Opinion April 8, 2009
R o b D e va u n , O p i n i o n E d i t o r - r h d e va u n @ m t u . e d u
A call for self defense SALLY SANDERSON Pulse Editor In light of a recent event on campus, Tech students have been reminded that crime still occurs on our campus, though we attend a statistically-safe school. Though most of us will not be affected by a sexual assault in our lifetime, it remains a serious and real threat; its presence and effects can be felt everywhere. I believe that it is a fundamental right for every person to be able to protect themselves against sexual assault and that the methods for people to learn to do so are seriously lacking on our campus. During 2007, 248,300 people suffered from some form of sexual assault. These assaults included rape, attempted rape and sexual assaults. However, they do not include victims under the age of 12 (http://
www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-ofsexual-assault). This number is staggering, and yet, it does not include all the victims who chose not to report their sexual assault, which would cause the number to largely increase. As researched by RAINN (the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network), “every two minutes, someone is sexually assaulted in the United States.” This is not only incredibly disturbing, but calls for action. It is vitally important that females have the knowledge and skills available to protect them-
A city in mourning
LUKE GUBLO Lode Writer During my first year at Michigan Tech, like many others, I went up to the February MTU Career Fair looking to see if there were opportunities in my career field. Naturally, being a first year, the odds weren’t good and ultimately failed to deliver. Luckily, I was able to secure an interview with a Rochester, NY-based construction management firm, LeChase Construction Services, through a family connection. Eventually, I was referred to the LeChase office in Binghamton, NY, 45 miles away from the town where the majority of my family lives, Ithaca, NY. This led to being hired on as an intern in the Binghamton office. Though I had been to Binghamton numerous times in my life, it was still a new experience to me to be living on my own in a city that I was somewhat familiar with, yet hadn’t spent too much time in. It was to be the best summer of my life. I learned many new things while working on my internship, both work and life-related. The experience also afforded me the opportunity to spend more time with my mother than I had over the previous eight years since my parents’ divorce. Most of all, I enjoyed meeting new people and getting to know many various people in the Binghamton area. Eventually, I grew to genuinely love the place to the point that it feels like a second home to me. Considering all of this, I have taken an active interest in events surrounding the city since living there last summer.
Fast forward to modern times: On April 3, 2009, Binghamton made the kind of national headlines that communities and colleges dread. The American Civic Association Building, mostly being known as a building that provided services to immigrants, was attacked by a lone gunman. Walking in on a day where scores of people were preparing for their U.S. Citizenship Test, 13 people were shot dead, with others wounded, before the gunman, 42-year old Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong, turned the gun on himself. Like one might expect from a massacre like this, the motive was related to Wong’s inability to keep a steady job in the United States, as well as the derision he received from others due to struggling to learn the English language. While many people may not sympathize with Wong in regards to his struggles while learning English in Binghamton, many in this current economic climate can sympathize with his inability to maintain steady employment. The United States economy is going through its worst period since the Great Depression. Binghamton is not alone in this. There have been numerous shootings in the United States since the beginning of the year, including an incident in Alabama, as well as the gruesome murder of four police officers in Oakland, CA last month. Times are tough, and some people simply do not know how to act out on their frustration. A select few, like Jiverly Wong, simply choose to scream of their disenfranchisement by acting as executioner of innocent civilians, by taking lives in such a meaningless and horrifying way. In the end, life will go on. The City of Binghamton will survive and move on, just as Virginia Tech moved on after the Virginia Tech massacre.
selves. During the summer of 2007, I attended classes at Northern Michigan University. I decided to take an R.A.D self defense class for so I could better protect myself against sexual predators. R.A.D. is known as Rape Aggression Defense Systems and is the national standard in selfdefense education. According to their classes and web site, (http://www.rad-systems. com/), R.A.D. classes “begin with awareness, prevention, risk reduction and risk avoidance, while progressing on to the basics of hands-on defense training.” The courses are for women only and are taught by instructors who know their material very well and are incredibly well equipped to deal with teaching women the basics of self defense. Speaking from experience, the R.A.D. classes not only give skills that every woman will find easy to remember and use, but will increase a woman’s confidence and can give back a feeling of power. Many women take the class after being sexually assaulted; a few women in
the class I took found it hard to practice some of the selfdefense moves, but after the class of all women said they felt more confident and that they had gotten feelings of control and power back. I think that the R.A.D. selfdefense program should be added to the curriculum of physical education at Michigan Tech. Though we have a small female body on campus, I believe the class would be popular among women and would also offer an opportunity to have something that will allow them to feel safer on our campus and in the community. If the program is implemented, there is a strong chance that women in the community will also take the class: these classes benefit all women, no matter what age, background or occupation. Learning to protect one’s self is critical and the chance should be open to any female who wants to learn. By implementing a self-defense program at Michigan Tech, females on campus and in the community will feel more safe and confident while earning a P.E. credit for their work and Tech will gain by actively taking part in the betterment of the University.
Pinnacle of narcissism
I sign onto the Internet and absentmindedly type in the Facebook address. Heavily feeding off of the necessity for some sort of distraction, Facebook has consumed over 175 million active users and employs more than 700 employees (http:// www.facebook.com/group. php?gid=5585067263). Despite my, and many others’ infatuation with the social networking utility, Facebook should have some sort of control setting in which it can be
accessed for a certain amount of time during the day; something to aid the addicted and the beleaguered. I signed on to Facebook last week, instinctively as usual, fingers drumming the keyboard gingerly. It came to my attention that my grandfather, a child of the fifties, had requested to add me as a friend. With this turn of events, I began to ponder how Facebook has come to grasp even those who are excluded from the contemporary generation. Its grasp so constricting, Facebook is reaching beyond its dominant audience to those subsisting in the dark. It is not necessarily a negative facet to include the elders and uneducated, as a matter-of-fact, Facebook introduces the latest utilizations of technology to those who had never even touched anything close to a computer. But, what is it about Facebook that creates such compulsions? In a psychology study led by author Laura Buffardi and associate professor W. Keith Campbell, results showed that the number of Facebook friends and wall posts related greatly with narcissism. Results were consistent with how narcissists behave in the real world, as stated by Buffardi on Redandblack.com. So the obvious question arises: Does Facebook make us feel good about ourselves? Of course. With each fresh and enhanced profile picture, with each new friend (yet another whom
you’ve never talked to in person), and with each new sidesplitting photograph or video, the self-esteem is sky-high. Concurrently, what is this talk of “A relationship isn’t official until it’s Facebook-official?” It is yet another extreme example of the egocentric attitude associated with Facebook; another “look at me, look at me” news feed to the awaiting eyes of a gossip-hungry audience. This is where things start to get hypocritical, unfortunately. I hate the fact that Facebook guzzles a colossal amount of my life, with status changes, updated photographs for friends and family afar, etc. I hate that the Facebook status is sort of like a flashing billboard with your face and emotions as the central subject. Look at me, this is how I feel, comfort me, comment me. Me, me, me! I do not consider myself to be an egotistical person, yet there is something distressingly satisfactory and socially acceptable about Facebook and its narcissistic aspects. With Facebook and all the other social networking programs, it is customary for its participants to replace a profile picture with a sexier one, or a status with a more desperate and attention-hungry one. Regardless of the unhealthy habits Facebook generates, it seems our technologically-savvy society has succeeded in fulfilling the need for intelligent and swift communication while simultaneously producing the ultimate utility of distraction. I hate you, Facebook.
This doesn’t change the fact that the name “Binghamton,” once unknown to most normal Americans outside of New York State, will now be known to most Americans as the place where one of the largest domestic massacres in United States history was carried out. It’s certainly not the
kind of publicity that is good for the city, especially one that is struggling as much as Binghamton has in the past 20 years. Nonetheless, the people of Binghamton will overcome this large obstacle placed before them. I’ve gotten to know some of the people that make
up the city since last summer, and they’re a strong and resilient people, some of the nicest people you would ever meet. The citizens of Binghamton deserved better than to become a national headline last Friday, but they will get by and recover from this horrific event.
KAYLA HERRERA Lode Writer What should I change my status to today? The options are boundless, from song lyrics to quotes to blunt expressions of emotions. Why does Facebook have this everlasting clutch on my thoughts and habits? It is so infused in my natural routines that