Adrian College Hockey

Anyone in the Adrian area may know that the new administartion has decided that it will be a very useful addition to the college to add Ice hockey as a sport. As an alumni of Adrian College I cant see this idea making sense in any way. The coach which Adrian sought out and hired, Ron Fogarty who no doubt is an excellent coach, with a Division I pedigree does not seem to have any intention of playing DIII hockey for very long, but rather leads one to believe that it is only a 2-3 year bandaid before the program can go Divison I. This is an issue in and of itself as the new adminstrations big puish is for enrollment and the money that comes with. Hockey is all well and good but it is simply attracting canadian students who at most will pay half the tuition since there is a 14,000.00 Canadian scholarship. Thats right a scholarship just for being canadian that covers of half the tuition of the college. Right off the bat it wont bring in nearly as much money in terms of tuition as other sports, but it is already being treated as the crown jewel of the college. The new president is no doubt a hockey fan and makes no secret of it, thus the addition of the program. If and when this program goes to an actual athletic scholarship level it will make even less sense. Instead of bringing in even half tuition , they will pay students to come here, thus making a negative dent in the schools budget. Not to mention that they are building a 6 million dollar ice arena, which everyone knows is the most expensive facility to build, and also maintain. All for a seasonal sport that doesnt even last all that long. Not to mention the fact that Adrian has joined a conference that plays teams in minnesot and wisconsin, they wont be bussing, they will be flying and dont think for a second that wont cause the budget to soar. This is not a good idea for the college or the area. Hockey is not that big of a sport is southeastern michigan not to mention the fact that Adrians student body can best be described as "apathetic" when it comes to sports. With pour turn outs for all athletic events and even when they show up they do nothing. This has all the makings of a failed investment for the college, one that it cant afford to make. Just go two hours down the road and ask Findlay how hockey worked out for them. In this alumnis eyes, I just cant comprehend why so much money and time is being devoted to hockey when so many other facilities are lacking. Look at the academic buildings on campus, they are in sore need of repair. A science building would help, as would any other number of academic services. This school needs to look at the needs of the student before it looks at the wants of the president.

Book Meme

One Book That Changed My Life: A book that had a significant impact on my life and the way that I view the world was "Pity the Nation". Great book and a powerful read.

A book I have read more than once: Ive read lots of books more than once, sticking out in my mind are East of Eden and Zen and the Art of Motorcylce Maintenance

One book I would want on a desert island:

One book that made me laugh: Mad as Hell

One book that made me cry: Flowers for Algernon or maybe Of Mice and Men

One book I wish I had written: Friday Night Lights

One book I wish had never been written: Self Matters by Dr. Phil, hes an arrogant clown.

One book I am currently reading: We the Living and Omnipotent Government

One book I have been meaning to read: What has Government Done to our Money

Someone to be tagged:

On Iraq, the troops and the military.

The situation in Iraq continues to grow worse, with the largest suicide bomb attack yet, killing 135 and wounding 300. And of course it is our fault for disbanding or attempting to disband a militia that ran death squads. It is not the Iraqi armys fault for not supplying the troops they were supposed to in the first place to secure baghdad. If the Iraqi people wont fight for their country, why should we? Of course it isnt up to their police with street level knowledge who just turn a blind eye. It must be our fault for not stopping it, just like it would be if we werent there. You cant win for losing if you are the U.S.

In watching some footage of US military action in Iraq I am disgusted with the way some of our servicemen are conducting themselves although I understand they are undera tremendous straina nd performing a job for which they werent trained. It seems in watching them at raids of homes and traffic stops that the only thing they were trained to do is tell the Iraqis to shutup. What we are currently having our troops do is act as police, soldiers who were not trained to deal with people on that level or ask the right questions now respond with shutups, yelling and cussing. ALl of which is not condusive to good investigations or gathering any info, let alone winning over hearts and minds.

Lastly I have been watching alot on the military channel on a show called Weaponology. If your not familiar with the show, it highlights all sorts of new technology and advances it also mentions the cast of said technology and advances. I can help but be blown away by how much is spent on high speed long range bombers and massive tanks and artillery pieces. Does the pentagon not see that the wars of today previoulsy the wars of the future are nto fought like they used to be. It seems as if we still have the cold war idea that the most bombers and most armor will win the war. Clearly this is not the case in Iraq which is how wars are going to be fought in the future, full scale land wars are a thing of the past it is all aobut covert ops now, small units and precision bombing. The best exampls is the Abrams tank, the best tank in the world, the only tank that can destroy it is another Abrams. Thats all well and good, but the Iraqis dont have tanks to destroy it with, instead they destroy 50 million(a guess) worth of american armor and technology with an IED that probalby has 15 dollars worth of material.

The focus needs to change and the bulk of US military spending needs to be reassesed. We cant keep fighting a cold war that no longer exsists and until we do our troops will go into combat without what they need. With vehicles deteriorrating and in disrepair due to sand, with home units not having equipment to train and with humvees and other vehicles not armored because instead we had to invest money in building an artiullery piece so big that not even our cargo planes can move it. Good spending by a great administration, gotta love it.

Civil war...whose responsible.

In looking at coverage of the war in Iraq which is undoubtedly turning into a Civil war certain questions must be asked. The main question is, who is responsible for this, and the most common answer is the United States. This is the simple answer, America got rid of Hussein so they must be responsible, I must disagree. I must say that although I am not a fan of the climate in Iraq or the way the conflict has been handled, the blood is not on our hands.

The blood and the blame lie squarely on the hands of the Iraqi people. Why you ask, simple, because of years of unchecked hatred among different sects of the same religion. The United States did not inspire this hate, it had always been there oppressed by the strong arm tactics of Sadaam Hussein. Once we liberated the people of Iraq they simply couldnt contain themselves. The animosity being displayed by the Iraqi people with the US is simply that the soldiers are getting in the way of their killing sprees. Wether it be Sunni insurgents or the responding Shiite deat squads we did not create either side. The narrow minded and highly religious ideology of the middle east did. These are groups that have always been in conflict and that cannot behave like human beings. Killing people in markets with bombs for being Shiites and torturing with drills for being Sunni is no human act, but the act of something much less.

This is not to say that the Iraqi people are all like this, but as in any case, the small amount who are, are ruining the country for the rest. The violence simply spurs more violence and in such a religiously divided country the United States ample amounts of firepower cannot counter the street level intelligence and ability to blend in that the trouble makers have. This is not our civil war, it is the Iraqi peoples. We accomplished the objective, remove the former regime, replace with deomocratic government. What the Iraqi people choose to do with said government is their perogative, not ours.

Until the government of Iraq(predominantly Shiite) decides to rein in the death squads and put teeth into its justice system there will be no end. Conversely there is no reason that we should embroil ourselves in a countrys civil war, the fight on terror should and will continue, but the policing of a nation should not. The war on terror is not fought by the regular army, but special forces and police services until the US recognizes the nature of this conflict which more closely resembles police actions scatteresd throughout the world rather than the battlefields of old, there will be no progress. All the fancy tanks and aircraft carriers we have cant defeat the cell of terrorist...only good intelligence and precision strikes can.