2017 -- S 0687 | |
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LC002309 | |
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STATE OF RHODE ISLAND | |
IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY | |
JANUARY SESSION, A.D. 2017 | |
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S E N A T E R E S O L U T I O N | |
CONGRATULATING DOMENIC KAFFENBERGER OF WESTERN HILLS MIDDLE | |
SCHOOL IN CRANSTON, RHODE ISLAND, ON BEING NAMED AN AWARD WINNER IN | |
THE 2017 ANNUAL STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST SPONSORED BY THE NATIONAL | |
WWII MUSEUM | |
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Introduced By: Senators Lombardi, Miller, Gallo, Metts, and Satchell | |
Date Introduced: March 30, 2017 | |
Referred To: Recommended for Immediate Consideration | |
1 | WHEREAS, The National World War II Museum, in New Orleans, Louisiana, was |
2 | founded in 2000, and was designated as America's official National World War II Museum by the |
3 | United States Congress in 2003; and |
4 | WHEREAS, The National World War II Museum sponsors an annual essay contest for |
5 | middle school and high school students across the United States, with approximately 1,000 |
6 | participants. Each year has a different theme. This year's theme, in memory Elie Wiesel, a |
7 | survivor of Auschwitz who passed away in 2016, was for entrants to write an essay in response to |
8 | a quote by Mr. Wiesel, coming from the point of view of a young person coming of age in the |
9 | twenty-first century; and |
10 | WHEREAS, When Mr. Hank Maine, an English Language Arts teacher at Western Hills |
11 | Middle School in Cranston, offered his students the option of doing an essay in place of one of |
12 | the required readings, one of his eighth-grade students, Domenic Kaffenberger, took him up on |
13 | his offer and proceeded to be named an award winner for his essay about indifference, a topic the |
14 | Nobel Prize winning author Elie Wiesel wrote about in his book, "Night"; and |
15 | WHEREAS, The exact quote from Mr. Wiesel's book that Domenic wrote about was |
16 | "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's |
17 | indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not |
18 | death, but indifference between life and death." In his essay, Domenic connected events of the |
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1 | present with events of the past and wrote about how indifference to the plight of others is |
2 | primarily what ails the world today and he went on to write that "The only way for evil to |
3 | conquer good is to do nothing." Hopefully, with young people like Domenic in our midst, evil |
4 | and darkness will not conquer the good again; and |
5 | WHEREAS, Domenic Kaffenberger is a caring, bright, and intellectually curious young |
6 | man. According to his teacher, "Domenic thinks at a very high level and we talk about that |
7 | higher-level thinking a lot in class. Our group discussions often go in unbelievable directions and |
8 | I always want them to bring their discussions to that next level. Domenic certainly does that"; |
9 | now, therefore be it |
10 | RESOLVED, That this Senate of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations |
11 | hereby congratulates Domenic Kaffenberger for being named an award winner in the 2017 |
12 | Annual Student Essay Contest sponsored by the National WWII Museum; and be it further |
13 | RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to |
14 | transmit a duly certified copy of this resolution to Domenic Kaffenberger. |
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LC002309 | |
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