The
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
Horace Mann Review
Apocalypse Now? Page
The
Horace Mann Review The Disaster Issue 4 Adolescent
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
Activism and Apathy
Worst Nightmare “BOTmasters”
By Zachary Malter
By Neal Poole
6 The Semantics of
18 A Devastated
Disaster
By Sam Shelley
Nation
By Zach Malter
8 Modern
20 A Crash Course
Extremism
By Alice Kissilenko
10 Fact or Fiction? By Jed Feiman
By Venkat Kausik
The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 1777, Pierre-Jacques Volaire
30 Bio-Fear by William Kim
12 Avian Flu: It’s not just for the Birds By Josh Parker
31 Taiwan: The Coveted Island by Gaurav Saxena
14 Medicare: A Terminal Illness
By Jonathan Katiraei
17 The Internet’s
24 Point of Danger By Michael Kurtz
26 Rule of Law vs. Security: Which do We Sacrifice By Kimya Zahedi
32 September 11th: A Lasting Legacy
28 Vanished
33 The New WMDs
29 Burned By La
By Benjamin Jacobson
by Benito Fernandez
16 The Big Crunch: By Lindsay Gellman
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by Ben Mishkin
Palma
By Eliza Montgomery
Letter From the Editor The Horace Mann Review Volume XVI , Issue I
A Journal of Opinion on Current Events, Politics, Public Policy, and Culture
Welcome and thank you for picking up a copy of our first issue. This year we hope to come out at least five times throughout the school year. You may have noticed something different about this issue. Indeed, this will be a year of change for the Review.
Charles M. Stam Editor-in-Chief
Kunal Malkani Anoushka Vaswani Executive Editors
Diana Greenwald
Carl Case
Managing Editor
Production Manager
Jed Feiman Lindsay Gellman Josh Parker Tal Shachar Rachel Siegel Jake Sloane
Dexter Richard
Senior Editors
Director of Technology
Gopal Das Director of Operations
Ted Sumers Director of Photography and Design
Robby Shapiro Contributing Editor
Neal Poole
Andreas Sakellaris Foreign Correspondent
Director of Subscriptions and Communication
Naomi Mishkin Layout Editor
David Messenger Assembly Coordinator Associate Editors Benito Fernandez, Venkat Kausik, William Kim, Alice Kisselenko, Zachary Malter, Ben Mishkin, Sam Shelley, Kimya Zahedi Contributing Writers Benito Fernandez, Ben Jacobson, Venkat Kausik, Michael Kurtz, Jon Katiraei, William Kim Alice Kisselenko, Zachary Malter, Eliza Montgomery, Ben Mishkin, Gaurav Saxena, Sam Shelley, Kimya Zahedi The Board of Trustees Bharat Das, Raj Hathiramani, Shaan Hathiramani, David Katz, Daniel S. Levien, Sabeel Rahman, Eric Todrys, Mark Todrys, Maximilian D.C. Thompson Zachary Fryer-Biggs Faculty Advisors Mr. Gregory Donadio, Ms. Sharon Kunde Dr. Barbara Tischler
The Editorial Board has implemented a new typeset and layout scheme. We will also be completely overhauling our current organizational system and introducing sections in the next issue. New this year is a revamped and dynamic subscriptions program. If you wish to subscribe, I direct your attention advertisement on the back cover for more information. Your support is vital in making the Review a success, especially given our increased budgetary constraints. I would like to give a special thank you to those that have subscribed; it is your patronage that has let us come out frequently and do what we love. This issue addresses potential disasters in our society today. We discuss problems in the news, such as WMDs from a different perspective, but also touch on esoteric themes such as Botnets, which shows our commitment to original content. I would like to formally introduce this year’s Executive Editorial Board. Anoushka Vaswani and Kunal Malkani are the Executive Editors, and they will assist me in running the Review. Diana Greenwald, Managing Editor, is in charge of all editorial content, and Carl Case, Production Manager, will oversee subscriptions, business, printing, and advertising. I am thrilled to have such a talented team, and I look forward to working with them. In addition, we have a very talented Senior Board. Their contributions have been essential, and I implore you to look at the masthead and acknowledge these individuals. Next issue we will be tackling the politically charged mid-term elections. I look forward to seeing you then.
TheReview@horacemann.org The Horace Mann Review is printed throughout the academic year. The Review is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the American Scholastic Press Association, and the National Scholastic Press Association. Please contact The Horace Mann Review for information on advertisements at TheReview@horacemann.org. Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Editorial Board. Opinions expressed in articles or illustrations are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board or of the Horace Mann School.
Charles M. Stam
Š 2006, The Horace Mann Review
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The Horace Mann Review
Adolescent
Activism
and Apathy BY ZACHARY MALTER
Students who choose to leave the couch could make a difference
A
rielle Wisotsky and Eric Messinger seem like your conventional high school students. They attend public high school in northern New Jersey, listen to rock music, and volunteer at their local synagogue. However, they are also founders of the Help Darfur Now organization and two of the most active participants in the movement to stop the genocide in Darfur, the western region of Sudan. Together they have sent over 3,500 postcards to President George W. Bush and have worked in conjunction with other high school students to raise over $50,000 for humanitarian organizations. As leaders of the Save Darfur movement they spoke at the Save Darfur Rally in Washington D.C., which attracted over 75,000 people, many of them high school and college students. The charitable teens represent the growing number of secondary and college student social activists. Many educators say Arielle and Eric’s prominence within the activist movement reflects the larger trend towards greater global awareness among the teen age group. From Vermont, where two high school students organized a major fund raising event, to California, where high school students gathered at the Golden Gate Bridge for a massive protest, teenagers seem to be leading the crusade. “Teenagers are our supporters for all the projects we do. They are hosting events at schools and colleges, teaching people about what’s going on in Darfur,” said Suliman A. Giddo, president and founder of Darfur Peace and Development. “They are the people holding the heavy weight about spreading out the word about Darfur,” he added. With less responsibility than adults, who Giddo says, “usually have a lot going on in their lives,” teenagers may be the perfect candidates for social activists. Kate Meyer is one such teen activist. As an eighteen-year-old high school senior from San Francisco, she chose to attend the massive protest. She sees great strength in the teen move-
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ment commenting, “It was a great experience for me. It was educational and really meaningful. I remember thousands of people close together, lined up, holding hands on the bridge, showing their support. I had never seen anything like that before. It was powerful.” It can be seen from the protest in San Francisco that teenagers are leading the crusade. Teens like Kerry Meyer seem to be galvanized in response to other crises as well. With the release of An Inconvenient Truth, the ground breaking documentary about Global Warming, the adolescent population has become environmentally aware and has mobilized to fight the phenomena. Karen R. Merrill, a history professor and the director of The Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College, explains that “when we see college students coming to Williams many of them have had an interest in environmental issues and have been active in high school...The students that we see interested in environmental studies are very active in trying to find ways to approach global warming.” Merrill believes that teens can play an important role in affecting change on a small scale, if only by “bugging their parents at home.” She also explained how the Williams student activists contributed to the large-scale movement. She praises the Williams student community, saying that activism at Williams has become very concentrated. “So we have these activist students pushing the administration to try to make changes to the way the college consumes energy, and they persuade their peers to conserve energy.” Student activists at Williams she says have “held energy competitions to incite interest from the apathetic portion of the student body. They are also collaborating with the cafeteria in working to supply more organic foods, and with the local village to reduce carbon emis-
Issue 1, Vol. XVI sions by a substantial amount within the next five years.” Students also seem to be affecting social change through political means. Exit polls from the recent November 2004 presidential election show that 42.35 percent of 18-24 year olds voted, a 5.88 percent increase from the 2000 election. According to another survey conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics, 17 percent of the aforementioned age group was active in political campaigns compared to only 16 percent of people over 60. In a separate spring 2006 survey conducted by the same institute, 48 percent of undergraduates considered themselves politically engaged. This survey also concluded that foreign policy and the Iraq War are more important to undergraduates than to adults. However, other teen experts believe that the adolescent population is generally indifferent to and unaware of important global issues. Although teenagers are extremely valuable to these movements, most people who have worked with adolescents agree that the teen population is still not nearly aware enough regarding critical global issues. The surge in teen involvement may be attributed solely to the growing number of dire world crises coupled with the boom in the teenage population. Avi Kline, a high school English teacher at a public school in New York City, feels that the teenagers are mostly apathetic about global issues. He argues, “If students were so interested in global issues I would listen in on students’ conversation and I would hear discourse regarding Hezbollah, and that doesn’t seem to happen.” Even Merrill, who commended her students for their activism, felt that the national level of awareness is still insufficient, stating, “In classes outside of environmental studies I would say the awareness is there, it’s not very high, and there’s not a lot of interest in engaging with it.” Merrill added, “I don’t think everyone’s coming in with a willingness to change their own patterns... Among teens I would like to see a broader awareness of the issue and number two, a broader hopefulness. I think it’s all too easy for everybody to feel cynical and then feel that there is nothing to do.” Kate, the high school student from San Francisco, shared similar sentiments
and echoed Mr. Kline, adding that “once we leave the classroom people don’t seem to care anymore about world issues.” Kline believes that the lack of concern about global events in the teenage population can be explained in part by the economic state of teens’ families. Kline believes that the students from the demographic that he teaches, many of which come from low-income families, do not have the luxury of being able to protest for political causes because they must focus their energy on survival. Those teens may not have the money, transportation and time to become activists and often have to support their families themselves. Although experts disagree on the scope of the movement, most do agree that a plethora of different factors are important in determining its size and strength. One factor commonly suggested is the digital media and the wealth of information that is now easily accessible to teens. From provocative television programs and documentaries to blogs and Internet news video, the media seems to have a profound affect on the interests of adolescents. “You can’t underestimate the power of images,” Merrill commented. Aside from the media Merrill believes that the most powerful forces driving teens to activism are their life experiences. She believes that “if something happens directly to them it galvanizes them.” To illustrate her point Merrill provided the example of a “family [that] has a high cancer rate because they live near an incredible level of toxic waste,” and therefore has “a personal stake in trying to solve the problem.” No matter the current level of social awareness among teens, most experts agree that there is a definite trend towards greater global understanding among the population. Perhaps, Karen Merrill, the Williams College professor, says it best: “The focus on global issues among students has just accelerated over the past few years… I think we are just seeing the initial stages of awareness and it will expand in the future.”
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The Horace Mann Review
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The Semantics of Disaster BY SAM SHELLEY
hile the election of a new president brings about many uncertainties, one thing is guaranteed: some groups in the United States will perceive a disaster regardless of the outcome. During elections, we have all heard claims by members of political parties that the integrity of our dayto-day lives and democratic values would be threatened if the candidate from the wrong party were elected. Did Americans’ daily lives really change dramatically because of recent elections? Were the warnings of a breakdown in society as we know it realized? The more important question we must answer is whether the term disaster is used appropriately in this context or if it is invoked as a form of propaganda. When is it legitimate to use the term disaster? Webster’s dictionary defines a disaster as “a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction.” Using this definition, can we ever call a presidential election a disaster? President Bush’s veto of stem cell research and his blurring of separation between church and state may be considered disastrous by some, but in the long term do these policies threaten our way of life? Do they even compare to the million children who die each year in Congo due to the ongoing civil war, the genocide in Darfur, or the war in the Middle East? If we choose to call the outcome of a presidential election a “disaster,” then what do we call Hurricane Katrina, which displaced thousands and caused billions of dollars worth of damage? ” The term disaster is usually used to either justify a course of action or to refute it. The government and others classified Hurricane Katrina as a disaster in order to justify relief for the victims. In other cases, when people assume the worst possible outcome, their action may end up being counterproductive. Bill Clinton’s reform of
welfare in 1996 (the passing of welfare control from the federal government to the individual states) was seen as disastrous by many. They believed it would place millions of people in the streets. In the end not only did it not turn out to be a disaster, but many of those who originally thought it would fail now acknowledge it as a success. Perceived disasters may not always help people prepare for real disasters. Many times they can fail to alert society in the case of large-scale disasters. While it was very easy to comprehend the president changing one’s daily lifestyle, many people have trouble getting their heads around the concept that avian flu, if it does become widespread, will cause deaths in the millions. This sort of disaster is so extreme that it is almost impossible to perceive. The underlying question which we must answer is whether perceived disaster will be legitimized and whether acting upon something entirely subjective will ultimately benefit society. In some cases, such as in the case of presidential election, the desire to see “your” candidate win can cause you to foresee disastrous events in the event that the election does not end in the way you had hoped. These perceived disasters are a form of propaganda that should be avoided when looking for a solution to a problem. On the other hand, perceived disaster can be beneficial when one predicts that a certain event may cause harm to many allowing for the prevention of it. Such as hurricane prediction, where experts determine a disaster that might be caused by each hurricane and warn people in harms way appropriately. Since perceived disaster can be both helpful and counterproductive, the hard task is determining and forming your own beliefs and opinions about events which are likely to transpire. Retaining your opinions without overreacting to situations in which you feel in danger is the best way to decide for yourself whether an event will really lead to disaster.
New York • Dubai • New Delhi • Mumbai Page
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The Horace The Horace MannMann Review Review
Modern Extremism:
A
Echoes of the Ku Klux Klan
mid the constant news reports detailing the recent suicide bombings in Iraq, the bombings in Israel, and in the shadow of 9/11 it is impossible to forget about the danger of religious fundamentalism and intolerance. When placed in the hands of charismatic and twisted leaders, even benevolent religious doctrine can lead to uprisings of hate and violence. Despite such horrors as the holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, which prompted many to proclaim, “Never again,” Abdelfattah Amor, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance asserts. “There is a significant rise in religious extremism and intolerance throughout the world.” Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of such fanatical hatred is its root in the religions and faiths that many hold dear. It is difficult to accept the fact that peaceful and positive beliefs can mutate into extraordinary brutality and cause horrific carnage. Throughout history many have responded to such religious highjacking with denial. That refusal to accept the true ramifications of such violent movements has only prevented an adequate response that could have stopped matters from escalating beyond control. The news wave caused by Islamic fundamentalism has only helped many forget that beginning in the middle of the 19th century America experienced its own battle with homegrown religious extremism in the form of the hateful fundamentalist Christianity of the Ku Klux Klan. In the wake of America’s civil war, Protestant veterans of the Confederate Army seeking a remedy for an embarrassing ideological defeat formed a social club based on hazing rituals and entertainment in May of 1868. Soon the organization developed into the “Invisible Empire of the South” and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan began attacking political leaders and civilian targets supported by the notion of religious justification. Targeting “evil” and “immoral” un-Americans such as Jews, blacks, Republicans, Catholics, and divorcees, the KKK spurred a wave of violent murders, lynchings, burnings, and attacks that spreads across the South from its origin in Tennessee. Men dressed in white capes and masks terrorized local populations and at the same time visited schools to preach their hateful theology. Their goal was to rebel against Reconstruction and the freeing of black slaves by restoring moral Christian white rule. However, by 1868 the Klan began to decline when its hierarchy crumbled and its leaders disowned the by then notorious and violent group. Without any national structural levels to guide it as President Grant began his offensive against the organization, the KKK was demolished in 1871 with the Force Act and the Civil Rights Act. Those laws, which allowed the President to suspend habeas corpus in certain counties, to employ federal troops, and to prosecute criminals in federal
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BY ALICE KISSILENKO court, struck a deep blow to the organization. Yet as recent news attests to in the Middle East the imprisonment and fining of Klan brothers only lead to more hate crimes and the violence continued in states where white Christian rule was already achieved. In 1915 the Ku Klux Klan resurged, more organized, persuasive, and dangerous than ever. Perhaps worst of all it had adapted to the politics and social climate of the nation. The Klan resurgence was in part a response to the anti-Semitic film Birth of a Nation that glorifies the first Klan, as well as the newspaper frenzy over the lynching of a Jewish man accused of rape and murder. After adopting the symbol of a burning cross in addition to nativist policies directed against immigrants, the group seeped into the Midwest and Canada, and amassed over 4 million members and 15% of the eligible, white Christian male population by its peak in the 1920s. Soon it swerved from a path of only religious based crime and became a profit-making venture with the sale of membership, costumes, etc. At its helm was William J. Simmons, the founder of the resurgent Klan, who ensured that his organization became a formal national organization with local chapters and a solid foundation based on the old Prescript that was never enacted during the Klan’s first conception. The result was that in many states, the hate group took control over government and politics, disguising a wave of terror behind progressive reforms that benefited whites. Dangerous members were thus unlikely to be convicted by local white juries and were left to continue their racist activities. Fortunately, the Depression era and World War II brought around the second decline of the organization, as political supporters deserted the KKK to preserve their own reputations from the terrible crimes committed and rumors of Nazi support. However, the scale of their influence was never fully addressed and once again the KKK was left with its slogan still intact: “We’re here to stay.” Although there has never been such a climax of Klan activity as there was in the 1920s, its twisted ideologies persist throughout the country and the KKK has been pinpointed as the source of many recent hate crimes. The crosses continue to burn strongly, but in recent times it has burned in a different manner than before. The goals of the KKK have shifted along with the nation’s perspective, and the Klan now styles itself as a social and political advocate. Arguing against special programs to help blacks and against the job competition that blacks and immigrants pose the Klan has become more of a political party than a terrorist threat. In fact, the Klan is perhaps merely another constituent of the far right wing of politics and as such concerns itself with political issues such as illegal immigration, prayer in schools, the quarantining of AIDS victims, welfare, Affirmative Action, gun control, and foreigner investment in American industry. This Fifth Era of the Ku Klux Klan has also resorted to euphemisms
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for describing its theology; instead of directly preaching against minority groups, members claim that they are simply reasserting their White Christian heritage. Having opened their membership to women and young people as well, this terrorist organization has learned to embrace new methods. Through talk radio and the Internet, as well as the recently conceived Nordic Fest, three days of white power music and white supremacy speakers, the Klan has been able to spread its bias and hate very effectively and organize its membership. However, although it still holds demonstrations throughout the South and preaches at schools, the Klan has lost most of its potency as a terrorist threat. The Klan’s groups have become isolated and now frequently compete for limited resources. In light of the recent terrorist attacks on September 11 and July 7 a great public debate has arisen over whether it is religion itself that causes and fuels violence or whether certain individuals who seize power behind a mask of theological justification are the root cause. Most experts tend to agree that both factors play a role in religious extremism. What may begin with a heresy – an inappropriate simplification of genuine beliefs – can in the hands of a charismatic leader metamorphose into a widely accepted religious doctrine. Due to the absolutist nature of religion as it searches for the one and only Truth, it is easy for a fundamentalist group to label members its opposition as not adhering to faith. Through this process, the Fundamentalist groups within any religion become isolated from the counter elements that moderate them and quickly become even more extreme in their views. Reforming the aspects of tradition that have allowed groups like the KKK to label others as nonbelievers while further isolating themselves is crucial in preventing religious extremism. Denying the reality of religious extremism’s roots in the faith many of us share, though, eliminates debate and allows certain traditions and interpretations to metastasize under the cover of ignorance.
Other reforms aimed at stifling the growth of religious extremism include the preventative measures that the United Nations advocates for, which include an increased focus on education and dialogue as a means of eradicating intolerance. Targeted at school children, many of these programs seek to imprint tolerant viewpoints and nurture a sense of acceptance at early ages so as to cultivate a safer community for the future. More broadly, on both a universal and personal level, believers should question what components of their faith lend themselves to distortions which advocate violence and which balancing elements are being ignored in the process. However, the most important precaution to keep in mind when considering religious extremism is to differentiate between the extremists and the majority of believers, as discrimination only perpetuates more violence and hate. Furthermore, it is imperative to acknowledge that in most religions there is a balance between fundamentalism and reform movement and that, as Abdelfattah Amor believes, “no religion is free from extremism.” The patterns that follow the sweeping phenomena of religious extremist groups are well defined. Fundamentalist movements such as the KKK usually experience waves of growth during periods of rapid social change and then collapse due to corrupt or ineffectual leadership. In their prime the extremist groups target enemies who are typically minorities in direct economic competition with the members of the group. Other targets include foreigners who are used as scapegoats for the lack of economic success among the extremist group. Although the KKK has dwindled in stature, religious extremist groups continue to be a specter that haunts the American psyche, and while the sight of a burning cross may have been subsituted by the sight of a burning flag, both can still cause horror and terror.
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The Horace Mann Review
Fact or Fiction? The Sensationalized Media
BY JED FEIMAN
T
oday’s world is in grave danger. Like it or not, tomorrow the polar ice caps are going to flood the planet, we are all going to get cancer from diet soda, and terrorists are leading us to total annihilation. Right? Sensationalized news deceives us into believing some very scary things in order to get us, the people, to act. Whether we will rally for a new cause or just keep tuning in, the use of sensationalism by the concentrated corporate news media has an agenda to get us riled up. And it does. The term “yellow journalism” was popularized in the late nineteenth century to describe the competition between the newspapers of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, The New York World and The New York Journal-American, respectively. The two papers were notorious for being sensationalist and careless with the truth to boost sales. Sold at one cent per issue, the papers sold stories for the masses about mistreatment at factories and tenement complexes, corruption, and other crimes. Exaggeration and manipulation were tools to garner readers. In fact, many have attributed the strong support in New York for the Spanish-American War to the papers of Pulitzer and Hearst. Supermarket tabloids are one of the most blatant forms of sensationalism in today’s media. Known for their celebrity gossip, exaggerated reports, and accusatory stories, supermarket tabloids are extremely popular. Some notable examples include The National Inquirer, The Sun, The Globe, Weekly World News, and The Star, all of which are owned by American Media Inc. According to public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 2005, the total revenue of American Media Inc. exceeded $500,000,000. Sensationalism sells. While more mainstream forms of media boasts of its credibility, neutrality, and fair reporting, it seems to veer closer to the standards of American Media’s coverage all of the time. Major sources are owned by large corporations, fueled primarily by the agenda of making money rather than unbiased news. Media conglomerates such as GE, Time Warner, Disney, News Corp., CBS Corp., and Viacom are a huge component of contemporary journalism. According to The Media Monopoly by
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Ben Bagdikian, “In the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these [media conglomerates] own and operate 90% of the mass media.” Noam Chomsky, like many critics of media policy, argues that the concentration of media ownership sets strategic corporate objectives: “The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.” While there is clear competition in the media, some critics argue that the competition between the resolute media conglomerates produces sensationalism rather than journalistic innovation. “From Tonya Harding to O.J. Simpson to Elian Gonzalez, major news outlets have become more and more dependent on these kind of tabloid soap operas to keep profits high,” states Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, or FAIR, a self-proclaimed “national media watch group,” that seeks out sensationalism and censorship in the media. FAIR records an extensive list of examples of sensationalism on its website, www.fair.org. In one report, “Demonizing the Victims of Katrina,” FAIR concludes that the media portrayed Hurricane Katrina survivors as “looters, snipers and rapists.” In another statement on the media’s reaction to North Korea’s launch of missiles in July 2006, FAIR states: “While media dredged up stories of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s irrationality and eccentricity, coverage left many Americans ill-informed [in] U.S./North Korea relations.” Parallel to the practices of Pulitzer and Hearst, the “journalism” of today pursues viewers with strategy instead of content. In a study on the media, “What Are Journalists For?,” which was presented at the Conflict and Peace Forums in 1998, Danny Schecter argues that “media executives speak in the language of war: of bombarding audiences, targeting markets, capturing grosses, killing the competition, and winning.” In the midst of conflicts that journalists should be covering, competing sources are battling each other for ratings. And as with the Spanish-American War, support for the Iraq War was spurred by sensationalistic media coverage. Speaking to an artist on New York’s original reluctance to engage in battle, William Hearst openly responded: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
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The Horace Mann Review
Avian Flu: It’s Not Just For The Birds BY JOSH PARKER
T
he entire world is at great risk for what could become the most devastating epidemic the world has seen since the Black Death of the 14th Century. The cause of this potential disaster is a particular strain of Avian Flu known as H5N1. While it is highly contagious among birds, the virus is not yet transferable from person to person; however, as the virus ravages the bird populations of Asia, Europe, and Africa, scientists must work to find a cure for H5N1 before it becomes too late.
H5N1 has already mutated into several different strains of influenza. As our understanding of the virus increases, experts claim that we can delay the pandemic, but not prevent it. As there is still no humanized strand of H5N1, the world is doing its best at preventing an outbreak before one develops. The first step is to contain the virus by slaughtering the millions of birds which have become infected or been exposed to infected birds. The next step, preventing the spread of the virus by inoculating birds, has begun as well. The third step would be to find a cure for H5N1, which has unfortunately proved quite difficult. For one, the virus mutates too rapidly for scientists to isolate it and work on creating a vaccine. Of the vaccines available, the virus’ rapid mutations continually render them of little use.
H5N1 is thought to have started in Southeast Asia and affects mainly poultry, spreading through saliva, secretions, feces, and blood. The virus is still considered an avian flu because it is generally transferable from only bird to bird. However, other animals, including humans, H o w have been diagever, the biggest nosed with H5N1 The H5N1 virus on the cell level. A mutated virus may infect humans. obstacle standafter prolonged exing in the way of posure with birds. Symptoms in humans include fever, cough, a cure is that scientists cannot determine what differences sore throat, muscle aches, conjunctivitis, severe breathing existing strains of H5N1 will have from the humanized viproblems, and pneumonia. While H5N1 is very difficult for rus. As Dr. Daniel Lucey of Georgetown University said, humans to catch, the virus spreads throughout the body ex“There is no H5N1 pandemic so there can be no pandemic tremely rapidly. H5N1 carries a 58% mortality rate among huvaccine.” Given that antiviral drugs will not be of any help mans- of the reported 232 cases, 134 people have already died. against H5N1, ‘pre-pandemic vaccines’ are being tested, For now, H5N1 remains epizootic, meaning that it shedding some hope on what has become a drastic situation. cannot be transferred from person to person, but it is entire- During July of 2006, GlaxoSmithKline, one of many pharly likely that the virus will mutate into a new strain conta- maceutical companies working on a vaccine, reported that is gious among humans. Influenza has a relatively high rate has created one far more effective than previous vaccines. of mutation, as is common with most RNA viruses. In fact, Tests showed an immune system response on 80% of sub-
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The avian flu outbreak is sweeping across the globe jects using a dosage more than a four times smaller than that of leading vaccine. The smaller doses would allow the vaccine to be produced quickly enough to keep up with a pandemic and at more affordable costs, averaging ten dollars per shot. Unfortunately, no one can be certain whether these vaccines will work against the humanized virus until it appears. Researchers have been able to learn much of the information on H5N1 by looking at past epidemics, particularly instances of bird flu. The Flu Pandemic of 1918 killed somewhere between 50 and 100 million people worldwide over the course of one year. That pandemic was caused by a strain of H1N1, the same strain which causes the influenza associated with flu season. However, this strain of H1N1 was far more severe, as it affected the strong and healthy as well as newborns and the elderly. Recent research has shown the cause of this anomaly to be avian flu. Because this strain of influenza had not been in the population before, humans had no immunity to it, and therefore this strain of flu became a pandemic. Researchers have come to realize the similarities between this disaster and the impending one of H5N1, since they both kill unusually high numbers of young adults who would normally survive the flu. Worse still, it seems as though H5N1 is a significantly more deadly strain of flu. If the Flu Pandemic of 1918 really did begin as bird flu, it is foreseeable that H5N1 could mutate into a human to human virus in the same way an earlier one did.
come capable of efficient human to human transmission and that we do not have a vaccine, the next question is how devastating would an outbreak be? Because we do not know how aggressive the new strain will be, experts disagree on a number. Estimates range from around five million all the way to a billion deaths. As risk communication analysts Peter M. Sandman and Jody Lanard said, “The experts guess that somewhere between a quarter of us and half of us would get sick, and somewhere between one percent and five percent of those who got sick would die.... If it’s a quarter and one percent, that’s 16 million dead; if it’s a half and five percent, it’s 160 million dead. Either way it’s a big number.” Clearly, H5N1 is a huge threat to the human population if it were to mutate. During the late 14 th century, the world lost a third of its population to the Black Death. Some six centuries later, we are faced with a threat capable of surpassing this death toll. While the United States and countries around the world scramble for a vaccine, H5N1 continues to mutate, and it is a daunting possibility that one of these mutations will lead to a new strain capable of being efficiently transferred from human to human. Conceivabely, we could create vaccines that counter all strains of H5N1, except for the one humanized strain. Unfortunately, we will not know this until it is too late. And once it is too late, it is possible H5N1 could become the greatest human disaster the world has ever seen.
Once it is understood that H5N1 will probably be-
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The Horace Mann Review
Medicare: A Terminal Illness Can America’s Health Plan Survive?
S
ince its establishment in 1966, Medicare has improved the welfare of American citizens by providing the elderly and the disabled with health care insurance. Public service officials at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services direct the program and divide benefits using two distinct insurance plans: Hospital Insurance (HI), which pays for hospital care, home health services, and hospice care for terminally ill patients, and Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI), covering physician fees, out-patient services, and prescription drugs. Yet despite the longevity the system has had and the organization it maintains, citizens and politicians from all across the political spectrum believe that in the near future Medicare
Medicare will confront a crisis, one that can potentially thrust the United States federal government into additional trillions of dollars’ worth of debt.
will confront a crisis, one that can potentially thrust the United States federal government into additional trillions of dollars’ worth of debt. According to those critics, two main factors will precipitate the death of Medicare: the aging of the population and the steady rise of medical costs. The percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) of Medicare in 2000 was 2.2%, and that figure will be expected to rise to 9.6% by 2075. Experts say that such economic projections show that the existing system will turn into a burden that taxpayers cannot possibly absorb. The aging of the population, specifically the post World War II baby boomers, is one force behind the exploding cost of Medicare. And as incomes and life expectancies continue to rise, people tend to stop working earlier and spend longer periods of time in retirement. Thus through Medicare the federal government becomes more financially responsible for medical services. As the baby boom generation ages into the years of
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By Jonathan Katiraei senior citizenship, the number of people in the United States ages 65 and older is expected to roughly double by 2030. That age group is forecasted to grow from about 13% of +the population in 2000 to 20% in 2030, remaining so for several decades thereafter. Moreover, life expectancies are rising, so the average baby boomer is projected to live about two years longer than their parents did; therefore, they can spend more time in retirement. While a great number of boomers enter the stage of retirement, a much smaller population of youth will enter the labor force, resulting in many fewer workers per retiree. Whereas there were 4.8 people ages 20 to 64 in 2000 for each person age 65 or older, that number is expected to decline to roughly 2.9 by 2030. This statistic bears significance because it reflects the fact that less tax-paying workers will cover the medical costs of retirees. The burden of the individual laborer to cover her portion of the Medicare bill will increase. The retirement of baby boomers during the next few decades will yield a greater number of Medicare enrollees. In addition, as science and technology become more effective at extending the longevity of the elderly, more people will live to more advanced ages and will spend more time in retirement. Under current policy, the federal government will be encumbered to pay the medical costs that Medicare’s insurance agencies are required to pay for. The problem is where will this money come from. Will future retirees get what benefits they are promised? And if so will the government be able to cover a staggering $62 trillion of debt that projections predict? The aging of the population, however, is but one reason for the impending Medicare crisis. The projected growth in federal outlays may be attributed to expansion in the volume, or types, of medical services provided. As the pathologies of certain diseases are researched and the treatment of certain ailments or disabilities examined, the number of courses of treatment provided to patients will increase. In the past, improvements in medical care have also induced patients to receive medical services more frequently. Since Medicare is committed to financing the newest and most improved method of health care, increased costs in the norms of medi-
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
The health of America’s senior citizens is at risk because of the shaky state of Medicare. cal practice result in larger insurance outlays. Since the ratio of working men and women to retirees will decrease, fewer tax-payers will be paying for more expensive medical care. Victims of heart attacks, for example, now receive a more complex range of services than in the past, consequently increasing medical costs. To receive standard medical treatment,
Since the ratio of working men and women to retirees will decrease, fewer tax-payers will be paying for more expensive medical care patients must undergo several expensive tests. Such examinations include electrocardiograms and echocardiographies, both of which did not exist decades ago. Survivors see their doctors more often as well in order to get more advice in handling their condition and to receive prescriptions for newer medication. Since the program’s inception, prominent political and medical figures have asserted that Medicare should undergo major overhaul. Bill Clinton’s move to reform Medi-
care in 1993, as part of his comprehensive health care plan, was unprecedented in the program’s history. Although his bill was rejected, throughout the remainder of his term, Clinton continued to make Medicare an issue of significance, and ensured that the program was given the necessary funding. In retrospective, people are beginning to believe that the passing of Clinton’s Medicare proposal may have been essential to the program’s survival, especially after a recent report by the Medicare board of trustees projecting that the program’s trust fund could run out of money by as soon as 2018. Economic projections for the future of Medicare could certainly be inaccurate. However, the outlay this system is projected to disburse is much greater than the revenues it is projected to earn. Because the aging of the population and rising health costs change this figure, many people are apprehensive about the future of the system. A congressional bill in 2003 raised more concern, as the Medicare Prescription Drug Modernization Act poured an additional $400 billion into supplying the elderly and the disabled with prescription drugs. What we can do to avoid this crisis is still being debated. But decisions must be made now: the health care of 41 million seniors is at stake.
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The Horace Mann Review
The
Big C
runch: The End of the Universe? By Lindsay Gellman
Y
ou may not realize it or feel it happening, but the universe is expanding. Stars, galaxies, and planets, including Earth, are slowly moving apart from one other, still propelled by the momentum of the “Big Bang” explosion which is said to have occurred 10 billion to 20 billion years ago. Since the dawn of humanity, man has been searching for answers. What is the ultimate fate of the universe? Will it continue to expand forever? And even more puzzling- what is it expanding into? Scientists do not have all the answers, but they do have some theories in which they attempt to predict this mysterious doomsday. According to astrophysicists, the fate of the universe depends upon its shape and the shape of its expansion pattern. Scientists have determined that the universe is either closed (spherical), open (tunnel-shaped), or flat (rectangular). The problem is, no one knows exactly what shape the universe is. Some scientists predict that a closed universe could eventually result in a cataclysm which they refer to as the Big Crunch. The Big Crunch would be the exact opposite of the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory states that the entire universe developed from nearly nothing (small pieces of matter), and has been expanding ever since. According to this assumption, the universe has been increasing to fill a larger space that our current science cannot quite comprehend or identify. The Big Crunch idea predicts that the universe will reach a point at which it will collapse back on itself, rapidly contracting into near-nothingness. All remaining life, on earth or elsewhere, might be obliterated and sucked into this giant vortex. Due to the density of matter in the universe, gravity would override the universe’s expansion momentum and would be the driving force behind the Big Crunch. This image is analogous to a rubber band which is stretched to its limit and then released, snapping back to its original smaller dimensions. Some theorists venture even further and suggest that the universe is oscillatory, meaning that it is involved in an endless cycle of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.
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Although a Big Crunch-type phenomenon seems plausible because of the universe’s allegedly dramatic beginnings, the most recently gathered scientific evidence supports a flat universe and serves to discredit the Big Crunch theory. NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has processed ancient light to create an evolving model of the universe from which leading scientists have inferred that the universe is in fact flat and will expand indefinitely. WMAP has also measured the density of the universe, and most scientists agree that the universe is not dense enough to halt its own expansion and begin contracting as predicted in the Big Crunch theory. Instead, WMAP data suggests a “Big Rip” phenomenon in which the rate of universal expansion would accelerate. If the universe is indeed flat, it will not end in a dramatic reversal of the Big Bang. In fact, a flat universe will not end at all. Instead, it will most likely continue to expand forever at an ever-declining rate, with the possibility of “Big Rip” acceleration periods. The universe will also cool as it expands. Scientists measure the universe’s average temperature in Kelvin units. The Kelvin scale corresponds to the Celsius degree system in that a Celsius measurement is 273 units less than the corresponding Kelvin measurement. The universe’s average temperature, now approximately three Kelvin, will continue to decrease, never quite reaching zero Kelvin (or absolute zero, below which nothing in the universe can exist). Although it may be puzzling to contemplate a universe that will expand and cool forever, this ultimate fate still seems somewhat less disconcerting than the possibility of the violent Big Crunch. We can assert based on recent scientific evidence that the chances of the Big Crunch occurring are unlikely. However, many questions still remain concerning the ultimate fate of the universe, and how, when, and even if it will actually end. For now, the universal long-range forecast calls for chilly temperatures but hopefully sunny skies.
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
The Internet’s Worst Nightmare
“BOTmasters”
I
magine yourself sitting at your computer. You hit the power button and wait for it to boot up. Once it finishes loading you close the five flashing pop-up windows that appeared out of nowhere on your desktop. You double click on your browser’s icon and your computer makes a whining sound as it slowly opens the program. Once the browser opens you type www.myspace.com into the address bar and hit Enter, excited to read all the comments your friends have written. The mouse turns into an hourglass, you wait a little while, and finally an error pops up telling you that the server is inaccessible. No matter how many times you try you still cannot access the site. As horrible as not being able to use MySpace may seem, it pales in comparison to the consequences of, say, a major bank’s website being inaccessible to customers. In addition, although pop-ups appearing out of nowhere may seem benign, it is possible that the program displaying them was placed by an unknown hacker. While these situations may seem far-fetched, they are actually very possible and happen with surprising frequency. The root cause of all these issues is computers being controlled by unauthorized people. A compromised computer is referred to as a “zombie” or a “bot,” a group of such computers is referred to as a “botnet,” and a person who controls a botnet is referred to as a “botmaster.” It is relatively simple for someone to gain control of large numbers of zombie computers, because many computers are not fully patched, have vulnerabilities for which no patch has been released, or have, for whatever reason, various viruses on them which allow remote access to unauthorized people. There are also publicly available scripts which exploit unpatched vulnerabilities in various pieces of software. These scripts allow people with only basic computer knowledge to take advantage of the vulnerabilities in computer systems. Once a computer is compromised, it connects to a “control room,” where a botmaster can tell it what to do. In general, a person does not need a large amount of time or expertise to create a sizeable botnet. There are many lucrative ways for people to exploit botnets. One way is to install spyware on compromised computers. According to the July 17th issue of Business Week, the makers of some spyware are willing “[to] pay as much as 80 cents” for each install of their software. With many botnets containing thousands of zombie computers, that represents a great deal of money for botmasters. Another way botmasters make money is by using their many zombie computers to send spam emails. Individual botnets can send thousands upon thousands of emails per day, netting a botmaster plenty of cash. Finally, botmasters can use the power of their many zombie computers to threaten website
By Neal Poole operators. A botmaster can demand that the owner of a website pay protection money and, if the owner does not comply, the botmaster can order all of his or her zombie computers to view the owner’s website over and over. The botnet would end up sending so many requests to the website’s server that the server would be unable to handle legitimate traffic. That process is referred to as a “distributed denial of service attack.” Many website owners end up paying because they fear losing revenue from their website. Unfortunately, it is just as easy to make money from a botnet as it is to set one up. While botnets are lucrative and easy to set up, they hurt everyone affected by them. First, spyware can cause computers to become too slow to use, as was the case in a Seattle intensive care unit in January 2005. Although no patients were harmed by the failing of computers, such an incident could easily endanger lives. Spyware also allows unauthorized users to access your private information. Spyware can log what sites you visit, what programs you run, and what information you type into the computer, collecting a great deal of private data. It then sends the data to various groups of people without your consent, giving them copies of your private information. In addition, Internet Service Providers routinely terminate accounts for sending out large quantities of spam. If a zombie computer is caught by an ISP, the owner may be left without any Internet access at all. Spam is a problem for the people who receive it as well. Experts estimate that spam makes up much more than 50% of all mail traffic on the Internet. With that much spam, it is harder for people to find and read non-spam email. There is also the issue of denial of service attacks. The people whose websites are targeted by botmasters either have to pay money to prevent an attack or have to lose revenue as the result of an attack. Also, it is almost impossible for an actual user to visit a website while a denial of service attack is underway. Although not being able to use MySpace is relatively unimportant, not being able to access your banking information online can be much more troublesome. Finally, ISPs disable accounts that attack websites, leaving the owners of zombie computers without Internet access. Botnets are a pain and a hassle for everyone affected by them. Thankfully, effective steps are being taken to deal with botnets. Botmasters are being found and prosecuted for their crimes. People with knowledge on the subject track and identify the “command centers” of various botnets in order to shut them down. Tools to remove spyware and viruses are becoming more effective and easier to use. At the same time, tools to filter out spam are becoming more accurate. There are also lists of possibly compromised computers available on various sites. These lists are used to block spam and denial of service attacks among other things. Although botnets are very powerful, there are ways to combat them and succeed.
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The Horace The Horace MannMann Review Review
a devastated nation The Crisis in Somalia By Zachary Malter
Somalia is overrun with turmoil as violent militias control the impoverished state. In the distressed, lawless African nation of Somalia, The Union of Islamic Courts, an Islamic militia group with suspected links to terrorism, is taking control of the country. Countless citizens and peacekeepers are dying from the destructive violence each week. This is a dire situation for the Somali people and one with important ramifications for the rest of the world. Turmoil has been rife in Somalia since the country’s formation in 1961. Within the first ten years of its history Somalia has experienced the assassination of a president, Abdirashid
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Ali Shermarke, and a military coup. In 1990 when another president, Siad Barre, was overthrown by clans, the country was left without an official government. Civil war erupted and the Somali people were immersed in violence and famine. In response to a devastating famine in 1992, the International community finally intervened by sending in much needed food and supplies. The United States even launched its own relief effort, known as Operation Provide Relief, and United State troops were immediately deployed to Mogadishu.
Issue Issue 1, Vol. 1,XVI Vol. XVI However, 1993 saw a shift in the goal of the international mission in Somalia from famine relief to nation building. After productive talks between various parties, the prospect of peace seemed realistic. Unfortunately, one faction, the Habr Gedir clan led by General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, was not cooperative, and when the UN attempted to disarm the clan, violence ensued. Eventually a full-scale battle erupted between the supporters of the United Nations’ Operations in Somalia, which included the United States, and guerilla fighters loyal to General Aidid. Eighteen United States soldiers were killed in the battle of Mogadishu and American forces pulled out shortly after the battle. The military failure discouraged the United States from ever entering Somalia again. In the year 2000, the nation once again attempted to assemble a transitional national government, with the goal of reconciling with opposing clans and uniting the war torn nation. However, Somalia was not able to setup an effective government and the situation has become even more precarious than it was at the end of the 20th century The current state of the Somali government is undoubtedly unstable. Less than one year ago the Union of Islamic Courts led by the Arab Sharif Sheikh Ahmed began an effort to seize control of the nation. With the help of wealthy Arab donors and a strong military force the UIC seized the capital city, Mogadishu, and in the process forced out the warlords led by the “transitional president,” Abdullahi Yusuf, along with the interim Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi. Although the warlords are supported by the United Nations, the African Union, neighboring Ethiopia and the United States (though the U.S. officially denies any ties to the alliance), the warlords have not been able to hold off the advance of the Islamic militia, and are now based in the small town of Baidoa. Since the start of the fighting Islamists forces have captured many strategic towns and a large swath of important infrastructure. Today, the UIC have urged all enemies to surrender their weapons and are in control of most of Somalia. The ramifications of the UIC’s recent acquirement of control are hard to predict, but most experts agree that Somalia has a grim future. Although it strongly denies the claims, The Union of Islamic Courts is suspected of having ties to Al-Qaeda. In fact, one prominent leader of the Union of Islamic Courts is Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, whose picture appears on an American List of Terrorism Suspects because he previously commanded al-Itihaad alIslamiya, an Islamist group with explicit links to Al Qaeda. The UIC is not the first Somali organization to have links to terrorism. The ties between Al-Qaeda and Somalia originated in the early 90’s when Al Qaeda assisted in the training of General Aidid’s supporters. In part, because of these relations, many experts have expressed fears that Somalia will become a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalism and a haven for terrorist organizations in the near future. In the meanwhile, the recent crisis has already triggered a massive humanitarian disaster. May alone approximately 330 Somalis were killed and about 1,500 were in-
jured. On the two days of July 9th and July 10th alone about 100 were killed and about 200 were left wounded. In July a Mogadishu resident told the BBC, “I’ve seen people wounded and dead and the fighting is going on very hard. I hear artillery and guns. It’s terrible.” It appears that the country is maddeningly close to dissolving into chaos and anarchy. Due to the fighting most citizens now live in abandoned buildings or shelters concocted out of the most available materials such as cardboard boxes or tree branches. Furthermore, jobs are extremely scarce forcing many Somalis to rely on money sent by family members abroad. In light of that poverty, crime has become a major problem as dangerous weapons become increasingly accessible. Many Somalis have been killed by criminals or robbed by thieves. Worst of all, although famine and poverty plague many citizens, there are no schools or health services available to dispense aid of any kind. However, progress has been made. Recently a ship carrying goods from Kenya docked in Mogadishu’s newly opened port, the first ship to arrive in more than ten years. That bright spot in Somalia’s economic future is a sign that the UIC is perhaps truly devoted, as it claims, to growing the countries economy and rebuilding its infrastructure. Furthermore, Ahmed, the chairman, has written to the UN, the EU, and the United States urging them to establish friendly relations as well as promising that Somalia will not become a safe harbor for Islamic terrorism. However, while there is reason for the world to be optimistic, the reality is that for the majority of the Somali people life is bleak with little hope for the future. On Monday September, 18th, in another step backward for Somalia’s stability, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on interim government president Yusuf, just outside the parliament. The bombing killed five, including Yusuf’s brother. Although the UIC has officially condemned the attacks, some officials say the UIC is responsible for them. Nothing has yet to be confirmed, but violence is expected to intensify. The United States and the rest of the international community is slowly coming to understand the situation in Somalia and accept the reality that the UIC has gained substantial power and influence in the region. The United States must be willing to establish diplomatic ties and help negotiate a lasting peace in Somalia, before the UIC decides to take another more violent and decidedly anti-U.S. route. The UIC is indeed popular among the people of Somalia, and is therefore perhaps the nation’s best hope for restoring order and peace. Although the country of Somalia is in the midst of a crisis of catastrophic proportions, members of the international community have been slow to act. Only recently has Ethiopia dispatched troops to the region and a peacekeeping force being assembled to end the violence is still caught in diplomatic purgatory. If the United States and other world powers continue to neglect this calamity the atrocities committed in Rwanda and Darfur are likely to be repeated in Somalia and may very well result in a future terrorist state.
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The Horace Mann Review
A Crash Course How Long Does the Earth Have?
By Venkat Kausik
On 8:15 PM, July 16, 1994, the first fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 blasted into the southern hemisphere of Jupiter at a speed of about 37 miles per second. For five days, the comet fragments smashed into the large planet at dazzlingly high speeds and temperatures. One fragment reached 42740 degrees Fahrenheit. After the impacts were over, large dark marks could be seen on Jupiter for a number of months. This was the first time anyone had witnessed the collision of two space bodies as large as a comet and a planet. It also marked an important turning point in how astronomers and the world at large deal with the threat of cosmic impact on Earth. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s remarkable collision with Jupiter made people wonder if it was possible for a cosmic body to collide with Earth and create catastrophe. The comet collision re-
The important question on everyone’s mind is whether Earth will be involved in a catastrophic collision in the future.
sulted in a mass movement to increase asteroid discovery rates. The important question on everyone’s mind involves the possibility of a catastrophic collision involving Earth. If any cosmic body is on a path to collide with Earth, humans need to be able to develop a way to prevent this from occurring. Research into impact events, the collision of a cosmic body into a planet, has become very important. The survival of the human race may one day depend upon it. There are three main bodies in space that astronomers regard as capable of colliding with Earth: asteroids, meteoroids, and comets. Asteroids are metallic or rocky bodies that orbit a star yet are too small to be classified as planets. Ceres is by far the largest asteroid and alone accounts for one third of the entire asteroid belt’s mass. Ceres may soon be classified as a planet (its original classification) rather than an asteroid. Asteroids in the Milky Way are primarily located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Meteoroids are rocky, metallic fragments found throughout space. They are usually about the size of a relatively large boulder. Meteors, also called shooting stars, are the observable paths made by meteoroids entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Meteorites are meteoroids that impact a planet’s surface and are not destroyed. Comets are bodies composed of ice and dust. When they travel close to the sun they start to vaporize and thus develop a
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tail of vaporized comet material that can be several hundred million miles long. Comets are formed in the outer Solar System in two main areas: the Kuiper Belt between Neptune and Pluto and the Oort cloud that surrounds the Solar System. About 100,000 comets from the Kuiper Belt are more than 50 miles in diameter. Even Pluto, which has a diameter of about 1500 miles, is considered by some astronomers to be a giant comet. Asteroids, meteoroids, and comets are all important because they are the bodies that could be involved in a catastrophic collision with Earth. Earth has been no stranger to cosmic collisions over the course of its long history. While most collisions are not catastrophic, there have been some collisions that have altered the course of history. The “Big Splash” and the “K-T extinction event” are two examples of impact events that forever changed the Earth. The “Giant Impact Hypothesis” is the predominant theory regarding the formation of the moon. It also describes the creation of Earth’s axis. This hypothesis states that a “Big Splash” occurred 4.533 billion years ago, approximately 34 million years after Earth’s formation. A Mars sized cosmic body called Theia collided with Earth, causing much of Earth’s mantle to spray out, forming a ring around the planet. After the collision, some of the debris recombined with Earth because of the planet’s gravitational pull. However, many of the fragments of Earth combined with each other because of their own smaller gravitational pulls. Slowly, the chunks of debris orbiting the Earth became larger and larger through recombination until they all morphed together, creating the moon. This entire process took only one to one hundred years. It is interesting to note that this collision actually helped to establish life on Earth. It created the moon and established Earth’s axis, which moderated the planet’s climate and allowed primitive forms of life to materialize. Humans probably would not be around if this collision never occurred. However, just as collisions giveth, they taketh away. If a Theia sized body was to collide with Earth again, humans would most certainly be wiped out. Just ask the dinosaurs. There are many theories regarding the K-T extinction event, in which 50-80% of Earth’s plants and animals, including the dinosaurs, were destroyed around 65.5 million years ago. The asteroid impact theory is commonly accepted as the most probable of these hypotheses. Supporters of the theory believe that an asteroid hit the Earth around 65.5 million years ago and caused the K-T extinction event. In 1980, Nobel-prize winner Luiz Alvarez conducted re-
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s collision with Jupiter left dark bruises like this one search on fossilized rock layers dating back 65.5 million years. He found in samples from various parts of the world that the sedimentary layers all contained huge amounts of iridium, which is very rarely found on Earth but is abundant in asteroids and comets. There was not only hundreds of times more iridium in the fossilized sediment, but the composition of the iridium in the sediment was more similar to that of the iridium found in asteroids or comets than the kind found on Earth. This prompted Alvarez to hypothesize that Earth was hit by an asteroid or comet that caused the K-T extinction event. Even after Alvarez’s discovery, there was still something thing missing from the impact event hypothesis- a crater. While the absence of a crater did not discount the hypothesis, its presence would have substantiated the theory. In 1990, graduate student Alan R. Hildebrand and geophysicist Glen Penfield discovered a huge crater underneath Chicxulub in Yucatan, Mexico. The Chicxulub Crater was about 6 miles in diameter and was about 65.5 million years old. Most of the scientific world now accepts that this crater marks the spot where an asteroid or comet landed 65.5 million years ago, causing mass extinction on Earth. While the meteor impact theory is only a theory, it has become widely accepted in the scientific community as a cause for the K-T extinction event. The damage done was devastating. The meteor, smashing into what is now modern day Mexico at a speed of about 7 miles per second, resulted in explosions that were hundreds of millions times more explosive than any nuclear weapon ever detonated. The ramifications of this explosion, including mammoth clouds of dust and vapor blasted into space, and enormous hurricanes that wiped out everything they encountered, were some of the most cata-
strophic ever to occur on Earth. Two-thousand foot high monster waves emanated out from the Gulf of Mexico, almost emptying it. There is no question that if such a comet or asteroid hit Earth
The meteor, smashing into what is now modern day Mexico at a speed of about 7 miles per second, resulted in an explosion hundreds of millions times more explosive than any nuclear weapon ever detonated. today, humans would have a very, very slim chance of survival. Recent history (as in since humans came around), though bereft of any mammoth collisions like the Big Splash, has still been full of collisions with asteroids, meteors, and comets. The most memorable encounter with a cosmic body was on June 30, 1908, and is called the “Tunguska Event,” or the “Great Siberian Explosion.” A comet or meteorite exploded about 4 to 6 miles above the Earth’s surface, doing damage equivalent to that caused by 600 Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs. An area of about 830 square miles was completely destroyed. Luckily, the explosion occurred in an unpopulated area, although 60 million trees were wiped out. The Tunguska event showed that a collision with a cosmic body can create a catastrophe. More recently, with new technology in the field of asteroid
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The Horace Mann Review detection, an asteroid called 99942 Apophis was discovered. It received a probability rating of hitting Earth higher than any previously recorded. At one point, the object had as high as a 1-in-37 chance of coming into contact with Earth. The asteroid garnered a record Level 4 on the Torino Scale, which means that it “merited concern.” Astronomers have now arrived at the conclusion that the asteroid will miss Earth by about 16,000 miles in 2029, but may hit Earth in April of 2035. The probability of a collision, however, is now only 1 in 6,000.
man survival would be minute. The only way humans could survive is by preventing a collision from occurring. “It’s a thing we know will happen sometime in our future, so the responsible thing is for people to do something about it,” said William Ailor of The Aerospace Corporation, a group which recently held a planetary defense system conference. Preventing a collision would be remarkably difficult. Astronomers are currently theorizing about methods that could be used in the future to stop a cataclysmic collision.
Myriad asteroids, meteoroids, and comets fill our galaxy. Out of this large mass, very few asteroids, comets, or meteors collide with Earth. This is due to a number of reasons. First, only a portion of these asteroids, meteoroids, and comets head toward Earth. Secondly, most meteors headed toward Earth do not collide with Earth. Third, even those bodies headed towards Earth may not make it to Earth’s surface. Meteors are burned up by air friction and rarely get past the atmosphere. Compared to the amount of asteroids, meteoroids, and comets, therefore, the number of collisions with Earth is small. Nevertheless, collision is still regarded as a major threat all over the world. It may be a rare event, but collisions still occur. Even if only one cosmic body collides with Earth, as seen in the cases of the Big Splash and the K-T extinction event, it can still wreak havoc on the planet.
The most obvious solution, blowing up the asteroid or comet, is very risky. Today’s nuclear weapons would not be able to blow up the object, but in the future, more advanced weapons might be able to. If the asteroid is not sufficiently vaporized, chunks of the asteroid or comet can impact Earth at multiple points with catastrophic effect. The asteroid can also be drawn back together by its own gravitational pull. The explosion would have to be powerful enough to blast out the asteroid or comet fragments away from Earth on a very long trajectory. At the present time, there is little known about how to accomplish such a feat. In fact, nobody knows how nuclear weapons would perform in space.
Catastrophes can be caused by not only large asteroids, meteoroids, or comets, but by relatively small ones as well. Although knowledge as to the effects of a small-scale collision is relatively scarce, it is safe to say that great destruction would occur. Structures the size of a small garage are capable of flattening large cities. Asteroids or comets more than half a mile wide could create fire storms and huge dust clouds that could cause global cooling. It would take a cosmic body only five miles wide to create the same type of extinction that occurred in the “K-T extinction event.” For anyone who has seen the movie Armageddon, there are no asteroids in our solar system that are as big as the state of Texas. However, there are asteroids still large enough to cause a global disaster. As previously stated, there are about 100,000 comets in the Kuiper Belt between Neptune and Pluto that have a diameter of more than 50 miles. These comets often travel in our direction. If any one of these comets hit Earth, it would destroy all higher forms of life. Astronomers estimate that there are around 1,000 asteroids near Earth that are more than half a mile long, and about 1,500 objects that cross Earth’s orbit and would do serious damage in a collision. In the next 1,000 years, astronomers believe that some of these objects will collide with Earth. It isn’t surprising that Discover Magazine ranked “Asteroid Impact” as the number one way the world could end suddenly. If a large asteroid came heading our way, chances of hu-
Other solutions have been suggested to prevent cosmic impact. All of these have to do with changing the path of the asteroid or comet very slowly over time. A small change in trajectory could stop an asteroid or comet from colliding with Earth. One way a collision could be prevented is by having a shuttle fly over the asteroid or comet. The small gravitational pull of the shuttle would influence the object enough to slightly change its path, guaranteeing that it no longer is headed to collide with Earth. Besides using explosives, this is the most feasible method to prevent cosmic collisions. Solar energy can also be used to vaporize material on the asteroid’s surface, thrusting it in a different trajectory after a period of time. It is important to remember than an incredibly small change in trajectory could determine whether the asteroid or comet impacts Earth or misses the planet completely. Conferences are being held in which scientists are discussing plans of action in the event that an asteroid or comet was headed our way. Cosmic collision is an important issue that will greatly influence Earth in the years to come. As we learn more about cosmic collision we come to realize that we are in grave danger. It is not a question of whether a killer asteroid or comet will head towards Earth, but rather a question of when. It is certain that one day, history will repeat itself, and a large asteroid or comet will be detected heading on a deadly course toward Earth. It is at this point that humans must be ready to prevent a collision. It is very important that we never forget about the threat of cosmic collision because in this case, the world really is at stake.
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Issue 1, Vol. XVI
TOTAL MERRILL
Advice & Planning RETIREMENT BEYOND BANKING CREDIT & LENDING INVESTMENTS ESTATE PLANNING SERVICES BUSINESS FINANCE SERVICES TRACKING PROGRESS
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The Horace Mann Review
Point of Danger By Michael Kurtz Indian Point, a nuclear power plant located 35 miles north of New York City, is nothing more than a time bomb. It is an enticing target for terrorists for one simple reason: Twenty million people, eight percent of the population of the United States, live within a fifty mile radius of the plant. This area includes all 5 boroughs of New York City and all of Westchester County. Its proximity to the largest financial center in the United States, the reservoirs that supply and store all of Westchester’s and New York City’s water, and a number of important airports and mass transit hubs conspires to make the plant a terrorist’s dream. A meltdown at Indian Point would be devastating. To make matters worse, it lacks qualified personnel, effective security, and a no fly zone. Due to Indian Point’s lack of safety, a meltdown is a legitimate possibility. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, voted Indian Point as having one of the nation’s worst nuclear power plant safety records. In addition, Indian Point has the nation’s largest frequency of severe safety violations; there have been three in the last six years. Moreover, the plant’s employees have a history of incompetence. In October 2001, four reactor control room teams failed their license examinations, and just two months later, four control crews failed yearly re-qualification tests. A 2002 study conducted by the private firm of James Witt and Associates concluded that “The current radiological response system and capabilities are not adequate to...protect the people from unacceptable doses of radiation in the event of an accidental release.” Lest we forget that the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, which rendered a 1000 mile radius in the Ukraine permanently un-inhabitable and killed thousands of civilians, as a result of a botched safety test administered by plant personnel. Because an alarming number of Indian point’s employees lack the basic knowledge that is tested in routine yearly exams and the plant is unable to protect citizens in the event of an accident, a large-scale disaster is no stretch of the imagination. Not only are Indian Point’s safety regulations below par, but also its lack of security makes it vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack. One possibility is that a hijacked plane could crash into the plant, in the vein of September 11th, killing millions and destroying much of the tri state area in the process. This scenario nearly came to fruition five years ago, as the hijacked planes passed by the power plant en route to destroying the world trade center, inadvertently sparing us from an even graver disaster. Another possibility is that terrorists could take advantage of the plant’s notoriously lax security, seize it, and trigger a disastrous meltdown. However, Marvin Fertel, the senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute as well as Entergy, the private company that owns Indian Point, disagrees with the possibility of a terrorist attack. Mr. Fertel said that a Chernobyl like meltdown is impossible because Indian Point uses proper containment and re-
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liable reactors, both of which the Soviets lacked. He also claims that a terrorist attack is not likely because Entergy has spent $500 million on nuclear plant security since September 11th, resulting in an average of 87 security professionals per plant. Entergy also produced a commercial in which they concluded that a fighter plane traveling at 500 miles per hour could not destroy the concrete containment domes that house the nuclear reactors. However, a terrorist attack on Indian Point remains a possibility. Better equipment alone will not prevent meltdowns. Even if we have proper containment, we must have personnel skilled enough to handle that equipment. Unfortunately, recent history shows that Indian Point employees have a poor record in terms of basic knowhow. In February of 2000, IP-2 suffered a ruptured steam generator tube due to poor plant maintenance and weak NRC supervision. This rupture caused a stage two radioactive release. As for the plants supposed increased security, Foster Zeh, who served as security supervisor at the plant for 6 years, said that the security guards were old, unaware, and unfit and that they had no training budget with which they could ameliorate their situation. In fact, a survey by Entergy shows that just 14% of guards believed that they could effectively defend the plant against terrorist saboteurs. In addition, the advertisement that showed that concrete containment domes could withstand the full force of an F-4 fighter plane was highly misleading for a number of reasons. First, terrorists hijack commercial airliners, not fighter planes. An F-4’s weight is only about 5% of a 767 jumbo jet. Second, the concrete test wall was 12 feet thick, whereas the real containment dome is just 3.5 feet thick. And lastly, there is common sense. If a commercial airplane can crash into and completely destroy one of the world’s tallest buildings, it can definitely destroy a 3.5 feet thick concrete wall. Mr. Fertel’s claim that a successful attack on Indian Point is questionable to say the least. Perhaps the one positive aspect of the current situation is that there are alternatives, such as wind power. Wind power is a proven, renewable, cheap source of power that could benefit both the tri state area and the world. Experts have estimated that New York can produce 5000 Megawatts of wind power. Wind power can also create job opportunities. The U.S Department of Energy, estimates that Wind power can create 80,000 permanent jobs by 2020. Lastly, it has been proven to be effective. Wind power provides 25% of the energy in Germany, the country with the world’s third largest economy. So should we keep Indian Point? The answer is simply no. There’s just too much at stake. This is one of the greatest cities in the world. It is a city where we all live, work and play. We cannot let our city stay so vulnerable to something so preventable. The only option is to dismantle Indian Point immediately. I urge all of you to write letters to your local congressmen and ask them to help prevent the unthinkable. I know I will.
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
The Indian Point Powerplant in Westchester County is prone to a catastrophic terrorist attack
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The Horace Mann Review
Rule Of Law vs. Security Which Do We Sacrifice?
By Kimya Zahedi
In recent years, one question has constantly been agitating followers of politics: should Iran be able to enrich uranium? The American public has constantly been reminded of the threat of Iran enriching uranium in order to make an atomic bomb. It is a threat that is keeping us on the edge of our seats, because the possible consequences of a Fundamentalist Islamic Regime acquiring a nuclear bomb are grave. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has recently shared his hopes of the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. Iran has also been public with their refusal to adapt to western culture and their antagonism towards the pillars of western civilization. As a country that deeply values tradition and religion, Iran continues to be a threat to its neighbors as well as to the West.
Pakistani Nuclear Program. The centrifuges Iran had attained were primitive, and could only produce low-grade uranium, mainly used to produce nuclear energy. There is no conclusive evidence that the types of centrifuges able to produce highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium, were ever bought by Iran. Still, many experts assume that the Iranian government somehow has been able to acquire or build such machines. After multiple inspections of the Iranian nuclear program sites by the International Atomic Energy Council, no production of highly enriched uranium has been substantiated. Iran has yet to refuse any inspections by the appropriate organizations. In spite of the endless inspections and thorough examinations of its nuclear facility, many still believe that Iran has a secret weapons program that has eluded the inspections.
In the mid 1970’s, with the help of the United States (ironically), the regime of the deposed Shah of Iran began constructing nuclear reactors in Iran is a signaorder to produce electrictory of the Nuclear Nonity. Many believe that the Proliferation Treaty. In Shah already had plans short, the treaty aims to create a nuclear bomb to pursue the eventual for his country. Considerelimination of nuclear ing the fact that the Shah weapons all over the was a western sympathizer world. Being a signatory and Iran was considered President Ahmadinejad has adamantly defended Iran’s enrichment program. of the treaty doesn’t ala stable, middle-eastern low them to participate in country, politicians were any form of production of not alarmed by the possibility of a nuclear Iran. weapons-grade uranium, but does allow the countries to purify uranium for peaceful purposes. energy production specifically. `Following the Revolution of 1979 and the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian nuclear program A few years ago, under the pressures of the Unitbecame dormant. The new regime was too busy dealing ed States and most other Western countries, Iran agreed to with the restoration of government, the chaos of revolu- abandon its uranium enrichment programs altogether, in extion, and the war to maintain a serious nuclear program. change for economic concessions by the West. According to the Iranian authorities, these concessions were not met, and Towards the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Iranians beas a result, Iran rebooted its programs several months ago. gan to show interest in acquiring centrifuge devices and enriching uranium. Ultimately, the country was able to buy secAs of now, the United States has threatened to impose ond-hand centrifuges from A.Q. Khan, the then leader of the sanctions on Iran through the United Nations if it refuses to halt
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Issue 1, Vol. XVI
Iran’s nuclear facilities, such as the Nantanz Facility, have caused great international conflict between Iran and the United States its enrichment of uranium. In doing so, the US is attempting to persuade other nations to support its hopes of ridding Iran of their nuclear facilities. Rumors also linger that the United States has plans to attack the Iranian nuclear sites using military force. The Big Question: Should Iran be able to pursue their uranium enrichment programs? If we live in a world where we abide by the laws we have written for ourselves, the answer to this question is quite clear. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows them to take part in the purification of uranium, if used for peaceful purposes. As long as the international community has no conclusive or hard evidence which could be used in a court of law, proving Iran’s intentions to produce nuclear bombs, it would be illegal for the US or any other body to prohibit Iran from doing so. I’ll use an analogy to prove my point. In America, if a suspicious-looking man, walking the streets of New York, screaming all sorts of racial slurs, is believed to be a threat, do the authorities have the right to detain him, assuming he will do something harmful or illegal? Absolutely not. Assumption, conjecture, or suspicion are not justifications for legal action. A crime must be committed or at least proven to be likely in order for authorities to intervene. Just as the police have no right to hold the seemingly suspicious man without evidence that he has or will commit a crime, the US and the rest of the international
community has absolutely no right to intervene with what an international agreement has allowed Iran to take part in. As the leader of the civilized world, America’s job is to expand and promote freedom and civilization around the globe. If we ourselves cannot adhere to the legal standards we set, then we give reason to the fundamentalists to regard our civilization as hypocritical and hollow. America’s invasion of Iraq may be used as a prime example of America’s hypocrisy. The United States, along with most other countries, believed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, even though there was no hard evidence to prove so. As it turned out, Iraq didn’t have such weapons, as recently admitted by President Bush, himself. Ha! Good one. Did the United States have the legal right to invade Iraq based on assumptions, presumptions and suspicions? We are paying a high price for that mistake. The United States have vowed to aid less developed countries in achieving economic and industrial growth. This, in fact, is one of the reasons the US is still in Iraq today. For the US to prohibit Iran from achieving economic and industrial growth is counter to its pledge. Even though Iran has expressed scary sentiments towards the western world, for the assumed leaders of the civilized international community to turn a blind eye to law, and allow suspicion to justify their actions, they no longer fit their own description of a civilized nations at all.
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The Horace Mann Review
The Rapidly Disappearing Medical Industry
D
By Benjamin jacobson
octors across the nation are abandoning medicine because of the high costs of malpractice premiums, which could possibly escalate to a major crisis, in which patients have to travel miles to find the doctors they need. Doctors are now practicing “defensive medicine”: patients have to pay more for unnecessary tests so that the doctors are clear of malpractice lawsuits. Some blame trial lawyers, others blame the insurance companies, and some say that the doctors are blowing the problem out of proportion. Certain specialties such as OB/GYN and surgery are very vulnerable to lawsuits. If malpractice premiums exceed the physicians income they have to limit their practice, move to another state, or get out of medicine altogether. Some suggest that doctors should see more patients and spend more hours working. However, others suggest that more hours working and more patients will increase the likelihood of a doctor making a critical error, leading to even more malpractice suits, and higher insurance premiums. The threat of malpractice suits against doctors also affects patients; they are forced to pay higher rates. In the end patients have fewer options. Statistics published by Crain’s New York Business indicate that 4,200 doctors left New York between the years of 2000 and 2002. Ninety percent of them were not of retirement age. High insurance premiums could be a major factor contributing to the plunge in doctors. Hospitals around the country are closing as they lose specialists. The only trauma center in Las Vegas closed for a week; the Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, Fla., reduced surgical procedures for just under a week; and ru-
ral clinics across Mississippi sat empty for part of a week. Problems with malpractice insurance led to all the closings. To avoid paying malpractice insurance, some specialists have abandoned their practices and started others in states where malpractice insurance is lower. Other specialists are performing only low-risk operations, leaving high risks to more specialized doctors, raising the price for the patients considerably. Some specialists also just give advice as consultants, avoiding paying malpractice insurance completely. Some state governments have actively tried to fight the problem with legislation and programs to reduce the cost of the high premiums and address the overall insurance issue. In Oregon the legislative assembly passed House Bill 3630, which created the State Accident Insurance Fund Corporation, a program to reimburse insurance companies that cover rural doctors for a portion of the premium they charge. The reimbursement is used to reduce doctors’ premiums. The State Accident Insurance Fund Corporation submits a plan for carrying out the provisions to the Director of the Department of Consumer and Business Services and to the Office of Rural Health. The Director and the Office approve the plan following a detailed determination process. The reimbursement program will run through 2007. Bill 3630 also requires a six-person panel: the Professional Panel for Analysis of Medical Professional Liability Insurance, consisting of six members appointed by the Governor, Senate President, and House Speaker to oversee an actuarial study of the medical professional liability insurance market. It is the responsibility of the government to make sure there is a sufficient amount of doctors, but it is questionable whether it is a job of the government to provide patients with affordable medical care. Regardless whether or not the problem will resolve itself in the near future, America must focus on averting a potential crisis in which only the rich will be able to afford health care, if there are any doctors around to provide it.
New York • Dubai • New Delhi • Mumbai Page 28
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
Burned By La Palma By Eliza Montogomery
A
s the human population becomes increasingly concerned with the risks of nuclear and biological weapons, left in the shadow are the natural catastrophes that have plagued mankind from the beginning of time and could potentially cause much more damage than any man made weapon. The possibilities of natural catastrophes are endless but even more importantly, unlike war, the human race has little control over them. Evacuation is often the only way to survive them. As disasters like the Indonesian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina kill hundreds of thousands of people and cost billions of dollars in damages, scientists begin to look into more possible catastrophes. This research has led to the discovery of a potential “mega tsunami” in the Atlantic Ocean, which would be caused by a landslide catalyzed by the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. The tsunami would hit the entire East Coast of the United States, much of the Atlantic Coast of South America, and parts of the UK and Spain. If it is impossible to prevent such a disaster and the possibilities for evacuation are limited, what would be the consequences of such a calamity? The tsunami would take place after an eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano that would cause a landslide into the water producing a major tidal wave. Although this volcano erupts approximately once every fifty years, it could take 100 years or even 10,000 for it to collapse. But when it does collapse, it would cause up to a 500 km block to fall into the ocean. The energy released by this collapse would be equivalent to the United States’ electricity consumption over a period of six months. Such a surge of energy would create a water dome 900 meters high. Most of the energy would be directed towards the west. Even so, the smaller eastward moving waves would be 50-100 meters high and traveling at speeds approaching 500
kilometers per hour when they hit the West Saharan shore. At the same time, a series of waves 500 km wide would be traveling at 800 kilometers per hour across the Atlantic Ocean. Six hours after the collapse, a ten-meter-high primary wave would strike Newfoundland, and simultaneously, 15-20m waves would arrive at the north shore of South America. After nine hours, the tsunami would make its final stop in Florida with 20-25m waves. By the end of the destructive nine hours, no coastline in the North Atlantic would have been spared. All major cities would be inundated with water and the death toll would be enormous. Not only would the damages caused by the tsunami be almost irreparable, there would also be indirect consequences around the world. If the events of September 11th , 2001 knocked billions off global stock market valuations, the destruction of not only the financial capital of the world but also the whole east coast would have catastrophic consequences on both United States and global economies. The low probability that catastrophic disasters like La Palma will occur poses an enormous challenge. Their extreme improbability makes the risk difficult to take seriously. But at the same time, the consequences of not preparing for such a disaster could be catastrophic. In the case of La Palma, there is very little we can do. There is no technology that can stop a volcano from erupting, no barrier that can stop a wave moving 500 miles per hour, and no support that can hold a 500 km block of earth. The only option left for potential victims is evacuation. Even so, with only six hours’ notice, an evacuation of tens of millions of people is nearly impossible. In the end, there is no way to avoid the catastrophic results; it impossible to prevent the tsunami or its catalyst and out of the question to evacuate with six hours’ warning. So, in the end, we may simply have to live with it.
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The Horace Mann Review
Bio-fear:
A 21st Century Reality
E
ach age is defined by its own disasters. The calamity of our epoch may well be terrorism. Within the many subsections of terrorism exists the unique biological form involving the deliberate use of diseases, toxins, viruses, or other germs to harm organisms. Biological terrorism is a definite ��������������� possibility���� in today����������������� ’���������������� s society where nothing is considered too repugnant an act. However, this raises the question of how much of a threat ������������������� bioterrorism poses�.
By William KIm production in Britain and six ����������������������������������� Algerian��������������������������� males residing there were subsequently arrested by the Metropolitan Police. T���������������� h��������������� e Metropolitan Police stated that the ricin was manufactured for use in the London Underground station. This is another case of suspected terrorist attack because no ricin was recovered as a result of the raid.
However, one of the ����������� first incidents��������������� occurred much earlier in 1984, with the Rajneeshee Salmonella Attack. FBI reports that this may be one of the few terrorist attacks utilizing biological weapons. Followers Biological agents of the Bhagwan Shri can be separated������������ ��������������������� into three Rajneesh attempted to categories in a descending control a local election order of risk. Category by infecting salad A germs are easily bars in 10 restaurants disseminated and result in with Salmonella high mortality rates. They typhimurium. This also have a major public incident occurred in impact. Category B agents the town of The Dalles, are second highest danger Oregon, and there because they are also easy were an estimated 751 to spread and have medium cases of ����������� Salmonell�� omortality rates. The final sis. It was the first category is C. This group Anthrax and other biological agents can cause mass panic among the population. known incident of consists of agents that are Bioterrorism���������� in the 20th century. easily produced, have high morbidity and mortality rates, and spread easily. These are emerging diseases. One category A agent caused Of the three cases stated, only one had an identified more awareness and panic of ������������������������������������� Bioterrorism������������������������� . This agent is anthrax. perpetrator���������������������������������������������� . There have been documented attacks using Since the high profile anthrax attacks, there has been an Bioterrorism, such as the 751 infections of Salmonellosis. The increase in concern for biological terrorism. Anthrax is a disease threat of Bioterrorism is changing. However, many incidents of normally found in herbivores. It is caused by a bacterium, generally Bioterrorism are vague in their reasons, and the perpetrators are I������������������������������������������� t is unknown whether there was a terrorist infects humans through infected animals, and is usually fatal. rarely brought to justice. �������������������������������������������� In 2001 beginning on September 18 letters containing anthrax force behind the anthrax attacks, but there have been casualties as h���������������������������������������������� e thwreat of Bioterrorism does not seem great bacteria were mailed to several media stations and to two senators, a result of them. T����������������������������������������������� killing 5 people and injuring 17 others. Some reports state that the at the moment due to its limitations in that it cannot target specific anthrax was weapon ����������������������������������������������������� grade. �������������������������������������� However, no culprit was found for the people because it cannot be controlled. Also there have not been occurrence������������������������������������������� s of terrorism through biological agents. “������������������������������������������������������������������� attacks.����������������������������������������������������������� ”���������������������������������������������������������� The case has yet to be solved and it is unclear whether many concrete ����������������������������������������������������� terrorist������������������� attacks, but they this was a bioterrorist attack. There have been other instances These incidents may not have been ���������������������������� of Bioterrorism����������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������������������������������� such as in the 2003 Ricin incident in Britain. have nonetheless spread panic throughout the nation. Biological terrorism������������������������������������������������������������� ’������������������������������������������������������������ s main purpose is to spread alarm and disruption in society. In the beginning of 2003, there was evidence of ricin
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Issue 1, Vol. XVI
Taiwan:
The coveted Island
A
s China and Taiwan continue to fight over the island of Taiwan, possible conflict involving the United States and other countries seems likely if Taiwan were to declare independence. Taiwan and China have long been locked in a contest for control of the small island nation. Prior to the conflict between Japan and China in World War II, communist and nationalist Chinese forces fought for control of China. However, once Japan began its occupation of China, the communist and nationalist forces agreed to suspend their fighting to unite and combat Japan. Japan’s surrender to the United States forced Japan to cede Taiwan to China. China, though, resumed its civil war between its Nationalist and Communist Parties, both of whom sought to control mainland China and Taiwan. In 1949, when the Communists claimed rule of mainland China, the Nationalists fled to and claimed Taiwan. Since then, mainland China has not controlled the island, although the Chinese government still claims rule over Taiwan. Taiwan has never officially claimed independence; in fear of war with the heavily-armed Chinese, the Taiwanese government has lived on the edge, operating independently of China despite dispute over the island’s sovereignty. As Taiwan becomes a more democratic, free-market country, China has maintained its Communist system, and its official policy is that Taiwan and mainland China are “one country, two systems.” Still, China is developing an extremely powerful economy with great potential to expand, and the Chinese have become more confident in their efforts to claim Taiwan. In 1945, when Taiwan earned independence from Japan, the United States brokered the deal, allying itself with Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, an opponent of Chinese Communism. The U.S. and Taiwan maintained close ties; in 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act, or TRA, was a mutual defense pact that called on the United States to defend and arm Taiwan. China, of course, did not and still does not recognize the TRA. In recent years, China has loosened its economic restrictions, and has become a major trade partner with the United States and in the global economy. China has not, however, changed its policy on Taiwan; instead, the Chinese have positioned hundreds of missiles at the island, claiming that the Taiwanese president, Chen, intends to declare independence. Ranking Chinese generals have even declared that they would consider using nuclear weapons against Taiwan and its allies if Taiwan were to declare independence. China also receives support from the Russian government, which supplies the Chinese with arms. By contrast, Taiwan’s government
By Gaurav Saxena
has not yet mustered sufficient funds to purchase U.S. arms. While China probably would not actually use nuclear weapons against a Taiwanese coalition, the Chinese currently have the capability to launch a successful air invasion on Taiwan, according to the Pentagon. The TRA suggests that the United States is expected to protect and arm Taiwan in this situation, as China’s stockpiling of its arms supply means that it could attack Taiwan at any time. However, the United States has been lessening its support for Taiwan. The overextended U.S. military does not have sufficient forces in the region to deter a Chinese attack. In addition, traditional allies of the United States in Asia, such as Japan and Australia, fear losing trade relations with China by protecting Taiwan in the case of a Chinese attack. Russia and North Korea, both of whom have strong ties to the Chinese government, have stated that they will support China in a war over Taiwan. As China has developed such a strong economy and military, and realizes that the U.S. may prefer to maintain trade relations with China and not honor the TRA rather than defend Taiwan and risk war with China, the Chinese appear to be able to invade Taiwan without major international effects. Fewer than thirty countries worldwide recognize Taiwan as being independent, and the United States is not among them. Taiwan’s attempts to join the United Nations have been rejected for years by the Chinese, who hold enough power to veto a U.N. resolution condemning Chinese action against Taiwan. While for years neither side has made a move towards war, the possibility of a Chinese invasion or a Taiwanese declaration of independence appears to be increasing. Realistically, the U.S. will continue to support Taiwan by providing it with arms and defense, while also encouraging Taiwan to avoid declaring independence from China and maintain the status quo. However, both the perception that Taiwan and President Chen are attempting to declare independence and China’s response of building missile stockpiles indicates that both Taiwan and China are preparing for conflict. In August, Taiwan attempted for the fourteenth time to join the United Nations, although China has continued to successfully block Taiwan’s attempts. If Taiwan declares independence, the world could be faced with a nuclear World War if the United States takes the side of Taiwan against China. Russia and North Korea (which claims to have nuclear weapons and threatens to use them against its enemies) could join the Chinese. While this appears to be unlikely, the nationalistic China and Taiwan probably will not resolve their dispute without some form of conflict.
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The Horace Mann Review
A Lasting Legacy
F
By Benito Fernadez
ollowing the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration undertook an aggressive foreign policy that the majority of the global community did not support. Despite the clear opposition and lack of foreign funding the President and his administration decided to invade Iraq. The long-term ramifications of these actions have yet to be determined but with solely witnessing the immediate results it is clear that the latter will be devastatingly far reaching. In regards to global public opinion the United States is now in crisis. For five years beginning after President Bush declared: “The United States respects the people of Afghanistan…but we condemn the Taliban regime …The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate….” America’s global standing has been steadily declining. The attitude of using the United States’ position of primacy to dictate the rest of the globe has resulted in worldwide resentment and many countries distancing themselves from us.
President Bush reflects on 9/11 and the War on Terror with servicemen
One has only the need to look to foreign media and the overwhelming global opinion becomes clear. The United States was heavily criticized in newspapers from almost every major country around the globe on the fifth anniversary of the September 11. The Financial Times said: “The way the Bush administration has trampled on the international rule of law and Geneva Conventions, while abrogating civil liberties and expanding executive power at home, has done huge damage not only to America’s reputation but, more broadly, to the attractive power of Western values.” Among the numerous other contributing newspapers was France’s Liberation, which stressed that Bush’s “war on terror” had been a disaster, the United Arab Emirates’ Al-Khaleej, China’s The People’s Daily, and Pakistan’s The News Daily, which printed an editorial titled “Five Years of Nothing”.
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The importance of the global opinion about the United States is based on the fact that if, as over the last five years, anti-American sentiment increases, the population of extremists who are willing to cause the citizens of the United States harm does as well. What also gives the opinion of the global community significance is the state of the American economy. In the five years after September 11 the dollar has declined in value by 30%. The fact that it now costs $1 to purchase 0.80 of a Euro is attributed by many to the anti-American attitude. Other country’s central banks and foreign private investors largely hold American debt, in the form of government bonds. With this in mind, foreign opinion of the United States is extremely important. A dropping of U.S. bonds by all or the majority of the global community is highly unlikely because of the United States’ economic inter-relationship with China and Japan; however, if this were to happen the dollar would crash and U.S.
credit would collapse.
In 2001, an American dollar bought roughly 1.10 Euros; only five years later the dollar is worth about 0.80 of a Euro. Along with the near 30 % decrease in the value of American currency has come a vast decline in the global community’s opinion of the United States. In the five years following 9/11, the global community has witnessed a rapid decline in American primacy. Perhaps the most tangible consequence of the War on Terrorism to the average US citizen is its affect on the economy. During times of war, it is not uncommon for economic hardships to befall everyday people, from tax hikes to gas prices. The state of the economy could very well continue to worsen as the US becomes more embedded in Iraq, and it could spell major changes when midterm elections role around.
Issue 1, Vol. XVI
The New WMD’s The Real Threat In Today’s World
H
umans have been figuring out ways to kill one another for thousands of years, but until relatively recently, this attention has been directed to the killing of combatants rather than civilians. Perhaps the most obvious example of this change is the advent of weapons of mass destruction: weapons with the primary purpose of killing large numbers of civilians, as opposed to the gun, which in warfare is mainly used to kill soldiers. However to find the true advent of the era of weapons of mass destruction one must look up, literally. One of the biggest obstacles for millennia to killing large numbers of civilians was gaining access to population centers. Armies would have battles to protect these cities. However, with the advent of airplanes and their introduction as a means for delivering ordnance it became easier for armies to gain access to population centers and attack there. The first example of this came during the Spanish Civil War, with the bombing of the Spanish city of Guernica by German warplanes. This was the first modern example of a direct attack on civilians combined with low numbers of attackers being put at risk, with the intended purpose of mass destruction. German planes, as part of Hitler’s agreement with the Fascist Spanish leader Francisco Franco, carpet-bombed the Basque city, and Republican stronghold, of Guernica. While this was not the first example of a military operation designed to wreck complete havoc on a civilian population it was the beginning of what would prove to be a devastating era. Other examples of carpet-bombing cities, similar to Guernica, occurred throughout the Second World War, perhaps most notably the Blitz, the Luftwaffe’s attacks on London, and the 1945 fire-bombing of the German city of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force as revenge for the Blitz, in 1945. After Guernica the focus of much military technological advances was how to condense the effects of a large aerial bombardment into a single weapon; thus was born the nuclear age. The nuclear age, some might say began in 1939 with a letter by the German-born physicist Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While nuclear technology had been in its developing stages for some years at that point, its military potential had not yet been tested. The first step in the technology of nuclear weapons was in 1898 with the discovery of radium, a substance that emits large amounts of radioactivity, by the French physicists Marie and Pierre Curie. Einstein’s letter, co-written with fellow physicist Leó Szilárd was in response to Nazi German efforts to create a nuclear-type bomb of its own. This letter motivated Roosevelt to start the Manhattan Project, a government-funded ef-
By Ben Mishkin fort to create a nuclear weapon. It would start out as a reasonably small operation but by the time the two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the program had grown to employ around 130,000 people and cost almost two billion dollars. It was a combined effort between the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, with virtually the entirety of it taking place in the United States, at various locations around the country. Nuclear bombs, to this day, remain the definitive weapon of mass destruction, rightfully so. Such weapons have an enormous killing potential: 140,000 people died within five months of the Hiroshima bombing and nuclear bombs are relatively easy to transport to the target. Today’s technology makes it possible for countries to fire a nuclear weapon to virtually anyplace on Earth from a base within the country, i.e., from Bismarck, South Dakota to Moscow, Russia. Throughout the Cold War the power of nuclear bombs was only greatened. Nuclear bombs were constructed with hundreds of times the power of the bombs that went off at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today possession of nuclear weapons has extended to all of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, U.S., Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China. Other nations including India and Pakistan are confirmed nuclear powers and nations such as Israel, Iran, North Korea and Ukraine are suspected of having nuclear capabilities. At the start of the nuclear age, the main problem with using nuclear weapons was an ethical one. While this remains a serious issue for any leader choosing to use a nuclear weapon, with the rise of the Soviet Union’s nuclear program, another consideration was added to the picture: Mutually Assured Destruction. This new situation also created the need for an easily deployed weapon, one that does not require a plane to drop it, as was the case of the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This lead to development of nuclear-tipped rockets: weapons that fly like conventional rockets but with the payload of nuclear bomb, otherwise known as ballistic missiles. There are three categories of ballistic missiles, split up by their flight range; the ones with the longest range, inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), second longest, intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and shortrange ballistic missiles. The most well known of these missiles, the ICBM’s usually have a range of more than 3,500 miles and can carry at least one nuclear warhead. It is these missiles that are often connected to apocalyptic scenarios. ICBM technology was heavily improved, ironically, due to the Soviet Union and the United States’ SALT I and SALT II treaties. These treaties limited the number of launch vehicles for ICBM’s. In order to circumvent
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As the September 11th attack demonstrated, terrorism in today’s world threatens mass destruction from innocuous sources. these limits, the weapons were designed so that a single missile, launched from a single launch vehicle, could hit multiple targets. The Soviet Union continued to develop and expand its nuclear program, as did the United States. The next “generation” of nuclear weapons was the fusion bomb, or hydrogen bomb. This type of weapon is also known as a thermonuclear weapon. This type of nuclear weapon was first tested by the United States, under the code name Ivy Mike. This bomb was one of the largest atomic bombs ever detonated and was one of the early examples of how the United States and the Soviet Union competed to create the most destructive weapons. Another category of weapon of mass destruction are chemical weapons. The first use of chemical weapons in combat was in World War I, when French forces used tear gas on German troops. Since then chemical weapons have developed significantly. While the development of chemical weapons has not been hindered, there have been efforts by many nations to halt the proliferation and use of such weapons. Through the Chemical Weapons Convention, nations such as the United States, Russia, Libya, China, France, India and Iran have committed to halt the proliferation and use of chemical weapons. For that reason chemical weapons have rarely been used, with a notable exception being Saddam Hussein’s massacre of Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war, using chemical weapons such as cyanide, nerve gas and mustard gas. The most recent advancement in the field of weapons of mass destruction is that of radiological weapons, or dirty bombs. As Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed us, some of the most lethal affects of the bomb were the not the bomb itself, but the radiation that appeared afterward. Radiological bombs utilize radiation as the only weapon, relying on its lethal affects to kill people. This type of weapon is equally as dangerous as a conventional nuclear weapon, and much easier for a terrorist to use in an urban area.
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The future of weapons of mass destruction looks grim. The creativity and determination of certain groups of people has made the boundaries for what is considered a weapon of mass destruction endless. As numerous Islamic terrorists have showed us, anything can become a WMD, from a sneaker, to shampoo, to a Boeing 747. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, its enormous arsenal of nuclear weapons was not entirely accounted for. While this potentially devastating proliferation has occurred, there have been efforts by the international community to halt the future spread of nuclear weapons, namely through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NPT has been open for ratification since 1968 and has been signed by the United States and Russia. Although almost every nation in the world has signed the treaty, four key countries, India, Pakistan, two confirmed nuclear powers, Israel, a suspected nuclear power and North Korea were never party or are no longer party to the treaty. (North Korea pulled out of the treaty in 2003). Other nations that are party to the agreement, namely Iran, have recently started uranium enriching programs, which are one of the first steps to building a nuclear bomb. While this treaty applies to nations it does not apply to the most recent of potential nuclear threats: terrorists. The most notable person associated with the illegal proliferation of nuclear weapons is the founder of the Pakistani nuclear program, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, or A. Q. Khan. In 2004, Khan admitted on Pakistani national television that he had been the key operator in an international ring that bought and sold nuclear information that helped nations such as North Korea, Iran and Libya develop nuclear programs. The next day, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan in an attempt to avoid being embarrassed. Motives behind Khan’s actions range from a disdain for the West to pure economic reasons. Whatever kept his ring going, it nonetheless was not totally uncovered with his confession. The world may never know how extensive it was or it might in fact be uncovered in the form of a nuclear at-
Issue 1, Vol. XVI tack on a major Western country using a nuclear bomb created from the information sold by Khan. Khan’s ring is the most plausible way for a terrorist to obtain a nuclear bomb that we know of today. The climax of the era of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction was the fall of the Soviet Union, at which point the two largest superpowers had no need to or no way of producing weapons of mass destruction. Since then, a lot of effort on the part of the United States has been to minimize the presence of nuclear weapons in the world. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, on the assumption that then Iraqi-dictator Saddam Hussein was in possession of nuclear and biological weapons. This invasion, which has infamously, turned out to be misguided, along with the Bush Administration’s greater War of Terror is by far the largest concerted effort by any nation to eliminate illegally held weapons of mass destruction. As the United States tries to eliminate nuclear threats around the world, it also tries to control its own nuclear program in coordination with other countries, most notably, Russia. The Clinton Administration cut the American nuclear stockpile in half with the mid 1990’s. Of all the American efforts to minimize the threat of nuclear weapons one of the recent developments has left many very confused. Recently, the Defense Department asked Congress to approve $127 million to build ICBM’s, which in the past have only held nuclear payloads, with conventional tips. The ‘war on terror’ missiles, the Defense Department argued would give the President the ability to launch a preemptive strike against a threat with the precision of an ICBM without the collateral damage, and that it would give him or her more options for strikes in the future. The missile would be able to hit a target within an hour of the President authorization of the strike, much faster that nuclear ICBM’s. Congress refused to authorize the spending, arguing that the missile could cause accidental nuclear war, due to confusion caused by the missile. However, some of the most ardent opposition to the missile comes not from Congress, nor the Department of Defense, in fact, it does not even come from within this country, but rather from Russia. The Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chief of Staff have publicly come out against the proposed program, for the same reasons as Congress. The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Yuriy Baluyevskiy said of the missiles, “This may cause an irreversible reaction on the part of nuclear powers which will be unable to identify the type of missile warhead and establish whom it has been launched against.” This missile however does no more to trigger a nuclear war than an actual nuclear weapon. Maybe, even, this weapon if ever put into service may make nations confirm that they are under attack from an actual nuclear weapon before they retaliate. The future of the world may just depend on how well we can control of violent inhibitions and that includes controlling our weapons of mass destruction. We must also not forget the murderous capabilities of may of the inventions that have become foundations for the modern world, from airplanes, to chemicals, to computers. Weapons of mass destruction have come a long way, from the planes at Guernica to the ICBM’s of the Cold War. As determined as the United States was to build a nuclear bomb so are the terrorists to build the new weapon that will be most effective in killing civilians whether in London or New York. We must not look upon WMD’s as only nuclear bombs, but as everyday objects. We cannot afford to be surprised again when something benign causes great destruction.
Photo Credits
Cover: Getty Images
Page 2: The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Pierre Jacques Volaire (Artist’s rendition) Page 3: Flickr.com, JJR Page 5: Adobe Stock Photo Page 9: Flickr.com, MWR Page 10: Adobe Stock Photo Page 12: Getty Images Page 13: Flickr, JlJEQ Page 15: Mark A. Bell Page 16 : Adobe Stock Photo Page 17: Adobe Stock Photo Page 18: Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak Page 21: Getty Images Page 25: Ted Sumers Page 26: AP Images Page 27: Flickr.com, Hamed Saber Page 29: Flickr.com, Bruno Girin Page 30: Flickr.com, Bajgo Page 31: Adobe Stock Photo Page 32: Whitehouse.gov Page 33: Getty Images Page 34: Boeing Corporation
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