OUR VIEWSColeman's applicationLarry Coleman made mistakes in applying for another term on the Birmingham Board of Eduction and he might have technically missed a deadline.
But none of this is serious enough to justify denying the current board president consideration by the Birmingham City Council committee charged with recommending an individual for what is likely to be a shortened term.
Coleman's first mistake was in assuming he had until the expiration of his term to apply for a new term. Councilman Lee Loder had set a March 30 deadline for applications, one day before the expiration date for Coleman's term.
A related mistake was waiting until the last minute. If he had sent in the application shortly after Loder asked for them, none of what followed need to have taken place.
Because of his belated realization Friday afternoon that the application had to be in by 5 p.m., Coleman asked Deputy School Superintendent Abbe Boring to get it to City Hall. While Boring should be responsive to his requests concerning school board business, the seeking of reappointment to the board does not fall in this category.
It's a conflict of interest for a school system employee to get involved in the appointment of board members, which Boring and Coleman might have realized if they hadn't been under deadline pressure.
Which brings us to meeting that deadline. According to the school board's fax machine, a copy of the application was sent at 4:56 p.m. According to the City Council machine, it was received at 5:56 p.m.
Our first reaction to this was to wonder if the council office had been getting a jump on daylight savings time, which began Sunday, before people left for the weekend. One of the machines had the hour wrong, and considering when the hand-delivered application arrived, we'd bet it was the council machine.
That hand-delivered application was stamped as received in the council offices at 5:04 p.m. We can think of all sorts of reasons why a delivery might not be time stamped until four or more minutes after the messenger arrived.
Accepting Coleman's application for consideration does not open the door to other applications. It simply recognizes a specific but ambiguous set of circumstances and gives him the benefit of the doubt.
By the numbersIt was bound to happen. A shortage of available telephone numbers has prompted the Alabama Public Service Commission to approve the state's first overlay area code, which will probably be used for the first time in 2002.
Unlike traditional area codes that have unique geographic boundaries, overlay codes apply to areas in which another code is already in use. In this case, Birmingham and much of central Alabama, mostly to the west, will have two area codes, the current 205 and a second number yet to be determined.
The double area code and the need to dial 10 digits instead of the current seven for a local call will undoubtedly create confusion, although less than it might have a few years ago when Alabama had only one or two area codes for the entire state.
We now have three geographic codes with another in the process of being implemented for southwest Alabama. People are getting used to including their area codes when they give somebody their phone numbers and to dialing 11 digits to talk to people in other parts of Alabama.
Unfortunately, we are now getting to the point where a further subdividing of the state, particularly around Birmingham would create more confusion than an overlay code.
If the 205 area were divided, at least one of the areas would be so small geographically that some people who currently make local calls to each other would be in different area codes, necessitating long distance calls. Not to mention the problem of determining where the line could be drawn in heavily populated areas crisscrossed by phone lines.
If none of the practical explanations for an overlay area code satisfy you, try a psychological one.
Overlay codes are used primarily in big cities. By gaining an overlay code, Birmingham is being told it is one of those big places.
OTHER VIEWSBiological psychologist seeks causes of altered statesBy LINDA SEEBACH
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWSBarry Beyerstein calls what he studies "the neurology of the weird."
He's a biological psychologist who works in the Brain Behavior Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, and he's interested in the way physiological disturbances of the brain cause the brain's owner to experience profoundly altered states of consciousness. He spoke recently in Boulder, Colo.
The descriptions are familiar. A disembodied self. A mysterious sense of oneness with God (or with the universe). Visions. An alien entity usurping control of one's body.
Are the varieties of religious and spiritual experience merely a matter of brain chemistry gone awry? Beyerstein doesn't make that claim.
"I do not dispute in the slightest that people feel changed," he said, "and they do change.
"For those who have the experience, what it felt like is good enough. But for scientists, that's the beginning, not the end" of the investigation. What is happening in the brain? These aberrations of consciousness often occur spontaneously and without obvious external causes. Or they may be associated with migraines or with epilepsy.
The most frequently cited reason people believe in the paranormal, Beyerstein said, is that they themselves have had a compelling anomalous experience.
But it's also true that in many cultures such experiences are highly prized, and there are rituals and cultural practices to induce these transcendent states. Moreover, the practices are strikingly similar in otherwise dissimilar societies.
Some use drugs, including hallucinogens.
Both sensory deprivation and sensory overload affect brain function.
Rhythmic stimulus — drumming, chanting, swaying, controlled breathing — have been shown in laboratory studies to alter the electrical patterns of the brain.
Physical manipulation of the body — fasting, dehydration, sleep deprivation, fatigue, exhaustion, even self-mutilation — changes how the mind perceives reality.
These things happen in a social and cultural context, too, which tells the individual who has been made to feel weird what kind of weird he is expected to feel.
There are new versions of these cultural practices, Beyerstein said, "for those who like gadgets better than talismans."
He described the work of Michael Persinger, a researcher at Laurentian University in Ontario who studies brain activity evoked by electrical currents.
Persinger fits his volunteer subjects with a motorcycle helmet studded with magnetic coils.
The volunteers' experiences are apparently not so intense as those that have inspired prophets and madmen. At least, Beyerstein didn't know of any who walked out of the lab with a magnetically induced mission. But then, the setting would conduce toward skepticism. It would be asking a lot of coincidence to believe God spoke to you at exactly the same instant the researcher flipped the switch.
Nonetheless, Persinger found that some people are predisposed to interpret their experience mystically. And the response can be manipulated by the physical setting. People are more likely to describe what they feel in religious terms if they are tested in a room rich with religious symbols and imagery.
I wondered whether ecstasy on demand might be a business opportunity — and sure enough, there's a Web site set up by a student of Persinger's, featuring "own-your-own magnetic signal spiritual technology."
This is not an endorsement; Beyerstein said he, personally, would not be willing to take the risk. Nor would I.
That there is a naturalistic explanation for some experiences customarily regarded as spiritual does not prove the nonexistence of non-naturalistic explanations, though I'm inclined to think one explanation is sufficient. Or it could be that the divine, however conceived, acts through the mechanisms of the natural world. Hard to imagine how it could act otherwise.
In any case, if something like this ever happened to me I'd sure want to know what caused it.
— Scripps Howard News Service
Linda Seebach can be reached
at the Rocky Mountain News
P.O. Box 719
Denver, CO 80201-0719
or seebach@denver-rmn.com
YOUR VIEWSBush right to end ABA veto powerPresident Bush has the principle and purpose to give America the judiciary it needs. His decision to end the American Bar Association's unjustified veto power over judicial nominees is long overdue.
The ABA, which represents fewer than half the nation's lawyers, alone has been allowed secretly to examine those being considered for judicial nomination. A "not qualified" rating gives the ABA what even the liberal Washington Post admits is "a virtual veto power before a nomination is made." Now, that Bush has corrected the bad judgment of giving this one interest group an exclusive advantage. The ABA will still participate in the selection process but on the same basis as everyone else.
The ABA endorses abortion rights, even opposing parental notification before young girls may get abortions. The group supports decriminalizing homosexual conduct, racial preferences in both employment and law school admissions, the agenda of the 1996 U.N. Women's Conference in Beijing, gun control and a statute that would virtually abolish the death penalty. It opposes tort reform, mandatory minimum sentences, welfare reform and any limitation on either the National Endowment for the Arts or Legal Services.
Bush's decision, then, is completely justified and long overdue and today the playing field may finally be leveled.
Paul McCain
3522 Rocky Ridge Road
Oxford
Should seek outMuch ink has been given lately to the comments of state Sen. Jack Biddle and his stand on our state constitution. According to the senator he has heard no groundswell of support for a new and equitable document. I admit I know little of the senator. However his comments perplex me.
He, as so many legislators claim, has an open-door policy when it comes to the will of the people. But let's be realistic, it is rare for average voters to contact elected officials, rarer still on issues they might not fully understand. Many officials rely solely on those in their circle of influence.
I have always been under the impression our representatives were to do more than accept the will of those they represent. They are to seek that will as well. Whether you call it due diligence or market research, it is time we demand a higher standard from all elected officials. It is time they make the effort to reach out to those they represent. It's time we hear from them while in office as often as we do when they are seeking it.
Michael P. Hart
241 Quail Circle
Harpersville
SettledAfter intense contention over the Army's decision to convert most soldiers' headgear to black berets, the president requested senior defense leaders to look into the issue. Two days later, the Defense Department announced that the 75th Ranger Regiment said it would exchange its traditional black beret for a tan one, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki approved the action. Then Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he supported the conversion to black berets for most soldiers and to tan for Rangers. With the controversy settled at the highest levels, the Army's beret colors will be: (1) green for Special Forces; (2) maroon for airborne; (3) tan for Rangers, and (4) black for all others.
Thank God our former president (impeached) and our esteemed military leaders, a formidable team whose Herculean task is to evaluate worldwide enemy threats, plan appropriate national defense policy and establish critical priorities in implementing strategy that deals with the country's most urgent defense needs has, through strategic analysis, dissection, exploration, reconnaissance, discussion, ventilation, airing, soundings, canvassing, consultation, conference, speculation, philosophical, metaphysical and scientific inquiry, masterfully discharged their superhuman duties in implementing the above deliberate, decisive, crucial, critical, key, momentous, climactic and pivotal action: Army - Black, Rangers - Tan
Armond "Si" Simmons
104 Wadsworth Lane
Pell City
Not cutting fatOnce again state school Superintendent Ed Richardson has his cost-cutting knife out. A good butcher will cut the fat off a piece of meat, but not Dr. Richardson. He cuts math and science programs and reading programs. There are millions being spent on sports programs, feel-good politically correct programs and other programs that add nothing to the intelligence level of the students. The cost of building maintenance could be cut dramatically by contracting out the work.
Again the threat to continue the policy of "social promotion." Social promotion is the same as a manufacturer deliberately making inferior products and telling the public it will continue to do this unless we are willing to pay more. This is blackmail.
I do not blame Richardson for all the problems. Parents have a part. Many parents will give up anything in their schools before they will cut back on extracurricular activities.
Donald Dunlap
1335 Montevallo Road
Irondale
LOOK BACKFrom Birmingham Post-Herald files:
50 years ago, April 4, 1951 Confidential files of legislative committee investigating flagrant pardons and paroles have been rifled. State Sen. Thomas Johnston, committee chairman, says it will take week to determine if any records have been removed.
Allied jets shoot down four MiGs over Korea in second day of dogfights.
25 years ago, April 4, 1976 Taunting of Gov. George Wallace has revived his presidential campaign as voter outrage grows over wheelchair and Arthur Bremer mask incident in Madison, Wis.
Near rebellion by FBI forces Attorney General Edward Levi to drop plans to have agents and bureaus apologize to those whose rights were violated by domestic snooping program of late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
27 years ago, April 3,4, 1974 Twelve states and Canada hit by record outbreak of 148 tornadoes. Storms kill 86 people and injure 949 in Alabama. Death toll reaches 315 in United States and Canada.
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