Film Review
The Ladykillers’
Southern charm doesn’t go a
long way at the box office
The Wins Keep a Comm
Lancer baseball team moving up
the leader board of the South
Coast Conference
The Courier will
RETURN AS YOUR #1
NEWS SOURCE AT PCC
on April 22.
On this date in 1778
Oliver Pollock, a New
Orleans businessman,
CREATED THE “$” SYMBOL.
VOL. 89, No. 20
April 1, 2004
Military Draft
Could Target
Both Sexes
Legislation may send both men and women
into compulsory service starting in 2005
Kelly Carrasco
Staff Writer
Two bills sent to both the
Senate and House of
Representatives threaten to re¬
instate the military
draft for men and
women as early as
June 2005.
If passed, the two
bills, introduced by Sen.
Fritz Hollings and Rep.
Charles Rangel, will allow
the draft to go into effect
just after the 2004 election.
Hollings put forth bill S. 89
to the Senate that reinitiates the
draft. Along with this bill, Rangel
proposed bill H.R. 163 to the U.S.
House of Representatives which
will partner with S. 89. Together
these bills are titled the "Universal
National Service Act of 2003."
Citizens, both men and
women, aged 18-26 will be obli¬
gated to serve in the military for
at least two years.
"We remain unconvinced by
the Department of Defense's
claims that the current all-volun¬
teer military can meet any contin¬
gency that might arise," Hollings
and Rangel wrote in a letter to col¬
leagues in the Senate and House.
"We are currently engaged in 14
peacekeeping missions around the
globe. With prospects of contin¬
ued military action in Afghanistan,
a potential war in Iraq, the contin¬
ued war on terrorism and growing
tensions in the Korean peninsula,
it becomes clear that we
do not have the per¬
sonnel to fight a
multi-theater war."
The National
Guard reserves have
already been tapped
to provide support in
Iraq. Many people who
never thought they would
serve in an active war zone were
ripped from their families to serve
their country. The reserves, how¬
ever, are being depleted. The leg¬
islators feel a draft is a way to
replenish the reserves and lend
more support to the troops on
active duty. The draft is also seen
as a way to increase the number of
well-rested and well-fed troops.
During the 1960s the draft was a
major concern for the younger gen¬
eration just out of high school.
People fled to Canada or pursued
higher education as a way
to avoid being sent to
Vietnam.
These See Pa9e
options will Military
Campus Sights
Crystal Samuelian/Courier
Students traveling along the pathway between the
К
and U buildings can see
the progress being made on the new parking structure on Bonnie Avenue.
New Plan
to Tackle
Ethical
Concerns
Stephen Folan
Staff Writer
The college's academic senate
is close to approving a policy
that could establish a due-
process system for ethical con¬
cerns involving faculty.
The academic freedom and
professional ethics committee
presented a draft of the ethics
policy to the senate on March
22. Committee chairman James
Bickley outlined the system that
will essentially keep matters con¬
cerning ethics "in-house."
Although sections of the
ethics policy have been
approved separately, this latest
draft reinstates a system of
hearings on ethical matters.
The committee sees the policy
as a set of guidelines for faculty
responsibilities regarding stu¬
dents, other faculty and the col¬
lege community.
Formal complaints can by
filed by students, faculty and
even administrators. In response
to the complaint, a hearing
would be held by an impartial
committee to discuss the situa¬
tion and try to come to a resolu¬
tion for both parties.
The committee's decisions
would not be mandato¬
ry. Members only offer
advice to both sides on
how to see page
best follow
the ethical Ethics
Buns and Utter, an Eyesore for the Campus
Stephner White/Courier
This is just one of the many water fountains on campus
that have been neglected due to the shortage of workers.
Tameka Davis
Staff Writer
Take an employee shortage in
the facilities services custodial divi¬
sion, add too many careless stu¬
dents, subtract some much-needed
trash cans, and you get some unat¬
tractive areas on the PCC campus.
Cigarette butts seem to carpet
the walkways and flowerbeds on
campus since the signs "No Smoking
within 20 feet of Buildings" were
posted last year.
To encourage smokers to abide
by the new state law, ashtrays have
been taken from outdoor hallways
and relocated further from the
buildings. Facilities services has
arranged a seating area equipped
with benches, ashtrays and trash
cans under shade trees to accommo¬
date cigarette smokers in the quad
area. But people are still leaning
against the buildings walls and pil¬
lars while smoking their cigarettes
and tossing the butts anywhere.
And the butts are really piling up.
The south side of the R Building
looks like the campus ashtray. In an
area where grass should grow is a
pile of dirt coated with the leftovers
of Marlboros, Benson & Hedges,
and Pall Malls.
Kathryn Meyers, 22, an art major
and a cigarette smoker,
said even she is turned off
by the layers of butts.
However, Seepage
"smokers _
want t0 Campus
Extended Learning Center
Daren Dillinger
Staff Writer
The Extended Learning Center
reaches out to students, faculty
and all members of the surround¬
ing community by offering an
array of short-term classes.
Each year approximately
10,000 people find a class, semi¬
nar or one-day workshop to
match up with their careers,
hobbies or other life interests.
Several hundred courses are
offered each year.
Online courses and a Youth
College are also available.
There are many choices for
personal development with the
Extended Learning Center.
One may pursue courses in
landscape design, art, dance,
golf and other recreational
activities. There is always some¬
thing new.
The summer session will bring
new classes, such as: "The Beatles
- What They Did and How They
Did it" and "How To Build Your
Dream House For A Song."
If you are taking a college
credit class in creative writing,
there are ELC classes in writing
plays or books and then finding
ways of getting published.
There are also classes that help
meet life's routine challenges,
from getting your car repaired to
engaging an attorney.
What would you do upon
being sued, or what if you need¬
ed to bring suit against someone
else after a botched home remod¬
el, serious car accident, or a doc¬
tor cutting off the wrong arm?
A one-day workshop by attor¬
ney Matthew Kundinger, "How
To Hire an Attorney Without
Being Eaten Alive," can help.
His workshop topics include:
licensing and specialization, fees,
rates, retainer agreements and
even firing an attorney.
Likewise, Charlotte Chen's
course "Landscape
Design" helps homeown¬
ers (or their college-age
children)
plan wisely
to upgrade Center
See page
4
JPL Comet Mission
Heads Back Home
Tameka Davis
Staff Writer
Still flying out of Jupiter's orbit,
the Stardust spacecraft is on its way
back to Earth after surviving a vio¬
lent dust storm in January.
The spacecraft was completing
the last of its NASA mission that
required tracking the young comet
Wild 2. The mission involved collect¬
ing dust samples from the comet
and interstellar particles through¬
out the solar system. While follow¬
ing the comet the spacecraft was
led into a turbulent environment
that subjected the spacecraft to
severe hits of large debris, challeng¬
ing the spacecraft's durability.
"We were a little nervous at
first; it was quite a scary envi¬
ronment, said Thomas C.
Duxbury, NASA Stardust mission
project manager.
"But the good news is, based
on our interaction with the
Europeans, our spacecraft's detail
design, and our testing design, our
spacecraft survived. We can now
tell people we knew it all along."
Duxbury has worked at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory for 38 years.
He recently presented the von
Karman lecture about the Stardust
mission called "Return to Sender" at
the Vosloh Forum in March. More
than 80 percent of the seats were
taken by students and astronomy
enthusiasts to learn about the
Stardust spacecraft encounters.
Duxbury said he's very
pleased with the outcome of the
$150 million mission. This was
the first mission NASA ever com¬
mitted to a comet.
The collected interstellar parti¬
cles are estimated to be 4.6 billion
years old, and Duxbury said NASA
hopes the particles will reveal
more secrets about the formation
of our solar system, planetary bod¬
ies and the sun.
The Stardust spacecraft is
equipped with a camera and two
racket-like fins on either side that
are separated by aluminum grids
filled with an extremely light
Styrofoam-like solid called Aerogel
which collects the dust particles.
The Stardust spacecraft is
scheduled to return to the Earth's
atmosphere in January 2006 and
release a capsule containing the
collected dust particles. The cap¬
sule will parachute down onto the
snowy deserts of Utah.
From there the particles will be
taken back to Johnson Space
Center. Duxbury estimates that it
will take 10 to 20 years to remove
and analyze all the dust particles in
the Aerogel.
The Stardust spacecraft will
return to deep space, never to
be recovered.
The von Karman lecture series is
presented on campus monthly in
conjunction with the JPL.