Another cow issue has brought both national and international attention to Ohio.

An undercover video was recently released by an animal rights organization showing graphic animal abuse taking place at a central Ohio dairy farm.

Mercy for Animals created substantial buzz May 25 when the nonprofit organization put the video on YouTube and its website.

In the video, employees at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City are shown beating cows with crowbars, stabbing them with pitchforks and snapping their tails off. It shows a calf being kicked and stomped in the face as well as repeated kicking and punching of other cows.

Not surprisingly, the video has drawn a variety of responses from viewers. It has also created controversy for the farm, which is located 25 miles northwest of campus.

A May 27 media statement from owner Gary Conklin said he condemns the abuse.

“The video shows animal care that is clearly inconsistent with the high standards we set for our farm and its workers, and we find the specific mistreatment shown on the video to be reprehensible and unacceptable,” he said.

Despite his statement, Conklin is identified in the video kicking a “downer” — a cow that is too sick to move. Conklin’s son, Ryan, is a fourth-year at OSU in agriculture business and animal science. He declined an interview with The Lantern.

Video was shot undercover from April 28 to May 23. The Mercy for Animals employee who shot the video was hired by Conklin Farms as a herdsman in late April. He collected more than 20 hours of footage, which was used to make Mercy for Animals’ four-minute clip. Remaining footage is in the hands of Union County law enforcement authorities.

One of the Conklin Farms employees, Billy Joe Gregg, was arrested May 26 on suspected animal abuse charges. His presence in the video is the most pronounced, which might explain why he is the only employee to face charges at this point. Union County officials continue to investigate.

Gregg, 25, of Delaware, Ohio, also faces a gun charge related to a loaded handgun found in his car, which was parked at the farm. He was indicted by a Union County grand jury on one count of improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle.

Gregg was fired from his job May 26 and was charged with 12 counts of animal cruelty. The animal cruelty charges are all second-degree misdemeanors. In Ohio, the most severe charge for animal cruelty is a misdemeanor.

Each of the 12 misdemeanor counts carries a maximum of 90 days in jail and a $750 fine. However, the maximum sentence is a combined 18 months. Gregg is scheduled to be in Union County Common Pleas Court on June 10.

Gregg asked his judge that he not be kept in jail while waiting for trial because he has appointments with the Department of Veterans Affairs, a law-enforcement exam to become a police officer, and animals of his own to take care of.

But his request was denied, and his bond was set at $100,000.
Mercy for Animals, a Chicago-based organization, said it chose Ohio because of the state’s lax laws on animal abuse. However, the group says there was no particular reason Conklin Farms was chosen for Mercy’s undercover investigation.

“This was not an insider tip. We selected the farm at random,” said Eddie Garza, coordinator of Mercy for Animals.

The group’s selection of the farm has been the main focus of skeptics, as Conklin Farms has never faced public allegations of abuse or mistreatment of its animals.

Katherine Hoang, a fourth-year in marketing, said that although she thinks Gregg deserves a harsh punishment, the circumstances would be a little different if he had abused humans.

She said she supports animal rights but feels cruelty against either humans or animals should be judged on a case-by-case basis.

There are so many factors, she said. People seem to accept that lab mice aren’t necessarily treated as other animals are.

“Where do we draw the line?” she said.

Natalie Williams, a fourth-year in French, voiced similar concerns. She said she thinks Gregg should be punished, though she is more concerned with human rights than animal rights. However, she said she is alarmed when she hears a story like Gregg’s. Any type of violence like that, no matter who or what it’s directed toward, worries me, she said.

The Ohio State University Senate approved the decision to merge the five arts and sciences colleges into a single College of the Arts and Sciences.

The merge, approved by the senate May 27, will be implemented if it is also approved by the Board of Trustees, which will meet June 17 and 18.

The unification of the College of Arts and Sciences includes the arts, biological sciences, humanities, mathematical and physical sciences, and social and behavioral sciences.

Those who are supportive of the unification say the new structure will be an improvement and will increase collaboration and synergy.

In 2008, a campus-wide committee assessed the status of the arts and sciences at Ohio State and concluded that the structure could be improved by establishing one college to replace the five separate colleges. Since that recommendation, planning for the restructuring process has begun and has been working its way through the approval process.

“The major reason for unifying the arts and sciences into one college is to promote and facilitate collaboration and cooperation between faculty and students in the departments and programs that make up the arts and sciences,” said Joe Steinmetz, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Merging five colleges into one is no easy task. The process will include working out many details of how to administer the new college. Issues such as how the advisory councils will operate and how the college will be represented in the senate still need to be resolved.

“We have worked this year to design and put in place the new administrative structure for the new college,” Steinmetz said.

Steinmetz said he hopes the integration will make life easier for students and faculty.

“Arts and sciences faculty and students should find it easier to work with other faculty and students both inside and outside of the new college,” he said.

When Ohio State students return for Autumn Quarter, they should plan to bring their wallets. With the approved tuition increase and mandatory Union fee, annual fees will be at least $741 more than they were in autumn 2009.

The increased tuition represents $8,994 of the now $9,420 in annual fees. This spring, the Board of Trustees held a series of meetings discussing the increase and approved the measure with no opposition in May.

“It is with a sense of regret, but also with a sense of realization that there are things we must do going forward to increase the quality of the institution,” said Provost Joseph Alutto to the Board of Trustees in March.

The increase became necessary after state budget problems ended the two-year government-supported tuition freeze. OSU, along with the other Ohio public universities, were notified they would be allowed to raise tuition in both of the following two years to compensate for the lack of government support.

OSU held off on raising tuition through spring 2010, resulting in the previous four years having the lowest tuition increases in more than 40 years at the university.

But the allowance was a “use it or lose it” type deal according to OSU officials, so the 3.5 percent raise Summer Quarter will count as this fiscal year’s raise, and the 3.5 percent raise Autumn Quarter will count as next year’s.

The new Ohio Union is another factor in the increase in required fees. Students will pay approximately three-fourths of the cost for the new Union, which ended up at $118.8 million.

In the fall, the fee for students will be $51 per quarter. It will rise to $63 by 2015 and go up about $1 a year after that until it reaches $78 in 2030, though the Board of Trustees must approve each raise.

The fees are higher than, or at least on the high end of, multiple projections by OSU officials.

On March 3, 2004, former vice president of Student Affairs Bill Hall told the Undergraduate Student Government that the fee would be $45 per quarter.

On May 28, 2004, the Council of Graduate Students discussed a resolution supporting the Union and the fee. It included a fee range from $30 to $45 per quarter.

In June 2004, the Board of Trustees approved a fee of between $20 and $55 per quarter in fiscal year 2008 dollars.

The higher fee is likely because of the higher-than-anticipated cost of the Union. In 2004, the Board of Trustees approved a $100 million project, $18.8 million less than the actual cost of the Union.

When President E. Gordon Gee was told that the fee will be $63 in 2015 during his April visit to The Lantern, he appeared satisfied with the fee.

“Is that all it is — $63 a quarter? That is an incredible bargain. I can’t believe that. I would think it would be higher than that,” Gee said.
OSU officials agree with Gee and say that OSU as a whole is a bargain for students.

OSU’s tuition will be lower than five of the six other selective admission public universities in the state, including Miami, Ohio University, Bowling Green and Cincinnati. Kent State’s annual required fees will remain $389 lower than OSU’s.

“These other five schools are good schools, but in terms of national reputation, Ohio State is first and our fees are second from the bottom,” said former Chief Financial Officer Bill Shkurti to the Board of Trustees in March. “To me, that is the definition of a good value.”

Others, however, have expressed concern with the rapid increase in fees as well as other costs.

Jason Marion, student representative to the Board of Trustees, expressed this concern before the approval of the tuition increase.

“The tuition and instructional fee costs are only part of the big picture,” he said. “Course fees, college fees, technology fees, those are part of, part of the instruction that goes on at this university as well, and those fees have actually been increasing quite rapidly over the last five or six years.”

Current Chief Financial Officer Geoffrey Chatas said other fees, such as room and board, are being reviewed and will be discussed at the board’s June meeting.

After 25 memorable years of being a Buckeye, Linda Harlow, the associate provost of the University Honors and Scholars Center, has announced her retirement.

“I’ve absolutely loved those 25 years and the university. I love working with the faculty, the students and the French department,” Harlow said. “I’m going to miss everybody.”

During her time at OSU, Harlow has held various positions. She was the director of the Undergraduate French Language Program, the associate dean of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Humanities and the faculty supervisor of the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Office.

Since 2002, when Harlow became director of the Honors and Scholars Center, the programs have undergone numerous changes, such as uniform minimum standards for maintaining honors status and the establishment of student and faculty advisory boards for the assessment of the programs.

The most significant change that Harlow oversaw was the establishment of the minimum standards, she said. The standards set specific requirements that students have to maintain to keep their honors status.

“We’ve been able to raise the level of work that honors students do,” Harlow said. “They know when we recruit them what’s going to be expected and the things they have to do to earn their share of the benefits.”

After retirement, Harlow plans to move to North Carolina with her husband and golden retrievers. She plans to continue teaching part-time and become involved in a large, active service community, Harlow said.

Harlow earned a doctorate in foreign language, a master’s degree in teaching French and a bachelor’s degree in French and Spanish education. She also co-authored multiple editions of the college-level French textbook, “Bravo!”.

Her favorite thing about OSU is the size of the university and all the opportunities it presents, she said.

After years of recruiting hundreds of OSU’s top students, she leaves students with the following advice: “Just go out and collect as many experiences as you can. You never know how it will impact your future, but be open to every opportunity out there. Take advantage of them, and everything will work out at the end.”

Haskett Hall, an Ohio State art building tucked away between Boyd Hall and Koffolt Laboratory, is one of the oldest structures on campus and has a storied history. Haskett Hall and its past will soon be destroyed.

“There are stairs and entrances that seem to lead to nowhere or extremely large spaces that can’t be seen from any vantage point except a hidden door,” said Rachel Heberling, a printmaking student who uses a studio in Haskett.

Heberling said she found many oddities when she first set up her studio and referred to Haskett as “one of the strangest” buildings she has entered. She found old school desks, a dissected cat model and an old radio she guessed was from the ‘40s that still works.

Originally named the Engineering Experiment Station, the building was constructed in 1925 for $178,248.68 and was designed for science experimentation, according to a report from the OSU archives.

Money for the Engineering Experiment Station was difficult to get at fist, but after a series of proposals from 1911 to 1925 from the engineering department, OSU received enough money from the state to construct equipment for industrial research, according to university archives.

The Engineering Experiment Station housed a concrete laboratory, a foundry research laboratory used to produce metal castings and a cyclotron room used to research the physics behind particle accelerators, according to a blueprint of the building from July 18, 1952.

Photographs of various experiments from these years can be found at the OSU photography archives located on Kenny Road.

A War Research Laboratory, now Boyd Hall, and a State Highway Testing Laboratory, now Johnston Laboratory, were connected to the Engineering Experiment Station. All three departments were dedicated to war research during the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, according to the Haskett Hall file from the archives.

Traces of a few experiments performed while Haskett was still the Engineering Experiment Station are still visible. For example, there are still railroad tracks in the first floor of the building that were built to test the strength of steel beams.

“(The building) has unique characteristics. Some of the remnants are still here,” said Charles Massey, an OSU printmaking professor. “At one time they ran rail cars through there. You can still see the tracks now and can still see the ridges in the floor and streets through the building.”

After World War II, the building’s use gradually became centered on arts rather than science.

The Engineering Experiment Station was officially named Frank Haskett Hall in 1968. This was in remembrance of the first OSU photography chairman Frank Haskett, who retired early in his career from sickness, according to an article from a May 1968 edition of The Lantern.

OSU formally began teaching photography in 1890. There was only one other university that taught photography that early in history, said Robert W. Wagner, former chairman of photography who is now a theater professor at OSU.

Wagner said he was hired in 1948 to work in the photography department. Photography around this time was utilized for war efforts and his personal skills in this area helped him land the job at OSU.

“I didn’t shoot anyone except with a camera,” Wagner said referring to shooting photographs from various stages of World War II.”

Photography was part of the College of Engineering at OSU for nearly 100 years, according to Wagner’s publication, “History of the Department of Photography.”

“In those days you had to know many more technical things than you do now,” Wagner said referring to why photography was part of the engineering department for so many years.

Wagner compiled a book titled “The First Hundred Years.” Photographs from 1870 through 1970 of various scenes at OSU make up this publication.

However, in 1975 OSU moved photography from the College of Engineering to the College of the Arts, according to an article in the April 1975 edition of The Lantern. At that point it was made official for students to earn a film degree.

Controversy in Haskett erupted two decades later when OSU abolished the Department of Photography and Cinema. Photography stayed in Haskett under its own department and film was moved to the west end of campus where it remains today, Wagner said.

Many students and professors were forced to move to other departments. Some students working on film were unable to finish their degrees, as the film department was taken from Haskett piece by piece.

“They were literally taking the equipment out from under me,” said Carlos Gutierrez in a 1995 The Lantern article.

Gutierrez was the last student to make a film in Haskett. He was editing his film when two men removed his bench from under him, according to the article.

Massey said the printmaking department was moved from Hopkins to Haskett in 1997 when the film department was eliminated. His major concern is not having enough room for printmaking in Hopkins where it will return after Haskett is gone.

“Jokingly we say we moved out of Hopkins because we couldn’t fit and now we are moving back,” Massey said.

The last stage of evolution for Haskett may end as early as next summer. Though an exact date has not been set, Haskett will be torn down along with Boyd Hall, Johnston Laboratory and the Aviation Building to make room for two new and improved chemistry buildings set to be ready for use by 2014.

Freshman James Sweeney walked across the Oval numerous times in 1952. Fifty-eight years later, he is still making that same walk.

Sweeney’s history at Ohio State is remarkable. In his time, he has seen six football National Championships, five Heisman award winners, four Ohio State structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places, three Pistol National Championships, two pistol athletes win the Big Ten Conference Medal of Honor award, and one ultimate success: educating students.

Sweeney is 76 years old and approaching his twelfth season as coach of the Ohio State pistol team.

He graduated from Ohio State in 1957 with a degree in physical education. He later pursued a master’s in curriculum design and a doctorate in sport pedagogy (a focus on educating others how to teach sports) from Ohio State.

Ever since he got out of college, he has been putting his degree to work. Whether this is college students or collegiate athletes, Sweeney has been educating since 1958.

“I would say if there is one way to define him, in general, it is that he is a very wise person,” senior pistol member Tyler Phillips said. “If we are all paying attention, he is not only teaching us about shooting, but life as well.”

Three years ago, Sweeney was able to persuade OSU to give out scholarships for pistol recruits. This was a huge accomplishment for a small athletic program, but the recognition of scholarships was a double-edged sword for the educator.

“I liked taking walk-on’s and turning them into elite collegiate athletes,” Sweeney said. “I enjoy working with highly skilled individuals who have had previous training for years, but on the other hand, the satisfaction of teaching is not quite the same. I miss that part.”

Sweeney’s mixed feelings can be expressed through two of his players.

Phillips was a walk-on athlete from the pistol club.

“(Sweeney) introduced me to the sport,” he said. “He taught me everything I know. Not only did he talk to me about shooting, but he also taught me a lot about philosophy in the sport as well.”

Sophomore Christina Heaton was recruited as a scholar-athlete and has competed in the junior Olympics.

“I don’t talk to (Sweeney) that much personally,” Heaton said. “When we are practicing, he will give us an event to work on and we will practice.”

Though Heaton is part of a more experienced group of OSU pistol shooters, she still needed to seek advice from the coach during a big slump.

“If you have problems, you can go to him,” she said. “He sat down with me and we started from the basics…he really helped me out.”

Sweeney has been retired since 1994, but continues to teach with emeritus status.

For a man who is 76, he is in top physical shape. He walks to campus everyday, uses a car only when it is necessary and still does small physical workouts.

Even at such an old age, he is not worried about leaving Ohio State any time soon.

“I am just playing it year-by-year,” he said. “As long as I am healthy, enjoy what I do and can relate with the students, before I get too old, I have no definite retirement plans.”

Coach Sweeney has experienced a lot of Ohio State history, but, in the process, has also become a part of it.

Trailing by four shots heading into the Memorial’s final round, round one co-leader Justin Rose shot a near-flawless 66 on Sunday to claim his first career PGA tour victory at 18-under par.

“For me, it’s a great way to win,” Rose said. “And to win here at the Memorial, at Jack’s tournament, I couldn’t think of a better place to win my first tournament. It’s a great day.”

Chasing three-round leader Rickie Fowler, Rose said he was able to stay focused on his game and let the rest take care of itself.

“I knew that I was in the hunt all week, but I wasn’t playing golf like I was in the hunt all week,” he said. “I was just in the moment and I thought that paid off for me today.”

Playing nearly mistake-free golf with just one bogey in the first three days, the youngster Fowler was unable to close it out with three bogeys and a double bogey in his final round.

Knotted at 16-under par heading into the par-3 12th hole, Fowler made double bogey to drop two shots back and never held the lead again.

“I was just trying to aim at the back bunker and cut it off a little bit there,” said Fowler. “The ball started going where I wasn’t trying to. So I just made a bad swing and paid for it.”

Although Fowler’s final round 73 resulted in a second place finish at 15-under, he was still pleased with his overall performance this week.

“It was an awesome week,” he said. “Obviously not the round that I wanted today, didn’t hit as many greens as I would like to, but we had a lot of fun.”

Rounding out the top five were Bo Van Pelt and Ricky Barnes in a tie for third at 12-under and Ryan Moore, Phil Mickelson and Tim Petrovic tied for fifth at 11-under par.

World No. 1 Tiger Woods finished out his week with an even par 72, leaving him in a tie for 19th at 6-under for the tournament.

The PGA tour will head south next week for the St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tenn., before heading to the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links in two weeks for the 2010 edition of the U.S. Open.

The U. Arizona Wildcats downed the U. Tennessee Lady Volunteers 5-2 on Sunday to move forward to their 13th championship series of the Women’s College World Series in school history.

The Wildcats (52-12) will now face UCLA in a best-of-three series that puts the two winningest programs in NCAA softball history up against one another.

Arizona became just the fifth team to win twice on Sunday to advance to the championship series. The last time it was done was the 2007 Wildcats, who went on to win the national championship.

“This has to go right up there as one of the great moments in Arizona history,” said head coach Mike Candra. “Just to do what they did to give us an opportunity to play for a championship.”

The Wildcats ended the Lady Volunteers’ season for the third time in the last five years.

After forcing the “if necessary” game earlier in the day by mercy ruling Tennessee (49-15) 8-0 in five innings, Arizona quickly found it’s self behind early in Sunday’s second game.

The middle of Arizona’s lineup, which was 1-for-38 coming into Sunday, got the job done for the Wildcats when they needed it most.

After attributing the success of Tennessee’s pitcher Ivy Renfroe to her ability to pitch faster than the Arizona hitters expected, the Wildcats knocked 12 hits off Renfroe (31-6) in the elimination game.

Already down two runs in the third inning, catcher Stacie Chambers cashed in with the first home run of the WCWS for Arizona. Her two run shot that scored center fielder Lauren Schutzler tied the game and swung the momentum back in the UA’s favor.

“Just an outstanding performance: Gutsy, tenacious, whatever you want to call it,” Candrea said of the team’s effort to battle back. “For the last two days it’s just been a grind. I think we had a really good team effort. Some crucial plays that you need at this time of the year.”

Chambers was 1-for-12 in the series before her 18th home run of the season.

Third baseman Brigette Del Ponte would record the game winning RBI in the fifth inning when her single scored senior K’Lee Arredondo.

The improved production put the four through eight hitters in Arizona’s lineup at 5—for-14 during the second game on Sunday.

Arredondo would cap the Wildcat scoring and add some insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth when she hit a two-run jack of her own. The blast once again changed the direction of the game. Before Arredondo stepped to the plate, the Lady Volunteers completed a double play off the bat of Schutzler that ousted Lastrapes and Buchanan, both of whom had reached on infield singles.

“We needed some more runs for (Fowler),” Arredondo said. “It’s a comfort thing you want runs on your back. It feels good.”

The fight of Tennessee, who needed just one win on against the Wildcats to ink its name along with UCLA, was unable to quell the Arizona bats despite starting off the game strong.

The Lady Volunteers came out with energy early, threatening in each of the first three innings.

Tennessee had the bases loaded in the first inning after Kenzie Fowler (38-7) walked Erinn Webb. Raven Chavanne had singled off the glove of Del Ponte and Jessica Spigner was hit by a pitch before Lauren Gibson was walked to plate the run in the first.

The second inning saw a potential add on run squandered after Melissa Brown made a base running error. Brown walked and moved to second base on Fowler’s only called illegal pitch of the night, but was doubled up on a web gem play from Lastrapes.

Brown didn’t realize that Lastrapes had caught the ball and quickly rounded the bases. After hitting the wall, Lastrapes zipped the ball back into second and ended the threat.

“Great catch by Lastrapes, kind of turned the tide a little bit,” Candrea said. “Those are the things that happen in games like this. “

After the third inning, when Tennessee got its last run of the season, Fowler worked through the rest of the game by using a combination of strikeouts and groundouts to keep the Wildcats in comfortable territory.

“Yeah I was tired, but who really cares,” said Fowler of pitching four games in two days. “The defense played awesome today and as long as you can keep the game where we have a chance to win I think our team has a good chance.”

The Wildcats will take on Pacific 10 Conference rivals UCLA starting Monday night at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

All right, kids, today we’re going to talk about a systemic problem plaguing anyone who has written anything. It doesn’t matter if your medium is pen and paper, a word processor or that thing phones do where they send messages without talking, which doesn’t make sense because it’s a phone, you’re supposed to talk into it, if I wanted to get poorly punctuated run-on sentences I would get a telegraph machine [FULL STOP].

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that no matter who you are, you have at some point dealt with the Over-The-Shoulder-Reader.

You see, there exists a condition where ordinarily normal people, when exposed to someone in the process of writing, suddenly develop an uncontrollable urge to participate in the process. In more severe cases, this symptom is coupled with severe halitosis and a complete ignorance of the concept of personal space.

Just imagine that you’re trying to write a concise and well-reasoned argument about how the film “The Human Centipede” is evidence that Western Civilization has uttered its last feeble dying breath, and suddenly the warm raspy mouth-breathing feeling on the back of your neck alerts you that someone has succumbed to the deadly condition.

“Right there,” says the infected individual, pointing over your shoulder. “Butthole is spelled with two t’s.”

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I heard typing and then…well, I kind of blacked out and now I’m here, breathing garlic breath down the back of your neck and reading about.. what? Did you actually see this movie?”

“No, I just watched the trailer on IMDB and then stabbed out my eyeballs with a spork so I could never see anything so stupid again in my life.

“Wait, the mad scientist really stitches their…wow, that sure is an awkward topic to write about.”

“Yeah, Dad. Yeah, it is.”

“Well, I think I’ll just continue standing here and being your father while you write about a mad scientist sewing peoples’ faces and butts together to form a centipede, which incidentally reminds me of a college prank I pulled involving a roll of duct tape and some frat brothers of mine that had passed out…”

But the awkwardly reminiscent parent is only the tip of the iceberg. The following is a list of all the common variants of the Over-The-Shoulder-Reader that I have so far encountered. Counter measures are few and untested, but in an effort to know your enemy, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the following:

The Editor: By far the most common, this particular Over-The-Shoulder-Reader ignores the content of your writing to dissect your punctuation practices with fascist precision. Extreme cases are known to actually hijack the keyboard in order to rectify a misplaced comma.

The One-Upper: “Oh, I had something exactly like what you just wrote happen to me, only I was on a speed boat, and there were like, five supermodels standing there, and then this great white shark jumped out of the water and got struck by lighting.”

The Silent Lurker: Perhaps the most awkward of all Over-The-Shoulder-Readers, the Silent Lurker is not known for his obnoxious critiquing or editing, but rather his inescapable and enduring presence. Where other Over-The-Shoulder-Readers may eventually be worn down, or distracted by shiny objects dragged into other rooms by strings, the Silent Lurker remains quietly reading for days on end. A typical Silent Lurkers interaction goes something like this:

Silent Lurker: “Hey, what are you up to?”

You: “Oh, just writing that Great American Novel I’m always talking about.”

Silent Lurker: “Oh.”

Seasons come and go, presidential administrations change and still the Silent Lurker remains.

Publisher: “Well, Mr. Cavin, we’re pleased to say that Spike Testosterone and the Planet of Hot Blue Alien Babes is on the New York Times best seller list. We’d like to option for a sequel.”

You: “Awesome!”

Publisher: “By the way, who is that guy behind you?”

Silent Lurker: “Eh, it was all right.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, my dad is still WHAT? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO UNCLE CARL? IT DOESN’T MATTER IF HE CAN’T REMEMBER! YES, I KNOW I’M WRITING IN ALL CAPS!

Americans fear government interference in their lives. It is a staple of contemporary politics. Moderate libertarianism has solidified itself in the recesses of American ideology.

This is probably why 74 Congressional democrats have signed a letter opposing net neutrality. They claim this is a fight against censorship. This is the liberal camp stepping back and deciding to oppose big government. This is a fight for the personal rights of Americans.

These things might be true if net neutrality actually was a policy encouraging censorship, but it isn’t. It is a policy opposing Internet censorship.

Net neutrality has emerged as the most widely misunderstood issue in politics. The average American sees it as the FCC sticking its nose further into our lives, a place where it doesn’t belong. Hogwash.

Net neutrality gives the FCC the power to regulate the ability of Internet service providers to dictate the online activities of their broadband customers. Stated more simply, net neutrality attempts to prevent censorship.

The letter that democrats signed specifically opposes the FCC’s intention to revise the Communications Act.

They want to reclassify broadband service in a way that allows them to enforce non-discrimination rules that would allow them to prevent providers such as Comcast from doing things like blocking information about their competitors.

They would be able to prevent Comcast from levying additional costs on their customers for using certain popular sites such as Facebook, Reddit or Twitter.

This letter isn’t an example of the democrats stepping up and fighting the good fight against censorship. It is an example of them once again wavering in the face of the incredibly effective republican spin machine.

It is an example of their inability to overcome the power of Fox News to make the American people think policies accomplish the opposite of what they accomplish in reality. It is yet another example of them backing down from a major lobby, this time that of telecommunications companies.

Information should be readily available and free of confinements. Remember, the Internet wasn’t born in the marketplace. It was the brainchild of research scientists at public universities who were using government funding to quickly share data.

ISPs emerged as a service to allow consumers to connect to this network of free information. It is only recently that these companies have attempted to redefine themselves as providing an information service, as opposed to a telecommunications service, in an attempt to dictate what is available.

ISPs no longer want their product to be viewed as a portal to information.

They want to claim that their product is the information itself. They want to claim that the information posted on the Internet for anyone and everybody to view actually belongs to them. They want to charge you extra money every month just to view Wikipedia, not because they created that website, but because they say so. And because the Democratic Party is too cowardly to say no.

In fact, the democrats will instead encourage it as a means of political expediency. They would rather let the spin machine win this one, instead of appealing to the senses of the American people. I’m serious. However, I think Americans might have some sense.

The Internet belongs to no one, and it certainly doesn’t belong to ISPs. Don’t allow Comcast to kidnap information and ransom out certain bits of it for extra monthly charges.

One of the democrats who signed the letter was Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon. Appeal to his senses. Encourage him to save our Internet from corporate interference.

– Rob Mink is an Oregon State U. junior in political science.