volume 4, issue 3

December, 2007

PURDUE REVIEWTHE “Quidquid latine

dictum sit, altum viditur.”

Vol. 4 - Issue 3

What’s Inside:

Holiday events at Purdue University

....Page 4

Are labor unions good for America and for our Economy?

....Page 4

Top 10 things to get your favorite conservative for Christmas

....Page 4

Drew Carey is a Celebrity and a conservative. Who knew?

....Page 5

New rules for the Co-Rec....Page 5

Letters from liberals...to liberals

....Page 5

2008 Presidential Primary Fantasy Politics

....Page 7

The debate from hell....Page 7

Would Thanksgiving be different if the pilgrims had been Italian?

....Page 8

Were the pilgrims socialists or capitalists?

....Page 8

Sudokus, crosswords, comics and more!

....Page 8

[email protected]

Is The American Dream Dead? A Purdue Professor Claims It Is.

The 2008 Presidential Primary in a Nutshell

See “Primaries...” - pg. 6

See “Dream...” - pg. 3

By Naomi Whittaker

“The American Dream does not ex-ist.” This statement was made recently by a professor here at Purdue Uni-versity. This pro-fessor (who shall remain unnamed) attempted to con-vince students in her class that they cannot attain the fictional “Ameri-can Dream.” Un-fortunately, these words, taught in a classroom, are a reflection of self-ishness, taking the privilege of living in the greatest na-tion in history for granted. An infi-nite number of people around the world, past and present, would give anything for a taste of freedom.

It is a shame that some, blinded by this relatively easy life, can only create

misery for others. The hardest obstacles college students face include dealing with picky roommates, ending a long term relationship, or taking a final exam.

Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about be-ing tortured by the government or being imprisoned for speaking our personal opinions. It is difficult, if not impossible, to fully comprehend the blessings of this great country without experi-encing oppres-sion; however, it is easy to wake up each day grateful to be a citizen of the United States,

and let me remind you why.The American Dream is not a fairy

tale notion. Dreams are the heartbeat of America, the land of the free. It all be-

your time to know that I have officially en-dorsed Rudy Giuliani for President. This doesn’t mean, however, that I am positive he will win the nomination or that I dislike the other candidates. I just think he is the most qualified and is best suited to bring about the changes so many conservatives desire. I’ll save the more detailed reasons for my endorsement for a later issue.

It is also worth noting that Democrat politics are not my forte, and therefore I will not be covering the Democrat presi-dential candidates in nearly as much de-tail as I will be covering the Republican candidates. I have watched several of the Democrat debates (I have watched all 458 of the Republican ones) and maintain a healthy knowledge of their campaigns, but I am no Democrat strategist. More Repub-licans would win if that were the case.

With all this being said, it is time to move on to the analysis of the presiden-tial candidates and their standings in this rushed primary race. Candidates will be listed in alphabetical order by their last names and only the top three Democrat candidates will be covered (I know very little about the remaining five).

By Scott Sowers

If you haven’t been living under a rock or in the basement computer labs of Beer-ing and the math building, then you’ve probably noticed that a US presidential election is approaching. Based on cover-age by all media that covers politics, you might believe that this election is tomor-row. In the minds of many democrats and pessimistic republicans, Senator Hillary Clinton has already won the presidential election by a large margin (something her husband never achieved).

Fortunately for conservatives, and even many liberals, the general election is still 11 months away and Hillary Clinton has not actually won yet. This is not to say she won’t win, that is certainly possible, but to declare a winner of a presidential election a year out is about as absurd as declaring the winner of the World Series before the end of spring training.

Because of the sense of urgency by the media and both political parties to elect a new president, states are in a race to hold the first primary elections of 2008. The state party officials seem to believe that they will have more impact on their par-ty nomination for president if they move

their primaries forward. The Iowa caucus-es will take place on January 3rd, followed by the Wisconsin Republican convention on January 5th and the New Hampshire primary on January 8th. There are a hand-ful of primaries held shortly after the first three, but 21 states will hold Republican primaries on February 5th, or Super Tues-

day (22 states will hold Democrat prima-ries on this day).

Given that the first primaries are less than a month away and that the next issue of the Purdue Review will not come out until after those first and crucial primaries, I will provide an extensive analysis of the candidates and how they are likely to per-form.

To start off, it would probably be worth

Just a little something to keep you going during

the last two weeks of the semester, from The Pur-

due Review.

Why do they call it dead week???

THE PURDUE REVIEW December, 2007 2

MISSION STATEMENT

The editorial staff at The Purdue Review will utilize the medium of print to enter-tain, educate and enlighten the student body at Purdue University as well as the entire Greater Lafayette community.

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed within these pages are the views held expressly by each respec-tive writer. The opinions of these writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any of the other writers in this publication nor by Purdue University. This paper is in not affiliated with Purdue University; however, the staff is comprised entirely of Purdue students.

The Purdue Review meets every Wednesday from 8:00 to 8:30 pm in Krannert G005. All are wel-come to attend the meetings and contribute to the paper. No expe-rience is required. Contact Scott

Sowers for more details:

[email protected]

PURDUE REVIEWThe

DIRK SCHMIDTPublisher

SCOTT SOWERSEditor-in-Chief

AMANDA THAYERManaging Editor

DAVE SIUKOLALayout Editor

GENE MARSHALLStaff Writer

JOSH TEASDALEStaff Writer

ASHER DIMITROFFStaff Writer

NAOMI WHITTAKERStaff Writer

JAY WOODStaff Writer

THERESA AKREColumnist

BRIAN WHITTAKERCartoonist

MATT LUNSFORDAdvertising

NEAL EVANSPhotography

The Purdue Review1612 N River Rd.West Lafayette, IN 47996

[email protected]

www.ThePurdueReview.com

Picture of the Month

Engineering Fountain - Photo by Neal Evans

The Purdue Review is looking for editors, staff writers (politics,

sports, science & technology, etc.), columnists, photographers, graphic artists, and reporters for the Spring

Semester of 2008.

No previous experience necessary.

Contact the Editor in Chief, Scott Sowers if you’re interested.

We’d love to have you on our staff!

[email protected]

Write for the Purdue Review


Letters to the Editor

Dream...FROM PAGE 1

gan when our founding fathers had their dream of America and of their futures. Today, that dream is manifested in the capitalist market. Any American can start his or her own business, no matter how farfetched. In order to succeed, one only needs a passion and determination to try, try again. Your math professor, your parents, and even George W. Bush can-not stop you from achieving your goals. You are the only one capable of preventing your American Dream from becoming a reality.

Don’t believe me? Well, it is true that the majority of people have not been physically handed the means to accomplish their dreams. However, in this nation, the lack of money and ed-ucation is not a valid excuse. Take Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds, as an example. He did not graduate from high school. Those who succeed literally make their ideas into reality through hard work. A great misconception is that the working people of America, due to their success, owe services via government programs to those who do not pursue success. Be-cause the foundation of America was not constructed in this way, governmental handouts only serve to weaken the struc-ture of the system (i.e. the economy), and thus, harm all citizens. With welfare, for example, we enable dependency and thus limit the potential of each human being, whether their dream is to be a friendly

Walmart greeter or a renowned NASA scientist. It boils down to the simple con-cept that genuine happiness is attained from earning, not taking.

The greatness of America does not fundamentally lie in her beautiful landscape, strong economy, or techno-logical advancements. These are evi-dence of human potential, which result

from the privilege of living in a soci-ety which endorses freedom of speech, religion, self-reli-ance, and educa-tion. It is the result of what can happen in a land of oppor-tunity. Foreigners risk their lives and leave their families behind to reach this land in order to seek the freedom to be whom they as-

pire. My parents were once those people, escaping as empty pocketed, political refugees from the constraints of Commu-nist oppression in Poland in 1984. They yearned for the freedom of individuality and opportunity. My parents pursued their vision so that future generations would be able to achieve their potential. Now, I am privileged to be able to live my own American Dream.

Contact Naomi at [email protected]

Asher,

Although I partly agree with your ar-ticle in the October Purdue Review that the mass text messaging and E-mails are not a sufficient increase in security mea-sures, I do feel your position on allowing students to carry handguns is far out of line.

I myself am an NRA member, have a concealed carry permit, and do carry a concealed weapon in my vehicle on occa-sion. However, allowing an entire campus to carry a concealed weapon is not only a ridiculous proposition, but it unwarrant-ed. It is radical thinkers/believers such as yourself that give gun owners a bad repu-tation in today’s society when you try and force your beliefs onto a society.

Carrying a concealed weapon in one’s car is one thing, in that you are not infring-ing on the beliefs of others. Notice that I said beliefs and not rights. All rights have restrictions as well, and not carrying on campuses is just one of them. However, if weapons were allowed on this campus, you would have to think about the masses of people that would be uncomfortable and even scared to attend class.

As for the airlines allowing pilots to carry weapons... notice that they did not let the PASSENGERS carry weapons. In fact they have cracked down on security to make sure nothing close to a weapon is allowed to be boarded onto the plane.

Allowing students to carry weapons

is like giving the passengers weapons, it will end up a disaster.

Mark D. Petersmann

Asher,

Great article about the bullets. I com-pletely agree. I was just wondering though is there anyway possible to get the administration to realize what I did when the massacre at VT happened ?Thanks for voicing you opinion. I completely agree.

- Chris

Asher,

I have never picked up one of the Pur-due student papers before and today I picked up the October 2007 issue of the Review (mainly because it had a gun on the front of it and I wanted to know how

liberal the writer was [I like to check how much farther America has fallen from time to time]).

I want to say how pleasantly surprised I was when I read the article. I am amazed the administration hasn’t shut you guys down; but then again most of the people on this campus are probably too weak/liberal to realize how right you are.

I have always ranted to friends and family something to the effect of: if one person had a .22 during (occasion when people were shot) it would have turned into another beautiful excerpt from “The Armed Citizen” in American Rifleman. That about wraps it up; and thank you again for making my day.

- Jerad Thompson

Love us? Hate us? Send your comments and hate mail to [email protected]

“It is time for us to realize that we’re too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We’re not, as some would have us believe,

doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will

fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our

faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no heroes, they

just don’t know where to look.”

Ronald Reagan on The American Dream

“The American Dream is not a

fairy tale notion. Dreams are the

heartbeat of America…”


There’s No Place like Purdue for the HolidaysBy Amanda Thayer

For most people, the weeks leading up to Christmas are packed with fun-filled holiday traditions. In my family that in-cluded seeing the lighting of the Christmas tree downtown; decorating; cookie baking days; my mom forcing me to listen to the Partridge Family Christmas album repeat-edly; watching classic holiday movies like White Christmas, A Christmas Story, and A Charlie Brown Christmas; going to see the Nutcracker Ballet; and about a dozen other traditions. It is a holiday for family and friends. Like the song says, it should be “the most wonderful time of the year”.

Unfortunately, for most college students this is one of the more stressful times of year, with finals quickly approaching. This can overshadow the joy and magic of the holiday spirit. However, Purdue does its best to keep this holiday spirit in the air through the month of December. Pur-due has many Christmas traditions of its own that students, faculty, and community members look forward to each year.

As you may know, the “Holidays at the Union”, which is organized by the Pur-due Student Union Board, kicked off this week. It began Monday, with the arrival of the Great Hall Christmas Tree. This Christmas tree, located in the great hall of the Union, is one of Indiana’s largest in-door Christmas trees. The tree (and life-size gingerbread house beside it) is one

Purdue’s main attractions during the holi-day season. Tuesday through Friday lo-cal school groups and choirs will provide music around the tree.

Another main event of the week is the celebration of “Holidays Around the World”, which is taking place today from 1 to 6 p.m. in the North Ballroom of the Union. This program is intended to honor and educate about holidays from all differ-ent cultures. There will be booths, dem-onstrations, and refreshments representing all the continents of the world. This fun week will come to a close with the annual Breakfast with Santa.

That is only the beginning of the Christ-mas fun here at Purdue. Purdue Musical Organizations will be holding their 74th annual Christmas show “Christmas from the Heart” on December 7 – 9. Audi-ences of all ages enjoy this show every year, with its glitz, dancing, and favorite holiday tunes. “The performances will of-fer something for everyone, and we look forward to the audience members head-ing home with a feeling of Christmas in their hearts,” said Brian Breed, director of PMO. “The show will feature music rang-ing from highly staged and choreographed tunes like ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot

Like Christmas’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ to holi-day favorites such as ‘Joy to the World’ and the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’”

If none of these holiday treats spark your interest, maybe enjoying a cup of hot cocoa and listening to your favorite Christmas song would be enough to beat your Christmas blues. Some of our avid readers weighed in on their favorite Christ-mas song. Molly McKenna, a junior in the Theater department, said her favorite holiday tune is “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire because it’s a feel good, Christ-mas cheer song.” Winter Wonderland is a favorite for Jennie Huss, a junior in the school of Liberal Arts. “It’s a classic, but still fun and cute,” she said. Others had trouble deciding what their favorite would be. Jon Nolting, a junior in Building Con-struction Management is one of those peo-ple. “I don’t have a favorite; I like them all!” he claimed. You will be able to enjoy some of these classic Christmas tunes as you walk on campus the next few weeks. The bell tower will be playing Christmas carols in between classes instead of its usual Purdue fight song.

Whatever your favorite holiday tradi-tions are, I hope you can overcome the stress of finals and the end of the semester and enjoy the season. We, here at the Pur-due Review, wish you a very Merry Christ-mas and a Happy Holidays.

Contact Amanda at [email protected]

A Case for At-Will EmploymentBy Josh Teasdale

As the Presidential primary season heats up, the various candidates in both parties are crisscrossing the country trying to build support in the most fluid presiden-tial race in decades. In addition to the pub-lic stomping for support in speeches, meet and greets, town hall questions, and the like, candidates from both parties are ea-ger to receive the endorsement of various special interest groups. Indeed, it is during the primary season when various groups show their real power to affect government and public policy. On the Democrat side, labor unions have enormous influence. The endorsement of the American Federa-tion of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), among others, often has the ability to propel a candidate into top tier status. But at a time when the country is facing increasing competition from other countries’ cheap labor, unions do far more harm to our country and econ-omy and shouldn’t have nearly as much influence as they do.

The labor movement has evolved over the years from a Marxist view of econom-ics that values workers’ quality of life over economic efficiency. While improving the quality of life is a noble goal, the means by which organized labor seeks to accomplish this goal overlook the effect of introduc-ing inefficiency into an economy that must compete with other nations. This being the case, there should be little involvement of the government in regulating union acti-vates. The right to gather and associate

with others, and form an association is clearly, and rightfully so, enshrined in the First Amendment of our constitution.

The problem is that the government has sought to regulate and protect unions for years, giving them more power than they would otherwise have in a true at-will em-ployment system. Instead of allowing a free market system, where organized labor and employers compete with their own natural influence, laws favor unions by prohibiting employers from taking many actions against labor. An employer has little choice in whether to run a business that uses organized labor or not, as it is not legal to base hiring and firing choices on membership in a union. By forcing em-ployers to accept unions, they are forced to pay their employees’ wages and give benefits that hurt the business and make it harder to compete internationally.

The evidence of this is obvious. Both the car industry and education system in the United States have been severely damaged by being forced to accept orga-nized labor, which demands benefits that can’t be accommodated without damage. Teacher tenure, which has been a consis-tent demand of teachers’ unions, prevents schools from firing poor teachers and thus takes away the motivation for teach-ers to compete among themselves for the best performance. The car industry in the United States has been suffering for years and hasn’t been nearly as competitive as it could have been had the various com-

Conservative Christmas Wish List

Subscription to the Purdue Review1. $25 - www.thepurduereview.com“An Inconvenient Book” by Glenn Beck2. $15.60 - www.amazon.comHillary Clinton Voodoo Kit3. $12.95 - www.amazon.com“The Reagan Diaries” by Ronald Reagan4. $21.00 - www.amazon.comJihad Java Cafe Travel Mug by Club Git5. mo $18.95 - www.rushlimbaugh.com“I ♥ Halliburton” T-shirt6. $12.95 - www.glennbeck.comMonica Lewinski Cigars7. $4.95 - www.politicalgifts.com“24” Season 6 DVD box set8. $37.99 - www.amazon.com“Merry Frickin’ Winter” Xmas Cards9. (10 cards per box) $15.95 - www.glennbeck.comSpringfield XD Subcompact 3” Pistol 10. www.springfield-armory.com

Don’t know what to get your favorite conservative for Christmas? We list the Top 10 items to get them!

See “Employment...” - pg. 12

Purdue Memorial Union Christmas Tree


From One Liberal to Another Neal’s Unofficial Rules for the RSCBy Neal Evans

I have formulated a list of rules that I believe anyone who uses the Co-Rec (RSC) should follow; if you don’t fol-low them then you are uncouth. Why am I qualified to make this list? Be-cause I’m not rude, at least not all of the time.

1. DON’T CURL IN THE SQUAT RACK

This should be obvious, but clearly it’s not. I see it every time I’m there. You don’t need a 7’ tall heavy-duty metal structure to do bicep curls, and you probably aren’t as strong as you think you are (not that a barbell curl is any indicator of strength anyway, even if you’re using your whole body to get it up). I don’t care if you want to use a barbell, but there is a section of the weight room dedicated to people who have curl-based workouts (in the back by the leg press) and there are only 3 squat racks. Leave them to people who want to move some serious weight.

2. IF YOU AREN’T GOING THERE, DON’T PARK THERE

The first time I went to the Co-Rec this year it was about 1:00 in the after-noon and I almost didn’t find a parking

spot. I was thinking, with dread, of how ridiculously crowded the place must be to have the entire parking lot filled to the point where I had to park in the grass by the baseball diamonds. So I go in, prepared to wait in line for every-thing and…almost no one was there. I was baffled. A hundred people must have overtaken the parking lot with a specific purpose for their negligible convenience. There are numerous C lots around campus that aren’t connected to buildings. The south campus and Ross-Ade lots have a bus service if it’s really too far to walk (looking at GoogleEarth, the south and Ross-Ade lots are about the same distance from campus as the Co-Rec).

Ok, so I only have two rules. I’m probably not qualified to make this list, but I think I’m not the only one who feels this way. I could go on about how so many people are doing their workouts all wrong, but that doesn’t really bother me as long as it doesn’t affect my work-out (if you do want to learn something though, I can direct you to a very useful website, my email is below). So please, all I ask is that you have some consider-ation for your fellow students.

Contact Neal at [email protected]

By Brian Whittaker

I have no intention of explaining how this correspondence I now offer fell into my hands.

One must note that there are two types of liberals. First there are the Elite, who run the liberal agenda be-hind the scenes, viewing themselves as superior and more sophisticated. Sec-ond there are disciple liberals, who are manipulated by the Elite through the deceptions of liberalism. This letter is from one Elite to another, instructing how liberalism should be employed by his disciples.

From one Liberal to another,

People no longer think of their be-liefs as “true” or “false”, but as “con-ventional” or “progressive”, “academic” or “practical”. Jargon, not logical argu-ment is our best ally in keeping people from the Right. Don’t waste time try-ing to make them think that liberalism is correct! Instead, convince them that liberalism is the philosophy of the future – that it is bold, and courageous.

By the very act of arguing, you awak-en a person’s reason, causing them to ponder universal issues and taking their

attention away from immediate sensual experiences. Our role as the Elites is to fix their attention only on themselves and their emotions.

Thanks to the messages we tell them in their times of trouble, they will find it all but impossible to believe in suc-cess and happiness while they struggle in everyday life.

Above all, do not attempt to use logic or science (I mean, real science) as a defense against Conservatism. If they must dabble in science, focus them on consensus and sociology as those sci-ences don’t lead to definitive outcomes; don’t let them look beyond themselves. Give them the grand idea that they know it all.

Be sure to remember that our job is to befuddle them. By the way some young Elites talk, one might sup-pose it was our job to actually teach.

-Your Experienced Friend

Contact Brian at [email protected]

Right-Leaning Celebrity Alert!Watch the comedian Drew Carey

The 49-year-old Carey was born and raised in Cleveland, and joined the Ma-rine Corps after attending Kent State. He credits his time in the military with turning his life around: “The things I learned in the Marine Corps have stayed with me to this day,” he wrote in his 1997 book, Dirty Jokes and Beer. “I hate being late, I’m very organized, and I’m not afraid to take respon-sibility for my own actions.” The Marines left a visible impression on him as well: He kept his crew cut. Com-bined with his horn-rimmed glasses and suit-and-tie wardrobe, it gave him one of the most distinctive looks in comedy. He’s like an anti-hippy.

Carey caught his big break in 1991, when he performed a six-minute routine on The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson loved it and Carey was launched. Two years later, he starred in a Showtime comedy special. After that, he earned a supporting role in

a short-lived NBC program. The experi-ence taught him the art of the 22-minute sitcom. In 1995, The Drew Carey Show premiered on ABC. At the height of its

nine-year run, the program attracted 17 million view-ers. Carey also performed in Whose Line Is It Anyway?, an improvisa-tional comedy show. “Drew is a really sweet guy,” says Penn Jillette, part of the Penn & Teller comic duo. “He’s the kind of person you would want to sit next to on a plane, even if you didn’t know him.”

Political hu-mor was never

a central part of Carey’s act — if it had been, he might not have had his chance at fame. “A lot of the gatekeepers in show business are liberal,” says Tim Slagle, a comedian who has performed at conser-vative confabs. Yet Carey didn’t steer to-tally clear of politics, either. As far back as the early 1990s, he cracked jokes about global warming. Having suffered through long winters in Cleveland, he didn’t think

hotter temperatures were necessarily a bad thing. He also lampooned the Hard Rock Cafe’s do-gooder slogan, “Save the Planet.” In the pilot episode of his sitcom, Carey’s character denounced a nosy bar patron as a “safety Nazi.”

His book includes plenty of the lewd content for which he is well-known — Carey is no social conservative — as well as a fair amount of political material. His targets are bipartisan, though it’s obvious that he enjoys telling Kennedy jokes. Car-ey’s critique of Bill Clinton could warm the heart of any free-market wonk: “You even sent your daughter to an exclusive private rich-kid school. Nice going, espe-cially since you’re so vigorously opposed to school vouchers which would let the av-erage Joe provide the same opportunities to his daughter that you gave to yours.”

Carey’s appreciation for military cul-ture shines through, too, especially when he mounts a politically incorrect defense of the Navy over the Tailhook sex-harass-ment scandal: “I don’t want a navy full of fighter pilots who’ve been to a sensitivity seminar. I want mad-dog, rabid killers go-ing to battle for me and mine.” In 2003, Carey led a team of comedians to Iraq to entertain U.S. soldiers. “We just came here to tell you that we appreciate you and that we support you completely,” he said from a stage in front of what had been Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit.

During the second season of The Drew Carey Show, Reason magazine invited subscribers in the Los Angeles area to attend a meet-the-editors mixer. Carey

By John J. Miller

On the September 18 broadcast of Power of 10, a new game show on CBS, host Drew Carey asked contestant D. J. Burgduff this question: What percentage of Americans are willing to pay higher taxes for the government to provide universal health care? While Burgduff thought it over, Carey performed a comic riff: “Personally, I can’t wait for universal health care.” Then, in a mocking voice: “From the folks that brought you FEMA, the TSA, the DMV, the IRS, comes uni-versal health care! It’s going to be fantas-tic, to have the government in charge of our health!”

Nobody who watched the program could have mistaken Carey’s opinion of socialized medicine: He thinks it’s a stu-pendously bad idea. Yet Power of 10 isn’t a talking-heads program on a cable chan-nel — it’s a quiz show on a mainstream network with millions of viewers. Carey nevertheless has turned it into an occa-sional platform for his right-of-center libertarianism. It’s not his only platform. On October 15, when Carey succeeds Bob Barker as host of The Price Is Right, the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, will debut the first in a series of public-policy videos starring Carey. At the end of the month, Carey will attend his first meeting as a member of Reason’s board of trustees. Following years of success in stand-up comedy and on sitcoms, Carey is on the brink of be-coming one of the Right’s most visible celebrities.

Drew Carey, Comedian - Drawing by Darren Gygi

See “Carey...” - pg. 9


spot. I think McCain’s “time” was in 2000, but he missed the train.

Barack Obama (D) – The Senator from Illinois is everything a Democrat could want in a presidential candidate: he’s young, energetic, articulate, passion-ate, and liberal. Obama is the modern JFK without a family history of bootlegging and enormous wealth. Many thought he was on his way to greatness after a speech he gave at the 2004 Democrat National Con-vention, and they may be right. Though he trails Senator Clinton in numerous polls, he is now leading or tying for first in Iowa. His grassroots campaign is huge, and he

has enormous support from youth, minori-ties, and Oprah. Can he win Iowa and beat the Clinton machine in the rest of the pri-maries? It’s surely an uphill battle, but it’s not impossible.

Ron Paul (R) – The Congressman from Texas is more of a libertarian than a con-servative and is probably more against the war in Iraq than many Democrats. His grassroots campaign is rivaled only by that of Obama’s. Though his support is still small compared to the major contend-ers, you wouldn’t know it. His supporters spam web sites, message boards, and text message polls like they have nothing bet-ter to do. Paul would also like to abol-ish the IRS, which many citizens would applaud, and the FBI and the CIA which doesn’t seem likely to gain him support. Ron Paul even managed to raise $4.2 mil-lion in one night, making it the largest one-day online fund-raising event ever. Paul and his supporters have called the campaign the “Ron Paul Revolution,” but the “money bomb” they received on Guy Fawkes Night might leave many wonder-ing just what kind of revolution they are planning. Congressman Paul has failed to gain substantial showing in any respected poll, and it is highly unlikely that he will be the Republican nominee.

Mitt Romney (R) – The former Gov-ernor of Massachusetts is really the other guy to beat on the Republican side. Rom-ney was a successful governor in an ex-tremely liberal state and is no stranger to

He has been getting out his message, and people are responding. Is he the authentic conservative Republicans have been look-ing for? He claims so, but many feel that is up to debate. Regardless, he has shown an incredible amount of momentum in the last several weeks and is, coincidently, Rudy’s secret weapon to which I eluded above. If Governor Huckabee manages a win in Iowa, or comes in a very close second place, he will likely grab most of the media attention. Mitt Romney would not gain the momentum needed to snow-ball through to the end and McCain and Thompson’s campaigns would probably stop dead in their tracks. Due to the quick-

ened pace of the primary season, I think it’s unlikely that he could gather the re-sources and support necessary in order to win the states needed to grab the nomina-tion. In summary: a vote for Huckabee is a vote for Rudy. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Huckabee on the Republican ticket for Vice President.

Duncan Hunter (R) – I’m not certain why the Congressman from California is still running. Though he is probably one of the most conservative candidates run-ning and always has excellent responses during the debates, he has made very little headway. He has neither the money nor the name recognition to pull this off. But, he did build that fence in San Diego to deter illegal immigrants. Hunter is also probably on the other candidates’ lists of possible running mates.

John McCain (R) – The more I listen to the Senator from Arizona, the more I like him. He has fairly conservative credentials (despite the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform act) and has the passion that Sena-tor Thompson lacks—probably too much of it. McCain is so passionate that he of-ten seems frustrated and angry. He saw a slight resurgence in poll numbers after a fantastic debate earlier this year (I think it was debate number 349), but hasn’t seen any forward momentum since. I wouldn’t count him out of the race yet, but don’t get your hopes up. McCain is also likely on the lists of possible running mates, but I have a feeling he won’t take the second

Hillary Clinton (D) – The Senator from New York and former first lady is the Democrat to beat in this primary season. She leads the other Democrat candidates by large margins in the national polls and in many of the early primary states. Is her nomination inevitable? No, but it’s highly likely. Bill Clinton, I believe, is still very much in control of his party and the Clin-ton political machine is unrivaled. She has a few major downfalls though: she has unprecedented disapproval ratings in the polls, and she has been known to change her position on issues frequently. Her op-ponents, Democrats included, have noted that she even changed her opinions on the war in Iraq and illegal immigration several times just in the last two debates.

John Edwards (D) – This man baffles me. He’s a one term Senator from North Carolina and was so unpopular in that state that he didn’t even bother running for re-election. In 2004, he purchased 10 acres of land in Orange County, NC (across the street from a mobile home park, no less) and constructed a 28,000 square feet man-sion. He then launched his campaign on the basis that he is the presidential candidate for the poor (the “other America”). Sena-tor Edwards is such a blatant phony, but yet he’s virtually tied in the polls in Iowa with Senators Clinton and Obama. Given that he failed the Democrats miserably in 2004, I think it’s unlikely he’ll capture the nomination for either the presidency or the vice presidency. But again, Edwards is one of the primary reasons I don’t pretend to understand Democrat strategy. Perhaps people just think he’s attractive.

Rudy Giuliani (R) – The former mayor of New York City is the candidate to beat on the Republican side, though his lead is not nearly as wide as Senator Clinton’s on the Democrat side. Eight months ago, Washington insiders were predicting a Romney/McCain battle in the primaries; Giuliani was too “liberal” and had too many skeletons in the closet to win, yet he’s still in the race and is leading in the national polls and in many of the primary states. Mayor Giuliani has large leads in many of the Super Tuesday primary states, but his poll numbers in many of the earlier primary states are not so good. Currently, he’s behind by more than 10 points in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire and is virtually tied in Michigan and South Caro-lina. He was also the undeniable loser of the Romney/Giuliani feud over immigra-tion in the last Debate. However, Giuliani has continued to defy conventional politi-cal logic and has a secret weapon which I’ll mention later. Don’t be surprised if he wins the Republican nomination.

Mike Huckabee (R) – I have been tell-ing people since August to not count the former Governor of Arkansas out of the race just yet. Governor Huckabee is elo-quent, passionate, and has the same appeal that another person from Hope, AK—Bill Clinton—had. Huckabee has seen a surge in both national and state polls in the last month. He is now leading Mitt Romney in Iowa by a small margin (basically a sta-tistical tie), and a recent Rasmussen poll showed him only five points behind Giu-liani in the national polls (second place).

presidential races; his father, George Rom-ney, sought the presidential nomination for the Republican Party in 1968. Romney was one of two candidates I heard speak at a convention in Indianapolis this past summer. He is insanely smart, an excel-lent speaker, and he just looks presiden-tial. Romney consistently comes in sec-ond in the national polls and maintained large leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, until recently. Though he still has double digit leads in the Granite State, he is now tied with Mike Huckabee in Iowa. Gover-nor Romney certainly has the money and has slowly gained the name recognition needed to win his party’s nomination, but Huckabee may steal his glory. He is as likely to win the nomination as Giuliani, but things aren’t as bright as they were a few weeks ago. Even his campaign has started using language like, “If he finishes in the top two, he’ll be fine.”

Tom Tancredo (R) – The Congressman from Colorado is the Immigration Man in this race. This is his number one issue, and he’s against it—legal and illegal. This stance makes him seem a bit over-the-top in the eyes of many people and has failed to garner significant support. He’s certain-ly conservative, but like Duncan Hunter, he doesn’t have the money or the name recognition to really compete. I have a feeling that he might be running just to ex-pose what he, and many others, believe is a serious issue that needs to be confronted. I think it’s safe to say he won’t be the Re-publican nominee for president and I think vice president is equally unlikely.

Fred Thompson (R) – The former Senator from Tennessee was the other candidate I saw in Indianapolis this past August, and I was not terribly impressed. Thompson was heralded as the next Ron-ald Reagan, but is more likely the next Jack Kemp. There was much hype sur-rounding his unannounced candidacy this summer—probably too much hype. When he did announce, he saw very little in-crease in support and has continued to fall like a dead bird in the national polls. Of the major contenders, he is probably the closest to a “Reagan Conservative,” but it appears to have made little difference. It often seems that he’s only running because so many others encouraged/force him to do so, and not because he actually wanted to. My guess: after losing most of the early primary states, he’ll drop out of the race and endorse either Rudy Giuliani or John McCain. It’s unlikely we’ll see him on the ticket at all, but like Jack Kemp, he may win some votes from unhappy convention delegates in September.

It’s important to keep in mind that A LOT can change in a matter of weeks when it comes to politics. Just a month ago, it was looking like Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney would win Iowa without any trou-ble. That certainly isn’t the case today, and it may not be tomorrow. Though I am fairly convinced that I “know” how things will play out, I also understand that the race can change in an instant and I could be entirely wrong. One thing is for certain, this will probably be one of the most exciting and unusual elections in history.

Contact Scott at [email protected]

2008 Presidential Candidates

FROM PAGE 1

Primaries


The Candidates of Destiny: 2008 Fantasy Politics

a real steal as an eighth pick, and the final two picks were about as good as you could expect.

Brian’s TeamWith the second choice overall, Bri-

an must have felt like the New Orleans Saints when Reggie Bush was still on the board after the first pick in the 2005 NFL Draft. Clinton is by far the most popular candidate in the race, and will accumulate an almost insurmountable number of points in the first few pri-maries. Although Paul has an unrivaled grassroots effort, his inability to score in legitimate polls makes him a ques-tionable second round pick, especially considering Edwards and McCain were still on the table.

Dave’s TeamAt this point Romney is second in

national polls among Republicans, but he has important leads in early primary states including Iowa, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Should Romney pre-

By Gene Marshall

As we introduced in our last issue, this year staff members of the Re-view are going to be participating in a fantasy presidential draft. At our last meeting, four participants made their selections from the top 16 candidates, eight from each party. Initial draft or-der was established on a random ba-sis, and draft order was reversed every round to promote equity. Points will be awarded based on the percentage of the vote each candidate receives in each primary. The teams are as follows:

One of the biggest factors that in-fluenced the draft decisions include the accelerated primary schedule with states fighting for more influence on the general election. Michigan and Florida have moved their primaries earlier than most states. Democratic candidates will not even be participat-ing in these two primaries due to party rules against holding primaries so early. This could work out well for teams that drafted more Republican candidates on their team because they will have more primaries to earn points. Although the Democrats have more candidates, the national polls are dominated by Clin-ton, Obama, and to a lesser extent Ed-

wards. As the primaries draw closer and the race gets tighter in Iowa and New Hampshire, it will be interest-ing to see if the current leaders stay strong throughout the primaries and what sleeper pick comes from behind. Below is an analysis and handicap of each team up to this point.

Jay’s TeamFrankly, taking Giuliani as the first

pick in the draft was a little surprising. The primary race on the Republican side is still wide open between the top four to five; consequently Giuliani will garner significantly less points than Clinton who only has to fight off two legitimate contenders. Edwards was

Round Jay Wood Brian Whittaker Dave Siukola Amanda Thayer1 Giuliani (R) Clinton (D) Romney (R) Obama (D)2 Edwards (R) Paul (R) Thompson ( R) Huckabee (R)3 Richardson (D) Hunter (R) McCain (R) Biden ( D)4 Gravel (D) Dodd (D) Tancredo (R) Kucinich (D)

serve his lead in these states, it’s very possible he could snowball his early success all the way to the nomination. Despite the fact McCain’s campaign is running on borrowed money, he was by far the best third round selection in the draft. Dave will also benefit from the Republican’s participating in more primaries than the Democrats. If I were a betting man, this would probably be my team.

Amanda’s TeamThis is the dark horse team because

Obama, Huckabee, and even Kucinich are surging in both national and early primary polls. Amanda did a good job picking candidates who are quickly ac-cumulating momentum. While none of these candidates are likely to run away with an early primary, Obama and Huckabee will garner enough sup-port to stay alive late into the primary cycle. Obama will especially rake in points because of the consolidation among the Democrats.

By our next issue Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina will have held their primaries and caucuses. Should any candidate manage to gain momentum and snowball through these early states, it’s possible we could have a much smaller primary field. Be sure to pick up the next issue of the Purdue Review to follow up with the Candidates of Destiny!

Contact Gene at [email protected]

The Debate that Wasn’t By Gene Marshall

You may think that the latest CNN/You-Tube debate, with the highest ratings of the season is a healthy thing for democracy, but that couldn’t be more wrong. If you can get beyond the fact Anderson Cooper is without question the worst debate mod-erator of the season, the CNN/YouTube debate format was an abomination. It got off to a bad start when the debate opened with some guy who wrote a song about the candidates, and it just got worse from there. We learned nothing new about the candidates due to the ridiculous format, which was a blatant ratings grab by CNN. In the television industry, nothing drives ratings like normal people, but you can’t use normal people for everything.

Just because you own a webcam does not make you a qualified debate panelist. Anyone who has ever participated in a de-bate can tell you that questions should be chosen that highlight broad issues. When thousands of individuals are responsible for submitting the questions, the questions are inevitably going to be very personal in nature.

Our politicians cannot, and should not, try to take the time to concern themselves with individual’s problems. When politi-

cians begin to act in this way, it invites corruption into the government. Out of the thousands of questions submitted, surely CNN could have selected questions that allowed the candidates to speak about is-sues, and not address people’s pet peeves.

Instead, CNN chose to select ques-tions that were pre-produced and made for good television. The questions at-tacked specific can-didates, and then the other candidates were not even forced to respond to the same awkward questions. With question after question addressed to the top candidates, how could we possi-bly know if there is someone better out there?

CNN wasn’t interested in equal oppor-tunity for the candidates on stage; they were interested in the prospect of having sole coverage of a major slip-up. CNN wanted to shove as many unrelated ques-

tions down the candidate’s throats as pos-sible. The simple reason behind this was ask people as many questions as possible, with the higher likelihood that someone might slip up. Consequently there wasn’t

any time for discussion even when candidates actually managed to engage in debate, de-spite the pathetic pro-testations by Mr. Coo-per.

However, the worst part of the debate was the planted ques-tions. Even if we give CNN the benefit of the doubt say that they didn’t know the ques-tions were planted, the best case is that CNN did nothing to screen the questions. To keep the candidates from ac-tually engaging in de-bate (and taking time),

Anderson Cooper repeatedly emphasized how hard people had worked to submit their YouTube questions.

If CNN really cared about how hard people had worked to submit their ques-

tions, they would have screened the ques-tions for people who had already declared their support for a Democrat candidate. There were four questions that made the debate that were planted by Democrats who had already declared their support for candidates for Edwards, Obama, and Clinton. One of the questions was even submitted by someone who was on one of Clinton’s advisory committee.

Primary debates are intended for people who are still undecided about which candidate they will support. The people who planted questions did not even attempt to hide their affiliation; it was on their YouTube profiles. CNN’s failure to investigate the people they chose can only be described as abject negligence. Had these questions been posed by an actual moderator, any person off the street would have identified the bias.

This format just enabled CNN to ob-scure their biases with these supposedly impartial participants. While the ratings ensure that this format will be used again, future participants and voters alike should insist on careful regulation.

Contact Gene at [email protected]

Anderson Cooper - worst moderator ever


The Rest of the Story

anyone else, because everyone received an equal yield.

Bradford saw that this form of collectivism was devastating. In response, he assigned each family a plot of land to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the free market. “This had very

good success”, wrote Bradford, “for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than other-wise would have been.” When the Pilgrims re-placed socialism with capitalism, they pro-duced more than they could possibly con-sume. To celebrate, they invited the Indians to dinner and voila: Thanksgiving.

Many Ameri-can schoolchildren aren’t taught the glories of capitalism and about how the Pilgrims might not have survived if

William Bradford hadn’t unleashed the free market. Our Thanksgiving instruction was cut short, but (in the words of Paul Harvey), “Now you know the rest of the story.”

Contact Jay at [email protected]

By Jay Wood

In grade school, we learned about the Pilgrims coming to America, surviving the first winter with help from the natives, and giving thanks for the bountiful harvest. What many of us were not taught, howev-er, was that the experience of the Pilgrims isn’t just a tale of sur-vival, it’s an early capi-talism success story.

When the Pilgrims landed, they found, according to William Bradford's journal, “a cold, barren, desolate wilderness”. During their first win-ter, half of the Pilgrims died of starvation, dis-ease, hypothermia, or any combination thereof. The following spring, Squanto and other tribesmen taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod, and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper.

The Pilgrims had agreed to a con-tract with their British merchant-sponsors that called for all produce to go into a community collection - each citizen being entitled an equal share. Nobody owned anything. All acquired property belonged to the community at large. Laborers had no motivation to work any harder than

By Thomas J. Craughwell

I WOULD BE WILLING TO BET se-rious money that right now in your kitchen you have olive oil, garlic, pasta, parme-san cheese, and dried basil (maybe even fresh basil!). Nothing exotic there, right? They’re ingredients we take for granted. But their appearance in our kitchens is a relatively recent phenomenon. Believe me, those big-flavor items did not come over on the Mayflower. It took genera-tions, even centuries, for Americans to ex-pand their culinary horizons to the point where just about everybody cooks Italian and orders Chinese take-out. Heck, the su-permarket in my little Connecticut home-town even has a sushi bar.

Alas! It was not always thus. American cuisine, like the settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth, got off to a rocky start. Blame it on our English and Scotch-Irish ancestors. As a people they possessed many admirable qualities; they were tough, they were independent, some of them could read. Yet the original settlers of the American colonies were not famous for their discerning palate. Let me give you an example.

When the Pilgrims arrived in Massachu-setts in 1620, lobsters were so common all you had to do was stroll down to the near-est tidal pool and pluck them out by the bushel. But the Pilgrims wanted meat, not fish—not even fish as succulent as lobster. Very quickly familiarity bred contempt:

The better class of colonists scorned the crustacean as suitable only for the poor. In his journal for the year 1622, William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth col-ony, recorded the landing of a boatload of new colonists from England. Their ar-rival was a thrilling event, yet Bradford confessed that he and his fellow Plymouth residents were humiliated that they had noth-ing better to offer the newcomers than lobster. (How times change. These days, the only thing that could make a Yan-kee recoil from lob-ster is the price.)

In fact, the Eng-lish settlers looked upon virtually all fish (sturgeon and oysters being the exceptions) with scorn—and this in a land where the shoreline and coastal rivers were teeming with salmon, cod, flounder, shad, haddock, and sea bass. As for clams and mussels, the Pilgrims fed them to their pigs. As if this prejudice against seafood weren’t enough, early Yankee cuisine suffered from a severe disadvantage: The Pilgrims had brought no livestock with them. The first cattle—

three cows and a bull—did not arrive in Massachusetts until 1624. In other words, during their first four years in America the Pilgrims were without butter, cheese, milk, and cream. Their neighbors to the south, the Dutch on the island of Manhat-tan, moved much more quickly to bring

diary products to America. Barely a year after the Dutch established the New Amsterdam colony, the first huddled mass of Holsteins came ashore at what is now New York City’s Battery Park.

The culinary situation in colonial America improved somewhat when the first German colonists arrived in 1683. If there isn’t a commemorative plaque at the site

of that little settlement at Germantown, Pennsylvania, there ought to be. Here was the birthplace of the first sauerbra-ten in America; the cradle of cole slaw; the spot where for the first time boiled potatoes were tossed in a warm, savory dressing of fried bacon, white vinegar, and mustard. It is not going too far to say that food that tasted good arrived in America with the Germans. Under the influence of

the newcomers English and Scotch-Irish cooks added some German recipes to their repertoire, but by and large they clung to their classic overcooked, under-seasoned, overly sweetened fare. YANKEES ARE OFTEN DERIDED FOR BOILING PER-FECTLY GOOD MEAT. I wish I could dismiss this as slander, but I am afraid that our ancestors did indeed boil everything from loins of beef to the turkeys that were served at the first Thanksgiving. But they had their reasons. Roasting meat over an open fire took hours, requiring someone to stand there and turn the spit. Adults were too busy to do the job, and it was hard to dragoon the children into spending three monotonous hours sweltering over a hot fire. The simplest solution was to plunk the meat in the boiling pot and walk away.

This sad desecration hung on among Americans of British and Irish descent well into the 20th century. I knew a Michigan woman who shortly after her wedding day in the late 1940s invited her in-laws over for dinner. She bought a loin of beef and prepared it the way her Irish-born mother always had—by boiling it until it was well done. While helping with the dishes after the meal was done, the new homemaker’s mother-in-law confided, “When I was first married I boiled beef, too. But trust me, dear, beef is much tastier if you roast it. Especially if you take it out of the oven when it’s medium rare.”

Then there are vegetables: Yankees

If Only the Pilgrims Had Been ItalianWhy aren’t we having lobster for Thanksgiving?

See “Italian...” - pg. 12


showed up. “Before Drew, says editor Nick Gillespie, “I think the biggest celeb-rity we’d seen was Curtis Armstrong, the guy who played Booger in Revenge of the Nerds.”

Before long, Carey fell into the Rea-son Foundation’s orbit. He sat down for a Q&A with the magazine. “You should never depend on the government for your retirement, your financial security, for anything. If you do, you’re screwed,” he said in the interview. He wore a Reason T-shirt on his sitcom. When Reason senior editor Jacob Sullum’s anti-anti-smoking book For Your Own Good came out, Car-ey proposed a publicity stunt: They held a “smoke-in” at a local restaurant to pro-test anti-smoking laws. “The whole thing was his idea,” says Sullum. “We thought it would get local attention, but it got na-tional attention.” The public interest, of course, came from the fact that Carey, a non-smoker, was willing to leverage his fame to score a point against hyper-regulationist ordinances. “Sacramento shouldn’t tell you what to do,” he told a Los Angeles Times columnist. “They think they’re your nanny. Pretty soon they’ll be telling you how to dress, what time to be in bed.”

Around a year ago, Carey approached the Reason Foundation about collaborat-ing on a video-journalism project. “He told us that he wanted to do the kind of

thing Michael Moore was doing, but about freedom,” says David Nott, Rea-son’s president. “It took us about two sec-onds to decide to collaborate.” The result is Reason.tv, which will feature a series of ten-minute documentaries starring Carey. They focus on public-policy topics from a libertarian perspective. The first episode looks at traffic congestion, filtering the proposals of Reason transportation guru Robert Poole through Carey’s populism. Future topics will include eminent-do-

main abuse, medical marijuana, and char-ter schools. Reason has raised funds to re-cord about two dozen. Carey takes no fee and has personally invested in the project. “I hope through my gift of argument to influence policy decisions,” he said in a Time.com podcast in August.

Carey has shied away from overt parti-sanship, seeming more comfortable with ideas than candidates. Yet he’s been a longtime supporter of George Voinovich, the Republican senator from Carey’s na-tive Ohio. “When I was running for re-election in 2004, he did an event for me — one of the most successful fundraisers I’ve ever held,” says Voinovich, whose daughter is a California screenwriter. Shortly before the 2000 elections, Carey appeared on Fox News and railed against Democrats. “Every time somebody’s suc-cessful, the Democrats want to demon-ize you,” he said. “If you want to make money, you want to get rich, you want to get ahead, all of a sudden you’re a demon, you’re a devil.” He complained about death taxes (“I just don’t think it’s fair”), the old luxury tax (“blue-collar guys all got put out of work”), and the war on pov-

erty (“how long has [it] been going on?”). He also took aim at Hillary Clinton: “It doesn’t take a village to raise a child,” he insisted.

On Power of 10, Carey is much more subtle. It’s a game show in the new style, with exuberant guests, pulsating music, audience participation, and the potential for big-money prizes. Questions are based on surveys, and contestants have to guess at everything from what percentage of women have changed a flat tire (50 per-cent) to what percentage of Americans are afraid of circus clowns (9 percent). They win rounds by coming within a certain range of the correct answer. Carey doesn’t know the answers until they’re revealed to everybody, and he often tries to help guests. On the August 22 show, he asked Julie Foehr what percentage thinks there should be a mandatory cut-off age for elderly drivers. As Foehr mulled it over, Carey commented: “So far on our show, the polls show that Americans don’t like the government telling them what to do, even if it’s good for them, even it if makes sense. They don’t like the govern-ment butting in.” A moment later, Foehr guessed that between 62 to 72 percent supported a cut-off age. She should have listened closer to Carey: The answer was 38 percent, and she was booted from the program.

Since Power of 10 started in August, Carey has made wisecracks about the IRS, feminists, and gun control. From this unexpected perch, he may yet nudge public opinion on a variety of topics in a conservative or libertarian direction. But he clearly has a lot of work to do. Re-member that September 18 question to D. J. Burgduff about how many Ameri-cans would pay higher taxes for universal health care? The answer was 51 percent.

Sounds like a good subject for Carey to tackle on Reason.tv.

Reprinted by permission of National Re-view, 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016. © [10, 2007.] National Re-view, Inc. www.nationalreview.com

CareyFROM PAGE 5

Drew Carey hosting the Price is Right

If you had a gun held to your head, for whom would you vote in the 2008 Primary Election?Asher Dimitroff: Rudy GiulianiNeal Evans: Ron PaulMatt Lunsford: John McCainGene Marshall: Mitt RomneyDirk Schmidt: Mike HuckabeeDave Siukola: Fred ThompsonScott Sowers: Rudy GiulianiJosh Teasdale: Mike HuckabeeAmanda Thayer: Mitt RomneyBrian Whittaker: Fred ThompsonNaomi Whittaker: Fred ThompsonJay Wood: Fred Thompson


Major Headlines: November 1st, 2007 - November 30th, 2007November 1 - Massive flooding hits the Mexican state of Tabasco, with the governor estimating that 80% of its 25,000 km surface area is under water.

November 2 - Stocks across Asia drop sharply with the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong losing 3.25%, which is the biggest loss of any Asian market.

November 3 - President Pervez Mush-arraf declares a period of emergency rule amid rising militant violence in Pakistan.

November 4 - Antonio Cromartie of the San Diego Chargers breaks the re-cord for the longest play in NFL his-tory with a 109 yard missed field goal return.

November 5 - Members of the Writ-ers Guild of America asks 12,000 of its members to join a Hollywood screen-writers strike.

November 6 - Scores of students are injured and arrested ahead of protests in Venezuela. The demonstrations are to demand a delay to a referendum aimed at expanding the powers of Hugo Chávez.

November 7 - At least eight people are killed and several injured in a school shooting in Tuusula, north of Helsinki, Finland.

November 8 - The United States Con-

gress overrides President George W. Bush’s veto of the $23 billion Water Resource Bill.

November 9 - Protests break out in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India, over the caricatures of Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a local newspaper.

November 10 - Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva uncovers a 4,000-year-old temple in the Ventarron site in the Lambayeque Region of Peru.

November 11 - A majority of French citizens would support a union with the French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia if Belgium were to cease to exist, according to a survey.

November 13 - Russian President Vladimir Putin said that an overwhelm-ing victory for United Russia in the legislative elections would give him the “moral right” to maintain a strong influence in the country.

November 14 - German train driv-ers start a 62-hour train strike against Deutsche Bahn, asking for a 31% pay increase.

November 15 - Major League Base-ball player Barry Bonds is indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco for perjury and obstruction of justice, having allegedly lied under oath about his use of steroids.

November 16 - U.S. Senator John Kerry accepts T. Boone Pickens’ one-million-dollar Swift Boat challenge.

November 18 - Japan resumes whal-ing of humpbacks for the first time in 40 years. Greenpeace and other envi-ronmentalist groups condemn the deci-sion.

November 19 - Israel releases 450 Pal-estinian prisoners ahead of the 2007 Mideast peace conference with the Pal-estinian Authority.

November 20 - The United Nations re-duces its estimate of how many people are infected with HIV in 2007 from nearly 40 million to 33 million.

November 21 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the White House wants to broker a permanent deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority before President George W. Bush leaves office.

November 22 - Hundreds of thousands of immigrants may not be able to vote in the 2008 presidential election be-cause of backlog at the Citizenship and Immigration Services agency.

November 23 - MS Explorer, a cruise liner carrying 154 people, sinks in the Antarctic Ocean south of Argentina after hitting an iceberg near the South Shetland Islands.

November 24 - Australian Prime Min-ister John Howard calls the leader of the Australian Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, on the phone and concedes defeat.

November 25 - Garry Kasparov is jailed for 5 days after a protest rally in Moscow and opposition leaders are de-tained.

November 26 - The People’s Republic of China signs a deal to buy 160 Airbus aircraft in a deal worth $17 billion dur-ing a visit by the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy.

November 27 - The Annapolis Confer-ence, a peace conference trying to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, is held in An-napolis, Maryland.

November 28 - The President of Paki-stan Pervez Musharraf stands down as the head of the Pakistan Army.

November 29 - Gillian Gibbons is found guilty of inciting religious ha-tred and sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan, after she let pupils name a teddy bear “Muham-mad”.

November 30 - An armed man takes hostages at Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire. He has a package strapped to his chest. The siege ends at 6pm with the arrest of a suspect


CAMPUS DIVERSIONS - FOR THAT BORING CLASSMallard Fillmore by Bruce Tinsley

Curtis by Ray Billingsley

Best described as a number crossword, the task in Kakuro is to fill all of the empty squares, using numbers 1 to 9, so the sum of each horizontal block equals the number on its top. No number

may be used in the same block more than once.

SudokuMedium

Sudoku may seem difficult at first glance, but actually it is not as hard as it looks! The rules of Sudoku are that you should fill a number in to every cell in the

grid, using the numbers 1 to 9. The restriction is that you can only use each number once in each row,

each column, and in each of the 3x3 boxes.

For more Sudoku puzzles visit: http://www.sudokuoftheday.com

Diabolical

Is there something that you would like to see on this page (or don’t want to see)? E-mail

us at [email protected]

Yesterday’s Puzzle


didn’t like them. The Yankee idea of a fine meal was several varieties of meat, a heaping basket of wheat bread, followed by lots of sweets for dessert. If vegetables appeared on the table, they were boiled be-yond recognition. It was the Shakers who first taught American cooks to undercook vegetables. Shaker chefs also discovered that a cup or two of vegetable stock went a long way to enriching the flavor of gravy and sauces.

The American Revolution was a hope-filled era, and not just in terms of poli-tics. When our French allies arrived in America to support our Revolution, they brought their flair for cuisine with them. They took to roasting American turkey, al-though they added truffles to the stuffing. They even adopted that American staple, corn mush sweetened with molasses, but they improved on the American recipe by adding a shot of cognac and topping the mush with whipped cream. It sounds like a promising beginning, but sad to say the French alliance had no lasting impact on Yankee cuisine. As late as 1796, when the first American cookbook was published in Hartford, Connecticut, author Amelia Sim-mons declared, “Garlicks, tho’ used by the French, are better adapted to the uses of medicine than cookery.” One reads such a statement and sighs heavily.

Although George Washington employed

a French chef and Thomas Jefferson en-joyed French recipes he had collected in Paris, they were the exception; the upper classes in America held fast to the British Isles style of cooking. In fact, all classes of Americans were suspicious—even hos-tile—when confronted with fancified food. It was not until the late 19th century, when the new American million-aires began importing French chefs to serve in their kitchens, that French cuisine gained some ground in the United States.

By the 1830s, a large majority of Americans had begun to see their plain food as a virtue. Cookbooks empha-sized simplicity and frugality, not meals that brought a suc-cession of interesting flavors to the table. Plain cuisine even became an issue in the presidential campaign of 1836. William Henry Harrison’s supporters managed to convince voters that their man was just or-dinary folks, content to live in a log cabin, eat his corn mush, and wash it down with old-fashioned hard cider. Martin Van Bu-ren, on the other hand, was portrayed as a foppish, Frenchified, un-American snob who sipped champagne from a silver gob-

let and liked to begin his meals with con-sommé. The smear worked, and the gour-mandizing Van Buren lost the election.

I don’t mean to overstate my case. For all the hide-bound conservatism of Yankee cooks, they did manage to whip

up some pretty tasty dishes. New England clam chowder may not sound as sophisticated as bouillabaisse, but it is delicious nonethe-less. And then there is Boston baked beans, a Yankee staple that marks the only occa-sion in American his-tory when the Puritans actually improved upon an existing recipe. The first settlers learned how to bake beans from the New England

Indian tribes who mixed beans with maple syrup in an earthenware pot, added a large piece of fatty bear meat, then set the pot in a pit lined with hot stones to bake for several hours.

The colonists preferred molasses as a sweetener, and replaced the strong, nasty tasting bear meat with salt pork. The result was a New England classic that is espe-cially associated with Boston. Food folk-lore tells us that throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Saturday night was baked

beans night in Boston. It’s impossible to say whether the story is 100 percent ac-curate, but it is true that baked beans ap-pear in the oldest Yankee cookbooks. UL-TIMATELY, IT WAS IMMIGRATION THAT PROVED to be the making of con-temporary Yankee cuisine. The Italians brought us the good stuff I mentioned at the start of this article. From the Dutch we learned how to make waffles and donuts. Thanks to the Hungarians paprika appears in the spice rack of every Yankee kitchen. From Eastern Europe, Jewish immigrants brought us the bagel, cheesecake, and world-class chicken soup. The Chinese gave us stir-fry, sticky rice, and dim sum. The Japanese taught us to love sushi, sashimi, and tempura. And via our friends the Turks and the Armenians, come sum-mer, shish kebab is as likely to appear on a Yankee grill as hot dogs.

It’s commonplace to say that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and each group that came to America brought its own gifts. Yankee self-sufficiency may have come ashore at Plymouth Rock, but tasty food arrived by way of Ellis Island. Thomas J. Craughwell writes and cooks in Bethel, Connecticut.

The American Spectator: Reprinted with the permission of The American Spectator. © December, 2007 www.spectator.org

ItalianFROM PAGE 8

Political Cartoon by Brian Whittaker

A Woman’s Right To Chooseticle, please take a look at the facts. The average abortion costs $372, bringing into the abortion industry more $400 million a year. And if the cost of an abortion wasn’t enough, Planned Parenthood, one the country’s largest abortion providers, re-ceives over 300 million of your tax dollars every year, cashing out at the end of the year with a $55 million profit. The indus-try is so profitable, most clinics run in chains. So next time you think about abor-tion, remember the price you are putting on life, even your own, is $372.

Contact Theresa at [email protected]

By Theresa Akre

The abortion industry is always telling us they are fighting for women and for women’s rights; everything that they are doing is for the better of the women. But I think it’s time we stopped letting the abor-tion industry look out for us and we started looking out for ourselves. This month’s ar-ticle is going to give you the basics on the abortion industry.

The abortion industry may tell you they are doing what they do for you, but all they really want is your money. Before you get annoyed and stop reading this ar-

panies been more efficient by paying em-ployees at a rate set by the international market.

Labor movements also can have a di-rect affect on employees by demanding benefits that can’t be met. Here at Purdue, POLE, the Purdue Organization for Labor Equality has been campaigning for some time to force Purdue to require employ-ment standards of companies that produce Purdue apparel. Employers who couldn’t comply with these stan-dards would not be allowed to produce apparel for Purdue, and their employ-ees would, sub-sequently, lose their jobs. While “sweatshops” may not be ideal, they are certainly better than no jobs at all.

The large scale effect of the economic inefficiency brought by powerful labor movement can be seen in France whose new president is trying to enact a freer market system. France has a relatively high unemployment rate of 8.7%, and its economy grew at the low rate of 2% in 2006. President Sarkozy has met much re-sistance in his attempt to bring economic reform. Labor strikes have paralyzed such attempts before when President Chirac attempted to deregulate labor by making

it easier for employers to fire employees under 26.

The Democrat Party often complains that people don’t vote in their own self in-terest. The party assumes that the addition of everyone’s personal self interests will be what is best for the country and the people as a whole. However, this is sim-ple-minded and inaccurate. The goals of progressives and liberals often are noble, to improve the quality of life for everyone,

but their meth-ods are faulty. By directly man-dating changes in the way em-ployers and em-ployees come to e m p l o y m e n t contracts, politi-cians have taken us too far away from a free mar-ket system, which is proven time and time

again to be the most efficient way to pro-duce goods and compete internationally. Individual self interest may be served by voting for candidates who embrace such policies, but in the long term, everyone is hurt as our economy suffers. In order to reverse our economy’s decline in the inter-national system, we must get back to a free market system, and laws which extend un-due protection to labor unions must be the first to go.

Contact Josh at [email protected]

EmploymentFROM PAGE 4

volume 4, issue 3

Documents