We love security. We love feeling safe.

We love the feeling we get when we’re walking on campus and see a security guard or police officer.

We also appreciate the idea of security cameras, but to a point.

David Delgado/The Daily Cougar

Take for instance the Apr. 15 Boston Marathon bombing. Two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnev, left two bags packed with explosives that killed three and injured 264. A few days later, Tamerlan died in a shootout with police and Dzhokhar was captured.

The speed with which the capture happened was surprising, and it was in part because the city of Boston had cameras positioned throughout the streets.

The cameras captured the images that the FBI released on Thursday. The idea that the surveillance cameras captured their every action is heralded as a triumph of modern society, though the idea that “big brother” might always be watching is an unsettling thought.

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously described the ‘social contract’ that people have with their government in the “Leviathan.”

“People lose the right to any power over their government once they give authority to that government.”

In other words, to have the safety of law and order, the people pay with some of their personal freedoms. The line must be drawn at one point or another, and the argument to allow cameras on every street corner will only lead to the reduction of more personal freedoms.

It might be surprising to know that there are 490 security cameras on campus that record 24 hours, 365 days a year.

Malcolm Davis, assistant vice president for UH Public Safety and Security, said in a post on the UH Department of Safety website that the cameras were put in place to reduce crimes on campus.

“The safety of our campus community is the driving force of UHDPS,” Davis said. “Reducing the opportunity for individuals to commit crimes on campus is crucial to providing a safe learning and working environment. This is the primary reason we are implementing a plan to install additional video security cameras in selected area.”

The City of Houston boasts about 350 cameras downtown. After what happened in Boston, Houston officials are adamant that the surveillance system in Houston needs to expand.

In Apr. 18 Houston Chronicle article, City Councilman C.O. Bradford, a former HPD police chief, asserted the need to expand and improve Houston’s system.

“They may have some cameras, but they don’t have the technology they should have,” Bradford said. “We cannot staff adequately to protect our large arenas and venues where people congregate every day in this city, but technology is a force multiplier.”

While major cities have a surveillance system network, the U.S. lags behind some European and Asian countries. Hsiao-Ming Wang, professor of criminal justice at the University of Houston-Downtown, said in a Houston Chronicle article that people don’t like being watched, which is why there aren’t more cameras.

“A lot of people think the installation of cameras is privacy invasion,” Wang said.

When I made the decision to enroll at a university immediately following high school, as opposed to attending Lone Star Community College near my house or Houston Community College in the city, it was with that expectation that I was paying extra for better resources and classes taught by well-trained professors.

English teaching assistant Lam Dickson is hard at work teaching his English 1304 class. Dickson and other TA’s get paid considerably less than tentured professors, yet student still have to pay full price for the course regardless of who is teaching it. | Nichole Taylor/The Daily Cougar

Then there was the recent mess with English teaching assistants, and while they feel cheated for the lack of pay and having to pay to teach to boot, imagine how the students feel. Imagine paying upwards of $1,000 for three credit hours of ENGL 1303 Freshman Composition I only to find out the class is being taught by a student — a graduate student but a student, nonetheless.

Students shouldn’t have to pay full prices for classes for taught by graduate students, teaching assistants, TA’s or whatever you want to call them. Since the school is not allowed to list TA’s as instructors in the course registration catalog, students aren’t aware that they are enrolling in a TA’s’ course until the first day of class.

This is not to devalue the hard work and effort these graduate students put into maintaining a curriculum, grading assignments and conducting a lecture. It is amazing that these TA’s manage to teach a course and prepare for their classes, alongside managing other aspects of their personal lives.

That aside, if the University is not paying TA’s professor-level salaries for graduate students to teach these classes, it is only fair that students shouldn’t have to pay full price to take the courses. The English TA’s were earning between $9,600 and $11,200 annually; for the sake of argument, we’ll split the difference and say $10,400 annually or $867 monthly. In the course of a five-month semester either in the spring (January to May) or fall (August to December), the TAs earn $4,333. If the average student pays, say, $1,000 per three-credit hour course, regardless of the class size, the class is paid for and then some. With all of those savings from not having to pay a professor to teach these courses, you have to wonder where the money is going.

Many students on campus are funding their own education by attending school and working, and many others have to pay off loans with interest after graduation. The financial burden of attending college is heavy enough that we shouldn’t have to foot the bill for another student’s learning experience. English senior Daniella Singer said students should pay for what they get, and if what they get is a TA, there should be a discount.

“Teaching assistants are not as qualified to teach, as say, a professor who holds a doctorate,” Singer said. “I think that it only makes sense to pay half price for a class taught by a teaching assistant.”

The only requirements for becoming a TA are an undergraduate degree or its equivalent in addition to passing an English language proficiency test and admittance into a graduate program, which the TA’s have had to pay fees toward, so we’re paying them to teach us, and they are having to pay to teach us.

Credits earned from classes taught by professors and TA’s have the same value in regards to the student’s grade point average and graduation. Students pay per course credit and pay the same for the same course and may even receive the same experience, but it’s the idea that one person is paying for a class taught by a student as another taught by a professor. It’s like going to a cosmetology school and paying a student the same price for a cut and style as you would for a master stylist. This mindset undermines the college experience and the value of professors.

Ciara Rouege is an advertising junior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

In a world filled with stabbings, shootings and bombings, awareness has never been more important. Knowing what is going on around us is a necessity. This is why UH has an emergency alert system.

David Delgado/The Daily Cougar

This alert system is designed to reach students through email and cellphone. This system is also used to notify students of school closures and bad weather conditions.

While some students get notifications in real time, others may not get them until hours after. If there is a robbery or assault on campus, emails have been known to arrive up to three hours after the incident. When assaults and robberies occur, I would like to be notified immediately.

This is no reflection on the work of the UH Department of Public Saftey; however, when the University is faced with reports of a serious incident in progress — like a possible gunman — the UH Alert System has been seen to react more quickly than with other cases.

On March 5, students were alerted that there was a sighting of a possibly armed “Asian mail” around Philip G. Hoffman Hall. Students received text messages and emails advising them to stay indoors. Less than an hour later, students were notified that everything was “all clear.” The suspect was merely carrying a hand-held scanner; but it was comforting to receive a prompt text message to let me know it was safe.

The system is not the problem. It works, but high traffic crashes the alert system website. Immediate information is not impossible; it just seems to take a high priority incident to get this information quickly.

Many factors go into the relaying of this information, which may be why it takes longer than some would like. David Johnson, executive director of Technology Services and Support, said the system operates as a chain of events.

The process begins with an incident being reported to UHDPS. From there, the message is entered into the interface of an emergency notification system called Pier. The computer then decides whether this notification should be sent out over email, text or both. The alert is then sent to the server to be compiled and then the information is sent to a pre-generated list of email addresses and cell phone numbers. If the option to send it to a cell phone is chosen, the alert must then go through each student’s specific cell phone provider company before it is received by the student.

Factors such as students being out of range of a cell phone tower, having their phone off or having the wrong phone number in the UH system can increase in the amount of time it takes to receive a message.

“We would like our students to receive the message within five minutes,” Johnson said. “We know that that’s not always going to happen because there are a lot of factors that go into it. We usually try to say five to seven minutes.”

In a world dependent on technology and speed, Johnson and the UHDPS are constantly looking for ways to improve the system.

“You can’t just depend on one message system,” Johnson said. “We are looking to integrate into our digital cyber system. We just signed a campus-wide agreement for digital signage.”

Digital signage is information kiosks and slideshows that would be displayed on screens when students walk into a building. Pictures of students and information about upcoming events would be seen. When there is an incident occurring, the alert would override the system, and the message would be displayed directly on the screen.

Starting in the fall, students will receive emails, text messages and be able to see alerts on the screens in buildings. This system would notify students of bad weather conditions and dangers on campus.

This system sounds like a step forward. There is the concern of what level of alarm students would want to be notified. While some students may become annoyed with possible false alarms, others, like creative writing sophomore Nicolas Montoya, would rather be notified too often than not enough.

“Being notified not enough would mean that we are being ignorant to what is happening around us, and we would have a false sense of security,” Montoya said. “I would rather be on the cautious side.”

The steps that the UH Alert System is taking to ensure that students are aware of what is happening around them are a step in the right direction to get information out quicker. The longer it takes to receive an alert, the better the chance that someone else could be walking in to danger. Situations should be treated like a high profile case until proven otherwise.

Kelly Schafler is a print journalism sophomore and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

April 17, in an emotionally charged day in Washington, D.C., the Senate turned down some hotly debated bills regarding gun control. Among the big prizes for gun control advocates included an automatic weapons ban and more rigorous background checks for gun buyers.

David Delgado/The Daily Cougar

According to a Washington Post-ABC News national poll in March, 57 percent supported an automatic weapons ban and was turned down. Frustrating as it is, one could understand why it may fail when the full brunt of those lobbying rock stars, the National Rifle Association, floods Congress with dollars and loads up on advertisements to combat the change. A far more frustrating defeat, however, is the fall of a bill requiring extensive background checks.

The background check bill failed despite being supported by almost 90 percent of Americans in a recent poll. With majority support across the ideological spectrum, there is no reason not to pass tougher standards for background checks. When polled about their reaction to the Senate’s failure in the same poll, 60 percent were either disappointed or angry about the bill’s failure in contrast to the 23 percent who said that they were relieved or excited.

In a country where a majority of Americans want tougher gun laws, the Senate, namely Senate Republicans and a few “red state” Democrats, reject the will of the majority yet, less than a quarter polled are happy about this.

Patricia Maisch, a good Samaritan who knocked an ammunition magazine from the hands of the Jared Lee Loughner, was unhappy about the decision and had to be escorted off of the premises.

“They are an embarrassment to this country — that they don’t have any compassion or care for people who have been taken brutally from their families. I hate them,” Maisch said.

According to a Huffington Post YouGov poll released Friday, 90 percent of those indentifying themselves as Democrat, 64 percent as Independent and 60 percent as Republican favor a bill requiring background checks for all store and online gun purchases. Yet, the bill was all but dead on arrival when it hit the Senate floor for a vote — and for more than just constitutional beliefs.

Grace Wyler of businessinsider.com said the upcoming 2014 midterm elections were partially to blame, pointing out that three of the four Democrats who voted against the background check bill were up for re-election in pro-gun states that voted against President Barack Obama in 2012 and that the states that they represent — Alaska, Montana and Arkansas — have over half of their population owning at least one gun.

The members of the NRA are very passionate about protecting their gun rights, and their passion has a strong impact.

According to an April 14 Washington Post-ABC News poll, 18 percent of gun owners contact their representative to express their views on gun control, as compared to 10 percent of non-owners. Seventeen percent of gun owners give money to an organization lobbying on the issue compared to four percent of non-gun owners. On the other hand, 40 percent of gun activists said they wouldn’t vote for a politician who disagreed with their views on guns compared to over 75 percent of non-gun activists.

The notion that the will of the people could be compromised in such a fashion by lobbyists and senators is discouraging. However, there is a lesson to be learned from the passion of the NRA and its members that a lot of Americans haven’t figured out.

If you are passionate enough about a certain legislation, can afford to lobby and if you attack your opponents in the media, you too can hire the Senate and the House of Representatives to help your cause.

The NRA is organized and knows how to make things happen in legislation. If non-gun activists want stricter gun laws and their voices heard, it’s up to them to rally together against the NRA and make it difficult for legislators to say “no.”

“There needs to be a lobby to fight the NRA,” UH alumnus Marcos Rios said. “A big lobby, if they (want) something to happen.”

If gun control activists were as materially passionate as gun activists, the pressure on the Senate would be so great that it would have to come to some sort of compromise to get something passed — for better or worse.

Despite the majority being for the bill, there are still valid arguments against it.

Ed Krystaponis, an undeclared junior, said that while there is nothing wrong with background checks, the law wouldn’t have been air tight and there would still be ways to be beat the checks.

“The background checks aren’t a bad thing,” Krystaponis said.

“The only issue that I have with it is where is it going to stop. I’m not saying that your background or my background shouldn’t be checked, but if I wanted to hand the gun down to my heirs, should I not be able to do that?”

Krystaponis also said that, despite the law, if a criminal who shouldn’t have a gun wants one bad enough, a law isn’t going to stop them.

“Bad guys don’t care about the law. That’s why they are bad guys. It doesn’t matter if (they) are banned. It’s not gonna matter,” Krystaponis said.

Regardless, it seems that the will of the majority wasn’t carried out. For some, this is discouraging and exposes potential inadequacies in the legislative system. For others, it hopefully serves as a wake-up call; if people don’t take action, then Congress has no reason to change.

Jacob Patterson is a management information systems senior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

Picture a peaceful protest calling for an end to police violence and brutality. Suddenly, a barrage of police batons and gun butts shower down upon spectators and participants. People are then thrown indiscriminately in overcrowded and unsanitary jail cells. On the streets, underfed children walk past decrepit and decayed buildings to go home to their deteriorating homes, which they share with several other families.

Rapper Jay-Z, left, along with his superstar wife, Beyoncé Knowles, took a March 31 visit to Cuba for their fifth wedding anniversary. The former Brooklyn Nets part owner answered those criticizing the trip in song that does not acknowledge the human rights violations and squashed freedoms of an autocratic regime long led by Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his brother, Raúl. | Wikimedia Commons

These were not the images that hip-hop artist Beyoncé Knowles and her rapper husband, Jay-Z, saw on their bizarre March 31 trip to Cuba in celebration of their fifth anniversary.

At first glance, a celebrity visiting another country is no big deal, unless that celebrity is Jane Fonda or Dennis Rodman; however, the Carters’ trip to Cuba gave money to the oppressive Cuban regime that can now be used to further ensnare its people. Their images are now being used in Communist Cuban propaganda — propaganda that the Cuban people have no way of counteracting due to the lack of freedom of speech. Their careless and indifferent outlook to these issues shows a lack of either intelligence or sympathy in concern toward the Cuban plight.

Jay-Z defended his trip to Cuba in a new song called “Open Letter.”

Due to the 1960s embargo, US citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba unless they have obtained a license for academic, journalistic, religious or cultural exchange purposes. In “Open Letter,” Jay-Z claims that he and his party received White House clearance for their trip to Cuba, but on April 17, President Barack Obama had a different story.

“I wasn’t familiar that they were taking the trip,” Obama said, “My understanding is I think they went through a group that organizes these educational trips down to Cuba.  You know, this is not something the White House was involved with, we’ve got better things to do.”

Regardless of who authorized the trip, it was offensive to many Cuban-Americans. Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a Cuban-American, has been an outspoken opponent of the trip.

“Well, I won’t rap it, but I’ll say, I mean, first of all, I think Jay-Z needs to get informed,” he said. “I think if Jay-Z was truly interested in the true state of affairs in Cuba, he would have met people that are being oppressed, including a hip-hop artist in Cuba who is right now being oppressed and persecuted and is undergoing a hunger strike because of his political lyrics. And I think he missed an opportunity. But that’s Jay-Z’s issue.”

According to Human Rights Watch, Cuba is the only country in Latin America that stifles all forms of political dissent. In Cuba, political dissidents are subject to criminal charges and are held without due process. Between January and August 2011, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation documented 2,224 arbitrary detentions in which many prisoners were not even presented arrest orders to substantiate the arrest. Cuban citizens live in near isolation from the rest of the world because the Castro regime has control of all media outlets and restricts the use of outside information. Citizens must request from the government the right to travel off the island and requests are typically denied, particularly to outspoken advocates. The list of human rights violations could go on and on.

“The travel policies need to be tightened because they are being abused,” Rubio said. “These are tourist trips, and they are – what they’re doing is providing hard currency and funding so that a tyrannical regime can maintain its grip on the island of Cuba, and I think that’s wrong,” he said. “And quite frankly, I think it’s hypocritical of the people who took that trip because they didn’t go down there and meet with some of the people that are actually in trouble today.”

A true cultural exchange would have required seeing the oppression the Cuban government has placed upon its people.

“If they really wanted to know what was going on in Cuba, they should have met with some of the people that are suffering there, not simply smoke cigars and take a stroll down the street,” Rubio said.

The Carters’ trip was an exercise in ignorance. Next time Jay-Z decides to rap about expressing his freedom of speech and sticking it to the man, he should avoid it in the context of traveling to Cuba, the land of dictatorial power and restriction of unalienable rights. It just makes him look stupid.

Sarah Backer is a business sophomore and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

When it comes to matters of the heart, we often say one thing and do something different — that is human nature. We often describe the ideal partner with romantic, monogamous notions of finding the one and being happy the rest of our lives. Many actually succeed in finding that special person, and for a while, happiness abounds, at least, until couples get bored with each other.

David Delgado/The Daily Cougar

It is from this boredom that infidelity breeds, and one of the ways we often try to take our minds off of our boredom is music, and this day and age, infidelity in music is still as prominent today as it ever has been.

Infidelity has been portrayed in culture as far back as recorded history goes, and in these times, it remains a popular subject in pop culture. In movies and books, indiscretions are either visually portrayed or spelled out for the reader; therefore, they are easier to pick up on. In music, these messages, while often obvious, can sometimes pass so quickly that audiences don’t pick up on the references.

There are some songs that will only mention cheating as a passing thought, causing listeners to wonder why this piece of the lyric was even necessary. For example, take Jamie Foxx, a popular comedian and actor who has also dabbled in music. His song, “Blame It on the Alcohol,” is all about a guy going to club, hitting on someone else’s drunken lover and stealing her right out from under him.

Other songs are subtler with the infidelity, such as Enrique Iglesias’s song “I Like It.” Most of the song is filled with references to sex and dancing like the cheating reference at the beginning, “My girlfriend is out of town, and I’m all alone. Your boyfriend is on vacation, and he doesn’t have to know.”

While there are songs in which cheaters get punished, like Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” these are outweighed by a slew of songs that make it adventurous, almost acceptable to be unfaithful.

“Cheating is bad, but it is also shown as exciting,” history junior Cesar Martinez said. “It’s (portrayed) like, ‘Who cares if you don’t get caught?’”

Nutrition junior Laura Ngyuen said the cues are so casual that the consequences of cheating have become trivial in nature.

“The consequences (of cheating) don’t seem as bad in movies, music and stuff … it doesn’t seem as serious,” she said.

According to infidelityfacts.com, 57 percent of men and 54 percent of women have admitted to committing infidelity in their relationship, while 74 percent of men and 68 percent of women admitted that they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught. This is reflected in the music we listen to.

Although, physically cheating is not the only form of cheating. Many consider the act of liking someone else, regardless of acting on it, a form of cheating. Biomedical engineer freshman Sara Siddiq said having romantic feelings for someone other than your significant other is like living a lie.

“When you’re mentally cheating, you’re lying throughout the whole relationship,” Siddiq said. “You’re making (your significant other) think that they’re the most important person to you, but they’re not because you like someone else.”

While no relationship is perfect, and there are bound to be a ton of mistakes made in each relationship, don’t make a mistake that can easily be prevented. Cheating is one of the most selfish things one can do in a relationship and certainly should not be glorified in pop culture — music included. We should be writing songs about resisting the urge to cheat and glorifying the ideal of being true to the one you love. There aren’t enough of those songs these days.

So when you’re at how this weekend with the one you love, think about why you fell in love in the first place. Tell them how special they are and have a little fun this weekend and keep that spark going, oh, and turn the stereo off or play up some slow jazz.

Kelly Schafler is a print journalism sophomore and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

We live in a nation with an outdated educational system that keeps children fenced in school districts with poorly performing schools. Children in districts like these deserve a chance to get good education at a private school. Unfortunately many in North Forest Independent School District, Houston Independent School District and elsewhere are brought up in low-income families that cannot afford the cost of a private education.

David Delgado/The Daily Cougar

Texas may be on the verge of the education reform it desperately needs. The Equal Opportunity Scholarship Program, or Texas Senate Bill 23, will award businesses up to 15 percent in in-state tax credits for funding scholarships and grants that benefit students living in low-income households or who are at-risk of dropping out.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, who serves as the Education Committee chairman, is spearheading this school-choice legislation. Patrick believes his plan will encourage positive competition among schools and significantly lower dropout rates.

“In order to give the children of Texas a better education and a brighter future, we must focus on creating more choices for parents including charter, online learning and the ability for them to find the right school for their child,” Patrick said.

The program will give elementary and high school students living in districts with poorly performing public schools an opportunity to enroll into private academic institutions, including those with religious affiliations. Participating business will receive a tax break, which caps at $100 million, when contributing to a participating non-profit organization. The organization will then disperse the funds in the form of grants to families that qualify.

While it has not been mentioned whether the bill will provide financial aid for students in college, it will definitely benefit prospective students and current college students, like kinesiology senior Sable Horton, who have children.

“Luckily, I’m in a situation where Malachi and Kayla can attend really good public schools,” Horton said. “Had we not lived in Conroe ISD, but in a terrible school district like the one in Houston, the program would definitely make it a lot easier for me to provide them with a good education.”

Horton is a single mother of two elementary-school-aged children and commutes to the University from her home in the suburbs 30 miles north of the city.

Patrick has received strong support for this bill from Brownsville Democrat Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., who included the at-risk requirement to the program. However, the bill has received opposition, both from within the state House and from the Coalition of Public Education. The coalition released a statement in March in which it said there were concerns that the proposed bill will provide tax loopholes for corporations and take away critical funding for experimental voucher programs to support private education.

While these are legitimate concerns, we cannot pass up this opportunity to help put kids in a position to compete in the global economy, which will require a strong workforce bolted in a strong educational foundation. Advertising senior Judith Riojas said that by giving these kids that chance to compete, they have a chance to break the cycle of poverty that binds them to their environment.

“I think it’s adventitious because it can break the vicious cycle of poverty that these families find themselves trapped in. If these kids can get a better education, then they’ll have more opportunities to get a higher paying job,” Riojas said. “It’s not that these kids are incapable of succeeding in college, it’s because their parents are in a bad financial situation.”

Like many taxpayers, Riojas expressed strong support for the Equal Opportunity Scholarship Program and said she would prefer the program to be heavily regulated to prevent government and corporate institutions from taking advantage.

Public Education Committee Chairman Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, said there is a concern about a lack of accountability within the program. Aycock said the tax breaks being offered to businesses constitute a use of public funds, and as such, these funds need monitoring to protect the taxpayers.

The bill is currently pending a decision on the floor of the full state senate, which will most likely demand that the bill be rewritten with strict regulations to monitor the program.

The program won’t give the government direct control over the funds, but that doesn’t mean tax money, reflected in tax cuts, will be abused. The grants offered through the program will be funded directly by money collected from the private sector.

Historically, Americans have had a fear of corporate and government manipulation, but including a third party — the non-profit organization — will guide the allocation of these funds to the students that need them.

The non-profit organization participating in the program will have a better understanding of the people living in that particular community. Unlike current federal and state financial aid programs, like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, it will offer applicants a personal application process similar to that offered by private scholarships.

The ramifications of this bill extend beyond the feel-good emotion accompanied with helping a charity case child. It could be our first substantial action toward reversing generational poverty and closing the massive gap between the socioeconomic classes.

Ciara Rouege is an advertising junior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

As the Senate moves toward introducing bipartisan immigration reform legislation this week, the nation turns its sights from the battle on marriage equality to illegal immigration.  While attitudes clash over the best way to approach reform, media outlets have already begun to change the way journalists write about it that is causing quite the controversy.

David Delgado / The Daily Cougar

On April 2, the Associated Press dropped the dreaded ‘i word’ or, to be more specific, the term ‘illegal immigrant’ from its stylebook, arguably the most widely used guide by journalists. However, instead of receiving full-on praise the organization deserves for removing a stigmatizing label, they received some mixed reviews.

The news of the change broke post by AP blogger Paul Colford and explained by Kathleen Carroll, AP senior vice president and executive editor, that “illegal” labeled people and that labels are making their way out of the stylebook.

“(W)e had in other areas been ridding the Stylebook of labels,” Carroll said.

“The new section on mental health issues argues for using credibly sourced diagnoses instead of labels. Saying someone was ‘diagnosed with schizophrenia’ instead of schizophrenic, for example. That discussion about labeling people, instead of behavior, led us back to ‘illegal immigrant’ again. We concluded that to be consistent, we needed to change our guidance.”

According to the new entry, “illegal” will only be used to refer to an action and not a person — “illegal immigration” is OK, “living in” or “entering a country illegally” or “without legal permission” are accepted variations, but “illegal immigrant” is right out. Also, people can’t be described as violating immigration laws without attribution. It’s not exactly tight writing, but the heart is in the right place.

Political science senior Jocelyn Bermudez agrees with AP’s decision as a positive step toward immigration reform.

“I do agree with them changing the terminology because at least it’s showing that it’s such an important issue that it’s trying to be reformed,” Bermudez said.

However, there is some backlash to be found. Fox News personality Greta Van Susteren questioned the move in her blog.

“The law is specific — whether you like the or not — about being in this country legally or illegally,” Susteren said.

“If you do not meet the terms of being here legally, you are here illegally, right? But apparently the AP has other ideas. Perhaps the AP would prefer describing someone as an immigrant (not illegal immigrant) who is illegally here or violating the law as a criminal? I think criminal sounds much worse.”

Others, like English senior Molly Hicks, find the move ridiculous exercise in political correctness.

“Making more words ‘politically incorrect’ is a very dumb thing to do, and it just makes people get offended over absolutely nothing. I think it’s stupid,” Hicks said.

Van Susteren does have a valid point: just because there is a terminology change doesn’t mean that the action is changed, and it seems like the AP is splitting hairs over the label.

French and interior architecture junior Babirye Nteza said the change in terminology does not change the issue at hand.

“I don’t agree with it only because I don’t think it’s going to make a difference, like what the actual policies are going to be like,” Nteza said.

“I feel like it is like changing the cover in order not to deal with the real issue.”

People like Van Susteren underestimate the full power of language. There are a few examples that we’ve seen in our recent history that either helped movements or aided the arguments they made.

Recently, an evolution has occurred regarding the marriage equality debate. Only a few years ago, the movement to allow the marriage of two people of the same sex was referred to as the “gay marriage movement.” Later, the reference changed then same-sex marriage as the term “gay” refers primarily to men and was rechristened as the “same-sex marriage movement.”

Still, that term seemed isolated, so it was recently rechristened the “marriage equality movement,” bringing “traditional marriage” under the umbrella that all marriages between two people are equal.

These small changes in our vernacular have deep impacts on society. The changes might seem minute and unimportant, but the reason they are is because they work. The words used affect how the issue is understood.

The days are stretching, the temperature is rising and those chilly winter days and all that trudges around with them are well behind us. However, some of winter’s more annoying guests linger on. It’s still flu season and the flu isn’t just for chilly weather. Flu season lasts for seven months, October through May, so even though it’s warmer, those pesky little influenza viruses are still poised to wreak havoc on our immune systems.

David Delgado/The Daily Cougar

While many of you may be thinking the flu is no big deal, it’s just a glorified cold, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says otherwise. According to the HHS, students should stay home for seven days, or until they don’t have symptoms for 24 hours, after first showing signs of the flu.

While missing a minimum of seven days of classes to catch up on “The Office” and guzzle down chicken noodle soup is tempting, the class work is going to pile on, and can be so hard to come back from. Prevention is the best cure.

In addition to staying home from school, HHS has some more guidelines for college students. The department recommends that students living in dormitories take a taxi or a car, avoiding public transportation to go home. If you can’t do that, it recommends that you have only one person bring you whatever you need, whether it is food, notes or medication. If all else fails, wear a surgical mask, which is definitely not the most flattering accessory.

Some of these guidelines may sound over the top, but while the flu may not have a huge impact on you, you could infect someone who may end up in the hospital as a result. In particular, people with asthma, diabetes and heart disease are already immunocompromised and at risk of contracting a severe form of the flu. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the number of flu-associated deaths per year, in the past 30 years, has ranged from 3,000 to 49,000 deaths. If you don’t want to go through all the hassle, then get the flu vaccine shot. You owe it to yourself and everyone you come in contact with to do so.

Since 2010, the CDC has recommended that all individuals six months and older get the vaccine. The flu vaccine is carefully crafted each year to include the strands of influenza most likely to infect people in the upcoming season. This year, the flu A (H3N2) strand was anticipated to cause the majority of flu cases. A lot of time, effort and money is put into keeping the flu from causing major health problems within the population, so head over to the UH Health Center to get your $25 flu vaccine today.

If you can’t get the flu vaccine, take some simple physical precautions. According to the New York University Langone Medical Center, the water droplets projected when people sneeze, cough or even talk can travel as far as ten feet, so try to move out of the line of fire of the guy sneezing his head off two rows behind you. In general, employ common sense. Wash your hands and don’t share food and drinks with others. By being vigilant in protecting yourself against the flu, not only are you helping yourself, you’re helping those around you.

Trisha Thacker is a biology junior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.