The Daily Reveille

Fresh, crisp, clear municipal water
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 7/31/07 Section: Opinion

This column titled "From the Tap" was named with some illusion to the drinking that permeates our college life. I have to thank Coca-Cola and Pepsi though; they've given me the chance to relate my title to everyone.

Thank you for your bottled water.

I'm looking at the little bottle of Dasani sitting on my desk, reading the words at the top that say "Purified Water." I used to think this meant they started with a good, clean water source and ran it through a filter while they added minerals. Well, Dasani, you got me. Aquafina, the number one selling bottled water in our country, and Dasani, the number two, both bottle their water from the municipal water supply, according to the AP.

Tap water.

I can see it now, some guy starts off in his basement with a sink, a bunch of clear plastic bottles and a dream. He can make a fortune off selling this to you at a high price while he pays a ridiculously low price. His American dream.

I'm sure they all have a great legal defense, because they don't actually tell us their sources on the bottle. Aquafina has those lovely mountains on its label; we all just assume that the water must come from some pure, mountain stream.

Like kids flocking to candy, we have gotten in the car with strangers for what was supposed to be just some clean, healthy water. We didn't expect to be taken for a ride and mistreated.

The thing is, these guys weren't supposed to be strangers who would swindle our money from us. They are Pepsi and Coca-Cola. They're the companies that we see advertised everywhere, which we can buy anywhere, and for a lot of us have always been around. Last year, Americans spent about $9 billion on bottled water according to ACNielsen.

This stuff feels personal. It is like waking up to find an old friend stealing money from your wallet.

Nestle is rumored to be dropping the price of its water by around 8 to 9 percent, and it is safe to bet that Pepsi and Coca-Cola will be following suit. So, at least they will be stealing less while you sleep.

I'm ending this column and these summer rants in the same way I began the rest, with something from the tap. This time, as the ice makes that sweet clink and the glass begins to fill, I propose a toast to my faucet. If it's good enough for Dasani, it's good enough for me.




Identity theft made easy
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 7/24/07 Section: Opinion

Were you enrolled in 10th grade between 2001 and 2003 or did you work for a public Louisiana college or university in either 2000 or 2001? If you did, someone you don't know might have a nine-digit number you hold very dear.

The Louisiana Board of Regents had a list of more than 80,000 names and Social Security numbers displayed on a publicly accessible Web site. If that number wasn't enough, the list also had birth dates and addresses.

In the days of rampant identity theft, the Louisiana Board of Regents put all this information on display for anyone to find if they searched well. The best part is they had absolutely no idea they were doing it.

WDSU-TV in New Orleans broke the story a week ago.

WDSU's source, Aaron Titus, said he "found the open door to the Board of Regents internal network using Google."

Titus also found about 150 other online lists that contain more than 75,000 additional names and social security numbers, according to WDSU.

Honestly, what on Earth are these people doing? We've all filled out the school forms and college applications and jumped through all the hoops. In the era of identity theft, we still give up our sacred nine digits, in the hope that schools have our best interests at heart.

In its statement, the board said, "The Board of Regents is working to notify the potentially affected people and has set up a Web site to advise them of ways to protect their privacy."

Apparently they are going to contact everyone whose information they gave out, that way they can make sure they have updated addresses on them. Why not make it something for everyone, even those that weren't directly affected, and why not actually make it public knowledge that some people might be at risk?

Oh and how about not making it a Web site. You guys don't seem to have much luck with those.

There is some light at the end of this dark, moronic tunnel. Within a few hours of notification, the Board of Regents did correct the problem and made a statement admitting fault.

We're just left hoping that it was enough. This stuff has been out there for quite a while, and a guy found it with Google. Protect yourselves, boys and girls.

Our generation's mob is going to be on the Internet, and they are going to love sites like that.




Money, apology cannot replace victims' innocence
More than 500 victims of Roman Catholic Church
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 7/17/07 Section: Opinion

On Sunday, Cardinal Roger Mahony, leader of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, apologized to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse by archdiocese priests.

This apology came the day before jury selection in the lawsuit filed by those victims was set to begin.

It makes you wonder - why settle and apologize now? Were they not sorry enough before to accept responsibility and at least attempt to compensate for the damage they have caused?
It seems like there is some criteria that has to be met before they admit to any wrongdoing.

"Whether you give me a check for $10 or $10,000, where can I take that check and cash it at some place to make me 10 years old again?" said Steve Sanchez, one of the plaintiffs.

"There really is no way to go back and give them the innocence that was taken from them," Mahony admitted during the press conference.

As part of the settlement, the Los Angeles archdiocese had to release documents showing the knowledge and coverup of these actions.

Priests accused of such misconduct were sent to therapy, transferred to other parishes, or simply took sick leave.

The most disturbing part is many were allowed to continue as ministers for years after these accusations.

The archdiocese handed over proof that they knew about this, and that they've known about these allegations.

Along with an apology, Mahony gave some details about the $660 million that will be paid to the plaintiffs.

Nearly $227 million will come from insurance and $60 million will come from Catholic orders named in the complaints.

Still, $373 million will come from the church.

While the church had to sell some buildings to help raise this money, I'm sure not getting taxed on your income helped them out a bit.

Mahony admitted not everyone is going to be "satisfied" with the outcome, though he added that these complaints have led and are leading to reforms within the church, including attempts to protect parishioners from future abuse.

"Even though I can't restore what was lost, there is good that has come out of this," he said concerning these reforms.

In his position, he needed to find a bright side, but saying that any "good" has come from this is pretty sickening.

The victims of this abuse need a lot more than an apology and a lump sum to make up for what has happened to them.

They need a way to get their feeling of safety back, and that is something the church seems unable to do.




N-word burial will not be effective
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 7/12/07 Section: Opinion

The NAACP buried the N-word at its 98th annual convention on Monday.

A simple pine casket was brought about a quarter mile to Hart Plaza in Detroit. It was adorned with a single bouquet of fake black roses and surrounded by people calling out against what was symbollicaly inside.

"Today we're not just burying the n-word; we're taking it out of our spirit," Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said.

In 1944, the NAACP held a funeral for Jim Crow, and they are hopeful that this funeral will be as successful.

By burying the n-word, the NAACP hopes to start a move towards a more positive self-image for young African Americans. We just have to see if this public burial is something that will actually make a difference.

After Michael Richards's outburst on stage and after Don Imus's comment about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, NAACP leaders and others soon challenged blacks and the entertainment industry to stop using such terms.

Take a quick trip down to the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks and see how their previous requests have worked. While the NAACP has said that this move is not an attack on rap or pop culture, it does seem to be an affront to them both.

This is a good start and a noble gesture. I'm just skeptical on how successful it will be, and how pure the intentions behind it are. It seems to be along the lines of declaring a war on a concept. It is really hard to kill or bury something intangible.

A problem the NAACP may face will be some division created by their chief, Julian Bond. In Bond's convention address, he compared the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to a lynching and that it "is resulting in a deliberate effort to dispossess black landholders."

Whether it is Katrina or the n-word, making it a black problem and only a black solution simply won't work. These are things the nation as a whole needs to address and solve.

The problem is that burying a symbol doesn't bury its meaning. To get rid of symbols like the n-word, we have to have a conscious push in the majority of society to call for its removal. We can't depend on an exclusive organization to lead the charge in change for all members of society. If it was a true push for removing the word from our society, representatives from parts of society outside of the NAACP should be present.



Rock star, rocketman duo a good fit for the University
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 7/10/07 Section: Opinion

"He's a rock star. He's doing great work," said Lawrence Boyle, University of Massachusetts trustee. He was talking about John Lombardi who will most likely be named our system president this Thursday.

Boyle seems to have Lombardi pegged with the rock star comment. He seems to be very stubborn, have an air of superiority, and his mouth can get him in trouble. That being said, he can repeatedly deliver and sell out a stadium.

He became chief of the University of Florida in 1990, and gained support from the students and alumni for increasing the school's academic standings. He also became known for his outbursts whenever he disagreed with almost anything or anyone. He became infamous for calling Adam Hebert, State University System chancellor, an "oreo" at a private dinner party. This became public and hoopla ensued.

But before you get out the pitchforks and torches, Lombardi did apologize. Both he and Hebert have said the whole thing is behind them.

He resigned after giving four administrators pay increases of at least $25,000 without getting approval from the regents or chancellor. Sounds a bit like good ol' boy politics, so maybe he will fit nicely here.

From there he went over to UMass in 2002, which was about to be hit with a $40 million loss in state funding. He played hatchet man and cut programs and laid off workers, while doing the ever-popular raising of student fees.

I know that makes me cringe a little, but Lombardi also pushed UMass away from reliance on state funds. He created the UMass Amherst Foundation, which has raised about $144 million in private funds.

"Dr. Lombardi does not enjoy working within the university system," said Stephen Uhlfelder, University of Florida chairman of the Board of Regents. I'm left looking at that quote wondering if it is a bad thing.

Our Board of Supervisors has a Union fee increase on its agenda for July, and, yes, that is the one that 51 percent of us voted against.

"The public is very eager to see tuition cut to the lowest possible level. On the other hand, all the consumers of higher education want the best possible quality," Lombardi said of a tuition increase at the University of Florida. It's true, it's eloquent, and hearing something like that might have inclined more of us to give up a few bucks for a shiny, new union.

He seems to get the job done, despite his rocky past. We already have a rocketman with our beloved Chancellor, so maybe a rock star is right up our alley.




Supreme Court denies racial roulette
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 7/3/07 Section: Opinion

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

That was Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s words this past Thursday. The Supreme Court restricted the abilities of public schools to use race as a factor of determining who can attend, potentially causing a great deal of disruption to the integration programs across the nation.

This decision was notably split with heavy opposition on both sides. This is one decision that "the court and the nation will come to regret," Justice Stephen G. Breyer said.

Though it might not seem so, this ruling actually came about not as a motion to keep certain kids out of schools, but to allow children to go to their neighborhood or choice schools and not be turned away because the school had too many of their race already attending.

The decision is an interesting one because it raises the idea of what qualifications we can and should look at in our students. Should we look at race as a defining feature? How about gender, sexual preference or socio-economic backgrounds?

I know people like me in all of those ways, but we are still different - we are still individuals.

Perhaps the trick is to look for patterns that are multifaceted. If a group of students who are of the same race, gender, and economic class, or another set of common, factors are all performing poorly, we can base decisions on that.

If one school has too great of a difference on students across multiple levels, perhaps the district lines for the school can be redrawn to include more of the community.

We are in an era of political correctness, but we cannot let that stand in the way of common sense. If there is a community of white, black, Hispanic, etc. that all tend to go to a community school, it might not be smart to bus them out to other parts of the city in the name of diversity.

I went to schools with temporary buildings, sometimes no air conditioning, cracked walls, and I know a fair amount of you did too. These problems existed regardless of the percentage of different races in the school.

We cannot let our public schools decay in front of us, we cannot praise some and refuse to fix others. We need to repair all of our schools, and not ever be shown a statistic on race when it comes to where we are putting our money.




No 'vroom' at the inn
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 6/26/07 Section: Opinion

Ever wonder what Jesus would do if he were in the driver seat when that SUV cut you off? Now we may have a little insight.

Two weeks ago, the Vatican issued the Drivers' Ten Commandments, which sadly did not originate with the majesty of the previous 10.

The interesting thing about this coming out of the thousand car Vatican City is that it has not seen an accident in about a year and a half. It is good that the church recognizes some of problems of its people, but do we need a decree to tell us not to drive like idiots?

"You shall not kill," tops the list off, making its way up from sixth on the original ten. In a move to modernize, "thou" is now "you." I'm sure some like this, but I wonder if we lose the anger and scariness of a faceless wrath which previously commanded a slew of "thou shalt nots."

The rest of the list deals with things like not driving under the influence, helping the victims of accidents and their families, and convincing kids and the "not so young" to not drive.

The list also warns against using your car as "an occasion of sin." So beware, kids on Lovers' Lane, Jesus is watching when you fog up those windows, and he does not like what he sees.

The eighth commandment was actually a really nice touch. It calls for us to bring together guilty motorists and the victims to heal.
While it seems like this reunion would either happen in court or be accompanied by another brawl, hopefully they have it right.

The ninth and tenth are a tag team that could have really been the only two - "On the road, protect the more vulnerable party. Feel responsible towards others."

These two capture a big part of how poorly we all drive. I'm guilty, as are most of us, of driving like a jerk, especially after someone else does. So maybe if we kept these few things in mind, the roads might be slightly less frustrating.

We should not need some outside institution to tell us not to drive like idiots, but we drive so poorly that it has come to this. Maybe now we can look to other areas to improve, before the Ten Commandments of Drunken Screaming gets sent our way.




Genes do not replace personal responsibility
From the tap
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 6/19/07 Section: Opinion

Happiness, aggression, anxiety, intelligence? Yeah, there's a gene for that.

Thanks mostly to the 2005 Human Genome Project, 92 percent of the human genome is mapped and considered "pragmatically complete." This means we can start to determine what those genes influence.

Genetics may show motivation, but we can't leave accountability behind in its wake. In the '70s, several defendants tried to use genetic research to negate their guilt, which was uniformly rejected by the courts.

The National Institute of Mental Health helped to identify the "aggression gene" and also linked that gene to impulsive violence and emotion regulation in 2006.

Also in 2006, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research uncovered evidence of a gene that appears to influence intelligence. They discovered that the dysbindin-1 gene is linked to general intelligence, as well as the prominence of schizophrenia.

Google the word "gene" or any characteristic, and you're likely to come across a scientific article that explains which gene controls it.

Discover Magazine is the latest outlet for this gene debate. Michael Abrams, biology columnist, brings up the idea of a gay gene in its June 2007 issue. He speaks of a gene believed to be linked to homosexuality in men but also to fertility in women. He said, "the environment a child grows up in has nothing to do with what makes most gay men gay."

But researcher Brian Mustanski, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said, "since sexual orientation is such a complex trait… it's going to be a combination of various genes acting together as well as possibly interacting with environmental influences."

They both show correlation, not causality. Our scientific community does not know enough about genetics to say that a specific gene can cause a specific behavior or characteristic.

This debate will continue. Some people are calling for further research and others calling for cessation. Some people are even looking to research to point to a "cure," a gene we can turn off and on to control the traits of our kids.

Humanity is like Christopher Columbus when it comes to genetics - making new smaller discoveries and on the cusp of making something great but with great potential to make mistakes. We can't yet reach a point where we use genetics to explain behavior. We can say that things are more likely to happen, but we can't ignore personal responsibility.



Buying textbooks is a tricky business
by Geoff Whiting
Issue date: 6/12/07 Section: Opinion

Textbooks will eat your soul.

Well, not your soul so much as your wallet. I dropped about $550 for a spring intersession class and another $150 on textbooks, and I must say the light-weight feeling of my wallet is a little disheartening.

Walking up to the counter with your armful of books, your heart drops because you know that when the books are rung up, Ramen will become a larger part of your diet. College Board, the testing group that has brought us gems like the SAT and AP tests reported book costs for the 2005-2006 academic year ranged from $801 to $904 per student.

Seriously.

Now, as much as I do like to complain about our bookstores, I stumbled across something that made me wonder if my grumbling is truly justified. The National Association of College Stores, which puts out an "FAQ on College Textbooks," said after paying all the expenses of buying from the publisher and store operations, "a college store makes about four cents for every dollar's worth of new textbooks sold." So, the LSU Bookstore made a whopping six-dollar profit off me.

I think I may have misplaced my anger. It seems like my wrath should be visited upon the publishers rather than the awkward woman who can only give me five bucks during buyback. I had the brilliant idea a few semesters back to buy my books online and stick it to the man. You see, the international English versions of textbooks are often a good bit cheaper-some even 25 percent cheaper according to the NACS. I enjoyed the money I saved and was proud of my defiance against those who were plundering my bank account.

But I was played.

The reason those books are so cheap on the Internet is because the United States book publishers sell them abroad to wholesalers at hugely-discounted rates. They still have my money.

These prices grow at twice the rate of inflation and wonder how we can pull off affording our books with our impressive paying jobs. Not everyone comes here with tons of cash. There are laws people are trying to pass, groups urging teachers to chose cheaper books and many people begging publishers to drop costs. They haven't gone far. Until things change, I'm going to keep buying my books on the Internet, checking them out from the library or borrowing them from classmates. I urge you to do the same.