CON Varsity athletics’ benefits transcend physical gains

What would life be like without intercollegiate athletics?

No training room, no stadiums, free afternoons and a dramatic decrease in the number of red water bottles—it would undoubtedly be different; but different doesn’t have to mean worse.

It’s not to say college athletics are bad—the homepage on my old computer was ESPN’s college basketball site and there’s nothing like spending a warm September afternoon heckling Whitworth’s number 24 for his weak mental game.  But in an age where only 37 percent of college-age Americans (18-24) can identify Iraq on a map, perhaps it’s time the highlights from the UNC-Duke showdown got less air time than the 1.7 million people infected with HIV last year.

We all chose to come to a school where the varsity athletes’ shirts read “strong in body, stronger in mind, strongest in competition”; if we’d wanted to drop acid while reading Kierkegaard we would have gone to athletics-free Reed, and if we’d wanted to eat hotdogs and paint our bodies orange we would have gone to Florida with their $70 million athletics budget.

But maybe we can try something different without falling prey to the other extremes.

For so long we have clung to the idea that sports are necessary for a good college experience, that sports will make us smarter and happier and more balanced, that college isn’t college without sports.  As an academic institution that, according to the college mission statement, encourages students to “develop capacities to analyze, interpret, criticize, communicate and engage,” don’t we owe it to ourselves to objectively analyze not only the works of Kant but the way we spend our money, where our true priorities lie and what we can do to improve the overall college experience?

Schools like the University of Washington have $50 million annual budgets for athletics (and what was their football team’s record last year?) for only 660 varsity athletes.  That’s $75,757.58 per athlete.  While Whitman’s spending per athlete is assumedly quite less, we just completed the $10 million Baker-Ferguson and are set to embark on a $15 million renovation of Sherwood in just a few weeks—and those are just the facilities.  The athletic department declined to release Whitman’s annual budget for varsity athletics, however, athletic director Dean Snider noted that “the college does support athletics at a significant dollar output.”

Obviously, if you have athletic programs, you want to support them, but what if we removed them all together?

If the $25 million spent on athletic facilities went to financial aid, it would almost triple the amount of money Whitman gives out.  That $25 million would cover over 585 students’ tuition, books, room and board for a year.  It would be enough money to add 12 new permanent faculty positions, save 5,802 acres of rainforest or buy over 3.6 million Fire and Spice meals.

Money that goes toward the annual athletics budget could bring more natural light into Olin and Maxey, fund student and faculty research, increase outreach in the local community and dramatically increase the budgets for clubs and events.

But it’s not just about the money.  Eliminating varsity athletics would also be a highly symbolic act.

Without athletics, the college sends the message that it’s serious about academics—which is, after all, what we’re here for.  As a liberal arts college, Whitman is obviously committed to the overall health of their students: in mind, body and spirit.  But a lack of intercollegiate athletics doesn’t mean the school is denying students a chance at a complete college experience.

Back when most academic institutions were founded, varsity athletics were generally the sole form of athletic recreation.

Today, the opportunities for exercise and athletic exertion are more varied, more numerous and more accessible than ever before.  If you don’t want to play varsity soccer or baseball, you can still be on the club ultimate Frisbee or lacrosse teams.  And if team sports have never been your thing, you can kayak or climb or do yoga or swing dance or cycle or ski; not to mention there are always intramurals.

Also, to cut varsity athletics doesn’t mean we’re going to turn into a campus of couch potatoes that holds physical vitality in low regard.  The opportunities for recreation only increase as funds are reallocated to other programs (including club and intramural sports).  Not to mention, studies have shown that college graduates are less likely to suffer from obesity than those with less formal education.

Eliminating varsity athletics is more than eliminating red water bottles, it may very well enhance the overall excellence of our college experience.

PRO Varsity athletics’ benefits transcend physical gains

In an open letter to the Whitman tennis team in 1998 Dr. George H. Ball, a former professor of religion at Whitman, said, “The tennis court is not simply a place for an athletic event. It is a stage on which a large part of what is to be the theme of one’s life is acted out. It is almost certain that what you are on the tennis court is what you will be as a friend, as a husband or wife and in your professional life.”

Varsity athletics at Whitman are some of many ways that the college provides experience beyond the intellectual. Through my sport I can observe how my attitude and decisions affect my own performance as well as my relationships with others.

There are several aspects of Whitman that make it the perfect place for such an idealistic view of athletics to exist, as a passion and a model for life, not as the obsession that it can become. Whitman, as a Division III NCAA school, offers no athletic scholarships and has stricter limits on the amount of time athletes are required to spend on their sport. Furthermore, Whitman doesn’t have a football team or a strong central mascot.

At Whitman there is no reason to play tennis except for the passion I feel for it and the acknowledgment that it has shaped my personality. As an athlete, I play because I want to, not because I rely on it for financial support or for my identity as I might at another, more athletically centered college.

Hadley Debree sees athletics as “a way to learn how to deal with certain situations…in a supportive, encouraging environment. I learn to overcome obstacles on the tennis court, that I will face in the rest of my life, and know I have a group of people supporting me,” the sophomore tennis player said. Yet the lack of athletic culture at Whitman creates a very different type of sports community from other colleges.

Students bring more to the athletic community that draws from different aspects of the college campus.

There isn’t a singular cultish unification around sport. Instead, the athletic community at Whitman focuses on how the common passion fits creatively into a variety of identities.

“Soccer is my passion, but I think Whitman has a responsibility to offer a variety of activities so that everyone can pursue their passion,” said first-year soccer player John Fleming. Whitman isn’t singularly focused on athletics financially or literally—look to the new art building or our award-winning literary magazine for the ways the school fosters other students’ passions at the college.

Varsity athletics are a crucial part of some students’ development as individuals. From it they practice focus, commitment and passion. Yet athletics are part of a variety of activities that a college should offer to its students. It is Whitman’s skepticism about athletics that makes it possible for athletics to exist as a part of a balanced college rather than an obsession.

Fleming described the balance: “It’s about head, heart and hands. The head is the academics; the heart, for me, is the soccer and the hands is going out into the world and applying what you’ve learned.”

Sherwood renovations spark new direction for Whitman athletics

“I think things are starting to change in athletics,” said women’s basketball coach Michelle Ferenz while she stuffed the contents of her office into boxes as she prepared to move out of Sherwood before renovation begins. The Sherwood renovation, set to start over spring break, has helped usher in an attitude of optimism among the athletics department.

“It’s like how a child doesn’t see themselves grow, and if you’re around the child all the time you don’t notice it. But if you go away for three weeks or a year or whatever you come back and notice real growth. We’re in one of those stages where we’re seeing some significant growth,” said athletic director Dean Snider.

Over the past years, Whitman’s perceived underperformance in athletics has discouraged students and coaches alike.

“A Whitman education is about excellence—all-around excellence—and for a while we’ve had emphasis on excellence in academics and many other programs, but just now we have an administration that believes that if you’re going to have an athletic program, it should fit into that goal of excellence,” said Snider.

With a few exceptions, Whitman’s athletic teams have not enjoyed competitive success. In the Northwest Conference Whitman has never won the all-sports championship. Aside from men’s tennis, the last conference championship Whitman took home was women’s basketball in 2004. Other sports, like baseball, haven’t had a championship since 1952. Men’s soccer’s last conference championship was in 1981.

“When you’re the most academic, and also the most isolated school [in the conference], and also our tuition’s a little higher than some of the schools…you have the smallest pool of potential athletes,” said men’s basketball coach Skip Molitor.

“Whitman has such high academic standards and it’s very clear what students fit in here…so it’s kind of self-selecting,” said volleyball coach Carolyn Papineau.

“As a coach, sometimes you want athletics to be the thing,” said Papineau, “but it’s just one of the pieces that adds to an application.”

“Basically we’re looking for difference-makers who will come on campus and get involved in a variety of different areas,” said admissions officer Anne Thatcher. “We definitely value our athletes just like we would many other factors in the admissions process. I don’t think athletics get more weight.”

Coaches must ensure any potential athlete could fit into Whitman academically, socially and athletically before fully pursuing them. Coaches then provide a ranked list for the admissions office of their top recruits, which is taken into consideration, although coaches have no direct input into the admissions process.

Several coaches noted that there has been more difficulty finding qualified male student-athletes as of late.
“I think there’s a national trend as liberal arts colleges are being filled with more women than men,” said Snider. “The pool for recruiting young men is smaller and more restrictive. I don’t want to use that as any kind of excuse… There have been challenges in finding academically and athletically competitive male athletes and I think our coaching staff has found them.”

While not able to offer athletic scholarships, coaches can entice students by helping them hunt down more financial aid—a process which some student-athletes say Whitman seems to shun.

“Other schools really try and encourage student athletes to come and give [the athletes] a little extra help financially and with other things like early registration because they recognize how much athletics bring to the overall college experience,” said one athlete who requested to remain anonymous. “Whitman tends to be kind of snobby about that. I think they feel like any recognition of athletics somehow compromises their image as a top academic institution. They don’t see the huge benefits that good athletics bring to everything—including academics.”

“A good portion of our student-athletes get merit- and need-based financial aid…So they do get money, it just doesn’t come from an athletic standpoint,” said Snider.

Despite the difficulties in recruiting top athletes, the process seems to work.

“It’s been very refreshing to deal with student-athletes who are legitimate student-athletes,” said Molitor, who has been involved with five different Division I institutions. “It’d be nice to win more games, but it’s great to be with people who really want to do something great with their lives.”

Coaches and athletes alike see the recent improvements to facilities as symbolic to a new commitment to athletics at Whitman.

“We need to have competitive facilities if we want to be able to compete for student-athletes with Carleton, Pomona, Pitzer, Colorado College and the other schools that we compete with for students,” said Ferenz.

“Our facilities, when they’re done, are going to be ‘Wow, amazing!’” said Ferenz.

Snider noted the new Harvey pool and the increased success of the swimming programs lately. “Excellent facilities encourage excellent athletics,” said Snider.

Whitman also is in the process of starting up The W Club, a branch of the alumni association. “It will be specific to support of Whitman College athletics,” said Snider. “[The W Club will] financially find ways to increase the competitive experience, where you have a chance to win every night.”

Coaches and athletes noted that Whitman may finally be on the right path athletically, but there’s still a ways to go.

“If we want to be competitive in our conference and beyond…there are a few things Whitman needs to move toward,” said one coach, who preferred to remain anonymous. “Maybe earlier notification for admissions…we lose a lot of athletes who get nervous, because a lot of other schools will let them know if they’re in sooner.”

Snider hoped to help the athletic department connect more with the Walla Walla community. “We have things to gain from the community and we have things to give,” he said.

Everyone interviewed said they would love to see more fans at athletic events.

“It would be wonderful if all our games were like our last home game. It’s fun for everyone: fun for students, fun for athletes, fun for opponents.” said Mollitor.

“I’m really pleased with where we’re at. We’re moving on several different fronts,” said Snider. “I’d love to encourage our student body to jump on the bandwagon and support student athletics.”

Finding deliciousness in the rest of creation

For Joseph Farnes, a senior religion major, Lent is a time to find “deliciousness in the rest of creation.”  Though Lent is a time of fasting and general sorrow, it is also an extremely important time for Christians as many feel it can lead to a more fulfilling relationship with God.  The spirit behind Lent might be something that those of us who do not consider ourselves Christian can learn from and bring into our lives in one way or another.

Lent is most often associated with abstaining from some sort of food or behavior.  For many people it means giving up a favorite food or food group, such as sweets.  For Catholics it means leaving meat out of Friday meals.  In some Eastern churches all members of the church basically become vegan for the season, and will even leave olive oil out of their cooking.
Though this fasting is supposed to relate to the 40 days that Christ spent fasting in the desert, it also has many other functions for the people that I talked to about it.  A couple people felt that it was a way of testing and challenging themselves and their habits.  Mary Simpson-Stanton, a senior sociology major, said that she first became a vegetarian during Lent and that she had used it as a sort of testing ground.

Besides just sacrificing, Lent is also a time to work on bettering yourself.  For Christians this means trying to make one’s life right with God, including extra prayer, as well as introspection and penance.  Some of the people that I talked to said that Lent is a time to renew their faith, and pay more attention to things like morning and evening prayers that can sometimes become automatic.

Along those same lines, by sacrificing something that they very much enjoy all the people I talked to said that they often began to appreciate it more, or find new things that they also enjoy.

I feel that these sorts of ideas—challenging our lives, trying to make ourselves better and finding enjoyment in the things that we often take advantage of—are things that we can all probably learn to do better.  Though Lent has solely Christian connotations, denying ourselves some of the earthly pleasures we enjoy on a regular basis can perhaps help our lives in secular ways as well.

Food is an area that people often try to challenge themselves in, mostly through dieting.  I feel that when we are dieting we are so worried about the foods that we have put in the “bad” column that we tend to demonize them, rather than admitting they are enjoyable and that we should perhaps just eat them less often.  Maybe if we just took the thing we considered “bad” and gave them up for 40 days, we would appreciate them more at the end, but also realize that there are so many other things that we also enjoy to eat.

Self-improvement, for whatever reason, is a task that we all strive to, whether consciously or not, every day.  Concentrating especially on your daily habits and how they relate to your religiosity, spirituality or greater place in the world (however you like to think about it) is perhaps something we do less often.  Too much of the time our self-improvement is related to gaining something on a more selfish level.  We are trying to get fit so we can attract that special someone, we are studying hard so we can get a good grade.  It is far less often that we spend a large period of time just trying to concentrate on expanding or improving our relationship to a higher power or higher calling.

All of the things involved in Lent, or any other similar religious season, renewal is often a big theme.  Since Lent actually precedes the resurrection, a true example of renewal this is especially apt.  Since it is springtime, a natural time of renewal for all of us, this may be a great time to look at the things you eat, do and think on a regular basis and consider what you might be missing or taking advantage of.

Off-campus workers get higher wages, out of ‘bubble’

Even though campus jobs are widely available, several Whitman students chose to find a job in Walla Walla. They note many benefits: Jobs off-campus usually pay better, can be carried through summer vacation and give students an opportunity to experience a world outside of Whitman. Five students give their perspective on working off-campus, including wages, responsibilities and the worst parts of their jobs.

Name: Kellie Wutzke
Workplace: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Wage: $11 per hour

“I needed a full-time job over the summer that I could continue part-time during the school year,” said junior Wutzke, who has worked as a budget technician since June. She takes care of property files, and enjoys the good environment and wonderful co-workers. In addition to working 16 hours per week, Wutzke also takes 20 credits at Whitman. “I have to get up at 5 a.m. to work before class,” she said.

“That’s my least favorite part of my job.”

Name: Lissa Erickson
Workplace: Ski Bluewood
Wage: $9 per hour

Erickson, a first-year, works five hours every Saturday as a ski coach for Bluewood Alpine Race Team. She works with a group of four to six children between the ages of 8 and 10. “We free ski, do some drills and run gates,” she said. She’s been working at Bluewood since December, after her high school ski coach got her in contact with the head coach. “I love working with the kids and instilling in them a love of skiing,” said Erickson, “but keeping track of them sometimes makes me nervous—I’m worried they’ll get hurt!”

Name: Annabelle Berklund
Workplace: YMCA
Wage: $10 per hour

Berklund, a sophomore, works as a deck supervisor—she facilitates swim lessons, arranges schedules, manages registration, and gives advice to the swim instructors. She’s been working at the YMCA since last January, when a professor recommended she apply. Other Whitman students works at the Y for America Reads/Counts—“there are always jobs available, especially at the pool, so apply!” said Berklund. “It’s a great chance to meet people off campus. I have a lot of responsibility; it’s a taste of the real world.”

Name: Ben VanDonge
Workplace: First Presbyterian Church
Wage: $250 per month

Junior VanDonge shares the position of Co-Associate Director of Music with Addison Koski, another Whitman student. They lead worship service, coordinating music, worship teams, the calendar, and quarterly meetings. VanDonge, a native of Walla Walla who also works at Bright’s during breaks, was in the First Presbyterian youth group. “Worship is very important to me,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like work—I’d be doing it even if I wasn’t getting paid.”

Name: Katie King
Workplace: Luscious by Nature
Wage: $8.50 plus tips

King, a senior, has worked as a waitress at Luscious since September ’06. “I love knowing that I pay my own bills and getting out of the Whitman bubble is essential for my sanity!” she said in an e-mail.

“Sometimes I feel left out, though: most Whitties don’t have jobs and spend their non-homework hours tossing a Frisbee, going camping and playing.” She enjoys serving professors who eat at Luscious—“I get to see them as ‘normal people.’” Her least favorite part of the job is cleaning up after small children. “When I am on the floor picking up potato chip crumbles, I find myself feeling particularly low: Why do I do this again? Oh wait, it’s my independence that makes it all worthwhile!” she said.

green bits

+ February 27: The House of Representatives approved legislation to  up renewable-energy tax incentives by getting rid of $18 billion in tax breaks that currently go to oil and gas companies. The bill has yet to pass in the Senate, and is likely to be vetoed by President Bush if it does.
source: grist.com

+ February 27: A small village in Alaska filed a lawsuit against major oil, coal and power companies (24 in total), arguing that greenhouse-gas emissions contribute to a coastal erosion which is slowly destroying the village. Additionally, the lawsuit says that the companies attempted to “create a false scientific debate” and “mislead the public about the science of global warming.”
source: Associated Press

+ February 26: Laws that require guns to be disarmed and stowed away within the bounds of national parks may be lifted in the near future, according to the Interior Department. The president of the National Parks Conservation Association has voiced concerns about these changes, raising questions about safety. The National Rifle Association, on the other hand, supports the changes because it backs the right to bear arms. The new rules will be presented on April 30.
source: New York Times

The allure of vinyl

The introduction of compact discs in the 1980’s (along with the subsequent digital media explosion they heralded) spelled the end of the vinyl record’s golden era. CDs have since eclipsed vinyl as the dominant music medium; only to subsequently be replaced themselves by the almighty mp3. In today’s age of iPods and Internet downloads, most vinyl record collections have long been boxed up in attics and basements, sold on garage-sale lawns, or dropped off at the local Goodwill. Not many contemporary artists still bother to produce their albums on vinyl, and even fewer major retailers carry these LP’s on their shelves. Like the typewriter or rotary dial phone, the vinyl record has become an antiquated concept—an archaic way of doing things that no longer has a place in 21st century life.

Which makes sense. Vinyl records are labor intensive, heavy, and costly to ship. They are easily damaged, and vinyl albums are far more expensive to produce (a commercial-grade recording on CD costs around $150, while a vinyl one costs close to $700). More importantly, CD’s are more practical to use, more conveniently found in stores, and are better designed for a variety of listening environments (you can’t bring vinyl in the car). If you replace the letters CD with digital music file in the previous few sentences, the arguments against vinyl become even more compelling.

But despite all of these apparent “disadvantages,” vinyl is enjoying a recent resurgence in popularity, and could be mounting a comeback. While records have always occupied a marginal part of the music business—primarily on the strength of obsessive collectors and high-fidelity enthusiasts loyal to the vinyl sound—record sales have lately been noticeably increasing, along with the number of people who are buying them both new and used. Second-hand vinyl boutiques are on the rise, and many music stores are expanding their vinyl sections. In part, this trend has been fueled by nostalgic baby boomers, and young people lured by the vintage appeal of vinyl’s obscure technology. But the musicians are behind the movement as well: the Black Keys, Of Montreal, and Built To Spill are just a handful of the many contemporary artists that include an online-coupon for a free digital-version of their album when you purchase it on vinyl. And certainly, the Internet’s ever-growing capacity for uniting people of common and often particular interests (think Ebay) has also made the exchange of things like new and used records easier than ever before.

This is not a sufficient answer, however. A lot of the music that has ever been printed on vinyl has since been re-released on CD or in mp3 format; and if this vinyl revival was simply about the music, why would anyone stray from digital, a further advanced and (supposedly) superior-sounding technology? There must be something more—something which only records can offer—responsible for the obsessive collectors and loyal audiophiles, the baby boomers and hipster youths, the incentive-giving bands, as well as people like me, who keep retuning to music’s vinyl origins in spite of current technology.

What’s so alluring about these old-fashioned, ungainly, black discs?

Well, maybe it’s the tangibility of vinyl; the ritualistic interaction between you, the record, and the turntable; how you can actually hold the musical apparatus and feel it in your hands instead of merely double-clicking a representative image on screen. Or maybe it’s the way a record compels you to listen to an entire album rather than skip to individual tracks; how you learn to appreciate the lesser songs and subtle moments that might otherwise be missed, making you digest the work as a whole. Maybe it’s the gentle crack and spittle of empty noise that briefly precedes and follows each track, reminding you of vinyl’s imperfection, its mortality. Or maybe it’s the certain “warmth” of a record’s analog sound, which many claim to be unmatched by any other form of music playback.

Picture the record listener: pulling the vinyl from its sheath-like cover, he can literally feel the music—the tiny grooves on each side of the disc—in his hands. With care, he places the record on its circular bed. The vinyl is now prepared for the needle that will set its sound free. A needle that symbolizes precision. A needle that symbolizes true sound. The needle appears, set down upon the records edge, the album’s beginning, where it follows the groove outside-in. Maybe it’s Forever Changes playing . . . . . . . maybe Graceland . . . . . . . or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The listener’s eyes watch the needle drag itself along as the record gently turns and the songs develop. He marvels at the mysterious way that music, something so immense, can emanate from something so small.

Side one ends.

He gets up and turns the record over. Placing the needle back down again, he returns to his listening-post, hoping that the brief skip he just heard at the start of track one was only because of dust, and not a scratch. Because he remembers that with each play, the surface of vinyl is slowly worn down, and that a record’s life is not infinite; lots of spins will eventually cause the record to no longer sound as true. Like the bands whose music they capture, records show their age—the crackle and popping noises heard between songs accumulate over time like wrinkles.

Eventually side two ends and the album comes to a close. The listener picks up the record’s sleeve and carefully slides the disc back in, taking one last look at the cover. The large size of vinyl’s packaging can accommodate elaborate and detailed images, which often serve as a place where the artist(s) makes a visual and/or written statement to accompany their sound. Classic cover art from records like the Beatles’ Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin’s IV, and more recently, Nirvana’s Nevermind, are iconic. With digital music, however, cover art is downsized and usually accessory.

Placing the record back on the shelf, the listener heads upstairs to do __X_ . He feels satisfied from the unwind that comes with just sitting and honing in on a set of good music. But not just any music. The experience would not have been the same if he had been listening in CD or mp3 format.

When vinyl enthusiasts try to explain why this is so, they tend to generally focus on a difference in sound quality. On a technical level, vinyl does not function the same way as CD’s or mp3’s do: the former is part of the analog tradition of sound recording, while the latter two represent the products of a more recent move towards digital playback. And while the debate between which is better, analog or digital, has supporters on both sides, the consensus among most audiophiles is that the so-called “warmer” vinyl sound reigns supreme. Of course, they also say that any noticeable differences can only be heard at high-level volumes on the highest-end equipment. So the decision for most people comes down to personal preference, between the convenience digital music offers, or the aesthetic of the vinyl experience.

As for myself, I find that in vinyl there lies a certain ineffable quality that somehow gets lost with digital music, that perhaps—to paraphrase record-fanatic Paul O’Boyle—although with vinyl “you get things that you supposedly can’t hear, you simply can feel the difference.”

The perfect brownies

Every family has certain myths and legends attached to food. For instance, I grew up believing that iceberg lettuce stays in your stomach for seven years, that ketchup is a normal accent to tacos, that pectin (a firming agent similar gelatin) was made from chicken’s beaks (that’s why it was called PECKtin) and that brownies are really hard to make.

Okay, so maybe some of those are more messed up than others. But to convince someone that brownies only come from a box is just cruel.

While the sight of iceberg lettuce and pectin on ingredients lists still gives me chills, the prospect of making brownies from scratch no longer scares me. And by the way, ketchup is delicious on tacos. And so is ranch dressing on pizza, but that’s another story.

If you have any weird food things that come from your family, write to me about them and I’ll publish some.

My e-mail address is porterer@whitman.edu.

1 stick of butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped up
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
½ cup flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 8 x 8 x 2 inch metal baking pan.

2. Stir butter and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat until combined and smooth and set aside.

3. Beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer for five minutes, until light and fluffy.

4. Add chocolate-butter mixture, flour, vanilla extract and salt to egg-sugar mixture and stir until blended.

5. Pour batter into pan and bake for about 25 minutes.

report from san francisco: 2008 game developer’s conference

This last week, I took my second annual trip to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. It’s a big international gathering of many people in the video/computer games industry giving speeches, showing off products and meeting each other to try to score some money.

I don’t design games, but every year I go, I come back wishing I did. There was a lot of inspiring work that I was able to see/play there, especially at the Independent Games Festival (IGF), where small games by small teams are put on display for public play. The beauty of these small projects is that few enough resources go into them that they cannot be made compelling on a romantic level, and thus, are usually made compelling more as ideas than as impressive technology.

I wish all of the games were available for free play online, but a lot of the designers want money, so I’m going to direct you to two games (or prototypes thereof) featured at this year’s conference, available online for free download, that are both worthwhile to check out as creative statements and simple enough that with under 10 minutes of play, you should have a feeling for the ideas the game is conveying.

The first is actually a prototype of the game that won the Grand Prize in the IGF: Crayon Physics (the prize winner being the Deluxe edition). Available at www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/crayon, it’s an interesting experiment that treats your “drawings” as physical objects and has you solve puzzles that involve drawing squares and circles that interact with each other. This prototype isn’t quite as slick as the final version—for instance, if you don’t close a shape you’ve drawn, sometimes it will change it into something else that the game engine can deal with more easily—but all of the ideas are there, and it’s a great little piece of software to toy around with.

Narbacular Drop won the same IGF Grand Prize two years ago. But, more immediately relevant, a game called Portal won Game of the Year at the big awards ceremony (which celebrates corporate, rather than independent, games) this year. Portal was developed by a Valve, a company that put out a game called Half-Life about a decade ago. Valve liked Narbacular Drop when it was showcased in 2006, so they hired the team to make it a mainstream game. It’s an environmental puzzle game, where the core mechanic involves placing two portals at any place in a room. When you go in one, you come out the other. It’s a mind-trip, and it can be found at www.nuclearmonkeysoftward.com/narbaculardrop.html.

These both just work on PC, so if you’ve just got a Mac OS (like me), you’re out of luck. Try these out, though. They’re short, simple, and they might have you looking at the world in a new way, if only slightly.

Women’s tennis team starts season with two home wins

The women’s tennis team this season serves up energy with each ball. The young but talented squad started out a season with great potential by beating George Fox and Pacific at home in their first conference games. Though they lost to Willamette the same weekend, junior captains Katie Oost and Alex Robinson were very positive about the start.

“It was a good start,” said Robinson. “It’s very exciting.”

Excitement is the word of the year for this squad. With a small roster of seven, four of whom are underclassmen and none are seniors, every win is an indication of strength not only for this year, but the future as well.

“It’s a small roster, but it’s a strong seven. Everyone’s excited to play a lot and work hard,” said Robinson.

This youth is especially reflected in first-year Elise Otto, currently playing number one for Whitman. Out of Spokane, Wash., Otto is ranked number 20 in the West Region of NCAA Division III.

“Elise has been playing number one and it’s great. It’s exciting to see fresh, young excitement out of her,” said Oost.

The Missionaries have a second important addition to team their new coach, Whitman alumna Hannah Swee. Though the adjustment to a new coach can be a challenge, Robinson is positive about the transition because Swee is already familiar to them.

“Hannah was our assistant coach last year and she was on the tennis team when she was a student at Whitman, which is a huge advantage because she really knows what it means to be a student athlete. We have a great relationship with her,”  said Robinson.

Even the conference is exciting this year. Citing significant turnover in the top few teams, both captains expressed expectations for an open conference race.

“There’s an opportunity for a whole new top three,” said Oost. “Of course, our goal is always to win conference. There are a few strong teams we weren’t expecting this year, but I’m confident we can beat ‘em.”

“There was lots of turnover in conference this year. It’s very exciting. It’s like there’s a clean slate, anything can happen. Anyone has an opportunity to be at the top,” said Robinson.

Looking to fill one of those top spots, Oost spoke highly of the quality of the rest of the roster, which is deep despite playing with only seven.

“There’s not as big of a difference between number one and number six. We’re a lot deeper than some other teams.”
Playing with only seven does, however, present some potential challenges if players get injured. With only one person on the bench, everyone needs to stay healthy in order to stay competitive.

“Because we have a small roster, we are really aware of injuries. We all need to keep healthy and ready to play,” said Oost.
The team is going to carry their energy into the rest of conference play and, hopefully, to playoffs. They have a set of home matches against Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran on March 1 and 2.

Bridges approves funding for sustainability initiatives

George Bridges made an unexpected announcement at the main event of Focus the Nation in January.  The college plans to establish a $100,000 revolving loan fund for sustainability initiatives, and to carve out a spot for the new position of Sustainability Coordinator, to be filled by a current student or recent graduate.

“When he actually announced the fund…it took us all by surprise,” said first-year Gary Wang, a member of Campus Climate Challenge (CCC).

CCC has been actively involved in promoting the use of green energy.

“What the program did last year was it raised the amount of green energy the college was in effect producing from 18 percent to 36 percent… That’s the difference $14,000 made,” Wang said of CCC.

According to Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Peter Harvey, the college is now working to come up with the best way to produce the money needed for Bridges’ new fund.  Harvey said that the trustees have allocated half of the $100,000 from Whitman’s life cycle program, which is mainly directed toward building maintenance.

“The President and I committed to finding an additional $50,000 as we close out the budget year from year-end surpluses,” said Harvey.  “We will launch the new loan fund sometime next year by seeking [sustainability] proposals from students, faculty and staff.”

Bridges’ plan for campus greening also includes the request for departments to stop buying bottled water.  Hoping to decrease the consumption of bottled water campus-wide, Reid Campus Center also raised the price of bottled water by 20 cents, so it equals the price of soda.

“We don’t view these as an expansion of Whitman’s policies or commitment to our environment but rather necessary, additional steps in implementing the policies,” said Bridges in an e-mail.  “The reduction in use of bottled water makes great environmental sense and is relatively easy to implement—a little like turning off the lights when one leaves a room.”

However, some argue that the college is not doing enough to combat global climate change.

“I think we’re being very cautious,” said Bob Carson, professor of geology and environmental studies.

“And I think sometimes you have to be bold.”

Carson called the new $100,000 revolving loan “an excellent idea,” but believes some of the policies should be made mandatory instead of optional.

“Whitman needs to be a leader and I think if bottled water comes here from 1,500 miles away and we have plenty of drinking fountains on campus and some of the best water anywhere coming out of Mill Creek, that we should just say no to bottled water.”

Another point of contention is the fact that Bridges has yet to sign the President’s Climate Commitment, a nationwide push for colleges and universities to become more sustainable.

Carson jokingly compared Whitman’s failure to join the Commitment to the United States’ refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, adding that he hoped Whitman would soon sign on.

Wang and other student activists are pursuing this goal.  Also high on the CCC’s agenda is the move to purchase an industrial sized wind turbine or place solar panels on college buildings to enhance green energy production.

“We’ve already been in several meetings with President Bridges to try and persuade him to sign [the agreement],” said Wang.  “We’ve also been in contact with the treasurer…to talk about Whitman owning a wind turbine or the solar panel idea.”

Carson applauded the student impetus for environmental progress, both at Whitman and at other schools across the country.

“I just think it’s great that students are getting involved, that Western Washington University and Evergreen and others are first of all trying to get all green electricity and secondly trying to go carbon neutral,” Carson said.

He, too, promoted the idea of Whitman owning a wind turbine, pointing to schools like Carleton, St. Olaf and Macalester as examples of colleges that have taken this step.

“We are constantly studying the programs and ideas emerging across college campuses on sustainability.  With so many campuses considering new ways to conserve energy and reduce their carbon footprint, there are plenty of interesting approaches to consider,” Bridges said.

While Bridges expressed enthusiasm about this project and others aimed at going green, he admitted that there is still a need for improvement and cited financial limitations as the “the toughest part of addressing these projects.”

“My sense is that Whitman is making significant progress in many areas but that there is a great deal more to do before we can claim ‘cutting edge’ status,” he said.

“I am thrilled by what we’ve accomplished, but I think it’s a drop in the bucket,” Carson said.  “Sometimes when I’m talking publicly I say, ‘Okay, you’ve bought a Prius, you’re recycling your aluminum cans and you’re composting.  You’ve got to do more.  Everyone’s got to do more.’”

‘Mississippi Project’ gives recent grad adventures, insights

After graduating from Whitman last May, Kevin McNellis decided to trade in his cap and gown for a paddle, two canoes and one journey of a lifetime. For two months, he and three friends paddled the more than 2,000 miles of the Mississippi River from northern Minnesota to New Orleans, La. in two canoes.

The trip, dubbed ‘The Mississippi Project,’ was made possible through a grant from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing. Awarded to Gabe Crane, a senior English major at the University of Pennsylvania, the grant provided the students with $2,500 for gear and supplies, along with a Treo 650—a wireless, solar-powered device that enabled Crane to transmit a journal of their experiences to a blog on the Center’s Web site.

Accompanying McNellis and Crane were Ryan Stoa, a McGill University student, and Danny Rosenberg of Reed College.

“We met a lot of people on this trip, and the constant question was ‘what possessed you to do this?’… There wasn’t any single overarching reason for any of us to do it…. We were just at this stage in our lives where we craved some sort of rite of passage to mark the transition from youth to adulthood,” said McNellis.

“Paddling the Mississippi holds an advantage over, say, trekking through Nepal, in that the river is essentially in our collective backyard and therefore makes traveling it a bizarrely resourceful and inherently American act. And…we happen to know how to canoe,” wrote Crane in a blog.

The four paddled by day and camped along the banks of the river at night, often relying on the hospitality of locals for transportation into nearby towns to purchase food and necessities.

“These canoe campsites are set up next to these tiny towns. We’d go into towns in the evenings to grab a bite to eat or more supplies, and we’d meet all these amazing, crazy people—from turkey hunters to investment bankers to a Bigfoot hunter,” said McNellis.

McNellis reported being surprised by the hospitality of the majority of the people they encountered. After learning of the men’s story, many offered a ride, a home-cooked meal, or even a place to stay for the night.

“Once we pulled into the boat landing, and within 15 minutes we were on our way to eat dinner in this man’s house. He cooked us steaks, potatoes and salad, and he let us relax on his couch and watch TV for a couple hours. You instantly felt like you knew these people, and you were a part of their family,” recounted McNellis during a presentation about the trip in Kimball on Feb. 20.

McNellis reported struggling with the still-existent racism in the Deep South, as well as the still-evident devastation by Hurricane Katrina.

“There are towns on the river that are 100 percent African-American, and white people would warn us about these towns and tell us that they were dangerous. When we stayed in these towns, we never felt unsafe for a second… In New Orleans, we saw that there’s still collapsed buildings, there’s still blue tarps, there’s still FEMA trailers. It looks like the Hurricane went through two months ago, not two years ago,” said McNellis.

Mentor programs brings kids to campus

The Reid Campus Center Ballroom typically serves as an entertainment and informational venue for the students of Whitman College. Last Friday, however, the Ballroom was transformed into a carnival catering to an entirely different crowd. The Whitman Mentor Program sponsored the Mentees to Campus Day, bringing over 100 local elementary and middle school students to Whitman for a fun-filled afternoon of games, activities and performances.

Games at the event included Arm Wrestling, Ring Toss and Pin the Tail on the Donkey; there was also a prize booth to reward participants with a range of toys. Mentees had the chance to play in an enormous Bounce Castle which filled a corner of the room and get their face painted by a group of artistically-inclined volunteers. Ethan, a 9-year-old fourth-grader disguised as a cheetah, did not have a favorite booth in particular, but said he was having fun just being there for the afternoon with his mentor, first-year Abby McCoy.

The Whitman Mentor Program has 150 committed mentors this year, its biggest group so far, according to co-director Amy Strauss. The program aims to provide reliable sources of friendship to kids who have been designated as “at-risk” in some capacity by a school counselor. Mentors visit schools weekly, having lunch with their mentees and playing with them during recess. While it may seem that mentees would be singled out and perhaps ridiculed for this special status, “kids beg to get mentors” when they see the relationships fostered by the program, Strauss said.

Mentees to Campus Day provides an opportunity for mentees to hang out with their mentors outside their typical space. While the event is not specifically geared towards advertising higher education, the kids do get a glimpse of a college environment before they have even entered high school. Also, it’s just one more way for the Walla Walla community to get involved with Whitman, and vice versa, according to Strauss.

The elementary and middle-school students gain role models in the process—as Junior mentor Onon Bayasgalan noted, her mentee “looks up to me.” But the benefits go both ways, with many Whitman students expressing a sense of fulfillment resulting from their participation in the event. Volunteers at the face-painting booth enjoyed connecting with the kids on a one-on-one basis. Whitman Club EEK, which stands for Environmental Education for Kids, had a unique booth aimed at teaching kids about the food chain through art. The kids were challenged to draw environmental lessons from the pictures they drew, and junior member Courtney Fitzpatrick said, “It was cool to see them work through it.”

Online journal for social justice to ‘Spark’ at Whitman

Whitman’s latest literary outlet, Spark: Student Journal for Social Justice, was introduced to campus this week online. Spark is the creation of Kim Hooyboer, who also runs the literary magazine quarterlife on campus.  The journal, which will be released primarily online for ease of access, provides Whitman students with the chance to share the academic papers they write on social justice issues with peers.  One print edition of the first issue will be available in the coming week. Hooyboer started Spark as a final project for one of her classes last semester.

“I took Melissa Wilcox’s ‘Religious Intolerance in the Contemporary U.S.’ class,” said Hooyboer, “and we spent the last day talking about what we could do about all these problems we’d been learning about in class. It came down to realizing that people need to be educated in order to act. Whitman students have this mentality that we’re very educated about issues of social justice, but we’re not.”

Wilcox, who teaches in the religious studies and gender studies departments, gives her students in “Religious Intolerance” the option in of an interactive final in hopes that the activism within the curriculum can reach students personally.

“The final project needs to focus on religious intolerance in the contemporary U.S., but other than that, the students get to decide,” said Wilcox. “There are three format options. One is a formal research paper, one is a service-learning project and one is a creative project. Usually this is a research project, where you express your findings and analysis in a creative format.

Kim’s project falls somewhere between the service-learning option and the creative side.”

One of the other creative projects chosen last semester was photography, which is featured in the first edition of Spark. As it stands now, only work completed in Wilcox’s class is online, but eventually Hooyboer will include papers and projects from several different classes.  The option of posting in Spark is available to any interested students.

“The current issue is focused on religious intolerance, so the site will list the course info and assigned books along with the papers from the class,” said Wilcox.

Some issues will have themes like the first one, but papers on a variety of subjects will be posted constantly.  Hooyboer’s hope is that students who become experts in one subject area of social justice in their classes will share this knowledge through Spark with other students.

“There are certain classes that people get really engaged in, but then nothing goes beyond the class,” she said. “The papers for Spark are already written for the classes—there’s no work involved that you wouldn’t do anyway. This is a way for your academic work to have a real medium.”

Hooyboer is a senior this year, but is hoping the journal continues in the future.

“It’s something important for the campus to have, and it’s so little effort for the student,” said Hooyboer. “This is much more along the lines of what Whitman students are willing to do to make a difference.”

Read more about Spark online, including the first issue and mission statement, at whitman.edu/spark.

Immigration: The pipe dream

I’ve been watching the debate over illegal immigration in the U.S. with personal interest, because I am planning to emigrate to Scotland. And let me tell you, immigrating to the U.K. is a bitch and a half.

First off, you have to acquire some sort of job skill that A) they need in Scotland, and B) literally nobody already in Scotland has.  I’m serious.  In order to get you a work visa, your employer has to prove that you offer something that a U.K. citizen could not do equally well, so that you’re not taking British jobs.  This is next to impossible if you are, say, an actor (like me).  Being an actor will get you deported immediately. You’ll never make it out of Heathrow.

Once you get a job in the U.K., you can start the clock.  You must now remain employed for five years straight.  You can be out of the country for a total of nine months during those five years.  You have to get a new work visa every time you get a new job.

I’m explaining this to illustrate how much the U.K. doesn’t want me there.  I will be a smart, creative college graduate, prepared to leave everyone I know and my family behind in order to start a new life in an old country because I am so in love with it, and the government is doing everything they can to keep me from moving there.

Now, I understand some of what motivates Westminster to keep me out.  There are a hell of a lot of people who want to move to the U.K., and the government is having a hard enough time dealing with all of the asylum seekers (they’re doing a horrendous job of it, too).  It’s a small country.

I don’t quite understand the motivation of some other countries to keep people out.  Italy, for example, has a 10-year waiting period with a work visa.  This is a country with a declining birth rate.  What would compel them to keep young people from immigrating?  People will be on Social Security by the time they can apply for citizenship.

And then, of course, there’s us.  The U.S.  We take numerically fewer refugees from Iraq than Sweden does.  Not proportionately.  Numerically.  We get thousands of illegal economic immigrants a year.  And we charge $355 to apply for an immigrant visa, plus a $45 security surcharge.  Does anyone who needs to come to the U.S. because they can’t feed their family have an extra $400 sitting around?

That seems cruelly unfair to me, but it’s not the main point of this column.  Because I want to look at nationality in larger terms.  So for a minute, divorce yourself from practical considerations and consider this idea:

I think Westminster should want me.  I want to be Scottish.  I have never felt so much at home as I did when I was in Scotland (ahem: study abroad should be made affordable for everyone).  Scotland suits me in a way that the U.S. never has, which is pretty scary for me.

Think about all the different countries in the world, with different cultures and systems of government.  What if you could live in the one most perfect for you?  Would it be the U.S.?  I spent seven years learning Spanish, and somewhere along the way I realized that it probably wasn’t the right language for me.  There are so many wonderful Spanish-speaking countries, but none of them pulled at me the way Scotland did.  So now I’m learning Scots Gaelic, and I am motivated in a way that I never was for Spanish.

This isn’t the reason most people immigrate.  But you know what?  It should be.  Instead of just worrying about how to deport the desperate people who come here illegally to work, we should be figuring out if there’s anything we’re doing to put them in those desperate straits.  If Mexico were doing better economically, it wouldn’t be bleeding workers over the border.  I’m not saying that Mexico’s entire well-being is our responsibility, but we might want to at least minimize any problems we’re causing.

Most people like the place they grew up best.  I’m an exception.  Most people find home in the place they come from, and they should really be able to stay there if they want.  I’m hoping for a day when immigrants will be like me, moving home for the first time ever, instead of running from home because of poverty or violence, only to be met by armed guards and a fence.

Interfaith suite ready to advertise for 2008

After almost a year of brainstorming, planning and organizing, Elana Stone and Adam Kirtley are ready to start advertising the Interfaith Living Community, which will hopefully debut in Douglas Hall next fall.

The Interfaith Living Community is modeled after the Interest Houses. Eight students from different religious disciplines will live together in a Douglas suite with goals of fostering interfaith dialogue and defining common backgrounds.

Kirtley, the Stuart Coordinator of Religious and Spiritual Life, said the idea was generated from students who spoke with him about having a spirituality-focused living community.

“At first we were thinking about creating an interest house, but it became clear that a smaller area would be more realistic,” said Kirtley. “Douglas soon emerged as a good placement.”

Stone, the Resident Director for College House, Marcus House and Douglas, said that the Interfaith suite would remain part of the Douglas community.

“They’ll have the same expectations as other Douglas residents,” said Stone. “Unlike the interest houses, they won’t have their own R.A.—they’ll work directly with Adam for events and programs.”

Kirtley and Stone envision four expectations for the Interfaith Living Community. Interfaith dialogue among suitemates will assist students to introduce their faith to the other members of the community, through both conversations and planned activities and meals.

Secondly, education will extend this learning to the broader Whitman community. Suite members will also participate in service projects.

The last objective of the suite is spiritual practice, which is “very loosely defined,” according to Kirtley.

“The living community is not all about practicing religion,” said Stone. “It’s about raising awareness of religious and spiritual diversity through interfaith dialogue. It will have to be a religiously diverse group of students.”

Last semester, Kirtley and Stone conducted an anonymous survey through surveymonkey.com to evaluate student interest in an interfaith community.

“We had 130 responses, which was very impressive,” said Kirtley. “The majority were supportive.”

“A lot of students were worried because Whitman is a secular college,” said Stone. “We knew we would have to address this with sensitivity to have the best effect.”

“The survey revealed that most students didn’t have a problem with the idea, but with the way it was communicated,” said Kirtley. “We had been tentatively calling it the Spirituality Suite, but at this point we changed it to the Interfaith Living Community—the interfaith element is key.”

Applications for the interfaith community will be available at Memorial 113 on Feb. 25 and will be accepted until March 7, along with the IHC applications. Depending on applicant response, the community could be postponed.

“This is still a work in progress,” said Stone. “The first students to live in the suite will be instrumental to shaping it—to make it dynamic.”

International Banquet displays cultural ‘Kaleidoscope’

The flags of dozens of nations hung from every wall of Jewett Dining Hall Saturday evening as the annual International Banquet got under way.

The banquet, themed “A Night with Kaleidoscope,” featured an international menu consisting of five courses from across the globe, as well as traditional performances by Whitman students.

Performances included a Vietnamese fan dance, a Romanian folktale, the singing of the national hymn of Guam and a Latin American hip-hop dance, among others.

“I decided to perform because this is something that I have enjoyed for many years, and I want to exhibit it to the people that don’t know about it. I want everybody to be educated about all these subtle cultural aspects that are so distant from what we have here in America,” said first-year Tumisang Mothei, who performed the Pantsula, a South African township dance.

“You get the real essence of a culture by dancing and practicing together. It was a great experience,” said first-year Enkhjin Batjargal, who danced with nine other Whitman students in the Bollywood dance mélange.

The banquet, which has been taking place since 1972, focuses on highlighting the cultural diversity present on the Whitman campus.

“It is meant to bring the international aspects of Whitman into the community and to share it with the students, staff and especially the friendship families,” said Joyce Fogg, a longtime Friendship Family Program participant and former international student and scholar adviser.

According to Fogg, the Friendship Family Program is an optional program in which international students are paired with a family in the Walla Walla community to promote cultural interaction and understanding outside of the Whitman campus.
Among the attendees to the banquet was Becky Miller, assistant director of the study abroad program.

“I work with a lot of these students, so I thought coming to the banquet would be a great opportunity to see them outside of my office and see what they do in their free time,” said Miller.

Stop supporting dictators

In lieu of what many thought would be—or already was—a fixed election, the voice of the Pakistani democracy prevailed.

Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistani People’s Party and the Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz) split a vast majority of the vote while the Pakistani Muslim League (Q), President Pervez Musharraf’s party, was left in their wake.

Though the United States has allied itself with him in the past, the fact that Musharraf failed to win this election is a good thing.

Call me obtuse, but I have never really understood why the Bush administration so resiliently backs Musharraf in the first place.

Musharraf’s rise to power was anything but legitimate.

As general of the Pakistani army in the late 1990s, he wielded military power without consent of the government. In 1999, Musharraf impulsively started the Kargil War, a military conflict against India for the cessation of the Indian province of Kashmir. The war left 4,000 of the 5,000 Pakistani troops killed, according to the Pakistani government.

Presidents and prime ministers from all around the world have condemned Musharraf’s actions for being deceitful and contemptible, yet it seems as though Mr. Bush has commended them.

Later that year, Musharraf seized the Pakistani presidency in a coup d’état as he and his allies ousted democratically-elected Nawaz Sharif’s government and took over Pakistan’s largest airport. After the overthrow, Musharraf arrested Sharif and many members of his cabinet to prove his authoritative power.

Many point to Musharraf’s seemingly ground-breaking speech denouncing Islamic extremism as the sole reason for Bush’s support of his illegitimate rule. In the speech he made an empty promise: he condemned all forms of terrorism and vowed to fight religious Islamic extremism within Pakistan.

This is all well and good, except it is too bad that Mr. Musharraf didn’t condemn his own brand of terrorism as well.
Musharrafism (n.)—the act of using one’s military might to seize one’s own democratically-elected government; giving speeches in order to woo the United States into being your ally and deter them from questioning the legitimacy of your government; and then using all of your power—and the power of others—to maintain control, all the while oppressing your own people so that no one outside the country really knows what’s going on inside.

Just a few months ago, Mr. Musharraf even tried to prevent these elections from happening. Back in November, he called a state of emergency and told the people via television (whose channels are state-controlled in Pakistan) that it was because he wanted counter the increasing threat of terrorism and the sliding economy. In one fell swoop, Musharraf suspended the constitution, called the state of emergency and threw out the chief justice to the Supreme Court. Since then, he hasn’t disclosed any national security threats that would legitimize his spontaneous declaration.

This declaration came just two months before the upcoming general election. Days after Musharraf declared the state of emergency, his information minister spoke about the upcoming election on national television to tell the country that they would indeed be “suspended indefinitely.” Again, no reasons were provided for the spontaneous decision.

Bush may not have kept up on Mr. Musharraf’s biography, but the act of U.S. presidents not keeping up on the biography of the foreign leaders they support is a trend that transcends the Bush administration.

Bush’s support for Musharraf parallels Nixon’s support for fascist Chilean dictator Agusto Pinochet, Reagan and others’ support for Ferdinand Marcos’ military rule of the Philippines and Hoover’s support for Rafael Trujillo’s bloody dictatorship of the Dominican Republic.

Haven’t we learned enough from our mistakes?

The United States needs to stop this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with regards to buttressing the ascension to power of dictators worldwide. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator. Thus, if we seek to be the purveyors—or, more appropriately, the example—of worldwide democracy, then we shouldn’t be hypocritically supporting dictators. Period.
Fortunately, Pakistan’s government will no longer be run by a military coup. And fortunately, the Pakistani people pacifically came to the conclusion that military governance is undesirable. But will fortune be so kind as to convince Mr. Musharraf to step down from the presidency?
We will see.

Date auction raises funds for WDA

Last Tuesday Maxey Auditorium turned into an auction house to host the first ever Whitman Date Auction.  The date auction, sponsored by Whitman Direct Action (WDA) in conjunction with Kappa Kappa Gamma and Phi Delta Theta, was a fund-raiser for WDA’s Safe and Sustainable Clean Water Conference being held in Mumbai, India over spring break.

“Overall the date auction went smoothly and was a really creative, interactive Whitman event!” said WDA member Aisha Fukushima.

Thirty-two students from all classes volunteered themselves to perform talents and be auctioned off for a dessert date which was held on the following evening; collectively, $568 was made.  Local businesses including Starbucks, Super One Foods and Albertsons donated food and drinks that were served at the dessert and members of Phi Delta Theta donated their time as servers.  Kappa Kappa Gamma members managed the event’s advertising.

“This event was particularly exciting and unique because we were able to do a lot of coalition building between greek systems, local businesses, community members and independent students among others,” said Fukushima.  “The people involved were really diverse and were able to work together cohesively to make such a positive outcome.”

First-year and Kappa auction participant Jenna Dumpit echoed Fukushima’s sentiments, saying, “I thought it was a really good way to get the campus involved in the clean water initiative and make it fun.”

The top bid for an individual was $31; both Meghan Young and Alan Waxman received the maximum bid.

“I viewed the auction as an easy and entertaining way to help,” said Young.

Despite the genuine attempts of many community members to help WDA’s initiative, some saw the date auction as an inappropriate historical parallel.

“Some professors did not support the idea of auctioning people for the event due to its historical connections to oppression,” said Fukushima.  “With that said, I would hope that this critique doesn’t overshadow the positive aspects of the event and its success.”

Originally, the event was advertised as auctioning off students and professors; however, after hearing resistance from professors, that part of the auction was dropped.

“Certainly it is important to be sensitive to the dark historical roots and oppressive practices that are historically associated with the auction of human beings,” said Meghan Young.  “However, I find it equally important to move beyond those associations and consider the nature and intent of the current event and evaluate it with regard to those characteristics.”
Despite some negative response from faculty, many faculty had a positive impression of the fund-raiser.

The outcome of the fund-raiser suggests that many community members were able to move past the connections and contribute to the positive goals of WDA.

“Everyone who attended—dates, MCs and the audience—seemed to have a lot of fun,” said senior Kappa Joscelyn Barden.

Letter to the Editor: Feeling classy, Re: ‘Ghetto Safeway’ gets elegant face lift

Allow me to begin with a quote from a piece in the Feb. 7 issue: “It seems that ‘ghetto’ Safeway finally realized that it wasn’t really in much of a ghetto, but actually only a few blocks away from an expensive liberal arts college.”

First, there’s the fact that the label of “ghetto” on the Rose St. Safeway was purely constructed by the wealthy students of Whitman itself. Also, one should not ignore the fact that the store is surrounded by lower-income housing and working-class families. I commend Alice, however, on at least alluding to this in her article, and her last point, quoted above, is probably right: Safeway realized it has a bunch of rich kids close by now, so it should make things more flashy (to incite said kids to spend the excess money they have) and more expensive (since they won’t care where the money goes), thus ignoring the housing it is situated in. I am not saying every Whitman student is like this, but there is a certain mentality that comes with being affluent that enables this sort of occurrence in a store.

But I still feel that something more needs to be said for the working class of Whitman and Walla Walla. Coming from a lower-income family than the bulk of my peers here, I didn’t understand what the big deal was. At first I thought our Safeway was “ghetto” just because it didn’t have a bakery; I eventually came to realize that what I personally felt was a very nice (and more expensive than I was accustomed to) grocery store was, to put it shortly, “icky,” to other Whitties. They would complain about it being “cheap” or “dirty” and their favorite adjective to describe it completely misconstrued the word itself.

The misuse of that word based on its historical genealogy is mind-boggling, and for a school filled with “enlightened” students, it’s surprising to me that it would be thrown around so casually. We don’t use the “n” word. We don’t use the “c” word. But calling the Rose St. Safeway “ghetto” is ok? If they thought it was “ghetto” before, then they really, really need to see the real world in which we all live—see some real ghettos—and come out of their silver-platter-filled, alternate dimensions.

Which brings me to another issue. This ad went out over the student listserv, its subject heading “feeling classy?” a while ago: “or just HOPING to feel classy? then come to the FAH gallery opening tomorrow night! Gaze upon the brilliant artistic genius of your fellow students, listen to some folksy girls harmonize and strum their way into your hearts, eat cheese and crackers off of silver platters, and generally raise your classy-factor at least 7 points. FAH GALLERY TUESDAY (tomorrow) 8-9 pm FINE ARTS HOUSE, corner of OTIS and BOYER BE THERE”

This ad got under my skin (and not just because of the technical errors in it). It completely perpetuates the good taste=style=money mindset that makes working-class students at Whitman so uncomfortable. Just because someone can’t afford to “eat cheese and crackers off silver platters” doesn’t make them any less of a person, nor does it mean they have no sense of style, grace, or any of the other attributes generally associated with class. And being able to “eat cheese and crackers off silver platters” doesn’t make you more of a person, either. You don’t have to be wealthy to be classy. In fact, I think some of the poorer students on campus have more “class” than the rich ones.

For why should it ever be ok to wear pajamas to (academic) class? Why is it cool to have rips and tears in your jeans? When is it ever ok to chew gum in the middle of an interview or meeting? Why is it cool not to wash your hair? One thing I can say about the students I meet in First-Generation/Working Class Students of Whitman College is that they are the most presentable and professional, the most conscious of what their first impression will have upon others. They change clothes before class; they replace torn clothes, or at least patch them neatly; they don’t chomp on gum when talking to administration; they shower. They look like the ones with the money, and the ones with the money don’t. Patricia Williams mentions this in “Alchemy”: it’s cool to dress down. Isn’t that self-defeating?

This paradox is everywhere. Crocs, I hate Crocs. I never thought they were very attractive, but now they have changed from shoes for people to use outside to a status symbol for the wealthy. They’re expensive (the cheapest thing on their Web site is $29.99, which, to me, is crazy—30 bucks for plastic shoes?), so now it’s cool to have them. Excuse me, but what? I doubt even 50 percent of the people wearing Crocs or knock-off Crocks today even realize where they originated, and I bet even less than that will ever attempt to do any sort of manual labor in them.

For the people that wear Crocs to SBux, it’s just a token that will be changed for another pair within a month (because, you know, this new color is so adorable, I just had to get them). Never mind how the people that actually need them probably can’t afford them half the time, so when and if they do get a pair, those shoes are treasured and intended to last for as long as possible, and who cares about color? And of course, Crocs, just like Safeway, caters to the wealthy and ignores its original crowd: now you can customize your Crocs! And you can get Disney themed ones for the kiddies, huzzah! (Ok, admittedly, I heart Disney; but what kid young and wealthy enough for Disney Crocs is going to do the work they were intended for?)

Yeah, I feel “classy.” But this “classy” is that of integrity. Of common sense. Of self-respect. Of respect for others. I’m classy because I’m a good person. I’m classy because I conduct myself professionally. I’m classy because I help others. I don’t need cheese and crackers to impress anyone; and, frankly, I don’t feel the need to impress anyone. My merits speak for themselves.

-Gabrielle Arrowood
Whitman ‘08

Rethinking Sarkozy’s senseless suggestion

At months past the age of 6, a sweet yet reticent classmate of mine died in a car crash en route to visiting the zoo. Though I was saddened that I didn’t see her in school anymore, I did not comprehend her death. It was not until roughly nine years later that I truly understood what had happened.

Had I fully understood the meaning and ramifications of death at the time, or at anytime prior to when I did fully grasp the concept, I would have been traumatized. The physical effects of ceaseless crying and perpetually being sick to my stomach would have paled in comparison to the psychological effects of perplexity and sheer anger.

When I did finally come to terms with death, at, say, 15 years of age, I was still traumatized. I randomly encountered the girl’s parents soon after my insight and could not muster the chutzpah to even look them in the eye.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a slapdash announcement on Saturday essentially stating that he wants to make all French fifth graders—10-year-olds—go through a traumatic experience akin to mine.

For lack of a better word, Mr. Sarkozy, your proposition is stupid.

I honestly could not think of a better way to ruin a child’s psyche.

Mr. Sarkozy’s plan, void of any knowledgeable consultation, would have every fifth grader learn the life story of a French child killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

In his eyes, “Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew.” As if reading the “Diary of Anne Frank” isn’t bad enough, Sarkozy wants to further test the maturity level of his primary school students instead of promoting curricula that would foster the creativity and ingenuity that will be required of them in the future.

Mr. Sarkozy believes that teaching children accounts of factual deaths is no different than teaching children that what they see everyday on television is fiction. What Mr. Sarkozy does not understand is that the violence 10-year-olds see on television is not comparable to a child’s death. It is far more difficult to understand fact than fiction.

Many fifth graders are too young to be able to comprehend abstract concepts such as death. They should be subject to learning about their country’s important wars, the consequences of them and so on, but they should not be subject to an intense study of the tragedy of a fellow French pupil. This is simply the wrong way to go about teaching a necessary topic.

The most appropriate way to go about teaching the Holocaust is in the same manner one goes about teaching science: gloss over the topic early on and as their maturity level increases, dive into the topic more specifically. In other words, Mr. Sarkozy is using this curriculum to develop the maturity of French pupils when it should be the maturity level of the pupils determining the curriculum.

Moreover, Mr. Sarkozy, who I can only assume has a good grasp of his own country’s history, should know better than to censure it. During the Holocaust, the Vichy regime in France collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of over 75,000 Jews—many of whom are the children Sarkozy wants school-age French children to study. Though influenced heavily by German occupation, there is no denying that France was significantly anti-Semitic at the time.

With Sarkozy’s proposal, the focus of French World War II study at an early age would be on the Jewish innocent, skewing the limelight from the atrocities committed by the Vichy regime. It is unclear what the President’s intentions are, but it is clear what the results will be: less attention will be paid to the malevolent Vichy regime. So, is the President calling out a mistake in France’s past or trying to build up a feeling of nationalism not unlike that roused by Maréchal Pétain and Adolf Hitler’s 1940 train car handshake?

I say the latter.

His proposal on Saturday was sugar-coated by a remark he made regarding religion, a topic he has incessantly tried to intertwine with the state since he became president in May. He blamed the great amounts of violence of the last century on an “absence of God.”

With this new proposal and other motivated actions, such as being the first French president to address the annual dinner of France’s Jewish community, Sarkozy is trying to integrate the Jewish community into a national rally against a universally accepted evil—Nazism, in this case. Though it may be true that godlessness caused the wars of the last century, what matters is France’s long tradition of secular governance.

As evidenced by his speech in Saudi Arabia last month where he repeatedly brought up God, Mr. Sarkozy has invoked God in the vast majority of his speeches abroad to channel foreign compassion his way and reverse the perception, he believes, of France as being a finicky, secularist nation.

Mr. Sarkozy is using this new proposal to further his religious agenda. He believes in a doctrine he titles “positive secularism”—where the church is an asset to the state and the two need not be estranged.

In following this agenda, he is capsizing the French tradition of keeping religion primarily to one’s self. He believes that by opening up the public floodgates to religion, he can, in turn, establish a more unified France.

I am sure that this form of nationalism, if any, will fly with the French people.

If his goal is to divide France religiously, then he is on his way to achieving it. If this isn’t his goal, he should reconsider his proposal—and his positive secularist agenda, for that matter—and ask the people of France what they really want.

WPN takes strides toward safer neighborhood

Last year, Todd and Yesenia Wise and Sylvia Moya—who live less than a block from one another—didn’t know each other. At most, they recognized each others’ faces, but they had never had a real conversation.

These days, though, the three catch up once a week or so. For that, at the very least, they have the Washington Park Neighbors (WPN) to thank—a group started by Moya and Whitman sophomore Alex Kerr last September, which encompasses the area between 6th and 9th Avenues, and Rees and Rose Avenues.

The group was formed to address major concerns in the neighborhood, which many residents felt had been largely ignored by the Walla Walla Police Department. Meeting roughly once a week, WPN drew up a list of requests for Chief of Police Chuck Fulton that they wanted to see put into place, including more police presence, brighter street lights and lower speed limits in the area.

Fulton, alongside Area Officer Kevin Braman and Crime Prevention Officer Robert Reed, promised to do their best to address the concerns of WPN.

That was in November.

Since then, WPN has come a long way. The size of the core group of neighbors has swollen from about four or five dedicated residents to close to 20. The group has met with members of the WWPD three subsequent times.

According to Mr. Wise, the police have kept their promises.

“Kevin Braman has done a great job. Every time I talk to him he’s telling me the things he’s going to do. I talk to him at every meeting,” he said.

Moya agreed.

“[Officer Braman] has shown he cares about this neighborhood. It seems to me he has the same kind of values as we do, and he took an interest in this neighborhood. He wanted to see something happen here,” she said.

Police efforts in the neighborhood have been clear: Brighter lights have been installed to increase visibility, Officer Braman has spent more time patrolling the streets and three houses which had been suspected of being involved in major drug activity have been investigated. Community members have also expressed gratefulness for having gained a better sense of understanding what resources are available to them in emergency situations.

But change hasn’t come from the police department alone.

“I see a lot changes with the people in the neighborhood themselves. There have been a lot of people who have been more dedicated, consistent and have wanted to see things change,” said Moya. “Improvement doesn’t just come from what’s on the surface—it has to do with what’s inside the neighborhood.”

WPN has independently implemented ways to maintain unity and momentum within their group.

Most recently, they have started three walking groups, which each walk down streets in the community twice a week in the evening. These groups knock on doors to inform residents about WPN and to tell their stories, while taking note of any crimes they might witness in the hour they’re out. The groups are just beginning, but WPN hopes to have one team on the street six nights a week in the near future.

At WPN’s last meeting, community members sat down with Code Enforcement officers, who spoke about laws which apply to the properties in the Washington Park area.

“I have been told that people learned a lot from that and some people have great ideas they want to bring up at the next meeting about how to clean the neighborhood up,” said Kerr.

While there has been progress in the area since WPN formed in September, there are still improvements to be made. Higher police involvement has caused a visible decrease in overt criminal activity, but community members continue to worry about drug use and other illegal behavior.

“We want the gangs to be stopped, and the drugs to be out,” said Moya. “We want to give our children security, we want them to know their identity. This should be a good neighborhood to be brought into.”

Mrs. Wise is concerned that cold weather is partially responsible for the lull in criminal activity, and hopes that WPN can stay active through the summer.

“Right now it’s winter and obviously things are calmed down, but when summer comes that’s when we’re really going to see where things need to be worked on, I think. Last summer there was more gang activity, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see with that,” said Mrs. Wise.

What seems to be most important to members of WPN, though, is that the group itself maintains solidarity.

“We don’t want this to die. We want it to continue and get stronger,” said Mrs. Wise.

Kerr is excited about the momentum the group has built.

“We are made up of neighbors working for the safety and well-being of their loved ones ­— what could be more important than that? So it’s no surprise that our momentum is building and I have no doubt that WPN will continue to grow and reach our goals,” said Kerr.

WPN meets every other Friday. They hope to work more closely with the police towards stopping drug use and gang activity. They are also hoping to put emphasis on the importance of the nightly group walks.

“We want people to be aware that we are a neighborhood that’s watching out for one another,” said Moya.

Netflix it: princess mononoke

Hayao Miyazaki is one of those directors you are either obsessed with or have never heard of. I am obsessed with him. His movies are incredibly creative, bordering on insane. They’re all animated, but this is about as far from Disney as you can get in the same medium. And every one of them, to my knowledge, has a strong female lead or supporting character.

Princess Mononoke, played by Claire Danes in the English version, is a half-wild human who lives with wolves. She is met by Ashitaka (Billy Crudup), a warrior who is cursed by a boar/god/disgusting monster thing. The only cure for his otherwise fatal mutilation is to find the deer god. You think this sounds tame, but really there are some beheadings and dismemberments in between. It’s Miyazaki, so the violence is metaphorical and magical, but getting your head shot off looks the same no matter how you slice it (ha!).

The story is traditional: humans versus nature, peace versus war, wild wolf girl versus ambitious town developer girl. What Miyazaki brings to the table is entirely new: animals and other creatures possessed by spirits (the highlight of the movie is the forest spirits, which are really cute and also really creepy), warriors inflicted with metaphysical wounds and magical beings existing alongside humans.

There’s a reason Hollywood celebrities clamor to lend their voices to Miyazaki films: they’re the most original work our malnourished movie industry gets anymore. They’re beautiful and disturbing, simple in message and mind-boggling in execution. Somehow everything that comes out of Miyazaki’s brain makes me feel more alive. After you see “Princess Mononoke,” I promise you’ll never look at the little woodland creatures in “Snow White” the same again.

That tastes like cherry…er, vagina?

News flash for all you youngsters out there: Vaginas do not taste like strawberries. This may seem to some like an obvious reminder, but recent trends have me wondering. Particularly, the trend to make one’s genitals shiny and fruity-tasting.

I think sex toys are GREAT, if you’re into that sort of thing. I think women and men who want to spice it up in the bedroom should do it, by all means. But I do NOT think that spicing it up means making your junk taste like cinnamon.

The Pure Romance party held on campus recently highlighted this tendency towards masking the natural with the tasty and sparkly. A friend of mine who attended, while appreciative of the sexually liberated attitudes of the night, was disturbed by how many of the lotions, lubes, gels and oils had completely anti-vaginal tastes.

For your information, dear reader, here is a brief sample of what the modern age would like your genitals to taste.  Barely Berry. Watermelon. Orange Dreamsicle. Rocky Road. Strawberries and Cream. White Chocolate Cherry (or Raspberry). Hot Apple Pie.

Ok. There appears to be some confusion here. Nothing sexual actually TASTES like hot apple pie. Maybe that scene in “American Pie”, the movie made you so uncomfortable that you missed the point. But I will break it down for you. That guy boned the pie because it FELT good. No misunderstandings about taste need apply.

The fact remains: Vaginas taste like vaginas, and penises taste like penises. This is not a bad thing. Pure Romance would have you believe there are 24 flavors better than the one your body creates. Do not believe this. DO NOT. There are zero things better than watching this amazing body we’ve all got do what it’s supposed to.

Aside from the extremely misleading taste factor to the body glitter craze is the visual aspect. Telling people they need to make themselves sparkly to be attractive is wrong. I wore sparkles to the *NSYNC concert(s) I went to so that Justin would see me from the stage and propose. This is different than lathering up so that whomever I’m with doesn’t actually have to like my vagina. He just has to like shiny things.

That’s ridiculous. Let’s revel instead, please, in what our bodies are meant to look, smell and taste like. Let’s stop putting chemicals into our most sensitive orifices in the name of beauty. It’s not pretty, it’s prepubescent. Or it’s like Mariah Carey in “Glitter.” Both of which are great, but are the opposite of sexually appealing.

If the idea of encountering the vag in its non-Orange Creamsicle glory bugs you, there are one million things to do with your partner that aren’t genital-centric. For example, nipples. I once wrote an entire poem dedicated to how girls should pay more attention to their nipples. Another day, another column. For now, if you can’t get into the way your partner’s naughty bits taste, you’re maybe not ready to bring them into the fray. And that’s cool. In my opinion, taking the time to appreciate how unlike anything else in the WORLD penises and vaginas are is way cooler than only liking them because they taste like Christmas at Grandma’s.

Yeah, that’s right. I brought Grandma into it. Have fun with the Apple Pie flavor NOW.

So take your time. Play with your lovely lady parts because of what they are. They are: not at all reminiscent of desserts (except in how much they should be enjoyed). They are: totally unique to you. They are: better than chemicals, and prettier without sparkles. And everyone who sees them should agree wholeheartedly.

Bonding on road trips

For the last two weekends, Whitman baseball has been on the road, first in Los Angeles and more recently in McMinnville.
Road trips bring teams together.  Despite all of the practices and games, teams spend very little time together as an entire team—maybe a once-a-week dinner or something similar.  Traveling together in one bus becomes team time.

Bus rides are the time to circle around a group of seats and swap stories, tell jokes, rib each other and laugh.  Then we all crash: fall asleep or listen to Dashboard Confessional or think about what tasty treat we’ll be buying at the Biggs convenience store.  (As an aside, the consumption in pounds of weird food on road trips is astonishing.  I have personally seen various people consume the following items in one sitting: a stick of beef jerky taller than the person eating it, four energy drinks and one packet of gum, an entire tub of gooey orange slice candy and a party tray—20+ pieces—of pre-cooked sushi.)

But every once in a while road trips assume a whole different feel to them, when they transcend just travel—whose consummation is the destination—and become a journey or, better, an experience.

Our trip to McMinnville became an experience through our driver’s sheer force of personality.

Let me describe this man.  Imagine a kind of doughy Einstein dressed like an out-of-work lumberjack.  He had this frizzy ‘fro of white hair that stood on end, wore a lot of flannel and sported very big feet.  Just take Ronald McDonald minus the makeup and clown clothes and replace his wig with the hair from Professor Dave Glenn’s head.

This man turned our Linfield tournament trip into an adventure single-handedly.

I guess I should have known things were going to take a turn for the bizarre when my first—and not last—interaction with the bus driver went something like this:
Me (stepping on the bus at 8:30 in the morning): “Good Morning.”
Bus Driver (fiddling around with some kind of GPS system in his lap): “Do you know what street Linfield is on?”
Me: “No, sorry, I mostly just sleep.”
Him: “Just name the street.  Any street near there.  I just need one street.  Whichever of the streets is closest.  JUST ONE.”

He talked incredibly fast, and the desperate tone of his voice was unrivaled.  It was pretty clear that he was uncomfortable with the rigors of the job, which was odd because he seemed so aloof.  One minute so desperate to know where we were going.  And the next he was off the bus, wandering around the legs of the red, yellow and blue McDonald’s PlayPlace statue, gazing up at it like a tourist at the base of the David.  He constantly explored his surroundings, sauntering hands-in-pockets and just kind of peeping his head around corners and lazily gazing up at something or off somewhere.

At least one person remarked early in the trip that it appeared our driver was “off his rocker,” and that was before he stalled our bus in the parking lot before Saturday’s game.  The engine didn’t turn over because it was out of gas—a circumstance which was not his fault; he chalked it up as mere happenstance.

So we arrived at our game not only late but cramped from being shuffled around between parents’ cars and unceremoniously stuffed into backseats.  (Chad Frisk and I, by virtue of being the smallest, shared a lovely country drive squished in the cab of a late-model Ford Ranger.  It built character.)

To make matters worse, this guy nodded off briefly a couple of times on the trip home, swerving slightly each time.  It was enough to make a grave-faced Adam Knappe turn to me and explicitly say what everyone else was thinking: “This man is insane.”

Insane or not, he was certainly an experience.  A legend whose story the oral tradition of the baseball team (the jokes and stories on the road) will tell for a few more years.

‘Non-shock jocks’ talk: College hoops

WOODS:
Last week was NBA basketball, so this week we’ll take it down a notch and talk some college hoops.  There’s a lot to talk about but let’s keep it focused on the PAC-10 for now, since that’s a little closer to home for most people (sorry Eli).  I’ll go ahead and say that the PAC-10 will get at least six teams into the tourney, and maybe as many as eight.  That shows that they are indeed a solid conference.  My problem when looking at this league is this: Yeah, they have some solid teams that will beat up on each other during the season, but I don’t see any team cutting down the nets in March.

ASCH:
PAC-10 teams certainly have been beating up on each other.  Stanford and UCLA are the only two teams with fewer than six losses in conference play (UCLA stands at 12-2 and Stanford at 10-3).

I’m a bit higher on both of these teams, though, than you are, as I think they can both go deep into the tournament and maybe (in this year without a truly dominant team) win it all.  Stanford is anchored by the twin towers of Brook and Robin Lopez, a pair of seven-footers who between them average almost 29 points, 14 rebounds, and four-and-a-half blocks per game.  Playing rock solid interior defense and taking and making a lot of high-percentage inside shots are great ways to do some damage in March.

And UCLA has a big man of its own: 6’ 10” freshman Kevin Love, who hails from lovely Lake Oswego, Oregon, averages a double-double (17 points and 11 boards) and can step outside and hit the three, shooting 37 percent from beyond the arc this year.  Last time we talked you said that you thought UCLA had a shot to challenge for the title—what’s changed?

WOODS:
I definitely think UCLA has the best chance at getting there, with Stanford close behind.  They both play great defense and have an inside presence, two necessities for winning in March.  However, right now I see three, possibly four teams better than anyone in the PAC-10, thus I don’t think they have a shot at the title.

Two of those teams that have impressed me played just this past Sunday, when #2 Tennessee beat previously unbeaten and #1 Memphis.  After watching most of that game, I think UCLA would be overmatched by either of them.  They both shoot the three well and have quick guards/swingmen that can get to the basket.  That being said, one thing that scares me about both teams, but Memphis in particular, is their free-throw shooting.  Memphis is shooting 58 percent from the line as a team for the season and that spells trouble when it comes to tourney time.

Kansas is the other team that I believe could beat UCLA right now.  They can match the Bruin’s size with 6’ 11” senior Sasha Kaun, and have some great guards in Brandon Rush and Mario Chalmers.  And keep in mind that this team has only lost two games all year by a total of four points.  The possible fourth team that I have above UCLA is a healthy North Carolina team.  They haven’t been at 100 percent all year, and are still 25-2.  If they get healthy, especially point guard Ty Lawson, I think they can compete with any team in the nation.

ASCH:
Memphis and Tennessee actually both worry me quite a bit come tournament time.  They both live and die with the three ball (Memphis has attempted 612 threes on the season and Tennessee a whopping 688).  Come a cold streak at the wrong time (more likely for Memphis, 34 percent three-point shooters as a team) both of these teams will find their national title hopes dashed.

I think the game between the two was indicative of their true ability: Tennessee is slightly better and has more balance, which it showed by winning on a night when its star Christ Lofton went for only seven points.

But let’s end this column back where we started—in the PAC-10.  The Washington State Cougars were many people’s early season darlings, rattling off 14 straight season-opening wins.  Since then they have only posted a 7-5 mark, though, although they have at times showed some mettle.  Can the Cougs right the ship and make a run in March to make people forget their February follies?

WOODS:
Last year Washington State surprised everyone by winning 26 games and entered March Madness as a #4 seed.  This year, with a weak non-conference schedule and a very deep PAC-10, they aren’t shocking anybody.   I was in Pullman last Thursday for the Washington State/Arizona State game, which WSU won, and wasn’t very impressed.  They play great team defense and at times executed a zone offense to perfection, but lack the outside shooting and athleticism of the elite teams.  I see them going into the tournament as a seven or eight seed and having a tough time in the second round against those one or two seeds.

WPN takes strides toward safer neighborhood

Last year, Todd and Yesenia Wise and Sylvia Moya—who live less than a block from one another—didn’t know each other. At most, they recognized each others’ faces, but they had never had a real conversation.

These days, though, the three catch up once a week or so. For that, at the very least, they have the Washington Park Neighbors (WPN) to thank—a group started by Moya and Whitman sophomore Alex Kerr last September, which encompasses the area between 6th and 9th Avenues, and Rees and Rose Avenues.

The group was formed to address major concerns in the neighborhood, which many residents felt had been largely ignored by the Walla Walla Police Department. Meeting roughly once a week, WPN drew up a list of requests for Chief of Police Chuck Fulton that they wanted to see put into place, including more police presence, brighter street lights and lower speed limits in the area.

Fulton, alongside Area Officer Kevin Braman and Crime Prevention Officer Robert Reed, promised to do their best to address the concerns of WPN.

That was in November.

Since then, WPN has come a long way. The size of the core group of neighbors has swollen from about four or five dedicated residents to close to 20. The group has met with members of the WWPD three subsequent times.

According to Mr. Wise, the police have kept their promises.

“Kevin Braman has done a great job. Every time I talk to him he’s telling me the things he’s going to do. I talk to him at every meeting,” he said.

Moya agreed.

“[Officer Braman] has shown he cares about this neighborhood. It seems to me he has the same kind of values as we do, and he took an interest in this neighborhood. He wanted to see something happen here,” she said.

Police efforts in the neighborhood have been clear: Brighter lights have been installed to increase visibility, Officer Braman has spent more time patrolling the streets and three houses which had been suspected of being involved in major drug activity have been investigated. Community members have also expressed gratefulness for having gained a better sense of understanding what resources are available to them in emergency situations.

But change hasn’t come from the police department alone.

“I see a lot changes with the people in the neighborhood themselves. There have been a lot of people who have been more dedicated, consistent and have wanted to see things change,” said Moya. “Improvement doesn’t just come from what’s on the surface—it has to do with what’s inside the neighborhood.”

WPN has independently implemented ways to maintain unity and momentum within their group.

Most recently, they have started three walking groups, which each walk down streets in the community twice a week in the evening. These groups knock on doors to inform residents about WPN and to tell their stories, while taking note of any crimes they might witness in the hour they’re out. The groups are just beginning, but WPN hopes to have one team on the street six nights a week in the near future.

At WPN’s last meeting, community members sat down with Code Enforcement officers, who spoke about laws which apply to the properties in the Washington Park area.

“I have been told that people learned a lot from that and some people have great ideas they want to bring up at the next meeting about how to clean the neighborhood up,” said Kerr.

While there has been progress in the area since WPN formed in September, there are still improvements to be made. Higher police involvement has caused a visible decrease in overt criminal activity, but community members continue to worry about drug use and other illegal behavior.

“We want the gangs to be stopped, and the drugs to be out,” said Moya. “We want to give our children security, we want them to know their identity. This should be a good neighborhood to be brought into.”

Mrs. Wise is concerned that cold weather is partially responsible for the lull in criminal activity, and hopes that WPN can stay active through the summer.

“Right now it’s winter and obviously things are calmed down, but when summer comes that’s when we’re really going to see where things need to be worked on, I think. Last summer there was more gang activity, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see with that,” said Mrs. Wise.

What seems to be most important to members of WPN, though, is that the group itself maintains solidarity.

“We don’t want this to die. We want it to continue and get stronger,” said Mrs. Wise.

Kerr is excited about the momentum the group has built.

“We are made up of neighbors working for the safety and well-being of their loved ones ­— what could be more important than that? So it’s no surprise that our momentum is building and I have no doubt that WPN will continue to grow and reach our goals,” said Kerr.

WPN meets every other Friday. They hope to work more closely with the police towards stopping drug use and gang activity.

They are also hoping to put emphasis on the importance of the nightly group walks.

“We want people to be aware that we are a neighborhood that’s watching out for one another,” said Moya.

Connect with your spiritual self through jazz

Music has been the defining artistic interest of my life. I can trace my years by the albums to which I listened most, often obsessively. For the most part, I’m interested in lyrics. The Beatles are undoubtedly the sole source of the origins of the that interest, and led me to Dylan, Townes van Zandt and more recently Joanna Newsom, visionaries all. But with the exception of a profound piece of wisdom here and there, or the entirety of Newsom’s “Emily,” I find little spiritual value in “literate” music. For that, I turn to jazz, especially avant-garde works from the 1960s.

Two appropriately titled works represent the variety of my experience of this sort of jazz: Albert Ayler’s 1964 collective improvisation masterpiece “Spiritual Unity” and John Coltrane’s iconic 1965 record “A Love Supreme.” Ayler works in simplified forms which facilitates a high degree of group participation, a goal which Ayler clearly identifies as spiritual.

The album achieves that goal not only by connecting individual players, but by connecting them to something larger than the sum of their parts. Music created in such a space as Ayler sets up is ultimately driven by the surrender of the will in creation. What is created simply is, independent from concerted form. This experience translates in listening to the recording, indicating at least a degree of success for the album.

Distinguishing “Spiritual Unity” from other jazz experiments of its time and afterwards helps to analyze its unique spiritual effect. The early efforts of Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman dramatically pushed the boundaries of composition in jazz.  Though Coleman and Taylor first began to ask the question of how far the form could be taken, they were, in the 1950s anyway, still composers. The music they made, in spite of, or because of, the controversy they produced at the time, was undeniably jazz.

Ayler’s followers (Coltrane among them, as evidenced by his late-period work) seemed bent on destroying the form entirely. Saxophonist Anthony Braxton and guitarist Derek Bailey are perhaps the most prominent adherents of that doctrine, creating what they and many others call “non-idiomatic” improvisational music. Aside from that dubious assertion, the work of Bailey and Braxton, though it affects me profoundly, is just too nihilistic, for lack of a better word, for me to see it spiritually.

With “Spiritual Unity,” though, there exists a liberated but still beautiful and cohesive expression of an idea on the divine nature of collectivism and creation. This speaks to me in a sense, saying what no Dylan zinger can. As both a complement and a contrast to the conceptual experience which Ayler effects, “A Love Supreme” is an expression of pure beauty, both obsessively thoughtful and instantaneous. That beauty comes across most fully in the intensity of the compositions, the improvisation which both builds and builds around them\ and the musicians behind it.

Pianist McCoy Tyner’s sense for harmony creates a foundation for and a tension against Coltrane’s sheets of sound. The rhythm section of Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones have a drive and sensitivity which move the record. Check out the Jazz Casual tapes on YouTube to see this band live in all its glory, playing tunes from 1963’s Impressions. “A Love Supreme” adds a few other musicians, notably saxophonist Archie Shepp, who earlier gained notoriety in Cecil Taylor’s band.

This is turning into an article about music, and I could write into eternity about these guys. But I want to make clear that the reason I’m so passionate about all this background is that the effect this music has on me is truly exceptional. I can think of few other elements of culture which cause me to feel spiritually, in effect neutralizing that great and common barrier of thought. And in the end that’s what I’m looking for; the thinking is only a precursor, an act of foreplay if you’re not too precious, to experiencing God and the spiritual self. So if you can open mind, listen to this stuff. And try to forget everything I said about it: let it stand as devotional expression of the highest order.

democracy now: the power of digg

The 52nd most popular website online today is called Digg.com, a website founded in 2004 that brings in 40,315,228 unique visitors web browsers from around the world every month. It is a website that essentially serves as an aggregator for the rest of the world wide web, pointing daily users towards worthy posts, videos, essays, photos, or whatever else springs out of the minds of bloggers, youtubers, or online news media that can be linked. Digg creates a “best of” the web everyday and is so effective in directing users towards these corners of the Internet that it forms what has been coined as the “Digg Effect”: when so many Digg users go to the web site being linked that they crash it altogether. Needless to say, Digg has some cultural capital, it is in one way or another responsible for that funny video that got posted on your wall or what news item you are talking about around your proverbial water cooler. Even the “Ron Paul Revolution” can find its origins located in the cache of Digg’s web history, and while that revolution has all but failed, it is still extremely rare that one website online can mobilize a shit load of people to action, often offline.

Can you digg it? Well to co-opt (not plagiarize) the words of Barack Obama: “Yes You Can”. In fact, Digg.com is a web site founded on the principle of user involvement, a shiny poster boy/site for the oft talked about democratic revolution of Web 2.0. The eventual trendsetters who are scouring the vastness of the Internet enough to know what to post on Digg are none other than everyday people. The women and men (well mostly men) of cubicle culture, high schools, college dorms, public libraries, or any place with a broadband connection, are the ones that create the fresh daily content of Digg. A user, any user, can submit a link to another website and fellow Digg viewers will look at that link and vote for it, or in the world of Digg, they will “Digg it!”. Submissions that are more “Dugg” will be presented more prominently on the websites main page, creating a best of (or most Dugg) for the day.

A story on the top page of Digg is often craved by a web site, giving them instant traffic via the “Digg Effect” that will make that website more money based on ad revenues and give them a crop of new visitors that may continue to visit. Many websites have started to post an instant ability to Digg on their own websites. For example, many news features or blog posts do not end with a gripping last line, but instead the phrase “Digg It!” that links to Digg.

Founder and chief executive of Digg.com Jay Adelson stated in a recent interview of the instant internet power he has bestowed upon the people: “Users are increasingly participating in the kind of digital democracy the internet enables. New concepts, such as the social graph, social networking, citizen journalism and participatory media, have emerged that enable people to connect and interact online in entirely new and interesting ways.”

To an extent his statement is true. Barring Digg’s no pornography rule, the website creates one of the purest, most uncensored manifestations of “democracy” available to people today. Digg uniquely offers the ability to vote on ideas where everyone’s voice matters and you see it mattering, and that is ultimately part of its allure. While Adelson created a website that has people doing all the work for him, as he gets all the revenues, the sheer popularity of Digg (again, 52nd most popular out of approximately 29.7 billion web sites) shows that those people appreciate the work they are doing and the outcome it produces.

As for that outcome, well, that is one of the possibly not so great effects of Digg. The current top ten stories on Digg at the time of this writing features a picture of a guy with a hat shape carved into his afro, a link to a blog that has viewers guess what crime people committed based on their mugshots, a photoset with an orange who’s wife cheats on him with a banana, and a video of Obama singing the National Anthem.  These examples are hardly what one would expect from “new and interesting” ways to use the Internet and connect, as Adelson put it, but then again no one said democracy would be coherent.
Digg it?

gettin nude and rude in your bed

(Note: We tried to write a celebrity gossip column for the first issue of The Consumer, but we became too consumed in our vices and instead became fodder for gossip.)

Let’s start with the fatties of Tinseltown: Jennifer Lopez, having squeezed every last baby out of her body, is no longer disgustingly overweight. Also, Kirstie Alley, spokeswoman for Jenny Craig, stepped down from her position in the illustrious world of weight loss programs. Alley plans to start her own weight-loss program, with the website and company name being released shortly. However, her future company probably has the same slim chance of success as Alley’s waistline losing any inches. Meanwhile, Jenny Craig has come up with a brilliant solution to America’s weight problem: hire the “voluptuous” Queen Latifah and focus on achieving a “healthier lifestyle, not on getting onto a specific dress size.”

While this might be one hell of a marketing campaign for the failing weight-loss program, we have one thing to say: fat’s fat bitch!

Now from the current fatties to those stars that will soon put on enough pounds to start a weight-loss company of their own: child stars of Hollywood! 20 year old pop star Aaron Carter, brother of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, got busted on Thursday with enough marijuana in his Escalade to smoke out the former Den of Iniquity for a full week! Though seemingly impressive since every other child star only racks up DUIs, Carter is a sideshow compared to the likes of Lil’ Wayne, who was recently arrested after police found copious amounts of weed, cocaine, and ecstasy on his tour bus. And a .40 caliber pistol. C’mon Aaron, your shit is weak.

What’s not weak, however, is how big of a slut Angelina Jolie is. Misty Cooper claims to have had an affair with Jolie while on the set of “Gone in 60 Seconds.” Cooper also says that Angelina loves having sex with women too much to be satisfied only by Brad Pitt’s cock. We think that the lesson to take away from this is that love and sex don’t get any easier for the fabulously beautiful. The good news is that Angelina’s family is getting more diverse with each passing day. Not only does she already have four children from three different continents, rumors are swirling that the father of her current “bump” is actually a woman. More about this in the third trimester.

To wrap up, we are tired of all the negativity emanating from the celeb media. Is it so hard to find something nice to write about such lovely, interesting people? We are all human, it’s just that some are prettier, and thus better, than others. With that said, our good girl of the week has to be Britney Spears. Signs are now pointing toward a possible recovery, as she has regained visitation rights with her children. Moreover, her toxic ex-manager, accused of drugging Britney over the past few months, has been served with a restraining order prohibiting him from seeing the pop star. So leave Britney alone!

This Week in Greek

Delta Gamma: After completing spring recruitment on Sunday, Feb. 24, Delta Gamma is excited about their potential for spring pledges. Additionally, the chapter will be celebrating their 92nd Founder’s Day this weekend at the Walla Walla Country Club with actives, alums and advisors. Also, the DGs would love any left over material that could be used for quilting. Please contact Claire Stimson if you’re interesting in donating.

Kappa Alpha Theta: The Thetas also are celebrating their Founder’s Day this Sunday. Additionally, the organization just complete renovation work at the Kirkman House Museum and is excited to participate in the Whitman College food drive in the coming weeks.

Kappa Kappa Gamma: On Sunday, March 2, the Kappa are hosting a Dr. Seuss Day in conjuncture with the Walla Walla Public Library—Children’s Wing. The event will take place throughout Reid and will feature crafts, story time and a theatrical performance of “The Cat in the Hat.” The event will be attended by local elementary school students, each of whom will receive a free book at the conclusion of the event.

Tau Kappa Epsilon: The TKEs just completed their initiation and are happy to welcome 19 new members to the house. Additionally, the chapter is currently organizing a composting program in collaboration with the Whitman College organic garden.

Phi Delta Theta: The Phis are in the process of completing their spring recruitment process and are, similar to Delta Gamma, excited about their possibilities for pledges. Additionally, the Phis just updated their Web site, which can be found at whitman.phideltatheta.org. Additionally, the Phis are in the process of organizing a Battle of the Bands contest for early April with the proceeds going to their national philanthropy, the ALS Association. Lastly, the Phis are also participating in the College food drive in the coming weeks.

Beta Theta Pi: The Betas just sent eight members to their regional Keystone Conference.
-Chase Cooper

WGA Writers Strike ends, business getting back to normal in Hollywood

“These past three and a half months have been very tough,” Oscars host Jon Stewart told the crowd at Kodak Theater on Sunday night. “The town was torn apart by a bitter writers strike, but I’m happy to say that the fight is over. So tonight…welcome to the make-up sex.”

Stewart, of course, was referring to the Feb. 12 conclusion to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, which lasted over 100 days and threatened the Feb. 24 Oscars ceremony. At the core of strike was disagreement over new media residuals.

“The studios clearly won,” said Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Film Studies Robert Sickels. “I don’t think they gave much; the writers are still paid a pittance.”

The WGA voted 92.5 percent in favor of returning to work. Under the new agreement, which runs till at least 2011, writers will get a total of $1,200 for streamed programs in the first two years of the deal followed by two percent of the profit from ad-supported streaming in the third year. There will be also be a “promotional” period of 17 days for streaming online content.

“We are confident that the results are a significant achievement not only for ourselves but the entire creative community, now and in the future,” wrote WGA Presidents Patrick Verrone and Michael Winship in an official statement to WGA members. “It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery.”

Meanwhile, Hollywood is getting back on its feet. The Los Angeles economy has suffered an estimated $3.2 billion in direct and indirect losses, according to officials.

Most television programs are returning to production, with some expected to return as early as the end of March (“How I Met Your Mother,” “Two and a Half Men”) and many more in April (“The Office,” “Lost”).

Others will be delayed until next season (“24”), or cancelled permanently (“Bionic Woman”).

“The fact that the half-hour sitcoms are getting back on the air so quickly suggests that the writers were writing through the strike,” Sickels said, adding that there will not be long-term effects felt as a result.

Late night shows affected by the strike—including “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “Jimmy Kimmel,” Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report”—already have their writers back.

“Our writers are back and they are sexy!” Stephen Colbert said at the beginning of “The Colbert Report” on Feb. 22. “Who wrote this?”

Despite the return of the writers and the new deal, however, the future still remains somewhat uncertain.

“A singular, profitable model has yet to emerge when it comes to putting TV online,” Sickels said, “but it’s hard to think it won’t.”

Dear Doctor Danger: my urinating roommate

Dear Dr. Danger,

I am a freshman, and I have a problem with my roommate. I love the guy, but every weekend he gets very drunk and returns late at night, and he urinates on me. At first, the first time that is, it was funny. I think the humor surrounding that first incident instilled some sense of subconscious endorsement for him, and now I’m just screwed because this guy (let’s call him Spritzy Fritzgibbens) goes for it every time. Nobody in my section knows that he does this; I’m too embarrassed to let it out that he’s done it again (and again and again).

I told him, but he doesn’t believe me; he thinks I’m just joking because there’s no evidence (see, I’m a clean freak and just have to clean the mess up right away—while he snores away in a nice, dry bed). The pee thing is really getting stale, but I really like the guy, so I don’t want to “get back at him” . . . still, I’m really tired of waking up to the golden showers and I’m just so tired all the time anyway that I can’t stay up late enough to keep him from doing it. Plus I don’t adapt well to sleeping in new places: It took me two weeks before I could sleep the night through in Jewett without popping a Vicodin or two. I’ve been clean for five weeks and I’m worried that these trying times will put me back on the pills. I need your help.

Please give me some advice.

Yours damply,

An Unwilling Showerer

Showerer,

It looks like what you’ve got is a classic case of roommate incompatibility. Normally I would advise you to approach this “Spritzy” and have a serious but calm discussion. If that has failed, and your shame prevents you from approaching anybody, your only real recourse is retaliation.

Yes, yes, he’s a “nice guy” and you “really like him.” Well boo-hoo-hoo. You may not enjoy teaching Spritzy this hard lesson (you will, trust me), but it’s got to be done, just like scolding a puppy that pees on your bed . . . while blackout-drunk. This is what you’ll want to do:

1) Tell your roommate you want to switch sides of the room. You may encounter a bit of resistance, but I’ve learned that a surefire technique for coaxing recalcitrant frosh is to make the task at hand a drinking game: the sweet nectar of shitbeer motivates like no other. It is best to do this late in the week.

2) The weekend or Tuesday immediately following the switch, your roommate is going to get hammered. This phase is very important.

3) While your roommate is out, set up a digital camcorder with night shot, aimed at your former bed (now his).

4) This is important: after he soils his own sheets, your disoriented friend may try to climb in bed with you. This is most likely not a come-on; he has probably forgotten which bed is his. You must be very firm with him. Whatever you do, do NOT allow him into your bed. If you anticipate difficulty here, watch a couple episodes of Super Nanny beforehand for inspiration.

5) Ideally, Spritzy will come to in sodden sheets, having marinated for several hours in his own urine. If this is not a shock enough to mend his incontinent ways, you might try either uploading the video of him soaking the bed he subsequently sleeps in to the Internet, that great dynamo of public humiliation, or go for a bigger shock. Consider booby-trapping the bed with a strategically disassembled low-voltage electric blanket. A man named Pavlov has done some interesting research with this method of behavior modification, and I feel that you may discover some of his findings to be very applicable in working out your predicament. Best of luck!

‘Major Barbara’ features Whitman alumnus

George Bernard Shaw’s controversial “Major Barbara,” directed by Nancy Simon, addresses unending issues concerning faith, morality and its relation to poverty.   The play centers around Major Barbara Undershaft, an officer of the Salvation Army in 1906, and her disillusionment regarding the corruption of Christian leaders to accept money from armament manufacturers.  Barbara Undershaft’s rejection of her world of affluence to provide charity and faith for the poor is challenged by her estranged father, a man who made millions selling ammunition.

Junior Kristan Brown plays Major Barbara. She describes the play as an exploration of “the true meaning of morality.”

“[The play is] witty and clever—a lot of fun!” said senior Kaitlin Phillips.

What made the production of this play truly unique was the return of Whitman alumnus (’77) and celebrated actor Mark Chamberlin, who was invited back to play Major Barbara’s estranged father, Andrew Undershaft.

“Mark was great!” said Kaitlin Phillips. “He’s really fun to work with and he definitely went out of his way to act as a kind of mentor to all of us.  It was a really enlightening experience, working with a professional actor.”

Major Barbara will be playing at Harper Joy Theatre Thursday, Feb. 28 through Sunday, March 2.

lindsey goes marilyn

Lindsay Lohan, of Mean Girls and LA party scene fame, recently graced the pages of New York Magazine’s spring fashion issue in a recreation of Marilyn Monroe’s infamous last photo shoot.  Bert Stern, 79, who conducted and photographed both the Last Sitting and Lohan’s shoot, captures Lohan, donning a short, blonde wig, copious amounts of liquid eyeliner and little to no clothing.  His representation of the two troubled starlets highlights an underlying beauty, expressed not necessarily through the photographs themselves, but through the starlets—and their public dramas—themselves.
Images from the Last Sitting, as the collection has come to be known, were shot at the Hotel Bel Air in the summer 1962.  Monroe was 36 at the time, and to put it simply, she was a hot mess.  She had two failed marriages under her belt, she had just been fired from a movie set, and she had endured a stint in a mental health facility in 1961.  During the shoot, an obviously intoxicated Monroe sipped on champagne for some of the pictures.  Her flaws and pain became transparent through her own beauty.

Lindsay Lohan is a hot mess as well.  Though 15 years younger than Monroe at the time of the Last Sitting, in 2007 alone Lohan made three trips to rehab, was involved in two drunk driving incidents, and was romantically linked to a slew of hot Hollywood actors.  The former Disney star was scrutinized for every move she made—any time she went to a bathroom stall, Internet bloggers claimed she was doing lines of coke off a toilet seat; anytime she was in the same room as a male, it was assumed that she’d stolen him from his wife and having ridiculous animal sex with him 24 hours a day.

The eight photos in New York Magazine feature the nude Lohan in nearly identical poses as Monroe.  Stern’s recreation is strangely shocking: the freckled actress, whose last film, I Know Who Killed Me, earned her two Golden Raspberry Awards for worst actress, evokes a certain amount of sadness as she wistfully poses with translucent scarves and diamond chains.  Also, Lohan’s boobs are very, very big.

While Monroe, though thin in her last months, defined the “hour glass” figure in American culture, Lohan symbolizes the latest wave of the nation’s ever-changing body image: she has enormous breasts and only the vaguest impression of hips.  The once purportedly bulimia-stricken actress is no longer the emaciated orange stick she was during the summer of 2005, but she is still a far cry from the size of the average woman and the shapely figure for which Monroe was known.

Visitors to the New York Magazine Web page crashed the site.  Nymag.com receives about 1.2 million hits a day, but when Lohan’s photos debuted, it received 20 million a day.  Train wrecks are fascinating, especially hot ones with big boobs.  We want to see them fail, and mark their failure with boudoir photos.

Watch out for the barbiturates LiLo, don’t let Stern’s work become a prophecy.

Off-campus workers get higher wages, out of ‘bubble’

Even though campus jobs are widely available, several Whitman students chose to find a job in Walla Walla. They note many benefits: Jobs off-campus usually pay better, can be carried through summer vacation and give students an opportunity to experience a world outside of Whitman. Five students give their perspective on working off-campus, including wages, responsibilities and the worst parts of their jobs.

Name: Kellie Wutzke
Workplace: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Wage: $11 per hour
“I needed a full-time job over the summer that I could continue part-time during the school year,” said junior Wutzke, who has worked as a budget technician since June. She takes care of property files, and enjoys the good environment and wonderful co-workers. In addition to working 16 hours per week, Wutzke also takes 20 credits at Whitman. “I have to get up at 5 a.m. to work before class,” she said. “That’s my least favorite part of my job.”

Name: Lissa Erickson
Workplace: Ski Bluewood
Wage: $9 per hour
Erickson, a first-year, works five hours every Saturday as a ski coach for Bluewood Alpine Race Team. She works with a group of four to six children between the ages of 8 and 10. “We free ski, do some drills and run gates,” she said. She’s been working at Bluewood since December, after her high school ski coach got her in contact with the head coach. “I love working with the kids and instilling in them a love of skiing,” said Erickson, “but keeping track of them sometimes makes me nervous—I’m worried they’ll get hurt!”

Name: Annabelle Berklund
Workplace: YMCA
Wage: $10 per hour
Berklund, a sophomore, works as a deck supervisor—she facilitates swim lessons, arranges schedules, manages registration, and gives advice to the swim instructors. She’s been working at the YMCA since last January, when a professor recommended she apply. Other Whitman students works at the Y for America Reads/Counts—“there are always jobs available, especially at the pool, so apply!” said Berklund. “It’s a great chance to meet people off campus. I have a lot of responsibility; it’s a taste of the real world.”

Name: Ben VanDonge
Workplace: First Presbyterian Church
Wage: $250 per month
Junior VanDonge shares the position of Co-Associate Director of Music with Addison Koski, another Whitman student. They lead worship service, coordinating music, worship teams, the calendar, and quarterly meetings. VanDonge, a native of Walla Walla who also works at Bright’s during breaks, was in the First Presbyterian youth group. “Worship is very important to me,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like work—I’d be doing it even if I wasn’t getting paid.”

Name: Katie King
Workplace: Luscious by Nature
Wage: $8.50 plus tips
King, a senior, has worked as a waitress at Luscious since September ’06. “I love knowing that I pay my own bills and getting out of the Whitman bubble is essential for my sanity!” she said in an e-mail. “Sometimes I feel left out, though: most Whitties don’t have jobs and spend their non-homework hours tossing a Frisbee, going camping and playing.” She enjoys serving professors who eat at Luscious—“I get to see them as ‘normal people.’” Her least favorite part of the job is cleaning up after small children. “When I am on the floor picking up potato chip crumbles, I find myself feeling particularly low: Why do I do this again? Oh wait, it’s my independence that makes it all worthwhile!” she said.

Decline of American reading culture: Literature’s struggle in face of pop culture

According to the 2004 survey by the National Endowment for the Arts called “Reading at Risk,” less than half of Americans read literature for pleasure.  The national decline in reading culture has been seen most notably in America’s youth.  The study also noted that the number of literary readers fell 10 percent between 1982 and 2002, but now the rate of decline is increasing.

These statistics may reflect what you’ve already been noticing or hearing about from your teachers and parents for a long time: reading culture in America is on a definite decline, heading towards what some fear is an ultimate demise.  It may have been translated into other forms of media or replaced entirely by new types of entertainment but pleasure reading, especially for young Americans, is becoming a thing of the past.

The most obvious culprit behind the decline in literature reading is the modern entertainment that seems to captivate most Americans: film, television, Internet, video games and so on.  Professor Scott Elliott of the Whitman English Department brought up the “Three Screens Theory,” which addresses the loss of interest in literary fiction due to its inability to compete with the combined forces of entertainment screens.

“This idea,” said Elliott, “operates on the assumption that people have only so much leisure time to devote to a certain number of activities and that they’re opting for the instant gratification they can find on the screens instead of finding the time and devoting the effort it takes to read books.”

The decline of literature also reflects our image-oriented culture.  Far more people would choose to experience a story on a screen than in a book.  The most successful books today are almost guaranteed to be made into movies.  While this  could be just another money-making strategy, it says something about our willingness to produce images in our imagination as opposed to having them fed to us.  Sadly, this explanation suggests a kind of mental laziness.  While hours of reality television shows and Xbox gaming does engage one’s brain in some ways, it is no substitute for the intellectual sustenance provided by a good novel.

Specifically among American youth, we can understand the decline of reading as an inability for literature to fit into the current pop culture scene.  Today’s money-obsessed world bombards us with media that dictates the paramount importance of sexiness, popularity, wealth and power.  Being well-read or intellectual has no place in this modern “cool” culture: If you can quote Robert Frost, you’re dubbed a nerd.

Lastly, one of the most profitable things the media can sell the American public is fear.  Constantly being on the lookout for the next catastrophic disease or terrorist attack makes this a fear-obsessed culture.  The rising popularity of books that tell you how to make money, how to eat, how to stay informed and safe and how to live confirm that literary fiction has lost its value as a source for understanding the world and human beings.  It is replaced by CNN and the new wave of “state of the world” non-fiction books that emerged after 9/11.

While we can comprehend why literature is being phased out, it is much harder to predict what its consequences will be for American culture.  If, in the end, we only lose a few brain cells and still get our daily news, we will still have lost a precious art form and our society will be that much dimmer.  So, on an optimistic note, I’d like to remind everyone that all books not for classes are always 20 percent off for students at the Whitman Bookstore.  Happy reading.

Patriots, pride and pins: Republican attacks on the Obamas

In a flurry of Internet postings, conservatives across the country have begun to attack the Obamas’ patriotism. Their “evidence” for Barack’s anti-Americanism is twofold: 1. He does not wear an American flag pin in his lapel and 2. There is a picture of him not covering his heart during the national anthem. Michelle Obama’s recent comment that, in light of the uniting and progressive movement growing behind her husband, she is truly “proud of her country for the first time” has also been the subject of mudslinging accusations of an unpatriotic character.

Let’s take each of these political barbs aimed at the Obamas and examine them closely. Since 9/11, a flag in the lapel has been a piece of the uniform for any politician caught within a football field of a camera, except Obama. He took his off in October. Conservatives reason that his unwillingness to sport the blaze of American freedom (in the shape of a five cent piece of tin) signals deeper anti-patriotism and a membership to what Republican strategist and swift boat add sponsor Keith Appell calls the “blame America first crowd.”

They miss the point. Obama’s entire candidacy is based on not blindly accepting the status quo ideas and symbols of American politics because a lot of them are dumb. He decided to take off his pin in Iowa because he though, in light of the Iraq war, it had become “a substitute for real patriotism.” He knows the truth: a lapel pin isn’t worth a shake of patriotism if the actions of its wearer are not truly in their county’s best interest.

As for the hand on the heart, give me a break. The type of tenuous logic so avidly clung to by conservative attack dogs that links missing the now-its-time-to-put-your-hand-over-your-heart cue to hating America is the same type that linked Iraq to Al Qaeda—bogus. To get a true sense of the patriotism of Obama (or anyone) you need more than a picture. Listen to his words, check out his policies and, most importantly, pay attention to his biography.

After finishing undergrad at Columbia, Obama went on to get his law degree at Harvard, where he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. His education ensured all the offers of six figure salaries and company cars one could want from Wall Street, but instead of pursuing riches, Obama decided to use his considerable talent to litigate in defense of civil liberties, the bedrock of American freedom. He dedicated his time to organizing communities in the most troubled areas of Chicago and helping the disenfranchised with his eloquent and powerful advocacy.

Perhaps in Republican America, where the dollar reigns supreme and profit is the greatest moral trump, he did do the unpatriotic thing by rejecting fortune on Wall Street. And maybe people like Keith Appell don’t like that he helped poor people for a modest living instead of screwing them over to earn a new SUV.  But I like it, and America needs it.

The third issue, Michelle’s statement about her limited pride for her country, has made a bigger splash in the news and with voters, especially when Cindy McCain, the presumptive potential First Lady for the Republicans, said she “always has been and always will be proud of her country.” I’m sorry Cindy, you were proud of America during the covered-up and horrific bombings of Cambodia under Nixon? The Iran Contra deal just make you glow with pleasure at your country’s national righteousness? Apparently so.

And that’s why I don’t want Cindy McCain to be first lady or her husband to be Commander-in-Chief—unquestioning pride is a foundational virtue for them. They and their Republican colleagues would attack the very notion that a presidential candidate should question the patriotism in a pin or that one woman’s national pride is reserved for deserving times. In my opinion the “America’s always right” crowd is far more pernicious than a “blame America first” crowd—what is patriotism without action or pride without limit? The lack of critical ability and nuance displayed by Republicans in this exchange has been astounding and its implications scare me more than threat of terrorist attack (oh shoot, I forgot were in a War on Terror—I’m afraid, McCain, really I am…).

On the other hand, I am filled with hope when presented with the possibility that two individuals of great analytical ability and courage, Michelle and Barack Obama, stand poised to lead our country for the next four years. Lapel pins have replaced patriotism for far too long; bring in the real deal.

Gateway Program sends WWCC students to Whitman

Full-time students are not the only people taking classes at Whitman. Two Whitman programs allow local community college students and high school students to take classes at Whitman as well.

The Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) Gateway Program was created two years ago.

“The primary purpose of the Gateway Program is to encourage low income and first generation, as well as other Walla Walla Community College students from diverse backgrounds, to pursue a liberal arts education at Whitman College,” said Dean of Admission & Financial Aid Tony Cabasco.

It allows qualified WWCC students to take one to two courses at Whitman during the spring semester alongside taking classes at WWCC. Based on the students’ performance in the class, they may apply as a transfer student to Whitman and will be given special consideration as a Gateway Program student.

Two WWCC students who took part in the Gateway Program are now fully enrolled at Whitman, and two WWCC students are currently in the program this semester.

“I took Core for my class, which sealed my decision to come to Whitman,” said junior Gabe Kiefel, a Gateway participant and now a full-time Whitman student.

“I think the Gateway Program is a great bridging program. It brings a kind of unity to the battle that exists between ‘Townies’ and ‘Whitties.’ Being both allows me to see the best of both worlds,” said Kiefel of his experience.

The long-standing High School Enrichment Program allows 16 local high school students to register for one class at Whitman each semester. The 16 spots in the program are allocated among Walla Walla High School and Desales Senior High School in Walla Walla and McLoughlin High School in neighboring Milton-Freewater.

The program is open to any high school student with a GPA of 3.6 or above, and interested students are required to fill out an application.

Students are able to register for any class offered as long as any pre-requisites are met. They receive college credit for the classes they take and a transcript from Whitman. Popular courses students in the program opt to take include these in the math and language departments.

Admission to the program was once fairly competitive; however, application rates have been down in the past years. The average number of students in this program is between 12 and 14 each semester. David Guichard, professor of mathematics and director of the High School Enrichment Program, attributes the decrease in admissions to changing schedules at the high schools, making it more difficult for students to find time and space in their schedules.

Although students who have been part of the High School Enrichment Program do sometimes enroll as full-time students at Whitman, unlike the Gateway Program this is not a goal of the program. Rather, it is to expose students to college-level work.

“It does something good for and gives back to the local community,” said Guichard.  “Students who take part in the program and their parents are very appreciative.”

Gateway Program sends WWCC students to Whitman

Full-time students are not the only people taking classes at Whitman. Two Whitman programs allow local community college students and high school students to take classes at Whitman as well.

The Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) Gateway Program was created two years ago.

“The primary purpose of the Gateway Program is to encourage low income and first generation, as well as other Walla Walla Community College students from diverse backgrounds, to pursue a liberal arts education at Whitman College,” said Dean of Admission & Financial Aid Tony Cabasco.

It allows qualified WWCC students to take one to two courses at Whitman during the spring semester alongside taking classes at WWCC. Based on the students’ performance in the class, they may apply as a transfer student to Whitman and will be given special consideration as a Gateway Program student.

Two WWCC students who took part in the Gateway Program are now fully enrolled at Whitman, and two WWCC students are currently in the program this semester.

“I took Core for my class, which sealed my decision to come to Whitman,” said junior Gabe Kiefel, a Gateway participant and now a full-time Whitman student.

“I think the Gateway Program is a great bridging program. It brings a kind of unity to the battle that exists between ‘Townies’ and ‘Whitties.’ Being both allows me to see the best of both worlds,” said Kiefel of his experience.

The long-standing High School Enrichment Program allows 16 local high school students to register for one class at Whitman each semester. The 16 spots in the program are allocated among Walla Walla High School and Desales Senior High School in Walla Walla and McLoughlin High School in neighboring Milton-Freewater.

The program is open to any high school student with a GPA of 3.6 or above, and interested students are required to fill out an application.

Students are able to register for any class offered as long as any pre-requisites are met. They receive college credit for the classes they take and a transcript from Whitman. Popular courses students in the program opt to take include these in the math and language departments.

Admission to the program was once fairly competitive; however, application rates have been down in the past years. The average number of students in this program is between 12 and 14 each semester. David Guichard, professor of mathematics and director of the High School Enrichment Program, attributes the decrease in admissions to changing schedules at the high schools, making it more difficult for students to find time and space in their schedules.

Although students who have been part of the High School Enrichment Program do sometimes enroll as full-time students at Whitman, unlike the Gateway Program this is not a goal of the program. Rather, it is to expose students to college-level work.

“It does something good for and gives back to the local community,” said Guichard.  “Students who take part in the program and their parents are very appreciative.”

web review: stuff white people like

Do you ever feel culturally deprived within the so-called bubble we live in at Whitman? Do you wish there was an efficient way to make up for all the opportunities a city or foreign country would offer without actually leaving the campus? All this and more can be found at the best blog I’ve encountered in quite a while: “Stuff White People Like”, which offers a world of insight concerning a people Whitman is all too unfamiliar with. But in all sincerity, there is certainly some perspective to be reaped from it: it is intuitive satire and unlike The Onion or The Daily Show, the target is not Bill O’Reilly, it is us: the liberal, cultured and all-too-ready to offer a tasteful opinion concerning indie music or a principled solution to climate change. Since its inception at the beginning of this year, entries have been posted with titles such as “Diversity” (“but only as it relates to restaurants”), “Mos Def”, “Knowing What’s Best for Poor People”, “Wes Anderson Movies”, and “Microbreweries”, with each taking an anthropological approach to the strange culture of “white people” (which essentially means liberal, college-educated, young white people if you hadn’t determined that already—Nascar and Larry the Cable Guy are nowhere to be found on the list).
What distinguishes “Stuff White People Like” from a thriving pack of smart, irreverent satirists—Stephen Colbert, the aforementioned staff of The Onion, et cetera—is the site’s integration of self-examination into cultural critique. One can assume, from the ironic tone of the entries and the depth of knowledge concerning the culture being examined, that the blogger is part of the “white culture” being critiqued.

This assumption is confirmed when you look through the blogger’s photos, in which she is revealed to be a youngish Caucasian woman whose interests seem to include many of the same things listed on the website.

Often times, the culture for which we can thank for the most esteemed satire of our age ignores the self-importance that its cultural critiques are predicated upon, detracting from its validity. “Stuff White People Like” joins the honored ranks of satire that avoids this pitfall, falling a bit short of South Park but possessing the same irreverent spirit and general disdain for the intellectually sterilizing cult of political correctness. It expresses an understanding that hyphenated last names and natural medicine are just as ripe for criticism as the requisite satirical targets of Red-State cultural obsessions. If the potential for obtaining a bit of perspective isn’t enough of an incentive to check out “Stuff White People Like”, do it because its one hell of an entertaining read. As Kanye West wrote of the site on his own blog—“This Blog is 2 Funny!”—and if there’s two things white people love, they’re Kanye West and blogging.

(url: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com)

Stop stressing over calories, just eat it

“What are those?” Kelley asked me as I popped some capsules into my mouth, swigged water and swallowed.

“Fish oil. Good for your hair, skin. Prevents cancer and heart disease and Alzheimer’s and diabetes. You know, your all around feel-good pill.”

“Weird,” she said. “Fish oil? How many do you take a day?”

“Four. 4,000 milligrams.”

She considered this. “Well, how many calories do they have?”

“Seriously, Kelley, calories?” Keiko inserted. “They’re VITAMINS.”

“Fifteen maybe?” I guessed. “I don’t know.”

Kristen shook her head. “That’s SIXTY CALORIES a DAY.”

“So?”

“So…that’s like six extra minutes on the elliptical!”

Okay, HOLD ON. Just hold on a damn minute, calorie girls, and listen here: STOP. Stop with the calories. Stop thinking about calories. Stop looking for the calories on the nutrition facts of a Snapple. Stop adding calories together when you eat four M&M’s and a piece of cheese. Stop calculating the calories you burn as you speed walk along a treadmill in Baker-Ferguson. And please, for the love of God and for the sake of everyone around you, stop talking about them.

In December of 2007, Health magazine cited a study that showed a person’s general intake of calories from year to year varies by only 10 calories. TEN! So, if you are the average person like the FDA assumes and intake 2,000 calories a day, in one year you consume about 730,000 calories. That means last year, you probably ate 730,000, and this year it was 730,010.

Or 729,990. And most people burn about what they eat every day. It takes 3,500 EXTRA calories to gain only ONE pound. Not 10 extra calories. Not even close.

The barely significant disparity of 10 calories explains the fact that generally, most people do not change from Bosc-pear-shaped to pencil-stick-shaped to Bosc again in a matter of three years, unless they alternate their breakfast habits yearly, switching from starting their day with chair-sized chocolate bunnies to munching on a single baby carrot.

So why bust your balls for 10 calories? You will eat what you are going to eat eventually. If you don’t eat the Snickers bar tonight, you probably will next weekend when you have a sore case of the drunk munchies; and if you fight those munchies that night, they’ll get you next month, or this summer. If you want that Snickers, you will find your way to it.

But fear not—one Snickers bar, a bowl of fettuccine alfredo, an extra tablespoon of olive oil in your stir fry, or a second banana will not make you fat. So chill out. Eat it if you want it, don’t if you don’t, and just stop thinking—and talking—about it. Just like no one cares what you eat, no one will care if you eat 3,500 calories worth of Snickers bars and gain ONE POUND from it. No one will notice. YOU probably won’t even notice.

Less-cal, low-cal or no-cal does not equate to health. A scoop of almond butter is a hell of a lot healthier than three packages of Splenda in your tea, and that’s a calorie ratio of 200 to zero. Use your common sense. Ignore the calories and look at the ingredients. If it says: cashews, almonds, pistachios, strawberries, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, dates, raisins, cane juice and sea salt (such as a Ms. May’s Trio bar), it probably has a billion calories and its probably really good for you. However, if its ingredients reads: carbonated water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine, aspartame, potassium benzoate, citric acid blah blah and shit you can’t even pronounce (such as a can of Diet Coke), then it probably has 0 calories and it will probably eventually eat away at your bones and blood and heart like a hungry termite in a damp tree.

So just don’t be silly. It’s all common sense. Calories won’t kill you. And yes, you can take fish oil without getting fat from 60 extra calories a day. I promise.

MY DIARY: Seek ‘deliverance’ from summer jobs

I know you’ve started thinking about it: What are you going to do this summer?

Last summer was lame. You thought it would be cool to see if you could eat an entire box of Otter Pops in one day and then beat Halo IN JAPANESE (easier than it sounds, actually), but after like three days it turned out to be mind-numbingly dull.

Plus, you ran out of money really really fast and your parents would only pay for boring stuff like trips to the dentist and four-cheese Hot Pockets. So this summer has to be different.

And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’re going to get a summer job.

Well, you’re wrong.

Don’t get defensive. I get the appeal of the summer job. Oh, how charming it would be to live the blue-collar lifestyle! What humble delight to use one’s BODY rather than one’s exhausted mind! The grit of retail or food handling or custodial labor appeals to you. You’re up for it.

You’re wrong.

Trust me: I have attempted all of these. Pizza parlor, paper route, Target soft lines, you name it. I also dated someone who was a cherry-picker (funny story: One time he was picking cherries and HE LOST HIS LEFT LEG. Just kidding. MAYBE.) Every menial labor summer job sucks. It’s a fact.

And to prove this to you, I am printing a few noteworthy paragraphs from my diary the summer I thought it would be “noble” and “interesting” to deliver Oregonians. Enjoy.

Dear Diary,
My first day of work was an experience.

NOTE: This sentence is unfinished. It should say, “My first day of work was an experience… akin to rubbing cyanide on one’s genitals.”

Work began at 2 a.m. and ended at 5 a.m. There is nothing good that happens between these hours. Not a single thing. The only good thing that happens between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. is that normal people get sleep and this keeps them alive.

I’m pretty sure my boss is a racist.

NOTE: This guy was like 19 but he looked 37 because he literally NEVER SLEPT. He liked to make comments to me in front of the fluent-in-English Latino worker such as, “Pedro can’t talk worth shit but them aliens is good at throwing.” You think I’m overdoing it for dramatic emphasis. I’m not.

My boss let me into his very smoky car to show me the route. He could throw the papers pretty well, but I was not very good at it.

NOTE: My boss had sadly missed his calling as a pitcher for the New York Yankees (and I’m pretty sure even Jim Abbott couldn’t have hurled floppy newspapers up entire flights of stairs out of a tiny cracked window of a Geo Prizm WHILE DRIVING the way this guy could). So it was pretty embarrassing when I hit various hanging plants, climbing roses, garage doors, windows and a cat.

By the time it was 4 a.m., I was exhausted, sore and tense.

NOTE: And vaguely suicidal.

At 9 a.m. I woke up and told my mom about my experience, and she suggested I quit. She doesn’t understand that parents are supposed to be SUPPORTIVE. They are supposed to make you pancakes and tell you the day will be better tomorrow.

NOTE: Obviously, this is one of those situations where you’re SO SURE in the moment that your parents are SO WRONG and then in like four days you realize they were SO PAINFULLY RIGHT, but you don’t want to admit it so you insistently deny the truth until you’ve either killed yourself or killed someone you care about or had a sex change operation or something equally dire. Moral: Parents are old for a reason: So they can wisely advise you not to do stupid shit. Listen to them.

There are some perks, I guess. For one thing, Z100 plays really good music at 3:30 in the morning, including but not limited to Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway,” Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and R. Kelly’s “Remix to Ignition.” Also, this job pays a lot because no one wants to do it. Also, there are these two guys named Ron who I really liked.

NOTE: Lots to say here. First of all, that first perk really is pretty spectacular. Not only does Z100 play great music, but ALL RADIO STATIONS play great music at 3:30 in the morning. I guess that’s because no one’s listening and they just kind of play out their archives and never do any commercials, but whatever the reason, it’s pretty great. No wonder insomniacs exist.

Second, I know I say that this job “pays a lot.” That’s actually a lie. My boss made it SOUND like the job paid a lot by doing complicated math in front of me (multiplication IS complicated if someone does it really, really fast), but the definition of “a lot” is 8 cents a paper. And even though I delivered upwards of 300 papers a night, there was no way I would ever be good enough at it that I would earn minimum wage.

Finally (and crucially), The Rons (I started calling these two guys named Ron—which, by the way, is NOT that common a name—The Rons within a day of starting my route) were hysterical. They were really a sitcom waiting to be written. They talked like a weirder, late-night parody of “Who’s On Third.” Actual Ron-on-Ron dialogue:

RON: Hey Ron.
RON: Hey Ron.
RON: Can you run these to Edward, Ron?
RON: Do you really want me to run, Ron?
RON: Yeah. Then I want you to fuck Edward in the ass.
RON: Raunchy, Ron.

And so on and so forth. And they did this all with a straight face, as if it was the commonest thing in the world. I wish I had tried to stay pen-pals with The Rons. Alas.

Anyway. The point is that when the “perks” of your job are good radio songs and a pair of guys named Ron, the “Abort” button should go off in your brain immediately.

Anyway, I think things will get better. The first day is always the hardest, though, right? I’m soooo tired,

I’m going to take a nap.

Love,
Sophie

NOTE: Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Highlights of subsequent paper-delivery nights: Twisting my ankle on someone’s steps after my flashlight burned out, watching my car roll down the hill and into a telephone pole, accidentally smashing at like 35-miles-per-hour into someone’s parked Honda Civic, wetting myself in the rain after two hours of holding it for too long (coffee is a double-edged sword in this profession), and seeing some exhibitionist’s penis as he stood in all his naked glory in front of his bay window at 4 a.m. staring at me.
What I’m trying to say is that no summer job will ever be worth it. Apply for that internship you always wanted, or get some volunteer stint at a summer camp. But skip the “classic” summer job. It’s just not worth it.

XX cough cough: a survey of “women’s cigarettes”

If there is one thing I know, its cigarettes. I know that if you see someone rolling their own cigarettes, they don’t particularly want to – they’re just broke. And I know that Marlboro Reds are the telltale sign of a loose woman (My apologies to women who smoke Marlboro Reds. Although, maybe if you stopped fucking anything with a pulse, that stereotype would go away). I know that menthols are for meth addicts and people who don’t care about their taste buds.

If there is another thing I know, its women, and not just because I am one. And so it is natural that I would write a review of cigarettes marketed to women. In my expert opinion, this market can be broken down into the “Big Four” – Camel No. 9s, Mistys, Capris and Virginia Slims.

Camel No. 9s: Perhaps I should be offended by the idea that the only way to package women’s cigarettes is to put a shit ton of pink all over the package. But I’m not. It’s a pretty cool package – black and hot pink. The name is also genius, reminiscent of Chanel No. 5. Plus, the actual cigarette has vertical, as opposed to horizontal lines. I don’t know what the real purpose of this is, but it reminds me that vertical stripes are slimming. A cigarette that reminds you not to show off your back fat – now that’s ingenuity! All in all, the cigarette is smokable, but not great. A solid 6.

Virginia Slims: I bought the 120 Luxury Ultra Lights. For those of you who aren’t cool (I mean, don’t smoke) 120 just means that they are ridiculously long cigarettes, 120 mm as opposed to the normal 85 mm. I liked these because they made me feel like Cruella de Vil, albeit without the holder. However, although feeling like a woman who kills puppies was fun for a while, the cigarette is way, way too long. You have to really suck to get the smoke into your lungs, and for those who don’t know, smokers don’t really have a hell of a lot of lung capacity. I suppose I didn’t have to get the 120s, but, you know, they were luxury. My hands were tied. To sum up, I would take the cigarette if it were free, but I wouldn’t pay money for it.

Misty: Also 120s, but by no means luxury. There isn’t a whole lot to say about these. I would rather smoke mulch. The saving grace of these cigarettes is the packaging, featuring a bizarre pastel rainbow, similar to the eighties-style “paintings” you can still find at any Kwik Kuts.

Capris: Okay, R.J. Reynolds. You got me. I love these. How on earth could you know that I love shit that is miniature? I didn’t even know that I wanted to smoke toothpick-sized cigarettes until I opened that wonderful white pack with the watercolor orchid. Really, love at first light. Besides the taste and size, I also enjoy these because I feel as though I am not dying quite as fast given that I am smoking fun-sized cigarettes.

I don’t really want to conclude this article in the way that one would expect from a woman reviewing women’s cigarettes. I could say that it’s an outrage that cigarette companies try to sell cancer to women by making the product miniature, pink, and “luxury”. And I guess it is. But, at the same time, most of these brands have been around for quite a while, and the newer Camel No. 9s are doing pretty well, so maybe the tobacco industry has really gotten into women’s heads. Whether the packaging is an outrage or a success, my guess is that most of the readers would probably prefer that cigarettes simply didn’t exist.

Furthermore, it is doubtful that any smoker, female or male, would actually change brands based on this review. So, fuck it, I guess. If the whim grabs you, pick up a pack of Capris.

Fast Forward: Notes on the future of ‘Lost’

For those with patience, and a strong ability to ignore the sense of being dragged inexorably toward disappointment, “Lost”—on ABC, Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. this season—has provided all the fascination, thrills and pseudo-metaphysical mumbo jumbo of “Twin Peaks” and “The X-Files” while, remarkably, being hip enough to attract hordes of viewers without duct tape on their glasses. Now that executive producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof have announced that the show will definitively end with its 117th episode in 2010, the fourth most-watched show on television has a lot going for it.

For those who yet retain their dignity, “Lost,” loosely speaking, is about the survivors of a plane crash—Oceanic flight 815—who find themselves on a mysterious island that attracts some very mysterious people. For the truly curious neophyte, much better than reading this article would be to visit abc.com and watch “Lost: Past, Present, & Future,” a summary show that races through the first three seasons in just 43 minutes.

But for those who have followed the show so far, who have the brain disorder to visit sites like thefuselage.com and Wikipedia’s “Characters of ‘Lost’” chart, who examine freeze-frames for dates on background posters, who read meticulously-rendered transcripts of the creepy whispers which run simultaneously from separate audio channels—in short, for those of us under the vast delusion that “Lost” is actually going somewhere, a lot is at stake. As a devoted yet world-weary Lostie looking ahead to the show’s 44 remaining episodes, I have some concerns.

Personally, I was appalled by the much-ballyhooed third season twist ending, but now I understand its purpose. The flashback gimmick had run out of steam, and The Powers That Be (known as TPTB on any worthy “Lost” discussion board) audaciously decided to effect what has amounted to a paradigm shift at the midpoint of the series. Now we are no longer so much concerned with what will happen as with how what we know will happen will happen. Who are the Oceanic Six? Why is Sayid working for Ben? Why is Kate posing as Aaron’s mother? These have been delightful twists for the frenzied evening discussion board, but I urge the writers to be prudent. Do not sweep us away in an endless barrage of new twists—remember that we are already neck-deep.

Consider IGN’s 2006 article, “The Top 50 ‘Lost’ Loose Ends.” The absurdity of any one show having more than 50 dangling plot threads notwithstanding, what is alarming is that only about half of these mysteries have been resolved since 2006, and the intervening episodes have raised at least as many new questions. “Lost” threads still hanging as of last Thursday include the second-season food supply drop, the DHARMA shark, the demise of Rousseau’s original team, the captured tailies, everything to do with Libby, Eko’s portentous staff, Desmond’s clairvoyance, Adam & Eve, why Beatrice asked Mikhail to kill her, why Richard doesn’t seem to age and the fact that Jack and Claire are half-siblings—and this doesn’t even include fourth-season humdingers like “What is Christian Shepard doing in Jacob’s cabin?!”

What is dangerous about this new season, in all its lovely complexity, is that the machinations of the show’s plot threaten to overwhelm its characters. If I can sum up my advice to Mr. Abrams and Mr. Lindelof, it amounts to this: NO MORE NEW CHARACTERS. The chopper crew has a lot of work to do to make up for taking screen time away from Sun, Jin, Claire, Rose, Bernard and Desmond, even if they do represent answers to some of our more persistent questions. One can say of “Lost,” they built this city on mysterious plot twists—but those of us who have stayed true for three years know that we will only keep returning so long as there are characters worth caring about. At present, I don’t give a whit about Miles and his, er, explosive predicament—but I’ve invested an awful lot in worrying about Sun, and she’s only been on screen a handful of minutes this season.

The danger, as the show spirals outward into long-awaited explorations of the North Pole theory (as in the Tunisian polar bear—see thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=87153) and the Time Lag theory (as in Farraday’s experiment gone awry––see thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=88477) is that next to the awesome scope of its metaphysical mysteries, the show’s characters may be reduced to running to and fro as all the plot pieces slide into place around them. The trouble with the flash-forwards is that for the first time, Jack, Hurley, Kate and Sayid know more than we do; this creates a divide between us and our favorite characters, which may become a rift if it persists too long.

Let us hope that amid all the deranged speculation of fans with far, far too much time (as one self-professed on these pages), TPTB will remember that their show is about people finding themselves, more than it is about fans finding clues.

OpenSecrets.org: Your portal to our corrupt national reality

Being mocked in the eighth grade is rough, but certainly not exceptional. Being mocked for publicly espousing love for Ralph Nader on the morning of the 2000 U.S. Presidential election is not only rough and exceptional, it’s revealing.

I proudly wore a Nader T-shirt on the day for which Nader would be hated the most he’s ever been hated. And Nader is in a select league which counts Judas, Walter Cromwell and Clay Aiken as members, among others. As of that fateful day, Nader was public enemy number one, in a different sense than he had ever been.

But I, for one, still love the guy. The fact that I was mocked that day, and continue to be so treated, reveals a disturbing fact about American politics, a fact which first drew me to Nader, even when I couldn’t vote: The American people have no idea what they’re up against, and don’t appear to care.

I had a vague sense as an eighth grader (politely instilled by my otherwise politically mainstream parents) that the share of power in the U.S. is not where we are told, and hasn’t been for a long time. That sense is now completely confirmed fact.
We are an ostensibly democratic country which continues, time and time again, unaware of the reality, to vote for candidates that are shamelessly made and promoted by ostensibly private corporations.

All of this leads me to make a suggestion to every single person who may read this article. Before voting for Obama, McCain, Clinton, or Huckabee (unlikely), go to a Web site called opensecrets.org. Yes, that’s .org for those of you whose interest in celebrities’ dirty laundry was piqued; sorry.

In fact, before you even get excited about a candidate and tell all your friends that you’re cool now because you love him (him = Obama of course), go to opensecrets.org. If you want to vote for Ron Paul or Mike Gravel, or any of the list of legitimate public servants, don’t waste the bandwidth.

Then again, they’ve all been pushed out for not being whores, so check it out anyway, just so you have some experience with the political equivalent of choosing between Wendy’s and Arby’s. Actually, since those vaunted establishments of quality eats are at least legitimate businesses, a more apt metaphor might be the choice between being gifted a pair of concrete shoes by Al Capone or getting beheaded by Blackbeard’s sword.

Clearly, I feel strongly about what I see as the perverse nature of our political reality. A distinct and refreshing aspect about opensecrets.org, however, is that it is entirely dispassionate. The vast majority of the information we receive about politics is politicized, and this coercive material forms the entire perspective for much of the voting populace.

The site, managed by the D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics, simply collects, arranges and collates the financial data of political campaigns nationwide. The Center’s mission statement is as follows:

“The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy. The Center conducts computer-based research on campaign finance issues for the news media, academics, activists and the public at large. The Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government.”

Imagine that. A media outlet which provides a valuable service: educating voters, not merely feeding them two polarities and watching the massive game of Red-Rover which ensues. So, please, for the sake of your education as a citizen, check out opensecrets.org.

You can look up the financial data on candidates in which your interested, see which corporations and PACs have donated to which campaigns, even type in your rich uncle’s name to see just how much cash he spends on x politician instead of you. There’s hope yet, everybody; may not one more eighth grader suffer for the ignorance of a nation.

Election 2008: McCain’s march toward militarism

Every election cycle, candidates spin their record to their benefit.  John McCain is no different.  While he’s not claiming to be a Washington outsider like Mike Huckabee, he’s seen as a straight-talking maverick who knows about war. His decorated service in Vietnam gives him credibility when he talks about foreign policy.

However, credibility is perception, so it’s outside your control. McCain’s credibility as the candidate with the most foreign policy experience rests upon the voters believing that his experiences in Vietnam and in the Senate make him uniquely qualified to protect America.

However, this isn’t necessarily true.

At its most basic level, John McCain’s foreign policy is about maintaining U.S. hegemony.  In an article he wrote for the magazine Foreign Affairs, McCain reiterates an argument for a stronger more militaristic foreign policy.  To him, the U.S. needs to promote a new international organization, the League of Democracies.  Also, we can’t leave Iraq; we need to raise more than 150,000 more troops for the occupation.  Finally, we need to ratchet up our support of Israel.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  It’s a assumed that everyone in the world loves democracy, that it’s irresponsible to leave Iraq, that having more troops will solve terrorism and that Israel is a beacon of shining hope in the Middle East.  Well, right-wing Republican warmongers take these assumptions as true.  While it’s widely known that John McCain believes we can win in Iraq, even if our troops must stay for 100 years, McCain’s plans for raising 150,000 more troops and blindly supporting Israel are just as important and equally as troubling as his position on Iraq.

The U.S. army is being overstretched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Soldiers are reluctantly being forced back for more tours of duty, the qualifications to enlist are being relaxed and the army is resorting to throwing money at potential recruits.  So when John McCain says we need 150,000 more troops, it sounds like a great idea.  But barring the draft, there simply aren’t many ways to raise a larger army if the public doesn’t support what that army is being used for.  If people don’t want to support a war with no end in sight that’s been mismanaged worse than Britney’s music career, then promising to pay for college won’t sway them.

Moreover, having a larger army would be costly and would not necessarily make the United States more secure.  The war on terrorism is not a war primarily fought on battlefields with tanks and airplanes like old war movies.  It’s not really a war just fought in the streets of Baghdad.  It’s a war to reshape the perception and beliefs of millions of people.  It’s a war to redefine the United States as just rather than a purely self-interested hypocritical hegemon.  It may be hard for John McCain to understand, but winning the War on Terror will never occur just because we bombed and killed the right people.

Also, a McCain candidacy would continue the same neoconservative view that Israel’s national security interests are the same as the United States’.  Despite the fact that Israel is the most wealthy and heavily armed nation in the Middle East, 30 percent of our foreign aid budget is devoted to Israel.  More importantly, McCain calls for “ensuring that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge,” which means that Israel not only needs more missiles and guns but also the best ones.  Ironically, one of the reasons why many people in the Middle East hate the United States is because of our record of unquestionably supporting Israel.  We can’t forge peace if one side distrusts us.

John McCain served his country honorably and is one of the most deeply patriotic individuals in U.S. politics.  However, his record of service does not justify his militaristic views on how to conduct U.S. foreign policy.  Promoting U.S. hegemony does not necessarily make us more secure but in fact may make us more vulnerable.

Point/Counterpoint: Of ‘Primary’ importance: are primaries good for America? NO

No one ever accused the Democratic party of being efficient. More likely descriptions would include unstrategic, unintelligent and, minus the 2006 midterms, borderline incompetent. One thing they are rarely accused of is being unfair, but one look at the train wreck better known as the primary elections may change that.

The selection process in flawed in several ways. First, many state don’t hold primaries, but instead hold caucuses which are fundamentally undemocratic. In a caucus, an individual must plan to spend a substantial amount of time in a meeting as people shuffle from one side of the room to another, switching sides and listening to people argue for their candidates.

While this may seem like an exercise in civic discourse, it is one only a small number of people can actually participate in, as caucuses are often too small, under-resourced, poorly organized, and confusing for voter. Moreover, if an individual is busy during the time the meetings are held, they are left out, a fact that hits working class families particular hard as many are forced to choice between their job and their vote.

All this leads to caucuses having anywhere from 30 to 75 percent fewer voters than primaries. While this system worked well in small states in the past, it was poorly designed to meet the massive turnout seen this year.

Yet even if your state holds a primary, it’s likely that those votes will not be decisive. With an Democratic electorate split roughly 50/50 between two dynamic candidates, the decision of who will be the nominee will likely fall to the so called “superdelegates,” people selected by the national party, not the voters, to have say in the process. These include members of the House, Senate and former presidents (Bill Clinton does indeed have a vote), but it also includes other party faithful like organizers (the youngest is a 21-year-old junior from Marquette University). These 795 delegates constitute 20 percent of the total vote at the convention and are completely free to vote for whomever they want regardless of the will of their constitutes, unlike the pledged delegates from each state who have to support who the people tell them to.

That’s not all. Superdelgates were added to the process in 1982 specially to make the votes of the people less important.

According to syndicate writer Susan Estrich, the party had had enough “fringe” voters (a code word for blacks, environmentalists and sexual minorities) showing up in large numbers at the primaries and voting for candidates who the establishment felt were undesirable such as George McGovern, whose liberal stances helped get him roundly defeated in 1972. They thus created superdelegates to ensure the party had more say in electing the nominees, which they did in choosing establishment favorite Walter Mondale in 1984.

While this may be seen by some as a acceptable argument about “electability,” it’s important to remember that Mondale also was roundly defeated, and the DNC has not had good luck in wining presidential elections of late anyway. The fact is the process is no longer defendable and smacks of cronyism. Frankly, this writer, as a college junior, feels deeply uncomfortable with a idea of a college junior holding the equivalent voting power of 10,000 American citizens.

Finally, the most important state in this election is likely to not even be a state, but the island of Puerto Rico. They are the last area to vote (June 7) and, despite having no electoral college votes in November, have 55 primary delegates, which is more than Wyoming, Idaho and New Hampshire combined.

Puerto Rico has a large number of unpledged delegates and a tradition of forcing all its delegates to go to the winner, which means it could functionally serve as a “winner take all” state, giving it almost as much power as California or New York in this process. Thus, even if a candidate lost the American popular vote and pledged delegate count, if they:
a. Win the Puerto Rico caucus and gets most of those delegates,
or
b. Overwhelmingly win the super delegates,
they could still get the nomination, even though it would contradiction to the will of the American people.

This is an abomination to the democratic process and a disgrace to the ideas of hope and change that have embodied this election. The solution is simple: Allocate delegates as a proportion of the national popular vote. This eliminates the selective “swing state” politics that has plagued general elections, and would give every American an equal say in the process.

Until then, there will never be a truly “Democratic” party nominee, for as long as candidates continue to be chosen by elites in smoke-filled rooms, America’s hopes for genuine democracy will go up in flames.

Open-source movement supported by WCTS

Windows and Macintosh rule the campus, but pockets of alternative technologies and cutting edge applications can be found throughout Whitman.

“The faculty and student demand determines what services and equipment we provide,” said Shannon Callister, director of information technology support services. “We maintain the two operating systems that people are most used to.”

Institutional support for two different technologies is not standard at an institution like Whitman, according to Callister.

Of the 891 individual student computers registered with the college residence computer network, 52 percent run Microsoft Windows and 46 percent use Macintosh. Nationally Macintosh has only 4 percent market share.

The proportions of the available computers are determined according to demands of the particular location. According to Callister, the computer lab in Maxey Hall has only three Macintosh workstations because the faculty prefer programs used for the social sciences to run on Windows.

On the second floor of the Olin Hall the math department maintains an independent computer laboratory. All the computers run Linux operating system with several graphical interfaces available.

Unlike Macintosh and Windows, Linux is classified as open-source software. This status means that the source code that constitutes the program is openly available to the public free of charge and can be modified by the users.

“The lab is the home of computer sciences on campus,” said Albert Schueller, chair of the mathematics department. “Our academic requirements are too complicated for the WCTS to support easily.”

The lab also contributes to a healthy campus community of Linux users, according to the mathematics department Web site. Students not taking mathematics courses are welcome to use the lab. Interested students have to contact the department to get an account.

Around 50 people use Linux on their personal computers, according to Schueller.

The ability to make modifications was behind the college’s choice to switch to the open-source class content management system CLEo, according to the system’s manager Mike Osterman.

“Using open-source often makes good sense,” said Osterman. “Our costs have gone down and users have benefited.”

CLEo is based on the Sakai project, and Whitman belongs to the community of institutions that draw on the Sakai code for their individual system applications. Various components of the system are provided and maintained by various institutions in different parts of the world. The feature that provides automatic enrollment on CLEo was developed at Whitman.

Both open- and closed-source operating systems can be found on the servers that run the other college’s information systems.

“We look at what the server needs to do and select the best choice [of operating system],” wrote Kevin Kelly, director of network technology, in an e-mail.

The college pays a license fee for running closed-source software on servers or individual computers.

“Microsoft’s closed-source software is overpriced,” said senior Ryuhei Yokokawa.

Last year with Paul Carduner, a former Whitman student now working as a software developer, Yokokawa organized Software Freedom Day and distributed open-source programs and Linux Ubuntu, a particularly user-friendly Linux version.

“The more people know about open-source the less likely a corporation like Microsoft will take over the world,” said Carduner. “Open-source brings democracy to knowledge.”

The open-source concept can be applied to more than software. Whitman Direct Action, a student-run development group, strives to be the first ever open-source organization.

“I’m pretty sure we can make that claim because the technology to make it practical has only been around for less than a year,” wrote Daniel Bachhuber, former Whitman student and the technical administrator of the organization, in an e-mail.

All information regarding the organization’s structure, meeting minutes and project details is available on the organization’s Web site. Transparency, accountability and community involvement are the main benefits of the open-source structure, according to Bachhuber.

As Carduner sees it, the open-source movement is opening up society and education. He cites governments and industries moving toward more open software and document formats as reason for an educational institution like Whitman to embrace open-source.

“In 10 years you might be required by law to use open-source,” said Carduner.

The cost saving benefits of open-source technologies are appealing also to the non-governmental sector.

“Your open-source skills allow the organization save money and makes you a better candidate for the job,” said Yokokawa.

Schueller remains skeptical about the widespread acceptance of Linux but sees it as useful to those in technical careers.
“Switching to Linux is a steep learning curve,” said Joel Klipfel, a senior and a consultant at the math lab, who installed Linux on his computer after he enrolled at Whitman.

The pro-Linux advocates and college staff agree that more open-source technologies will be available if there is demand from students and the faculty. “WCTS are proud to pursue open-source,” said Callister.

Climate Challenge, frats reduce energy usage

As a participant of the National Campus Energy Challenge, Whitman is competing among 117 schools to reduce the highest percentage of energy in the month of February. The competition brings together two campus groups that haven’t yet collaborated: the fraternities and Campus Climate Challenge, which is an off-shoot of Campus Greens focused on global warming issues.

“Greek life isn’t usually involved in environmental things on campus,” said sophomore Lisa Curtis, a member of Campus Climate Challenge. “It’s cool to see collaboration between the fraternities and a club.”

Whitman’s involvement in the national competition originated with Campus Climate Challenge. Curtis entered the college on the first day of the challenge, Feb. 5.

Since then, members of the club have contacted representatives of the Physical Plant, the Interest House Community, on-campus dorms, sororities and fraternities.

Junior Sophia Sady volunteered to approach the fraternities about their participation in the challenge.

“It’s a great opportunity to spread the scope [of Campus Climate Challenge’s goals], and to make sure that our focus isn’t always concentrated with the same groups,” Sady said.

The benefits of working with the fraternities go beyond unifying different groups, however.

“The fraternities contribute a large part of the energy consumed on campus,” she said.

Sady posted flyers about the challenge in the fraternities and has sent out e-mail reminders that are forwarded on to fraternity listservs. She also “harasses people individually.”

“People are excited,” she said. “People want to be responsible for the environment, and it’s good to have structure that gives them that opportunity.”

“The awareness and willingness to address these issues are definitely there,” said Interfraternity Council President and TKE, Chase Cooper, a junior. Even before the TKEs were approached about the challenge, they had already implemented a “very structured” recycling system earlier this semester.

As far as the national competition is concerned, “We have the rest of the month to tease out these issues and demonstrate an awareness that’s in line with the changing ethos and emphasis on environmental issues that the college is moving toward,” said Cooper.

Nationally, the incentive to win the competition is recognition—National Campus Energy Challenge posts the winner on its Web site, which can be a boon for admissions.

On campus, whichever fraternity reduces the most energy will receive a party and the winning interest house will receive baked goods from IHC Resident Director, Evan Carman.

The percentage reduction in energy is calculated with a baseline of the three previous Februarys’ energy use. Campus Climate Challenge has been working closely with the Physical Plant for energy usage information.

In February 2007, the interest houses and dorms consumed 15,644 BTU of gas, totaling $42,595.10, and 139,043 kwn of power, totaling $7,579.10. The rest of the campus, including fraternities and academic and administrative buildings, consumed 59,517 BTU and 179,963.8 kwh.

The club is advertising over the students’ listserv and with mailbox stuffers. They have offered many ideas for saving energy, including turning off a computer instead of putting it on standby, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, biking instead of driving your car, and unplugging unused electronics, which consume 40 percent of their energy even when not in use.

The Challenge’s Web site also suggested some less conventional ways to conserve energy, Curtis said. These included: showering with a buddy, doing it in the dark, and holding a cuddle session.

Additionally, the group is advertising “Wear Green Day” on Thursday, Feb. 21, and a voluntary blackout from 7 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28, when students are encouraged to turn out all lights.

‘Non-Shock Jocks’ talk: Scandal

ASCH:
It is a slow time of year for the mainstream sports fan.  In this post-Super Bowl hangover period college basketball’s conference tournaments haven’t started, the NBA and NHL are in the boring middle third of their regular seasons and even Spring Training games don’t kick off until almost March (but pitchers and catchers reported last week—yes!).
But don’t worry, Woods, because the sports world has provided us with something juicier than any on-the-field action could ever be: From shady dealings in Dallas, to “Spygate” revisited, to Roger Clemens trip to Capital Hill, sports pages have recently been dominated by athletes behaving badly.  Where to begin?

WOODS:
I hate to call this time of the year “slow” for sports, especially after just watching Dwight Howard win the NBA Slam Dunk Contest (YouTube his dunks, you will not be disappointed), but you’re right.  So with that being said, I think we have to start with Clemens on Capitol Hill.  First off, I think we are both on the same page with the thought that this Congressional Oversight Committee should be dealing with much more important matters than baseball.  This trial has turned into a silly spectacle, with Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee sitting literally three feet apart and telling completely opposite stories while under oath.  With all of McNamee’s “photo evidence” and the fact that the other two athletes he injected with steroids have verified his testimony, Clemens is looking worse and worse in the public eye.  In this case I agree with public opinion, I think it’s clear that Clemens used performance enhancing drugs and is lying about it now.  I’m just interested to see how this trial wraps up, especially after hearing rumblings of a possible presidential pardon being offered to Clemens from President Bush.

ASCH:
I agree on all counts: I hate Clemens as much as anyone, but his appearance in front of the committee was nothing more than an opportunity for political grandstanding. Some (read: Democrats) took the opportunity to lace into Clemens; others (read: Republicans) sank their teeth into trainer-turned-informant Brian McNamee; neither group came out looking nearly as unbiased and thoughtful as former Sen. George Mitchell—whose report’s validity the C.O.C. was allegedly investigating.  Clemens is lying and Congress is petty—big whoop, let’s move on to the NBA.
Since we started writing this article the Jason-Kidd-to-Dallas deal (so recently thought dead due to Jerry Stackhouse’s big mouth) has taken another form, and in its newest incarnation does not involve either Stackhouse or Devean “No-trade clause?!?” George.  Although the swap is still not official, it looks likely to happen by the time we go to press.  You follow the NBA closer than I do, Brian—what, exactly, happened here?

WOODS:
It’s pretty clear by now that both the Mavs and Nets really want this deal to happen.  The latest curveball thrown into the mix is the inclusion of the unofficially retired Keith Van Horn.  The Mavs are still paying three years on Van Horn’s fairly large contract, so by including him in the deal and removing Stackhouse and George, the financials work out.  Now the issue is whether or not Van Horn will have to report to the Nets for the deal to go through.  In the Pau Gasol steal a few weeks ago, the Lakers exploited this loophole, dealing the unofficially retired Aaron McKie.  That deal might have been disallowed had McKie not left his assistant coaching position in Philadelphia to report to Memphis after Los Angeles traded him (phew).
Apparently, there are no rules about this sort of trade, but it is thought that Van Horn might have to do the same.  Considering no one’s seen or heard of Van Horn for a few years now, it looks like this could be a problem.  Judging by all the effort that’s already been put into this deal, I still see it being completed somehow by the trade deadline a few days away.  Unfortunately for Dallas, I don’t see it helping them go any deeper into the playoffs.

ASCH:
Van Horn took the ’06-’07 season off to be a father (ESPN.com ran a story on this). Apparently he liked the gig so much he’s willing to give up on this basketball thing entirely.  While it’s weird to trade a retired player, I see no problem with it.  There is no reason Van Horn’s deadweight contract shouldn’t be allowed to be dealt.  He shouldn’t even have to go to New Jersey (no one ever should)—viva la free market!
Well, we’re just about out of space, and we haven’t even mentioned Sen. Arlen Spector’s petty crusade against the Patriots yet.  Wanna fire a parting shot, Woods?

WOODS:
Spector seems a man on a missions to demolish what is left of the Patriots dignity (and draft picks), but the real post-season NFL question is: Will Eli Manning follow in brother Peyton’s footsteps and host Saturday Night Live, and if so, how unfunny will that show be?

Shut the Hell Up!: Point

Here is a piece of good advice for you: Shut up.

In our world of video chats and cell phones, microphones and open mic nights, voice recorders and recorded ringtones, I have this piece of advice for everyone: Just shut the hell up.

More specifically, shut the hell up in the library. In our library, beautiful Penrose, ranked seventh in the nation of college libraries, we have a room students know as the Quiet Reading Room. I find this ridiculous. The library should be a quiet reading room. That’s why it’s a library.

I’m sick of sitting with my laptop, being forced to listen to the boys at the next table with voices rising, talking about what party they are going to this weekend. I should not be banished to the room where I can’t sit by a window and where there is never enough elbow space just because I like to work in quiet.

I’m nostalgic for days I never knew, days I lovingly watch mocked on TV, when compulsive librarians would waddle about and reprimand anyone speaking with a harsh “SHH. THIS IS A LIBRARY.”

I’ll admit that I get annoyed when voices rise about any topic of discussion, even academic-related. But when I am logical, I know that it is one thing to be engaged in a valuable discussion, to open up a dialogue with the transfer of information and ideas and communication. That is what a library is all about. However, it is a completely different thing to say, quoting the people sitting at the table next to mine at this very moment when I should be writing an essay, “Dude, the girl who dances around with Barack Obama on her underwear didn’t even bother to register to vote.”*

And as a flawed human with errors of her own, I’ll admit I sometimes forget my pet peeve and annoy those around me in the library with escalating discussion as well. My hatred of this seems to only become most pronounced when I am stressfully and fitfully trying to pound out a paper.

True, I could go someplace else. I’m not denying that—there are empty classrooms and study rooms, dorm rooms and hallways. My plight isn’t a hard one. But does that change the fact that silence has become less and less rightfully revered, and people’s conversations have become more and more annoying? No.

Take a moment and enjoy silence. I know that communication is grand and that we as humans are social beings—trust me, I was the girl with “Is much too chatty at times” written without fail on her report card. But there is a time and a place for engaging in certain conversations, and that place is anywhere but the library, at any time. Go to Reid. Go to the fraternities. Go someplace else.

I say, people who want to socialize, to talk boisterously and tap on tables and read their horoscopes out loud and be witty and clever and laugh with their friends—you are the ones who should get the study rooms. Lock yourself in these rooms where you can be boisterous to your hearts’ content. Or we could put you in a newly renamed “Allen Talking Room.” All of us who want to actually study and write papers we have saved until six hours before the deadline can get the rest of the building.

In conclusion, let me issue my plea, which I’m sure in all this ruckus will go unheard: Please, kindly, shut up.

*[No personal offense to these people. Frankly, I’m shocked by this as well, but you happened to be handy at the time I needed an example.]

Yoga studio offers new ‘integrative’ full body workout

A new fitness class has opened at Blue Heron Yoga Studio, on Main Street right across from the Baker Ferguson Athletic Center. Nia, an acronym for neuromuscular integrative action, is a blend of nine different forms of movement intended to create a non-impact, full body workout.

“I was energized for 24 hours afterwards, it was wonderful,” said Professor Ruth Russo.

Nia is a combination of T’ai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Jazz, Modern and Duncan dance, the teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais, the Alexander Technique, and Yoga. Originally created by Carlos and Debbie Rosas in 1983, the technique marked a move away from a no-pain, no-gain fitness mentality and toward healthy and pleasurable movement.

The class is done barefoot and to the rhythm of world music. Moves such as the flounce, or flow and bounce, the summer samba and flower pose are some of the many moves incorporated into a Nia workout. These moves help provide a cardiovascular and conditioning workout all in one.

“I really like the blend of music with the movement,” said community member Machelle Hartman.
In practicing Nia, participants are meant to find peace with their body and mind through movement. While a teacher is necessary to help guide students, the objective is to ultimately be able to move creatively within one’s own range of motion.

“This kind of movement I particularly like because it’s so integrative. It’s integrating the emotions and the mind with the body. You’re really moving from the inside out,” said Blue Heron Owner, Terri Cotts.

While at first glance Nia may give the impression of being easy, by the end of the hour long class all ten participants were rosy cheeked and out of breath.

Nia teacher Joy Matthews has been in the dance and fitness field for 27 years and when she first heard of Nia, she was skeptical. After taking her first class, however, she realized it is not as easy as it may look.

“I was falling all over everyone else and kicking the person next to me, so I went back the next day. I thought, this is it, this is what I’ve been looking for,” said Matthews.

The rest is history and for the past ten years Matthews has been teaching Nia classes in Dayville and Pendleton, Ore. Matthews hopes to eventually have more classes in Walla Walla. Currently the class is only being taught once a week, Fridays from 11:45 to 12:45 at the Blue Heron Yoga Studio.

“Nia is the integration of the human body. You can really restack the body weights and know what people need physically. Movement brings emotion to the surface,” said Matthews.

The class closely resembles modern dance and asks students to verbally and physically express emotion. While doing a kicking and arm-reaching movement, students were encouraged to scream an aggressive “huh!”

“It really opens up a lot of energy channels in the body. Which is really important, especially this time of year. Everyone is depressed and inactive,” said Russo.

“It’s a great way to decompress after a tough week,” said sophomore Julia Spencer

The class is open for all ages and levels of fitness. A drop in class is $11 and a five week package is $45. The Web site, terricotts.com, lists other classes offered by Blue Heron Yoga Studio as well as class descriptions.

Whitman College precinct sees largest turnout at caucus

“Wouldn’t you rather things be complete chaos like this and there be 150 people than have everything be all organized and there only be 40 people?” asked Democratic organizer Beth Call at last Saturday’s Democratic caucus in Walla Walla County.

Chaos and excitement were the stories at Walla Walla’s Republican and Democratic caucuses which saw record turnout.

“It was kind of messy, but that’s what it’s all about,” said junior Julia Nelson after the close of the Democratic caucus at Garrison Middle School.

“Everyone was so energetic, so excited,” said senior Adrianna Piazzo, who also attended the Democratic caucus.

At least 230 people showed up for the Walla Walla Republican caucus at the airport. Party chairman Jim Johnson estimated the turnout was double that of the last caucus.

At least 973 people came out for the Democratic caucuses at Garrison Middle School in Walla Walla and Columbia High School in Burbank, more than twice the 368 people that voted in the Democratic caucus four years ago.

Washington caucus-goers divide into neighborhood precincts where they sign in and write in the candidate they plan on caucusing for (or ‘undecided’ if they have not yet made up their mind). Within the smaller precincts, participants are then able to argue for a particular candidate or ask questions and discuss the various merits of the different candidates. Caucus-goers can then change their vote if they wish. The votes are tallied and then, several delegates are chosen to represent the precinct based on the breakdown of the caucus-goers votes.

At the Democratic caucus, Whitman students did their fair part to help out with the record turnout. The college precinct, which included those registered to vote from the Whitman address, was clearly the largest turnout with 150 voters, about 100 of whom were Whitman students. Several dozen other students who were registered from off-campus addresses went to different precincts.

Several Whitman students also attended the Republican caucus; however, some students experienced difficulties because the Republicans would not allow those from out of town to change their voting location at the caucus.

For the Washington Republican presidential nominee the primary determines 51 percent of who the state’s delegates go to while the caucus determines the other 49 percent. For Democrats the allocation of the delegates is based 100 percent on the caucuses.

On the Democratic side, Whitman students, Walla Walla County, and Washington as a whole went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. Five of the six delegates from the college precinct (131 of 150 votes), 136 of the 188 delegates from Walla Walla County and 67.5 percent of delegates statewide went to Obama.

Whitman Obama supporters were excited about their big victory.

“Obama is our best chance of solving the problems we have,” said sophomore Will Canine who was appointed a precinct delegate. “Clinton will mean more of the same politics we’ve had…and most people in our generation have come to see politics as bad in and of themselves. Obama brings a broader more idealistic message that our generation can really relate to,” said Canine who invited over 100 people to the caucus and shuttled at least 20 people to and from the caucus in his car.

Whitman senior Sarith Keo, who was appointed the lone Clinton delegate from the college precinct saw the overwhelming support of Obama, which has been characteristic of young voters nation-wide, as a trend.

“I feel like the election is turning into a popularity contest for Obama…People get swept up in his message but don’t really look at the details of his plan,” said Keo, who prefers Clinton in part for her health care plan and her valuable experience.

“So many people have so many high expectations…it’s setting [Obama] up for disaster, because it’s unrealistic for this country to change as quickly as he advertises,” said Keo.

“This was my first caucus. It was wild, but a lot of fun,” said Keo.

“I loved seeing all the different people,” said sophomore Sam Chasan. “It was like, ‘oh, this is what democracy is all about.’”

On the Republican side, Washington helped reinforce John McCain’s lead in the race, winning 25.6 percent of the vote. Mike Huckabee came in a close second in the state with 23.3 percent. Ron Paul grabbed third with 21.4 percent and Mitt Romney, despite dropping out of the race last Thursday, got 15.3 percent of the delegates.

Within Walla Walla County, however, McCain took 30.8 percent while Paul was a close second with 28.1 percent. Huckabee was a distant third with 18.5 percent of the delegates.

While party organizers on both sides were excited with larger-than-expected turnouts, caucus attendees were only a tiny portion of the 32,000 registered voters in Walla Walla County.

Walla Walla County primary tacks on two levies

Feb. 19 was the official Washington State primary. However, the Washington State caucus, which was a week from the Saturday before last, overshadowed the primary. Yet in Walla Walla County several local levy issues were voted on and the Republican primary assigns some of its delegates to the Republican National Convention based on the primary.

Washington State sends 40 delegates to the convention, 18 of whom are assigned based on the caucus, 19 based on the primary and three who are special delegates for the party. The Democratic Party has ignored the results of the primary election and assigned all 80 of its delegates based on the caucuses. Barack Obama won the Walla Walla Democratic Caucus with 72 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 28.

The primary in Walla Walla County also contains two levies. One is a school levy replacement. This would increase property tax in order to provide for 14 percent of the Walla Walla School District’s budget. The levy goes towards maintaining the current level of funding in Walla Walla schools as well hiring 30 new teachers to help shrink class sizes within the district.

The levy would increase property tax between three and four dollars per $1,000 assessed property value for the next four years. All the money would specifically benefit Walla Walla Schools, not other areas in the state. If the replacement levy doesn’t pass, then the school budget will decrease by between eight and nine million dollars.

The other levy on the ballot was a regular renewal of emergency health services in the form of a 50-cent tax per $1,000 dollars of assessed value property tax. This levy would maintain the current level of emergency medical care for Walla Walla County by generating $1.7 million in revenue. The Walla Walla emergency medical service covers over 1,200 square miles and serves 63,000 people.

Walla Walla County contains over 30,000 registered voters. Most voters, 57 percent vote by absentee ballot. Walla Walla County shifted parties over the last two presidential elections. George Bush won a majority in 2004, but Al Gore won Walla Walla County by a large margin in 2000.

Technology resources @ whitman

/GPA Wizard
Things just got easier for the truly uptight: see how that D in Beginning Drawing or the A in Physical Chemistry will affect your overall GPA and your major GPA.

/netFiles
Students seem to either have no idea netFiles exists or they use it five times a day.  Either way, students can store up to 200MB (more available upon request) of files online, so it can be accessed anywhere, anytime with an Internet connection.  NetFiles isn’t just limited to documents either.  It’s a good place to back up important photos or documents in case your computer is stolen or spill a cup of coffee on it.

/Postini
So the Bank of the United States sent you an e-mail saying they need your account information.  Wait, you don’t have an account with the Bank of the United States.  Oh, and the Bank of the United States doesn’t even exist. Eliminate SPAM in your Webmail account by logging into Postini.

/People Search
Sure, everyone uses it, but now, if you log in you can see pictures of everyone.  Or at least of all the first-years and sophomores and everyone else who had to get a new ID card in the past two years.

/Quack
Look at your schedule, look at what your schedule could be, magically add flex dollars by just clicking a button and see when your next paycheck is coming.

/Live Chat
It may not be what you think, but if you’re having computer/technology problems, you can get immediate help through the Live Chat on the Whitman Web site.  Live Chat, however, is only available during limited hours.

/Online classes
While Whitman doesn’t offer any online classes directly, credits can be transferred from other institutions.  Contact the Registrar for more information.  Yes, you can take online art.

/Rentals
Students can rent everything from digital camcorders and televisions to slide projectors and digital cameras.  Contact Instructional Multimedia Services for more information.

/Multimedia Development Lab (MDL)
From high-powered processing needs like video and audio editing to graphic design and poster printing, the MDL (located in the basement of Hunter) is staffed with knowledgeable techies to help you with your media projects.

Men’s tennis team seeks ‘nutty’ new mascot to represent Whitman

The Men’s tennis team’s sweatshirts are, at a glance, no different from any other athletic apparel on campus, except that there is a small squirrel wearing boxing gloves embroidered into the hood.  The squirrel is the team’s new “unofficial mascot,” according to sophomore Matt Solomon.

“The missionary doesn’t reflect the student body’s diverse racial or religious beliefs,” said Solomon.  “The missionary mascot supports an all-white Christian portrayal of Whitman.”

“At all types of games its rare that you hear students doing missionary cheers; it’s all ‘Go Whitman,’” said Solomon. “We decided that it was time for a change.  We wanted something fun, something students could really unite around.”

Solomon, along with teammates Nadeem Kassam and Justin Hayashi, then talked to Men’s tennis coach Jeff Northam and prepared a slide show presenting their case for a mascot change. Still, the Fighting Squirrel is far from being official.

“The official mascot is the Missionary; it’s dearly loved by the alumni, which I was reminded of again, quite recently, through conversations with alumni.  It has a long history since the establishment of the college,” said Athletic Director Dean Snider.

Whitman, first known as Whitman Seminary, was founded in honor of Marcus Whitman, a missionary to the Cayuse natives around what is now Walla Walla.

Despite the historical significance of the missionary, Snider said, “I don’t think the athletic department holds any fondness to the mascot of the missionary.  I know there are several programs that downplay the mascot of the missionary…. There are some programs that use it quite comfortably; it’s just a part of who they are and they recognize that”

That is not true for men’s tennis. “The missionary isn’t what you’d want in a mascot.  Other schools think it’s a joke.  It’s embarrassing to tell other teams what the mascot is,” said Kassam. “People should be attached to their mascot.”

This isn’t the first time dumping the missionary has been proposed.

“In my 12 years here there have been numerous movements to change the mascot, and the last one prior to our men’s tennis team was squashed very quickly by alumni because they felt they weren’t consulted in it,” said Snider.

Snider, who was appointed athletic director in 2006, feels that a mascot change is possible; however, he said, “There are different constituents of the institution that need to participate in that conversation.  Students are definitely one [group], the alumni are a significant group, they should have a voice in any kind of process of change. Clearly our also administration needs to have some kind of voice in that process.”

The men’s tennis team would like to see that dialogue.

“We’d like to look towards changing the mascot officially,” said Solomon.  “The missionary isn’t something that unifies the student body.  By changing our mascot, we aren’t trying to differentiate ourselves from other sports; a mascot should be something fun, that students get excited about.”

Still, Kassam seems pessimistic.  “I think students want a change; they just don’t want to be the ones making change,” he said.

Sullivan’s remarks not founded in reality

First, I’d like to know how Sullivan—and conservatives generally—reconcile a philosophy of individual empowerment with a condemnation of Roe v. Wade. It strikes me as incoherent to believe in a “bottom-up” approach to decision-making while not embracing a precedent that reinforces individuals’ right to privacy and ultimately individuals’ decisive power.

Sullivan spoke repeatedly of conservatism’s ethos of caution. Conservatism embraces change when human evolution has proven it’s clearly necessary; otherwise, it exercises skepticism in order to shield society from the tumult of whimsy.

This is the basis of his support for gay marriage: Since gay people now are generally accepted within the mainstream, it’s clearly time to give them equal human rights. They’ve passed the litmus test.

But let’s not forget, Sullivan: The relative acceptance attained by gay people has been secured by those who courageously challenged the status quo. Their cause was furthered by, in part, liberal Supreme Court justices who conservatives criticize for being “activist” or “radical” in decisions such as Lawrence v. Texas—which once and for all established that gay sex is not criminal.

The same is true for women’s rights and civil rights: Both movements were fundamentally radical. It is, to a certain extent, radicalism that has been best aligned with justice. Pragmatism and consistency are both important, but not to the point of flouting human rights.

Sullivan did acknowledge that conservatism hasn’t been the biggest proponent of justice, but he stated it like this shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

Overall, his speech elucidated an intellectual and historical conservatism that is less offensive to liberals than the one we know—nonetheless, it is not the philosophy generally held by those who seek power under its umbrella. In light of his references to human evolution, it would have been interesting to hear him account for the evolution of American conservatism from the roots he described to what it is today.

His statements were generally too simplistic to reject. Sure it’s silly to set policies in stone about futures we can’t predict. Of course we should each be empowered and unencumbered by government to make our own decisions.

Many, however, come from a starting point of arbitrary disadvantage and disempowerment. It’s meaningless to speak of leaving people’s empowerment intact if they don’t have any.

If all Americans were middle class, healthy and empowered, then conservatism might be tenable. The fact is that they’re not. There are many people who, like the people of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, need assistance to save them from drowning. I’ll gladly trade some control of my income—ahem, pay more taxes—to invest in the cause of justice.

Energetic FAH residents engage community

A house full of fine arts fiends can be a colorful group dynamic. This semester’s residents are a mix of photographers, painters, actors and dancers. Surprisingly, none of them are fine arts majors.

“Even though we’re all majoring in non-art-related areas, we each have a passion for something artistically creative,” said sophomore theater veteran and environmental studies-chemistry major Spenser Meeks.

Most popularly known as the “FAH,” the house is part of the Interest House Community on campus, which was formed in the 1970s by student groups and academic departments. Today, there are 11 interest houses. The FAH sits on the corner of Boyer Avenue and Otis Street.

The FAH currently houses seven sophomores: Meeks, Lauren Imbrock, Lara Spengler, Cristine Tennant, Susannah Lowe, Marie Westover and the newest RA, Rachel Hahn. All seven residents make for great company and are constantly busy around the house.

“It’s a pretty high energy group, so there is almost always something going on. Usually friends come over and bake or do crafts or study or watch movies. We have people coming in and out a lot,” said Hahn.

Some of their all-campus activities have included “Pimp My Bike,” candy making, plate making, tie-dying, creating gingerbread houses and the Cobweb Ball. Their most recent events rallied large turnouts, especially with last Tuesday’s FAH Living Room Gallery, where they showcased art created by students.

“It was a fantastic turnout. We were glad to see some student artwork put on display for everyone to see,” said Hahn.
The house hosted a colony, inviting any interested people around campus to create the Valentine’s Day cards that we sold in the Olin Breezeway Gallery last week with the help of Mare Blocker. All of the proceeds went to the YWCA Women’s Shelter.

With plenty of future activities to come this semester, the group is looking forward to having more guests over. Some of the FAH’s all-campus activities to look for include Origami, Neon Body Paint Dance and the returning favorite of breastcasting.

“These activities are our way of really connecting with the rest of the Whitman community,” said Tennant.
For students on the hunt for housing next year, the FAH as well as other houses in the IHC will have having open houses for interested residents. The FAH’s open house will be on Saturday, March 1 from 1-3 p.m.

Shepard Lecture takes cues from talk shows

When speakers come to campus to give a lecture, standing alone behind a podium in Cordiner is the setting that audiences are used to seeing. Keith Boykin’s Feb. 12 presentation, Whitman’s Fifth Matthew Shepard Lecture, offered a new and innovative way to give a presentation.

Upon walking into Maxey Auditorium, audiences were surprised to see that it was a talk show setting with three chairs, a coffee table and a slideshow projected in the background. Boykin discussed “Sexuality, Human Rights and the Media” with Cushing Eells Professor of Humanities Bob Tobin and Associate Professor of Spanish Alberto Galindo.

“We thought a dialogue would be appropriate. It’s what we do best in a liberal arts setting,” said Galindo, before kicking off the lecture. “We decided to have more of an interactive visit with Keith.”

Boykin has participated in six political campaigns, including one for former President Bill Clinton. His media career took off in 2004 when he was a contestant on the Showtime reality series “American Candidate.” Boykin currently hosts the BET’s “My Two Cents” and is a political commentator on CNN. His written work includes “Beyond the Down Low: Lies and Denial in Black America,” “Respecting the Soul” and “One More River to Cross,” spanning topics of race and sexuality. His career started after his time at Harvard Law, where he was a student with Sen. Barack Obama.

Maxey Auditorium brimmed with students, staff and faculty who listened to Boykin’s responses to several questions starting with homosexuals and their roles and portrayals in the media.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t see positive images of gays. Nowadays it’s such a common thing. But what really changes people and gets them to understand the gay community is when you know somebody that’s real, live, flesh and blood, who is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, that makes a difference,” said Boykin, an openly gay man himself.

The three men went on to discuss marriage, the power of rhetoric, civil rights and the lack of concern over the efficacy of government, particularly after Hurricane Katrina.

“We should be offended, outraged and pissed off. Our own people need help,” said Boykin, who was passionate about the problems going on within the United States. “I think what’s going on here is that the American people have been hoodwinked.”

As a major media figure, Boykin talked about the need for people to break out of their habits of routine and to gather the courage to make a change. According to Boykin, rhetoric can cause that change.

“Rhetoric without substance or action is shallow. It can inspire people to do good things and it often does,” said Boykin, who then referred to the power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s work.

The lecture closed with a powerful statement made by Boykin, regarding the role of religion in society and its use as a tool for change and understanding.

“I think religion should be used as a tool for love and not as a weapon of hate,” said Boykin. “We know what you’re not supposed to do, but no one tells us what we should do. We should do good for the world.”

The lecture preceded Andrew Sullivan’s lecture, which took place the following evening. The two presentations offered two very different political views that gathered large crowds.

“We weren’t sure about the size of the audience and what we should expect, but I was happy to see such a large turnout,” said sophomore Jeremy Balch, who introduced the presentation with fellow GLBTQ member, junior Dusti Thurman.

“I think [Boykin] was one of the best Matthew Shepard Lecture Series events we’ve had here,” said Jed Schwendiman, GLBTQ adviser and the Lecture Series committee member. The series started in the spring of 2005 when an anonymous donor gave Whitman College the funding to hold events in the name of Matthew Shepard, a young man who was tragically murdered in 1998 because he was gay. Since the beginning of the series, Whitman has brought speakers and performers who have touched on issues of homosexuality and human rights as a positive legacy for Shepard.

Who’s coming to breakfast?

I recently went to see the nutritionist, Adina Tapu, who comes to the Health Center every once in a while. After introducing me to her adorable, gigantic dog (it’s a Poodle-Golden Retriever mix, what?), we talked about my eating habits. Among other things, one of the things she told me was to start eating breakfast, something I hadn’t done in while.

I told her how I’d heard all these things about breakfast, such as: “It’s the most important meal of the day!” and that it was also supposed to be the biggest meal of the day (the theory being that you should eat progressively smaller meals throughout the day as your energy needs go down…). All of which she basically told me to ignore.

Instead, her advice was to eat something that would be enough food to give me some energy, get my metabolism going, and tide me over until lunch. Ideally, she said breakfast should include two to three food groups, such as grains, fruit and dairy.

Unfortunately, I’m usually in a rush in the morning. Since I don’t make time for concocting some elaborate breakfast, a slice or two of some quick bread would be perfect.

There exists a whole world of quick breads—so called because they don’t use yeast and therefore don’t need to rise—and this recipe is for one of the many types. Quick breads are very versatile, consisting of a base composed of flour, sugar, oil, eggs and baking soda. From there, you can add mashed bananas, or applesauce, plus any combination of fruit, nuts, or chocolate.

This particular bread features pumpkin puree and chocolate chips (semi-sweet, bittersweet, white chocolate, mini chips). I usually make it without nuts, though you can also add walnuts or pecans. If you need a little help waking up, add some powdered ginger, cardamom or other spices you think would work. However, make sure you don’t get a can of pumpkin pie filling, which already has spices and other ingredients that don’t work the same way as plain pumpkin puree.

I hope that Adina would approve of this as my breakfast of choice. The pumpkin has Vitamin C (something she told me to eat more of), and added nuts would give some protein. It would also be a great snack, especially if you warmed it up in a toaster oven.

Stop Deforestation, Protect the bush

Recently, I saw a pair of underwear that got me thinking about a woman’s right to choose. Not the typical right to choose, which of course there are one million columns to be written about. No. This is the right to shave, or not to shave. That is the question.

The book was “Cool Green Stuff.” The underwear, from greenknickers.org, had the phrase “Stop Deforestation” around the seam. It is a pun. You can stop cutting down trees, and you can stop cutting off pubic hair. Or leg hair, or any other kind of hair women aren’t supposed to have.

Well, I’m a woman, and I have all of the above hairs. Granted, it’s fairly easy for me to be a hairy hippie because my hair is really light and grows out thin. But that isn’t the point at all. I stopped shaving because it’s a waste of time and water in the shower, and it feels better soft then it does smooth.

Plus, have you seen those pictures of Britney and Lindsay sans underwear?  That’s a pretty effective argument for how creepy bikini waxes look.

I have no serious problem with women who shave every time they take a shower. I just hope they’re doing it for themselves. And I’m almost positive they’re not.

Somewhere along the line, around the same time corsets and high heels went from being a part of masculine fashion to feminine (It’s uncomfortable. Better give it to the women!), it became an expectation of women that they be as hairless as possible. Excepting of course the hair on their heads, which should be as full,  teased and treated as possible.

And so we find ourselves, centuries later, in a balding society. You might be saying, “Yeah, right! All the girls here are hairy!” First of all, you’re wrong. Second of all, Whitman is a bubble. I promise you’ll graduate and be shocked to discover that the majority of girls spend hours a day on their appearance, and the majority of colored glass can be recycled.

Part of the problem I have with shaving is how violent of an action it is. In order to properly flash a camera while getting out of a car, one must drag a blade (capable of severing the arteries of many a tortured soul) across the most sensitive parts of one’s body. Over and over again, several days a week. Just so you can look like a hypersexual 8-year-old.

Which brings me to my next point. There are very few arguments for why smooth legs and cooters are sexy that would not also apply to why babies are sexy. And babies are not actually sexy. They are babies.

I understand if you are grossed out by stubble. If you’re used to no hair, prickly hair is not a good reminder of what hair feels like. But the thing is, stubble grows out. And when it does, it’s beautiful and soft. I don’t want to wax too poetical on the qualities of long leg hair, but I do want to argue forcefully that you can learn to love hair on your legs just like you once learned to love smooth legs when you started shaving. Which, if you recall, you did actually start doing. It’s not an instinctual human need.

There are all sorts of things I could say about pubic hair and how it has been beneficial to me, but this isn’t a sex column. Suffice it to say, vaginas want to grow hair, and I say let them. They generally know what’s up when it comes to feeling good. If they wanted to be bald, women would be having orgasms all over the place when they got waxed. Have you ever been in a salon during a bikini wax? They are not orgasming. They are threatening to commit murder.

A few years ago, W magazine did a feature on Kate Moss. One of the pictures was just of her pubic hair.  I would say it was almost a religious experience. Here was a woman known to be at the forefront of glamour the world over, and she was proudly hairy. Stop deforestation, indeed.

I’m not saying Kate Moss is a great example in all that she does, but she does seem to understand that a woman can be the entire planet’s idea of sexy and also let her body grow the hair it wants to.

I’m arguing that you stop shaving long enough, girls, to figure out who exactly you’re shaving for. Also long enough that you get past stubble and figure out that hair feels really, really good. Trust me. And trust the vaginas.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

1 ½ cups sugar (white, brown, or some combination)
½ of a 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree
½ cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ¾ cup flour
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ -1 cup chocolate chips, walnuts, pecans or other
add-ins

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the pans you will be using.
2. Combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, water, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl. Mix by hand or using a mixer.
3. Add in flour, ground spices, baking soda and salt.
4. Add in chocolate chips and/or nuts.
5. Bake for one hour. You know it’s done when you stick a knife or toothpick in and it comes out clean. Cool in the pan before removing and serving.

Whitman drops lawsuit against faculty member

On Feb. 4, Whitman College dropped a lawsuit aimed at identifying a college faculty member who allegedly tampered with the results of a faculty-wide survey.

The suit was originally filed on Dec. 14 against a John or Jane Doe, believed to be a faculty member.  It was sparked by an anonymous e-mail received by the school in which, according to the Union-Bulletin, the faculty member admitted to “spiking data” in a faculty-wide survey geared towards assessing working conditions.   The faculty member claimed that his phony results were submitted with the intent of demonstrating the ineffectiveness of such surveys.

Represented by the school’s counselor, Jim Hayner, Whitman College filed the suit seeking not only to identify the faculty member, but also to recoup any costs that might have been lost had the survey results been affected.

“The school incurred losses in the sense of lost faculty time and administrative personnel time, said Hayner.  “A good deal of time and effort has been expended on this matter.  In addition, the College has incurred legal fees associated with the lawsuit that was filed for the purpose of determining the identity of the faculty member.”

Included in the suit was a subpoena of information from Google, intended to aid in determining the identity of the supposed faculty member. The anonymous e-mail received by the college was sent from a Google account.

The Whitman College Board of Trustees dropped the suit after the faculty member came forward and agreed to cooperate with the school.

Hayner refused to identify the faculty member.  “All matters concerning alleged faculty misconduct are treated as personnel matters and are strictly confidential,” he said.

Upon learning the identity of the faculty member President George Bridges sent out an e-mail to the faculty explaining the situation; the identity of the hacker was kept anonymous.  In the e-mail Bridges informed the faculty that the situation would be handled in an internal review and investigation.  According to Hayner, the school’s faculty code calls for an investigation by faculty counsel, a determination of misconduct and, if a violation is determined, an appropriate penalty appropriated.

In response to the status of the investigation, Hayner said, “I do not believe there has yet been a finalization.”

Computer overuse carries risks

Students finally have a legitimate reason to avoid doing homework on Friday nights.  Overusing the computer can have serious negative health effects.  Carpal tunnel syndrome, Internet addiction, computer vision syndrome and back strains are dangers of over-using the computer.

“The physical affects are trivial in comparison to problems with socialization.  Computers can really damage some people,” said Ellen Collette, director of the health center.

Most effects occur when computers are significantly over-used.  While there is no conclusive evidence about what the best amount of time is, many researchers agree that two hours a day is an appropriate time limit.  This can change depending on what users are doing online and how frequently they do it.

Walla Walla’s Valley Vision Center offers patients special glasses that reduce the strain of computer usage.

“The older you get, the more likely excessive computer usage is to affect you.  But young people are in danger,” said optometrist Dr. Ken Hatley.  While he doesn’t regularly diagnose many college students, he does see them on occasion and attributes their vision problems to “too many all-nighters.”

“Students would benefit greatly from breaking up their work throughout the semester.  They should avoid final-time all-nighters at all costs,” he said.

Over 70 percent of all computer users need the special eyeglasses, though not nearly that many experience the symptoms or are diagnosed.

Depression, anxiety and insomnia are other common side effects of excessive computer usage.  Researchers warn against “Internet Addiction,” which happens a user is on the Internet so much that it interferes with a healthy lifestyle.

It’s considered an addiction when users miss meals or family time, have a chemical dependency and thereby suffer physical discomfort when they reduce time spent on the Internet, and lose sleep because they are on the Internet.

Certainly, students at Whitman College are not exempt from the dangers of over-using the computer.  Whitman printers spit out an average of 6,109 pages a day, according to WCTS.  With only 1,454 students at the school, this means each student spends a lot of paper, and probably a lot of time just writing and printing.

With Web sites like facebook.com and wikipedia.org, students are spending an increasingly long amount of time on the Internet.  Some students even depend on their computers for academic aid.

“We have over 100 students that have checked out programs that can help them,” said Academic Resource Center Program Coordinator Penny Hood.  Students with learning disabilities have access to programs that can verbally read their textbooks, transcribe their spoken word into written text and even write out mathematical formulas with the touch of a key.

Other programs are available to the general student population.  There is software installed on the computers in Olin and Maxey that can take written ideas and help turn them into an essay outline.

One study suggests that it is not uncommon for undergraduate students to spend at least eight hours a week on the Internet and over 12 hours a week using computers.

While most students benefit from computers, physical problems are very real threats.

Back strains and carpal tunnel syndrome are both problems that can be prevented.  Computer users should have supportive comfortable chairs with supportive backs and should take five minute breaks at least once an hour.  Regular exercising will help prevent over-straining muscles, and students should try not to spend more than two hours on the computer without a long break.

The best way to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome is to practice good posture.  Elbows should be bent at 90 degrees, and the wrist should have proper support.

Whitman’s number one fan: Steve Rubin

There was a timeout on the floor.  Before two notes of the Soulja Boy song were out, he was up: dancing, jumping, hips swiveling, arms waving.

This is Steve Rubin.  Or more generally known as The Crazy Guy With the Wigs Who Dances at Basketball Games.

“With basketball, teams work hard.  Whether they win or lose, they work hard.  So I like to watch athletes who devote themselves to their sport,” said Rubin, sporting a Whitman baseball cap over a fake arrow that appears to be stuck through his head.

But Rubin doesn’t just limit himself to basketball.

“Swim meets, track meets, baseball games—I’m a big fan of all of them,” said Rubin.

“I’ve played sports my whole life—tennis, basketball, I ski and I root for soccer and football…I think that athletics are part of the vibrancy of life,” said Rubin.

Hilary White sank a three-pointer for Whitman.

“Yeeeaaaaahhhhh!!!”  Rubin was on his feet clapping and cheering.

“At the bottom line, sports are very unimportant.  You play intensely, you scream and yell, but when it’s over, you’ve got to say, ‘Eh, it’s over,’” said Rubin.

Rubin came to Whitman 36 years ago as a psychology professor.  Since coming to Whitman, Rubin estimates he’s been to over 700 basketball games, averaging about 20 per year.

“This is a place you can act a bit crazy—as a psychologist, you need sometimes to act a little crazy.  It keeps you young,” said Rubin.

The action stalled on the floor for some quick substitutions. Faster than the players, Rubin sprang off the wooden bleachers, onto his feet.  “W-H-I-T-M-A-N!”  Rubin yelled, motioning toward the small crowd of students across the gym.  A few students spelled along with him, but most ignore the old cheerleader in a rainbow wig.

Rubin is a little disappointed by the lack of student support. “I think there should be better support by the students. I mean they know the players, they should support their friends who work hard,” said Rubin.

Rubin switched out his rainbow wig for a sparkly, neon green hairpiece with a crown of what may or may not be fake Christmas lights.  He owns about a dozen different hats and wigs.  “They’re getting a little ratty,” said Rubin.  “You can tell people to send me money for new wigs.”

“Probably after my death I’ll still be doing this,” said Rubin.  “They’ll probably dig me up in my coffin with a wig on and I’ll say ‘Go Whitman!’”

‘Finn’ author Clinch to speak in

The Visiting Writers Series returns this semester with a reading by author Jon Clinch at 7 p.m. today in Kimball.
Clinch is the author of “Finn: A Novel,” released in 2007. The book was named one of the best of 2007 by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Christian Science Monitor, among others. It is also on the shortlist for the first ever “Best Recommended List” by the National Book Critic’s Circle.

Clinch’s Web site features praise for his novel by several other authors, including Mary Gaitskill and Sara Gruen.

“‘Finn’ is as dark, as brutal, as ambivalent and as insane as the history and legacy of American racial slavery. It is also graceful, imaginative and relentlessly intelligent,” wrote Gaitskill in her review.

Before becoming a novelist, Clinch taught American Literature and Advanced Composition to high school students.

During this time he was awarded the Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year Award. After three years of teaching, Clinch started work in advertising with his wife, Wendy. Eventually he returned to his home state of New York to teach at his alma mater, Syracuse University.

Prior to the completion of “Finn,” Clinch authored several short stories which appeared in the literary journal MSS.
Building off of the work of Mark Twain, “Finn” tells the story of Huckleberry Finn’s father.  It features characters introduced by Twain as well as new characters created by Clinch.

“‘Finn’ is a novel about race; about paternity in its many guises; about the shame of a nation recapitulated by the shame of one absolutely unforgettable family. Above all, it reaches back into the darkest waters of America’s past to fashion something compelling, fearless and new,” according to Clinch’s Web site.

To read more about the author and his work, visit jonclinch.com.

2008 Oscar Predictions

The 2008 Academy Awards—mercifully saved from an ignominious press conference by the end of the Writers Strike—will be announced on Feb. 24. Below, the Pioneer’s resident film critics give their picks and predictions for the big six.

GREYHAVENS: “No Country” won Best Picture among the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Chicago Film Critics Association, National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle, among many others—but “Atonement” won the Golden Globe. “There Will Be Blood” is the most deserving film of the bunch, a profound, full-spirited odyssey that, I think, will emerge in the coming decades as one of the great American films—but this race will come down to the Coen brothers’ grisly mystery and Joe Wright’s melodrama. “No Country” is the favorite, but Oscar swoons for English grandeur, so “Atonement” could upset. And how in the hell did a cupcake like “Juno” get nominated in the first place?

SALVI: It’s a strange lineup this year, with two period pieces, a comedy, three films adapted from books and not a single biopic among them. (Phew!) Most everyone was surprised by the nomination of “Juno,” but comedies as a rule do not win the top prize. While “Atonement” has been begging for Oscar gold from the get-go, it doesn’t live up to its own hype or the excellent book upon which it is based. So it comes to “No Country For Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood.” I can hardly decide which film I like better. Both are exquisitely made, deftly acted and fascinating. If I’m forced to choose, I’ll pick “Blood”; it is epic and unsentimental and contains arguably one of the best performances ever captured on film. Critics have compared it to “Citizen Kane,” a film many agree is the model to which all other movies should aspire. “No Country,” meanwhile, has been a critical darling and, like “Blood,” is dark, unsentimental, and ends ambiguously—yet there is something slightly more humane about “No Country” that will likely make it more appealing to the Academy.

GREYHAVENS: Schnabel’s film is beloved but too little known—and besides, two (really three) infinitely deserving directors are up this year: Joel and Ethan Coen (thankfully with both names on the ticket; historically Joel alone has taken director credit) and Paul Thomas Anderson, the 37-year-old whiz behind “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” both art-house legends. For my part, even though Anderson will likely be back in this spot many more times, his achievement with “Blood” cannot be overlooked. For the Academy, this could fall any number of ways. If “No Country” takes the top prize, the Coens could ride with it; or the Academy could award Anderson but not his film. If “Blood” should somehow win Best Picture, the Coens could be shut out by a wave of Anderson enthusiasm. In all likelihood, though, this will be the Coens’ year; they won neither Picture nor Director in 1997 for “Fargo,” a film which many now consider one of the greatest ever made.

SALVI: As this category tends to align itself with Best Picture, this too will be a close call between Anderson and the Coens. Anderson, who has never been nominated before, should take away this statue for his impressive command of “Blood.” Visually, the film is incredible, and it moves at a pace that is gripping but easy to follow. The Coens, however, have consistently created intriguing and challenging films throughout their career, and “No Country” might be their finest achievement yet.

GREYHAVENS: Every race needs one sure thing, and in 2008 we have Daniel Day-Lewis. Mortensen was little seen, Depp is too bizarre and Clooney too glam. Even Jones, who many want to honor dually for his supporting role in “No Country” as well as his beautiful work in “Elah,” cannot stand next to Day-Lewis’ towering, billowing, unholy performance as Daniel Plainview, an incarnation of greed that by the outlandish end of “There Will Be Blood” becomes a nearly abstract being—the wailing, drooling downfall of mankind made flesh.

SALVI: Four words: “I. Drink. Your. Milkshake!” Unless the Academy loses its mind, this one should be a shoo-in for Day-Lewis. Though he has won before, this performance cannot be ignored. Day-Lewis doesn’t act often, and when he does, there is hardly another actor on Earth who can hope to compare. His performance in “Blood” is electric—larger-than-life, but wholly believable. Clooney, Depp, Jones and Mortensen should be glad just to sit in the same room when he accepts his award.

GREYHAVENS: Aside from Ellen Page’s barrage of witticisms that stick in your ears like cotton candy, I have not seen any of the performances. Popular consensus, however, gives the prize to Mrs. Christie in a walk-away race. This is not Blanchett’s best work, and she plays Bob Dylan elsewhere; Linney’s performance was little seen and the same goes for Cotillard’s, though the latter has had critics gushing and could pull a foreign-language upset.

SALVI: This is much more of a guessing game than the actor category this year. It is one of two nominations for Cate Blanchett, and though she has a good chance of taking away the statue for Supporting Actress, she probably won’t here. Laura Linney is superb, but her performance in “The Savages” isn’t showy enough for the Academy, and the same is probably true for Ellen Page. I would put my vote in for Marion Cotillard’s magnificent portrayal of Edith Piaf. Her performance has been praised as an embodiment rather than an impression of the famous singer. The Academy, however, is not fond of giving acting awards to foreigners, so this one will likely go to Christie for her portrayal of a woman with Alzheimer’s in “Away From Her.”

GREYHAVENS: While it would be a delight to see Bird win given his work on other intricate animated films like “The Incredibles” and “The Iron Giant,” this race comes down to Cody and Gilroy. I am sad to say, in a category that often goes to the wittiest and the wordiest, Cody has the edge. It’s only a shame that the Academy doesn’t realize that what seems like a heartfelt coming-of-age story in “Juno” is actually a pretentious, piddling hack job culled from Indie blogs and “Garden State” leftovers. French rats never smelled so good.

SALVI: “Lars and the Real Girl” and “Ratatouille” will get the snub here, despite their inventiveness. “The Savages” was too inconsistently received to cinch this one. It’s a toss-up between “Juno” and “Michael Clayton,” if only because the Academy will feel guilty that they couldn’t award either movie with Best Picture. I’d put my money on “Juno” for its daring subject matter, witty dialogue and strong female character.

New art center to lack photography darkroom

The Fouts Center for Visual Arts, due to open this fall, will not be equipped with a darkroom, a choice that’s garnering mixed feeling and one that illustrates a broader trend at colleges nationwide to forgo traditional photography for digital media.

According to Associate Professor of Art Charles Tim-Ballard, the new Center will have a sweepingly positive impact on art at Whitman.

“This is going to be a state-of-the-art facility in every respect and I don’t know of another liberal arts college in the Northwest, possibly in the West Coast, that has made this kind of commitment to art,” said Charles Tim-Ballard, who played a key role in decisions related to the facility.

The facility boasts, among many other amenities, studio space for seniors and faculty.

“Bringing seniors back in, and faculty, all doing this advanced and exciting work will really open up the arts to all the students. All those introductory classes are a lot of non-art majors and they’re going to get exposed to all of this, which I think is really exciting,” said Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Peter Harvey.

Photography, however, will go from having two darkrooms—one in Olin and another in Reid—to just the Reid darkroom, which has four work spaces.

“The beginning class will be limited to the number of people I can fit in that darkroom. I will never overbook it. I cannot see a class being bigger than 15,” said Professor of Photography Charly Bloomquist.

In deciding how to allot the new center’s space, a committee of both art and non-art faculty and staff was formed.
Touring other colleges and universities revealed that schools that had recently invested in new darkrooms regretted the decision.

“It became pretty clear to us in the process of that tour and discussion with colleagues that a great model for teaching photography, going forward and to best prepare our students for the world, was to make digital the introductory class,” said Harvey.

Health and environmental concerns also informed the new emphasis on digital.

“Throughout the entire project we’ve looked at ways to reduce in the visual arts our use of chemicals. We brought in an environmental industrial engineer to study our processes. We’re trying to make it a more environmentally friendly process throughout all the disciplines,” said Harvey.

In the mainstream—for example, newspaper, magazines and so forth—digital undoubtedly has taken over. But the role of digital media in fine art photography is still undefined.

On one hand, a digital lab enhances control, ease and creative possibility.

“The digital lab becomes a creative tool and the creative potential for digital photography has outstripped the romance of the darkroom, and that’s what we heard everywhere we went. People who had invested in silver were regretting that and that was part of our decision,” said Tim-Ballard.

On the other hand, digital prints aren’t the same as photographs. Not yet, anyway.

“It’s a different media. It’s ink on paper rather than an emulsion that carries the silver that you process, so the look is different. But it’s also the same because mostly it’s that optically gathered image, and I think that similarity ties it enough in most people’s minds that the photography teacher can be the digital printmaker,” said Bloomquist.

Aside from difference in the product of film versus digital, the process, which can be integral to the meaning and value of a work of art, is completely different from the darkroom process.

“Working in the darkroom is like a dance that’s different than the dance you do at the computer, or between the computer and the printer.”

At this point, it doesn’t seem that digital can replace film photography—not in the fine arts, anyway.

“I totally understand a push toward contemporary art forms, especially with digital photography getting such a boom. But there’s still definitely a place for film,” said sophomore art major Iris Alden.

But it doesn’t necessarily need to be viewed as an either-or situation. For many, digital complements, rather than supplants, film.

“In my own work, I’m trying to not limit myself to just film or digital. You don’t have to have just one or the other. It opens up all sorts of possibilities,” said senior Dana Johnson.

Since film photography doesn’t have any official space in the new facility, it is the only discipline at risk of being undermined.
“We need the digital lab. It aids the photographer, the printmaker, the drawer and, with a 3D application, the sculptor. So the digital media lab is very important for us to have in the art department. But to say that we don’t do the darkroom simply because we have the digital is a little shortsighted,” said Bloomquist. “It’s shortsighted for anybody to think that this is going to totally replace photography. When they outlaw strip mining, then it totally replaces it.”

Some things don’t change: No frickin’ babies

So there I sat, 11 years old in Mr. Smith’s musky classroom for another day of sixth grade in Health and Sexuality. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the 24-inch TV screen situated at the front of the room. My eyes simulated perfect saucers—wide, circular and disbelieving. It was awful. Blood spewing everywhere. Screaming. A woman’s shining face, twisted in pain, and the ugly tattooed man that did this to her hovering and chanting things that are supposed to help: “Come on, baby. Push. Push!”

This is the moment I blame: the crowning. The single camera frame, shot right between the legs at the crown of a head coming out of a place it will (for a damn good reason) never remember. And then out it squirts—a writhing, crying, slimy baby.

And this was the first vow I made to myself as a woman, vehemently, as flat-chested and pre-hormonal as I was: I am NOT doing that. Fuck. No.

I have heard it’s like taking your lower lip and pulling it up over your head. I am NOT pushing something the size of a pot roast through something the size of my nostril. This must be some kind of joke.

And never mind for a moment about the crowning. It’s not the crowning that terrifies me down to my very toes, nor the about the subsequent gnawing and spittle-ing that is sure to follow if the thing actually manages to slither out and not get stuck in there.

No, it’s what the crowning moment represents. It marks 18 years. 18 responsible-laden years, years soaked with worrying, runny noses, attitude problems, whining and teenage sex. “Hello,” the crown of the head says. “I hope you have enjoyed your life because its is no longer yours—its putty in the sticky hands of 3-year-old, curly-haired Aden.”

Aden, who now owns your life, believes finger-painting means dipping his hands into a can of fire-red Crayola paint much like you would with paraffin wax and running around with his arms and hands flailing, frantically trying to touch everything at the same time—white walls, the piano, the couches, the dog, your face.  (This happened.)

Aden, who now owns your life, pushes you into the kiddie pool and then tries to peek up your towel as your clothes are tumbling in the dryer. (Happened.)

Aden, who now owns your life, jolts up at the word “bedtime,” shimmies out of his onesies, screams bloody murder and runs circles around you, naked. (Getting scared?)

Hence, I do not want babies. Call me cold-hearted, call my bluff, say my maternity instinct is just a wee bit delayed, say I’ve just had some bad babysitting experiences. Whatever it is, I retain the same sentiment I did when I eleven and watching “The Miracle of Life” in sixth grade: I’m NOT doing that. Fuck. No.

Biodiesel: emission benefits, but at a cost?

On the side of Walla Walla Valley Transit Buses is a small decal proudly announcing that the buses have started burning biodiesel. The Whitman Mission uses biodiesel to run their maintenance vehicles, and there is even a gas station on Issacs St. that offers biodiesel.

Biodiesel is rapidly gaining popularity, not just in Walla Walla but also throughout the country. The 2007 energy bill gave large subsidies to biodiesel, much to the delight of President Bush who said that “everytime we use homegrown biodiesel, we support American farmers, not foreign oil producers.”

Biodiesel is bringing together environmentalists and farmers, two groups that have often been at odds with each other. Farmers like biodiesel because it is made from crops like soybeans or corn. Glycerin is separated from the fat or vegetable oil through a process called transesterification.

Environmentalists champion biodiesel because it is made from renewable resources and has lower emissions than petroleum diesel. It is usually blended with petroleum as it is likely to freeze in its pure form in colder temperatures.

However, even a blend of 20 percent petroleum diesel will significantly reduce carcinogenic emissions and greenhouse gases. According to Pacific Biodiesel, biodiesel blends can reduce particulate matter by 31 percent, carbon monoxide by 21 percent and total hydrocarbons by 47 percent using this blend. The U.S. Department of Energy has recognized biodiesel as a viable alternative fuel.

Perhaps most importantly biodiesel can be used in a regular diesel engine with no modifications needed. In fact, biodiesel actually increases engine life. It has a higher flash point than regular diesel so it is even safer to transport. Biodiesel even smells good, kind of like french fries.

One local farmer, Scott Johnson, recently lectured at a climate change conference in Walla Walla about the benefits of biodiesel. He described how he originally started using biodiesel because it was cheaper than using regular petroleum. It wasn’t until a couple of years of using biodiesel  in his own equipment that he learned of the environmental benefits of biodiesel. Soon after he decided to start a biodiesel company, GenX Energies.

As Johnson’s story demonstrates, biodiesel has the potential to bring together environmentalists and farmers in way that is both economically sensible and good for the earth.

SmartSpace installed in Olin Hall

With the recent installation of a SmartSpace study area in Olin Hall, students will no longer need to crowd around a single computer screen when working on group projects. SmartSpace technology rethinks the idea of group collaboration.

Located in Olin 166, directly off the Olin computer lab, the study area contains a computer programmed with SmartSpace technology and a 42-inch flat screen television monitor.

Students are able to wirelessly connect their laptops to the SmartSpace program. The study room’s computer effectively becomes a shared computer, and the program enables students to move documents and files from their individual computers to the shared computer and back.

Students are also able to work simultaneously on the same documents on the shared computer.

“Everyone who has seen it has been pretty enthusiastic,” said IT Services Consultant Matt Pearson of the SmartSpace.
Two more SmartSpace areas will open later this month in the second floor study alcove of the Hall of Science and in the Douglas Hall Conference Room. If the new technology is successful and widely used, more areas may be opened in the future.

The Olin SmartSpace is open for student use during the Olin computer lab’s hours of operation.

Shut the Hell Up!: Counterpoint

Remember that “Quiet Please” sign that used to sit on a tripod in foyer of the library? If you’re a freshman, you probably don’t; it hasn’t been there all year, and that’s not only because it was stolen last year.

I see people getting shushed in the library all the time. Shushers think that because there’s a cultural expectation of silence in the library, they have a license to be as rude as they like in their shushing.

This may come as a shock to the shushers, but the library is no longer a place solely for reading and quiet studying. Especially here at Whitman, the library is increasingly becoming a place for social interaction and group work.

Talking is a huge part of the learning process, and isn’t the library supposed to be a place for learning? Talking needs to be permitted to facilitate learning.

I’m not saying that every part of the library should be open for talking; I know how important silence can be when trying to do something that requires a lot of concentration. In fact, I need absolute silence to accomplish just about anything—I’m one of those people, but I’m not a shusher.

But there is a place for me in the library where silence is maintained. It is called the Allen Reading Room, and the shushers seem unaware of it.

There is no reason not to use it; there are spacious tables, comfortable couches and a homey fireplace. Most of the time, it’s totally empty.

I can understand the argument that the reading room is not big enough to be the only place where silence reigns in the library. The solution however, should not be to make the entire library silent. Instead, we could simply make more areas silent.

Containing talkers and group-studiers in study rooms is not the answer. On an even remotely busy night, getting a study room is impossible.

I think that these shushers get so mad because they blow things out of proportion. The group of freshmen behind you fervently discussing some core text might seem like a huge distraction. It might seem that they’re being totally disrespectful, but in reality, all you need to do to avoid distraction is move a few tables away.

And the library isn’t nearly as loud and many of these shushers contend.  Sure, there are some chronically noisy places (the tables at the top of the stairs, on the third floor, for example), but much of the library is not only silent, but empty. The fourth floor is very often just as silent as the reading room.

So, seriously shushers: stop complaining. Accept that the library needs to be a place where people can talk.

Sullivan draws mixed reactions

Conservative speaker Andrew Sullivan received a standing ovation from a portion of the audience at the conclusion of his Jan. 13 lecture, while still others remained seated.

Sullivan’s lecture on “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It and How to Get It Back and the Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” received such mixed reactions across campus.

“The response has been really interesting,” said ASWC Public Speakers Chair, Rachel Stein, who helped bring Sullivan to campus. “I’ve heard everything from ‘I loved it’ to ‘I didn’t agree with a word he said.’ It’s hard to know what to expect with the Whitman crowd; people have walked out in protest at other lectures. But that didn’t happen at all; people stayed and asked questions.”

Sullivan is a noted conservative speaker and writer who recently endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

He is an editor at The Atlantic, a writer for The Sunday Times of London and former editor-in-chief of The New Republic.

“I want to make a case tonight for a kind of conservatism that might not be that well known anymore, that may have been eclipsed in the current Republican party and may be unknown to many of you and your generation,” Sullivan said to the crowd at Cordiner.

“Conservatism, properly understood, deeply pondered and examined, is actually about a tradition that emphasizes doubt over faith, restraint over action, less rather than more. It is a minimalist political philosophy based on the core conviction that the human mind is fallible.”

Sullivan went on to articulate how this mindset of doubt shapes the conservative conception of issues like fiscal responsibility, gay marriage and Islamic fundamentalism.

“I would argue there is nothing more conservative than embracing gay marriage,” he said.

“He feels that his party has left him. I can sympathize with that. As a Democrat, I sometimes feel the Democratic party has betrayed me,” senior Gabrielle Arrowood said. Though unable to attend the talk, Arrowood regularly reads Sullivan’s popular blog, The Daily Dish, viewable at andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com.

“It was thought-provoking,” said senior Liz Oberhausen of the lecture. “He’s framing things so carefully that I’m hesitant to agree. But whether or not I end up agreeing with him, it was interesting.”

Introducing Sullivan were junior Roman Goerss of Campus Conservatives and sophomore Jeremy Balch of GLBTQ. “Let’s take the political liberal out of a liberal arts education,” Balch said, “and focus on its broader and more important meaning: one of understanding something from a different point of view.”

“My goal for the year was to create more balance and diversity. Having a conservative speaker was high on the list,” Stein said of ASWC’s decision to bring Sullivan to campus. “Andrew Sullivan appealed to me because he was conservative but pro-gay marriage. I felt like people would be more open to listening to him rather than immediately shutting down.”

Goerss echoed this characterization of Sullivan in his introduction.

“Campus Conservatives requested that Dr. Sullivan be here because we admire his ability to bridge divides,” he said. “To believe in something passionately while respecting those who believe differently. We want to bring political dialogue back to Whitman in just that spirit of respect.”

“This campus is still lacking in one of the most prominent voices of our time: that of conservatism,” Balch added.
Indeed, in conjunction with Sullivan’s visit, discussions of the campus’s political atmosphere resurfaced.

“It’s terrible how closed-minded I think the majority of students here are when they come across a viewpoint in opposition to their own,” Arrowood said. “The dynamic on campus is very anti-conservative. Being in ASWC, I’ve seen what the Campus Conservatives have to go through when getting funding.”

Even before Sullivan arrived, one of the signs advertising his lecture—paid for with student money—was stolen. “I don’t know what happened,” Stein said. “Someone could have taken it without any intent. If someone did because they disagreed with what it said, that’s disappointing. I hope people are willing to listen to others even if they disagree.”

Regardless, Stein said, “After the first sign was stolen, I put up two more for good measure.”

Co-Op raises funds for expansion

Last Wednesday the Daily Market Cooperative hosted a Valentine’s Day themed fund-raising event.

The event was held at Fat Duck Inn, a luxury bed and breakfast minutes from campus that in part is a product of the region’s burgeoning wine tourism.

Daily Market, formerly known as the Sweet Onion Co-op, was started three years ago and is working to expand from what began as a Whitman-funded student venture to a thriving community business.

Local wines were available for sampling along with fair trade chocolate. The event’s sophistication, and its $25-30 price tag, catered to an older crowd.

“A lot of Whitman students are not a part of the community to a certain extent. Investing $150 to become a member-owner is something that doesn’t make sense to them because they’re leaving in four years, and they’re on a meal plan, and we don’t have a store yet,” said junior Wynne Auld, who is a board member of the co-op.

The event’s grown-up feel reiterated the co-op’s goals: to carve out a serious niche in the Walla Walla community.

“We’re trying to reassure the community that it isn’t a student thing. Because it had its inception at Whitman, sometimes community members need to almost be convinced that it is not a Whitman entity at all. It’s independent and it’s a community group,” said Auld.

The Co-op is working to achieve a certain amount of capital so that soon it can open a store.

“We had to have a professional market study done, where an expert in the field came into Walla Walla and surveyed all of Walla Walla and commercial businesses that were available and potential rivals. ‘Who would be interested in shopping at this co-op?’ And the study came back overwhelmingly positive, which was really great for us because that meant our efforts would be worthwhile and that the bank would be willing to give us a loan if we achieve some capital ourselves,” said Auld.

To achieve this capital, the Co-op is recruiting member-owners, who pay a one-time refundable $150, then $10 each year thereafter to remain active. Member-owners own a part of the co-op and entitled to all sort of other goodies, such as discounts and voting power.

Because of the transient nature of people’s time at Whitman, and the meal plan structure, many have not taken advantage of what the co-op has to offer.

“This store cannot be made by Whitman students—it has to be a function of the community. But if the entire freshman class were to sign up, we’d have store by the end of the year,” said Auld.

‘Power Shift’ event draws Whitties

“We are a coalition of the benevolently irrational: good people doing good things for no good reason,” said Jefferson Smith of the Oregon Bus Project.

On Friday, Feb. 8, 12 Whitman students who care about climate change arrived at the University of Oregon campus in Eugene for the Cascade Power Shift: Mobilizing Youth for Climate Justice. The summit brought together more than 200 students from Oregon and Washington from over 20 colleges, universities, and high schools for the largest-ever youth climate summit in the Northwest.

“It was inspiring and motivating to be surrounded by people trying to bring momentum outside of their own campuses and really affect structural change,” said sophomore Natalie Popovich.

Simply put, those three days were some of the most affirming and hopeful of my life. If excitement could power cities, the electricity generated by so many passionate activists in the same room would guarantee a clean-energy future. And it’s possible. The global youth climate movement is the fastest growing youth environmental movement in history, and we’ve only just begun.

The 12 of us who attended the summit are now part of the Cascade Climate Network (CCN), an entirely volunteer-driven and youth-organized new network of climate change activists in the Northwest. The original 20 of the group, formed only four months ago, have since armed hundreds with the tools and training to bring desperately needed awareness and change across the board in order to address this planetary crisis.

The non-stop summit consisted of panels, speakers, and workshops that engaged us in envisioning a better world and building coalitions to achieve our plans. Whitman was well-represented. We divided and conquered the weekend, forming coalitions with students statewide to create Green Jobs for Washington, learn about potential future fuels such as biomethane, and stop new coal plants in their dirty tracks.

These are only a few examples of the many campaigns for climate change action, to halt false solutions to global warming that only enforce the status quo, and to lay the groundwork for a new clean-energy economy that provides rewarding and sustainable work for those who need it most.

Armed. Passionate. Young. Who are we, and why do we care? We’re not militant radicals and we don’t wear garlands, but we ARE out to save the world – with poise and creativity. We have paid attention to the trials and victories of history, and we are organized, determined, and ready to rumble. In its complexity, this catchy message is more than it seems: we are not fighting for one cause, one movement, or one solution.

Climate change is the defining problem of our generation, and it is incredibly complex – it is already displacing people, eradicating species, and changing American lives and our view of the future. This wildcard will turn things upside down, and the differing degrees to which it is doing so defines this issue in terms of not only biology and politics, but also social justice and economics.

That is why the energy and vision of every single person counts, and why this summit gave me HOPE. The momentum culminated on Monday, the first-ever youth global warming Citizen Action day at the Oregon and Washington state capitols. Five of us – Natalie Popovich, Tyler Harvey, Sarah Judkins, Elena Gustafson, and myself – met with three legislators from two Washington districts. We lobbied for two important climate change bills, but accomplished much more: We turned heads and shook things up by showing that the next generation of leaders are working in unison for a better world.

As we all know, the youth political bloc is one of the most underrepresented. For us, this sad fact is a two-sided card because by the sheer novelty of students coming all the way from Walla Walla to see their representatives, we were rewarded with meaningful conversations with busy legislators in the middle of appropriations week – some up to an hour long!

By establishing these political relationships, we have taken the most important steps toward building the “sustainable, just, and prosperous future for all” that the next generation of American leaders envision.

Primarily passé: Presidential primaries are overdone

I’m done with the presidential primaries.

Really, I’ve been over them for weeks now. I was over them before Super Tuesday. I was over them before they even began.

And who can blame me? Everyone has been talking incessantly about the 2008 presidential election since 2004, with speculation heating up dramatically last summer. Especially for hopeful Democrats, the topic of the 2008 presidential nominees has been forefront dinner party conversation material. But why is it such a hot topic so many months before the actual election?

Most notably, the primaries this year come drastically earlier than they ever have before, with more and more states pushing to the front of the line, attempting to substantiate their vote.

An editorial published in The New York Times last September commented that “the presidential primary system is broken.” That is, states don’t get equal treatment because candidates are more likely to offer big promises to the states whose votes will actually count. The Times blames the system for the unprecedented push for earlier primaries.

Or maybe states like Florida and Michigan moved for earlier election dates out of sheer frustration with the current administration. In my mind, the 2008 presidential election is like having a birthday party after being released from prison: You plan it meticulously for years because it’s all you have to look forward to.

Whatever the reason, America has caught primary fever.

In some ways, this has had positive ramifications. On Super Tuesday (Feb. 5), Democrats set records for high voter turnout in 12 states and Republicans in 11. The overall turnout was 27 percent of eligible citizens, which beat the previous record from the 1972 primaries (a 25.9 percent turnout), according to a report in The New York Times.

And let’s not forget that bloggers and independent pundits are having a heyday, selling “Barack My World” T-shirts and “Hillary Is My Homegirl” bumper stickers by the bucketload. With the rise of the Internet, being political has never been so easy.

Maybe that’s the problem.

I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, coverage of the presidential primaries turned into its own version of Us Weekly. Reputable newspapers started running less-than-newsworthy stories on a daily basis. The Washington Post, for instance, printed an in-depth analysis on Hillary’s V-Neck suit entitled “Hillary Clinton’s Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory” in July. How pressing (no pun intended).

Every national newspaper seems to be playing the paparazzi game, trying to be the first source to report a snide remark or an unexpected moment. Last week, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The National Post each reported that John McCain called Barack Obama naïve on the headlining pages of their Web sites, as if the remark was on par with mass genocide.

If that wasn’t proof enough that the presidential primaries have become veritable tabloid fodder, Us Weekly itself printed a “Hot Pic” of Barack Obama in his swimming trunks (alongside pictures of Matthew McConaughey) over the summer. Last week the trashy magazine ran a full two-page spread called “Hillary Clinton: My Worst Outfits Ever!”

Actually, none of this would be that serious if the smattering of over-dramatized presidential “news” wasn’t overshadowing more important domestic affairs. Every day I cringe as I open the newspaper to spread after spread meticulously dissecting every insignificant detail about the campaign trail, while big domestic stories get pushed to page A27.

Did you know, for example, that the wealth gap among American colleges was reported yesterday to grow significantly last year? Or that a federal judge recently absolved the Army Corps of Engineers of liability in the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina?

Here’s another item that got pushed to the back of the paper last week: A bill was passed in Congress to outlaw the CIA from using waterboarding and other forms of torture against terror suspects. The president, as you might imagine, is expected to veto it.

Senators Clinton and Obama, by the way, abstained from voting on that bill. I guess they didn’t want to talk about it. There are more important things to pay attention to right now—Hillary’s tear ducts and Barack’s wife, for instance.

It’s great that people are paying attention to politics, but it’s important not to forget that the United States is more than just its president. Electing someone new is not going to magically end all the other problems America is plagued with every day.

We have a responsibility to pay attention to everything; and after we’ve cast our ballots, we must work towards cultivating change in all aspects of our lives.

First-generation students spread awareness

Many Whitman students may be ignorant of the dilemmas faced by first-generation and working class students on campus.  In the first-year class alone, there are more than 51 first-generation students, and Whitman students may be uncomfortable or insensitive to their situations.

“There’s no real attitude of prejudice against students with economic problems, but there might not be sensitivity.  People may not know what to say when others can’t afford to go out or study abroad,” said first-year Mary Dolan.

First Generation/Working Class Students (FGWCS) is a club that offers support to at least 50 students on campus.

“We want to provide a safe place for first-gens and working class students,” said President Gabrielle Arrowood.

“Being a working class student affects everything I do,” said Amelia Singer, co-president of the FGWCS.  “There’s a lot of things that most students don’t think about, that we do.  Like taking an art class, or the cost of books, or just having the confidence to do things.”

Arrowood, Singer and the club’s advisor, Professor Julie Charlip, addressed the issue of class diversity at the Symposium on Diversity and Community in January.  The Tunnel of Oppression also addressed class-based discrimination.

“The symposium was a great first start for making the campus aware of the problem,” said Arrowood. “Whitman has a problem with the way it addresses diversity.  It is seen as something to be celebrated, but how can you celebrate not having enough money?”

Being a first-generation or working class student on campus usually means hunting down financial aid, working regular hours and encountering stereotypes and a lack of understanding in other students.

“Working class students can only look into schools close to their homes or with good financial aid.  Many first-gens don’t have a lot of financial support from their families when they apply to college.  And we certainly don’t count on monthly checks from our parents,” said Arrowood.

“Whitman is pretty supportive, but they have a hard time understanding us as a diversity group.  They’re working on it though,” said Singer.  ASWC is starting a new club for students who don’t identify as first-generation or working class students, but are concerned with the issues on campus.  Interested students should contact Arrowood at arrowogd@whitman.edu.

Biodiesel: emission benefits, but at a cost?

Biodiesel. We’ve all been told it is a clean, eco-friendly, progressive option to regular diesel, right? Wrong. Biodiesel causes more destruction to the earth and to the atmosphere than regular diesel does.

Biodiesel is marked as “a clean-burning, alternative fuel produced from domestic, renewable resources,” according to biodiesel.org. It is a blend of petroleum diesel, alcohol, vegetable or animal oils, fats, or greases, most commonly soybean oil. This blend can be at any percentage. Even 20 percent bio and 80 percent petroleum diesel is supposed to lower the amount of carcinogenic and global warming causing emissions.

When the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) compared greenhouse gas emissions of biodiesel and petroleum diesel from the time of production to the time of combustion, they found that biodiesel emits almost the same amount as petroleum when produced from rapeseeds or oil producing seeds.

Here’s the kicker: If the rapeseed plot was replaced with trees, petroleum diesel would emit only a third of the CO2 equivalent emissions as biodiesel. This occurs because petroleum diesel emits 85 percent of its greenhouse gases when it being consumed by the engine. Biodiesel, on the other hand, emits two-thirds of its gas production stage, when the rapeseed is being harvested. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening.

In order to get the bio to put in the diesel, rainforests and grasslands are being destroyed to convert to cropland to grow rapeseeds. According to grist.org, a year’s supply of biodiesel for the average American will take about 10 acres of soybeans. Ten acres. For ONE little person. FOR ONLY ONE YEAR.

There are some many things wrong with this picture. The places to be destroyed are in South America, Indonesia and other tropical countries.

This act of destruction emits greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere when being burned and plowed. It strips the earth of these natural sponges that soak up carbon emissions.

Finally, cropland emits nitrous oxide, a 200 to 300 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

There is nothing “domestic” about this process; there is nothing “clean” about this process. This process and its destructive methods are complete contradiction to the supposed goal of biodiesel and are not helping in the fight against climate change.

Netflix It: ‘Once’

“Once” is the kind of movie you get done watching and then ask yourself, “Why do I EVER watch movies that aren’t independent?” The answer is: because you’re brainwashed. Fight the system. Watch “Once.”

Shot documentary-style in Ireland, the movie follows a broken-hearted musician (Glen Hansard, who looks like a real guy) who is swept off his feet by a charming, forward foreigner (Marketa Irglova, who wears no makeup and looks like a real girl).  More than their romance, “Once” follows the music the two make together over one intense week.

Their names are never revealed, so that we know them only as “Guy” and “Girl” in the credits, but amazingly you never realize you don’t know them.  The characters are so real they don’t have to force an identity on us. They have real singing voices, recorded in front of the camera, which makes the incredible soundtrack that much more remarkable. Rarely do films with music made especially for them handle the transition well (there’s that moment when the whole audience goes “Oh my god, she’s supposed to be writing ‘Not a Girl, Not yet a Woman’”), but this one nails it.

It’s incredibly refreshing to watch a love story that doesn’t need the love. Guy and Girl are attracted to each other, but broken hearts and secret spouses make getting together impossible. What matters to them, and to us, is the connection they have over a piano and a guitar. Their relationship works because it doesn’t work. Because, you know. In real life they don’t always unfold like they do in “13 Going on 30.”

Watch “Once” for the accents, the unassuming acting and Glen Hansard’s facial hair. And for god’s sake, watch it for the soundtrack.

Student places in European film-writing contest, attends workshop in France

“Amazing” cannot even begin to describe sophomore Dena Popova’s experience at a recent screenwriting workshop in France.

Popova, a rhetoric and film studies major and native of Bulgaria, was invited to attend the workshop after her screenplay, “In the End, It Rains,” was one of 25 selected in an annual European short film-writing contest sponsored by Nisi Masa, a French film organization.

Two screenplays are chosen from each country, and Popova’s was one of two selected from Bulgaria from an applicant pool of over 70. She was also the youngest participant selected.
The theme for this years contest was a circle.

“I wanted to make this combination of something very traditional and related to folklore and something very modern and up to date,” said Popova of her inspiration for “In the End, It Rains.”

“I played with a very fascinating Bulgarian tradition, Vaydudulka, of old women making a prayer for rain and the dance they do as part of the prayer. The story of the film is about these two strangers, a boy and a girl, who are traveling on a little bus in the countryside. The bus breaks down and they have to get out and they happen to be in this little village where the women are preparing for the rain prayer. The women need the girl for the prayer and dance.”

Popova wrote the screenplay last summer and was notified of the final decision last October. From this time on until she left for France, Popova was busy translating the screenplay from Bulgarian into English and reworking and improving it.

“At the beginning [of the workshop] I thought I had a finished story, but I found out that I had many more things to add,” said Popova with a laugh.

Popova spent her first week in Moulin d’Ande, France at the Centre des Ecritures Cinematographiques, a residence for screenwriters. Under the guidance of well-known European directors, the participants discussed each other’s screenplays and continually revised and improved them.

The second week was at an international short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France. There they pitched their screenplays to producers.

Popova was introduced to a Bulgarian director who was so intrigued by her screenplay that he offered to help Popova direct and produce it into film. “In the End, It Rains” will go into production this summer.

It will then go on to show at independent film festivals in Europe. “This is the destiny of a short film. There is no other way to distribute it. Its only fate is to go to a film festival,” said Popova.

“I would like to thank Professor Sickles. He help me so much with the translation and preparing the screenplay for the workshop,” said Popova.

Point/Counterpoint: Of ‘Primary’ importance: are primaries good for America? YES

Some critics of the presidential election process in the United States claim the primaries are a fundamentally undemocratic process, but this view is wrong. The primaries are the most democratic part of the election process and, without them, the election would be only marginally democratic.

Here is what the critics say:

First, the primary process supports party politics.

Second, money is too important.

Third, the “superdelegates” (U.S. senators, congressmen and women and prominent members of the political parties) often change who is actually elected at the conventions.

And fourth, the process excludes many people because of mobility, time constraints, or because they are not registered with one of the two major parties for which the primaries are held.

So there you have it: the argument for why the primary process is undemocratic. I don’t buy it.

First of all, yes, the system supports two-party politics, but that is simply because no other party has the following to organize a nation-wide primary process like the Democrats and the Republicans do. This does not mean it is illegal for other parties or independent candidates to run or even hold their own local elections or primaries, they just don’t.

Some editorialists might hit on something when they say the candidates are supported based on how much money they earn. However, this is the result of a simple cause and effect relationship: The cause is that a candidate catches the attention of the people with the effect of getting money from those people.

The question of superdelegates is, perhaps, the hardest to contend. However, The superdelegates are still citizens just like the rest of us. Superdelegates are people who have been elected by citizens of the United States to represent their views. Thus, though their vote is their own, they are still democratically elected officials who have an obligation to represent their constituents.

In an election like the one we are currently in, superdelegates do not have a strong enough sway anyway. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are so close, within 60 delegates of each other, that if the final number of delegates for each candidate remains as close they are now, even if all of the superdelegates voted for one candidate they would not get the 2025 votes needed for the nomination at the election. On the Republican side, McCain is more than 700 delegates ahead of his rival, making it impossible for the superdelegates to overrule who the people have voted for.

Finally, the primary process is no more or less exclusionary than the actual election. The primaries have absentee ballots that can be sent to people and the caucuses are held at local sites during non-business hours. It is up to the people to make their vote heard, and it is heard in the primaries in way that it might not be in the actual election.

This is the most definitive reason why the primary process is a democratic process. In the elections in November, the people vote but only to determine the Electoral College from their state who then vote entirely for one side or the other. This means if the state is split 51 percent Republican and 49 percent Democratic all of the votes still go to the Republican candidate.

However, this is not the case for the primaries. Each candidate gets a number of delegates equal to the relative percent of the state that votes for that candidate. For example, in the Super Tuesday race on the Democratic side, Clinton “won” the large states like California and New York; yet, since the margins were very close, it did not actually strongly affect the race as a whole since both candidates got delegates from each of these states.

In the primaries’ system, which is based on proportional representation and not winner-takes-all, every vote can have an effect on who is selected by the people. In the regular election, the people who vote for the minority, no matter how slim the minority is, in each state get whipped away, making their vote unimportant; however, the primaries make sure every vote counts, even if that vote falls in the minority.

Thus, every vote in the primaries counts because delegates are elected based on the people’s votes. This is the foundation of the primary process and the most democratic concept there is.

Nordic ski team faces tough competition

The Whitman Nordic ski team is used to running with the big dogs. Since they changed divisions in the 2002-‘03 ski season, the ski team has been the only Division III school in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA), a conference comprised of ski powerhouses such as the universities of Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Denver and New Mexico.

Because Division III schools don’t offer athletic scholarships, Whitman skiers routinely face very stiff competition. This year, however, they have risen to the challenge.

“The team as a whole has improved dramatically this year despite a competitive field of mostly European skiers,” said sophomore Warren McDermott, who has finished in the top for Whitman in five of eight races so far this season.

A striking example of this European presence is University of Colorado senior Maria Grevsgard from Norway, who has won all but two races this season. The men’s races have similarly been dominated by Norwegian and German skiers, many of whom are several years older than Whitman’s skiers. In spite of this, both teams have regularly finished ahead of several teams, including the University of Alaska Anchorage and University of Wyoming.

Much of the improvement talked about by McDermott can certainly be attributed to the closeness of the team. With only five skiers traveling for each team, they become very close and are forced to push each other.

“Our men’s team this year is a great example of why endurance sports can be team events,” said senior Robert Marcotte.

Even though only the top three skiers from each school score points in each race, everyone who has raced for the men’s team has scored points in one of the eight races so far this season. Furthermore, McDermott, Marcotte and senior Loren Schmidt have all taken the top place for Whitman in at least one race. This turnover in placing can be attributed to closeness in skill developed from long hours of training as a team. Even more impressive, in New Mexico on Feb. 8, four of the five Whitman skiers placed in sequential order and within 35 seconds of each other.

“This shows how we train as a team, race as a team, and improve as a team. It’s really exciting,” said Marcotte.

“With just 10 of us traveling, we have gotten pretty close on those 12 hour van rides,” echoed first-year Paige Devlin, who cited team chemistry as a major factor in this season’s success.

Devlin also brought up an added factor to this year’s dynamic: new coaching.

“This year we also had a new coach, Calisa Shouweiler.  I think she did a great job with the team and I think everyone had a lot of fun with her,” said Devlin.

Regionals, to be held on Feb. 22 and 23 at Montana State University in Bozeman, will probably be the last race for a number of seniors on the men’s team. Sophomore Devon Spika looks to qualify for Nationals for the second time, after an impressive 19th finish in the 15 kilometer classic her freshman year at the national level. This year, Spika, who has dual Canadian-American citizenship, had her highest finish in Crested Butte, Colo., coming in seventh in the 10 kilometer.

“Overall, I am very impressed with how much faster our whole team has gotten this year. I think we can do some great things at Bozeman, and I think Devon will qualify for nationals,” said McDermott.

In defense of religion

There are a lot of gross misconceptions made about religion and spirituality these days.

There are people who drive around with those bumper stickers that say “Religions are just cults with more members.” These grossly narrow-minded people think that religion is exactly what their bumper stickers tell them it is: a collectivistic entity that brainwashes people and uses them to its own ends.

Then there are people who think that they can concoct the perfect recipe for religion. They start with a vague understanding of Buddhism, add a dash of Hinduism, some meditation and incense, and then season to taste with a little old-fashioned, mainstream Christianity. These people think that religion is a custom-ordered, personalized way of looking cool and congratulating oneself at the same time.

I’m not going to spew the rhetoric of any particular faith—I’m not into that. But I want to make it clear that there is a difference between communion with a higher being and the self-serving, introspective practices that are often passed off as “religion.”

But much of the time, people who actually practice real religion are more detrimental to it than people who think their morning yoga class counts as religion. Religion can produce more hate and intolerance than anything positive.
Everyone loves to reject religion for this reason, but I think that’s too simplistic a solution.

The hateful and intolerant attitudes that often accompany religion are more a product of people being stupid and having a predisposition to hate rather than anything implicitly wrong with the religion.

These bigots are really frustrating, because they so effectively do the opposite of what they try to. They want to get more people involved in their religion. But they somehow imagine that the best way to accomplish that is by uncompromisingly professing only the aspects of their faith that they’ve twisted into hate.
Hate can be an effective way to get a group of people to agree on something. But if these people are trying to have a religious experience, they’re totally missing the point.

Religion is an individual experience. It is the relationship between man and a higher power. When people come together religiously, the point should be to support one another, not to collectively hate others.

Hatemongering religious people often get caught up on questions of belief. Someone will tell one of them something ridiculous like “You have to believe that homosexuals are going to hell, or else you will too.” So there are people out there who fearfully believe that homosexuals go to hell.

But they don’t realize that belief isn’t important at all. Even if we were to pretend that there’s something wrong with being gay (which is absurd) it still shouldn’t make any difference at all what you believe about it. And it really shouldn’t make enough difference to justify being hateful.

BOOK REVIEW ‘The Professor and the Madman’

If you don’t already have an obsession with words, you might wonder why Simon Winchester’s “The Professor and the Madman” was even written.  But this historical account of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is more exciting than non-English majors would think.

We’ve all heard of it, we’ve all used it, but how many of us have ever stopped to consider how difficult it would be to collect every word in the English language into one book?  “The Professor and the Madman” tells the story of Professor James Murray, the leader of one of the most difficult projects in literary history, and an American named Dr. W. C. Minor.

During the compilation of the OED, a process that took several years, Minor submitted over 10,000 definitions and proved himself to be a remarkable authority on linguistics.  If there was ever a word that gave the OED trouble, they would consult him.  Through their shared obsession, Professor Murray and Dr. Minor became close friends, although they had never met.  When they finally did, it was revealed that Minor was a lifetime inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

Although the story does contain a great deal of bearded old men poring over books, it contains elements of mystery and insanity that sometimes make it fairly exciting.  If nothing else, one can appreciate the fact that one of the leading contributors to the OED suffered from hallucinations that Irishmen crawled through the floorboards at night, forced him to swallow poison capsules and flew him around the world.  At the same time, it reveals the tragic life of a man tortured by guilt, sexual desires and madness, who found his only purpose in the study of words.  The relationship between Professor Murray and Dr. Minor is fascinating and poignant.

While the narrative is often slow, Winchester does a wonderful job telling this story in a way that illustrates both the scholarly and human aspects of this monumental event in literary history.  At times, you may find yourself bogged down with descriptions of arduous word-cataloging, but the people themselves are worth reading about.  If nothing else, you will never look at a dusty, old OED the same way.

Clean, green Valentines

Across America today, approximately one billion greeting cards will be exchanged, as well as about 110 million roses, with the average lovebird forking out about $95 for their significant other.
In other words, Valentine’s Day means a lot of waste.
Rather than emptying your wallet this year, why not refuse to consume? Here are a few green ideas for the non-consumer in your love life:

MAKE CHOCOLATE: This can be as simple as melting some dark chocolate in a bowl over just-simmering water and dipping nuts, dried fruits, or strawberries. Let dry on wax paper in the fridge.

COLLAGE YOUR LOVE: Include old magazine clippings, string, melted crayons, clear contact paper, comic strips, or pictures from children’s books at the thrift store.

HOME-MADE CARDS: One beautiful idea is to sew colorful ribbon through an old brown paper bag and to glue this on top of heart-shaped card stock.

PLANT SOMETHING: Get a few seeds from dried flowers or elsewhere and plant them in soil. Decorate an old ceramic pot or use an empty yogurt container or other recycled container.

DONATE: Donate money in the name of your loved one. These organizations have special Valentine’s Day specials:
- The Hunger Site
- No More Homeless Pets
- Save The Children
- Prostrate Cancer Foundation

WRITE: A song, a poem, a short story, whatever. Perform it for the person you love on Valentine’s Day then make dinner together.

Election 2008: Super Tuesday? More like super let down

Super Tuesday is way cooler than the Super Bowl—the silver trophy given to the Bowl winner is small potatoes compared to the bounty of popular support and money received by Super Tuesday’s anointed. That’s because usually Super Tuesday is a day of decision where the primary contests stop being competitive, or at least reach their climax and transition to denouement. But Super Tuesday 2008, with 21 states (including California and New York) voting, seemed more of a kickoff to a drawn out, nail biter of a campaign between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama than the beginning of the end—no one won.

The results tell the story. Clinton managed to squeak out a slight win in delegates, carrying both New York and California, while Obama won more states.  According to the New York Times, the score is 912 delegates Clinton and 741 Obama; the number needed to secure the nomination, 2,025, is still a long way away for both candidates.
This close a race at this stage is unprecedented since 1968, but it is not unexpected. We are emerging from one of the most divisive periods in American political history and our county’s attempt to nominate candidates reflects that. The Republican party, once united under the mastermind Karl Rove, is now fragmented—while McCain appears to now be the Republican choice, he is still missing a sizable chunk of the republican base: the far right Evangelical vote. This fragmentation has the potential to redefine the Republican Party.

This base fracturing is also occurring on the Democrat’s side. In voting for the identity of the Democratic Party this Super Tuesday, primary voters split according to personal identity. Hillary Clinton carried more than two-thirds of the Latino and Asian vote plus a hefty majority of white women, while Barack Obama’s support was among African Americans (topping 80 percent support) and white males (60 percent). Of all the numbers used for voter analysis, these identity based indicators show the greatest margins of difference between the candidates; every other major indicator (voters’ self identified position on the political spectrum, income, etc.) was split nearly down the middle.

Why?

After feeling alienated from politics for 10 years—the Lewinsky trials plus the Bush years—Democrats are trying to make the system personally theirs; votes are being cast for the candidate who is closes to one’s self image, not ideology. While this “identity voting” is an important factor in all elections, numbers show it is the dominant approach in this election. The party is split because of the different candidate identities.

But the candidates are only the tip of the identity-iceberg. The character of the movements associated with each candidate is more different than the candidates.  Obama’s supporters share raw enthusiasm and hope. Freshness and possibility are generally favored far above intricate policy discussion for Obammans and the battle scars of experience are shunned in favor of fresh charisma. In contrast, Clinton’s followers are more reserved (some would say cynical) in their approach to politics, seeing Washington as a complex knot that requires tough, deliberate effort to untie. Battle scars are points of pride and a credential for Clintonites.

So, now after Super Tuesday, we Democrats are still trying to figure out which identity we will rally behind—the veteran or the messiah. The idea of a joint ticket, Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton, has been bouncing around the punditry as a solution to fragmentation, but in an election search for an identity, such a ticket would bring schizophrenia. We need one candidate to win, any deal or compromise would confuse our message and miss an opportunity to provide clear vision and leadership as we look to the years ahead.

Which is why I was excited for Super Tuesday—I thought someone would win and I could join the party in rallying behind them. But instead we are in for a long ride in a race that, at this point, could go either way.

Matt and Charlie get wild on… Rich & Rare

Rich & Rare is a drink of contradictions. It’s from Canada, where people are nice, but it makes you yell horrible things at people. It’s “rare,” but if you go to the liquor store, there’s a shit-ton of it. It’s “rich” and is only purchased by the apocalyptically poor.

The word “whiskey” derives from the Gaelic word for “water”—and the very fact that the Irish were willing to blur the distinction between “water” (the shit that, you know, composes like 80 percent of our bodies) and fucking whiskey  really illuminates why the English had an easier time conquering Ireland than a DG has getting gonorrhea. Sorry, Ireland—but you did everything but pour Cromwell a frothy Guinness when his ass rolled into Galway. And frankly your native drink did us bad last night.

Matt kind of took the etymology to heart, swallowing “water” as if at an Irish baptism gone horribly awry. His night can be summed up thusly:

Matt: Hello R&R.
R&R: Fuck you, Matt.
Matt: Hello bushes in front of a middle-aged shut-in woman’s home.
Bushes: We’ll always love you!

We would say that falling asleep outdoors is the calling card of an awful evening, but the fact is, the evening could’ve been amazing. Matt simply doesn’t know. He could’ve gotten blown by that Asian dude who used to play guitar in Smashing Pumpkins. Though he was, for the most part, surrounded by people all-too-willing to account for the horrible shit he did (like steal a bunch of oil-rich land from some dumb Texas yokels for a song), there was a pretty solid amount of time for which nobody could account—between leaving his own house and being discovered by his understandably bummed-out girlfriend on his bush-bed.

Matt would like to think that, if his night was a movie, it would be like “There Will Be Blood”—all whiskey drinking and mean-muggin’—but, to be honest, it was probably a lot more like Weekend at Bernie’s—people all trying to evoke some semblance of life from an utterly inert human body, while simultaneously sort of manipulating him.

What was Charlie doing while his friend was basically dying? Charlie was staring off into the middle-distance, seething, alone, turning on Mr. Blue Sky by ELO every 15 minutes, wishing it was louder. Top 10 night for Charlie.

Basically, Rich & Rare stole a solid portion of our lives, and handed it off silently to some noiseless demon shrouded in pillowy darkness. What did he do with the tithes we paid to him in tears and vomit? Bought a Cadillac made of a cocaine and platinum coins, probably.

Music to Listen to while Drinking Rich and Rare: Rush (Canadian) and Pogues (Irish) at the same time.

What to Drink with Rich and Rare: Diet, Safeway generic soda that you punched out the back window of a El Camino to obtain.

What to Eat with Rich and Rare: The promises you’ve made.

What activity to do with Rich and Rare: Teach your children to smoke as a means to suppress the hunger accompanying the potato famine.

Consumeability Formula: (As English majors, we have constructed a mathematical formula, to approximate the over-all quality of Rich & Rare as an item for consumption):

[ ( Drinkability out of Hundred / Price ) + ( (Alcohol Per Volume x Volume) / Price ) ] / Hours Hungover

So, filling in the numbers for Rich & Rare.

[ (55/$21.00) + ( (%40 x 1,750 ml) / $21.00) ] / 4 Hours Hilariously Hungover = 8.97 (Not out of ten).

1 DRAINAGE! (If you don’t get this, watch the god-damn movie).

2 There are some pictures on Facebook of Charlie trying to get Matt to put in his pin number at the Bank of America on Main Street.

3 Charlie’s life is not good.

review: dutch bros. coffee

With the recent opening of a Dutch Bros. Coffee drive-through stand in Walla Walla, coffee drinkers were presented with yet another option for getting their caffeine fix.

The drive-through stand, located at 630 SE 9th Street in the parking lot of the Super 1 Foods, is the 121st store in the Dutch Bros. Coffee Co. franchise.

First created in 1992 by brothers in Grants Pass, Ore., the coffee franchise has grown quickly over the past few years. Although the majority of the stores are in Oregon, stands can be found in five other states across the Pacific Northwest. There are currently five stands in eastern Washington and there are plans for more in the coming months.

The popularity of Dutch Bros. is in large due to the company’s commitment to customer service. All stands are locally owned and operated and employees make it a priority to get to know their customers.

“The employees recognize you and remember your name and they have conversations with you while making your drink,” said first-year Ali Spangler, a native of Newport, Ore.

“The employees at the Dutch Bros. in Walla Walla remembered me after the second time I went there,” said Spangler, suggesting that the new coffee stand in Walla Walla may soon develop a local following.

WW mall renovation to resume despite environmental concerns

The cities of Walla Walla and College Place disputed the renovation of the Blue Mountain Mall in Walla Walla.   The renovation of the mall was put on hold when College Place appealed the decision to construct the mall on environmental grounds.  The appeal was overturned and construction will resume immediately.

College Place City Administrator Pat Reay announced that the city “respectfully disagrees” with the decision to commence with the construction.

College Place and Verus, a company that will build a center neighboring the mall, argued that the mall will have negative effects on their property.  They were concerned about traffic congestion, light pollution and flooding storm waters.  The mall parking lot has flooded in the past, but the mall must now keep all flood water on-site.

“The concerns of College Place and Verus have been addressed and the environmental impacts will be controlled,” said Walla Walla Assistant Attorney Preston Fredrickson.

To minimize the negative impacts of the mall, traffic studies were conducted by the city, and the Department of Ecology must stay on-site to prevent storm water from flooding nearby College Place residents.

Many people think that the renovation of the mall, originally built in 1989, is long overdue.

“I absolutely detest driving to the Tri-Cities area to do shopping and would like to see a mall here once again that has something for everyone,” said a woman who identifies herself as “WW Mom” on a Web site that invites citizens to debate about current issues.

Currently, the mall is a skeletal clump of buildings, including Sears, ShopKo and Gottschalks.  Retailers such as Payless Shoes and Radio Shack vacated the mall when business became scarce, and now there is little remaining at the site.

The mall owners are still advertising space to retailers and the future stores have not been decided yet.  Rumors of Costco, Build-A-Bear Factory and Staples have interested Walla Walla citizens.

“I’m so happy to have a Costco.  I hate driving to Pasco every few weeks,” said citizen Elayne Martins.

Western Development Partners, LLC bought the mall nearly a year ago and permits have already been issued for the demolition of most of the mall.  The new mall will consist of two rows of shopping centers that will cross Poplar Street.  A permit for 120,000 square feet of retail space has been issued, and $9.3 million has been set aside for the foundation of the mall.

“The owner has to complete the purchase, and demolition should start within the month,” said Development Services Assistant Director Brian Walker.  Western expects to start redevelopment in July.

College Place is also working to expand its shopping options.  Verus is a developing company recently contracted by College Place to open a shopping center on Myra Road, not far from the construction site of the mall.

IHC questions Bon Appétit bins

Every weekday at 5 p.m. a Bon Appétit truck delivers bins full of food to 10 houses on Whitman’s campus. These are 10 of the 11 houses that comprise Whitman’s Interest House Community (IHC).

On weekdays, residents of these houses have “house dinners.” But instead of going to the dining hall as a group, Bon Appétit brings their food to them.

For the food service workers, prepping the bins for delivery begins at 2:30 p.m.

“There’s 20 bins that need to be logically delivered in a period of time so that it’s still hot,” said Prentiss Dining Hall Manager Susan Todhunter.

“The fact that people have to drive a truck around and waste gas every single day to deliver food to houses that are so close to Prentiss seems totally nonsensical to me,” said sophomore IHC resident Danny Kaplan. “It just seems like a really wasteful system.”

Todhunter also acknowledged environmental concerns related to the packaging of food in small, disposable containers. But the reusable containers that Bon Appétit uses often don’t get returned.

The IHC and Bon Appétit have been working together to reduce the environmental impact of the bin system. For example, Todhunter has offered to send larger containers of peanut butter to houses that would last a month, rather than a week.

“It’s so nice to have the support of Bon Appétit in terms of working with students and wanting to find ways to make the system even better,” said IHC Resident Director Evan Carman.

Both Carman and Todhunter feel that the biggest advantage of the bin system is the sense of community it fosters in each house.

“It offers us a chance to have family-style dinners in the IHC, and that sort of tight-knit community is something that we pride ourselves on,” said Carman.

“The college has always been very committed to having the program because of the benefits and the camaraderie that it fosters,” said Todhunter.

However, the bin system does not necessarily ensure that Interest Houses are always eating together.

“I feel like students are busier than they used to be,” said Todhunter, who acknowledges that residents often don’t eat dinner together as a result of conflicting classes or other activities.

According to Kaplan, the bin system is not necessary for house dinners. Since the second week of the school year, he has marked on the bin order form that he will not be attending dinner. Then, every night, he walks to Prentiss to get his food and brings it back to his house.

“I still always participate in the house dinner,” said Kaplan, who argues that housemates should be able to build relationships just by living together.

However, Philip Lundquist, a past resident and RA of the Fine Arts House, thinks that eating dinner as a house is an important component of house dynamics.

“Even though you’re in a house with a small number of people, it’s still very easy to spend most of your time in your room,” said Lundquist. “There’s something about breaking bread with people that helps you get to know them a lot better.”

One interest house, the Community Service House, is not on the bin system. Residents of this house shop for their own food and prepare meals together four times a week.

“I feel very strongly that Bon Appétit should be able to provide for the IHC residents raw ingredients so we can cook our own meals and not just the food they already prepare,” said IHC resident David Abramovitz in an e-mail.

But Kaplan argues that more than minor changes need to be made to this system. For him, it is something that needs to be completely restructured.

“It’s just a lot of extra work to stack the bins and Bon Appétit is putting in all this work for something that students feel ambivalent about at best,” said Kaplan. “I think it’s something that absolutely must be adjusted and must be changed.”

Uncle Sam Wants You! (*But not your foreign same-sex partner or spouse)

A good friend of mine spent winter break pining for her lover whom she met in Scotland during her semester abroad at St. Andrews. The distance would provide an ample source of conflict for even the most devoted of couples, but my friend not only has interpersonal relationship challenges working against her, but also her own government. She knows that even should they stay together and decide to make a long-term commitment, the road to living in the United States together has every chance of being a long prance down a dead-end street. Her lover is female, and same-sex unions are not recognized by U.S. immigration policy.

In case you haven’t seen the episode of “Will & Grace” when Jack marries Karen’s housekeeper to get her a green card, here’s how U.S. immigration policy works: Heterosexual marriages are recognized and a “green card” or visa will be issued to a non-citizen who marries an U.S. citizen of the opposite sex. That spouse may now live and work indefinitely in the U.S.—though they still aren’t considered full citizens. Same-sex unions (such as marriages legalized in Massachusetts and civil unions) do not qualify for the same treatment because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law passed in 1996, which defines marriage as occurring between a man and a woman.

This isn’t to say same-sex binational couples have no options. Here’s a compelling one: A non-citizen can use his or her same-sex relationship with a U.S. citizen as a basis to obtain a non-immigrant, or temporary, visa called a B-2 “cohabitating partner” visa. This was originally intended to support family members and close friends of U.S. citizens who wanted to visit the U.S., but has been expanded to include same-sex couples. So, great, right? Now you can bring your same-sex Venezuelan lover to America!

Let’s work under the understanding that you don’t have oodles of money, and your Venezuelan lover would like to work in order to buy things like, you know, food. And shelter. Nope, sorry. The B-2 visa is for “pleasure” only; no working or legally earning money of any kind. Your situation becomes even more messed up when you decide to marry said lover in Massachusetts. The temporary visa is issued with the understanding that the non-citizen intends to stay only for a limited period of time. A marriage certificate from Massachusetts would prove that you directly contradicted the terms of the temporary visa, and if you try to apply for a permanent green card your same-sex marriage will not only have no effect on the application, it can actually be used as a reason to decline your application.

Binational same-sex couples are not the only ones screwed by U.S. immigration policy—so are those who are HIV-positive and those with AIDS (they are categorically denied access to the country). This is a tragedy not only for the gay community but also for refugees from war-torn countries seeking asylum. There are 13 other countries that prohibit those with HIV from entering their borders: Armenia, Brunei, China, Iraq, Qatar, South Korea, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. But that’s another discussion for another time.

Immigration of all kinds is a hot topic in the nation, but this aspect of the issue gets very little press attention. It’s not clear to me why this is. Perhaps it is because it is a problem that affects only a portion of the gay community (according to the Census Bureau, there are 35,820 binational same-sex couples in the U.S. today). There are millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico—I can see the difference. But of those 35,820 couples, 16,000 of them are raising children. That’s 47 percent. These children are lucky to have two loving parents. Sending one of them away because our government deems the love between them less real than the love between heterosexual couples seems, well, ridiculous.

I am beyond being disgusted at this point. I am simply bewildered and amazed that in this time, in this nation, such measures are still in place.

Katz targets men to prevent assault

Sexual misconduct education plays an integral role in first-year orientation, and then—for the lucky majority of people who aren’t assaulted—sexual misconduct falls off the radar.

In an effort to address the neglect of sexual misconduct education for upperclassman, Barbara Maxwell, associate dean of students, has spearheaded a yearly program aimed at raising awareness.

“It’s something I personally have a passion for,” said Maxwell. “It’s time. It’s something that we should’ve been doing a long time ago but because of a lack of time and resources, it just hasn’t happened. I’ve just sort of decided it has to happen, so other things sort of have to fall away.”

Last week, Jackson Katz, a leading educator, writer and filmmaker in the men’s anti-sexism movement, visited campus for week-long violence prevention events targeted at men.

The first was a screening of his most acclaimed film, “Tough Guise,” which explores the media’s perpetuation of a violent masculine ideal. In it, he insists that the issue of gender violence must no longer be construed as a “women’s issue.” Men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of all violence, so clearly, Katz says, it’s a men’s issue.

The approach, however, is not one of guilt-tripping and finger-pointing, but rather one that aims to equip men with tools for preventing violence.

“What’s he tried to do is engage all men to be allies in gender violence prevention. So it’s not that as a man you’re a bad person or a potential perpetrator—it’s that as a man you can be really influential in stopping this and here’s some tools that can help you do that,” said Maxwell.

The second event was a lecture in Maxey that was more of an intellectual heart-to-heart than a formal speech. Katz ended his talk with a montage of World Wrestling Entertainment clips from his film

“Wrestling with Manhood.” The montage shows women being simultaneously abused and sexualized.

In one, a wrestler grabs a blonde by her hair and threatens to punch her in the face. Instead, he kisses her. These disturbing clips, Katz pointed out, were all gathered from regular television with only a few coming from pay-per-view.

At Whitman, though, problems of gender violence are not as glaringly overt as enormous wrestlers first beating then sexually degrading small, hyper-feminine women.

“I think that as a campus we’re less oriented as a whole towards the hyper-masculine, but I don’t think it’s entirely gone,” said junior Tom Bugert, who was part of the Campus Activities Board committee created by Maxwell to organize the Katz event.

A survey conducted last year by senior Sara Pierce-Magdalik, however, revealed that sexual misconduct is a bigger problem than indicated by official tallies.

“It’s an incredibly touchy subject. No one would ever say, ‘Oh this is me.’ Ever. And beyond that I think so much of what goes on on this campus is not blazingly apparent, it’s not tacit, it’s misperceptions,” said Interfraternity Council President Chase Cooper, who in the past was an active member of the student club Consent.

“It’s not people jumping out of the bushes. It’s a lot harder to address because a lot of times people don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Cooper.

Pierce-Magdalik’s survey also revealed that the problem is concentrated in the greek system.

“I think that within the fraternities and within the sororities as well, on average we’re more masculine and they’re more feminine than your average Whitman student,” said Cooper. “Are we more masculine and feminine than your average student in the country? I wouldn’t say that. I think Whitman does such a great job of encouraging awareness on those identity formation issues. But yes, for the campus, I’d say we represent the ends of the spectrum a little bit.”

‘Non-Shock Jocks’ Talk: NBA

WOODS:

With the NFL season officially behind us and pitchers and catchers not set to report until Feb.. 14 (Editor’s note: Woods wrote “February xx” there, knowing Eli would fill the date in), the NBA takes center stage for us this week. The season is just over halfway complete, and there are plenty of surprises, both good and bad, in both conferences.

Let’s start in the East, which to me, seems to be a two-team race with the Celtics and Pistons. The Celtics have proven that the big three can play together and that they can even win some games with only two of the big three in action. In Detroit, I think they have one of, if not the, strongest teams of the past five years there, with a vastly improved group of young bench players backing up a solid starting five.

I think Orlando can make some noise in the playoffs, but I still see them as being a year or two away. And Cleveland is playing well, but I can’t see LeBron repeating his legendary performance of last year’s playoffs, unless they manage to pull a trade and land someone like Jason Kidd from New Jersey or Mike Bibby from Sacramento.

ASCH:

I agree with you on the East wholeheartedly, but I have to add that while it’s a two-team race there is, in my mind, a clear favorite in the Detroit Pistons, and a clear challenger in the Celtics. The reason for this is simple: experience. The Celtics’ big three, as great individually and collectively as they are, haven’t really “been here” (favorites heading into the playoffs) before: Paul Pierce took the Celtics to one Eastern Conference final back in the Antoine Walker days, Kevin Garnett was famously frustrated by the T-Wolves’ inability to win as much as a playoff series while he was there (they eventually one exactly one), and even Ray Allen has never won a conference title, only getting as close as game seven of the 2001 Eastern Finals.

These Pistons, meanwhile, are battle-tested, playing in two straight NBA Finals (’04 and ’05) and winning the first. This experience, shows, I think, in the big games; do you remember the first time the Celtics played the pistons this year and just seemed overexcited and couldn’t seal the deal? Although they have since played a rematch which the Celtics won, I could see the Celtics getting struck by the jitters again in the big three’s first playoff appearance—if they look this good in year two together, though . . .

But we both know that when we’re talking about the East we’re basically talking about JV ball. You mentioned the other day on our radio show who your favorite coming out of the West is, and it’s one that nobody saw coming at the beginning of the year.

WOODS:

That’s right, the Los Angeles Lakers are my favorite to win the West as of right now, and that’s a team that none of us had even in the top three when the year started. With the Pau Gasol steal I think they have as good a chance out of anybody. When Andrew Bynum, who was averaging a double-double, comes back, this team is going to be a force out West. I refer to the trade as a steal because the Lakers didn’t give up one, not one, of their top 10 players in the deal.

Pau Gasol is a legitimate all-star in this league that has been stuck in Memphis for too long. To illustrate his impact on the Lakers: in a game a few days ago since the deal, Kobe Bryant scored 6 points…and the Lakers won the game! I don’t think that has happened since Kobe had Shaq by his side in the early 2000s. And speaking of Shaq, with his deal to the Phoenix Suns completed last week for Shawn Marion, where do you see the Suns stacking up out West?

ASCH:

Now I don’t follow the NBA that closely, but from what I gather, Shawn Marion really wanted out of Phoenix, and when a guy wants out that bad, it’s probably better for the team to let him go. That being said, the Suns got pennies on the dollar for Marion—Shaq is old, expensive, injury-prone and will seriously slow down the Suns up-tempo offense.

Perhaps the Shaq-necessitated slowdown isn’t a bad thing, though, as the run-and-gun model Suns team was never able to make the finals—let alone win a title—twice losing in the Western Conference finals (to Dallas in six games in ’06 and to San Antonio in 5 in ’05). But this is definitely a do-or-die deal for Phoenix—as you mentioned on our radio show, Nash is getting old, and Shaq almost has to retire when his contract expires after the ’08-’09 season, and when that happens Suns GM Steve Kerr is going to look like either an idiot or a genius—I like the guy, so I’m hoping for the latter but am expecting the former.

Shifting gears, though, another team no one expected to be this good out West is the New Orleans Hornets, led by Most Valuable Player candidate Chris Paul. How good do you think his team really is? And do you think Chris Paul really has a shot at the MVP? What about the other individual hardware—wanna give out some mid-season awards?

Mid-season awards—Eli’s picks:
Most Improved: Andrew Bynum
Rookie of the Year: Al Horford
Coach of the Year: Doc Rivers (and I can’t believe it!)
MVP: Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul make me have to split my vote
Mid-Season Awards—Woods’s Picks:
Most Improved: Chris Kaman
Rookie of the Year: Kevin Durant
Coach of the Year: Byron Scott
MVP: Chris Paul

‘First-year-heavy’ IM basketball begins

Joe Wheeler knows the right way to play intramural basketball. The first-year team captain says his team’s games will feature plays drawn on a whiteboard and coach Andrew Hess in a tie.

“There’s also been rumors of cheerleaders,” said Wheeler. “We’ll see.”

Wheeler’s team, Off in the Woods, is one of 17 Division II teams this season. The IM Committee divided D-II teams arbitrarily into two squads to facilitate making a game schedule.

“Playing D-II seems to be a general trend this year,” said senior Claudia Yeung, IM Committee co-chair. “We also had to split up the D-II league for soccer, because there were way too many teams for one league.”

There are several first-year teams, including Off in the Woods, which makes basketball a more first-year-heavy sport than either football or soccer.
“First-year teams will have to compete with a lot of returning D-II teams this year,” said sophomore Ben Kron from Fire and Spice. “They’ll have less experience, so they’re in for a battle.”

In contrast, the Division I league has five teams and the Women’s league has four.

“It makes the game schedule really simple, plus every team has a good shot at playing in the championships,” said senior Max Weber, captain of D-I team Kaman’s Krew. “There should be some really good competition within the league.”

Weber is the only returning member of last year’s D-I champion team, after his other team members graduated.

“It seems like most of the teams this year are formed at random,” said Weber. “I don’t think there’s a lot of returning teams from last season.”

Weber said he expected his team to meet Scientologists for Jesus in the championships. The sophomore-heavy team, captained by Matt Solomon, includes several players who played varsity basketball for Whitman last winter.

In comparison to the detailed – and often hotly contested – rules of IM football, Yeung said the IM Committee has never officially established a set of rules for basketball.

“People pretty much know what they’re doing on the basketball court,” said Yeung. “There aren’t many rule differences from a normal basketball game.”

Yeung also said that there will be no IM volleyball this year, since renovations on Sherwood will start during spring break.

“We’re trying to come up with a substitute sport,” said Yeung. “We’ve come up with some possibilities, but we’re still trying to chose the most appropriate one.”

To strive for diversity can be reductive

First of all, saying that colleges shouldn’t be concerned with religious diversity isn’t the same thing as saying that religious diversity is pointless. No matter where you attend school, it’s crucial that you feel both accepted by your community and challenged (within a comfortable level) by people with different beliefs. College plays a clichéd yet crucial role in developing personalities from high-schoolers to adults, and religion is definitely a part of that. However, for a college to actively pursue religious diversity among its students is unnecessary and even, perhaps, impossible.

On its most basic level, religion isn’t easily evaluated because, frankly, it’s neither visible nor tangible. The recent hype for advertising racial diversity everywhere from cosmetic commercials to college guidebooks hasn’t caught on for religious diversity, for the simple fact that beliefs usually aren’t evident in photographs. Unless you choose to share it, your religion is a complete secret from those around you.

Because of this, religion is deeply personal. Unlike the color of your skin, you have control over the impact religion has on your life. The power of the link between religion and identity is a private decision. Some people identify themselves very strongly with their chosen beliefs; others see religion as separate from their day-to-day lives and interactions with others. Either option is viable.

Even though most religions have core beliefs, and many are organized around an institution, people’s beliefs are still individualized. Ask five people of the same religion to interpret a passage in their holy text, and I guarantee they will each have a unique perspective. Pull ten people of the same religion out of their place of worship, and they will each explain their beliefs differently. A system of beliefs is something so complex, so nuanced, that to strive for religious diversity in a community is almost redundant.

In its practicality, a college’s pursuit of religious diversity is flawed. For the very reasons why religion is both personal and individualized, many people resent being forced to confine their beliefs to a single term. If you’ve looked at the “Basic” information on any Facebook profile lately, you’ll notice that with the exception of “Hometown,” “Religious Views” is the only category that is entered free-form – i.e., without a pull-down menu. Sex, birthday, political views: these can all be nicely pigeonholed into clearly defined terms, but religion? Impossible. So for a board of admissions to ask prospective students to neatly and concisely state their religious preferences for the purpose of fostering diversity is asking a little too much – or not enough.

The quest for racial diversity in U.S. colleges and universities has already spurred controversy because when separate admissions guidelines are established to promote ethnic diversity, students with higher grades and test scores may be rejected during the admissions process. Religious preference, unlike race or ethnicity, is difficult if not impossible to prove. If the same process is applied to religious diversity, high school seniors, finding themselves in an ever more competitive pool of applicants, could be tempted to misrepresent themselves in an attempt to align with underrepresented groups on campus. Sad, but certainly possible.

In addition, even if you enter college fixed firmly with a set of beliefs, there’s no guarantee that you won’t completely reverse your perspective during your four years. Again, college is a period of intense personal development – arguably the most important in determining who you are as a person. It’s a time for questioning, for analyzing, and for evaluating, all practices which might be constrained by pressure to identify with a particular belief.

Ultimately, no one should be asked to identify with a certain religion in order to guarantee a wide range of belief systems. Students will be exposed to people who see the world differently than they do, with or without the college’s efforts. For a college to actively concern themselves with cultivating religious diversity is only perpetuating the theory that who a person is can be easily defined, easily evaluated. I’d certainly like to believe that it’s more than that.

Knowledge of religious diversity a necessary tool

This weekend, my Vietnamese roommate taught the third floor of Anderson how to properly bring in the lunar Year of the Rat.  As she passed around a bowl of colorful candy, a friend reluctantly declined.  “Sorry, I gave up desserts for Lent,” she said.  A minute later, the floor was explaining to my roommate the meaning of Lent.  My Vietnamese friend smiled and said, “Oh, so it’s a Christian holiday!” which immediately got frowns from the Protestant of the hall.

“No, not all Christians celebrate Lent,” he explained.  My roommate nodded, the issue settled, and we went back to our discussion of the god that lives in the Vietnamese kitchen.  It was truly a day of religious diversity.

Religion and cultural acceptance are one of those infamous “lessons you learn outside the classroom.”    Many students grew up practicing the religion of their parents and adopting their friends’ and classmates’ beliefs.  They may have had little exposure to traditions radically different from their own.

Having doubts about religion may be especially hard for students who have little exposure to other beliefs.  College is a time for growth, for gaining new perceptions and insights on the world, for settling into beliefs that will eventually guide us in picking spouses and raising families.  I hope you’re properly daunted by that last part.  Religion, or even the lack thereof, is a huge deal and we need as much exposure as we can get to enough beliefs to make accurate decisions.

Even those who have no desire to convert and are content with their religion have so much to learn from a religiously diverse campus.  Buddhists can teach purity of mind, while Christians value repentance, and Jews seek to emulate God through kind deeds.  Atheists teach us to think everything through, and Islam literally means peace.  People of different religions remind us the values we take for granted may not be emphasized by others.  We are taught how to look at the world through a different lens.

Religious diversity should be celebrated on campus.  New perceptions and ideas are essential to our liberal arts education.  Whitman is enriched by clubs that offer spiritual guidance and promote diversity on campus.  Religious differences force us to face backgrounds different from our own.  They are a valuable reminder that we share the world with many diverse cultures.

When we wrote those college essays for Whitman claiming that we can add diversity to the campus, many students wrote about their religious pasts.  Varieties in religion are similar to varieties in cultural and ethnic backgrounds because they represent different ways of thinking.  Exposing ourselves to them can only aid us in our development.

Not another tofu column

I used to hate tofu. It belonged squarely in the middle of my list of “things I don’t like even though I’ve never tried them before.” Also on this list were things such as eggs, tuna fish and Brussels sprouts.

I especially didn’t want to like tofu after I became a vegetarian. I thought it would be too stereotypical.

When I became a precocious horseback rider, I refused to play with My Little Pony dolls. When I became a preteen, I refused to see “Titanic.” And when I became a vegetarian, I refused to eat tofu. I guess you could say I’m stubborn.

But I grew up a little bit, and started to get curious. After some experimentation, I realized that the best things about tofu is that not only does it not taste bad, it doesn’t really taste like anything. Therefore, you can make it taste like anything you want it to. Now how many kinds of food can you say that about?

Although tofu is mostly seen in stir fries, tasting of soy sauce and spices, it shouldn’t be relegated to just savory dishes. It can do the sweet thing also.

This dish is perfect for either for people who are new to and/or skeptical of tofu, or are tired of just tossing it in a fry pan. Besides, it takes so little time; why not make it?

Not only is this recipe easy, it’s also very versatile. You can use any kind of chocolate chips you like, including dark chocolate, white chocolate, semi sweet, or even butterscotch or peanut butter. If you want to get really fancy, make two different batches of the tofu-chocolate blend and marble them together in the crust.

You can eat the pie by itself, or top it with whipped cream, sweet sauces, berries or sliced strawberries.

Oh yeah, this recipe is also supposed to be for Valentine’s Day.

For our Valentine’s Day issue, I was asked to come up with a recipe to go with the theme. Given this assignment, most people wouldn’t immediately think of tofu. But maybe that’s just me being stubborn again.

Educating away religious hostility

When you think of a developing country changing its constitution in order to adapt a liberal, more pro-Western government, you usually think of the government divesting itself from, rather than affixing itself to, its archaic religious principles.
Turkey’s case is the reverse.

Since the foundation of modern Turkey circa 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk positioned the nation-state on a rigorous secular agenda. His idea was to create a modern nation-state that prided itself on education and scientific advancement.

Though nearly all Turkish citizens still remain religious—the primary religion being Islam—this secular goal has, to a certain extent, been reached. The problem is that the means by which the goal has been achieved has been subject to hypocrisy. In other words, Turkey may be getting more secular, liberal and pro-Western, but in doing so they have undermined the very meaning of what it is to be a democratic society.

Luckily for the Western world into which Turkey seeks to assimilate, Turkey is beginning to correct this problem.
On Sunday the Turkish Parliament voted to enact a constitutional amendment that will ensure that all Turkish citizens who want to go to college can, regardless of their attire.

The previous legislation, put into place by government authorities in the late 1990s, banned all women from wearing head scarves in universities. It was a poor knee-jerk reaction to the increasing number of veiled women in Turkish colleges, in effect, keeping the most pious of Muslim women out of academics. The secular elite thought their establishment was being threatened by scarf-wearing Muslim women when they were the ones being veiled from reality.

In effect, they couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

By educating previously Muslim women, the Turkish government strengthened its sizeable middle class in terms of education—one of its founding principles. Putting restrictions on who receives its education, however, is where the schism between religion—conventionally thought of in Turkey as for the lower classes—and education—for the upper classes—begins.

Not to make any sweeping generalizations, but it seems as though there is an apparent trend in the educationally-rifted Muslim world that shouldn’t go unnoticed: As accessibility to education increases, threatening religious radicalism decreases.

Thus, it would behoove governments not only in Turkey, but throughout the Middle East, to consider increasing the amount of educational institutions and the accessibility thereof if they desire to decrease their rate of religious hostility.

Building more schools, colleges and what-have-you, however, is not the stand-alone answer to reducing religiously-stemmed violence. The ongoing crises in Turkey’s neighboring countries, namely Iraq, Iran, Syria and Palestine, among others, are complicated by many variables and not mitigated by the proliferation of knowledge.

Unlike these countries, Turkey does not have very many, if any, internal problems that come from religious differences. This is in large part because of their stringent anti-religious policies. But it is these anti-religious policies that would be unconstitutional in the eyes of the European Union or the United States. This is especially significant in the case of the former.

Just over two decades ago, Turkey formally applied to join the E.U. And only as of three years ago has the E.U. agreed to negotiate with Turkey regarding accession.

In a Eurobarometer survey conducted in late 2006, 59 percent of E.U. citizens are against Turkish membership while only 28 percent are for it. Moreover, 90 percent of all of the people surveyed cited human rights as their primary concern over Turkish accession. While this last part may be true, it doesn’t take an eagle’s eye to see the religious European undertones against Islam.

Taking religion out of the picture, Turkish membership would turn the current E.U. dynamic on its head. With over 70 million people, Turkey would fall just shy of Germany for the most members of the European Parliament. Thus, if Turkey were to join the E.U., it would inherently be a starting pitcher in its rookie season—not a good prospect by anyone’s standards.

In the next five or six years Turkey will have a huge battle on their hands. They must convince Europe that they are not only secular, but unequivocally democratic as well. The recently  revoked scarf ban is a small yet convincing step toward the democracy we know and love, but if Turkey really wants to persuade Brussels, perhaps they should set their sights on becoming the first true democratic paradigm of the Middle East.

Montana transforms into classroom for some Whitties

For the first two months of fall semester, when juniors Julia Lakes and Leora Stein woke up for class, they didn’t once trudge across campus to enter the confines of Maxey or Olin Hall. Instead, they stepped outside, onto a historic homestead in the forested mountain valley of Swan Valley, Mont.

The pair were part of a group of 12 students from across the U.S. enrolled in the “Landscape and Livelihood” course, an intensive residential program focused on ecology and community-based conservation.

The program, which is run by Northwest Connections, a nonprofit ecological monitoring organization, combines fieldwork with reading, reflective writing, classroom lecture, independent study and involvement in community activities. Students receive a total of 15 credits through the University of Montana in Forestry and Conservation, Environmental Studies, Recreation Management and Geography.

“Landscape and Livelihood” begins with a nine-day backpacking trip in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, where students study the biogeography of northwest Montana. Students spend the remainder of the two months on the Beck Homestead, where they live in a renovated historic dairy barn located on 80 acres of forest, prairie and Swan River frontage.

“During a typical day, we would have morning class in which we’d spend a few hours talking about readings and hammering out terms that we might hear from speakers later in the day. Afternoons we’d be out in the field talking with people, exploring the valley and studying whatever pertained to the specific course at the time,” said Stein, an environmental studies and sociology major.

In addition to biogeography, the program’s courses include Watershed Dynamics, Forests and Rural Communities, Field Skills for Conservation Work and an independent study project.

“We literally had hundreds of speakers talk to us. [...] What other chance are you going to get to engage with these people? It was amazing to see the amount of passion all the speakers had on their topics—there’s nowhere else you can get that,” said Stein.

“For me, the biggest challenge was that everybody we met with thought that they were right. We met with loggers, and we met with environmentalists, and everybody thought what they were doing was completely right…Trying to figure out where my values come from there—what I think is right—was really difficult,” said Lakes, an environmental humanities major.

While living at “The Barn,” students share cooking and cleaning responsibilities, host guest speakers and partake in overnight homestays with local residents.

“It’s great to have a really small, supportive community in which to live and learn. I made so many great friends. I’m still in contact with everyone from the program, and I miss them so much,” said Stein.

Both Lakes and Stein agreed that their experiences have permanently changed their views of the environment, education and the way in which they spend their time.

“I used to consider myself an environmentalist, but I wouldn’t say that I’m opposed to logging anymore. It makes you realize how complicated issues are,” said Lakes.

“You have all these new ideas that you just created and then you’re just sent back out into the world. Where do you apply them? Whitman is so different from the program—how do you take what you found and transfer it back here?” said Stein.

“After being back at Whitman I realized, ‘Wow, I haven’t looked at the moon in a really long time.’ When you’re out there, you wake up and you go outside and see the stars and the moon because you’d wake up before the sun came up. There were so many things that you took advantage of when you were up there. It’s so easy to forget about those things in this rushed world,” said Lakes.

This year’s “Landscape and Livelihood” will take place Sept. 1 through Oct. 29. For more information, visit the Northwest Connections Web site at northwestconnections.org.

Graduating seniors pursue ‘green-collar’ jobs

The industry of green is rapidly expanding and permeating every sphere of industry. The resulting “green-collar” jobs focus on social responsibility and environmentally conscious design, technology and policy to improve sustainability and conservation.  While green jobs are rising in popularity, they are also becoming increasingly easy to find.

Junior Jessie Conrad worked for the Mayor’s Office of Denver last summer, writing case studies of local sustainable businesses for a company called Greenprint. While she noted the progressive innovations businesses are taking to become more sustainable, she was concerned that the term “green” has become bankrupt.

“I think sadly it has become so much of a trend that now its kind of a marketing ploy, so it’s quite hard to distinguish between what is actually sustainable and what is not,” said Conrad.

To help narrow students’ searches for truly green internships and jobs Web sites such as Greenbiz.com and Ecojobs.com boast of approximately 150,000 new job postings every month, connecting environmentally conscious employees with environmentally savvy businesses. The Career Center makes use of many of these resources and provides a comprehensive list of internships and summer jobs students have done in the past.

Assistant Director of the Career Center Heidi Baldwin has seen a major increase in students who want to find internships over the past two years, about a third of whom are specifically looking for environmental endeavors. Since her two years at Whitman she has not seen an increase in student desire for green jobs; instead, she believes students have always been interested in pursuing environmental and sustainable jobs.

“There’s a new tagline of saying ‘green jobs,’ but I think Whitman students have always been more conscious of those jobs, especially in regard to the atypical student of other colleges,” said Baldwin.

Washington State alone has over 400 companies in the environmental industry, employing 16,000 people. According to the Northwest Environmental Business Council, Washington exports approximately $200 million per year in environmental services. These services include waste management, energy and water conservation, residential solar energy, and strengthening local food systems.

Green businesses have grown five percent annually for the past three years. Jobs to watch for in the coming years are bio-mimicry engineers, using Mother Nature as a model for solving engineering problems, sustainability coordinators, overseeing the economic and environmental components of companies and green architects, increasing the focus on energy-efficient buildings.

Green internships offer opportunities for students to work under seasoned professionals and obtain firsthand experience while simultaneously working to conserve the planet. Senior Katie King did an internship with Opp & Seibold construction company in Walla Walla, assisting with the green building aspect of the forming Water and Environmental Studies Center at the community college.

“Jobs such as mine within the green building sector represent a very exciting, emerging
new area for potential employment,” said King.

While still at Whitman students have a number of options to participate in the growing green industry and do not need to be pursuing a degree in science to obtain a job. According to the Environmental Careers Organization, the next decade will see an increase in green job opportunities in law, conservation and urban planning. Green jobs have begun to reach into every corner of the job market, giving students many opportunities to pursue environmentally conscious careers.

Finding a religious group in Walla Walla

It’s difficult to walk more than a few blocks in Walla Walla without coming across several small churches.
But how difficult is it really to find a religious community in Walla Walla?

“I haven’t had a hard time finding a [religious] community here, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much for people who aren’t Christians,” said Whitman first year Faith Tucker.

The majority of students seemed to share Tucker’s opinion.

While Whitman’s recent spirituality room in the basement of Prentiss and Stuart Religious Counselor, Adam Kirtley seek to support the spiritual needs of students, the larger Walla Walla community lacks resources for those who don’t identify as Christian.

And even then, it can be difficult to find a church that feels right.

“Within the Christian realm there are plenty of possibilities, but they’re to one extreme or another.  It’s hard to find a good middle ground,” said Tucker.

The local phonebook lists some a number of churches in Walla Walla and College Place alone.  On the other hand, Temple Beth Israel, the lone synagogue in town, does not have a full-time rabbi.  The nearest mosque is in Pullman, over two hours away, the closest Buddhist temple is in Spokane, and the closest Hindu temple is in the Portland area.

Whitman tries to provide students with networking for religious groups, and lists eight different religious groups on the school Website.

“Whitman does a fine job of accepting religious community by allowing groups, giving them space, and providing resources, but without actively taking initiative to produce, encourage or extend religious communities, which is good, because I’m not sure that would be appropriate,” said Tucker.

Yet many minority religions still don’t have the numbers for a very active community on campus.

Despite the campus religious resources, many students feel the need to find religious groups outside of campus.

“I was brought up without any real religious community, so coming here I was surprised there were religious communities to get involved in,” said sophomore Krystina Andrews, who attends both Catholic and Protestant services in Walla Walla and is involved with Whitman Christian Fellowship and Catholics on Campus.

“Being Jewish in Walla Walla sucks,” said sophomore Brennan Jorgeson.

“Walla Walla is definitely not the epicenter of Judiasm, but the community that is here is really nice, and really encouraging,” said junior Shayna Tivona.

“It’s always good to have some good Jews to celebrate with,” said Tivona.

“The benefits of being involved in a religious community for me have been questioning and strengthening my faith. And I think that having people to talk to about something you believe in is really important in college years especially,” said Andrews.

“By attending church in Walla Walla I feel much more involved in the community and less like I’m on some strange liberal arts island. Reconnecting with my religious roots has really saved me from overextending myself and having insincere interactions with people,” said senior James Millikan, by e-mail. “I would encourage all Whitman students to become more active and informed about faith and religion, and not to be afraid (although not being overbearing) to share their faith with others.”

Students also note that a traditional community isn’t necessary for all spiritual benefits.

“I haven’t really looked for [religious community] that much, because in a lot of ways it Unitarianism is a very individual religion…I don’t feel like I need to go to church to be spiritual,” said first-year Elizabeth Thompson.

Sustaining leadership needed

Dear Future President of the United States,

Undoubtedly, you will soon have your plate chock full of problems that need attention. Right next to your peas and carrots, you find a war, foreign relations, a busted economy, civil rights issues, race relations, poverty, population explosion, illegal drug use and crime. Squeezed into the middle of this messy plate is climate change.

It would be easy to use the traditional trick—spread out this problem so it looks smaller, or push it under your peas. After all, the rest of the issues on your plate are also pretty important, and, as a leader, one must prioritize. Yet, before you fix your attention elsewhere, I urge you to reconsider. Climate change should be at the forefront of your attention; as a world leader, you should care about investing in a sustainable future.

Now, don’t get disgusted just yet; I am certainly not harping that you become an avid environmentalist or nagging you to care about the polar bears that are so pathetically sinking into the Arctic on the quickly-disappearing ice.  Push aside, for the moment, the focal predicament that the earth’s temperature is rising, and ignore the ecological imbalance that will follow a feverish earth (species extinction, agricultural instability, you have heard it all before).

Despite the main problems, climate change is a many-armed monster that clings onto everything else on your plate—foreign relations, the economy, poverty, you name it. Therefore, by careful powers of deduction, it seems you should care very much whether or not we are invested in practical solutions that curb the consequences of climate change, whether you claim yourself a polar-bear-loving-environmentalist or not. You should care, it seems, because caring about climate change means you care about your whole plate, too.

But why? What will happen if we pushed this monster under our peas?

Scene: Our Unsustainable Future, Not Invested In Global Warming Solutions. Take one. The temperature goes up. Hurricane Katrina-like disasters repeat. Environmental injustice ensues when only the wealthy can afford protection and gas. The poor population pays for the overuse of resources by the rich. Nationally and globally, the canyon between the rich and the poor widens. Nationally, this causes the canyon between races to deepen. Globally, this affects our relations with other countries. Third-world population can do nothing else but have more babies to help put food on the table and survive, as they lack other resources. Population expands. We cannot produce enough food to feed the earth’s growing population, as our traditional crops cannot adapt to the altered climate and rain patterns. And, in the midst of this madness, we are desperately tearing off every mountain top within our borders, searching for the coal we are so dependent on (when, ironically, those tree-covered mountain tops are our last hope to sink some of the carbon we are emitting).

Doesn’t look like a great future to you, does it?

Simply put, climate change is no longer only the environmentalist’s problem. It is everyone’s problem because it will certainly affect everyone; therefore, finding solutions should be everyone’s concern, and yours most of all. You are the leader of tomorrow and you have power to prevent that dreadful scene from playing out.

A good leader recognizes when mistakes are made and takes immediate action to reverse the damage, even if it the problem is so huge that, at the time, seems like attempting to climb Mount Everest in only flip-flops. This persistence to fix a mistake, this determination to do the right thing for ourselves and our posterity, is called courage, and that is what we need out of you, our leaders.

The thing is, we are not in flip flops. We face Everest with all the necessary tools, all the cans of beans and oxygen masks and pairs of gloves we need. Unless you have spent that last few decades on Pluto, you have heard the buzz about geothermal power, wind turbines, hybrid cars, efficient lightbulbs, efficient buildings, recycling and every other piece of technology that allows us to consume less and emit less. We have the knowledge. We just need the courage, and that comes from you.

We are in a delicate situation, so please handle with care. Anything you do or don’t do today will surely affect our circumstances tomorrow and one hundred years from now.  Thus, we must invest in a sustainable future. We must harvest clean energy. We must design our buildings efficiently. We must promote “green collar” jobs that provide job opportunities in a booming green economy. We must seek solutions.

Solutions are profitable and practical. If you truly are a leader, a sustainable future is, conclusively, your only good option.

Sincerely,
Lauren Adler

Early to bed, early to rise…makes a man healthy, wealthy and tired

I’ve been waking up really early on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester. And I plan to continue to do so. I don’t have class until 11, but 8 o’clock is no longer a stranger to me. Is this some sort of self-imposed torture, a penance for burning the midnight oil, an attempt to force myself to go to sleep early? Well, yes, in a way, but there’s a more direct purpose too: I’m taking a yoga class.

I started doing yoga postures as a means of getting stretched out after rugby games. The effect of 80 minutes on the pitch may best be described as “compression”: my body always feels as if it has just emerged from a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. It always helped, of course, but I realized after taking my first class that yoga is more than just stretching. For me, it’s all about the breathing. And that’s where the spiritual aspect of the practice began to emerge.

I mentioned in my first article that I read a recent Los Angeles Times piece about yoga cocktail parties. It doesn’t take much explanation, but basically, enthusiasts gather at one another’s houses to do some yoga with an arranged instructor and then get wasted afterwards. This is perhaps the most dubious venture I’ve ever encountered. I mean, really—must L.A. have as its principle aim the transformation of everything sacred into a fad, something with which the idle rich can occupy themselves for a while and move on? This and other examples of yoga’s foray into popular consumerist culture turned me off to yoga for a long time.

The sentiment was certainly irrational, but I had a hard time disconnecting the practice itself from its attendant conflations of late. But at some point last week, in the middle of one of many downward dogs, it all clicked: this shit is for real. Aside from the flexibility I’ve gained very quickly—which has given me better athletic performance and more peace of mind—I’ve attained, albeit for only moments at a time, a harmony of body and mind which can be described as nothing other than sublime. I experience that sublimity spiritually.

Again, it’s all about the breathing: When one forces the body into admittedly unnatural shapes which put an incredible strain on the muscles and breathe deeply all the way through it, there is at first a sense of conquering the body’s impulse to return to “normal.” But at the same time, the intense focus on the breath causes the mind to shut off such that the sense of achievement begins to fade away and all that’s left is the moment. This requires all the mental and physical focus available, resulting in a “clarity” which, again, I experience as spiritual.

Of course, everyone who does anything does it differently than everyone else and describing the personal effect of yoga is like trying to explain “Metal Machine Music” to your high-school band teacher.

But there are hurdles larger than communication, commitment chiefly among them. This class is really early for me. By the time I’m done doing work at night, there are only a few scant hours before a succession of pigeon-poses or some similarly silly-named thing that make me wonder what I’m thinking whenever I wake up at the crack of dawn (or anywhere near it) voluntarily. So, going every day for months regardless of all else going on is tough, seemingly impossible. But I hope that I can push myself, or something can push me, to continue, because the value of doing something with great commitment can often outweigh even the value of the pursuit itself.

I just hope this doesn’t send me into a frenzy requiring that I learn how to sip a martini mid-sun salutation at 9 a.m.

For Whitman students, B+ just average for second year

The average grade point average for Whitman students remained a 3.414, or B+, for the second year in a row in 2007, reports said.

“The mean grade was supposed to be a C,” said Visiting Assistant Professor of Geology Nick Bader. “[Grade inflation] weakens the A.” Approximately 57.9 percent of grades given in fall of 2007 were As.

The figures represents a change from 10 years ago, when the average GPA was 3.168, though for the last five years change has been minimal. As to the reason for this, thoughts were mixed.

“I think it’s because of increased admission standards,” said sophomore Rebecca Levy. While the average GPA for entering students has changed only minimally in the last 10 years, and was in fact a 3.77 in 2007 compared to a 3.8 in 1997, entering students have slightly higher SAT scores.

Others attribute the figures to a national phenomenon of grade inflation.

“I feel like it’s probably the professors,” said senior Suzanne Zitzer. “I don’t like grade inflation; it makes it less meaningful.”

“It’s why the high school diploma used to be meaningful and now it’s not,” Bader said. “It’s why recommendation letters are becoming more important.”

“When I studied abroad in Germany, it was very difficult to get a one, the highest grade,” Zitzer said.

“People were satisfied with threes and fours. What is an A if everyone in the class is getting one?”

Nationally, fewer than 20 percent of all college students receive grades below a B-, according to a 2002 study by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Some schools have adopted a grade-deflation policy, such as that adopted by Princeton University that limits the amount of As to 35 percent across departments.

In 1969, only 7 percent of college students received grades of A- or higher, while 25 percent received Cs or lower. Over the next 25 years, the figures shifted, with 25 percent of students receiving an A- or higher and 9 percent Cs or lower.

At Whitman, students can avoid the problem of grade inflation to an extent by opting to take some courses PDF, which allows students to be graded on a pass/fail system rather than a letter grade.
Both Levy and Zitzer have avoided the PDF option.

“I think it has a stigma,” Levy said. “It’s almost better to drop than to pass/fail.”

“I’m fine with people choosing this different system because it’s clearly different,” Bader said of the PDF option. “The problem with grade inflation is that the expectations have shifted.”
Bader has little hope for improvement. “It’s too bad, but it’s hard to get rid of this phenomenon now that we have it,” he said.

Others look towards a life beyond GPAs. “Hopefully students are working for general knowledge and to enrich their perspectives,” said junior Aisha Fukushima. “The end goal is beyond college.”

Making peace in Africa

“The …Red Cross said Sunday that it has collected 137 bodies from …[the capital’s] streets,  victims of the fighting between rebels and government troops.”

These symbols have become as much of a part of Africa’s presentation to the West as lions chasing zebras on the savanna.

This particular quote comes from Chad, where last week a coup attempt in the capital city of N’Djamena was piled on top of the instability in this central African nation’s eastern boarder with war-torn Sudan. Yet this line could just as easily been written about Kenya, where rival ethnic  factions are disputing the recent  elections. Or maybe Nigeria, where chronic violence over the distribution of oil revenues has rocked the continent’s most populous nation.
An answer to these conflicts lies in fixing the United Nations peacekeeping system. To have a mission, a resolution must pass the United Nations Security Counsel, where any one of the five permanent member of the counsel (U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China) can give an incontestable veto. Even when missions do get approved, the U.N. does peacekeeping “ad hoc,” which means they must appeal to other nations for troops, guns, equipment and money every time a new mission emerges. The impacts can be seen in Darfur where peacekeeping has been delayed due to a lack of helicopters.

Even if the resources are found it is often too late to stop the escalation of violence. One need only look to the violence in Rwanda; this is what when you leave a nation in the cold.

In any discussion of Africa, China, and its negative influence on the continent, must be noted. China’s rapacious appetite for petroleum and other natural resource has lead to it support some not so savory regimes, including the Sudanese government, an otherwise international pariah. On top of that, Li Xenfeng of pro-government People’s Daily newspaper in China recently wrote an editorial linking the violence in Kenya to “Western style democracy,” which he views is not suitable for Africa. It’s actions like these that cause many to blame China for African instability.

This ultimately, though, is a dead end. While their economic investments have not been perfect, it does give China a financial incentive to seek stability on the continent, an incentive that has already led to positive actions.

Establishing a system that allowed for a quicker intervention into Africa’s conflicts would be the best way to prevent large scale outbreaks of violence and genocide. Advocates have called for the establishment of a U.N. Rapid Reaction Force, a group of international peacekeepers keep by the U.N. at a constant state of high readiness to be deployed when needed. America, with the world’s largest military budget, highest GDP, and biggest amount of unpaid U.N. dues, could do a great service for international stability (and its image) by funding and suppling the force. It should not, however, donate troops, which by American law can not be under foreign command and would likely be out of their element doing peacekeeping after being trained for combat.

This will no doubt draw the ire of conservatives, who will paint even a small RRF as a U.N. standing army and threat to U.S. sovereignty, but in the light of the numerous flash-points for conflict world-wide and especially in Africa, this seems to be political risk worth taking. It would send a clear message to any potentially perpetrators, one which echoes from the post-Holocaust cries of “never again” that have long since seemed to be forgotten: “This aggression will not stand.”

Goodbye Mitt Romney, R.I.P.

Willard Mitt Romney, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, ended his campaign on Thursday, Feb. 7 at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. to the dismay of thousands of conservatives in attendance after saying some days before ‘Super Tuesday’ that he was going to take the race “all the way to the convention.”
His campaign’s bereavement was confirmed by nearly 6,000 conference-goers who said he was a conservative charlatan.

Though his conversion from moderatism to conservativism may have been a little moot at best, he possessed a quality that no other Republican nominee had this year: charisma. Whether you agreed with his ideology, he flat out looked like and spoke like a true president.

In a race where John McCain fumbles with his vocabulary, Mike Huckabee sounds too much like your next-door neighbor’s dad, Rudy Giuliani’s lisp was annoying, Mike Thompson was either too condescending or not smart enough and Ron Paul needs a hearing aid, the handsome and appropriately articulate Mitt Romney nearly matched our idea of how a president should look, act and speak.

Not only did he have charisma, but he had policies as well. He had no ambiguous positions. He was staunch on immigration—no expressway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. He was unwavering on the war on terror—we’d stay in Iraq until we’d won the war. And he was pro-life, anti-gay-marriage and believed wholeheartedly in God—though,  he also believed in Joseph Smith.

The problem for Republicans is that he was soundly Reagan while people were looking for an Eisenhower. And believe me, Mike Huckabee is not the next Dwight Eisenhower—even if he pilfered the slogan “I like Ike.”

Until the recent death of the Romney campaign, Romney had won 11 states to McCain’s 12 of the 30 that had held their primaries or caucuses through ‘Super Tuesday.” The states Romney won, however, only accounted for 298 delegates while McCain’s wins in delegate-rich New York and California gave him an unassailable 719 delegates.

This all but proves conservatives yearn for an Eisenhower.

Like McCain, Eisenhower had a decorated military career. Ike was a five-star general in the U.S. Army while McCain was a captain of the U.S. Navy. The two even share a medal in common: the Legion of Merit.

In terms of foreign policy, the McCain doctrine is suspiciously similar to the Eisenhower doctrine. In 1957, Eisenhower said that he would “authorize the armed forces of the United States to secure nations against aggression from any nation controlled by international communism.” Now, substitute “international communism” for “radical Islamic extremism” and, voilá, you have the McCain doctrine.

The bottom line is that, in this presidential election, Republicans are looking for a Hillary—a policy maker—instead of a Barack—a charisma exuder—or a Romney—an amalgam of both.

Perhaps that is why Republicans hate Hillary so much. They see in her the kind of person they want on their ticket.
Romney was a Hillary-hater too. Unlike his Republican foes, however, he understood her policy-making appeal, which is why he practically started the Hillary-bashing phenomena back in the first few debates in the spring of last year.
Or was it his campaign manager, Beth Meyers, a protégé of Karl Rove who understood the political chess match that is winning a presidential election. Turning Romney into a conservative was a bigger problem than she had anticipated. He had too much going against him and not enough going for him.

He was the governor of the notoriously liberal state of Massachusetts. During his tenure, a stepping stone to universal healthcare was achieved via “mandates”—a buzzword that is destructive to any conservative’s campaign. Also under his governorship, Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage—an issue against which conservatives have united themselves.

Romney tried time and again to convince his conservative constituents that he had converted to anti-same-sex marriage and pro-limited government; it didn’t work.

He is also devoutly Mormon—a religion that even many non-evangelical conservatives consider to be some sort of cult. For this, the socially conservative Republican base unjustly ostracized him.

His ‘faith speech’ dampened the evangelical fire and brimstone against him, but it wasn’t enough to convince them that he was one of them. And, poof, there went Iowa to his religious nemesis Mike Huckabee.

Before long, he would lose the famously independent (and moderate) state of New Hampshire to the famously moderate (but not, by any means, independent) John McCain.

Before long, his campaign was forced to make a dim projection. The projection before Romney’s not-so-super Tuesday was that even if his delegate count reached the 300-delegate threshold, he’d still have to win nearly all of the ensuing contests to have a chance of preventing McCain from wrapping up the 1,191 delegates needed to win the nomination outright. Unluckily for Romney, the states that remained distributed their delegates proportionally—so not only would he have to win, but he’d have to win by a wide margin at that.

Regardless of whether Romney is genuine or fake, moderate or conservative, or a good or bad candidate, he is, above all, a good businessman. And without further ado, like a good businessman, Romney ended his campaign and cut his losses.

We’ll remember you, Mitt.

Norgaard awarded research grant for salmon preservation

“Ever since I could remember, ever since I was quite small, I have felt urgently that the natural world is in peril in some sense.”

Professor of Environmental Sociology Kari Norgaard was one of a handful of Whitman professors awarded a grant from the Support of Innovation Teaching and Learning Fund, a new strategic initiative developed by the President’s Office this year for faculty members interested in leading trips and conducting research with students. $150,000 went towards the initiative.

The project, called The Klamath Field Study Program, will involve bringing three to four Whitman students to the Klamath Mountain region starting in summer 2008 to conduct research on the Karuk Tribe of California, the second largest tribe in the state. When applicable, students will use the research they conduct in Klamath for their senior theses.

Why Klamath? According the Norgaard, the Klamath River used to be the third largest salmon producing spring in western North America. Prior to outside influence, there were eight different runs of salmon that flourished in the region. Now, as a result of environmental degradation, there is only one, she explained.

From a political standpoint, students will be able to study the five dams, which operate in the region, whose removal is pending. The dams have been controversial because, without fish ladders, “all the biological opinion shows that the dams are devastating to fish,” said Norgaard. Dam installation was a leading factor in the disintegration of viable salmon streams.

Norgaard became involved with the Klamath region initially because the dams were up for re-licensing. Today, it is likely that the dams will be removed. This is a triumph for the environmental community and, if executed, it will be one of the largest dam removals in the world to date.

Norgaard anticipates that the projects will vary dramatically, given the diversity of the region. “It is a very biologically, culturally unique area…including a great deal of species diversity… [and] the presence of three large native tribes.” Her intention is that students will be able to engage with the community whether they are interested in focusing on the political, cultural, or biological factors implicated in the case study.

Norgaard started conducting research in this area in 2003, and has been bringing students to this remote part of California with the support of Perry Grant funding. “When I say remote, I mean that it is a two-hour drive to the nearest stop light in any direction…even though it is in California, which is a very populous state, it is a very remote area.”

In addition to her work in Klamath, Norgaard is also conducting research with junior Leora Stein, through funding provided by an Abshire Grant. In a project entitled  “Climate Change and the Social Organization of Denial: A Comparative Study Between the U.S. and Norway,” Norgaard and Stein are currently conducting interviews in Walla Walla regarding residents’ perceptions and feelings about climate change.

“It is a really great learning experience working with people I don’t know,” said Stein. Stein is responsible for assisting Norgaard in interviewing and transcribing research. “In some cases I have been confronted by really different opinions that I maybe hadn’t considered before.”

Stein was approached by Norgaard last fall to help her with the project. In years past, she took Environmental Sociology and Introduction to Environmental Studies with Norgaard.

“I think she is a really fabulous professor,” said Stein. “It is really encouraging to see a professor doing work outside of her teaching…she is not only teaching but also so involved in her current work.”

This past week, Norgaard spoke to the Whitman community in a lecture entitled “How to talk to a climate skeptic.” Norgaard was invited to speak as a part of the week-long Focus the Nation event. In her lecture she addressed themes of environmental justice, which is how her work is often categorized.

“People who have less political power, opportunity and so forth are more impacted by environmental problems,” said Norgaard.

Norgaard took part in the Focus the Nation week at Whitman, was a small facet of the nation-wide event.

“I feel very strongly that climate change is such an urgent problem that we need to do as much as we can right now in terms of human rights and species survival,” said Norgaard, “so that is part of how I am contributing nationally.”

Norgaard facilitated in coordinating sociologists from across the country to teach basic climate change awareness in their respective college classrooms as part of the Focus the Nation week.

In May of this year, Norgaard will attend a conference through the National Science Foundation in Virginia, on research in the social sciences on climate change. She will be among 25 sociologist and environmental experts who will work during the two-day retreat to establish an agenda for upcoming research pertaining to her field.

Consume what you trust, don’t trust what you consume