December 2014

TRUTH AND TWO STAPLES

DECEMBER 2014

Binghamton Review

ยกBienvenido a los Estados Unidos!

BINGHAMTON REVIEW

P.O. BOX 6000 BINGHAMTON, NY 13902-6000

EDITOR@BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM

Founded 1987 • DECEMBER 2014

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Contents

Daniel D. Milyavsky Managing Editor Samuel P. Bondy

Layout Editor

William Schneider

Treasurer

Jordan Raitses

Senior Editor Sean Glendon

Webmaster

Jordan Raitses

Contributors

Chris Gil, Luke Kusick

Patriarchs of the Review Aaron Ricks Adam Shamah

Binghamton Review is printed by Gary Marsden

We Provide the Truth, they Provide the Staples

Executive Out of Order

By Luke Kusck

PAGE #7

#6

#10

I Knew You Were Trouble When You Signed Up

by Sean Glendon Fighting Apathy: My Time as a Libertarian Conservative Warrior by Daniel Milyavsky

#12 To Better Profits or to Better the World

by Chris Gil #15

Food.edu by Jordan Raitses

Departments 3 4 5

EDITORIAL CAMPUS PRESSWATCH What you missed

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK! Direct letter to editor@binghamtonreview.com 2

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DECEMBER 2014

EDITORIAL

From the Editor

To my loyal readers, This is the last issue of the Review for which I will be the Editor-in-Chief. I am not graduating until the end of next semester, but after a year and a half at the helm here, it’s time for me to pass the torch. Sean Glendon will be the new Editor-in-Chief, and with the help of Jordan Raitses and William Schneider, I am certain that he will do a fantastic job. To those of you who are picking up the Review for the first or second time, you won’t very much care about this editorial, but I need to say this nonetheless.

There are several people I would like to thank.

was still in his first term. I appreciate the advice you’ve given me and the fact that you made the Review so influential while you were running it.

Aaron Ricks was the editor when I transferred into Binghamton, and he did an absolutely fantastic job running the review. Aaron, under your tenure, the Review featured a great mix of both local campus issues and national politics, and every issue was well done, hilarious, and poignant. Along with the rest of the senior editors, you got elected to the SA e-board at the end of my first semester here, but you did your utmost to help us run the Review next year.

Lillian Gerken from the Collegiate Network: Thank you so much for reaching out to us consistently, and even coming up for a visit. The support of ISI and CN has been a great morale boost to all of us and you are doing a terrific job running the CN.

Next, I would like to thank Jake Hayutin. At the end of my first semester here, you were elected Editor-in-Chief and I was elected Managing Editor. The Review was a true partnership, and our skillsets complimented each other very well.

Considering you had probably never opened Adobe InDesign before in your entire life, you did a great job with the layout and structure of every issue. You made sure we kept to deadlines and published issues in a timely manner. If you weren’t there that year, there is no way I’d have the skills I needed to be Editor-in-Chief myself.

Adam Shamah, Elahd Bar Shai, Mike Lombardi and Robert Menje: It’s awesome that you guys still care about the Review as much as you do even though you graduated while Obama editor@binghamtonreview.com

Sam Bondy, you’ve been my Managing Editor this past year and a half, and I couldn’t have done it without you. I still have no idea how to deposit a check into our account or do a fundraising supplement. You’ve supplied me with some great ideas.

Jordan Raitses, thanks for getting our website going, that was awesome. Billy Schneider, your layout help has been invaluable.

And to all of you who’ve been reading and enjoying the Review: you’re the reason I’ve been doing this, and it means so much to me that you will take time out of your day to read my diatribes.

I’m very lucky that Binghamton University has had the Binghamton Review since 1987. It’s been a cornerstone of my college experience.

Take care, and I wish all of you the best of luck.

-Dan Milyavsky

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CPampus resswatch

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Written by our Editor in Chief some! Maybe he should send double the amount of guns to Mexican drug cartels, or have the IRS target every registered Republican in America.

Editor’s Note: This is where we expose the mediocrity of other publications for their me. Since nobody else seems to be publishing right now, we’re just gonna pick on Pipe Dream this time.

Quotes from the article are in italics, and our comments are in bold.

Pipe Dream Obama far from a lame duck “Though the midterm elections were disastrous for liberals, they seem to have awakened a beast. President Barack Obama’s recent tour in Asia and Australia proves he’s capable of pushing the envelope.”

“In Beijing, Obama surprised everyone with a climate deal between the U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest polluters. The president announced that the U.S. would be moving much faster to reduce pollution, with the goal of reducing emissions by 26-28 percent by 2025.”

An abstract goal, with no specific policy recommendations behind it.

How impressive! Is that the kind of talent a Harvard degree buys you?

“The president also stated that the Keystone XL pipeline would not be a job creator. This comes as a surprise; it was predicted prior to this that Obama was likely to give into the pipeline as he expressed it was not a major concern of his.”

You know what’s also surprising? The fact that someone thinks that building a fucking massive pipeline that spans all the way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico won’t create any jobs! Are beavers going to build the pipe line?

This is too stupid for even Obama to believe, so I just did a quick Google search, and turns out, SURPRISE!, Pipe Dream’s opinion page has their facts wrong, and what Obama actually said was this: “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator. There is no evidence that that’s true. And my hope would be that any reporter who is looking at the facts would take the time to confirm that the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline -- which might take a year or two -- and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 [chuckles] jobs in a economy of 150 million working people.” Of course, Obama had to throw out that liberal “let’s look at the facts” fetish in there, as if libertarians and conservative are repulsed by and allergic to facts. Oh well.

Great, so the message our President takes away from elections in which his party got thoroughly beaten, largely as a result of his own unpopularity and ethical failures as a president, is that he has to be even more partisan and try even harder to alienate those who disagree with him? Awe4

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December 2014

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WHAT you missed *The Republicans won the Senate!

Woohoo! It was a happy night. This most likely won’t actually result in any policy changes, and they might lose it in 2016 when the electoral map is much more favorite for the Democrats, but it’s still great to see Harry Reid take a blow. Obama, of course, is reacting to the loss of his party, and thereby the public disapproval of him, as if it never happened, and is as intransigent as ever. *Two Palestinians viciously attacked a synagogue in Jerusalem, killing four innocent rabbis and a policeman who responded to the incident, who was actually Druze and not Jewish. The two attackers were killed in a shoot-out with police.

CNN reported the incident with the following deadline: “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians dead in Jerusalem.”

Bloggers in Israel had a macabre parody of this, coming up with headlines like “8 Saudi men die in plane accidents” next to a picture of the 9/11 attacks, or “12 Japanese pilots died in a crash” on top of a picture of Pearl Harbor. It’s unsettling, but the satire is quite accurate.

Go public education! As Nick Gillespie writes, “Anybody think this sort of shit would pass muster in a school system in which students and parents chose which schools to attend?” *Sweden is going to start ranking video games based on sexism. The guy in charge of developing this says, “it was unclear at this stage if all video games produced in Sweden would be given a label, or if companies developing games that promoted equality would be given some kind of certification to use for their own marketing purposes.” Great, now video games also

have to conform to feminist dogma. Is any aspect of culture safe? *The pension system of Illinois has liabilities of $300 billion, and is only 22 percent funded, meaning each resident of the state can owe almost $25,000 in debt. Illinois tried to modify its pension system, but then a county circuit court judge said that was unconstitutional, because the pensions were promised to the government employees. Shit like this only happens in the government sector (also called “the public sector”), never the free and voluntary economy (“private sector.”)

*Denny Peterson, a teacher in Stockton, CA, is on paid leave after he tried to force a 14 year old girl into a pool by attempting to drag her with all of his force. That’s right, PAID leave.

Our Mission

Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, student-run periodical of conservative thought at Binghamton University. A true liberal arts education expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent perspectives. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free exchange of ideas and offer an alternative viewpoint not normally found on our predominately liberal campus. It is our duty to expose the warped ideology of political correctness that dominates this university. We stand against tyranny in all its forms, both on campus and beyond. We believe in the principles set forth in this country’s Declaration of Independence and seek to preserve the fundamental tenets of Western civilization. Finally, we understand that a moral order is a necessary component of any civilized society. We strive to inform, engage, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.

editor@binghamtonreview.com

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I KNEW YOU WERE TROUBLE WHEN YOU SIGNED UP

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I Knew You were Trouble When You Signed Up Written By Sean Glendon Taylor Swift is having yet another highly publicized break-up, except this time it isn’t with a celebrity… it’s with popular music streaming service Spotify. Usually after a breakup, Swift makes a song *or album* dedicated to her new ex (think “ We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”). However, I have a feeling that Ms. Swift won’t be able to Shake it Off; she’ll be crawling back to Spotify at the end of this Love Story. See, Spotify will be Safe & Sound at the end of the day: Billboard and Nielson SoundScan will begin to include streaming as part of their album rankings. After this change, 1,500 album streams or the download of 10 individual tracks will equate to an album sale. This change is meant to track album consumption and popularity - not just record sales - and is the biggest tracking change by Billboard since 1991. With the possibility that an artist does not need to have the best selling album to top the charts, Everything has Changed in the music industry. (Yes, I did incorporate a bunch of Taylor Swift singles into the article. That just happened.) It’s hard to say that Taylor Swift doesn’t understand the music industry when she made nearly $40 million last year and her latest album had the highest first week sales since The Eminem Show in 2002. In that case, her motives are in question.

I would imagine that the average Taylor Swift fan is a 13 year old girl from middle America with parents that are willing to subsidize the costs of fandom if it’s for a “wholesome” artist. Taylor Swift obviously knows the demographic of her fanbase, and knows that mommy will pay $34.89 for one of her new 1989 t-shirts (the price ends in 89… see what she did there?). For comparison, Ariana Grande’s new album My Everything AND a t-shirt cost $30.98 togeth6

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er, while Selena Gomez shirts cost $24.95. Taylor Swift claims that Spotify is essentially robbing artists, but Taylor Swift is essentially robbing fans. I can nearly guarantee that her shirts are not of superior quality to the shirts of other artists. Also, Taylor Swift was set to receive $6 million dollars from them Spotify this year.

That sure doesn’t sound like robbery to me, and that’s on top of the money from her album sales, tour, merchandising, and endorsements. Yet, she’s not being compensated fairly?

In today’s day and age, revenue for artists come from a variety of sources. Album sales are more of a status indicator than a money maker.

These days, purchasing an album is not a necessity to listen to music; it is a way to support an artist. On October 22, 2012 I went to FYE in the Oakdale Mall to purchase an album by a relatively unknown rapper from Compton. I easily could’ve listened to it when it leaked early, but purchasing good kid, m.A.A.d city on its release date was a way to support an artist I had grown to love based on music that was released for free. Although I own Kendrick Lamar’s album, I find myself listening to it on Spotify whenever I want to hear it. Why? Convenience, which is one of music streaming services’

biggest selling points. As a Spotify subscriber, the odds of me listening to an artist’s music substantially decreases if I have to go through the effort of finding it elsewhere. After a two minute search, I was at a screen where I could’ve downloaded Taylor Swift’s 1989 album for free. I didn’t because (a) I don’t give a fuck about Taylor Swift’s new album, (b) the effort of importing music unavailable on Spotify and adding it to a playlist and then downloading that playlist on my phone is very strenious, and (c) legal reasons and stuff. However, in today’s modern age avoiding payment for paid content is not difficult if one chooses to do so. I could stream Homeland 2 minutes after it airs if I wanted to - without a Showtime subscription.

Taylor Swift isn’t immune to the internet. No artist is. Taylor Swift should be embracing streaming services like the majority of the music industry, not running from it. Music streaming is unlike touring and merchandising; it should be more of a marketing plan that is built around gaining new fans - a marketing plan that happens to provide money. Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but Spotify has one of the best music business models of all time. OF ALL TIME.

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EXECUTIVE OUT OF ORDER

Executive Out of Order Written By Luke Kusick

On Friday November 21, President Obama signed two executive actions, which would delay the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants residing in the United States.

Attacks from the right have inevitably occurred claiming that the executive action has bypassed Congress and is an act of “destruction of the Constitution.” The real issue then would be how Obama has bypassed Congress in order to implement what he feels is fit to be the law of the land. But, this would only be the issue if he was the first president to have used executive actions/orders in order to get what the President wanted done without going through Congress. The fact of the matter is that the real problem is the unconstitutionality of executive actions and orders and how we as the American people should try to end the debate once and for all by getting rid of the use of executive orders and actions.

The first president of the United States, George Washington, used a total of 8 executive orders while he was President. An argument could clearly be brought up claiming that if the first President of the United States did it then it clearly must be Constitutional or at the very least proper for the Presidents who came after him to do so. However, precedent does not equate Constitutionality. Article 1 Section 10 of the

Constitution clearly states that all legislative powers belong to the legislative branch of government, aka Congress. Therefore, any President who uses executive orders or executive actions to institute a new piece of legislation is bypassing Congress and the action is unconstitutional.

But what was the original point of executive orders/actions? Originally, the President would pass executive orders to help enforce laws that Congress had passed. However, over the years, the use of executive orders has changed from enforcing laws to delegating laws onto everyday citizens. Such executive orders such as Executive Order 9066, which allowed for the placement of Japanese Americans into internment camps, not only violate

“The fact of the matter is that the real problem is the unconstitutionality of executive actions” editor@binghamtonreview.com

individual’s rights and wrongly discriminates against minority groups but also were upheld by a Democrat controlled Supreme Court.

Now while the original purpose of Executive actions/orders were meant to simply enforce laws, they have failed to do so. In fact, over the years they have only become a nuisance and a way for the President to pass legislation without the approval of Congress. In a perfect world, the President would only use Executive Orders and Actions in a way that would be perfectly constitutional and enforce laws. However, in the real world and throughout history, we have seen Presidents abuse their power and use executive orders and actions to only increase the government’s authority and power over the American people’s life. As a result, we, the American people, need to stop the partisan bashing of different Presidents using executive orders and actions. There is no difference between Obama shredding the Constitution or Bush shredding the Constitution because in the end the Constitution is still being shredded.

We the American People need to simply gather support and end the use of executive orders and actions.

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THE REVIEW NEEDS YOUR HELP! Binghamton Review is a non-partisan periodical of conservative thought founded in 1987.

For nearly three decades, The Review has been a source of strong opinions that have brought about change on the campus of Binghamton University.

If you’re a conservative-thinking or liberty-loving student, The Review wants you to join us!

There is always room for passionate writers and editors, and the goal of amplifying our digital impact offers new ways to get involved.

If you’re interested in learning more, Email us at: editor@binghamtonreview.com, or stop by a meeting: Thursdays at 6PM in BW05 (beneath the Marketplace in the Union).

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FIGHTING APATHY: MY TIME AS A LIBERTARIAN CONSERVATIVE WARRIOR

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Fighting Apathy: My Time as a Libertarian Conservative Warrior

Written By Daniel Milyavsky

It may sound like hyperbole, I went to a high school that was oppressively leftist. I remember having countless English teachers go on and on about what a horrible mayor Rudy Giuliani was (even though he made NYC safe for all of us to live in), how racist Mark Twain was, thereby ruining Huckleberry Finn for the entire class (despite the fact that the novel is anti-slavery and anti-racism) and what a horrible economic system capitalism was (even though it generates the wealth that paid the teachers’ salaries and lavish benefits).

My parents are immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Being fortunate enough to live in Moscow, their life was better than the wretched squalor that most Soviet citizens had to live in. However, they had to suffer under the boot of government repression just the same, and even more so since we are Jewish.

They raised me with a distinct appreciation for liberty and they never bought into the corrosive identity

“They raised me with a distinct appreciation for liberty...” politics agenda that is now so widespread that it is a part of almost every high school and college curriculum.

This is all to say, that I may have overreacted a tad bit. I put a McCain Palin sticker on my locker even though I didn’t particularly care for either of them. My Facebook wall was filled with political rants, which served to enrage the liberals and annoy those who just didn’t care about politics.

In his original mission statement in 1955, William F. Buckley Jr. wrote that the newly founded National Review “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” I suppose this is what I saw myself doing, and never missed an opportunity to try to propagandize my peers

regarding the virtues of the free market, even though they usually either couldn’t care less or already had a stubbornly intractable perspective that was the opposite of mine.

I spent my first three semesters of undergrad at Hunter College, living in the dorms there. There too, the leftism was overwhelming, and my political views did not exactly do much to enhance my popularity.

I recall when I posted a Facebook status saying that I had finally gotten around to more or less supporting the legalization of gay marriage, I was viciously excoriated for being insufficiently enthusiastic, even though if memory serves I’m quite sure I came around to this point of view before Barack Obama did.

I tried to start a Libertarian-Conservative club at Hunter College, since I figured that with four different Marxist groups, it shouldn’t be that hard to recruit people for a club which does not advocate statist criminals running every aspect of our lives. I was sorely mistaken.

When I transferred to Binghamton in the spring of 2012, I fell in love with the place. This is a much friendlier place for alternative political points of view. I joined the Binghamton Review and the College Libertarians. In the latter, we had extremely vocal (that’s putting it mildly) debates on all the issues, ranging from how attractive of a candidate Ron Paul was to whether the Iraq War was fought for oil (I

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BINGHAMTON REVIEW Galloping in defense of the free market

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FIGHTING APATHY: MY TIME AS A LIBERTARIAN CONSERVATIVE WARRIOR

don’t think it was, since we didn’t end up taking any of the oil, but I am still opposed to it, so much so that I think its initiation may have made George W. Bush a worse president than even Barack Obama).

Since being a libertarian (I’m a bit less conservative than I used to be) was so easy here, I did not feel myself to be part of a shunned minority anymore. I suppose my social skills also improved a bit, and I stopped preaching the virtues of the free market to everyone I met whenever the topic of politics came up. In fact, I’ve reached a point where I’d prefer not to discuss politics at all with people who are not particularly invested in the subject, the same way a molecular biologist isn’t going to start discussing cell signaling pathways with every person he meets who asks him what he’s interested in.

As I matured and became older, my priorities shifted. I started thinking a lot more about getting into medical school, and I would much rather hang out with my friends and cultivate meaningful relationships than get into political arguments.

This is all perfectly natural, and I have no regrets about it. However, the cause of liberty is still very near and dear to my heart, and throughout my life I hope to continue advocating for it. I’ll be spending the vast majority of my time concerned with other things, but I do sincerely believe that human beings should be able to conduct both social and economic interactions as they see fit. Free market capitalism has created more wealth and prosperity than any other system, helping poor and rich alike. It has given rise to countless technological innovations which have improved our quality of life. So to my fellow libertarian and conservative comrades out there who might wonder if the fight is worth it, fear not. We know in our hearts that it is.

That’s me in Ron Paul’s office in 2012, back when my hair was longer and he was still in Congress. There is an autographed picture of Milton Friedman in the background editor@binghamtonreview.com

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TO BETTER PROFITS OR TO BETTER THE WORLD

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To Better Profits or to Better the World Written By Chris Gil

The importance of corporate social responsibility is immeasurable.

If corporations were solely driven by profit, society could be exposed to products that are of low quality.

Corporations could use the cheapest possible factors of production to make their products; some do, but many do not. The ones that don’t, believe quality is imperative to our safety, well-being, and overall standard of living. Low prices cannot be the only selling point for companies. For example, there are many people opposed to shopping at Wal-Mart because of their questionable business practices, such as a scandal involving products being produced by under-aged sweatshop workers in Bangladesh. Therefore, customer loyalty is key. Recently two owners of Fortune 500 companies have made generous donations to their alma maters: Phil Knight of Nike has contributed over $300 million to the University of Oregon and Gordon Moore of Intel has donated $350 million to Cal Tech.

Their individual, massive contributions put their respective companies in a great light, especially at universities whose students could become future innovators for their companies. Nike and Intel have solidified an edge over their compet-

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itors, as they have helped to successfully differentiate their brand.

However from a financial perspective, a huge company outlay for CSR could be viewed as an unnecessary cost. As companies continuously try to find ways to cut costs in any way possible, it makes it increasingly difficult to reason for CSR. In a world where the main goals of financial management are to maximize profits and minimize costs, there is little room to allocate money for social good. The goals of financial management conflict with the idea of corporate social responsibility. Therefore tough board decisions need to be made to determine what is more important to their company’s

ideals at the current point in time: to keep their money in the company as we recover from recession or to spend money to better society.

This past month CVS (recently renamed CVS Health), has followed through with its bold decision to become the first major pharmaceutical retailer to remove cigarettes and all other tobacco products from its shelves. As CEO Larry Merlo has stated, this decision will cost the company $2 billion in annual sales, 3% of their total revenue. Selling tobacco didn’t align with their company ideals, and that is more important to them than losing 3% of their sales revenue. Ending tobacco sales now allows them to engage in new business as groups like the American Medical Association have been pushing CVS for years to stop selling tobacco. CVS has reported $5.4 billion in new business wins this year.

Although all of it cannot be attributed to this decision by itself, surely this decision has sparked some new external interest into the company (Japsen). Moreover, the decision makers at CVS Health believe that it is simply the right thing to do. It didn’t make sense for a company specializing in health care products December 2014

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to sell products proven to be detrimental to their patients’ health.

According to Yahoo Finance, CVS’s stock price on January 2, 2014 was $70.40 and their current stock price as of October 29, 2014 is $85.19.

CVS’s YTD has increased by 21.01% since the beginning of the year.

The high spike in stock price can be partly attributed to CVS’s decision to remove tobacco from their shelves. It remains relatively unclear now but their decision seems to have actually made the company more profitable. Although they have lost $2 billion in yearly sales, they have gained $5.4 billion in new investments this year, resulting in a net gain of $3.4 billion. CVS Health’s rebranding may have led to more

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TO BETTER PROFITS OR TO BETTER THE WORLD

Selling tobacco didn’t align with their company ideals, and that is more important to them than losing 3% of their sales revenue. pharmaceutical companies to hop on board. In this case, CVS’s investment into corporate social responsibility has both helped the public good, as well as possibly generated increased revenue for the company.

corporation’s stock price would increase significantly after displaying corporate social responsibility. On a large scale, I believe CSR would have a neutral effect on stock price.

Overall, I think it is a rarity that a

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THE LAW FREDERIC BASTIAT EXCERPT

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The Law by Frederic Bastiat Excerpt

The Law was written in 1850 by Frederic Bastiat, a Frenchman and a classical liberal. The extent to which every word of it applies today is quite appalling, but also goes to show that the ideas of politicians like Barack Obama are not new, but rather the same old statism repackaged with fancy rhetoric.

The Superman Idea The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.

They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.

right to impose these plans upon us by law -- by force -- and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes.

I do not insist that the supporters of these various social schools of thought--the Proudhonists, the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the Universitarists, and the Protectionists -- renounce their various ideas. I insist only that they renounce this one idea that they have in common: They need only to give up the idea of forcing us to acquiesce to their groups and series, their socialized projects, their free- credit banks, their Graeco-Roman concept of morality, and their commercial regulations. I ask

only that we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves; that we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if we find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant to our consciences.

But these organizers desire access to the tax funds and to the power of the law in order to carry out their plans. In addition to being oppressive and unjust, this desire also implies the fatal supposition that the organizer is infallible and mankind is incompetent. But, again, if persons are incompetent to judge for themselves, then why all this talk about universal suffrage?

The Socialists Reject Free Choice Please understand that I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their

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December 2014

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FOOD EDU.

Food.edu

Written By Jordan Raitses Binghamton University is the premier public University of the Northeast and, in recognition of the intelligence of our students, the University takes a holistic approach to healthful (or Mindful) eating. We know that our students can make the right decisions based on a tiny amount of information. Binghamton University is, at its heart, a research university and we know that our students can analyze the difficult-to-read web information and make educated decisions. Sure, we could put basic health information in pamphlets, digital menus, or at the grill station, but that would be too easy for students of “The Public Ivy”.

While I feel truly flattered by the university’s attempts to enhance my extra-curricular education and critical thinking practice, I’d also appreciate it if they just told me how many damn calories are in boom boom sauce. The fast food industry has been hammered at for years by health-advocacy groups

decisions in the dining hall without having to see a registered dietitian?

Shortly before I wrote this, I asked Sodexo employees in the dining

tion facts. The only venue that had a physical copy was Jazzmans Café in the library; we needed a magnifying glass and a ruler to read it.

I’d also appreciate it if they just told me how many damn calories are in boom boom sauce. and individuals who want to see positive change in our country’s weight problem. Eventually, public pressure brought change to those private industries, so why not here?

Everyone dreads the “Freshman 15”—even after freshman year.

Wouldn’t it be easier to fight weight problems if we could make better

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halls and Marketplace for some nutritional information. While they tried to be helpful, there was really very little that they could do. Inevitably, I was directed onto their webpage (impossible to navigate on a smartphone) where I eventually found enormous (impossible to read on a smartphone) pdfs of nutri-

We the change! in the ter how to see

students must demand The next time you’re dining hall, no matlong the lines are, ask some nutrition facts.

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Congratulations to Mitch McConnell and the GOP for taking the Senate!