The Pine Log

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Volume 93
Issue 17
Next Publication:
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
PINE LOG The
The Independent Voice of Stephen F. Austin State University
Page 6
Ladyjack Soccer wins
Southland Conference
tournament to end
conference season.
L 43
H
By Glenn Kessler
The Washington Post News Service with Bloomberg News
It's hard to believe this nasty and brutish presidential
campaign is coming to an end. Through most of the race
President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt
Romney were neck and neck when it came to misleading
statements. But then in the final months of the campaign,
Romney pulled ahead (so to speak) with a series of state-ments
and commercials that stretched the limits. Obama's
bending of the facts also got worse — and was nothing to
be proud of. (Among the primary aspirants, Rep. Michele
Bachmann, R-Minn., finished with the worst rating overall
of any candidate.)
Here are some of the lowlights of the 2012 campaign:
Most Absurd 'Fact' —Republican Version
Here Former House speaker Newt Gingrich's claim that
Ronald Reagan never got a break from the "elite media" as
an actor. As an example, Gingrich said only one of Reagan's
movies — "King's Row" — got a good review from The New
York Times. First, Reagan was a Democrat when he was
in show business, so Gingrich's point was nonsensical.
Second, four of Reagan's top 10 movies got raves from The
New York Times — and "King's Row" was panned.
Most Absurd 'Fact' — Democratic Version
Making a pitch for the president's jobs bill, Vice President
Joe Biden repeatedly claimed that incidents of rape in Flint,
Mich., had tripled after the police force was cut, as part of
a dubious argument that there was a connection between
the crime rate and the number of police. He even asserted
that rapes and other crime would increase if Republicans
did not vote for the jobs bill. But you need to have your facts
straight if you are going to make incendiary charges. We
investigated, and it turned out that incidents of rape in Flint
actually fell after the number of police was cut.
Worst Super PAC Ad — Republican Version
A pro-Gingrich super PAC released a 29-minute video
titled "King of Bain," which portrayed Romney as a greedy
job killer ruining the lives of Americans. It foreshadowed
the Obama campaign's attacks on Romney's record as chief
of Bain Capital, but it was so over the top that it made many
of those later ads seem tame. One "case study" featured se-lectively
edited footage of interviews of workers, who later
said they were misled about the purpose of the film. They
actually had no complaints about Romney or Bain at all.
Worst Super PAC Ad — Democratic Version
Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama group, aired a pro-vocative
ad that suggested Romney was responsible for the
cancer death of the wife of a former steelworker who had
lost his health insurance. But it turned out she died from
By Mark Chediak, Benjamin Haas and Jim Polson
The Washington Post News Service with Bloomberg News
About 2.6 million homes and businesses still lacked
electricity Saturday after 900,000 customers were brought
back online overnight and restoration efforts stalled in New
Jersey.
A fifth day of blackouts in the Northeast taxed the pa-tience
of city and state officials concerned that utilities are
moving too slowly to repair the ravages of Hurricane Sandy.
Frustration grew among consumers, many also without
water, heat or phone service, as power companies advised
that some areas may not get power back for another two
weeks. A cold front is forecast to bring rain and possibly
snow to the Northeast next week.
"We knew this storm was coming, we went through this
with Irene," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat,
said at a press conference Friday. "There was no great
shock."
Cuomo wrote a letter to the state's seven utilities warn-ing
he'd revoke their operating certificates if their resto-ration
efforts fall short. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie,
a Republican, pledged to hold utilities to the timelines
they've given on getting power back, and "if they don't meet
these deadlines, they're going to have problems with me,"
he said at a press conference.
"I know people want power and heat as quickly as pos-sible.
We're attempting to do that, and no one knows how to
pressure people as well as I do," Christie said.
As of Friday, the pace of recovery from Sandy's power
losses had trailed that of last year's Hurricane Irene for
a second day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Electricity had been restored to 4.6 million customers as of
Friday morning, or about 57 percent of those blacked out,
compared with 74 percent at the same stage of cleanup for
Irene, according to data from the U.S. Energy Department
analyzed by Bloomberg. Sandy, one of the costliest storms
in U.S. history, wrought the greatest devastation ever faced
by the region's power industry.
Robert Mesuk, 76, and his wife, Sandra, 73, say they're
worried about how they'll cope another week without elec-tricity
at their home in Wayne, N.J., served by Public Service
Enterprise Group Inc.'s utility.
"We're in the dark with no food, no heating and no hot
water," said Mesuk, who is recovering from kidney surgery
he had last month. "We were supposed to have our power
Election, page 2
Sandy, page 2
Fact checkers shed light on election
Sandy blacks out
the Northeast
By Jessica Gilligan
Managing Editor
The Office of Multicultural Affairs and Lumberjack
Cultural Association will produce its 5th annual Tunnel
of Oppression Tuesday, Nov. 6, and Wednesday, Nov., 7,
from 6 to 8 p.m.
In addition the Tunnel of Oppression is reserved for
SFA 101 classes on Monday, Nov. 5.
The purpose of the free event is to open students’
eyes to the social issues plaguing society. According
to http://www.sfasu.edu/multicultural, “The Tunnel of
Oppression is an interactive museum which spotlights
different types of oppression through interactive theatre
and multimedia presentations.”
Guests will start their journey in the BPSC movie the-atre
watching an educational video compilation. They
will then taken through the side door of the theatre and
throughout the BPSC in and out of rooms where they’re
immersed into skits and scenes of oppression.
The website describes some issues that have been
highlighted in the past, “…the event has shed light on
issues ranging from human trafficking, genocide and
suicide.”
This year the main focuses are on abortion, domestic
violence, human trafficking, religious persecution, ste-reotyping,
bullying, and a Trayvon Martin tribute.
Roughly 3000 students attended last year’s event that
takes over 50 volunteers to produce.
“We’ve been working on it since the summer, writing
scripts. Only one room stays the same; that’s the stereo-type
room,” said David Jones, president of Lumberjack
Cultural Association. There are about 20 tour guides,
and most organizations in the OMA help to put on the
event.
“People shouldn’t come and be disruptive and should
be prepared to be educated on the mishaps in our soci-ety,”
Jones stressed.
Tunnel returns
with shocking
experiences
Google Images
Google Images
A scene from last year’s Tunnel of Oppression.