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IN A MARCH 25 OPINION PIECE IN Newsday titled "Always Remember That War Is Hell," DEBRA SATZ, associate professor of philosophy, wrote that "people in war lose focus on the human status of all of those who are killed -- especially on the enemy side. Yet respecting the sanctity of individual human life and honoring the restriction against deliberately killing civilians is often the only barrier we have to the rationalization of large-scale murder." Whether this war is justified or not, Satz said, we must never forget that all wars invite tragedy. "People die. People similar to us," she said. "In classical Greek tragedy, it is only the hero who dies. But in the real tragedy of wars, as poet Joseph Brodsky has reminded us, 'it is not the hero who perishes; it is the chorus.'" AS THE UNITED STATES PUSHES its high-tech
military campaign deeper into Iraq, its troops may be running out
of a low-tech necessity -- sleep. CLETE
KUSHIDA, director of the Center for
Human Sleep Research, told the San Francisco Chronicle March
27 that jet lag, noise, sleeping in cramped quarters in truck beds
and the danger of attack are putting many troops in a state of
chronic sleep deprivation. Training, motivation and adrenaline can
go a long way to help troops stay awake and functioning, Kushida
said. But people with an accumulated sleep debt may fall asleep
even if they know it endangers their lives. "Eventually what
happens is that debt comes crashing down," he said. "That can occur
in a span of seconds."
THE HARTFORD COURANT REPORTED March
23 that new visa screening rules enacted following the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks are stranding foreign scientists abroad and
leaving their U.S. research to languish or die. "It has the
potential of isolating the U.S. scientific community from the world
scientific community," said Nobel laureate DOUG
OSHEROFF, the J. G.
Jackson and C. J. Wood Professor of Physics. A survey by the
Association of American Universities of 20 major research
universities found that the number of foreign scholars and
researchers dropped by 11 percent last year. In response to public
complaints from the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, State
Department officials said they are working to improve the visa
approval process. Educators say that American research has become
increasingly dependent on foreign talent because too few U.S.
students pursue science. More than 40 percent of doctorates in the
physical sciences go to non-U.S. citizens.
CALIFORNIA CONSUMERS WILL see little, if
any, of the billions of dollars federal regulators are ordering
energy firms to pay for price-gouging during the state's energy
crisis, the San Francisco Chronicle reported March 27. The
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on March 26 said energy
firms had manipulated the natural gas and electricity markets, and
indicated it would order the firms to refund at least $3.3 billion
to California. But FERC also ruled that California must pay
generators the $3 billion it racked up in unpaid power
bills. JAMES SWEENEY, professor of management
science and engineering, said the refunds would probably be used to
reduce future electricity hikes but that rates would remain
"incredibly high," on average, about 45 percent higher than before
the crisis. The California energy market has changed so much during
the last three years most experts consider a similar market
manipulation to be unlikely. "But the blight is still there,"
Sweeney said. "The long-term issue about these high costs
remains."
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Stanford Report, April 2, 2003