The police serve as a protective shield for citizens from the threat of crime in a society. Especially in the United States, police officers are always armed with guns because a vast number of violent criminals like burglars, murderers and gang members make use of guns to commit crimes. Furthermore, under certain circumstances, police officers are allowed to shoot a suspect in order to protect themselves. Unfortunately, once a bullet leaves a gun, it always flies to its target, be it a violent criminal or an innocent citizen. Therefore, if an innocent citizen does not resolve the misunderstanding or fails to comply with an officer’s orders, he or she can be shot to death.

In late October, a 13 year-old boy, Andy Lopez, was shot to death by the sheriff’s deputy of Sonoma County, Calif. At approximately 3 p.m., Lopez was carrying an unfolded plastic replica of an AK-47, a common assault rifle, to his friend’s house. Two sheriff’s deputies who were on patrol duty spotted Lopez and immediately confronted him. After taking cover behind the police car, the senior sheriff deputy shouted out, “Put the gun down!” twice. However, instead of dropping the toy gun, Lopez, according to the sheriff, tried to aim the toy gun at the senior deputy. Unaware that the gun was a toy, the senior deputy feared for his life and opened fire. Seven bullets out of eight hit Lopez. He died immediately at the scene. After the incident, both the senior deputy and his partner were placed on administrative leave, which is the usual procedure after an officer shoots someone. Also, the incident is currently being investigated by the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Unsurprisingly, the local community was furious. Many community members, including Lopez’s family and friends, asserted that deputies had no reason to use deadly force on Lopez. This was primarily because anyone could easily recognize that Lopez was only a child, especially during the day. Furthermore, Elbert Howard, a founding member of the Police Accountability Clinic and Helpline of Sonoma County, responded, “He’s a child, and he had a toy. I see that as an overreaction to shoot him down.”

On the other side, the sheriff’s office announced that the two deputies did not have any procedural problem during the incident. Sheriff’s Lt. Dennis O’Leary said that they immediately called for backup and repeatedly ordered Lopez to drop the “gun.” Although other circumstantial details heavily relied on testimonies of the deputies at the scene, it is highly doubtful that the senior deputy opened fire without following proper procedures.

Frankly, I believe this incident is tragic not only because the victim was a child but also because no one should be blamed for this incident. As previously mentioned, police officers are only allowed to use a firearm in order to protect themselves. Furthermore, the police have implemented definite procedures to minimize the number of innocent victims. Most importantly, this procedure does not discriminate against people based on age, gender or race. In other words, it does not matter whether a person with a deadly weapon is man, woman, Hispanic, Asian, African-American, Caucasian, old or young. As long as a person with a deadly weapon possesses a significant possibility to use a deadly weapon, police officers have no choice but to use extreme measures.

Of course, the deputies could have lowered their guard to Lopez. However, hypothetically speaking, what if Lopez was a member of a criminal organization? According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology, gangs allow little children, including elementary school kids, to join an organization. They do this so they can exploit these children to do their dirty work. Had this been the case, there is a significant possibility that the senior deputy would have become the victim in this incident. Moreover, his partner was the rookie cop who did not have enough experience on the streets. Therefore, the safety of his partner also depended on his judgment in a very short moment. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 120 police officers died on the job in 2012 alone. Even with all the precautions and preparations for a worst-case scenario, numerous police officers did not come back to their family. Thus, it is understandable that the senior deputy cannot take any risk during the situation.

Clearly, Lopez was just an innocent child who was visiting his friend’s house. Unfortunately, Lopez did not drop his “gun,” and the tragedy occurred. Anyhow, if the deputy opened fire without following proper procedures, he must be blamed for his act. However, considering the circumstances, the senior deputy judged that necessary measures must be taken to protect himself and his partner.

Alex Cho is a sophomore political science major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org

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A few days ago, something really crazy happened in the House of Representatives, and you probably haven’t heard a word about it. To understand the depths of this crazy, however, we have to take a painful but thankfully brief look into our recent history. More specifically, we have to go back to the 2008 financial crisis and look at the giant insurance group that made its claim to fame during that time: AIG. Remember AIG? It was that one company that nearly collapsed and eventually had to be bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of $85 billion. Well, the risky behavior that caused AIG so many problems was something called “derivatives trading.” Explaining the ins and outs of derivatives trading could be its own class, but I’ll try to offer a brief summary of the concept. Derivatives trading is essentially the act of creating a contract based on some underlying object of trade. If that seems a bit too much like baseless jargon to you, maybe an example will help.

Imagine that you have a huge family coming over for Thanksgiving, and you need a lot of turkeys to feed them all. Let’s say you need 25 turkeys in total. While you could simply go to the supermarket and try to buy all those turkeys, you decide instead to try to find another place to get some turkeys in case the supermarket doesn’t have 25 turkeys when you go to buy them. You go to a turkey farmer and ask her if there’s any way she can guarantee you 25 turkeys for Thanksgiving. She says that she can’t simply guarantee that she’ll have that many turkeys right before Thanksgiving, but she offers a solution. She proposes that you give her money for 25 turkeys now, and she’ll deliver them all three days before Thanksgiving. You think that this is a good idea, but aren’t sure how much money to give per turkey, as turkeys can sometimes be as cheap as $10 but other times as expensive as $30. You decide to split the difference and give $20 for each turkey — $500 in total. So, you give the turkey farmer $500, and she gives you a note (an IOU, if you like) saying that she will give you 25 turkeys any time before Thanksgiving. Basically, you’ve made a contract with the turkey farmer, and this contract is derived from something underlying — the turkeys. This is the essence of derivative trading. Actually, this is an example of a future derivative, in which you make a trade based on an underlying future asset. There are also option derivatives, in which you make a contract for the option to buy (following our example, you pay another turkey farmer for the option to make the same contract as you already have with the old turkey farmer, just in case her farm fails) and swap derivatives, which, more or less, equate to trading a security with an uncertain interest rate for one with a fixed interest rate, or vice versa. In any case, all types of derivatives trading involve the creation of a contract based on an underlying something, and as useful as that may be, it’s pretty obvious that putting a lot of funds into derivatives trading can be very dangerous.

Getting back on topic, AIG got in big trouble when it got too deeply involved in derivatives trading and had to be bailed out so that it wouldn’t fail and destroy the national economy. Of course, neither the Occupy Wall Street protesters nor the Tea Party conservatives were very thrilled about the concept of having government money spent on bailing out a giant corporation. That rare, beautiful moment of shared anger was enough to cause Congress to pass the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which included a provision stating that companies cannot receive bailouts for certain kinds of derivative trading. This brings us back to the craziness mentioned in the beginning of the article, because the House of Representatives passed legislation that would get rid of the aforesaid provision of Dodd-Frank, letting corporations know that the government could, and probably would, bail them out if they were ever to gamble themselves into a corner.

Note, by the way, that this didn’t happen because of popular outcry. Most people don’t even know that derivative trading exists, let alone hold any desire for its deregulation. This happened because banks wrote this bill. I’m not being metaphorical here; banks literally wrote parts of this bill. Seventy out of 85 lines in the bill are based on recommendations from model legislation made by Citigroup, another corporation that played a huge role in the financial crisis and required billions of taxpayer dollars to stay afloat. Two key paragraphs in the House’s bill (lovingly dubbed “H.R. 992”) are practically copy-pasted from Citigroup’s bill. Note, by the way, that members of the House are given over $22.4 million in campaign contributions from interest groups who support H.R. 992 — 5.8 times more than what they receive from interest groups opposed to the bill. Also, campaign donors with Wall Street ties are major sources of campaign funds for the bill’s sponsor and for six out of eight of its co-sponsors. Call me crazy, but it looks like the primary motivation for passing this bill might not be the interests of the average American constituent.

Now, don’t think that this is just Republicans or just Democrats backing up this bill. This is a bipartisan bill, sponsored by five Republicans and four Democrats. Think about that for a second. In a country in which 20 percent of children are born into poverty, our legislators are hard at work passing a bill that removes the protection put in place after the last financial crisis and that was written by lobbyists working for the people who caused that financial crisis. They can’t agree on health care, war spending, education, food stamps, or anything else of benefit to the people of America, but they can work hand-in-hand to protect their precious campaign funds. This buyout of our political system by a tiny group of lobbyists reveals the true nature of our government. We live under a system filled with corruption. Our government is one that would repeal laws meant to prevent another recession for campaign money and deny compromise on important social and economic issues for extra votes on Election Day. Out of all the problems we as a people need to fix, this is the first.

Talha Mukhtar is a freshman legal studies major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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Many kinds of miracles exist in this world. Frankly, I believe that coming back to life from death is definitely one of the most dramatic miracles that a person can ever experience. Furthermore, if a “” resurrection” involves an execution, the story would be even more unbelievable than any kind of resurrection. However, it willwould also leave the dilemma of “executing twice.” In other words, should we regard the return as the satisfied payment of his crimeirrelevant to the sentence, or should the government proceed to finish the unfinished sentence?

In this October, the this unbelievable story occurred at in Iran. Alireza M, the Iranian drug smuggler, was arrested three years ago and sentenced to death by hanging. Unlike most countries that employ the modern hanging method, which ensures quick and definite death by fracturing one’s neck, Iran still uses the traditional hanging method, which literally hangs a convict until he or she suffocates. On Oct.ober 9th, hHis sentence was carried out Oct. 9,, and he was hanged by the neck for approximately 12twelve minutes. The doctor announced his death, and his body was carried downtransported to the morgue. After the announcement, the judge, the warden, and the doctor signed the paperwork that proved his death. A day later, when the a morgue employee opened removed Alireza’s morguebody to transfer the body it to his family, he observed that moisture formed near Alireza’s mouth. The employee immediately reported the survival of Alireza to the nearest hospital,, so the and medical personnel evacuatedtransported Alireza to the hospital for proper examination. The status of Alireza was surprisingly fine, so much so sothat medical practitcioners pronounced that the doctor diagnosed that he will be fully recovered he willwould make a full recovery with enough nutrition and rest.

Literally, Alireza came back to life after knocking at the door of afterlifeon heaven’s door. The sshowStudy have slightly more of a chance of surviving in traditional hangings than modern hangings. Cconvicts that chances of even “being alive” arewere very slim, and no one really expecteds someone to survive from the execution. Yet, not only did he survived from the hanging, but he also did not even havesurvived without permanent brain damage.

However, the problem occurred when the Judicial Authorities of IranIranian high courts received the news. Their initial response was that the execution must be carried out again. Nourollah Aziz-Mohammadi, thea senior judge ofin Iran, commented that the law must ensures Alireza’s death. SIn supporting of judicial authorities’ argument, Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani, the grand ayatollah who is an expert at in Shariah law, asserted that the sentence is still viable even if Alireza came back to life.

Opposing the argument of Iran’s judicial authorities, many human rights activists claimed that the government should not proceed carry outto another execution of Alireza. Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme, commented,: “Carrying out a second execution on a man who somehow managed to survive 12 minutes of hanging –— who was certified as dead and whose body was about to be turned over to his family –— is simply ghastly. It betrays a basic lack of humanity that sadly underpins much of Iran’s Iran’s justice system.” Even though many human rights activists signed a petition for releasing the release of Alireza, the expectation of Alireza’s status was grim because international organizations have no authority to intervene.

Fortunately, Alireza was granted with new life because Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani commented that his religious interpretation should not be applied to this case. because In his interpretation, only thievery, rape, and adultery are strictly bounded by Shariah law. Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Mminister of Jjustice, reassured that the execution will not take place.

The worst- case scenario did not take place. High authorities of Iran came into the senserealized that executing somebody twice is extremely inhumane. However, is their decision to spare Alireza’s life right? If Alireza iswere American and the same incident occurs occurred on the U.S., soil, shouldwould we spare his life?

Yes, I agree that the decision to spare his life is correct. Iranians may have different perspectives onregarding their justice system and criminal sentencinge, but I will discuss the matter of executing twice from thebased on American perspective, from the perspective of the Constitution of the United States. The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that cruel and unusual punishments are prohibited. The Mmorality of execution may be debatable, but many will definitely agree that a tremendous amount of physical and psychological pain is inflicted on convicts when they are executed. Therefore, the fact the fact that Alireza’s the execution did not take his life does not necessarily mean that he hadexperienced less any lessamount of pain than any other convicts. Consequently, if the judicial authority proceeded with executing him again, that would surely double the amount of physical and psychological pain. At the very least, under the Constitution, executing twice will would be cruel and unusual because of the simple fact that more amount of pain is inflicted to carry out the same sentence.

Still, because he was sentenced to death, I believe he is not completely off out of the hook because he iswas sentenced to death. The Ssurface goal of a death sentence may be to punishing a convict criminal for his or her crime, but it can be also interpreted as permanent banishment from the society. Therefore, the Iranian government still has its duty to separate Alireza from the society. Although I personally believe that the sentence is ridiculously harsh, I acknowledge that Iranian law is still final the supreme rule onover Iranian soil. Therefore, the only option to satisfy both human rights and Iranian laws is to lowereduce Alireza’s punishment from death to life in prison. TOnly that way, the Iranian government prevents convicts criminals from harming society as well aswhile still respecting basic human rights.

Alex Cho is a sophomore political science major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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For the past week, I have been fighting the City of Philadelphia. Angry emails, meetings with Drexel administrators, and idly threatening voicemails were the arms in this war, and I won. I was excused from jury duty. I have been called to serve as a juror three times in the last two years, and each time I have been excused. And that’s not good.

The right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers is a hallmark of our democracy. It was a right that was fought and killed over during the American Revolution. It is one of the last vestiges of our Athenian political heritage, and it is under attack.

Our government has allowed jury duty to become a hated chore instead of a cherished civil service. Red-blooded Americans who love the Constitution dread jury duty because it is time-consuming and frustrating. And it’s at the tip of the iceberg of important civil functions that Americans would rather avoid. Foreigners accuse Americans of political apathy without realizing that our current government works to discourage us from trying to get involved.

What are some of the key features of our government in need of reform? Term limits on our legislators. Nonpartisan electoral districting. Stricter limits on lobbying. And working to encourage voting, not restrict it. With a re-election rate in excess of 90 percent, members of the U.S. Congress experience virtually no pressure to act in the interests of their voters. And with no limits on their stay in office, civil servants become career politicians, completely numbed to the realities of the districts they were elected to represent. After all, if they upset their constituents too severely, state officials can just redraw electoral lines to guarantee their party’s continued success. Such is the nature of gerrymandering, a perennial cancer on American democracy. While other democratically controlled governments across the globe (Canada and Rwanda, for example) use a nonpartisan electoral commission (that is, not controlled by the political party in power) to designate electoral districts, the U.S. continues to pretend that our Swiss cheese-style electoral maps are both normal and functional.

Beyond such common-sense modifications, a more ambitious undertaking would be to combat lobbying. While Washington legislators rake in a hefty $174,000 annually (regardless of any government shutdowns), they make a fair amount of pocket change from companies that their constituents hate. But it’s hard to argue with the gun lobby when they’re buying you presents. I’m not so communist that I would call for a ban on lobbying. But robust disclosure and gift taxation laws, to keep citizens aware and prevent politicians from profiting heavily from “donations,” are both good ways to put the power back in the constituents’ hands.

Finally, the largest and most intimidating barrier to a more civically engaged government is our current voting system. Where else in the modern world do you find lower-level (state and sometimes county) governments with the right to decide how people vote in nationwide elections? Why do New Jersey voters need only their names to vote, while Texas voters need their birth certificates? At what point are states trampling their citizens’ right to vote for the national good? Why does Pennsylvania need to “upgrade” its in-person voter-fraud laws when there is no current evidence of in-person fraud?

Change is slow, but it is coming. As more western states expand early voting, they maximize their voters’ chances to vote. The debate over corporate personhood actively rages in Washington. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is slowly eliminating the Electoral College. Despite these dialogues on enhanced freedom, our democracy is in crisis. We are running a system that is virtually programmed to fail and pouring our tax dollars into that failure. Without real changes, systematic failures (like the government shutdown) will push our government closer to a complete collapse.

Richard Furstein is a senior anthropology major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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When we think about cruelty to animals, people see animals as they are: dogs, cats, mice, pigs, fish or cows. It takes a little more effort, though, to see an antiquated but still practiced philosophy that dominates the industrial standard of animal cruelty, which is patriarchy. I think it’s important to begin a discussion on the foul art of subjecting other genders and species to inequality.

If you line up nonhuman males and females that are subjected to the conditions of modern factory farming for a longer period of time, the line stretches way farther for females. Of course, there are terrible patterns that occur for males, like the raising of male calves for veal or the immediate separation of male from female chicks in order to quickly grind or gas the unprofitable male chicks. But the conditions for nonhuman females are way worse. Hens experience months of abuse in battery cages, laying too many eggs for their bodies to handle, causing calcium deficiencies that lead to broken bones and further suffering. They experience mental fatigue that can lead to nervous pecking and cannibalism. They eat diets that include some caffeine and estrogen to help them stay awake longer and produce more eggs. Hens are also somewhat intelligent, so they recognize the finality of their confinement and are constantly agitated and frustrated by their inability to practice natural behaviors. Their slaughter is not always accurate, which is to say some of them bleed to death or are paralyzed while feeling every sensation of slaughter. What’s worse is that a good percentage of hens do not even make it to slaughter, as their living conditions can torture them to death.

Dairy cows experience some of the worst conditions in concentrated animal-feeding operations, as they are used for five or six years for their dairy production and then slaughtered. The majority of dairy cows are artificially impregnated, obviously without consent, in order to begin lactation. They have an average of two and a half cycles of lactation, and then spent cows are slaughtered for ground beef. In those five years, they give birth to calves, who are taken away at birth immediately, and they live their lives in cement quarters and are hooked up to lactate pumps for hours a day. Female cows experience cruelty not just through standard industry practices but also from the workers, who sometimes beat, electrically shock and even mutilate them.

Sows, or female pigs, experience similar lives to dairy cows, but they’re confined to gestation crates that don’t allow them to turn around. Piglets are castrated, tail docked and have teeth pulled in order to keep the pigs from hurting each other (and also making their tails so sensitive that they’ll avoid biting each other as much as possible). Piglets are weaned weeks early from their mothers and fed high-calorie, hormone- and antibiotic-rich, and corn diets. Their mothers live in these metal crates for their entire lives with no hay, sunlight, or ability to move and pursue natural behavior. Many sows are injured on their way to slaughter, as they are packed tightly into transport trucks.

I could go on with other types of abuse to animals, but it only can do so much to change a person’s mind about what they eat. The main point here is that nonhuman females undergo far worse lives in our factory-farmed conditions. Is it a wonder then, why we treat humans a similar way? Women still have difficulty getting equal pay, equal opportunities, and they experience sexism on a daily basis with no remorse from the media, as they continually enforce cultural and gender-based expectations. There might be evidence to suggest an adverse trend, but it is still in the minority when compared to global trends. We subject females of all species to unjust conditions, and this topic tends to get lost in many conversations about equal consideration for animals.

The problem I face here, as a writer, is that I can be charged with putting female nonhuman animals and female humans on the same level. Although that instance may seem true, the ultimate question, then, is why are animals placed on a lower level than humans in the first place? My first article in this column spoke of speciesism and how we consider others. If we allow ourselves to believe that animals don’t deserve equal consideration, then how can we allow ourselves to justify equal consideration for humans in general? If we believe someone is subpar to our being, then we consider that someone to be less deserving of consideration for his or her pain and suffering. My point here is to clarify that I don’t believe animals deserve equal treatment like women, such as equal pay and opportunities, but both share the issue of not getting equal consideration for their suffering and unfair conditions.

As feminists, like others and myself here at Drexel, who believe in equality for women (and all [or no] genders for that matter), this discussion is an important one to have. Can we talk about these issues of sexism without considering how we subject beings we consider lower than us? We already forget farm animals most of the time in conversations of equality, but maybe it’s time to consider this a viable talking point among activist groups of different ideologies. It is not hard to argue for equal consideration for all species, but it’s difficult to argue for gender equality and not include some reference to the way we treat nonhuman animals.

Benjamin Sylvester is the president of the Drexel Animal Welfare Group. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.
“Moo Over This” publishes biweekly.

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There is, perhaps, nothing more insulting to university students than to be told, however politely, that their major is worthless. A waste of time. Or, my favorite term “the stupidest thing to invest four years and $100,000 on.” When would it be socially appropriate for an administrator or professor to imply that an engineer is wasting his or her time in school? When would it be polite for a schoolmate’s parent to tell an accountant that his or her major sounds like “a fun weekend hobby”?
For many social sciences majors at Drexel (anthropology, communication, history, politics, sociology, etc.), such disparaging comments are both common and usually not meant to be insulting. Further, the self-identifying use of the term “social scientist” invokes ire among those majoring in the “hard sciences” (biology, chemistry, physics) who insist that science must be reserved for work carried out in a laboratory, where all conditions can be controlled. As Americans, we naturally assume that social science bashing is typical throughout Western society.

In reality, the American disdain for social science comes from our culture of pseudo-objectivism. In short, pseudo-objectivism describes the incorrect assumption that we can talk objectively about social issues. More deeply, this mindset combines a rejection of background research and an embrace of pure morality. A good example? The pro-life argument. Arguing that abortion is objectively wrong may sound morally upright, but it fails to account for cases such as rape, incest, and pregnancies that endanger the life of the mother. Pseudo-objectivist philosophies block the possibility of debate by presuming their own absolute correctness, and they create an atmosphere hostile to advancing the social sciences.

But how does being pro-life damage the work of budding social sciences? Consider the case for teaching Marxism, communism and socialism in schools. Drexel offers several classes that directly or indirectly address them. Many social scientists use Marxism as part of their theoretical framework, requiring social science students to understand Marx to appreciate them. And yet, less than 40 years ago, any mention of Marx or Engels on a college campus could easily land a professor or a student in hot water with the FBI. For many on the political right, the idea of teaching such leftist policies in a college classroom is still detestable and dangerous. Is this the atmosphere of freedom and liberty that our founding fathers envisioned?

While education should not be subject to partisanship, it has become clear at this point that supporting the social sciences is a largely leftist cause. While conservative K Street lobbyists write memos calling for the removal of anthropology and sociology majors from state universities, liberal politicians must fight off accusations of being communists. For students of the social sciences, social treatment is not much better. Especially in career-centered universities like Drexel, the specter of finding a financially secure job in the social sciences hangs like Damocles’ sword over our classes, reminding us that our chosen paths, however noble, will come with no assurances of comfort.

I did not choose to be an anthropologist for money, fame or social prestige. I chose it because I wanted to learn more about humans and use that knowledge to help them. And while I dedicate myself to finding funding for my research goals, expanding my knowledge base and reflecting on how best to help the people I study, I consistently face baseless criticism and mockery from members of this society. Because I did not choose a career for money or for a field of “hard science,” I clearly invited this judgment upon myself, just as all social scientists do. I will not accept pseudo-objective philosophies as fact, nor will I allow them to limit my research agenda. My science may not be hard, but that’s not going to stop me from working hard at it.

Richard Furstein is an anthropology major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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Ever since preschool, most of us have only ever really seen one kind of world map. Rather, when trying to picture a world map, most of us will end up thinking of the same one. We probably don’t know what that map’s name is, or where and when we first saw it, or why it seems to be everywhere maps can be found, but we seem to have accepted it as our view of the Earth. Now, what if I told you that the map was wrong? To many, that isn’t a huge surprise, but to just as many, the idea of Greenland being smaller than the United States comes as something of a shock. Even those who are aware of the relative size disproportions may be surprised to know that a lot of countries aren’t even portrayed in the right sections of the globe in this map. If you’re looking at a standard Mercator projection (that is, the iconic map that seems to be beaten into all of our skulls), you can see Germany and Italy hanging out right near the center of the map. In reality, however, they are way up in the northernmost quarter of the globe. That’s right; countries like Germany, Italy, France and Spain aren’t where you think they are. In fact, if you base your geographical view of the world on the Mercator projection, almost nothing is where you think it is. Put bluntly, your internal map of the world is wrong.

Right now, you might be asking yourself why we would ever use a map that is incapable of doing its only job, which is accurately representing the world. To answer that question, we’ll need a quick history lesson. The Mercator projection was first made in 1569 by a Flemish cartographer by the name of Gerardus Mercator in order to help European sailors navigate the Atlantic Ocean. In other words, the Mercator projection was made to be used for the ocean rather than for land, and as terrible as it might be at representing land, the Mercator projection is very good at what it was originally designed for: accurately portraying the portion of the Atlantic that sailors went through when headed for the new world. The reason that this map is so particularly useful for ocean navigation is that it stretches out the poles of the globe so that longitudinal lines end up looking perfectly vertical, making it easier to pinpoint exactly where on the ocean you are. This stretching, however, causes landmasses to stretch out near the poles as well. Back when all people with maps cared about was crossing the oceans, the disproportionality was a small price to pay. Nowadays, however, we really don’t need a Mercator projection to navigate the Atlantic, so there isn’t really any benefit to using the archaic map at all, and the skewed land has become an area of much greater concern. In short, our use of the Mercator projection today yields no discernible benefits over other maps, while continuing to provide us with outright lies about what our planet looks like. Still, we continue using it, because that’s what we’ve been doing. Like our school vacation system, the penny and the imperial system of measurement, we continue using a stupid map because we just don’t feel like changing it.

So, what are the implications of using a skewed map? Well, the main problem, besides general ignorance of how the world and its countries look, is that using the Mercator projection creates a Eurocentric view of our planet. Why? Well, look at where Europe is on the globe. It’s pretty far up north. That means that the Mercator projection stretches it out and makes it look larger than it really is compared to other parts of the world. It exaggerates the size of Europe and North America, and places Europe much closer to the center of the world, all while making countries like El Salvador, Iran, Venezuela and India look smaller in comparison. Now, it might seem like paranoia on my part to say that just because the north happens to be skewed, and Europe happens to be in the north, that the map is Eurocentric. However, as argued by Salvatore Natoli of the National Council of the Social Studies, size really does matter. Natoli said, “In our society, we constantly equate size with importance, even power.” When developing nations, which are as a whole closer to the equator and thus not benefited by the Mercator projection’s skewing effect, are misrepresented, they are likely to be valued less. In fact, even those of us who don’t think of the Mercator projection when picturing a world map are subject to Eurocentrism. I ask you now, why is Europe on the top of the map? Why is the Northern Hemisphere on top? You might now be skipping ahead to the next article of your newspaper, but I ask that you at least think about my question. When great cultures like Egypt were mapping the world, they mapped “upside down,” and it made as much sense to them as our maps make to us. Direction is arbitrary when approached absolutely. The only thing concrete about direction is that it remains constant relative to other directions; north is always opposite of south, but it is not necessarily up.

I’m not proposing that the world’s geography teachers simultaneously flip their maps upside down, but I am suggesting change. The Mercator projection is objectively incorrect. Using an incorrect map to teach children about the world is like teaching them to bake a cake with twice the eggs and half the flour: they can make some semblance of a cake, but it won’t be very good and won’t be of any real use to anyone. Worst of all, the Mercator projection creates a subconscious sense of superiority from an early age among our children, and in an increasingly global society, such misconceptions are dangerous. So here’s what I propose: Instead of a Mercator projection, let’s encourage the use of the Robinson projection in schools. The Robinson projection is ovular, rather than rectangular, and thus eliminates landmass distortion. It gives an accurate picture of our world. Or, if changing map shape feels a bit too extreme, let’s use a Gall-Peters projection. All I know is that looking at either projection (especially the Gall-Peters), the first thing you’ll think is, “What the hell is that?” It’s where we’ve been living all this time, and it’s nothing like we ever imagined.

Talha Muktar is a legal studies major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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One of the U.S.’ most hot-button topics today is health care reform, which was recently brought to the forefront of debate on the floor of Congress and the dinner tables of families alike, in part by the Affordable Care Act,  endorsed by President Obama, which will be largely implemented  on Jan. 1, 2014. Of course, there has been a great deal of controversy regarding the merits of health care reform, and the ACA has been challenged at every turn.

From long congressional debates to the Supreme Court and back to congressional debates, the ACA has faced opposition since its conception. Some of the largest groups opposed to the act’s implementation have been capitalist, fiscally conservative factions of the Republican Party who feel that the ACA would impair the capitalistic nature of the health care market, cutting innovation and greatly hindering the economy. However, I would argue that capitalists should, by all rights, be among the first in line to support the ACA.

First, however, let me offer a brief defense of capitalism. To start, think of the capitalist free market as a big pie, and everyone gets a slice, but not everyone’s is the same size. In fact, the richest 60 percent of Americans in this scenario (from 2007) get 99.6 percent of the pie, leaving 0.4 percent to be divided between the poorest 40 percent. This is far from ideal, but the cool thing about capitalism is that, thanks to competition between firms leading to efficiency and innovation, the pie grows larger and larger over time. Because of that, even if the amount of pie you have now is proportionately equivalent to how much you had before, the overall amount of pie you get increases. That would be why you probably have a computer in your home and your grandparents probably didn’t. Essentially, capitalism creates free pie (well, not free, because innovation generally requires the acquisition and consumption of nonrenewable resources and often leads to negative externalities like pollution — but whatever, free pie).

Now, capitalism is nice (who doesn’t like free pie?), but there is one catch: To get the benefits of capitalism (free, delicious pie), you need to create a safe environment for the previously mentioned competition and innovation so that the pie can grow. Basically, you need innovation to create awesome computers, and then you need competition to drive down the price of said computers. This creates more pie and also more jobs as more and more people are required to run and work in firms, or bake all the extra pie.

The problem is that the health care system in the United States isn’t the best at creating a safe environment for competition and innovation. How so? Well, for starters, let’s look at where Americans get their health insurance. The most recent Gallup poll on the subject, covering 2011, shows that a plurality of U.S. citizens, 44.6 percent, get their insurance from their employers. This is great for the 44.6 percent, but if you don’t get insurance from your employer, it can be very hard to get it at all. This is because insurance companies can deny you coverage based on past health problems, commonly known as pre-existing conditions. This can influence major life decisions for people with pre-existing conditions. For example, a worker who wants to start her own business may decide to instead stay at her job at a big company because she doesn’t want to risk being denied health coverage. A college graduate may decide to pay for graduate school instead of entering the workforce because he doesn’t want to risk becoming uninsured and he knows that full-time students are guaranteed health coverage.

The health care reform that the ACA is trying to establish eliminates denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions (those conditions, by the way, are ludicrously vague; one can be denied coverage because of asthma or tinnitus), and it allows children to stay on their parents’ health care plan until they are 26 years old, which is nice for college graduates who don’t want to pay for overpriced graduate school while still holding debt from overpriced undergraduate school just for the health care benefits. Allowing insurance companies to deny health care to people who want to start their own businesses or work for small firms isn’t just bad for the uninsured would-be entrepreneurs; it hurts everyone and hinders the economy. If people don’t feel comfortable taking the risk of starting or supporting a small business, the pie doesn’t grow as fast. Even worse, a lack of insurance leads to lack of spending, as people allocate every cent they can spare to the “I-Don’t-Want-to-Go-Bankrupt-and-Die-if-I-Fall-Out-of-a-Tree Fund.”

According to the aforementioned Gallup poll, 17.1 percent of Americans are uninsured. That’s almost one-fifth of the citizenry of the U.S. not contributing to the economy with their money — almost one-fifth keeping the general public, and themselves, from getting more pie. Health care reform would allow all of these money hoarders to begin getting insurance and start using their funds to, say, start a business (and create jobs), invest in companies (creating more jobs in those companies), or even just start buying more goods like cars and iPads (creating jobs for car salesmen and techy Apple Store workers). My point is that freeing the uninsured allows them to start helping to make more pie rather than stop it from growing. Now, of course, all these uninsured folks could just go work for large corporations and get that company health care policy, but if that were to happen, there would be no small business, no company investment, and no extra car and iPad sales.

The decisions of these people should be based on where their respective abilities can best meet the growing world’s growing needs, not where they can get health insurance. The crazy choice of whether one should prioritize their health or their goals is one lived by millions of Americans. It has stifled job creation, crippled innovation, and basically stopped our pie from growing to the size that it ought to be. I don’t know about you, but if there’s one thing that gets me riled up more than health care reform, Syria and abortion combined, it’s having less pie.

Talha Mukhtar is a freshman majoring in legal studies. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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Editor’s note: The following opinion piece was submitted before the House of Representatives agreed on a deal to end the shutdown.
Since the recent government shutdown began, I’ve been hearing talk of Republicans holding the government “hostage.” At first I agreed; it seemed that the Republicans’ demands and their threats of keeping the government shut seemed very much like a hostage situation to me. Then I started thinking: What is the most important factor in hostage negotiation? The obvious answer is that, after all demands have been met, the hostage taker will release the hostage unharmed. That’s where the hostage situation analogy began to crumble. After all, what is the goal of fiscally conservative Republicans other than to cut government presence?

This isn’t a hostage situation; hostage situations are meant to be a means to an end. They are meant to create a scenario in which the hostage-taker has leverage to bargain for what he or she really wants. Isn’t a government shutdown precisely what many Republicans dream of, though? After all, with so many government programs defunded and so much spending slashed, the government has definitely reduced its influence in citizens’ daily lives. Now, of course, some of the spending cuts have defunded programs that Republicans support, but they seem to have gained much more from this shutdown than they’ve lost. There doesn’t seem to be anything they would gain through negotiation that would be better than what they have now. With the setup as it stands, why would they ever want to negotiate at all?

Actually, when you think about it, do they really want to negotiate at all? Of course they say that they do, but what have they done to create reasonable negotiation? Nothing. In fact, this whole mess was created by unreasonable demands in the first place. Republicans refused to pass a spending bill unless it defunded or delayed the Affordable Care Act. In hindsight, it seems rather obvious that the Senate wouldn’t agree to that. With that in mind, the only possible conclusions I can gather are that Republicans either overestimated the power of the threat of a shutdown, or they knew exactly what would happen and made such unreasonable demands in spite of or because of what holding to them would cause.

Now, Republican representatives aren’t stupid. They’ve gone to college, many have law degrees, and most have gone to some of the most prestigious universities in the country. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they are smart enough to guess that the Senate wouldn’t agree to their terms. Therefore, we are left with two possible explanations for the House’s consent to a government shutdown: either they don’t care about the shutdown or they want one. Add to that all the work that the conservative media have put into making the shutdown, and even debt default, seem like no big deal, and we can conclude that the House isn’t quite as enthusiastic about opening the government as a hostage taker ought to be. After all, if Republicans really were looking to use the shutdown as leverage, they would be trying to make it seem like it would be the biggest disaster in the history of the United States and turn the debt ceiling into the prelude of the zombie apocalypse. Instead, they seem to be trying to convince the American people that living with the shutdown and defaulting on the national debt wouldn’t affect them at all or might even improve their lives.

At the same time, knowing that a debt default would indeed be bad for the nation, Republicans are trying to shift blame from themselves to the man they see as their archenemy, President Obama, calling the shutdown “Obama’s Shutdown” and accusing the president of refusing to negotiate. Of course, they neglect to mention that the reason negotiations are breaking down is that the terms put on the table by the House are intentionally ludicrous. All in all, it seems like they’re preparing for the worst (or, from their perspective, the best).

The question is, why are they so intent on the shutdown and debt default? Is it just because of their desire to limit government? I think not. It seems that another major goal of the Republican Party is survival. Republicans realize that if they allow the Affordable Care Act to enter into force, their party will die. So in addition to the carrot that is small government, the House is also being given a rather compelling stick: threat of annihilation. If they can just hold on until the debt limit is reached, all blame for the resulting catastrophe will be pushed on President Obama, and the American people will vote red for the next congressional, and perhaps even presidential, election. Otherwise, the Affordable Care Act will take full effect, and the public’s favor shall turn to the blue. That is what all of this boils down to in the end. This shutdown, the threat of default, and the denial of several important government services to the people of the United States are all just side effects of a political gamble. It’s not a game of chicken; it’s not a hostage crisis; it’s not political posturing. It’s something much older and much more basic: a bloody fight for supremacy. So the real question is: Where are the people in this fight? Where is the democracy in our politics? Actually, getting things done is a matter that will be decided much later, it seems. For now, all that matters is 535 seats in a little white building in Washington.

Talha Mukhtar is a business major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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We all looked for different things when we applied to colleges as juniors and seniors in high school. Some of us looked for clubs that we could get involved with or sports we could play. Others looked at academics or course variety, and still others looked at class size and diversity of student demographics. One thing that freshmen may forget to look at is probably one of the most vital resources and services at the school: food.

Entering my first semester of college at Pace University in New York City, I had just become a vegetarian, and I realized quickly that my college cafeteria options weren’t what I had in mind. Granted, there were some veg options, but variety is key to a healthy diet, and cafeterias don’t always mix things up weekly or even biweekly. Vegetarianism can be difficult to practice without a kitchen in the residence hall or decent options in the dining hall — particularly healthy veg options. Every vegetarian could eat pizza and fries every day, but I certainly wasn’t looking to gain the freshman fifteen — being in Manhattan, that was easy to do with a myriad of options (but only if you had a thick wallet).

Since transferring to Drexel a few years ago, I have developed some tips and suggestions for freshmen. It’s easier to feed yourself when you know going into the cafeteria that you can mix things up and feel nourished. For instance, one of the easiest breakfast items you can make is peanut butter and banana on a bagel. Most cafeterias have all of the above, and you basically toast two halves of a bagel, spread peanut butter on the tops, and slice a banana in quarter-size bites and place them on top of the peanut butter. Now you’re eating a fruit, a decent amount of protein, and some carbohydrates to start off your day — not to mention that this is normally a very inexpensive meal. Some cafeterias have oatmeal, and you can also slice up bananas and apples or just use raisins to make another healthy meal.

Lunch and dinner are easier than breakfast. If you don’t want a veggie burger every day, try getting creative at the salad bar. Even though vegetarians are stereotyped as “only” eating salad, the fact is that a well-made salad can be the best thing for our diets. Add some kidney beans, chickpeas, black beans, onions, peppers and other vegetables to introduce some new flavors. For dressing, use olive oil and vinegar, or if your dining hall offers it, some other flavored vinaigrette. If you want to really bulk up your salad, order a veggie burger with no bread from the grill and slice the burger into strips to put in your salad.

I enjoyed eating Asian food in the cafeteria at dinner, and I found that I could add a lot of foods to a dish to make it flavorful and fun to eat. Some cafeterias have noodle dishes that are stir-fried with vegetables and occasionally even tofu. I would order a noodle dish with every vegetable they offered and then go to a section where they had some packaged fruit and regular fruit to add pineapple slices and orange slices to my meal. If there wasn’t a noodle option that day, I would order a veggie wrap, go to the salad bar and add beans to make a quasi bean burrito.

Now, with the support of the Animal Welfare Association and the Drexel Sierra Club in conjunction with the dining staff and Sodexo, the Handschumacher Dining Center and the new restaurant Vegetate boast an enormous variety of vegan and vegetarian options! Everyone from strict vegans to omnivores can enjoy delicious meals from the cafeteria and Vegetate that are well priced and super healthy. Even if you feel like you can’t enjoy those meals (and I don’t know how you couldn’t), you can still use what vegetables, fruits and grains they have to make your own meal in the cafeteria. As long as you get the calorie intake your body requires, all those fruits and veggies will give you the nutrients you need. Plus, you’ll be saving animals from future suffering as well helping yourself and the planet.

Benjamin Sylvester is the president of the Drexel Animal Welfare Association. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.
“Moo Over This” publishes biweekly.

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