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LETTERS WWV »WMBW CONTACT US AT P.0. BOX 1027, ATHENS, GA 30603, LETTERS@FLAGPOLE.COM OR VIA THE “TALK BACK TO US“ LINK AT FlAGP0LE.C0M MOTHER PERSPECTIVE This is an email I got from a good Aussie friend of mine in law school in his native Melbourne. I thought it was an interesting per spective on the United States from a foreigner, nd thought it would be nice to share. Jeremy Stallman Athens I don't want to sound insensitive, but with all this media coverage about the shooting at Virginia Tech, there are a couple things I want to get off my chest. It's also part of our Australia-U.S. cultural exchange where we can explain to each other some of the dif ferences in our respec tive cultures. It's amazing to see everyone on the news saying, "what a shock.” Is it really a shock? It seems every few months we are hearing about a school shooting in the United States. Do people just forget from one shooting to the next? Of course, everyone remembers the name Columbine, but how many others have there been? I guess most mass killings have some element of shock (depending on your perspective... 200 people died in Baghdad yesterday, but that didn’t shock anyone in our countries), but have Americans not yet come to expect this kind of thing? I want to give a bit of an explanation of how Australia dealt with a similar event and maybe it will give another perspective. Ten years ago in Australia, a mentally disturbed guy opened fire on a crowded caft in Tasmania and killed 35 people. The stories were so horrific; I can remem ber it very dearly. There had been a massacre a few months before in Scotland and many believe this guy saw all the media coverage on TV and was inspired to do something similar. The point I wanted to make, and the subject of discussion with respect to this shooting in almost every other civilized country in the world, is gun control. (Are Americans talking about it?) I'm not sure if you'd be aware, but all the bulletins on the (non-American) news services covering this tragedy in America first talk about the events and then move on to show the abso lutely unimaginable ease with which guns can be acquired in the United States. British, French, Japanese reporters are in gun stores (or dealer's houses) all over the United States, showing view ers how cheap and easy it is to purchase a gun. I imagine it was never like that in Australia, but certainly after the 1996 massacre here, the gov ernment completely overhauled gun laws in this country. There was significant resistance from the gun lobby and even three (out of six) state gov ernments sought to avoid the enactment of the new laws. But the federal government prevailed with the support of the overwhelming majority of people (who have at least half a brain) who could see the result of lax gun control laws. Today, it is much more difficult to get ahold of a gun in Australia. You can't buy toy guns in Australia that look real (old ones weren't banned, itfc just not cool to sell them anymore; what does it teach little kids?), and you have to have a special license to own a gun. Automatic weap ons became completely illegal* semi-automatic weapons are severely restricted. People who hunt, farmers, etc. can still own guns, but they must comply with strict licensing requirements. Like I said, people saw the result of lax gun controls, they understood the horrors of what had happened and they wanted to take some ac tion to try to prevent it from happening again. Survivors of the massacre conducted a nation wide campaign to fight for gun controls and they succeeded. It can happen. The result today is that those disturbed youth who would like to kill their classmates have probably never seen (except in a policeman's holster) or held a gun; they would not know where to get one or how to use it. Therefore they vandalize, bully, punch or whatever else it is that disturbed kids do. They don't massacre; it's not within their means. Of course, having tighter gun controls won't eliminate guns or gun deaths. Criminals will always be able to get guns on the black market (although they become much more expensive). But criminals rob gas stations and kill gang members, they don't walk into schools and mas sacre children. Being able to buy guns over the counter in shops without proper checking and licensing requirements means that guns will not only be easy to obtain, but they will also remain a huge part of American cul ture, and the result of that is what we see and continue to see in schools and universi ties across the United States. I just hope that you. my good friend, manage to stay safe. Let me know if you hear anything about gun control. I'd love to know. Michael Hershan Melbourne. Australia BUSH AT VA. TECH So I'm watching the CUM coverage of the con vocation ceremony for those viciously murdered in the shootings at Virginia Tech when another murderer appeared before the crowd and gave a speech; this murderer stood there before this country and spoke of compassion, how we should all be there for one another; he spoke of perse verance and many other attributes of which he's clearly void. One murderer paid the ultimate price for his crime when he ended his own life with the very weapon he had viciously used to take the innocent lives of others; the other murderer is free to stand before this whole nation and act like he’s some kind of hero. It boggles my mind to think that we can sit in awe, sickened as a na tion of the horrible crimes that were committed this week at Virginia Tech, sickened by the car nage that one man was able to accomplish, and then on the other hand allow a man responsible for much more carnage to stand there and act like he has done absolutely nothing wrong, stand before this nation as one deserving of adoration, as if the crimes Bush has committed are nothing worse than the ones committed by sick-minded Cho Seung-Hui. Wars kill people; starting them always brings death and destruction to both the innocent and the combatants. Bush and his administration of fools wanted this war, the evidence of this is so overwhelming that it can no longer be disputed! That means Bush and everyone that knowingly misled this nation into this war are killers; they purposely engaged this nation in an action that was sure to have death and destruction as a re sult. They did this knowing that Saddam wasn't a threat whatsoever. Retired Centcom commander Anthony Zinni reiterated what we already knew on “Meet the Press" on a recent Sunday when he recounted the non-evidence Bush Administration officials used to sell this war to the American people: “I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war,* Zinni was quoted as saying in a Washington Post article ref erenced on the show. *1 never saw anything." Later Zinni said, “I think the WMD problem, we'd always had a suspicion of WMD programs, but never any hard evidence. And, as time went on, it seemed less and less likely there was an existing program. I mean the vice president's term was he was 'amassing' weapons of mass de struction. Clearly, there was no evidence of even an existing program, let, let alone amassing of weapons of mass destruction.* Not that Zinnfs statements are conclusive evidence that the Bush team trumped up the case for war, but this cou pled with what we already know, the continued ties about Saddam's nuclear abilities. Saddam's ties to al-Qaeda, the personal attacks on those who knew better than Bush's lies and didn't con form ... It's alt there in black and white for any patriot to read, and yet there the murderer is free to stand before this country and talk about trag edy. One murderer takes hts own life while we as a nation allow another murderer to stand before us in our time of grief; stand before us like he's done nothing wrong, like he's someone that can unite this nation in this turbulent rime. It is king past the rime for Bush the murderer to pay; it must happen before we have another tragedy befall us where we need leadership, be fore we take a time of sadness and tum it into a time of anger, downright anger over the audacity and utter lack of humility that Bush displays every time this murderer addresses our nation. Anyone that can sit in anger over the acts of one insane man must be equally enraged by the acts of another; anyone that now defends Bush defends a murderer, an out-of-control madman that has shown a propensity to commit acts so vile that they have resulted in the deaths of thousands. Bush can't be allowed to be the voice of this nation any longer for this reason; it makes me sad that it took a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech to hammer this thought home to me. but when I saw him address the victims of this foolish act on the Virginia Tech campus, it really hit me hard! Any patriot that believes in justice should be compelled by the overwhelming evidence to feel the same. Charles Muff Athens FUQN6 HEALTHCARE On the subject of universal health care, it is both interesting and disturbing that most gov ernment employees are insured with better than average protection, both on a national level and on a state levet Even local government employ ees usually have some type of health insurance coverage. In the private sector, however, compe tition for consumer dollars is squeezing health care coverage for even corporate employees out of the picture. Adequacy of coverage diminishes as the organization diminishes m size and sub stance. Moreover, quality of coverage is diminish ing across the board. More and more people are becoming uninsured. Trimming production costs through health care benefits reduction is a mon ey-saving measure inherently available to those who competitively manage the machinery of the marketplace; and it is a measure that is difficult not to utilize. Health insurance is a wild card for business planners, constantly increasing m cost... and non-predictable in scope; it's a "sack of rocks to tote* for management, a burden it would just as soon do without, especially in the context of this global market. Adequate health care coverage for the small business person is too often non-existent and continually gets more difficult to obtain and maintain. Ironically, it is the private sector that supports the government sector. An analogy would be that one's house keeper is insured but one's self is not. Universal health care is not a dirty word. It is a real issue affecting everyone. The function of government is to address the issues that face us all. I repeat, the function of government is to address the issues that face us all! Not ad- fry CufFH &OLUNG the planets Haders amp scientists CONCEIVED A BOLP PLAN /wars ACE CAUSED BY V 'AM INNATE SENSE Of ] BELONGING TO ONE GROUP ANO thus a tear and HATRED Of OTHER GROUPS VMICM LED TO WORE REGRETTABLE BUT necessary WARS. YOU EVEN- V YOU OOD-T NUMBERED f NUMBERED PANMTC'X, AN'fAALf/ But op course it didn't LAST LONG. r YOuR XYwGST ISON , MY LAWN' OH, 1 KNOW J 'YOUR. TYPE. YOU WERE WATCHED PROW A BLUB CLONE POD, WEREN'T YOU? 4 FLAGP0LE.C0M • APRIL 25,2007 NEWS li FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES I MUSIC I COMICS & AOVICE I CLASSIFIEDS •JwnswK aaooi.x -*Nnioe to looo ji,ir>w*NM s»xm ivsvamw' te tuc