Antioch is a place that I will never forget and that I will always remember. As a spiritual person I now know that it is God (whatever name you choose to give him/her) who blessed me with the know-with-all to choose Antioch College and to complete my undergraduate education. It was an American education unique to liberal arts education in America. To this day I cannot thank my human ancestors who preceded me in the Civil Rights Movement and the Abolition Movement before it at Antioch College in little old Yellow Springs Ohio. I neither am prepared to let go or to say good-bye. It is a sincere prayer of mine that Antioch College remains open and that the Board of Trustees and the Antioch College Continuation Corporation agree to such an autonomous agreement.
I did not know as a teenager entering Antioch College that I’d settle down in Yellow Springs Ohio nor that I’d enjoy working with students, faculty, staff, and administration of Antioch College as an adult well into my thirties. Yet it is true. Here I stand having been impacted by and hopefully at my best impacted Antioch College in miraculous ways only God could conjure up. Now it is important to me that all you agnostics and people that do not believe in God out there not right me off as a televangelist or evangelical Christian with the Christian Right or something.

Many who know me know that I am probably the biggest proponent of the state of Wisconsin here at Antioch. Of course, many of you are thinking that all there is in Wisconsin is cows and people with funny accents. Of course, you are dead wrong. Wisconsin has been the first in many areas. In 1998 my congressional district (the 2nd congressional district of Wisconsin) was first in United States history to elect an openly gay (Tammy Baldwin) non-incumbent candidate to Congress. Also it was my Senator Russ Feingold who was the only United States senator to vote against the Patriot Act and one of two to initially vote against the War in Iraq. When questioned on his reasoning for voting against the Patriot Act, Senator Feingold simply answered, “Because I read it”.

Last Saturday,  professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State College and Antioch alumnus, Dan Shoemaker, presented his lecture, “Patriarchy and Post-9/11 Cinema” in McGregor 113. The presentation, slated to begin at 6 p.m., in typical Antiochian fashion, took half an hour and a series of phone calls before attendance was high enough to justify warming up the projector, but eventually the show attracted a crowd of over 30 students.

A graduate of the college with a BA Communication and Media Arts, Shoemaker started off the presentation by discussing his own opinions on modern cinema as a professor of popular culture. “Like most people,” Shoemaker said, “I go to the movies to be entertained and illuminated. Unlike most people, when I see something that bugs me, I write a paper about it.”

Questions of critical film viewing framed Shoemaker’s dissection of cinema and his final conclusions of conspiracy. “Whose fantasy is it? What version of happiness is endorsed? What logic makes it to make sense?” he pondered, while showing excerpts of movies like Million Dollar Baby, and Boondock Saints.
“In the wake of 9/11,” Shoemaker finally suggested, “American people needed assurance, and Hollywood stepped in to provide it.” To back up his claim, he cited examples of classic Hollywood responses to real-world crises; Invasion of the Body Snatchers, War of the Worlds, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. These examples today seem obvious illustrations of blatant propaganda. Shoemaker argued that current cinema is no less  propagandistic, if one only knew where to look.

In a non-binding vote on Wednesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush’s escalation of the Iraq War as “not in the national interest.” The vote comes one day after President Bush appealed to congress to give his revised Iraq plan “a chance to work.” The resolution, which passed 12-9, opposes Bush’s plan to deploy 21,500 additional troops for peacekeeping operations in and around Baghdad.

Three prominent senators; Democrats Joseph Biden and Carl Levin, and Republican Chuck Hagel proposed the resolution earlier this month. “We better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder,” said Senator Hagel, the only Republican on the committee to support the resolution. Vice President Cheney disregarded the objection, saying: “It won’t stop us, and it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops.” Cheney commented four days after U.S. forces faced one of the bloodiest days of the Iraq War since the invasion began four years ago, with 25 soldiers lost in a 24-hour period.

On Tuesday President Bush addressed the nation in his annual state of the union address, during which he called on congress and the nation to lend him their support. “We went into this largely united – in our assumptions, and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq -and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the fi eld – and those on their way.” Bush said in his address to the legislature.

Date: October 20, 2006

Letter to the Editor – Antioch Record

I am writing to you as the father of Cary James, one of the four students recently suspended from Antioch College for traveling to Columbus, Ohio to purchase marijuana for themselves and other students.

Earlier this year, our family was pleased when Antioch accepted Cary’s application for admission. After visiting the college, Cary felt that Antioch was where he belonged and would flourish. Based on its reputation, we were thankful that Cary had chosen to attend a “liberal” liberal arts college. I use the term liberal in the most positive sense of the word, not as it has been defined in more recent times by conservatives and the religious right. By definition. liberal means “broad minded” and “favoring reform or progress”.

As an undergraduate student, I learned to logically examine the world by the Socratic or dialectical method. Through critical examination of issues, we come to a better understanding and resolution of the problems we face in life. This is the type of education I envisioned for my son in attending Antioch. I was disturbed when I learned that Cary was being expelled (which was later amended to a one year suspension). What concerned me most was not that he was being expelled, but the basis for his expulsion.