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(09/05/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Three weeks ago, in Vice magazine’s fashion section, columnist Annette Lamothe-Ramos published an article titled “I Walked Around In A Burqa All Day (And I’m Not Muslim).”In what could have been a potentially interesting and eye-opening social experiment on how Muslims are perceived and treated within our culture, especially in New York, it ended up being the intellectual equivalent of the time Tyra Banks walked around in a fat suit. Lamothe-Ramos describes her romp around New York, stopping to pose idly at various touristy landmarks, as an adventure in “scaring tourists.” In some kind of preemptive strike to say exactly what everyone was thinking, she writes, “I didn’t realize the significance of visiting one of the tallest buildings in New York dressed in Islamic garb until we reached the entrance.“ The real cringe-worthy line comes just after, when she states, “I felt like a jerk.” Yes, Annette, you should feel like a jerk, but for a much different reason.Among other things, she described the garment as “resembling the Grim Reaper,” “the least-revealing piece of clothing of all time” and looking “like Batman.”Even if we were to view this piece as exclusively fashion-related, as existing in an alternate reality devoid of cultural or racial bias, Lamothe-Ramos still managed to be wrong. The garment she wore was not actually a full burqa but rather a niqab, a veil that covers the face, except for the area around the eyes. Sure enough, the publication received a large amount of attention, much of it negative. What was Vice’s response? A follow-up article with the telling tagline, “Spoiler: We’re not sorry.”Thank you, Vice, for perpetuating ignorance in a country already wildly uncomfortable with Islam. In its rebuttal, Vice cited other disgustingly insensitive pieces that, in a lame and poorly executed attempt at satire, featured two reporters who wore blackface and spent a day using a wheelchair. Following the recent controversy surrounding a shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, one assumes people would think twice before making negative commentary on Islamic dress like this. However, it seems that in popular culture, even among “educated” individuals, the culture of Islam is thoughtlessly mocked. In its rebuttal, Vice said, “The point was to treat these articles of clothing as any other — completely secular and devoid of higher meaning.”A naïve sentiment, considering that Muslims and those who are interpreted as being Muslim are frequent subjects of violence and discrimination in our culture. It is not possible to treat these pieces as devoid of higher meaning. Rather, we should seek to understand and sympathize with the experiences of others before making careless judgments on something as simple as the way they dress.
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(04/29/12 11:53pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Despite its misleading name, the anti-bullying site Bullyville recently shut down a website called Is Anyone Up, an “identity porn” site used primarily by the brokenhearted and spiteful to get back at their exes by publicly posting nudes they had exchanged prior to break-up. Its creator, Hunter Moore, called “the most hated man on the Internet,” made the statement that he was finally burnt out from the process, the reporting, the “legal drama” and constantly being called “sleazy.”Can’t imagine why.In buying the amateur porn site, Bullyville challenged Moore to channel his social networking expertise into a better cause. So, he now organizes crazy parties for good causes and turns to charity in an effort to clear his image.His farewell letter exudes little to no regret regarding the site he had created to exploit individuals’ private pictures, and in a classic non-apology apology, he thanks all his contributors and commemorates the site for his current success. Opinion news media don’t need another article regarding how despicable, irresponsible, trashy, low-lifed and unbased Hunter Moore is (you deplorable cyber insolent).But we’d like to call attention to the reality of bullying in the adult world. What’s important here is that Hunter got away with it at $13,000 a month. The site survived a year and would have continued had Bullyville not given Moore a chunk of cash.Is Anyone Up served no good. That’s a no-brainer. But paying our bullies for their offenses, trying to conceal the identity of a bully with charities and foreclosing upon the cases of millions that contributed to the damage the site created — that’s a problem.Adult bullies under criminal punishment are another issue, but in the closure of the site, Bullyville has trivialized the efforts of anti-bullying and everything the organization is trying to prevent. If a child shoves another child on the playground, we don’t hand them a check, erase their shortcomings and give them a job.We reprimand, put them in a corner and tell them, “Don’t do it again.” Moore received these backlashes. But after the slap on the wrist, he’s being sponsored. Not that many bully survivors will be quite so eager to attend an anti-bullying party put on by a former bully proprietor.Moore deserves (well, has the right to) a second chance and different name. But his support came from the wrong source in the wrong form. And in creating a guise for the identity of a bully, we’re condoning the bully. Adult bullies are out there, in homes, schools, businesses and online. Moore has recognized his mistake, but the effort to turn around bullies still persists.
(04/25/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Well, it’s about time somebody put those nutty nuns in their places.According to the Washington Post, the Vatican recently “launched a crackdown on the umbrella group that represents most of America’s 55,000 Catholic nuns,” the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, for “not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.”Those silly Sisters of ours — always getting into trouble. Next thing you know they’ll be throwing ragers in the convents or trying to ditch their beautiful, black-and-white habits for miniskirts and tube tops. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has appointed Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to oversee the process of revamping the LCWR, yet as a casual observer, it is difficult to see exactly what needs to be changed.Ostensibly, the LCWR has not made any statements contrary to the beliefs of the Catholic Church, yet it is being admonished for what it hasn’t said.This would appear to be true, as an announcement released by the Vatican stated, “While there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from the conception to natural death.”This seems like a strange point of contention for Rome to pick on our nuns for. Come on, aren’t there much worse things they could be doing? What if they were caught breaking their celibacy or slapping kids with their “nunchucks”? (Pretty good, right?) At least they haven’t behaved as badly as a few Catholic priests have in the past.One group specifically targeted in the Vatican’s criticism is Network, which is a “social justice lobby created by Catholic sisters” in 1971. Sartain will be charged with reviewing LCWR’s relationship with Network and other groups the Church might question.Sister Simone Campbell, Network’s executive director, said she was concerned that “political differences in a democratic country would result in such censure and investigation.” Preach on, Sister, preach on!Though it might be the right of the Vatican to form its own beliefs and uphold those beliefs, we believe the Church should focus on tackling other issues within the organization rather than reforming groups that have only helped support religious women in the United States.
(04/18/12 8:48pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Alright kids, here’s the thing. Little 500 is a tough week for everyone. It’s tough for the racers, it’s tough for your professors, it’s tough for your poor, worried parents. It’s tough for the auxiliary police flooding into campus, and it’s tough for your own young, frail bodies. But we still go through with it every year, in spite of previous arrests, in spite of injuries, in spite of embarrassments past and blackout, rain-soaked race days.Without fail, we as a campus throw what some call the “best college weekend” and others call much more obscene things that I cannot put in print. Why do we do this to ourselves? This is a serious question. I actually want to know why we do this to ourselves because I have no idea in hell.My freshman year little 500, I was arrested.It wasn’t just any arrest either. It was, in fact, my second arrest in the last six months, and both were for underage drinking. The first violation was innocent enough. A friend visiting from another school told me about a party her boyfriend was going to. I obliged to provide her a place to sleep for the weekend, and one cup of weak jungle juice later, the house was surrounded by excise police who, during the course of the next few hours, issued a ticket to any underage partygoer who had so much as a sip of alcohol.My parents were upset, but eventually I was able to write it off as “naïve freshman mistake” and “wrong place, wrong time.” I spent the money I had left from graduation and my summer job to pay for the ticket myself, and soon enough the incident was behind me. I was noticeably more careful, however.For the first couple of months, I rarely went out. It only took one bad night and the mounting stress of classes to get me to stop going out completely.Before I knew it, April had arrived, and I was finishing what had been a rough semester. Here was Little 500, a chance for a final hurrah, the holy grail of free booze, loud music and endless Facebook invitations. You’ve earned this, I thought to myself, Seriously, every other one of your friends is going out tonight. Are you actually going to stay in? You make me sick.And thus, I succumbed to the impossible allure of Lil Five. Go to class during the day, hit up a few parties at night and pull it together in time for class again in the morning. Most gigs were a bust, and we found ourselves doing less partying and more meandering around our suddenly wildly populated, boozy town, hoping to find something good for the night. Saturday night was when we had a plan. Saturday we were going all-out. There was a huge event off-campus, far enough that we arranged several sober drivers to bring along our entire crew.The music was good and the dancing fun, but the scene was quickly getting out of hand. It wasn’t long before police showed up. Most of my friends managed to leave swiftly and undetected, but as I was walking — probably stumbling — out the door, an officer approached me. “Have you been drinking?” he asked. Déjà vu.The rest of the night remains kind of a blur. I was Breathalyzed, but I neither remember nor was I interested in hearing the number they read to me. Somewhere between the ride home I got from a stranger and fumbling my way into my dorm room, I had lost my phone and the ticket I’d been issued. When did I have to go to court? I think it was 9 a.m. I recalled that one officer said “She’s never going to remember this.”I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of my cold, rain-soaked party dress. I had left quite a sight for my roommate by the time she got home. All of my clothes from the party were wet and piled on the floor, with blood all around the knee of my tights because I had slipped and fallen. Oh, and my dress? In what I would later reflect on as my finest moment of drunkenness, instead of fumbling around with all of the complicated steps of removing the belt and pulling it over my head, I grabbed the scissors off of her desk and cut it off.The next morning was a panicky mess. Phoneless, clueless and more hungover than I could handle, I woke up an hour late for my scheduled court date. By the time I finally got there, the other Little 500 partiers were just leaving to do their mandatory community service. I was told to just “come back tomorrow.” Everything else went pretty smoothly. A few weeks and another $400 of graduation money later, and I was taking the same Pre-Trial Disposition class I had passed with flying colors in January. I never had to do community service. My parents eventually stopped threatening to pull me out of school for my “outrageous behavior,” or as I chose to see it, “bad luck.” Although I am still often the butt of the joke at many family gatherings, I’ve never received another ticket and certainly don’t plan on doing so again this year.So, what have we learned from this story, besides that I am probably not very fun to be around and have a penchant for being arrested? If it is Little 500, never leave your room. But if you do leave your room, don’t go to a sketchy party far off-campus. And if you do go to a sketchy party, try not to get arrested. And if you do get arrested: lose your phone, cut off your dress, oversleep your court date, and you won’t have to do community service.
(04/16/12 12:30am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Early Friday, North Korea celebrated the 100th birthday of deceased former leader Kim Il-Sung (the country’s founder), and new leader Kim Jong-un started things off with a real bang. Specifically, a rocket was launched.It carried a satellite called “Kwangmyongsong,” or “Bright Shining Star,” and within two minutes of flight, it spectacularly exploded, falling into the ocean below it. The rocket’s launch, combined with its construction, cost the country about $450 million and was supposedly meant to only carry the “Shining Star” into orbit in honor of Il-Sung. However, many are calling it a flimsy cover for a more sinister purpose: testing out technology almost identical to that of long-range missiles. In February, North Korea agreed to freeze developments in its nuclear and long-range missile programs in exchange for food aid from the United States. Although State Department officials insisted in March that food assistance did not depend on the deal, it seems they’ve now changed their minds. An Obama administration official confirmed late Friday that as punishment for North Korea’s breach of contract, the U.S. would indeed be withdrawing the food assistance they’d formerly promised. The deal was originally suspended when the rocket launch was announced last month, but it seems North Korea’s continued disregard of the agreement put the final nail in the short-lived plan’s coffin. North Korea’s actions or “propaganda displays,” according to White House Spokesman Jay Carney, are certainly foolhardy. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on missile technology is thoughtless and economically unwise for the struggling country that cannot even feed its own people. It’s unfortunate that the people of North Korea continue to be the victims of their totalitarian leaders’ actions. Withdrawing food from a starving country doesn’t punish Jong-un and those making the major military decisions from their cushy positions of power. It’s the North Korean people that need our humanitarian aid, and unfortunately, due to the maneuvers of international politics, they’re not going to get it. We agree that North Korea must face consequences for its breach of contract and that the “satellite” is definitely an attempt at testing intercontinental ballistic missile technology, which is an alarming prospect. Although we writers of the Editorial Board cannot think of a better or more viable solution, we cannot help but lament the fact that more than 24 million people are held helpless in the crosshairs of high-level negotiations.Frighteningly enough, many military analysts believe this enormous failure will only motivate North Korean leaders to work even harder on testing their nuclear capability, if only to avoid international embarrassment. The country just finished work on a $400-million launch site near its northwestern border with China, and only hours after the rocket explosion, Jong-un was formally sworn in as the head of the National Defense Commission, which is considered North Korea’s highest state agency. North Korea is run by crazy dictators with an unshakable urge to launch some nukes, and we need to keep a leash on them. We get it. These are the leaders that continued their festivities without a hitch after a failed rocket launch and threats from multiple world powers. They’re a little disconnected from reality. We understand that North Korea has demonstrated that they “cannot be trusted to keep their commitments” or “make sure the assistance gets to those who need it,” as U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said. However, we urge the U.S. and the United Nations to put their heads together and come up with a real solution. We have the best military, economic and political strategists in the world. Surely we can do better than letting 24 million lives slowly waste away. Starve the tyrants, not the people. Kim Jong-un could stand to lose a few pounds, anyway.
(04/11/12 10:21pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last week, the Canadian government announced that it will be phasing out the use and production of its penny throughout 2012.Well, that’s great for Canada, you might say, but why should we care? To put it bluntly, the penny makes no cents. And if that isn’t your kind of humor, this article might not be for you.But really, Canada is taking a huge step the United States should follow. The American penny is an absolute leech on our economy.How can something so small be such a drainage? Well, it’s a worthless metal disk that costs about 1.6 cents to make. Somehow, that doesn’t add up.And when you add that up, combined with transportation costs and the time and effort it takes to count them, the American penny costs us about $900,000,000 annually. That’s a lot of zeros.But maybe you’re the nostalgic type. Maybe you don’t mind paying close to a billion dollars a year to have a constant reminder of your childhood, when pennies used to be worth something.The problem with this logic is that they aren’t worth anything now. Seriously, go try to find a vending machine or toll-booth that would let you pay for something with pennies. Or try to pay a cashier for something exclusively using pennies. If the cashier won’t choke you to death for wasting time, the people behind you probably will.But the opposite of this is equally annoying. We’ve all paid $4.96 for something with a five dollar bill, forcing the cashier to give us four pennies back.What do you always do with those pennies? Invest them? Buy something? Or toss them in your cup-holder, never to think of them again?And don’t try to make this about Abraham Lincoln. The guy freed the slaves and literally lifted a man by the throat and shook him into submission when he was confronted with a fight. I doubt his sense of self-worth would come from whether he’s on the penny.So with all this evidence against it, you’d think that the penny would have been cut from U.S. circulation the second its production costs became more than a penny — some alternative reality where the world makes sense, rather than cents. But we live in this world, and the penny remains. Why?Because it’s a boring subject and no one cares.The penny isn’t like gay marriage or gun control. It’s not something that Republicans or Democrats can use to get their voters angry and in the voting booths.It’s a logical problem with a logical solution. And if there’s anything in this world that politicians hate, it’s logic.It’s kind of a boring subject, but it’s one that could save the U.S. close to a billion dollars annually. With the economy the way it is, we need all the help we can get. And with the elimination of the penny, we’d have $0.99 problems, but a penny wouldn’t be one.
(04/09/12 10:23pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Between Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” video and the past two Cosmopolitan covers (Selena Gomez and Dakota Fanning, respectively), it seems the teens of Hollywood have been getting a little risqué lately. One could argue teenagers have always been like this. As soon as puberty hits, it seems every 14-year-old is eager to get their sexy on. Part of the appeal is purely hormonal, and part of it comes from the fact that sexuality has always been relatively taboo for minors. Perhaps we’re being too sensitive. After all, when we were young, Britney Spears was doing hip thrusts in a red latex bodysuit, and the media eagerly dissected the (figurative) sex lives of Ms. Spears and her then-beau, Justin Timberlake. Destiny’s Child did lots of sexual crawls on the ground in a few of its videos, if we remember correctly. Sexy teen stars aren’t new. However, the recent sexualization of America’s teen stars seems more blatant than it’s ever been before. Fanning, who wasn’t even 18 at the time of her Cosmo debut, was featured on a cover that touted “His best sex ever!” and “Too naughty to say here (but you have to try this sex trick).” Just to reiterate, Fanning wasn’t even legal when the cover was published.Gomez’s cleavage-heavy cover was accompanied by “50 sex tips” in bold, as well as “Your Orgasm Guaranteed.” Although Gomez is 18, her career has been built on her squeaky-clean Disney image. She became famous by being the star of a show that caters to the 10 to 14 (or “tween”) age group. These tweens are still the ones who follow her. Perhaps those who were 15 at the onset of Gomez’s fame have aged enough now to be comfortable seeing their idol portrayed in such a sexual manner. However, the majority of Gomez’s fans are still very young. If you walk into any Target or Wal-Mart, you can see her face plastered on children’s clothing and toys. Yet, this is the same young woman being used to sell “Your Orgasm Guaranteed.”The teaser for Beiber’s new video shows him seductively talking to the camera while countless female hands caress him from the darkness. Although it isn’t as overtly sexual as a magazine cover, it still sends the same message. He’s 18 now, so he’s allowed to be naughty.Perhaps Beiber, Gomez and Fanning are allowed to be a little naughty. After all, they’re all 18, so they can technically be as sexual as their little hearts desire. So should we just let them grow up? By the time many of us were 18, we were having sex and often doing illegal things. Is it unrealistic of us to expect young Hollywood stars to be celibate angels?We think not.Especially in the cases of Gomez and Bieber, purity and innocence (even as it veils the sexual curiosity of the tweens) have been the pillars of their careers. Parents and children alike are OK with these artists because, sexy as their dancing and singing and acting might seem, they never overtly address it.If you gain almost the entirety of your fame by being compelling but essentially nonthreatening, you can’t expect to immediately become a Hollywood sexpot or dreamboat once you hit legal age. If your fame is built upon the fascination of small children and tweens, it’s irresponsible and unrealistic to blatantly sexualize yourself. Gomez and Bieber might soon discover this if they continue on their paths of public sexual discovery. Parents aren’t going to support it, and it’s mostly their money that’s pouring into the pop stars’ pockets. When it comes down to it, sexuality isn’t a bad thing. It’s natural, and our western culture has an admittedly strange love-hate relationship with it. Combine this with our obsession with youth, and some pretty questionable stuff arises. However, when you’re a celebrity, you’ve given up your right to privacy and, frankly, to your own life. You are essentially public property. When the likes and dislikes of your fans dictate who you are, sometimes it’s difficult to let your true urges come out, so to speak. You can’t say you’re a role model and then not act like one. We hope Gomez and Bieber realize this before they get caught in a sex scandal. At this point, it seems bound to happen sooner or later.
(04/08/12 10:52pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>You might think something as simple as a bike bell is not the kind of thing to land you naked in front of a police officer. But you would be wrong.That is exactly what can and did happen in New Jersey to a man who was arrested, strip-searched and detained for riding his bicycle without an audible bell.In 2003, nun was forced to bare her bones for peaceably trespassing at an anti-war demonstration in San Francisco.Others have violated similar laws, such as using a turn signal, and have been similarly violated. The Supreme Court, in a contentious 5-4 decision last week, has upheld this kind of behavior.In his opinion for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that it was not the job of any court to question the decisions of corrections officials.Well then, what is Justice Kennedy’s opinion of the job of the court system? Are courts not in the business of second-guessing everyone, law enforcement included? This ruling seems to establish a massive double standard. It seems to create a country in which the only entity immune from the law is that which enforces it.In fact, some police actions in the case placed before the court seem nothing if not questionable.Albert Florence was pulled over by New Jersey state troopers while on his way to dinner. Florence was arrested because the trooper claimed he had not paid a fine, even though he was carrying a letter that stated he had. Florence was detained for at least six days and strip-searched not once, but twice before the mistake was rectified and he was released. The argument is that police need the indiscriminate power to strip-search any incoming detainee to prevent the introduction of contraband into prisons. In other words, people who ride bikes without bells are actually gang members trying to get arrested so they can smuggle drugs and Twinkies into jails.What Kennedy skips over is an idea he presented in a decision he wrote a year ago. At the time, Kennedy argued that “prisoners retain the essence of human dignity inherent in all persons.” Few things seem more undignified than being asked to spread your cheeks, bend over and cough — Florence was asked to do all of these things. It is the main responsibility of the court system of any country to ensure citizens are receiving their rights.In this ruling, the Supreme Court has passed that main responsibility on to law enforcement officials by telling them it is not any court’s responsibility to hold them accountable for their actions.But recently, those actions have brought to light a wide range of ethical issues. Chemical weapons abuse, ticket-fixing — these little foul-ups force us to ask whether this institution deserves the kind of power it has just been given.So next time you think about jaywalking or driving with a headlight out, consider giving yourself a good wash down there first.
(04/04/12 8:12pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>We hope everyone is familiar with the shooting of Trayvon Martin by now. The 17-year-old black student was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a Hispanic man who claims he was acting in self-defense. The merits of Zimmerman’s claim are hardly worth debating, seeing as he is a grown man who was wielding a semiautomatic weapon while Martin was a high-school student carrying candy. The murder has sparked nationwide outrage at both Zimmerman and the police department that has refused to prosecute him. It was a tragedy, and the aftermath has only made it worse, as some have complicated the matter in an effort to exonerate Zimmerman through slandering Martin.It recently came to light that Martin had been suspended from his school 10 days before his murder. He was suspended after school officials found a baggie containing traces of marijuana in his book bag. This has been tied to the narrative put forward by some bloggers and conservative media that Martin was a bad apple and a criminal in the making.Of course, those denigrating Martin’s character ignore the fact that black students are three and a half times as likely to be suspended than white students, a prejudice in modern school systems, according to a New York Times article.But even if we set aside the issue of racism in school discipline, Martin’s suspension record is still irrelevant to his murder.Let’s be honest for a moment. How many IU students have weed in their book bags at this very moment? You couldn’t throw a brick on this campus without hitting a stoner, but no one would ever suggest that we begin executing IU students for being thugs and criminals.The crucial difference between most IU students and Martin is, of course, race. Internet and media commentators are gleefully tearing through Martin’s past, including pictures and tweets illegally obtained by a white supremacist hacker. They point to his suspensions, images in which Martin wears a grill and tweets with foul language, and they exclaim that he was a thug. The implication is that anyone who meets the slippery definition of thug deserves whatever fate a man with a gun decides for him. The very fact that the Martin family feels moved to publicize private photos of Trayvon with small children or riding a horse is a defense that should not be required of a family in grief. This is a classic example of victim-blaming. Just as when a woman is sexually assaulted, those who would defend privilege are crawling out of the woodwork to tear down the reputation of the victim, rather than that of the true criminal.Trayvon Martin was murdered in cold blood. Nothing else matters.
(04/01/12 11:29pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Wait! Stop the presses! Put down that remote!It’s not all over — Barack and the Supremes haven’t broken up just yet.True, like that scene in “Dreamgirls,” the justices all crowded around the president like vultures around a corpse, eager to air their frustrations.His manager, Solicitor General Don Verrilli, who accidently walked out of a 1950s commercial, took the brunt of the hit.“You’ve been late, you’ve been mean, getting fatter all the time,” they might as well have told him.“Your law is a lie! Your law is a lie! It’s a broccoli-eating, liberty-draining abomination.”Verrilli never stood a chance. It was the spectacle of our lifetime, the stage of their dreams, and the Supremes were going to use it to their full advantage.The air was thick with theatrics as the nine divas took their place behind the bench, ready for the primetime spotlight.In the smoky aftermath, the pundits — who a week before were predicting the ruling 8-1 in favor of Obama — were ready to call Obamacare dead as a dormouse and declare Barack and the Supremes broken up.Fear not, good reader, for the pundits were a step ahead of themselves.Yes, the law stands a good chance of being struck down, but anyone who thought this fight wouldn’t be close is an idiot. The court wanted this case — wanted it bad — just for this reason.In general, the pundits’ reading of this case has been rather flimsy. People seem to have forgotten the court knows this case as well as any they’ve ever decided, and so its public questioning was just theater with a side of ritual sadism in which the justices get to go grill and flip the lawyers.Although revealing, the real decisions will happen behind closed doors as Justice Stephen Breyer lobbies and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Elena Kagan join in. None of us will get to see that. But what we can do is consider the sort of questions the justices will ponder behind closed doors.As former justice Sandra Day O’Connor might ask, what does the public expect?According to polls, about two-thirds of United States citizens disagrees with the mandate. The nation is evenly split on the full Obamacare bill. The question is how much of this is built up from the noisy opposition to the bill and how much of this is a throwback to deep-set American individualism.How might a decision in favor of Florida and the rest of the states have real-world repercussions?Commentators have called this potentially the most impactful case of our lifetime, but other than the takedown of the law, it’s unclear what sort of immediate effects the reduction of Congress’ Commerce Clause powers would have. On the other hand, an obscure part of the argument in which the states argued the Medicaid expansion — the new conditions the feds put on receiving federal money for Medicaid — was an infringement of their liberty could end up affecting everything from the drinking age to educational curricula.How might the nation react to a 5-4 decision?Everyone seems to have taken for granted that the vote will come down to a 5-4 split of the conservative and liberal factions on the court, but no one seems to have asked what might happen after that.It seems obvious: The left would be outraged, accusing the court of being a partisan organization trying to sway the election.The decision would rip open the scars from Bush v. Gore, a true low point in the court’s history, and place the very legitimacy of the Supreme Court onstage.This is not something previous courts have ignored — with Planned Parenthood v. Casey famously citing the “principles of institutional integrity” as a reason for that decision — and something Chief Justice John Roberts must consider today in his court, if perhaps not as openly. Importantly, the court’s approval rating has dropped to 46 percent.It needs to solve the Obamacare case to preserve itself and its trust — and this, more than any reason, is why it’s not all over yet.
(03/26/12 8:55pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In case there was any confusion about IUSA last week — considering it appeared in the title of four Indiana Daily Student articles — the acronym was not referring to the International Underwater Spearfishing Association.Rather, the four letters stand for the Indiana University Student Association, a group which is meant to represent all students at IUB.We wouldn’t be surprised if students didn’t notice any election drama, given the indifference to the news of IUSA’s single-ticket ballot.A poll on idsnews.com shows that, at the time of writing, 84 percent of those polled who plan on voting do not intend to write in a candidate for the IUSA ballot, a provision which was made for this year’s election in light of the lack of opposition to the Movement ticket.Neither will the majority of those polled vote for the Movement party. An overwhelming 65 percent said they will not vote at all.So what does this tell us about IUSA? Was the system rigged in favor of the Movement party, which is recycling most of its membership?Or do most students simply not care about their student government enough to vote one way or another?Considering the results of the online poll, it seems safe to say that apathy is more to blame than conspiracy.Disinterest in the IUSA election parallels indifference seen each year in elections throughout the country. In fact, student government at IU could be said to represent our country’s government as a whole.The most obvious symptoms include poor voter turnout and limited candidate options.But the core of the problem lies in the function of our governing bodies: They don’t seem to do much.On the national scale, the two dominant (and barely different) parties are perpetually locked in a tug-of-war in which significant legislation produced by one side either gets blocked, removed after a power-shift or watered-down beyond effectiveness by the opposing party. This has resulted in a 40-year low approval rating of Congress.With regard to IUSA, its recent contribution to state law protecting appropriate response to alcohol overconsumption, its installation of sustainable exercise equipment at the gym and information screens at the library and its passing of various well-intentioned resolutions are all things that our student representatives should be proud of.However, IUSA has little sway with changes in tuition, the University budget and other policy decisions that critically influence the lives of students on campus.IU’s Board of Trustees, which boasts only one student member (who is appointed by the governor, not the students) legally owns and controls the University.While interest in student government is important, it must also be acknowledged how little of an effect IUSA has had on major issues.The “Raise Hell, Not Tuition” pamphlets released from Ballantine Hall last week are an example of direct action that might catch more student attention than IUSA policy.Does this mean our system of student government is broken? We might never know unless we snap out of this streak of apathy and reengage as active and concerned students and citizens.There are problems on campus. We need to voice them.
(03/25/12 11:33pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In an outrageous show of victim blaming last Friday, Geraldo Rivera, an attorney, talk-show host and reporter, said he believes “the hoodie (that Trayvon Martin was wearing) is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.”Rivera went on to explain that he never lets his own son — who is “a dark-skinned kid” — go out in a hoodie or anything else that would make it seem like he was trying to “stylize himself as a gangster.”Rivera’s point is clear. If you look like a gangster — that is, if you’re dark-skinned and wearing a hoodie — people are going to feel threatened, and it might cost you your life.It seems Rivera is suggesting that if all dark-skinned people stop wearing hoodies, we can systematically eliminate crime motivated by prejudice against dark-skinned people wearing hoodies.There are innumerable problems in Rivera’s offensive diatribe, but the most glaring ones are that Rivera is using his identification as a member of a minority group — Rivera is an Hispanic-American — to justify victim blaming, and he is perpetuating a stereotype by claiming that this massive, complex problem can be solved simply by not presenting yourself as a stereotype (i.e., by not wearing a hoodie if you’re black or Latino).Race and ethnicity are not relevant when it comes to victim blaming and racial profiling. Anyone can racially profile anyone, and you can even blame a victim if you’re the same race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation as him or her.An example of this problematic practice is Corey Dade’s March 21 article for NPR, “Florida Teen’s Killing: A Parent’s Greatest Fear.”In this article, Dade, who is black, discusses the “rules” that his parents drilled into him when he was growing up: never loiter outside, never go anywhere alone, never talk back to the police, never reach into your pocket in the presence of police, and never doubt that trouble could happen anywhere.Respecting the police is good advice for any kid no matter what his or her race, but it doesn’t solve the deep systemic and cultural problem that is racial profiling. More importantly, it doesn’t prevent a tragic incident from occurring.We can’t excuse the injustice that fatally befell Trayvon Martin as self-defense against suspicious behavior. We need to condemn victim blaming and confront the reality of racism in the United States.Not hoodies.
(03/07/12 11:45pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The University of Texas at Austin is the venue for the latest challenge to affirmative action.University policy provides race-based enrollment guidelines to help historically disadvantaged groups gain admission and the benefits of college education.A white student, Abigail Fisher, who was not admitted to the school, is suing to have the policy overturned.The University of Texas has a policy of admitting students in the top 10 percent of their high-school graduating classes. Fisher did not meet this standard.Additionally, she attended another university, so she cannot claim to have suffered major hardship by not being admitted to the University of Texas. Nevertheless, by agreeing to hear the case, the Supreme Court is signaling potential willingness to overturn the affirmative action policy. Whatever the particular merits of the University of Texas case, affirmative action still has an important role to play in higher education. Despite the passing of years since the civil rights era, there are still enormous structural inequalities facing non-dominant racial and ethnic groups. African-Americans face disproportionate social and economic barriers when attempting to complete a college education.Some of these barriers stem from poverty and low-quality primary school education, which leave African-American students at a disadvantage relative to white students.This disparity has long-term effects on career opportunities and perpetuates multi-generational academic underachievement among some African-Americans. There are legitimate criticisms of affirmative action as the system is currently administered. In certain respects, the scope and selection method of affirmative action programs should be revised. Not all people of color require the support that affirmative action provides, and not all whites are part of the privileged upper class.Politicians and school administrators should consider expanding the criteria of affirmative action to address class and race inequalities in our society.Affirmative action at least recognizes that this problem exists and seeks to alleviate racial disparity. The system is not perfect, but removing affirmative action while large racial inequalities remain would be a step in the wrong direction.Critics who allege that African-Americans are now being given special treatment should remember the legacy admissions policy of many schools. Selective institutions regularly give preference to the children of alumni, which in practice means students from wealthy white families. The truth is that all kinds of special privileges exist in American society, and for generations unequal advantages have been given almost exclusively to whites. Affirmative action has historically been, and still is today, a limited but worthwhile attempt to reverse the chronic effects of discrimination.
(03/05/12 11:26pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Breasts. Some people do a lot of things with them. They squeeze them into bathing suits, display them beneath plunging necklines, stuff them full of silicone and invent rigging mechanisms to make them appear as desirable as possible. In fact, one of their only uses that seems unanimously unacceptable in public is to feed an infant.As if that is what they were intended for. Cheeky people.Beyoncé has breasts, in case you had not noticed. Apparently, she likes to use them to feed her new baby in public.Why do we care? She’s not even a single lady. Does she want to run the world? No, and we don’t see anything wrong with taking care of your child.Yet some news sites originally ran headlines about how Beyoncé was “caught” in public using her breasts to feed her infant.Thankfully she doesn’t have a thing for shaking them onstage in skimpy costumes. That would be too much. Oh wait.Breastfeeding is not a criminal, unnatural or immoral use of breasts. If anything, it is the one truly natural, beautiful use they have. Beyoncé’s current use of her breasts is, arguably, the noblest work they have done to date.Sex is a heavily regulated construct in this country, which seems silly when you realize it’s something most people have in common. The state regulates what constitutes it, where and how you can have it and who you can have it with. One of the most human aspects of our existence comes with the most shame, policing and revulsion.Based on the typical public reaction to breastfeeding, one would think it was an illicit sexual act. Yet the phrase “look at those jugs” is never used to refer to their particular gift for providing nutrition.It’s a little bewildering that Beyoncé has been stigmatized for providing care for her child in public. Usually our maternal-minded media adores celebrity moms.In this case, we think Beyoncé deserves praise. She’s rightly receiving it from breastfeeding advocates, who champion its healthfulness.Breast milk is easier to digest than formula and helps the infant fight disease. Breastfeeding is also linked to lower instances of Type 2 diabetes, multiple types of cancer and postpartum depression in the mother. The Department of Health and Human Services literally calls breast milk “liquid gold.”Beyoncé has always been representative of strong, confident and nurturing women, so her preference for a natural feeding experience for her child should really come as no surprise. Nor should her willingness to do it in front of cameras and other people.Is she the next poster child for politically active breastfeeding mothers? Maybe not, but we can see her halo if she does.
(03/04/12 9:30pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Rush Limbaugh sparked controversy early last week when he referred to Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University student, as a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his radio show. Fluke is an advocate for women’s health and has testified before Congress that health insurance should cover the cost of birth control.Limbaugh clearly couldn’t tolerate a woman with the audacity to defend her rights and had to put her in her place.But Limbaugh didn’t get away with it. An online campaign targeted his advertisers and forced many of them to drop their ads from his radio show. The companies scurrying out of Limbaugh’s sinking ship include the mattress companies Sleep Train and Sleep Number, as well as Quicken Loans and Legal Zoom.Under this pressure, Limbaugh eventually apologized to Fluke. However, his apology was insultingly two-faced.Limbaugh didn’t apologize for furthering a misogynistic culture that shames women for sexual activity. He didn’t apologize for attempting to silence one of the few women in a position to speak truth to power. Instead, Limbaugh limply suggested he had chosen “the wrong words ... in an attempt to be humorous.” We fail to see the humor in slut-shaming a woman testifying about life-altering medical care in front of Congress.Worse, Limbaugh tied his apology to an attack on women’s health. He called it “absurd” that America is wasting time by discussing “personal sexual recreational activities” in Congress.We actually agree with this statement, but not for the reasons Limbaugh intends. It is absurd that Congress is discussing how and when to deny women access to birth control. It is ridiculous that a few hundred members of Congress, mostly rich men, are in a position to dictate the access women, especially poor women, have to birth control.Limbaugh’s tirade against Fluke wasn’t just an attempt at humor gone awry, nor did it occur in isolation from the wider political arena.Women’s health is becoming a battlefield as we approach the 2012 elections. The recent battle about health insurance coverage for birth control and how to accommodate religious institutions under that law was only one skirmish.Presidential candidate Rick Santorum defended efforts to deny full health insurance coverage to women, calling the use of contraception “a grievous moral wrong.”The battle about women’s health is no longer dominated by the abortion debate. Somehow, our nation has been sent back half a century, and we once again have to defend women’s rights to sexual choice and protection.Taking a misogynist such as Limbaugh off the air would at least be a minor step in the right direction.
(02/29/12 10:53pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Frat Fighting Championships. Yes, you read that correctly. Frat Fighting Championships.If you’ve been lucky enough to see one of the flyers, you probably had a good laugh.This absolutely ridiculous event will take place April 14, and it will give bros a chance to represent their frat and prove they can fight.What frats are stereotypically mocked for — Sperrys, polos, raucous parties, homoerotic brotherhood — are harmless and just sort of funny. This, on the other hand, just brings everything to new light. While many people in the fraternity system try to downplay the “fratfight” or “brofest” stereotypes, nothing perpetuates them more than this event. The only frat things missing from this will be the Sperrys. Or maybe they’ll leave them on.All mockery aside, this is an absolutely awful idea. First off, the flyer says no prior training or experience is necessary. Genius. Put two kids in a ring who have never done anything like this before without a clue as to how safety precautions in professional fighting go about. Second, the flyer says free training will be provided. Fantastic. Some bro will probably get three or four lessons and think he is Chuck Liddell. But its cool, he’s seen “Fight Club” like 100 times. He’s got this. This is going to end really well.At the same time, the marketing idea behind this is borderline brilliant. What sounds more entertaining than watching two bros attempt to pummel each other to a pulp? And who better to appeal to than a bunch of guys obsessed with one-upping each other? It seems highly unlikely that any of these matches amount to anything close to an actual MMA bout, but watching how absolutely terrible they are could be entertaining. No one wants to see a fellow student get hurt, but we won’t deny that the whole concept of “Frat Fighting Championships,” (we repeat: Frat. Fighting. Championships.) has some kind of comedic appeal.So, a weary “thank you” is in order for the frats because, in some capacity, this event is going to provide a fratastic level of entertainment for anyone who attends.
(02/29/12 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With another death might come another battle.It remains to be seen if Monday’s news of a shooting of five high school students in Chardon, Ohio (including at least three deaths) will ignite yet another skirmish in the political trench warfare about guns, but if so, we know the drill. Pro-gun advocates will seize upon the news to argue that looser gun laws will allow citizens to protect themselves because, after all, criminals can always carry guns. Pro-gun control advocates will argue that stricter gun laws are in order because less guns will mean less gun violence.Yes, the conversation will be bitter, repetitive and get nowhere. But don’t be fooled — there is a correct answer in this debate, and it does not involve both sides being right.Beyond the rhetoric and pointless posturing, it’s worth asking how people obtain guns and what the law can do to affect this. One market dynamic experts point to is the flow of guns in interstate trafficking, when guns from states with lax regulations are transported to surrounding states and sold on the black market.For instance, in the early 1990s, the great state of Virginia had the dubious position of the number one provider of guns to the Northeast, with studies by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives showing that about one in four handguns confiscated in New York City and one in three in Washington, D.C., originated in Virginia.As a counter-measure, Gov. Doug Wilder proposed a one-handgun-a-month law: a sensible idea that hampered the ability of traffickers to buy guns in bulk. And the thing is, the law had an effect.According to a study of the ATF, the probability that a gun used in a crime in the Northeast originated in Virginia dropped by about two-thirds after the passage of the law. Unfortunately, these facts don’t seem to exist in the alternative universe that the Virginia General Assembly is living in. As it stands now, a bill to repeal the one-handgun-a-month law is sitting just one John Hancock from the governor away from becoming law.It doesn’t take a bunch of nerds to realize there’s no compelling reason for making the purchase of a handgun as easy as popping Skittles into your mouth.But of course, that’s not the end of it. The one-per-month repeal is only one of a delightful number of gun-related bills the Virginia Legislature is considering.In one bill just passed by the Senate, gun buy-back programs are forced to sell the weapons they acquire instead of destroying them, which you think would defeat the purpose of getting weapons off the street.In a second bill, the Legislature steps on the right of private businesses to ban their employees from storing guns and ammunition in employee parking lots.Yet another would ban local governments from requiring fingerprints as part of the application process for concealed handgun permits.These bills are ridiculous, nonsensical and go beyond any sort of right encapsulated in the Second Amendment.As one Virginia state senator has pointed out, it is now easier to buy a gun in Virginia than it is to vote.This startling conclusion brings into focus the true priorities of the gun lobby.The Second Amendment, always paranoid at its core, has been twisted and perverted into a generalized “fundamental right” to guns, and advocates have used this to place their hedonistic desires for metal toys above the safety of our children and the health of our democracy.In some ways it’s almost amusing to imagine all the handguns you could buy and the silly things you could do with them.But take a second and remember the two high-school students who died this week — ask them how funny they find guns.
