Fraternities and Sororities

Many Men and women join fraternities and sororities, social groups that are active on college campuses.

Fraternities and sororities, often called Greek-letter societies because most of them take their names from letters of the Greek alphabet, are known for sponsoring parties and dances that are the pillars of college social life for many students.

Critics say Greek organizations are exclusionary, sexist and even dangerous.

In recent years, fraternities and sororities have become the focus of criticism for "hazing" rituals that require new members, usually called pledges, to endure physical or mental abuse, harassment or humiliation to gain acceptance into the group.

Others say that Greek organizations are by their very nature exclusive and discriminatory. Members are chosen or dismissed for superficial reasons, they say, such as how they look, how much money they make or how popular they are with other students.

The first social fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was founded in 1776 at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Va. Early fraternities were established to promote good character and academic achievement among students. Phi Beta Kappa became an honor society in 1883, and is still considered the most prestigious honor society for college students.

Many critics remain adamant that the Greek system is plagued with problems such as hazing and alcohol abuse because fraternities and sororities themselves promote such behavior. The culture of fraternities and sororities, they say, has led to abusive, offensive and discriminatory actions. As a result, they say, the Greek system should be dismantled.

Most fraternities and sororities have adopted programs designed to teach their members about such problems and protect them from dangers that have plagued the Greek system in the past.

Dziech, Billie Wright. "Forcing Greek Organizations to Go Coeducational Won't Lead to Greater Diversity." Chronicle of Higher Education (April 2, 1999): B4.

Economist (October 4, 1997). "Raise a Fond Last Glass to Dionysus": 36.

Goldberg, Carey. "The Slow Taming of 'Animal House.'" New York Times (February 17, 1999): A10.

Marklein, Mary Beth. "Colleges Nudge Fraternities Toward Restricting Alcohol." USA Today (October 22, 1997): D5.

New York Times (February 19, 1999). "Rethinking Fraternities": A20.

Rosenberg, Debra; Bai, Matt. "Drinking and Dying." Newsweek (October 13, 1997): 69.

Nuwer, Hank. Wrongs of Passage: Fraternities, Sororities, Hazing & Binge Drinking. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1999

What is Ramadan?

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.

Because Islam uses a lunar calendar, Ramadan begins and ends at a different time each year.

The way the lunar calendar works is that the beginning of each month begins with the sighting of the new moon.

The lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter than the solar calendar used in much of the Western world.

For Muslims, Ramadan is a month of blessing that includes prayer, fasting and charity.

This time of the year is a time for reflection, devotion to God, and self-control.

Many religions encourage some kind of fasting for religious purposes. For instance, Catholics give up meat for Lent and Jews fast during the holiday of Yom Kippur. For Muslims, fasting is a very important component of Islam.

Ramadan is an important time for Muslims, not simply because it helps develop a closer relationship with God, but also because Ramadan is a time to think about those who are less fortunate. Another goal of fasting for Ramadan is to experience hunger in sympathy for those without food. It is a way that many Muslims learn thankfulness and appreciation for what they have.

The practice of fasting during Ramadan means that Muslims may not eat or drink anything including water while the sun is shining.

More than 100 Muslim leaders from around the world joined President Obama at Friday's White House iftar, including ISNA President Dr. Ingrid Mattson and ISNA Vice President Imam Mohamed Magid. Muslim diplomats from around the world, political, religious, and community leaders were also in attendance at the dinner.

"Let us always remember who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for. Our enemies respect no freedom of religion. Al Qaeda's cause is not Islam - it is a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious leaders - these are terrorists," said the President.

The President spoke highly of the diversity that is the United States, stating, "Our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth...today our nation is strengthened by millions of Muslim Americans."


http://www.isna.net/
http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/ramadan3.htm

Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming

Should nations concern themselves with "global warming?" Are fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas contributing to a global climate change?

Burned Carbon dioxide is a major "greenhouse gas." Once it is released, it and other gases form a layer around the Earth that traps the sun's heat. (A similar effect occurs when sunlight comes through a greenhouse window and the glass pane then keeps the heat inside. Scientists call it the "greenhouse effect.") Other greenhouse gases are methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), nitrous oxide and water vapor.

Other human activities, such as clearing forests for timber or agricultural use, may also play a role. Large-scale deforestation may inhibit the Earth's ability to maintain its balance of atmospheric gases since forests absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide.

If greenhouse gases continue to increase, average temperatures may rise as much as 6° F over the next century, according to some scientists.

The greenhouse gas that concerns environmentalists most is carbon dioxide, which is primarily released when fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and natural gas, are burned.

Global Warming

In April 2007, the United Nations (U.N.) and the nations belonging to the Group of Eight have struggled to form a new international treaty on climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012.

Meanwhile, research agencies and scientists have released reports detailing the ill effects of climate change that are already visible in the Arctic Ocean and other regions.

As the world's most powerful economy and the planet's leading polluter, the U.S. has a responsibility to enact environmentally sustainable economic policies.

As most of the international community now acknowledges, the planet is warming.
Some climate experts assert that while the planet may be entering into one of its periodic warming stages, global temperatures are likely being driven to abnormal levels by human activities.

Climatologists are increasingly convinced that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide--which are created primarily by the burning of fossil fuels--are an influential factor in inducing climate change. They say that if the atmosphere were not polluted, the sun's radiation would typically warm the Earth's surface and then bounce back into space.

With the atmospheric concentration of such gases slated to increase in the coming decades, they declared, the planet would continue to get hotter. Consequently, the IPCC report warned, severe droughts and flooding would become more common, glaciers and polar ice would melt at abnormal rates, and both ocean temperatures and sea levels would rise.

The U.S. government does not want to ratify the Kyoto Protocol--a 1997 international treaty that mandates the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions--because it claims that doing so will hurt the nation's economic productivity.

Under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized nations are required to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, while industrializing nations--such as India and China--are allowed to freely pollute the atmosphere as they pursue economic modernization.

Do you think that system is fair?

What are Rainforests?

Today, rainforests cover approximately 2% of the Earth's surface, and comprise by far the most common type of remaining forest cover on Earth. Rainforests, as their name indicates, are marked by drenching, prolonged rainfalls. Temperate rainforests, for example, receive about 15 feet of rain a year. (By contrast, the average precipitation rate worldwide is 34 inches per year.)

Rainforests are divided into two types: tropical moist rainforests and temperate-zone rainforests.

The world's largest and most famous tropical rainforest is in the Amazon River basin of South America, but Africa, Asia and Australia also host extensive tropical forest cover

Many tropical rainforest trees--including mahogany, teak, rosewood, balsa and sandalwood trees--provide hard wood that has been popular in furniture production and shipbuilding since colonial times.
The logging of rainforest wood to produce furniture and ships for Europeans and Americans contributed greatly to the exploitation of tropical forests in Indonesia and Africa throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

According to ecologists, the ravaging of the rainforests harms not only the trees, animals and people within the forests themselves.
Experts have outlined a number of negative effects of continued rainforest destruction, some of which have already begun to become reality:

• Depleted Oxygen Production
• Global Climate Change
• Mass Species Extinction
• Decimation of Indigenous Cultures

Unlike the American Indians, however, rainforest tribes were able to remain isolated and independent from outsiders until relatively recently. The destruction of their forest homelands for farms and industry has posed the greatest threat yet to indigenous people's way of life.

Nearly everyone concedes that the rainforests will disappear within decades if no action is taken soon.

"I'm worried that in a decade," says the WWF's Purnomo, "we'll all be environmentally aware, but there'll be nothing left to defend."

Rainforest Destruction

Despite years of environmental protests, campaigns and political debate, the world's rainforests are being destroyed faster than ever before.

Most scientists and environmentalists call rainforest destruction a matter of global concern. With the felling of each tree, they say, the balance of the Earth's climate and biological diversity is jeopardized further.

Rainforest destruction contributes to a worldwide climatic shift toward higher temperatures, called global warming, many experts say, and threatens to annihilate the vast majority of plant and animal species from the Earth within decades.

They say that rainforests must be protected from all cutting and other destructive activity, to ensure that the fragile ecosystems remain intact. They insist that non-destructive forest-based industries--such as tourism and plant- and animal-derived pharmaceuticals--should replace timber harvesting.

Desertification

Desertification is to describe the process by which land that once was covered in vegetation turns into desert. Both natural events and human activities may cause desertification.

Throughout the world, farmers and livestock owners are contributing directly to desertification by growing crops and grazing animals in an unsustainable manner.

Poor farming techniques and overgrazing cause soil degradation in the vicinity of deserts, making it easier for deserts to expand. People should address the problem by implementing environmentally friendly land-management policies and by replanting vegetation in ecologically sensitive areas surrounding deserts to curb desertification.

More than 40% of the Earth's land surface is covered by either deserts or "dryland ecosystems," environments with little to no annual precipitation.

According to leading environmental experts, desertification is, in part, a natural process that accelerates and decelerates according to weather events, such as droughts, as well as broader fluctuations in the global climate.

The U.N. starkly warned of "poverty, drought and food insecurity in dry land countries experiencing desertification."

Desertification appears to be emerging as an environmental priority on par with air and water pollution, analysts say.

"What we do is that when the sand moves and buries our homes and farms and even our wells, we simply keep retreating southwards," says Aminu Mahmud, a resident of northern Nigeria who has lost several homes as a result of the Sahara's growth. "The desert's unrelenting onslaught is pushing us further away from our original homes and it seems there's absolutely nothing we can do about it," he asserts.

One thing is certain, the semi-arid lands are fragile environments and people must use them with care so that desertification is avoided.

The Sahel

The Sahel is a narrow belt of land in North Africa. It borders the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The Sahel has a semi-desert climate. Temperatures are always hot and there is a long dry season from June through to January. There is just enough rainfall for grasses to grow as well as some shrubs and trees.

The vegetation of grasses with some trees is called savanna. It is adapted to the hot temperatures and the drought during the dry season. A common tree in the Sahel is the Baobab or upside-down tree. It has a swollen trunk where it stores water to help it survive the drought. Leaves and branches are small to reduce water loss through evapo-transpiration. Some of the vegetation has very long tap roots to reach down to underground stores of water.

The savannas are the home of herds of large animals that graze on the grasses. People who live in the savannas are usually nomads who wander the land with their herds of cattle looking for the best grazing land.

Pesticides

Farmers have long struggled to defend their crops from harmful insects, weeds and diseases. Early in the 20th century, scientific innovation led to the development of pesticides--products that are used to combat impediments to food production.

Traces of the chemicals used to manufacture pesticides have been found not just on farms, but also in food, in the atmosphere and in water. Some studies have shown that these chemical residues may cause or contribute to problems such as animal extinction, cancer, birth defects and global warming.

Do pesticides pose a dangerous threat to the world's environment, or are they harmless tools that help farmers more efficiently feed the global population?

In order to combat pests, many farmers use pesticides, which are also grouped into three categories. Insecticides are used to fight off harmful insects; herbicides are used to control weeds; and fungicides are used to protect plants from fungi.

Some pesticides are derived from bacteria or chemicals found in the natural world. An example is nicotine, a chemical in tobacco that is also used to kill insects. Other pesticides are synthetic, or manufactured from chemical substances designed specifically for crop protection.

Pesticide residues, which can travel far from their sources, are believed to cause many negative side effects. Some studies have shown that water contaminants from pesticides may accumulate in the tissues of fish, ultimately killing the fish or poisoning the predators that eat them.

According to some biologists, residues disproportionately affect children, who are smaller and have a lower tolerance for chemicals. Farm workers, who are exposed to high concentrations of pesticides, are also believed to face an increased chance of developing illnesses.

Farmers are also attempting to reduce the use of pesticides by growing genetically engineered (GE) crops. Such crops, which are biologically engineered to be more resistant to the threat of insects and weeds, may help reduce the need for chemicals.

Yet some observers worry about the environmental consequences of GE crops. Critics contend that the crops may disrupt the balance of ecosystems by spreading the natural toxins that GE crops are made to produce.

Block, Betsy. "What You Need to Know About Organic Food." Boston Globe (March 29, 2000): E1.

Claiborne, William. "7 Groups Quit Food Panel; EPA Termed Soft On Pesticide Risks." Washington Post (April 28, 1999): A23.

Ehler, Lester E. "The Illusion of Integrated Pest Management." Issues in Science and Technology (Spring 2000): 61.

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.

Hough, Peter. The Global Politics of Pesticides: Forging Consensus From Conflicting Interests. London: Earthscan, 1998.

Uri, Noel D. Agriculture and the Environment. Comack, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers, 1999.

Deepwater Oil Drilling

The explosion of a deepwater oil drilling rig run by BP, and the ensuing oil spill that devastated the Gulf of Mexico, offer clear proof that deepwater oil drilling is an inherently dangerous practice with potentially disastrous consequences.

On April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon, an exploratory drilling rig located in the Gulf of Mexico about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, exploded.
The blast, caused by a sudden surge of natural gas that somehow ignited, killed 11 workers aboard the rig. Two days later, the rig sank into the water, causing severe damage to a pipeline that extended from the rig through 5,000 feet of water and 13,000 feet of seafloor sediment, to a natural oil reservoir within the Earth's crust. Immediately, oil began gushing from the damaged pipes into the surrounding waters at a tremendous rate—up to 100,000 barrels a day causing untold harm to the environment. Oil continued to pour out for at least three months after the blast. "This is an ecological disaster," wrote Rolling Stone journalist Tim Dickinson.

Shortly after the BP disaster occurred, the administration of President Obama (D) issued a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects and on production at 33 existing deepwater sites.

All the oil spilling into the gulf has had an immensely negative impact on the environment. Scientists estimate that thousands of animals—including fish, birds, turtles and dolphins—have been killed as a result of the disaster. Roughly one-third of the gulf was declared off-limits to commercial fishing and shrimping, and there are fears that the toxicity of the oil has degraded the waters there permanently. On land, viscous blobs of oil known as tar balls began washing ashore in certain places.

Deepwater drilling is an inherently dangerous activity, and should be banned permanently.

The irrationality of deepwater drilling, writes Slate's William Saletan, is summed up by the fact that the wells are drilled so deep that humans must rely on remote-controlled robots to maintain them.

The BP oil disaster has caused widespread anger throughout the U.S. What are your own personal reactions to the oil spill?

Character Education

What is character education? Broadly speaking, it is a movement that aims to teach moral behavior and certain values to primary and secondary school students.

To integrate the teaching of values and morals into a school's curriculum.

Supporters of character education say that the values taught in such programs are universal values with which no one can take issue.

Character Counts! Character Counts! focuses on the teaching of six pillars of character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship.

Character education holds that widely shared, pivotally important, core ethical values - such as caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect for self and others - along with supportive performance values - such as diligence, a strong work ethic, and perseverance - form the basis of good character.

Students grow to understand core values by studying and discussing them, observing behavioral models, and resolving problems involving the values.

Students learn to care about core values by developing empathy skills, forming caring relationships, helping to create community, hearing illustrative and inspirational stories, and reflecting on life experiences.

Cloning

• Supporters of cloning say: Cloning has countless possible benefits; for example, the process known as therapeutic cloning could help develop genetically rejection-proof organs for medical transplantation into the sick, while livestock cloning could improve the quality and quantity of meat and dairy products.
  

• Critics of cloning say: Therapeutic cloning involves creating and destroying human embryos, which is an immoral and unacceptable abuse of scientific power. Cloning animals is an inefficient, unnecessary process which typically produces defective animals. Polling data show that most.

Ever since Scottish scientists announced in 1997 that they had successfully produced a cloned sheep--the first mammal ever cloned from adult cells--people everywhere have become fascinated by the idea of cloning.

In the mid-20th century, scientists discovered that a person's genetic makeup is entirely contained within a nucleic acid found in the nucleus of each of that person's cells. That acid is called deoxyribonucleic acid, or, more commonly, DNA.

In therapeutic cloning, researchers use a person's DNA to create an embryonic clone of that person. Researchers then extract so-called stem cells from that embryo, which can be used to create organs. Because the organs match the DNA donor's actual genetic makeup, they can be transplanted into that person's body without the risk of the organ being rejected.

Therapeutic cloning, however, remains highly theoretical--indeed, no scientist has as yet successfully harvested stem cells from a cloned human embryo.

Many critics oppose cloning because they argue that human life at any stage--even the embryonic stage--is precious, and should not be destroyed simply for the advancement of science.

Although many people are skeptical of food derived from cloned animals, supporters say that people have no reason to fear such food.

Critics call therapeutic cloning immoral because embryos are created and then destroyed in the process of developing stem cells for largely experimental purposes. "A decent society doesn't build the foundations of its biomedical science on the creation and destruction of human embryos," says William Hurlbut, an ethicist at Stanford University in California who is also a member of the President's Council on Bioethics.

Would you eat meat or drink milk that came from the offspring of a cloned cow? Why or why not?

If you could clone a dead pet, would you do it? Why or why not? Do you think that a commercial business that sold clones of pets would be moral or immoral?

Alexander, Brian. "Free to Clone." New York Times, September 26, 2004, www.nytimes.com.

Boyce, Nell. "The Clone Is Out of the Bottle." U.S. News & World Report, February 23, 2004, 40.

"British Scientists Propose Human-Animal Hybrid Cloning." FOXNews.com, March 27, 2007, www.foxnews.com.

Doerflinger, Richard. "Cloning Chaos." National Review Online, December 13, 2005, www.nationalreview.com.

Glauber, Bill. "Emotions, Science Collide in Cloning." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 18, 2007, www.jsonline.com.

Kahn, Michael. "Large Scale Animal Cloning Unlikely: Scientists." Reuters, July 10, 2007, www.reuters.com.

Lamb, Gregory. "How Cloning Stacks Up." Christian Science Monitor, July 13, 2006, www.csmonitor.com.

Lynch, Colum. "U.N. Backs Cloning Ban." Washington Post, March 9, 2005, A15.

Montgomery, Rick. "Cloned Beef Vs. the 'Yuck Factor.'" Kansas City Star, January 21, 2007, www.kansascity.com.

Pacelle, Wayne. "Is Animal Cloning Ethical?" SFGate.com, January 21, 2005, www.sfgate.com.

Park, Alice. "The Perils of Cloning." Time, July 10, 2006, 56.

Saletan, William. "Cloned Bull." Slate, January 6, 2007, www.slate.com.

"Stem Cell Research: S. Korean Scientist's Research Discredited." Facts On File World News Digest, December 31, 2005, p. 924.

Smoking and Lung Cancer

The number of teenagers who smoke is estimated to be between three million and six million only in the U.S.

According to the surgeon general's 1989 report on smoking, cigarettes are responsible for more than 85% of all lung cancers.

Smoking is also associated with cancer of the kidney, stomach, mouth, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, ureter, bladder, uterine cervix and pancreas.

The American Cancer Society (1599 Clifton Road N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30345; 404/320-3333) and the Health and Human Services Department estimate that smoking is responsible for 30% of all deaths from cancer.

By any financial measure, tobacco companies are among the most successful in U.S. business.

Philip Morris is one of the country's most generous supporters of the arts, contributing to museums, dance companies and theaters. Other tobacco companies also polish their images by supporting worthy causes.

Cigarette smoke, whether inhaled directly or secondhand, is a proven killer, and all attempts should be made to reduce its presence in public areas.

Also, smoking bans have had no negative economic impact on restaurants or bars, and in many cases they have boosted revenues in such establishments. Public opinion polls show that most people favor widespread smoking bans.

People continue to take up smoking despite clear evidence that inhaling tobacco is harmful.

Mapping Your Thoughts

Examples of thinking Maps & Graphic Organizers

Graphic Organizers are helpful tools which facilitate the visualization of concepts, relationships and facts.

They aid students in organizing, interpreting and understanding their learning.

http://drb.lifestreamcenter.net/Lessons/process_maps/

Torture

The ban on torture is one of the most universally accepted prohibitions in international law.

Torture is viewed unambiguously as an egregious violation of human rights, a practice that no country can countenance.

Codified in international law under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, torture is defined as the intentional infliction of "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental" to obtain information or a confession, or to punish a suspect.

In the 20th century, the use of torture was revived by several governments, including the Nazis in Germany, the Fascists in Italy and the Communists in the Soviet Union. In the 1950s, for example, the French heavily relied on torture in interrogating prisoners during Algeria's revolt against France.

According to Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy organization, more than 130 countries are believed to still be torturing and ill-treating prisoners. The group reports that beatings, electric shocks, rape, floggings and suffocation are some of the forms of torture being employed.

Considering torture's record in obtaining accurate information, adopting it as an interrogation tactic is not worth the risk. Many point out that the quality of information extracted during torture can vary. "People will say anything under torture," Roth says. (executive director of Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.)

Human Trafficking

Since U.N last covered human trafficking in July 2004, the governments of various countries—including Thailand and China—have attempted to crack down on forms of trafficking, including forced labor and prostitution.

What is being called a new form of slavery has become prevalent in recent years: the trafficking of people for forced labor and prostitution.

According to the United Nations, human trafficking involves the recruitment, transport and receipt of people across borders "by improper means, such as force, abduction, fraud or coercion, for an improper purpose, like forced or coerced labour, servitude, slavery or sexual exploitation."

In 2000, the Protocol to Suppress, Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children expanded the definition of trafficking to include those forced into labor and servitude.

The five countries that were determined not to have taken sufficient steps were Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, Liberia and Sudan.

As long as there is extreme poverty, there will be people available for the traffickers to take advantage of. "You have to look at this issue not just as legal or sanctions but really as a socioeconomic issue," says Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equality.

As long as there is extreme poverty, civil strife and a lack of economic opportunity, especially for women, there will be fertile ground for traffickers.

How aware were you of the problem of human trafficking before reading this article? Could greater global awareness of the problem make a difference in the fight against trafficking?

Teacher Qualification Standards

The definition of teacher qualification under the NCLB is that teachers demonstrate competence in their subjects, have a bachelor's degree in any subject and meet state licensing requirements. State licensing requirements are determined by the individual states themselves.

Under the new regulation, teachers in rural schools are permitted to teach in up to three subjects, as long as they are qualified in one of them. The teachers have three years to become qualified in the other subject or subjects that they teach.

Texas passed new rules in 2004 that relaxed its teacher standards by granting temporary licenses to applicants with no teacher training, and that a number of other states are implementing similar changes.

How Are Groups Labeled Terrorist Organizations?

What is Fundamentalism?

Fundamentalism is many things to many people. It is a strict and literal adherence to a set of beliefs or principles. Fundamentalism can be religious, political, or personal. Today, religious fundamentalism is on the rise, and it is one of the most important root causes of terrorism.

Definition of terrorism: "The unlawful use of force or violence, committed by a group(s) or two or more individuals, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."

An absolute poverty defines poverty as the state of living under a certain, pre-determined amount of income or consumption. The most common absolute poverty line is the $1-a-day line.

When talking about poverty, the term 'corruption' usually refers either to bribes taken by judges, policemen, or other local government officers in developing nations, or to large-scale, deliberate mismanagement of money higher up in the government. Both of these actions take a large economic toll on the poor.

Injustice:These nouns denote acts or conditions that cause people to suffer hardship or loss undeservedly. An injustice is a violation of a person's rights; the term can also refer to unfair treatment of another or others: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

What is Terrorism?

Terrorists are not a new or mysterious phenomenon in history. They have been present throughout the more than 6,000 years of recorded history and can be readily studied. The terrorists in today’s Middle East are not unique, nor are their motives and methods opaque.

They are much the same as terrorists in all parts of the world and in all periods of history — whether the Spanish under Napoleon, the IRA under England, the under Darius I of Persia, the ScythiansBoers under England, the Vietcong under the French and the United States, or the Shining Path under Peru.

Why does terrorism occur? The seeds of today’s terrorism are not found in the Muslim religion, but rather in the extreme poverty of most citizens, a poverty that has been among the most heartbreaking and ruinous in the world.

The U.S. State Department's definition of terrorism is: "The unlawful use of force or violence, committed by a group(s) or two or more individuals, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."

Such a difference in perception can be seen in Northern Ireland, a British province that has been plagued by violence for nearly 30 years. On one side is the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), which is fighting to unite Northern Ireland with Ireland. The IRA has set off bombs throughout Great Britain for three decades, killing many civilians.

The British government, the Irish government and many people within Northern Ireland itself consider the IRA a terrorist organization. However, to many Irish people, including those of Irish descent living elsewhere, the IRA is a valiant group that is fighting to release Northern Ireland from British tyranny. In their minds, the IRA's goals, and even its tactics, are valid. Many Americans of Irish descent back the IRA and give the organization money.

Another example is the African National Congress (ANC), an organization that at times used violence and sabotage to oppose apartheid, the now-defunct system in which South Africa's white minority government forcibly segregated all races and held all political power.

Many Americans, most of whom consider themselves opposed to terrorism, supported the ANC's goals and were willing to provide funds. Were the ANC's actions terrorism, or was the ANC justified in using violence to overthrow the South African government, even if civilians were affected?
In the end, global pressure forced the downfall of the white-dominated South African government. The ANC is now the ruling party in South Africa.

"What is Terrorism? (sidebar)." Issues & Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 16 Aug. 1996. Web. 4 Sept. 2010. .

About the IRA

To many people, the term "IRA" equals terrorism. Officially known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the IRA has existed for about 100 years. Its goal has always been the independence of all of Ireland. To achieve that, it has frequently resorted to violence and terror. Most IRA supporters are Irish Roman Catholics.

The IRA is believed to have a large supply of weapons, including machine guns and bomb-making materials. It is known for its use of Semtex, a powerful plastic explosive that is difficult to detect.

The IRA is also feared within the Catholic community that it claims to represent. It controls many poor neighborhoods in Belfast, for instance, and has its own justice system for people caught using drugs, joyriding or other "crimes." Among the brutal punishments blamed on the IRA are kneecapping (shooting a victim in the knees so he cannot walk) and beating victims senseless with baseball bats studded with iron nails.

Although the U.S. government formally considers the IRA to be a terrorist group, it enjoys support among many members of the U.S.'s large Irish-American community.

Observers believe that many U.S. supporters, filled with a romantic notion of a united Ireland, are unaware of the extent of violence and death caused by the IRA.

In June 1997, British Prime Minister Tony Blair made an unusual direct plea to Americans to stop giving money to the IRA.