Bryan College Triangle

by John Moore
Staff Writer

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

— Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America

On Sunday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to send a voluminous healthcare bill to President Barack Obama for his signing. The bill will expand government healthcare in America to a near universal system.

Along with many changes, 32 million uninsured Americans will receive government aid, taxes for those who are already insured will increase, Medicaid funding will be cut back while somehow expanding the program,, and insurance companies will be prevented from refusing coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. If all goes according to plan, deficits will decrease over the next 20 years.

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by John Moore
Staff Writer

Last week iTunes sold its 10 billionth song.

Chart courtesy betweenthescreens.com

Seventy-one year-old Lou Sulcer from Woodstock, Ga., paid 99 cents for an all but tangible commodity: a digital audio file. Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen that Way,” was the magic purchase. With this news we witness the marriage of the new and the old. Others have noted the irony. I guess things happen that way.

There is something to be said about the technological tools and toys that decorate, infiltrate and mitigate our lives. Upon my knees rests a rapidly aging Macbook Pro. Open on my computer are two Word documents, a web browser sporting multiple opened tabs giving me the news, and my iTunes library. Our lives are intertwined with these things and they flow together seemingly in a forward sprawl. It is hard to separate our lives from technology these days, and it is tough to actually live without being controlled, at least a little, by it. Read full story »

by John Moore
Staff Writer

The largest community of leprosy patients in the Middle East may soon be dispersed.

Yolande Knell of the BBC, in a One-Minute World News report from Feb. 7, informs us that Abou Zaabal is the last leper colony in Egypt. While built by the government in the 1930s to house leprosy patients and to treat them, it is now likely going to be closed. All treatments for the disease can now be given at local hospitals.

Good news: after nearly 80 years, all lepers may now return home. Bad news: those who live there are not in favor of the closing of Abou Zaabal; it has become their home.

In the 20th century, many lepers were forced to come here, isolation being a primary treatment of leprosy (Hansen’s Disease), for which no medical cure was known. Now, Abou Zaabal has become something of a “refuge” for its residents, said one man interviewed by Knell.

The effects of leprosy are noticeable, especially in patients who have been ill with the disease for years. Affecting the nerves, the disease causes loss of feeling in which- ever areas of the body it resides.

Pain, in effect the one thing that so often reminds us that we are human, is stolen. The feeling of touch, perhaps one of the most basic human expressions of affection, is taken. In many cultures, compounded with these things is the social stigma often attached to leprosy. More than half of all new leprosy cases are found in India, a Hindu culture. In this culture, contracting the disease is one of the worst imaginable for anyone. Those who contract the disease literally become “untouchable.” Read full story »

by John Moore
Staff Writer

The world has seen a lot. In the past hundred years, remarkable things have taken place in history. In vast regions of the world where communism’s brutal reign was established, it was brought to a halt; where dictatorships grew, free republics sprang up. Rights long withheld from minorities were finally given; women viewed as inferior to men came to be seen and treated as fully equal to men.

Advances in modern science and technology gave rise to life-saving medicines, health-improving conditions and overall care for our bodies. Science led to the ability to control our environments and our lives more than ever before. We produced more than we ever had, and all that we built we made more and more efficient.

In all of this progress, our world was turned on its head. We created not merely control but convenience, not simply production but efficiency, not only consumption but also choice. Today we hold that we have attained the greatest freedoms ever felt.

Yet, in all of these forward movements, other things were lost. Perhaps we’ve forgotten essential elements of our own humanity.

As history continues, we find our world staggering, short of breath. While we’ve nearly saved ourselves with modern invention, we have fallen short of being capable of explaining the meaning behind our own existence. While we may have been able to make sense of how things work, we have misunderstood why they work.

Without a sufficient answer, the empires of our fathers cave in on themselves as our generation is given convenience and choice but does not understand its own significance outside of what it can achieve. There is a human quality we are now searching for.

All things have been boiled down to two essentials: progress and efficiency.

Simply put, I say that we are better than that.

In this column, I hope to examine news stories from around that world that deal with the struggle to find our humanity.

by Justin Morton
Designer Editor

It is Dec. 24, 1996 and I am 7, living in Honolulu, Hawaii. I believe firmly that Santa Claus is real, has a flying, magical sleigh pulled by a team of reindeer and a belly full of Christmas cheer.

It is bedtime, and my parents have made that dreadfully clear as they order my younger brother Jacob and I to our shared bedroom to go to sleep for the night. My brother and I then lay awake for a half hour, talking about all the wonderful things that Santa could possibly bring us the next day. We then, as every kid normally does, made a pact to stay up all night and catch Santa in the middle of the night as he unloaded mounds of presents under our tree. Read full story »