No place like Rome

By Jason Satek - Columnist

Being as I watch an inordinate amount of television, yet am faithful only to a select few shows, it behooves me to draw attention to one that has become an anticipatory mark on my weekly calendar.

I have been a long time viewer and fan of HBO and during this period, many shows have premiered, held court and cycled into the hiatus rotation only to surface anew months later. Some shows, like "Carnivale," did not get the chance to develop a longstanding base due to the nature of the HBO programming pattern, allowing them to present shows in an unorthodox, unseasonably scattershot method, partly to cover for a hibernatory "Sopranos," and sometimes get rushed back and consequently out the door.

This loss is somewhat compensated by "Deadwood" and "The Wire," but what I now write about was a costly and ambitious vehicle, the first co-production between HBO and the BBC, that was shot on location in Italy with an estimated $100 million price tag.

Given the recent success, or lack thereof, regarding sword and sandal epics (re: "Troy," "Alexander," "King Arthur," etc.), whoever put "Rome" forth in a pitch meeting probably held that this was a worthy effort to make historically speaking, despite any perceived financial shortfalls. Yet by most accounts, it has been a critical and commercial hit and has already been picked up for a second season.

What is the draw? Living as we do in a representative democracy, it could be likened to peering back from a grown tree to its seedling kernel. Though Greece has claim to the forms, it was Rome that put them into mass implementation.

Additionally, there is a tinge of tragedy in seeing the Republic subverted by the lust of an individual, knowing all the while that the entirety is doomed many years hence by Alaric and the Visigoths.

Past depictions made the title city out to be a shining city on the hill, but this version has the dirt, grime and detritus inherent in a metropolis. Slavery is an economic fact of life, with an estimated 70 percent of the population having been either a slave or a former one. Polytheism holds sway and bribery is a common practice, while the military looms as the final authority, providing the troops have been paid.

Into this setting, a fine and very British cast interacts and here lies evidence of comprehensive storytelling. Using what has been called the "Upstairs, Downstairs" technique, after the 1970s series that split storylines between prime movers and their servants, "Rome" is able to show Caesar, Brutus, and Pompey in one moment, and then transition to humble legionnaires affected by those clashes.

Having read the tragedies of Shakespeare and seen the 1963 Burton/Taylor version of "Cleopatra" (which as I recall was also a pricey foray), the story arc does not come with many surprises but the realistic presentation combined with the created "downstairs" characters more than compensates. Let historians do the accuracy debating; I'm too busy watching.

Yet, according to a recent announcement, HBO will have no new shows airing in the Sunday slot, after this week's " Rome " season finale, until March. No sooner have they pulled a rabbit out of the hat then they stoop to dirty Trix. This leaves me on the couch watching "Sex and the City" reruns with my wife that I sat through the first time around.

Oh well, with finals coming I suppose I can hit the books harder, though I can't help wondering if I've been missing anything. Ahh, who am I kidding? Channel surf's up.

Military recruitment practices raise questions

By Ron Felten - Columnist

I'm sometimes forced to wonder where our nation's priorities truly lie. Back in high school, for example, there were military recruiters set up in the cafeteria at least once a week trying to convince students that college could wait. (I believe each of the branches were on a rotation; the Army one week, the Marines the next and so on.) And, while we could always depend on Sergeant So-and-so to be in school with a box load of brochures and free pencils, I can count on one hand how many times university representatives visited each year.

And, unfortunately, college really hasn't changed things much. Each time I walk through the basement of the PAC, for instance, I pass the enormous rack of glossy "Go Army" and "Cross into the Blue" pamphlets displayed just outside of the bookstore. (As a side note, many American universities - including Harvard and Yale - have recently banned military recruitment on their campuses because of what the Boston Globe labels as the "Pentagon's policy on gays in the military.")

Perhaps the group most at risk to this advertising, though, is young adults. Back in 2002, the government upped its game, so to speak, and released the first installment of " America 's Army," a computer game that Wired Magazine calls "essentially an interactive Army recruitment ad." The game and its subsequent versions, which are all made available as free downloads on the Web, now boast over 5 million registered users, some of them not even in their teens, notes a BBC News article.

The most recent official military game, "Special Forces," promises an "authentic U.S. Army experience" and even offers "authentic special forces weapons." Further, groups of online gamers can compete against one another in tournaments organized through a Web site called the Team Warfare League, which is linked to the Army's official site. Nowhere on either of the aforementioned sites, by the way, did I find information about a minimum age one must be to register.

It's an interesting paradox that exists in contemporary American culture: Tobacco and liquor companies are routinely engaged in nasty lawsuits for jeopardizing the health of children through their selective targeting campaigns, but the US military, which is arguably a much larger health hazard (both physically and psychologically), is allowed and, further, encouraged to market to kids in the spirit of patriotism, honor and duty.

How does the Army respond to allegations of targeting kids with their recruitment tools, specifically video games? According to the frequently asked questions page on AmericasArmy.com, the games are designed to "provide young adults and their influencers [sic] with virtual insights into entry level Soldier training, training in units and Army operations so as to provide insights into what the Army is like."

When asked if children as young as 13 should be exposed to the nitty gritty of what the military actually does, the Army responds, "In elementary school kids learn about the actions of the Continental Army that won our freedoms under George Washington and the Army's role in ending Hitler's oppression. Today they need to know that the Army is engaged around the world to defeat terrorist forces bent on the destruction of America and our freedoms."

Apparently, the Army feels the best way to educate children about current events is to seduce them into playing a video game that allows them to "kill" other players. And, while the military openly admits to encouraging kids to play this violent game, they claim that it only "depicts the Army's sanctioned use of armed force in defense of freedom" and that "use of force occurs in the game, as it does in the Army, within rules of engagement and the laws of war," as though an adolescent boy could or cares to make that distinction.

One of the primary reasons corporations are punished for marketing harmful products to children is that young people simply aren't able to discern propagandist marketing tools and techniques from the facts. If kids lack the judgment to decide if smoking is bad for their health, for example, we must question why our society (and, more importantly, the government) lets the military play by a different set of rules than civilian entities.

The U.S. military, no matter how potentially good its service ultimately may be, should not be exempt from the same moral and ethical principles every other organization is expected and required to adhere to. Marketing to children is a desperate move; perhaps a closer look at the cause of this desperation is what's needed, not cheap ploys and dirty tricks designed to "Get 'em while they're young."

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

In a recent letter to the editor one of my esteemed colleagues here at UIS, Dr Keenan Dungey, attempted to clarify some misconceptions regarding the concept of intelligent design.  He recommended several texts by Michael Behe and William A. Dembski two of the leading exponents of intelligent design.  He also recommended that students interested in this topic attend either my Evolution course (Bio 479) or his Science and Religion (Lsc 419) course.  I applaud Dr. Dungey's efforts to have our students look into this 

topic that seems to confuse many people and draw their own conclusions.  I would also like to thank him for the bit of free advertising he did for my course.  My concern though is that my Evolution course is an upper division course offered by the Biology Department, and that many students outside of the program who may choose to read Behe and Dembski's works will not have the chance to take my course so I would like to use this forum to make several things clear.

             Intelligent design is not a scientific "alternative to evolution."  Any readers who suspect that this is due to a prejudice on my part against anything that would topple the "sacred cow of evolution" should be aware that I am in agreement with the prevailing opinion of the scientific community at large.  Anyone wishing to verify this should visit the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ( http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/ 2002/1106id2.shtml) to read their statement opposing the teaching of intelligent design on the basis of "significant conceptual flaws in its formulation, a lack of credible evidence and misrepresentations of scientific facts."  This is underscored by the fact that the 

adherents of intelligent design have never, at least to my knowledge published anything in a peer reviewed scientific journal in contrast to the thousands of articles that have been published over the years in these venues that are based on evolutionary theory.

             While I am in no position to speak for either Dr. Behe or Dr. Dembski my understanding of their arguments is that the probability of complex structures in cells, or intricate systems, 

such as the genetic code, arising as a result of a random undirected process, is infinitesimally small and the only recourse to explain such phenomena is to invoke a conscious force of some kind, an intelligent designer.  It seems to me that this argument rather than refuting evolutionary theory simply ignores it.  Evolution is not an undirected process as these authors suggest.  It is actually a combination of a directed process (natural selection) operating on products produced by random processes such as mutation and genetic recombination.  This is supported by numerous experiments conducted in laboratories as well as in nature.

             Evolutionary theory argues that new genes, and new forms of existing genes called alleles are produced by mutations which occur as a result of random errors during DNA replication.  Genetic 

recombination, a process by which different alleles can be shuffled like a deck of cards can produce new combinations of alleles.  In this respect evolution is a random undirected process.  There is no plan or directed purpose to produce a particular allele or combination of alleles.  Next, natural selection, which is defined as differential reproductive success, determines if these new alleles or combinations thereof are beneficial to the organisms that bear them.  If so, they will survive longer and produce more offspring relative to organisms with a less advantageous genetic makeup.  In this respect evolution is a directed process, but it is important to recognize that evolution does not have any particular purpose in mind.  I have encountered many people who think that evolution has been laboring for billions of years to produce mankind, whom they see as the pinnacle of evolution.  Sad to say, at least in an evolutionary sense, we are no more important or "highly evolved" than any other species on the planet.  It is true that evolution produced mankind but it is important to realize that it did so by a combination of the random and directed processes I described above.  We are here not because of any particular plan, but because our genetic makeup, as well as that of our ancestors, was selected for by the environments in which we have lived.  A word of caution is appropriate here.  The criteria that selection applies can change either gradually over millions of years or suddenly as the dinosaurs found out one day 65 million years ago when an asteroid struck the  Yucatan peninsula.  Up until this time, being a dinosaur was a very successful strategy for a living organisms on the planet Earth.  The next day it was not.  In this light one can appreciate the recent 

concerns regarding the environmental changes produced in response to global warming.  Even those who doubt it is a real phenomenon might consider proceeding cautiously when dealing with something that has 

the potential for altering the selection criteria.

             To be fair, I cannot do justice to the arguments for and against intelligent design in the space allotted to me here.  I would encourage any student that wishes to know more about the arguments for intelligent design to read Behe and Dembski's books as Dr. Dungey advises.  Either before or afterwards I would recommend that students who do not have a science background take 10 minutes to read an article that appeared in the May 30 2005 issue of the New Yorker magazine by H. Allen Orr.  Writing in prose clearly accessible to the layman Orr not only points out the flaws in intelligent design in general but also deconstructs Behe and Dembski's arguments including accounts of back pedaling on the part of both authors when confronted by the errors in their reasoning.  This article is available at the following url:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact .  Students with a Life Science background might wish to read the relevant sections in Evolutionary Biology by Douglas Futyuma (Sinauer Associates Inc. Sunderland MA) or the text my students read, Evolutionary Analysis by Freeman and Herron ( Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River New Jersey ).

             It seems to me that the reason evolution is such a troubling concept for so many people is that it seems to conflict with their religious beliefs.  They feel that evolution somehow denies the existence of God.  This is not so.  Science cannot prove that God exists or that he does not.  Consequently, on the existence of God evolutionary biology and all of science for that matter has nothing to offer.  Those who seek an answer to this question are better served by consulting with theologians.  Science by its very 

definition can only explain natural phenomena in terms of natural causes within an objective empirical framework.  Religious issues on the other hand require faith, a "firm belief in things for which there is no proof" as Merriam Webster defines it, although the religious individuals that I know might not agree with that definition.  They feel that their experiences and reflections on their lives life have provided them with all of the proof that they require.  While this type of evidence is subjective in nature, and is not necessarily valid in a scientific sense, it is still very real to them and it is not the place of science to deny it.  At the same time religion must recognize that when individuals try to deny scientific facts that do not fit with their beliefs as the intelligent designers seem to be doing they are burying their heads in the sand.  Science 

seeks only to explain the world we live in.  Reconciling ones religious beliefs with it is a problem everyone must accommodate somehow within each of our own personal belief systems.

             Although science and religion have had many difficulties over the years this need not be the case.  No matter what denomination one belongs to, and whether you loved or despised him, I think that there is universal agreement that the late Pope John Paul II was at the very least a man with a devout belief in God.  In 1996 he famously stated that a belief in evolution was not inconsistent with the teachings of his faith.  This provides an important lesson for us all.  Religious individuals who are troubled by the view of the world presented by science might consider emulating the example provided by the late pontiff and seek within their faith a viewpoint that allows both science and religion to peacefully co-exist.

Jim Bonacum Ph.D

Assistant Professor of Biology

University of Illinois at Springfield

Internship with Blaogjevich too good to pass up

By Dana Rodriguez-Silas - AST Guest Commentary

Over the last four years, Carly Hawkins has worked on political campaigns, been a political activist, participated in Model United Nations and Model Illinois Government and served as the president of the College Democrats at UIS. Majoring in political studies, she has established a name for herself by supplementing her college experience with political opportunities. An internship in Governor Blagojevich's Press Office proved too good to pass up.

"In politics, I think, there's only so far you can go with learning from a book, in a classroom, with a lecturer. At some point you have to get out in to the world of actually doing the job. I had done a lot with the campaign side of politics, and not so much with the bureaucratic side, and that's why I applied for the internship I did." Hawkins became aware of the internship by visiting the state of Illinois ' Web site, where many governmental internship positions are posted.

Hawkins was given multiple responsibilities as a press intern at the Governor's Springfield Office. "I worked with the communications staff in both Springfield and Chicago - writing and editing press releases and public schedules, attending the Governor's events, taking reporter phone calls, doing research, etc." Hawkins' position, as with many career fields, presented challenges and obstacles to overcome.

"I guess the hardest thing was that it was very different from anything I'd done before. I took a class on public relations, so I knew the basics of writing press releases and stuff like that, but none of it could prepare you for the actual experience of going from basically zero knowledge on something to having to write a two-page, succinct, smart, summary about it.

"The first things I wrote for my office were fairly terrible - I hope my boss would say I've gotten better now. There's just a lot of stuff you have to be able to pull out of your hat at a moment's notice - from finding an obscure person or company's phone number to knowing who is the appropriate person to send a reporter to. Everything is kind of pressurized, also - there's a short time frame, and there's a lot of times when it's rush-rush-rush."

The Applied Study Term program at UIS offers hands-on experience for undergraduates, allowing students to "test the waters" of potential careers. For Hawkins, this was an invaluable benefit of the program. "I like working in the press a lot, but I think in the long term I'd like to move more towards policy or legislative affairs. Before my AST, I never would have thought about them being particularly different aspects of an office."

Many students such as Hawkins find themselves with real job offers upon completion of their AST, a testament to personal success in their intern positions. "The office offered me a job at the end of the semester, so that's pretty rewarding!"

What advice does Hawkins offer to potential AST students? "Pretty much any place is going to love to have you work for free, so try and get an internship with your dream placement. It'll probably happen, and it'll help you figure out what you're doing with your life." Hawkins considers her own AST to be "easily one of my best college experiences, and not just because of the job offer at the end. It helped me grow up a lot, professionally."

UIS also offers a Legislative AST program, wherein students may be placed on the staff of a member of the Illinois General Assembly. Students interested in working with lobbyists, associations or legislative staff research organizations can also participate.  The LAST is available each year during the spring semester.

If you are a junior or senior, have three to four classes completed in your major and would like more information about the LAST, contact the Applied Study Program at (217) 206-6640 or Barbara VanDyke-Brown, LAST instructor at (217) 206-6574.

AST office hours are Monday - Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and other times by appointment. Discover the advantages of an applied study term at UIS!

Quitting smoking is a lot harder than it looks

By Courtney Bailey - GA Counseling Center

Every day there are 2,001 smoking related deaths in the United States . That is like losing almost our entire undergraduate population at UIS every day. We've all heard about the horrible risks of smoking and the long-term effects of what it can do (cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, emphysema). So why are there still 45 million smokers in America ? Because quitting is really, really hard.

Nicotine is the evil, highly addictive drug lurking in cigarettes and tobacco and the reason it is so difficult to quit smoking and stay a non-smoker. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine. It affects many body systems such as heart and blood vessels, hormones, metabolism, and the brain.

When you first take a puff of that cigarette, nicotine goes through the lungs and quickly makes its way through your bloodstream. Nicotine depresses the nervous system which means it takes longer for your neurons to talk to each other. Therefore, you may feel stimulated, but your brain functioning will actually be slowed down. It increases heart rate, constricts your blood vessels and makes you take rapid, shallow breaths.

After prolonged use, the body becomes tolerant of nicotine, meaning it takes more and more of the drug in order to get the desired effect. When nicotine use is discontinued, withdrawal symptoms occur. These symptoms include depression, dizziness, frustration and anger, irritability, trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, restlessness, headache, tiredness and increased appetite. Often these symptoms are why smokers go back to smoking.

But you can quit and maintain a non-smoker lifestyle! There are many benefits to quitting smoking. Your heart rate will decrease, blood pressure will drop, you decrease your risk of many, many types of cancer (i.e. lung, pharynx, larynx, mouth, gums, bladder, kidney, pancreas and liver, just to name a few), your risk of heart disease, stroke and infections of the lungs are decreased significantly. Also, you reduce your risk for premature aging, yellowing of the skin and fingernails, bad breath, stained teeth, gum disease and an overall bad smell.

When you quit smoking, food begins to taste better, your sense of smell returns and you do not get out of breath so easily doing daily activities. Not to mention the large amount of money you save from not buying cigarettes. Plus, you are saving the people around you by reducing their risks associated with secondhand smoke.

Many smokers will try to quit and relapse, but there is still hope! It's OK to relapse, but you have to keep trying. There is help available for those that are ready to quit. Whether it be counseling, calling a quitline or relying on the support of friends and family, you can do it! Here are the key points to remember when developing a plan for quitting smoking: First, make the conscious decision to quit; second, set a quit date (why not tomorrow, the Great American Smokeout? ), develop a plan for dealing with withdrawal symptoms and maintain your non-smoking lifestyle.

In order to help many people quit smoking, the American Cancer Society developed the Great American Smokeout. It takes place the third Thursday in November every year. This year it is tomorrow.

The Great American Smokeout is an opportunity for smokers to stop smoking for one day and hopefully quit forever. For more information on the Great American Smokeout see the Counseling Center 's display table in the PAC all this week.

Also, for more information on quitting smoking visit the American Cancer Society's Web site at www.cancer.org , stop by the Counseling Center in HRB 64 or call at 206-7122. Remember "Today, you don't have to become a statistic. Today, you can decide to quit smoking." (American Cancer Society, 2005).

Phoning it in

So Ron it's Right

Letter to the editor

Internship with Blagojevich too good to pass up

Quitting smoking is a lot harder than it seems