Opinion – Page 17 – The Transcript

Tips for a sustainable holiday

By Olivia Lease
Copy Editor

So I’m kind of passionate about the environment.

I like learning new ways to live sustainably and one surprising time we all can do that is now, during the holidays. When you think of this time, you probably picture an abundance of snow, peppermint everything and credit card debt. No? Maybe that’s just me.

No matter what you picture, here are some ways to fit Mother Earth into the grand scheme.

Gift-Giving

For those who give gifts, maybe use recycled paper to wrap them. I used old newspapers last year and they didn’t look too bad. Yes, a journalism major is suggesting you use the articles people work hard on to fulfill someone’s need to rip something apart. Maybe read them as you’re wrapping? Or not, that’s cool too.

Some people use maps, blueprints and even old posters, which are all great ideas. Any non-glossy wrapping paper can be shredded for compost or put in paper recycling bins. Tissue paper, boxes, bows and ribbons can all be reused.

Even the gift itself can be a bit more eco-friendly if you choose to buy local. Not only is this great for local businesses but it’s also more sustainable. Opt for quality rather than quantity. This time of year is more about that spending time with family anyways.

Hanukkah Traditions

For those who don’t already have a menorah, buying used is good idea. Using natural beeswax, soy, or vegetable oil candles is best.

Ordinary paraffin candles produce harmful byproducts when burned including greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. They are also petroleum products, meaning they’re made from oil. Make sure the wick does not have additives like zinc or lead because both release harmful gases when burned.

Also, make use of the candlelight. Use it to light a meal or simply to play games with your family. Just don’t fall asleep.

Kwanzaa Traditions

For those who celebrate Kwanzaa, the seven symbols used for celebration can all be made with sutainable materials.

For example, the Mkeka, or place mats, are typically made of straw or cloth which is already eco- friendly. The Mazao, or crops of fruits, nuts and vegetables, can be bought organically and locally. The Kinara, or candle holder, can be made from extra wood rather than bought.

Christmas Traditions

The tree is kind of a tossup in my point of view. Fake trees, despite the resources expended to make and transport them, last roughly 10 to 20 years. While I don’t think they are recyclable, you could always reuse the branches as other decorations. On the other hand, purchasing real trees often supports local businesses and depending on where you live, curbside pickup is available after the holidays to turn them into mulch. Though in the U.S. alone, 20.8 million trees are cut down for Christmas.

Decorating

For decorating, try to choose LED lighting. It saves up to 90 percent more on power costs than traditional lighting. Put lights on energy-saving timers which can be found at most hardware stores.Bringing in natural elements to decorate rather than factory-made goods can look better while being more sustainable. Twigs, burlap, and pine cones make for nice center pieces.

Food

Whether you’re celebrating a holiday or not, most can agree that the food at this time of year is amazing. Many relatives go above and beyond to create favorite meals. A lot of people also cook too much. Limiting how much is made and eating leftovers minimizes food waste. Untouched meals could also go to a local shelter. I’m not sure about other places, but the landfill for central Ohio only has about 20 years of use left to it. By minimizing food waste we can extend the life of our landfills. Composting is always an option as well.

Parties

Hosting a party? Put a recycle bin next to the trash can for guests to throw in their aluminum, glass and plastic. Skip disposable plates and silverware; now is the time to break out the fancy, reusable stuff. Try using cloth napkins and tablecloths as well. For afterwards, try all-natural housecleaners. Equal parts vinegar and water in a spray bottle work as a great disinfectant and deodorizer.

Traveling

Traveling is really popular at this time of year, whether it is for fun or to see distant relatives. Use public transportation or carpooling to minimize carbon dioxide emissions.

Censorship of the female body

Counseling Services vetoes artist’s promotion for ‘Written on the Body’ event

By Leah Budde
Copy Editor

A few weeks ago, a friend who interns in the Women’s Resource Center approached me, asking if I could design a poster to advertise their annual event, “Written on the Body.”

The event invites OWU students to gather and talk about body image, promoting a more positive view of ourselves and the bodies we live in.

As a fine arts major with concentrations in ceramics and figure drawing, my primary subject is the human body, so I was pleased to use my skills to help out a friend, and support the event. I promptly drew up a design, and received positive feedback from the Women’s Resource Center.

However, I was later notified that the Counseling Services department (which oversees the Women’s Resource Center), denied use of the poster because it may have been too “triggering” or “upsetting” to use as advertisement, and may have discouraged attendance to the event.

I’ll set aside my personal opinions about effective marketing, and focus instead on what I find most unsettling about the decision not to use this poster for the event.

Perhaps I have a skewed perspective — I do spend three hours with a nude model every Tuesday and Thursday night — but in no way do I find nudity offensive or embarrassing. And, from my understanding of the intent of “Written on the Body,” the Women’s Resource Center would like to dispel feelings of shame and encourage body positivity.

In my mind, the goals of what I do artistically and the goals of the event are very much aligned.

In the three and a half years that I’ve been a part of this institution, there have been many cases in which I feel the OWU community has become concerned with political correctness to the point of excess. This situation serves as a prime example.

If counseling services wants to stand behind “Written on the Body” as a project to promote a body-positive campus, I see their choice to censor a drawing of the human form as a complete contradiction of their alleged goal.

I know undoubtedly that the image of a male back alone would not cause controversy, so I have to assume that what is most offensive about this poster is the frontal image of a female figure.

Rather than start a rant about gender inequality, I’ll instead beg the question: if this drawing is too graphic to use in an advertisement on a university campus, how does Counseling Services feel about centuries of art that includes female nudes?

What is the difference between my choice of subject matter versus Titian’s or Manet’s or Eakins’ (not to promote myself, of course, to any such level of talent)?

As an artist, I am fully aware that exhibiting my work invites both negative and positive feedback; I am in no way personally offended that my poster won’t be used.

I simply find it disappointing that the liberal arts institution I’m a part of has apparently deemed the artwork I produce too offensive to be displayed.

What bothers me above all is the implication of this decision, which is that the image of the human body (or, more specifically, the female body) is inherently too graphic for the OWU community to handle.

In defense of the concept of privilege

By Ashley Biser

Last week, professor Erin Flynn shared in The Transcript “Notes on the concept of (white, male) privilege.” In his piece, he argued the concept of privilege is problematic, not because it does not exist, but because it is “a potentially poor basis of political response to those painful and all too familiar patterns of injustice.”

I applaud Flynn for airing these concerns and discussing the concept of privilege in The Transcript. But he is wrong — both about what privilege is and the political work it accomplishes. First, the basic definition: privilege is not primarily about what an individual deserves; it is the idea that by virtue of one’s membership in a particular social group (men, white people, straight people, able-bodied people), we accrue as a group systematic advantages that are unavailable to those who are different. In this sense, privilege is not a theoretical concept, but a fact. For example, by virtue of the fact that I am able-bodied, I can navigate the world more easily than those who are not. I can watch Netflix without wondering which movies will be captioned or whether there will be people like me represented in them; I can get to my classrooms without worrying whether there is an elevator in the building; I can visit a new city and expect to be able to use public transportation easily. Because I was born able-bodied, I do not have to think about these advantages, but they are still operating in my favor. While each instance might seem insignificant, over time, these advantages add up—making my life easier insofar as I am not constrained by physical disabilities. This does not mean that I will never encounter obstacles, some of which will be based on other aspects of my social identity, such as my gender. Nor does the concept of privilege imply that my life will be free from pain and sorrow. But the pains and sorrows I experience will be based on my own particular life circumstances, not on the basis of being disabled. The concept of privilege just asks me to acknowledge that I live in a system that is designed for able-bodied people and makes life harder for those who are not part of that group. Hopefully, once I acknowledge that fact, I will be better equipped to fight for a system in which all people can flourish — regardless of physical ability.

According to Flynn, the problem with describing these advantages in terms of privilege is that implies that all experiences of white (or male, or heterosexual, or able-bodied) privilege are the same. But surely, we can see that not all able-bodied people have similar experiences of the world. An able-bodied woman will experience privilege differently than an able-bodied man. Just as a black woman born to a wealthy family will experience the world differently than a poor white man — just as will any two white, straight, able-bodied, cisgender men. As Hannah Arendt reminds us, “we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives or will live.”

Flynn worries that the concept of privilege covers over these individual differences and obscures the fact that sometimes “class transcends race” (and vice versa). But the point of recognizing privilege isn’t to set different experiences of discrimination up against another and vie for who is most oppressed; the point is to recognize the intersections between various forms of oppression and never fool ourselves into thinking that we are immune from prejudice. Just because I do not believe I am prejudiced against those who are disabled does not mean that I do not benefit from the systematic ways in which able-bodiedness is privileged in our society. We have to resist the age-old tendency to set oppressed people against each other and instead recognize that many forms of injustice share similar roots. The question isn’t who has it worse, but how can we make it better.

Moreover, in his desire to recognize the “richness, variety and complexity of social life,” Flynn misses the fact that it is precisely this experience of being recognized as a unique individual that is denied to those who are not white, male, heterosexual, upper-class, able-bodied, etc. In fact, it is a privilege to be treated as an individual, with a specific life story, deserving of recognition. It is precisely this experience, of being judged on one’s own merits — and not assumed to fit into a mold fashioned by prejudice — that those of us interested in justice, like Flynn and myself, desire for everyone.

In his post, Flynn also wonders what happens when we see basic human rights — such as the right to be free from physical coercion or harm — as privileges instead of as rights. I understand his concern; the language of rights is powerful. To speak of violated rights implies that everyone deserves physical security, not because some magnanimous entity has decreed so, but simply by virtue of our existence. However, for those to whom they are denied, rights do not exist. So long as African-American men are more likely to be shot by the police, women’s bodies can be subjected to medical procedures without their consent and transgender persons are disproportionately victims of violence, the so-called “right” to be free from physical coercion or harm is a dangerous myth. In a different context, marriage is not a “right” so long as only heterosexual couples can participate in its benefits. The concept of privilege draws our attention to the disjuncture between right and privilege — emphasizing that what might appear to be a right is not universally experienced as such. So long as “rights” can be categorically denied to entire sectors of our society, we cannot call them rights; they are simply privileges accorded to the few in the service of protecting those in power.

The concept of privilege also forces us to recognize that rights aren’t the culmination of struggles for justice. Don’t get me wrong. Legal rights are a crucial component of a just society. But the concept of privilege draws our attention to other myriad, sometimes seemingly trivial, ways that racism, classism, ableism, chauvinism, homophobia, etc. seep into our lives — even once legal rights have been secured. Take, for example, my experience of able-bodied privilege: is it a “right” to watch Netflix? Is it anyone’s “right” to see people like themselves represented on screen? No. But these privileges are nonetheless significant. My ability to easily access information affects how I can participate in the world, and the presence of people who look like me on television sets the parameters for what is considered “normal” and socially acceptable.

According to Flynn, the concept of privilege focuses on attacking what some (privileged) people have, rather than fighting for the rights others lack. In this sense, he worries that the concept of privilege might become tinged with what Nietzsche terms ressentiment—a “potentially toxic mix of resentment and envy” that embodies the desire to somehow strike back at those more powerful than ourselves. Flynn worries that calling people out on their privilege “becomes just a way of lashing out and ridiculing, of feeling a sense of superiority which one does not experience as socially real, by demeaning or lowering the status of another.” To some extent, I can see his worry. If the concept of privilege were simply a means of belittling the successes of powerful individuals, it would, indeed, be a vengeful concept. But, again, privilege is not about individual accomplishments and deserts. It is a concept designed to help draw attention to the systematic ways in which life is easier and more just for some and not others. All of us lead very different lives within the context of societal structures, filled with our own personal challenges and accomplishments. Nietzsche develops the concept of ressentiment to think about how those who are weak and undeserving react toward those who are stronger and bolder. What the concept of privilege teaches us, however, is that no matter how strong and bold and deserving someone is, some people have more obstacles to overcome than others.

Considering that Nietzsche excelled at questioning our most deeply-held assumptions — about God, morality, freedom, etc. — it seems to me fitting to think about the concept of privilege as doing similar political work: provoking us to rethink our basic assumptions about what is fair and just in our society. The purpose of recognizing my own privilege as an able-bodied, white, cisgender woman, is not to take away from my (or anyone else’s) accomplishments, but to help me better empathize with those whose experiences are fundamentally different than my own. At best, “checking” my privilege means that I make sure to listen more carefully to those who have historically been silenced and work more diligently to dismantle societal structures that contribute to white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, and class privilege. At the very least, I need to be aware of my own participation in perpetuating injustice. The language of privilege serves as a reminder to do so. I don’t deny that the concept can sometimes ruffle people’s feathers and engender unproductive conversations about guilt. But that is why it is powerful; unless we are uncomfortable, we will not act. For my part, the time to give up on the concept of privilege will be when privilege ceases to exist. The discomfort that all of us feel in recognizing our own privilege (be it racial, class, gender, etc.) is precisely the point.

Ashley Biser is an assistant professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan. Her expertise is in contemporary political theory, and she teaches such courses as Democracy and Its Critics, Classical Issues in Political Theory, American Political Thought, and Political Theory, Science and Technology, as well as the introductory politics and government course.

Notes on the concept of (white, male…) privilege

By Erin Flynn

A few years ago faculty at Ohio Wesleyan held a meeting on dealing with disruptive students in the classroom. I was surprised. In my experience, OWU students were overwhelmingly respectful, even nice. I certainly didn’t have a problem with disruptive students, so I didn’t attend the meeting. Then I heard that of those who did attend, only two were white men, and those two were required to attend (because they were serving as deans). Evidently our students did not afford the same degree of respect and courtesy to my colleagues who were not white men. I was indignant, outraged that my colleagues should endure such disrespect, especially for those reasons, and even if from a decided minority of students. But I was also upset for another reason. I would have thought that the respect shown to me by my students had primarily to do with my own conduct—with the way I treated them. But now I had to confront the possibility that to some extent their respect was due to nothing more than my whiteness and maleness. (One should also add to this list my tallness, and other characteristics over which I have little if any control.) What credit at all did I deserve if my students’ respect was rooted in their (probably unconscious) deference to tall white men?

The above is a good, if relatively modest, example of what has come to be called white male privilege. The idea behind such forms of privilege is simple enough: some of us enjoy certain advantages (including the advantage of not having to deal with certain forms of bullshit) simply in virtue of belonging to particular social types, sometimes defined as “dominant” or simply the “norm.” Such types include: white, male, straight, and able-bodied. Those enjoying these advantages are often blind to them, since they don’t experience the world as someone who is not white, male, etc. Hence they tend to attribute the various benefits they enjoy entirely to what they do, to their own conduct, much as I attributed my students’ respect to my own respectful and respectable conduct. This concept of privilege is a valuable one. It promotes greater awareness of the struggles of those unlike ourselves, and so a clearer understanding of what particular things would have to change for ours to be a more just and fair society. It also affords a clearer picture of just what is to our credit and what is not. On the whole, the emergence of this particular tool for understanding and describing social reality is, I think, a good thing. Nevertheless, in what follows I would like to offer a brief critique of the concept, highlighting three shortcomings of our typical use of it.

First, there is a tendency in our use of the concept to presuppose a uniform experience of whiteness, maleness, etc. But the white male, like the average taxpayer, is an abstraction. No one is the white male. (Likewise, no one is the woman of color.) We are each of us particular, assemblies of various traits, histories, and social identities. These intersect in remarkably complex ways, making difficult the identification of the privilege enjoyed by actual individuals. This is not to say that there is no such privilege, only that there is never uniform experience or enjoyment of it. Likewise, one never finds oneself in the society. One finds oneself in particular social contexts, in which relations of power and privilege will be peculiar to that context, and which will therefore dramatically influence our social experience, depending on the traits, histories, and social identities that make us up.

No one would claim that the unemployed white man enjoys the same privilege as the gainfully employed white man. But I am further suggesting that the unemployed white man does not even have the same experience of white privilege or male privilege as that other man, though in an abstract sense both are white men. The social relationships of power and privilege are complex. Sometimes race transcends class, as when a wealthy African-American is profiled by police officers or when a poor white person receives more deference or respect in a commercial or professional setting. Very often, however, class transcends race, as when a poor white person has less access to quality education than a wealthy African-American person, or when a wealthy woman endures much less risk of violence than a poor man. Even the deployment of the critique of privilege may reproduce a pattern of injustice, as when a well-off person can cite as a disability what a poor working person must endure as a matter of course.

None of this should induce paralysis. We are attempting to do justice to our experience of the world, to shed light on patterns of unearned benefits and undeserved harms in our effort to advance the cause of a more just society, a society in which our freedom is increasingly real and increasingly shared. But to help in that attempt, the concept of privilege must be as true as possible to the richness, variety, and complexity of social life; otherwise it may narrow our vision, obscuring certain forms of injustice in deference to others and making mutual recognition less and not more likely. If our aim is to acknowledge and give voice to the experience of others, then we must not obscure this complexity, seeing them only as instances of social types. To do so would be to fail to see other individuals as real, which as Iris Murdoch suggests is perhaps the fundamental task of the ethical life.

Second, the concept is sometimes used in contexts in which “privilege” seems seriously inaccurate. When African-Americans endure brutal violations of their rights, for instance, we sometimes hear it cited as yet another example of white privilege. White people, after all, do not have to endure the same threat of violation. That is generally true, but think for a moment about what it means to label this white “privilege.” Do we really want to encourage ourselves and others to think of not having our basic rights violated as a privilege? I understand what people are driving at. It is the fact that I have a greater expectation that my rights will be respected that is the privilege. Perhaps so, but the true moral problem is not that privilege. It is rather the violation of the right. In this context, the notion of privilege seems to get things exactly the wrong way around. It identifies as a privilege what we should rather regard as a right. This curious fixation of the concept not on the deprivation or injustice, but rather on the “privilege” or advantage of the individual not enduring the injustice should give us pause. What would incline our attention in that direction?

This leads to my third and perhaps most important critique of the concept of privilege. There is a serious danger of the concept of privilege being or becoming what I would call, following Nietzsche, a ressentiment concept. The emotion of ressentiment is a curious, potentially toxic mix of resentment and envy, a desire to belittle what one regards as greater or more successful or powerful than oneself, often coupled with a desire to see that other harmed. A ressentiment concept expresses the frustrated and impotent anger of an oppressed class toward their oppressors. Often such a concept is used as a tool to scold or belittle a privileged or relatively more powerful group. When internalized by a member of the “privileged” group, it can express a kind of self-loathing, a curious desire to belittle oneself. To the extent that the concept of privilege functions this way, it is hardly laudable, having abandoned the commitment to principle that gives the concept its moral authority in the first place. It becomes just a way of lashing out and ridiculing, of feeling a sense of superiority which one does not experience as socially real, by demeaning or lowering the status of another. To the extent that the concept attempts to raise the status of some by belittling others, for instance by re-describing their successes as a product not of their own virtues but of structural, ill-begotten privileges, then we should be wary of using the concept and skeptical of its value.

None of this is to deny that there are historical patterns of unearned benefits and undeserved harms, nor that the suffering and frustration of living those patterns is real, worthy of expression and restitution. As I said above, the value of the concept of (white, male, etc.) privilege is that it may promote greater understanding of the struggles of those unlike ourselves. My criticisms are intended to point out ways in which that virtue may be betrayed by certain tendencies in our use of the concept, and so in which it may be ill-suited to the true mutual recognition, and so also a potentially poor basis of political response to those painful and all too familiar patterns of injustice.

Erin Flynn is an associate professor of philosophy at Ohio Wesleyan. He specializes in post-Kantian German philosophy and teaches courses in 19th and 20th century continental philosophy, philosophy of law, philosophy of science, critical thinking and international business ethics.

An early new year’s resolution

Reporter vows to do away with excessive materialism in 2015

By some people’s standards, you might say that I live a life of excess. By some standards, we all do. Consumption and consumerism is key in today’s Western world. We’ll buy the latest iPhone, the newest flatscreen TV, the latest iPad air so we can stay relevant. Nobody wants to look “outdated.” I, too, am guilty of this. But in 2015, for me, this is all changing.

Recently, when I was doing research on materialism’s effects on happiness for one of my classes, I learned that those who have significantly fewer material items spend more time focusing on doing the activities they love and spending more time interacting with the people they love and/or care about.

The Back Story

In addition to wanting to have the latest and greatest in technology, we buy things to fit in and look hip, and up to date. I’m guilty of this one, too. Granted, more so when I was younger than lately; I always had to have the latest iPod that had come out, and sadly, I got excited when a new operating system update came out for my shiny new iPod. Maybe this was just me being a young, nerdy tech-weenie, but part of this was also just my desire to have the latest in whatever the corporate world would sell us. But I needed that feeling of having something brand new. Something that only a select few would have. I wanted to look cooler.

A 2007 study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder states that “those who pursue materialism are actually liked less than their peers.” Someone should have told 17 year old Caleb this.But 21 year old Caleb has gotten the message. But before you jump to conclusions, I’m not changing my ways to be liked more by my peers. I’m changing because I want to be happy. Don’t get me wrong: I am so incredibly happy with my life. I have amazing friends, a supportive family and a girlfriend who is constantly encouraging me to be the best version of myself, a job, and I’m getting something so many people work so hard for and that many never get the opportunity to have: a college education.

Nevertheless, I’ve realized I have way too much shit that I don’t need: clothes (though a variety of different weather options in my wardrobe are necessary because of where we live), as well as random little things that I seem to have acquired over the past three and a half years here.

The Challenge

This is why, in 2015, I will be partaking in the “100 items or less” challenge. The challenge was inspired by an Oregon couple written about in the New York Times a couple of years ago. Basically, the article is about an investment banker and her husband were living the American Dream of excess and materialism. One day, they realized they weren’t happy. They decided to partake in the challenge.

Exactly as it sounds, I will be donating the vast majority of my possessions that I don’t really need or that don’t carry any sentimental value. Those can stay. With the exception of school supplies, I will be limiting myself to 100 possessions. I’d rather be focused on spending time with the people I care about than being wrapped up in the shit that I have. I don’t own a TV, an X-Box or any other kind of video game console, I do have a small speaker (because listening to music is my escape), however I am cutting myself off at that. If I want to watch a movie, I have my 6 year old laptop and Netflix.

The Inspiration

Loosely inspired by the life of Christopher McCandless, (the man behind the book/film Into the Wild) a college graduate who burned all of his belongings and took to a life of adventure, meeting new people, and becoming one with nature, until it eventually killed him. But he never stopped traveling. Everything he owned, he was able to carry on his back. I don’t want to be tied down to a certain place because it’s filled with all of my personal belongings. I want to be able to up and leave on a moment’s notice. Perhaps this makes me a wannabe nomad.

I can’t take full credit for this idea. My girlfriend has been saying she wants to do something like this for months. I’m just sick of talking about it. I’m ready to do it.

We often look down at “third-world countries” for not being advanced as us, and for not having as much as us. However, plot twist, what if they’re happier than us, which would thus make them, at least in my mind, more advanced? An independent study by the World Happiness Organization came out and said that the second happiest people in the world, based on their research, are in Central and South America.

I want my life to be defined by the memories I’ve made, the people I’ve met, and the places I’ve been, not by the things I own. So don’t call me a radical.

I just hope my pursuit of happiness can inspire some others to follow suit and ditch the excesses of our modern culture for a more simpler, interacting-with-people-rather-than-our-belongings lifestyle.

Christmas in October takes its toll

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have ABC Family’s “25 Days of Christmas” schedule screen-shotted on my phone, patiently waiting in my iPhoto for December 1st to come.

I like to think I’m pretty good at the act of Christmas shopping, buying the perfect gifts for those who deserve it.

Having worked retail before, I understand marketable time periods and points of higher sales.

I work at a Sunglass Hut in Polaris, and my job there also entails I work at our booth in the Macy’s Department store as well. As I am getting older, I feel like I go through a Cindy Loo Who type crisis around the holiday season.

I struggle through early December trying to get past the maiming’s on Black Friday and to remember why Christmas is important to me.

To say the least, I was not prepared for the day after October break when I returned to Macy’s to find it was a Winter Wonderland. As I rode down the escalator, I heard “Jingle Bell Rock” blasting on the loudspeaker. Concerned, I look around to see Twizzler-like banners hanging from the ceiling and big glass balls that say “Believe” with red writing covering the sales floor.

I turned to see where the purses used to be, which had been replaced by a faux Santa’s Workshop and two little girls were sitting already writing their letter’s to Santa in the North Pole.

When I got to my register, I was in a daze with specs of shiny white fake snow that covered the walls in my peripherals.

A note was left from my manager, saying, “Whoever can work from 5 p.m. Thanksgiving day through 10 p.m. (overnight) on Black Friday please contact me ASAP.”

My anxiety boiled up like marshmallow in hot chocolate and I felt I had been forced into this candy cane lane retail nightmare.

Department stores have taken Christmas shopping too far, this year being the tip of my iceberg. It was more unnerving than annoying that holiday commercials in October became more prominent in 2014.

Let’s not forget the fact that these stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day this year to boot, taking away from the true meaning of a holiday designed to bring family and friends together in thanks for what they already have. Thanksgiving should not be about what people neeed to buy.

I truly believe people need to take this issue seriously and as an issue reevaluate what the season really is for. We need to be thankful before we can be giving, because we need to understand how lucky we are to have what we have and whom we get to share it with.

I don’t appreciate snow in early October, just like I don’t appreciate being forced into the least important part of Christmas before I even pass the gravy.

The ‘Ohio effect’ claims another fan

I normally mind my business and stick to my very own page eight, dedicated to my beloved OWU athletics.

But this weekend, I caught myself doing something bizarre for a Philadelphia born- East coast boy.

I was watching the Ohio State football team play Big Ten rival Michigan State in what was essentially a conference championship battle.

Unfortunately, I was surrounded by five rowdy Ohioans reeking of chicken nachos, and Pabst Blue Ribbon. When the scarlet and grey scored a crucial touchdown late in the third-quarter, the room went nuts.

My Buckeye-crazed friend let out a soulful “O-H!” with a southern-Ohio twang.

I unconsciously followed with an “I-O!” My lips didn’t even hesitate.

At that moment, I realized I am a closet “bucknut” (apparently, a term for the avid Ohio State fan).

Coming to grips with this realization has been difficult because who really even knows what a buckeye is.

The process of becoming a fan of didn’t happen overnight, so I began to ponder its inception. I got my first taste of buckeye-mania as a prospective student when I spotted a mini-van on Polaris Parkway that had so fashionably been shrink-rapped with former Ohio State head coach, Jim Trestle’s face.

The past three and a half years of Columbus area television have taken a grave toll on my brain. I have been brainwashed to become a Buckeye fan, and I will never forget that Rick Ricart is always dealing.

But more importantly, without my visit to Ohio Wesleyan as a high school senior, I would have never provoked myself to spend my undergrad years in the buckeye-state. Never underestimate the power of Ohio’s vivid fall landscapes and uniquely individual cities that combine good ole country charm with rban culture.

As an out of state student, I commonly get asked why I chose a school in Ohio rather than Florida or Arizona where could have partied my face off in the southern sun. The response is normally a financial anecdote; but the truth is, I fell in love with the state, the pride Ohioans lug around with them, and their inherent kindness.

In short, thanks Ohio Wesleyan for luring me to a wonderful state that I would have never come to love, let alone visit. Although I’ll be saying good-bye to OWU in May, I will have departed as a Bishop first, covert Ohioan second.

The tale of the missing Tri Delt

Ruth Baumgardner’s Delta Delta Delta composite photo from 1937. — Ruth Baumgardner’s Delta Delta Delta
composite photo from 1937. Photo from 1937 Ohio Wesleyan yearbook (Le Bijou)

This Halloween, instead of watching “Halloweentown” on Disney Channel with a stuffed ghost and hot tea, I’ve been researching with Delta Delta Delta’s faculty adviser, classics professor Lee Frantantuono, to unearth the mystery behind my missing sorority sister.

Ruth Baumgardner, 22, of Lakewood, Ohio, was last seen leaving her dormitory of Austin Hall on a spring finals week in the late 1930’s and went missing without a trace.

The mystery has never been solved, nor has it even come close to being solved, and is truly bone-chilling. An executive from the Travel Channel’s hit TV show “The Dead Files” recently contacted Megan Dill, Tri-Delta’s sorority president, searching for old photos of Baumgardner, assuming they were somewhere in our house, which was the first time any of us had ever heard about her story. In the attic we have hundreds of old composites and hers is most likely up there, covered in dust and left in the dark like her file at the police station has been for all these years.

While Frantantuono and I were searching for information, we found many old news articles, composites and, most importantly, the 1937 Ohio Wesleyan yearbook, titled “Le Bijou,” French for “The Jewel.’

So where did she go? Who took this young woman just as she was about to begin her future, or did she choose a different future of her own?

There are many different assumptions about what happened to Baumgardner. Some believe she was kidnapped, except her room was left in pristine condition. According to these accounts, the typically disorganized Baumgardener usually left her room disheveled.

Also complicating the issue of her kidnapping was that there was no evidence of foul play.

Other stories say she became too stressed and nervous before her tests and left with an unknown lover, leaving behind her beloved family and fiancée in her hometown.

Baumgardner was described to be wearing a brown sport suit, with a matching hat and brown suede gillie shoes that tied at the ankle. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and an unusual light streak of hair on the left side of her head and a dimple on her chin.

This description was enough to freak me out, only because I also have a dimple on my chin and have an unusual dark streak of hair on my right side.

Her friends last saw her at 11 p.m. on May 4 with her hair in curlers and pins in her room in Austin Hall (now Austin Manor), room 319.

An article mentioned that she probably only had an old handbag and $5.00 in cash, and left behind her watch, sorority pin and loose change.

The investigators originally believed she suffered an amnesiac episode and wandered off.

To this day, no one knows what happened to her. Some claim they hear voices in Austin Manor of a female ghost. This Halloween, maybe if I go up to the third floor and call out “Ruthie,” I’ll find some answers or truth to the tale of the missing Tri-Delt.

Letter: Test optional policies will not lower value of OWU degrees

Barbara MacLeod. Photo: economics.owu.edu

By Barbara MacLeod

Last week The Transcript printed an article on the expansion of the GPA bar for allowing test-optional applications to Ohio Wesleyan. This has led to a misunderstanding amongst both faculty and students that the value of an OWU degree has been lowered.

I can assure you this is not true. Yes, Admissions is now allowing any student with a high school GPA of 3.0 or higher to apply to OWU without submitting ACT or SAT scores while the standard last year was a GPA of 3.5 or higher. But certainly we all recognize that an application does not equal admission. CAFA (Committee on Admission and Financial Aid) is the university committee charged with oversight of admission policy and we approved the current GPA guidelines after evaluating the results of last year’s policy.

We expect that this new policy will increase the pool of applicants, but – let me be very clear about this – it does not change OWU’s admission standards.

Most schools with a test optional policy, including Denison, have no minimum GPA requirement.

At OWU, we are maintaining a GPA minimum and at least two faculty review test optional files in the new range before an admission decision is reached.

A test-optional policy at Ohio Wesleyan has been under discussion at CAFA for at least four years. The initial impetus arose from faculty and students who did not believe that standardized testing, as currently practiced in the U.S., is a fair or just means of evaluating college applicants.

Our own studies show that the predominant predictor of success at OWU is an applicant’s high school GPA, so that is the factor on which we are focusing.

No admission decision, however, is made on any one factor, including that of standardized test scores for those applicants who submit them.

We continue to strive for a diverse and intellectually curious class at OWU that will engage the global questions of our world, produce leaders for the future, and have a great four years during their time here!

That has not changed, and the new policy will only open these opportunities to a wider range of potential students.

Barbara MacLeod is a professor of economics and chair of the faculy Committee on Admission and Financial Aid.

Women’s reproductive rights deserve attention

The last time a high-profile political figure ate at Bun’s Restaurant on Winter Street, he certainly didn’t talk about the dangers facing women should we lose the right to make decisions over our own reproductive systems.

It might come as no surprise that I did not attend the rally for Mitt Romney at Bun’s during the 2012 presidential election. From his stance on health care to his horrible white-ombre sideburns, there really aren’t too many nice things I have to say about the former governor of Massachusetts.

But it wasn’t all about poor Mitt. No, bad politics could never keep me from eating. But yours truly eats gluten-free, making Bun’s, a restaurant named after bread, a less than ideal dining option.

However, when I was offered the chance to have dinner there with Connie Schultz one of my field’s icons and an all-around badass, the scary possibility of ingesting gluten didn’t even cross my mind.

If you haven’t heard of Schultz, you should really look her up. She is a Pulitzer Prize winner, a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of two books. After raising her daughter as a single mother while climbing the ladder of success at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Schultz found herself a man actually worthy of her time.

His name is Sherrod Brown, and he is Ohio’s senior senator.

It can’t be easy being married to a political power player when you have a reputation as a righteous political journalist, but if anyone can do it, it’s Schultz.

Not only has she done it well in the past, she is continuing to do it well today. She recently singled out Governor John Kasich’s claim that he was a “moderate” by bringing up his war on Planned Parent during an appearance on MSNBC several weeks ago.

Schultz was telling that story at dinner when she looked up and asked me if girls my age realized what Kasich is attempting to do with women’s reproductive rights in Ohio, and whether or not we realize all that is at stake.

I responded by saying I believe our news sites are oversaturated and sometimes the importance of certain issues does not get through to my age group.

The incessant updates on social media don’t help either. Why read about ISIS on your New York Times app when you can scroll through Yik Yak?

Schultz seemed to appreciate my honesty, but her question really resonated with me. Do my friends really realize what’s at stake for us, especially now that Ohio’s top five state offices are filled by Republicans?

Do my friends realize that our governor has already made it more difficult for family planning groups to receive funding for preventive care, that is, birth control?

Do they understand that just days after Texas state senator Wendy Davis successfully filibustered a bill that would make abortions practically illegal, Kasich made it Ohio state law for any woman seeking abortion to undergo an ultrasound?

Are they aware that Kasich’s bill makes it difficult for abortion providers to obtain transfer agreements with public hospitals?

The problems facing women’s rights in Ohio are very real, and yet the women of my generation seem pretty passé on the subject overall. Why aren’t we fighting this fight?

Women have fought oppression for centuries. The women who came before us had to fight to protect their rights, and we appear to be forgetting their struggle. What would these women, some of whom were murdered in bombings, shot, harassed or injured, say to my generation? Would they even want to be associated with us?

I guess my point is this: ladies, we have got to start paying attention. Of course not every woman would agree with me on this, but I know there are many who do.

We cannot continue to live in a bubble where we think nothing bad can happen to us, because it can.

Right now there are a bunch of white dudes 20 miles away trying to figure out how they can control the most personal part of our bodies. We are under siege, and it’s not going away.