OPINION
OCT
27 2011
7
PAGE
Smart phone wars: ‘The Phantom Menace’ behind acquiring rare minerals PHILIP CHENG First-year
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henever we see iPhones and other electronics, we sometimes cannot help but get a sense that the future is getting brighter and that technology will lead the way to a better future. The advent of computers and the internet has made our lives quicker. It’s also easier to stay in touch with people back home or friends far away. Technology has made our lives more interconnected and more entertaining in some ways.
Yet, what one sees is the end product of the electronics supply chain. Before any of the products are sold to us by minimumwage-earning store clerks— and before the products are produced in factories—raw materials and rare earth metals are gathered from war-torn areas in Africa. Tin, gold, coltan, tungsten and other metals allow electronic companies to create their electronics. Tungsten helps our phones vibrate, tantalum allows our electronics to store electric charge without a battery. As an example of our dependence on these rare earth metals, Newsweek reported that 20 percent of the world’s tantalum comes from Congo. The U.N. estimates that each year hundreds of millions of dollars of metals from these war-torn areas are purchased and the funds go to Congolese renegades and Hutu fighters associated with the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, as well
ILLUSTRATION BY BAILEY
as many other unsavory characters. Their violent crimes include genocide, mutilation and sometimes even forced cannibalism. The main issue is that international policy has to enforce fair
Whitman’s controversial past warrants preservation of quirky missionary mascot CARA LOWRY Managing Editor
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our years ago, I was a senior in high school about to make what at that point was the most important decision of my life: where to attend college. As your typical over-analytical 17-year-old girl, I naturally resorted to pro-con lists. On Whitman’s, nestled in among things like “free laundry” and “24-hour library,” was “missionary mascot.” I found it quirky and unique (not to mention wonderful in its potential for sexual innuendo: “Missionaries, Missionaries, we’re on top!”). But most importantly, as the history nerd that I am (give me a Ken Burns documentary over that new rom-com with that cute actor any day), the missionary mascot inspired me to investigate the problematic past to which our college will forever be linked. To truly know the essence of a thing, one has to understand its history. To deny our past—especially on the grounds of being shameful or uncomfortable—is extremely dangerous. Doing so breeds complacency and ignorance. It all
comes down to that age-old cliché about learning from the errors of the past so that we do not repeat them in the future. People argue that the missionary mascot fails to be a rallying point for students and does not foster unity, pride or school spirit. I think it fails to do these things because we’ve failed to take the time to get to know it. They argue that it smacks of imperialism, cultural domination and the empiricism of traditional Western thought, and that, because these are things that Whitman encourages us to critically examine, our mascot inherently misrepresents us as a community. I think that this viewpoint— while valid—is restricting. Yes, in countless ways the history of American westward expansion is tragic and atrocious, but it is neither one-sided nor black and white. Yes, missionaries like Marcus and Narcissa Whitman worked to promote their God and their ideals, but not because they deviously sought to destroy and oppress a native culture. They genuinely hoped both to learn from and to work for the betterment of the peoples they encountered. Today at Whitman this same drive for service to others—for making better—is in full force. How many Whitties volunteer in Walla Walla independently or through opportunities like the Whitman Mentor and AdoptA-Grandparent programs? How
many of us spend our breaks and summers on service trips? How many of us go on to programs like Teach for America, the Peace Corps and Americorps after graduating? How many of us want to change the world for the better? While we’ve come a long way from our clerical roots (Whitman College was founded as Whitman Seminary), our essential commitment to good and to human betterment has remained. Whitman is a positive force, striving to instill in us an apparent approach to life: one founded on critical thinking, well-roundedness and the pursuit of one’s passions (whatever they may be). Simultaneously, our commitment to respecting a diversity of peoples, cultures, viewpoints and ideals—while commendable and important—often pushes us to adopt a sense of hyper-political correctness, which at times limits more than it allows us to grow. In a 2007 Pioneer article titled “Whitman’s history: ‘Swept under the rug’?” a then-senior was quoted as saying, “I don’t think it [the missionary] reflects Whitman, we’re not about converting people, we’re about critical thinking and helping people.” I would offer an alternate interpretation: We are missionaries, but in a sense different from the Protestant wagon-train variety of the mid19th century. “Critical thinking” is our new religion; “helping people” is still our mission.
trade and better working rights. Tech brands currently have difficulty deducing whether they use conflict minerals in their electronics. Between Apple and the initial supplier of raw materials, there can
be as many as five steps of separation. The metal ore is first mined by rebel groups in Africa, then sold to multinational smelters and bought and sold among different distributors before it finally makes it way to electronics companies. That is one of the problems with our global economy, though it allows us to work together more effectively: Our distance from others makes us callous towards how they feel. Though it does not seem like technology will leave us anytime soon, I think that new policies will help enforce order in the Congo; one hopeful example is the Kimberley Method, which helps purchasers identify which diamonds were mined without hurting human rights. A similar system is needed to identify where we get rare earth metals. Until then, since we cannot stem the flow of technology, there will always be some regret at the human cost of technology.
Missionary: Still appropriate as mascot? agination, and it lasts only as ALFREDO long as we have a use for it. VILLASEÑOR Today the missionary bor-
Junior
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here have been rumors that a cabal of student heretics are trying to replace our holy and enduring mascot. And what, I ask, would they change it to? A duck, perhaps, in reminiscence of the orgiastic rituals of spring that have soiled our student body’s innocence? Or our campus’ invasive and ubiquitous red squirrel? How about . . . the Walla Walla onion . . . ? I myself have suffered the sweet temptation of the onion. To dissolve and collectivize the Frisbee team’s monopoly, to have something as absurd as a vegetable on a t-shirt, to proudly call myself a sweet— I rather like those propositions. But what is a mascot? A mascot is a lucky charm and a subject of comedy. It’s the representation of an institution (sorry, Mr. Bridges) and the avatar of its history. It’s a symbol, an ethereal mass that we as humans can craft and imagine both effortlessly and instinctively. It’s the conjunction of our sensory experience and im-
ders on being an anachronism. It’s resigned to some moderately popular T-shirts, the basement of the library, a statue between here and Safeway and some horrendous paintings in the Marcus Whitman Hotel. All that most people know about Marcus and Narcissa—the inspiration for this mascot—is that they died fairly close to here. Furthermore, an increasing number of Whitman students feel uncomfortable having a mascot with religious connotations. The missionary may have been a fitting mascot from 1859 to 1907 when Whitman was first a seminary school and then a religiously affiliated college, but now that our student body is full of people of different faiths and worldviews, a character whose job is to convert people to Christianity is no doubt offensive to some. In my case, however, it bothers me to think that Marcus and Narcissa would subsequently disappear if we replaced them with something more trendy and likely more profitable. I enjoy the history our mascot contains despite its incongruity with Whitman today. But it is just a symbol. When I hear the word “mascot,” I think of the Spanish word “mascota,” which means “pet,” and there is some truth in that this symbol is our pet: We are its owners and ultimately we should be the ones to decide its fate.
Middle-class ‘Occupy Portland’ protestors should harness power of education ELIZABETH COLE First-year
I
arrived in Portland over fourday on a Friday night. The air was biting yet alive with the bustle of a city whose bedtime is long past Walla Walla’s. The streets were filled with activity, and as my friend and I forged through the night in the quest for a dining facility that was open to minors at this hour, we drove past the small metropolis that is the Occupy Portland site. The grounds of the park they occupied were blistered with tents, as if a modern-day Hooverville had sprung up in the midst of the city— only this one was full of nylon tents, electric generators and a vibrancy that its inhabitants exuded. Most importantly, they were there by choice, not necessity. When discussing the cleancut nature of the Whitman campus, the friend whose company brought me to Portland that weekend told me, “that’s not real.” In-
deed, after returning to Whitman that Tuesday I was struck by the seemingly artificial nature of the campus. Its manicured lawns and prodigious brick buildings, the deciduous trees aflame with color that dot Ankeny Field and whose leaves are sprinkled in strategically placed circles around their bases—it is a scene that is often nauseatingly picturesque. But picturesque need not always mean artificial. In fact, it was the community of pseudo-poverty enveloping the streets of Portland that struck me most with a sense of artificiality. Later that weekend we encountered the protesters again, and the clamor of their community was even more exuberant in the daylight. While sitting on the edge of Pioneer Square waiting to catch the Max, our heads were drawn up the street by the rhythm of beating drums and the dogmatic chants of the Occupy Portland brigade. While I have no qualms about the integrity of the movement at large, Portland seems to be a city where the aim of the protest has missed its mark. On this particular afternoon a crowd of hundreds descended upon the square, signs and megaphones in tow, chanting their mantra “Whose street? Our street!” But a quick scan of the homemade signage revealed a great lack of direction. The signs ranged from berating Wall Street
to raising support for action against climate change, bringing in organizations like 350.org that certainly have little to do with the current political state of the middle class. Looking down upon the assembly from the top of the square, it was hard to see anything but a group of young middle-class Americans who were protesting for the sake of protest. I find myself lending much more respect to the reform efforts of my fellow classmates than to those of the students bunking down in tents, a cloudy haze of dirt, cigarette smoke and zeal for progress enveloping their bodies. Students who are taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them at places like Whitman. Students who, rather than reverting to a state of squalor in a quest for romantic rebellion, are establishing voices through clubs and organizations and empowering themselves through their education to make a difference in the world. For, far from enacting a selfless act of protest, these students who choose to resort to life in tents with a ragtag community of protesters when they have the resources afforded to middleclass Americans at their disposal are doing a great disservice to themselves and their community. The environment provided to us at Whitman may be a far cry
Voices from the Community FERNANDO MEDINA
BEN HARRIS
Sophomore
Sophomore
from the realities of life present in large cities such as Portland, but what the campus offers us is a sense of integrity, a sense of integrity that is lacking in the young people involved in the Occupy Portland movement and that em-
anates from a community of students using their education to affect the future of our country. And I find this to be an entirely more noble pursuit than the efforts of students lending their lives to the jungle of tents in the heart of Portland.
Political Cartoon by Kelly Douglas
Do you think KWCW is a big part of the Whitman community? Poll by Axtell
VANESA VEGA DOR ADO
JENNA C ARR Sophomore
Spanish House Native Speaker
“I don’t listen as much as I feel I should. I guess it’d be nice to get more posters and publicity about shows. But I think it’s a really great thing.”
“I suppose so. My minifeed tells me when all my friends’ shows are on.”
“There seem to be a lot of students involved—lots of students listen to it. I think it’s really nice that there’s a radio station made for students by students.”
“The radio station? I personally don’t have a radio, but I hear other people talking about it a lot.”