Just try and remember everything…
Cribbing notes from a classmate and using online summary services like Sparknotes are valuable tools for college students with early-morning lectures and late-night schedules. But if a University of Florida professor gets his way in court, both widespread practices could be declared illegal. Michael Moulton, a UF professor of wildlife ecology and conservation, has filed a lawsuit against Class Notes – a commercial note-taking company that repackages student notes for sale online – arguing that the sale of student notes infringes the copyrights with which he has carefully protected his course materials. Moulton ought to be able to protect his property, but bringing the notoriously restrictive world of copyright law into the classroom has the potential to open a Pandora’s box of painful problems. For that reason, this lawsuit gets an Incomplete.
Rising above a raise
Despite the day-to-day divisions of politics, elected officials are almost always able to build consensus over one important issue: giving themselves a raise. The 110th Congress passed a pay raise for itself this January, the ninth salary hike in the last 10 years. But although our own student government all too often emulates the vices of its bigger brothers, this week it chose to do the right thing: At Wednesday’s Associated Students of the University of Arizona Senate meeting, President Tommy Bruce refused a proposed increase to his $6000 annual stipend. Whether student leaders deserve compensation at all is a worthy question, but for turning down a tempting raise, Bruce deserves a Pass.
Pint potentates
On Wednesday, a group of over 100 college presidents and athletic directors sent a concerned letter to NCAA President Myles Brand urging the student athletic organization to review its policies on alcohol advertising during televised sporting events, arguing that “”alcohol advertising and college sports are a bad mix.”” Sure, we’d all prefer not to hear another dumbfounded cry of “”Dude!””, but arguing that full-grown adults should be protected from the insidious images of a few brewskis is na’ve, prudish and condescending. At least they were right on one count. “”Beer advertising subverts”” the NCAA’s true mission: pumping out athletes for big-time sports. For meddling in a harmless market, these priggish presidents get a Fail.
Secret courts: still kickin’
In the latest U.S.-led debacle to come out of the Middle East, men detained by the U.S. military are being tried in secret in Afghan courts. Generally short and conducted without witnesses, the tribunals rely almost exclusively upon documents forwarded to the Afghanis by the United States While Afghan authorities claim the forwarded evidence is necessary due to their atrophied judicial system, and the U.S. has absolved itself by claiming that the trials are being conducted at the behest of the Afghanis, these secret trials are yet another embarrassing account of the current state of U.S.-occupied territories in the Middle East. The New York Times, reporting on the trials, asserted that they are based in large part on an Afgani security law enacted in 1987 during the country’s occupation by the Soviet Union. But our encouragement of covert proceedings following the Soviet Union’s model of justice eerily echoes Soviet “”show trials”” during the cold war. For willingness to abandon its moral convictions in favor of incarcerating still more prisoners in the Middle East, the U.S. military deserves a Fail.
