The neighbors around the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have something huge to start complaining about in 2007.

It's not the fact that in 2006, Milwaukee saw 103 murders.

All across America, the black community remains profoundly aggrieved by the explication enunciated by Michael Richards. While it may be hard to find anyone in the country who didn’t find Richards’s comments obnoxious, racism remains very much alive in our culture.

Although many often choose to presume that race doesn’t matter in our society, racial tension and division increases exponentially year after year.

The debate on where people are allowed to smoke on campus is heating up right as the weather starts to freeze. Due to the indoor smoking ban placed into effect last April, this is the first winter where smoking is no longer permitted anywhere inside campus buildings.

As a result, people who smoke have become increasingly agitated at being forced outside to puff a cigarette.

It“s hard to talk when you“re trying to hold your breath, but I do it anyway.

“Have a nice day,” I gasp with a forced smile, all the while feeling as though I might pass out.

A university, by all basic definitions, is supposed to be a gathering place of intellects, a precursor for future professions, and a safe haven for subsequent studies.

Yet, the current program for elementary education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is anything but safe.

For the last 10 years global climate change has been an issue that many people have disregarded, avoided and denied.

The first investigative hearing since the Democrats took control of Congress was focused on allegations that White House officials micromanaged the governments climate programs and have closely controlled what scientists have been allowed to tell the public.

Derek Sieberts op/ed piece (Is a degree a fair trade for a students safety? Feb. 26) is a perfect example of the racialized individual identity that many white students at UWM seem to have brought to campus.

Yep. You read it. I just made an observation about a white person that was not wholly positive.

I want my full freedom, but I am being denied it by our government.

There are laws in the books that tell me I cannot posses certain items but can possess others. The central examples in this ideological debate are the mistakenly polarized arguments over guns and drugs.

I have been holding off writing this letter for some time because I wanted to wait until student elections were over.

I begin by congratulating Students United For Change (SUFC) on a very positive and well-run campaign and on their crushing victory over the independent candidates. Rob Grover won by a margin of over 2 to 1 against Carlo Albano, and all but one of the SUFC Senate candidates won.

By Albulena Shabani and Angelique Sharpe

During the Student Association elections this year, the Independent Panther candidates were doomed to fail from the very beginning.

As a people, we pride ourselves on being a nation of laws, rather than a nation of men ’ meaning that everybody is required to follow the rule of law regardless of their position in society. However, as a people, we have a fundamental value in the idea of fairness.

Whether it is a fair deal, a fair shake or a fair fight, we don’t believe it is right to kick a person when they are down.

As a student here at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I was under the assumption that, as our school promotes itself with the catchy slogan “Something Great in Mind,” they would actually trust us to utilize our “great minds” to make decisions.

I would especially hope that we would at least be trusted to make decisions that pertain to how our own segregated fees (the money students contribute to enhance their educational experience) would be spent. Unfortunately my hope and trust in that fact has been violated by the current segregated fees debacle.

I am a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and an active member of the Wisconsin Public Interest Resource Group student chapter here. Through this organization I have learned more than I ever could in a classroom. WISPIRG has not simply described to me notions of civic engagement, grassroots organizing and leadership; it has SHOWN me these things.

I have had the amazing opportunity to experience first hand the fruits of my labor. Not many 21-year-olds can say they have battled global warming, fought powerful corporate interests and helped protect human rights.

An editorial by Joshua McCracken titled “The thrill of the barbaric” appeared in the Oct. 29 UWM Post and discussed the idea that hunting is a cowardly and senseless practice. As a vegan and an animal rights activist, I agree with the editorial’s general point, but some inaccurate and seemingly thoughtless assertions made in the editorial deserve reply.

Mr. McCracken’s attitudes about hunting exemplify our culture’s inconsistent views of non-human animals. Many people feel sympathy and even sorrow when they face the suffering of dogs who have been used for fighting, companion animals abused or neglected by their humans or deer shot like in “Bambi.”

Billion dollar presidential races financed by the wealthiest one percent; legislative leaders behind bars for corruption offenses; Wisconsin Supreme Court races marked by scandal and controversy – Damn right we lobbied Governor Jim Doyle to convene a special legislative session on campaign finance reform.

And so, at the request of Democracy Matters at UWM and other grassroots reform movements, Gov. Doyle found the heart on the morning of Nov. 30 to use his executive privilege to convene legislative action to pass a better comprehensive, bipartisan campaign finance reform.

There is no doubt that many of you have read the pro-Cuba article concocted by Erik Sperling; and I am sure the majority of you who haven’t studied a lot about Cuba said to yourself, “Wow I never knew that!” I am all for learning new things, but I take everything I learn with a little grain of salt; and in this case I took the whole shaker. What Sperling managed to spin and spit onto a piece of paper was nothing but a frustrated attempt of Bush bashing. Apparently success in Iraq forces these people to try even less soundly based attacks on a heavily misunderstood administration.

Unfortunately I am not here to argue the political motivation of the editorial, just the legality of its content. ’Tis the season of giving, and I am feeling very generous at the moment. I will not challenge any of the facts that Mr. Sperling claimed, despite the absence of any sort of citations (Aside from the Cuban Ambassador). I will take his word for truth, I will accept that Cuba has amazing healthcare, a “high standard of living”, high educational standards and is pristine in its ability to feed its population. Even though I know these facts are twisted to the extreme.

United for a Fair Economy recently put out a report entitled “Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008,” in the face of a U.S. economic recession that could delve as deep as the Great Depression. Not too long ago, Hurricane Katrina revealed a prejudice of our country, and we were forced to confront that prejudice in the images of the media and the inadequate rescue efforts and unfulfilled promises of our government. The Subprime loan scandal being revealed just three years later is surfacing consequences and proofs of discrimination far worse and more damaging.

As the federal government stood aside, the Subprime mortgage industry grew from a $35 billion to a $665 billion-a-year business from the mid 1990s until now. Statistics of the “State of the Dream” report show in cold proof that the largest recipients of the subprime loan are African-American and Latino individuals and communities. People of color are more than three times more likely to have subprime loans than white people.

Last semester the student government, which calls itself the “Student Association” decided to cut funding for the Women’s Resource Center and LGBT Resource Center, as well as completely defund the LINKS Peer Mentoring Center.

The attitude and actions of the “Student Association” in no way makes them seem as if they are in “association” with the students. Rather than acting for and with the students, they are abusing their power and going against the constituents they represent. For the sake of accuracy, I will refer to them throughout this article as the “Student Aristocracy”.

Last week our splendid student government legislative body, the Student Association (SA) Senate, passed a bill called the SA Sedition Act.

Proposed by Sen. Joseph Ohler, it passed with a 10-7-3 vote. According to the bill, any group or individual would be held accountable for releasing libelous or slanderous material. Such actions would result in a cease and desist order from the student government.

In a February 11th Op/Ed, JJ Burseth gave his opinion of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student government, the Student Association, by renaming it the “Student Aristocracy”. In an Op/Ed published the next week, he compared the Student Association to Nazis. While Mr. Burseth can resort to name calling and personal attacks all he wants (it’s a free country), he is naïve to think students and faculty alike will conform to his definition of a “leader”.

Mr. Burseth is president of the Students for a Democratic Society at UWM. It’s the college branch of the Weathermen Underground, founded by Mark Rudd, mastermind of the violent uprising at Columbia University in 1969, and heralded by William Ayers, who bombed the U.S. Capital building in Washington, D.C. So I would like to ask Mr. Burseth and members of SDS what’s so funny about anarchy, civilian deaths and domestic terrorism?

On April 19, 2007 Wisconsin state Sens. Fred Risser, Robert Jauch and Tim Carpenter introduced Senate Bill 151, an act intending to make euthanasia a real and legal possibility for the terminally ill in Wisconsin. Euthanasia is a highly controversial topic in the United States, and once again the country is raising the issue, sparking debates about the moral and legal rights citizens have over their own mortality.

So what exactly is euthanasia, anyway? The word euthanasia originated from the Greek language: eu means “good,” and thanatos means “death.” This linguistic definition may hold little value these days, as our current idea of euthanasia seems to be synonymous with the term “physician-assisted suicide.”

Ask Wind Woman!

Wind Woman, the energy-saving superhero, answers your questions!

It is a basic manner to listen when people talk. It is also a well-known fact that some people do not have manners. What is not so well known is that it is those without manners who are the greatest danger to freedom of speech on this campus.

Last Wednesday the Conservative Union, a registered student group on campus who has hosted many speakers in the past, hosted their final speaker of this academic year, David Horowitz. What promised to be an informative lecture and a nice eye-opener to students on campus was turned into a display of disrespect for both Mr. Horowitz and the Conservative Union and their right to free speech. As a member of the Conservative Union I am appalled and frustrated by the way the event was hijacked and ruined by members of the Muslim Student Association and other leftist organizations

Welcome to UWM, where you’re about to experience the largest expansion of personal life micromanagement in Wisconsin history. It’s called Chapter 17.

With almost a full week of classes already under our belts, we can begin to settle into our fall schedules. It’s also likely that you’ve now had the experience of your first, or second…or third house party of the new semester. In regards to that, there are some things you should know.

With all of the Presidential campaigning going on, we hear a lot about politicians accusing each other of being out of touch with the average person. Increasingly around UWM, your elected officials in student government can legitimately be accused of the same.

You may not know this, but while the rest of us are driving around frantically at 10:50 a.m. looking for a parking spot so we can get to our 11:00 class on time, Student Association President Tyler Draheim will be pulling into his RESERVED parking space in Lubar Hall.

Last semester was a bit of a wild ride for myself as well as many members of ASAP (Achieving Student Action through Progress). In spite of being kicked off the ballot by the IEC Dan Bahr, co-founder of SUFC, many off us have spent the summer working on local campaigns, partisan and non-partisan.