Is it okay to joke about tragedies like the tsunami disasters in Asia? Are steroids truly a harmful presence or are they just another tool used by athletes to enhance their game?

These were some of the issues discussed by professors and students at last week&s Nammour Symposium, a two-day annual event held in the University Union and sponsored by the Sacramento State philosophy department.

This year&s theme was &The Dirty Work,& a philosophical discussion of some of life&s unpleasantries.

Randy Mayes, assistant professor of philosophy, has been the coordinator of the Nammour Symposium since 1994. Beginning in the spring of 1979, the symposium was originally used as an opportunity for faculty members to present their papers to an academic audience, Mayes said.

Named in honor of the late emeritus philosophy professor Jamil Nammour, the forum has always been open to students, but Mayes has been trying to persuade more students to attend.

&For the last 10 years, I&ve been using it more to promote philosophy to students, so I tended to pick topics that I think are friendly to students and encourage presentations that are a little less stuffy,& Mayes said.

Steroids in sports, a popular topic given the current controversy in Major League Baseball and the National Football League, was the first debated topic. Philosophy assistant professor Matt McCormick argued that steroids weren&t much different from technology that enhances performance.

Steroids are just another way to gain an edge over the competition, McCormick said, and if it&s a matter of breaking the rules, McCormick wondered why it&s sometimes a strategy to foul-out opposing players to gain an advantage in a game.

&We want them to cheat,& McCormick said, stating what the audience really wants to see.

Philosophy lecturer Scott Merlino countered McCormick&s views by presenting his reasons for why steroids should be banned from sports. Aside from the physical and mental harm to the body, Merlino said steroids diminish the value of sporting events as competitive measures of human achievement.

&Athletes (become) prostitutes, agents are whores and we are voyeurs. There&s no trust, no respect and no glory,& Merlino said, summarizing his speech.

No one was announced as the winner of this debate, as that is not the intent of the symposium. It&s a forum for people to express their point of views and to get people thinking about these issues.

Lecturer Lynne Fox argued against claims by some that viewing violent pornography leads to violence against women. Rather, she said viewing pornography could be cathartic, as it both creates and satisfies desire at the same time, and research shows that banning it does not lead to ending violence against women.

Lecturer Dan Gaskill discussed the merits of sick humor, such as jokes about 9/11, in that it allows people to have an objective view of their world and to create the illusion that they can escape from their situation.

Brandon Carey, one of the winners of the student essay competition regarding &dirty money,& argued that prostitution should be legal, as it&s simply an exchange of money and services between consenting adults.

Despite the macabre subject matter of some of the topics, some humor found it&s way into the discussion.

Economics assistant professor Stephan Kroll&s presentation discussed how much a life is &worth,& and the trade-offs the government and people often make. In his example, automobile drivers could wear helmets while in their car to increase their chance of survival in an accident, but to save costs, people take on higher risks. Besides, Kroll said the added sense of security a helmet gives would only entice people to drive more like maniacs.

What is Kroll&s solution to make people drive more safely?

&A requirement that there be a knife on the steering wheel, pointing at the (driver&s) heart. There would be no more tailgating anymore,& Kroll said.

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Nicholas Fricke can be reached at [email protected]

Is it okay to joke about tragedies like the tsunami disasters in Asia? Are steroids truly a harmful presence or are they just another tool used by athletes to enhance their game?