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Opinion
Valentine’s True Payoff: Drue Dunn Staff Writer
Valentine’s Day, the yearly reason to stay home from school, continues to humiliate students well into middle school. Then suddenly, the notion of asking for affection via a card is no longer a class activity. As we mature, the meaning of Valentine’s Day changes and ceases to be a contest among classmates, changing into a romantic ideal where we seek, sometimes awkwardly, to woo someone special. For guys, instruction on how to perform said wooing comes from a variety of sources, including watching our fathers, TV and movies. Movies make us believe there is no such thing as too much. There are never too many roses, no box of chocolates too big or a diamond too large. Movies tell us 100 lit candles is a good start, that poetry should be our hello, a limousine our chariot and that a private table with a view is a must. All this presents a unique set of obstacles for us mere mortals, as men typically find it unnatural
to buy flowers, cards, chocolates or stuffed animals. We don’t even think in candlelight terms. We typically only have one day a year to practice buying and organizing these things, which we never think of the rest of the year. Combine this unfamiliarity with the intense emotional state, the demand that all go smoothly, with reservations in a nice restaurant and a clean shirt and this holiday is nearly doomed from the beginning. On the other hand, should we fail to impress our valentine she’ll be disappointed or depressed. Side effects may include painful break ups, icy stares or heavy bouts of crying. In love? Then you probably don’t need a holiday to tell you what to buy or how to feel. If you don’t have love, here’s a holiday to rub it in. I doubt anyone set out to create a holiday that alienates youth or challenges adults, yet Valentine’s Day accomplishes both. I say face the long lines at the candy shops, purchase your stuffed animals and flowers, spend big on the jewelry that explains how you feel and brave the wait for a nice table. However, do so only if your heart
Love Defined by Money Spent is No Love at All
Staff Writer
tells you to and not because powerful media campaigns persuaded you into acquiring all the traditional trappings of Valentine’s Day. I humbly remind you, big business has led us down the path of abundant spending. It is an industry that cannot possibly speak of love, as it loves only our dollar. In these times, spending more on ideas not our own for a romantic holiday that
Cartoon by Daniel Barba may well be anything but, is not in our best interests as it is emotionally rough on most of us and financially challenging for all of us. Let us embrace and emphasize the point of this holiday, a sincere focus on the ones we love in a way that brings respect and joy to us all.
Working Women and Men Deserve Compensation for Equal Work Copy Editor
In 1963, working women earned less than 60 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Wage discrimination is not over in this country and as the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act approaches, two pieces of Congressional legislation and a constitutional amendment have only managed to close the gap to 77 cents. African-American women earn 62 cents and Hispanic women earn 54 cents. It’s a gaping hole in our society that stretches across all fields and
college majors. The Paycheck Fairness Act to End Wage Discrimination is an important step towards repairing the damage done to the Equal Pay Act by courts over the years. The PFA would prohibit employers from firing employees who discuss their salaries or reduce other employees’ wages to achieve pay equity. One of the major obstacles to ending wage discrimination has always been that many women don’t know they’re being paid less than their male counterparts. It’s legal for employers to fire employees who discuss their salaries with each other,
Guilty Pleasure Hurts Children Deborah San Angelo
Equal Pay Act to Help End Discrimination Darcy Fracolli
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February 11, 2013
and many women feel unable to act or have no suspicions at all. But here’s the thing; 77 cents amounts to an annual discrepancy of about $10,000. Women are now the primary or co-wage earners in 60 percent of American households, which means the wage discrepancy negatively affects total spending and our GDP as well. Legislation will never be enough to eliminate the systematic cultural biases towards women in our society, but it’s an important first step. We need to stop pretending feminism is no longer relevant and we live in an equitable society, because we don’t.
We’ve normalized our biases against women through thousands of years of carefully structured societies, and the only way forward is through education and cultural analysis. Both women and men are guilty of discrimination against women, and it is impossible for progress without a certain amount of unity amongst the fairer sex. As Gloria Steinem once said, “No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office.” The same can be said of any woman.
Student on the Street
If you woke up tomorrow having one new ability or quality, what would it be?
Rosa Ayala
Kaz Makishima
Jesse Risinger
“To be in two places at once to relieve the stress of work and school.”
“I would have the ability to take others’ good qualities and imprint them into my own behavior.”
“I think flying would be cool and fun, something different and cool.”
Eve Nighswonger “To listen better; to be a more thoughtful listener. I did it wrong the last 50 years.”
In bar, bonbon or bunny form, chocolate is more than a popular food. Chocolate is a booming $90 billion-a-year industry, according to research firm Markets and Markets. Its value is larger than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 130 nations. Even in a slow economy, the National Confectioners Association expects Americans to spend more than $700 million on chocolate this Valentine’s Day. Almost twice that is sold during Easter and even more on Halloween. Sales soar as chocolate becomes even more popular today and consumption steadily rises. Cocoa contains flavanol, an antioxidant found in a variety of foods. Studies demonstrating the health benefits of flavanoids add to chocolate’s popularity. Gourmet chocolate is the fastest growing segment of the industry. Consumers and retailers eagerly seek dark, artisanal, organic and enhanced varieties of chocolate. Opportunities in chocolate abound for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Like most food specialty businesses, few barriers exist for a chocolate company start up. Costs are low and in many states, it’s possible to start in a home kitchen. Western Africa produces more than three-quarters of the world’s chocolate. Europe consumes about 50 percent of it and North America another 25 percent, while all of Africa only accounts for about 3 percent of consumption. Cocoa trees take five to eight years to mature and yield about five pounds of chocolate a year. The average American eats 10-12 pounds of chocolate a year. The average Swiss eats 21 pounds a year. To accommodate high demand, plantations grow cocoa trees. About 1.8 million children work on cocoa farms in Africa. Poverty is the main reason for child labor. Child labor also stems from big companies wanting to increase their profits by exploiting and underpaying. About 246 million children are used for labor around the world, according to UNICEF. In many countries with child labor, no laws are enforced to protect them. Some of these countries ban trade unions so no one guards the children’s rights, who often are abused. We’ve heard about child labor since childhood. But there’s still no accepted definition of “child labor” in this so-called civilized world. Individual governments define “child” according to their own criteria. The chocolate industry has made trillions of dollars. According to the watchdog group Stop the Traffik, only 0.0075 percent of the money is invested into improving the working conditions for children in West Africa. Before the Industrial Revolution, only the wealthy had chocolate available. The steam engine made mass production possible, making it accessible and affordable to everyone. But classism still surrounds chocolate.