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(04/27/11 11:47pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The suicide rate is higher than it should be, and it’s money’s fault. Money truly is the root of all evil, and yet, it makes the world go ’round.A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health shows that suicides tend to rise during recessions and fall during economic expansion. This proves what state our financial situations are in. It shows what kind of mood we are in, as well.I know when I’m broke, I feel a tad more grumpy. But researcher Eve Moscicki asserts, “It may be that when people who are more vulnerable to suicide to begin with lose a job or get a pay cut, it adds one more stressor.”The trend of spiking suicide rates statistically shows rises during bad business cycles, with the largest number of suicides occurring during the Great Depression. The latest data for suicide rates is from 2007, which shows suicide accounting for 34,598 deaths. Since 2001, in our post-Sept. 11 nation, suicide has generally increased — though it fluctuates — compared to the late 1990s and the year 2000, in which suicide was at its lowest. Feijun Luo, the study’s lead author, stated, “Economic problems can impact how people feel about themselves and their futures as well as their relationships with family and friends. Economic downturns can also disrupt entire communities.” This further proves how dependent our society is on money and wealth. Everybody wants to be rich. But isn’t just getting by enough to be happy? The fact that business cycles, jobs and how much we get paid have become the key ingredients to success and, therefore, happiness is an awful truth about our society. Money has made us materialistic, greedy, bitter and depressed. I blame the capitalistic ideals that place pressures on becoming part of the system: get a good job, get paid, become wealthy. There is a class mentality that our nation has put emphasized by way of celebrity, which makes the lower classes envious of equal lifestyles that are virtually unattainable. But the most vulnerable to suicide are those between the ages of 25 and 64 years old because that is the ripe workforce demographic. Especially in the younger workforce, there tends to be a greater anxiety of starting up one’s life, gaining independence and beginning a family. And this all depends on having a good career and making money. It is no wonder, then, why this age group is affected by recessions and economic downturns — their whole lives are upheld on a stable flow of money, which affects their lifestyles, their self-worth. Too bad we can’t be happy without money. Imagine a world where no one cared about money, but rather, just about getting by with essentials like a roof over their heads. I guess it would be a whole different world, one in which people didn’t kill themselves because of the socially constructed monetary system. I guess we wouldn’t be in a recession either, because spending wouldn’t be so outrageous. But in reality, we want-want-want, and we have to work our asses off if we want to live simple, middle-class lives. Money’s nice to have, but I’m not going to suffer trying to become wealthy or beat myself up over not having any dough when times are tough. — mfiandt@indiana.edu
(04/13/11 8:23pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s rare that I find myself scanning the sports section of any paper. But it was a different story when Friday’s New York Times ran an article about the “revolutionary” website, Outsports.com, a support site for gay athletes — out or not. This website is slowly changing the sexless, homophobic sports world. Jim Buzinski and Cyd Zeigler, the founders of the website, didn’t design the site to out athletes. Rather, Outsports intends to give a voice to gay athletes and to provide them with a community that was previously absent. Andrew McIntosh, a gay lacrosse player at Oneonta College, calls the website “a venue for athletes who have come out, or who are closeted, to get to know others, to not feel alone.” In the sports world, it has long been taboo to even consider being an openly queer person. Lets face it, sports and being gay don’t really mix. Athletes are typically homophobic and uncomfortable with queerness because it challenges everything an athlete should be: strong, masculine, competitive, able to endure and break a sweat. Being queer has been deemed the antithesis to all these physical attributes. For gay men especially — whose stereotypical attributes have been considered flamboyant, effeminate and unathletic — it’s unheard of to be out in any sport.But more and more athletes, professional and nonprofessional, have come out of the closet.Today, there are the Gay Games, which are every four years like a gay equivalent to the Olympics. And in the 2008 Beijing games, 10 athletes were openly gay, including gold medalist diver Matthew Mitcham. Another website, Athleteally.com, helps earn pledges to stop sexual and gender discrimination. The site was pioneered by Division 1 college wrestling coach and athlete Hudson Taylor, who donned equality symbols during wrestling matches. Sports must be sexless. Just look at the prevalence of testosterone, the often rubbing up against each other (has anyone watched wrestling?), the grunting and physical contortions that sports often demand of the body. Athletes have to suppress any notion of sexuality that would taint the pure image of athleticism. With sports, an athlete immerses himself and his identity into a particular practice. There is no time, or room, to think about sexuality. There is a whole culture of camaraderie that also must not be threatened in sports — that camaraderie isn’t something to be “queered.” But come on. When you see guys pat each other on the butts for good luck, whip each other half dressed in the locker rooms with towels and shower together, you can’t tell me there isn’t a tiny bit of queerness built right into the culture behind sportsmanship. Since an athlete spends hours training, working on their bodies and getting fit, the physique of an athlete inherently becomes an object of attraction. Sex has been removed from sports to give sports a “purist,” safe environment. But there is no denying one’s sexuality; someone who identifies as openly gay should be able to feel free to be open and comfortable about his sexuality within his sport. However, this is rarely the case. Hopefully with the better acknowledgments of sites like Outsports.com and Athleteally.com, sports will better develop an open, visible forum for gay athletes in the sports world. — mfiandt@indiana.edu
(03/30/11 7:26pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Sexting” has become a hot-button issue in the growing divide between parents, their kids and the use of technology. Parents are oblivious more often than not when it comes to how their children are “socializing.”Before texting it was instant messaging, emails or just plain phone calls. Now, it’s incredibly convenient — since our phones are usually always with us — to simply “sext.” Oh, the things that technology has provided us to fill the void. It’s funny that now, six years after my generation of youths had experienced “sexting” in some form before the age of eighteen, that parents, administrators and even police, are just now realizing what kids can do with their phones. Today, the average age of a child getting their first cell phone is 8. If 8 years old is the average, then those kids are going to learn, see and hear about things sooner than kids without cell phones and computers. In the digital age, things can spread incredibly fast. It doesn’t shock me that “sexting” has become an issue in schools, in that it’s a viable way to show your sexual status. As Rick Peters, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney, stated, “It’s an electronic hickey.” It’s also a way to fire ammunition against somebody.In a recent New York Times article, “sexting” has been addressed to target viral harassment and child pornography. Three eighth-graders were arraigned by a judge and sent to juvenile detention for a night after sending a mass photo-text of a nude girl from their school. Ever since this hit the press, there have been new cautionary measures against “sexting,” including discussions about it in classrooms. But “sexting” won’t go away in schools just because educators are informing kids about the potential Class C felonies that can be attached to it. We are a generation that has our phones attached to our hips. And we are increasingly a generation distanced from personal contact. Plus “sexting” is like digital foreplay that doesn’t involve having to move much or go anywhere. It is the lazy way of getting it on.“One in five teens admitted to sexting,” a Common Sense Media poll revealed. I bet it’s happening right now: Somewhere in the United States a teenager is sending a risqué picture-text to a boy or girl they’re interested in, and often it’s because they feel pressured to.A CosmoGirl study states that, “38 percent of teens say exchanging sexy content makes dating or hooking up with others more likely.” Because “sexting” lacks any physical touching, and because it’s so easy, teens feel OK with doing it. “Sexting” is now like the new second base, more like second base and a half, right after making out. But if parents and educators want to monitor how kids are using social networking, first they have to be aware that there is a dark side to the cyber-social realm, including possible illegal activity and mental health risks, that kids typically aren’t aware of. Obviously, better awareness can be raised with better parental involvement in their children’s social lives. However, parents have to also keep up with the pros and cons of how social media impacts their kids. — mfiandt@indiana.edu
(03/22/11 11:22pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Watching the disaster unfold in Japan was like witnessing Armageddon. An estimated 18,000 people lost their lives, and 10,947 are listed as missing as of Saturday due to the magnitude 8.9 earthquake and the aftershock’s tsunami, which towered 30 feet high when it slammed the Japanese coastline. But it’s been more than a week since the disaster (though the aftermath is still unfolding with the nuclear plant fallout), so where is all the Hollywood support that turned out for Haiti last year?“Does America have relief fatigue?” Movieline.com posed this question in a recent article. One possible explanation of why celebrities may not be “rallying for relief” is that Japan has the fourth largest economy in the world, whereas Haiti was an impoverished country with a poor infrastructure. American celebrities are all about helping Third-World countries. But why not help a country that isn’t Third World in the wake of such an immense disaster? The number of people that have been killed in Japan by this cataclysmic disaster may not reach the devastating blow that Haiti endured, but the number of deaths and missing people is still staggering. Not to mention that the cost of damages after the destruction is rounding up to be somewhere in the mid-200 billions.Sandra Bullock is the only celebrity who’s actually made a significant contribution to Japan. She donated $1 million for the relief fund. While other celebrities have created ploys, like Lady Gaga’s designed bracelet for the Japanese relief, which has raised $250,000 thus far, and even Charlie Sheen, who has raised an anticipated $100,000 from his upcoming live shows, there is no collective movement like there was for Haiti with Wyclef Jean and George Clooney’s team relief organization “Hope For Haiti.” There was $6.6 million more raised for Haiti than has been raised for Japan, at least so far. It doesn’t look like donations are going to reach anywhere near what was given to Haiti. Stacy Palmer on CNNMoney asserted that relief funds are lower for Japan’s disasters due to the fact that it is “less clear in what we as Americans and people around the world can do,” versus the images from Haiti that depicted a country “in need of help and help right away.” She also mentioned Japan’s wealth and preparedness for these kinds of disasters, which is a major factor in the slow relief aid.Regardless of how wealthy Japan is as a nation, the death toll and the destruction are still astronomical, one of the worst in history. We shouldn’t give less just because Japan hasn’t called out for global help yet and its country’s economy is better than the Third World’s. It seems like epic natural disasters have popped up all over in the last five years. Maybe it’s asking too much for our popular rich celebrities to give so much. But Japan’s economic status should have nothing to do with how much, if at all, we give. For us as a society to think the people don’t need as much help, or that their government can handle it all, would be naive. After the mess in Japan becomes clearer, the real help that the country needs may also become more defined, rousing America’s elite to possibly be more charitable. — mfiandt@indiana.edu
(03/08/11 11:24pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>College is not for everyone. That is apparent when looking at national college dropout rates. Only 53 percent of students who enroll into a postsecondary program graduate with a bachelor’s degree. Rising tuition costs are a cause of students dropping out, with the average college student’s debt postgraduation at roughly $24,000. However, a lack of motivation or need to earn a bachelor’s degree may be the more shocking development in some student mentalities today.In a fascinating new book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa examine the growing graduating classes and their lack of critical thinking skills. What do undergraduates learn at a four-year institution? That answer increasingly appears to be “not much” among scholars and statistics. Educators are pressing that the biggest thing colleges should be producing are students that competently “think critically and intuitively.” Bob Herbert from the New York Times stated, “Students are hitting the books less and partying more. Easier courses and easier majors have become more and more popular. Perhaps more now than ever, the point of the college experience is to have a good time and walk away with a valuable credential after putting in the least effort possible.”I’m sure if you asked a group of students here at IU if they value their social experiences more than what they’re learning in their classes, having a good time and getting by with their grades will likely outweigh having a tame college experience in order to focus more on developing their “intellectual skills.” The reasoning behind this is that a lot of students coming into college already have comfortable and/or content lives. There is less of a need for students to work hard when they basically have the essentials to survive and do what they want, and most are often supported by Mommy and Daddy.Just getting by in order to get a diploma is better than not going to college at all — which many young people are exceedingly OK with as well. You can lead a healthy, satisfying life in today’s society without having a college degree. Yet you would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t want a good, high-paying job, which is why there is an increase in students attending college. But students aren’t necessarily concerned with how their “critical thinking” skills are after graduation; they are more concerned with the piece of paper that tells them they have completed college and now they can go off and make more money. Academic rigor is no longer as important to today’s student body. College is, rather, more about the life experiences, the independence, the social life and parties: the good times.When I look back at my own priorities for college, it was to do well, if not great, at attaining a higher way of thinking with these so-called “intellectual skills” that college promised to provide. But I didn’t have to go to college to be a writer. Sure, it helps having all those craft classes, but I could have just as easily published without having a degree in English. However, it was having the college experience, that big campus life and the creative environment it inspires, that sealed the deal for me to attend a university. Let’s face it: Having an English degree doesn’t quite spell out financial security, and right now, as graduation nears, the daunting student loans I owe back to the University make me wish I would have majored in business or something more practical. But I don’t regret the classes I picked or major I chose. In the end, having college debt is the best debt to have, in that I had the big-college experience I wanted, accomplished plenty of critical thinking and still had a good time — with, of course, a few credentials to toss around when it comes time to fill out job applications. E-mail: mfiandt@indiana.edu
(03/01/11 10:38pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s time to re-evaluate our educational system. There has been a change in our social landscape: As the world around us becomes more bilingual, culturally savvy and internationally competitive, U.S. citizens have become too comfortable with their local issues and the institutions that serve their single city or state. Rarely do we apply the worldly, cultural things we learn in school in the actual world. Education needs to enter the new age. The new age of education should reconsider the K-12 grade structure in order to better prepare our youth not only for a national society, but also for a global society. The Avenues World School system hopes to implement a new way of learning and teaching our youth in a global community. Students will be placed in either the Early Learning Center, Lower School, Middle School or in the Upper School, in which the upper grades have the option to study at other Avenues schools in other countries. The program will also require students to begin to learn a second language in the Early Learning Center and will immerse them within a culturally diverse setting that will broaden their understanding of how the world works — socially, politically, environmentally and economically. Most importantly, Avenues World School will provide what Fernando M. Reimers, a professor of the International Ford Foundation, calls “global competency,” which will allow others to “put themselves in others’ shoes ... and have a deep knowledge and understanding of the process of globalization itself.” Intercultural competency begins at an early age and features education about the world and other cultures and their religions, politics, customs and everyday living. Part of this cultural understanding consists of fluency in a second language. As Chris Wittle, founder of the Edison Schools, said, “single-language children are not competitive anymore.”In our melting pot society, knowing only one language can now hurt us when go looking for jobs. Also, having two or three languages under our belts will help us interact with the world on a larger scale. This is why the new Avenues World School is stepping up education, thinking outside of our little U.S.-centric selves and proposing an educational system that breaks down the country’s cultural barriers. Now, instead of a state-run school system or a nationally run school system, a globally run school system will link up to 27 different international cities. At the Avenues World School opening in New York City next fall, Tyler C. Tingley, co-head of Avenues, stated, “Students will sit at conference tables, not in rows or compartments ... they’re going to talk about ideas and learn together.” This method incorporates a college-like classroom, built on interaction, which will better prepare students for postsecondary education and hopes to enhance communication and collaboration skills overall. The Avenues website claims that “Through the World Course, students will study demography, world geography, environmental sustainability, economic trade and world religions,” just to name a few topics. Emphasis is put on interaction, getting students involved in the community and communicating with each other — all in hopes of moving away from the rigidity that is set in place with our current state school systems and into a more collaborative structure.A globalized school system would likely begin to break down small-mindedness, bigotry, racism, stereotypes and prejudices that populate our society and public schools today. By moving toward a culturally expansive educational system, students, from a young age, will learn and communicate with people of different races, backgrounds, cultures and religions. Avenues will operate in six continents and in more than 20 countries as the innovative curriculum globally expands after the opening of the New York City school. A World School means students will participate with these initial 27 schools, which will diversify faculty as well as the student body on an international level. Inspiring an atmosphere of diversity by exposing and immersing students in an environment of cultural differences might be just the thing our limited, under-funded, stodgy education system needs. Hopefully this catches on and becomes the new wave for our educational facilities. E-mail: mfiandt@imdiana.edu
(02/23/11 10:13pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This year’s 83rd Academy Awards is filled with possibilities, with the Best Picture torn down the middle between David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.” While “The King’s Speech” is regal, optimistic and fantastically acted, you would be hard-pressed to find a more sharply scripted, sleekly shot and socially relevant film than the “The Social Network.”Douglas Beckwith, TV writer and dean at the University of Phoenix commented on the film, saying, “While I hate using the cliché, ‘The Social Network’ is definitely a defining zeitgeist movie for its insights into the youth-oriented, greedy, techno-capitalistic, lonely world many people live in.”The film effectively reflects a generation of computer wiz brats. Jessie Eisenberg captures that egotistical and opportunist genius with verve and confidence, constantly two steps ahead of everyone else on screen, until, finally, he is rendered a lonely kid with social deficiencies. Ironic, since he created the ultimate social network. This kind of ironic punch is what drew Fincher, Eisenberg and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin into the project. Fincher stated in TIME magazine, “who better to have invented this technology than somebody who needs it?”The film doesn’t only mark its protagonist’s need to attain social superiority but also embodies the launching of a website that has sucked so many people into its cyber world. Facebook has propelled Internet addiction — a giving over of our social selves to technological isolation. We are in an age where we live a majority of our lives online — we date, do banking, business, get our news and entertainment — cutting out talking to anyone on the phone or in person. The Internet, while connecting us to the world, is also replacing our physical interactions. We are exceedingly removed from real social contact, replaced by quick fix social networking, status updates, poking, commenting and “liking.” It is not surprising that we can have hundreds of friends on Facebook and only really talk to a handful of them. It makes us feel better to have a list of people we claim as “friends.” It makes us feel like we’re part of something — a landscape where we mingle and share, sometimes way too much. It is what makes Facebook so successful, by tapping into our subconscious desires to be connected to society, to be liked and for people to show interest in our lives in return. But an identity online is only a representation of our real selves. The Internet can only do so much to replicate who we are as people in flesh and bone. It’s a space where we can have any identity we want people to see. This is what makes “The Social Network” not only a movie depicting the Facebook phenomenon but also a movie of our current times, a mirror of how technology has changed our social interactions and how the Internet has both connected us and removed us from real life. People might think that the film is Facebook-centric. It is, after all, known as “the Facebook movie.” But for those who have yet to succumb to the film, I think it’ll come as a surprise to see that there isn’t even a modern Facebook page shown until the final scene, that the story is really about friendship and betrayal and that aforementioned social loneliness and isolation. Come Oscar night, if the Academy crowns “The King’s Speech” Best Picture of 2010, I guess I can’t be too disappointed in that it’s a great film, as well. But the Academy would be playing it safe, and I’ll just assume that they don’t fully recognize the current world we’re all living in, or the impact that social networking has had on our planet (just look at the recent revolution started in Cairo, empowered by Facebook). Or maybe it’s just that the academy doesn’t get the cold braininess that makes “The Social Network” not only a parable of society today, but also, simply, a masterfully made movie. E-mail: mfiandt@indiana.edu
(02/16/11 11:17pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s a cigarette prohibition, with the smoking ban now potentially affecting employees at certain companies. Employers across businesses in the medical fields are turning employees away based on whether that person is a smoker or not. Certain institutions have even implemented urine tests to determine if an employee has been using nicotine. Places like St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Mirardeau, Miss., have already stopped hiring smokers altogether. The only companies following this trend appear to be hospitals and other health-related institutions. But this rising trend is indicative of where the smoking bans, being considered across the nation, are going. Now, not only one can’t smoke in or around an establishment in most major cities, but now just being a smoker can affect chances of getting and maintaining a job. Besides the unhealthy practice of smoking cigarettes, companies are looking at employees who smoke because of the higher health care costs of employees who smoke compared with employees with healthier lifestyles. Health insurance companies must be pressing these health institutions to cut cost by inspiring “tobacco free” hiring.A.G. Sulzberger reports from the New York Times on Friday that “... employees who smoke cost, on average, $3,391 more a year each for health care and lost productivity, according to federal estimates.”Of course these medical institutions are claiming that they care about “personal wellbeing” and employees that promote healthiness. In other words, employees that fit their ideal image. I can’t help but feel that this is more of a business transaction with insurance companies than a “we want you to be healthy” issue. The reasoning for the nicotine test, and possible job termination if caught using tobacco, has become increasingly popular, most likely for these economic pressures and benefits to insurance agencies dishing out health care to unhealthy employees. Treating tobacco use like illegal narcotics, when in fact tobacco is still legal, demonstrates a growing desire for tobacco to become illegal. We might as well consider tobacco the new marijuana.But tobacco is still legal, and using nicotine tests as a basis for employing people is discrimination against those who legally choose to smoke. Smoking is bad for you — we’ve all heard it a thousand times — but so is a litany of other things. It seems everything can give you cancer these days. And if smoking a cigarette is legal, then why are hospitals and other medical companies treating smoking as a criminal act? President of the Workrights Institution Lewis Maltby argues, “The number of things that we all do privately that have negative impact on our health is endless. If it’s not smoking, it’s beer. If it’s not beer, it’s cheeseburgers. And what about your sex life?”Is this not violating certain discrimination laws? And where does this exclusive, rigid hiring process end? Even more extreme, the same St. Francis Medical Center that first quit hiring smokers has mentioned excluding obese people from hire for similar reasons as smokers.Our private lives are not our business lives, and after a long day at the office, if I choose to drink a martini, or two, eat six double bacon cheeseburgers, and participate in couples swinging on the weekends, then it is my right to do so. Smoking tobacco should be a private right of an employee, just like anything else that is not a crime. That is, until our country decides to criminalize it. Then it will be interesting to see what happens to every 1 out of 5 Americans who smokes when they are forced to quit smoking by the government. Hello, cigarette black market. E-mail: mfiandt@indiana.edu
(02/09/11 11:45pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s easy to forget about the rest of the universe when there are pressing events happening here on Earth: a revolution in Egypt, a looming election on the horizon, America’s increasing political polarization and the Green Bay Packers’ Super Bowl win. But it is nonetheless interesting to call attention to the 1,000 plus planets that were discovered last week by NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting telescope. NASA’s website reports that 1,235 planets were found, 68 of them Earth-sized and 19 larger than Jupiter. “We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone — a region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Some candidates could even have moons with liquid water,” said William Borucki, the science principle investigator of NASA’s Kepler Missions, on NASA’s website. Fifty-four planets in a habitable zone, not too close but not too far away from their respective stars is a big discovery. With this new planet-searching telescope, Kepler is likely to find a plethora of other planets, since the telescope only covered 1/400th of the night sky. This is just the beginning of new discoveries that could change what we know about our universe, and answer the age-old question: Are we alone? “For the first time in human history, we have a pool of potentially rocky habitable-zone planets,” said Sara Seager, who works with Kepler, in The New York Times.Although it will take years to figure out if these are all actually planets, this early discovery is a watershed moment for astronomy, and, well, Earth. NASA’s Kepler telescope is just the start of planet revelations — in 2014, the James Webb Space Telescope will launch, breaking ground on new technology that could look directly at other planets, possibly detecting “glints” of alien oceans reflecting back at us. A hypothetical meeting of two worlds infatuates us as a culture, which is the reason for such curiosity in finding Earth-like planets. Hollywood in particular is obsessed with alien encounters, as evidenced in last fall’s flop “Skyline,” the 2010 pseudo-documentary style “Monsters,” and upcoming blockbusters “Battlefield L.A.” and J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8.” But an actual alien invasion is not likely to be a CGI spectacle directed by Michael Bay. Alien contact will take a 4,000-year trip to reach us if we send a signal out to one of these exoplanets, 2,000 light-years away. And the alien life we find might not necessarily be “intelligent” life at all, but rather, some single celled organisms.The bigger question is what will happen to our society if we discover extra-terrestrials? I imagine the foundation of our existence will be thrown into question. People will re-evaluate their views on God, religious texts and simple beliefs. Will we as a world finally come together and be diplomatic when we realize we aren’t alone in an enormous universe? Doubtful, our little Earthly quarrels won’t likely be put to rest over the discovery of life thousands of light-years away. It will probably take an H.G. Wells-like invasion before we put aside our human differences. Regardless, this massive catalogue of new planets reaffirms how little we still don’t know about our mysterious universe and puts into perspective just how small we really are in the grand cosmic scheme of things. E-mail: mfiandt@indiana.edu