6 Opinion i may not agree with what you have to say, but! will defend to the death your right to say it. » - Voltaire The opinions expressed in editorials or letters to the editor that are submitted to Over the Edge are not the opinions of Over the Edge or UNBC. The views expressed in a letter submitted to Over the Edge are the views of the original authors, and therefore, do not reflect the views of Over the Edge, or its staff. Over the Edge welcomes your submissions to our opinion section. To submit a letter to the editor e-mail over-the-edge@unbc.ca. Book of Revelation EVERALD CREARY CONTRIBUTOR I don't think God has given me the gift of interpreting every detail of the book of ‘Revelation.’ How- ever, I believe everyone should understand, at least,a working con- cept - that I will attempt to share: Revelation is about a revelation that God gave to John while on the isle of Patmos. It talks about the great conflict between Satan and God, that conflict is mostly about worship. The issue of God's law is again the conflict. It uses lots of symbols but are symbols used are also used in the book often explainedSome of Daniel and are also explained there. Examples in Revelation are: X “..The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, and they are seven kings;...” heads.) The ten horns which you saw are (explaining seven ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom...” (explaining horns.) XM “The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues,’ (explaining —_ water.) X “The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth,” (explaining woman — sometimes used as ‘good’ church or ‘bad’ church. ‘Good’ church does not get mark of beast.) KM “And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world...’ (explaining dragon.) All these beasts and the dragon are at war with whom - “So the drag- on was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus,” Basic- ally, these are the ones that do not get the mark of the beast. “Blessed are they that do his command- ments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.’ The conflict is about worship - whom will we worship, the drag- on (Satan) or the Lamb (Jesus). The dragon works through the beast to set up his image (“And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority”). So the dragon (Satan) is trying to force worship through the work- ing of the beast. However, God warns, “if any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God....” We cannot leave out the section of Revelation that gives peace and joy to God's people. It may sound horrifying and scary, but God's people will be delivered. In fact, much of the plagues that will reach the earth will not harm God's people because: “..he cried with a loud... Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” I'll end with the story of Daniel 3 - King Nebuchadnezzar makes an image and asks all to worship the image in respect for him. All do, except three simple guys. In worshiping the image they would be, basically, worshiping the king. So they tell the king that they must worship God only. In Rev- elation this drama is being played out again - the world is asked/ forced to worship the image set up by the beast (through the working of Satan) and like Daniel 3, many will do. Again, just like Daniel 3, those that choose to worship God only will be persecuted bur will also be delivered. One of the sections that I love mostlyinRevelationisfoundbelow. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea, And I John saw the holy city, New Jeru- salem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Be- hold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” Friendship in the modern age SHANE SCOTT-TRAVIS NEXUS ing we are to have fast and frictionless friendships. “No man is a failure who has friends, unless his VICTORIA (CUP) - In our over-mediated social landscape our understanding of friendship is growing thinner than a Ralph Lauren model. As our global community diversifies, we diversify and reshape. Our relationships take the brunt of it, whether we realize it or not. Before status updates on Facebook gleefully in- formed us what our friends were doing up to the minute, we had different ideas about camaraderie. In a historical context there were several classical ideas of friendship to co-opt. It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that the paradigm really ruptured. Industrialization displaced the rabble from their traditional settings of community and family and packed them, like a Brazilian bikini, into urban cen- tres. It was here that friendship emerged to settle and soothe the new uncertainty of modern life. The radical changes of family life since industrial- ization — particularly in recent decades — has made friendships far-reaching. With the breakdown of traditional families and extended family dynamics displaced, we now turn to our friends for further- ance, Former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson once suggested that “friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” While it’s lovely to hear winning platitudes and odes to friendship, does such schmaltzy syrup stick to modern views of fraterniza- tion? Friends can fulfill their function by boosting our ego, supporting our feelings and validating what we think. But the busier our lives get, the more demand- friends are failures,’ snapped satirist Stephen Col- bert on his popular program, *The Colbert Report*. But his comment is almost too candid. Have we now reached a point where our friendships are deterior- ating? With social networking sites all the rage, are we entering a new stage in our relationships? If Face- book gleefully informs you that you have 718 friends, what's that saying, exactly? Nowadays a night out at the pub might find you twiddling your thumbs while everyone at your table is busy using theirs to frantically text people who are probably sitting at tables in other pubs doing the ex- act same thing. Should we applaud the way friend- ship is being integrated into our futuristic, hyper- connected, electronic lives? What can we say about the future of friendships that won't make us fidgety? Appreciating the people in our lives is a great place to start. High-bandwidth correspondence certainly has its place, but is no sub- stitute for the real deal. We are all social animals that crave a certain de- gree of companionship. As long as we can remain well affected we needn't be too tormented in our digital-age digs. As for the company we keep, real or electronic, consider something St. Francis of Assisi said: “Seek rather to love than to be loved.” January 27, 2010 + Over the Edge Save the CBC SHELBY PETERSEN NEWS EDITOR I recently had the privilege of attend- ing a Journalism conference in Ed- monton with stu- dents from across the country. At the conference I learned two things 1) that I am not good at “network- ing’ and 2) that the CBC is even cooler than I thought it was. Send- ing over five CBC journalists to present at the conference, the roster included heavy weights like The National's foreign war correspond- ent Adrienne Arsenault. But what makes the CBC so amazing is that it is a public news corporation. And while some may argue that the CBC is a left-wing, liberal oriented talk- ing head, I believe that they produce fair and reliable information for the Canadian public. That being said, the future of the CBC (especially in rural communities) is uncertain. The economic crisis experi- enced in 2009 hit all media outlets hard, but public companies were particu- larly affected. As a result of federal government fund- ing cuts, smaller stations across the country are go- ing to be silenced by the Harper government. This is important because the closures mean less relevant information and program- ming for smaller communities will be available. Canada is a vast coun- try with a major rural/urban divide and taking away the CBC from these smaller communities will only make this gap more expansive. Whether or not you believe that the CBC is an unbiased news source, the fact remains that it is the only national voice uniting all Canadians through local TV and radio programs. The proposed solution to save the CBC is being expressed in a postcard writing campaign called“CBC - Now More Than Ever.’ The campaign is aimed at Prime Minister Stephen Harper and asks that CBC’s parlia- mentary funding be increased and indexed to inflation, Furthermore, the campaign asks that the Harper government sign a seven year con- tract with the CBC that outlines what Canadians expect from our broadcaster, including solid local and regional programming. These chan- ges, if passed, will mean that regional stations will continue to operate and that rural and smaller communities will not be neglected in favour of Canada’s metropolitan centres. While the Prince George CBC bur- eau will not be affected by the budget cut backs that does not mean that we should be apathetic. The residents of Prince Rupert, Kelowna, Iqaluit, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and the like need our help, These commun- ities rely on the CBC to provide local programming and news and it would be an injustice to all Canadians if we neglected these often forgotten com- munities. If you would like to get involved with the campaign, post cards can be obtained from the CBC office on Victoria street (next to the Tim Hortons), or you can write a letter to either Stephen Harper of your local Member of Parliament (Dick Har- ris or Jay Hill). You can also call the PM's office and leave a message expressing your dissatisfaction. A website has also been set up with more information on how you can help, as well as infor- mation on the progress that has already been made www.cmg. ca/cbcmorethanever.htm, So please, use your voice and save the CBC. Canadians are lucky to have such a respected public broadcaster with award winning journalists and news anchors across the country and PHOTO SUBMITTED BY SHELBY PETERSEN we cannot let them disappear. Obama the compromiser ISHMAEL N. DARO CUP OPINIONS BUREAU CHIEF SASKATOON (CUP) — After a year in office, U.S, President Barack Obama has shown that even the great- est orators must eventually face the difficulties of govern- ing. Swept into power by an American public hungry for inspiration and a change from the disastrous policies of the Bush administration, Obama was always doomed to disappoint his followers sooner or later. Indeed, those disappointments started coming fast and frequently. The decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba was made on Obama's first day in the Oval Office but a full year later, almost 200 prisoners are still detained there. Even worse, the Obama Justice Department has said about 50 of those detainees will be held indefinitely, without trial. This comes after two years on the campaign trail during which Obama repeatedly condemned the de- tention facility and the practice of indefinite detention for tarnishing America’s image. Guantanamo Bay is not the only area in which Obama has embraced Bush-Cheney tactics. Obama has also en- dorsed military commission trials rather than court trials for detainees, and has allowed sweeping secrecy privileges for his administration, which was highlighted by his re- fusal to release reports about the torture or abuse of pris- oners at secret CIA prisons. The United States has maintained its military pres- ence in Iraq, has escalated the war in Afghanistan, has increased strikes within Pakistan and has carried out strikes in Yemen. This has all come at the hands of a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Obama's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also been more of the same. Although initially he leaned on his Israeli allies to stop building settlements on Palestinian lands — a major obstacle to any peace process — he soon softened his stance, allowing the hard right in Israel to continue undermining any hope for peace. In all these examples, Obama's policies have been marked by an eager willingness to abandon his positions and reach compromise. Rather than taking the hard road, closing Guantanamo Bay and truly rebranding America as a beacon of human rights, the Obama administration found it expedient to continue the same policies of the Bush-Cheney era. Rather than abandoning decades of one-sided support for Israel and encouraging a fair peace process, the ad- ministration found it too easy to throw their hands up —“We tried, after all” — and allow ongoing encroachment into Palestinian territory that is sure to breed distrust and future violence on both sides of the conflict. Even in his attempts to restructure American health care, Obama compromised until there was little left to give away. Instead of pushing for universal coverage under a single-payer system like Canada’s, he instead pushed for the nebulous “public option.’ When Democrats faced continued opposition to health care reform, they soon dropped that too. If Americans are to have any health care reform, it will be a far cry from what candidate Obama promised to deliver back in 2008, On the environment, Obama is a far cry from his predecessor. But when the young president travelled to Copenhagen in December, the best deal he managed to get was a non-binding agreement to one day in the future deal with climate change. The efficacy of international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol is questionable, but Obama invested very little effort in reaching a stronger deal in Copenhagen. Ultimately, whether or not Obama succeeds as a pres- ident will depend on pocketbook issues.“It’s the economy, stupid” was the Clinton campaign's unofficial slogan in 1992, yet its simple message holds true to today. Obama could easily enjoy a second term if he shows he can im- prove the day-to-day lives of his fellow citizens. However, even on this front Obama has shown a will- ingness to accept too little and give up too much, The enormous Wall Street bailout that he oversaw successful- ly rescued most financial firms from bankruptcy but high unemployment and tight credit still exist for everyday people. The banks seemingly got everything they asked for but Obama and the Democrats are hard-pressed to pass any sort of financial reform that will prevent future financial meltdowns. Some form of financial reform bill may eventually pass, but whether or not it will add any meaningful protection to the financial system is uncer- tain. The first year of a four-year presidency is not always a good gauge of a leader. However, President Obama's supporters are sure to be disappointed by his thin rec- ord of achievement so far. With most major policies, the 44th president has shown that he would rather accept a compromise — any compromise — rather than fight a prolonged battle for a more favourable outcome. The day-to-day troubles of governing have reduced Obama's inspiring, idealistic positions on the campaign trail to the chastened, compromising policies we see today.