My journey into Korea started with an application to teach English in rural Korea under the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology. Unlike other programs that offer people the chance to teach English abroad, this program is unique in that it offers both long and short term contracts to its scholars, and as much as they want their applicants to be able to provide exposure to Korean students who often do not have such a chance to experience the English language, they also want to provide their scholars with the ability to learn and love the Korean culture through planned trips, excursions, and classes (all optional).  Granted the pay is not as high as you may expect when working for a private institution, the TaLK program still offers you a lot of perks that you would not otherwise receive.

My main motivation for accepting the “scholarship” as they call it, and coming to Korea was a chance to get to know myself in a new environment. The draw of starting fresh in solitude while surrounded by mountains and nothing familiar seemed to offer me a once in a lifetime chance to grow as a person and get to know the country of my heritage. I still believe in that opportunity, though I have to admit this training period has been a bit rough. Being surrounded by 300 or so mostly twenty-something year olds that feel like they have something to prove/are mostly interested in drinking can really damper the entire experience. But I digress. What I really want to talk about is Korea.

I am currently living in the best dorming facilities available in the entirety of South Korea. Built less than six months ago, Korea University’s Sejong campus dormitories offer western style toilets that permit the flushing of toilet paper, real beds (a good percentage of Koreans still believe in sleeping on floors) while also having the comfort of traditional Korean-style heated floors, which are super sweet for those of you who like to move around barefoot.  The neighboring area can be deemed suburban; the landscape is dotted with high-rise apartment buildings as far as the eye can see, and karaoke bars can still be found if you’re looking for something traditionally Korean to do, but there aren’t any large department stores or malls or internationally recognized brands for sale in these areas, and once you move about a fifteen minute car-ride from the campus region, farm lands stretch out for miles.  But this really isn’t a problem for anyone because Korea has awesome mass transportation. You can easily find a train or bus that will take you to Seoul, the capital of Korea and craziness, (granted, you better get used to assigned seating because they do that everywhere, including in movie theaters) and the best part about it all is the fair pricing of, well, pretty much everything.  This is my favorite aspect about living in Korea. With the exception of imports, everything you see costs what you’d think it should reasonably cost. For example, a small cup of coffee from a machine? 10 cents.  A can of soda? 50 cents. Street food, including dumplings the size of your face? 1 dollar.  A cab ride? It starts at $2.50 and I’ve yet to have paid more than 10 dollars to go fairly long distances. I’ve been here for a little under two weeks and I’ve spent less than 90 dollars on everything I’ve needed, not to mention more than a handful of evenings out on the town.  Korea is a great place to come if you’re trying to live cheap and save money, and still want to party like it’s 1999 every night. And for all you animals out there, there is no law against public drinking. You can buy beer, whiskey, and soju (Korea’s traditional hard liquor), at any local convenience store (for low, low prices), smoking is permitted practically everywhere, and you can crash anywhere from love motels to bath houses for something like 6-12 dollars a night. Indeed!

Of course, I don’t want you to get the impression Korea is home to just drunken debauchery because Koreans do still maintain a modest and conservative culture that values hierarchy and propriety between sexes, generations, authority, and family. Even though girls seem to think that it’s all right to wear shorts with high heels so long as they’re wearing a North Face jacket on top in the middle of the winter, you know for sure they’re not trying to put out for anyone, not even for their long-term boyfriends. Which reminds me, for those of you that aren’t into public displays of affection and super cutesy things, Korea is not the place for you. Korea embraces the adorable as though its livelihood depends on it. Even their soap dishes manage to get little bunny ears on them. They also really love making things in pairs for you and your loved one, and you’ll find loads of couples walking down the street in matching outfits, with matching handbags (yes, men are allowed to carry purses here), matching cell phone accessories and everything else you can possibly imagine.

But this isn’t everything, not even in the least. I’ve only been in Korea for two weeks, and there’s still so much I don’t know and will be finding out in the weeks to come, especially once my training period is over and I start living alone in my own apartment an hour outside of Seoul. So get excited for my adventures to come, I’ll be sure to report back with the most exciting and important of details.

All my love from something like 7,000 miles away,

Your Copy Editor Grace Hong

#2: This truth about the people on your AIM buddy list — I mean, yeah, basically.

buddylist

#3: This horrible realization about certain Pokemon names — Guess they started to run out of ideas.

#4: This Chart of Sexual Positions for the Lonely– Don’t let the fact that nobody loves you get you down! Give yourself the gift she won’t this Holiday Season!

#5: This suitcase for the weary travelers heading back home for the Holidays– more proof that the best inventions are the ones that allow us to be even lazier. Don’t know if they’re actually available for sale, though. check out the design home page here

#2: This list of 12 Days, 12 Ways to help the homeless, if you care. Includes such fine tips as (in so many words): “stop hoarding so much shit and give it to people who need it.”

#3: This xkcd strip.

#4: These defaced one dollar bills. Haha, indeed.

and if you don’t get it, that’s all Lady Gaga.

#5: This crazy-ass deep sea creature. Claws as Sonic weapon? Bubbles as hot as the sun?!  I mean, WTF?

By now, Charlie Kratovil is a well-known figure in the New Brunswick community. His most recent attempts to bring grassroots change and “good” to New Brunswick have been gathering a lot of support, but some criticism as well. Johnsonville Press Editor in Chief Alex Giannattasio and Editor Grace Hong sat down for a conversation with Mr. Kratovil to get the inside scoop on what he’s been up to since the end of the Wards Campaign.

What follows is the full transcription of that hour and a half conversation. Do not ask how long it took to transcribe. We include it here, in it’s entirety, for the public record. For those completely unfamiliar with the issue, the entire interview provides an in-depth explanation of exactly what has gone on between Operation: Robin Hood and Rutgers Dining Services this past week. For those who are well acquainted with the issue, I would suggest using the question prompts, displayed in bold, as a guide for finding material of interest to you. Further, for those interested in a more speedy read of the overall piece, major quotes have been highlighted, and reading through these will provide a good glimpse at the interview as a whole.

Alex: Tell us about Operation: Robin Hood (O:RH)

Charlie: This whole O:RH was something I had always wanted to do since I came here six years ago as a freshman. I had a meal plan, I saw the system wasn’t really working, and I saw tremendous poverty in New Brunswick, and people who needed meals. It’s something that if I had the time to do then, I would’ve done, but I had neither the time nor the organizing skills to make it happen. So now that I’ve graduated and finished working on this two-year campaign, I wanted to finish off the decade looking back saying, “What can I give back?” because this New Brunswick/Rutgers community has given me so much. Well, l thought this was a great idea I‘ve had all along–and I’m not the first one I’m sure–certainly not by any stretch of the imagination. But with all these resources, all these volunteers who are just sitting around now that the election is over, along with other people who wouldn’t work on the wards campaign in a million billion years but would work on this, it gives them a chance to get plugged into the New Brunswick community. It brings the students and the non-student community a lot closer, and is just generally a good thing to do. So, that’s why we started it and it started off as a smashing success.

Alex: How’d you go about it?

Charlie: Real simple. We handed out handbills. Brower is a great setup because there is really one way in and one way out, and you can tell who is getting take out and who is not. So if you see someone who’s headed to take out, you say, “Hey, can you get two, give one to me, and we’ll take it right to the soup kitchen in New Brunswick.” People with extra meals loved the idea; people without extra meals still loved the idea, but obviously they couldn’t do it. The first day I gave out 100 flyers and we got 36 meals in an hour, just doing lunch at brower, one dining hall, in one hour. It shows that a lot of people have extra meals that they’re trying to burn, and that they want to give them to good cause.

Alex: And you brought the meals to…?

Charlie: Straight to the Elijah’s Promise.

Grace: You spoke with them beforehand?

Charlie: Yes. I didn’t want to get stuck in a situation where we had a bunch of food people thought was going to a soup kitchen not go to it. So I said, “We have some takeout meals donated by Rutgers students. Is that the type of thing you’d accept?” The answer was yes, so we brought in the meals. There was a tense moment when we popped open the thing…”Two cheeseburgers and fries, is this good?” “Perfect”. Well, they actually said “Let me check with the boss.” The boss said, “We’ll take it,” so we’re good. Later that night we had a bunch of nachos, which are probably something that they wouldn’t have taken, and also they were closed when we got there, so we just drove around and gave it out to people. Middlesex County Resource Center, The Ozanam Shelter, the train station…just generally places where people who might be hungry hang around. So we did that, and got rid of 30 meals that way, threw some subs in my fridge and brought them in the next day. After two days of doing this at two different dining halls, we got over 100 meals donated and delivered, either directly to people or to the soup kitchen, and the soup kitchen and the people were loving it. I mean, obviously, if someone walks up to you and asks you, “You want some nachos?” and you’re really hungry, then it’s like a dream come true. So it was an astounding success and I suppose the higher-ups at dining services found out just what this meant for them, and they flipped out. They absolutely lost their cool and crossed lines that they shouldn’t have crossed.

Alex: What happened and what did they do? And let’s discuss maybe why they were upset in the first place, and what brought them to do what they did. But first, what happened?

Charlie: Well, Director Sams came out and he asked to speak with me, so we went down to his office.

Alex: Date and time?

Charlie: This was Tuesday (Dec. 8), probably around 1:30pm. We had already gathered about thirty some meals and we were about to send them to the soup kitchen at 2PM. He said to me “Get your stuff, come downstairs, you’re talking to me.” And he basically started out the conversation by saying, “First of all, that’s a health hazard up there, food borne illness, blah blah blah, we’re going to confiscate the meals and destroy them.” In this case, food borne illness meaning time and temperature, that’s the standard here at Rutgers. So Director Sams says, “We’re going to take these meals and we’re going to destroy them.” I said, “No you’re not, those are not your meals, they were donated, I have a record of it.”

Alex: What record?

Charlie: We had everybody sign a little thing that had the time that you gave [your donation] and your Eden email and your name. That way when we went to drop it off–“Oh, when did these come in?” “These are from too long ago, we can’t give ‘em” or, “These are fresh, we can give ‘em.” That’s what I’m talking about in terms of health. Standards are time and temperature. For certain things like chicken or beef, there’s a certain amount of time that they can be without refrigeration or without proper temperature.

Alex: How’d you take care of the temperature?

Charlie: We delivered them while they were still hot. That day was probably the longest gap we had. We began taking the meals at noon, they were supposed to be at Elijah’s promise by two, but in the end they didn’t get there until 2:45 because of this whole scene. Basically, [Charlie Sams] said his piece, said “What you’re doing is inappropriate, it’s unauthorized and you’re not allowed to solicit in the dining halls.” And I said “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that was the policy. We won’t solicit in the dining halls anymore, we’ll take it outside.” And he said, “Well, yeah, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re still confiscating the meals,” and I said, “No you’re not,” and he said, “Well, then I’m gonna get the police,” I said “Please, get the police here” and he picked up the phone, “I need a patrol man here.” He was under the impression that he was gonna have me arrested and have other people arrested who were involved in this. I think he really thought that because he’s a higher up–he’s one of the top guys in the Rutgers admnistration–that this sort of thing would automatically go his way.

Alex: The Director of Dining Services a top guy in the Rutgers Administration?

Charlie: Well, yeah, he reports directly to Greg Blimling. He figures he owns the building and the area around it, that it’s just his turf, so he can call up the cops and they work for him. I beg to differ: since these meals were donated already, and they were paid for. They’re not his to take, certainly not if he’s going to throw them in the garbage. So I said, “This meeting is over,” and he calls the police and I start moving the food out of the lobby and onto the steps. We got all the food out there…he actually sent some of his employees to go out there and grab the food back, which had already left the building, and bring it back into the building presumably to destroy it, so we stood guard over whatever food was left. He took about half, about fifteen meals, and there were like 20-25 meals leftover. We stood there guarding it until the cops came. Then it was this whole big thing, and of course the cops initially said, “Yeah, you’re gonna have to let them take the food and just move along,” and I said, “Actually no, whoever comes out here and picks up this food and brings it back into the building, I’m going to file a police report against them because they’re stealing food that has been entrusted to me. It was given to me under the impression that I’m taking it to the soup kitchen, so you’re not taking this food from me.” The cops agreed that they were not going to carry the food, they weren’t gonna touch the food, they quite frankly thought what we were doing was a good thing, and that Charlie Sams was being a little irate. We spoke very calmly with the police, we explained our position, and [the police] would go inside and talk to Charlie Sams for 20 minutes or a half hour, and come out and call the supervisors and the sergeant came out and they talked to him for a while, came out, and said, “Yeah, you’re gonna have to leave the food” and I said, “Nope, we’re going to file a police report against whoever takes it.” And he says, “Give me another thirty minutes.” He comes out 30 minutes later and says, “You can take the food.” And so after an hour stand-off in front of Brower Commons, we finally get to put the food in the car and take it to Elijah’s Promise. That night, we did the whole operation at Brower again with no problems. At Neilson we actually did get kicked out. This time, it was students, current students, who were in the building.

Grace: They were kicked out and told they weren’t allowed to come back into the take-out lines?

Charlie: Not only that, but they were told they couldn’t even canvass outside the building because it has the little ramp leading up to the take-out area, and they were told, “No, this is Rutgers property you gotta keep walking, you gotta get off of Rutgers property”—students, mind you!

Alex: They go to school here!

Charlie: It was just outrageous behavior…so the next day, we came back..

Grace: Why do you think Dining Services employees willingly took part in this fight with students?

Charlie: People associate themselves with a team. They’re like, “Oh, students are trying to take from us, this is our paychecks, this is our money, this is our budget,” and so they feel like they have to act. It’s funny how predictable it is—people end up acting in this horrible way, stealing food that’s been donated and throwing it in the garbage. It’s just like—what would make someone do that, you know? And it’s similar to the machine in New Brunswick politics, the Rutgers machine, that protects the status quo and essentially protects the resources that keep the system going–this scam of a system–that forces people to buy too many meals, and then the profit just kind of vanishes at the end of the semester. And so, in the end we came back the next day, we were right outside on the steps like we had agreed to, and we were having just as much success. We weren’t catching everybody who was getting take-out, we were wasting fliers on people who weren’t going to get take out, but in the end, we were still getting a couple of meals donated every minute, and so they called the cops back. The cops come, they keep pushing us further down the steps, and they say, “Actually, maybe just stay on the sidewalks for now,” and then we found out that they had changed the policy from two to one [take-out meal per student]. Everyone was really pissed, obviously. People were coming out saying, “I wanna give you a meal but they won’t let me down there.” They say even if the line’s short, you can’t get back in line and get another meal, they said strict orders from the manager, only one meal per student and you can’t come back. That effectively hindered our entire operation to the point where we were getting 5-10% of the donations that we would’ve gotten if they had kept the policy the way it’s been for years. My understanding, or my logical presumption is that first they thought the cops really were going to arrest us because they said so, and when that didn’t work, they said, “What the hell are we gonna do now? We gotta change the policy to just one,” and in the end, in exploring how to change that policy back, we basically exposed that the Rutgers dining system only plans for you to use 60-65% of your meals—that was the figures I was quoted by the Assistant Vice President yesterday. The rest are called “phantom meals” that never get cooked.

Alex: Quoted by who? Assistant vice president of what?

Charlie: Delia Pitts. She’s of student affairs, Greg Blimling’s underling. I spoke with her yesterday at length and she was very helpful, but ultimately the only reason I was there was to get dining services to change their policy back, and she informed me that that was not going to happen this semester, and maybe never. She said maybe I should focus my energy on something else, like collecting cans from the dorms, and I said “That’s great, I’ll look into that for sure,” but in the end, this dining services policy is the problem.

Alex: Go on about that, these “phantom meals” and what she told you.

Charlie: Well yeah, she basically just said, “I don’t know if you care about this, but dining services says that they only anticipate 60-65% of the meals actually being used,” and she tried to play it off as some kind of good thing about the system. “See, the advantage is you only have to pay for 170 meals, but if you’re really hungry you can eat all 250.” She made it seem like you’re getting a discount. These meals are already $7-16 a piece depending upon your plan, and I know for a fact that those takeout meals cannot cost them that much to make. Eating in the dining hall, $7-16 is a fair price for an unlimited amount of food. But to use two of your swipes, which can be as much as $32 to get four burgers, or three burgers and a hot dog, or something, is just insane. It’s like Giant stadium prices, it’s like a concession stand more than it is like a valuable meal plan. And they’re telling me these meals are actually coming at a huge discount, that this is actually much cheaper than they would be if we actually followed a real system where one meal was actually paid for by somebody, that these whole phantom meals entitles people to somehow get away with not paying for using the full price. But if everyone were to use the full thing, then the whole system falls apart, is basically what I was told yesterday by high ranking people in the Rutgers administration, and quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that’s on them. They’ve been the ones who’ve allowed this system to get so out of hand that basically it doesn’t add up.

Alex: Do you know more about how this system came about, when it started?

Charlie: I do not know anything about that, I just know that since I’ve been here you could get two takeout meals and that was sort of the best way to eat away at your meal plan and even with that, it’s almost impossible to finish a 210 meal plan as a freshman. People have 150 meals left over. I had over 100 meals left over at the end of my first year.

Alex: I’m confused as to how this system functions. What’s the value here, to having so many meal points? Is it simply put that they’re taking whatever excess profit they can and using it for….

Charlie: Other things? Well, here’s what I think. I think it has to do with the housing, because they tie the meal plan to housing. They say, “If you’re gonna live in a dorm, you’ve gotta get at least 105 meals, and if you’re a freshman you gotta get 210, no choice in the matter.” If you want to live in the dorms, that’s the price to pay. And they use that. It basically makes the prices of the housing look cheaper than it really is, because you think you’re paying for the meal plan separately, when you’re really not using the full meal plan. You’re essentially just making a donation,, or an extra tax that you’re paying to Rutgers. It also makes the meals look cheaper if you say, “You’re getting a thousand meals,” when you know full well you’re not going to use them. It makes the rate look cheaper, makes it look like “Oh, I’m only paying 10-15 dollars a meal.” if they actually show you what it’s probably going to look like, it would look like you’re paying $25-35 a meal, and you know you can go to a gourmet fancy downtown restaurant in New Brunswick and eat for that price. You could eat for that kind of price every day, every meal, and actually save money and have more freedom to say “Well today, I’m going to eat here, and tomorrow I’m going to eat there.” With the meal plan, they lock you in, you’ve already paid for the meals, and they have a vested interest in you not using them all. So, that’s what we’ve exposed here, that they actually will actively try to prevent you from finishing your meal plan.

Alex: “Exposed” might be a little strong, I mean, I’ve known about this since I was a freshman, and everybody who is a student here knows about this. The question is why they do it, and what do they do with the excess money.

Charlie: I really don’t know, I think housing has something to do with it, and also just in general it makes the meals look cheaper when in reality you’re paying an exorbitant price per meal.

Alex: To me, I think this could be the start of a more in-depth investigation. It’s a real issue. People have talked about this many times. But nobody’s done anything about it, nobody’s campaigned about it, nobody’s canvassed for it, so it’s a good thing to look into.

Charlie: In the end, what I was hoping to achieve with this was not just to feed hungry people this winter, but to make it easier for students to use their unused meals, and create a long term solution for that. Not just to have volunteers collecting food and driving it to the soup kitchen every day, but to force the university to have some sort of better way. If you go to the University of Cincinnati, it’s a very simple process. In the very beginning of the semester, you pick a charity, and at the end of the semester, whatever meals you have left over, they donate a portion of that, about 25% of the meals left over, so if you have 100 meals, they’re going to take 25 meals put a dollar value on that and write a check to the charity of your choice.

Alex: Wow, that’s great.

Charlie: Right? And that’s just one university. In Rutgers New Brunswick, we have not only the dining halls refusing to put the leftovers to people, but if you eat a tray at Brower and you leave half a burger on the tray, that food is chopped up and given to pigs on Cook Campus. All the hundreds of thousands of leftovers every day, at Brower, Neilson, and Busch, and Tillet—it gets turned to food for pigs. Rutgers Camden, on the other hand, they give it to soup kitchens. So you have to think, there must be a better option for us. The end goal is to get the University to adopt some sort of better system. Right now, the system is five people who are on the RUSA allocations board part of the student government, go through every charity, or every student group that has put in a charity, an narrow it down to two. And they say, “These are the two charities this year,” and then they put it to the entire RUSA government, and those elected people who, I’ll say right now, are elected in a way that I don’t like, but they’re elected nevertheless, those people get to pick between the two, as to which one is the better charity to give the donations to, and then students are limited to donating one of their leftover meals, and in exchange for that donation, the university makes a two dollar contribution to that charity, which this year, as you probably know, is the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and it was very controversial. I mean, quite frankly, I would much rather have my donation go to something I could see. And it’s a really politically divisive issue, and so if you’re a student who, for whatever reason, disagrees with the charity that is chosen, you’re out of luck.

Grace: So, are you suggesting that now that you’ve discovered this weakness in the system for Rutgers, this is something you have a vested interest in solving in the coming period of time? Is this a new project that you see yourself being involved in now that you’re done with the Wards campaign, and since Operation: Robin Hood cannot continue?

Charlie: That was the plan. First of all, EON is not done. I’m still on the executive council of EON, and EON is going to continue to do good work. There is also a recount on the fourteenth, though I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Nevertheless, EON is alive and well. As far as this operation, it was specifically listed from the beginning that that was the end goal, to get Rutgers to come up to examine what the best way is to give people an option to put their extra meals to good use in our community, in New Brunswick and Piscataway. Right now, there is literally no option for that, except for Operation:Robin Hood. It’s the only way that people could in any way help the local community with their unused meals.

Grace: Do you think that the name of the operation may have impacted the way the administration perceives the group?

Charlie: I mean, I will agree that the naming of the program certainly could be construed as oppositional. But basically, the way I saw it, there are fortunate people in New Brunswick–usually Rutgers students who are getting a degree and have a meal plan paid for in advance, and they can eat whenever the want, and get two take-outs whenever they want–and there’s a lot of really less fortunate people in New Brunswick. The name “Robin Hood” might imply “stealing from the rich and giving to the poor,” when really it’s actually a donation being made out of someone’s heart, out of good will.

Grace: Well, you’re stealing from Rutgers, technically. That’s what Rutgers would be thinking. It’s the school that would be the “rich” in the equation, not the students, since they’re not the ones losing money.

Alex: Is the dining hall a private corporation?

Charlie: I believe it’s an internal operation, part of the Rutgers system. But, I don’t think Rutgers is rich. It’s pretty clear that the university is in dire straights financially. And I think that a lot of people are [in dire straights] all over New Jersey, and I think that something that really annoys students is when their parents are already paying to put them through college, and now they’re going to have to go home over winter break and their parents are going to ask them, “How many meals did you use?” and they’re gonna have to say, “I had a 120 meals left over,” or something, and they’re going to feel bad. The parents are going to feel as though they lost money and they’re gonna get into a fight about it, and it’s all because of a scam that Rutgers Dining Services has been pulling on students since I’ve been here. In the end, it’s about having the fortunate help the less fortunate and it’s about actually making a totally legitimate donation without breaking any rules, and we were just a vessel to help that happen. And that’s why we used the name Operation: Robin Hood. Like I said when I started this thing, it’s just an operation. It’s just a way to accomplish something good with a simple plan, raise awareness and make a point, and show that we care. And then move on to try to expand this into a greater framework for helping the needy in New Brunswick, period. We wantto mak e it a lasting instrument for positive change in this city, not just a one-off operation. That’s why we called it Operation: Robin Hood, and we see where it takes us. And then next year, when the students get back, hopefully we’ll have a huge base of support and we’ll have the right tools and the right knowledge to make real changes to the policy in the university and in the city to help needy people.

Alex: Why do you think the University or the individuals within the U. decided to challenge you on this? Is it just a matter of turf, or something? Because student organizations regularly do all sorts of soliciting and canvassing in and outside of Brower. So why specifically would they come after you?

Charlie: It’s all about the Benjamins. It’s all money, it’s very simple. Dozens of different groups solicit every week in front of Brower commons, some with permits, some without, nobody really questions them or says, “Get off of here, this isn’t your area.” People are out there wit mega-phones, blasting music—there’s all kind of solicitation going on outside of brower.

Alex: Traditionally that area outside of Brower is considered the Free Speech zone, isn’t it?

Charlie: What Dean Brim told me yesterday is that free speech does not include solicitaton–you’re not allowed to ask anybody to do anything. You can tell people what you think, but you can’t ask them for something. So, nevertheless, I put in the paperwork yesterday (Dec. 9) through a valid student organization for us to get the right to use Brower Commons every day from now until winter break from 11am till Midnight. We have that approval. The county board of health came out there and checked out the whole situation and said that it was sufficient. We’re taking food to the soup kitchen quick enough, we’re taking records of when the food is donated, and in general it’s nothing to be concerned about. So we have approval for everything now, those are just little roadblocks they threw in the way hoping to trip us up, hoping we’d give up, you know? They send the cops there the first day–lesser people would’ve backed down and just said, “Yeah, take the meals, we’re done here, we don’t want any trouble,” but we stood up for what was right. We said, “These meals were donated, we’re not going to stop this, this is a good cause.” And the next day, they bring the County Board of Health in, thinking that they’re going to be able to act on this, but they gave us the green light, and then they sent Dean Brim out there and tell us we’re not allowed to solicit anywhere on Rutgers property without his approval, and then we put in the paperwork to make that happen, and they’re left with no choice but to change the policy that’s lasted for years here. All because of one thing, and that’s money. Dining services tried to shut down an anti-hunger campaign for one simple reason – to save money. It’s not because they don’t like me, or they don’t like what we’re doing, or they don’t like the name of the program; it’s because it’s all about their bottom line, and they cannot afford this, or at least they don’t think they can.

Grace: Right, like we were discussing earlier, they don’t actually have all the food available. Everything comes in a pre-ordered quantity, and if there’s a spike, then they run out of food quicker and they’d have to have more money to buy more food than their initially budgeted amount. In which case, if you’re donating 50-100 meals a day for two weeks, you can be pretty sure they were not prepared for that kind of increase in consumption of their food. So this operation is on hold right now?

Charlie: Yeah, I think that under the current system it’s gonna be very hard for us to get enough donations to make it worth our while to be standing out their with fliers and driving the food there to drop off one or two meals to the soup kitchen, so…

Alex: As long as there making it a one meal per person policy…

Charlie: Right, it’s going to be very difficult. Now as exams start to finish, people do have that one or two days where they really have nothing on their plate, literally they just have nothing to do. So hopefully, we can organize one or two days next week at a couple of places where we’re just gonna get the word out massively via the internet and fliering saying, “Just come during this time, and get one take out and donate that, and then we’ll drive it.” Obviously we’re going to be looking into collective action since we have so many people who care about this and are outraged at the behavior of these people. We’re going to be organizing collective action, maybe to try and get this guy to resign, obviously to try and get McCormick to overturn the policy change, but also maybe come up with a better policy long term that’s going to be sustainable so that this doesn’t happen again–where these guys are caught with their pants down. And also just in general, collective action to raise awareness about this problem. It’s really two problems, that’s what started this whole thing. There’s the problem with the students being overcharged and scammed and forced to buy more meals than they’re going to use and then there’s the problem, that’s more serious, of people going to bed hungry.

Grace: So you guys have a meeting tonight. What do you hope to accomplish at this meeting?

Charlie: It’s going to be very interesting because there are going to be a lot of people there who I’ve never met, and I don’t know what they know about it–it’s probably just from the Targum or our facebook group, but I would anticipate we’re gonna have a lot of people there tonight who are PO’ed at the administration and the dining services. We’re going to have to see what it is they want to do because I can’t just show up with a plan and say, “Here’s what we’re doing guys, follow me.” I mean I could, but I want to see. I know somebody’s already organizing a petition, I know other people are researching into the facts of the situation and trying to expose more about this basic injustice as far as the students are concerned. But in the end, I’m sure we’ll all kind of speak with one voice and move in the same direction, and I hope we could really accomplish some changes. I know getting all the press today was probably very helpful, in the Targum, and I’m sure Johnsonville Press will be getting the word out, and the Home News Tribune has yet to write about it [they since have], but I’ve written an open letter to McCormick, and like I said, I’ll give that over to you guys, and hopefully he’ll take some action. He’s made hunger his main issue and that’s why I thought this program was going to succeed.

Alex: Why didn’t you talk to McCormick at the beginning?

Charlie: I haven’t been able to find McCormick yet. The only place I was able to find him was in the bathroom yesterday, but I didn’t think it was an appropriate place or time to approach him. I was pondering sending an email to RAH (Rutgers against Hunger) but I honestly didn’t know who was involved in that besides President McCormick, and this is just kind of a grassroots thing, it’s slapped together. I just said “Make a flier” and there it is, it doesn’t even say “Operation: Robin Hood” on it, this is just “flying by the seat of our pants” organizing. We’re just trying to do good as quick as we can since there’s not much time left. We had to get this off the ground. It would’ve been great to have RAH’s support but in the end, the same things that they’re saying right now, whatever they’re saying right now, all the excuses that they’re making, all of them– “the meals are pre-discounted” – or whatever way they spin it, they would’ve said the same thing if I had gone to them and put it through the “proper channels” which are two words I’ve heard way too much of the past three days. “Proper channels,” which I’ve even heard to refer to the garbage– “the food has to go through the proper channels,” “we’re gonna let the food go back to them and they’re going to put it through the proper channels.” Nevertheless, if this whole idea had been put through the “proper channels,” Charlie Sams and dining services would’ve said the same things he’s saying in the newspaper today, basically saying they can’t allowed it because they don’t have the resources to let students do what they want with their meals. And if everybody got all their meals, they would collapse, the whole system would fall apart, That’s really not a good system. They would’ve just said the same thing they said to me yesterday, “You should try to collect cans from the dorms, there’s probably going to be a lot of cans at the end of the semester that are going to be sitting around.” We would’ve entered into sort of a negotiations or discussion about it and that discussion would still be going on today, and it would still be going on in January, and it would still be going on in February, and in the end, maybe they would say, “Well, we’ll let you donate two meal swipes in stead of one at the end of the year, to whatever charity that the student government chooses,” and that would be their idea of compromise. In the end, I wanted to help people in New Brunswick. Like I said, the decade is coming to an end, and we’re all looking back—well, what did we accomplish? What did we do, what did we forget to do, what did we want to do that never happened? And this was something that I’d always wanted to do, and I think it really gives people a chance to do one good deed this year, not that they haven’t done others, but looking back at how much you take from the community, how much good stuff came your way this year, and yet that there’s still people who didn’t get that much good stuff this year, maybe give something back, just one hour. And really, if all the people that said they were going to volunteer just gave one or two hours over these two weeks, we would’ve been able to do an immense amount of good in New Brunswick.

Grace: Were you, or are you, aware of any of the other legitimate organizations that have been trying to fight hunger in this area?

Charlie: Yeah, I mean all these organizations are really in need right now because there are so many more hungry people than there were just even a month or two ago—Elijah’s Promise, I know NJPIRG always has a hunger and homelessness campaign that I’ve been in touch with very closely, and just in general, there’s a few different churches that have food pantries in the churches, and I’ve been talking to people who organize those that are actually working to try to make a new food pantry in the basement of the church right on College Ave, where we’ve had our fundraisers and stuff. That’s their initiative, they want to turn it into that, but I was helping them clean it up, and by January that should be up and running, so like, it’s not just like a “Fuck you Rutgers,” kind of thing. We really are committed to trying to make a lasting change in New Brunswick.

Alex: Yours is a political movement, as opposed to all the other alternative anti-hunger movements in the area. There are tons of groups working on hunger, that if you felt obliged to help feed the hungry just for that reason, you could go through those “channels”. But you have an ulterior motive here, which is also to instigate change in the dining services.

Charlie: You’re 100% right. We are a political movement, and I’ve been trained in that whole school of thought and organizing, and I saw this as a way to kind of shed light on how the system isn’t working for anybody except for the people at the top. It was a good way to do good, and demonstrate that at the same time, because like I said, machines are very predictable, and that’s the disgusting thing about it. These people, who are good people, find themselves stealing food that’s about to go to hungry people and throwing it in the garbage for no other reason than their job or the role that they play in the structure. That’s the type of thing that we unfortunately exposed, and I was hoping we wouldn’t expose it. I was hoping that President McCormick would stand up for us and say, “Yeah, these guys are doing a good thing, we’ll find the money somewhere else and we’ll pay for the extra food, and we’ll make it happen.” I mean, Rutgers Against Hunger has already done great work and I wanted to join their cause.

Alex: No you didn’t though. If you did, you would have joined Rutgers Against Hunger, instead of doing this.

Charlie: Well no, their cause is my cause—it’s the same cause. They’ve had six meeting, I haven’t been at any of those six meetings in the past year, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the same goals. The people who work on that thing, including President McCormick, do want the same things that I want. I just have a specific angle on New Brunswick, I approach this from a New Brunswick angle. I cleared it with Elijah’s Promise, I said, “will you take food if I can get you food?” and I said to the students—I didn’t clear it with the administration but I cleared it with the students—I said, “You think this could be the type of thing that would work? Would you volunteer for this type of thing? Do you think we could actually get students to get what they paid for and put it to a good cause?” And people said yes, so I organized it, and I was hoping that the university would be almost forced to support it because there were so many people who cared, because of the hard times this year, etcetera, etcetera, but right now the powers that be are actively fighting it.

Grace: Well, thanks for talking about this operation, but you also told us that EON is alive and well, and you’re still organizing, so what’s EON up to, and what does EON’s future looking like?

Charlie: We, right now, are trying to transition into the next phase of our existence. We were very passionate and very focused on the Wards Question. Obviously that was the reason that the organization was created–to advocate and win wards. And we came very close; there’s a recount, like I said, on the 14th, but I’m not sure if that will be the end of it, or if there will be a contest to the election, but with that said, we aren’t only focused on wards now. We have an immense, broad, swath of things that people are doing. But because we had all invested so much, 110% of our energy, into the wards thing, now that we’re free and able to take a week off and sit back, we each kind of want to go into a different direction, and that’s a good thing. That we’re all still together as one family, but that we all have different things we’re working on. I’m working on an anti-hunger initiative with Rutgers students and the New Brunswick community. But we’re also working to expand a mentorship program. Martha [Guarnieri] is working very hard to basically try and get more Rutgers students to help in the public schools in New Brunswick, and I think that, though I’m not sure if EON will be involved, I’m sure that where they will stand is in favor, but I’m pretty sure that someone is going to put a question on the ballot about changing the way that the school board is elected, or rather, making the school board be elected instead of handpicked by the mayor. And that could be on the ballot November 2010, and I’m sure EON would stand in support of that because we’re a democratic organization that supports democracy. I’m not sure if EON will be sponsoring that, I know there’s a parents group that is getting very active called PLACE. One of the elected committee people, Yolanda Baker, started that, and she’s trying to get parents involved. That’s probably going to be an issue that is big in the mayoral campaign and just in general. It’ll be a referendum. I know there’s another group of people who kind of were tangentially involved in the Ward campaign, who are organizing to put a question on the ballot about de-prioritizing marijuana as the lowest priority crime for police to look for in New Brunswick. That would be Avi Scher, who’s in the student government. He sort of started that whole thing and they’ve got a totally legal petition it seems, and he’s out getting signatures to put that on the ballot for November 2010, or actually I think they might want to get a special election on that one. I think that you know a lot of people in our movement are working on student issues, student government, there’s a whole big discussion…

Alex: You’re referring to the “Student Union” thing?

Charlie: Right, that’s exactly what a lot of our people are focused on right now, is winning incorporation for the student government.

Alex: That’s a lot of stuff going on.

Charlie: Yeah, and these are all things that are going on, it’s part of a movement, some of it is through EON, some of it is not.

Alex: What you have done is empowered, to use your own title, a large population of people in New Brunswick to get political active.

Charlie: Right, and that’s really cool.

Alex: And now you can see the cascade of events that will result from that.

Charlie: Yeah. In general what I’ve been doing is trying to be more involved in city hall, because there are all these various little boards and commissions–the traffic commission, the rent control board, the zoning board, the planning board, the friends of the public library, the environmental commission–all these important bodies that make a lot of decisions just sort of amongst themselves and nobody ever goes to these meetings, nobody ever really voices their opinion. But I’m trying to get in there and get to know these guys and find out what streets they are paving this year, what sidewalks are in most need of repair, how the new street signs are going to go up, whether they are coming along at the right pace, is the weather effecting it—these kinds of little things.

Alex: Sort of keeping them on their toes…

Charlie: Exactly. Now that the election’s over, these guys have a job to do, and so do we. And for us to only be focused on elections would be an error. Elections are a tactic to win things that you want to deliver to your constituents, to people. But the fact of the matter is, this election was decided by 82 votes. So the people on the city council, just like if the mayor hands them a law and says, “Pass this,” we can hand them a law, and say “pass this” and there’s a good chance that they will if it’s a good law because they know that we represent half the city, that we have half the city behind us. And these people, if they want to be re-elected, are going to have to respond to our concerns. I’ve already noticed, especially with the unfortunate death of George Coleman on Route 18, that the city council has been much more respectful and just in general, responsive to what we’re saying to them, rather than just saying “bah, these guys will be gone, we don’t need to worry about them.” They’re actually saying, “Okay these guys are here to stay, we’re going to have to work with them if we want to survive and remain in politics.” And so that’s what I’m trying to do in addition to the hunger thing, in addition to all these other things. But what I want to do is keep these guys on their toes and make sure they’re doing what’s best and bring our ideas as a group to them. Because the election is over, it’s not about “well, who’s ideas are better?” it’s about, “We both have ideas, let’s get together and put that to the good of the city,” instead of going back and forth about why what they’re doing is wrong and what we’re doing is right and vice versa. Now it’s time to work together. That’s what we’re doing right now.

Grace: Awesome.

Charlie: We’ll be having a convention. I’m not sure if it’s going to be EON or Coalition for Democracy, but we’ve always said for this 2010 election coming up, we will let the people of New Brunswick decide who the organization supports, so there will be a convention, probably at a school in NB, and any city resident, even if you can’t vote you can still come and undocumented people would be included, and you’d get to vote for who you think the mayor should be, and who you think the two council candidates should be, and everybody who puts themselves in that convention will sign a pledge that they’re not going to run against the victors of the convention if they lose.

Alex: Do you still have mayoral ambitions?

Charlie: It’s been something that I’ve said I’m going to do, and I’ll be honest, it is my dream, but we will see where the next decade takes us.

Alex: You might be a little green for this election at this point…

Charlie: Well, I mean, I don’t know about that, I just think that I don’t have to decide yet whether I’m throwing my hat into the ring. I want to see who else wants to throw their hat into the ring; I want to see if I think I’m the best candidate. I’ve always said as far as the people I know, and people involved in the town, I did think I was the best candidate, and we’ll see if that’s still the case when it all shakes out and people decide what their ambitions are. But I do have the ambitions, that’s for sure, and I think if I don’t run for mayor in 2010, I might run for city council in 2010. There are a lot of options and there’s always the option that I wouldn’t run for anything. I do love being involved and I’ve managed to campaign for fifty different people and I wasn’t one of them. And that was probably the most fun I’ve had all year helping these people who were new to politics learn how to actually represent their community and help out. I do enjoy being a part of these movements regardless of whether it’s me on the line or what else we’re supporting, if what we’re supporting is the best for the city. I love New Brunswick, that’s the bottom line, so I’m not sure if I’ll run, but it’s definitely an option.

————

Follow up questioning after Thursday’s Meeting:

————

Grace: We were interested in knowing what the results were of Thursday’s Meeting?

Charlie: Yeah, we had a few people there and we discussed what we thought was the best way to do the most good in the next week. So what we’re going to be doing is organizing some kind of direct action this week to try to get dining services to change, or restore their old policy, and also make a real commitment to fighting hunger locally. So whatever that commitment is, in exchange for that, we would cease our operation. If they could donate a certain number of meals a day to Elijah’s Promise, or allow students one meal swipe per day to Elijah’s Promise or something, that will actually make a difference in the community, and also obviously restore the policy about takeout to what it was because there’s no reason to punish everyone for a few people in the student body and alumni who wanted to do good in the community.

Grace: What do you mean by “direct action” though? What kind of direct action do you plan on taking this week?

Charlie: Well, what we’re going to do is basically get together and pay President McCormick a visit and you know, ask for a meeting with him, and basically try and rectify this situation in some way that satisfies both parties. It’s going to be Tuesday at 2PM and we’re going to get together at Scott Hall 123.

Grace: How many people are you expecting?

Charlie: I have no idea, but I think there a lot of people – everyone with a meal plan right now is definitely upset or pissed off because they just basically lost a big chunk of their meal plan or, what used to be considered theirs, just basically got taken from them. So they’re all very angry, and the people without meal plans are supportive of what we’re doing and want to see some real attempt from the university to fight hunger locally.

Grace: Are you aware of any broad opposition to you in the student body as well?

Charlie: I am unaware of any “broad opposition,” I’m aware of a Facebook group, is that what you’re suggesting?

Alex: Well, there are a couple of Facebook groups, right?

Charlie: Yeah, there are. We have a Facebook group that’s got 750 people in it. I know there’s a much bigger one that an old housemate of mine started, and that one has like, 4.000 members. I joined the other one, the one that was spreading lies about me and I’m now banned from that one, so I can’t even tell you how many people are in that one.

Grace: Yes, that was actually another question I had for you. There have been rumors going around that you have been paid of by Elijah’s Promise—and I’m assuming that this is the group called “Corruption in the Dining Hall—Please, get it Right,”–they’re the ones suggesting that you were paid off? Somebody else also suggested that you were somehow making money off of the donations you had collected. Is that in any way true or is that just criticism that has gone awry?

Charlie: I don’t know what it is, but I’ll be honest, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know how I would be making money by giving food to the needy. The soup kitchen would not pay for those meals. There’s really no way to make money unless I just went to a corner and started selling them on the corner, but I didn’t do that, I gave them out and I donated them to a soup kitchen. I actually think it’s really offensive that somebody who is actually spending their time volunteering doing good work is going to get accused of making a profit when it’s just the opposite. I could be making money, but I’m deciding not to, and instead spending my time giving back. It’s really just outrageous, and really not even worth responding to. I think that it’s without merit, and it’s slander.

Alex: Well, those allegations come from anonymous parties for one thing, so its hard to sort it out at all, right?

Charlie: Right, there’s no citation.

Alex: There’s no citation; the people who said it apparently didn’t want to be quoted. However, those people are purportedly inside Elijah’s Promise, so the question becomes were you, or any of your volunteers compensated in any way for the activities that you engaged in? I’m not saying that you made money or not, or anything, all I’m asking is, did money change hands?

Charlie: Good question. No money ever changed hands. We drove food that had been donated within a pretty short amount of time. We drove it to the soup kitchen and delivered it – we signed in a log, it’s called a donation log, and presumably that donation log is still there and has records of all except one of our deliveries. I know one time the log was full, so I just couldn’t fill it out. But in the end, money never changed hands; it’s without real factual basis as to why it would even change hands. It’s a soup kitchen, they accept donations, sometimes they were accepting multiple donations from different groups and different types of donations, but money never changes hands. So to assume that it does without real concrete evidence is alarming really, and without a factual basis for why money would be changing hands. ]]> http://johnsonvillepress.com/an-in-depth-look-operation-robin-hood-and-charlie-kratovil/feed/ 7 http://johnsonvillepress.com/top-picks-from-the-internet-4/ http://johnsonvillepress.com/top-picks-from-the-internet-4/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:02:52 +0000 gracie http://johnsonvillepress.com/?p=1271 #1 – This search engine: TinEye.com – while it is currently in its beta stage, TinEye is showing great possibility as one of the only existing reverse image search engine. It’s pretty incredible, really.  Can’t wait until it gets huge!

#2 – This t-shirt: Human Being T-shirt available on origin68.com. The company is based in the UK, so if you want to buy this shirt, realize it’ll cost you more than you’d hope. That, and you’re shipping it to the US. Either way, it’s creative and awesome.

#3 – This photo: Sarah Palin and Doppelganger!! Taken during her Going Rogue Book tour. Nuts! (via)

#4 – This montage: Dating Videos from the ’80s. Pure gold. Bonus: Watch another one here.

#5- This explanation: And now we know.

#1 – This cartoon series: Ragetoon.com/Ragetoon.tumblr.com (some different content on each). Ragetoons are funny because the formula is very simple and very effective. You can also make your own awesome ragetoon with the templates they provide for you. Sweet!

#2 – This stoners’ hangout: Highdeas.com- Where both the brilliant and not-so-brilliant thoughts you have while high make their home.

#3 – This post on John Mayer’s Myspace blog (even though it’s a year old) – hate him or love him, he’s pretty effin funny. Good one, John Mayer.

#4 – This Vampire Movie: Screw you, Twilight fans!  From the director of cult classic hits such as Old Boy, Lady Vengeance, and JSA, Thirst is Park Chan-Wook’s newest hit. If you’re into Tarantio flicks and love thrillers/romances/twisted movies, this should be right up your alley. Watch it on youtube for subtitles if Korean isn’t your first language.

#5 – This List of Movies that suck – Cracked.com is a gem in and of itself, but their lists of 7 popular ‘Chick Flicks’ That Secretly Hate Women is amazing and also tells you once and for all why Twilight is retarded in case you haven’t been able to come to that conclusion on your own.

#2: This NY Times Interactive Jobless rate finder. Now you can see how you compare to every other demographic… because you’ve always wanted to know.

#3: This Meteor Shower: One of the best meteor showers you can ever catch is scheduled to peak early Tuesday morning. More information here, or join the facebook event here.

#4 This supposed discovery: Beauty more about skin tone than facial symmetry? Says this study.

And the three way tie for #5:

I. This thought: “‘Beer can’ when said with an English accent sounds like ‘bacon’ when said with a Jamaican accent”.

II. This mash up: Reservoir Dogs IS Ninja Turtles. Ingenious!

III. This futuristic lamp: Fiat Lux.  You had me at “autonomous orb.”

*front page thumbnail courtesy of Discovery Space.

#2- This website: GraphJam.com
It’s highly likely that you’ve seen something made by these peeps at some point in your internet-ing life, but I feel like it would be a good time to give them a shout out for making some of the funniest and truest graphs to ever exist.  I personally had a good laugh with this graph:

#3- This game: An oldie, but a goodie–Eat smaller fish until you’re big enough to eat every other fish around you! Try this version if you like using your mouse, or, if you’re more comfortable with arrow keys, play this one (more difficult, IMO).

#4- This quote: “I ain’t Martin Luther King Jr. I don’t need a dream. I have a plan” – Spike Lee
Brilliance of this magnitude needs no explanation

#5- Three way tie:

i: This cake pan by Williams-Sonoma

ii: This article: Thousands line up in Newark for chance at ‘Safe Surrender’

iii.These pictures: Albino Animals.

Ever wanted to feel like a giant while eating an oreo? Did you really, really know SO many people were running from the law? Like looking at pictures of animals, particularly unique ones(my favorite has to be the albino squirrel. Precious!)? Enjoy.

By Grace Hong

Whenever there is an exchange of goods and/or services for money between parties, you are looking at an economic transaction. Without a doubt, the Yankees are extremely well versed and adept in such matters. Is this reality going to “kill baseball”? Probably not. One might suggest that baseball shouldn’t be a business; but this is a moral valuation, and as such does not take into account the current realities of the sport.  Where would baseball be without an underlying capitalistic culture? Would you even be able to watch it on television? Besides, athletes gotta make a living too. Should we be paying baseball players in sunflower seeds and Gatorade? Entertaining us while they wear their bodies down faster than the average human being is tough work, maybe even tougher work than being a movie star. But I don’t hear anyone complaining about how actors are overpaid. Are the two types of entertainment just not comparable? I don’t think so. What is even less reasonable is the jump to viewing the Yankees as the root of all evil  in baseball, simply because the franchise has successfully worked the capitalist model so effectively in the short past of baseball’s history.

First, let’s not forget the fact that the money that everyone seems to be getting so upset about doesn’t exactly come out of nowhere. It’s not like the Yankees have this secret tree that’s growing them all the money they could ever want, allowing them to do whatever they want, giving them this totally egregious and unfair advantage. That’s just silly. That money comes from global recognition, reputation and respect, for having WON twenty six championship titles prior to 2009–more than any other sports team in any other  professional American sport! The fact that they were such a good team brought that worldwide recognition to their franchise, comparable perhaps to what Mickey Mouse did for Disney, or what Big Bird did for Sesame Street. You can go to any foreign country, and assuming that they know about baseball at all, it’s likely these non-Americans are familiar with the New York Yankees. You can’t, however, say that about the Mets. You can’t say that about the Red Sox. Hell, you really can’t say that about most other sports teams…Maybe a few soccer clubs… Doesn’t it make sense that the Yankees have so much money? Why is it always played out as though this money comes out of wrongdoing, or that the money makes them somehow evil? I thought this was what the spirit of American Capitalism was all about…

But really, that’s besides the real point, the point that matters most here, which is that the assumption that the Yankees have dominated and will continue to dominate the MLB, simply by throwing money at their recruitment program, is a proven falsity. If you’re reading this article, I’m going to assume that you watch baseball. But just in case you don’t, let me remind you on how things work. When the regular baseball season starts, the National and American League teams play almost every single day throughout the entirety of something like 8 months, not including Spring training. These teams include a multitude of players, each person contributing to just one part of the TEAM.  Yes, it is TEAM sport.  And because baseball players have to play as often as they do, it’s not enough to have just one or two good hitters, pitchers, or fielders. You have to have a solid batting lineup, at least one solid starting pitcher, and it comes in super handy to have a reliable closing pitcher on your team. This is what makes baseball baseball. It takes a combined effort of good managing, good players, and a hefty dose of luck to keep you in the running–not just “money”.If that weren’t the case, the Yankees would win every year.

If you were watching the World Series, you would have indeed seen for yourself that buying good players didn’t actually solidified anything. The Yankees’ ace pitcher, C.C. Sabathia (an expensive acquisition), struggled through both of the games he pitched. Alex Rodriguez (a super expensive acquisition), who had been an integral part of the batting lineup during the earlier part of the post-season, really didn’t come up with anything until three games in, when he finally hit a short homerun, and from then on, certainly wasn’t MVP material, missing ground balls and popping out more than his salary would suggest is acceptable. Suggestions have been made that the most valuable players on the Yankees were in fact the ones they paid the most for, but I could easily argue that Mariano Rivera has been the single most important player on the Yankees, even in the early 90′s before the high paycheck. Having two good starters won’t guarantee shit in the world of baseball, because you gotta play everyday.

So why exactly are the Yankees so evil? Is it somehow inevitable that baseball players will become so greedy that all the best ones will right away sign on with the franchise that gives them the most money?  Will this team always be the Yankees? And will this somehow lead every other team in baseball to forever lose to the Yankees, who will have purchased enough players to guarantee their success from here on in? I really find that hard to believe.  There are too many good players, too many factors, too many potential injuries, too many fans that watch the sport with bated breaths to ever let that happen. And even if there is a chance in a million that things did turn out that way, you can BET that drama will mean MORE people paying attention to baseball than ever before, even if it is just to watch the “evil empire” that is the Yankees die a most terrible, horrible death.  I think that’s a great strategy for MLB to garner more viewers. It looks to me as though the Yankees 27^th Championship title will do nothing but help baseball stay alive and well. So keep hating if you must; but just know that in doing so, you are only contributing to a formula that results in the perpetuation, not the death, of America’s pass time. Let’s go, Yankees!

Considering “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness”

A couple weeks back I came across a New York Times op-ed article that highlighted the major findings of a paper revealing that women living in post-feminist America are unhappier than their pre-feminisist movement counterparts. Cleverly titled “Liberated but Unhappy,” I was instantly intrigued and happy to discover a link to the original paper that inspired the column. The paper, called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness” is a very careful, intellectual discussion on a subject relevant to our modern society. It recognizes possible factors that are contributing to this decline in subjective feelings of happiness in women, while never giving an easy explanation as to why exactly women today, are more unhappy, given that they are objectively and relatively “better off” than they were 35 years ago. Shouldn’t making great strides towards equality make us feel good, too?

Authors Betsy Stevenson and Justin Wolfers immediately address this issue in their paper, basically pointing to the three broad major factors. Firstly, they point to social change created by women taking on the increased opportunities in the market—an increase in workload to include that of both their careers/jobs as well as household responsibilities (the “second shift”).  This can be and is, an obvious source of stress and unhappiness in the modern women.  Secondly, they note the change created by the autonomy women have achieved in “individual and family decision making, including the rights over marriage, children born out of wedlock, the use of birth control, abortion, and divorce.” While empowering women, the newly created autonomy also served to create more problems and pressures on women (to have premarital sex, single mothers, etc.). And finally, they suggest that the problem may be political—that perhaps women “prefer egalitarian, low-risk societies, and the cowboy capitalism of the Reagan era had an anxiety-inducing effect on the American female.”

So after reading and understanding this, I was somewhat disappointed for not feeling any more enlightened than at the start of the article. Though they did a good job covering why certain groups of women could have suffered a drop in happiness due to these factors, beyond that, I felt like they hadn’t addressed what I saw to be the main difficulty liberated American women struggle with – the annulling and preservation of the past in order to reconcile the present and move with the future.

The women’s movement brought about a lot of changes, possibilities, rights, and liberties that women in the world had never, ever previously been allowed or given. All of a sudden (and it is quite sudden, thousands of years versus the past thirty five?), the world was transforming and women were allowed, no, had the right to, everything that a man had, everything a man could do. But this is just the problem. Women aren’t actually men.  And in fact, they lived for thousands of years mostly shadowed by their male counterparts, serving and functioning as wives and mothers, creating for themselves a different kind of social reality and world, one separate from that of the men. Remember in history, learning about the notion of separate spheres?  One was reserved for the men, the other for women. Yes, we have always lived together in the same physical world, but for a very long time, women and men have lived in separate social worlds that yielded separate and different social pressures. What the feminist movement and its changes allowed for was freer access for women to that separate sphere. This meant a woman could educate herself in the same fashion that men had been educating themselves for centuries, to do what men had been doing for centuries. This brings her into contact with a vast existence she had never considered before, an existence that suggests to her that her previous relationships and realities as daughter, wife, or mother did not have to be as significant or dominant (after all, men weren’t taught to consider these things, why would a women receiving a man’s education learn of their importance ?) as she had considered them before.

To take from James Livingston’s book Pragmatism, Feminism, and Democracy, women, living in a bigger world with more options to navigate between, caught site of a vision of a wider life, one that the old life perhaps did not have a place in. “The modern woman finds herself educated to recognize a stress of social obligation which her family did not in the least anticipate when they sent her to college. She finds herself, in addition, under an impulse to act her part as citizen of the world. She accepts her family inheritance with loyalty and affection, but she has entered into a wider inheritance as well, which for lack of a better phrase, we call the social claim.” Women have been bound to the task of reconciling two wholly different worlds, priorities, and concerns, in a fashion that somehow appeases both worlds, as total integration is yet incomplete. This is what I believe to be the inherent problem that women in today’s modern society have been forced to fight, and this is what I ultimately believe to be the source of the decline in subjective feelings of female happiness overall in America.  Until we are able to fully acknowledge the needs and pressures maintained in the past and their influence on the current day, while also understanding the needs and pressures of the present, there will always be strife within the individual to deal with this on their own—strife that very well would affect the overall happiness of the liberated American woman.

Citations:

Liberated but Unhappy by Ross Douthat

http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf

Pragmatism, Feminism, and Democracy: Rethinking the Politics of American History, James Livingston