Most people I know associate with either the Republican or the Democratic Party when it comes to politics, but in a democratic society such as our own we have many other choices. Just some of the other active political parties in this country include the Christian Liberty Party, the United States Marijuana Party, and the United States Pirate Party. I’m sorry to say that this last party is not one promoting a national curriculum of swashbuckling or the exchange of our submarines for multi-sail wooden ships. Instead, this group’s core issues lie in the more contemporary use of the word—including changing the government’s idea of what constitutes internet piracy, changing internet copyright laws, and the right to internet privacy.

To many, these outlier parties seem like a joke, a waste of time, or even a severe hindrance to the major parties. I distinctly remember Democrats unabashedly criticizing people voting Independent, Libertarian or Green Parties in the 2008 presidential election. They feared those who did so would have voted Democrat if they didn’t have choices other than the two main parties. Thus, in their minds, Democratic votes were being taken away, giving McCain a better chance of winning. I too was of this school of thought. My main criticism back then was, “Why vote for a candidate that has no chance of winning?”

But what if the representatives of these “alternative” parties could win?

What if the Pirate Party was elected into the U.S. Congress?

Well, that is exactly what is happening.

Ok, the Pirate Party isn’t booming in the U.S. (yet), but fringe parties across the world are gaining a surprising amount of support. One of them is the Pirate Party of Berlin. This eccentric group of men in their 20s and 30s entered into the race for seats in the Berlin state parliament. On Monday, September 19, according to the New York Times, they discovered they had won 8.9 percent of the vote, solidifying a seat for every one of their 15 candidates. This surprised even them and raised a lot of questions within the German political scene as well as around the world.

What led to this seemingly random group gaining so many votes?

How can citizens with no political background function in this arena?

Can these parties have any effect?

There are many countries that have a similar political system to ours, where a select few political parties have held sway for a long time. However, with changing societies and changing values comes the need for new ways to run these countries. When the standard political parties can’t deliver, the people must look elsewhere. I know of many Republicans who lost faith in the party during the idiocy that was the McCain/Palin campaign trail. I also know of many people who are Conservative when it comes to economic issues but Liberal when it comes to social issues.

As for the question of effectiveness, Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, said, “When Green Parties entered parliaments, the oil industry lobby became ineffective overnight…the other parties knew that the Greens knew this topic inside out, and they would not risk being caught with their pants down to the oil industry lobby in front of the voters…the immunization against the oil industry lobby not only entered parliament, but it spread to the other politicians there, very efficiently.”

I don’t know about any oil industry lobby becoming ineffective overnight, but his point is still valid. Many of these outlier parties have specific knowledge of topics that normal politicians may not have had the time to study. Thus their presence in the government can inform and influence those in other parties.

Now onto two blossoming parties that I, and many other people, are worried about: Perrusuomalaiset and the Tea Party.

The first is actually the Finish term for a political party meaning, literally, “Basic Finns” or, more commonly, “True Finns.” Last April’s Finnish parliamentary elections, which are held every four years, ended up being an unexpected change in the political makeup of the country. The Centre Party, which previously held the majority with 51 seats, lost 16 of those. However, the talk of the day was the True Finns, who were now above the Centre Party, gaining an unprecedented 34 seats, compared to their previous 5. They are now the third most powerful party in the parliament.

The problem with this group is their elitist views. They don’t outright say they want no immigration, but a well-known staple of their policy is supporting anti-immigration legislation. Also, they recently changed the English translation of their party name from “the True Finns” to just “the Finns.” I don’t even have to tell you how much debate this has sparked. One of the main newspapers in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, still refuses to call them by that name. Unfortunately, Juho Rahkonen, head of research at the Taloustutkimus polling organization, believes that the “True Finns are preparing for a democratic coup in the next municipal elections.”

Then there’s the Tea Party. While not technically a political party, their influence has me under the impression that it’s only a matter of time until they are officially registered. At first I thought this was simply a case of Republican astroturfing that people would soon ignore, but it has been a long time since they showed up on my radar and they are still going strong. Whether or not I like them, the power they hold is undeniable. They do not have one official delegate labeled as a part of the “Tea Party,” but they have a never-ending stream of news coverage and a continually growing number of followers. Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann are two strong Republican presidential hopefuls that are also deeply involved with the Tea Party.

Whether you like it or not, groups on the fringe of the political system are gaining power around the world. Is this due to the “global economic crisis”? Or is this something reflecting a larger change in society with the coming of a new generation of citizens? I would like to think the latter, but that remains to be seen. All I can say is, before you put your faith in a political group because it sounds cool (“Yeah, I’m a member of the United States Marijuana Party.”) or because your family does, research it for yourself. You’re in college. Make your own decision.

In July 2009 Sara Shourd (32), Shane Bauer (28), and Joshua Fattal (28), all Palestine Solidarity Movement Activists, were on vacation in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region outside the Iraqi government’s control, when they were detained by Iranian border guards. They were on their way to see the Ahmed Awa waterfall, one of the most popular Kurdish tourist attractions. They continued walking into what they believed to be Iraqi Kurdistan, but what was actually Iran, according to border guards.

All three of the detainees were held in Evin Prison on charges of illegally entering Iran and suspicion of espionage, though even President Ahmadinejad hoped the hikers would be able to prove their innocence of espionage. Bauer was the only one of the three that spoke fluent Arabic; the other hikers could not communicate with authorities.

Shourd was released on a $500,000 bail in September 2010 after nearly 400 days of imprisonment and being denied treatment for serious health concerns, including a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells. Ahmadinejad was reported as personally intervening in Shroud’s case in order to get her released in to U.S. custody.

Despite the hikers’ incarceration, Shourd became engaged to Bauer, and even made an engagement ring out of fabric from the T-shirt he was wearing when the three were detained.

The incident grabbed the attention of leaders, activists, and celebrities worldwide. President Obama, along with many others including Muhammad Ali and Ashton Kutcher, called for their release of the detainees on the grounds of inhumane treatment and a lack of evidence. The U.S. has neither an embassy nor any formal diplomatic relations with Iran, thus Swiss officials acted as the only intermediary between the hikers and Iranian authorities in order to evaluate their treatment.

Despite hope that the hikers could prove their own innocence, last month Bauer, who grew up in Minnesota, and Fattal were each convicted on all charges and sentenced to eight years of prison: three for the illegal entry and five for espionage. Their Iranian attorney, Masoud Shafei, though happy that the sentence was not more severe, said that “their sentence was not consistent with the charges,” as spying usually carries a death sentence in Iran.

On September 21st Omanian and Swiss officials negotiated a release for Bauer and Fattal, and, according to CNN reports, even paid their $1 million bail. “You can state officially now that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has handled Shane and Josh to the custody of… the Sultan of Oman, a country that enjoys excellent relationships with both the IRI and the USA… The hikers are now on their way to Muscat, [the capital of Oman], where they will spend a couple of days before heading home,” a statement from Oman’s envoy in Iran said. Oman, a country on the southeast edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has long-standing political and military ties to the U.S stepped in aid the two prisoners.

The families of the two hikers issued this statement following the release:

“Today can only be described as the best day of our lives. We have waited for nearly 26 months for this moment and the joy and relief we feel at Shane and Josh’s long-awaited freedom knows no bounds. At the same time, our deep gratitude extends to many, many others, from governments, institutions and noted campaigners to tens of thousands of people around the world. Our appreciation for the warmth and love of our fellow human beings is unending and we know that Shane and Josh will always be grateful.”

The release of the two detainees came with requests from Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi for Washington to release Iranian prisoners held in the U.S. Moslehi focused on 11 Iranian citizens whom Iran claims have been taken in to U.S. custody or kidnapped by the American government. Though the U.S. has made no formal response to these requests, it seems very unlikely that these detainees will be released soon. According to Department of Defense reports, this list includes several prisoners suspected of illegal arms dealings in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, a prisoner tied to the Iranian nuclear weapons program, and simply defected Iranian citizens who do not wish to return to Iran.

Though there has not been any evidence to suggest that these 11 prisoners have been convicted of any crime or are even awaiting trial soon, it brings up some questions: Is the U.S. government treating Iranian prisoners in a similar fashion as the hikers released from Iran? Are we infringing on prisoners unalienable rights – something we accused Iran of doing in this instance?

The hikers detained in Iran obviously broke the law by illegally entering a foreign country, which is something they deserved punishment for in their own country, as there was clear evidence of that crime, but their case reflected more about Iranian-American relations than anything.

Certainly there is animosity on both sides; Islamaphobia – a term generally applied to both Muslims and people of a Middle Eastern descent in America and a general mistrust of Americans in Iran (due to differing views on imperialism and interventionism, amongst others). If our government can detain, perhaps even kidnap, Iranians for indefinite amounts of time in military tribunals and other facilities, who is to say that Iran cannot do the same with its American detainees? Iran must secure and protect its people, just as any other country.

Interestingly enough, the hikers were released just one week before President Ahmadinejad’s U.N. address, amid praise from many world leaders for his positive intervention in the matter.

By: Alyssa Bluhm and Kelsey Schwartz

TOMS shoes are old news. It’s impossible to step onto a college campus without seeing them on the feet of hippies, hipsters and hippopotamuses alike (at least they can appreciate how the shoes stretch out so much). Everyone knows about the “One for One” mission behind TOMS, and it’s fairly safe to say that the novelty of donating a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair sold has worn off by now.

While TOMS has faded into the background as a staple in scenester footwear, there are still a number of issues related to the company that should be kept in mind the next time you’re in the market for simple shoes with a philanthropic agenda.

One concern that comes to mind while snooping around the TOMS website is the latent motives behind the company. Every page on toms.com has a heavily layered veneer of quotes and pictures reflecting its mission statement, so much that it’s easy to believe that kids in third-world countries actually do get a pair of shoes when Americans dish out half of their paychecks to match the lavish price of these simple shoes.

But why are these “poor” kids wearing better clothes than I am? My college budget doesn’t even leave room for me to buy clothes that match, but the promo videos scattered around the website depict children wearing clothes so new that I begin to feel like I should be the one getting a free pair of shoes.

Giving pretentious American shoes to poorer nations seems to support nothing short of the patronizing ego for which the United States is infamous. I can’t deny how nice it is that shoes protect kids from soil-born illnesses and allow them to attend schools without primitive dress codes, but the way TOMS presents this on their website doesn’t sit right with me. As shown in their promotional footage, TOMS shoes gateway children in underdeveloped nations to participate in activities like skateboarding and giving each other a thumbs-up, just like their American counterparts. It raises this question to me, as it should to everyone else: Is TOMS helping these people by giving them a resource necessary for survival, or is TOMS just unnecessarily forcing American culture upon disadvantaged nations?

If TOMS truly wants to make a lasting difference in the lives of these children, why not manufacture their shoes at the same places they donate them? It may not be as cheap as making them in China, but it would benefit the economies of these nations more in the long run than a one-time gift of free shoes. And eventually the workers in these factories could buy their children, and themselves for that matter, a more durable pair of shoes.

TOMS is unarguably doing a lot more good than most of us, but gaping holes still remain in the motives that move this company. I’m not trying to discourage anyone from making the day of a random kid in Argentina some months down the line, but I am trying to get people to think more about what’s on their feet.

Then again, TOMS could do worse.

Have you ever heard of BOBS? It’s a philanthropic project that Sketchers came up with all on their own, in which for every pair of shoes you buy from the BOBS collection, they will in turn donate one pair of shoes to a child in need. Isn’t that nice of them! I still can’t shake this feeling, though, that I have heard about someone else with his hand in this cookie jar…In fact I think that he might own that cookie jar! Yes, that’s right—TOMS shoes founded by Blake Mycoskie!

TOMS and BOBS are incredibly similar. They both donate one pair of shoes to a child in need when you purchase a pair of shoes from them, their names are each four letters in all caps, and the collections consist of almost exactly the same kind of shoes. So you’re probably asking “What is the difference between the two!? How is one supposed to chose the right shoe and not make the life shattering mistake of selecting the wrong shoe!?” From the surface it’s hard to tell, but when you look deeper the differences become clear and even a bit diabolical.

TOMS was made with a “why” behind it. They have a goal, a reason, a point to their “One for One” campaign. They truly want to help people in need, mainly children, by giving them shoes to protect their feet from what I know only as “foot killing disease,” but don’t rely on my diagnosis since I am not a doctor. In all seriousness though, the TOMS company is built on philanthropic motives.

BOBS on the other hand is not. It is easy to believe a corporation as large as Sketchers when they make a pledge that they will actually follow through, but it’s hard to believe that philanthropy is the only motive. Looking past their charitable façade reveals the truth; their marketing scheme is as self-serving as a buffet line. They must not have had a good marketing director at the time, because even a two year old child would have known that making BOBS almost identical to TOMS would only bring more trouble then profit, and it did. BOBS was ridiculed online so much that Sketchers shut down their link to the BOBS charity information, thus taking away their “why.” Next time they’ll think twice before hiring a marketing intern with an age still in single digits.

It boggles my mind that these huge conglomerated companies don’t care about anything else but money, themselves, and more money. They will use any means possible to get people to purchase their cheap, secondhand ideas. I don’t think that Sketchers did a bad thing by making BOBS; they just didn’t have an honest purpose behind it. All they cared about was that they could make money. They saw TOMS take off, copied everything TOMS did to a T and yet all they ended up with was ridicule and shame. Shame for trying to take advantage of people, and saying that they are doing it out of love. A love that comes from their tiny, plaque-blocked, self-centered, money-obsessed, conglomerate heart!

I challenge you all now to take a second look into the charities you give money to. Some of you will find that they are true and good, while the rest you will only find a tainted copy of something truly philanthropic.

Ah, Hot Pockets. The most trusted brand to keep you fed through college on a tight budget. Likely invented for astronauts, Hot Pockets are efficiently designed to contain all their gooey goodness inside a delicious bread-like crust. They even have herbs sprinkled on said crusts, so you know it’s gourmet (or as near to gourmet as you will ever get because you have to eat Hot Pockets). Described by Wikipedia as “microwavable turnovers,” the delightful, sometimes burn-inducing (think juicy lucy) pockets have been with us since the 1980s. As a latch-key kid who has been consuming Hot Pockets since she learned how to use the microwave (ah, summer vacation: Ramen, Hot Pockets, and Pizza Rolls), I have been following the technological advancements being made in the name of being really freaking hungry and poor.

The secret behind the Hot Pocket’s crispy goodness is the aptly named “Crisping Sleeve.” Slide your rectangular pastry into it, throw it in the microwave, and two minutes later you have a hot, somewhat crispy dinner. However, the crisping sleeve now has a brand new feature. Once done crisping your meal, the sleeve directs you to fold the bottom tabs into each other, and create a carrying sleeve! Not only do you now have a convenient means of carrying your meal-on-the-go, but the sleeve is perforated at various spots so that you can rip the top of the sleeve off, so that you never have to remove your hot pocket from it’s case, even when you have eaten it down to the top of the sleeve! This is the height of American science: not only enabling us to eat while we do other things (like drive) without making a mess (not including any car accidents caused by said eating-while-driving), but anticipates the consumers likely reply to the carrying sleeve (“but what happens when I’ve eaten all the stuff above the sleeve?”). An impressive feat, Scientists.

As with most advancements, this great scientific breakthrough was taken over by the marketing execs. What better place to advertise the Hot Pockets’ Facebook fan page than the sleeve from which the consumer should be eating? One such ad comforts the eater, “You can eat this all by yourself and still be social” and includes the URL for their facebook page. “See, lonely losers who eat Hot Pockets? You can still have friends even though you are eating something designed specifically for those who are dining alone!” Thank you Hot Pocket marketing department, I always know that when I am feeling lonely I can turn to my tasty, trusted friend and I won’t feel as alone. Because I will be drowning my loneliness with food, like any good American.

This is Scott Walker’s fault. Not too long ago, back in the Bush years, unions were out of sight and out of mind. The only time you’d ever hear mention of unions were in old gangster movies when the mob would “put the squeeze” on the unions. Now, thanks to Governor Walker’s plans to remove state workers’ collective bargaining, the union wars are everywhere. The fight between collective bargaining and deficit reduction has spread from Wisconsin, reaching statehouses coast to coast. But it hasn’t stopped there. I can’t even get a sub at Jimmy John’s without being reminded of the attempt to create the first fast food union and the subsequent firings this spring. Not even sports can provide adequate levels of blissful ignorance, as the NFL and NBA are both headed towards lockout apocalypses. In an unstable world, just about the only guaranteed thing is the presence of union conflict for the foreseeable future.

But it has to come to an end sometime. The preceding years were relatively uneventful union-wise, so it’s logical that the next few years will be similarly uneventful. Yet the situation is so tense that there is only one possible way this can happen: all unions will be disbanded. Here’s how it’ll happen: Scott Walker and all other governors and lawmakers will have no choice other than to fire all government workers, including themselves, in order to balance the budget. Simultaneously, the NFL, NBA, and all other major sports will no longer be able to afford players, due to exorbitant salaries and the leagues’ inability to guarantee player safety. All other unions will dissolve because there is no union for unions and if there is it’ll fall too, ‘cause unions suck.

Whoa! Hold the rope Packer Nation, life goes on, you just need to follow my simple tips to living in a world without unions:

1. Identify new opportunities.

The world changes. So our children won’t get the decadent comforts like education and infrastructure that the baby boomers and people in the 80s had, who needs those when you have buying power?  That’s something you fat cats got to get in your head (Short tangent on the word fat cat: a fat cat is bad because they feast off of the hard work of the people, irregardless of whether they deserve it, but doesn’t that describe cats, all of them, no matter how skinny they are? I suggest we cut the pork-laden word down to just cat). If you cats can’t think with your head, think with your stomach. People got to eat and what are the most popular places to eat? Fast food joints, good answer, but there won’t be any unions or even a legislative body capable of regulating the industry. So with that in mind, fast food companies will lower the standards they use to judge the quality of their meat. Sickened by a 50/50 ratio? Well you’d better get used to 16/84. But it won’t be so bad, you’ll see, because this means you’ll cook your own food, and that the environment will improve.  That’s right, more fillers means you need less animal per meat unit (slice, patty, etc.), meaning less livestock overall. Less cows and hogs means less feed-lots, meaning less methane in our atmosphere and less poop in our waterways. This opens the door for water-sports to become the next American obsession. Imagine it now: you’ve got your Meatburgers, you’ve got some tall boys, you’ve got your best friends over, it’s Sunday, the TV’s on, and you watch a good ol’ game of Riverball. If you play your cards right, you cats will continue to live like cats even when the unions fall (Note: I am still developing Riverball, and as of print-time I have only produced a diagram of two stick figures and an orb transected by squiggles meant to represent rushing water).

2. Don’t be such a bitch.

Fortune favors the bold. Do you think Scott Walker will be resting on his laurels? Hell no, he’ll be going back to that Seafood Buffet or whatever fucking store he ran before becoming a civil servant and he’s gonna run the shit out of that place. The dude theoretically fires the government and you don’t think he’s got the man-stones to handle the dinner rush? No, he’s on it and you’d best be also. But fret not cats, for the market will swing your way when the unions fall. The new economy will be built on hard labor and it’ll need plenty of able bodies (i.e. debt ridden college grads) if we’re to beat the Chinese and the Danish (somehow, in the new world order, they will rise to become a superpower, I don’t have time to explain) in the construction of the worlds largest mud skyscraper. C’mon, you union cats are all about hard work and shit, just look at your imagery. Pickaxes? Shovels? Why don’t you take that clenched fist of yours and put it to good use breaking up old bags of Quikrete with clumps already formed in it so we can build another Pep Boys already. But it won’t be a Pep Boys or a Jiffy Lube, ‘cause cars are going bye-bye. Think about it, you’re a cat with a load of money and you want to invest in the transportation sector. You can hire some people, some robots, and some more people to make said robots, all just to make a car; or, you hire a team of four to five people to lead a rickshaw style stagecoach taxi, that can make you money and also double your revenue in advertising space?

It’s that type of critical thinking that you cats out there lack and will need to develop shortly if you’re to make it in this union-less future-world. But with the right guidance you will not only survive, you will thrive.

 

The drowsy years have ended. Ophelia’s fairy-dust is wearing off. Trumpets are sounding to the southeast and ears perk up; there are vague memories that something came before cynicism, that alienation and apathy replaced something real.

A lonely governor has raised the drawbridge against his own people, but they come together outside in the cold, undeterred. They have been prodded and poked and pushed a time too many and are finally shaking off their going-along and getting-along. Chants and drumbeats echo and rebound, looking for a place to land.

There is a battle being fought in America. Until now, it was fought in secret: in legislation and loopholes, in courthouses and coded language. And until now, it was only being fought by one side.

But the working class has finally taken the field in Madison, Wisconsin. Tens of thousands of protesters have gathered in and around the Capitol building since Governor Scott Walker announced his proposal to eliminate collective bargaining rights for all public employees. Workers seemed not to mind that Walker was filching the pennies and nickels from their nearly-empty pockets, but they saw doing away with collective bargaining as an existential threat.

The governor’s rationale for cuts to workers’ benefits and rights is, as he repeats every time he finds a television camera, that the state is broke, and furthermore that the state cannot afford to raise taxes on the rich because, of course, they are already so overburdened that asking more of them would break their back.

A look at the inequality of wealth in America based in reality tells a wildly different story. The income gap between the top five percent and the rest of the country has been growing since the 1950s and the top one percent of the country earns the greatest share of the country’s income since the Great Depression. Playing the victim is absurd for the rich: the top income tax rate of 35 percent has not changed since 2003, and it was at or over 70 percent every year from 1936 to 1980. Additionally, the top ten percent of Americans hold twice as much wealth as the bottom 80 percent of the country combined. Surely they can spare a modest tax hike better than public workers can spare cuts in benefits and being stripped of their bargaining rights.

When the rich are threatened with tax increases, they like to complain of a class war. There is one: the rich are carpet-bombing the poor.

But the wealthiest Americans have invested a great amount of time and money pretending that nothing is happening. The institutions of postmodern society allow them to veil their actions and motivations. An industry of alchemists—like think tanks, political strategists, and cable television pundits—transmute naked greed into shiny, if vapid, talking points drilled into America’s consciousness like a grade-school multiplication table. Scott Walker’s refrain of “we’re broke” and that Wisconsin is just giving local government “the tools they need” to handle his massive budget cuts is an apt example.

The News Corporation, whose massive media ownership includes the Fox News Channel, is unquestionably the propaganda arm in the assault of the rich on the poor. Fox’s coverage of the protests in Wisconsin have mainly focused on how uncivil the protesters have supposedly been—despite Scott Walker commending them for their civility—and have included several instances of extraordinarily misleading coverage. At one point, B-roll footage that was supposedly of the protests at the State Capitol building rolled while a host and guest discussed Wisconsin, but the rather violent footage clearly showed palm trees in the background—obviously nowhere near the Midwest in winter. The rich can pay people to defend their greed on television and at least some of the country will fall for it: how else can a significant chunk of America be convinced to support something like the repeal of the estate tax, which affects only the wealthiest 0.14 percent of Americans while public workers are suffering painful cuts?

The Citizens United Supreme Court decision has created the financial arm in the form of legally sanctioned money laundering operations for wealthy Americans who were previously subject to personal campaign contribution limits. But now the obscenely wealthy can funnel their money through third-party superstructures like American Crossroads in unlimited amounts, as the billionaire Koch brothers did for Scott Walker’s campaign.

These layers of secrecy and degrees of separation from actual engagement are why when a blogger prank-called Scott Walker pretending to be one of the aforementioned Koch brothers it was so compelling: for a brief moment, the veil was lifted.

Gone is the public face of the rich man; he now prefers to stay out of the spotlight. Interaction with the lower classes is to be avoided at all costs. This may explain Scott Walker’s recent decision to lock down the Capitol in Madison and refuse to let protesters in. He and others like him are so disconnected from the working class and poor that they refuse to engage with them. Indeed, an elected Wisconsin State Senator, Glenn Grothman, called the protesters “slobs.” When given a chance to apologize for his elitist criticism, he not only repeated it, but added that he thought the protesters were a “different breed of person” than the “normal” people who support Walker’s bill. If this is not the rhetoric of class warfare, it’s hard to know what is.

The rich may complain of class warfare when proposals like a special income tax bracket for millionaires pop up and when protesters in Wisconsin demand that the rich share the sacrifice, but in reality the class war has been raging for years, even decades. The rich just aren’t used to the other side fighting back.

 

In 1975, Minnesota became the first state to ban smoking in indoor public places when it passed the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act (MCIAA). In 2007, MCIAA was expanded with the Freedom to Breath Act (FBA) which banned smoked tobacco from all indoor public places and indoor places with employees. Smoking is still legal in outdoor public spaces, hotel rooms, in-patient care facilities, tobacconist shops, private homes or vehicles, and of course, Native American reservation property and any casinos therein. Also included would be any legitimate theatrical production (state legal precedent has indeed established that life is not a stage in this case).

By now all these rules have been accepted, however grudgingly, but certain members of the 87th legislature want to bring the motion back to debate. In what may or may not only amount to a public gesture, both the House and Senate have submitted proposals that would permit smoking inside bars and sealed-off bar spaces at restaurants, so long as they come equipped with a special ventilation system that replaces the air at least every two hours. The impetus behind this particular proposal follows a standard formula—government intervention on free market predilections has hurt local revenues. Since the original ordinance some business owners have protested that they’ve suffered financially, though post-factum economic impact assessments have either indicated otherwise or been deemed inconclusive due to recession induced extraneous circumstances. The last three years haven’t been good for anyone in the food industry.

Does the prospect of smoking outdoors keep crowds away from a night out at the pub? That depends who you ask. For some businesses, navigating the new law has been relatively easy—downtown bars like Sneaky Pete’s have outfitted their outdoor smoke patios with comforts like screens and heaters. Location is a critical factor; while it would appear unlikely that something as seemingly minor as a smoking law would deter a trip downtown, airport bars, for example, might draw a considerable clientele from nicotine strapped passengers fresh off the plane looking for an indoor place to smoke.

State tax revenues seem to have remained unaffected by the ban. One year after a similar motion was passed in Delaware, the state saw a 3% increase in gaming and casino revenues. Likewise, when examining the question of broader societal costs, the jury has been out for the last forty years—smoking is an individual choice that the government either directly or indirectly pays for. When factoring in subsidized medical costs and lost productivity, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention places estimates that smokers externalize upwards of $150 billion onto the US economy annually—and that’s excluding the figures on smoking related car accidents or house fires. The dilemma posed by Medicaid recipients who are statistically shown to be more likely to smoke raises questions—particularly pressing in light of debates over health care reform—about when the government has the right to impose its authority at the expense of individual autonomy or select businesses. Like a smoker paying a higher premium on their health insurance, governments with socialized medical care ranging from the Third Reich to PM Harper’s Canada have used the health expense point as leverage for stricter tobacco ordinances inside or out.

In places where the government won’t necessarily pick up the tab for a completely avoidable case of esophageal cancer, the focus shifts towards the protection of an individual from secondhand smoke, to which involuntary exposure can constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Since a smoker can go outside to smoke, but a non-smoker can’t work outside, the workplace ban sought to protect an employee from having to choose between workplace productivity, thus potentially the job itself, and exposure to carcinogenic air.

Do food service workers or bartenders not deserve that same protection? From 1975 to 2007, such workers were not legally protected from second-hand smoke. Food service labor is relatively unskilled, expendable, and has virtually no union representation, and so businesses were able to keep customers inside during the winter, smoking, drinking, eating, and spending money.

The Freedom to Breathe Act represented the logical extension of the right to work in a safe environment, blue and white collar alike. The proposed air ventilators are not proven to reduce the risk of second hand smoke. Rescinding part of the FBA amendment would essentially re-exclude bartenders from the principle of equal protection because the 16% of Minnesotans who still smoke might prefer to do it while sitting on a barstool.

By now most people have come to terms with the local smoking bans that are in place. I’m fine with eating at restaurants where my food doesn’t taste like it’s been sprinkled with ash. On the other hand, I still have friends who smoke. I respect that right and I’m not going to lecture them about their decision to smoke. Hennepin County Board Chair Mike Opat has other ideas.

After a proposal by Opat, Hennepin County is now considering banning smoking on all county property, inside or out. That means no smoking outside libraries, government buildings, in parking lots, parks, parking ramps, or even inside your own car if it is on county property. If everything goes according to Opat’s plan, this campaign could be launched as early as July 1.

In an interview with MSNBC, Opat said this proposed ban is “more about removing the unsightly gauntlet of smokers that are outside the doors of our buildings, including our public libraries.” Yes, smokers, he just called you “unsightly.” I think he missed the memo that smoking looks cool.

In the same MSNBC interview, County Commissioner Jeff Johnson, despite being a non-smoker himself, said this is a “significant overreach of government.” He went on to say that we should focus on the laws we already have in place. If littering and unsightly smokers are the problem, then why don’t we enforce the laws that ban littering and require smokers to be a certain distance away from the entrance to buildings?

Speaking on the same terms as Johnson, Peter Oberly, a 19-year-old undergraduate, had this to say about the proposed smoking ban: “If a person can walk down University Avenue smoking a joint and no one enforces the law against it, why would they enforce the smoking in your car rule?” I can back that up, for more than once I’ve seen people smoking something a little stronger around these streets. As for the “unsightly” smokers that Opat has described as surrounding buildings, driving away any clean citizens, Peter and I must have missed them.

“These bans seem directed more towards the employees who work at these buildings every day,” said Oberly, who has been a daily smoker for 9 months. Furthermore, he felt that these bans are unfair to those who visit libraries and government buildings less frequently and don’t contribute to the litter.

While this proposal is still up in the air, the fact that it even exists brings up some serious questions for the future of smoking. It was once as normal as chewing gum. Now it is looking to be phased out of normal life entirely. Will smoking eventually go the way of chewing tobacco and turn into a habit that only your weird Grandpa Jimmy takes part in?

“I can see smoking getting banned in about half the city in the future, on places like college campuses and large corporations,” Oberly said. He says that he’s OK with that, “just as long as [he] can smoke on the sidewalk.”

If you were to take a look at how some of the latest research in higher education has been portrayed in the popular media lately, you might think that college students these days are all a bunch of lazy layabouts who spend their time partying, playing video games, and sleeping in (and to be fair, students do spend a fair amount of time doing these things). A new book called Academically Adrift finds that 45 percent of college students did not show any significant improvement in learning during their first two years of college; 36 percent did not after four years. Furthermore, two studies by Philip Babcock have shown that grade inflation has caused students to expend less effort and that study time has decreased significantly since the 1960s. One might be tempted to interpret this data and say that students are working less for higher grades. However, this is a simplistic view that fails to take the complete picture of higher education into account.

Grade inflation is not a nebulous phenomenon that happens without reason or because professors are getting progressively nicer; there are definite and specific causes. The first of these is that already-overworked graduate students are teaching, or at least assigning grades, in more and more classes. Large lectures farm out their grading and discussion sections to graduate students, as do many writing and foreign language classes. Since they already have a great deal of work to do for their degrees, graduate students are more likely to spend a minimal amount of their time grading papers and exams, and are more likely to have lax standards that make grading easier for them. They are also probably more sympathetic to undergraduates’ concerns about workload, since their own concerns are similar.

Professors are not a much different story. They can be burdened with pressures to research and publish which reduces their ability to be effective teachers. Most universities evaluate professors based on their research rather than their teaching, so they may not be inclined to invest much energy in the teaching portion of their jobs. The University of Minnesota has certainly ramped up its focus on research; President Bob Bruininks has repeatedly said that the University is aiming to be one of the “top three research institutions in the nation,” conspicuously leaving out the teaching and learning that are supposed to be happening at the University—and most undergraduates. Non-educational spending like TCF Bank Stadium, the expansion of the Recreation Center, and administrative bloat is also on the rise.

Professors are subject to some judgment of their teaching, but this comes mainly from course evaluations that students fill out at the end of each semester. Giving out higher grades to students can improve a professor’s evaluations, so there is a motivation to go easy on students. Challenging courses or ones that give out lower-than-expected grades can have a negative effect on these evaluations, so students are rarely pressured to work at a level outside of their comfort zone.

However, students also play a role in grade inflation: they may choose classes or professors that are more likely to result in a good grade. Outside observers should not mistake this for laziness. There are a variety of pressures on students that may force them to take easier classes. First, there is the pressure to get a job after college, which in such a poor labor market may force college students to try to beef up their resume anyway they can—they could take easier classes to boost their GPA or because they are also doing an unpaid internship or getting other work experience that prevents them from being able to study as much as they would otherwise. Because of the crippling debt that many students take on during their undergraduate careers, many feel like they have to graduate as fast as possible. This may lead to taking easy classes because they are the path least resistant to graduation, or because students take on massive credit loads to graduate sooner and need to take less rigorous courses to avoid an overwhelming and insurmountable semester.

Whatever the cause of grade inflation, it has a clear result: lower student effort. Philip Babcock says in a 2009 study that “nominal changes in grades may lead to real changes in effort investment.” Furthermore, he finds that study time has decreased significantly since the 1960s, from 24 to 14 hours per week (though most of the decline happened before the 1980s). These trends are probably contributed to the aforementioned large minority of college students who are struggling to develop intellectually in college.

The general public would be tempted to view students as “lazy” based on these findings—70 percent already blame students for low graduation rates at universities—and it is true that students may be spending less time studying on their classes and getting higher grades. But it is itself lazy to simply write grade inflation off to lazy students; they should not be the only ones held accountable. It is clear that teaching and undergraduate education has been utterly neglected by many universities, which are opting instead for more focus on research, more non-educational spending, and farming out more and more teaching and grading responsibilities to graduate students and part-time employees. If we want our students to regain their position as the best in the world, we need to refocus ourselves on teaching and undergraduate learning in higher education.

|“You’d be surprised how many drugged, underaged, or mentally handicapped young women have been gaming the system. Sorry ladies, the free abortion ride is over.”

No, that wasn’t John Boehner. That was Daily Show Women’s Issues correspondent Kristen Schaal, satirizing an underpublicized GOP attack on the right of destitute rape victims to access abortions. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act is R-NJ Rep. Chris Smith’s proposed policy that the National Right to Life Committee states “would supersede the patchwork of abortion-related limitations that have been applied to various federal programs over the past 35 years.” This bit of proposed legislation sought to limit federal (“taxpayer”) funding for abortions to “forcible” rapes, which would exclude situations where a woman was drugged, coerced, mentally handicapped or underage. This constitutes a deleterious and patriarchal redefinition of rape, the consequences of which are heaped on the victims of the crime.

The Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, and MN Daily all failed to produce any coverage of the proposed resolution, which is a disturbing indicator that those policies that further disenfranchise, alienate, and victimize women can (and in fact, have a tendency to) slip under the radar until it’s too late. Whether coincidental or not, the GOP amended its language to remove the distinction “forcible” the day after the Daily Show satire; with national exposure, responsive outcry was likely deemed imminent enough to pose a risk of a real public relations snafu. Activist pressure is perhaps the more likely cause of the rhetoric shift, as oppositional petitions from political organizations such as MoveOn.org piled up. Widespread GOP reticence about the contested language culminated in a notably comment-free removal of the “forcible” distinction, and a return to the language from the Hyde Amendment that has, for more than thirty years, defined the cases in which federal funds could be given to abortion.

The Hyde Amendment, introduced in 1976 as a pro-life response to 1973’s Roe v. Wade, limits federal funding of abortion to cases of rape, incest or when the health of the mother is at risk. It does so by relying on income parameters to impose specifically defined stratification categories; Hyde principally affects the poorest women of the nation, namely impoverished women on Medicaid. Qualifying requirements for Medicaid are stringent, and with any aid program employing fabricated qualification standards based on income thresholds, the poor at the bottom of the national socioeconomic pool are further stratified. There is a pocket right above the qualification threshold, wherein some are trapped by being too poor to pay out of pocket (or in conjunction with whatever inadequate aid program exists for their “category”) for medical procedures and not poor enough to qualify for proper assistance.

The Hyde Amendment, likewise, regulates the appropriation of abortion funds and ensures that the threshold for qualification applies only to the bottom rung of the ladder. This is, again, only qualification in the case of a rape or mortal danger, because the amendment (barely more humanitarian than the originally proposed No Taxpayer for Abortion Act) ensures that federal funding is categorically barred from application to any other sorts of abortions. Impoverished women ought not be stigmatized for having too many children; the Hyde Amendment dictates they have little choice in the matter, unless they were raped or in mortal peril, and even then, they must be the poorest of the poor to qualify for a federally funded abortion.

Essentially, all women who seek an abortion but can’t afford it are denied federal assistance unless they were raped or are in danger. At this point another categorization takes place; women already victimized must be classified as either poor enough to get an abortion, or not. The No Taxpayer Coverage for Abortion Act sought to impose another victimization on destitute rape victims; it proposed an appalling removal of the nation’s most destitute women’s right to choose abortion after their choice to copulate was violated.

The Hyde Amendment’s exclusion of aid to voluntary abortions takes away the legal recourse of women who know their child will be born into an unsafe environment. Family planning takes into account children’s quality of life; the Hyde Amendment originates with the same mentality that combats the very concept of “planned parenthood.” Unfortunately poverty demands family planning. However inhumane an abortion may seem to some, it is usually an effort to postpone parenthood for legitimate concerns like an unsafe parenting environment or inadequate resources. The right to choose when to parent is denied to the poor, however, so the poor have disproportionately unsafe parenting environments and notoriously inadequate resources.

The GOP’s problem with the Hyde Amendment is its status as a “rider,” a collection of stipulations attached to yearly government expenditure plans. The No Taxpayer for Abortion Act now stands to make permanent the existing regulations on abortion spending, which do include assistance allowance for cases of mortal danger, rape, or incest, but which also preclude aid to mothers who are not financially capable of supporting a child, or in an unsafe environment. The strength of the democratic model lies in contestation; rider laws and budget appropriation bills enable the yearly potential for overlook and change of flawed laws that haven’t garnered the confidence to establish permanence. Fund appropriation bills that limit the right to choose—or for that matter, any hotly contested fund appropriation issue—should be reviewed and voted upon yearly. The fact that the bill has passed every year since 1976 is evidence that cutting corners on women’s choice is governmental modus operandi, but this act also exemplifies an aggressive surge of ambitious attempts to make permanent measures that save the state money at the expense of the rights and resources of the poor.

Four of our eight state representatives, including Michelle Bachmann and 7th District Democrat Collin Peterson, cosponsored the act in its original wording. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison opposed, as well as 3rd District Republican Erik Paulsen. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act is in the first stage of the legislation introduction process; immediate and robust opposition can prevent it from proceeding beyond the committee.