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Letters to the Editor

Busting Grinnell's myth of recycling

Within the last three weeks, Grinnell College students have been overwhelmed with information about the new Recycle-Mania Program that we have been enrolled in. We have received emails and read articles all about how Grinnell doesn't recycle enough. One cannot even use the restroom without being reminded about recycling. Have you ever seriously considered where the 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) came from and why they are so important that we teach them to children in elementary school?

Here's the skinny from John Tierney's 1996 New York Times article that helps explain the recycling craze of our generation. In the spring of 1987, there was a garbage barge named the Mobro. The ship was exporting 3200 tons of New York's trash to other regions of the country. The owners of the private disposal company, hired by local government, were trying to find the cheapest landfill to dump the garbage to maximize their profits.

They initially had a deal in Louisiana, but found a more profitable location in North Carolina. Unfortunately, the ship landed in North Carolina before they could finalize the paperwork; their early arrival caused the North Carolina site to worry about what was in the garbage. So, the folks in North Carolina decided to back out of the deal. In addition, they forwarded information about the hurried delivery to the original dump location in Louisiana.

Once the other site heard about what was happening, they too pulled out because they thought there was something illegal in the garbage. As a result, the Mobro traveled two months and 6,000 miles looking for a home for the garbage! All this time, the media hyped that there was a nationwide landfill shortage because the Mobro supposedly couldn't find a site. In Response, the Environmental Protection Agency created the 3 R's to solve a non-existent problem with recycling as the essential component.

The media hype surrounding the Mobro was undue and there is not, nor ever was, a landfill shortage. More safe, modern landfills are opening all the time and their carrying capacity has actually increased the amount of space available for trash. However, the total number of landfills is decreasing nationally because older landfills cannot meet the strict regulations imposed by the EPA.

As stated by Daniel Benjamin in his essay Eight Great Myths of Recycling, "The EPA itself acknowledges that the risks to humans (and presumably plants and animals) from modern landfills are virtually nonexistent." The garbage industry has become a $4 billion-per-year business that is centered on interstate trade. So in many ways, having New York ship its garbage out of state is good for the national economy.

Now I am sure you are thinking, "Wait, I thought this article was about recycling?" Well, it still is. One of Benjamin's myths is that "We squander irreplaceable resources when we don't recycle." This is totally false! We are not running out of natural resources! Here is the paradox: we are using more resources but those same resources are becoming more available as technology enhances. Let's take trees for example.

Despite the amount of logging that occurs in the temperate forests of North America, Europe and Russia, over the past 40 years these forests have expanded. Even more, the average price of most raw materials has decreased by roughly 80 percent since 1845, according to Benjamin, after adjusting for inflation.

Recycling is a business and it needs to be seen as such. Like all businesses, it has its environmental issues. Do you realize that the process of recycling materials can create more toxins than if we simple threw garbage away in to safe modern landfills?

Think about it: for every garbage truck there is also a recycling truck. And the recycling truck uses the same "non-renewable" resources as the garbage truck including, iron ore, coal, steel, rubber, and petroleum; all of which then double the amount of air pollution that would otherwise have been created by a single garbage truck. The City of Des Moines, whose residents pay over $1 million every year to recycle, switched to a once-a-month collection of recyclables a year ago and has since saved over $250,000 in transportation and labor costs. Without government subsidies and accounting tricks recycling would be more expensive than throwing everything away!

The 3 R's have been forced into the American subconscious, so that people today ?feel good' when they recycle, and yet pushy recycling programs like Recycle-Mania only serve to make society worse off.

Who wants to waste time and separate out trash into seven categories? Not me! Recycling costs too much (in time and money) and no matter what can be gained (if anything) from recycling, it is still too expensive. What this school needs is a reduction in the amount of recycling. And in the future, if technology still hasn't progressed to make recycling more economically efficient, then we should stop recycling entirely!

-Kristen Hoeft '07

Knowing where your food comes from

One hundred years ago life on the plains was tough; we certainly have it a whole lot easier today. In the past however, the landscape and technology forced people to rely on community and the food raised locally by friends and neighbors.

Even though we no longer need to live in such a way, many of the values such a food system engendered are still important. The rise of a fast-paced economy and interstate commerce have fragmented the rural landscape and monopolized how we get our food.

Such a system poses grave risks such as food shortages if transportation is disrupted, as well as a loss in taste and quality of what we eat. The solution to this problem lies right outside on the land if we return to a community-based economy and a revival of the local food system.

If you're not from Iowa, there's a good chance you had heard about it only as an agricultural state. But as you might have learned traveling down I-80, most of the farm land here is devoted not to human food crops, but rather to industrialized monoculture.

The bulk of the land is used to grow feed for cattle, hogs and chickens that are then shipped to animal confinements across the country. This is part of a trend that began 50 or so years ago.

This trend destroyed the small family farm as the backbone of rural communities as well as resulted in the devastating loss of genetic diversity among agricultural crops.

This type of agriculture produced a huge corporate industry that controls nearly every level of food production and distribution.

This means that most of the food we eat every day in Iowa comes from outside of Iowa - and most likely it has traveled over 1500 miles to get here. This fact has a big impact on all of our lives.

This semester John Andelson of Prairie Studies and Eli Zigas '06, as well as nine other motivated and committed students, have organized an independent study to assess how the college should proceed in recreating a local food system in central Iowa.

We have been lucky to have the support of Director of Dining Services Dick Williams, the expertise of local activists involved in farm to cafeteria programs, such as Kamyar Enshayan of the University of Northern Iowa, and local experts on farm and community such as Jan Libby to assist us.

Now we are asking you, the student body, to help us as well. In order for the college to make headway on this issue, it needs the support of its students - us.

You can help by emailing President Osgood so that he knows student care about this issue.

As the new campus center comes to completion and the structure of dining services changes, it is the perfect time to show that we want food grown and purchased in a manner consistent with our values of equity and community well-being.

-Avi Pogel '06

Commend protest

I'd like to express my disappointment with last week's staff editorial titled "Student protest weak." In this piece you condemn four Free the Planet members who, as you wrote, were arrested on ridiculous charges. The students declined to speak with you based on their lawyer's advice, and consequently, you condemn these students for "not standing up for their cause."

Perhaps you were attempting to make a point about apathy at Grinnell? So you chose to condemn a group of activists. Yes, that will certainly encourage students to be more active! Maybe you were trying to spark debate? A personal attack on four individuals will spark debate ? about the quality of the journalism displayed in the S&B.

As a non-activist myself, I can only admire people who act on their convictions. The students in reference are admirable because they were putting their beliefs into practice, not because they were arrested. I'm bewildered by your condemnation of people who were genuinely trying to effect a positive change.

Apart from this particular case, I'm disturbed by the editorial's implication that only students who are willing to sacrifice their future for a cause have the right to take it up at all. This kind of exclusive, scornful attitude discourages every type of action.

I believe that in this instance the S&B editorial staff does not represent the Grinnell College community as a whole. I believe we are a community that has respect for every positive effort to improve the world.

-Erin Lynch-Klarup '07

Editorial reckless

Last week, you derided the four FTP members who were reportedly arrested in protest of something or another about Victoria's Secret. You compared their actions to Chris Gaunt's, who was arrested during this years' SotA protest, finding those of the student protestors to be categorically less valuable than Gaunt's. You laud the librarian with praise.

But you go further than this obviously flawed argument, which presumes that the only inherent value of protest is media debacle and self-incrimination.

Hell, their actions should at worst be seen by the Grinnell community, most of whom spend their Saturday mornings recovering from hangovers, as of neutral value.

The most egregious aspect of the article is that you ascribe motive to the protester's actions after their arrests, accusing them of mere ostensible commitment, and worse, of only looking out for grad school chances and potentially obstructed job interviews.

From where do you claim this elevated stance on self-sacrifice? Because, speaking of grad school and interviews, last I checked, you were all on the newspaper editorial staff.

So, I guess this is just a case of choosing the right battles, old S&B.

If you want to encourage social commitment, you should, instead of deriding those who at least make attempts, perhaps report on real social issues, local or otherwise.

While I really enjoyed today's major front page spread about the SGA elections?-Great coverage!-it didn't really inspire me to social action of that caliber you might expect. Your attempts to encourage people are perverse.

-Nick West '08

Back off, S&B

Staff editorial on FTP protest was rash, illogical and unwarranted

I'm appalled at the audacity of the author of last week's editorial ("Student protest weak," March 3, 2006) to reduce the Victoria's Secret protest of the involved students to nothing more than "an afternoon outing to a local mall," simply based on the fact that they declined to comment to the paper about their arrest and the subsequent charges made to them by the local authorities.

The author's (hereafter referred to in second-person singular, you) main argument is that their actions were inconsistent with Grinnell students' age-long "commitment to direct action on behalf of the causes that they truly believed in."

You correctly report that they "heeded the advice of their lawyer and declined to speak to the paper."

What sense would it have made to hire a lawyer to represent them on their behalf in the eyes of the law, and not listen to his or her advice?

By condemning their choice to act according to the advice of their lawyer, is the S&B suggesting that an open defiance of a certified legal expert would have been a better alternative?

It is a truly rash move on your part, to overlook the most rudimentary assumptions about the standard of behavior, for the sake of satisfying our ideological pursuits; that we Grinnellians act with common sense.

You take the most biased stance possible against the students involved in this fiasco and distort the readership's fundamental logic system to fit your assertion.

Aren't you yourself guilty of misguiding your frustrations at being unable to deliver what would have been a headliner, solely because they were unwilling to comment on their arrest? Against their wishes, their names have been given away. Their deed has been made public. Yet you antagonize these student in an issue right after the one which reported their protest.

Aren't you yourself guilty of the exact same sort of "cowardice" as these students, openly criticizing them under the collective nomenclature of "S&B Staff" which would warrant you impunity from resulting counterarguments directed at you alone, as opposed to the S&B staff as a whole?

How could you possibly have assumed that those whom you accuse of "sacrific[ing] their cause to preserve their clean records, hoping that their arrest would magically disappear without a paper trail" were specifically concerned with their future grad school and job market prospects in making the decision that they did?

I find this to be a classic case of confirmation bias, which makes the reason why you elected anonymity all the more evident: I speculate that you are likely a disillusioned senior who came to Grinnell expecting to see an all-out-I-will-strip-down-to-my-undies-every-single-day-of-January-on-my-way-to-8a.m.-class-if-you-would-pay-more-attention-to -the-cause-for-saving-some-obscure-cat-in-Indonesia kind of political activism, and found out that it wasn't quite the case; that Grinnellian passions for just cause were much more grounded in reality than you had anticipated.

And now that you, like all your classmates, find yourself being anxious about your job/grad school prospects above everything else, it secretly made you hate yourself for being a hypocrite, and, seeing the beginnings of this self-perpetuating cycle in these fledgling activists, made you want to snap at them. And now these four are apparently "guilty" of cowardice and obstruction of investigative justice. The perfect scapegoats.

You, frustrated at being denied access to four crucial primary sources for your reporting on this arrest, forget that technically you have not heard anything official from the horse's mouth about the intentions or deeds of the four protesters.

Then you proceed to relentlessly accuse them of deeds that extend far beyond the scope of their actions, such as backing away at the first sign of trouble, and being insincere about the cause they are promoting. Again, you are guilty of prematurely assuming.

All this raises questions about the legitimacy of the anonymous treatment of S&B editorial section.

For every opinionated issue on which you take a stance, you have an obligation to list specifically who were involved in the writing process, because we know too well that all 30-something members of the newspaper did not give their input on the discussed issue.

Unless you do this, the "editorial" section is nothing more than an avenue for select members of your staff, under the guise of a newspaper, to transmit your biases on a pointed issue into a community over which you own investigative monopoly.

A space on our school's only official newspaper is far too precious to be wasted on a frustrated outburst at those who take the time off their weekends to participate in boycotting a brand associated with some of the most pernicious acts of disregard for human dignity. I'm all for anger.

Please, get mad and stay mad at the injustices of the world; act on your rage to serve the world at large. More often than not, we're limited in our potential for a better world by our inability to feel angry enough.

Just don't be so sanctimonious that you feel justified in putting the shame on good guys before the bad guys whom they rebuke and chase. It's just cheap. Please, bite something else.

-Jonas Park '09

We all can do better

Over the past four years I have valued the S&B for the coverage it gives to student campaigns on various topics. Projects I have worked on have benefited from this welcome publicity. Similarly, the advent of staff editorials has done quite a bit to provoke discussion on campus and I am glad that they have made a comeback. However, last week's editorial, "Student protest weak," was just too much.

Who is the S&B to chide Grinnell students for not discussing the specifics of their arrest to the paper following a protest-especially after these students have been given legal advice not to talk about their legal proceedings? Were the S&B in trouble, I sincerely doubt that it would go against the legal advice it received. Why then should the editorial board expect more of other students? Deciding not to talk to the media is not an example of "not standing up for [your] cause." It's an example of responsibility and heeding the advice of a lawyer.

What troubles me more about the S&B editorial board self-righteously taking students to task for weak protest, however, is that the S&B is in no position to sit on a high horse. I will be the first to admit that I, and most other students on this campus, could do more to make the world a better place. And that includes the S&B.

The editorial argues that the protest at Victoria's Secret in Des Moines seems to be "the only protest we are willing to trouble ourselves with." Perhaps if the S&B did not use so much column space printing a full page ad from Coca-Cola defending its human rights record, the paper might have found a way to give more than seven-line coverage to Luis Cardona, the union member from Colombia who discussed Coke's involvement in his country. Cardona's visit was part of the student Latin American Solidarity Group's campaign to boycott Coke.

Considering that the debate over the Coke boycott was headline news last semester, limiting reporting of Cardona's visit to the "Shorthand" section of the paper this semester puts the S&B in no position to chide others for not protesting enough. Similarly, while the Des Moines Register found President Osgood's $500,000 salary to be front page news on Feb. 19, the S&B did a disservice to the campus community, especially the first-year students, by making no mention of the article and the issues of economic equity it raises. It seems that it is not only students in legal trouble who are keeping quiet.

My point is not to bash the S&B. Instead, I'm trying to point out that we can all do better. More advocacy-whether in the form of protest, newspaper coverage, or other means-is something I would love to see on campus and in the country as a whole. Each of us could do more.

If the editorial board recognized that, perhaps then they would begin to serve the campus community by supporting fellow student activists rather than patronizing their peers.

-Eli Zigas '06

Editorial wrong, activism strong

We are writing in response to the March 3 S&B staff editorial which criticized student protestors for declining to speak with S&B reporters regarding their arrest at a Victoria's Secret demonstration in Des Moines. The editorial implied that the protestors' actions show that student activism at Grinnell is superficial and characterized by a lack of commitment to serious causes.

We were disappointed that the article failed to give due respect to the hard work and commitment many Grinnellians dedicate to social activism, even when their actions do not result in dramatic arrests.

To cite just a few examples, during this semester alone, students have formed a new group to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur; record numbers of students and faculty have participated in the weekly Peace March to protest the ongoing war in Iraq; students have begun working with immigrants' rights activists in Marshalltown and student involvement in the Prison Writers' Workshop continues to grow.

Furthermore, we feel that the comparison between the FTP protestors and librarian Chris Gaunt's extraordinary decision to serve time as a prisoner of conscience was inappropriate and misleading.

The S&B should not use the forum of the staff editorial as a pulpit from which to anonymously criticize the well-intentioned efforts of student activists who are under no obligation to speak to the S&B. Grinnell's long and distinguished tradition of social commitment is alive and well. The S&B should be an advocate, not an adversary, for campus activism.

-Anna Murphey '06, Elisa McCool '06

S&B not our parents

What is journalism? Is it the practice of not getting a story and then making excuses behind the fa?ade of anonymity and self-righteousness?

I never thought so, at least until I read "Student protest weak" last week. I have never been more aghast, or more ashamed, that I attend Grinnell, and not because, as you report "an afternoon outing to a local mall is the only protest that we are willing to trouble ourselves with," but because of the article itself, and its author.

Plainly, I'm ashamed that I go to a school where the newspaper staff feels it's their right to dictate which decisions are the right decisions for anyone but themselves.

The majority of Grinnell students decided to attend here because they did not want authority figures telling them what were and were not the correct courses of action.

That is the basic precept of self-governance, and it offends me that even our campus newspaper is making a mockery of it.

We are not children, we are college students. When we make mistakes or fail to fulfill our goals, we should own up to it and take responsibility, not make excuses and lay blame.

And more importantly, we should move on.

-Rachel Walberg '09

Criticism bombastic

I believe your most recent staff editorial to be inappropriate and unnecessarily judgmental.

As an active participant in both events mentioned in your most recent staff editorial (the SOA/WHINSEC protest as well as the Victoria's Secret protest), I can state with conviction that in both cases I was privileged to act alongside activists wholeheartedly committed to their respective causes.

I confess I do not understand your decision to demean the protesters in question or your disgust at their choice to "heed the advice of their lawyer and decline to speak to the paper."

It seems to me that your foremost objective is a personal attack on the four activists.

The fact that they chose not to provide you with an interview is no cause running editorials with inaccuracies. The protest, for example, was NOT sanctioned by FTP.

Your editorial implies that the legal issues are a simple annoyance and that only good can stem from giving the S&B a play-by-play account. I beg to differ. The legal proceedings are still in progress and will likely continue for quite some time. I do not believe the protesters chose silence because they are embarrassed or selfish, as you implied in the editorial.

Instead, they are being reasonable in recognizing that increased legal worries or the potential "threat to grad school applications" are not worth an immediate story in the college paper.

This decision bears no relation to their commitment to environmental sustainability.

If and when the protesters feel they can safely further their cause by speaking with press outlets, I am confident they will do so.

I am also very troubled by your implied assertion that for a protest to be considered anything more than "an afternoon outing to a local mall" it must end in arrest followed by public notification.

This technique is indeed one way, and often a very effective way, to promote a cause. But it is by no means the only way.

Letter-writing campaigns, boycotts, posters, petitions, public demonstrations, forums, and most certainly, civil disobedience, are all effective ways to encourage social change and need to be acknowledged as such.

Those who partake in active civil disobedience are, as you indicate, to be commended for their dedication to their cause. Chris Gaunt has my respect and admiration for her advocacy. Still, no choice, no matter how well thought out and well-intentioned, is without negative consequences.

While going to jail certainly draws attention, it prohibits a protester from working on their chosen campaign and is therefore limiting. This is why it is so important for activists to employ numerous and varied methods.

None of the protesters in Des Moines had any intention of getting arrested; ironically, we took special precautions so as not to be.

We intended to spend an afternoon informing people about the environmentally destructive practices of Victoria's Secret.

Although the day ultimately took an unforeseen turn for the worse, we nonetheless accomplished our intended task. I am proud of this success and take offense at having our work referred to as an "empty ritual."

In short, none of the protesters "sacrificed their cause." Your editorial was both uninformed and inappropriately accusatory. Still, it is comforting to know that the S&B is willing to run a story to "call attention to the cause of old-growth wood." Please do.

I and many others would be thrilled to discuss why we are so committed to this cause and would welcome the opportunity to raise awareness on campus.

What is not welcome is an unnecessarily caustic denunciation of students invoking their right to privacy.

-Kate Morley '08

Another view of Turkey

I enjoyed reading Lauren McFarlin's column last week and I found much of it stunningly accurate. However, being a "nationalist" Turk, I must respond.

I would describe the order in Turkey as an interestingly systematic chaos. Everything does seem to be in a complete chaos but somehow many things work out with such random synchrony.

There are many reasons what the state controls the directorate of religion, the most important of which is, after the caliphate was removed, secularism had to be preserved at all costs and keeping the directorate of religion in check was a vital part of the plan. It makes a lot of sense considering 99 percent of Turkey is Muslim.

McFarlin's last comment about Turkey being a nation that has not quite found its place in the world is startlingly accurate.

Turkey has problems placing itself in the modern politic and social scene due to its geopolitical importance. We are not yet fully developed as a whole nation, though the scenery in Istanbul may lead someone to other conclusions, and yet we occupy probably the most critical area, right between Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Being a nation of 78 million and having a considerably strong army, Turkey is a solid candidate for having a word in any international organization it is a member. It requires, therefore, that other countries think carefully before including Turkey in their organizations, for Turkey, when accepted as a member, immediately assumes a leadership position.

Since the Turkish people have played the role of a reigning empire for a long period of time, it is hard for the culture to be a face in the crowd in the modern world.

Not to mention the fact that many Europe-based international organizations' members' populations are dominantly Christian and this has led many columnists to call such organizations as "Christian club" in their writings.

-Ali Titiz '08

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