The Cluster

Recently, there’s been a whirlwind of abortion-related opinions on these pages (and our sidewalks). Honestly, it’s refreshing to see Mercer students actually care about controversial issues once in awhile. I figured I should jump into the fray and make a few compelling points.

1) When one says many wonderful friends or talented leaders were never born due to their abortion, they must remember that many murderers and criminals also never entered the world. This argument is bunk.

2) The pro-life moniker is inaccurate. No one is pro-death. Abortion rights proponents simply disagree on the definitions of life and personhood.

3) A person is not defined by a beating heart or functioning nervous system. Animals have those too, and we tend to eat them. While the definition of personhood is constantly debated, one criterion is consciousness (or the ability to regain consciousness, in the case of comatose patients with a reasonable chance of waking up).

4) The majority of abortions (96 percent or so) occur well before a fetus can even biologically qualify as a person. Twenty-two-ish weeks into the pregnancy might be a safe point to start restricting abortions, as the nervous system and higher brain activity can develop from there on.

5) Planned Parenthood self-reports that only 3 percent of their procedures are abortions, while the rest are health-related (cancer screenings, contraceptives, etc). No third-party statistics exist to confirm the organization’s claim, but I doubt the margin of error is enormous. Regardless, the defunding of the organization would be detrimental to the health of millions of women and men.

6) While religious folk are certainly entitled to believe personhood begins at conception, they cannot prove the existence of the soul using scientific methodology and therefore cannot impose their restrictions on others who do not share their beliefs. The United States is not a theocracy.

7) The Bible doesn’t say anything remotely clear about abortion. Seriously. Check with the Christianity department at any respected university. For obvious reasons, I’d trust scholars over assorted church pastors and pamphlets.

Boxes of chalk, along with comments on this opinion should be sent to opinions@mercercluster.com

A common theme seen in the more liberal media outlets is populist anger against “the rich.” Those two words encompass a diverse group of people.

Dr. Thomas Stanley, a premier expert on America’s affluent, ran statistical analyses showing that “the rich” are composed of three groups: the richest, the average and then the fake millionaires.

The flashy millionaires are a small number of mostly unintelligent celebrities who blow their cash on Ferraris and G6s. They do not invest or grow their wealth after they earn or inherit it, probably because they never cultivated their minds.

The average millionaires are 94 percent of the demographic. They drive Fords and Toyotas while owning houses valued around $500,000 and below, typically sized to their needs. Their money is smartly invested and they also regularly donate a sizable sum to charity.

They shop at Marshall’s and other discount retailers and do not own expensive watches. They also work long hours and have battled through multiple graduate degrees. Simply put, most millionaires are smart, modest, and decent people.

Onto the fake millionaires. They drive BMWs, Mercedes and own McMansions (which used to be valued at around $700,000 and up before the crash). They wear Rolexes and shop at expensive department stores such as Bloomingdale’s.

They do not invest their money because they have none — these people are in debt up to their chins. They borrowed heavily against their house and they leased their cars. They lack the income to be taxed in the same bracket as the richest, and judging by their financial decisions, they aren’t modest or intelligent.

What can one draw from this information? The populist anger against them is misdirected at a false image of the affluent. The media often reinforces this stereotype.

What should matter in the battle over the tax cuts for the rich is data, not emotion. Most millionaires offer their wealth up for investment and charity while maintaining modest lifestyles and working harder than most.

Yes, some financial fat cats and CEOs made bad decisions that helped push the economy over the edge. But they were in the minority, and the rest of the rich should not be torn down with them.

Demagoguery should be directed toward opinions@mercercluster.com

Dear editors,

I have a story to tell. It’s the story of a 16-year-old girl in 1990. Imagine a 16- year-old girl in a small, mostly redneck community with a crazy, jealous mother, a younger sister and an indifferent stepdad. Her stepfather is home every day when she gets home from school but she is not allowed to enter the house until hours later, when her mother gets home from work, because of the mother’s jealousy toward her daughter.

This household also has a curfew that is strictly enforced in the form of a locked door at the curfew time that prohibits entrance into the house. Sleeping in the streets and finding other places to sleep become a commonality for this girl. Soon, this bed- and love-deprived girl finds an older guy willing to take her into his bed, in more than one way.

Unprotected sex ultimately leads to another teen pregnancy in this rural, Georgia county. The girl finds nothing but an urging to get an abortion from her family, and no support whatsoever from her lover. As an unsupported, unemployed young girl riddled with lice and venereal warts, no option except the proposed abortion makes any logical sense… and yet she chooses adoption.

This story may mean nothing to you, but to me it means everything because I was that baby who got to live. The pain and inconvenience of nine months of pregnancy on top of an STD that had to be endured until the birth could take place, as well as a C-Section in order for the baby to actually be born, were the awful consequences to be suffered by this young woman in order to bring her child into the world, and yet she chose to honor life.
Recently our campus has been in an uproar over the chalking of the sidewalks by the pro-life group. The so-called “mixing of church and state” done by the pro-life group in their chalking upset many, including most of my friends. While I do believe that my religion enhances my choice to be abstinent and pro-life, I do not believe that these decisions have to depend on religion whatsoever.

I also recognize that others do not share my religious beliefs, and thus telling people the decisions they should make based on religious beliefs that they do not hold is pointless and spurs anger. As a person who logically should have been aborted, I recognize the importance of human life. I do not want to praise myself whatsoever because I know that I, like anyone else, have more than my share of faults, but for those of you who know me very well, think how different your life would be were I not in it. Who would have comforted you and let you cry on their shoulder?

Who would have taken care of you as you vomited/passed out drunk? Who would have driven you to Checkers at 1 a.m. when you could not? Who would have done simple things such as offered hugs at any given moment to let you know you are loved or simply proofread your papers?

Think not only of me, but also for any person you have ever known that ever had any impact on your life whatsoever. They too could have been inches away from not existing because of abortion. In New York City alone there were 87,273 abortions reported in 2009.

That’s 87,273 people who didn’t get to offer shoulders to cry on. Haven’t you ever felt like you had no one to turn to? There’s a possibility that that’s because the person you could have turned to never got the right to be there for you. We all know what safe sex is and we all know how to practice it. If you are that broke, Student Health offers condoms for free.

But keep in mind that no form of sex is completely safe and that no form of birth control is 100 percent effective. So while I don’t think the elementary chalking of the campus was influential in any way except to infuriate many, I would like to ask you to pause and consider those you love and how close they could have come to not ever existing. I do believe in freedom of choice, the choice to have sex. And I believe in equal human rights for ALL humans.

- Kathryne Scott, Sophomore

The United States’ mediocre education system needs help, badly. Contrary to popular thought, increasing funding doesn’t help—it doubled over the past 40 years while students’ test scores stagnated. Instead, we must enact substantial structural reforms before the educated labor force shrinks further and threatens this nation’s future.

Before I can begin to discuss the education system’s specific issues and potential solutions, I must stress how badly students are failing. The state with the best education system is Massachusetts. It ranks 17th internationally. (In regards to standardized test scores, that is.

As a side note, I realize such testing is no perfect measure of learning, but it’s better than nothing.) Georgia scores half as well as the Bay State, ranking just slightly above Serbia, which spends much less on its students.

Such is the case nationally—the United States loves to spend on education. American students receive more dollars per pupil than most other countries, yet they perform terribly. Yes, many children in Georgia are graduating from high school with 4.0s, but they cannot read at an 8th grade level. College students, who incessantly gripe about stress and finals, study half as much as collegians 40 years ago.

However, university graduation rates and GPA averages remain the same, suggesting  a proliferation of widespread grade inflation and with less rigorous coursework. Today, many university graduates leave with a degree in one hand, overwhelming student debt in the other, topped off with a brain void of critical thinking and civic skills.

Why is our education system failing on so many levels, and what can we do to improve it? For starters, all must share the blame: parents, politicians, school administrators and teachers. Many parents take little interest in their children’s education or discipline. If they actually happen to notice their child’s poor performance, they blame the teachers first instead of recognizing their own failures.

School administrators, under pressure from politicians and parents to churn out “successful” students, hand out 4.0s like candy instead of actually improving classroom policy. (As recently witnessed in Atlanta, they have even forged test scores to increase graduation rates.)

Some teachers perform abysmally, not even passing their own students’ tests. They enjoy excessive benefits and protection from teachers’ unions, such as tenure. Politicians never suggest substantial reform; their uninformed constituencies consider additional funding a panacea.

How can we derive viable solutions from the chaotic circle of finger-pointing? A look at the data might help. A recent paper from the NBER, one of the most respected economic research institutions, proposed the replacement of the bottom 10 percent worst-performing teachers in the United States, resulting in a jump to the top of international math and science rankings.

To target these under-performers, states should require instructors to take their students’ standardized tests. If they fail, dismissal should follow. Like Massachusetts, where legislators successfully executed a similar plan, a sizable proportion of teachers will most likely not make the grade.

To enact this reform, deft political maneuvering will be required of state legislatures and governors. They must spiritedly negotiate with teachers’ unions, perhaps by offering substantial wage increases to the teachers performing in the top 50 percent in exchange for firing the bottom 10 percent. Inane tenure rules and other hurdles might be present, but determined officials can overcome them even if vigorous anti-union rhetoric is required (Here’s lookin’ at you, Chris Christie).

Educational advancement requires reform outside of the classroom as well. Community–driven programs must encourage active parenting. Social Impact Bonds might be up to the task, or at least President Obama seems to think so. The government must clean out incompetent and crooked administrators, such as those populating the Atlanta Board of Education. Schools must extend early childhood programs; research demonstrates their importance in a child’s mental development.

The United States should also look to Germany for higher education guidance. Like those in the booming European state, students who cannot succeed in high school should be required to attend technical colleges. Rather than allowing students to drop out and join the unskilled labor force, where their living standards will plummet as they compete emerging overseas economies for unskilled jobs, a technical education offers a modest future in skilled labor.

There is a lot of work to be done, and time is pressing. Side-effects of the failing education infrastructure are already visible. Schools created so few skilled workers that an imbalance within the labor market appeared, resulting in uneven wage gains between  upper, middle, and lower classes (the very same inequality liberals harp about).

If this country wishes to retain its supremacy, it must foster a future population of skilled workers. Otherwise, both GDP and living standards will drop, accelerating an era of decline for the red, white and blue.

Any finger-pointing should be directed toward opinions@mercercluster.com

Mercer’s website suggests that this university churns out students with a mission to better the world (or something else along the lines of that cliché phrase). The marketing campaign is certainly catchy. After all, who doesn’t want to be a bear with humanitarian instincts? Unfortunately, Mercer has a long way to go before it can live up to its claims.

Apart from a small percentage of students, there seems to be an atmosphere of apathy at this school. For example, the Princeton Review lists Mercer to be one of the top 20 most conservative campuses in the nation, yet the Libertarian and Republican clubs are often empty or completely inactive.

Perhaps students simply identify with the religious rather than the religious right; I can only speculate at this point. Regardless, any who wish to change the world should note that involvement in governmental affairs is a good place to start.

Another great example of apathy is the level of disconnect students have with Macon. As if it wasn’t obvious enough, the city is one of the 10 poorest in the nation. Students, especially freshmen, avoid downtown except for the occasional club outing. They complain Macon is disgusting and dangerous, yet students do nothing to improve the city’s situation. They close their eyes and plug their ears, staying on campus except for the occasional trip to Kroger or Zaxby’s. Gandhi nailed this one on the head when he said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Many students have a rigid mindset; they think Macon is a pit stop for four years, and once they are out of vocational school they will never return. I know I will be leaving Georgia after my time at Mercer is done, but I also recognize everything Mercer has given me. I’ve grown as a person and developed an intricate understanding of the world. I want to give back to the school and city that shaped me over the past couple years.

If Mercer wants to live up to its mantra, it needs to focus on not only building up the Corridor, but also helping the poorer parts of town. I admit it would be silly to think that Mercer can simply brainwash students into a humanitarian mindset; many people do not have the mental capacity or upbringing to care about anything other than themselves and their jobs.

However, I think Mercer can take students with that potential and push them in the right direction via an expanded Service Scholars program or additional requirements for the Presidential Scholarship.

Macon is our city. Mercer is part of it. If there is any place to start changing the world, this city is it.

Angry e-mails from Mercer’s marketing department can be sent to opinions@mercercluster.com