In 1989 the world stood still as the Berlin Wall fell and massive protests erupted in the Soviet Union. The whole world was watching as ordinary Russian people lay down in front of tanks, risking their lives in the name of freedom. In the resulting months, dramatic changes redrew maps throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The new hopes of an entire generation were born and the US had won the cold war.

The School of the Americas is a military training facility in Columbus, Georgia that trains military forces from Latin America in techniques of torture and counterinsurgency. This facility is taxpayer funded and has hosted more than sixty thousand soldiers since it was opened in 1946. The SOA, which was renamed a few years ago to the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security and Cooperation, is known around the world for the role that it has played as an institution for training soldiers in techniques of torture.

There is a bill in the US Senate right now that deserves our support. Senate Bill 594, the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act, currently has twenty-one sponsors in the Senate. This bill would ban the use of cluster bombs, which injure thousands of innocent people each year. Unfortunately the Pentagon and Department of Defense officials have fought the effort to outlaw these weapons. Their reasoning is difficult to understand given the sobering reality that almost thirty percent of the bomblets released in each bomb fail to explode initially, leaving a deadly legacy for future generations of children to discover. The Middle East is filled with children who have lost arms and legs to unexploded cluster bombs. This is not the legacy of freedom and democracy we wish to leave the people of Iraq.

We all know that Lamar Alexander is a fixture in Washington DC politics, but what has he done for you lately? In a recent interview with the Cookeville Herald Citizen, Senator Lamar Alexander said that we are not in a recession in Tennessee. He said that recession is "a technical word" and that technically we are not in a recession. Speaking to the graduating class of Tennessee Tech Alexander said that there are some big challenges ahead but that we are currently only in an "economic slowdown." Alexander said that something needs to be done but I am wondering what the good Senator from Tennessee intends to do. If you examine his voting record, it is clear that the policy decisions that Alexander has favored are part of the reason we are in this recession in the first place.

When I was a senior in high school I participated in the model united nations program. As thousands of students do each year, I chose a country to represent as part of the student program. In my case I chose Norway, the home of my mother's ancestors. I was very excited to receive mailings from the Norwegian embassy, which I diligently researched in order to accurately represent my country of choice. Sitting in our high school library we passed resolutions to abide by strategic arms control and non-proliferation issues.

We use them all the time - our firefighters, police officers and emergency medical service personnel. Hardly a day goes by that we don't come into contact either directly or indirectly with these hard working public servants. When we have traffic accidents or emergencies at home or at work these public servants are the first on the scene in our communities. Often risking their own safety in order to serve the public good, these employees of our cities, states and municipalities deserve to have collective bargaining rights.