In 2009, the Wide Field Camera 3 on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured several faint new galaxy candidates. These vague blinks of light emerged from the opaque hydrogen haze that has, until recently, obstructed our understanding of the universe at its earliest stages. These potentially field-altering discoveries seem to have been swept under the rug once the initial hype died down. This was due to the fact that these galaxies lacked validity without an accurate distance measurement.

Earlier this month these galaxy candidates resurfaced when a group of European astronomers successfully measured the distance to the most remote galaxy detected yet. The team of astronomers used the European Southern Observatory’s oh so accurately named Very Large Telescope (VLT) to analyze the faint glow. The light collecting capabilities of VLT were combined with the infrared spectroscopic instrument known as SINFONI. After 16 hours of observation and two months of meticulous data analysis, the team confirmed that it was viewing the galaxy known as UDFy-38135539 13.1 billion years ago when the universe was a mere 600 million years old.

Measuring the distance of galaxies is an extremely difficult process that is done using spectroscopy, which is, in Layman’s terms, quantifiable measurement gathered from the study of wavelengths and frequency. An in depth report on the discovery was published in Nature, the highly acclaimed international journal of science, on Oct. 21st.

Beyond the fact that it is pretty rad to have made the discovery of a galaxy that is, relative to the life span of the universe, “a four-year-old boy in the life span of an adult,” there are also intriguing scientific implications. The universe was not transparent in its earliest stages due to a hydrogen fog that was able to absorb ultraviolet light. This fog was cleared out by the expansion of young galaxies. The measurement of UDFy-38135539 confirms the fact that we are now studying one of the galaxies that was integral to the clearing of the hydrogen fog. The exponential expansion of technology is now allowing us to understand more and more the very beginning of our universe.

When the Lunar Prospector detected hydrogen signatures radiating from the moon’s lunar poles in 1999, NASA deliberately crashed the spacecraft into a crater located near the southern pole in an attempt to determine whether or not Earth’s backdoor neighbor was holding out on us and had been hiding water in those rarely seen depths. This attempt was unsuccessful.

Nearly ten years later, on June 18, 2009, the Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas V rocket with the sole mission of finding out once and for all whether or not the moon was actually home to some of that liquid gold, water.

After orbiting the earth for several months, LCROSS swung its way past the moon and shot a rocket into the Cabeus crater before slamming itself down next to it. Back on Earth, amateur astronomers were unimpressed when the dual impact failed to produce a visible debris plume, but scientists observed the crash using spectroscopic telescopes that measure the various properties of light to identify different materials.

By November, the LCROSS team was able to confirm that there was indeed water on the moon. This October, LCROSS also confirmed the presence of several other compounds in the plumes, which suggest that the Cabeus crater is actually the site of a comet impact.

“These days we are finding water in a number of interesting places in the solar system, heretofore thought to be devoid of interesting material,” said University of Minnesota Professor, Dr. Charles Woodward, part of the ground-based observation team working on the LCROSS project.

Woodward said the implications of finding water on the moon are interesting in more than one way. According to Woodward, the findings of the LCROSS project suggest that in the future astronauts may be able to build permanent self-sustaining lunar habitats. In addition, LCROSS members found an abundance of other materials in the plume that suggest that the moon may actually go through some sort of active water cycle. If this is true, it is not too much of a stretch to assume that the same processes are taking place on other moons in our galaxy, like on Jupiter and Saturn’s moons, Europa and Enceladus respectively. This theory opens up several new areas of research and exploration.

Ultimately, if able to understand the different processes and environments that allow water to form in space, scientists can plan for far larger space missions in the near future. In turn, the moon, which previously served no other purpose than to adorn the night sky, may very well become the stepping stone to a new age of space exploration.

Income Tax
Karl Keynes

In the wake of the recession, millions remain jobless, homeless, and destitute. Our state government is no exception. with a $5 billion deficit, gubernatorial candidates are hotly debating tax reform policies this election season. Currently, two of the candidates have proposed an increase in the sales tax and a decrease of income tax; this will encourage the wealthy to stay in the state and bring in more revenue. This could not be a more dire situation to many residents of the state. With rising food costs increasing grocery store prices, the poorest citizens of this state would be the most affected. That is why I propose the abolition of sales tax and the creation of a rich only tax. This would be the easiest way to balance the budget and rid ourselves of the selfish citizens of this state unwilling to help.

People make money for one reason: to live. However, there are many who make money simply to make money. They spend money and somehow make money off of this, and then spend more money. These are the people who get up from their seats in the waiting area of the airport when the clerks announce boarding for “business class” while the rest of us get ready to be hearded through the cattle pen that is economy. These are the people driving their fancy cars made after 2005, while the rest of us cruise around in our 1992 Geos. It couldn’t hurt for them to have a little less money in order to help others.

To those who say a higher income tax will send residents to other states, I say good riddince. These people are no better than the poor that these same rich people accuse of abusing the welfare system, namely using services without giving enough back.

Sales
Adam Friedman

A politician not railing against the current incomprehensible tax system of the United States is hard to find. There is of course, as simplification is the objective, a perfectly simple response. The US should abolish the income tax and switch entirely to a fairly high sales tax.

The reasons are fairly simple. Let’s look at the effects of such a change in taxation policy. People without a sufficient income to contribute much to our current graduated income tax would see their income tax expenses drop from little to less, while their tax expenses on their consumption- and poor people pretty much only consume since they can’t afford to save- would skyrocket. However, according to an economist at the Brookings Institute, the richest one percent of the US would see their taxes drop by an average of about $75,000 as a result of only having, say, a 23% sales tax in the US.

Now, for many readers, it won’t be self-evident that this is a good thing. The standard argument goes that we have some sort of humanitarian obligation towards the useless members of our society, even though they aren’t doing and largely can’t do anything particularly useful. The wealthy can afford to spend a bit more in taxes. If you see this line of reasoning for the nonsense that it is you presumably don’t need to keep reading, but for the rest of the bleeding hearts let me explain.

Let’s talk about what poor people do. They are the dregs of culture. They don’t invest, don’t contribute to innovation or capital for new businesses promising greater efficiency, they don’t increase demand for the latest technology because they can’t afford it. But they can afford time to watch TV, which, since it has a captive market, has become a huge industry and a cesspool of talent in the US. Just think about the fact that reality shows exist. They watch the news but since these are people who’ve found that a GED has been sufficient to allow them to buy a house, they don’t value thinking about things, and so they contribute to the growth of FOX News and the decay of standards for intelligence in the American public.

The truth is, the argument that freeing up money for the rich to invest with, to donate, is well rehearsed and obviously legitimate. But so few people see the merits of denying money to the poor, an equally valid undertaking. The beauty of the sales tax is that, under the mantra of simplifying a complex US system and abolishing the much-hated income tax, we can rally enthusiasm and political capital for doing what this country really needs: taking from the poor to give to the rich.

We ate fresh basil, pre-cut pineapple, hummus and pita chips, artisinal organic breads, the bougiest brands of full-fat yogurt — all absolutely free. I was living in a house with more than double the number of legal occupants. In the event of one city housing inspection, my desk and most of my belongings were moved across the hall, and my floor littered with Natty Ice cans to create the impression of a “hang-out” room. Even though most of us were in college or had graduated already, no more than half were typically employed in the entry-level fast-food or office temp job sector at a time. The rent collection process was protracted and messy. Which is all to say, we were pretty poor.

In the final months of our lease in the summer of this year, we subsisted mostly on food from the local food bank (supplemented by raids on the Bruegger’s dumpster and produce from an organic farm where I occasionally worked). And we ate a wholesome and tasty, if often repetitive diet. We didn’t sign up for the weekly grocery bags they offered, though we were well within the economic qualifications. There was no incentive to sign up for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) either, even though most of us would have qualified for that as well. Instead we made frequent trips to the front room of the food bank, where anyone could pick up perishables donated by local grocery stores immediately after reaching their arbitrary sell-by dates.

It all struck me as strangely and excitingly easy. I was hopping from job to job, deciding whether 11th graders in Virginia would pass high school as a standardized test grader one month, counting heads for Uncle Sam the next. I was living comfortably on $300 a month. Naturally I began to wonder what anybody had to complain about. Even the dumpster at the food bank was full of good finds. It certainly seemed like it would be hard to starve in modern America.

It’s evident by the continuing rise of co-ops and farmers markets, and even the availability of organic produce at Wal-Mart, that the food system in the United States is in flux. Many of its juiciest ironies have been pointed out: the poor used to eat brown bread, while the rich ate bread made with refined flour — the poor now eat dirt-cheap, puffy, bleached Wonderbread, while the wealthy eat whole-wheat bread with an ever-expanding array of exotic grains mixed in or sprinkled on top. But it seems to me the biggest difference between our food system today and those of old is the sheer amount of waste.

In a 2009 study, researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, found that food waste in the United States had increased approximately 54% from 1974 to 2003. The study compared food production data for the U.S. from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, with the amount of food needed to sustain the U.S. population, calculated with metabolic models. Despite accounting for rising obesity and the attendant increase in per capita calorie consumption, the authors concluded that the number of calories wasted per person, per day, had increased from 900 kcal in 1974 to 1400 kcal in 2003.

And yet, in a massive 430-page report issued this year by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America, formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, the organization found that hunger continues to increase in America. Among the highlights of the study were that the number of people served by the charity increased 46% since 2005, and of its clients, 39% reported being in the position of having to choose between food and other necessities, such as rent — up from 35% five years ago.

There are organizations attempting to bridge the gap between wasted food and hungry people. On September 30th, I rode along with Sister’s Camelot, a local 501(c3) that distributes produce deemed imperfect from organic warehouses to unannounced locations around town in a repurposed schoolbus. Eric the Busdriver (who was reluctant to give a last name, citing the collective nature of the organization) explained that the warehouses had taken some convincing, but eventually an arrangement was worked out whereby Sister’s Camelot would pick up a busload of produce that would otherwise go to waste twice a week. At one point, one of the warehouses, “tried to sell it for pennies on the pound to hog farmers,” but after some convincing, dropped the plan.

On the Tuesday I rode along, Sister’s Camelot was distributing fresh grapes, daikon radishes, dill, cauliflower, bananas, and bread. After tossing a bag of grapes out the window to a man on the street, the rest of the food was delivered to a children’s art program and the Calgary food shelf. Food shelves, in my naive experience, seemed like an obvious and elegant solution the problem of hungry people and wasted food. But, as Eric explained, it’s often difficult for them to carry the healthiest foods, like fresh produce, because their short shelf life makes it difficult. Not to mention the fact that Sister’s Camelot gets all their produce from the smaller warehouses. “I can only imagine what goes on at Cub,” Eric said. Most of the larger chain grocery stores like Cub Foods and Rainbow use Star Wars-style trash compactors behind their stores to dispose of past-peak produce and expired food.

As Tristram Stuart notes in Waste, his exhaustive global study of wasted food,”if the rich world cut its food losses to 20 percent, the annual savings would be equivalent to at least 100 million tonnes of grain, which would be enough to satisfy the hunger of all the malnourishd people in the world nearly four times over.”

At 1400 calories per person per day wasted in the United States, it should be well within the realm of possibility to feed every homeless or poor person, with plenty to spare for the lazy, middle-class post-college roustabouts.

Static. Fuzz. That antsy, pestering grayish color that coats your T.V. screen. That seemingly endless drone of unconstructed noise that floods your ears and clogs your senses. Most of the time, you can alleviate these minor nuisances with one click of your remote control, or if you’re old school, by properly adjusting the needle on your classic phonograph. It’s that simple. However, the seemingly endless, pestering static that exists on our planet is not as easily remedied.

Face the Static is a newly formed student group here at the U of M. The group is working to raise awareness of issues surrounding our community by organizing concerts, panels, and other events that will grab people’s attention. FTS is also collaborating with local non-profit organizations and other student groups. Their goal is to not only promote awareness of social issues, but to also provide options for students to get involved and do something about them. Although only weeks from conception, this newly planted seed has its roots placed firmly in the ground with nowhere to go but up. The FTS team is composed of motivated, like-minded individuals that are determined to make noise in the Golden Gopher community.

The first FTS event will be in the loft at Barfly on October 22. The concert includes Toki Wright of Rhymesayers Ent., Mike Mictlan of Doomtree, The Obtuse Crew, Duenday, Niles Miller, and more. The theme of the concert will be “VOTE!” Artists and fans will gather around fresh hip-hop, live art, and breakdancing, urging members of the community to educate themselves and vote in the upcoming state elections on November 2, 2010. At the door, tickets will be $8 for those 21+ folk and 10$ for those over 18. Snag a flyer and present it at the doors to receive $2 off the price of admission or email Jacob.nostatic@gmail with your full name to receive the $2 discount.

As an integral member of the local hip-hop collective Doomtree, Mike Mictlan has been spreading his voice throughout the Twin Cities independent hip-hop scene for several years now. Though lacking a national following, Mictlan’s music as well as his presence embodies a love of hip-hop as an art form. The grassroots, do-it-yourself means of production, distribution, and exhibition are represented in his lyrical content and also add a spark to his live performances that ignite the audience and will surely set the loft ablaze.

Headlining artist, Toki Wright, is no stranger to social activism. Wright has worked in many non-profit sectors ranging from youth organizing in North Minneapolis to working with war-affected children in Northern Uganda. Music seems to be simply another canvas on which Wright can work toward the betterment of the world. This September, Wright performed at Face Forward’s Eyes Open show at First Ave. The concert’s proceeds benefited the Global Fund for Women, a non-profit foundation that works to advance the rights of women worldwide. Wright also recently released a non-profit music video, a remake of Public Enemy’s “By the Time I Get to Arizona,” in response to the new Arizona immigration laws. This Rhymesayers veteran is sure to illuminate the stage with his socially conscious lyrics backed by the kind of passion that seems to be lacking amongst today’s mainstream egocentric hip-hop stars. The performance will leave the audience with the rare feeling of being simultaneously entertained and informed.

Get Up Minnesota will also have a presence at the show. GUM is another U of M student group that is focused on promoting voter education and high voting turnout rates. With chapters dispersed amongst many colleges throughout Minnesota, Get Up has been covering a lot of territory and making noise for years now. The organization works not to sway students left or right, but to encourage active participation in the U.S. democracy by our youth, who account for a good chunk of the population of the United States. Get Up Minnesota serves as a rallying cry assembling students all across the state in order to make our values and opinions a political reality.

With football games, frat parties, and nomadic Dinkytown wandering hogging the social spotlight here at the U, Face the Static is organizing events that provide a productive escape from the drunken redundancy of college. On October 22 come out to Barfly and gravitate towards good music, good people, and a good cause. Don’t change the channel. Don’t adjust your needle and play a happy tune. Don’t turn away. Face the Static.

If one goes by appearances and marketing, the University of Minnesota might as well change its colors to gold, maroon, and green. The university certainly seems to be a veritable bastion of environmentally progressive thought: according to public relations releases, the Twin Cities campus is one of the greenest in the nation, with subsidized public transit, 75 E85-powered and 53 hybrid vehicles in its fleet, on-campus farmer’s markets, and even a minor in Sustainability Studies. The University Dining Service purchases 18 percentof its food locally. There’s even a student-run organic farm. At first blush, our august institution certainly looks to be leading the way into a bright, green-tinted future, with CFL light bulbs illuminating kitchen tables everywhere and solar panels on every roof.

So why is U of M Biology, Science, and Environment major and local/organic food activist David Rittenhouse dissatisfied?

The answer is that it’s all PR spin. Rittenhouse says the university supports a few sustainability programs, and then “cleverly words” PR copy to make it appear far more representative of the school as a whole. “If we want to see change, we’ll first have to expose all the lies, and then offer solutions for how to change that. You have to offer solutions and show examples.”

Rittenhouse has been working hard to offer those solutions. He said that he and several friends realized that there weren’t any sustainable or local food options on campus for the average student, and decided to try to solve the problem.

They knew that students at other colleges had been successful in organizing small organic/local food operations. At Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, students had managed to open a local/organic mobile cart outside their student union, selling soup at reasonable and competitive prices. Rittenhouse and his fellow activists determined that it would be nearly impossible to open a stand in Coffman, and almost as challenging to have a cart outside. “There’s too much red tape to try to sell anything here,” Rittenhouse said.

The University has a contract with Aramark Food Services that stipulates that 90 percent of food distributed on campus must come from Aramark, with other major food corporations such as Starbucks and Panda Express occupying the other 10 percent. Rittenhouse and his friends realized that simply opening a small soup stand would require changing the entire process by which food is distributed on campus. They haven’t given up, and are hoping to lobby the right people to change the contract with Aramark when it comes up for renewal, or to switch to a more sustainable vendor altogether. Still, these institutional barriers to students who want alternatives to corporate food on campus call into question the University’s commitment to sustainable alternatives.

There is one place on campus that sells local, organic food: the Campus Club, located atop Coffman Union. While the Campus Club’s web site purports to offer a “common, informal gathering place for broad community interaction,” the $189 annual dues for student, faculty or staff membership that is required to eat there places is squarely in the realm of a rich, fancy boutique restaurant that “real folks” can’t afford to eat at. Ironically, some of the produce served here originates at the university’s student-run organic farm. In an almost perfect microcosm of the university’s underlying attitude toward sustainability, the product of the hard work and organizing of forward thinking students is ultimately appropriated to nourish the elite alumni and administrators that place so many barriers in the way of sustainable progress. The farm is locked into this relationship, because there simply are no other places to sell their product on campus.

Rittenhouse is involved with the student-run organic farm, called Cornercopia. Located on the St. Paul campus, it was started to provide students interested in sustainable agriculture with hands-on farming opportunities. There is even a semester-long course for students to learn about planning, financing, and operating an organic farm. UDS purchased 450 pounds of produce from Cornercopia in 2009. According to a Minnesota Daily article published April 22, Cornercopia coordinator Courtney Tchida is in open conversation with UDS executive chef Gil Junge and UDS director Karen DeVet about expanding sustainable options on campus.

Still, that 450 pounds is less then 1 percent of the local produce that UDS purchases, meaning there is the potential to increase production at the farm to meet existing demand. Rittenhouse believes there is enough interest among the student body to increase the scale of the farm, but there simply isn’t enough support from the University. “We’re struggling to stay afloat. Most of our funding comes from grants, comes from outside sources. Individuals are very supportive, but it seems like the institution as a whole makes it extremely difficult to get new environmental initiatives going.”

So if there is already demand for product and student interest, why hasn’t the organic farm been properly funded and scaled up to provide organic, local, healthy food for all students?

The answer, according to Rittenhouse, is all around him when he thrusts his shovel into the dirt at Cornercopia. The organic farm sits on a meager 1.25 acres, surrounded on all sides by soybeans genetically modified for the easy application of industrial pesticide Roundup, found in studies to cause genetic damage, increase crop susceptibility to disease, and to damage bacteria necessary for soil health. It is produced by Monsanto, an agribusiness giant also responsible for the development of Agent Orange, the poisonous defoliant used during the Vietnam war that has resulted in 400,000 deaths and 500,000 children born with birth defects, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “I even doubt the credibility of our organic farm, because of the drift from the fields all around us,” says Rittenhouse.

Still, this barely scratches the surface of the University’s close involvement with Big Agriculture. To really see what the University’s priorities are, we need look no further then its relationship with another major agricultural giant: Cargill. According to a U of M press release, in September 1999, Cargill donated $10 million to “expand the university’s work in the field of microbial and plant genomics.” The result was the creation of the Microbial and Plant Genomics institute, funded partially by public money, and the construction of the Cargill Building for Microbial and Plant Genomics. Located less then two blocks from the Cornercopia organic farm, it is the U.S.’s first university building exclusively dedicated to plant genomics, according to the web site of construction company Shaw Lundquist Inc.

Cargill is the largest privately held corporation in the United States, and ,as such, has much lower requirements for transparency in its operations then publicly traded corporations. A full analysis of Cargill’s shady dealings is beyond the scope of this article, but the company has had been implicated in scandals as varied as knowingly contaminating groundwater near its production plants, price fixing, Amazon Rainforest deforestation, selling mercury-tainted grains, and child labor in periphery nations.

Described in a Star Tribune article as a “looming, silent giant,” Cargill also controls a staggering portion of the food supply of the United States. As a mid-level supplier involved in processing and distributing agricultural supplies and commodities, Cargill has unparalleled power to influence agricultural markets, right down to the price consumers pay for a hot dog. Its $120 million in annual revenues makes it larger economically then two-thirds of the world’s countries. According to a Financial Times article, every egg used in a McDonald’s restaurant passes through a Cargill plant.

The University’s involvement with companies like Monsanto and Cargill exposes its important role in the industrial agricultural complex. These corporations’ mode of operation is to monopolize control of the food supply, choking out alternatives while making astronomical profits at the expense of the health of people and the environment. What better way to increase that profit margin then to offload in-house research to publicly funded universities? The sheer hypocrisy of the PR narrative that the University of Minnesota is an institution dedicated to a sustainable, green future is impossible to ignore.

Every day, individuals like David Rittenhouse, small groups, and even departments and institutes at the U of M are doing real research, taking real action, and making real strides toward the goal of a more sustainable future. In contrast, institutionally, as a whole, the University has yet to make any deep changes to the way it operates. It co-opts, for marketing purposes, the work of forward-thinking activists, researchers, and other community members, while still maintaining close involvement and ties with the companies that embody the very problems that these dedicated people are trying to overcome: the destruction of the environment, the centralization of power and control in our food supply, the production of potentially unhealthy and unsafe foods to bolster corporate profits, and the application and release of pesticides into our environment.

Ultimately, as long as the University continues to accept money from and name buildings after corporations like Cargill, the university’s sustainability PR line must be seen for what it actually is: window-dressing to obscure the university’s role in the destructive and soulless economic structure of Big Ag.

Starting in a few weeks University of Minnesota Libraries will open Wilson Library for 24-hour service.

Not really. But that’d be nice wouldn’t it?

Any university with over 50,000 students and claiming to be research-oriented shouldn’t leave their students with limited access to the libraries we pay for. Out of this number of students, surely there are a few left who are not simply dotting their x’s with Bachelors Degree in Whatever and actually care about reading and the investment they’re making in their own personal growth. It is these students that recognize the value of the constant library.

A 24-hour Library would most likely be used for study binges. Ideally, it would serve as the antithesis for the bourgeois construct stating that nighttime is for sleeping. In defense, the library would proclaim, “No! The night is for discussion! For knowledge! And so is the day!”

But we shouldn’t run away with ideals quite yet, they’re some matters I’m sure the regants board would like to discuss first.

One of the overlooked aspects of operating a 24-hour library is the increased expenses: electricty for the lights running through the night, wages for a staff of insomniac book keepers, reshelvers, security gaurds and maintainence crew.

If University officials are really concerned about increases in operating costs, they should first ask themselves why they’re calling the U of M a research institution without a single full-time library. The aforementioned costs need not be drastic expenditures with the right amount of planning.

Lighting in our 24-hour library should be carefully constructed; exteriors of the building should largely be left in darkness: only interiors and select study areas should be lit. Besides, the students who are navigating the cooridors of Wilson Library at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday probably have a sixth sense as to where that book is that they need.

As for staffing – let’s be honest – when was the last time anyone has spoken to a library worker? They’re more introverted and useless than patrons stalking the engineering shelves. Ever since the University adopted the machinery for checking out your own books with the swipe of a card – the “Self Checkout Service” – the need for anyone’s help but our own has been abolished.

Slap someone at the reserves desk to dig into the archives for whichever random audio CD a patron might request, a person to sit at the desk near the main exit to look like he or she matters, a security gaurd or two to comfort the ailing, neurotic mind of suburban, white library patrons and someone to reshelve in an overly energetic fashion and you already have what I would call an overstaffed library.
All we really need from the University is a couple lights and open doors.

In all honesty though, I would argue that every library with a staff is overstaffed. Sure, most of our peers will never step foot in a library after they graduate to some mediocre job with their $40,000 dollar degree, but guess what – I bet they’ll still remember that B comes before E and 553 before 988. In fact, I’d go as far to bet they knew that before they were dignified sheep. We don’t need anyone to help us find books. We don’t need some snotty, lazy employee go to the ‘secret’ archive stacks to retrieve our books! All we really need from the University is a couple lights and open doors. Go ahead and keep the heat low; it keeps us awake.

What’s keeping the University from a 24-hour library? Many universities set up 24-hour libraries on a trial basis. The duration of the trials have been anywhere from three weeks to two years. Regardless, it’s an effective way to directly assess the costs of operating the libraries as well as the demand and use of the facilities overnight. Harvard’s undergraduate library, Lamont, undertook a two-year assessment period several years ago and continues to operate their 24-hour library five days a week.

But wait. Didn’t the University do something like that a few years ago? In 2007 the U kept its doors open for the second half of the year, starting in May. Unfortunately the libraries saw virtually no use during their overnight headcounts.

Whoops. I guess I was wrong about our student body. Oh wait? Which library was kept open? The Bio-Medical Library? Where the fuck is that? Do I look like I care about science? I want literature and art goddamn it. Did the University ever think perhaps they opened the wrong library for 24-hour service? Open WILSON.

In 1953, to prevent Iran (and tons of Iranian oil) from becoming Soviet property, the CIA overthrew Mossadegh and planted a U.S.-friendly dictator to rule Iran. The Powerpuff Girls demonstrate a similar form of totalitarian justice against their “evil” enemies.

The Powerpuff Girls, a show on Cartoon Network from 1998 to 2005, appears on the surface to be a simple child’s show about three super-powered little girls, fighting crime and the forces of evil. However, beneath its bright veneer lies a biting deconstruction of life in the United States back in the 1950s.

The Powerpuff Girls are three little girls, created accidentally in a lab by Professor Utonium. The Professor’s original intention was to create the perfect little girl, using sugar, spice, and everything nice. However, a mishap caused Chemical X to be added to the mixture, and thus, the Powerpuff Girls were born.

The town they live in is unmistakably set in the 50s. The people are always nice to one another, and happy to be living in their idyllic city of Townsville. Blossom, Bubble and Buttercup are the perfect little super-powered girls, representing everything that is good. When a rampaging monster shows up, the girls arrive and defeat them without asking any questions, and use excessive force to subdue the enemy. At the end, the villains are defeated, and suffering from overwhelming blood and teeth loss. Massive collateral damage is done to the city, but the citizens look up from the ruins and happily thank the Powerpuff Girls. When it comes to evil, the ends justify the means.

In the 1950’s, life was simple. The Soviets and their Communist ideology were evil, and we were good. Therefore, it was perfectly fine to blacklist people based on rumors of sympathizing with Socialists, and to destroy the lives of perfectly honest people. This was the McCarthyism era after all.

In 1953, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, based on false intelligence that Mossadegh was going to turn Iran into a friend and ally of the U.S.S.R. To prevent Iran (and tons of Iranian oil) from becoming Soviet property, the CIA overthrew Mossadegh and planted a U.S-friendly dictator to rule Iran. The Powerpuff Girls demonstrate a similar form of totalitarian justice against their “evil” enemies.

Let’s take Fuzzy Lumpkins for example. He’s a villain who has anger issues. In one episode, he chased a squirrel from his property in the hills and into Townsville, merely because he didn’t want anyone, even a squirrel, on his property. In Townsville, he gets hit by a bus, and loses his corncob pipe, hat and gun. When the nice citizens of Townsville tried to give those items back, Fuzzy Lumpkins went on a rampage because they were touching his property. After attacking those nice people, Fuzzy Lumpkins went back to his cabin in the hills.

The Powerpuff Girls, following the squirrel who instigated the entire incident, went to Fuzzy Lumpkin’s cabin, broke into his house, and calmed Fuzzy by threatening to destroy his banjo. Once close enough, Buttercup smashed his banjo over his head, knocking him out.

Was the day really saved? Fuzzy Lumpkins appears five more times in the show after this episode, always as an antagonist. Maybe what Fuzzy Lumpkins really needed was some therapy and pills to control his anger and ownership issues. Instead of whacking him on the head with his favorite banjo, the girls should have gotten Fuzzy Lumpkins some professional help.

Another villain who could have been rehabilitated after her first act of villainy is Princess Morbucks. She was a girl in the same class at school as the Powerpuff Girls. Being a spoiled rich brat, she wanted to become a Powerpuff Girl, but vowed to destroy them instead when the Powerpuff Girls wouldn’t let her because she had no super powers. After defeating her, the Powerpuff Girls threw her in jail. In jail, she met other villains, such as Mojo Jojo, and gave them access to her vast fortune, for purposes of evil. She reappeared six more times in the show, always as a villain.

There’s also the Gangreen Gang. They’re a group of five lower-income, teenaged hoodlums, who cause trouble. And, yet again, the Powerpuff Girls beat them mercilessly every time and throw them into jail. As all troubled teens, they just needed a strong adult role model to lead them in the right direction. Yet they were repeatedly thrown into jail, where they associated with hardened criminals.

It’s not just the villains who are example of 1950’s deconstruction on the show. Look at the Professor. He’s the perfect father, who teaches the Powerpuff Girls valuable lessons, like the father in the 1950’s TV show “Father Knows Best.” Even the shape of his body has no curved lines on it.

However, in a few episodes, we see that he is not as perfect as he seems. In one episode, the villain Sedusa seduced the Professor, so that he would enforce a curfew on the Powerpuff Girls while she robbed Townsville freely. In another episode, the Professor realizes that all of his successful scientific creations, like the Powerpuff Girls, were created by accident, and never by his designs.

Miss Sarah Bellum, the Mayor of Townsville’s secretary, is modeled after the sexualized secretaries of the 1950’s. She’s long-legged, large breasted, and is considered to be beautiful by all the other characters. However, she is not the typical 1950’s secretary. She is the brain behind the Mayor’s operations, who is a dimwit, and takes care of all his duties. Once, three criminals found out that they could get away with committing crimes by dressing up as the Powerpuff Girls. When the real Powerpuff Girls were falsely thrown in jail, only Ms. Bellum knew the difference. So she was quite more than just a
pretty set of legs.

The Powerpuff Girls is a show with hidden layers. Beneath the “cute” and retro tendencies, there lies a sharp mockery of the idyllic times of the 1950’s. So the next time you skip by a cartoon on TV, watch closely. Even serious topics can come in pretty packages.

Once again, the election cycle is starting to turn on, its rusty gears sputtering and whirring to life even earlier than usual, as more and more candidates for political office are declaring their intention to run, dropping out of the race or simply saying nothing. Since the political machine is already underway, the issues politicians must address have taken shape, the big questions on a state and national level are already being asked and dodged with aplomb by both media and politician. Thankfully, the American public will begin to weed out the fringe politicians who either preach a bizarre, negative platform or those politicians who simply aren’t aware of what issues aren’t affecting the population.

That doesn’t stop some…interesting people from running, considering running or even pretending to run for political office. Here at the Wake, we received an interesting letter from a contributor who simply calls himself Smudge. According to Smudge, he wants to run for governor this November on “a tall and grassy platform.” The rest of the piece is similar in tone and weird campaign promises. However, Smudge’s pitch to the people can be used as an example of what issues are affecting the governor’s office, as well as a primer on how not to sell your image to a crowd of voters. The following is an analysis of Smudge’s open letter, as well as an explanation of what issues potential gubernatorial candidates will have to contend with come November.

S:My name is Smudge, and I want to be your governor. I want to play the game and roll the dice and throw my cards on the table and my hat in the ring. I want to lead you into a sparkling future, bereft of care and worry. I want to heal your ailments and fund your businesses and make it so you don’t have to struggle to survive anymore. I want to make life easy for you. With you, I want to share my dream. Remember, my name is Smudge and this is a chariot and this will set you free.

TM: Smudge’s opening paragraph is well written, filled with good rhetorical devices such as his promise to make it so the public doesn’t have to “struggle to survive.” His brief mentions of health care and the job economy, the issues that are widely seen as the most concerning to American citizens currently, sets a good tone for campaign promises he might make later. Unfortunately, Smudge makes a few awkward statements, especially the metaphor he uses about his campaign which will set people free.

S: My platform is a simple platform; my stance is an open stance. I will strike out at everything you despise. I will attack your ghosts and skeletons. My left hand is nicknamed Mr. Clean and my right hand is nicknamed Sir Gerhard Von Kreig, Champion of Sound! I will clap these hands together and I will bring down the rain. I will grow the corn the cattle eat. I will grow the cattle the cattle eat. I will grow the people the cattle eat, because the cattle do eat the people, technically, in a very roundabout way of things. I will feed the people! To cattle, I will feed the people!

TM: This paragraph is the beginning of Smudge’s downfall as a viable political candidate. Modern science doesn’t support Smudge’s claims that he can summon rain by clapping his hands together. His claims to feed people to livestock would also turn off most, if not all, potential voters.

S: My platform is a hopeful platform; my tongue is a necktie knot. I want you to have a favorite television show. I want you to be able to watch your favorite television show at the same time each week! I want to share with you messages from my associates while you watch your show. They have many things they wish for you to have; my associates feel as though they can make your life better. They can make your life better, you just have to allow my associates to do their work as you do your work, unhindered and unfettered and free of bother and concern. I want you to have emotional connections to the people you watch on your television screens. I want you to cry when they cry and laugh when they laugh. My associates and I feel that you would be much happier involved in the lives of the characters on the television screen than trying to repair your own life and your failing relationship and your lack of work and your own lack of worth and just sit right down and watch your television screen.

My platform is a tall and grassy platform. I will paint my tongue and teeth and toenails green for you! I will make responsible decisions regarding our future. I will make sure we keep regarding our future. I will always put the future first! I will invest in new breeds of corn and flowers that grow big red blossoms out of the bodies that we put in the cornfields to rot. I will reuse every plastic bag. I will ban the production, import, and distribution of plastic bags! I will revolutionize the shipping industry with the first cargo ship that burns no fuel! We will row it, Minnesota! We will row that great, grey ocean liner! There will be hundreds of us working together in the belly of a rusty whale. We will all row that boat together, because that boat is being rowed for all of us. And we will name it after Marilyn Monroe! We will resurrect the corpse of Duluth and make a modern ghost. We will be the bones and we will be the muscles and we will row the boat together! We must ignite Duluth, we must set it ablaze!

TM: Smudge’s attempts to destroy Duluth wouldn’t help the state’s economy, contrary to his earlier campaign promises. However, his attempts to highlight alternative fuel research reflects state incentives and initiatives such as the grants provided by the University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and Environment that research biofuel and bioenergy projects among other things. One of the more interesting projects funded by the U of M is an attempt by University researchers to take large amounts of algae, which can be farmed for their lipids, or natural fats and oils among other molecules, which can then be converted to biodiesel. This project received $290,000 for a three-year project which is scheduled to end by July of this year.

S: I will build trains for you. I will connect each important city with a train. Smaller communities will be given pamphlets on how to cope with the fact that they are not important to Minnesota. We will connect the train to Rochester, and here we will cure your ailments! Oh, Minnesota I want to make you healthy! We will run tests on you. Sometimes we will run fifty tests. Sometimes we will run one hundred tests. But we will always medicate you. Under my leadership, all medical procedures are free. We will inject you for free. We will give you Dialysis for free. We will operate to amend any malformations in your internal and external organs for free. I will kill your children and your children will become corn and flowers and the cattle will eat the corn and we will eat the corn and the cattle and the cattle will eat us and it will all be a wonderful circle of life and I promise you that! But you will be cured! You will be in perfect health. With our help, you will be perfect. The medicine will make you perfect. Perfect. We will make your body the way you wish it were made. I want you to look exactly how you want to look. I want you to be a five foot seven inch Mediterranean woman who fits against every other body like a sheer piece of fabric. I want you to be a Russian man who has eyes that do all the talking for him. I want you to look perfect. I want you to look perfect for free, because everybody deserves to get what they want.

TM: While Smudge’s rants about health care all but ensure his campaign would be dead in the water, other health care plans are currently in the works in the state legislative chambers. The expiring General Assistance Medical Care program and MinnesotaCare program are part of the focal point in the latest political struggle between Governor Tim Pawlenty and a largely DFL-controlled state legislative branch. As of last week, Gov. Pawlenty vetoed a plan which would have maintained the GAMC plan, which covers adults who make less than $8,000 and families that make less than $10,000 annually. Pawlenty had already vetoed funding for the GAMC plan last year, leading to the stripped-down version that both the state House of Representatives and the Senate passed legislation on in February.
Because the GAMC is set to expire on April 1, more than 32,000 people are going to be switched to Minnesota Care this week, a plan which has higher income limits for its participants, as well as access to services like hospice care, pregnancy-related care, physical and occupational and speech therapy. However, Minnesota Care won’t allow participants to have health care provided by employers who pay for at least half of their insurance premium. In other words, it may be more expensive for the low-income families who are currently covered under the expiring GAMC plan. Minnesota Care is only available for permanent residents of the state as well, so homeless people who have GAMC will most likely not have access to hospital care through the Minnesota Care plan.

On top of this, Smudge clearly doesn’t seem to pay attention to state demographics : 729,000 people of color lived in Minnesota as of 2005, according to the State Demographic Center. That population is projected to have increased to 891,000 or almost 20 percent of the population. By claiming that Smudge wants people to be Mediterranean or Russian, he is ignoring much of the civil rights legislation passed over the past 50 years as well as the current demographic trends, which project the state’s population of people of color will grow to more than 1.7 million people by 2035. Of course, actual state demographic data will be put together during this year’s census, and the projected growth of the state’s population will certainly change because of this.

S: I never want to see you working. I always want to see you at work. Everything should be effortless, but you must always be working. You may watch your television shows and enjoy your leisure time, but you must always be working at having a good time. I like leading people who have a strong commitment and a strong work ethic and that means that you should always be working. I want to lead you. I want you to be working all the time. Remember that you should never be doing anything for yourself and you should always do things for other people. This is a simple rule and will be observed as law. If you follow this simple rule, you will never have to struggle with anything else. I will pay for everything. If you give your life to me as constant work, I will give you all the money you need to live. You will never be charged rent because I will pay your rent. You will never go hungry, because I will send you groceries made by several of my associates. I will allow you to do your work from your home. I will deliver all goods and services directly to your door. You will never have to leave your house again. You will never leave your house. You will never have to leave.

TM: Here, Smudge’s ideas on job recovery would in all probability fail if they were ever implemented. However, Smudge can rest easy knowing that the state department of Employment and Economic development is projecting a decrease in job losses and a stabilized job market by the end of 2010, citing an up-and-down job market and a slow recovery as reasons why monthly job losses will decrease in size and job gains will be more and more prevalent. Although the job market won’t rapidly recover in the near future, it’s made enough of an impact to decrease the amount of home foreclosures in Minnesota by 12 percent last year.

S: Now do you see what I want for you? I tried to make myself quite clear. I want you to be happy. I want what is best for you. I want you to live and be happy about your life. I want to put the future first. I want you to give your lives to me. I want to hold them in my hand I use to hold my pens and cigarettes. My name is Smudge and I am a chariot and I will set you free.

TM: Yes, this letter was actually sent to us. No, we didn’t make this person or this letter up. Although it is unlikely that Smudge will make a serious attempt at running for governor(heck, we don’t even know his real name or whether he’ll refine his campaign promises to propose solutions that would be economically and democratically feasible) Smudge’s light-hearted attempts at making the Wakies laugh serve to remind us that running for political office means studying up on the issues. While the election is still early, and there are most definitely hot-button policies that will crop up later in the summer and into the fall, at least Smudge could identify some of the bigger concerns the state has and make proposals based on them. Hopefully, we won’t have to find out whether he could debate in a clear and sane matter with other gubernatorial candidates.

Light rail, light rail, light rail. After the weather, the proposed Central Corridor light rail line has become the next most popular topic of conversation in Minnesota. If only this were a good thing. The majority of light rail-related talk is overwhelmingly negative; businesses are going to lose money because of construction, the U and Minnesota Public Radio have expensive and sensitive equipment that will be disrupted by the vibrations from the new line, and residents of the Twin Cities, (U students especially) are going to be bombarded by traffic issues in the three years of construction required to complete the project.

But even before this new nuisance, U students were getting screwed over by Metro Transit: rising U Pass costs, buses that are constantly late or don’t even show up, not to mention the ever-present crazies.

Like most University students, I ride the bus everywhere. The area where I live, like many other areas with high populations of students, has very little parking available. Metro Transit is the only way for many of us to get anywhere, especially during the winter. A large number of Metro Transit bus routes involve the U somehow, or at least intersect with a route that goes to the U. Why then, do U students seem to be lowest on the Metro Transit totem pole?

Currently, during rush hour traffic Minneapolis Metro Transit riders pay the same price as New Yorkers pay to take the subway. While at first $2.25 doesn’t seem unreasonable, the service we receive is in no way as convenient as the New York system. I personally have been abandoned by express buses to the U, as have many other students. A friend of mine was abandoned by her once-per-hour express bus during finals week. Again, this would not be a problem if these buses ran more than once an hour at their peak service time.

Luckily, the U Pass is still available to University students in order to lower the cost of commuting, but even this has become less and less of a value. For $97 per semester students can ride any bus or light rail route as often as they please. For a student who commutes four days a week, this is a 75 percent savings each semester. However, the price of the U pass continues to rise, making it more and more obsolete. When the U pass program began, it was accompanied with federal funding to encourage students to ride the buses and to lower traffic from commuting students. In 2000, when the U pass was created, it cost $50. The price of the U Pass didn’t rise again until 2006, when it crept up to $62. In the past 3 years, the price has gone up over $30. While it is true that the price of fuel and bus fare have gone up, so has the number of students participating in the U pass program. It seems that the raising of prices in no way corresponds to ridership, otherwise it would certainly not be increasing so quickly.

Currently, the light rail is most contested issue for Metro Transit, as well as for the University. The newly approved Central Corridor route will connect downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul by way of University Avenue. Construction is slated to begin this summer and is expected to take three years. The total estimated cost of the project is $957 million, with fifty percent of that money coming from the Federal Government. The Hiawatha Line cost $715 million dollars, and since opening has made over $15 million dollars in revenue each year. While the light rail may initially have high costs, over a relatively small amount of time it will pay for itself.

No one is going to argue that more light rail routes are a bad idea. In theory, the light rail is convenient, quick and brings a huge amount of revenue to Metro Transit, which in turn helps to improve other Metro Transit facilities. The addition of another light rail line will also encourage the use of the new commuter train from the suburbs. In reality, the construction and subsequent trial and error process of traffic routing will disrupt traffic considerably and pedestrians and bikers at the U will have one more hazard to watch out for.

In all of this, Metro Transit is not interested in making this light rail convenient and effective for everyone. Both the U and MPR have filed lawsuits over the effect of vibrations from the trains on sensitive research and recording equipment respectively. From the responses on their website, Metro Transit finds these claims ridiculous and unnecessary, but these problems are far from petty. Specifically for the U, if this expensive research equipment on Washington Avenue needs to be moved, it will cost money. This money is going to have to come from somewhere, and with the already cut down budget from the state, the only place to take from will be students.

Students will also be affected by the lengthy construction period that will most likely shut down the Washington Avenue bridge for at least a few months. Instead of using the space already provided on the 35W bridge, and routing the trains through the already hollowed out, empty space in Dinkytown, Metro Transit plans to spend an extra $30 million to put the light rail through the already clogged main artery of Washington Avenue.

In the end, Metro Transit is just trying to squeeze as much money from the Feds as they can. They aren’t interested in regular ridership, only in ferrying people from park and ride lots to the stadium of their choice. So why don’t we just have the Twins pay for it?