THE MASTHEAD
Editor-in-Chief: Paul Lintilhac
Publisher: Ted Wojcik
Executive Editor: Zach De

Last issue, I reported on Dr. Dambisa Moyo’s talk on her book Dead Aid in which she argues that the billions of government-to-government aid to Africa is not only an inefficient mess, but is also hurting African countries. She reasons that aid harms development directly by causing foreign dependence and inflation, and indirectly through corruption, mismanagement of resources, lack of foreign investments, inadequate healthcare and civil unrest. Moyo believes that greatly reducing and eventually eliminating aid will reduce the dependency of African governments on first-world countries and allow them to pursue investments and encourage entrepreneurs and microfinance on their own. The West’s low expectations for the potential of African economic success has kept these nations on a seemingly never-ending stream of aid.

Moyo received her MA from Harvard and her PhD at Oxford. She has worked on hedge funds and macroeconomics for eight years at Goldman Sachs. Hailing from Zambia, she has seen first-hand the effects of the band-aid of aid. Others such as New York University economist William Easterly also agree with Moyo, yet her argument is still up and coming. For years, more aid has been the only way to go. Surprisingly, the man who has backed billions of dollars in Western aid to Africa is none other than Moyo’s former mentor and lecturer: Jeffrey Sachs.

Who is Jeffrey Sachs? Raised in Detroit, Sachs received his BA, MA, and PhD all from Harvard, and was appointed the special advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and from 2002 to 2006 he was the director of the UN Millennium Project. Sachs currently also serves as special advisor to the current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He’s been named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” twice, once in 2004 and again in 2005.

Despite Sachs’ impressive education, he still believes that the only way to end extreme poverty, (defined by living below a $1 a day, as 70 percent of the billion people in Africa are) is through donations in the form of billions of dollars from Western governments. He wants to raise worldwide aid from $65 billion a year in 2002 to $195 billion in the 2015. In his New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty, he cites India and China as examples of aid success stories; in the span of two decades (70’s and 80’s), 300 million people in China alone were lifted out of extreme poverty. However he fails to realize that China received little economic aid packages from national governments when it was making the shift from a communist economic framework to capitalist. A major internal land reform was the primary force that lifted thousands of Chinese peasants from the communes into the middle class. Africa instead has received billions of dollars in external aid, yet since 1970 the continent has actually grown poorer. While the rest of the world, for the most part, has grown richer, the GDPs for African nations continue to lag behind.

In a 2009 article in the Huffington Post, Moyo responded to one of Sach’s Huffington Post articles continuing the ongoing dialogue regarding foreign aid. According to Moyo, when Sachs was her lecturer at Harvard he made the statement: “the path to long-term development would only be achieved through private sector involvement and free market solutions.” Nonetheless, Sachs still pushes foreign aid. William Easterly, in his book review of The End of Poverty in the Washington Post and his subsequent book White Man’s Burden, argued that nations stuck in a “poverty trap” can escape without the massive scaling up of government-to-government aid. He offered statistical evidence that many emerging markets in Asia, i.e. China, Singapore and South Korea, have gained momentum without the help of billions of dollars of aid. There is an inherent bigotry in Sach’s approach to ‘helpless Africans.’ Moyo feels that “Mr. Sachs’s development approach was made for countries such as Russia, Poland and Bolivia, whereas the aid- dependency approach, with no accompanying job creation, was reserved for Africa.” Instead of allowing elected officials to represent Africa nations, seven of which have said they don’t need a continuous flow of aid, Sachs and his celebrity friends Bono and Angelina Jolie dictate what Africa needs during UN and G8 conferences.

On the weekend of April 17th, the Dartmouth Great Issues Scholars and yours truly went to YaleUniversity for the 7th Annual Unite for Sight Conference on Global Health and Innovation. Conference sessions were held in a host of different fields, such as: the non-profit sector, philanthropy, medicine, public service, microfinance, human right advocacy, and health policy. There were a number of keynote speakers, including Sachs himself. The Great Issues Scholars had already had lunch with Moyo, heard her talk, and obtained signed copies of her book. That weekend we heard the argument from the other side—Jeff Sachs.

Sachs began his talk by pointing out that it has been a decade since “We the Peoples,” the creation of the Millennium Development Goals: eight commitments against global issues like poverty, treatable disease, discrimination against women, and illiteracy. In 2000, Secretary-General Annan and Sachs challenged the world to achieve these goals by 2015. With only five years left, is the world any closer to ending problems like poverty and hunger? Sachs felt that advances made in technology such as cell phones, the improvement of primary health delivery, new HIV/AIDS medicines, and new finance and business models were helping the whole world work toward achieving the MDGs. Sachs also believed that if the richest one billion in the world each gave $30 year, in one year $30 billion could be put towards the MDGs. Ten cents on each $100 could go to funding health services for the third world.

Sachs remains dedicated to aid because he feels that since African governments have so little to budget, spending on one sector means not having enough to allocate to another sector like, say, healthcare. Because of this, supposedly an African government lacks the ability to improve their entire nation. He sees no window for microfinance and he wishes to quadruple world aid and pad the World Fund. According to Sachs, the UN should also open another global fund and pump troubled economies, such as that of the US, for more money that will be ineffectively used and will contribute to the conditions that necessitate aid in the first place. Sachs says donor countries don’t give enough, and although he makes a good point that the US spends too much on military funding, he wants to press world leaders into passively dumping aid on Africa instead of actively seeking investments in Africa.

For the final question in the Q&A period after the talk, I asked Sachs about his thoughts on Moyo’s position and those of other intellectuals who say aid isn’t working. Sachs became quite spirited, to say the least, and lashed out at Moyo, referring to her as “that Goldman Sachs employee.” One Great Issue Scholar remarked afterward “I thought he was going to jump off the stage and throttle you.” Sachs defense of aid was constituted almost entirely by what Moyo calls the “emotional argument for aid”; his position was mainly ‘Children are dying!’ Indeed, Sachs did mention how he has been to Africa and has seen children suffering and dying but he offered no economic or logical argument for why aid would work just as well as or better than microfinance or investments in the private sector. He offered no rebuttal to the poor track record of aid and offered no end date for aid. He did not even address Moyo’s most powerful argument: that bucket loads of aid may actually be contributing to the continued destitution of the African continent. In a nutshell, Sachs said there are horrible problems in Africa, so don’t criticize aid; just send more money.

The Unite for Sight Conference was, for the most part, a pro-aid community, and Sachs answer was met by applause. Yet it was obvious that introducing the opposing argument was troubling not only Sachs but to the audience. After Sachs left the podium, his wife Sonia Ehrlich-Sachs, MD came up to talk on the Millennium Villages’ progress on the MDGs in Africa. Dr. Sachs wasn’t as charismatic as her husband and her presentation relied more on its power point instead of effective speaking. Those who questioned her wanted to know if the facts and figures she had up on the screen translated into actual lasting improvement on the ground or in the nation’s government. One questioner wanted to know if this was enough evidence to justify that aid was working, especially for “the other side of the debate.”

Now this isn’t meant to villainize Jeff Sachs. Sachs’s privileged position does not prevent him from taking a deep-seated interest in those in need. However, I think his benevolent character prevents him from seeing that there are other, better ways to help Africa. Moyo doesn’t want the West to ignore the needs of Africa, but she feels that continuing to catch all the fish for Africa will keep it in continuous poverty and is not a sustainable economic course for the West, and the US in particular. As Daniel Quinn describes in his book Ishmael, feeding a group of starving people will only allow them to thrive enough to raise the next generation, and unless these children are taught to feed themselves, they will have no choice but to demand even more.

We cannot hold the Continent’s hand forever and then blindly hope that African governments will suddenly become less corrupt and the common people will magically become entrepreneurs and hedge fund managers. And there are signs that others in the aid community think so too. Although Unite for Sight was pro-aid, it appeared from this conference that the not-for-profit sector is in a transitional stage. More and more people want to empower Africa through investments, loans and business models.

The first keynote speaker of the conference, Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund, gave a presentation entitled “Patient Capital for an Impatient World.” The Acumen Fund supports entrepreneurs in Kenya and other parts of eastern Africa who start projects to alleviate poverty. One entrepreneur started a housing project in the slums of Nairobi, offering small, clean houses with indoor plumbing to people living in tin shanties. Most importantly, these houses are not handouts—they aren’t free, but are offered at reduced loans that once paid off are used to build more houses. Novogratz notes that the fact that houses are not free is key because it gives people a sense of dignity rather than shame at being the recipient of hand-outs.

Innovation in aiding Africa doesn’t stop there. Scott Hilstrom, Co-founder and CEO of the HealthStore Foundation helps create local franchises to dispense much needed medicines as an alternative to the many companies selling counterfeit medicine. HealthStore’s franchises not only have local Africans as business owners and mangers, but also provide the needed oversight to prevent the dispensing of fake pills. Ted London, PhD from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, believes in empowering the people and hidden assets at “The Base of Pyramid” (BoP) through nurturing innovators and encouraging social enterprise balanced with traditional enterprise. The new business model for developing economies involves a development community, a private sector and most importantly, interdependence.

Andrew Wok is the CEO of Root Cause, which according to its website is a research and consulting firm dedicated to “mobilizing the non-profit, public and business sectors work together in a new social impact market.” Wok argues that after trillions of dollars have been poured into poor communities, there has not been a corresponding amount of social progress in return. He wants to create a social impact market that nurtures relationships between non-profits, embraces citizens on the ground as public innovators, and engages Western governments as well as local government. Billy Shore of Share Our Strength, a national organization committed to fighting hunger in the US, spoke on achieving global health through small community wealth. The culture of the non-profits must be recast to capture untapped wealth and aspiring entrepreneurs. How the aid community works right now is “good, but not good enough” he says. Shari Barenbach, President and CEO of the Calvert Foundation, also believes in investment at the “base of the pyramid” instead of handouts. Her foundation works to maximize the flow of capital to developing nations through mainstream investments. Allen Hammond, co-founder and chairman of Healthpoint Services sees the need for hybrid profit/non-profit models. In poverty stricken communities, the poor either pay exorbitant amounts for simple things like sanitary napkins from crooked merchants or they receive free medicine, food and other goods and services from the NGOs. However, due to shame, pride or social stigma, they will avoid the NGOs and will continue to pay exorbitant amounts or go without. It is not immoral to charge a small fee for medicine or clean water if a poor community will buy those goods.

Kevin Starr MD, affiliated with the Mulago Foundation for tactical philanthropy, pushed for an overhaul of the entire way the non-for profit sector does business. Instead of focusing on sad anecdotes to attract donors, NGOs need to start thinking like a capitalist business. He offers the microfinance non-profit Kiva as a good example of a successful NGO that is run well and helps poor communities through loans. Moyo is an avid supporter of Kiva.

The bureaucracies of NGOs right now are for the most part flabby and ineffective. They must start thinking about results in impact rather than profits, and the scalability of their projects and efforts. You can’t have an NGO delivering aid but only 25% of its aid recipients actually climbing out of poverty. A successful intervention in a poor community must be replicable, scalable, and engaging to the local and later national government. Most importantly, the efforts of an NGO must have a staying power so that when the NGO eventually leaves, the community will not revert back to poverty. Aid is like war; there has to be a way to get out once the intervention is over. As the eloquent Dr. Starr put it, “What happens when the donor dollar is gone?”

The face of the aid community is changing, and fortunately Sachs was the only person I heard at the Unite for Sight Conference advocating for billions more in aid. Sachs has done great work drawing attention to global hunger and poverty with the Millennium Villages and the Millennium Development Goals, but he’s stuck in the old way of helping the poor, through free handouts. Although handouts in the billions may alleviate a problem temporarily, they offer no lasting change and do not strike at the root of sustained extreme poverty: lack of investments, capital or participation in global bond markets. Moyo, Starr, Wok, Hammond, Easterly and others are the faces of a new era for aid that will hopefully bring about the end of the current aid situation. “I think Moyo and Sachs desire the same things,” commented Amy Newcomb, director of the Great Issues Scholars program, “but they’re going about it differently.” While Sachs’s vision sees no end in sight for poverty in Africa, Moyo offers a way to systematically revamp Africa’s economy. Sachs would do well to end his long rivalry with Moyo and join in efforts to move Africa beyond aid.

The crowd chants the name of the valiant hero as he prepares to make his entrance and address the rabid crowd of 80,000 who stand jam-packed in the stadium in anticipation of his arrival. A fighting song is played and the wrestling superstar makes his way to the stadium where he is greeted by thousands of screaming fans. In his speech, he vows to prove his opponent wrong at their big showdown. As he finishes, the crowd again cheers “OBAMA, OBAMA! OBAMA!”

Wait, Obama? I thought we were at a wrestling show. Truth be told, I love professional wrestling with a passion despite its theatrical, fake plotlines. But I can’t help but notice the similarities between modern-day American politics and wrestling. Not only do election campaigns incorporate elements of professional wrestling, it seems wrestling is willing to incorporate political elements into its “sport.”

Take, for example, the 2008 Presidential campaign. Barack Obama made an appearance on the April 21, 2008 edition of WWE RAW, where he, alongside other presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and John McCain, were shown campaigning via pre-taped videos. The Pennsylvania primary imminent, the three decided to send special messages in order to boost voter appeal and gain extra political points. Clinton, in fact, promised then-WWE champion, Randy Orton that “if things get a little tough [in Washington], I may even have to deliver the People’s Elbow because this country is worth fighting for. Now, I promise to stick to the political arena, so don’t worry, Randy Orton; you’re safe for now.”
Although elected officials might cringe at the thought of appearing at professional wrestling events, it’s not uncommon for wrestling shows to deal with important political and social issues. In fact, it happens on a pretty regular basis.

Perhaps the most brazen attempt to on tackling on a hot political issue occurred in September 2002 on Smackdown. That month, wrestler Chuck Palumbo asked his tag team partner Billy Gunn for his hand in marriage. The elated Billy Gunn happily accepted his partner’s proposal and not one for long engagements decided to hold the wedding the very next week. Initially, WWE got a lot of positive mainstream press for taking this issue on, even receiving praise from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Sadly, the WWE took a 180 degree spin and one week later turned their relationship into a typical pro-wrestling storyline. During the show, Gunn and Palumbo admitted that it was all a publicity stunt and that they weren’t actually gay. If that was not enough, WWE had Gunn and Palumbo portrayed as good “straight” guys and the gay storyline was soon forgotten.WWE’s next attempt at tacking the political issues of the day came on the April 14, 2003 edition of WWE RAW when Christopher Nowinski, a 2000 Harvard graduate, debated fellow wrestler Scott Steiner on the issue of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Nowinski’s side of the debate was a well-articulated critique of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and war effort while Steiner’s argument featured such moronic lines as, ”I’ve wrestled a lot of countries” and “The Dixie Chicks and all those Hollywood numbnuts can go straight to Hell or France, same difference.” As you can probably tell, WWE took advantage of Nowinski’s Ivy League background and cast him into the role of the snobby Ivy League elitist intellectual. Although I commend WWE for raising awareness about the Iraq War, I regret that they make the liberal, more informed position “nerdy,” unrelatable, and stigmatized.

In late 2004, WWE tried to address racism in America, but unfortunately began endorsing racist policies. In December of that year, it introduced a new character, Muhammad Hassan (portrayed by Italian-American Mark Copani), through a series of vignettes as an Arab-American who was tired of facing racial profiling after the September 11th terrorist attacks. When he first debuted, the Hassan character had well-articulated points about racism in America; however, after a couple months, he had already became a caricature who merely cried “racism” at every given opportunity. His racist opponents were even portrayed as heroic. Upon encountering Hassan, Stone Cold Steve Austin proclaimed, “I see sand people.”

WWE eventually decided to cast Hassan as a villain by making him excessively bitter about the racism he encounters. The character quickly devolved and his last appearance on television came on July 7, 2005 on WWE SmackDown. On this episode, Hassan and various masked men attacked The Undertaker and then proceeded to simulate the beheading proceedings depicted in the various videos of Iraqi militants decapitating American hostages. Needless to say, this would offend any member of the Arab-American community.
See? Pro-wrestling has been far from quiet when in comes to politics. It really comes at no surprise then when we hear of former WWE CEO Linda McMahon, wife of current WWE CEO Vince McMahon, is vying for the Republican nomination for one of Connecticut’s US Senate seats. Yet in spite of a spotty record as an employer (McMahon had actually abolished mandatory drug testing for WWE employees in 1996), McMahon leads her primary opponent by ten points.

Despite many of the problems with the WWE shows, it is surprisingly good at engaging the public political in politics. In 2000, the then-WWF launched the “SmackDown Your Vote” campaign, designed to encourage 18-34 year olds to register to vote. The campaign made an appearance at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions and asked George W. Bush and Al Gore to appear on their television shows (though both declined their invitations). “SmackDown Your Vote” continues to this day and in 2008 began to receive notice from politicians as evidenced by Obama’s appearance on WWE RAW.

See? Pro-wrestling and U.S. politics are starting to go hand in hand. In fact, one could draw several parallels between the two: both feature larger than life characters, displays of power, mass influence, and homophobia and racism. Obama’s popularity is equally mirrored by that of wrestling superstars.Let’s just hope Linda McMahon doesn’t lay the “smackdown” on Connecticut’s “candy ass.”

Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson, the first non-celibate gay bishop, spoke this past Wednesday in Rollins Chapel to kick off Pride Week. His talk, Sexuality and Religion, was organized by the Pride Planning Committee and the Tucker Foundation and was well-attended by members of the LBGTQA and faith communities alike.

Bishop Robinson is described as humble by his diocese in New Hampshire. An effective speaker, he spoke with me last November, at DGALA, the annual gathering of Dartmouth LBGTQ Alumni. Like the last time, He did not fail to impress.

Robinson began his talk by emphasizing the importance of a Pride Week even in a place like Dartmouth, which on the surface seems absent prejudice. Pride Week is a celebration of how far LBGTQ people have come, but it also serves as reminder that even in places like Dartmouth or New Hampshire, there remains work to be done. Visibility is a public and political statement that not only strengthens the LBGTQ community but a community as a whole.

He then opined that other great civil rights movements of the past, such as those for racial and ethnic minorities, women, the elderly and the disabled, truly gained momentum when members of the dominant majority—whites, men, the young—joined forces with the oppressed and helped bring about justice for all. Civil justice becomes more attainable once all realize that discrimination negatively affects both the oppressors and the oppressed. The need and appreciation for straight allies is more important to the LBGTQ community than ever before. He stated that when people know at least one gay or lesbian, they are less likely to discriminate. When someone says, “that’s so gay” to refer to something lame or stupid, a face pops up. That is why Robinson stresses the adage of the late Harvey Milk: “Coming out is the most political statement you can make.” Today, most of the younger generation may know someone who is gay, but people from Robinson’s generation, contemporary lawmakers and politicians, may not. So for him, visibility is vital.

Yet coming out, for some, can be a difficult process. Here, Robinson delved into the religious side of LBGTQ issues. He described how most moral justifications for gay bashing and hate crimes originate in the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran, illustrating how a sense of religious alienation pervades the LBGTQ community. For instance, Robinson once led a workshop for LBGTQ youth who all came from fairly secular households. However, every one of them was aware of the word “abomination” and its perceived reflection on their lives.

Despite this intimidating precedent, Robinson does not feel that spirituality and homosexuality are incompatible, and in fact argues the opposite. His problem instead lies in how the seven or so verses that condemn homosexuality in the Bible are interpreted, and he He outlines three ways in which LGBTQ people can reinterpret those verses.

First, many if not all of supposedly anti-gay verses are taken out of their cultural context. For example, the most explicit condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible, Leviticus 18:22 (“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination”) occurs only a couple chapters away from Leviticus 15:16-18, which condemns the “sin of Onan”—better known as “spilling seed” (in Genesis 18:8-10, Onan pulls out before ejaculating while having sex with his wife and God slays him. This passage has historically been used to condemn male masturbation and birth control). Robinson then questions, then, why society at large turns a blind eye to the sin of Onan but not to a similar passage condemning homosexuality. These two parts in Leviticus must obviously be taken together; spilling seed, whether by pulling out or through homosexual acts, was prohibited within the young Hebrew nation, which prized male sperm as a means to increase population. Also, those verses condemning homosexuality operate on the assumption that all people are heterosexual. People living at the time had no conception of homosexuality, so any person, any heterosexual, was going against his or her nature by engaging in homosexual acts. The Bible doesn’t prohibit homosexuality per se, but instead the act of going against one’s nature.Second, verses condoning slavery and sexism have already been reinterpreted within their cultural contexts, and preachers no longer invoke them according to original understanding. Should the verses condemning homosexuality be treated any differently? Robinson doesn’t believe that the living God presented us with a religious text that was only culturally relevant through the first century. No, the living God continues to work with humanity, helping it to gain a greater understanding of what it means to have justice and equality for all. Robinson quoted John 16:22, in which Jesus says to the disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…he will shew you things to come.” The message of Jesus was culturally and politically revolutionary for its time. The disciples did a good job of absorbing the controversy of “God is love” (1 John 4:8), but throughout the resulting centuries we still struggle with a full understanding of what it means to love all regardless of race, gender, and sexual orientation and presentation. Robinson feels that the living God still continues to sends the Holy Spirit to guide believers to a greater acceptance of all God’s children, whether gay, straight, and everything in between.

Third, Robinson encourages members of the LBGTQ to no longer fear or shy away from religion. Too often LBGTQ people feel terrible pain when their faith communities reject them, barring them from attendance or refusing to marry them in synagogues, churches or mosques. Yet LBGTQ people must learn to see religious texts as their texts too. Although there are no (so far as we can tell) openly LGBTQ Biblical heroes, LBGTQ people can still feel empowered by Bible stories. For example, Robinson sees the Exodus as biggest “coming out” in history. He compared being in the closet to being enslaved until a great person comes and leads you out. When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, Robinson feels Moses’ parting of the waves was little less dramatic than presented in the film The Ten Commandments. Instead of clearing a giant boulevard across the sea, Moses had to embark in faith, and with each step of faith just the right amount of land for a dry footfall was cleared. Robinson feels the process of coming out is just as gradual and terrifying. It involves stepping out in faith, stepping out into the unknown, without seeing what lies ahead. And even when the other side is reached, there’s still a long trek to the Promised Land.

The LBGTQ community has yet to reach its Promised Land. Although there is greater awareness of LBGTQ people and issues than ever before in history, homophobia still pervades the discourse in many more circles than we’d like to believe. Robinson prefers the term heterosexism as opposed to homophobia; linguistically, he argues, homophobia is the fear of homosexuality. It’s a prejudice, but as Robinson points out anyone can have an irrational prejudice against anything. What’s truly troubling is an “-ism,” a linguistic construct according to which a prejudice is no longer simply a prejudice, but is paired with the power to actively silence and discriminate by way of its recognition. We are aware of racism, prejudice paired with power favoring white people, and sexism, prejudice paired with power favoring men, but what we know as homophobia is really heterosexism, prejudice paired with power favoring straight people. When a minority is denied basic civil rights, the majority is actively and/or passively using its power to oppress said minority. The members of said minority are second-class citizens—it’s as simple as that.

The kind of acceptance that enables Pride Week snowballs into greater awareness and acceptance. As LGBTQ people continue to empower themselves politically, socially and spiritually, more people will begin to see that LGBTQ awareness is here to stay and that such powerful voices cannot be silenced. Robinson notes that some people may wonder if a there is need for Pride Week at a place as open and diverse as Dartmouth. but acknowledge the need to celebrate the strides made by the flourishing LBGTQ community here and, more importantly, the strides to come.

Hello readers, this is SEX, and hopefully will appear regularly in future DFP issues. If not, then forgive me; I’m probably just not getting any ass at the moment and am feeling bitter about it. For the first appearance of SEX, the column, I’d like to talk about the Sexperts. Many of us have experienced something that has to do with the Sexperts, whether it was a special freshmen floor meeting about sex, the Sex Fair, or the “Consensual sex is hot” summer event.

The Sexperts are great, but don’t listen to a word they say.

The last time I went to a Sexperts meeting, my Freshman fall, I was gently reminded that giving a blow job was not actually about blowing anything. Then we got to pass around some anal beads and other toys. Because of you, S’perts, I got to hold anal beads, something that I might not have done in real life. For that I thank you.
It just seemed quite a big jump to make, from pointers for the uninitiated blower all the way to anal beads. Institutionalizing sex can make a one-shop stop for all things sexually-oriented, but it is overlooking one key sex point:

“[Sex] is many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting [sex] is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that is which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible.” (The Half-Blood Prince, 153)

What does this mean? It means that, like Harry Potter, the only way you are going to survive sex is to have a group of loyal friends by your side, not an institution. After all, Dartmouth is Hogwarts (and Disneyland, but I’ll deal with that in a different issue.)

Let’s make a hypothetical situation. I want to start masturbating, but I’m confused and scared as to what I might find down there and what exactly I’m supposed to do. I contact the Sexperts, who then refer me to a Sexperts mentor. This mentor proceeds to tell me some general information like: make sure you are relaxed, in a comfortable place, maybe get some lube and a mirror, just go slowly and gently, caress your clit with two fingers, etc. I then ask my friend for some masturbation advice. She goes into graphic detail, waxes poetic about her powerful personal orgasm just last night, then lends me her (thoroughly sanitized) bullet. Sexperts do not offer a lending library of sex toys. Friend-1, Sexperts-0.

Since Sexperts have had 24 hours of training in general sexual knowledge, including “pleasure-based sexuality,” then they know about sex… right? They officially have, what I like to call “Google-based knowledge”. As in, JFGI, “just fucking Google it.” The third Google hit on “female masturbation techniques” is clitical.com, which I found extremely helpful. It also features erotic stories to get you in the mood, a service that Sexperts does not offer. So maybe you’re wondering about BDSM and butt plugs. I would recommend urbandictionary.com. Internet-1, Sexperts-0.

Don’t get me wrong, I happen to be sitting next to a Sexpert right now, and he knows a lot about sex. I would never demean his vast knowledge by saying that Google is better than him. My point is that sex institutions will never be able to tell you about sex in all of its finest subtleties. If you’d like to know whether olive oil can be used as lube in conjunction with a latex condom (no, it can’t), and you are too lazy to JFGI, then Sexperts will provide you with the correct answer. But if you are having a little difficulty having sex with your girl due to your massive penis and her small cervix, or you’re curious and want to know more about the intricacies of gay sex, then you shouldn’t listen to a word Sexperts has to say. If you want to hold some sex toys and practice putting a condom on a dildo, then Sexperts has some great programming for that. But if you need advice on how to introduce the subject of sex toys to your boy toy, don’t listen to a word they say.

So, reader, next time you’re in Collis and notice the subtle smell of strawberry lube emanating from Commonground and pass straight by the condom fairy inviting you in, don’t feel bad. You’re not missing anything. Just go home, fuck around on Google, and have some pillow talk with your roommate. Trust me.

Gay Pride Parade. Photo courtesy of iwona_kellie, Flickr.

Whether you’re Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Allied (LGBTQA) or anything else (XYZ), this week has certainly been a spectacle of sexuality: men dressed as women, women dressed as men, androgyny, genderbending. Once again Dartmouth has had an educational, fun-filled, and successful PRIDE Week. Our celebration here in Hanover was not a part of a national PRIDE holiday—Ally Week, Day of Silence, International Drag Day, and National Coming Out Day—so considering our independent effort, the full schedule of Dartmouth PRIDE Week was something of which we can all be proud. Despite the inopportune weather, our rainbow-spangled banners were still there looking better than ever. Can’t rain on this parade!

This year’s PRIDE week events ranged from the inspirational Bishop Robinson talk, the fabulous gender-bending fashion show TransForm, and the hilarious Drag Bingo Night, to the slightly underwhelming Dartmouth CookOUT and 24-hour SpeakOUT chat, to the downright deplorable Denis Dison’s keynote address. PRIDE week had its weaknesses, and sure, Frank Karger may not triumph in his campaign to become the first gay president in 2012, but just like Jesse Jackson before him—or any pioneers for that matter—we all have to start somewhere. Without a doubt, continuing these pioneering traditions will lead to important advancements for the LGBTQ and straight communities of this College and the nation.

Here at the DFP, we support the LGBTQ community in its quest for equality. The goal of PRIDE Week at Dartmouth is to allow the students and faculty to evolve and develop into a more inclusive community. Bishop Robinson said it best: PRIDE Week is not only a celebration of how far the LGBTQ community has come, but also a reminder of how much work there’s left to do. PRIDE Week promotes visibility and discussion of LGBTQ issues.

The College has hosted numerous famous speakers in the past—Urvashi Vaid of the Arcus Foundation and writer and trans activist Kate Bornstein—and it added New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson this year. These speakers had distinct voices, and have shared their ideas for making the world better for LGBTQ people by offering real solutions.
The Dartmouth PRIDE committee also hosted an online chat that was designed to create an open, anonymous environment for students’ opinions on queer topics. Unfortunately, the chat was poorly designed, and the premise of anonymity, while it certainly allowed people to speak freely, interfered with any focused conversation. For the first hour, most of the contributions were either egregiously homophobic or whimsical remarks about lesbian porn. We should not assume that people wouldn’t want to participate in a forum just because they must be responsible for their own opinions. The LGBTQ community is brave, and we should have let its members speak for themselves. Anonymity, here, sent the wrong message about the confidence and pride of today’s LGBTQ community.

As tough as it is discussing these issues at Dartmouth, a college with a long history of lagging behind in gender/sexuality issues and a Greek System that lives and breathes heteronormative values, we must insist on pushing the discourse into the open. With the exception of one or two sororities and fraternities that have begun to support the PRIDE movement, we have yet to see any large-scale participation by Greek organizations. Even if these organizations think they are separate from PRIDE issues and do not consider themselves “alternative social spaces,” they are still responsible for representing their LGBTQ membership, which is present whether they acknowledge it or not.

Even students who are convinced they hold no responsibility for gender equality and sexual freedom for others can benefit from educating themselves of the values and motivations of the gay community. Is the LGBTQ community more concerned with acceptance or changing society? Where is the modern gay rights movement heading? What is the ideal vision of queer people within society? These questions concern queer and straight people alike, and the queer community cannot answer them alone.

It’s unfortunate that this year’s keynote speech with Denis Dison was so poorly attended. Dison is the Vice President of External Affairs for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee that helps train LGBTQ political candidates. We admit that the Victory Fund is not very well known, and we don’t necessarily agree with the Victory Fund’s blanket support of LGBTQ candidates. Nor do we claim that his speech would have produced any goosebumps or sudden changes of heart. But potential audiences couldn’t have known this beforehand, and the meager attendance therefore hinted at our campus’ disinterest in having a discourse about the emerging role of LGBTQ people in politics.
There is still much work to be done. Bored at Baker is full of homophobic comments. The 24-hour SpeakOUT blog was host to numerous trolls spewing anti-gay remarks. The Greek system at large is still too heteronormative and gender exclusive. But we should be able to recognize and rectify these issues while celebrating the achievements of the LGBTQ community: the addition of gender-neutral housing, for instance, or the formation of an LGBTQ mentor program, OUTreach. This week, we can celebrate: dress in drag, play bingo, and dance. But come Monday, we must continue the push to raise LGBTQ awareness on campus. We’re here, we’re straight and we’re queer, so get used to it.

New England is cold. But even so, saying ice was one of the region’s largest industries in the early twentieth century sounds more like a joke than reality. Truth is often stranger than fiction, however, and in truth, ice production in New England was not only a huge industry—it was a cross-country and sometimes international one as well. This amusing factoid is one of many presented by Dartmouth professor of Geography, Susanne Freidberg, in her new book, Fresh, In it, Freidberg investigates the history of perishables in the American economic and physical landscape. Fresh explores the curious history of food preservation and transportation, covering how improvements in technology changed the American diet and what people could afford to eat.

Fresh is an informational book in several respects. Freidberg explores ways in which attitudes towards food preservation have changed over time. Some seem jarringly different from what we’re familiar with now—for example, with most foods, it is now unthinkable to not have them neatly preserved in cold environments. Previous generations had a vastly different view, however, and there was a longstanding hostility in American society towards refrigerated food. Part of this hostility can be explained by bad press and marketing; since “fresh” foods went for higher prices, merchants only refrigerated soon-to-spoil (or spoiled) food in a bid to keep them for longer. Thus, anything that came out of a refrigerator was usually already long past its prime.

Another part of the stigma against refrigerated food was suspicion as to what it would mean for the consumer welfare. Eggs, for instance, easily keep in refrigerators, but this wasn’t seen as a virtue for old-time American consumers. They instead saw it was dangerous—after all, how could one figure out if an egg is truly “fresh” if refrigerated eggs keep and are indistinguishable from others that didn’t undergo the “tainting” influence of a refrigerator? Refrigeration also had unintended economic effects as well. Since it allowed certain foods to be available during more times of year than before, consumers just saw this as meaning that merchants didn’t have to sell low during gluts.

Despite all of these misunderstandings, Fresh is effective in showing how similar the fears of consumers back then are to those expressed by American consumers now. Americans didn’t see freshness as simply lack of spoilage or low bacteria counts—they saw freshness as something more, a fantasy where one could imagine, by drinking milk or biting into an apple, the farm next door that grew and produced it. Never mind that the actual business of farming is a messy and difficult one—the image is what the eaters were after.
In the past, freshness meant local. And without the science, that was the only way they could be assured that their food was wholesome. As such, consumers wanted, supported, and took a long time to be convinced that a California fruit was just as good, if not better, than a Vermont one.

Today, locality matters, but for different reasons. We have the science, so instead of vague notions of healthy “stuff” we assert lack of pesticides, genetic-modification, a small carbon footprint, or a host of other qualities that the term “local” appears to imply, whether or not this is actually the case. These aren’t arguments that the early American consumer would have recognized, but the result is one that is all very much the same.

Fresh is an important book because it is a comprehensive history of freshness in a digestible, reader-friendly form. Beyond the factoids, it paints a story that shows us why we are here today—not in the manner of angry diatribes or by invoking exposé-style disgust in readers, as books like Fast Food Nation or other recent investigations about food and the American diet are prone to do. It instead shows us what our food is, and presents the deeper complexities in the messy world of growing our food. From this, we can decide what we truly want to change—and what is merely a fantasy of a time of pure food that never was.

Last week I visited my hometown of Burlington, VT to conduct an interview with Senator Bernie Sanders (I -VT). Seeing as he is the longest standing independent congressman in American history, and that I also consider myself independent on most political issues, I was excited to ask him about what I consider the most important progressive issues in politics right now.

His office stood on the second floor of the largest building at the top of Church Street. I couldn’t picture the bustling cobblestone avenue in the years before Sen. Sanders took office as mayor of Burlington in 1981, when the paved Church Street had no pedestrians, no national chains, and no fancy restaurants to speak of.

My first impression of Sen. Sanders was not what I had expected from a seasoned United States Congressman: His rapid-fire Brooklyn accent had a rugged intensity, and his wispy white hair spilled over his forehead irregularly, more like an edgy professor than a politician. I couldn’t tell whether his unadulterated appearance was authentic or just a well-crafted persona. Either way, he conveyed a genuine interest in our conversation. In order for the reader to experience some of his presence, the interview below is unchanged from its original form.

DFP: How did you develop your “no bullshit” persona? A lot of people view your persona as being very straightforward. Is there a specific reason why honesty is so important to you?

Senator Sanders: Thank you for the compliment. It’s just kind of the way I am. I sometimes think things aren’t as complicated as people make them out to be. You have to be straightforward and tell people what you think. Even if people disagree with you, they appreciate you if you’re being forthright with them. Now we don’t have a lot of time, so let’s get down to the questions.

DFP: OK. One thing that seems to be on your mind a lot is how you think the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, appointed during the Bush Administration, needs to be replaced. Why do you think that and what kind of person do you think should replace him?

Senator Sanders: Well, it isn’t my job to come up with a name but I do think that the chairman of the Fed is a very powerful position. The primary function of the Fed is to protect the safety and soundness of our financial system. It is very clear almost by definition, because under Bernanke’s watch we came very near to a financial collapse. The second goal of the Fed, an important goal, is to try to provide as close to a full-employment economy as we can. Obviously, we are very far away from that—we’re in the midst of a major recession. So I think what you need at the Fed is somebody whose main interest is protecting the interest of the middle class and the working families of the country, rather than just the powerful interests on Wall Street. That is what I believe Bernanke’s record has been. You need to use the tools of the Fed—which are very many—to help ordinary people rather than just large banks.

DFP: Do you think the Goldman Sach’s fraud issue speaks to Bernanke’s failing policies?

Senator Sanders: Yes, I do. I mean, that is precisely what the job of the Fed is. The Fed is there to protect the safety and soundness—well, you’re not going to have safety and you’re not going to have soundness when major, major financial institutions are, according to the SEC [Security and Exchange Commission], engaged in fraud. In this case, they worked with a hedge fund manager to put together securities which are designed to fail, so that the hedge fund managers can place the bet that they’re going to fail, while investors are buying thinking that they think they’re going to make money because of the value of that security. So that’s fraud, if the SEC charge is correct. And frankly, I think you will see that charge leveled against a number of other financial institutions as well; I don’t think Goldman Sachs is unique. But, to answer your question, where was the Fed during all of this? Clearly they were not doing their job.

DFP: So you’re saying this might open up a whole new slew of fraud issues?

Senator Sanders: I think what people have been talking about now is mostly the recklessness and irresponsibility of Wall Street. This is the first major charge where there is not only recklessness and irresponsibility, but there is fraud as well. What I’m saying is I think this will not be the last major charge against financial institutions. My own guess is that fraud was probably rampant.

DFP: I know you serve on the Congressional Committee of Energy and Natural Resources. You also just received a grant of $3.2 Billion for alternative energies.

Senator Sanders: Right. What that was about was that I helped write legislature with Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) which is called the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. It’s a national program, and what it does is to provide money to cities, states, and towns to help them move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. In the stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the president put $3.2 billion into that program, and that brought $12 million dollars into the state of Vermont, and billions around the country. I think it’s going to help us transform our energy system, and in the process involve people at the local level to think about how they could best go forward in terms of energy sustainability and efficiency.

DFP: Is that related to “Smartgrid”?

Senator Sanders: Well, there’s a lot of money coming down the pike, and there are a lot of programs. This is a separate program. What it has funded, for example, in the state of Vermont, is promoting energy efficiency. You’ll have older buildings that will be able to use this money to be able to add new insulation, new windows, a new heating system, new roofs, when necessary. Also, communities can use it for photovoltaic, geothermal, and wind, biomass, and so forth. So it gives communities a wide range of opportunities to move in the right direction. On top of that, there’s another large grant coming into the state for $79 million which is called “Smartgrid”, which will allow some 90 percent of buildings in the state of Vermont to have meters, which will allow them to identify how their energy is being used. We know that can help in a significant way in making energy use more efficient.

DFP: In some ways, your ideas on energy are against the current in Washington. For example, Obama just funded loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia. Do you think the Obama administration’s energy policy is headed in the right direction?

Senator Sanders: Well, what you have to understand is that the answer is yes and no. The Bush administration’s policies on energy were a disaster and refused even to acknowledge the reality of global warming. [On the other hand] President Obama understands that global warming is real and it is a very serious problem for the planet. He has, in the last year and a half, invested far, far, far more than we have seen almost forever in energy efficiency and sustainable energy, so that’s the good news. For example, generally speaking we spent $200 million a year as a nation on weatherization, which is helping lower income people retrofit their homes to make them more energy efficient and save fuel. In the stimulus package, we put $25 billion. It was a huge increase in the amount of money we spent on weatherization, and that is a positive step forward. It’s cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions; it is saving consumers money; it is bringing us to energy independence. The president is also appointing Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who is very good on energy issues and very good on global warming issues. I disagree with the president when he provides loan guarantees for nuclear. We still haven’t solved the issues of how to get rid of nuclear waste, not to mention that nuclear construction is a very expensive proposition. I’m also disagreeing with the president on his view on coal sequestration. But, having said that, in terms of sustainable energy and energy efficiency, they are making some very significant steps forward.

DFP: Do you think Obama really is pro-nuclear—because I know he has come out against it before—or do you think he is just pandering to the Republican Party?

Senator Sanders: No, I think he really is pro-nuclear. Energy is a big word. I think he can take credit for moving the country forward in some very progressive ways. I mean, all of the money that is coming in to the State of Vermont is a result of his initiatives, and support from those of us in Congress who are moving in this direction. That’s a positive. On the other hand, I think there are areas in which he’s moving in the wrong direction.

DFP: Some people are still saying that the healthcare reform bill is a socialist development. As an Independent Senator and self-proclaimed Socialist, do you find the Healthcare Reform Bill to be leaning towards some Socialist ideas by your standards?

Senator Sanders: No. It’s a pretty conservative idea. It’s using primarily private insurance companies to expand health care to many people who do not have health insurance. It is raising Medicaid by raising the level by which people can qualify for Medicaid. So you’ll have another 15 or 16 million people getting Medicaid, which is a government run health insurance program. But the other people are going to come in the subsidies or private insurance companies. I voted for the bill. It is not a particularly strong bill, but it will provide health insurance to some 30 billion people who don’t have it today. I think it has to be improved over the years, but I support it. Socialism has nothing to do with it.

DFP: Yes, I don’t really see why it would, but there are still people out there who call it that.

Senator Sanders: Yes, it has been called that by Republicans to scare people. But what people don’t know that there are countries around world who have socialized or national health insurance programs which are much more cost effective than our system. We are the only country in the industrialized world that does not provide health care to all people as a right of citizenship.

DFP: Do you think if we open up trade to Cuba, it will stay a socialist country in the future, or do you think that it will open up to capitalism and go back to the way it was.

Senator Sanders: A few weeks ago we had the Ambassador from Denmark, which would not consider itself a socialist country, but which has very progressive social programs. It provides health care to all people without virtually any out of pocket expenses, college education there is free, every worker there has six weeks paid vacation, they are very strong on the environment, workers are overwhelmingly in unions, and so on and so forth. So I look to countries like Denmark, Finland, Sweden as models we can use as models and learn from. Cuba is obviously a small, developing country, which is an authoritarian Communist country which has done some good things in terms of health care. I haven’t studied it lately but I think their education system is pretty good. I think what you will see on votes in the House and the Senate in recent years is a desire to establish a more normal relation with Cuba and ending the embargo. What I think American businesses understand is that countries all over the world are investing in Cuba, and businesses in the U.S. can’t do that. So there is pressure to open up to allow businesses to invest in Cuba, to have Americans to freely visit Cuba in a normal way. The question is, if you can’t have normalized relations with Cuba, then how can you have normalized relations with a country like China, which is of course a Communist country and is also much more powerful.

DFP: Do you think there is ever going to be a time when the progressive voice on issues like these—financial regulation, energy policy, health care reform, and US-Cuba relations—can have a strong voice, not just as a third party, or the “other,” but truly included in the dialogue?

Senator Sanders: Well, you’ve seen that take place in a number of countries around the world. For example, if you go up to Canada, which is just an hour away from here, and you go up to the most conservative person in parliament up there and you say ‘do you think you should abolish your health care system,’ which is a single-payer health care system, and in fact they have a conservative government up there, none of the conservatives think they should abolish it. So the idea of saying, so in Canada, the idea that health care is a human right is a part of their culture. I think that’s what you’re asking; whether progressive values become a part of people’s culture. That’s certainly true all over Scandinavia and many European countries. We have a long way to go. There are millions of Americans and, you know, many people in Congress who do not believe health care is a human right, that quality education should be a right regardless of their income. So we are behind many other countries in achieving a culture in which progressive values are accepted. We have a long way to go.

A recent sold-out concert for Jason Derulo—a second rate R&B singer—provided insight into the artistic interests of many Dartmouth students. On the same night, the theatre group Universes performed Ameriville at the Hop. Ameriville is a show based on the social injustices in post-Katrina New Orleans. However, the show’s attendance, quite predictably, did not rival Derulo’s lackluster performance.

The excitement around Jason Derulo stems from his recognizable name. Compared to some truly obscure artists who have performed at the HOP like Anat Cohen or Bill T. Jones, Derulo is practically Chris Brown. Understandably, the isolation of Hanover can make students desperate for any type of entertainment. There is also an apparent lack of interest in the lesser-known artists. So it’s only natural that a second-rate performer would garner attention, even if his fifteen minutes are almost up.

It’s true; most Dartmouth students are usually overburdened with school, work, and extracurricular commitments to squeeze in that fairly obscure flutist playing at the HOP. When most Dartmouth students think of the reasons for going to the HOP, they are usually related to the many non-art related things, like picking up a package or getting food from the Courtyard Café. Students are only likely to attend a HOP event if their friends are performing in it. The Dartmouth Gospel Choir events, which usually sell out, have a high percentage of student attendants. The same is usually true from other events like Glee Club and Orchestra. Visit any other event at the HOP and you will soon realize that it’s one of the public campus-owned places; elderly townie couples run rampant.

The reason for low student attendance at certain Hop events can also be attributed to logistical reasons. Students are less likely than an older patron to buy their tickets in advance, making it impossible to attend a show. “I know I would lose a ticket if I bought it too early,” said Renee Scott ’13.

While it may seem unfortunate that students would choose a one-hit wonder over some of the world’s most distinguished performers, it’s probably unrealistic to ask most college students to develop such mature artistic appetite. I suppose students already spend a lot of time pondering social injustice and expressive modes in class during the week. Still, its worth taking your evening off to see something new at the Hop this term.