TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013 | VOL. 117 NO. 11 | MARSHALL UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER | marshallparthenon.com
Professor emeritus challenges history in new book By ALISON WICKLINE
THE PARTHENON Truth. Pursuing the truth. Exposing the truth. Simon Perry, professor emeritus of political science at Marshall University, may have officially retired from education three years ago, but it seems the desire for knowledge, and truth, remains within him. Retirement gave Perry more time for research; his research led him to the controversial presidencies, and lives, of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew
Jackson. Though he began compiling his findings for an article, he quickly realized it needed to be much bigger than that, so he wrote a book entitled “Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson: By Their Deeds You Shall Know Them.” The book has been chosen as a focus for Marshall University’s celebration of Constitution Week. Perry said he is honored to present his book to the public and hopes it will pique people’s interest, even if they disagree. “The book is controversial,
Campus ceremony to mark Ala. church bombing anniversary
By VINCENT ESPINOZA
THE PARTHENON John Deaver Drinko Library will host a short ceremonial recognition of the Alabama Church Bombings on Thursday. The event will begin at 6 p.m. and will also host a scholarship award ceremony for the Society of Black Scholars. This will mark the 50 year anniversary of the bombing that took place at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. on Sept. 15, 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church was the target of a racially motivated act of terrorism. The church had been used as a meeting place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth during the spring of 1963. Even after city officials had come to a settlement to begin integrating public places, many people didn’t want segregation to end and acts of violence such a bombing followed. Because the church was used as a meeting place for civil rights activists it became an obvious target for the terrorists. Early on Sunday, Sept.
15 four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted a box of dynamite under near the basement of the church. At around 10:22 a.m. 26 children were walking into the basement to prepare for a sermon when the bomb exploded. Four girls, Addie Mae Collins, 14, Denise McNair, 11, Carole Robertson, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14, were killed in the attack, while 22 others were also injured. This year an anonymous source has donated $2,000 to be awarded to four African American female students at Marshall University. Each will receive $500 in honor of the four girls who lost their lives in the bombing. Jasmine Felder, junior graphic design major, is one of the recipients of the scholarship. “It’s amazing really. I really wasn’t expecting it at all,” Felder said. The other three recipients of the award are Raquel Whitmore, Rebecca Britton and Donavia Beltran. Vincent Espinoza can be contacted at espinoza3@ marshall.edu.
but I hope it at least opens people’s minds about both individuals,” Perry said. Perry will sign copies of his book Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the third-floor atrium of Drinko Library. “Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson: By Their Deeds You Shall Know Them” reveals the darker sides of Jefferson and Jackson that are rarely examined. Perry said both men, though controversial, are typically viewed, and presented, in a very positive light, especially Jackson. But he said he believes
those depictions are not revealing the men openly and honestly. “I want these historical figures to be placed in a context they deserve,” Perry said. We have a tendency to view the past as holy as possible, but we need to view it honestly.” In his book, Perry focuses on Jefferson’s deep racism, use of slavery and hypocrisy inside and outside the presidency. Jackson’s critique is slightly smaller focusing on his questionable decisions regarding Native American removals.
MCCLATCHY FOREIGN BUREAU (MCT) By midday Aug. 20, the temperature in Damascus had warmed to an uncomfortable 96 degrees, so as the night rapidly cooled to 78 before midnight, 74 by 2 a.m. and headed toward a pre-dawn 70 it could have seemed like a blessing. But the cooling trend had a horrifying effect for residents of the Ghouta area east of the Syrian capital. As the air cooled and became denser, it pushed toward the earth in the early hours of Aug. 21. So when rockets loaded with toxic chemicals started landing, each spilling about 15 gallons of deadly sarin, that downward pressure kept the heavy gas on the ground, allowing it to creep through open windows and pushing it into basements. That’s only one detail in the 38-page report on the Aug. 21 chemical attack that the United Nations released Monday, but combined with many other details, it helps to paint a far more detailed picture of what happened that night than any of the cursory summaries that have dominated discussion in Congress, the White House and the halls of the
British, French and Russian parliaments. Far from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim Aug. 30 that “the U.N. can’t tell us anything that we ... don’t already know,” the report provides an intricately detailed account of what happened and how it happened, and a scientific look at why it became the tragedy it did. The report doesn’t assess blame the technicians from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the World Health Organization weren’t asked to and it provides no new information on how many people died, a figure that’s ranged widely from France’s estimate of at least 281 to the United States’ unexplained claim of 1,429. But it does provide what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called “clear and convincing evidence” that chemical weapons were used against a civilian population _ a war crime. And it refuted the initial U.S. position that the five-day delay would render the U.N. investigation incapable of finding meaningful evidence. Among its findings: Even five and seven days after the rockets landed in the Damascus suburbs, inspectors identified at least 80
SIMON See PERRY | Page 5
IN MEMORIAM: BERNIE ELLIOTT
MARK WEBB/ FOR THE PARTHENON
Photographer Bernie Elliott walks the sideline with his camera as the Marshall spring football GreenWhite Game is conducted on Saturday, April 27, 2013, at Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington.
THE PARTHENON PAYS TRIBUTE TO LONGTIME PHOTOGRAPHER AND LIFELONG SON OF MARSHALL BERNIE ELLIOTT. MORE ON LIFE! >PAGE 6
UN provides details of Syrian chemical attack
By MATTHEW SCHOFIELD
Perry said his goal in writing the book was not to attack or destroy Jefferson and Jackson but to expose the truth about popular heroic figures. “Oftentimes, the heroes we choose represent us, so I wanted to reveal the truth about two heroes many people identify with,” Perry said. The book was published this year by The Drinko Academy, and director Alan Gould said the book creates interesting discussion and conversation, making it a perfect fit for Constitution Week.
people who were exhibiting signs of chemical poisoning. Those symptoms included constricted pupils, vomiting, dizziness and loss of consciousness. From those 80, the team selected 36 to study further, taking hair, blood and urine samples. Thirty-nine percent of those were still confused or disoriented when the U.N. team examined them. The blood and urine specimens for “almost all of the survivors assessed by the mission” tested positive for “exposure to sarin.” _ The team hadn’t yet completed its final analysis of what it called “detailed interviews” with survivors. But they all told the same story of “a military attack with shelling, followed by the onset of a common range of symptoms, including shortness of breath, disorientation, rhinorrhea (runny nose), eye irritation, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting, general weakness and eventual loss of consciousness.” “Those who went to assist described seeing a large number of individuals lying on the ground, many of whom were deceased or unconscious.” Two brothers from Zamalka, one of the affected towns, “reported that of the 40 family
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members who lived in the same building, they were the only survivors.” _ Most of the nine nurses and seven physicians the team interviewed were at home when the attack occurred. When these clinicians responded to the attack, they found “a large number of ill or deceased persons lying in the street without external signs of injury.” _ The team made painstaking efforts to document its work. All the interviews were taped, and all the samples were sealed and guarded from the moment of collection to their delivery to the four laboratories in Europe where tests were conducted to determine whether toxic substances were present. The report provided a detailed listing of the samples, including the date and time each was taken, as well as from where: in one case, a “soil sample taken from one impact point in one house in Moadamiyah”; in another, “a methanol wipe sample taken from the sole of a slipper.” “Each transfer of material is accompanied by a handover receipt,” the report notes. The inspectors also were able to explain how the sarin gas arrived in Ghouta that cool night.
See SYRIA | Page 5
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Huntington Museum of Art offers free Tuesday admission By CHARLIE HOUSE
THE PARTHENON The Huntington Museum of Art opens its doors free of charge every Tuesday. The museum, which opened in 1952 to house the collection of Herbert Fitzpatrick, has nine galleries. Four of the galleries are permanent exhibitions, displaying about 10 percent of the museum’s collection at any given time. The Herman Dean Firearms Gallery displays a collection donated in the early years of the museum by one of the museum’s founders. The exhibit takes visitors chronologically through the use of firearms, from hand cannons to more industrial weapons of the nineteenth century. The Touma Near Eastern Collection is made up of over 400 works, largely donated by Drs. Joseph B. and Omayma Touma from 1991 to 2004. The collection has a wide variety of pieces, including metalwork, glass, ceramics, furnishings, scientific instruments, manuscripts and paintings. The pieces come from Moorish Spain and North Africa to Central and South Asia. The Glass Gallery displays the Daywood Collection. Donated in 1967, it has become
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the museum’s largest, with over 4,000 pieces. The gallery displays about 25 percent of the collection, tracing the development of glassmaking techniques in the Ohio Valley region from the 18th century to today. The British Portraits and Silver Gallery, which is closed temporarily, displays the George Bagby collection, alongside serving and presentation pieces from the 18th and early 19th century England. The remaining five galleries show temporary or touring exhibits, including paintings, installations, pottery and sculpture. Upcoming free events at the museum include presentations by Buzz Spector on Sept. 26, and Ray Turner on Oct. 18, two artists featured by The Walter Gropius Master Artist Series. The latter exhibit titled “Population,” is a portrait series of various people from across the country, including several people from Huntington. The museum’s hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and noon to 5 Sunday. Charlie House can be contacted at house8@marshall. edu.
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