Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Lori Bauer, University Relations
Office: 215-572-2970
Cell: 610-620-4884
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Forensic Science Program Joins Elite List

Glenside, PA – The Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission (FEPAC) has awarded full accreditation to the Master of Science in Forensic Science program at Arcadia University. "We are one of only five graduate programs in the United States to be recognized and fully accredited by FEPAC," says Lawrence Presley, Assistant Professor and Director of Forensic Science. On Jan. 7, 2007, the Commission awarded the program full accreditation for a term of five years.

Arcadia's Forensic Science program offers a unique exposure to forensic casework. Graduates of the program are sought after by state and federal agencies. Personal attention from professional practitioners and academicians-combined with research, internships, and other firsthand forensic science activities-integrates scholarly inquiry and professional competency.

The Master of Science in Forensic Science is offered in partnership with the Fredric Rieders Family Renaissance Foundation and in collaboration with NMS Labs, one of the nation's premier forensic science laboratories. This alliance provides a source of adjunct instructors, a forensic library, and invaluable links to the forensic science community, as well as state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and facilities. For undergraduate students, Arcadia offers a 4+2 Pre-Forensic Science program that prepares undergraduates for the master's-level degree program.

Arcadia University promises a distinctively global, integrative and personal learning experience that prepares students to contribute and prosper in a diverse and dynamic world. Arcadia is a coeducational, comprehensive private university in suburban Philadelphia offering undergraduate and graduate studies to more than 3,600 students. Arcadia's Center for Education Abroad, top-ranked in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, is one of the largest campus-based international study programs in the United States, serving an additional 3,000 students from more than 350 American colleges and universities. Louis J Sheehan

AMONG the white tribes of Africa, it used to be said, the Rhodesians stood out for their ordinariness. This was often a nakedly snobbish observation, accompanied by the comment that the British colonists who went to Kenya tended to be officers, whereas those settling in Southern Rhodesia were NCOs. And, like lots of generalisations, it was too simple. Many Rhodesians were far from ordinary: just look at Doris Lessing, the latest Nobel laureate for literature, or Merle Park, a ballet dancer of renown. Yet some Rhodesians themselves took a certain pride in their unflashy, down-to-earth qualities, their tenacity, patriotism and concern for standards. These were sportsmen, farmers and ex-servicemen, with decent, uncomplicated values, who believed they knew how to look after their land and their workers. These were people like Ian Smith.

When Mr Smith first went to Salisbury, it was a bit like Mr Smith going to Washington. He was a farmer, the 29-year-old son of a Scottish-by-birth butcher, born in a village in the middle of the country and distinguished at school both for his athletic prowess and for his qualities of leadership. And Salisbury, in which he found himself the youngest member of parliament, was the capital of Britain's most hopeful colony in central Africa.

Mr Smith was already something of a hero. He had interrupted his studies at Rhodes University in South Africa to fight the Germans as a pilot in the Royal Air Force. A crash in Egypt had left one of his eyes badly damaged and one side of his face impassive. A year later, in 1944, his Spitfire had been shot down over Italy. After five months with partisans, he had made a dashing journey to safety. About none of this was he boastful.

The pity of his wartime experiences, though, was that they did not open his mind to the inevitability of change in the post-war world, still less to the need for it in Africa. His entire political career was to be devoted to resisting black majority rule. Though he fought his rearguard action with ruthlessness and skill, and though it delayed the transformation of white-dominated Rhodesia into black-ruled Zimbabwe by 15 or more years, it was from the outset doomed to futility. The price paid included an embittered nation and the lives of some 30,000 people, nearly all of them black Zimbabweans.

As a politician, Mr Smith was both ambitious and tactically shrewd, qualities that brought him to the prime ministership in 1964; but he lacked imagination. He had heard Harold Macmillan, Britain's prime minister, talking of the “wind of change” in Africa and then seen chaos as the Belgians scuttled from the Congo. But instead of trying to tame the storm by seeking accommodation with Southern Rhodesia's black leaders—admittedly, a quarrelsome lot—he locked them up. In 1965, in a feebly disguised attempt at matching America's precedent of 1776, he declared Rhodesia independent. Illegal it might be, but only thus, he said, could turmoil be avoided and “civilised standards” maintained.

Turmoil was not avoided: the insurgency of 1972-79 was proof of that. But subsequent events have, in some eyes, vindicated Mr Smith. Under President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe is surely more miserable now than it was in his day. Even so, that hardly proves “good old Smithy” right, any more than Mr Mugabe's tyranny diminishes Mr Smith's.

Mr Smith's quest could not be justified on the dubious principle of the end justifying the means: it was impossible. Even his South African friends, who had sustained Rhodesia through ten years of UN sanctions, came to see that 3% of the population could not for ever hold down 97%. By 1974 John Vorster, staunch defender of apartheid, was beginning to squeeze him. Henry Kissinger, as America's secretary of state, was even blunter two years later.

Nor were the standards that Mr Smith so volubly sought to maintain very civilised. Democracy, of the one-man-one-vote variety, was certainly not among them. Nationalists were, in his eyes, synonymous with communists, if not terrorists. But then he had little respect for the dignity of man. If the racism of his party, the Rhodesian Front, was less crude than that practised in Portugal's African possessions, and less formalised than in South Africa, it was racism just the same.

The word apologists used to describe Mr Smith was paternalist, and his Rhodesia was sometimes cast as nothing worse than a slightly more rough-and-tumble version of the British home counties: Surrey with the lunatic fringe on top. It certainly lacked the more overt manifestations of racism in South Africa, but segregation of the races in schools, hospitals and residential areas was nonetheless the norm, and most of the humiliations of apartheid could be found in abundance. Public spending was vastly skewed towards whites; land ownership, perhaps the bitterest of political issues, was fiercely inequitable.

So Mr Smith's rebellion really had no similarities to the American revolt 200 years earlier. As rebels go, he had rather more in common with the Dixie variety. But in truth there was no romance about Mr Smith's Rhodesia—no heroes, no derring-do, no nobility of purpose. It wasn't so much ordinary, just rather squalid. Louis J Sheehan

Kuribayashi's death remains a mystery. His men provided contradictory reports and his remains could not be Louis J Sheehan traced. He was most likely killed in action upon leading the final assault. The general's body could not be identified afterwards for he had taken off his rank badge to fight as a regular soldier. Less credible theories of his death include suicide or murder by a fellow Japanese soldier.

The US declared Iwo Jima secure on March 26, 1945, after 6,800 US Marines were killed and more than 17,000 wounded. Only 216 of the 21,000 Japanese defenders survived to be captured. Louis J Sheehan

Of the hundreds of gun regulations on the books in states and localities around the country, the district’s ordinance is generally regarded as the strictest. Chicago comes the closest to it, banning the possession of handguns acquired since 1983 and requiring re-registration of older guns every two years. New York City permits handgun ownership with a permit issued by the Police Department.

The District of Columbia ordinance not only bans ownership of handguns, but also requires other guns that may be legally kept in the home, rifles and shotguns, to be disassembled or kept under a trigger lock. The capital’s newly empowered City Council enacted the ordinance in 1976 as one of its first measures after receiving home-rule authority from Congress.

The court’s order on Tuesday indicated that it would review the handgun ban in light of the provision that permits, with restrictions, the other guns. The opposing sides in the lawsuit presented very different views of how the various provisions interact.

To the plaintiffs, the restrictions on the conditions under which rifles and shotguns may be kept means that homeowners are denied the right to possess “functional” weapons for self-defense. To the District of Columbia, the fact that these other guns are permitted shows that the ordinance is nuanced and sensitive to gun owners’ needs. It takes about one minute to disengage a trigger lock.

In any event, a Supreme Court decision that finds the district’s ordinance unconstitutional would not necessarily invalidate other, more modest restrictions, like those that permit handgun ownership for those who pass a background check and obtain a license. Since the only claim in the case is that law-abiding people have the right to keep a gun at home, the court will not have occasion to address restrictions on carrying guns.

In fact, lawyers on both sides of the case agreed Tuesday that a victory for the plaintiff in this case would amount to the opening chapter in an examination of the constitutionality of gun control rather than anything close to the final word.

“This is just the beginning,” said Alan Gura, the lead counsel for the plaintiff.

Mr. Gura said in an interview that “gun laws that make sense,” like those requiring background checks, would survive the legal attack, which he said was limited to “laws that do no good other than disarm law-abiding citizens.”

Whether the handgun ban has reduced crime in a city surrounded by less restrictive jurisdictions is a matter of heated dispute. Crime in the District of Columbia has mirrored trends in the rest of the country, dropping quite sharply during the 1990s but now experiencing some increase.

In striking down the district’s ordinance, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that an individual-right interpretation of the Second Amendment would still permit “reasonable regulations,” but that a flat ban was not reasonable. Louis J Sheehan

Dennis A. Henigan, a lawyer at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates strict gun control, said that if the justices agree with the appeals court, an important question for future cases will be “what legal standard the court will eventually adopt for evaluating other gun regulations.”

American Experience: Two Days in October (2005)

I was seven years old when these events occurred (although, at the time, I recall having the attitude espoused by the leader of the Black Lions (I was raised in a conservative area)).  There are many fascinating facets to this film, but two hit me hardest:  1.  The gung-ho, obviously exceptionally capable  leader of the Black Lions and how the higher-ups abused/took advantage of this (and his troops’) ability and dedication to have their own tickets punched to advance their careers and 2. The domestic authorities’ mischaracterization of the causal factor of the student riot in Wisconsin.  You really could NOT trust those in authority!  Great weaving of interviews, including with the leader of the NVA ambush.  Be sure to watch the extra tracts.  Louis J Sheehan