4 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(04/21/17 3:40am)
Dear Middlebury College Bookstore Staff,
In last week’s Campus, you published an advertisement for Apple products, sold by the miniature Apple Store that resides in the back of our campus bookstore, thinly veiled as an op-ed. I herein discuss my three grievances with that piece:
(1) It was factually inaccurate.
(2) It displayed casual financial classism.
(3) It endorses a product/company without explicitly disclosing the fact that the authors (you the MC bookstore staff) are agents of the product/company being endorsed.
Let’s start by making one thing clear. Apple is not some glorious, rebellious liberator, as they portray themselves in their famous 1984 advert, nor are PC users ignorant balding white men as portrayed in Apple’s early 2000’s campaign — though both caricatures shine through in your article — Macs and PCs simply represent two reasonable choices in the world of computing.
Your op-ed asserts that MacOS is clearly superior, but as the laptop review site The Wirecutter wrote in February of this year in its article “What Laptop Should I Buy,” “MacOS and Windows have never been more similar, and most popular apps have versions that work just as well on either platform.” Furthermore, “it’s easier than ever to switch between the two.” Matt Weinberger of Business Insider wrote an article a couple of months ago aptly titled, “The Whole ‘Mac vs. PC’ Thing Is So Over,” where he explains, “because so much of what we do these days is based in the browser and in the cloud, Mac versus PC is no longer a lifestyle decision like it was back when boxed software ruled all. It’s just a matter of taste.”
You also suggest that Macs are no harder to troubleshoot than PCs, yet many people fervently disagree. For example, Shan Zeng, a student worker at the Middlebury Helpdesk, says, “PCs are much easier to troubleshoot than Macs.” She went on to stress that, “The problems that show up on Macs are rather irreversible, most often sudden breakdown of hard drives. In PCs there will be warnings, and other signs that allow one to take preventive measures.” As for Macs needing tech support less frequently, Zeng again disagrees. “I see more Mac issues than PC at the helpdesk.”
Now we reach grievance number two, the subtle classism of your suggestion that everyone come in and buy a Mac. The reality is that, for many, a $1,500 matte-metallic status symbol is out of the budget and out of the question. Senior Klaudia Wojciechowska put it this way: “Writing an article about why Midd kids ‘should choose Macbooks’ without acknowledging that not everyone can afford them — so buying PC’s is not a ‘choice’ — completely ERASES the fact that poor Midd kids like myself exist on this campus (who would have thought?!).” For students and families who struggle to afford Middlebury tuition, your ad suggesting everyone go buy a Mac is pretty tone deaf. To your suggestion that financing options might be available in the future, Wojciechowska notes sardonically, “You’re willing to set up a financing plan for me? Great. Add that to the other tuition loans I have.”
You, the MC Bookstore Staff, are boldly misinformed on the topic of price. It is true that IBM found that it is cheaper for their employees to use Macs instead of PCs, but IBM is a large enterprise with massive negotiated software licensing agreements and niche needs. Their experience is nothing like that of individual students on college campuses. If we really, truly cared about software expense, we would encourage the use of Linux variants, perhaps ChromeOS.
This goes beyond a difference of opinion; your Op-Ed flouted reality. Macs are not cheaper than the equivalent PC, even when the costs are spread out over the lifetime of the product (and even accounting for resale value, about which you also proffered misinformation). Take the Dell XPS 13 versus the equivalent MacBook Pro. The former is $1125 while the latter retails for $1499. Budget can’t stretch that far? You could get an Asus ZenBook with nearly identical specs for only $699. Less than half the price! Even the cheapest MacBook rings in at $1,200 and will offer significantly worse performance. (And for those of you thinking about Apple’s student discount, know this: student discounts are available from most major computer manufacturers, not just Apple).
Need something even cheaper? Modern Chromebooks start at just $179. Any student who needs to store large files, have long battery life, strong portability and use pretty much any web application (as well as upcoming Android app porting) might want to look toward Google.
And finally, we arrive at issue 3: the fact that you all submitted your ad to the Campus as an op-ed. Shame on you, and shame on the Campus editors who agreed to run it. At best, your op-ed qualifies as sponsored content. You, the bookstore, make money off Apple sales so you were plugging your own brand. Most weeks I write a financial markets column for the Campus. You’ll notice I don’t use it to pump penny stocks or hawk personal financial services. If you want to advertise in the Campus, more power to you, but do so the right way. Don’t be disingenuous: pay up. The Campus is not free to produce, and I will not have it taken for a shill.
(05/06/15 9:19pm)
Preface: I love my city. But in trying to unpack the events that have unfolded over the past two weeks, I have at times been guilty of focusing on symptoms more than chronic problems. I have been guilty of chastising rioters, while those who are culpable of much more heinous crimes elude reprimand. Five hundred miles away, I am physically removed from the city I call my own, but the disconnect runs so much deeper. The following is an attempt to explain the reaction of thousands of Baltimoreans in the wake Freddie Gray’s death at the hands of police. A short article cannot cover every aspect of an exceedingly complex issue, but I hope this proves illustrative for the Middlebury community. I would like to thank my brother Zach for contributing heavily to this article. Were it not for his frank appraisal of my attitude, I might still be stuck in a trap of self-aggrandizing victim shaming.
Baltimore has a magic about it. To some it is “Smalltimore,” because the community can feel so tight-knit that it’s easy to forget it’s not a small town, but rather a city of 620,000. From the glitzy high rises of the inner harbor and harbor east, to the quirky gastropubs and tattoo parlors of Canton and Hamden, it’s easy to see why Baltimore gets the nickname “Charm City.”
But there is another Baltimore. The one called “Mobtown.” The Perkins Homes, Sandtown and Cherry Hill. A city where blighted neighborhoods hold tens of thousands of abandoned homes, where the future is bleak and the residents are almost exclusively black. A place where people have learned to internalize the crushing shame of poverty and acclimate to their demoralizing abandonment by the other half of the city.
Trite mass media overtures focusing on the rioting, looting and disorder that befell Baltimore portrayed protesters and rioters as ignorant. Many people asked why anyone would turn on their own community. But major news outlets, and a large portion of America, have missed the point entirely.
The question we should ask is not “why are people rioting?” – the answer to that is obvious: desperation, marginalization and hopelessness. The history of race relations in Baltimore is more grotesque than an Edgar Allan Poe story. The housing situation is a travesty, the public health system is a wreck and the police force echoes the blatant disregard for human life which we see in New York, Ferguson, Miami and other cities around the country. Then there is the deplorably underfunded public school system, which barely manages to rush half the class out the door with a diploma. All of these factors are exacerbated by the flow of jobs out of the city – causing local unemployment to climb as high as 20 percent. (This could be partially offset by an upgrade to the archaic public transportation system, but instead the governor has slashed plans to expand transport services.)
The question we should ask is not, “Why are people rioting?” – the question is – “how do people restrain themselves? Poor black Baltimoreans are treated like animals. No human being can swallow his or her pride forever. The powers-that-be have no right to condescend, nor does the rest of America, from the outside looking in. We as a people have ignored the problem of racial divides for too long. If we fail to bridge that chasm, we cannot fault the oppressed when they throw stones across the gap.
Too often we label black dissidents as “thugs.” But it’s time for some self-reflection. “Thug” is just a way to euphemize and dehumanize Black America so that “Charm City” does not have to admit to wrongdoing. As Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes said, alongside Seattle Seahawks Cornerback Richard Sherman, “thug” is the new “n****r.” We label black men “thugs” and the weight they must bear is a life of perfection simply to break the expectation that they are criminals.
“Must be pretty cool to be white and just represent yourself and not your entire race,” said Kumail Nanjiani, the actor from HBO’s Silicon Valley on Twitter. When you see a white criminal, they are just a criminal, but when you see a black criminal, they are a criminal and they are black, so we go on reinforcing the stereotypes we have already created. When we call people “thugs,” we are condemning their image to criminality. When the police chased Freddie Gray in West Baltimore, they were chasing another “thug” to lock up and remove from the streets. Skin color was the only probable cause they needed.
On the first and only night of riots, Governor Larry Hogan and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called in the National Guard, maximized police presence across the city, instituted a mandatory curfew and declared a formal state of emergency. But Baltimore has been in a tacit state of emergency for years. The only difference this time is that black and white police cruisers were flanked by tan National Guard Humvees.
The city must cease using force as a means of “control.” The military-prison-industrial complex is bleeding Baltimore like a stab wound and Governor Hogan’s misguided war on heroin is doomed to failure. Social inequity, racial injustice and police brutality are catastrophic multi-faceted problems, and they will require decades of work, but in the myopic view of our government, “crime” is much easier to fix.
America needs to wake up. Baltimore did not riot in a vacuum. The officers involved in Freddie Gray’s death will stand trial for an array of charges from false imprisonment and negligent conduct to manslaughter and murder, and the race conversation has been renewed, but we cannot let the momentum wane. We must open our eyes and ears, see what is really going on and listen to the people who have long been shouting to be heard.
My brother and I believe in our city, and we support those who have taken to the streets. The events of the past two weeks have not destroyed the community; they have brought it together to fight for the common causes of truth, justice and equality. It is our hope that the national conversation continues to shift away from “Why are people rioting?” to “What’s the next step?.” These communities need more than cathartic justice against a few oppressors. We have too long scorned our own, but now it’s time to give them back their pride.
Jackson Adams '17 is from Towson, Md.
Zach Adams is from Towson, Md.
(04/29/15 5:54pm)
This year in May, key provisions in the Patriot Act that allow the bulk collection of private data and information are set to expire. In light of that, I find it particularly chilling that within Middlebury’s ongoing micro-debate about security there is an erroneous proposal to increase surveillance by installing new security cameras outside of dining halls in an attempt to address concerns about theft.
This is not the first time the subject has been broached at Midd. In fact, similar discussions took place in 2002, 2005 and 2006. However, thus far Middlebury has thankfully remained – with the exception of the WRMC studio and the art museum – camera-free.
My main concern is that though the administration may claim our dining halls are public spaces, any student that has ever dragged themselves into Proctor sporting a t-shirt and pajama pants would beg to differ. Frankly I don’t see any space on campus as “public,” given that we go to a school of 2,500 students in rural Vermont, a place that we as students call “home” for 9 months a year. If someone is going to film me in my house I at least want a syndicated reality TV series so I can get royalties from it.
And beyond the question of privacy lays a perhaps more important question of efficacy. We tend to assume that our privacy is being given up as payment for the “security” that these cameras provide. But you might be surprised to learn that a great deal of research shows cameras actually fail to decrease the incidence of crime, including theft. The United Kingdom has an extensive network of 40,000 cameras that were deployed in an effort to reduce crime in urban areas, but a 2005 comprehensive meta-analysis by two criminologists, Martin Gill and Angela Spriggs, found that cameras had no overall effect.
The story is the same on this side of the Atlantic. A study conducted by the USC School of Public Policy, Planning and Development, found that LAPD’s COMPSTAT figures from before and after the introduction of security cameras show no statistically significant impact on crime. A 1995 study by Rosemary Erickson, a Ph.D. in Forensic Sociology, found that not only do cameras fail to deter theft, but according to a series of interviews, most would-be and have-been criminals don’t care about the presence of cameras in the areas where they commit their crimes.
And then there is the “peace of mind” argument that, cameras, though ineffectual, somehow make us feel more secure. Ignoring the logical fallacy within that line of argument, there is also extensive evidence to suggest that cameras do not make people feel more secure. The Gill and Spriggs study mentioned earlier found that cameras had zero effect on perceived safety. That is to say, in return for a gross violation of our privacy, not only do cameras fail to provide security, they don’t provide peace of mind either.
The underlying problem is not a lack of surveillance, but a lack of trust. Ben Bogin (the Student Co-Chair of the Community Council) said last year during the April SGA discussion that to limit dorm damage and theft, we should focus on a social honor code to build a culture of integrity instead of installing security cameras. And he’s right; cameras build a culture of paranoia. Even if you close your eyes and wish really hard, the tiny red lights on cameras will never start blinking “I trust you” in Morse code.
So when you walk in and out of the dining halls today, breathe a sigh of relief knowing that you’re not being recorded and you can be yourself. Because in the end, the sense of trust at Middlebury is one of the things that makes this school great. I refuse to give up trust in my fellow students. Cameras have no place at Middlebury.
(03/19/15 2:50am)
If you are a Freshman or Sophomore, you likely attended a mandatory “Active Threat” seminar put on by the school administration during J-Term. Those of you fortunate enough to have missed it the first time were offered a second opportunity a few weeks ago.
The presentation included a video produced by the Department of Homeland Security preaching the keys to surviving an Active Threat situation: “Run. Hide. Fight.” The video in all of its cheesy, overwrought, Die Hard-esque glory, harkens back to the 1951 U.S. Civil Defense film “Duck and Cover’’ which taught school children to duck and cover to save themselves in the event of a nuclear attack. The cute turtle has been ditched in favor of a burly Jack Bauer clone dressed in black and wielding a shotgun, but the message is essentially the same.
The problem is that, while a nuclear attack was a very real threat to the U.S. in the 50s, suggesting that active threat situations loom over us daily is inaccurate and defeatist. The reality is that active threat situations on college campuses are exceedingly rare. Making the video (and mandating campus presentations) was a tacit admission of disinterest in addressing the root causes of campus related gun violence: a lack of gun control and the continuing failure of a mental healthcare system little changed from the one that existed during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Over the past 50 years there has been an average of 6 people killed every year on college campuses by gun violence. That’s roughly equal to the number felled every year from trauma sustained playing football, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Industry Research. But that pales in comparison to the nearly 1,500 college students killed every year in traffic accidents, 1,400 killed in alcohol related incidents, and 1,300 who commit suicide every year. In fact, if you went to college for 92 years straight, you would still only have a 1 in 100 chance of a shooting taking place on your campus. Even then, the odds of you being involved are miniscule.
The fear mongering of the national media that follows “major tragedies” overshadows the less sensational tragedies that occur every day, and as a result, time and resources are wasted on programs like the Active Threat seminars. Instead of giving us a half hour on why our instincts to run and hide when faced with a gun are 100 percent correct, why not give a 30 minute seminar on the signs of alcohol poisoning or what to do if you think your friend is suffering from depression. Even a short defensive driving seminar could save more lives than watching Goth Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot up an office building in a government funded video.
College shootings are national tragedies, but so are all preventable deaths. Sure, it’s time we take a critical look at how we can change gun control policy and the mental healthcare system in the United States, but it’s also time we recognize the reality of the situation: a video and a talk on campus attacks will do nothing to prevent such attacks in the future. So by all means, continue the national discussion about the causes and consequences of “Active Threat” situations, but stop suggesting that people should live in fear by forcing them to attend seminars. The real threats aren’t so sensational.