Lady Gaga at one of her sexified concerts. Sexy costume included. Photograph by Stephan Carlile.

Thanks to Lady Gaga, quality pop music is still alive in the 3rd millennium. If you are an anti-radio purist who claims that pop perished sometime in the 90s, there’s now a way to redeem yourself—for Lady Gaga has resurrected pop in the form of the macabre and the uncanny, the oversexed and yet threateningly asexual.

And while she may not be restoring life to popular music, Lady Gaga is instead drawing on our fear of its demise by taking what is passé and reanimating it as the culturally undead.

If you were to ask me what I mean by “uncanny,” I would ask you to hit up YouTube and watch Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” That shit is FREAKY. If you want a definition of the “undead” in Gaga’s work, just watch the video of her sanguinary performance at the VMA’s, in which she looks like Sissy Spasek in Carrie and eventually hangs herself from the ceiling.

Just as she writes and produces all of her own music, Lady Gaga herself choreographed this figurative murder and rebirth of Pop. She later commented to shocked reporters that to the performance was a way of “say[ing] something honest and real.”

Amidst Lady Gaga’s cryptic responses to news reporters—she told one that the only thing she looks for in a man is “a big dick”—and rumors of her being a hermaphrodite, you can’t help but wonder if she is hiding something.

When an MTV reporter commented on her heavily stylized persona and asked her if he was speaking with “Lady Gaga the person or Lady Gaga the character,” she passionately responded, “For the last 10-15 years there has been an absence of theater in Showbiz.

There is an assumption that unless I am showing you myself with no makeup and a t-shirt on, doing no dance moves and strumming on a guitar … that I am artificial, and I’m not. I am simply a performance artist … and my life is my art.”

As for her being a hermaphrodite, the sources of those rumors have all been proven unsubstantial, though Lady Gaga has not commented on the issue. All publicity is good publicity, as they say.

Yet if Lady Gaga’s untamed art is her life, then we should also assume that her life is her art. But what is the life of Lady Gaga like?

Well, a starting point may be what Lady Gaga claims as her deepest conviction and primary inspiration: the gay community. According to Gaga, the single most important moment of her career was when she spoke in Washington D.C. for the National Gay Rights Rally. As usual, though she has refrained from any comment on her sexual orientation.

Then there is Gaga’s method of work. The so-called “Haus of Gaga” is the nexus of all production and collection of props, sets, and clothing Lady Gaga uses in performance, and everything is manufactured there, in-house, by Gaga and a team of close friends. In a warehouse reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s “Factory” (admittedly, Warhol is one of Lady Gaga’s main influences), Gaga evades the limelight in order to focus on her creative endeavors. The Haus of Gaga, given its self-referential and self-aware concentration of creativity, is likely one of the keys to Gaga’s success in a world of otherwise impersonal collaboration.

Considering even this romantic image of Lady Gaga as a rogue, anti-social burlesque-dancer-gone-celebrity, there are still many who believe she is undeserving of both critical and mainstream attention. She possesses neither the sex appeal of Britney Spears nor the vocal chords of Celine Dion, so what is it she has—beyond pop-art savvy and a derivative, self-conscious public image—that no one else has?

The answer is this: Lady Gaga is a mistress of covert suggestion. Take a closer glance at her music videos and lyrics (which, I am ashamed to admit, I have done obsessively), and you will notice a slew of hidden linguistic, visual, and formal meaning. I am no psychologist, and certainly don’t find Lady Gaga to be all that attractive, but perhaps that detachment is exactly why the red flags go up so easily for me.

To highlight what is going on beneath the surface of Lady Gaga’s work, let me point out a few things that require no embarrassing Lady Gaga YouTube sessions. Some background: the two events that first catapulted Lady Gaga into stardom were her hit singles “Poker face” and “Just Dance.” The pronunciation of this former song’s title is essential; if you listen to phrasing of “p-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face” when sung, it sounds exactly like “fuck her face” the second time.

During the bridge of the song “Just Dance,” the lyrics “half psychotic, sick, hypnotic, got my blueprint, it’s psychotic” sound exactly like the words “have sex” repeated over and over when she says them. During this sequence in the music video there is also a clip of Lady Gaga humping a whale and a flash of the word “join” for no apparent reason.

To be fair, Lady Gaga does not necessarily hide the smoke and mirrors, and she may consider subconscious influence a part of her art—something half-concealed that lends entertainment value and intrigue. In an another interview with MTV, a reporter suggested that the death of Princess Diana was a direct result of her fame (“the fame” was the name of Gaga’s first album) and that fame may place Gaga in a similar position of undoing. Gaga calmly responded, “You know, it’s actually interesting you say that, because I speak that way too.”

If Gaga is so keen to recognize and critique an attempt at unconscious emotional persuasion, we can imagine the role it might play in her work.

Sometimes Lady Gaga’s attempts at leading her audience into a trance take the form of explicit, self-conscious comedy. In the music video for the song “Paparazzi,” one scene has Lady Gaga falling into a whirling black-and-white spiral while a voice in the background says the word “beautiful” repeatedly.

Maybe it’s just me, but Lady Gaga’s absurdist and deliberately derelict style reminds me of Mugatu from Zoolander, only instead of getting you to relax, she just wants to turn you on.

Any critique of Lady Gaga’s powers of suggestion begs the question of whether she is really something unique, or if she is just a more “manipulative” version of countless other musicians in the past.

After all, there will always be verbal ambiguity when words are spoken instead of written—we have all gotten song lyrics wrong before. And doesn’t music, by pairing sound with the written word, inherently imbue words with extra-lingual meaning?

At its end, music is about making the listener feel a certain way. How, exactly, that feeling comes about isn’t always relevant to the person experiencing it.

So, if you are a born-again conservative, Lady Gaga is probably what you would call (as many bloggers have) the “antichrist.” However, if you are an intelligent person who is willing to look deeper into the inspiration and methods of her work, you will notice that she is, quite likely, a genius with an overactive sex drive.

Go Lady Gaga!

The Grill Guys hard at work in FoCo. Photograph by Liz Klinger.

Eating at Dartmouth is unlike eating in at a restaurant or at a dinner table. Most of us don’t think of a late-night trip to FoCo as a chance to enlighten our taste buds, and it is certainly not the kind of place where you wait for your friends to sit down before you dig in.

We get so wrapped up in our to-go wraps, our “facetime” and our frenzied hunter-gatherer instincts that we don’t stop to appreciate the hands that are feeding us. If you haven’t noticed the interesting people who work for DDS, then you are a victim of this hunger-induced blindness.

To find out more about the ways we interact with DDS employees, I waited for a lull at FoCo when there wouldn’t be any lines. I met many recognizable faces for the first time and shook their hands across the counter.

DFP: I think for a lot of people at Dartmouth, getting food is more of an expectation than a privilege. What do you think is the best thing people can do to connect on a more personal level with the servers and improve their dining experience?

Hippie: To me, the most important thing in our interaction with the students is good manners. “Please” and “thank you” are like the grease on the wheels of communication, and we really appreciate that.

Kevin: The “please” and “thank you’s” are nice, especially for the older guys on the grill. Being the oldest guy on the grill, and having at least one child almost your age, saying please and thank you really helps. I don’t demand it, but in some ways I still expect it.

DFP: What time of day do you find your job to be most enjoyable?”

Kevin: Things are usually easy going anytime before late at night. Around a quarter to one or twelve thirty is the worst time. Sometimes you’ll have customers who are belligerent for one of a number of reasons, usually alcohol-related. You’re all around 20 years old… We were all there once.

Eric: One night at around 11:30 we had a long line of people all chanting, “We want Mozz Sticks! We want Mozz Sticks!” because we had temporarily run out of them.

DFP: What do you guys do to deal with that? Do you just take a cigarette break? Or do you try to intervene?

Kevin: You know, I let it roll off. But a lot of times I will say, “What’s the magic word?” You know, just like I would do with my kids. We enjoy having a little fun just to interact with the students. Sometimes I say, “Cluck like a chicken.” Some people will flap their arms and go “bck bck bck,” and some of them just go, “Give me my steak.” I wouldn’t make them cluck like a chicken, you know? At the same time, maybe next time that dude comes around, I’ll do something a little better for him.

DFP: Are they any circumstances where you don’t have to serve someone?

Kevin: In some cases if the person is being really belligerent, we won’t serve them food, and we’ll probably just call one of the managers.

DFP: If people do share casual banter and have good manners, does it really make a difference?

Eric: Yeah, if a guy is cool, we might put a little more pizaz on his cheese steak. Or if he orders the same thing every day and he’s nice, I might get his food to him a little earlier. I might see him at the end of the line, and he’ll just put up one or two fingers, and I know he wants a grilled chicken so I throw it on the grill right away.

So next time you’re awkwardly standing in line at the Hop or FoCo with nothing to say to the people next to you, try throwing a comment across the counter to one of the cooks. This could be a simple “top of the morning,” a commentary on something happening behind the counter (“I saw what shape you made that fried egg, heh”), or if the line isn’t too long, it could even be a brainstorm of some outlandish and exotic dish—don’t be mistaken, they love making something different.

Whatever way you choose interact with the DDS employees, it will pay off, whether that means not eating an egg that was once in the shape of a phallus, getting your food earlier, or getting your cheese a little more melty.

And bring back the trays at the Hop (I wonder who it could be, AD pledges?)! We already have enough to juggle in our lives.

About two months ago, I suddenly was no longer able to log on to my Facebook account. We all know the procedure: click the “Forgot Password?” button and have it sent to your email, where you can reset your password and quickly get your life back. However, I have tried at least eight times now, and the most I have gotten is one mocking email from Facebook claiming that all I had to do was respond and I would finally receive a new password—but apparently they were just kidding. After a week or so I moved on from Facebook and decided I didn’t need it anymore, but alas, I found there was no way to delete my account. The good news is I have been liberated by the expectations that used to shackle me to my wall. The bad news is that the wall still stands, and now the most I can do is to watch my poorly-maintained identity as it drifts through cyberspace, being tagged in obscene scenarios (ok, that’s my fault), and deterring potential friends with my forced anti-cyber-socialism.

My unfortunate experience has made me a lot more aware of cyber-shenanigans and I decided to examine the issue. Appropriately enough, October happened to be National Cyber Security Month.

What exactly is cyber security? Most people think it is analogous with the health of living organisms. My story is the equivalent of a minor itch—especially compared to some of the breadth and destruction inflicted by certain computer illnesses. Just like health in human beings, there are two kinds of illness: those inflicted by some other organism, and those that are simply accidental. The Consumerist recently reported a number of people who were accidentally charged $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 on their debit cards due to a malfunction in the bank’s computer. This is a very rare and unavoidable type of bug, and of course Visa agreed to fully reimburse the victims. Still, it’s a reminder that our bank accounts exist in cyberspace, which, like the world we live in, is unpredictable.

Then there is the other kind of illness: the virus. People called “hackers” or “phishers”—essentially rogue computer scientists—engineer them. Most of these criminals derive funds by siphoning discretely from savings accounts, acquiring information about competitors, or if they are especially talented, by directly robbing a bank via computer.

Other common computer illnesses, usually driven by commercial motivations, are generally called “malware.” Some viruses, called “trojans,” can hijack your email account and force it to send out spam to other email addresses—contagious viruses are among the most successful. Other viruses will remember the keystrokes when you type in the password for your bank account and use it to redirect your money to another account. For about a week, your account appears to be normal while the virus is doing its work, and by the time your balance visibly declines, the virus has vanished without a cookie trail.

So what can we do to prevent getting these viruses, and recognize when they invade our computers? The first steps consists of what you’ve heard many times before: Always have trusted virus protection, never leave your computer unlocked in a public space, and don’t open suspicious emails claiming to extend your “membership.”

However, these cyber-hygiene maxims leave a lot of questions about cyber security unanswered. Is the amount of Internet crime going to decrease with improved technology in the future? Then there is the more obvious question: why is there so much Internet crime in the first place? Is Facebook to blame?
In order to answer these questions, I went to Thayer Engineering professor George Cybenko, a specialist in this area.

DFP: “What do we have to do to improve cyber security?”
G.C.: “Improving security will require two things… a) better technology and b) better user awareness of security threats. People are working on a) and making progress. In order to achieve b), users and consumers will have to be educated.”
DFP: “So if the technology is out there, why are so many computers and networks still getting sick?”
G.C: “Although there is better technology, not all users invest in it. Even large companies cut corners on security investment—it’s a calculated cost-benefit analysis.”
Maybe Facebook is to blame for my untamed Facebook wall, I thought to myself.
DFP: “Is data protection keeping up with the new boom of Facebook, Myspace, and online desktops, or is the overall safety of our online identities getting worse?”
G.C.: “The vulnerabilities of Facebook and Myspace are not related to data protection or encryption technology. [The problem] is that people put stuff out there for many to see. There’s more personal data out there [nowadays], for sure.”

It is important to remember that not all viruses are illegal, and not all illegal programs will give you viruses. Some “warez” come in the form of free online “cracks” for unlocking full-version functionality in popular programs that you can download on illegal websites. Although they can be extremely helpful to an unscrupulous consumer, they are also illegal, and authorities usually discover them in a few months. Many of their creators have no incentive to design these programs other than peer recognition. “Hacking has become a business with economic incentives which are not completely open or known,” Cybenko added. For example: Counterstrike, arguably the most internationally successful first-person shooter of all time, was adapted from another published computer game (Half-Life) by an anonymous computer hacker.

Ironically, one could theoretically use an online “crack” to protect one’s computer against viruses. However, due to the many legal risks of downloading freeware—and the fact that at second glance most spyware and virus removers are themselves malware—this is highly discouraged. Although the cyber black-market is not synonymous with corrupt and infected files, there are other obvious calamities to watch out for.

These risks have nothing to do with viruses or computer health in general… they are more legal in nature. Downloading music, cracks, and keygens with generic software clients like Limewire or ever allegedly safe torrent clients is simply a game of roulette. The world of free downloads is a “gray market” that ranges from semi-legal to illegal.

I do not advocate illicit activities, but if you must indulge in cyber piracy, you should choose your methods of downloading wisely—and again, the DFP is most assuredly not advocating these. If you like the regularity of a place that won’t get shut down every few months, the safest option is buying the premium package from a file hosting website (such as rapidshare.com or hotfile.com) for a flat rate and with unlimited downloading capacity. This usually costs about $60 dollars for a year, but the selection is like an all-you-can-eat media buffet. You can search for files on this database through torrent websites like warez-bb.org, or you can use a little trick a-la-Google that will allow you to access to the database from the back, saving time. After you have subscribed to a website like rapidshare.com, simply search on Google: “file:rapidshare.com name of file”, and it will present only premium files from the site. But you still take all the risks and dangers associated with pirated content—including potential legal ramifications.

The Internet is the landscape of the new millennium: it is a battlefield, a library, and a Las Vegas. Like any of these places, if you don’t know the rules you can be taken advantage of and/or hauled away, and even then, the rules aren’t always enforced. Worst of all, you can compromise the safety of anyone with whom you may be connected. However, if you stay quiet and accept that you—and your wallet—have to make certain sacrifices, you will find yourself in command of enormous potential.

Baker-Berry, proud home of several many potential candidates for the Dartmouth 8. Photograph by Candais Crivello.

The reason why Dartmouth is better than any other Ivy League school is the fact that you can have sex on it’s mascot. The green may be a risky place to bump uglies, but then again, that is precisely the reason why it has earned a spot on the Dartmouth Seven.

In case you have no life, the Dartmouth seven is a list of places where you have to have sex before you graduate. Some may think (and by some I mean I) this list harkens back to the seven deadly sins, or sailing the seven seas, or the lucky number seven, and for that reason they may be attached to that number.

But please, allow me to retort. After all, its sinking the 8-ball that wins you the game, 8 is the Chinese lucky number, are 8 planets in the solar system (fuck you, Pluto). In fact, the Dartmouth “7” is actually not completely agreed upon in some of the worse educated echelons of Dartmouth society, and frequently a stray 8th will slip in there (usually golf course). For the record, the agreed upon Dartmouth 7 as of now consists of:

President’s Lawn
The Green
Bema
Stacks
Steps of Dartmouth Hall
Top of the Hop
Football Field

This pivotal decision is obviously not up to the DFP. The Dartmouth 8 should be for the people, by the people. In a recent interview with Dartmouth community members, I asked what location they would add to the Dartmouth seven.

These were their responses:

Inside an SNS truck – FoCo Grill guy

The Climbing Gym – unknown

In the pool – Alyson Picket ‘11 “bathing suits allowed, water jets not included”

The Tower Room x4 – Jacob Batchelor ’12 “Make sure she’s not a screamer”

Golf course – Riley Kane ‘12 [get a hole in one]

The pendulum in Fairchild – Santiago Romero’11 (for that slow, gentle sex)

First Floor Berry – unknown

Graveyard – unknown (so totally blasphemous)

Foco x3 – Mandy brasher ’12 (mmm…)

Dick’s House – unknown {as long as you’re both sick…}

On the swing of the metal beam sculpture behind the Hood Museum – Nathaniel Seymour ’12 (so postmodern)

Novack x2 – Chistopher Valleu ‘12 (extra point during finals)

The pond when its frozen over – my personal fave

On a pong table x2 – unknown (extra points if it doesn’t flip over)

Dr. Seuss room – Anonymous (where the fuck is that?)

We think a lot of these places blow the Bema and the Steps of Dartmouth Hall away. If you agree, send us your opinion (blitz “DFP”) and we will tally your votes for the next issue.

The very Ig Nobel brassier mask. Artist anonymous.

So, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” This honor has filled some Americans with a surge of pride, others a shot of surprise, and for the majority of world citizens, an undermining suspicion that the Nobel Peace Prize has been devalued. In the same way that one wonders if the son of a former President has been elected on his own merits or connections, we have to wonder: was it Obama’s genius that won the prize or his position? The award does not feel deserved; it is less a celebration of his past achievements and more a confident encouragement for the future. Whatever happened to the American Dream—or the international dream—of not having to be president or royalty in order to win a million bucks and some recognition?

To answer this question, we must look to a different award ceremony that awards a different kind of genius. The Ig Nobel Awards are intended for inventions and discoveries that are “first intended to make you laugh and then think,” according to their website. Although you won’t be inducted into a Royal society or receive comparable prize money as a “real” Nobel Laureate, you can become a member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, provided that you fit the criteria.

Many of the scientists who submit their work to “improbable research” had absolutely no funding from external endorsements. Most of the discoveries are simple and elegant — not the result of arduous years in grad school.

For example, the Public Health Prize was awarded to Dr. Elena Bodnar for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective masks—one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander. The genius of this invention lies in the fact that, assuming that the majority of women wear bras (hint hint), and given the fact that 51 percent the world’s population is female, the application of such a product could be nearly universal. Plus, it produces a great new pick-up line: “Hey babe, I have Swine, give me your bra.”

Some researchers combined common sense and ancient practices to form orderly answers that stand up to today’s high-standards. For example Donald L. Unger won the Medicine Award “for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand—but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand—every day for more than sixty (60) years.” What a trooper.

Similarly, the Veterinary Medicine Award went to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson “for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.” Unfortunately, this discovery goes hand-in-hand with the demise of the entertaining game “HEY COW!”
More interestingly, in 2008, the Physics Prize went to Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith for proving with mathematical knot theory that “heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.” I don’t want to know how, but Geoffrey Miller won the Economics Prize “for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.”

Other discoveries, like the fact that potato chips can be electronically modified so as to sound crunchier when chewed, merely prove some of our suspicions about the shadiness of the commercial world. Dan Ariely of Duke University, Rebeca Webar of MIT, Baba Shiv of Stanford University, and Ziv Carmen of Singapore won the Medicine Prize “for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.”

While many of these problems are ancient and their solutions timeless, others are extremely pertinent to global issues today. This year’s Economics Prize went to the auditors of four Icelandic banks “for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa.” In 2008, the Peace Prize was awarded to the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee for adopting a legal principle that plants have dignity. Now that sounds like a real paradigm shift.
The Ig Nobel Awards’ purist philosophy coupled with the Nobel Award’s prestigious regalia could help reinvent our notion of “genius.” Over a century ago, Alfred Nobel thought the Peace Prize was deserved by “the person who shall have done the best work … for the reduction of standing armies.” It’s clear Obama has not taken significant steps to reduce the number of troops in the Middle-East, and therefore does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Although the Nobel Award might be cheapened, the Ig Nobel Awards rewards deserving professors and entities for competent, albeit zany, work.

Campus Lacks Practice Spaces

Everyone who has ever seen the movie Spinal Tap has an idea of the hardships involved in making a successful band. At Dartmouth, musical “success” is defined not by performances in big stadiums but rather more humble venues scattered around campus. Dartmouth guitarists are confined to playing in frats, banquets, barbecues, and until this past spring term, the beloved Lone Pine Tavern. Before closing last spring, Lone Pine always provided aspiring student musicians or bands opportunities to entertain audiences without tapping into pre-existing frat connections.

Luckily for us musicians, what used to be Lone Pine is being renovated and modernized into “One Wheelock” thanks to popular request (and one gratuitous donation). We have upgraded from a lonely Tavern to a café-inspired lounge with piles of free coffee, comfortable leather couches, a separate door that opens onto Wheelock St., and a slightly higher musical standard. But as thrilling as this news is, there are greater obstacles than financial concern in Dartmouth’s music scene.

Practice may not necessarily breed musical perfection, but it doesn’t hurt. A soloist or duo can usually find practice rooms to rehearse in but there are no spaces allocated for a full band to freely bang on a drum set and plug in to a quality sound system on campus. And nailing carpets all over my walls to soundproof my room seems a bit much. On top of the problems with noise levels, lack of equipment, and time slot scarcity, there is a more fundamental cultural void. The College provides no space for independent band members to hang out “off the record,” and develop their sonic chemistry.

There is certainly a ready supply of rooms at the Hop for a cappella groups and official school ensembles. Supporting independent musicians is not just a service the school should provide; it is also an investment in a service that the musicians can provide the school in return. The difference is that for independent bands, this service goes directly to the students in frat basements or at other functions. Programming Board, a student run organization, may not even know of the student bands available on campus. There may be enough money to hire professional musicians from all over the country every month, but that is no substitute for a real, local music scene at Dartmouth.

If the music department could recognize the benefits of campus bands, there would be a large incentive to help them to succeed; but these benefits remain unacknowledged.

The campus group “PRFORM” was created as a reaction to this culture at Dartmouth. Its mission is to provide musicians with a place to meet, plug into a PA system, and increase their awareness of other artists on campus. Although this group supports the noblest of causes, it has sadly been relegated to the fringes of campus attention and funding. In fact, the only place that PRFORM can call entirely its own is a small closet in the basement of Thayer where musicians can trust that their instruments will be safeguarded.

Although musicians are nominally permitted to use the space in Hovey Lounge (downstairs Thayer), the system for scheduling practice time is nearly impossible to navigate. You have to suggest a practice time to the faculty coordinator, who then has to defer to the Collis Governing Board to check for availability, which eventually tells you that you were successfully booked for three days ago. At this point, you charge up to the Collis front desk and ask the nice, pretty girl for a key, and lo and behold, she opens the closet for you, no questions asked.

This is not another poorly aimed critique of bureaucracy. PRFORM is an inspired group, and the idea behind it is a comfort to all wandering musicians. The new president, Patricia Lee ’12, has taken steps to stretch the meager resources the group has been allotted.

The main limiting factor for independent bands is space, and although there are numerous practice rooms in the Hop, it is difficult for a group with a drum set and equipment to use one at will. Two years ago there was a practice room in the basement floor of Collis, but due to lack of support, it was discontinued and the doors were locked.

As much as we can draw on our wealth of talent in a cappella groups or our large endowment, we still aren’t fully tapping in to the artistic reservoirs on campus that have been left adrift by our exclusive system. Creating a self-sustaining passion for music at Dartmouth means more than having just a Blitz list and a closet. It means forging a connection between the music department and the underground bands, and recognizing that both parties have something to offer each other.

hat if there were a new energy source, one that had no harmful emissions and boundless availability? Instead of curtailing our oil consumption and starting wars in the Middle East, imagine if we could simply snap our fingers and have almost an unlimited source of energy at our disposal. Would this not render superfluous all of our current huffing and puffing over saving the world? Will the search for the ultimate energy source play out as a tragedy or comedy? I argue for the latter.

This holy grail of energy is a process called nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the sun and thus makes life on Earth possible. First reproduced by Earthlings in’29, and subsequently crafted into the multi-megaton “H-Bomb” in’51, nuclear fusion has always been the untamable cousin of nuclear fission, the process used in current nuclear power plants. The problem with fusion, at least so far, is that it requires a huge amount of energy to get particles to fuse — more energy than the process produces.

Back in the’80’s, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann, two esteemed American scientists, claimed that not only had they harnessed the power of fusion $mdash; that is, produced a net surplus of energy – but they had also done it at room temperature. No flaming orbs of gas, just some electricity, palladium (a stable metal), and deuterium (a chemical found in seawater). Just imagine the potency of this energy: cold fusion was touted to use a gallon of seawater to produce ten-times as much energy as a gallon of gasoline can. Unfortunately, they were unable to reproduce the results of their initial experiment. Their claims were discredited, and mainstream scientific opinion overwhelmingly rejects the idea that cold fusion is possible. Some scientists, fixated on the possibility of a nearly unlimited and easy to harness energy source, continue to pursue cold fusion. However, there is no evidence that cold fusion is anything more than a dream.

But the skeptics received a surprise last week when CBS ran a special on 60 Minutes titled “Cold Fusion is Hot Again,” which highlighted recent advancements in the technology. Apparently, there is a new crop of scientists across the world that claims success with a process very similar to the one used by Pons and Fleichmann, the original “discoverers” of cold fusion. This includes the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), arguably the most prolific scientific think tank in the United States— they invented the Internet and GPS. Although people have claimed to have achieved cold fusion in the past, never has there been such widespread hype from such respected sources. These claims still have not garnered validation within the scientific community at large, so it remains to be seen what will come of these supposed developments. But the point of this article is not to talk simply of the cold fusion debate. Instead, it is simply to pose the question: what would happen if we could have virtually free energy?

Everything we do as a civilization requires energy. The ability of Homo sapiens to harness energy sources in the environment $mdash; like the cavemen who discovered fire, or those frazzled geeks who were behind Manhattan Project$mdash; is what makes us uniquely civilized animals. Every time energy becomes more abundant, it is as if every load is lightened, and every distance shortened. Any of the varied currencies which motivate the actions of humanity $mdash; blood, money, land, information, transportation $mdash; can be easily translated in terms of energy and its limitations. Our greatest strides into the future have always been marked by a widespread transfusion of fuel, from food to coal and gasoline, to wind and sunshine, and finally to plutonium.

Ever since that radioactive growth spurt in the aftermath of World War II, it seems that our energy advancement has slowed down. Meanwhile, we are suffocating in our collective exhale of CO2, and it seems that time is running out unless we do something drastic. What if nuclear fusion is exactly what our society needs to get itself out of this quagmire and finally hurdle us into the age of Science Non-Fiction?

Unfortunately, it is not that simple. It remains unlikely that anything resembling fusion will power our lives in the foreseeable future: for now, we’re stuck with trying to eke efficiency out of solar, wind, and geothermal power. But how people react to the prospect of nuclear fusion affords us a thoughtful insight into the nature of environmentalism, philanthropy, and new-millennium pessimism. It is worth considering the long-term effects of such a breakthrough.

Let’s say the year is 2050, and nuclear fusion is finally practical. Imagine that for the past forty years, every developed country in the world has been churning out fusion reactors. They are selling the energy to the international grid so that everyone can get a share. People are happy and energy bills are lower than ever. Here we encounter the first question: what happens to those countries that are not developed enough to build the reactors? Well, they become even more reliant on other superpowers, and suddenly third world countries become fourth world countries, forgotten and left behind.

Perhaps the technology would not be owned by the government, but rather by a private firm. Now, you all know about John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, and the figurehead of the transition from coal energy to crude oil. Now, imagine someone who dealt in energy with TEN TIMES the profit margins of Rockefeller. We are talking trillions of dollars here. It is never a good idea for a single man to rank as an international superpower.

Ignoring the practicalities of implementing the technology and ensuring its widespread availability, there is still that lingering question of whether or not Planet Earth would really be a better place. According to the “Rebound Effect,” increasing efficiency does not always result in decreased scarcity. Sometimes, because energy is cheaper, people consume more goods, thus outweighing the efficiency benefits of the new technology. Or, new energy technologies allow for new production possibilities, contributing to increased consumption. So, even if fusion comes to fruition, it may not be the ultimate solution to humanity’s energy needs.

Breakthroughs in nuclear fusion are undoubtedly good news, and the existence of such an energy source would certainly buy us some time, but inventing efficient nuclear fusion is not the hardest part. There are many things that could go wrong, and we must usher our civilization into the future with careful discretion: we must use our technology, not the other way around. This could be our last chance to catch a sustainable wave and ride it off into the future.

f you have been reading the headlines recently—“Time is running out for Mumia Abu-Jamal”, “ Economic Downturn”, “Somalian pirate scourge”, “Deepening Crisis …”—you have probably experienced severe boredom or, if the article is at all substantive, a brief moment of surprise, closely followed by an urge to set fire to the newspaper. But then, just before burning the American media in effigy, you read on a little more, entertaining your suspicions of the world at large and hoping to fuel an idealistic fire that never ends up burning.

In an effort to get some of those long-dead fires of idealism burning again, I have decided to write a “Good News” column. This is not meant to be synonymous with “trivial” or “I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance or “let me pick out the hopeful details in otherwise grisly stories.” It is also not intended to cover news that is indubitably “good” to all readers, you know, the kind of case-closed, end-of-discussion, cause for celebration stuff. Instead, I want to discuss all the advancements and random occurrences developing in our world right now that offer hope for a number of national/international issues, if only someone would take them seriously. This is going to be a column about looking outside the box for solutions to the world’s problems, instead of getting caught up in all the bad news that our nation’s narrow ideological lens is ill-equipped to solve.

Take, for example, the recent pirate attacks in Somalia. They seem to have come out of nowhere, they are intractably desperate, and yes, they are pretty badass. There have been over 25 pirate attacks since March, and it seems that soon none of us will be able to take a bath without being pillaged by Somalis.

An alternative way of viewing the pirate situation would be to examine the strategies that are working well and then learn how we can further utilize these successes. As it turns out, there is some hope in defending ourselves from pirates, although it does not involve humans. In recent news, a pod of over a thousand dolphins leapt out of the water between a fleet of impending “Volvos” (pirate boats named after their small outboard engines) and a Chinese merchant vessel, causing the marauders to retreat, potentially saving the lives and cargo aboard the Chinese ship they were approaching. According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the pirates “could only lament their littleness before the vast number of dolphins”.

Now, this strange and extremely important phenomenon prompts some equally important questions: If the Chinese have been spending large sums of money on armed escort vessels, and yet 20% of their 1265 ships that passed through the Gulf of Aden in 2008 were still attacked by pirates, then should we not instead be investing in a Division of Dolphin Defense? The DDD has one proven success already. Dolphins are also highly intelligent, arguably comparable in mental fortitude to many people in the military, and the cost of training them, housing them, and maintaining their services would be infinitesimally smaller.

Another concern surrounding pirate defense is the risk of inciting Somali retaliation. After American Navy snipers killed three pirates who were holding the captain Richard Phillip hostage on a lifeboat, the Somali pirates vowed to avenge their friends and “bring grief to the US”. Another pirate attack on the US ship the Liberty Sun, where pirates reportedly assaulted the ship with grenade launchers and machine guns, is thought to be the retaliation promised by the pirate organization. Now let me ask you one question: how do you retaliate against an army of DOLPHINS? The answer is, you can’t. Perhaps this is the solution to the problem, perhaps it is a solution to the problem, or perhaps it is neither. The point is that the media consistently overlooks the things that are actually working in the world, as though there were some upper limit to the quality of our policies, beyond which things merely “function”, causing our interest in such policies to subsequently wane. As absurd as it sounds, perhaps we should not brush off the dolphin solution simply because its success was an apparent coincidence. Experts and readers alike tend to enshrine a certain method of problem solving, and when the possibility of a much simpler answer appears (out of the water), it isn’t afforded attention by most people until one day it is suddenly obvious that the less complicated option is superior.

This is not to say that famines, political dissidents, recessions, and genocides are uninteresting, and certainly not unimportant. It simply means that progressive thought always entails some creativity, and there must be some room for finding answers to questions that haven’t yet been asked. Sometimes, instead of going from bad to good, we should strive to go from good to better. Keep reading the next issue for an article highlighting breakthroughs in Nuclear Fusion technology.

wo weeks ago, my article reflected on an interview with Virginia Beahan and expressed our mutual frustration with the Cuban government. The article cast a slanted light on the contradiction, the paradox, and the utter nonsense that is Cuba. After rereading that article, I was panged with regret for my bitter disposition. I guess I thought it would be more interesting for readers to hear me rant about “who stole my goddamn Nutella.” When we discussed capitalist calamities in Cuba, we were not trying to prove that Cuba—or socialism for that matter—is a broken system, but simply that Cuba has been forsaken by tourists (a group, of which I must admit, I was a member).

The truth is that Cuba is like an electron: you cannot observe its qualities without distorting its hidden nature. There is uncertainty in saying anything meaningful about Cuba, a country that is neither here nor there, neither now nor then. Nearly all of its fifty-year stint with socialism has been paired with a complete severance from the rest of the world via the US embargo and the Helms-Burton act, a law that says any company doing business with Cuba is forbidden to do business with the United States. So how much of Cuba’s apparent poverty can be attributed to its intrinsic qualities, and how much is just a result of external (American) policies? More specifically, exactly how much of its poverty is a result of the Revolution, and how much is because of the Embargo?

One washed-up argument people always throw at me when I am defending Cuba is that thousands of refugees every year “literally jump on makeshift rafts to escape their country.” First of all, since when did fleeing a country become a political statement? These refugees could be fugitives of the law, family members of Cuban-Americans, or simply adolescent adventurers. Furthermore, if they knew about the “wet feet/dry feet” policy ordained by the United States, they might think again. By American law, if a Cuban is caught in the water or walking toward the shore, he will be repatriated to Cuba, but if he manages to touch dry land, he can legally seek political asylum and obtain American rights (we do not have this law for any other country). Now, why would the US want to risk such a “serious” matter on a game of sharks and minnows? I’ll give you a hint: think back to the Elian Gonzalez scandal. By giving all Cubans an equal opportunity to kill themselves, we have raised the stakes, and crafted one of the most diabolical publicity stunts since Paris Hilton’s sex tape. How can one take the hopes of a few risky people and construe them as the widespread desperation of an entire country’s population?

In order to answer the question of “who to blame?” we need some basis for comparison. If it is really Castro and Guevara’s fault, then we would expect Cubans to be a depressed, indignant people. But according to surveys of national well being, Cubans rank consistently in the “high” range, sometimes ranked as being “happier” than the United States. I think the idea of ranking a nation’s happiness is absurd, but the point remains that this is an unbiased measure that seems to contradict the idea that Cubans are unhappy with their country.

During our interview, Virginia Beahan posed a question which, now that I think of it, is the most relevant basis for comparison we can consider. She asked, “What would have happened if we never had a trade embargo against Cuba?” Well, before the Revolution, Havana was basically a huge Las Vegas, except with more palm trees and less sand. The streets were spangled with American businesses, while big-time greaseballs like Meyer Lanksy lurked in the top floors of hotels all circling the corrupt nexus of Batista’s dictatorship. Is this what Cuba would still be like had we not imposed restrictions on trade and travel?

I think the answer depends on the time period. Let’s not forget the four-year period after the Revolution but before the embargo, when Cubans were clearly destroying imperialist influences by choice. Even through the ‘70s and ‘80s, Castro’s resistance to Uncle Sam was still going strong—Cubans weren’t as connected to us then as they are now through Internet and TV, and the Soviets were still on their side. If any American corporation had went there with an offer, they probably would have been trampled on, set on fire, defenestrated, etc.

Today, however, things are different. Cubans watch our movies, see our students in their universities, and every day they watch themselves fall further, and further behind the rest of the world. Having seen the warzone of propaganda for ourselves, Virginia Beahan and I agree that lifting the Embargo now would force change on Cuba. Raúl Castro would no longer be able to use the embargo as an excuse for Cuba’s poverty. He would have to find a resolution fast, or else people would start questioning the government for having nothing to show for its victory. Eventually, socialism would have to give a little, and American businesses would have to be admitted over time.

So what would happen to Cuba? Well, it could turn into an extension of Miami, with a Starbucks on every corner. Or, as Virginia Beahan noted, it could turn into another “banana republic, like the Dominican or Jamaica”. If Castro still has some fight left in him, we might end up with some kind of hybrid of socialism and capitalism, similar to that of Singapore.

In any case, the United States would benefit from lifting the trade embargo, and socialism would be weakened. Seriously, what are we worried about? Cubans are not going to spread communism to the US. They are not terrorists, and they certainly don’t have any Russian missiles pointed at us. It isn’t the fucking Cold War anymore! I wouldn’t call myself a socialist, and I may just be emotionally attached to the place, but I hope Cuba can find it in itself to slap away the invisible hand of capitalism. This spring break, I will go back to Cuba for six days to investigate, and hopefully can give you more answers. But I can only guarantee you one thing: stories.

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