Christina Miller

In the wake of recent school shootings,notably Virginia Tech and Northern IllinoisUniversity, increasing attention has been paid to gun violence on campuses. Somehave called for an increase in gun restric-tions while others have denounced theserestrictions as failing and saystudents should be allowed tocarry guns on campus to protectthemselves in an emergency.Since the NIU shootings, con-servative college students havetaken the latter idea on a cru-sade. ConcealedCampus.comoffers training sessions for stu-dents who wish to obtain con-cealed carry licenses or learnto safely use a firearm. Fromthe site you can find links to write your rep-resentatives and learn facts about carryingweapons. ConcealedCampus.com has alsolaunched a string of empty holster protestsnationwide where students wear emptyholsters to protest gun-free schools. Theorganization has nearly 20,000 members.Director of Security Mike Wertz doesnot support students carrying weapons oncampus. “You’re asking a Marine howhe feels about guns? I love the SecondAmendment. Guns don’t kill, people do.”Despite his pro-Second Amendment lean-ings, Wertz has strong reservations aboutallowing students to carry weapons on campus. He fears that people with concealed car-ry licenses may not truly be able to use their weapon. “Those who are armed should knowhow and when to use their weapons. Theyshould be highly trained and know when touse deadly force.” When asked if he thoughtHillsdale would ever allow students to carryfirearms around campus, Wertz replied itwould never happen. “We’re a private insti-tution, but we are also a school zone. It’s justnot feasible. We don’t want the OK Corral.”However, Hillsdale does have accommoda-tions for students with firearms and huntinglicenses. If a student is licensed to carry a fire-arm, he can check it with the Security Office,use it in approved areas and then re-check it.Some students feel differently. Senior LynnWilhelm supports students’ rights to carryfirearms around campus, “The recent eventsthat we’ve seen at Northern Illinois Univer-sity show there’s a need for students to havethe ability to defend themselves if such anoccasion arises…It’s a right that should be protected at Hillsdale as well as other campuses. Events we’ve seen in recent years,whatever caused them, students haven’t hada way to defend themselves. If the studentswho killed at those colleges knew that fel-low students might have guns on them aswell, maybe it would make them think twice before bringing guns to class and using themon fellow students. It probably wouldn’thurt to have the professors have somekind of knowledge about guns as well.”

You’re asking a Marinehow he feels aboutguns? I love the SecondAmendment. Guns don’tkill, people do

“”

-Mike Wertz

FIRED UP:

What if students carried books

and

guns Up the Hill?

Wilhelm also believes that students at allcampuses should have to take a test with se-curity in order to be armed at school. “There’salways the risk of accidents happening.”Hillsdale’s political environment is wel-coming to concealed carry, but other campuses need some more convincing. AaronCole, president of the Eastern Michigan Uni-versity chapter of Students for ConcealedCarry on Campus says that students initiallydon’t like the idea of other students carrying.“The majority of students when you ask them, there’s a shock to it and they say, ‘Heck no! I don’t want guns on campus.’ But thenyou talk to them and they think about it…themajority of them might feel more secure.”However much students may want tocarry ﬁrearms around campuses, the rulesare unlikely to change anytime soon. Wor-ries about gun violence are strongly en-trenched, and laws in many states placestrict regulations on gun ownership.However the students who feel that theyshould be able to protect themselves makea powerful argument, and one that willsurely only grow louder with time.

Spring 2008Volume V, Issue IV

hillsdale

the

forum

photos by Huneke-Bergquist

the crawler

Spring 2008

everything you ever needed to know... and some things you didn’t

Man of STEELE

The license plate of Dr. Charles Steele,Assistant Professor of Economics, reads‘Marathons R 4 Weenies.’ A veteran of 25ultra-marathons (an ultra marathon is anyrace over 26.2 miles), Steele has earnedthe right to tout hislicense plate. Henormally runs 50mile races, but hasrun a 100 mile raceas well as 50K and100Ks. How cananyone run suchlong distances? Dr.Steele says it is allabout pacing oneself.He normally runsfor 50 minutes andthen walks for 5-10minutes. Such a pace,Steele emphasizes,is necessary so thatyour body does notget worn down bythe hours of running.Most peopleare fatigued bydreaming of runninga marathon, so whywould anybodywant to run twice,thrice, or sometimesfour times thatdistance? For Steele,running helpedhim get throughhis PhD program.“The quality thatall ultra-marathonrunners possess is perseverance;” Dr. Steele says this whileleaning back in his chair obviously thinkingabout the trying times he faced whilerunning races and writing his dissertation.“No matter what happens, we continueand progress forward,” he declares abouthimself and his running companions. Onone of his favorite runs in Montana, runnerstrot along the peaks of the rugged GallatinRange where the only stopping points are25 miles apart. “You have to learn to paceyourself and hold back, it’s a great learningexperience… There is something [special]about sticking to something and having agreat deal of endurance, you prevail.” Herelates it to his Ph.D. program where “the people who stayed in the Ph.D. program arelike ultra-marathon runners, no matter whathappens they won’t quit and keep takingsteps forward.”Another perk of being able to run 100miles, Steele says, is when he is on top of a mountain, anywhere he looks he knowshe can reach on foot. “An ultra-marathonrunner never says you can’t do that, thereis an attitude about them,” an attitudeDr. Steele has taken in all areas of life,especially teaching. When students come tohim and say theycan’t understanda concept, he brushes thataside and workswith them untilthey can graspthe material.Of course, noteven the mannamed Steele canfinish every race.Of the 25 or so he has entered, he has failedto finish two. One of the races was during ahot summer day. His parents were in townand he was worried about dehydration and placing himself in a situation of danger.Sitting at the halfway point, contemplatingwhat he should do, a fellow runner declaredthat he had beer in his truck and anyonewho did not want to finish was more thanwelcome to come drink with him. Steelequickly followed a group of runners to thetruck, and later met up with his parents.Even with these trying times, the professor has no intentions of giving up racinganytime soon. Showing a picture of an 80year old man finishing a 50 mile race, heexplains, “he did not come in last,” andwith a challenge to himself in his voice,you can expect that Steele, himself, won’t be coming in last any time soon either.

sCOTT rOZELL

Photos Courtesy of Charles Steele

Above

: Sporting a Hawaiian shirt, Dr. Steele treks upthe Hyalite Draw in Montana during a 50 mile race.

Below

: Before meeting a grizzly, Steele ventured 24miles through the Spanish Peaks in the Summer of 2007.April 21

, 2004 - the cool, still morningdawning over the Mojave desert started outlike any other day; however, a couple hoursafter the sun’s feeble morning illuminationﬁrst struck the tarmac of the Mojave Airport,the day would prove to be a milestone inhuman achievement, and mark the openingof a new era: commercial space-ﬂight.The craft revealed from the hanger thatmorning,

SpaceShipOne

looked like anything but a spaceship. Giving the impression of a bomb with wings, the gleaming white hulledvessel was attached to its carrier ship, dubbed

White Knight

, and an hour of ﬂying later, thecombined planes reached 47,000 feet. After a brief moment of peaceful gliding detachedfrom

White Knight

, pilot Mike Melvill ignitedthe main engine aboard

SpaceShipOne

.With the rocket engine roaring to life,

SpaceShipOne

tore through atmosphere. Thecraft peaked in altitude at 100,124 meters. Indoing so, it broke through the dividing line between space and Earth (100 km) for justover tens seconds. The crowd on the groundwas treated to a small white streak in thesky, and a double sonic boom created by theship’s top speed of almost three times thespeed of sound.That double sonic boom signaled more than just the ship’s velocity: it marked a transitionin the history of space exploration. Melvill became the ﬁrst private individual to enter space. Within a year of that historic ﬂight,the

SpaceShipOne

project went on to win theAnsari X-Prize, an award of $10 million tothe first group to successfully complete twospace-flights within two weeks using thesame craft.Space flight is quickly leaving the realmof government budgets or science fictionnovels, and rapidly capturing the imaginationof private investors. After

SpaceShipOne

Dave Wasmer

X MARKS THE SPOT

Millions of Dollars Awaits Those WhoSuccessfully Conquer the Final Frontier

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

At a San Francisco fund-raiser on April6, Barack Obama said bitterness over job loss leads small-town Americans to“cling to guns or religion or antipathytoward people who aren’t like themor anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explaintheir frustrations.” Hillary Clinton andJohn McCain both promptly pouncedon him for being out of touch with thecommon man—to which Obama re-sponded that “I didn’t say it as well as Icould have,” but “I said something thateverybody knows is true.”

Former President Jimmy Carter metwith Palestinian terrorist group Hamas,insisting that “it’s very important thatat least someone meet with the Hamasleaders to express their views.” Pre-sumably, he plans to do so because itworked out so well the last time Carter negotiated with Middle-Easternmilitants.

On March 28,

the Evening Standard

of London reported that Great Britain’smarriage rate is the lowest it’s ever been in the 150 years since marriageswere ﬁrst recorded—a paltry 1% of adults.

Obama’s favorite pastor, Reverend Jer-emiah Wright, blasts the forefathers,claiming they advocated white suprem-acy, during a Norfolk, Virginia sermon.He received a standing ovation for theremarks.

In another example of inﬁnite celebritywisdom: Alicia Keys claims that thegovernment was behind feud betweenTupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.,fueling it to keep black men from posi-tions of power.Massive child custody hearings arelooming after the State of Texas re-moves 416 children from a polygamistsect in San Angaelo, TX.

An Australian father-daughter couplewho just had a child together claimthat, “society has the problem, not us!”Yes, because sleeping with your parents is totally legitimate.

Compiled byCalvin Freiburger, Scott Rozell, andEmilia Huneke-Bergquist

Hillsdale

the forum

Emilia Huneke-Bergquist

Julie Robison

Editors in Chief

Heather ShellDave Wasmer

Copy Editors

Mary Kate Cavazos

Subscription Manager

Nate AndersonmATT cOLEcALVIN fReIBURGERBrian JohnstonMartin Kraegel IIInATHAN lICHTMANKate MartinChristina Miller jAMES nESBITTScott RozellG. Stolyarov II

Staff Writers

The Hillsdale Forum

is anindependent political student publication distributed four timesthroughout the academic year.

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grabbed the X-Prize, Richard Branson, theunconventional entrepreneur behind theVirgin Group, announced plans to launchhis latest venture, dubbed Virgin Galactic.The plans for the ﬁrst spaceline in historyinclude purchasingseveral multi- passenger versionsof

SpaceShipOne

,and chargingfuture spacetourists $200,000for a trip intosub-orbital spaceto experienceﬁve minutes of weightlessness.While

SpaceShipOne

may have takenthe X-Prize, spaceenthusiasts need not worry: there are more.Google recently announced another X-Prize,this time for $20 million. The challenge?Put a robotic rover on the moon. The goal isambitious, but the idea behind X-Prizes areto drive innovation and cost efﬁciency. Andwhile private sector interest in space-ﬂighttakes off, NASA has not kept its head in thesand. It has also begun offering prizes as wellfor various technological accomplishmentsrelated to space exploration.Progress may seem slow, but the end goallaid out by private investors like Branson andthe government led programs are laudableand noble. The Apollo missions united our nation - even the world to a degree - in the

X FROM PAGE 2

Photo (c) Matt Massee

The “White Knight” prepares to ﬂy into history

marvel of human achievement. Space travelkindles the ﬁres of curiosity and wonder inherent in the human spirit, and now, privateentrepreneurs of this decade like RichardBranson and the

SpaceShipOne

team are providing the spark.

Current X Prizes:

1.)

Google Lunar

$30 Million to the ﬁrst team whocan send launch a lunar rover thattravels 500 meters, transmittingvideo/photos back to Earth2.)

Progressive Automotive

$10 Million for the design of “vi-able, clean and super-efﬁcient carsthat people want to buy”3.)

Genomics

$100 Million for a faster, better way to sequence genomes, per-sonalized medicine is the goalﬁnd more information atwww.xprize.org

Come September, nearly 50,000 peoplewill ﬂood Minneapolis-Saint Paul for the2008 Republican National Convention.A four-day extravaganza, the conventioncommences on Monday September 1st(Labor Day), and while a schedule of events is likely unavailable until thissummer, attendees are guaranteed aglimpse into the United States’ politicalfoundations.The Convention is working hard to promote conservatism and electioneducation at all levels, offering not onlysummer internships to students interestedin politics, economics, and publicrelations, but also, providing an essaycontest to high school students. Such promotion is an important aspect of theupcoming election, especially in termsof bringing youth out to the polls onceElection Day arrives. Furthermore, whilethe application window for internshipshas already closed, if students are able toaccommodate a three-day vacation intotheir schedules during the second week of the 2008-2009 academic year, organizersare still eagerly recruiting volunteers viathe RNC website, available at www.gopconvention.com.Of importance is the fact that, this, the39

Convention in the history of theRepublican Party, falls later in the year

Hillsdale College RepublicansUpcoming Events

Throughout Semester

Petitioning for Jack Hoogendyk for Senate andTim Walberg for Congress

April 22

Fundraiser for Chief Justice Taylor

April 30

BBQ and 2008/2009 ofﬁcer elections (any due paying member iswelcome to run for ofﬁce, dues must be paid this day if you’d liketo vote, they will be $3)

This Week

New College Republicans shirts arrive, on sale for $12

than any other on record. Thus, had theRepublicans not secured a Presidentialnominee prior to the convention thisyear, the selected candidate wouldhave had less time to campaign thananyone in history, a mere 61 days. Yet,with Denver’s Democratic NationalConvention wrapping up only a week ahead of the RNC, neither appears to havea distinct campaigning edge on the other;something very important to both sides of the political aisle.Having hosted the 1892 Convention,where Republicans nominated incumbentBenjamin Harrison, Minneapolis-St.Paul is now, over one-hundred yearslater, an important stomping ground for the Republican party. With the help of Govenor Tim Pawlenty, and Senator NormColeman leading the way, the modern,fun, and family-oriented atmosphere of the twin cities promises to be an ideal place to kick off the conservative race tothe White House.

Emilia Huneke-Bergquist

Twin Cities Welcome Herd of Elephants

GOP Convention promises nearly $150 million in revenues for Minneapolis-St. Paul