Eco-friendly mindset spreading around globe

Where I come from, it is cooler to say you are a vegetarian than to say you play football, and more fashionable to wear 100 percent cotton than fur. In essence, it is better in western Marin County, CA, to be an active participant in the ecosystem than to be an active participant in popular culture. In stark contrast, the rest of the world seems to run counter clockwise to the mindset I’ve grown up with; from NYC to Beijing, what I now consider irrational in an eco-friendly lifestyle is becoming chic. Coming to a new school and a new lifestyle, imagine how happy I was to see a little bit of home in a product called biodegradable corn cups. As a search on www.biodegradablestore.com told me, they are 100 percent compostable, not to mention are made from a renewable resource as opposed to regular plastics that are made from petroleum. To know that a local college vendor would refrain from using styrofoam in favor of the more eco-friendly cups gives me hope that one day the views of all cultures will be centered around an eco-centric planet.

– Jessica Fraser is a freshman majoring in political science and journalism.

UA now a buck more expensive

As the Arizona Daily Wildcat reported in June, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a $1 increase in the Arizona Students’ Association student fee. As a result, students now pay $2 per semester to support the ASA, which lobbies on behalf of Arizona students like me. This fee increase is simply unwarranted given ASA’s record of “”success”” in recent years.

I could probably find another dollar in my couch, so it’s not the amount of money at stake here that troubles me. In my three years at the university, ASA has made painfully little progress in its mission to make college more affordable. Sure, ASA lobbies and makes some noise, but do these efforts actually pay off in a tangible way? Has your tuition bill gone down each year? Mine sure hasn’t.

This fee increase will enable ASA to make twice as much noise and yield twice the success. Two times zero is, well, zero. A zero in the success column doesn’t help anyone. In fact, it just makes college $1 less affordable. ASA can double its budget on my dollar when its efforts directly benefit me by lowering the cost of higher education. Until then, I want my dollar returned safely to its home in my couch.

– Justin Huggins is a senior majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Kim Jong Il: more ‘Il’ than you think?

Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura wrote this week in Shukan Gendai, a Japanese weekly magazine, that North Korean supervillain Kim Jong Il has been dead for the last four or five years and has been replaced by a body double. Shigemura’s argument is based on a flurry of highly suspicious North Korean political activity during late 2003, as well as reports that Kim’s health suddenly worsened a few years earlier. Oddly, Shigemura neglected to mention his sources. Okay, so maybe the whole report is really sketchy and probably not true at all. But in a country where the head of state is technically still Kim Il Sung, who has been dead for the last 14 years (we’re sure about this one) and Kim Jong Il, who is merely the de facto leader, is capable of parting the clouds and making the mountains quiver, just about anything is possible.

– Taylor Kessinger is a senior majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology, math and physics.

$4 per gallon, $4 per life

Just $4 a gallon could save a life. It’s true. According to CBS News, an ongoing study by a few major universities has shown that the more we cough up for our gas tanks, the fewer fatalities occur on our roadways. The report also brought to attention the irony in how the focus and rage these days is so exclusively devoted to safer highways, safer cars and seemingly safer patrols, when in reality all people needed was a reality check. When the choice of speeding up to cut someone off or just hanging back and saving $10 is made a reality, most people would rather keep their money. We live in a money-based society, so the minute driving got more expensive, people were forced to be smarter drivers -ÿwhich equals fewer accidents. So the next time you fill your car up and you’re grimacing at the infinitely climbing number next to the money symbol on the gas pump, remember: Every $4 could save a life.

– Isaac Mohr is a journalism freshman.