The Joy of Technology

Note: This is the second poem I wrote for this assignment. The first was lost when a computer virus wiped out everything on my computer.

Computers,
Damn computers,
Trojan Horse of the twentieth century.
Empty promises of efficiency
With solid threats of addiction,
You court us with your fancy colors,
Your bright lights,
And, of course, more promises.
Do more,
Think less,
Look better,
Be smarter,
Make more,
Earn more,
Be better.
How innocent Hollerith's Electric Tabulating Machine seemed,
Acting as though it were helping,
Not telling that it cleared the way for the domination of machines.
Not informing that it was the beginning of the demise --

The demise of creative thought,
The demise of human interaction,
The demise of talking out loud,
And the beginning of "communicating" with computers.

The beginning of email from your boss,
The beginning of memos of work,
Of personals on the internet,
Of cybersex,
Of pornography as far as the mouse can see.

And that blasted Electric Tabulating Machine
Sneaks by our blame and hatred,
A forgotten computer of the archaic past.
All it seemed to promise us was an easier way to count.

But it lied!
It deceived as only computers can!
It didn't tell us about network trouble,
It hid the future of corrupted files,
Of obsolete processors,
"Not enough memory,"
"File not found,"
"This program has performed an illegal function."
And, of course, computer viruses.

We were not warned
That trading files with other computers
Would be mating our computer with a prostitute.
Untold was that there would come a day
When even our computers need condoms,
A protection from the diseases waiting for the chance
To infect our computers
And ruin our day.

So if you don't mind, Hollerith's Electric Tabulating Machine,
I'll just count for myself.

The Vice of Vanity

Hagerty ignores policy differences

G.B. Hagerty’s letter of Friday, "U.S. views Egypt as friend, not foe," ignores some basic facts — specifically that there are broad differences in Egyptian and American policy. For instance, it is the United States’ position that all parties involved should halt incitements to violence under peace accords. While Israel has faithfully upheld its agreements on this end, the Egyptian press runs anti-Semitic stories denying the Holocaust and, now, blaming Israel for the crash of EgyptAir 990 without any evidence. This idea actually ignores preliminary evidence that there was a suicide involved.

Another clashing area of policy is religious freedom. While the United States grants the freedom to practice any religion, Egypt has restricted this area heavily. Certainly Jews are persecuted, but also slipping under the media’s radar is the deep persecution faced in Egypt by Coptic Christians. This policy is an insult to the value of freedom. Then again, so is Egypt’s dictatorship.

One thing we have in common is the tragedy of EgyptAir 990. We cannot forget this. Likewise, we cannot forget the ground Egypt has to make up before we consider them, as Mr. Hagerty proposes, "one of our greatest friends and allies in the Middle East region."

Benjamin Rapp
Vice President, Tagar Zionist Student Activist Movement, OSU Chapter
Junior

Arabs hypocritical for ousting Disney

The Associated Press story you ran on Sept. 22, "Arab-Americans: Boycott Disney," reflects the unfortunate, steady radicalization of Arab and Muslim organizations in America. These are the same organizations that support such terrorist groups as Hamas, Hezbullah, and Islamic Jihad ("Jihad" means holy war). These groups have taken a grossly unreasonable stance on Disney’s opening of an Israel exhibit at the Epcot theme park.

The organizations claim that their main problem with the exhibit is its implication that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. News flash: Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. It houses the national government and is even recognized by U.S. law as such. Arabs and Muslims around the world are claiming that Disney’s exhibit diminishes the city’s value to their religion. However, while Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of time in Jewish scriptures, it is not mentioned once by name in Muslim scriptures. When Jordan illegally controlled the city’s eastern sector for 19 years, which included the most holy of sites for Jews as well as one Muslim holy site, only one Arab or Muslim leader (King Hassan of Morroco) even bothered to pay a token visit.

Indeed, the Sutras (Muslim scriptures), note that the Muslim world invaded the land of Israel and stole the land for themselves.

So the reason for the Arab/Muslim outrage at Disney, a corporation that has made a habit of supporting fairness and civil rights, is clearly not based on fact. Rather, it is a propaganda-filled argument stemming from an intense hatred of Jews and Israel. These radical organizations are clearly not looking for fairness, but the certain destruction of the Jewish state. And as Dr. Martin Luther King wisely observed, "When people criticize Zionist, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism."

Benjamin Rapp
junior
political science
vice president
Tagar Zionist Student Activist Movement
OSU chapter

Palestine will be enemy to democracy

The Israel-hating governments of the West have had their way. The past three years of jabbing at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a leader whose only objective is the defense of the country, has come to fruition: He lost the election to Labor Party Leader Ehud Barak. The West’s disdain for the Jewish state, however, is certainly not limited to the past three years. The problem is that the Arab world hates the West but they still depend on the West for oil sales. Likewise, the West is horribly dependent on the Arab world — a collection of dictatorships — for the oil to run their economies.

Although Israel is a Mideastern country with a Mideastern culture, the Arab world falsely believes it to exist because of Western support. Although many Western countries have supported a minimal Jewish state in words, their deeds have shown quite the opposite. In fact, when five invading Arab armies tried to annihilate the Jewish state at its inception, the United States enforced an arms embargo on the entire region, knowing that the Arab armies could purchase weapons from its communist allies and that the Jewish state had almost no other alternatives.

As a result, the West has constantly tried to appease the Arab world by pressuring Israel into making its borders indefensible and arming its sworn enemies. Appeasement, by definition, does not work. The most famous example is the attempt to appease Hitler in Munich. Once granted the Sudetenland, he immediately demanded more.

The same process is already taking place in the Middle East. Israel relented to international pressures in 1993 by signing the Oslo Accords. Israel agreed to give away land it rightfully owned in exchange for promises of peace from the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Israel has since given away a sizable chunk of land and the Yasser Arafat-led PLO continues to campaign for violence and the destruction of Israel. Arafat has recently demanded even more land than was agreed to be up for negotiation. Official Palestinian Authority (the new dictatorial government created by the Oslo Accords) television programs teach small children that it is glorious to blow one’s self up in the streets of Jerusalem for the sake of killing Jews.

Despite all these blatant desires for bloodshed, the West, led by the United States, has continued to blame Israel for the lack of peace. Because Israel possesses no absolute necessity of our economy, it is being forced to help create a new, belligerent country. Now, the West has forced into office a pawn — Ehud Barak — that will gladly carry out its policies of giving without receiving.

Barak’s Labor Party believes that Arafat and his cronies want peace, a belief that is contrary to both the words and deeds of Arafat, the PLO and the Arab population at large (Up to 40 percent of Arabs in Judea, Samra and Gaza — the territories Israel won in the defensive war of 1967 — support violence and terrorism). You see, Israel has now been involved in five full wars for its survival, as well as a constant threat of terrorism. They are tired of fighting, and the United States has led the successful campaign to exploit this feeling and elect Barak.

The outcome of this mess is astounding. Assuming Barak’s government does not fall early and fills out his full four year term, a new country will be created. This country will be comprised of a random group of Arabs who do not constitute a single nation. Most of them arrived in the area in the early to mid 20th century, after the arrival of the British and Jews (the latter of which were joining Jews that had kept a presence in the land for 3,000 years) brought a standard of living unheard of in the Middle East.

This new country will not be a democracy. In its current limited sovereignty, it has established itself as a dictatorship that helps kill opposition. It has already allied itself with Iraq; it burns American flags routinely. It is not and will not be only an enemy of Israel, but an enemy of democracy, the United States and ironically, the Western world that is forcing its creation.

It is not too late to make a difference though. It is past time that we all call or write our congressman and other representatives to firmly inform them: as Americans, we support peace, we support democracy, and we therefore support the state of Israel. So let Israel do what’s best for itself — stop pushing your own detrimental agenda!

Benjamin Rapp is an undecided sophomore from Cincinnatiand is vice president of the Ohio State chapter of the Tagar Zionist Student Activist Movement.

Two villans exist in Serbian conflict

Jeff Turner’s letter on April 9 uses two old tactics of Jew/Israel-hating propaganda: calling the victim the villain and drawing inaccurate comparisons. Here are the relevant facts: In addition to maintaining a constant presence in the land for 3,000 years, Jews began moving there in larger numbers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. After the Jews and ruling British authority radically increased the standard of living, Arabs began flocking to the land — often illegally — causing land shortages.

After the Arabs arrived, they claimed they had actually been there all along and that they were suddenly being displaced. British authorities documented this myth quite well, despite their open favoritism of the Arabs.

Turner also tries to draw similarities between the Jewish-Arab conflict and the Serbian-Kosovar conflict. This, too, is outlandish. In Israel, bombs are regularly detonated by Arabs with the aim of killing as many Jews as possible. Even more acts of terrorism do not make the press. Stabbings and murderous attacks of Jews in small towns are frequent. We have a classic villain and a classic victim.

In Yugoslavia, the Serbs are now terrorizing ethnic Albanians. Some 10 to 12 years ago it was the Albanians terrorizing, raping, and murdering the Serbs. There are two clear villains, not one. I hope Mr. Turner takes advantage of his remaining years in school to learn more on the subject of which he speaks.

Benjamin Rapp,
media director
The Tagar Zionist Student Activist Movement,
OSU Chapter

Clinton's pressure on Israel nonsensical

For months now, President Clinton has been pressuring Israel to make new concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Never mind the PA`s flagrant disregard of its own obligations. Never mind the PA`s hatred of and contempt for both the United States and Israel. The Clinton administration has still continued to pressure Israel to give in to Arab violence and intransigence. Bill Clinton wants to be remembered for something other than his sex drive, and the Oslo "peace" Accords are his latest endeavoring that vein. It is time for this nonsense to stop. Although Clinton tries to see PA Chairman Yasser Arafat as a partner in peace, his record proves otherwise.

When speaking in Arabic to Arab audiences, Arafat and the PA have always been, and continue to be, open about their most cherished ideal: the destruction of Israel through violence. However, this became difficult when their biggest supporters halted their cash flow. The Soviet Union`s fall was the first loss. Their other major bank, Saudi Arabia, pulled its support when the Palestinian Arabs sided against the Saudis in the Persian Gulf War. It was then clear that to be a major force, these Palestinian Arabs would have to deal with the free, democratic world that it despised so much; thus Oslo was born.

The Israeli people had always been searching for peace, and using the pretext of peace agreements would be an ideal way for hostile Arabs to undermine the State of Israel. But signing peace agreements was abhorrent to many Palestinian Arabs; they wanted the Jewish State defeated in one fell swoop. The compromise was the infamous "phased plan." This plan, which won a general consensus among Arab factions, states that Palestinian Arabs should make all possible gains through diplomacy first, and then take the rest through "holy war." Their official stance has remained the same ever since.

Yasser Arafat has since been seen kissing the leader of Hamas, a huge terrorist organization. Arafat has also refused to dismantle Hamas or other the terrorist organizations that have claimed over three hundred innocent lives since the Oslo Accords were signed. The PA employs wanted terrorists in his police force, which has grown into an illegal army, complete with fatigues, M-16 rifles, and illegal weapons. This "police force" is also two to three times its legal size. Perhaps the PA`s most glaring violation of the accords is its total failure to rid the "Palestinian charter" of phrases that calls for Israel`s destruction through holy war.

Concerning the second of Israel's three scheduled withdrawals, the Oslo Accords state that Israel and only Israel is to decide the extent of each withdrawal. When Israel attempted the second withdrawal over a year ago, the PA went outside its bounds and refused to take it, claiming it to be too little. However, they had no legal basis to do so. This intransigence is what is still holding up the process.

So the situation has formed as thus: Israel signed a peace treaty with Palestinian Arabs, assuming that they, like Israel, preferred concessions and peace to stubbornness and bloodshed. Clearly, Israel is fulfilling its obligations. Clearly, the PA is violating all of theirs.

Clearly, the Clinton administration must pressure the PA to follow through with its signed obligations if it expects the Oslo process to ever be completed.

Benjamin Rapp is President of the Tagar Zionist Student Activist Movement and a guest columnist.

Palestinian Arabs: Not a nation

Regarding your front page article on Sept. 29 "Arafat: Will of Palestinians is statehood", the story describes the growing acceptance among the world’s nations of Palestinian Arabs as a nation with the Palestine Liberation Organization as its representative. However, what the article fails to state is the reason for any previous lack of recognition of national rights. The answer is simple: Palestinian Arabs do not constitute a nation. They do not have a distinct land, language, religion, food or culture. They share each of these with such neighboring states of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

When the Romans conquered the Jewish kingdom in the first century, they renamed the land "Palestina" (later Palestine) with the aim of obliterating any Jewish connection to the land. Palestine, therefore is synonymous with the Jewish Kingdom. For Arabs to claim to be Palestinians is as outrageous as Muslims claiming to be Zoroastrians.

The PLO was set up only to attack the State of Israel, not fight for national rights, not to reach a peace agreement, but only to destroy with war the free, democratic State of Israel. Most of the western world has bowed to the PLO and its backing Arab world, and have ignored the facts because of the great leverage the Arab world possesses by controlling much of the world’s oil supply. So the only loser in the deal is Israel; Israel has given up its security and safety by succumbing to western pressure to cave in and give rights to an organization that still openly sponsors terrorism and routinely declares their intention to destroy Israel. It is time the government and citizens of the USA stop misle ading ourselves. It is time we examined the facts and stop acting as though the PLO, a terrorist organization, is the victim and not the aggressor. Most importantly, it is time we stop pressuring Israel, the Middle East`s only democracy, into relinquishing the safety of its citizens.

Facts, not propaganda, build arguments

Much has been said - some fact, some fiction - about the recent events on campus sponsored by various Arab and Muslim groups. I am fortunately knowledgeable enough to deal with the issues and clear up some misperceptions. The following is an accurate account of the conflict.

Claims were made that the events (under the slogan "50 years of occupation") are not a direct attack on Israel's existence; nothing could be farther from the truth. When Arabs speak of 50 years of occupation, it refers not to the land Israel won thirty-one years ago in a defensive war (which Israel is currently giving up), but to the creation of the State in 1948.

Israel has also been criticized for failing to "give back a far greater percentage than the recent 13 percent proposed by our government," as some claim is mandated by agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. This, once again, is terribly incorrect. The Oslo Accords state that there are to be three withdrawals and that the extent of each withdrawal is to be decided exclusively by Israel. When the Israeli government attempted the second withdrawal, the Palestinian Authority (PA) refused to take control of the land, arguing that 9 percent was not enough. Despite the PA's direct violation of Oslo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to work with PA chairman Arafat to negotiate a solution. Arafat has remained intransigent.

One letter to the editor that appeared in the Lantern asked, "Who exercises indiscriminate tear-gassing?" If the author was trying to imply that the Israelis do, he was wrong. Israeli soldiers fire tear gas and rubber bullets only when being seriously attacked. This involves not only attacks with stones, but with hand grenades and now with heavy weapons that Palestinian Arabs have been given by the Israelis, ironically, to help keep the peace for which Israel is striving. The same letter then asked, "Who continues to build settlements despite agreement?" As a matter of fact no agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs forbid Israel from building towns on land on which Jews have lived for thousands of years. The author has obviously been duped by Arab propaganda.

The biggest fault on the part of the pro-Arab groups is their claim that Israel is slowing the Oslo process. I must let out a sigh of pity for the way they allowed himself to be so easily exploited. The fact is, Israel has attempted to carry out all the agreements it has made and has only failed when blocked by the PA. The PA, on the other hand, has purposefully violated the most important aspects of the Oslo Accords.

Take into evidence the following: The PA is forbidden to have offices in Jerusalem, yet they operate a full government office in the city. The PA also builds illegal homes in Jerusalem, in violation of Oslo (Israel, for the record, is permitted to do so, yet is chastised when it chooses to exercise its legal right to build homes for its people in its capital city). The PA police force is twice the size allowed under Oslo and has become a paramilitary force. Although it occasionally halts individual terrorists attacks, the PA refuses to attempt to dismantle the vast terrorist infrastructure existing in PA-controlled areas.

So you see, a close examinations of the facts, rather than propaganda, makes it quite obvious that Israel is doing all it can to achieve a secure peace. In the end, this is all the Jewish state has ever desired. On the contrary, it is the group of people that calls themselves "Palestinians" who refuse to accept Israel, and refuse to accept peace. I can only hope that all people in the future will make themselves educated before expressing an opinion on a given topic. Otherwise, they will remain tools of propaganda that are all too easy to exploit.

Benjamin Rapp is president of the Tagar Zionist Youth Movement, OSU Chapter.

D`Souza to speak on affirmative action, race

The author of one book critical of affirmative action programs and another praising former President Ronald Reagan will speak tonight at the Ohio Union.

Dinesh D’Souza is the best-selling author of "Illiberal Education" and "The End of Racism." D’Souza served as a policy analyst for Reagan and his latest book is titled "Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader." He will speak at 7 p.m. in the Ohio Union East Ballroom.

The Ohio Union Activities Board invited D’Souza to speak in hopes of increasing thought and discussion on racial issues, said Matt Moyer, spokesman for the board’s lecture committee. People need to view affirmative action and racism with different degrees of thought, Moyer said.

D’Souza’s presentation will be followed by a response panel that includes Josh Mandel, Undergraduate Student Government president; William Vonhippel, professor of social psychology; Rebecca Parker, director of the Ohio Union; and Jeff Capell, president of the College Republicans.

D’Souza is a first-generation immigrant from India who came to the United States in 1978. He is a John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. D’Souza has been speaking on college campuses for the past several years.

"Racism is still a problem but not strong enough to keep any group from achieving their aspirations," D’Souza told the Lantern.

D’Souza said he wants to offer unique perspectives for people to escape from the black and white mold of racism. He questioned how racism could keep indigenous races down when it does not keep immigrants from chasing the American dream.

One topic D’Souza will comment on is affirmative action. The origins and logic of affirmative action need to be studied along with its alternatives, he said.

Some members of the Tagar Zionist Student Activist Movement, a conservative political group and one of the co-sponsors for the event, believe affirmative action is harmful to race relations. The organization’s president, Benjamin Rapp, said affirmative action tends to lower the standards of minority groups rather than raising them.

"We agree affirmative action is not the answer to solving social problems," Rapp said.

However, some believe D’Souza’s views on race relations are extreme.

Ohio State is a prestigious university and should be able to welcome controversial speakers, said Janice Hoffman, director of ethnic student services.

Hoffman supports D’Souza’s invitation and believes his talk will provide for an interesting debate.

"I’m willing to listen to what he has to say," Hoffman said. "I hope people come to challenge him on his views."

The fact that D’Souza discusses controversial issues is good, because it means they need to be discussed and resolved, Rapp said.

Moyer also believes that D’Souza’s talk will offer a forum that allows members of the university community to attempt to understand people’s reasons for thinking the way they do.

"It’s a time to share some different thoughts on a very, very controversial, tense subject," Moyer said. "As a student organization, we are trying to look for new ways to enlighten and entertain the university."

Additional co-sponsors for the event are the Young America’s Foundation, the College Republicans and the Senate for Community Dialogue. Activities Board Treasurer Tzyy Wang said the board paid $2,500 for the speech, and co-sponsoring groups were asked to give $1,000.

Student vigil remembers Holocaust

Eliezer Ayalon, a concentration camp prisoner, pinched his hand and hit his cheek to make sure he wasn’t dreaming when American soldiers liberated him and thousands of prisoners at the end of World War II. The first words uttered throughout the camp were that we must never forget what happened.

"Never forget" were also the words adorning signs and stickers as students gathered Tuesday evening to listen to Ayalon speak about his experiences and to reflect on the atrocities of the Holocaust.

The sixth annual Holocaust vigil began Monday at 3 p.m. in the Oval and will continue for 24 hours. This year it is held on the actual Yom Hashoah holiday, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Various students and organizations of the university signed up for 10- minute time-slots to read the names of the six million Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. Names will be read throughout the entire 24 hours.

"I’ve never done anything like this; it’s a good thing," said Raphael Solomon, a graduate teaching assistant.

Many of the readers were emotional after their 10 minutes were up.

"I was a little teary-eyed after I got done reading the names," said Josh Mendelson, a sophomore majoring in marketing.

Galina Karnaukh, a junior majoring in exercise and member of Tagar, a student Zionist organization, said the reading of the names is important so that "the names don’t die.

"Hopefully, other people will want to know what this is about," Karnaukh said. "It’s great that people show that they care."

The vigil was started by the Holocaust Awareness Council. This is the first year that Rabbi Scott Aaron, program director for Hillel, has been a part of it.

"It is a very important lesson and reminder to the community that we should never forget what happened," Aaron said.

After Ayalon spoke, Rabbi Aaron led a special prayer to mourn those who were killed at the camps.

Many people felt it was important to remember the Holocaust, given the recent events in Kosovo.

"It is really important to remind people of what happened, and this seems relevant because of what’s happening in Kosovo," said Josh Spetter, a sophomore majoring in Spanish.

A jar collecting money to aid Kosovo refugees was placed at the podium where the names were being read. The jar is available throughout the 24 hours. The money is being used to pay for transporting goods to Kosovo.

At the end of his speech, Ayalon urged the crowd to speak out against prejudice and bigotry. He said he feels that after all these years, people still don’t know that much about the Holocaust.