US military accidentally dropped a bomb a Puerto Rico

Last week the US military accidentally dropped a 500-pound bomb on Puerto Rico. The accident killed one civilian and injured four others when not one, but TWO jets flown by troops training to go to Kosovo misfired their 500-pound cargo! When I read the article, I was startled but not surprised that I hadn't already heard about the military faux pas. I hadn't read the NYT for a few days, and knew that I could have easily missed the story. But the article that I missed didn't exist.

It turns out that this happens actually all the time (this refers to both accidental and intentional bombings as well as the media's failure to report the incidents). On the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, 9,400 residents listen to the firing of live ammunition daily. Recently bombs and shells have fallen at rates as high as 20 a minute. The US military has established training camps on both ends of the island (3/4 of the island's land mass) where it conducts live ammunition exercises over coral reefs an average of 235 days a year; a practice that has gone on since 1941. Accidental bombings of civilians are not infrequent. Among last year's sprinkling of accidents fell a 500-pound bomb on an elementary school. Luckily it was an intellectually-challenged bomb that not only missed its target, but also did not even explode. School was not in session and no injuries were reported.

No injuries were reported, but neither was the bombing. Last week's US bombing of Puerto Rican civilians got little more press. Only five non-Puerto Rican US newspapers that carried the Associated Press story about the bombing: Times-Picayune: 98 words (including all a, an, and the's); NYT, late edition: 123 words (that's about five lines of your next paper due); Tampa Tribune: 104 words; Sacramento Bee: 161 words; and upstate New York's Buffalo News: 429 words.

All the papers ran the story from the AP wire, but only two left in any of the quotes from Puerto Ricans. The other three used the Naval Base spokesman's quote instead. Two carried the name of the victim. Only one reported the resulting protests in Puerto Rico and the on-going campaign, spearheaded by the state governor, against the Base's use of live ammunition. The US Congress could vote to alter military policy on the island, but Puerto Rico does not have voting rights and therefor cannot vote on legislation to end the bombing of their island.

In fact the use of the island for training increased significantly last year with the transfer of the "Southern Command" to the island. The expected damages outlined in the special pre-assessment report included significant increases in air, noise, soil, and water pollution. Adverse effects on the "biological resources and wildlife" of the area were anticipated. Unless the residents were included with the wildlife, the military omitted the assessment of damage to people who live on the island. The population suffers from abnormally high rates of respiratory illness and cancer already. Military activity on the island has recently increased even more as troops hurriedly prepare to be shipped off to the Middle East or the Balkans. Many residents have feared accidents would increase accordingly.

Lorain County has one of the highest densities of Puerto Ricans in the country, but the area papers did not cover the bombing. Those who missed the late edition of the NYT and the one internet site I found after two hours of searching, also missed a chance to support the Puerto Rican activity to halt the bombings. I will spare you my personal analysis of the obvious problems including the US colonization and exploitation of Puerto Rico, the racism, classism, and waste of the US military industrial complex, the numerous deaths and injuries from peace-time war exercises, etc. I hope you all have your own ideas about these issues. My biggest problem is that these are issues that don't and won't get discussed by the voting public that would care about these issues if they were reported/analyzed in the media. The failure of state, local, and national papers to carry stories like domestic bombing accidents is frightening.

*Two aircraft were directly involved but in every story I found, the subject-verb agreement was distorted, so I am unsure whether one or two bombs fell.

-Alyse Schrecongost, College senior

Senate election process does favor current senators

Last week an article was published in the Review where many students voiced their concern over the current election process for Student Senate next year. I would like to respond to such complaints as a senator of two years and as someone who has had a large hand in the elections.

The process does not, by any means, favor current senators. When the complaints were originally made, there was a far greater number of posters up for non-senate candidates than for senators who were running for re-election. Most senators were still busy checking nominations, trying to create ballots, or ensuring the validity of endorsements. While most candidates simply had to worry about organizing a campaign, senators who were running for re-election had to do this and worry about conducting the elections simultaneously. Senate knew of all deadlines in advance simply because they were announced in plenary session. Plenary session is open to the entire campus, and all students who were interested in running in the election would have been welcome at that meeting as well as at any senator's office hours during the following two weeks before the nomination period even began. Many candidates who were prepared and who have already spent money on campaign supplies took advantage of these opportunities and should not be penalized for those who were disorganized or did not even consider the implications of running a campaign before accepting their nominations.

Nominations were conducted for over twelve days. Every candidate was sent an e-mail with instructions and important dates once they were nominated. At the last minute, a decision was made to extend the deadline for endorsements and statements for students who were nominated at the last minute for a day and a half.

Less than two and a half hours before the deadline, a few nominees e-mailed senate claiming that the process they were asked to follow was unfair. They claimed that they were not given enough time to seek endorsements or write candidate statements. Yet they were told organizations could go through any process to decide whether to endorse a candidate or not. The organization could meet, it could have an e-mail vote, etc. Whatever the organization thought was a fair way of determining consent of members to give an endorsement would be allowed so long as such a process was consistent with the organization's charter. Such a process is possible in a few days.

Secondly, candidate statements needed to be 150 words or less. How long does it take to write half a page? Even if senate had decided that the process was unfair, nothing could be done by this point. Most candidate statements were already being reprinted for the start of elections the next day, and other candidates (mostly non-senators) were already putting up their posters around campus. The timeline senate used in this process simply followed Oberlin's Constitution, Senate Bylaws, and the college's bylaws. It was approved unanimously by current senators. Elections are required to be held immediately if more than three senators have given up their seat (see section V.B, Article II.5 in part h of the Constitution). Four have already done so. We were already behind schedule when nominations began and this was common knowledge to students who are aware of campus events from just reading the Review on a weekly basis. We are also required to "hold elections within three weeks of reading period" (section 5, part c). Yet the college prohibits a student organization from having a required function during reading period or exams. Because elections are a required function of Student Senate, the elections must be completed by this time as well as all ballot validation and counting. For someone unfamiliar with the counting and validation process, let me summarize it by having you visualize a list with 3000 names on it. Each ballot has an OCMR number and Oberlin College ID number. Ballots are validated by going through the list of 3000 names and finding a match. It is currently all done by hand without the aid of a computer voting program. Needless to say, it is a lengthy process and takes several days.

There are no provisions in any of the bylaws or Constitution that require us to give candidates a certain amount of time to perform the optional activities to help their campaign. We simply followed precedent and gave the same opportunity to all candidates. However, as is always the case, those who were more prepared may have gained a slight advantage. But that is because they took the extra time to examine their options and seek the answers to the questions they had while fully considering the implications of running for Student Senate.

The allegations made thus far by certain nominees not only bother me because they are incorrect, but because the accusers are upset that we are adhering to our organization's rules as well as campus-wide policy. When we met with these nominees after their concerns were voiced in last week's Review, their main argument was that we were not respecting the norms of their organizations. Yet they seemed perfectly willing to try and intimidate us into disregarding Senate's charter and the Constitution through petty political tactics (one nominee openly admitted to Senate that this was their motivation). The campus as a whole should carefully consider whether it wants these people as senators if they choose to follow their own organization's preferences over the Constitution and the well-being of the campus as a whole.

The nominees also claimed elections were postponed and had they known, they would have sought out more endorsements. Elections were never postponed, so they never had that option.

I apologize to anyone who may have felt they were treated unfairly. I invite them to my office hours, as well as any other senator's, to discuss any problems they may have. However, I have no doubt our process was fair and adhered to all of the rules and regulations governing elections and related activities. I also invite anyone with questions to please contact me so that in the future we can clear up any disparities before hard feelings become an issue for any of the parties involved.

-Micah Thorner, College sophomore