The issue of privately owned prisons was first brought to my attention by who of all people but Kanye West. In his controversial 2013 song “New Slaves,” West angrily raps, “See that’s that privately owned prison, get your piece today. They probably all in the Hamptons, braggin’ bout what they made.”

It turns out that Kanye might have been onto something. Two of the biggest privately owned prisons made a combined 3.3 billion dollars in 2012 from locking up 6 percent of state prisoners and 16 percent of federal prisoners, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

With the large chunks of money that these for profit prison companies take in, it only makes sense that they would attempt to influence the political process. Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders calls an end to the private prison in his Huffington Post article.

He points out that the two largest prison corporations “have funneled more than $10 million to candidates since 1989 and have spent nearly $25 million on lobbying efforts,” according to a Washington Post report.

Besides the ethical dilemma that results from making money by putting people behind bars, there are many problems within the privately owned prisons themselves that demand attention. Many reports of atrocious conditions for prisoners in for-profit prisons exist, such as the rat cake incident in Michigan, or the statistic that prisoners in Mississippi are 2-3 times more likely to be assaulted than inmates in publicly-run facilities.

The main problem undermining the privately owned prisons is a moral one. In a capitalist country such as the U.S., we generally agree that it’s a businesses’ right to maximize profit for its stakeholders by any legal means necessary. Since a privately owned prison is operating with the same fundamental logic, problems are bound to arise.

For the owners of these prisons, justice is in the rearview mirror when the allure of big money is in reach. It only makes sense that the owners of for-profit prisons would attempt to take shortcuts and exploit any loopholes that exist in the system. The repercussions are much more significant for this type of business than any other though.

If owners of privately owned prisons are getting money from the amount of people that they can manage to put behind bars, are they really that different from slave owners a couple centuries ago? That’s the case that West makes in his song, and I don’t think it’s that outlandish of an argument.

For profit prison owners make a buck off of each prisoner that gets put behind bars. Just as slaves had values that they were sold for, each prisoner has a similar price tag from the view of the for profit prison owners.

And it’s not like we’re talking about mass murderers and rapists here. During the span from 1980-2003, incarceration rates in this country quadrupled, violent crime rates remained relatively constant. The heavily publicized War on Drugs is the best studied link in the proliferation of inmates during this period.

As the U.S. searched for ways to put people behind bars, minorities in low income neighborhoods were (and still are) often targeted. This led to a drastically disproportionate number of African Americans and Hispanics representing the prison population in comparison to the U.S. population as a whole.

The roots of mass incarcerations in the U.S. are ugly and discriminative. It’s truly pathetic that we have more people in jail than any other country, including Communist China, a country with a population 4x our size. This is going to be a tricky problem to remedy, but we need to start by eliminating for profit prisons.

They’re an easy scapegoat to blame for our mass incarceration problem, despite the fact that it’s a complex, multi-level issue. Still, I think that by wiping out this corrupted practice, we can begin to lower the rate of people in prison for petty offenses.

A Minnesota company has made big news lately with their invention of a handgun disguised as a cellphone. The double-barreled .380 caliber gun, called the Ideal Conceal, is proportional to a Samsung Galaxy S7 and looks exactly like the phone until the safety is clicked, which makes it immediately ready to fire.

The man behind the invention, a serial entrepreneur named Kirk Kjellberg, says he came up with the idea after attention was drawn to him in a restaurant when a young boy announced he had a gun.

On the company webpage, it says the Ideal Conceal is a remedy to the problem of having to conceal guns. The page says that the pistol will “easily blend in with today’s environment.”

I’m not sure that’s a positive thing.

It’s ironic how we live in a time where kids are playing with toy guns that appear to be real, and actual guns are being disguised. This seems like something out of a James Bond movie, but the cellphone gun is a real item that will likely begin production next fall. The gun is already in high demand, with its Facebook page having over 20k likes and countless emails being sent to Kjellberg expressing interest.

I don’t have a problem with citizens exercising their right to bear arms, but I think this right has been continually abused for some time now. There doesn’t seem to be any legitimate reason to need an assault rifle for self-protection nor a handgun disguised as a cellphone.

When someone sees a gun, such as the recent affair outside of Taylor’s, people automatically get a bit on edge, and for good reason. A gun signifies the potential for danger and prepares people to react. When someone possesses a gun made to appear like a cellphone, no one will realize the potential threat before it happens.

The company obviously markets their product as a self-defense weapon, but what’s to stop criminals from using the gun inconspicuously? This weapon will make law enforcement’s job harder.

Think about what will happen if the cellphone gun is left out to people who don’t know what it is. There is already enough of a problem with kids getting their hands on their parents’ guns, and having a gun disguised as a cool gadget certainly isn’t going to steer kids away. Even the owner of the gun could mistake it for their cellphone in a state of distraction or intoxication and do great harm to themselves and others.

Enabling people to carry around a gun in their pocket would also prompt people to take their gun with them more places. Enforcing open carry laws, which vary state to state, would be nearly impossible due to the stealth of the cellphone gun. Do we really want people to be taking their gun to public places each day, as if it’s the same as a wallet or keys?

We seem to have reached a time where interest in guns has really gotten out of control. According to USA Today, there have been 200 mass killings in the U.S. since 2006. This has caused many people to live in fear of violent attacks. In turn, Gun sales have surged after events such as the mass shootings in San Bernardino shooting and Paris.

The more President Obama calls for increased gun control, the more paranoid people are getting about losing their right to bear arms. On Ideal Conceal’s homepage, it is pointed out that, “In today’s day and age, carrying a concealed pistol has become a necessity.”

I don’t agree with this statement, but it’s scary to think that this view holds true with many Americans. The invention of a gun shaped like a cellphone is a bad idea on many different levels. Guns have a distinct look for a reason, and we should keep it that way.

Nicotine and tobacco are inextricably combined in most people’s minds as one and the same. It turns out that nicotine, the drug most commonly seen in tobacco cigarettes, might not actually be that bad for you after all.

Studies have shown nicotine to be beneficial in preventing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as helping to treat ADHD, depression and anxiety.

Nicotine binds to nicotinic receptors in the brain, which are implicated in controlling attention, memory and motor control. Former UO psychology professor Richard Marracco first discovered the relationship between nicotine and attention in 1997.

Nicotine is a well known cognitive enhancer; it improves attention and working memory. I’m sure this article is going to anger some people, since we all have been taught the harmful effects caused by using tobacco products and the addictive potential of nicotine. It may be hard to approach this topic with an open mind, due to the fact many people have been affected by relatives and friends who were diagnosed with lung diseases or cancer.

The World Health Organization states, “Tobacco is the single greatest preventable cause of death in the world today.” Everyone knows of the lies and corruption, as can be seen by the countless lawsuits, involved with the tobacco industry. I’m not trying to suggest that anyone pick up a cigarette and start smoking. I’m simply asking you to set aside any bias, and attempt to approach nicotine with a neutral perspective.

Dan Hurley, an award-winning science journalist, has discussed the potential benefits of nicotine in Scientific American and Discover Magazine articles. Despite there being a variety of studies suggesting the benefits of the substance, there is a very negative stigma that nicotine carries around due to the connection with smoking.

“The medical community is rightly very cautious regarding making positive statements on nicotine,” Hurley said.

What people are beginning to realize is that nicotine does not have to be directly tied to smoking, there are many other ways to get it. In the past several years there has been an influx of e-cigarettes and vaping, but although they are better than smoking, e-cigs may not be totally safe. Elisabeth Maxwell, a health promotion specialist in the UO health center, cautions e-cig users.

“There is not a lot of science around e-cigs,” said Maxwell. “There might be potential health risks.”

Other options to get nicotine are patches, gum and lozenges. These products are generally involved in smoking cessation programs, but they appear to be relatively harmless ways to ingest nicotine. Hurley, wore a 7mg nicotine patch on his arm as we spoke about them.

“[It is] hard to get lab animals addicted to plain nicotine,” Hurley said. “People should not expect a nicotine patch to become addictive.”

Although Hurley advocates that the patches should not be addictive, nicotine itself triggers dopamine in the brain, leading to feelings of intense pleasure and euphoria, which can bring along the potential for addiction.

For those who do decide to experiment with nicotine, it’s best to use it in low doses and only occasionally. A nicotine patch or piece of gum with a high dose might be helpful for someone trying to break a smoking addiction, but it would almost certainly overwhelm a novice user.

Nicotine is a legal substance; anyone over the age of 18 can purchase it. Just like many things, nicotine can be used as a tool for either good or bad depending on the way it is used. It’s each person’s responsibility to weigh the positives with the negatives and decide for themselves whether or not to use nicotine.

I’m not trying to promote that anyone use nicotine, but I am suggesting that we begin more of a discussion on the topic. Bring it up at the next party you go to; you’ll be sure to turn a few heads.

Ever since the first day of high school, we have been taught the significance of getting ‘A’s by our teachers and parents. The ‘A’ is seen as the ultimate reward, showing superb mastery of the material and supposedly predicting future successes. Somewhere in the middle of my journey through high school I started to question whether an ‘A’ actually meant anything.

It seemed that people worked so hard to get ‘A’s to impress their parents or fellow classmates, but the cost of the grade seems much more than what it’s worth. The endless hours dedicated to studying, sleep deprivation and constant pressure to succeed drives many to the brink of insanity.

Once you actually get the grade you want, does it really mean anything? The satisfaction and sense of accomplishment quickly fades away and is replaced by the question: What next?

Letter grades are put in place to provide a simple, standardized system for evaluating students’ performances. It makes sense to give younger kids the external incentive to work hard in school, but I believe that by the time we get to college we need the inner drive to absorb knowledge in order to really get anything out of school.

Coming into college, I thought everything was going to be different from high school, and that people were going to actually care about the material instead of the grades. I have been quite surprised to find that the high school paradigm of approaching school is very much alive in college.

I, along with all of the other incoming students at the UO, received a book called “The ‘A’ Game” over the summer, giving helpful tips and hints on how to grasp the celebrated letter grade. Before I even set foot in a classroom, the UO made sure to place the emphasis on striving for a letter, rather than getting an education.

A lot of courses are geared towards online assignments and quizzes, further taking the emphasis out of learning in the classroom and making courses more grade oriented.

I’m sure some employers do factor grades into their applicant examination, but there are so many other aspects they consider as well, including internships, jobs, extracurriculars and volunteer experience. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, college GPA was rated second to last on the list of factors employers care about.

It’s easy to continue obsessing over grades since we have been taught that following the illustrious ‘A’ will lead us to success. The majority of conversations I overhear in my classes involve talks of being on the border between an A and a B, students praising a professor for doling out A’s or criticizing them for their strict grading. I hardly hear opinions about the actual material. If our grades are good, we figure we are on the fast track to success and we don’t have anything to worry about. Maybe this methodology of thinking was true when our parents were in school, but I think it is now an outdated way of looking at things.

I’m confused why there isn’t more value placed in acquiring useful knowledge. The real world is right around the corner, but it seems we’re still stuck in the silly thought pattern of believing all we have to do is work hard and get good grades, then everything is going to be perfectly fine when we get out of college. We have so many more options of what to do with our lives, and I don’t think placing our future success in an external grading system is the best option.

Some liberal arts schools, such as Reed College in Portland, have decided to start de-emphasizing grades, while others have opted to ditch them altogether. I understand why the grading system is in place at most colleges, but it’s time to begin looking beyond grades in order to shape our college experience into one that is going to be most helpful in equipping us with tools to succeed outside of college.