Thursday, October 4, 2012
4 • THE DAILY BEACON
Editor-in-Chief Blair Kuykendall
OPINIONS
bkuykend@utk.edu
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College-Educated
College creates absence of sleep Emily DeLanzo Managing Editor I should probably sleep more. The bags under my eyes aren't the most flattering, and the stress is going to my head. I've been told I can't live off of black coffee and Greek yogurt, but I haven't died yet. The people in my 8 a.m. Spanish class probably think I live under a bridge — or that I have no interest in a life partner. Showers are always neglected before ten a.m. and brushing my hair is now an option in modern day life. Mornings aren’t my best friend. More often than not, I am useless. Extremely unresponsive at best. I’m a barely breathing, sometimes snoring, lump of sweatpants — unless I wake up early enough to stand in line with other sleepy drones at Dunkin' Donuts. Maybe if I fell asleep before the birds started chirping in the morning, I'd probably be a much more pleasant and productive individual. Put that together with clean teeth, an outfit that excludes yoga pants and an appreciation for sunrises. I should sleep more. My dreams barely have an opportunity to start before my alarm smashes them with little respect. God knows how many fantasies with John Stamos, black bears and superpowers have gone incomplete. The obnoxious squawking of my clock pays no regard to unfinished dreams, no matter the excitement. I should dream more. My daily routine consists of coffee, class, Beacon, library and occasional sleep. That combination doesn’t give way to the best ideas. My brain could be housing the solution to global climate change or the next best color of toe nail polish. I’ll
never know since I never have face time with my pillow. I should rest more. I should contribute more than a few butchered conjugations in my Spanish 211 class every MWF morning. The only thing worse than my use and abuse of the English language is my interpretation of the Spanish language. Additionally, I’d feel less inclined to skip classes and embrace naptime. I should sleep more because it’s unfair to force people to acknowledge my obviously disturbed, constantly frazzled smelly self on a daily basis. It’s time to bring myself back from the edge of a Britney Spears-worthy meltdown and plan for eight hours of sleep nightly. College students, myself included, vastly underestimate the need for sleep on a daily basis. Save your sanity and indulge in showers on a regular basis. Make friends with your comforter before midnight occasionally. If all else fails, coffee is my savior. Hot Vanilla: Ingredients 1 cup 2% milk 2 teaspoons white sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon Pour the milk in a microwave-safe mug. Stir together the cinnamon and sugar, then stir the milk. Mixing the cinnamon into the sugar first will help keep it from floating on top. Stir in the vanilla. Place mug in the microwave and heat for 1:40 or longer for a warmer drink. Stir before drinking. Not to sound like your mother, but warm milk supposedly serves as a sleep aid. If that fails, pop some melatonin. — Emily DeLanzo is a senior in environmental studies. She can be reached at edelanzo@utk.edu or followed on Twitter at @Emily DeLanzo. Recipe courtesy of Recipes.com.
SCRAMBLED EGGS • Alex Cline
RHYMES WITH ORANGE • Hilary Price
Columns of The Daily Beacon are reflections of the individual columnist, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or its editorial staff.
Guantanamo death reveals inhumanity Urb an La n d sca p e by
Lindsay Lee On September 10 of this year, Yemeni national Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif died in his prison cell at Guantanamo Bay. Latif was never charged with a crime and was never given a trial. Latif was taken into custody by Pakistani police near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan in late 2001, and was handed over to US forces, who placed him in Guantanamo by January of 2002. The United States government claimed he was recruited by al-Qaeda to train for terrorist operations, but Latif maintained that he was traveling to Pakistan to seek medical attention for injuries sustained in a car accident in 1994. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy said in 2004 that Latif “is not known to have participated in combatant/terrorist training.” He recommended in 2004, and then again in 2007, to have him transferred out of Guantanamo. In July of 2010, he ruled that the government lacked sufficient evidence and that his detention was unlawful, ordering that he be released. But the Obama administration appealed, claiming that Judge Kennedy was completely wrong and misguided. The Court of Appeals in 2011 ruled in favor of the government, and Judge Kennedy’s order was overturned. Latif suffered from chronic back pain, deafness, headaches, heartburn, and a sore throat. He never received proper medical treatment or any assisting devices for his deafness. He was regularly mistreated by the Guantanamo Immediate Response Force, who entered his cell, threw him on the ground, dragged him, strangled him, and knocked him unconscious. He cut his wrists in front of his lawyers in 2009, and often expressed a desire to die because “death [is] more desirable than living.” He tried to commit suicide multiple times. The official cause of his death has not yet
been released. This is the ninth known death at Guantanamo Bay. Six of the previous eight deaths were by suicide, with the others being reportedly due to natural causes. Part of Obama’s platform when he ran for president in 2008 was to close Guantanamo Bay. He presented it as an overreach by the Bush administration that was blatantly in opposition to human rights. In 2009, right after he was sworn in, Obama signed an order that suspended proceedings at Guantanamo and ordered its closing within a year. Congress and the military both opposed this measure and have since blocked any efforts to close the prison. It would be great if we could blame Obama’s broken promise on Congress, but we can’t, because in 2011 Obama signed the Defense Authorization Bill, placing restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to mainland prisons, further delaying its closure. The United Nations called for the closure of Guantanamo. Other developed nations view the proceedings there as incredibly inhumane and unconscionable. But it seems that Obama has since changed his mind or his priorities away from human rights. It is completely clear that the use of this detention facility is reprehensible. It is a disgusting overreach of American power abroad, and an arrogant, paranoid product of deep-seated racism. In a 2004 report, the New York Times said that of almost 600 detainees, a maximum of 24 of them had any meaningful connection at all to al-Qaeda and that very limited information could be gathered from detention and questioning. Are we really so arrogant that we believe this murky concept of “homeland security” is worth the detention, torture, humiliation, and abuse of hundreds of innocent people? People with lives and families? Even after all these years since 9/11? Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif is just another example of the extent to which we are pushing our fellow human beings. We should be ashamed. — Lindsay Lee is a junior in mathematics. She can be reached in llee26@utk.edu.
Next president influences Supremes C ommit tee o f I n f ra ct i o n s by
Greg Bearinger
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The Daily Beacon is published by students at The University of Tennessee Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and Tuesday and Friday during the summer semester.The offices are located at 1340 Circle Park Drive,11 Communications Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-0314. The newspaper is free on campus and is available via mail subscription for $200/year, $100/semester or $70/summer only. It is also available online at: www.utdailybeacon.com. LETTERS POLICY: The Daily Beacon welcomes all letters to the editor and guest columns from students, faculty and staff. Each submission is considered for publication by the editor on the basis of space, timeliness and clarity. Contributions must include the author’s name and phone number for verification. Students must include their year in school and major. Letters to the editor and guest columns may be e-mailed to letters@utdailybeacon.com or sent to Blair Kuykendall, 1340 Circle Park Dr., 11 Communications Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-0314. The Beacon reserves the right to reject any submissions or edit all copy in compliance with available space, editorial policy and style. Any and all submissions to the above recipients are subject to publication.
CNN ran a piece on the potential Supreme Court vacancies to be filled next term in office, depending, of course, on who is serving on January 21, 2013. They began to discuss not only some potential replacements but also some potential retirees on the court. In my opinion, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are the most likely to retire, being two of the three oldest members of the court. Antony Scalia, the other member of this geriatric group, will probably serve into his second century, until he comes back as zombie Scalia, and is finally taken down by bands of roving liberals occupying a vast, post-apocalyptic future. The landscape of the court is much more likely to change if Romney is elected. Ginsburg will probably last until 2015-ish, and replacing her with a conservative will surely swing the court to conservative from it currently being almost conservative. Kennedy's being replaced by a liberal would be a boon to the liberals, but there is no doubt that Ginsburg is more liberal than Kennedy is conservative. I don?t think that Supreme Court justices have too great a need to stay on the court until they will be replaced by someone of their ilk (after all, that pesky "death" thing could get in the way), but it is interesting to note that only Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement, Samuel Alito, would be an exception to this rule. I would have to think that conservatives would have to feel better about their candidates, thanks to George W. Bush, who was able to overcome the whole Harriet Miers fiasco to put just about
every conservative with an Ivy League law degree into a court position. In fact, what has been strange is the lack of judicial appointments on the part of Obama; other than Clinton, no recent liberal has made the same effort toward appointing people to the courts as Reagan or Dubya. Liberals should find this very curious. Conservatives should be wondering why or even how this matters, which has been a staple of the Republican platform since Reagan, and has gone almost unmentioned by Romney during his campaign. Of course, the debates may make this issue come once again to the forefront, but the absence of this discussion has been mindboggling. Republicans should be the angriest. Whatever you think of last year's slightly wonky ruling that held up "Obamacare," Republicans probably have concern about calling a punitive tax, well, a "tax" and not a fee; this seems very antithetical to their "small government" mandate. While I don't much care to think about whether or not the Founding Fathers would approve of today's government, I do wonder sometimes what their opinion of these matters would be. I am pretty sure their reaction would not be one of surprise, at least not to the extent we'd expect. I do think they might lament now, as indeed they could have during their own lifetime, that the Supreme Court would be anything like a political issue. But for all the shortsightedness government could be accused of, the one platform that political parties can use that will have long-term effects is supplying the courts with people who will decide what the Constitution means to the future. It would be nice if the candidates would bring it up between accusing the other of hating whoever doesn't support them. —Greg Bearringer is a graduate student in history. He may be reached at gbearrin@utk.edu.