4A - Friday, September 14, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com '1 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu a KARL STAMPFL EDITOR IN CHIEF IMRAN SYED EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR JEFFREY BLOOMER MANAGING EDITOR A Guantanamo Berkeley? It's ridiculous." - American Indian activist Zachary Running Wolf denouncing the construction of a fence around historic trees that the University of California at Berkeley plans to cut down to make way for a new athletic facility. Activists opposed to Berkeley's plans have been holed up in the trees for several months, as reported yesterday by The New York Times. The mirage of distribution Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Trivial pursu it Remotes serve no new purpose, ignore real issue There is a new technology being employed in some lec- tures around campus that aims at improving lecture attendance and involvement by tying in certain incen- tives - such as a good chunk of your overall grade. These devices seem to be lecturers' dreams come true, enabling them to put students on the spot with quick quizzes to ensure that they pay attention. However, Quizdom remotes add little to the lecture learning environment and cannot succeed in increasing atten- dance because of loopholes sure to be exploited by students intent on doing things their way. They are a poor subsitute for solving the real problem - that lectures are simply too big. t all began when I took a box of Quaker Oats chewy granola bars off the shelf. In the past, my per- sonal relationship with granola bars was simple. I need- ed the food, and Mr. Quaker had the oats: in a wrapper, 0 in my backpack," in between classes and impervious to - contamination. GAVIN "Or is it?" asked STERN the deep, ominous voice-of-reason in my head. I dropped the box. "Don't you know those granola bars could be imports from China?" the voice sad. Let's take a step back. I'm just look- ing for a decent, American granola bar for my between-class sustenance. This task should not require auditory hallucinations. Maybe I brought it upon myself- I knew I shouldn't have brushed with that antifreeze-laced toothpaste or played with my lead-, painted Dora the Explorer dolls before going food shopping. Yet with so much anecdotal evi- dence, I had to at least read the fine print. The box said it was distributed by something-something in Chicago, Ill. That sounds fine - what beef could Illinois possibly have with me? But just because those snacks are distributed from Illinois does not mean that they were made domestically, the voice reminded me. They still could have been imported from - and contami- nated in - China. This is serious business, indeed. Perhaps these Quaker granola bars aren't really made from scratch in the mountains of Pennsylvania by devout Quakers. Why do they have to hide under the guise of distribution? Have I stumbled upon an international gra- nola conspiracy? How very Nicolas Cage of me. And if so, what happened to all the good, unionized, blue-collar- working-class-American granola fac- tory workers? I tried another box, Nature's Val- ley. But did my fresh bounty really grow from natural granola deposits in a valley in Americana? Again, the box said, "Distributed by ... " The ambigu- ity really began to frighten me. I can imagine a global corporation distrib- uting outsourced granola by trucking it through Nature's Valley. On freshly paved asphalt. How about the local brand then? That should eliminate the need for burdensome investigative shopping. Meijer carries its own brand from local vendors. This is the Midwest, after all - where food is grown, squashed, cut and milked into little wrapped pack- ages for easy consumption. It's the Americanway.wSurely, I mustbe able to find home-grown granola here. Nope. Now I felt the aisles closing in. Sud- denly, the boxes of granola I was hold- ing didn't look so friendly - despite the assurances of Mr. Quaker's glowingred cheeks, Nature Valley's scenic vistas and Mr. Meijer's curvaceous signature. I began to plunder the rest of my shop- ping cart for answers. The truth, how- ever, was anecdotally mind-blowing. The only item I could find that was clearly "Made in the USA" was Mei- jer-brand tomato sauce. The Prego and Ragu did not specify the country of ori- gin. The cans of tuna fish I got on sale were pretty honest at least, but I don't knowmuch aboutSingapore otherthan it's on the same continent as China. I fell to.my knees in despair. Holding back tears and concerned onlookers, I cried out to the glowing white ware- house lights for a savior. I needed to know that someone, somewhere cares about the safety of my food. But then, peering into the florescent cosmos, I came to a profound realization. Maybe it doesn't matter where all our food comes from. It absolutely has tobe safe because there's an entire government agency dedicated to certifying and screening out the bad apples. Buthow would the government even know? The best apples all come from Chile. I don'tunderstandhowthe educated American shopper let this un-informa- tion slip by. Most ofus eat at least three times a day; somebody should have noticed. It's bad enough that American companies are turning toward import- Paying a little extra for an American snack ed food instead of things that could as easily be grown here; they should at least disclose the country of origin. Yes, even for granola bars. I would have bought an American snack for a little extra - I still trust the government's inadequate over- sight more than most. The alternative would be to keep playing Russian rou- lette with a fork. And even though few people have become ill from contami- nated imports, eventually someone you know.is going to get poked because of lax regulations of foreign governments concerned only about profits for their companies. And you know what? That fork was probably made in China, too. Gavin Stern can be reached at gavstern@umich.edu. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the joys of Quizdom, it is a sort of sadistic version of polling the audience on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." Profes- sors typically use these hand-held remotes for attendance and in-lecture quizzes, because the remotes automatically iden- tify students by UMID. Say so long to the days of midterms, finals and the occasional paper making up your grade. Instead, stu- dents are now paying $32.02 for a device that effectively makes lecture attendance a requirement. The remotes seem able to do little more than attendance, pop quizzes and in-class surveys. If attendance or pop quizzes are the key, there are less complicated, less expensive ways to badger students with them. Many classes use Scantrons for this exact purpose. It seems that the most successful use of the Quizdom remotes is surveying the class to gauge understand- ing. Yet, University professors have been asking questions in class for this very pur- pose since 1817. What is wrong with rais- ing hands? Is a little human-to-human interaction really so objectionable? Will our understanding jump significantly now that we have remotes? It is doubtful that this extra expense, in both time and money, will have a profound impact on our educational experience. It's still far-too easy to get around the require- ments. In a large lecture, who's to say that it's actually you - and not a friend you paid to take your remote - that was counted as present? And why force students to attend in the first place? These are the students who would show up and sleep in class any- way. If they want to waste their tuition dollars by ignoring lectures, they should be able to do it. If students' grasp of the material really needs to be tested, it's unwise to be dumb- ing down knowledge quizzes into electron- ic, button-press responses just to include the slackers. This could actually hurt stu- dents who are engaged in the material and should be challenged. Finally, students with a genuine rea- son for missing their regular lecture and attending another lecture of the same class now face an additional hurdle. Such quirks of the Quizdom system slow down and complicate lectures. College learning is impersonal enough without watering it down even further to the point where you never even have to open your mouth. Remote responses are no substitute for speaking up in class and having classmates and professors respond. The real solution here is reducing class sizes. Don't tell me what to do Editorial Board Members: Ben Caleca, Mike Eber, Brian Flaherty, Emmarie Huetteman, Kellyn Jackson, Gavin Stern, Jennifer Sussex, Neil Tambe, Radhika Upadhyaya. I R SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU Student hardships can't nationwide prefer working with private, non- profit and state-based loan providers. compare to actual poverty Kevin Bruns The letter writer is executive director ofAmerica's Do you remember wanting to scream "Don't tell me what to do!" at your parents as they pressured you to apply to business or engineering school Or maybe you told off your friend who said that you party too much or play too many video games. This is college; A no one can tell you what to do. But PATRICK little do you know ZAWABA that your small- scale rebellion is happening on a larger stage. The state of Michigan thinks that it can tell the University what to do. The voters of the state have decided that they don't like the University's decisions and they are going toforce the University to change them. In November 2004, voters approved a measure to allow only heterosexual marriages in the state of Michigan, which could have been used to pre- vent the University from offering health benefits to same-sex partners of its employees. Last year, in a ballot proposal aimed directly at ending one factor in the University's admission policy, the voters banned public insti- tutions from using affirmative action. As a public institution that relies on state funding, the University can- not completely stop the state from intervening in its affairs. But those two ballot initiatives had nothing to do with improving the quality of edu- cation at the University. They were approved simply because some in the state disagreed with the University's guidelines. Each voter thought that his or her opinion on marriage and affir- mative action was right and that they somehow had the right to enforce that opinion on this institution. Similarly, there are people all over Ann Arbor trying to tell students what to do. There are those who want to raise the gas tax to prevent me from buying a gas-guzzling SUV. I'm com- petent enough to choose my own car, thank you very much. Ann Arbor recently banned bottled water at city sponsored events. Some students are still trying to keep the rest of us from drinking Coke products because the Coca-Cola Company has allegedly committed labor violations in its fac- tories overseas. I commend such an effort, but I don't understand why other students think forcing a ban on Coke is logical. We can just walk across the street and buy it off-cam- pus anyway. It's not that I want to buy a huge SUV, harm factory workers or pol- lute the planet, I'll think twice about the water bottles or cars I buy and the amount of waste they produce with or without the laws. I can make my own decisions. Your opinion is welcome, but ycur coercion is not. Just as the University should be granted the full spirit of its constitu- The University can make its own decisions. tional autonomy from the state, stu- dents should be trusted to run their own lives. Coercing us to buy a smaller car or preventing us from drinking Coke or bottled water is to say that we're not capable of making decisions. It's an insult to our intelligence and our ability to function as humanbeings It's your life. Don't go to B-school if you don't want to. After all, we're all adults here. Patrick Zabawa can be reached at pzabawa@umich.edu. 4 TO THE DAILY: It is deceptive to compare the living condi- tions of University students, who live in Ann Arbor, with the living conditions of an average American living in poverty. Such a compari- son has no value. Yet Magazine Editor Anne VanderMey uses this misleading association to imply that University students are worse off than Americans living in poverty (Forget the needy. Save a college student, 09/12/2007). She complains that a higher percentage of the poor have air conditioners than Univer- sity students..But this makes sense if you con- sider that air conditioners are a necessity in the much hotter climates of southern states, where, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, half of all impoverished Americans live. Regardless of restrictions on students, Van- derMey fails to consider that Americans living in poverty do not have meal plans where they can receive unlimited food in cafeterias. It is unfortunate VanderMey's conclusion is a justification for not helping the poor. She would be wise to consider that the average American living in poverty will never go to college and never live in as nice or safe a neighborhood as most University-students live in right now. Dean W. Baxtresser First-year law student Governmentfunded loans would cost too much TO THE DAILY: The Daily's editorial about student loans and Pell Grants (A wish half granted, 09/13/2007) asks readers: What is stopping our Democratic Congress : from revisiting former President Bill Clinton's idea - replac- ing the lender-based federal student loan program with the U.S. Department of Edu- cation's federal direct loan program? One answer is that it would cost a lot of money. With the $22 billion cuts in lender subsidies just passed by Congress, the lender-based program is most likely now cheaper to run than the direct loan program. Another rea- son is that S in 10 schools in Michigan and Student Loan Providers, Washington, D.C. Meaning of 'safe sex' skewed by headline TO THE DAILY: In a front-page story in Wednesday's Daily (Want safe sex? It's going to cost you more, 09/12/2007) the term "safe sex" in the headline is misleading. Safe sex refers to ways to curb sexually teansmitted diseas- es. The contraceptives mentioned to in the article, however, are prescription birth con- trol, which by itself does not protect users against STDs. The headline should not have implied that using birth control medication equals practicing safe sex. Although the headline is catchy, it seemingly endorses the practice of using only birth control pills as a suitable method of safer sex. Marissa Gerber and Yuning Zhang The letter writers are members of The Michigan Daily business staff. Restaurant review mistakes food for crack TO THE DAILY: This letter is in response to the restau- rant review in last week's B-Side (A diner with class, 09/06/2007). That was the worst restaurant review I've ever read. Review the food, not the decor. Does a faddish interior deserve the first florid paragraphs, while the food is noted simply with "terrific," a "brine thing" and "bailer"? What does that mean? The writers could be describing liquid crack for all we know. Casual conversation can't adequately crit- icize food, and it fits a magazine more than a newspaper. The Daily's reviewers gawked at the food like kids at their first Happy Meal, while reserving thought for the pretty col- ors on the walls. That makes no sense. James Cho Engineering senior 0 ALEXANDER HONKALA 1 t #, : r' i'. j , _ ,..--. R ? 4 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Readers are encouraged to submit letters'to the editor. Letters should be under 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. All submissions become property of the Daily. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu. MORE ONLINE BLOGS U Read more analysis and per- spectives at michigandaily. com/thepodium. I