Students: get into the biking habit
It is important to point out the obvious: The increasing numbers of students who are hopping on motorized scooters to get around Madison are hurting themselves in at least three ways.
First, they are cheating themselves out of the benefits of bicycling as a primary means of getting around and maintaining a good degree of physical fitness and mental alertness.
Second, they are in the long run stealing time away from themselves, if they care about their own fitness. As a year-around bike commuter, I can see that a scooter only saves a few minutes per trip and then requires a separate time slot to engage in a single-purpose fitness activity.
Third, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a large percentage of scooters spew out approximately 15 times more pollutants than a typical automobile. That only adds to the respiratory disease problems suffered by many in Madison due to our already too-high levels of fine particulate and o-zone. That in turn adds to the health care cost burden that takes away money from all of us, and which we would all prefer to have available for more productive uses than treating very preventable lung diseases.
These students would do themselves and everyone else a great favor to leave their scooters at home and get into the biking habit. It is the best way to get around for its ability to move us cheaply and efficiently, while at the same time keeping us fit, and delivering us mentally alert to work and class.
Jeff Schimpff
UW Alumnus
M.S. ,1989
Student vote on LTE wages noble pursuit
I would like to thank the students who voted for the Living Wage referendum and against the Wisconsin Union Facility Improvement plan. You acted to ease the plight of the poorest workers on campus, and should be proud of what you've done.
In an e-mail to Wisconsin Union staff sent before the vote was thrown out, Director Mark Guthier lamented that Washington-style politics had come to the local level. He's right, but not in the way he intended.
As with the decision of the Supreme Court to give Bush the White House, the Student Judiciary ignored the clearly expressed will of the majority of the voters. And as big money has corrupted our national politics, the Wisconsin Union administration's use of public money to fund the campaign for WUFIP has done the same at UW-Madison.
The fact that volunteers with a shoe string budget were able to prevail is even more impressive.
Asking the SJ to uphold a vote that would deny the UW administration over a quarter of a billion dollars in increased seg fees is apparently too much to expect. Students have voted against WUFIP and for the Living Wage twice, and their vote has yet to be respected.
UW-Madison is a world class university, and pays LTE's poverty. That's a crime and we'll fight this battle until it's won.
Mark Thomas
AFSCME Local 171 Steward
Madison, Wis.
