Underage drinking.

Today in the Sate News, a letter to the editor about underage drinking. While I agree that students need to recognize the negative effects of alcohol abuse, I disagree with the writer's (Anupama Sridaran) main points.

Anupama makes the suggestion that the university should have more events that offer alternatives to drinking, but I wonder what else there is to do? We are a Big Ten school with many Big Ten sports games to watch (although some see these as just reason to drink). The University Activities Board (UAB) offers events nearly every weekend. As a frequent attendee of UAb events, I wonder why more students don't take advantage of them. UAB also has Wells Hall movies. The Reisdence Hall Association (RHA) has movie rental offices in all the dorm complexes. MSU has three intramural sports centers. These are all on top of residence hall specific progams and activities. What more activities does MSU need to provide?

The real issue here is that for whatever reason, some students choose to drink their weekends away instead of a doing an alternative activity.

Anupama disagrees with the Amethyst Initiative, claiming that it will result in more violations and negative alcohol-related situations.

Again, I disagree. The most significant early effect of a lowered drinking age would be transparency. We could end the days when dorm residents' door are open Sunday through Wednesday, but are "inexplicably" close and locked Thursday night through Saturday night.


We also must realize the impact of underage drinking on the local economy. Imagine the losses resturants on Grand River would have if underage students stopped stumbling in an attempt to order one chicken nugget. Add to this the loss from underage students not drinking from the copious amounts of alchol sold each week, and we'd likely have an even emptier Grand River storefront than we have now.

Also don't forget court costs from those students th atget caught underage

I'm not advocating that every student get drunk every weekend. What I would like is transparency. A change in culture where it becomes cool to drink a beer while watching a movie instead of drinking ten at a party in an attempt to get the most of your $5. Maybe if we would all just end this minor prohibition and recognise the real issues it causes, we mightbe able to cause a change in culture.

Albers update

When I interviewed Bob Albers on the 3^rd floor of the communication arts and sciences building, I saw his personal passions reflected in the contents of his office.

On his door were pictures of different nature landscapes, ranging from ocean to desert. The pictures were clearly treated to emphasize the vastness of the ocean and the desolate desert with its rippled sands.

Photography has been a passion of Albers’ since his undergraduate days at Bellarmie University. It is from photography that his passion for visual storytelling developed.

As an instructor now, he carefully passes this information down to his students.

Rally

Horia Dijmarescu, a second year international relations student at Michigan State University, was the first to arrive at a rally to freeze tuition increases.

Over one thousand people were invited to protest in front of the Hannah Administration building from 2 P.M. to 5:15 P.M.

Less than ten protesters showed up as of 2:30 P.M., but Dijmarescu was hopeful that more would show up.

Dijimarescu co-founded the Michigan State University Accountability and Transparency Initiative, which was formed in reaction to the Associated Students of Michigan Sate University voting down a bill recommending a tuition freeze by a vote of 8-7.

 “That was not a decision representative of the university at large.  Most of us are struggling to pay tuition as it is.” Dijmarescu said.

University administration are set to vote one the increase Friday morning.  If the 8.9 percent tuition increase passes, in-state students will be paying about $913 more per semester, while out-of-state students will be paying $2,289 more per semester.

A new path

Imagine a bleak future where news articles are compiled not by humans, but by highly-complex algorithms.

This was the bleak future painted by Robin Sloan in his short film "EPIC", which envisioned a future without traditional news

Robin Sloan, a 2002 MSU graduate, exemplifies the type of new thinking required in the rapidly changing field of journalism.

Sloan, the VP of strategy at Current_, a cable news channel aimed at young adults, explained how the future of journalism lies in start-up companies.

Sloan believes small, start-up companies will be most successful at forming the future of journalism.

"It's sorta like the difference between writing in a battleship and trying to turn it compared to driving a speed boat around".

Read more on Sloan and his views in the Friday edition of the LSJ.

NCAA 2009

The MSU basketball team is on a race towards he final four of the NCAA basketball tournament. This year is special in that the Spartans play all their games in the midwest.

Along with the team's advances comes the administration's guidelines on "celebrating". This comes as a reaction to "riots" that have become synonymous with MSU,much to the administration's dismay.

The funniest thing about cedarfest last year were the flyers sent out in the dorms prior to it. The flyers essentially told us that our first amendment right to assemble (on both public AND private property) was gone. I believe that it like all parties, it would have fizzled out on its own due to a combination of drunken fatigue and hunger. the mere presence of police in riot gear combined with the students' expectations of the police to use that gear made cedarfest a self-fufilling prophecy of students, police, and university officials.

Push to Unionize

“Our working conditions are your learning conditions” said American Federation of Teaches Michigan organizer Jon Curtiss about the push by nontenure-track faculty at Michigan State University to unionize.

The group of about 1000 faculty members is pushing for job security over all else, but also hope to receive increases in base salaries, base raises, and health insurance coverage. These changes would put nontenure-track faculty at MSU on a level similar to that at the University of Michigan, which unionized its non-tenured faculty in 2003.

The push to unionize requires 30% of the affected group to sign union member cards.

At U of M, the unionization of nontenure-track faculty resulted in an increase of base salaries from the high $10,000 to the low-to-mid 20,000 with a potential 7% raise granted they pass a performance review.

Curtiss believes that an increase of salaries and benefits for nontenure-track faculty will not significantly increase costs for students. At U of M, nontenure-track faculty wages account for about 5 percent of the general university budget.

Spring Break

Spring break is about to begin again for students in the midst of a frigid semester. This break is typically used by students to catch up, get ahead, and relax.

Economic troubles have prevented some from going on vacation,but the general spring break trip is still alive among MSU students.

When my ISP class was asked whether or not they were leaving the state for break, the majority raised their hands. This maybe surprising considering the state of the economy.

Despite the poor state of the economy, the economic crisis reduced the price of a barrel of oil, which in turn lowered gas prices across the board. This allowed light relief and incentive to students seeking to escape the Michigan cold

Not all students are so fortunate to leave. Scott Coy, a mechanical engineering sophomore,plans to go home to Cadillac, Mich., for spring break because he has "no money"

"Going home and seeing friends is enough for me. I wish I could go to Cedar Point" said Cory Taylor, a chemistry freshman.

GOP Makeover

Bobby Jindall, governor of Louisiana, will be delivering the republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address tonight. This seems to be part of a larger republican strategy of making the GOP minorities highly visible in the media. This trend began earlier when Michael Steele was made chairman of the republican party. While republicans might see this as catching up after an african-american democrat was elected president. I believe that this is not very productive if the diverse faces represent the same GOP ideas. Republicans would do well to embrace ideologically diversity instead of putting token minorities in visible positions.

Time's top 25 blogs

Time's blog list seemed to encompass a wide array of websites. It showcased the diversity of blogs in content and presentation. some, like The Huffington Post, use a layout similar to news websites, while others retain a simpler layout.

Stealing Our Lives

Millions of people use Facebook.com daily to keep in touch with old friends and update it their pages with new content. Originally, this content always belonged to the user that uploads it. Last Wednesday, Facebook changed its Terms of Service to say that Facebook controls all content uploaded and posted, even after a profile is deleted, would belong to Facebook.

The vocal Facebook users would not have this.

Groups formed to protest this change, which Facebook made without alerting its users. Facebook eventually reverted to TOS to its original form, but this does n ot disregard that fact that this event occurred.

Rights are a huge issue in the digital era. Everything from professionally made MP3 files to amateur news blogs want their right to ownership protected.

As someone who has posted a lot of content to Facebook, it makes me angry that the site did not even alert its users until after the change happened. A site like this should take more personal responsibility and be up front about changes. Facebook often calls itself a community, and it should at least take the community's views into consideration, especially when altering policy.

Story info taken from an article on CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/17/facebook.terms.service/index.html#cnnSTCText

Executive pay caps

I came to a startling and great realization today- I can get past party lines and election loyalty to truly disagree with the person I voted for to be President.

On one hand, it makes sense that companies receiving TARP money should not be allowed to squander it on excessive bonuses to CEOs. My issue is when this restriction will be lifted. How many quarters must a company be in the black to regain full autonomy of itself?

Although we gave the companies money because they need it, we also need them. if it weren't for the billions generated by these companies annually, many people the world over and in the United States would without a job. If these companies went bankrupt and laid off more workers, that would increase the number of people applying for unemployment benefits and decrease government revenue from income taxes.

I agree with Obama's plan to curb executive pay, I just want to be sure that one day these companies may be allowed their autonomy back as well as lessons learned about how to run a company responsibly.

Accident

A tanker carrying 19,000 gallons of oil overturned onto an SUV, leaving a 61-year-old Manitou Beach man dead and two others injured.
The accident occurred at 1:15 PM on US-127 N near I-496. The Great Lakes Petroleum oil tanker was heading toward Grand Rapids when an unknown cause resulted in the tanker overturning onto a nearby SUV. Among the injured is the 54-year-old wife of the deceased SUV driver. She is at Sparrow Hospital and has life threatening injuries.
The driver of the tanker was a 58-year-old Lansing resident. Police have no reason to believe that drugs or alcohol caused this accident. The driver of the tanker was injured and has been hospitalized with serious injuries at Sparrow Hospital.
US-127 is closed from I-496 to the Lake Lansing Rd. exit. Police expect it US-127 to be open again by 10 PM tonight.
If there are any witnesses to the accident, contact the Lansing Police Department at (517)319-6852.