When massacres are normal: guns and Virginia Tech
Binoy Kampmark
Brent Jesiek
You are contributing your stories and/or files to The April 16 Archive, which is developing a permanent digital record of the events surrounding the tragedy on the Virginia Tech campus on April 16, 2007. Your participation in this project will allow future researchers, and people such as yourself, to gain a greater understanding of these events and the responses to them.
eng
Never Again?
<p>Lessons learned on the 8th anniversary of Columbine.
<i>-- Diane Edbril and Daniel Loeb</i>
Yet another American gun massacre, and though the scale is more horrific, it is not surprising. The Virginia Tech massacre is not unlike the Amish schoolhouse shooting in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, late last year. Both of these, while unbearably sad, are hardly unexpected in this country. Our weak gun laws make it a certainty that the United States will continue to suffer recurrences of such preventable tragedies. There is a crying need for Americans to understand - It's about the guns!
Phil Goldsmith, President of CeaseFire PA, said "Since the Columbine shooting tragedy it has become even easier to obtain guns, as well as high capacity ammunition magazines. Many states, including Pennsylvania, have passed pre-emption laws that have undermined the ability of local governments to enact stricter gun laws. (Pennsylvania has preempted local regulation of firearms for over a decade.) Concealed carry laws have multiplied. In addition, for the last six years, the US Department of Justice has required the destruction of gun purchase background check records after just 24 hours, a measure that has prevented a comprehensive review of those who may have acquired guns despite falling into a prohibited category."
Currently:</p>
<p><ul id="obj"><li>Most of our states do not require gun owners to be licensed and for guns to be registered.</li><li>Most of our states have not closed the gun show loophole, so thousands of guns are purchased without background checks.</li><li>Most states impose no limits on the number of firearms one individual can acquire, making it easy for illegal gun traffickers to supply the criminal element.</li><li>Many of our states do not update criminal history databases in a timely manner, making it easy for criminals to obtain firearms.</li></ul></p><p>Imagine how much worse this tragedy could have been if Cho Seung-hui had been in possession of a military assault weapon as is his "right" now that Congress has allowed the Assault Weapons Ban to expire.
Cho Seung-hui was able to obtain firearms despite his psychological record since the burden of proof is on the government to prove that he was a danger to himself and those around him. However, when I get a driver's license, the burden of proof is on me to prove that my eyesight is adequate and that I understand the rules of the road. When I send my children to school or to summer camp, the burden of proof is on me to show that my children have been immunized and are not carrying any communicable diseases. Why not shift the burden of proof and require a recent attestation of sanity from a psychiatrist or psychologist before anyone can handle a firearm?
Will the American people stand up to the gun lobby and demand change, or will the administration simply blame the media for not concentrating their coverage on the majority of universities which do not have gun violence at any given moment?
As Phil Goldsmith observed: "Congress called for a Moment of Silence in response to this massacre. Indeed, a moment of silence is appropriate for such a devastating tragedy with such pain for families and students. But we also need loud, uncompromising noise, particularly in Pennsylvania, where too many of our citizens are being shot and killed in urban areas. The majority of Pennsylvanians favor sensible handgun laws, including Governor Ed Rendell. It is time for the majority's voices to be heard loud and clear."
<i>For information about the Stop Gun Violence Through Peace, Action & Education - A Community-Based Interfaith's Conference on May 20 and the weekly vigils. See last month's article on <a href="http://www.pjvoice.com/v22/22007guns.aspx">Interfaith Initiative Against Guns</a>.</i>
<b>Liviu Librescu Links:</b></p>
<p><ul id="obj"><li><a href="http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/victims/profiles/liviu.librescu.html">CNN Tribute Page</a></li><li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu">Wikipedia</a></li><li><a href="http://www.esm.vt.edu/~llibresc/RESUME%20L.%20Librescu.pdf">61 page resume</a></li><li><a href="http://www.chabad.edu/templates/articlecco.html?AID=504498">Family Condolence Page</a></li></ul></p><p>--
© 2007. Permission is hereby granted to redistribute this issue of The Philadelphia Jewish Voice or (unless specified otherwise) any of the articles therein in their full original form provided these same rights are conveyed to the reader and subscription information to The Philadelphia Jewish Voice is provided. Subscribers should be directed to <a href="http://www.pjvoice.com/Subscribe.htm">http://www.pjvoice.com/Subscribe.htm</a>.
Original Source: <a href="http://www.pjvoice.com/v23/23001vatech.aspx">http://www.pjvoice.com/v23/23001vatech.aspx</a></p>
Diane Edbril and Daniel Loeb / The Philadelphia Jewish Voice
2007-07-01
Adriana Seagle
Daniel Loeb (daniel.loeb@verizon.net)
eng
The Altar of the Gun
<em>Note: I found writing this piece to be a way of channeling my own anger <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600533.html?hpid=topnews">at the massacre this morning</a>. But I recognize that anger is only one part of the grief process. Please join me in praying for the families and friends of those killed.</em>
American worships the gun. Today, 33 more were sacrificed on the altar of our devotion to the gun. Specifically to semi automatic handguns. There are already <a href="http://bimmer1200.livejournal.com/20511.html">dozens</a> of <a href="http://instapundit.com/archives2/004221.php">articles</a> from disciples arguing that the massacre today at Virginia tech could have been avoided if some of the students had been carrying guns so they could shoot the killer before he killed them. We trust the gun more than we trust God.
The brutal reality of our gun fetish is that selling guns and ammo is highly profitable. But it is not simply the fact that the market values short term earnings from gun sales more than the social, cultural, political and long term economic damage that gun violence does to our society. More importantly, the gun industry long ago learned to effectively invest their short term earnings into the social, political and cultural sphere. Their investments in the NRA, especially <a href="http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/chapter2.html">since 1977</a> years have returned 10 fold and the results are a culture in which gun ownership is intimately connected with the values of self-sufficiency, responsibility and security that so many Americans identify with. We'll call these frontier values.</p>
<p>As much as we'd like to wish that the new Democratic congress would seize on this moment to pass some common sense gun laws, the reality is that many of the new members of Congress were partly by actively courting those with frontier values. Unless their constituency shows signs of disconnecting handguns from frontier values, any vote for limiting the sales of hand guns will be doomed.
It may be that changing our gun culture requires looking at movements that have successfully challenged large corporations with large amounts of cultural capital. The anti-smoking movement comes to mind. The last 30 years have seen a drastic shift on the public perceptions of smoking. The parallels are striking. The right to smoke was once also closely associated with frontier values. The industry also heavily invested in cultural, social and political institutions to maintain and promote the cigarette. For a time it seemed that they were effective. But these days its very hard to find anyone in political office trumpeting the rights of smokers.</p>
<p>What were the tactics and strategies of the anti-smoking lobby? They brought law suits by second hand smokers against big tobacco. Unfortunately a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102000485.html">law passed in 2005 </a>protects the industry from any parallel suits.
Another tactic of the anti-tobacco movement was its relentless funding of anti-smoking advertising. Through memorable add campaigns they have gradually associated with smoking with disease and decay. It seems this solution has much potential given the brutal reality of gun crime. Is the anti-gun lobby much less well funded? Have they not found the right message?
Of course, part of the anti-smoking victory can be attributed to the scandal of Tobacco companies lying to consumers for many many years. This highlights a major difference between gun industry and the tobacco industry is that gun manufacturers are much less visible in the debate then big tobacco was. The NRA is by far the most visible and powerful gun lobbying organization. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Wesson#The_Agreement_of_2000">wikipedia article on Smitth & Wesson</a> tells the interesting story of how gun owners turned on the hand that fed them after Smith & Wesson was seen to have compromised on gun control.
But there is hope. In the United Kingdom after the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_Massacre">Dunblane Massacre</a>, more than 700,000 Brits signed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdrop_Petition">Snowdrop petition</a> calling for a total ban on the private ownership and use of handguns in the United Kingdom. The petition led to the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 which completely banned handguns in the UK (this was the final in a long series of hand gun control laws) According to a report from the home office, from mid-2005 to mid-2006, only 49 people were killed by handguns (<a href="http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf">Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2005/2006</a>, page 36). This is a rate of roughly 1 per million compared to 55 per million in the US (<a href="http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html">FBI 2004 Crime report)</a>. It turns out that a mandatory five-year jail term for carrying a hand gun does have an effect. I lived in the UK from 2004 through 2006 and noticed that fatal shootings were so rare that they regularly made the national newspaper. People take the hand gun ban for granted and find the gun religion in our country to quaint and strange. On one of my first evenings in the UK I watched a documentary in which a UK reporter went deep into US gun country and interviewed gun disciples. It was like watching an exotic safari.
Change is possible. Massacres like the one at Virginia tech do not need to be a reoccurring horror in our headlines and our lives. Let's work together to end our worship of the gun.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 6:44 pm by <a href="http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/author/timn/">TimN</a>
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Original Source: Young Anabaptist Radicals Blog
<a href="http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/04/16/the-altar-of-the-gun/">http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/04/16/the-altar-of-the-gun/</a>
This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License</a>.
Tim Nafziger
2007-06-17
Brent Jesiek
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5
eng
Stage weapons ban reversed
Published: Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tyler Hill
Staff Reporter
After a weekend of national media coverage and student outcry, administrators decided Monday to rescind the ban on stage weapons that was enacted in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Last week, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg told several students that realistic-looking stage weapons would no longer be permitted in Yale theatrical productions. Amid concerns that the restriction was inhibiting free speech, a group of administrators decided Monday to overturn the policy, Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said. In the future, Yale will require that audiences be warned before performances that include scenes with fake weapons, she said.
Trachtenberg had originally intended to ban all stage weapons, but was persuaded that obviously fake weapons should be permitted, Sarah Holdren '08 told the News last Thursday. Holdren directed this weekend's production of "Red Noses," which was forced to use wooden swords instead of more realistic props. The restriction also affected the opera "Orpheus in the Underworld," which used balloon swords in place of its real-looking stage weapons.
News of the University's reversal was only released when a reporter from the Associated Press called Klasky on Monday evening to ask about the original restriction. Students have not yet been officially informed of the change in policy, Klasky said.
Administrators, including Yale President Richard Levin, weighed in on the decision to overturn the ban after it became apparent that it concerned issues of free speech, Levin said. Although the administration will not censor future shows, he said, the Dean of Student Affairs still has the authority to regulate student productions.
"The fundamental consideration was trading off artistic freedom of expression against concern about the potential emotional precariousness of audiences during the week of a mass murder," he said. "There was a different approach which hadn't been considered at the time, and the approach would be not to censor the show but warn the audience."
But Holdren said she asked Trachtenberg on Thursday to consider allowing the use of realistic-looking weapons if the staff included a warning before each show. At the time, Trachtenberg found that alternative unacceptable, Holdren said. She said that although the change comes too late to affect her show, which ended its run on Saturday, she is glad the administration has considered the issue more carefully.
"Obviously professional theater companies do shows with weapons all of the time and it's up to the audience's discretion whether or not to watch," she said.
Trachtenberg declined to comment Tuesday night about the reversal of her decision, but over the weekend she told the News that student criticism of the stage weapons ban had been exaggerated.
"I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity," Trachtenberg said. "They're not using their own intelligence. ... We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons."
Dustin Cho '08, chair of the Yale chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said "knee jerk" reactions are common after national tragedies, but that such limitations on free speech inhibit any meaningful dialogue. Generally Yale is very good at protecting free speech, he said.
"It's quite a stretch to say that substituting realistic-looking prop swords with wooden ones showed more sensitivity to the shooting victims," he said. "This was a grave mistake, but I'm glad they took care of it immediately."
Trachtenberg, who has served as Dean of Student Affairs for 20 years, announced in November that she is stepping down at the end of the academic year.
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20927"> Yale Daily News - April 25, 2007 </a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Elis decry ban on stage weapon use
Published: Monday, April 23, 2007
Cullen Macbeth
Staff Reporter
Members of Yale's undergraduate theater community reacted with anger over the weekend to Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg's decision to bar performance groups — at least temporarily — from using life-like weapons in their productions.
The new rule is meant to protect audience members who may have connections to last week's deadly gun massacre at Virginia Tech University or who may react adversely to violence on stage because of personal experiences, Trachtenberg said. But many students said the new restrictions represent inappropriate censorship of student artwork and that Trachtenberg should not have implemented them without soliciting student input beforehand.
The new restrictions were put in place to protect people in the Yale and New Haven communities who live or have friends who live in Virginia, or who have seen people die by gun violence, Trachtenberg said. She said the outcry from students upset with her decision has been exaggerated.
"I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity," Trachtenberg said. "They're not using their own intelligence. ... We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons."
The new restrictions do not ban all types of stage weapons, Trachtenberg said. She said she did not prevent an instructor in theater studies who talked to her on Friday from using a dulled knife to cut a cabbage head in a production, for example.
This weekend's productions of "Red Noses" and "Orpheus in the Underworld" were affected by the rule change. "Red Noses" had to substitute wooden swords for more realistic-looking ones after learning of the rule from Trachtenberg on Thursday.
The University overstepped its bounds by prohibiting the ways in which students can express themselves on stage, said Dara Lind '09, who has managed and produced several campus performances.
"Personally, I am very strongly anti-censorship as far as the arts are concerned," she said. "I don't understand what gives the college the right to try to circumscribe artistic expression like that."
Lind is a staff columnist for the News.
Students should be left to decide for themselves what is appropriate to include in their productions and should be able to use theater to realistically portray a range of topics, including those relating to gun violence, Yale Drama Coalition Vice President Mike Leibenluft '10 said. While he was in high school, Leibenluft said, he worked on a show about the Columbine High School shootings that documented witnesses' reactions to the violence.
"I think the fact that it assumes that we first of all can't deal with these issues in a dramatic setting and also we can't take responsibility for the theater that is produced and the reaction it has from Yale students is pretty shocking," he said. "I was incredibly surprised by it. I think it's totally inappropriate."
Leibenluft said Trachtenberg should have consulted with students before implementing the new regulation.
But Yale Dramatic Association President Emmett Zackheim '08 said he is not concerned by the ban because he thinks the normal rules governing the use of weapons in theatrical productions will be reinstated before long.
"I don't think it's a disaster for everyone involved in theater," he said. "It essentially doesn't concern me. I probably wouldn't have done the same thing necessarily, but I'm not really concerned by it."
Trachtenberg has not yet decided whether the new restrictions will be in place permanently and will review the decision as "things settle down," she said. She said she consulted with representatives from the Theater Studies Program and did not make a "unilateral decision" about the rule.
Lind and several other students formed a "FEAR NO ART" Facebook group over the weekend to protest Trachtenberg's decision and discussed ways to try to get the rule reversed. The groups have not yet decided on a definite plan, she said, but they may stage a rally on Beinecke Plaza or attempt to set up a meeting with Trachtenberg to discuss the rule.
"As far as collaboration is concerned, it will probably just be easiest to take public action," Lind said. "The best way to prove that art gives much more to the student body than it takes away is to have public art and demonstrate to people what the benefit is of having unrestricted artistic expression."
The continuation of the new restrictions could hamper the theater community's willingness and ability to put on a wide variety of shows, YDC founder Eyad Houssami '07 said. He said he would have "strong reservations" about agreeing to produce a show that requires stage weapons — such as the one he put on for his senior project, which required a shotgun — if the ban on realistic props remains in place.
"When you're using realistic props, it doesn't make sense to substitute them with children's toys, because you are making a mockery of the play and of the character," Houssami said. "I feel like by banning weapons from the stage at Yale, we are kind of silencing a potentially fruitful debate on violence and the nature of violence in America today."
The University had rules in place before last week that limited the kinds of weapons students could use in productions, Trachtenberg said, but she does not know the exact provisions.
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20886"> Yale Daily News - April 23, 2007 </a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Weapons to go off stage
Published: Friday, April 20, 2007
Courtney Long
Staff Reporter and Copy Editor
In the wake of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 people, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg has limited the use of stage weapons in theatrical productions.
Students involved in this weekend's production of "Red Noses" said they first learned of the new rules on Thursday morning, the same day the show was slated to open. They were subsequently forced to alter many of the scenes by swapping more realistic-looking stage swords for wooden ones, a change that many students said was neither a necessary nor a useful response to the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
According to students involved in the production, Trachtenberg has banned the use of some stage weapons in all of the University's theatrical productions. While shows will be permitted to use obviously fake plastic weapons, students said, those that hoped to stage more realistic scenes of stage violence have had to make changes to their props.
Trachtenberg could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
"Red Noses" director Sarah Holdren '08 said she first heard about the changes in a phone call from a friend as she arrived at the Off-Broadway Theater on Thursday morning. At the theater, technical director Jim Brewczynski told her about the new regulations. The pair then met with Trachtenberg, who initially wanted no stage weapons to be used in the show, Holdren said, though she later agreed to permit the use of obviously fake weapons.
In a speech made before last night's opening show of "Red Noses," Holdren said that Trachtenberg's decision to force the production to use wooden swords instead of metal swords will do little to stem violence in the world.
"Calling for an end to violence onstage does not solve the world's suffering: It merely sweeps it under the rug, turning theater — in the words of this very play — into 'creamy bon-bons' instead of 'solid fare' for a thinking, feeling audience," she said. "Here at Yale, sensitivity and political correctness have become censorship in this time of vital need for serious artistic expression."
Holdren said she is primarily worried about the University's decision to place limitations on art, rather than the specific inconvenience to her production.
"I completely understand that the University needs to respond to the tragedy, but I think it is wrong to conflate sensitivity and censorship," she said in an interview. "It is wrong to assume that any theater that deals with tragic matter is sort of on the side of those things or out to get people; they're not — they're out to help people through things like this. I want my show and all shows to be uplifting to people. That's why I'm upset about this — it's not because my props were taken — it's about imposing petty restrictions on art as the right way to solve the problems in the world."
Brandon Berger '10, who plays a swordsman in the show, said the switch to an obviously fake wooden sword has changed the nature of his part from an "evil, errant knight to a petulant child."
"They're trying to make an appropriate gesture, but they did it in an inappropriate way — they've neutered the play," he said. "The violence is important to what it actually means. What these types of actions do is very central — it is not gratuitous."
Susie Kemple '08, an actress in the show, said Trachtenberg's way of dealing with the Virginia Tech massacre was not beneficial to the students' own mourning process.
"It is problematic because all of us were incredibly shocked by the events at Virginia Tech," Kemple said. "We turn to extracurriculars in our grief [and] the Yale administration makes the healing more difficult. None of the shows are about massive gun violence — this show is about showing and explaining the human experience."
Berger also said he finds the ruling inconsistent because forms of stage violence that do not involve weapons — such as hangings — are still permitted.
"Red Noses" will end its run Saturday night.
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Original Source: <a href=http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20843> Yale Daily News - April 20, 2007 </a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
VT Students turn to God
<p>Dr. Roger Passman</p>
<p>April 18, 2007</p>
<p>Reporting for <a href="http://tinyurl.com/35g965">Reuters</a>, Andrea Hopkins writes:</a></p>
<blockquote>By all accounts, the prayers started even before the gunshots stopped at Virginia Tech university, and the pleas to God from grief-stricken survivors of the massacre have continued ever since.</blockquote>
<blockquote>"God cares about Virginia Tech," said Megan Martin, 24, joining about a dozen fellow students in a traveling prayer vigil that rambled across the sprawling campus a day after the worst U.S. shooting spree in modern history.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Carrying placards reading: "Jesus loves you," "God knows and He cares," and "Can we pray with you?" the small knot of students worked their way through the university grounds in Blacksburg, a Bible Belt town in the mountains of southwest Virginia.</blockquote>
<p>I suppose turning to God(s) cannot do any serious harm to the individual that does the turning. The evidence, however, does not justify such a move. <i>"God cares about Virginia Tech," said Megan Martin</i>, is quoted in the article. Is this God so cruel that he (she, it) only cares after the fact? Is this God(s) so indifferent that he (she, it) only takes an interest after the dastardly deed has been accomplished? God knows and He cares, is another after the fact fantasy that may serve to salve heightened emotions but does not address the fundamental issue-was this God who cares so much simply on vacation when Cho Seung-Hui decided to engage on a shooting rampage on the VT campus? Does the evidence point to a God(s) who cares, who knows? I think not. What the evidence points to is a random series of events that occur every so often because Americans are willing to sacrifice security for the right to bear arms for any purpose whatsoever. The evidence does not point to a loving God(s) but, rather, to a heightened probability that because guns are so readily available in the United States tragic events such as the VT shootings are more likely than not to occur.</p>
<p>While turning to God(s) is a defensive move in cases of unthinkable tragedy for many people, it seems to me that it is simply a misplaced use of human energy. Telling one's self that God(s) really care, while that might have a temporary calming effect, does nothing to solve the problem that lies at the root of the VT shootings. Far more productive an approach is to focus the anger and frustration one feels in moments of unspeakable tragedy into efforts to place meaningful regulation on the ownership of weapons that have no other use than to cause permanent harm to those to whom the guns are directed. Gun nuts that demand no regulation of weapons spouting rights granted under the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States <i>(A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,)</i> must ask: <b>to what militia did Cho Seung-Hui belong</b> when he began his rampage? Why was Cho Seung-Hui permitted to purchase and own guns? Why do we put up with this cowboy mentality? Is life really imitating the wild west shootout of the movies?</p>
<p>Rather than turning to God(s) how about turning to Congress and demanding that your lawmakers do something to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again. If you don't then, it seems to me, that events like the VT shootings will surely occur over and over, again and again. One Italian journalist wrote that the VT shootings are as American as apple pie. It this the image America and Americans portray to the world? Is this the image we want to portray? It is time to stop the madness.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Original Source: <a href="http://rpassman.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/vt-students-turn-to-god/">http://rpassman.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/vt-students-turn-to-god/</a></p>
<p>Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States</a>.</p>
Roger Passman
2007-05-24
Brent Jesiek
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States
eng