FORUM
“The poor need lower food prices now. But the world’s agricultural trading system is stuck in the past,” -Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank . [bbc.com]
PEOPLE ON THE STREET
Thursday, April 3, 2008 4
If you could go anywhere in the world no matter what the cost, where would it be and why?
“ Paris! I don’t have a ligit reason as to why though.”
“France, because I speak some French. And I would go there to learn it better.”
“Australia, so I can see the enormous spiders and the coral reef.”
“ Why would I ever want to leave Bowling Green? It’s so swwweeett.”
KALEIGH BENZ, Sophomore, IPC
TAURENCE ARMSTRONG, Junior, Journalism
SARAH JOHNSON, Sophomore, Journalism
NICK REINBOLD, Junior, Journalism
VISIT US AT BGNEWS.COM Have your own take on today’s People On The Street? Or a suggestion for a question? Give us your feedback at bgnews.com.
USG elections are over, looking forward to seeing them next April KAMPIRE BAHANA COLUMNIST
If you heard this week’s announcement on John Waynick winning the USG presidential election and your first reaction was, “who?”, then don’t feel alone. It is an experience you share with thousands of other University students over the years who don’t recognize the people who are supposed to represent them to the University administration. If, like me, you had a vague
idea of who the candidates were (at least the ones you intended on voting for) and then clicked through to vote and were met by a bewildering list of potential USG senators, none of whose names you had ever even heard of, well, then, at least you’re in good company. I wonder how many of the new senators achieved their positions through people like us, who clicked all the options, none of the options or went for the eeny-meenyminey-mo option. If you didn’t bother voting at all because you didn’t know the candidates, didn’t care about the issues or had just
“After popping up like brightly-colored desert flowers, USG has burrowed back into the earth to hibernate until next year. ” heard all the promises about shuttles and textbooks before, then count yourself among the majority of the student body. Columns have been written before about the lack of visibility of USG. It obviously bears mentioning again now that another election has gone by. After popping up like brightly-colored desert flowers, USG has burrowed back into the earth to hibernate until next year. Ask Hilary Clinton
— hanging Sharpie-stained white sheets outside the Union the week before elections does not count as a campaign. How am I supposed to get a feel about a candidate when I’ve never heard him speak? When I’ve never been accosted by her in the Union, insisting that the most important thing I do that day is read the flier she’s handing me? When I’ve never even had the pleasure of seeing him or
Cross-voting is as democratic as it gets SEAN MARTIN COLUMNIST
What goes around comes around. I applaud the efforts of Republican voters that had the stomach to cross the line and vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. People that were SS guards at Treblinka have an easier time admitting what they did. They crossed over and voted for Clinton or Obama because they like one more than the other. On the Republican side there is no contest, and as someone that believes in the democratic process, I don’t blame anyone. This was a case where a race was underway and their vote would matter. Apparently, supporting actions like this make me an evil enemy of democracy and America in the eyes of some. A lot of you are probably thinking: “Big deal ,Sean, I already thought you were a sociopath and evil as hell.” As of writing this, many are still members of the Democratic Party. And based upon what I have been reading, I am deeply concerned. The Plain Dealer, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and some media personalities have said that the voters who crossed over should be arrested and charged as a felon for switching parties. It appears that those who crossed over and voted for Democrats are accused of committing “voter fraud.” Personally, all I see is “one man, one vote.” Those that did vote for Hillary or Barack voted once and only once. So much for Democracy and the freedom of choice and expression by telling people who they can and cannot vote for. I find this particularly confusing when I consider that the Clinton and Obama campaigns actually called me up to vote for them. So the Clinton and Obama people were calling to
her publicly embarrassed in a debate? How can I be sure that a candidate represents me and my concerns when we’ve never had a conversation? Nobody asked me how I’m doing or how my classes are going or what I want to see USG achieve this school year. How can candidates claim to represent the student body, in all its diversity — from the sorority girl from Elyria, the 30-year-old freshman commuter from Toledo — when they spent only a week campaigning? Ours is not so large a campus that students courting our vote can’t make more of an effort to
See MARTIN | Page 5
THE BG NEWS LISA HALVERSTADT, EDITOR IN CHIEF 210 West Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio 43403 | Phone: (419) 372-6966 E-mail: thenews@bgnews.com Web site: http://www.bgnews.com Advertising: 204 West Hall | Phone: (419) 372-2606
See BAHANA | Page 5
Religious groups flourish on campus
“Hell, this is even more invasive than the Patriot Act and FISA.” encourage illegal activity? No, they called to get people to vote for them. A concern I had, though, is why they had to fill out a pledge about their loyalty and beliefs to the party. What kind of system claims that this is at all good for democracy? Pledging loyalty to a party and its ideas in America today is mind-boggling since both sides change not necessarily the issues themselves, but their priority. As a Republican, I sure did not like all the issues out there. And even now, I don’t agree with everything. Some in the Ohio Democratic Party wanted to know who I and everyone else voted for, and wanted to put innocent people in jail for exercising their rights. Now the upholders of the people’s rights want to search Internet forums to find out who posted threads, bragging of crossing over. Since when have we people thought it was OK to do Internet searches and loyalty checks by inspecting secret ballots? Hell, this is even more invasive than the Patriot Act and FISA. This really makes us as an entire nation look like jackbootwearing bastards. Telling me those voters undermined democracy is disgusting and hypocritical. Do you really think John McCain won all the hearts of every Republican who already voted? (I say this in jest if you cannot figure it out.) Hardly. Many independents and others crossed over. I think it is more than likely that Democrats voted for old Johnny and thought they could stick it to the GOP. They wanted to put a bad candidate up
be visible on campus months before the actual election. It is not too busy a campus to start a conversation with someone in the Starbucks line about meal plan rollover. Our students are not so dull and unimaginative that we cannot get a vibrant election going, with more than a measly 20 percent of undergrads bothering to cast a vote. Our academic calendar is not so full that we cannot devote more than a week or two to serious campaigning by both presidential and senatorial candidates.
MARISHA PIETROWSKI COLUMNIST
MARK GOREY | THE BG NEWS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The best candidate won, no scandal about it When I picked up Wednesday’s BG News I was so excited to see John Waynick and Sundeep Mutgi on the front page after a fantastic victory in the recent Undergraduate Student Government campaign. However, I was not so fond of the article found directly below it. Not only was I taken aback by the article, “USG campaign not without Controversy,” it also confirmed exactly why I voted for and supported Waynick and Mutgi from the very beginning. While I understand that some of the candidates had concerns about others’ campaigns, I cannot help but notice the blatant scrutiny that the other candidates had in reference to Waynick and Mutgi. One candidate made the comment, “I feel that they should have been disqualified because they’re cheaters,” then left a Facebook status message claiming “cheaters never prosper,” which made it that much more clear that the student body voted correctly in these elections. The University prides itself in having outstanding leaders who dedicate themselves to not only the campus and community but to integrity and values. Why would we want someone in office who openly speaks
negatively about another student on campus? The USG president needs to be someone who the student body can respect, admire and, most importantly, trust. After the comments made by Jarell Potts, it is no wonder why we, the student body, did not trust his character and select to put him in office. Leadership is about taking the high road even when you may have disagreements. It is about knowing the difference between holding your head high or being an obvious sore loser, even after losing a hard-fought battle. You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership. After four years of being a student leader myself, I can safely say that there are not two better people than John Waynick and Sundeep Mutgi to take USG to the next level, and I cannot wait to see what great things they have in store for the University. —Ashley Howard is a senior majoring in interpersonal communications.
In Monday’s USA Today, an editorial by Tom Krattenmaker addressed a long-held stereotype about college campuses. Krattenmaker discussed the idea that students yield an endless supply of religious apathy and that young adults lose any god-fearing bones they have in their bodies the second they arrive for freshman orientation. The campuses are, as Krattenmaker says, “viewed by many as bastions of liberal secularism, the places where religious faith goes to die.” Krattenmaker asks, “Is God silenced on college campuses?” Or is the conversation simply changing?” When I arrived on campus last fall, I certainly assumed that the former question would be the truth. I spent my elementary and most of my high school years enrolled in Catholic schools, and, strange as this may seem, many of my classmates were rather apathetic and turned off by the idea of practicing religion and openly talking about their faith. I was one of the few people I knew who went to church on a weekly basis, and this number dwindled when I attended a public high school. As a result, I naturally assumed that I would once again be in the minority when I came to the University. I believed the stereotypes Krattenmaker describes, and
“ I was astounded at the amount of religious groups on campus.” the “conventional wisdom [that] ... from the Ivy Leagues to the brainiac liberal arts colleges to the major public universities, God has been silenced.” Very quickly, I was proven incorrect. I was astounded at the amount of religious groups on campus and how many of the people I met were involved in these groups, or, like myself, attended some sort of religious service at home. I was somewhat baffled. You’re telling me that college students don’t have to abandon any religious or spiritual beliefs and begin denouncing a higher power or become interested in “trendy Eastern or New Age religions” in order to achieve higher education? Krattenmaker quotes former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who said that “for years, our colleges and universities have shown themselves to be hostile to the rights and dignities of religious students.” While I didn’t expect the open hostility Meese spoke of when I arrived on campus, I certainly did not expect so many of the people I would come in contact with to be religious either. Sophomore Ryan Sparks, who is a member of CRU, told me that he too held the same misconceptions about college and religious involvement. “I thought I’d have to find
See MARISHA | Page 5
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