Roughly a year into his term, uncertainty looms for Obama voters. What to think of the Obama presidency thus far? Should we be angry? Content? Vaguely disillusioned?

Corporate Republicans and their Tea Party stooges—or is it now the other way around?—know where they stand. But for the rest of us, I offer a few words of advice: Take a deep breath to recognize the progress we have seen, reject cynicism and stay focused on the big picture.

First—in order to contextualize Obama’s accomplishments—let’s acknowledge the historical “rockiness” of Democratic first years. As Hendrik Hertzberg at the New Yorker points out, with first years it’s “wise to keep one’s seat belt loosely fastened.” J.F.K went through the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Carter “gave away” the Panama Canal and Clinton dramatically botched gay rights. All three alienated Congress and failed to pass major health care reform (as has every Democrat since Harry Truman first proposed it). Only Johnson made major progress in his first year, primarily thanks to the tragic circumstances that put him in office.

Rockiness is to be expected. For his part, it appears that Obama has failed to craft a cohesive public message for his agenda (for instance, while all the parts of his health care bill remain widely popular, the bill as a whole has floundered) and focused too much on the ideal of congressional bipartisanship rather than actually passing his agenda.

So what exactly has Obama accomplished thus far, you ask? Here’s what potential cynics and second-guessers should remember: Obama passed the largest economic recovery bill in American history and rescued the economy from the next Great Depression. Although the full impact of the crisis was not felt until months after the crash, the stimulus bill started spending within just weeks—and according to data released last month—has had incredible success: It has added an estimated 1.8 million jobs already.

Obama passed a visionary federal budget, which has laid the groundwork for health care reform, climate change and so forth, and is considered by many the most progressive in half a century.

Obama has brought sanity to American foreign policy and changed America’s relationship with the world by rejecting the principles of neo-conservatism. Despite inheriting two blundering wars, he established—and kept—a schedule to withdraw from Iraq and ended the American policy of torture.

Obama has greatly increased federal funding for student loans, increased Pell Grants, funded stem cell research, expanded programs for children’s health care, filled the federal government with forward-thinking rather than nihilistic or anti-intellectual officials, passed a law to protect women from employment discrimination, passed a law to make it easier for workers to organize and more.

Second, despite trends towards cynicism and general disillusionment, let’s remember to stay focused on the big picture.

Here’s a tip that most D.C. pundits would rather you didn’t know: 99 percent of the theories they come up with are useless. As someone who enjoys theorizing about politics—and wouldn’t mind getting paid to do it—this is hard to admit. But the saga of American politics has never been about day-to-day analysis or month-to-month polling. In terms of who wins elections, it’s essentially only the conditions “on the ground” that matter. It’s always been about the big picture, about the well-being of the average American and passing the legislation necessary to ensure it.

Regardless of what the talking heads on Fox News or MSNBC may say—or even what the average voter tells a pollster on any given day—the record of what Americans care about is clear; they care about themselves, as they should. For the American voter, it’s not the small political fumbles that matter. It’s unemployment—barely under double-digits this month—that matters. It’s health care—with 46 million Americans still uninsured—that matters. History has shown that, especially during tough macroeconomic times, the moderate presidents who fail to fix the big stuff (see: Jimmy Carter) cannot win.

If he is to succeed, Obama will need our active support to pass his major agenda items. Obama has admirably stepped up and gone “all in”—this Monday he called for campaign-style telethons and door-knocking to raise support for health care reform. No, the bill’s not perfect. But it is much, much better than the status quo (it will expand insurance to 31 million Americans, dramatically lower costs, regulate “pre-existing conditions” and more) and many credibly contend that any future ambitions for the Obama’s presidency rests upon its passage.

Above all, now is the time to avoid cynicism. Cynicism is—and has always been—the easy way out, whether you’re too tired or too lazy to continue the push for reform.

Obama’s second year is shaping up to be more combative and potentially much more productive. We can’t wait for the next Obama to fix the urgent problems our nation faces. Now is the time for progressives to gear up for the long haul, focus on passing the “big stuff” and avoid letting the perfect—or really good—get in the way of the way better.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases endanger public health and therefore could be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act. Although a bill instituting a cap and trade system to regulate ghg emissions narrowly passed the House this summer, climate legislation has stalled in the Senate, prompting the Obama administration to call upon the Environmental Protection Agency to begin regulation.

In response, Senator Murkowski and her lobbyist friends drafted an amendment known among environmentalists as the “Dirty Air Act.” While widespread citizen outrage—including from Whitman’s Campus Climate Challenge, who called the Senate all last week—has thus prevented Murkowski from introducing the amendment, she is expected to try again later this month.

Last Wednesday, Murkowski publicly accused Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson of conflicting statements regarding greenhouse gas policy due to Jackson’s stance that agency regulation can complement comprehensive energy legislation.

Murkowski told Jackson, “I don’t know that I’m any more clear based on your statement this morning as to whether or not you think it should be the Congress and those of us that are elected by our constituents and accountable to them to enact and advance climate policy.”

Murkowski’s comment is laughable for a few reasons. First, it implies that Congress is actually on track to enacting climate policy when even top Democrats have said that it is unlikely to pass in 2010 due to the negative push-back expected in the midterm elections. Secondly, her comment implies that members of Congress are actually accountable to their constituents as opposed to the coffers of the energy and pharmaceutical companies.

The inability of politicians to take action on climate change doesn’t only have dire implications for the planet. It is also affecting our ability to get ourselves out of the current recession and compete in the global market.

Over these past couple of years, while the general economy has tanked, the green economy has greatly increased. Pew Charitable Trust reports that the clean energy economy grew by 9.1 percent between 1998 and 2007, compared to growth of just 3.7 percent in traditional jobs. The Obama administration has estimated that occupations in clean energy and sustainability will grow by 52 percent between 2000 and 2016. With other careers only expected to see a workforce increase of 14 percent in the same time period, the green sector is becoming increasingly attractive.

If the clean energy economy can provide 38 percent more jobs than any other industry even without congressional support, imagine the impact that climate legislation could make. You don’t have to fantasize too much; simply look at what other countries are already doing.

A recent study by the Center for American Progress clearly showed that the United States must make long-term investments in clean energy or  risk being shut out of a $2.3 trillion industry. The report hails Germany, Spain and China as “early winners in the next great technological and industrial revolution.”

Although many Americans might think of China as a carbon-intensive country, China has more renewable energy capacity than any other country in the world. It currently produces 16 percent of its electricity from hydro and wind power. America produces a mere 7.3 percent of our electricity from renewable sources.

Feeling pissed off yet? I dare you to call your senator.

If you’re not as young, hip and devilishly handsome as I am (it happens to everyone, don’t worry about it), you might be unfamiliar with this fascinating social phenomenon. I heartily recommend you try it—it presents astounding new possibilities for art and can be a wonderful mix of fun and randomness.

When you load Chatroulette, you are presented with what your webcam sees, and a black square of space soon to be occupied by someone else’s space. The rules are simple—either party can press “Next” at any time, with no consequences for abrupt departures. Most users that I have encountered on the site do not use their built-in microphone, but rather use the text chat function to the right of the dual video feeds.

A paradigm for the Internet at large, Chatroulette follows a simple rule: You have no idea what you will see, but there is a good chance it will be inappropriate or just plain pornographic. Yes, there certainly are quite a few masturbating dudes who position the camera at their penis; I’ve even seen a couple, a man and a woman, engaged in the act of fellatio (Next! Please!).

There are those who use the sheer quantity of real naked flesh to say that Chatroulette is somehow evil, that through its anonymity it represents a breakdown of our established social order. I couldn’t disagree more. Chatroulette does no harm to anyone, because using the site is of course entirely voluntary. The people who complain about the site as in any way pornographic and thus bad should just not use it. It would spare us the trouble of encountering such boring chat partners.

Moreover, the constant sight of (mostly male) genitalia actually enriches the experience. I don’t mean that I enjoy the sight, but the threat of exposure transforms each “Next” into a bomb just waiting to go off. As a crazy high school English teacher once explained it to me, “We go to the theater because there’s danger in our proximity to the actors.”

In much the same way, the possibility of shocking nudity, though certainly vulgar, makes us pay more attention to each moment with a kind of wonderful fear in our hearts.

If you move away from the issue of nudity, you discover a strange, fascinating world where manners don’t work in the same way and no one makes any real connections. There are a glut of people from other countries or who speak other languages, and I have watched their faces light up with delight when they discover that someone on the screen speaks (or tries to speak) their language. It legitimately offers an opportunity to practice foreign languages on native speakers.

Chatroulette also provides the context for social experimentation that even constitutes, in some cases, a new art form. There are many people in masks, the most popular of which is the Guy Fawkes mask from “V for Vendetta.” Some people try to creep their partners out, even going so far as to have a fake body from the ceiling and no one in the frame (there is an auto-connect feature that allows for this). There are plenty of normal people, too.

To consider these things as a form of new art requires either an extreme amount of pretentiousness or a huge lowering of the bar for what exactly art is, based on your perspective. Whatever your thoughts about its artistic merit, however, no one disagrees that the site can be riotously fun.

My favorite Chatroulette story comes from a female friend of mine who prefers that I don’t use her name. She ‘nexted’ onto a person with large signs titled “The Boob Olympics” which showed two columns, the left side labeled “U.S.”, the right side labeled “Other Countries.” My friend, seeing that the United States was losing, valiantly decided to help her country by flashing the man. (I was, of course, not in the room.)

“[It felt] liberating. I had never flashed someone before,” she told me.

But it didn’t matter that much—because it was Chatroulette.

Don’t think global warming exists? Well, to butcher a phrase from a certain computer manufacturer: There’s a site for that. Was the Holocaust just one big hoax? Sure, if you choose your search terms carefully. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog (or a 40-year-old man or a super-intelligent chinchilla), and everybody other than you can be wrong, and you’ll have concrete proof! After all, you read it on the Internet.

For example, a simple Google search for the terms “9/11 hoax” returned over 1.1 million results. Some of them are Web sites devoted to proving that planes did crash into the Twin Towers. However, the vast majority (at least in the top few pages) are devoted to showing that the U.S. government planned and executed an elaborate conspiracy to make it look like a terrorist attack.

Okay, so there have always been conspiracy theorists (the term “grassy knoll” ring a bell?), but the difference in this age of instantaneous interconnectedness is that it is always possible for someone to e-mail your Aunt Jacqueline or Uncle Carl links to a few poorly designed Web sites chock full of evidence for any conspiracy imaginable. There are entire documentaries posted to YouTube that may not have received much play in the Internet-free past, but now have hundreds of thousands of views.

Loonies on the Internet are nothing new, though. Just take a look at Chatroulette, the average discussion on XBox Live or even comments on a ridiculously popular YouTube video. The thing is, never having to be wrong on the Internet is bleeding into how we conduct ourselves in public. If I wanted to, I could read my news from blogs that are completely in lock-step with what I believe, talking to people who believe exactly what I believe, and watch television at night where charismatic talk show hosts don’t think to contradict anything I hold dear.

Now that’s scary.

That’s what’s fueling America’s fire right now. Political candidates can find the perfect medium to parrot their message. Scientists no longer have to prove their experiments under peer review, but every new vaccine and drug comes under fire from sites blaming modern medicine for all number of ills and conspiracies. In a single-panel webcomic by Randall Munroe, the lone on-screen character tells his significant other that he cannot come to bed, because “Someone is wrong on the Internet.”

To make another pop culture reference: We didn’t start the flame war. But we’re going to have to deal with it. Because being right is something nobody wants to give up. So the next time you are convinced in your heart of hearts that somebody else is Wrong, you are Right and by golly, you have the evidence to back it up, just remember, that’s what they think too.

The EU demanded that Greece lower its debt to eight percent of its GDP (from the current 12 percent) by mid-March if it wants to continue receiving support from the EU. With the deadline looming ever closer, Greece’s parliament has been passing measures to increase taxes while simultaneously slashing governmental spending. Usually governments raise taxes to pay for an increase in governmental programs or lower taxes to compensate for a decrease in social welfare programs. But with the triple whammy of higher taxes, lowering of public service employees’ wages and fewer social programs, Greek citizens are taking to the streets in violent protests. Most recently at the time of this writing, a huge portion of the labor movement of Greece clashed with police in violent riots.

Many in Greece are rightly angry that they are being asked to shoulder the debts that the wealthier speculators and government officials incurred. Government officials have allegedly pocketed a huge portion of the national debt. One source suggests that over 30 percent of national tax revenues have been unaccounted for because they allegedly go into the pockets of governmental officials.

It seems like a problem without a solution. The government must find a way to pay off a huge portion of its debts in a short period of time. The EU is applying pressure while refusing to offer financial support. Citizens are frustrated that their economy and standards of living are declining while the government is withdrawing support. Many are refusing to pay for the corruption of governmental officials. Yet without the people’s support, the government will not be able to meet the coming deadline—and it may not be able to meet the deadline even with the people’s support.

The people are going to have to temporarily bear the brunt of their government’s actions or else the EU is going to have to provide more solid support. Using arguments that sound remarkably similar to those in opposition to Lehman Brothers’ bailout a few years ago, many of the wealthier governments in the EU are vehemently opposed to bailing out Greece. They argue that Greece’s impending financial crisis is of its own doing and that an EU bailout will spur requests for bailouts from Portugal, Spain, Italy and possibly Ireland as well. However, like in the Lehman Brothers instance, a refusal to provide some kind of assistance could mean the collapse of the European economy, resulting in a second global financial crisis.

Current reports suggest that French President Nicolas Sarkozy will support Greece before letting its economy fail, but nobody has said what measures will be taken. Some more creative solutions that have been suggested to decrease Greece’s debt involve selling the Aegian Islands, demanding reparations from Germany for its work in crippling Greece’s economy in World War II and selling bonds to international speculators.

This problem is going to require cooperation on an international level. Citizens, governmental officials and the EU must work together to reduce financial speculation against Greece’s failure and to provide a sustainable solution that will not cripple Greek citizens. Greece needs less rioting, less pressure from the EU, less corruption and more willingness on everyone’s part to cooperate through the duration of the impending crisis.

The recent military coup in Niger was purportedly an attempt to regain democratic equilibrium in a country where the president had a track record of altering laws to retain power. Ousted President Tandja had changed the constitution several times to stay in office and delay elections. He was democratically elected in fair trials, but his tenure in office was a step away from democracy.

Though he overstayed his time in office and the people were frustrated with him to the point of instigating a year-long constitutional crisis, the international community refuses the coup on grounds of a breach of democracy, despite that the current government promises to hold democratic elections in the near future.

This is not an isolated event. The international community, particularly highly-industrialized and developed countries, has a history of dogmatically clinging to elections as a symbol of fair and legitimate democracy. Recent coups in Madagascar and Honduras and political unrest in Kenya and Sudan reflect instances in which democratic elections are harmful to the democratic process. Last year in Madagascar, the incumbent President Ravalomanana imposed several campaigning restrictions to hamper the possibility of lesser-known opponents winning the elections. When his opponent did win the elections, Ravalomanana contested the results and refused to leave office. Rajoelina effectively led months of violent protest to oust the incumbent president, which the United States and the European Union condemned.

The recent arrest and trial of Turkish military officials allegedly attempting to overthrow the government is the latest in a recent string of coups around the world. Although those under investigation are denying their involvement in such an attempt, there has been remarkably little coverage on the increasing change of Turkish laws and constitution to reflect the Muslim majority, including laws that require all government officials’ wives to be covered with a head scarf and compulsory religious education for children. The hotly-debated question is if these changes are in fact democratic or if they reflect a government trying to solidify its power by changing laws.

While many governments refuse to support or recognize the legitimacy of governments that come to power via violent coups, the United States has not shied away from instigating coups when it sees an interest. Including coups to oust Haitian, Nicaraguan and Chilean governments, the United States has a brutal history of supporting undemocratic coups for far less noble reasons than what some current leaders of coups are espousing.

Supporting democracy is not a matter of clinging to current governments and advocating for elections at all costs. When incumbent leaders have the power to change laws surrounding the presidency and polling, elections do not necessarily represent the will of the people. The answer is not to shun all coups on principle, but to shun leaders who work to extend their power at the expense of democracy. Coups should be prevented by focusing on democracy before the situation elevates to the point where a coup is the only conceivable means of removing someone from power.

Fortunately, Whitman College is a tight-knit community filled with familiar faces. Unfortunately, however, Whitman College is a tight-knit community filled with familiar faces. Allow me to explain.

There is a certain comfort that accompanies a small, intimate community. You never feel out of place, there’s always somebody to talk to and it’s easy to feel involved on campus. But there is also the inevitable stagnation of familiarity, the feeling you’ve met everyone worth meeting, that you have somehow exhausted whatever social resources you were given upon coming to college. Fortunately, the solution is a simple one: Get out.

Not because Whitman is a bad place, not because there is anything inherently wrong with a close-knit group of people, but because you need to see new faces sometimes, because you need to break free from the scrutiny of rumor, because people inevitably need a change of pace.

You don’t have to go far and a bike will suffice if a car is not available but the crucial aspect to this remedy of nauseating frustrations is the change of scenery for which you pedal or burn those fossil fuels.

This is in no way a commentary bashing life here at Whitman. To say that I haven’t had a great time here would be utterly wrong and this is meant rather as a commentary on intimate communities in general. The fact is, there is a feeling of paralysis that familiarity breeds in people over time, a feeling that you are unable to escape people you would rather not see and a feeling that your mood is seemingly controlled by some insidious campus-wide Overmind.

A few friends and I recently took a trip to Portland over the course of a weekend. The drive was surprisingly palatable and being in a real city, if but for a few days, was refreshing. There are a number of things to do on the Whitman campus and in the greater Walla Walla area. However, this supposed number of things is actually not terribly high and there can be no denying that Portland or Seattle each have a differing appeal of infinite opportunity. There’s something expansive about a big city that a tight community lacks and, for the very reason that living constantly in a big city can be overwhelming, the tight-knit community can, over time, seem underwhelming.

The city is the change in scenery I personally crave when I leave campus, but for others, a trip to the mountains could suffice—camping, travelling anywhere just for a new setting and a new set of possible experiences. This is not specific to Whitman, and those who have grown up in small towns could undoubtedly attest that the occasional diversion from a set of all-too-familiar norms is refreshing and serves in renewing an interest in those norms via a brief departure from them.

These negative feelings are not by any means pervasive or common, and, in fact, occur rarely and only after prolonged exposure to the allergen of intimacy. In fact, the effect of a good trip to the mountains, to any more expansive and perhaps less alliterative city, is the equivalent of a reset button. You shake the cobwebs from your system and return to Whitman in a mood that allows you to, yet again, appreciate the closeness that brought you here in the first place.

Photo Credit : Fennell

If you have a laptop, it probably has a webcam. You may have used the camera to Skype with friends studying abroad, take wacky pictures with Photo booth or chat with random strangers on Chatroulette.

But what would that webcam record if it flicked on at anytime, anywhere, and without your knowledge? And what if authorities could access those images whenever they liked?

Imagine that the school administration used webcams to capture 2-West residents smoking pot in Jewett Hall while listening to Toots and the Maytals, and then used those photographs as evidence to punish the offending students. Sounds like something out of “1984,” right?

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania high school student Blake Robbins recently found out that such an Orwellian scenario is not the stuff of science fiction. Last November, Robbins’ vice principal called him into her office. She accused him of taking illegal drugs.

The evidence? A photograph taken from the webcam on Robbins’ school-issued MacBook that showed him handling pill-shaped objects. The camera snapped the picture at Robbins’ home—without his knowledge or permission.

Lower Marion School District recently began loaning laptops to every high school student in the district for free. Unbeknownst to the students, there was a catch: Administrators loaded the laptops with security software that could remotely activate the computers’ webcams.

School administrators did not notify students or their families that they could monitor the computers, and students who complained that the indicator light next to their webcams would occasionally illuminate were told that their computers had a glitch.

But this was no glitch. Lower Marion School District was intentionally and systematically spying on its students outside of school hours.

Last week, Robbins’ family filed a class-action lawsuit against the school district for violating students’ civil rights and privacy. In response, the district admitted that it had activated the security system without students’ permission—not once, not twice, but 42 times over the past school year. The cameras, they claimed, were only activated in cases of missing or stolen laptops.

The school district’s claim that the cameras were used only on missing computers seems suspicious in light of Blake Robbins’ trip to the vice principal’s office. Regardless of whether their motives were legitimate, district administrators vastly overstepped their authority and blatantly violated students’ privacy.

It’s easy to picture scenarios that could result in school officials snapping embarrassing or inappropriate photos of students. One Lower Marion student who brought her laptop into the bathroom to play music while she showered worried that school employees may have photographed her in the nude. This possibility is simply unacceptable. School administrators should not be peeping Toms.

Making matters even worse, experts have pointed out that the intrusive security measures are ineffective. Any pictures from a stolen laptop’s camera could never prove that the person photographed stole the computer and would be laughed out of court. Less intrusive strategies such as GPS tracking devices would actually be more effective at preventing theft.

The Robbins family claims the school district actually caught Blake abusing Mike & Ike’s, his favorite candy. But it shouldn’t matter whether the pictures showed Blake Robbins eating candy, drinking Jack Daniels or snorting lines of cocaine off of a prostitute. Schools simply have no right to electronically spy on their students and their after-school activities. Lower Marion School District officials deserve their own trip to the principal’s office—or in this case, an angry judge’s courtroom. Let’s hope they receive harsh punishment.

Credit: Loos-Diallo

On Feb. 19, Apple began the systematic removal of every app in the iTunes Store that is designed to titillate, arouse or otherwise stimulate. All of the apps designed to showcase scantily clad women (and men, for that matter) have, for the most part, been removed, effective immediately. Tech pundits at large have been mouthing off about how Apple is censoring the iPhone and inhibiting expression.

For the uninitiated, there were something close to 5,000 apps on the iTunes store with names like “Asian Boobs,” “Sexy Scratch-Off” and perennial favorite “iBoobs.” Anyone suggesting these apps are worth saving is dead wrong. Sure, it was sudden and unannounced, but as far as I’m concerned, Apple did the right thing.

For example: “Asian Boobs” made it into the top spot of the most downloaded paid apps in the App Store on the weekend of its release. I remember that weekend. Honestly, looking at that icon of a woman’s silhouette on a red background gave me a skeezy feeling. The iPhone is a sleek, classy piece of gadgetry. Apps dedicated solely to the display of scantily clad women diminish that for me.

Now, some people are saying that Apple is being hypocritical. After all, it’s possible to buy R-rated movies and incredibly explicit rap from the iTunes store. If you can see naked mammaries and listen to incredibly explicit music already, a plethora of girls in bikinis is relatively tame, right? Well, there’s one major difference between all of these breast-related applications and other media: On some level, everything else is art—though the artfulness of each piece is debatable. The applications in question are simply designed to provoke a baser response in the viewer.

Why shouldn’t you care? There are a few very good reasons. First and foremost, the iPhone is connected to the Internet. This is the same Internet that will deliver all of this content, in many cases, without you having to pay for it! Also, it means that people aren’t confronted with the idea of having these apps on their devices every time they go onto the iTunes store. Then there’s the issue of kids and the App Store, because although it’s impossible for them to download apps with questionable content, assuming the parental controls are set up properly, it’s still possible for them to see what apps there are, including their screenshots and icons, which in many cases are less than savory.

So, complain about censorship all you want, but get your half-naked pictures out of the App Store. Seriously, it’s disgusting to think about.

Here’s the catch: It may seem like sacrilege that sleazy exports like McDonalds are springing up near renaissance cathedrals, and even in China’s Forbidden City. But it’s also old news, and besides, globalization is more far-reaching than fast food.

That’s what was on my mind the other day during our seminar on la actualidad española, in which my fellow international students and I gather to discuss such topics as the Spanish political system and how not to get our prepaid cell phones stolen on the metro. Its primary function is to teach us how to integrate into Spanish culture, or at least not comport ourselves like complete extranjeros, or foreigners.

“Seventy percent of communication is non-verbal,” the professor reminds us. Pointing to a pie chart with a 30 percent slice labeled “verbal,” he prompts, “How can this be?”

We discuss body language—for instance, Americans have certain inhibitions about personal space that often translate into our speech, as well. I started off making indirect requests like podría tener éste, por favor (could I please have this) instead of using the more up-close-and-personal dámelo (give it to me). Fashion is also a factor. In a city where elderly women don furs and high-heeled boots just to sort through the sales rack and even some preschoolers wear pea coats, you tend to stand out for wearing that college t-shirt.

Students on my program have probably been taking some version of this course for years, swapping advice not only on how to speak—but also dress and act—more Spanish. Yet Spain itself has undergone some radical changes in that time period, and cities like Madrid are home to people from all kinds of cultural backgrounds, not simply Spanish (or Basque or Catalan). So just as we study abroad students are trying to acquaint ourselves with what it means to lead an essentially “Spanish” lifestyle (whatever that might mean) Spain is trying to adjust to its own budding multi-culturalism after decades of isolation under Franco.

As someone who appears obviously foreign, I’ve spoken to waiters, taxi drivers, etc. in sentences I know to be at least grammatically correct, only to have them address my native speaker friend as if I need a translator. Among our seminar professor’s favorite expressions is, “no sois turísticos, sois estudiantes” (you’re not tourists, you’re students), but today I sat in a café reading a medieval Spanish epic without a dictionary and the barista still asked me in English if I was finished with my drink.

In the last few weeks as I’ve felt more at ease in Madrid, it has started to dawn on me what an uphill battle new arrivals must fight. Even if you try to blend in here, the attitude many extranjeros still face is one of you’re not fooling anybody.

I may be a student, but I’m really just visiting, not trying to start a new life. Not so for the more than five million immigrants who have settled here over the past decade. And when I think of all the gradients of race and class by which newcomers are so often judged, I guess I’d rather be asked if I’m looking for my hotel than struggle to make a living by hawking one euro beers on street corners, as do some recent immigrants from China.

Spain has undergone a massive demographic shift since immigration spiked between 2000 and 2009 (it has since slowed due to the global recession). During that time, the country’s immigrant population swelled from about two percent to 12 percent. Despite the influx, however, many Spanish cities remain relatively homogenous, with immigrants, many from North Africa and Latin America, occupying the predictable fringes of mainstream society.

Although ethnic tension is comparatively low in Spain, so too is an appreciation for diversity. Even young Spaniards tend to refer to all persons of Asian descent as “chinos,” a term also applied to the corner stores or alimentaciones often run by immigrant shopkeepers.

It’s true that real communication is not only about language, but neither is bias; just ask an immigrant from Ecuador. I’ve had several “native” Spaniards try to explain to me the differences between “good” and “bad” Spanish, implicitly citing the supposedly inferior quality of Spanish spoken in Latin America. A Pomona student in my class whose parents were born in Guatemala said she expected to stand out for being “too brown” in Spain, although she speaks fluent Spanish.

Studying abroad may be all about understanding another culture, but as globalization speeds up, that won’t be restricted to just one. In other words, Spain may be known for its paella, but it probably offers an even greater selection of döner kebab. It’s important to focus not only on attaining a holistically Spanish or other kind of singular experience, but to savor what we’ve long referred to in the States as the melting pot.

It’s mostly about the environment. For example, my friend at Oberlin felt that the rainbow couches and room full of typewriters in the library were a quintessential part of her Oberlin experience. In comparison, some highlights of Penrose Library include the quiet room, the windows, the view of Ankeny, the Napoleon room, the fourth floor, the canoe, the rolling bookcases and the fact that it’s open 24 hours. Some of these features make the library a nice place to study; others are just nice to have.

At Carnegie Mellon University, the library was sometimes a place where I could nap in between classes; they had this sleeping pod, which was maybe my favorite thing about the library. It was designed by an alumnus and was basically this reclining chair with a dorm enclosing part of it, so that you can pull it closed over yourself when you lie inside of it. It could play ambient sounds and had a timer that allowed you to nap for a certain number of minutes before vibrating to shake you awake. It was positioned awkwardly in the corner of the library café, so oftentimes you’d be eating a bagel with a person’s legs sticking out of the sleeping pod right behind you. But it was pretty awesome.

My roommate got a text the other day from her friends at Boston College, telling her that they’d found a secret library on campus.

“What should we do there?” they asked.

“Go streaking,” she texted back.

One particular usage that surprised me, however, was that the library was also a place where people checked out books. To read. For fun. Who does that?

My friend recently, on a whim, checked out four books on mysticism.

“I decided to check them out when I was studying there because it’s something I’m interested in and I was like ‘Hey, I’m in a library,’” she explained.

The library is an especially convenient place to get books from because, well, it’s right there. And it’s a place where most people would be going anyway. So in a way, the library promotes the reading of books by making books easily accessible.

But while checking books out is one thing, finding the time to read them is another.

I asked my friend Osta about why she decided to check out Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink.”

“This summer I did a lot of reading for fun,” she said. “So in the fall I was bored and I didn’t have any homework, so I was like, ‘Wow, school’s super easy, I have a ton of free time, I can continue to read for fun.’ In the quiet room there’s a wall of popular books and I saw “Blink” and I was like, ‘Oh, that sounds fun’—but I didn’t finish it.”

It’s nice to know that books still have a place in the library—amongst the studying, the sleeping and the streaking—even if they only sometimes are actually read.

Just when I thought it was safe to go to class, I am greeted with an all too familiar sight: pamphlet guy. Everyone has encountered pamphlet guy in his or her life. Pamphlet guy lurks outside everywhere you ever consider going and, armed with willpower and the handiwork of some Kinko’s employee, proceeds in changing your life forever, or at least putting in an honest effort.

Pamphlet guy comes in a variety of incarnations—some worse than others. There’s “cause” pamphlet guy who feels compelled to remind you that three baby seals died in China because America loves oil. This particular iteration of pamphlet guy is excusable; while self-righteous, he at the very least thinks he is doing something to benefit . . . something. Wrong though he may be, there’s a certain nobility to it that can be admired.

The next rung on this ladder of irritation is the religious crusader. This man is trying to save your soul and he is doing it in five minutes outside your local movie theater. This is when pamphlet guy begins to become the condescending ass-clown we all know. He makes the amusing assumption that whoever he is talking to—be they religious or not—is the way they are simply because they have yet to be enlightened, simply because they have, as of yet, failed to read the 300 words of wisdom that will take them to the promised land.

While this form of pamphlet guy is annoying and condescending, still we can see a silver lining to his douchebaggery. He, like “cause” guy, is trying in a very misguided way to do something good. While his efforts are feeble and worthy of pity, he is trying to bring people on to a path that, he feels, will make them better off for it. This is why the religious crusader does not rest at the top of the ladder of irritation. This spot is reserved for the atheist avenger.

The atheist avenger is an alliterative pseudonym for the pamphlet guy we see who, identically to the religious crusader, seeks to change your life and do so very quickly and with little effort. The atheist avenger has all the qualities we attribute to the religious crusader with one notable exception: He has zero interest in bettering your life or the life of any other person.

The atheist avenger therefore proves the champion of idiocy in this hierarchy of self-righteousness. He seeks to change people’s viewpoints yet does so with no respect for the viewpoints he wishes to change. He sees no other side to the story and assumes that your religious beliefs are ripe for the sculpting. He does all of this and does it for no reason. What need would an atheist see in taking someone’s faith from them? What good could that do anybody? The fact is, it does no service other than gratifying the individual with the pamphlet. His joy in this vocation lies only in a condescending belief that he needs to drag people kicking and screaming from the safety of their faith. He benefits nobody and disrespects everybody to whom he so righteously hands that lime-green piece of paper.

Of course, what’s good for Big Content may not be as good for you and me. Of course, nobody really knows, because the most controversial sections of the treaty are being hidden from public view. Jamie Love, of Knowledge Ecology International, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty Agreement. He received a letter back from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office denying that request, saying that the text of the treaty was “classified in the interest of national security.”

That’s not to say we don’t have some clue as to what the treaty entails. The European Union produced a memo in September of 2009 which outlined some of the provisions in the section of the treaty regarding the Internet. The key points included a notice-and-takedown system, meaning that if Big Content sends a notice to a Web site (e.g. YouTube) saying that the content is infringing on a copyright, that Web site has to take it down.

Notice-and-takedown is already included in the United States’ Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which is why YouTube videos frequently disappear without notice, even if they were posted by the person who created that content.

But that’s not the really scary bit. According to the EU memo, the agreement will also mandate civil and criminal penalties for file sharing. Big Content has shown that it is very good at bringing lawsuits against people it has caught file sharing and has charged them gobs of money. Now, it looks like felony file sharing may be joining the legal lexicon.

Last, but certainly not least, the memo outlines a requirement that Internet Service Providers either use some means of banning the transfer of copyrighted files over their network, or implement a “graduated response” policy against file sharing.

Let’s break down those two options: The first is a major privacy issue. In order for content monitoring to be effective, your ISP will need to track what it is you’re uploading and downloading from the Internet. Did your significant other e-mail you some naughty pictures? Congratulations! Under a content monitoring system, your ISP got a chance to see them too.

Okay, so content monitoring is bad. What about this “graduated response” stuff? That has to be better, right? Unfortunately, it’s not. “Graduated response,” or more colloquially, three-strikes policies, are just as bad as content monitoring, if not worse. The idea behind a three-strikes system is that if Big Content sends a notice to your ISP that your IP address has been illegally sharing files three times, you get kicked off the Internet for good.

There are a few problems here. The first is that an IP address is not a singular identity. If you have three computers hooked up to a single router at home, all of those computers share the same IP on the World Wide Web. So, if someone else got access to your wireless network and downloaded a bunch of movies, you could get kicked off the Internet.

Secondly, there’s the issue of accusation versus conviction. Under a three-strikes system, you don’t have to be convicted of file sharing for it to count as a strike. All that has to happen is for Big Content to accuse you of sharing files. All of this because Big Content hasn’t put the time into a working business model for the digital age. (But that’s another column.)

The bottom line is, why should you care? In a nutshell, here’s why: There’s a treaty being created in secret which is designed to serve the needs of large corporate interests by kicking people off of the Internet without proof and/or throwing them in jail. I don’t know about you, but that ticks me off.

But what does culture shock mean? In the United States for example, it’s customary as well as obligatory (is there a difference between the two?) to say thank you to your waiter when they bring your food over or when someone opens the door for you. You’re impolite if you don’t (a sure sign of being unsophisticated and crude). In China, you don’t have to say thank you. You get a strange look if you do say thank you—in Chinese of course—to your waiter. After all, from his point of view, he’s just doing his job. He should be doing his job. It’s not as if he’s doing something nice or out of the ordinary. The presumption is in obeying the already given rules. This is not to say you shouldn’t say thank you or that giving thanks is offensive.

What it does suggest is that different cultures place different emphasis on different words. “Thank you,” when repeated enough, may be meaningless. We leave our words on the table with the tip at a restaurant, but at the very least, we say it. (You never tip in China, not in restaurants, bars or barbershops.) Consider how many ways you can say thank you. “Thanks,” “Thank you,” “I appreciate it,” “that’s very kind of you” and tipping of course. Twenty percent is suggested and you go up or down depending on whether or not you liked your waiter, right?

Well, there’s none of that in China. What there are, though, are different names for every member of your family depending on his or her relation to you. So, it’s a different character for grandmother on your mom’s side and grandmother on your dad’s side, pronounced wai puo as opposed to nai nai. It’s a different character for grandmother’s little brother’s granddaughter and your grandmother’s little sister’s granddaughter. It’s a dizzying task trying to memorize all of them even though they’re important. After all, no matter how distant someone is, family is family, right?

Chinese culture traditionally places a really strong emphasis on family as a source of social stability, personal values and priorities. You have an obligation to them by virtue of your birth (it’s irrelevant if you didn’t choose them) and that obligation usually comes ahead of personal whims and desires. Or rather, that obligation frames the terms of the latter. And you can see that reflected in the Chinese language, Mandarin.

Well, what about American language? To take a common topic, how many slang words and terms do we have for having sex? Not to say sex is bad—does anyone still believe that?—but that I think the more ways we have to describe something reflects something about our culture. In creating new ways to describe something, we express the importance we attach to it. We draw finer and finer distinctions within whatever we’re describing because we can see finer distinctions.

So, the real shock of encountering another culture isn’t just that they do things differently—like not saying thanks or not respecting your personal space (it’s hard in the Beijing subway). It’s that they think differently. Their language emphasizes different things and so they see things in a different light. The challenge of course is to learn their new language and eventually start thinking in it. It’s not blind acceptance (thankfully dog eating is being outlawed by the government here) or revulsion, but understanding.

Credit: Douglas

The 50th anniversary of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was not met with much fanfare and celebration. In fact, many dissidents believe that after over 50 years it is time the United States decrease or eliminate the military bases it is maintaining in Japan. Our presence may have made sense in immediate postwar Japan and could possibly be justified in Cold War Japan, but there is no place for a military base in modern Japan. The bases are costing us money we don’t have and costing Japan precious land and resources they don’t have. The Japanese are paying most of the operating expenses of maintaining our bases—including the cost of renting the land—and indicated in a 1995 survey that they believe that the U.S. military is not in Japan for Japan’s benefit, despite American rhetoric of protecting the nation against potential invaders.

Japanese dissidents also complain of the disruptive noise and crime committed around military bases. They complain that the noises of helicopters disrupt schools and keep people awake at night. Furthermore, a series of rapes and other violent crimes by U.S. Marines have inspired numerous protests against American military presence, with protestors numbering over 80,000.

While Americans have been encountering pressure from the Japanese to leave the military bases practically from their inception, escalating protests are now louder than ever. Recently, six Japanese officials have been elected to office with the promise that they will oppose American military presence and relocate or remove the air base Futemma from Japan. Prime Minister Hatoyama and local Okinawan politicians have staked their campaigns on promises to oppose the bases, which has led to tense relations between Japan and the United States.

The Japanese who oppose American military presence in Okinawa have it right: We don’t really have a good excuse to stay there anymore. Following World War II, the United States’ occupation of Japan focused on two main goals: demilitarizing Japan, and modeling Japan’s government to imitate that of the United States and other Western countries. These reasons cannot justify staying in Japan today, and in fact did not justify our presence for very long once they were originally stated. The United States only had a stake in demilitarizing Japan immediately after WWII, and the constitution which had previously banned any standing army in Japan was quickly altered during the Cold War to allow for minor exceptions of maintaining a defensive army.

Interestingly, Japan’s military is still hampered by that same clause in its constitution. Though many protestors have tried to completely alter the law limiting military build-up, they have met pressure from the United States and other Western nations to keep the clause in their constitution. One of the biggest justifications the United States has given to back it’s presence in Japan is the argument that the Japanese would not be able to defend themselves in the event of an attack.

However, the Japanese now spend only one percent of their GNP on keeping an army, but have the sixth largest army in the world, according to some sources. In comparison, the United States has the largest army in the world, but six or seven percent of our GNP goes towards maintaining the it. If Japan were allowed to expand its military spending, it is likely that they would have one of the top three largest armies in the world and have no difficulty defending themselves.

So if not to protect the Japanese people from advancing enemies in all directions, why exactly is the United States in Japan? With relatively close access to China, North and South Korea, Russia, India and mainland Japan, Okinawa is a strategic dream come true for the American military.

Furthermore, with Japan shouldering many of the costs of operating the bases, the United States has no financial incentive to consider moving troops to bases on American soil. On the contrary, Japanese officials have historically paid a huge percentage of the costs of transporting American military out of Okinawa and will likely continue to do so in the future.

The Japanese people will not stand for continued American military presence for much longer. Now that it is a part of mainstream rhetoric, with major officials winning elections largely due to promises of eliminating or decreasing the number of U.S. military bases in Japan, the United States had better start looking for new places to station its Marines.

This nation has a long tradition of turning anger into intense political populism, which is a history we neglect at our folly. What liberals forget to remember is that many of the deepest passions of the American people are stirred by questions of taxation and fiscal (or even monetary) issues.

Should we be surprised that a nation that could get riled up by the soaring rhetoric of William Jennings Bryan on a topic as mundane as the gold standard and bimetallism is now generating a movement that pushes monetary policy and the Federal Reserve to the center of its populist political platform?

Should we be surprised that a nation born in blood defending the concrete principle “no taxation without representation”—rather than the abstract “liberté, égalité, fraternité”—and which in its infancy put down two armed insurrections against government taxation (the Shay and Whiskey rebellions) is today rising up at the most egregious and immoral indebting of present and future generations of Americans in our nation’s history?

Should we be surprised that Americans who are given a choice between a party that is the puppet of big business and a party that wishes to be your puppeteer through big government are disillusioned with the political system as a whole?

Should we be surprised that a pragmatic, industrious and skeptical nation is rebelling against a president who was elected on the emptiest abstractions of “hope” and “change?”

If you are surprised, then surely you have forgotten what it means to be an American.

The Tea Party movement is for better or worse a quintessentially American movement, meaning that it is the most paradoxical combination of naïve idealism and cold pragmatism (take your pick from: I have a God-given right not to obey my God-given obligation to love my neighbor . . . Taxes violate the natural laws of the free market which ironically require taxes to enforce them . . . but I just don’t consent! . . . Having almost no taxes is just better for the economy, which is all that matters anyway, so forget the old people . . . Or simply what one Tea Partier told me, that rich people should just be able to keep their money, period).

While the Tea Party may be a haven for radical libertarians and other undesirable political elements of our society that have few official political outlets, all in all what I hear from people who belong to the Tea Party is a deep-felt concern for this country’s fiscal health. Thus they advocate limited government.

I would argue though that to simply characterize the Tea Party as a movement of small government fiscal conservatives would distort some of its most interesting aspects.

The Tea Party, firmly in the tradition of past American populist movements, is in reality a movement against “bigness” and concentration of power per se, rather than merely an attack against the welfare state. Localists eat your heart out!

For example, the Tea Party focuses a lot on the bank bailout. The bailout was not merely an incredible display of government intervention in the economy, but is more accurately described as government collusion with the most powerful financial institutions in our society.

The common thing you hear in the Tea Party is not just “big government” is wrong or bad etc., but that average Americans are not being heard in government, that government represents the interests of large corporations (GM) or financial institutions (Wall Street) rather than individual tax payers and that government is no longer beholden to the people. Can we honestly say that the Tea Party is wrong on these points?

The Federal Reserve is another area of concern for many Tea Partiers because it represents a shocking combination of secrecy, private-public collusion and fiscal irresponsibility. Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve, HR 1207, will likely pass the House but is facing a stiff fight in the Senate.

Increasing transparency over how trillions of dollars in government loans have been issued to private industry is a paramount objective and an absolutely necessary action in preventing corruption and the collaboration of big government with big business.

After all, even if you believe that the Federal Reserve’s massive lending to the banks helped stave off another Great Depression, whose monetary and interest rate policies created the housing and financial bubbles in the first place?

Even Democrats are influenced by the Tea Party and Ron Paul’s attacks on the Fed and on the bank bailout. That’s why Feingold and Boxer came out against the reconfirmation of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and why Obama has suggested the “bank tax” in response to voter dismay over the bank bailout.

I see the Tea Party not as a group of radicals, but as a group of small business owners, middle-class people from traditional families with children and people of faith who are fed up with the government creating policies that rarely seem to benefit them. Obama has heard this message loud and clear, which is why he has proposed to increase the child-tax credit, limit student loan debt and focus stimulus money on small businesses from now on.

We could approach the Tea Party with juvenile jokes poking fun at their ideological zeal or their sometimes ignorant (much lampooned on YouTube) understanding of the Federal bureaucracy and simply label them as right-wing nut jobs to be ignored.

Or, we could realize that when Americans are really angry, it is usually for good reason. If you truly want to stop a populist surge in this country, then the leadership of both parties needs to step up and start solving our massive fiscal issues. Don’t rise to the challenge—and we know how many Sarah Palins are waiting in the wings.

Credit: E. Johnson

Last Sunday, Feb. 14, Vice President Biden and former Vice President Dick Cheney had a talk-show showdown that focused on which style of governing is better at keeping our country safe from terrorism: one that utilizes civilian trials or one that disregards the constitution in favor of military tribunals. Unfortunately, neither is getting at the well-oiled root of our foreign policy problem.

After 9/11, Bush made a dramatic change from the policy used worldwide of treating terrorists as criminals to one where anyone found to be an “enemy combatant” could be tried by the military and put in Guantanamo.

Recently, Republicans have begun to slam the White House for the decision to treat Christmas Day bomber Umar Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant rather than turn him over to the military as an enemy combatant. Sarah Palin recently received much applause at the Tea Party convention for criticizing Obama’s policy of “lawyering up” Abdulmutallab and calling for a “commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”

There is a multitude of problems with this critique. The first is that Bush actually didn’t use the military tribunals. Out of the 153 terrorists that the Bush administration convicted, only three were tried in military tribunals.

This is probably because, despite popular rhetoric, the civilian court system actually works better than a military tribunal. Bush himself must have recognized this during his administration when Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver, was given a mere five-year sentence from a military tribunal while Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber,” was given life sentence without parole from a civilian court.

But the real problem behind the polarizing rhetoric and finger-pointing is America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Ever seen the bumper sticker that claims “Osama loves your SUV”? Unfortunately, that might not be so far from the truth. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that Americans spend more than $13 million per hour on oil and over $25 billion per year in the Persian Gulf alone.

Bin Laden’s wealth comes from a family construction company that made its money from Saudi government contracts financed by oil money. But our energy purchases have done more than just help the founder of al Qaeda, they are strengthening the most intolerant, anti-Western, anti-women’s rights strain of Islam—the strain propagated by Saudi Arabia.

As Thomas Friedman explains in his recent book “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” the Wahhabi ruling family in Saudi Arabia follow the Salafiyyah movement in Islam, a strand of the religion that believes Islam should return to its purest roots. This movement wasn’t very popular until radical fundamentalists took over the Grand Mosque of Mecca in 1979 and the royal family realized it could only protect itself against religious extremists by empowering them.

Although Saudia Arabia only has one percent of the world Muslim population, it now funds 90 percent of the expenses of the faith.

The effect of this is immediately evident.

As Greg Mortenson wrote in “Three Cups of Tea,” the power of the Saudi Wahhabi sect to build mosques and schools in areas where none existed was overwhelming.

“Many of their schools and mosques are doing good work to help Pakistan’s poor. But some of them seem to exist only to teach militant jihad,” Mortenson wrote.

When governments make the majority of their money  from drilling a hole in the ground, they have no incentive to educate their people or provide them with freedoms to encourage their creativity. Governments that don’t rely on taxation are unlikely to represent their constituents. In fact, according to Larry Diamond, author of “The Spirit of Democracy,” of 23 countries that derive a clear majority of their income from oil and gas, none are democracies.

“Making America the world’s greenest country is not a selfless act of charity or naive moral indulgence,” Friedman wrote. ”It is now a core national security and economic interest.”

If our politicians really want to make America safe, they should start by looking inwards.

Credit: Sloane

On April 15, 2009—the day federal tax returns are due—a motley crew of protesters gathered in cities around the country. The demonstrators railed against big government, taxation, deficit spending, illegal immigration, the stimulus plan and other issues. Over the past 10 months, angry, sign-waving crowds have mobbed the streets of many American cities, denouncing progressive measures such as health care reform. Over time, the disparate groups of activists coalesced into a loose confederation of conservative populist groups known as the Tea Party Movement.

At first, mainstream politicians had no idea how to deal with the Tea Party movement. Progressive figures ridiculed the movement. After activists mailed teabags to their elected representatives to protest taxes, John Stewart mockingly called the group’s members teabaggers (ironically, mail screeners remove any teabags sent to representative’s offices for security reasons).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned the movement’s grassroots credentials, referring to Tea Party participants as inauthentic “Astroturf” activists planted by special interest groups. The movement also scared moderate Republicans, who feared that their party would be steered towards the extreme right.

So which is it? Are the teabaggers authentic grassroots activists? Do they present a strong challenge to the Democratic majority, or will they push Republicans to the extreme right, alienating moderate voters in the process?

Nancy Pelosi’s Astroturf allegations are not unfounded. The Tea Party Patriots—the organization behind many, if not most tea party rallies—have strong ties to Freedomworks, a conservative non-profit group. Freedomworks’ chairman is Dick Armey, a former Republican House Majority Leader and current corporate lobbyist.

More recently, a for-profit corporation organized a national Tea Party convention held on Feb. 5-7 in Nashville, Tenn. The conference’s keynote speaker, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, received an appearance fee rumored to be more than $100,000. Exorbitant speaking fees at a for-profit convention led critics to question the movement’s grassroots status.

However, such quibbles can’t hide that the Tea Party movement tapped into a legitimate well of conservative discontent. Right or wrong, most of the Tea Party participants are not corporate plants but upset citizens, concerned that neither party will respond to their needs.

Indeed, the movement presents a real threat to moderate Republicans, as the movement has already shaken the Republican party. In August, a Democrat won a Congressional seat in New York that had been held by Republicans for 20 years after a Tea Party-endorsed candidate siphoned votes from the mainstream Republican nominee. In Arizona, Senator John McCain will face a far-right challenger in November’s general election. A Tea Party candidate will face Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, where the movement has qualified as a political party.

Some Democrats argue that the Tea Party movement will benefit progressives as Republicans move to the extreme right in response to Tea Party challengers, alienating moderate voters in the process. However, history shows that whenever the Republicans move further to the right (as they did during Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution), Democrats tend to follow.

President Obama cannot afford to let his party move further to the right. The Democrats’ broad political coalition, the so-called big tent, is already straining its foundations. Democratic leaders have tried so hard to placate moderate and conservative Democrats that they have enacted few meaningful policy changes despite strong majorities in both houses and control of the presidency. The party’s progressive base is already uneasy, and shifting further right would be disastrous.

The Democratic Party’s leadership should not try to court Republicans alienated by the Tea Party movement. Instead, they should focus on producing real policy change. As shown by the Republican majority’s collapse since 2000, political coalitions are never permanent. Policy change—like health care or climate change legislation—can last for decades.

Consider this: A fictional software company that I’ll call WidgetSoft creates a program I’ll call CoolWidget Pro. In the software license for CoolWidget Pro—which you’ll have to agree to in order to install it on your computer—WidgetSoft says that by clicking “agree,” you allow WidgetSoft employees to take your computer and/or any other electronic equipment that you may have. That is a major problem. If it’s possible to sign your life over to a company by clicking one button on a computer, we really need to rethink the way we handle contracts.

Granted, most EULAs aren’t nearly half as evil as the example I’ve created. For the most part, it’s standard stuff talking about how you won’t sue the company you bought the software from when your computer breaks, even if you have reason to believe that piece of software was the thing that broke it. The agreement is also likely to discuss what rights the software company has as far as the code powering the program, which usually includes not being able to reverse-engineer the source code or distribute it for free on the Internet. You’re not signing your life away, certainly, but you are giving up certain privileges in exchange for use of the software.

So if most software licenses aren’t nearly as cruel as the one I’ve created for CoolWidget, why is there a problem? In my mind, there are two reasons: The first is that there are companies out there who will at least attempt to implement stranger and stricter terms in their EULAs. The second has to do with our own laissez-faire attitude towards contracts.

The first is an issue because although there isn’t a lot of existing case law when it comes to software licenses, most of the current cases have said that the terms in the agreement are binding. So, if WidgetSoft really did take your computer, it’s possible that contract law would be on their side.

The second issue is more of a large-scale problem. If we’re so used to just signing off on legally binding documents without reading them, what happens when someone really signs their life away without paying attention? In August of 2009, people were shocked to learn that the Burning Man Organization (which is in charge of the festival of the same name) had added a clause to the Terms and Conditions of the event which made all photos and videos taken at Burning Man the creative property of the organization. The fact of the matter is, people just assumed that Burning Man would be the same as always, without paying attention to the contract into which they entered.

In a perfect world, we would all be able to spend as much time as possible reading contracts, and making sure that we understand what they mean. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world, and barring some revolutionary advancement in how these contracts are delivered, I don’t see anything really changing. That said, I’m going to try to stay on top of my contractual obligations, at least to some degree.

For example, part of what’s great about America is that it’s the land of open possibilities. We always hear those Horatio Alger stories about coming from nothing and ending up with everything. There’s a saying in Texas Hold’em that you only need a chip and a chair to come back and win. With this emphasis on freedom comes a value on independence because the only worthy choice is a free one. Hence, our conception of politics depends on what we mean by freedom. Yet that is still part of America’s inheritance.

At the risk of broad generalizations, the role of what government should be doing is not the same in China. It’s not a question of big versus small couched in terms of freedom. Take Chinese New Year for example. I spent one with a very gracious Chinese host family. It happens around February every year since it depends on the lunar calendar. In Beijing, every single year for about 12 days or so, people buy fireworks off the street and light them. You’ll hear enormous explosions from your neighborhood, outside your door and on every single street—all smoke and some fire. It’s a time for families to come together and celebrate, often but not always, with liquor and dumplings.

To me, this is a dangerously fun combination. The best word to describe what goes on outside is a war zone without bullets but with shrapnel. You’ll see taxis weaving through the smoke as fireworks are being set off in every direction. Car alarms go off all the time even during the day. The ones parked in the street get covered with dust. Little kids, along with their dads, are not just watching but actively participating.

It’s hard to emphasize how prevalent this is. It’s as if the entire city grounds to a standstill for a few days and the only way to know people are around are the explosions. Apparently, the way to light a firework is with a cigarette and nobody will stop or caution you. So don’t lose an eye or a finger.

Does this reflect a hands-off approach to governance? No. China’s ruling Communist Party bans what you see on the web under the pretext of fighting pornography, but it does not really try to regulate the bonanza of fireworks going off like artillery shells outside the window. It’s part of Chinese culture. The only rule (that’s enforced) is that you can’t light them within 15 feet of where you buy them, for obvious reasons. There’s a tent stacked with them just outside the door of a bank on a street corner in Beijing. It’s not about freedom or the distinction between the public/private sphere that prevents the government from better regulating the celebration.

In America, this would be like the police not enforcing drunk driving laws on July 4 in the name of the Revolutionary War.

When I ask taxi drivers for example why the government doesn’t really care, the reply is culture; out of respect for Chinese culture and history, the government doesn’t really intervene. Now, the claim of history is a powerful one here. Native Chinese people like to tell me that China’s history is 5,000 years long and America’s is about 200. Because of this length, China’s traditions hold greater claim and supposedly greater value.

During Chinese New Year, it’s customary for families to reunite. Literally millions of people are moving across the country by plane, train or car to spend Chinese New Year with families. It’s impossible to travel during this time since the seats are all sold out.

So, my question is, in what sense does American culture lay claim to us? Certainly, it’s not as obligatory to go home for the new year. The interesting thing about being in China is that it lets you appreciate how ingrained freedom is in our culture. The founding, while certainly glorified in our textbooks, still reveals how a political debate is central to America.

Even a comedian that’s not funny anymore, but horrifically real like Sarah Palin, speaks in a language of freedom. While certainly not perfect (see the three-fifths compromise), the American animating impulse for freedom is unique. It’s a tradition of freedom.

I have to get to Cordiner since apparently convocation is in 15 minutes.

I have to get to the Beta house as initiation “may” be starting.

I have to go do team-building exercises on a weekend.

Whatever the case, I would turn to the nearest person, and, in as vulgar a manner as possible, provide several reasons why I shouldn’t have to go to wherever I’m going. I would go on to elaborate that there would be no way for anyone to even know I’m not there. Then, in dramatic fashion, I would go anyway.

Orientations. Initiations. How many of these kinds of things have we all endured in our lifetimes? They’re those vacuous spaces of time that could so easily be spent partying, wasted in many cases on the same activities that you’ve endured time and time again.

But what is the purpose of all this nonsense? Why is there such a need for a scripted opening to anything institutionalized? Why the hell did I walk around Ankeny blindfolded one of my first nights here?

These questions came to me my first week here as I, being the type of person I am, wanted more time to interact organically with my peers, i.e. party time. I recently returned to these questions and found an interesting thread running through all of the events that comprised my opening week here, my orientation in high school and any other orientation I had ever had to endure: I bitch about everything.

This at first seems like an idiotic conclusion but when I gave it thought some meaning seemed to surface. I remember before convocation a group of students were playing a roughly 30-second tune outside Cordiner over and over again. This bothered me and made my ears want to bleed. Needless to say those around me also shared my sentiment and, despite the administration’s best efforts, we bonded over our mutual frustration.

This is not to say that everything we do during orientation, opening week and the like is boring or useless. In fact, I had a great time during opening week and initiation as well. But, just having to do anything by a strict schedule can lend an air of unpleasantness to the most enjoyable activities and this is what I complained about with my peers.

So how could it be that a program meant to bond people with fun activities could sometimes bore you to tears yet still achieve its goal? Simple, by having people commiserate with each other in their suffering and in their joy. The sheer reality of herding a bunch of people into a situation they can’t get out of demands camaraderie.

Mutual boredom is still something mutual. Bitching about things may accomplish nothing, but at the very least it gives people something to talk about.

Do people need to have a negative attitude towards these kinds of things for them to be successful? I don’t think so, but I feel as though the only way to enjoy everything somebody schedules out for you is to have boundless energy and enthusiasm, traits I have never possessed. Instead, we can take the good from the bad and engage in the time-honored tradition of bitching for the very sake of having something to talk about.

It’s a mantra upheld by celebrities, PBS characters and, quite likely, the people who care about you. There’s even an eight-step guide to being yourself on WikiHow (yes, I did just google that. Side note: No, I didn’t “bing” it), including “believe in who you are”; the article offers a photo of a street performer wearing funky sunglasses as inspiration.

So what could be so wrong with a well-intentioned little phrase like “be yourself”—a phrase uttered by none less than badass literary god Oscar Wilde? In my book, a couple of things.

First, its logic is unsound. ”Just be yourself” presumes that you’ve been spending some quality time as someone else, and with the exception of theatre kids, I’d guess most of us haven’t been playing a lot of dress-up recently. Take, for instance, this hypothetical excerpt of a Skype conversation and Amigo1’s subsequent confusion:

Amigo1: Man, it’s tough tryin 2 hit it off with people you don’t know

Amigo2: Dude, relax. Just b yourself!

Amigo1 (to himself): Wait, but if I haven’t been being myself, then who? My uncle Harry? What if I have been myself and it’s not working?

Amigo2: g2g!

My biggest pet peeve about the phrase is that it’s ultimately meaningless. And it runs the risk of making you feel that you haven’t been performing your own personality up to par, or worse, that there’s something innately wrong with it.

Second, and not to get into philosophy here à la Gary Wang, but it’s normal for us to have slightly different versions of ourselves that we alternate according to circumstance. The self you show while drinking with your sectionmates, sorority sisters or significant other Thursday night and the self you are in class on Friday morning may be related, but they’re definitely not the same.

It works the same way when you insert yourself into unknown situations and have to recast yourself without the support of friends who know you well enough to say ”just be yourself” and mean it as a compliment. Yet the pressure to be yourself at times when you’re feeling your most anonymous might just override any constructive value you can derive from the phrase.

Fact: You don’t need eight steps to tell you that if you happen to “fall flat on your face” or (gasp) “get spinach stuck in your teeth” the world is not going to end, and neither is your social life. You don’t need them to tell you to be you.

Fellow study abroad participants, Jan-starts, first-years and international students, here’s my advice: Stop trying to be yourself and just give yourself a break.

credit: Sloane

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama announced that the military would work to eliminate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prohibits openly gay Americans from serving in the military. President Obama’s decision to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will not only remedy a long-standing wrong against gay Americans who want to serve their country, but will also improve the military’s strength.

President Clinton signed the bill into law in 1993. Clinton intended the policy as a compromise between gay rights advocates and conservatives. The policy prohibited commanders from asking about sexual orientation, but mandated that openly gay service members be expelled from the military.

Colin Powell, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played a pivotal role in crafting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Powell claimed at the time that allowing openly gay Americans to serve in the military would undermine military morale and discipline.

Seventeen years later, American society has become dramatically more accepting of homosexuality. Three different states have openly gay representatives in Congress. Openly gay characters make regular appearances on primetime TV shows. Simply put, most Americans no longer believe that homosexuality should be tucked into the closet and ignored.

Top-ranking military brass have felt the winds of cultural change. General Mike Mullen, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, declared last week that he supported revoking “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the law is too rigid, forcing commanders to dismiss even the most qualified soldiers if they are found out. And nearly 20 years after he argued that openly gay service members would irreparably harm the military, Colin Powell has changed his tune, arguing that overturning the ban is “the right thing to do.”

Revoking the ban is not just the right thing to do. It will also strengthen our armed forces. Last year, the military dismissed 428 service members under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” after dismissing more than 600 service members in each of 2007 and 2008. According to the Center for American Progress, the military has kicked out more than 13,000 gay service members under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” while up to 4,000 more leave voluntarily each year because of the policy. Commanders have been forced to dismiss linguists with critical skills in languages such as Farsi and Arabic.

Meanwhile, the military struggles to meet annual recruiting goals while it battles insurgents in Iraq and sends more soldiers to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. Dismissing capable soldiers, sailors and marines because of their sexual orientation while our country fights two wars is monumentally foolish.

A broad coalition of Americans support ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” According to a 2008 Washington Post-ABC poll, 75 percent of Americans support repealing the policy, including majorities of independents and Republicans.

Despite such widespread support, the fight to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will not be easy. Bigoted obstructionists have dug in their heels, dedicated to upholding a discriminatory and outdated policy.

Unfortunately, John McCain is among them. Senator McCain declared in 2006 that he would support revoking “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” if “the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change this policy.’” Four years later, military leaders have done exactly that and apparently he has not listened to them.

McCain and other supporters of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should mull the words of conservative idol and ex-Senator Barry Goldwater, a former major general in the Air Force Reserve.

“You don’t have to be straight to be in the military,” Goldwater said. “You just have to shoot straight.”

But it doesn’t.

Of course, there is some reliability in our interpretation of the past. I, however, intend to explore the limits of hindsight in this and several subsequent columns. I want to know how and where our impression of the past doesn’t match with reality. Let me tell you a story in which my perception of what happened was missing a crucial detail.

So I had a crush on this girl—Emilie. Who she was is unimportant. In hindsight, I realized that trying to ask this girl to homecoming on the phone was my first mistake. Unfortunately I was too nervous to do it any other way. I even wrote out what I was going to say to make it easier. Homecoming came up, and suddenly there was a tiny pause in the conversation. “This is your moment,” I thought, and tried to coax the words from the notebook page into my mouth. What I ended up saying, though, was directed to myself.

“Should I do it?” I said into the phone.

“What?” she shot back. It wasn’t really my finest moment. After asking myself the same question later in the conversation two more times (two!), I eventually spilled my awkward proposal. She rejected me with such grace and aplomb that it wasn’t even all that disappointing.

After it happened, I told my friends the story and they almost died laughing at my foolishness. And who could blame them, really? I thought that she had heard me ask myself a question, and so I distanced myself from her in small, subtle ways.

As high school continued, I eventually grew able to laugh at the folly of this situation. Two or so years passed and when a friend of mine teased Emlie about this incident, I learned some fascinating information. As it turned out, she had no recollection of the question I posed to myself. Small victories, I guess.

In my fevered and regretful head, I had been so sure she had heard me and been weirded out. I had been so certain of that “fact” that I felt awkward around her and let a friendship fade away that would have been rewarding. But my certainty was, clearly, misplaced. That shit is something you would remember (unless she blocked it out of her memory banks).

If this taught me anything, other than not to talk to yourself on the phone—not a lesson I ever thought I would have to learn, believe me—it is how muddled the power of hindsight really is. A lot has been written about the deficiencies of memory, but I think that even if you remember the facts fairly well your interpretation of them might be questionable.

The fact is, the world we live in is confusing. Trying to comprehend it is the job of philosophers. And the future is, almost by definition, unsure. Obviously.

But we want the past to be different, to be able to be perfectly understood by dedicated study of the evidence. And it would be this clear, if only we only had all the information—but that’s never going to be possible because the information we have of the past is gathered in the mystifying and inadequate present.

Conventional wisdom talks about the illuminating power of hindsight with tired aphorisms, but I believe that in many ways the past is just as muddled and confusing as the present and just as uncertain as the future.

Yes, the past allows us to reflect on all of the gathered evidence at once, but the puzzle will always be incomplete. Often, there is a huge piece missing and you don’t even know it. Like the fact that she honestly didn’t hear you make a fool of yourself.

credit: E. Johnson

The recent Supreme Court decision to lift the ban on corporate campaign spending is yet another step towards the direction of a corporate-ruled, undemocratic America. This decision was made in the interest of protecting our freedom of speech, but it is questionable whether allowing rampant corporate spending in our election decisions really constitutes free speech.

The Supreme Court seems to equate free speech with corporate spending. They ruled in the 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo and repeated in the recent ruling that “not only is it undesirable to constrain the expenditure of money in political elections, but that such expenditure is speech.”

The equalizing of speech or communication with money implies that speech can be bought or sold as a commodity. Money then becomes a form of communication, without which one cannot be heard.

If money is the means of communication propelling the American public, our decisions are a not a result of a free-flow exchange of ideas concerning morality and humanity, but of an exchange of money, where the state must have some capital gain at stake in its decisions.

Freedom of speech is supposed to be an integral part of our democracy; the free flow of ideas helps us form just laws and decisions. Losing that freedom would have tremendous implications for the future of American policies. Capital gain as a motive challenges the notion of deliberative democracy, where all voices are considered and decisions are reached collectively.

Instead, the capital gain model suggests that those without money have less of a voice; thus there will be little incentive to provide them with rights or protection.

The implications for people living in poverty or for children without money are staggering. There may be little motivation for the state to protect their rights. We have already seen situations in cities across the country where people are encouraged not to give money to panhandlers because it may hurt tourism. In this situation, even the money of the tourists is worth more than the panhandlers, who live under the state and thus should be accorded its protection.

The recent ruling means that the important actors, the people making the big decisions, are going to be the corporations and whoever can contribute the most money. There is increasingly little room for the voices of the poor. With the recent increasing wealth gap between the rich and the poor, the size of the working class is growing. At the same time, the size of the wealth pool for the rich has been growing since the ’70s. If money equals speech, this means that the rich are rapidly gaining stronger voices and a stronger say in our government.

As money becomes a stronger means of communication, what political leaders and ultimately the general public perceive as important shifts from the protection of rights to an embrace of what is most lucrative.

As Harvard Professor of Law Patricia Williams puts it, “The harm I see in all of this is that it puts reality up for sale and makes meaning fungible: dishonest, empty, irresponsible.”

The moral implications are staggering: The voices of the poor are not as important as the major corporations that can afford to spend more towards elections. Our rights and laws are not free; they are commodities that can be bought, sold and exchanged for monetary gain.

credit: Song

One of the most interesting things about college is the vocabulary you pick up. I’m not talking about words like “salient” or “dichotomy”—I’m talking about words like “hella” and “dank.” When I first heard the word “dank,” I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Wait, so is that a good thing?” I asked my roommate from Portland.

It seemed counter-intuitive, but I learned that yes, “dank” is in fact a good thing.

Likewise, most of the people living in my residence hall section had never heard the word “obvi” (short for “obviously”) or “totes” (short for “totally”) before.

In this increasingly interconnected day and age, it’s sometimes hard to attribute slang words to specific places since information, including language, covers a lot of distance very quickly. Still, there are certain words that are simply not popular in other areas of the country—for example, you rarely hear anyone outside of Massachusetts or New England describe something as “wicked,” by which they mean “great” instead of “evil”—and there are certain words that are simply unheard of outside of their area of origin. Regional slang words are not a new phenomenon, but are brought out (or made salient) in a college setting, where words familiar back home are now met with expressions of puzzlement.

At Carnegie Mellon, some people say, “These clothes need washed,” instead of “These clothes need to be washed.” Apparently it’s a central Pennsylvanian thing.

Midwesterners, I learned from my RA, say “uff da” when lifting heavy objects. I tried to tell this to my friend Tom, who was skeptical.

“Why would that word exist? People don’t say words when they’re lifting heavy objects. They make grunting noises,” Tom said.

He didn’t quite believe me until I asked Vincent, a friend from Wisconsin, to explain “uff da” to him.

“It’s like an exclamation you make,” Vincent said.

“Like when?” asked Tom.

“When you’re moving something heavy.”

I was under the impression that maybe “uff da” wasn’t a common phrase when my RA told me about it (she’d described it as something her grandparents said, usually jokingly), until my Minnesotan friend Rachel asked, “I don’t understand how you guys don’t say ‘uff da’—do you say something else?”

Whether there is any intrinsic correlation between slang words and the geographical regions they’re used in is questionable. One friend theorized that New Yorkers abbreviate things to allow them to talk faster—you know, because they’re pushy and always in a hurry. So does it mean anything that Midwestern slang seems to be onomatopoetic (such as “pop” for “soda,” “uff da” for grunting noises)? What does it say about West Coasters, then, that the word they use to mean “cool” or “awesome” sounds like it should be describing a moldy basement?

Probably nothing.

It turns out that “uff da” is Norwegian for “I am fatigued.” (I learned this from Wikipedia.) “Need washed,” like “obvi,” is an abbreviation, but I wouldn’t say that the residents of central Pennsylvania are in any more of a rush than the rest of the country.

Nevertheless, certain words carry a certain stigma. For example, the word “word,” has been “banned” from one of the rooms in my section by its residents.

“It doesn’t mean anything; that’s why it’s annoying,” said one of them. “It’s just weird. Say a real word instead of just saying ‘word.’”

The thing is that, depending on where you’re from, “word” can, in fact, be a real word. We create the meanings of words when we use them, so “word” starts to mean something the moment someone says it. Regional words are regional simply because of where they’re used and learned.

I mean, obvi.

In your first time using the service, it asks you to choose either a new Google number, or to integrate Voice with your existing phone number. At this point in time, having an independent Google Voice number provides more features than just linking Voice with your existing phone, so I recommend getting a separate number.

The web-based interface allows you to make calls to other numbers, set up an address book (if you’re using GMail, all you have to do is assign phone numbers to your contacts) and even send text messages. It’s a polished, simple and elegant application that is both easy to use and not lacking any important features.

So, what sets Google Voice apart from other Internet-based phone services?

First of all, you’ll be using the same phones you always do. The first thing to do is to set up forwarding from Google Voice to one or more of your phones. I chose both my cell phone and my dorm phone. Getting call forwarding started is pretty simple. You’ll get a call from your Google Voice number, asking you to enter an authentication code that is displayed on your computer. After that, having calls made to your Voice number forwarded to that phone is as simple as clicking a check box. It is important to note, however, that any calls or text messages routed through your cell phone will still cost minutes.

What if you don’t want to receive calls from your voice number at a given time? Google has provided a “Do Not Disturb” function that allows you to send all calls straight to voice mail, which you can pick up later.

Voice mail is another of Voice’s strong suits. While you can definitely access the sound file of the message someone left, Voice also generates a transcript of the conversation. Transcription works well enough, though it’s by no means foolproof. While it’s usually easy to recognize a transcription error by whether or not a word fits in a particular sentence, I’m worried about the possibility of plausible errors changing the meanings of sentences radically. Someone going out looking at chickens would be significantly different than going out to look at kitchens, for example. That said, I still enjoy the convenience of having the ability to read my voice mail.

The applications for having a separate number are endless. If you don’t want to risk actually giving your phone number to someone or if you want to have a separate number for work, Voice has you covered. Free calls from your dorm room to anywhere in the country, care of Google? Absolutely possible. Google has opened up a world of possibility, and they’re constantly adding new features. It’ll be interesting to see where Google Voice goes, because it certainly has a lot of potential.

Are you interested in trying Voice? Leave a comment on this article at whitmanpioneer.com, along with your e-mail, and I’ll send one lucky person an invite!

credit: Song

America is known for its consumerism. We invented the strip mall as well as online shopping. We’ve even created a term for shopping when we can’t afford to: credit card debt or if you prefer, window shopping. Notoriously, our savings rate was below zero or near it until the financial crash happened last fall. We’re also known for exporting our lifestyles abroad.

Isn’t that what happens when people across the world see our movies? They see a particular aspect of American society. So while “Avatar” could be interpreted as an allegory about the horrors of colonialism or ecological devastation, it also represents the most potent combination of technology and money in film. You’re bombarded with computer-generated jungles that make the real world pale in comparison. And when people across the world see “Avatar” they’re seeing what American culture is capable of.

In China, for example, there are only 10 IMAX theatres in the country; it so happens that one of them is in Kunming, where I am right now. To see the movie, you have to buy tickets two to three days ahead of time. Each ticket is hundreds of Renmingbi (the unit of currency here, literally translated as the people’s currency). People love it just like they love everything else about America except the whole human rights/democracy lecturing.

In fact, walking around parts of town, you get the distinct feeling that you’re walking in a giant city display—those 10 by 10 foot plastic models of how cities are designed to look that mayors, urban planners and architects use. Sometimes, you’ll see them in museums. In China, there are some areas that look like life-size versions. The streets are a little too clean. The buildings are a little too new. It’s as if everything’s just been built for you to wander through.

Yet, a lot of the new luxurious hotels, designer stores and restaurants are empty or close to it. Now, why is that? It costs a lot of money to build a seven-story shopping mall. It costs money to buy space in that shopping mall. It costs money to hire people to run your store. It costs money to build big billboards. And yet, not many people actually walk in and buy stuff compared to how much stuff there is.

What I think is going on is an effort at brand management. Companies know that China still, on the whole, is very poor. They also know that 30 years ago, it was a lot poorer. And they’re betting that in the next 30 years, it’s going to be a lot richer. So, what better way to lock up a future billion consumer market than by building now? Get your giant Adidas logo on the streets before Nike gets theirs.

What ends up happening is that western companies build stores here. People in China see the lifestyle they’re supposed to have—what we already have here in the United States. So, why not have it now?

Walking the streets, you see an enormous generational gap in terms of how people look and what they wear. People our age are like us. They are interested in the same movies, sports, hobbies, etc . . . Meanwhile, people who are over 50, who’ve been through the Cultural Revolution, are living a very different lifestyle.

It seems like China’s population is slowly being groomed to be the perfect consumers. Companies are flocking here to invest because of the highly educated work force. Low prices. No capital gains tax. And hundreds of millions of people ready to live their dreams—or rather, the American dream.

In fact, let’s take that a step further. In terms of passing health care reform, climate change, a jobs bill, etc., the role of the President matters much, much less than the media’s talking heads—or the public—seem to imagine.

While the president may offer a compelling character and simple narrative device for our news media, democracy is a complicated affair. Perhaps above all else, democracy requires an informed public. Right now, the public needs to be informed about the power of the Senate filibuster—and how Republicans are now using it more than ever in American history to block any and all reform.

As of last week, only 26 percent of Americans knew the basic Senate filibuster rule—that it now takes 60 votes rather than a simple majority to pass a bill in the Senate.

Why should Americans care?

Because if the American democratic experiment is to succeed, then those we elect must be allowed to govern. Elections must matter. If voters continue to see no change when they elect a massive majority—such as in the 2008 cycle—the hope and optimism at the heart of the democratic experiment will quickly be replaced by cynicism and apathy.

Yes, Republicans will someday take back the majority and attempt to reverse Obama’s policies. But that—after all—is democracy. In order to return to a democratic state, Americans must recognize how obstructionists in the Senate have been able to hold up Obama’s promise, mandate, and need to address our nation’s pressing problems. In order to properly tackle the growing health care crisis, crooked financial system, rising unemployment, and the threat of climate change, Americans must learn how our nation has been rendered ungovernable.

Here’s the background: the Senate filibuster rule was not created by the Framers, nor is it mentioned in the Constitution. In fact, the filibuster as we know it only came into existence in 1975, thanks to a minor procedural rule change as part of a liberal compromise intended to advance the civil rights agenda.

The rule change created a 60-vote requirement in the Senate to begin voting on a bill, while also removing the need for Senators to physically stand and speak before the chamber to block voting. As a result, we now have a gridlock-prone system in which Senators easily, anonymously, and undemocratically block legislation from behind closed doors.

Franklin D. Roosevelt needed only 51 votes to pass the New Deal. Lyndon B. Johnson needed only 51 votes to pass the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid. Even Ronald Reagan—whose 1981 tax cuts were technically filibuster-proof as part of the budgeting process—needed only 51 votes to pass the centerpiece of his “Reagan Revolution.”

Yet since Obama’s inauguration, the lack of public knowledge of the 60-vote filibuster—and the failure of the media or the Democratic Party to inform the public—has allowed Republicans to drive down Obama’s approval ratings by rejecting the relative bipartisanship of the post-9/11 era and quietly becoming the tiny “Party of No.”

When the relatively-liberal voters of Massachusetts elected a Republican to the Senate last month in a special election, only 38 percent of those voters said they were motivated by opposition to Obama’s policies. Rather, polls indicate that the frustration stemmed from the failure of Democrats to boldly pass their agenda.

Now with just 41 votes in the Senate, Republicans have obstructed the agenda Americans overwhelmingly voted for in 2008. While the U.S. House has passed progressive bills, Senate Republicans and a few conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats have used the filibuster threat to stall, and potentially derail, the necessary change that we elected President Obama and his fellow Democrats to deliver.

Unless Americans learn about and put an end to the filibuster, voters will continue to witness a government that struggles to address their needs. Once Americans understand the rule, I am confident we will abandon it in favor of our democratic values and a return to a system in which the election of a supermajority can lead to real change.

This is not to downplay the fact that President Obama can—and must—work hard to wrangle votes in the Senate for his agenda. But as Obama’s first year has taught us, winning Senate votes has less to do with masterful speech-making than the legislative nitty-gritty: bargaining with Senators over specific requests, and recruiting formidable candidates to run from the left against Republicans and corporatist Democrats who could use some electoral pressure to moderate their stances.

In our news media and our casual conversations, the president must not be anointed the metaphorical father of the nation. Rather, the filibuster—and those in power calling for its reform—must now be at the center of our national discourse. It’s time to abandon our over-emphasis of the role of the President of the United States, and focus where the real power now lies—in the undemocratically empowered filibuster-threatening Senate.

Unfortunately, things have gotten out of hand.

First, some details about the iPad special event held in San Francisco: It was an invitation-only event, with mostly media types invited. However, it was a small event, and not everyone who writes about tech was invited. I know I wasn’t. But articles about Apple products bring in big reader numbers, so every blogger worth his or her salt from here to Yakutsk is going to be writing a piece on it.

Therein lies the problem: How do you write a story about a product that has had two years of hype behind it when you haven’t even seen it? Furthermore, how do you maximize the potential readership bump that could come with an article about the iPad?

In some cases, the answer seems to be to write something stupid. In my expeditions around the Internet, I’ve run into a lot of complaints when it comes to the iPad. Some of them have merit but a lot of them are just a bunch of drivel from people who felt jilted when the iPad didn’t live up to all of their masturbatory fantasies. I’ve decided that it would be a good idea to break down the top three complaints I’ve seen (in no particular order).

1. No multitasking
Okay. Apparently, it’s a big deal for everyone to make sure that all of their personal computing devices can do 15 things at once, which is fine by me.

I appreciate the ability to write my column on my laptop while simultaneously checking my Twitter feed, chatting with people on Facebook and watching an episode of “Castle” as much as the next guy. But that’s on my laptop, which is packing a 2.16 GHz, dual-core processor, as well as 4 GB of RAM. The iPad’s processor is a 1 GHz, single-core chip.

But, for all its power, my MacBook’s battery life tops out at about three hours of typical usage, if I’m lucky. For the iPad to make its 10-hour battery estimate, minimizing power usage is key. You can’t do that if you are running four apps at once. Having to keep track of all of the apps currently running would be a pain. Long story short: Multitasking makes way more problems than it solves.

2. No support for Adobe’s flash plug-in
I understand, Flash is used a lot on the web. I’m plenty guilty of wasting my time playing incredibly addicting little games that are powered by Flash. That said, I’ve had a lot of problems with Flash. Blogger and analyst John Welch put it very eloquently on his blog: “The problem is the plug-in crashing our browsers.” I spent two hours playing Flash games before writing this column. My browser crashed three times. Flash sucks up processing power like a turbocharged dust buster.

3. There’s no camera
Cameras are nice. As a photographer myself, I have an entire page of apps on my iPhone devoted to taking pictures with its camera. That said, I don’t see the use of a camera in the iPad, because it’s just too big. The iPad’s dimensions are well-suited for holding in your hands and reading, or typing on your lap. But holding something roughly that size up and trying to take a picture with it are just not what it was designed to do.

As someone who reviews products, I know that it takes substantial time to really get to know a new gadget, especially something as multifaceted as the iPad. Most of the analysis that comes out over the next few weeks before the iPad is actually released to the public (or most reviewers) is going to be powered by the wild speculation machine that is the blogosphere.

If you enjoy blowhards spouting assumptions and theories at one another, by all means, pay attention. They’ll love the traffic. Otherwise, just wait until March.

I had taken a required writing course at Carnegie Mellon University called Interpretation and Argument, which had been pretty much the bane of my existence. I had started out that course, too, with high hopes. First-years were able to choose their own sections from a variety of sections, each of which had its own specific topic. Examples included “Defining Terrorism,” “Punk and the Politics of Subculture” and “Frankenstein: Technology and Dystopia.”

My section was called “Hamlet and Contemporary Consciousness.” I had asked for it.

Most of my problems with that course were not with the content itself, but with the instructor, who was a pretentious graduate student whose passions included mumbling, staring at the corner when he talked and sending indecipherable e-mails. His favorite words were “mimesis,” “cogent” and “fuck.” Needless to say, it was difficult to communicate with him, which made class discussion excruciating.

I’d like to think that despite all of that, my writing had somewhat improved by the end of the semester, that I hadn’t suffered for nothing. I figured that Encounters couldn’t possibly be as bad as Interpretation and Argument, and that even if it was, at least I’d be able to get something out of it. Besides, they didn’t let graduate students teach at Whitman.

From what I could gather during the first few weeks of the semester, the purpose of Core seemed to be twofold: 1. to bring incoming students’ compositional and analytical skills up to par on a college level and 2. to make students familiar with canonical cultural texts. Although I felt that the first part didn’t really apply to me, the second part seemed important and useful.

As the semester went on, however, I felt increasingly frustrated by the lack of relevance to contemporary society that these texts seemed to hold, and by the pace of class discussion, which was painfully slow.

I heard similar sentiments expressed by the other transfer students I knew. I heard about and envied transfer students who petitioned out of Core by arguing that they’d taken an equivalent course at their old school.

Transfer students inhabit the strange middle ground between sophomores and first-years; they’re new to Whitman, but by no means new to college. One reason that I, as a transfer student, felt frustrated by Core is that it placed me in the category of those new to college. In my mind, I was past that. I’d taken a required first-year course. I’d paid my dues. So what was I doing here, sitting in a course full of first-years, with a book in front of me telling me how to cite sources in MLA format?

Ostensibly, there is something about the Encounters curriculum that is unique to Whitman.

One person I talked to said that maybe the purpose of Core was to provide a common, unifying experience for all incoming students.

“It gives students a foundation, a chance to discuss the same readings,” he said. “And to whine together a lot.”

Maybe that’s it. But there are rare moments when I’m glad that I’m taking Core, when I read something particularly resonant in a text dating back to 500 BC, when someone says something unexpectedly insightful about the reading or when I hear my professor say something and I think, “It could be worse—at least he didn’t say ‘mimesis.’”

credit: Douglas

My fellow columnist and Opinion Editor Alex Potter recently wrote that the unforeseen election of Republican Scott Brown in the traditionally blue state of Massachusetts was “ringing endorsement of the inherent conservatism of the American people.” I would argue that instead, the election was a sign that the American people are fed up with the polarized, partisan politics of Washington.

The election of Scott Brown signals the end of the Democratic supermajority that supposedly enables them to pass anything they want, anytime they want. If only it were that simple . . .

Since taking office, President Obama has had to fight tooth and nail within his own party to pass “radical” legislation such as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and the budget. With Brown’s election, the Democrats have announced that they will seek a “scaled-back bill” on health care. They’ve stopped mentioning the cap and trade bill stalled in the Senate altogether. All of these changes have occurred despite the fact that the Democrats still control the Senate by 18 votes.

Most of the media has focused on the consequences of Brown’s election on the Democratic party, entirely forgetting the effects on the Republican party. Now that the Democrats no longer have the ability to push legislation through, the Republican party is going to have to prove that they aren’t just “the party of no.”

So far, they haven’t done too well. The Senate recently defeated a White House proposal to form a bipartisan commission to deal with the debt and deficit. Several Republicans who once co-sponsored the bill voted against it. In the polarized world of Washington, any Republican who is seen as cooperating with the President is likely to face a challenge from his own party in the upcoming primaries.

“Polarization is the twin evil of partisanship,” recently explained Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers.

Baker believes that while partisanship is natural, the real problem comes from the personalization, search for immediate political gain and volume of conflict that characterize polarization.

But our president is not giving up on his promise to change the polarized world of Washington. Last Friday, Jan. 29, Obama attended a House Republican retreat in Baltimore, spending 90 minutes in one of the longest public debates any President has had with a hostile audience.

Defying expectations, it was an incredibly civil debate. Obama complained that the Republicans had painted him as radical while the Republicans countered that the president has failed to listen to any of their ideas. Both sides agreed that they were to blame for the vicious polarization that has marred Obama’s first year in office.

As the New York Times noted, the debate more closely resembled the British tradition where the Prime Minister submits to questions in the House of Commons than anything ever before seen in Washington.

If Republicans and Democrats can keep that spirit of civility then maybe Americans can have not just a president, but a government that we can believe in.

Credit: Sloane

Over winter break, I spent a lot of time playing video games, which led me to think about all the important life lessons I’ve acquired from my time spent in front of a screen. So, I compiled a list of helpful tips that I’ve culled from my years of gaming experience:

1. Watch your back
This one’s pretty simple, but it’s so important that I figured it warranted its own heading. Enemies will always appear where you least expected them: behind you in a dead-end hallway, in the corner of the room you didn’t check and just about anywhere else you didn’t look. Keep your head on a swivel, and make sure that you watch out.

2. Giant corporations are bad
This always seems to be a recurring theme in video games: The corporation that’s out there to save the world and help humanity ends up unleashing some evil that you’re brought in to clean up. Generally, this involves some sort of super-soldier or mind control device that goes horribly wrong. (See also: “T-Virus.”)

3. Fog never helps anything
In the real world, fog can lead to car crashes, boat accidents and a general inability to see where you’re going. In the world of video games, fog is much more insidious. It can be used to hide hordes of zombies, carry poison or form hideous monsters.

Corollary: If you come to a small, deserted town shrouded in fog, run—or better yet, drive—in the opposite direction as quickly as humanly possible. (See also: “Silent Hill.”)

4. The zombie apocalypse (more colloquially, the “zombpocalypse”) is right around the corner at all times
Undead hordes are always nearby, scratching at the door of reality, waiting to burst in and wreak total havoc on our poor, sheltered lives. At any moment, a torrent of brain-consuming husks of former humans could be upon us. So, don’t forget to plan ahead. One or many well-thought-out zombie plans could be the difference between life and undeath for you.

5. If your science experiment could possibly open an interdimensional rift, DON’T DO IT
Seriously, has anything good ever come out of an interdimensional portal? Especially if that rift goes to some “dark” version of this planet (or another one for that matter), portals to another dimension never help the situation. To all you science majors: If you ever have an experiment where there is a chance to open a rift to another dimension, first ask yourself, “Am I prepared to have the destruction and/or complete enslavement of the majority of humanity on my hands?” (See also: “Resonance Cascade.”)

6. Conserve ammunition
Facing down multitudes of enemies is hard, but doing it with limited supplies is harder. Hardest of all is when you’re out of firepower. While it may be fun to empty a few magazines of bullets into a room of baddies, you won’t be enjoying things too much when you’re out of bullets a few rooms later. Bullets don’t grow on trees, so make sure you do the most with what you have.

So, there you have it. Six important life lessons from the land of gaming. I hope they serve you well. If you have useful tidbits from your gaming career (extensive or otherwise, leave a comment at www.whitmanpioneer.com).

As a U.S. youth delegate, I watched the tone of the negotiations change from cheesily optimistic predictions of “Hopenhagen” to a grim acknowledgment of the deep divisions between the negotiators, turning Hopenhagen into “Nopenhagen.” While it’s fun to invent catchy nicknames for Denmark’s capital, it was far less enjoyable to watch the high-level negotiations of 192 countries deteriorate into a scene more befitting of a elementary school playground with rampant accusations of “China did it” or “It’s the United States’ fault.”

Signs of the impending failure began early in the first week. Tuvalu, a small island nation four inches above sea level, caused an upheaval by proposing a new process under the Kyoto Protocol for increased transparency and reducing control of rich countries. Many smaller developing nations rallied around Tuvalu’s move while countries like China were against it, saying “we don’t have time for a new debate.” Finally, Tuvalu used its power to suspend the high-level negotiations, although numerous side negotiations continued to run simultaneously.

Shortly thereafter, the Association of Small Island States announced that they refused to accept the “suicide pact” of the current negotiations and instead wanted to limit emissions to 350 parts per million of CO2 as a “survival pact.” This would mean heavy emissions reductions since the world is well over 387 parts per million. A business as usual scenario would put us at 800 parts per million, a scenario scientists say would almost certainly devastate civilization.

The divide between the rich and poor countries continued to worsen over the second week when delegates of the developing countries (known as the G77) walked out of the negotiations, claiming that the rich countries are working to weaken the agreement.

The United States remained silent throughout the protests, failing to respond to a claim by Tuvalu’s negotiator that the entire international negotiating process “is being held up by a handful of United States senators.” As I wrote in a previous column, the U.S. negotiators openly admitted that they are incredibly limited by what the senate will accept.

On Wednesday of the second week, all 15,000 members of civil society were kicked out of the conference center as world leaders began to arrive. Our youth delegation moved to a separate space where we worked with members of the Kenyan youth delegation and White House staffers to present President Obama with a packet of letters from youth in his Midwestern homeland and his ancestral land of Kenya.

Meanwhile, inside the conference center, negotiators began to scramble for agreement, continuing the negotiations well into the night with the goal of having a text ready for the leaders of the world to sign. The sleepless nights failed to induce compromise and world leaders were ushered into the conference with grim faces and sleeves rolled. Then things really got dirty.

President Obama arrived on the final day of negotiations. Sensing failure—and the mockery Republicans would make of a second disaster in the Danish capital—Obama immediately cleared his schedule. Circumventing the international system, our President focused on meeting with a handful of the major players.

Obama largely focused on China, pushing transparency—the willingness of China to submit itself to an international regime that would monitor it to make sure it was cutting its emissions as promised. The Prime Minister of China, Wen Jiabao, said that such a measure would threaten China’s sovereignty. When Obama said that China’s stance on accountability would equate to “empty words on the page,” Jiabao walked out of the conference center.

Later, in an emergency meeting of 30 heads of state, China sent a lowly protocol officer as a snub to Obama. President Obama then walked in—uninvited—to a meeting of China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

The final text emerged shortly before midnight. The two and a half page political agreement—known as the Copenhagen Accord—is vaguely worded, not legally binding and leaves emissions targets and financing up to individual countries who are supposed to write numbers in an appendix.

Even such a weak document proved near impossible for the entire body to accept, with chief British negotiator Ed Miliband returning to the conference center at 4 a.m. to persuade a handful of countries to accept the accord. Eventually, all 192 countries agreed to “note” the accord—not “accept” but “note.”

Copenhagen illustrated all too clearly that the international system is not equipped to handle a problem like climate change. When countries as small as Tuvalu and as big as China are put together in the small grouping of “developing countries”—and their emissions targets are treated as such—we know that something is wrong. While the Copenhagen Accord was the first time developing countries have agreed on emissions cuts and the first time the world has agreed on financing, the accord still leaves much to be desired.

“It’s clear we cannot rely on the governmental sector on its own to act in time. World leaders are failing to respond with the urgency which the science demands,” said Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “If there was ever a time for a grassroots mobilization, this is it.”

Being me, I talk to myself. A lot. This is a (slightly embarrassing) fact. I do it often enough that I suspect that someday, somewhere, someone will catch me at it in earnest and shoot me a quizzical look, the look that disinterested strangers flash whenever they encounter something that’s not quite what they expected.

And it’ll be palpably awkward for a second. My face will get red as a brick house, and I’ll say something to the effect of “Just, uhh, just talkin’ to myself.”

And the stranger will smile, thinking they’ve bested me. They’ll say something pithy, like “Don’t worry about it,” or “I can see that,” or even “You’re a stupid idiot.” Or maybe they’ll just smile. Whatever happens, they will walk away from that encounter with a feeling of superiority, possibly thinking that I’m mildly insane.

But I’m not crazy. Really. I just talk to myself. I have my reasons, and no mildly embarrassing encounter could ever stop me.

As you can probably tell, I enjoy talking to myself. But the reason I bring all of this up is more complicated: I believe every human being has an interesting story to tell. One aspect of my story revolves around my reflexive, and seemingly pointless discussions with myself.

When I was in third grade, my parents had me tested for a learning disability. The testing occurred because of my tremendous struggle to learn to write by hand, which surprised them because I had learned to read at five. I took an IQ test with both a verbal and nonverbal component. And the results, according to the woman who tested me, were eye-opening.

On the verbal portion of the test, I did fantastically. I don’t know the exact score, but my mother later told me it was extremely high. Genius level, even. But the nonverbal portion told a different story. I scored more than two standard deviations below what is considered “average.” That means that without such a high verbal score to compensate, I would be considered developmentally disabled. The woman who tested me—who spends her waking hours testing kids—said she had never seen a gap in scores as large as mine.

The IQ test is a stable test, which means that this isn’t something I could just “get over.” This was, and is, something with which I have to live. I will always have trouble with little, minuscule things like tying my shoes, putting things into my backpack, building towers with blocks or packing my suitcase.

I learned that I have a learning disability called dysgraphia, a fine motor issue that wrecks any chance of good or fast handwriting. It is augmented by a non-verbal disability that makes it difficult for me to process visual signals, like body language.

When I try to explain this to my peers, many of them laugh and appear to remain skeptical that these are actual problems.

“Who ever heard of somebody who has trouble tying shoes, anyway?” they say. “Besides, I would’ve never guessed you even had this problem.”

In fairness to my peers, this is a compliment (dare I say it?) to my personal genius.

My extremely high verbal score lets me overcome some of the challenges I mentioned, and it explains why I talk to myself the way that I do. I don’t talk to myself because I’m trying to be weird, or because I’m a little crazy. I do it because the instinct to talk (even to myself) is wired into my system.

So, the inevitable time someone catches me speaking when no one else is around, they’ll feel superior. But they’ll know nothing about me,aAbout what my talking to myself says about my character, or about my personal narrative.

But the reverse is also true. Whenever I meet someone, I know nothing about his or her story. In fact, the idea that everyone even has one is not easy to accept. Our individual universes revolve around ourselves, and we only make strangers a priority when they interact with us. As the late David Foster Wallace said in a brilliant speech to Kenyon College, this is our “default” setting.

But no one’s life means nothing. No one’s life is without a jumbled collection of events that compose a sort of story. We need to recognize and care for all these stories—not just those of our friends or our family, but the stories of acquaintances and strangers too.

I’m not there yet. But I have taken the first step: I recognize that a certain odd habit of mine demonstrates an interesting aspect of my personal plot line. And I recognize too that other people’s quirks mean the same thing.

That’s my story. What’s yours?

U.S. troops have been instrumental in providing aid to countless injured and newly homeless Haitians. But a few Latin American leaders are upset that the American military, with 16,000 troops now in Haiti, has taken such a prominent role in the relief effort. Bolivian President Evo Morales declared last week that the United States “cannot use a natural disaster to occupy Haiti.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez repeated Morales’ accusation in stronger terms, accusing “the gringos” of “militarily occupying Haiti.”

Other voices have joined left-leaning Latin American leaders in criticizing the U.S. military presence in Haiti. A recent column in The Guardian accused the United States of prioritizing security over more urgent needs like drinking water, shelter and food. The column also indicted the United States for driving Haitian rice farmers into poverty by exporting vast quantities of subsidized American rice. In short, the author diagnosed Washington with a fear of Haitian self-government curable only by occupation.

So are Morales, Chavez and British opinion columnists simply taking potshots at the big, bad American military? Or do they have a point?

Morales and Chavez have been too quick to criticize the U.S. response, which is rooted in compassion and has saved thousands of lives. Unfortunately, some of their criticisms strike home.

When Navy helicopters disgorged U.S. Marines onto the lawn of the destroyed Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince last week, it was not the first time they stood guard there. The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 until 1934, and Washington supported a brutal dictatorship that ruled Haiti until 1986.

The United States was poised to invade Haiti again in 1994 to depose a military government. Troops were already in the air when Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell secured an 11th hour agreement with the Haitian government to allow them to land peacefully.

In 2004, another military coup overthrew the Haitian government, forcing President Jean-Bertrande Aristide into exile in South Africa. The Haitian government accused the United States, along with Canada and France, of masterminding the rebellion. Aristide accused the U.S. military of forcing him onto an American plane and flying him to the Central African Republic.

With such a dramatic history, it’s easy to see how some observers are wary of a U.S. presence in Haiti. But by acting carefully, the Obama administration can keep those sentiments from spreading.

The U.S. military should focus on providing essential aid such as water, food, shelter and medical care. The U.S. military can provide these urgently-needed supplies better than any other agency.

The U.N. peacekeeping force, and not American soldiers, should be responsible for providing security throughout Haiti. Most importantly, American troops should not remain in Haiti longer than necessary. Given the history of U.S.-Haiti relations, a prolonged U.S. military presence would seem like an occupation.

Google recently announced (on its official blog no less) that it is threatening to pull out of China. Its public reason is that it has traced hackers, perhaps operating under the support if not consent of China’s Communist Party, attacking its computer systems. The hackers stole not just military secrets but the Gmail passwords, e-mails and other personal information of Chinese human rights activists. Apparently, the computer systems of 32 other companies were compromised as well.

Just last month, China’s government sentenced prominent democracy advocate Liu Xiao Bo to 11 years in jail for “sedition.” Google’s official motto “don’t be evil” has been sorely tested in cooperating with the communist party’s censors on search results.

I tested the censors on China’s most popular search engine, baidu.com. Typing in “Tiananmen massacre,” the first link is a headline stating “China rights questioned weeks before Olympics.” The next two are random links. Only six Web sites come up and none of them have anything to do with what actually happened. Censorship is real and a necessary part of the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt at social control.

It’s too bad we’re missing the bigger picture. In the U.S. media, China comes up when we talk about outsourcing, human rights and our debt.

We owe them hundreds of billions and they make all the stuff we buy. We want China to help prevent Iran from getting the bomb and they want us to do what exactly? Continue what we’ve been doing.

Invading Iraq and fighting a global war on terror (ie. continued U.S. involvement in the Middle East) tied down our time, energy and money. Meanwhile, China’s been busy harvesting resources in Africa, developing ties to Latin America and Australia and positioning itself as a leader on global climate change.

On the other hand, the smallness of our politics means one of the two major political parties in this country doesn’t believe or want to mitigate climate change.

My 84-year-old grandmother even told me that Scott Brown, the new Republican senator from Massachusetts, once posed naked for “Cosmo.” How silly. Democracy sure looks great when people abroad hear about how petty it can be. This pettiness is threatening to become dangerous as it blinds us to what’s going on across the Pacific.

Well, Google is paying attention. Our foreign policy thinkers are paying attention. Our politicians are not. Yet, China’s rise is not inevitable nor necessarily hostile to U.S. interests. It has its own problems that are too often ignored by our media.

Last week, I went downtown in Kunming, a city of 7 million people, to see the bustling shopping centers. Multiple malls seven stories high lined with restaurants and shops flanked an enormous concrete plaza. There was everything from an IMAX theater playing “Avatar” to multiple Vero Moda shops. Chinese consumers were funneling into the Nike Factory Shop from the sidewalk.

And just outside that Nike Factory Shop there lay a man, hairless and sunburned on the ground. He was missing an arm and was resting his body on newspaper and a page of text written in Chinese calligraphy. Next to his head lay a paper shopping bag with some Chinese bills that strangers had donated. He was less than 10 feet away from the steps into the store. For me, this jarring juxtaposition painfully illustrates the contradictions bubbling beneath China’s public image.

A population of 1.3 billion living in an area less than half the size of the United States. A minimal social safety net. Glittering cities on the coast and persistent abject poverty in the countryside.  And don’t get me started on the pollution.

Yes, China is really complicated. Pay attention. It’s not just about the cuisine or Yao Ming.

I really want to like the U.S. delegation. I just got out of a briefing with Jonathan Pershing, the Special Envoy for Climate Change and Lisa Jackson, the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both are very smart, charismatic people who want what is best for the planet but who also have to grapple with the disturbing reality of international climate negotiations.

The reality is that the U.S. delegation is terrified of another Kyoto. The U.S. Congress refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol in 1997 largely because it did not set binding emissions targets on developing countries. In the words of Jonathan Pershing, “We need symmetry in Copenhagen or Congress won’t accept it.”

In the eyes of the U.S. delegation, “symmetry” means that major emitters in the developing world—such as China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa—must commit to targets.

The BASIC group  (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) has protested that the developed world needs to lead the way and uphold the principal of “common but differentiated responsibilities” that 189 countries have ratified under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The preamble of the UNFCCC acknowledges that ” the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions.”

The U.S. delegation argues that developing countries are forgetting the last phrase of the “common but differentiated responsibilities” clause, the part that talks about “respective capabilities.”

According to Pershing, “respective capabilities” implies that the U.S. has great responsibility but this responsibility does not end at the U.S. border. He spoke of the assets of other countries, China’s trillions of U.S. debt, India’s  methane biodigester technology and Brazil’s biofuel technology.

The U.S. delegation firmly believes that America has already done much and that it is now time for other countries to put something on the table.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson spoke of the recent decision by the EPA to finalize its finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health and therefore can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Laughing, Jackson said, “The U.S. government has decided that CO2 is a threat.” Then, explaining her laughter, she clarified “I laugh because we’re the U.S. government and we knew that.”

Unfortunately, I doubt that many of the delegations from other countries would find that statement so funny. For the U.S. to come to the table offering what amounts to less than a 4 percent emissions reduction, and a domestic strategy of only recognizing that greenhouse gases pose a threat, is absolutely absurd.

The amount of financing we have proposed, our “fair share” of $10 billion per year, is also vastly inadequate.

As the current, albeit struggling, world superpower, the U.S. cannot hide behind paltry emissions reductions and laughable domestic programs. The European Union has proposed to cut their emissions 20 percent by 2020 and France recently proposed a Climate Justice Fund of US $60 billion per year for ten years.

I truly believe that the U.S. delegation and the Obama administration would love to make those type of pledges. As a trained geophysicist and a chemical engineer respectively, both Pershing and Jackson recognize the urgent mandate climate change provides for drastic emissions cuts.

However, it’s impossible to explain to the U.S. Congress (and the powerful fossil fuel industry that controls it) that the U.S. has a responsibility to provide leadership on climate change.

The fact that developed countries are responsible for 75 percent of the ghg emissions in our atmosphere while developing countries will face 75 percent of the negative effects of climate change seems to imply a climate debt.

This climate debt has been widely discussed by almost every country, with the notable exception of the United States.

Our strong sense of individualism seems to have blinded us from the global problem of climate change. The U.S. delegation knows this, and they know that they cannot return to the U.S. Congress with a treaty that truly recognizes the United States’ responsibility.

I love my country but I’m having trouble justifying our inability to provide leadership in Copenhagen.

]]> http://whitmanpioneer.com/opinion/columnists/2009/12/09/copenhagen-and-the-problem-of-the-u-s-congress/feed/ 1 http://whitmanpioneer.com/opinion/columnists/2009/12/08/breaking-the-bubble-to-all-volunteers/ http://whitmanpioneer.com/opinion/columnists/2009/12/08/breaking-the-bubble-to-all-volunteers/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:27:12 +0000 Matt Manley http://whitmanpioneer.com/?p=11700 This week in Breaking the Bubble, we decided not to offer commentary on Whitman volunteers or service organizations, not to highlight any specific community groups for recognition nor point out any pressing community need. Instead, we asked community groups to share their thoughts.

Their overall message: Thank you.

This thank you is for the time spent walking dogs, visiting grade-schoolers or grandparents, building houses, restoring streams and more. Many of you have worked tirelessly, and for that we think you, and the community partners you have worked with, deserve congratulations! Don’t believe us? Check out these responses from service groups.

Christine Ludwig, an Intervention Specialist at Prospect Point Elementary who works closely with the Whitman Mentor Program stressed the mentors’ impact on the children.

“I would like to tell the Whitman volunteers thank you. Kids get happy when they see their mentor. You make their day. You make their week. One kid told me that the best day of his whole year is going to Whitman. He just doesn’t get many experiences like that,” she said. “The whole year kind of culminates in [Mentees to campus day]. When they visit a college campus and have so much fun, that is so much more powerful than me saying ‘get good grades.’”

Gary Henderson is the build coordinator for Blue Mountain Habitat for Humanity. According to Gary, Whitman volunteers have been largely responsible for all the exterior paint, much of the siding, leveling and installing sod in the 1,400-square-foot backyard.

From the contributions of the SCORE pre-orientation trip to the efforts of students and parents working alongside President George Bridges during October’s Make a Difference Day, the Habitat home at 112 Donald St. has had substantial Whitman support since August.

“[Whitman students] are fun to work with because they want to learn, pay attention and follow directions. The students and the coordinating staff at Whitman have been outstanding at our worksite. I enjoy the camaraderie and we appreciate the fine work they do for this fine organization,” Henderson said.

The new homeowners will be dedicating their house this Saturday, Dec. 12, at a public ceremony.

Crissy Kinney, Coordinator of Volunteers and Humane Education at the Blue Mountain Humane Society, told us her organization could not support itself without devoted volunteer efforts.

“Volunteers at Blue Mountain Humane Society are integral to our existence,” she said. “This fall we have had over 2,500 volunteer hours. We truly, truly appreciate the help that they give. When students come, they come in force and they are helpful and energetic and ready to do whatever we ask.”

We also asked community groups to share any particular anecdotes regarding Whitman volunteers.

Greer Buchanan, assistant director of the Kirkman House, particularly enjoyed working with a group of unlikely shepherds this fall.

“Watching a group of Sigma Chis herding twenty plus sheep in the rain at our Sheep to Shawl event in October was a riot,” he said.

Obviously, we aren’t capable of summarizing three months worth of community service into our little column here. We just wanted to make sure that you, the volunteer, got something a little more than self-congratulation at the end of the semester.

We wanted you to hear from the people whose jobs you make easier and lives a little brighter. We wanted you to hear, from the community you affect, their message. In the words of Ludwig, “thank you for coming, and for caring.”

Keep living the dream.

The house bill includes an amendment by Representatives Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Bart Pitts (R-Pa.). The Stupak amendment would prohibit using federal subsidies to purchase heath insurance plans that cover abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life.

Proponents argue that the Stupak amendment would only continue current restrictions on using federal funds for abortion. The amendment’s supporters note that public insurance programs such as Medicaid are already prohibited from covering abortion; this restriction would also apply to any government-run public option.

But the Stupak amendment would go much further than current restrictions on abortion coverage.

Both the Senate and House versions of health care reform would create a Health Insurance Exchange, where eligible Americans could choose from competing private insurance policies or the public option. Both versions also offer federal subsidies— known as affordability credits—to help people purchase health insurance who are making up to four times the federal poverty level.

The Stupak amendment would prohibit using these subsidies to purchase any health insurance plan that covers elective abortions. Women who want to purchase a health care plan that covers abortion could use affordability credits to buy a basic health insurance plan, but would have to use personal funds to purchase a supplemental plan to cover abortion.

The Stupak amendment would jeopardize reproductive health care for working poor and lower middle class Americans. According to the Los Angeles Times, 400 percent of the federal poverty level for a single woman represents an annual income of $43,000; the majority of women buying health coverage on the exchange would have lower incomes. Many of these women could not afford purchasing a supplemental insurance plan.

But the effects of the amendment would be even more drastic. Because many—if not most—women using the Exchange would not be able to afford to purchase a reproductive health care supplement, insurers would see little demand for these plans. Many pro-choice groups convincingly argue that it would make little business sense for insurers to even offer supplemental plans, given the additional expense of administering them separately. Thus, even women who could afford to purchase abortion coverage might be unable to do so.

If the Stupak amendment, or similar language, is included in the final health care reform bill, lower- and middle-class women will face reduced access to reproductive health care. The amendment will, in effect, make abortions available only to the very poor (who receive coverage through state-administered health programs) and the wealthy.

Thankfully, this week the Senate voted down an amendment that would have inserted a similar amendment into their version of the health care bill. When the Senate passes the bill, a joint House-Senate conference committee will decide on a final version to be voted on by both houses. The Democrats must make sure that the Stupak amendment stays out of the final product.