OPINION PEOPLE ON THE STREET
“It was miserable; it sucked; it was terrible. Besides that, it was fine.” —Tennis player Andy Roddick, on his Australian Open loss, from Newsweek.com
Monday, January 29, 2007 4
Should the national minimum wage be raised to $7.10?
“Yes, because the price of living has gone up so much these past few years.”
“Sure, I guess because a lot of people don’t make that much.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary.”
CHRIS SOJAK, Freshman, Journalism
EDDIE KIPCHOGE, Sophomore, Environmental Policy
CAROLYN NESLINE, Freshman, Undecided
“Yeah, it should be raised due to inflation.”
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TRAVIS NEUMEYER, Junior, ILA
Have your own take on today’s People On The Street? Or a suggestion for a question? Give us your feedback at bgnews.com.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Competition can only help education initiatives As an Early Childhood Education major, I can concede that No Child Left Behind is flawed on several levels. I disagree that standardized testing is the key to show student progress and learning and I do agree that teachers end up “teaching to the tests.” Mr. Szabelski’s points out that giving families a choice and allowing children of lower socio-economic backgrounds access to private schools through vouchers “will not solve the problem.” I could not disagree more. Perhaps a little healthy competition is needed and would wake up the Public school systems in the United States. Allowing parents to have a choice in their child’s education would make schools take responsibility of how their school performs. They need to step up, instead of complaining about being accountable. Companies compete for our business everyday, as adults we have choices; but we continually tell our children they do not. Throwing more money at the failing public schools will not make the problem go away. Besides, if private schools are good enough for Chelsea Clinton and other liberal offspring (I highly doubt they stepped foot in a D.C. Public School), it should be good enough for my son. — Renee Daley, Senior, Education, ardaley@bgsu.edu
USG depends on student voices to function Please note: I am currently a member of USG, but I am writing on my own behalf, not the rest of USG. It is always great to hear student concerns through the BGNews. Unfortunately, this is rarely happens. Not too much gets accomplished in USG because they do not get student concerns and this is something USG relies on. This has also been a problem over the past few years. Since USG does not get too many student concerns, they
try to educate the undergraduate student body with open forums on issues dealing with the November Election, BG1 Card and Bursar, and Rollover Dollars, which has low attendance. I still often talk to students who still do not know that they are grandfathered in to receive rollover dollars and this only affects incoming freshman next year. So how does USG function without student concerns? USG takes in the concerns of some administrators. This is where the “Orange and Brown” Campaign developed — some faculty do not see enough BG Pride on this campus. Some senators work internally, such as considering a bicameral legislation. These senators might be thinking that this could help USG function even better and get more issues taken care of. Most senators are working on external issues, but it is often not seen nor heard. The Student Welfare Committee is currently working on getting a downtown shuttle service for nighttime and weekends. Others work with the administration by sitting on standing committees within the university. But remember, USG votes based on student concerns — not the senator’s opinions of the issues. So talk to your senator! And if you do not know who your senator is, check out USG’s Web site. It takes the initiative of YOU as a student to make a change at this university. — Coleen Verbus, Senior, Public Relations, cverbus@bgsu.edu
University needs more security for campus lots The recent vandalism of cars in lot six is an outrage. It makes you wonder how safe are your vehicles in on campus lots? Twenty or more cars were broken into and the police say they are working leads, but in the mean time what are they doing to better the security out in the lots? They are so worried about busting college kids drinking
that they don’t worry about the vehicles and the thousands of dollars in damage that was done. The University prides itself on safety but if it is that easy for someone to break into that many cars in one or two days how safe are we? My car along with two other of my fraternity brothers were broken into along with many other people. They called one of my brothers to tell him about his car but the only reason I found out about mine is because I went out and found it broken into. Then when I called to report they said they already knew and tried to contact me. I may have moved from my previous on campus residence last semester but I filed all the right paper work so you would think they knew I moved. My car just sat out there for two days and anyone could have broken into again. That is serious negligence on the part of the university and I am extremely disappointed in the University. While it is not there fault that the cars were broken into they still hold some responsibility in contacting us about vandalism and providing security if we have to pay to park on campus. — Justin Albright, Freshman, Political Science, ajustin@bgsu.edu
All the statistics on higher education On Thursday, Rev. Jesse Jackson pointed out that doctors in India pay $40,000 to attend medical schools while the doctors in the USA pay $100,000. Rev. Jackson’s remarks draw our attention to the high cost of education here but cost is just one dimension of the picture. He could have also pointed out that the per capita income in India is less than $800 while the per capita income in the USA is more than $41,000, and further compared the two countries on the level of motivation to get higher education. — Sachidanandam Sakthive, Faculty, College of Business Administration, ssakthi@bgsu.edu.
Keep minimum wage down DANIEL LIPIAN COLUMNIST
I’m sure most of you know by now that the Democrat controlled House recently passed a bill to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 within the next few years. You’ve probably also heard nothing but high praise for this initiative, which, according to Democrats, would lift the income of 13 million American workers — 5.6 million of which earn the current minimum wage and 7.4 million just above that level
— and help reduce the poverty situation in this country. Well I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you have all been deceived. Increasing the minimum wage will do absolutely nothing to fix poverty in this country and is a completely unnecessary economic aberration for a number of reasons. According to the U.S. Department of Labor: The majority of people earning minimum wage or less tend to be young, single workers between the ages of 16 and 25. In fact, only about two percent of workers over 25 years of age earn minimum wages. But that’s not all. According to the U.S. Bureau
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of Labor Statistics: 63 percent of minimum wage workers receive raises within one year of employment, and only 5.3 percent are from households below the poverty lines. That’s right, only 5.3 percent. And even more surprising is that 40 percent of minimum wage earners aren’t homeless and living on the streets, nor are they McDonald’s workers who sleep in shacks like the politicians claim. Instead these individuals live in households with incomes of $60,000 or higher! Now any rational thinker would realize these facts prove pretty conclusively that low wages aren’t as big a problem as
See WAGES | Page 5
MCT
Catching predators or entrapment? JON BOSSCHER COLUMNIST NBC has struck ratings gold with its series “To Catch a Predator,” now preparing to release a new set of episodes. Working with a (paid) online advocacy group, Perverted Justice, Chris Hansen of “Dateline NBC” humiliates would-be sexual predators on an almost nightly basis. While the show clearly makes for compelling television, it also begs some nagging questions about medialaw enforcement cooperation and the nature of what has been characterized as the “growing threat” of Internet predation. A typical episode proceeds like a nightmarish combination of “Candid Camera” and “COPS.” The staff at the internet watchdog group Perverted Justice lure overweight, 40-something computer programmers into saying explicit things in chat rooms by pretending to be 14 year-olds interested in kinky sex with some old guy they’ve never met. While NBC claims that the men “usually” initiate any talk of sex, it is unclear how often the zealots at Perverted Justice broach the topic. Nor is it known how many of the men for whom this is the first time in a decade a member of the opposite sex — regardless of age — has paid them the slightest attention. Once the potential predator is enticed into making contact with the decoy, often by driving hundreds of miles, he is told to show up at a suburban house rigged with hidden cameras. In the latest season, he is then met by a girl who flirts with him for a bit, heightening the drama. She soon disappears saying, “I just need to get changed. I have a surprise for you.” That’s when Dateline’s Grand Inquisitor
LAREN WEBER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR CANDICE JONES, CAMPUS NEWS EDITOR LISA HALVERSTADT, CITY NEWS EDITOR ALISON KEMP, FEATURES EDITOR DAVE HERRERA, IN FOCUS EDITOR AMANDA HOOVER, OPINION EDITOR TIFFANY GORBY, COPY CHIEF JOHN TURNER, SPORTS EDITOR CHELCI HOWARD, PULSE EDITOR JASON RENTNER, PHOTO EDITOR RACHEL GREENFIELD, DESIGN EDITOR BRANDON NOBLE, ONLINE EDITOR
Chris Hansen appears with a snappy line like, “I’ll bet I’m not the surprise you had bargained for.” As Hansen proceeds humiliating the man, seemingly prodding the audience into forming an impromptu lynch mob, one feels almost sympathetic toward the clueless perpetrator. Even while Hansen attempts to manipulate the audience into revulsion through out-loud recitation of the man’s lurid chat log, a visit to the “To Catch a Predator” Web site, where the full logs are available, reveals that the decoys typically engage in equally explicit conversation. While a highly popular program, “To Catch a Predator” fails in its aim to portray these predators as truly threatening. If anything they are merely pathetic, and clearly frightened out of their minds. In one episode, one of them men hooked by this televised sting operation turned out to be a little person. Hansen jeered in the voice-over because this predator “was only five feet tall.” Scary. Not only is he into young girls but he looks different from the rest of us too. Perhaps the only people on the show competing with the predators for the title of “World’s Most Pathetic Imbecile” are the Keystone Cops that nab the guys after Hansen is done raking them over the coals. While the online predator does his best to let the officers arrest him, they proceed to tackle guy and stand on his trachea as though they had just pulled bin Laden from a Pakistani cave. I wonder who was more excited: the predator at the prospect of sex with a minor, or the cops at getting license to rough-up a suspect? “To Catch a Predator” paints a picture of a growing epidemic of child predation across the country. However, existing data doesn’t seem to bear out this conclusion. Statistics released by the Center for Missing and
Exploited Children indicate that just two teenagers — out of a sample of 1700 internet users — suffered a sexual assault as a result of their online activity. And as Dave Chapelle asked, “How old is 15, really?” Is it old enough to have developed the judgement to handle all of life’s complicated scenarios? No. Is it old enough to know you don’t want to be taught sex acts by a 54 year-old carpet cleaner from Pasadena who knows barely more about sex than you? Yes. As long as ratings remain strong, ‘To Catch a Predator’ will remain on the air and continue to portray itself as though it is providing a public service. Yet one wonders whether this is not a case of a news program creating the news rather than reporting it. How many of these cases would exist if the program and their cohorts in Perverted Justice weren’t trolling for them? For that matter, how many teenagers even visit chat rooms? Didn’t those stop being cool in about 1998? Ultimately, it is important to remember that the program’s ratings depend on there being a great number of sexual predators out there. If there weren’t, they wouldn’t have anyone to humiliate and NBC would be unable to employ fear in order to twist viewer’s emotions. To be sure, the men who foolishly respond to the thinlyveiled scam of the good folks at Perverted Justice — whose idea of a fun Saturday afternoon is fishing for sexual predators online — are wholly indefensible both for their intentions and utter stupidity. Still, the willingness of Chris Hansen and NBC to hold the alleged intentions of their prey as an insurance policy against charges of entrapment and exploitation hardly leave them with a better defense.
Send comments to Jon Bosscher at jbossh@bgsu.edu.
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