I have considered myself a Christian for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories of my life are of going to Sunday School and learning about Jesus Christ and other Biblical characters.

When I was confirmed in my church, I seriously questioned my faith for the first time. In the end I decided that, yes, I do consider myself a Christian and that my convictions, not just my upbringing, were instrumental in that decision.

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With all events in today’s world, there is a side of the story that often goes untold. With a large liberal media bias, some of the unsung heroes can get passed by when one of their own gets more recognition than they should. This is one such case: I would like to tell you a story.

Irena Sendler was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1910 in what was then the Russian Empire. During her lifetime she served as a Roman Catholic social worker. During World War II she was an activist of the Polish underground movement and the Polish anti-Holocaust resistance. This is where her story gets really interesting.

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As a lot of us already know, Janjaweed militias that appear to be receiving support from northern Sudan are murdering the people in Sudan’s Darfur region on a massive scale. From time to time I hear accounts of atrocities in Darfur that enrage me. I once read an account of a young Sudanese boy who, refusing to change his religious beliefs, was nearly burned to death and then left for dead by thugs who had just murdered his friends.

In other accounts I have read of helicopter gunships being used on refugee camps to mow down hospitals and orphanages. If this isn’t enough to make your blood boil I don’t know what will. How has something so intolerable been tolerated for so long?

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Affirmative action is defended as an act of equality; but its real purpose is to redistribute inequality. Rather than seeking to expand incomes and opportunities, it instead seeks to reallocate existing opportunities; a classic lose-lose situation.

Affirmative action doesn’t reduce the gap between the wealthy and poor, but, more accurately, it evaluates the gender, racial and ethnic makeup to see whether it reflects society’s makeup.

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“How can there be laughter, how can there be pleasure, when the whole world is burning?” the Dhammapada asks.

Peace isn’t possible in a society divided into classes. It’s important to realize that even theoretically speaking, it is impossible to have a classless society under capitalism. How much less in historical reality! The capitalist mode of production presupposes a wealthy minority controlling the means of production at the expense of the majority of wage-laborers.

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I’ve been faced with a choice in my life, as has everyone in my generation. The choice is: join the power structure as it is, or oppose it.

The former choice means working for a corporation or the government; this leads to wealth and security. The latter choice means working against the corporate structure; this leads to poverty and maybe early death.

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The debate about torture within our country has finally begun, but it has been nebulous at best, and has mainly centered on the definition of the word ‘torture.’ The debate itself has made clear that fundamental facts about reality have failed to permeate into the national consciousness.

The first fact is that there is no doubt that our government has used interrogation techniques unequivocally considered to be torture. On Oct. 30, New York Times reporter Scott Shane reported that Mike McConnell, the former Director of National Intelligence, has acknowledged the use of extreme temperatures within interrogation practices. The Times also has sources within the CIA attesting to water boarding and other techniques. We also know that the CIA has used a network of secret prisons all over the world for ‘harsh interrogation’ with the approval of President Bush, who admitted to this program’s existence earlier this year.

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Unitary executive theory is something that has come to the forefront of politics several times in the last couple of years. It has support from a variety of public figures including Justice Samuel Alito, Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield as well as former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Although many people may have heard of it, or at least heard of issues that are currently being affected by it, you may not know what it actually is or what validates it. Let me first describe the theory and its foundations.

The unitary executive theory says that all executive power is ultimately divested in the president. This essentially means that all of the authority to enforce laws ultimately flows from the president, and therefore due to the separation of powers no other branch of government can be allowed to restrict the president’s executive power.

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An editorial by Joshua McCracken titled “The thrill of the barbaric” appeared in the Oct. 29 UWM Post and discussed the idea that hunting is a cowardly and senseless practice. As a vegan and an animal rights activist, I agree with the editorial’s general point, but some inaccurate and seemingly thoughtless assertions made in the editorial deserve reply.

Mr. McCracken’s attitudes about hunting exemplify our culture’s inconsistent views of non-human animals. Many people feel sympathy and even sorrow when they face the suffering of dogs who have been used for fighting, companion animals abused or neglected by their humans or deer shot like in “Bambi.”

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