1998: A Memorable Year?
By Demetrios Spyridakis

       This past year 1998 will be long remembered as a time when our nation experienced both triumphs and tribulations. It was a year of unprecedented prosperity, low unemployment, and a healthy stock market that made many Americans rich. People felt economically secure and enjoyed spending their money in pursuit of the material pleasures of life. But while the majority of our people were blessed with prosperity, poverty still persisted. In fact, one could hardly believe the impressive economic statistics if he had seen the long lines of the homeless waiting to be fed at the various charitable institutions of our city during the holiday season. Equally depressing was the fact that our material prosperity was not accompanied by parallel spiritual and intellectual growth. On the contrary, our morals seemed to have declined considerably. Teenage pregnancies, abortions, alcohol, and drug abuse plague our youth and destroy so many lives. Our mass media, especially television, has sunk to new lows with their broadcasting of trashy talk shows and other morally offensive junk. But then who can blame the inexperienced youth when improper moral behavior occurs even in the sanctity of the Oval Office and involves the President of the country? It is a sad commentary on our times that our President was impeached by Congress for his reprehensible behavior. The lesson we derive from this incident is clear: Great men are merely human and capable of sinning just like the rest of us. Yet, despite these scandals, many good things were accomplished in 1998. In the field of foreign affairs, the President did a wonderful job in promoting peace and understanding in Northern Ireland. Similarly, he managed to revive the Palestinian-Israeli accords and offered hopes for final peace in the region. Unfortunately, the bombing of Iraq on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan created an understandable reaction throughout the Muslim world and nearly destroyed Clinton’s plan of pacification in the Middle East.
       In California, the election of a new governor in 1998, is significant for all high school students because Mr. Davis’ policies and educational philosophy will probably affect admissions at the University of California and other state sponsored colleges. For Jesuit freshmen, 1998 was definitely a memorable year since we joined this remarkable academic institution at this time. As we enter the final year of the millennium, we hope that the presidential scandal will be justly and expeditiously resolved in the Senate and pray that the nation will return to political normalcy so that we can concentrate on solving our social and economic problems before we enter the new millennium.

Well, I look forward to reading the January issue of the Plank.

(*note from the Editor-in-Chief, there will be no January issue of the Plank on JHSnet and in fact there will be no more published issues of the Plank on JHSnet this year. There has been some internal conflicts, some of which you can read in Paul Blair's (Senior Editor) response to the December 4th issue of the Plank article by Mike Ambrozewicz. We hope that those issues will be cleared up next year and future JHSnet viewers will be able to read the Plank online. Thank You. If you have any questions, please e-mail us and we will try to respond to each of your questions.)

BTW- I am a Freshman, class of 2002............