As I’m sure you can tell from the name-calling and the hair-pulling that has ensued in the Capitol-turned-playground, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Sen. Ted Cruz R-Texas and the rest of the schoolyard gang chose to shut down the federal government Monday night. As a result, 800,000 federal employees were sent home.
For college students today, the word “debt” is an omnipresent warning about the problems facing our future. From record student loan debt, about $27,000 on average per person, to the immense and growing national debt, college students are bombarded by figures that demonstrate the threat to our American dreams. Unemployment for young people remains in the double digits, about 11 percent, due to the lasting impact of the Great Recession. Our national debt has reached $200 trillion, and counting. Yet, despite these staggering facts, many college students remain unmoved, either feeling powerless to enact real change or disengaged from politics in general. But perhaps the scariest part about the national debt is that it threatens our futures to an even greater extent than it does those best positioned to fix it. And so, it is up to our generation to defeat the debt, before it defeats us.
The oversight process for animal experiments is broken.
There’s too much hack-job journalism circulating the Internet.
Well, it happened again. The spoiled rich kids threw a fit because they couldn’t get their way, and now everyone around them is scrambling to pick up their mess. Except this isn’t a movie, it’s the real world, and it isn’t high school, it’s Congress. To quote Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., “You don’t get to hold the entire economy, the entire country hostage because you don’t like the outcome of an election.” Yet, seemingly, that is exactly what was done. This absurdly childish behavior has many implications for us, both as students at a public research university and as citizens of the country as well as the world.
On June 8th, 1954, a beautiful Japanese traditional bell was presented to the United Nations New York headquarters by the United Nations Associations of Japan in the name of People of Nippon. They named the bell for “absolute world peace.” However, there would be no use of tolling such a beautiful bell every year if Japan distances itself from the others. It has been approximately 68 years since the end of WWII and Japan is trying to go back to its “old glorious days” while Germany is walking the path of endless apologies and self-retrospection.
It’s time the legal drinking age should be changed. I mean, come on, weed is almost legal! Yet, we still have to be 21 years of age to purchase and consume alcohol? Being of the tender age of 19 and having a late spring birthday I have quite a bit of time to wait before I can legally purchase and consume alcohol. I will admit I had a fake but now that I recently have gotten it confiscated and do not want to go through the trouble of purchasing a new one, it’s time I write this article.
As Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez sits at his desk, he looks down into his morning coffee to see if they’re still there. Sure enough, the ripples on the surface aren’t going away; in fact, they’re getting bigger. Something big is coming and it can’t be good. Mr. Alvarez isn’t alone. All but a handful of his NCAA Division I cohorts are having similar moments. Those who aren’t well, they’re not paying attention. The threat is no small threat, but a growing movement to mandate that big-time college football and men’s basketball programs pay hefty salaries to scholarship players. Should this come to pass, Wisconsin will find itself on the bottom floor of a two-tiered caste system with no means of improving its lot.
Student debt. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it’s unavoidable. And unless you’re one of the lucky few who attend on scholarship, most students at this university will graduate with some sort of debt. New developments at the highest level of the UW System administration could be making things better or worse for us all, that is, depending on whether the state you come from ends in “-sconsin.”
With the main focus of the media circuits this past week being Washington’s debates about government shutdown and the debt ceiling, a rather heartening story was buried. For the first time in over 30 years, ranking government officials from the United States sat down to converse with Iran. United States Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York with China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany. The focus of the meeting was on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and whether or not talks could be resumed to restore relations between Iran and the West regarding this contentious issue.
For as long as I can remember, I have been a die-hard movie fan. From the theater, to an outdoor cinema in the park, to my couch at home, there has always been a level of excitement to watching movies that I can’t describe. Lately, however, getting lost inside the world of film has been hard for me due to our modern film industry’s obsession with portraying females as shallow, simple and man-obsessed people.
I threw a piece of paper into the garbage today. Logically, I know that’s terrible for the environment. I understand that average surface area temperatures are projected to possibly increase 3 to 10 percent by the end of the century. I also know that one fourth of the earth’s species are predicted to be on the track to extinction by 2050 according to the Nature Conservatory. But, I didn’t recycle that piece of paper.
The neglect that the United States government has shown the people of Syria will only produce more danger for the American people from angry Syrian citizens taking refuge in terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda.
You might recall that on Sept. 19, two men opened fire on a park on the south side of Chicago, wounding 13 people including a 3-year-old boy. If you think back a little further, you might also remember earlier that same week, another gunman shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard, just blocks away from our nation’s Capitol. In fact, if you can recount every such incident over the last four years, you’ll find that 43 mass shootings—nearly one for every month during that time period—occurred in the United States. Still, after all the media attention, after all the political warfare, after all the empty talk of change, nothing has happened.
It is time Speaker John Boehner flex the muscle of his speakership. Speaker Boehner is the kid who keeps getting his lunch money stolen at recess. From the failed farm bill vote to the inability to cajole his caucus to pass a comprehensive budget resolution in conjunction with senate Democrats to Tea Party Republicans bullying him into including a clause to defund Obamacare in the resolution the House passed the other day to stop the government from shutting down, Boehner is running out of money and so is the government.
As we’re sure you are probably and hopefully aware, in the past few weeks, the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and its surrounding community has seen an increase in strong-armed robberies taking place in off-campus housing where university students live. Suspects are robbing people at random, often threatening the victims with a weapon.
Last week, FX’s hit series “Sons of Anarchy” aired its Season 6 premiere to landmark numbers. Despite what even the creator of the show admitted was a disturbing episode, “Sons of Anarchy” drew in 8.32 million viewers in its 10 p.m. time slot, setting a record for any show on FX. Packed into the hour were guns, rape and other multitudes of gross, sometimes downright squeamish scenes. So it’s no surprise that immediately following the premiere, the Parents Television Council blasted the network and creator for airing such an offensive and insensitive episode. Oh, here we go.
Last week, The Daily Cardinal issued a call to action in response to potential changes to Shared Governance at UW. As a student representative on several Shared Governance committees, and the Chair of the ASM this year, it is my responsibility to ensure students continue to have the opportunity to enrich our great University, and leave a legacy on campus. Shared Governance has a winning track record for its victories on campus. To defend this principle, we must keep winning the race.
This Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be releasing a 2,000 page report on the current scientific opinion regarding climate change. Unfortunately, there has been a preponderance of evidence to suggest the report is being dishonestly composed. The Telegraph reported Saturday that while the IPCC report will suggest that the likelihood that man is the source of global warming has risen from 90 to 95 percent certainty, top climate scientists are struggling to explain why global warming has been slowing since 1998. Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter for The Telegraph writes, “Documents seen by the Associated Press (AP) show attempts at political interference in the final report,” and that “several governments that reviewed the draft objected to how the issue was tackled. The documents, according to AP, show Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted while the US urged scientists to include as its ‘leading hypothesis’ that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean.”
My name is Kari and I am the Communications Coordinator for PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment) here at UW-Madison. PAVE is a student-run organization dedicated to ending sexual assault, dating/domestic violence and stalking through education and activism.
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