SA’s expenditures are required. It hands out about $550,000 to lawyers, insurance, administrative expense, auditing, deficit coverage, and business salaries. No one is espousing slashing our business essentials. But over 25% of student yearly contributions are gone before it helps them in any way.

Let’s move o n .

Every student must, per

t h e SA constitution, give $8 towards the University Programming Board.

Now listen, our campus has brought great shows (Foo Fighters, Lupe Fiasco, etc.) over the past several years, which have often been sold out or near capacity. However, should students be forced to subsidize these events even if they’re not going to be in attendance?

Allow students to pay full ticket price

if they’re going to attend. The SA won’t see people stop going to the big concerts if the price is $5-$10 higher, and students don’t have to pay for something they won’t be using.

The next large account is the College Reserve, which stands around $250,000. The seven on-campus and OCCC community accounts are included in this. $11 per student goes to the community in which they reside.

Here is one of the bright points of the SA’s structure. The money is much closer to home, literally, and gives the students much more say over where their money is spent and what it is spent on. Hall government and community council are the closest we have to a democracy on campus.

Add another expense that appears justifiable: Harpurs Ferry.

With an allotment of $5 per student, the peace of mind offered by knowing that should you or a friend of yours reach alcohol poisoning levels, the friendly folks over at Harpurs Ferry will be there in a jiffy to whisk you away to the hospital for a wonderful evening of stomach pumping.

I’ve now outlined the core expenditures of the SA’s burgeoning budget. The way to fix things was first proposed way back in 1996, on the pages of this very magazine, by a writer named Joseph Hury.

Let students have a say. Let’s take the power that is concentrated

Binghamton Review, November 2008

19 in the SA and Financial Council, the budgeting committee of the SA, and give that back to the people who really deserve it, the students. My method is as follows: instead of having FinCo determine budgets at the end of the year, and then the assembly approve these budgets, let’s use a tool that students have never had available before: PAWS.

Students have the right to dictate where their money goes with as much say as is possible. I certainly don’t want my portion of the activity fee going towards student groups that are anti-American. While I believe in and celebrate the First Amendment, no one should be forced into supporting groups that stand against their beliefs.

This encompasses religious groups as well. A devout Catholic doesn’t want to see his money going toward Hillel or the Muslim Student Association when, instead, it could be helping his or her religious group and vice-versa.

Back to the method that I propose: Give students access to their portion of the activity fee that goes towards student groups. Students deserve discretion over where this goes, and if

they want to give it to the groups that they’re most involved in, then that should be their prerogative. This would be done through the online PAWS system, in which a student selects where to allocate his or her funds at the convenience of his or her desk/bed/bathroom.

Skeptics will argue that students are not going to use this system, or that groups with more members will be aided disproportionately. I will debunk both forces of opposition.

The point is not to force students to decide where they want every dollar to go, but to encourage them to feel as though they are an integral part of SA. Knowing where your money goes makes you care much more about how it is used, and this method encourages student involvement. The PAWS system was implemented just this year with a large investment (don’t quote me, I believe it cost over $30,000) and it seems clear that it is something the University wants used. Now, if students decide not to allocate their portion of the funds, then the same thing that currently happens will take place; the unspent money will be moved into

the FinCo discretionary account and elected students will decide what is in the best interest of students.

People will say that this helps the largest of student groups at the potential expense of small ones. And why shouldn’t it? Student groups should primarily be judged on the basis of active members and how involved they are on campus. If your group has 5 members that work only to enhance each other, then you probably don’t deserve a $1,000 SA budget. On the other hand, if you have 200 active members, are very involved on-campus and in the community, and enhance the entire atmosphere on campus, then your group deserves to receive more money.

Since that money comes from students to begin with, give them the right to decide what they want. Back in the day they called it no taxation without representation. Let our students be free.

-Rod Alzmann is a sophomore majoring in Accounting He hopes one day to fly high.

Binghamton Review: We already control campus. Soon it will be the world.

Join us before it’s too late.

Weekly Meetings: Thursdays, 7:30 P.M. in our office, WB05 (basement of the Union, below the food court).

E-mail: binghamtonreview@gmail.com Binghamton Review, November 2008

Cover

21

It’s All Greek to Me

Theta Delta Chi

and

Greek Life

on

Campus

by Michael Lombardi ‘11

W

hat is Greek Life? When I came here last year, I thought it was nothing but a collection of like-minded people pooling money to buy booze and friends. It seemed like the standard for joining some fraternities was the ability to eat the ooky cookie or deal drugs efficiently. This was a hollow shell of what Greek Life was intended to be. When fraternities were started in the 1700-1800s, they were a collection of mutually esteemed brothers doing philanthropic work. They were a collection of good men doing good works. However, as Greek Life in

Binghamton stands, I would call these guys boys with booze and steroids instead of men with letters.

For years, the old guard of Interfraternal Council (campus) recognized fraternities has enjoyed the privilege of a moratorium on new fraternities and, like any monopolistic enterprise, has become stagnant.

However, last semester the moratorium was lifted and new fraternities, such as Theta Delta Chi and Zeta Psi, were recognized.

New fraternities, like any new enterprises putting in a better product in an exclusive market, face hostility.

Some members of another fraternity chose to take a severalday-old dead deer, paint “TDX” letters on it, and leave it in front of another fraternity house. That is absolutely disgusting, and just goes to show what I’m talking about with the stagnant Greek Life on the campus. Whether this be a bad case of roid rage or an act of hate, this behavior should have no place on a college campus, or anywhere for that matter. The reaction to competition was severe in several other ways.

However, like any firm entering a market with an improved product, Theta Delta Chi grew to be the largest fraternity on campus with 56 brothers. Many Paul Liggieri, co-founder of Theta Delta Chi’s of the pledges were acquired from other fraternity’s rushes, Binghamton chapter.

which has gained TDX the reputation of being pledge thieves. People choose to pledge a fraternity because of what it offers; TDX must offer something better than other fraternities.

What attracts people to this fraternity? Simply stated, it is the better product. TDX is so heavily involved in philanthropic and community service work within the Binghamton community that the City Council passed a resolution demanding the University recognize Theta Delta Chi. Brothers can regularly be seen at Vestal Hills Elementary or in the Salvation Army soup kitchen on Washington Street.

Pledges can also be seen doing community service work, something very few, if any, fraternities can say about their pledge classes. Theta Delta Chi has also been involved in Binghamton City Cleanups, which involves picking up refuse from the city sidewalks, parks, and roads. Furthermore, since its inception, the organization has regularly been involved in Binghamton University’s Relay for Life, which fights against breast cancer.

Considering community service and philanthropy are prime conservative traditions, BR applauds TDX’s commitment to the community.

The impression that the brothers leave does not stop at the city limits. Within the international organization itself, the Binghamton chapter has made its reputation known. Founding father Paul Liggieri rose from former

Binghamton Review, November 2008

22 president of the Binghamton chapter to the Secretary of the Grand Lodge, a title that places him as the third in command of the international organization. Theta Delta Chi was the first and only fraternity to contact BR about how they could help fight the City on the housing issue. Theta Delta Chi is the only fraternity to sponsor campus events like Dinesh D’Souza and the only social fraternity to have a debater at the annual College DemsReps debate.

This is not to slight the philanthropic work and community advancement work of other such Greek organizations as the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. AEPhi runs the Greek God event to raise money for the Elizabeth Glazer AIDS foundation. BR is regularly impressed with the size and scope of the events and programs. We merely aim to show that within its two years of existence, Theta Delta Chi has outshone the vast majority of fraternal organizations in terms of service.

In sum, BR is happy that Greek Life is changing for the better.

Theta Delta Chi’s current executive board.

The lack of philanthropy and the lack -Michael Lombardi is a sophoof simple dignity within brotherhoods more at Binghamton University. have disappointed us since we were freshmen. BR applauds Theta Delta Chi for taking its place as the flagship of change in Binghamton fraternities.

Words of Wisdom:

“The test of moral ideas is moral results.”

-Morton C. Blackwell Binghamton Review, November 2008

Norquist Continued

23

This is a continuation of the Grover Norquist interview that began on page 11.

BR: What was your relationship with President Reagan?

GN: Well I was a big supporter of his. He was kind enough to ask me to run Americans for Tax Reform which the White House had set up to be an outside group to push for the Tax Reform Act of ’86. I had a chance to meet him a couple of times and I was a big supporter of him.

BR: What exactly takes place at the “Wednesday meeting”?

GN: It’s a broad based center-right coalition meeting, maybe 120-140 people who meet once a week. It is a meeting where if everybody represented by the people at the meeting voted it would be sixty percent of the vote.

So its not 120-440 right wing people from D.C., it is people from think tanks, activist groups, property rights groups, the NRA, the White House, and the senate and so on.

BR: I know you are infamous for creating the taxpayer protection pledge. Why exactly do you do that?

GN: We created it in 1986 and the goal was to protect the progress of lower marginal tax rates from having them increased. That’s the pledge itself. Our goal is getting enough people to promise not to raise taxes, specifically the individual or corporate income tax. On the state level we created a pledge for no net tax increases. State taxes are all different, some have sales tax, some have income tax, and some have both. So no net tax increase.

BR: In the 1700s Americans went to war with the British over tax on tea and several other taxes. Do you believe Americans have lost their fighting spirit to say to the government “we will not be overtaxed”?

GN: No from time to time we have successfully fought against taxes through the initiative process and through elections. We still have a lot of work to do. Taxes have grown past where they were during the Boston tea party.

People get used to anything no matter how awful it is.

At some point they get used to the level of taxes. Our goal is to remind them they don’t have to be used to that.

Tired of girls with hairy armpits?

Not in the mood to join the collective?

Reagan 2012?

Join

Binghamton Review BU’s last refuge for campus conservatives.

Meetings Every Thursday at 7:30pm in the BR Office (B05, in the Union Basement)

BR: Thank you very much for your time.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

RDs Unhinged

24

BU’s Gulag How Judicial Affairs Screws Students

by Samantha Mickle

T

here is an old tradition at Binghamton University, a tradition that the administration denies and refuses to address. It is not a proud tradition.

In fact, it is a disgraceful one. It is not something that will be discussed during orientation or on your first campus tour. It certainly won’t be reported

by Fiske’s Guide to Colleges, or written about in a Binghamton University pamphlet. The tradition is Binghamton University’s commitment to have every student go through the University’s judicial process.

The office that assures this commitment remains a priority to the University is called the Office of Judicial Affairs. Just like Stalin had the KGB, Binghamton University has the Office of Judicial Affairs. The sole purpose of this office is to enforce the policies written in the Rules of Student Conduct, a 32-page booklet consisting of ambiguous rules and procedures.

The vagueness of the booklet allows Judicial Affairs to apply the rules subjectively and inconsistently. For drinking a small quantity of alcohol on campus, punishments range from a six-months warning period to a two-and-a-half year probation period with ten hours of community service. Most of these punishments are handed down by Residential Directors.

The Judicial Affairs Office merely oversees all Judicial Affair matters on campus. The real power lies within the Residential Directors, who are given judicial power over their individual buildings. A large percentage of judicial cases involve RD’s not

knowing the difference between a rule violation and a bunch of college students having fun. Last week, RD Megan Stump charged four students for

Megan Stump charged four students for playing with NERF Guns in Seneca. The inexperienced RD obviously has too much time on her hands, and enjoys handing out bogus judicial charges.

don’t know better. RDs know the average student will not be able to tell the difference between Alcohol 1 and Alcohol 4. Over the last few weeks, Judicial Board members have been going around buildings handing out pamphlets with different scenarios and violations. These pamphlets, however, only address the violations, and state nothing about the rights of students.

It is in Judicial Affairs’ best interest to keep student uninformed about the process. That way, RDs and the Judicial Affairs Office can charge students for violations that never occurred and manipulate the system in order to issue subjective charges. The official slogan of Judicial Affairs is screw the unaware and naïve students.

Binghamton University has a tradition of scaring us into signing judicial charges that have no merit behind them. We must not allow them to think they can punish us without just cause. I urge students to stop signing the administrative agreements and to get informed about the judicial process.

Utilize the Student Advocate, a service offered by the Student Association Vice President for Academic Affairs, and talk to people who understand the process. It is our responsibility to make sure that the anti-student mentality of the administration and the Office of the Judicial Affairs do not allow them to deny us our rights as Binghamton University students.

playing with NERF Guns in Seneca.

The administrative agreement form had two charges against the student.

The charges involved a noise violation charge and a safety charge. The RD claimed these students were endangering their own safety by running up and down the stairs, and the noise violation stated that the students were being too loud at 10 PM on a weekend. The inexperienced RD obviously has too much time on her hands, and enjoys handing out bogus judicial charges.

The nature of the judicial process forces students to take the administrative agreement forms, merely because they don’t want to deal with the hassle of going through a hearing. Every year, hundreds of students Samantha Mickle is a sophomore get charged for violations that never majoring in Spanish. Her RD is drafting occurred. Students sign agreements a charge letter as you read this. with excessive penalties because they

Binghamton Review, November 2008

J-Board Follies

25

Federalist No. 86 More

on

Judicial Affairs by

T

he pursuit of justice and fairness has long been the idea of judicial processes. In such cases as Coffin v. United States and Gideon v. Wainwright, the United State Supreme Court has expanded the liberties of the citizenry and the rights thereof. However, it seems that the same degree of respect for civil liberties and judicial fairness has escaped the Binghamton University’s University Judicial Board (hereafter UJB). It is with abridgment of the basic principle that “every man shall have his day in court,” that I have decided to write this article.

In a standard court proceeding involving things of criminal matters, it is reasonable to assume that the one holding judicial power would attempt to be as fair as possible. In terms of standards of evidence, there are different scales to deal with different degrees of importance. Criminal proceedings are always the most scrutinized with

Publius

the burden of proof being on the prosecution, the necessity of the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the presumption of innocence.

Binghamton University has decided that fairness and the responsibility of a university to protect students’ rights are neither compelling interests nor are worth the time of the administration. The remainder of this article will be devoted to demonstrating how the UBJ is inherently unfair toward students in terms of its evidence standards and right to representative counsel.

Currently, the UJB uses a standard called the preponderance of evidence, or the balance of probabilities. What this means, in the simplest terms, is that if a student is charged on this campus, the UJB merely needs to establish that it is more likely than not that you did the crime you are accused of. The “judges” on this board are allowed to doubt up to 49% of their decision. This is not judicial fairness; this is how non-free nations ensure political dissidents get in jail. This is how McCarthy moved from one victim of his black list to the next. This is how liberty is killed.

Furthermore, there is a lack of the right of representation. In any standard criminal procedure you have

the right to be represented by counsel.

However, the UJB thinks that this is superfluous to arriving at the “truth” (which, I remind you is that its more likely than not that you did something). Admittedly, the SA provides a Student Advocate for UJB proceedings, but the Advocate may not speak during proceedings. You are compelled to represent yourself against someone charging you who has done dozens if not hundreds of these cases before. This is the equivalent of a random derelict with no legal training being compelled to represent himself against a District Attorney and was also the principle issue in Gideon v. Wainwright.

In Gideon v. Wainwright, it was established that the disparity of the legal knowledge between a DA and an average citizen has significant impact on a case and that the state must even go so far as to provide an attorney for you in legal proceedings. Apparently having someone with expertise speaking for you is only important to those with law degrees, not the UJB administrators. This rule is foolish and is, in sum, merely a means for getting convictions.

I suggest that the UJB up its standard of evidence to at least the Clear and Convincing standard or its equivalent. In that case it must be substantially more likely than not that a student committed a crime. I also suggest the restriction on the speaking powers of duly appointed representatives like lawyers or Studentl Advocates be lifted. Let the system be fair, let the system represent the interests of students, and, let it be geared towards bettering the community.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Apology Denied

26

Stop Saying Sorry Against White Guilt

by Robert E. Menje ‘09

H

ave you ever wondered why there is a Black Student Union but no White Student Union? There is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but there is no organization where the word “white” is substituted for the word “colored.” Wait just for one minute.

There is. It’s called the Ku Klux Klan.

There is a double standard in America.

There is a demonization of everything that would allow one to be proud of their white, European heritage. James Brown can yell from the top of his lungs, “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.” but if a white man did that, he’d be instantly ostracized.

Why does this double standard exist? The answer to that question is simple. White liberals have this sense of guilt that pervades their entire psyche. They believe all the wrongs committed throughout history by their ancestors is somehow their fault.

This is nothing more than guilt by association and this association is attributed only to a common bloodline.

If this is the case, shouldn’t everyone have this guilt since we all come from “the cradle of civilization”? Conservatives generally don’t have white guilt.

It is almost exclusively limited to, and built into, the liberal conscience.

Many world-renowned scholars have written about this phenomenon. One is Shelby Steele. Steele, who is a research fellow at the Hoover Institute of Stanford University, sums up white guilt in his book White

Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era as follows: “White guilt, which I think defines liberalism, is a response to the stigma that white Americans bear for practicing racism for four centuries. Whites live with this constant pressure of having to demonstrate to the world that they’re not bigots, and this manifests itself in many facets of American life.” Steele goes on to say, “Political correctness is an outgrowth of white guilt. It’s a way for guilty-feeling whites to constantly indicate that they’re not racist, not colonialists, not imperialists, not warmongers, and so on.” Steele has hit the nail on the head.

This is quite possibly the most accurate description of white guilt that can be found and Steele is considered an authority on the subject amongst scholars.

White guilt is a relatively new concept.

The hippie, counter-culture movement of the 1960s created it. This idea started to permeate all levels of the Democratic Party in Congress. This is why flawed pieces of legislation such as the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 were enacted by congress (this same piece of legislation is one of the main reasons for the current financial and housing crisis). Recently, when

Republicans criticized the Community Reinvestment Act for its role in the financial crisis, Democratic member of Congress and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank responded to Republicans in true white guilt fashion by calling their criticism a veiled attack on the poor that is racially motivated.

On campus, if one wants to experience white guilt, all that student has to do is step foot in any sociology classroom [see any one of Virginia Brown’s classes or Charise Cheney (in the history department)]. In this classroom, the professor will indoctri-

Binghamton Review, November 2008

27 nate their students on such topics as, “Why the white man is the devil” and “Why whites need to hate their skin color.” Other forms of white guilt on campus created by the administration are the various levels of affirmative action. Because the administration is so guilty of being white, they attempt to rectify their ancestor’s oppression by admitting under-qualified students into the university. Also, if one analyzes the budget allocations by the Student Association, it is clear that groups such as the Black Student

Union, the Caribbean Students Association, and the Latin American Student Union each receive a substantial budget when juxtaposed with groups such as Binghamton Review and College Republicans. Each of those “cultural” groups receive around, or over, $20,000, meanwhile, the College Republicans receives around $750 and Binghamton Review receives $1,500. Even though these latter groups provide as much, if not more, events, activities, and other services for students, they do not receive even

1/10th the funding.

Clearly white guilt is a problem. Until whites stop hating themselves and start being proud of their heritage, all races will not advance and racism as we know will continue to exist.

-Robert Edward Menje is a senior spending the semester in Washington D.C. He’s sorry because D.C. is a breeding ground for white oppression.

Wall of Perversion What’s Going

CIW?

on in

by Matthew Hassell ‘11 and Ariel Levin Waldman ‘12

I

n CIW’s Oneida hall, BU’s Reslife staff has decided to post a bulletin board to inform its residents about sex. It fails catastrophically in that its education consists of the promotion of every promiscuity and perversion imaginable, and several that aren’t. Confronted with the terms “transgender,” “dominatrix,” and “fetish,” one wonders what the state of the relationship has become. Why are such things glorified? Why does the American University, a system that once stood as a bastion of reason, support such an irrational perversion of the mind, and why does it feel the need to throw it in our face?

While what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is their own business, parading it in front of my house gives me every right to criticize you. This is not bias nor intolerance. Tolerance

means allowing its existence, however, once it is endorsed in a public way, we have every right to disagree. My opinion is that people are entitled to learn about whatever they please, and do as they please, but in their own time, and not in a public venue, because these things may offend other people. While some may find our lack of solidarity with this display offensive, consider the alternative: we too are offended, and this university has long stood against the promotion of offensive material. This is a double standard that is biased against the majority who choose not to partake and participate.

Why must the announcement board carry offensive and perverse messages? Why can it not make useful announcements to the student body, such as advice on finding a platonic relationship, study tips, how to be safe on the college campus, or

LateNite events for the week? Why is there a collective desire to glorify and rationalize such extreme and deviant behaviors? A university should glorify reason and education; it should glorify the pillars of knowledge. It does not exist to promote a radical left-wing agenda, which consists of essentially tearing down 5,000 years of progress and morals. While there is a right to free speech, there is a right to free listening. People should not have to hear what they don’t want to hear and see what they don’t want to see, so we are fully justified when we say, “get it out of our faces.”

Matthew Hassell is a sophomore majoring in Mathematical Sciences and Ariel Waldman is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. They are perverts. That is all.

Binghamton Review, November 2008

BU’s Worst Profs

28

Yay Terrorism!

BU Professors For William Ayers

by Stephen Herman ‘12

R

ecently, three Binghamton University professors, along with 4087 other Professors across the United States, have come out in support of William Ayers, the left wing radical with ties to Barack Obama. Virginia Brown Keyder, Ravi Arvind Palat, and Tom McDonough, the first two professors in Sociology and the last in Art History, have all signed an Educator Statement calling him a “Distinguished Professor,” and citing the attacks against him as “part of a pattern of ‘exposés’ and assaults designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue.”

For those who don’t know, William Ayers is the former head of Weather Underground, a radical terrorist organization that operated during the Vietnam War. In 1970 it organized the bombing of New York City Police Headquarters, in 1971

the Capitol Building, and in 1972, the Pentagon. Ayers has been quoted to say that the philosophy of Weather Underground was to ‘’kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at;” a rather socialist form of terrorism.

In 1974, Ayers wrote a book titled Prairie Fire, a political statement of Weather Underground. This book was dedicated to “all political prisoners in the U.S.” Among the names mentioned in this dedication was Sirhan Sirhan. That’s right; this “nationally known scholar” dedicated a book to the murderer of Robert Kennedy Jr.

Along with these acts, the Black Panthers, a division of Underground, participated in a number of other bombings. Ayers has claimed that to the best of his knowledge he has never killed anyone, but he certainly intended too. One of the more notable examples of this bloodthirsty spirit was the bombing of the house of a New York State Supreme Court Judge named John Murtagh.

In an interview with John Gibson in April 2008, Murtagh’s son relayed the incident: Murtagh was currently trying a case involving 21 of the members of the Black Panthers. At 4:30am on a February morning in 1970,

three gasoline bombs were set off at the home of Judge Murtagh. This must have been with the intent to kill him and his family, otherwise the Panthers wouldn’t have bombed the family when all of the family members would have been asleep. Furthermore, Ayers’ wife Bernardine Dohrn took credit for these bombings, which means Ayers wasn’t too far behind. Does this sound like mere history? Should we forget about the horrible things he has done just because he did them 40 years ago?

Ayers has never apologized for his acts of violence and destruction during the Vietnam war. Actually, he has said just the opposite. In an interview with New York Times reporter Dinitia Smith on September 11, 2001 Ayers said, ‘’I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.’’ What was his position on the bloodthirsty socialist policy of Underground? He said that he didn’t remember saying it, but “it’s been quoted so many times I’m beginning to think I did. It was a joke about the distribution of wealth.’’ If it were a joke, it would be a pretty harsh joke. However, actions speak louder than words. His actions are the loudest.

These professors seem to think that Ayers’ wrongdoings are a thing of the past. They were 40 years ago; they are now out of date. These same professors forget that his agenda is still as radical as ever. At around the turn of the century, Ayers served on the Woods Foundation and the Annenberg Challenge. Both of these foundations seem to have fairly normal missions. The

Binghamton Review, November 2008

29

BU Professors who Support Terrorists: 1. Virginia Brown Keyder 2. Ravi Arvind Palat 3. Tom McDonough Woods Foundation’s mission statement “is to increase opportunities for less-advantaged people and communities in the metropolitan area, including the opportunity to shape decisions affecting them.” The Annenberg Challenge “encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.” Too bad the way that these foundations went about their missions during Ayers’ tenure was way off track. During Ayers’ time on the board he funneled money both to his very own Chicago Forum for Small School Change, a radical socialist educational group, and to ACORN, a group that has become better known recently due to the incidents of voter fraud around the country.

The professors have proposed that Ayers is “distinguished” and a strong proponent of democracy, pushing Graduate and PhD students to “take seriously their responsibilities as educators in a democracy.” Consider this, on September 9, 2008, Ayers posted an article on his view of education.

He said that the purpose of education is “to reach beyond the superficial barriers that wall us off from another, to resist the flattening social evils like institutionalized racism, to shake off the anesthetizing impact of the authoritative, official voices that dominate so much of our space… linking our

conduct firmly to our consciousness.”

What does it say about professors who advocate that we take a man with such views on education seriously?

In this writer’s opinion, Ayers is a radical. He posed for a magazine in 2001 in which he was stepping on an American flag. This is not a proponent of democracy. He has never apologized for his terrorist actions.

His ideas are still as radical as ever, and the statement that complaints against him, “serve as warnings that anyone who voices perspectives and advances questions that challenge orthodoxy and political power may become a target, and this, then, casts a chill over free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy,” is absurd.

Why professors at our own university would ever support this extremist is beyond comprehension.

So far Virginia Brown Keyder, Ravi Arvind Palat, and Tom McDonough have been unavailable for comment.

There is one thing that is true: Anyone who challenges the status quo of the University system will be shouted down, which is why Mr. Ayers is doing so well.

-Stephen Herman is a freshman at Binghamton University. Virginia Brown has planted a pipe bomb somewhere in his dorm. Good luck, Steve.

By The Numbers The Koreas

22.9

Percentage of GDP North Korea spends on its military

2.9

Percentage of GDP South Korea spends on its military

$1,700

Average annual salary (USD) of a North Korean

$25,000 Average annual salary (USD) of a South Korean

1.18

Million telephones in North Korea including zero cellphones

67.4

Million telephones in South Korea including 43.5 million cellphones Sources: CIA World Factbook, RAND Corporation

Binghamton Review, November 2008

Back in the Day

BR flashbacks

30

The New Tribalism

by Paul Torres December 1997

T

ribalism has returned to Binghamton University, and no one knows where it might strike next. For the warriors of diversity their struggle to transform Binghamton University, and beyond, has made new inroads.

Those who command the halls of power wherever they may now reside, whether they be in the offices of the Student Association, or in the LASU lounge, have not ceased for a moment this semester to further their goals. In a relatively calm and trouble free semester the politics continues.

The new colonists of multiculturalism have already done enough damage to our university over the decades. Their contempt for our school’s mascot, the familiar silhouette of the colonials, destroyed out institution and emblems of pride many years ago. No longer is the tradition of the Colonials News carried forth into the future. In the years of its silver 25th anniversary, 1970, the Colonial News was to be no more. Today, instead, we can all appreciate the favor done for us way back when in 1970 by the hippies of the day, and carried on down to us by each successive generation of the campus media establishment. It was in 1970 the campus twice-weekly was reborn as pipe dream at the hands of a politically correct utopian yearning, and out of contempt for the pur-

ported big lie of all lies, the American dream and of course America itself.

The campus yearbook, another example, was also slain many years ago by the new sense of tribalism. The Colonist yearbook was similarly to be no more, and instead the Pegasus yearbook was given birth to by political correctness.

These names are devoid of its ties to our University. They were severed with the cultural revolution’s high tide that brought Binghamton one step closer to become the People’s Republic of Binghamton. The Colonials News and The Colonist are examples of two institutions that fit into the school. Everything fit in somehow, and students could relate to these easily by way of their identifying with the school. However, for some the word “colonist” and especially an American colonial era colonist, is too much to bear.

It is in reality difficult to comprehend just how preoccupied the ideologues of political correctness really are with anything colonial and American in nature in order to quibble over our school’s mascot and the names if our school’s institutions. The contempt out of which they act for anything American, or anything historically grounded in Western Civilization, such as the colonials, should be able to convince anyone that the

multiculturalists are a breed of utopian idealists, fixated upon a vision that leaves God and country distinctly our of the picture. Even more importantly, this vision includes what amounts to wholesale re-colonization.

Is it any mystery that students bemoan Binghamton’s lack of school spirit. With social engineers everywhere attempting to correct for the purported injustices of the past while also trying to change America’s future, Binghamton has been cast adrift in a sea of institutions that are devoid of their once clear and concrete meaning.

The Nelson Mandela room so named in his honor is a perfect example of the hold of the intellectual and the ruling cultural elite. For all of the lofty ideals that it purportedly embodies, a room named in honor of Nelson Mandela still fails to capture the minds of ordinary students who can not see its relevance to themselves or their country. This is simply because there is none, except of course the bongs of political correctness. Indeed, how anyone can easily identify a symbol, that of the Nelson Mandela Room in this case, representing something so completely extraneous to our on experiences here at home is a mystery. It is reasonable to suggest that only the ends of political correctness and multiculturalism are served

Binghamton Review, November 2008

31 through honors bestowed upon Nelson Mandela in this fashion. It is the honor paid indirectly, but tangibly, to multiculturalism more than anything else that is likely easily discernable by students at large. Well, at least they have some connection with it.

This new and imposing ethnos thinking permeated almost all aspects of life. At an otherwise enjoyable holiday concert over the week-

The new colonists of multiculturalism have already done enough damage to our university over the decades. end the last think I expected to see was a social reengineering project underway at Binghamton University.

And at an event that is ordinarily innocuous to say the least. One must realize that it is not just the student left, but their counterparts and leaders working within the administration and academia that are responsible for the drive towards multiculturalism.

The University establishment has set upon invading every corner of our community. No longer can one escape to a musical performance where the last thing anyone should wish to

be subjected to is politics. Inside however should have served to warn all with this calendar listing: “Candles, Carols, and Cultures: A Multi-cultural Holiday Concert.” The event, according to the program guide, was a presentation of the Department of Music and “A musical Celebration of Chanukah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas.” The elite of academia has apparently taken the holidays of Christmas and Chanukah, two millennia and two and half millennia old holidays respectively, and thought it fit to present Kwanzaa alongside them.

Not only is Kwanzaa not a holiday anywhere outside America, it is not a holiday in America either in the loosest sense of the term. Kwanzaa is the brainchild of an American college professor and had its beginnings in 1966. A notably completely secular holiday, its purpose was to provide a separate holiday, based upon separate history, and separate culture to black Americans.

At the heart of all these lie to some extent or another ethnicism, from the Greek roots ethnikos and ethnos. Roughly equivalent to a national, a people, or foreign, ethnicism betrays the true divisive nature of the engineered tribalism of the cultural elite. That is the new tribalism.

Look for Binghamton Review’s

21st Birthday Special Issue later this month!

-Paul Torres graduated from Binghamton in 1998 and was Editor-in-Chief of the Review during the 1997-1998 academic year.

Binghamton Review is a monthly, independent journal of news, analysis, commentary, and controversy. Students at Binghamton University receive two copies of the Review free of charge (non-transferrable). Additional copies cost $1 each. Letters to the Editor are welcome; they must be accompanied by the author’s current address and phone number. All submissions become the property of the Review. The Review reserves the right to edit and print any submission. Copyright © 2008 Binghamton Review. All rights reserved. Binghamton Review is distributed on campus under the authority of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Binghamton Review is a member of the Collegiate Network and is a Student Association-chartered organization. Binghamton University is not responsible for the content of the Review; the Review is not responsible for the content of Binghamton University. Binghamton Review thanks the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Past Editors of Binghamton Review: John Guardiano, Yan Rusanovsky, Kathryn Doherty, Ephriam Bernstein, Michael Malloy, Paul Schnier, Adam Bromberg, Bernadette Malone, Michael Darcy, Nathan Wurtzel, Amy Gardner, John Carney, Paul Torres, Jason Kovacs, Robert Zoch, Matthew Pecorino, Michael O’Connell, Louis W. Leonini, Joseph Carlone, Christopher Powell, Nathaniel Sugarman

Binghamton Review, November 2008

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