december 2015 - binghamton review

2 BINGHAMTON REVIEW December 2015

BINGHAMTON REVIEW P.O. BOX 6000BINGHAMTON, NY 13902-6000

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Founded 1987 • December 2015

Contents

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!Direct letter to [email protected]

Departments3 EDITORIAL4 CAMPUS PRESSWATCH5 WHAT yOU MISSED

Editor-in-ChiefSean M. Glendon

Managing EditorJordan Raitses

Copydesk EditorThomas Casey

Newsdesk ChiefRaymond Page

New-Media EditorHaim Engelman

Treasureryuval Hananya

Associate EditorAntonia Mallozzi

Staff WritersAlex Carros, Howard Hecht,

David Keptsi, Luke Kusick, Patrick McAuliffe

ContributorsLaura Grasso, Joseph Gunder-son, David Izsak, Max Newman

Special Thanks To:Intercollegiate Studies

InstituteCollegiate Network

Binghamton Review was printed by Gary Marsden

We Provide the Truth. He Provides the Staples

6 Debunking New-Age Western Feminismby Laura Grasso

7 Center for Civic Enragementby Alex Carros

8 Million Student March Hits Homeby Raymond Page

9 Free College by Thomas Casey10 My Awkward Sodexual Encounter

by Patrick McAuliffe11 A Musician’s Dream Nearing Fruition

by Patrick McAuliffe12 Misery in Missouri by David Keptsi13 The Phony Express by Luke Kusick14 Shit Buzzfeed Says Act 3 by Howard Hecht16 A Frightening French Future

by Max Newman18 Poll Dancing by Joseph Gunderson20 Put up that Fence by David Izsak21 The Greatest Show on TV by Sean Glendon22 Lobbying for Dummies by Haim Engelman23 A Binghamton Review Review

by Jordan Raitses

2 BINGHAMTON REVIEW December 2015 [email protected] Binghamtonreview.com 3

P.O. BOX 6000BINGHAMTON, NY 13902-6000

[email protected] From the EditorEDITORIALDear Readers,

Finals are among us, unfortunately. Best of luck to you readers, and thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to pick up this issue of Bing-hamton Review. I hope you enjoy it. As you may have noticed, this issue is thicker than previous issues this semester has been. Throughout this semester, The Review has grown in size, and we have received many fresh faces interested in writing. As a result, sixteen pages were not enough to fit all of the content. Lucki-ly for you, you get 50% extra Binghamton Review this month… think of it as a late Black Friday deal. This issue we have a whopping FIVE first time contribu-tors - Laura Grasso, Raymond Page, Max Newman, Joseph Gunderson, and David Izsak. Laura is on a mission to debunk portions of the feminist move-ment, Ray has began to focus on a news-based ap-proach and reported on the Million Student March, Max looks at the future of France in the wake of the terrorist attacks that occurred on November 13th, Joe investigates flaws in the polling system that ranks candidates, and David discusses border options in Europe and the parallels to America that are being faced.

This issue also features a wide variety of content from our normal contributors. Alex attended a Cen-ter for Civic Engagement event and has a strong opin-ion about what he saw. Tom responds to the belief that college should be free, and also added a comic to this issue! Patrick continues on his exploration of Sodexo, this time in CIW and also covers a nonprofit that one of his favorite Sodexo employees, CJ, is in-volved with. David discusses racism at the University of Missouri and the demands of Concerned Student 1950. Luke criticizes Bernie Sanders and his desire to

Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, student-run periodical of conservative thought at Binghamton University. A true liberal arts education expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent perspectives. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free exchange of ideas and offer an alternative viewpoint not normally found on our predominately liberal campus. It is our duty to expose the warped ideology of political correctness that dominates this university. We stand against tyranny in all of its forms, both on campus and beyond. We believe in the principles set forth in this country’s Declaration of Independence and seek to preserve the fundamental tenets of Western civilization. Finally, we understand that a moral order is a necessary component of any civilized society. We strive to inform, engage, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.

Our Mission

Million Student March Hits Home

My Awkward Sodexual Encounter

by Joseph Gunderson

combine the Post Office and banking system. How-ard continues his journey through the depths of hell, or Buzzfeed as some like to call it. I examine the cur-rent format of the primary debate system, and how the rules for qualification have essentially made it a glorified reality show. Haim discusses the concept of lobbying, and explains how it can actually be benefi-cial. Finally, Jordan tries to extend an olive branch by giving an overview of some alternative publications that are created on campus.

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this semester. I work with a wonderful staff that consistently meets deadlines and attends meetings. I set the goal for this semester to be publishing four sixteen page issues and that goal was exceeded. With that being said, go-ing forward there is always room for improvement and I will strive to set and reach higher goals next semester. If you’ve enjoyed reading us, I would highly recommend getting involved. I joined Binghamton Review my first semester at Binghamton University, and it has been the most rewarding experience I’ve had throughout college. If you are looking to get in-volved, email me at [email protected] with your area of interest and we will find a way for you to get involved!

Also, this month’s cover is clearly in reference to the Starbucks Red Cup Scandal of 2015.With that being said, Merry Christmas Happy Holidays, Bing-hamton University!

Sincerely,

Sean Glendon


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM

Campus presswatCh“We cannot criticize ISIS without be-ing ignorant”Anita RaychawdhuriPipe Dream November 17, 2015“An article on the Paris attacks is in-debted to careful navigation of terms. How can we criticize the Islamic State without accidentally revealing our ignorance or hatred of Islam? How do we balance showing strength with common sense? ”Your article is titled “We cannot crit-icize ISIS without being ignorant.” Sure we can. ISIS is a group of radical terrorists that has killed many inno-cent people and hurt even more. ISIS burned 45 people to death in Iraq. They recruit children, pose a protec-tion tax, kidnap people for ransom, and brutally behead people. They need to be stopped. There. Mission accomplished. It is unfortunate that some people are ignorant, but there are many people who are against ISIS without being Islamophobic or igno-rant.“This Parisian attack is purposefully exacerbating the social battle between poor whites and immigrants. This myth that the immigrants are steal-ing resources, jobs and security from whites is central to why events like Paris have such an impact and plays into why Paris has a Facebook filter and a “safe” button rather than Beirut.”Is this specifically a poor white vs. immigrant issue? According to the myth are immigrants stealing from white people and only white people? It seems a bit *ignorant* to frame an article about ignorance by simplify-ing an issue down to white vs. immi-grant.

“Is your makeup formulating sexist conclusions on female capacity?”Sophia San FilippoPipe Dream November 10, 2015“Recently, while out in public, I over-heard one of the most discriminatory and sexist remarks I have ever heard in my life. It went a little something like this:‘Hilary Clinton is a joke. How can a

woman expect to take on the duties as head chief of America like a man can if she’s probably too busy applying makeup and worrying about her fig-ure? I mean, come on. No one can take her seriously.’”I am sorry that you had to overhear this. Hillary Clinton’s incompetence has nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman, and if this person was trying to make a joke, he or she clear-ly failed. Hillary Clinton is a joke. I agree there. But Hillary Clinton is a joke solely because of her failed pol-icies and constant flip flopping, not because she is a woman. Also, you spelled “Hillary” wrong.“Furthermore, when was the last time you saw Obama take the podium be-fore an audience with a strong five o’clock shadow or some three-day stubble poking through? Try to look it up; I dare you. He is always clean-shav-en and ready-to-go at any political or diplomatic citing. Now this, of course, serves very little magnitude to surmise anything about his extent of leadership competence.”I did look it up, since you dared. And while pictures of Obama with facial hair don’t exist, it doesn’t seem to be a matter of leadership competence - it has more to do with genetics. Ac-cording to a 2006 interview, Barack Obama told Betsy Rothstein: “I can’t grow facial hair… I get whiskers.” It’s hard to find a picture of something that doesn’t exist, but I tried. “On the web, look up images of Obama getting his makeup done; I can assure you these photos are present.”After multiple search queries, and

multiple pages of web browsing, I managed to find one image of Barack Obama getting his makeup done and two images of a wax figure of Barack Obama getting touched up.

“Feminism isn’t a fad; ‘trendy’ mindset limits abilities of activist goals”Sarah SaadPipe Dream October 30, 2015“One shirt that reads, “This is What a Feminist Looks Like,” sells for $50 and is made by predominately female migrant workers in a factory. If that shirt were true, it would mean that a feminist was an individual who had the financial freedom to spend more on a T-shirt than some make in a few hours.”The real issue here is the price of the T-shirt! Who the hell would $50 for a T-shirt?! A quick search for the T-shirt found it available for $22.50 on feminist.org. The shirt is listed as “Made in the USA, Sweat-shop Free.” This doesn’t have any mention of mi-grant workers, but sounds like a safer purchase than many other clothing purchase options available. Nobody is forcing a feminist to purchase a shirt like that, but wouldn’t she in-herently be exercising her financial freedom by buying the T-shirt in question?

Written by our Staff

[email protected] Binghamtonreview.com 5


WHAT you missedOn November 13th, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in-cluding mass shootings, suicide bombings, and hostage situa-tions took place in Paris, France. 130 victims were killed, with hundreds of others injured. ISIL claimed responsibility for the at-tacks.

Internet hacktivist group Anon-ymous declared war against ISIL. They have already deleted thousands of pro-ISIL Twitter accounts and have published the names and addresses of some of the organization’s recruiters.

In response to the Paris attacks, The Dalai Lama said, “We cannot solve this problem only through prayers. I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you cre-ated it in the first place.”

The University of Missouri sparked nationwide headlines after protests by students against racism began on campus. A graduate student, Jonathan But-ler, started a hunger strike and black football players joined in. This led to the resignation of University President Tim Wolfe. The protests spread to other campuses around the nation and became a polarizing topic.

Joe’s Crab Shack became the first national full-service restaurant chain to implement a no tipping policy. Servers will be paid at

least $14 per hour based on past performance, and menu prices will be increasing between 12% and 15%. CEO Ray Blanchette believes that this new policy will reduce turnover, increase the quality of service, and lower overall prices paid by normally generous tippers.

Members of the European Par-liament narrowly voted for Eu-ropean Union states to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extra-dition or rendition by third par-ties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and interna-tional human rights defender.”

Airport security in the Philip-pines has apparently been plac-ing bullets in the luggage of un-suspecting travellers, and then extorting money from these pas-sengers.

The Allahabad High Court of In-dia ruled that a child born out of rape has inheritance rights over the property of the assaulter and biological father. The court went on to say that this would not be the case if the child is given away for adoption.

Ireland plans on decriminalizing small amounts of drugs includ-ing marijuana, heroin, and co-caine in an attempt to shift the nation’s culture and how it han-dles substance abuse.

In another example of govern-ment inefficiency, it was revealed

that the Department of Defense spent $42.7 million on a gas sta-tion in Afghanistan. It was de-termined that the cost of the gas station should have been around $500,000, meaning taxpayers may have overpaid by well over 10,000%.

The one child policy introduced in China in 1979 has come to an end. The policy is estimated to have prevented 400 million births, but with an aging popu-lation, the nation ended the pol-icy. While rules began to relax in recent years, Chinese couples will now be allowed to have two (and no more than two) children across the board!

The Canadian federal election re-sulted in a victory for the Liberal Party, led by new Prime Minis-ter Justin Trudeau. The Liberal Party’s increase of 148 seats from the last election was the largest numerical increase in the coun-try’s history. Trudeau made his cabinet the first gender balanced cabinet, with 15 men and 15 women, “because it’s 2015.”

November 3rd was Election Day. At the local level Fred Akshar absolutely destroyed Barbara Fi-ala to become the next state sen-ator for our district. Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi held gubernatorial elections: Repub-lican Phil Bryant won reelection in Mississippi, Republican Matt Bevin won in Kentucky, and Democrat John Bel Edwards re-placed term-limited Bobby Jin-dal in Louisiana.


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMDEBUNKING NEW-AGE WESTERN FEMINISM

Debunking New-Age Western Feminism:An IntroductionWritten By Laura Grasso

The Tumblr-spawn’s whines have made the “feminist” move-

ment louder. They have, regrettably, grabbed far too much of my attention. The main discourse on third-wave feminism revolves around three main points: the misunderstood wage gap, the so-called glass ceiling, and the pa-triarchy (read: boogeyman).

Feminist.org describes the “glass ceiling” as “a barrier that is so subtle that it is transparent, yet so strong that it prevents women from moving up the corporate hierarchy. From their vantage point on the corporate ladder, women can see the high-level corpo-rate positions but are kept from reach-ing the top.” It is “not simply a barrier for an individual, based on the per-son’s inability to handle a higher-level job. Rather, the glass ceiling applies to women as a group who are kept from advancing higher because they are women.” The culprit behind this belief, according to feminists, is “the patriarchy”– the belief that we live in a society that is male-dominated, in which only men hold positions of leadership, are socially privileged, and hold moral authority. The logic goes as follows: more men than women hold positions of power, those men con-tinue to hire more men than women because they see men as being more capable, thus only a small percentage of women manage to reach high levels of power, so women as a whole can’t reach those positions that are above the “glass ceiling.”

I almost believed it. I almost did. Until I realized that there are laws that prevent discrimination against gender. Implemented by men. Who elected those men? Glad you asked– women. The Washington Post records that ever since 1980, more women have been voting than men. Anyway, since there is no legal issue in regards to hiring, feminists must be approach-ing this from a standpoint that merely ASSUMES that men in power choose not to hire women because they prefer men. But first, I have questions. How did men arise to those positions of

power? By stepping on women to get to the top? Or did they exert the ag-gression, knowledge, and leadership skills necessary to get there?

In the late 20th and early 21st century, as women increasingly seek higher education and attain degrees (The Pew Research center has also re-corded that since 1992, more women than men have been attaining four-year degrees, and the gap between male and female graduation rates is continuing to expand) it is more than ridiculous to argue that women with the proper academic qualifications ar-en’t being hired because men, on the whole, are sexist and think that a male could do the job better. In fact, that is the opposite of what’s happening: re-searchers at the Cornell Institute for Women in Science have found that in the STEM field, women enjoy a 2:1 hiring ratio over men who are just as qualified for the position. What is likely the ugly truth is that the vast majority of women lack the assertive-ness, confidence, and determination to further themselves in their careers.

you will find that men who lack assertiveness and drive will also find themselves in lower positions of pow-er. It is less an issue with gender than it is with personality. For example, if you’re familiar with the Myers-Briggs type indicator, you know that ENTJ types (extroversion, intuition, think-ing, judgment) are more likely to be top executives, lawyers, entrepre-neurs, and organization builders.

Conversely, ISFJs (introverting, sens-ing, feeling, judging) are more likely to be decorators, social workers, child care providers, and assistants. The jobs that ENTJs are most likely to hold pay higher than the ISFJ jobs. This helps explain the wage gap: most women are nurturers, more likely to be ISFJ types. The wage gap is calculated by dividing the median annual earnings for wom-en by the median annual earnings for men. As follows, women get paid less on average because the jobs that they are most likely to hold don’t offer as high of a salary– NOT because wom-en are being paid less for the same job. That is not a thing that’s happening in America. I can’t believe I just had to say that.

Alas, I can’t blame everything on the third-wave feminists; I have to concede that they are a product of their social environment. Millenni-als, by and large, have the tendency to assign blame to others before them-selves. We also like to complain about the way things are, when only a few of us are gifted with the motivation to change it. We have been conditioned to view things as unfair and unjust when we have failed to win. Women, my advice to you is to remember that nothing restrains us– it is the third-wave feminist movement that is fool-ing us into thinking that we can’t do everything. We can, as long as we keep our noses to the grindstone and stop wasting the time and energy on the bitching.


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM CENTER FOR CIVIC ENRAGEMENT

Center for Civic EnragementWritten By Alex Carros

Before stating my opinion proper, I think it’s important to preface by saying that the first part of the Center for Civic En-gagement’s event was fairly good. It was respectful, polite, and allowed for polite disagreement; this is more than what can be said for yale or the University of Missouri. The message, that men are suffering from rigid societal expectations, seems bal-anced and fair, and I think we can all agree that promoting the freedom of choice for anybody (within reason) is a good thing. But this is where my praise for the event stops. The panel, like many others regarding gender equality, suffered from the rather standard amount of misleading or discredited academic studies, particularly those pertaining to women somehow being an op-pressed class. So, while the general message was good, we can-not let these important details and assertions go undisputed, as they will undoubtedly play a large part in whatever misguided solutions these people plan to put forward.

The first and most glaring issue was the notion of men be-ing a privileged class in the United States, along with women being a subservient one. The host of the panel, Professor Meri-weather, started the discussion with the widely discredited “1 in 5 women will be victims of sexual assault in college” study by the Association of American Universities. This study, along with others like it, has been debunked for having a small sample size, a non-representative population, and overly broad definitions. The most accurate rate of sexual violence, according the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ “Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization among College-Age Females, 1995–2013,” is around 0.61%. And before any of you go spouting the comically unsubstantiated “90% of rapes go undocumented” that would still bring you to only ~1 in 17, dramatically far from the 1:5 that still gets tossed around.

What troubled me most about Meriweather’s use of the sta-tistics was how unmarked it was; it was taken for the truth with-out any sort of debate or discussion. This, in turn, set a tone of culpability and guilt that would permeate throughout the rest of the event: men would have to change, not for their own well-be-ing, but so they could be less of a threat towards women. The program even said that the panel was to “[explore] the facts sur-rounding and solutions for ending violence against women…” They later changed this to include the phrase, “and other men” as a token gesture of egalitarianism. Never mind the fact that the majority of victims in violent crime are men, accounting for 76.8% of homicide victims according to Bureau of Justice Statis-tics. Nope, we’re only interested in how evil and toxic masculin-ity threatens the virtuous, pure, unspoiled perfection of mother Gaia and femininity.

Another conspicuous absence in the panel was how so-cietal perceptions of masculinity benefit women, specifically in custody hearings (women receive custody 85% of the time), prison sentencing (women are given 12% shorter sentences for the same crime), and domestic violence. As I stated before, male victimhood in violence was never brought up by anyone in the discussion, even though the whole supposed point was to dis-cuss how men are treated unfairly. Domestic violence, for those

of you who are unaware, is not a gendered issue, with men mak-ing up 43% of total victims. Despite this, less than 1% of those helped in shelters and clinics were men. In fact, the 1995 Home Office Research Study 191 for England and Wales found that in 12% of cases where the man called the police, he himself was arrested. This hasn’t happened in any of the cases for women. In addition, according to a 2007 study by Daniel J. Whitaker et al., men make up 53% of all victims in non-reciprocal violence (which is roughly half of all domestic violence), and women make up more than 70% of the perpetrators. In other words, in cases where only one partner is being mistreated (which is half), chances are the victim is a man and the aggressor is a woman. It’s important to distinguish, however, that women are no more or less guilty of this sort of thing. Being a violent asshole isn’t monopolized by one sex; unlike those hosting the event, I’m not trying to convince you that half the population is dangerous and needs to reform for the greater good.

This is the overarching problem that these events, along with third-wave feminism as a whole, tend to perpetuate: it is entirely gynocentric, even when it swears it isn’t. So, even if you go to a discussion on how men are being held to unreasonable societal standards, you’re only going to hear the tired old asser-tion that women are a “marginalized” class in the United States. you’ll find that it’s rather hard to defend this, though, when men are the majority of suicides (78%), the unemployed, the home-less (61%), the drug-addicted (up to 59%), the incarcerated (90%), high school and college drop-outs (54%), and workplace deaths (93%). Oh, and women live longer, graduate more often from college with better grades, have the majority of consum-er spending power (70% - 80%), and are the majority of voters (65.7%). But women are totally the victims in all this, right?

The panel had its heart in the right place, it really did, but it was bogged down by so much of the same nonsense that I’ve sadly come to expect from this sort of “gender equality” event. I won’t speak on the second half of the event, because I did not attend, but I will conclude that the first part spouted the same worn-out, discredited assertions and took them all as factual. This, in turn, led to an atmosphere of abject guilt in manhood, and abject victimhood in femininity. How are we to bridge the supposed gap between the sexes when we keep telling boys that they are flawed for who they are, and that girls need to fear or reform them for their own safety? How are we to help young men when we won’t even acknowledge areas in which they’re victims?


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMMILLION STUDENT MARCH

Million Student March Hits HomeWritten By Raymond PageBinghamton Review has not had much in the way of campus news in the past. This month, a new member, Raymond Page, has sought to change that. We hope you will all enjoy his new style of reporting alongside your regular Binghamton Review content.

On November 12th, Binghamton University students gath-ered in protest to participate in what is being referred to as

The Million Student March.In a display of national camaraderie, students from over

100 college and university campuses across the nation marched in solidarity; declaring in one audible voice, their collective de-mands for livable working wages, free public education, and loan forgiveness.

Jonathan Taubes, a member of the Executive Board for Binghamton College Progressives says that $15 per hour is not too much to ask for.

“If minimum wage in this country kept up with the pace of inflation, it would be even higher than that.”

There is currently a national grassroots movement called Fight For $15. According to Taubes the result of this political activism has led to both Seattle and Los Angeles raising their minimum wage to $15 per hour.

“The Million Student March is a nationally organized event,” says Sara Hobler, double major in history and sociology and President of the College Progressives organization.

“There is immense pressure for people to go to college. you need a bachelor’s degree for basically everything these days, but for highly coveted jobs—you need a master’s or in some cases even a doctorate,” she says.

Chanting phrases such as, “the students united will never be defeated” and “no ifs no buts, no more education cuts,” Ho-bler led the impassioned crowd of frustrated students as they picketed and rebelliously rallied for their collective cause.

But not all students agree with these demands. Although the cause is considered by many to be a worthy endeavor, jump-ing from minimum wage to a staggering $15 per hour may be a bit extreme.

“They are asking for too much,” says junior graphic design major, Evan Bavarsky.

“None of this stuff can happen overnight. They need to try and go for a reasonable goal and then bit-by-bit, work their way up to a bigger goal,” he says.

“To ask for an immediate change is definitely an extremist thing.”

Math and chemistry major, John Voigt believes that com-plete debt forgiveness is excessive. He feels that it would certain-ly help a select demographic, but not without creating negative consequences as well.

“There might need to be some changes in the way the gov-ernment allocates funding in order to subsidize such a drastic debt forgiveness program. Certain things would need to be cut to make increases possible in other areas.”

Although, plans have been proposed, none of them have come to fruition.

One plan in particular would place higher taxes on specu-lative trading on Wall Street. This is a way to penalize high-risk traders, while simultaneously generating much needed revenue in the process. The thinking here is as follows: if they are going to profit by engaging in risky behavior, some of those earnings should fall into the lap of the educational system.

Hobler and Taubes are resolute in their convictions.“We will not stop until our demands are met,” says Taubes.“We are just getting started.”Hobler, a native of Buffalo, was awarded a high school

scholarship to Binghamton University. Due to extremely low graduation rates among her academic peers, Buffalo school dis-trict encourages graduating students to pursue college level ed-ucation by providing funds for students to be used at any SUNy campus of their choosing.

Buffalo’s Say yes to Education program is a non-profit or-ganization geared toward sending economically disadvantaged students to college.

“I want others to have the same opportunity that I did,” says Hobbler.

“My dad works in the labor union and I’ve been going on strikes since I was 3 years old. Growing up in a world surround-ed by low-wage workers was eye opening and I’ve seen the im-pact that giving these people opportunities has had.”

“We’re all humans and we all deserve a chance,” she says.Offering a variant perspective, tax-paying resident of Bing-

hamton, Cora King has a few choice words for these protestors.“It’s all about greed and nothing in this world is free. I had

$142 taken out of my paycheck weekly to pay off my debt. I scrambled, I saved and I busted ass. They need to pay too.”

King feels that the burden will invariably land on taxpay-ers.

“I’m not paying out the nose for these kids that don’t want to pay their bills. It’s just not fair.”

Even Taubes agrees that any drastic change in minimum wage could spell economic disaster.

“Do I think this should happen tomorrow? No! It has to be phased in. Doing this overnight would be a massive shock to the economy. It needs to be done over a term of several years.”

But this does not mean that the conversation should be forgotten.

“Student debt is often spoken about as a future crisis,” says Taubes. “Many economists speak about a student-debt-bubble that will ‘someday’ explode. But we are feeling this right now. Let’s reverse this trend. Let’s invest in education and stop screw-ing over the middle class.”

Whether or not you sympathize with the plight of local stu-dents is immaterial. The fight is not tomorrow or the day after; it’s here and it’s today.

Students of the Binghamton University progressive move-ment remain vigilant and unwavering in their convictions.

“We are not going anywhere,” says Hobler.“Our voices must be heard and we will not stop until our

demands are met.”


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM FREE COLLEGE

Free College*Written By Thomas Casey

Free college is a misnomer. Unless, of course, someone has unjustly slapped bars around Binghamton University, “Free college! Free it now! It did nothing wrong!” But, college did do something wrong. College imposed $1.2 trillion of debt on its graduates. College inflicted examination anxiety and unceasing stress. College made 19-year-olds memorize the periodic table while subsisting on inedible dinners. “Jail college! Lock it away!” That’s an offbeat rallying cry. Strangely, predominant student or-ganizations like Million Student March (MSM), are calling for more people to join the overtly criminal organization of higher education. These groups are marching to combat burgeoning student debt, declaring that the government should pay for col-lege and absolve all money owed. MSM won over the hearts, minds, and wallets of college-attending or college-bound kids everywhere with the promise of a 1,460/day 1,459/night, all-ex-penses paid trip to university. The fine print of its proposal is a significantly less sexy message. The organizers of the march push for the federal government to pay tuition at all public universi-ties. Funding will either stem from higher marginal tax rates in the highest income brackets or a $0.05 tax levied on stock trades over $100. The harsh truth: free college is a misnomer. The tu-ition only proposal is a far cry from the idealistic, debt free ex-perience. Amazingly, this shortsighted effort won’t do much in terms of swelling college enrollment. In fact, the policy proposal behind Million Student March is excessively selfish.

Buy None Get One Free We’re down to the gritty dollar details in our academia

battlefield. Let’s use a microcosm to sharpen the perspective. Binghamton University costs $200,000 for an in-state, four year undergraduate education. I understand the checks we write out each year are about $20,000, but that only covers Binghamton’s explicit costs. Lost wages, or the salary a high school graduate could earn working full-time, cost $27,000 a year in New york State. Coupled with additional fees and conditional living ex-penses, a year roleplaying as a Bearcat runs up to $50,000. MSM presents its proposal as a panacea. However, the organization calls for only the subsidization of tuition. Time to burst some balloons. Tuition, and strictly tuition, the component MSM will graciously gift to every college hopeful, is $6,470. That’s 12.94% off Binghamton’s total bill. Sounds like a pretty lackluster cou-pon to me. Unless the demand for State U is more elastic than Flubber, we won’t be opening many more opportunities. MSM’s tuition-only proposal isn’t enough to bring forward less fortu-nate highschoolers. Books, fees, room, board, and lost wages blast away any long-term benefits. Destitute, financially over-whelmed New yorkers can’t commit to Binghamton with only 12% to ride on. MSM’s offer is simply not progressive enough. So why the hullabaloo? Why do self-titled progressives stride in lockstep boasting the tuition paid policy? Most support stems from misguidedness. Again, the unofficial slogan “free college” is a heckuva misnomer. However, be it a modicum or a moun-tain, greed’s waltzing right along with ‘em. MSM is not progres-sive enough in their ambitions; they’re about 60% away from a tangential difference (you need at least a C- for it to count). Why

keep at this failure of a movement? Because it will help them.Gimme Gimme Gimme!

you’ve done it. you’ve forgone your potential job as a truck driver or freelance coder to attend Binghamton University. you have the financial stability to either comfortably take out loans or dip into your parents’ savings. There’s a movement going around, calling for Baxter to hand back the $6,470 you mailed him in August. If you succeed, college will be cheaper! Move into a shack on the Westside, and SUNy-B will practically be free! Dab a coat of inclusivity on your crusade and ride the so-cial reform wave all the way to M&T Bank. MSM can claim ev-eryone under the lackluster Binghamton sun as its benefactors. Ultimately, the real shareholders are the organizers themselves. MSM’s movement is not about opening up college to the less fortunate. MSM wants someone else to foot a small part of a bill they could’ve paid just as well themselves. Imagine college as a fancy dinner. “Hey all, let’s have Wall Street buy us appetizers! Say, why aren’t all those people outside coming into the steak-house? J.P. Morgan’s covering the post-dinner mints!” Gimme, gimme, gimme free tuition. But hey, it’s not just for me.

Who Gets the Bill?Mark the 19-year-old waiter. Lauren the 20 year old en-

trepreneur. Sally, 22, unemployed. While the members of MSM slip more spending money into their pockets, the very people MSM purports to represent foot the cost. Mark, Lauren, and Sally didn’t even notice the difference when Binghamton went on sale for 88% MSRP. These people had to work to survive right out of high school, and now they’re paying extra because some rich kids wanted free stuff. Even by targeting the wealthy, MSM’s payment proposals will devastate the bottom bracket. The own-er of Mark’s restaurant shuts down when her marginal tax rate skyrockets. She doesn’t see a point of staying open when the government takes 90% of every dollar she makes for the rest of the year. Lauren and Sally watch their meager retirement savings plummet when stock activity falls. Even a $0.05 tax will cause a problem. There’s a reason that the MSM’s campaign happens ex-clusively on college campuses. MSM only uplifts the people who are fortunate enough to attend college in the first place.

A Solemn ConclusionWhile MSM’s intentions may be unclear, the organization’s

policy of subsidized tuition is unabashedly selfish. Entitled current university students want someone else to pay a small percentage of the true costs of college. Subsidized tuition would put extra spending money in the pockets of those who definitely don’t need it. The policy steals away from the underprivileged Americans MSM claims to help. Stop begging for more advan-tages. Start considering the effects your unsound demands have. And, ultimately, if you’re serious about getting, true-blue, real deal, free college education, well. . .

THE RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS (ROTC) IS IN LIBRARy NORTH

Quit your whining and give ‘em a chance!


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMA TRIP THROUGH THE WOODS

My Awkward Sodexual Encounters:A Trip Through the Woods

Written By Patrick McAuliffe

Here we go, making our way around the Brain, sampling the

local cuisine. I’ve grown to enjoy this because it gets me out there, seeing the sights of campus. Granted, I dread the many trips up to Mountainview next month. In the winter, too! The things I do for you, Binghamton Review.

This month, I frequented Col-lege-in-the-Woods’ dining hall. It was rather convenient because it was close to my classes in the Engineering Building. (Weird that I’m not even an engineering major. Farthest from it, in fact.) All the trails through the woods to get there were also mildly exciting. Brought me back to my Boy Scout days.

Anyways, the actual place. The hours seem a bit inconvenient. The whole thing closes at 7:00pm, and until Night Owl opens, the Woods Diner is just an extremely overpriced convenience store. Actually, it still is during Night Owl. Opening at 7:00am is definitely good for weekdays to give us time for breakfast, but on week-ends they just assume that everybody will sleep in super late, opening at 11:30am. The sun has nearly set by that time!

Because my schedule doesn’t

coincide with these hours, I’ve never visited CIW for breakfast, although I have heard legends of their choco-late chip pancakes. However, I have formed an opinion on the other meal times. The selection at first seems like there is a wide variety to choose from, but with both food allergies and a refined taste to worry about, I didn’t end up visiting many of the stations. The flatbread pizza just looks unappe-tizing, and everything else has either an insufferable line (tl;dw) or consists of vegetables and salad. In the words of Ron Swanson, when asked if he wanted salad by Chris Traeger, “Since I am not a rabbit, no I do not.” But hey, if greens are your nourishment of choice, CIW may be for you.

The best station at CIW is, in this writer’s humble opinion, the Grill. My go-to meal there is Mac and Cheese (which is literally the ambrosia of the gods), baked beans (which have grown on me, largely with CIW’s help), and sometimes, if I feel like getting sauce stuck in my mustache, some chicken wings. Totally worth it, though. Those are damn good wings.

On to dining accessories. Some-thing that bothers me about this din-ing hall is that there are no lids for

the fountain drink cups. Maybe I just couldn’t find them. If they, in fact, do not exist, however, I would like to for-mally request them. They are much needed. The silverware and trays should be in a more central location instead of right at one of the entrances to the food stations. I forget and walk past them every time. They just sneak up on you.

My final summary of CIW din-ing hall: On your first visit, the layout of the dining hall might disorient you and you may not see where everything is. A must-have delicacy of theirs is the Mac and Cheese, and pretty much anything at the Grill, but there are plenty of options if you feel like giv-ing your colon and arteries a break. The cashiers, depending on the day, are slightly cheerier than the average cashier, but none stand out. The eating area is nicely self-contained, although it may be a bit too cozy for maneuver-ing with large backpacks and other such things.

Next month, I’ll be making the trek up to Mountainview. I haven’t been there often so far this year, but I don’t have high hopes for the Deli; it was an un-pleasant Sodexual encounter.

Do you want to write, report, edit, brain-storm, photograph, draw, design, photo-shop, post on twitter, make videos, or do anything else for Binghamton Review?

What a coincidence: we want you to do that for us too! Come join us at one of our meetings, Wednesdays at 7pm in UUW B05 (under the marketplace, near WHRW) or send an email to:[email protected]


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM A MUSICIAN’S DREAM NEARING FRUITION

Encouraging the Arts in the Binghamton Area:A Musician’s Dream Nearing Fruition

Written By Patrick McAuliffe

Last month, I gave a shout-out in my dining hall review series to a swell

C4 cashier named CJ Wachter. I was later paying for my food and struck up a conversation with him about the article. He told me that his motivation for being a “lunch lady” is much more than simply seeing all of our beaming faces every day. For four years, he has been working to get a musical non-profit organization off the ground to improve the artistic community in his hometown area of Binghamton, Ny. And he’s nearly there.

The 607 area code covers a large chunk of New york, and is home to thousands of under-the-radar, strug-gling musicians and artists. Without

directly from artists’ stores at the top of their web page. CJ told me, “There is music with integrity out there not typical of the music industry today that showcases true musicianship, but doesn’t have a proper vehicle for expo-sure. There are countless cases where wonderful artists get mucked over by record labels and are screwed out of their royalties throughout the entire 20th century. When you buy music from 607 artists, you’ll know that ev-ery dollar you spend goes directly to those artists and won’t get chopped up by record labels and distributors.”

businesses who choose to advertise with them on their web page the same advertising space they give the artists free of charge. This is an esti-mated value of about $50,000 a year. 100% of station profits go into the nonprofit fund which is then distrib-uted via nonprofit board members’ determination to area schools to sup-plement music and art programs. The nonprofit will also have opportunities for artists who are no longer in school as well. All that’s needed is enough cash to get it off the ground (about $2,000); CJ has considered approach-ing the city of Binghamton directly for a grant, and a gofundme.com page is now active if you decide that this is a valuable organization to contribute to.

CJ’s dream to improve Bingham-ton goes beyond “What’s Real?! 607”. With enough student interest, he will petition the SA for an official commu-nity outreach program next semester. This organization, tentatively called Binghamton’s We Are The Scene” will work in conjunction with “What’s Real?! 607” to advocate for the im-portance of music and arts in the classroom and promote Binghamton University to local middle and high schools. They will offer scholarships and grants to up-and-coming talent and help schools that need to keep their arts programs, while focusing on cross promotion between university artists and Binghamton native artists, even co-sponsoring events with Late Nite Binghamton. With the student group’s community outreach, the ar-tistic culture of the 607 area will con-tinue to thrive for many more years.

I personally encourage you all to seriously consider the positive effect that CJ’s efforts will bring to our local area. As he told me, “The only thing better than being a rockstar is bring-ing everyone in town with you!”

If you want to learn more and are considering contributing in any way please search for “What’s Real?! 607” Binghamton on Facebook and/or visit Gofundme.com/WhatsReal607

Ambitious musicians and artists in Binghamton and the 607 area around it will be able to come to “What’s Real?! 607” for assistance in pursuing their dreams.

For CJ, this allocation of profits is very important. “It’s a vehicle to get these artists exposed,” he said. “We are not a record label, and we’re not just a radio station. We want artists to be their own business owners.”

I enjoy great music as much as the next person, but, sometimes, un-fortunately, money is a major concern in providing this art. “What’s Real?! 607’s proposal is all drawn up, and as a nonprofit company they will charge

proper publicity and encouragement, they will likely never achieve their dreams of having a viable career in the entertainment industry. With no sustainable workforce in sight, the struggling musicians will only per-petuate the spiral of poverty that we all see around us. CJ is working on creating a nonprofit company named “What’s Real?! 607” that can change the lives of local musicians. The or-ganization seeks to set up a commer-cial-free internet radio station, which allows artists from the 607 to be heard worldwide.

With the right connections, the nonprofit can land high profile inter-views with entertainment profession-als. The professionals will appear on the station to talk about the work they do and their own humble beginnings. They can expose their own fans to 607 music by proxy. Listeners are encour-aged to purchase 607 artists’ music

“We are NOT a re-cord label, and we’re not just a radio sta-tion. We want art-ists to be their own

business owners.”


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMMISERy IN MISSOURI

I stand in solidarity with victims of racism in Missouri. How-ever based on the information available to me, I can not stand

with their student group “Concerned Student 1950.” The events that occurred in the University of Missouri drew national me-dia attention and a series of sympathetic “hashtagtivist” posts all across social media. It was impossible to miss, and as a nat-urally skeptic individual who doesn’t trust the circus that mod-ern news media has become, I decided to look into the reports surrounding the events in order to form my own opinion about the matter. For those unaware of exactly what happened, I will summarize the events now and expand upon them later as I go along.

There was a series of reported racially charged incidents on campus and several Black student organizations demanded a response from the university in order for them to feel safer from such discrimination on campus. Perceiving little to no ac-tion from the university officials, a series of nonviolent protests started to occur against the university establishment. Once the media picked up the protests it all turned into a shitshow(as things typically do when the entertainment news industry gets involved) and two university officials were forced to step down.

I began my examination of the issue by looking at the ac-tual list of demands that the Concerned Student 1950 group had made. Looking at the demands of the group was quite eye open-ing as they largely revolved around hiring more Black faculty and accepting more Black students in addition to a racial aware-ness curriculum overseen by students and staff of color.

My issue had become apparent. It’s hard to deny that insti-tutional racism is a real issue in this country. African Americans in the U.S. are more likely to be arrested for the same crimes as White people. White migration to the suburbs during the baby boomer generation created poor urban ethnic communities with low funding for education. Welfare systems have reduced incentives to move up along the socioeconomic ladder. I can only try to understand the conditions they face but I’ll never truly be able to understand them as I have not experienced them myself. That is my White privilege and that is why I write this from a position of sympathy.

My issues with these demands lie in that I don’t see how they would actually stop racism on the campus, particularly the incidents that have been reported as having occurred.. Affirma-tive action and racial quota policies address symptoms, but not the causes of racism. Sure you’re increasing the number of peo-ple of color accepted at a university or employed at a job through such programs, but you’re not fixing the reason that they weren’t hired or accepted in the first place. It is undoubtedly wrong for a qualified person to not be selected as a result of a superficial characteristic such as race, that is a statement that most equita-ble human beings would agree with. But, by that logic wouldn’t the programs suggested by this group be the same? I see them as programs that politicians put in place to appease the white guilt of their constituents rather than to solve any real institutional problems.

As for these racial awareness programs... For one, there is definitely going to be bias if the people running the program are all people of color. While they may understand the issues better having been victims themselves, the very fact that they were victims induces a bias against the people they are meant to educate. The board should be diverse, although this is a mi-nor qualm. Furthermore, to deny non people of color a position on this board (if they were qualified in other aspects) would be discriminatory and hypocritical. Furthermore, to assume such education would suddenly cure racism severely underestimates how stubborn a racist can be and how easy it is for one to coast through these classes without taking anything learned to heart. In addition, such policies may even incur racist pushback from students who find themselves taking or paying for yet another class in order to graduate. That is the breadth of my issue with the student group that started these protests.

Next comes the issue of the university’s response. Accusa-tions of verbal racism are just that, accusations. It is very difficult to prove who said what, and without proof it is quite difficult to punish any instances involving this hearsay. As for racially charged acts or hate crimes? When perpetrators are caught they are punished, and that’s as much as can be expected. If school officials were actively working against the pursuit of those crim-inals then that would be a real issue. However, as it says nothing about that in the list of demands, I’ll assume it’s not happening. And as for an official statement being made? The university had made online diversity training a requirement for freshman stu-dents and I suggest anyone doubting the existence of an official statement to look at the statement made by the University of Missouri Office of the Chancellor (one of the people forced to resign in wake of protests) which I have read and it seems quite compassionate and equitable to me.

From what I can gather, the Mizzou officials only truly failed in playing politics, and having their side told in the media. Furthermore, to all the liberals who want to blame the university for the actions of a select few people who may or may not have been students, is that really any different from blaming Muslims for the actions of a few extremists? Sadly it seems that as long as people continue to be different, xenophobia will continue to exist. If we truly want to minimize its effects, we should aim to fix the institutions that prevent the advancement of the disad-vantaged. I truly do feel for victims of racism in Missouri, but the methods used here and the demands made do not advance their cause.

I strongly doubt the people I’ve seen making posts of soli-darity on Facebook have looked into the events to this depth. As such, I view their actions as either outright ignorant or attention seeking declarations of “look at me, I care!” That being said, the information available to me was not perfect and I’ve formulated my opinion based on what I had. I encourage anyone who dis-agrees to show me why he or she believes I’m wrong. My opinion may change, and I believe such open dialogue is necessary for the advancement of the well being of our society.

Misery in Missouri:How do we Fight Racism?Written By By David Keptsi


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM PHONy ExPRESS

The Phony ExpressWritten By Luke Kusick

At this point in the election sea-son, everyone knows the self-de-

scribed socialist who has made his ca-reer screaming angrily at Wall Street, the banks, and even capitalism in gen-eral. The left wing, social justice war-rior, college liberal loves him for being a “radical” and a “socialist” when in all actuality his plans are not much differ-ent from the status quo. The clearest example of his non-radical plans can be seen in his new way to fix the bank-ing system.

Bernie Sanders back in early No-vember proposed his solution to fix the banking system. His plan involves modifying the Post Office to serve as a banking system. Under Bernie’s plan, people could deposit money into their local Post Offices. The intent of this plan is to help low-income residents in areas where banks are not as com-mon so that they can have a place to store their money. According to Ber-nie, the plan will also help save the failing Post Office.

Let’s make one point absolutely clear: this plan is not radical in any sense of the word. Trying to increase the powers and extent of a govern-ment agency isn’t some giant step forward to radical change. Rather, it is a progression of what has been going on in this country since its inception. This plan at the most is just modify-ing the status quo. The United States Post office, a government agency that is prone to bankruptcy and corrup-tion, will cause a lot of problems for anyone who risks storing their mon-ey in it. For example, how will peo-ple be certain that their money will be stored safely and not spent on the bankrupt agency itself? The lockbox idea is obviously a myth that the gov-ernment has used since the days of Social Security to garner the trust of the masses. And, just like Social Secu-rity, there will probably be no lockbox in the Post Offices. The problem with the United States Post Office is that it holds a monopoly of control on the delivery of mail. The second problem

lies in the actual utility that granting the Post Office banking power would do to serve the American people. Nothing. Granting a federal agency the ability to keep people’s money safe is not a real change at all. The real change would come from ending the Federal Reserve or true deregulation of the banks. Bernie Sanders has said, “It is time to break up the largest fi-nancial institutions in this country!” To that I say, “Great! Let’s end the Federal Reserve, the largest financial institution in this country that is sys-tematically impoverishing Americans, devaluing the currency, and allowing the whole too big to fail system to ex-ist!” However, my pleas fall on deaf ears as Sanders gutted the “Audit the Fed Bill” that Ron Paul worked on for months. If Bernie Sanders were a real radical, he would not increase the control and power of the United States Post Office. Instead, Bernie would de-fund it, deregulate it, and open it up to competition while simultaneously ending the Federal Reserve.

Real radical reform is nowhere to be found in this new Post Office idea. Instead let us learn from history with a real “socialist,” 19th century Amer-ican Anarchist Lysander Spooner. In 1844, Spooner opened up the Amer-ican Letter Mail Company in order to compete against the high prices of the Post Office. His goal was to lower pric-es, which he was able to do as com-

petition forces monopolies to now compete against other market forces. Although the government shut down his business in 1851, Lysander proved that one individual, one market actor, could effectively lower the prices of a monopoly. This is real radicalism at its finest. Bernie should listen to the “socialist” ideas of Spooner and talk about ideas such as the abolishment of the government control of the Post Office, and the abolishment of the government control of pretty much every market operation. Spooner died before the Federal Reserve was estab-lished, but he too certainly would have seen it as oppressive an institution as he saw the government granted mo-nopoly of the Post Office.

The young progressives on our college campus are drawn to the ideas of Bernie because they are economi-cally illiterate and they want to ap-pear“radical.” In the same way as it was cool to be a leftist in the 1960s, it is now fashionable to be seen as a “radical” or “socialist.” However, all of Bernie’s inexcusable and economical-ly misguided reforms are not radical at all. Real radical reforms come from the deregulation of the economy, the ending of government control over spheres of the economy, and the adop-tion of a proper approach to capital-ism. A real radical approach does not involve expanding government power of the market, but dissolving it.


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMSHTT BUzzFEED SAyS

Shit BuzzFeed Says Act III: A ContemplationWritten By Howard Hecht

Trigger Warning: This Article was Indeed Written by a Heterosexual, White Male

Those reading this serial may have realized I’ve contradicted myself.

Though I once stated people who en-joy BuzzFeed aren’t “degenerates,” I recently went as far as to call them: “infantile adults.” That was rather “savage” of me, as BuzzFeed would say. It was never my intention to judge those with interests that differ from mine, and instead, only to expose BuzzFeed for its self-serving perver-sion of journalistic integrity. In that way, I’ve failed my original purpose. And yet, here I am again, ready to take my stand upon a soap box, with a tinfoil hat soldered right onto my goddamn skull.

Directly criticizing those who enjoy BuzzFeed bothers me most be-cause, if BuzzFeed can be trusted, they boast a “global audience of more than 200M.” That’s a lot of people. That’s like, the current population of Brazil. Try to imagine if this serial was writ-ten to exclusively make fun of Brazil-ians. I’m sure the Binghamton Review would shut me down immediately, unless my articles were totally focused on arguing against Brazil’s complete ban on cannabis.

I shouldn’t try to generalize an entire population of people, and so neither should I pretend BuzzFeed’s entire audience is dead inside. I’ve come to this conclusion not just be-cause, logically, it makes the most sense, but also because I too am a part of BuzzFeed’s 200M.

Regardless of whether I want to or not, I’ve given BuzzFeed a small amount of traffic every time I’ve writ-ten one of these articles. My investi-gation of their worth is at once both a harsh critique and a type of adver-tisement. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that I rely on BuzzFeed more than most people. Without it, this serial wouldn’t exist.

I recognize that I’m not the first to identify this kind of contradiction

in purpose, nor do I share these sen-timents with you, my kindly reader, in an attempt to appear intellectual in any capacity. I’m writing about Buzz-Feed, for fuck’s sake. This is the same website that published an article titled “26 Men Who’ll Make you Pregnant Without Even Touching you.” Thanks, Ellie Woodward, by the way, for let-ting me know just how “dangerously perfect” these handsome celebrities really are. I think the last thing I’d ever want to do as a male is give birth to a child I didn’t even conceive through intercourse. That’d be, like, totally awkward, if nothing else.

And so, even if I don’t want to be, I must consider myself one of BuzzFeed’s 200M by consequence of viewing the website at all. As Kenneth Bainbridge, Director of the Manhat-tan Project’s Trinity nuclear test, said after witnessing the explosion: “Now we are all sons of bitches.” At the time of writing, I’m not exactly sure what the consequences are of identifying my apparent reliance on BuzzFeed. Maybe, in time, I’ll be inspired to make my own grandiose statement concerning BuzzFeed’s existence on this earth.

If that came off as a bit extreme, here’s an alternative for you – in the words of Kanye West: “Nothing in life is promised except death.” Damn right. Thank you, Kanye.

Though I may be overstepping my bounds, I now feel that it’s appro-priate for me to share a story of sorts. I don’t want to come off as if I’m tar-geting a single individual, or to seem as if I’m shaming said individual for what she was doing. But my totally in-nocent, not creepy or strange, obser-vations of her are completely relevant to what I’ve written thus far.

Before I’m crucified for look-ing at someone else’s laptop, I want to point out that I know every single one of you does the same exact type of thing. Don’t pretend you’ve nev-er taken your boyfriend’s phone and read through his texts, just to discover

that all he talks about with his friends are video games and food, you sick hypocrites. Oh, and as if you haven’t ever had the urge to look through all of your friends’ messages when they forget to logout of their social media accounts on your computer. you’re all narcissistic, self-righteous, and proba-bly even a little bit, dare I say it, priv-ileged.

Just kidding. That’d be fucked up if I really meant all that. But it doesn’t feel so good to read, does it?

Anyway, to get back to the point at hand, before I was about to be ruth-lessly judged – a few weeks ago, I en-countered a fellow member of Buzz-Feed’s 200M.

I was struck with a kind of mor-bid curiosity when I saw what web-site this person was looking at, and though I tried not to pay it any atten-tion, I quickly gave up. I won’t pretend that I tried very hard, or dramatically insist I didn’t want to watch. That sort of denial, in my mind, would be a sign I actually like BuzzFeed.

My encounter with this person, who I’ve chosen not to identify, took place in a classroom that seats around fifty people. Students are only meant to use laptops for taking notes, but this particular student, like everyone else in the room, was doing something completely different. I was positioned beside, and slightly behind this per-son, watching as she half-heartedly clicked through articles on her Mac-Book Pro. The expression on her face was one of complete passivity – a total, horrible calm. There wasn’t a single identifiable emotion in her dead, little face, as she stared into the abyss.

While I observed this person ex-hibit motor function during what ap-peared to be a waking coma, I quickly realized she wasn’t actually reading anything in its entirety. She would move from article to article, perhaps looking at their titles, and little else. Some might say this is a rather smart thing to do, because instead of wasting time reading what you might not en-


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM SHTT BUzzFEED SAyS

joy, you’re skimming for a worthwhile piece. I would argue this is not the case, and that there are only two ex-planations for this person’s behavior.

If I were giving BuzzFeed the benefit of the doubt, I would say it’s entirely possible, though unlikely, that this person may have believed she was getting enough information out of each article by just reading their titles. As I look at BuzzFeed now, the first thing I see is “SO EASy. SO yUM-My. 7 Healthy Eating Tricks To Try This Week.” Unless clickbait is going through a fundamental change in its attention grabbing tactics, this first option is impossible.

That leaves only one, slightly comforting, explanation: the arti-cles themselves, for whatever reason, weren’t interesting enough to keep this person’s attention. With that in mind, I think I understand why she may have been looking at BuzzFeed in the first place.

BuzzFeed doesn’t exist because 200M Brazilians enjoy its content. As was observable for me, BuzzFeed arti-cles can only really produce a type of dissatisfaction that promotes continu-al viewership. It’s this sort of modern,

clickbait induced ennui that drives BuzzFeed’s existence.

With titles that immediately catch the eye, clickbait provides a spark of interest in learning whatever information is being teased. This phe-nomenon, partnered with dissatisfy-ing, trivial content within the article itself, could explain why this person I observed appeared as if she were just barely holding it together.

It was apparent to me that, re-gardless of what this person was looking for in BuzzFeed’s articles, she wasn’t able to find it. I would go as far as to state that, if you’re look-ing at BuzzFeed for extended peri-ods of time, you probably don’t even know what you want. Will knowing why “We Need To Talk About Guys Wearing Basketball Shorts” make you a happier person? Will it satisfy you in any sense of the word? If you’re me, the answer is no, probably not. But I am slightly curious. And I would imagine most people feel the same way. Click.

I won’t exaggerate and call us all victims of BuzzFeed’s influence. Peo-ple are fully capable of avoiding the website altogether. As I reflect on my

own experience with BuzzFeed how-ever, I see that, while I may criticize those who enjoy it, those people can’t, and hopefully don’t, exist in the way I’ve been envisioning them. It would seem illogical to me that anyone could actually enjoy BuzzFeed for extend-ed periods of time, or feel fulfilled by what it has to offer.

Now, before some of you try and tell me I’m wrong about labeling Buzz-Feed as pure clickbait, let me make it clear that I agree. I do recognize, despite my bias, a type of BuzzFeed news that does actually hold value. This “news” section of the website was opened when, according to Wikipedia (That’s right, what’re you gonna do about it?), “in late 2011, Ben Smith of Politico was hired as Editor-in-Chief, in a move to expand the site into se-rious journalism, long-form and re-portage while maintaining its popular fun and entertainment-oriented con-tent.”

My limited experience with this segment of the site was actually rather pleasant, but I still think it’s important to remember that what BuzzFeed pro-motes on its homepage and through its various Facebook profiles is how it wants to be viewed. If I were to kick a puppy in front of someone, and then try to save face by saying “I run an animal shelter,” I don’t think that would go over very well. The damage has been done, and no real effort to reform has been made. Though Buzz-Feed may have a real news section, they’re still predominantly clickbait. With this in mind, I stand resolute. BuzzFeed, despite its benign, news oriented growth, remains rotten to the core.

Rather than continue to tease BuzzFeed for being “The Media Com-pany for the Social Age,” I would like to offer a different approach. They don’t deserve that title, and I propose that we, as individuals in their 200M traffic statistics, take it back from them. I will no longer stand by and simply write about BuzzFeed’s jour-nalistic sins. This is war in a very real sense, and I will begin my attack with a single goal in mind:

The complete dismantlingof BuzzFeed.com.

Baby Machine


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMA FRIGHTENING FRENCH FUTURE

A Frightening French FutureWritten By Max Newman

On November 13, 2015, the city of Paris as well as the nation of France was changed forever. Barbaric and well coordinated terrorist attacks hit the French capital, as ISIS jihadists rampaged through a soccer stadium, a lively nightlife district and the Bat-aclan concert hall. The latest terror-ist attacks to hit France were not just shocking, but took an even darker turn than the two attacks that took place just eleven months ago. The ter-rorism that struck Paris on November 13th will not just go down in history, but could very well be the opening salvo of the clash of civilizations that could split a country apart.

It seemed like a normal, vibrant Friday night on the streets of the City of Lights. Parisians were enjoying a soccer match between France and Germany, eating at restaurants and at-tending music concerts. In short, Pa-risians were living life by the French phrase of joie de vivre (the joy of life). However, at 9:20 pm local time, ex-plosions ripped through the air near the Stade de France. Suicide bombers affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) detonated explosives,

killing one person. Throughout the night, a series of coordinated terror-ist attacks in the name of jihad were committed on the lively streets of the 11th arrondisement and at the Bata-clan concert hall, with bars being shot at and pedestrians being massacred by machine guns. The worst attack took place at the Bataclan concert hall, when Islamist terrorists killed 89 people and took hostages for over two hours. When the attackers were neu-tralized, 129 were killed and over 400 were injured in the deadliest terrorist attack in French history. France is still beginning to come to grips with what happened on November 13th, and while the attack only occurred on one horrific night, the seeds of radicaliza-tion have been stemming for years. Furthermore, the implications and ramifications of what happened in Paris are long lasting and will contin-ue to have an effect for years to come.

The latest Islamist terrorist at-tacks to hit France are horrific and shocking, but are unfortunately be-coming the new normal. From the Toulouse shootings to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Islamist terrorist at-

tacks on French soil are nothing new, and unfortunately, Islamist terrorist attacks are increasing as time goes on. From 2010 to 2013, only two Islamist terrorist attacks took place. However, from December 2014 up until now, ten terrorist attacks have taken place in France perpetrated by jihadists. While the majority of the ten terrorist attacks have caused very few casual-ties since December of last year, ei-ther way, Islamist terrorism is on the rise. The increase in terrorist attacks in France highlights an unfortunate reality.

The November 13th terrorist at-tacks in Paris are just the latest event to rock France, as already deep divisions between the native French and Mus-lim immigrants continue to grow wid-er. Of course, not all Muslims are ter-rorists. In fact, it is quite the contrary, as most French Muslims are peaceful. However, surprising poll numbers from the ICM Research Group, which found that 15% of Frenchmen sup-port ISIS, are extremely worrying. France has had difficulty assimilat-ing its Muslim community, currently numbering at about six million, into


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM A FRIGHTENING FRENCH FUTURE

society for decades. Unfortunately, the lack of Muslim assimilation in France has only grown worse over the years. A large number of French Muslims live in poor, crumbling neighbor-hoods on the outskirts of large cities such as Paris. These impoverished, segregated housing projects are also known as banlieue, as Omar Ismail Mostefai, one of the Paris attackers, came from the southern suburb of Courcouronnes.

The growing Muslim alienation and building anger in the often dan-gerous banlieue reached its boiling point in October 2005, as massive ri-ots started in northeastern Paris, but spread to other disadvantaged ban-lieues is in the following days. Three weeks of intense rioting occurred throughout France, as mainly Mus-lim rioters clashed with native French police. Tensions between the native French and Muslim immigrants have only became worse since then, as the lack of Muslim assimilation in France as well as the recent Islamist terror-ist attacks have made the situation in France into a powderkeg. With ten-sions in France continuing to rise, a new reality emerges in that France is unfortunately not a united country right now. In the banlieues, many of these areas have become “no go zones”, as these lawless areas are now places where the native French and tourists largely do not dare to enter. This con-trast is seen not just in the impover-ished and dangerous banlieues, but

in other facets of society. In a soccer match between France and Algeria in October of 2001, hundreds of French Muslims of Algerian descent invad-ed the field chanting “Bin Laden, Bin Laden!”, cancelling the match. Events such as this one as well as the Octo-ber 2005 riots have caused tensions to continue to skyrocket.

Long running tensions between the native French and the Muslim immigrants as well as native French Muslims have added to rising poll numbers for the National Front, a right wing conservative party led by the charismatic Marine Le Pen. The National Front feels that mass immi-gration from North Africa and the Middle East is changing French soci-ety, and not in a good way. Their views come at a time when over 850,000 migrants from the Middle East and Africa have illegally migrated to Eu-rope, with many of them being Syrian refugees. With hundreds of thousands of migrants pouring into Europe, Frenchmen are already on edge. To add to the migrant crisis sweeping Eu-rope, the shocking news that at least one of the Paris attackers posed as a refugee to enter Europe in October has native Frenchmen turning to the conservative National Front Party. The growing anxieties of the native French have the National Front as the leading party in the polls to win the French presidential election in 2017. These anxieties are also expressed in eyebrow raising poll numbers. In a

The dangerous scenario with a rising conservative, anti-immigration party, coupled with the failed assimi-lation and subsequent radicalization of many French Muslims has led to an unstable and frightening future for the French Republic. France will need to toughen up and clamp down on radical Islamism that threatens not just banlieues such as Clichy sus Bois and Saint Denis, but France as a whole. France faces a two pronged threat from radical Islamists, in that the enemy is not just entering Europe illegally through Greece, but also that the enemy is already inside the gates. France will need to make difficult and tough decisions now in order to avoid absolute chaos and bedlam lat-er. A great way for France to fight and end the decades old problem is for the French people to elect the conserva-tive National Front in order to replace the spineless leaders of their current socialist government. If France does not toughen up to fight radical Islam both abroad and especially at home, then the quintessential French values of Liberté, égalité, fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) may truly be at risk.

poll taken by the infamous French newspaper Le Monde after the Char-lie Hebdo attacks, 74% of respon-dents agreed that “Islam is incompat-ible with French society.” With rising poll numbers for the National Front, and the continuous poverty that has plagued the predominantly immi-grant banlieues for decades, the future for France looks as uncertain as ever.

“To add to the migrant crisis sweeping Europe, the shocking news that at least one of the Paris at-tackers posed as a refugee to enter Europe in Octo-ber has native Frenchmen turning to the conserva-tive National Front Party.”


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMPOLL DANCING

Poll DancingWritten By Joseph Gunderson

It’s no secret that nearly everyone seeking election for public office

relies on polls. In the 2012 presiden-tial election, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and US Representa-tive Paul Ryan of Wisconsin secured the Republican Party nomination, but failed to defeat incumbent Pres-ident Barack Obama and Vice Pres-ident Joe Biden, winning only 206 electoral votes to Obama’s 359. In an interview following the election, Governor Romney admitted that his campaign strategy on election day was flawed, in that he withheld “get-out-to-vote” campaign activity in two key swing states, Florida and Ohio. He mentioned that polling in those states showed that he was comfort-ably ahead of Obama going into the election, yet he ended up losing both states, losing by over four percent in Ohio. Although winning in Ohio and Florida would not have given Romney the 270 electoral votes needed to win, Romney’s campaign relied on polling data that influenced their election day-strategy. The 2012 election re-vealed an important attribute about polls: they aren’t always accurate.

The seemingly low polling in-tegrity displayed in 2012, however, has not affected polls’ relevance in the 2016 election set to begin on Tues-day, November 8, 2016. Starting an unprecedented series of crossfire and “politically incorrect” rhetoric since his announcement speech on June 16, 2015, businessman Donald J. Trump took less than a month to oust former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Wis-consin Governor Scott Walker from the top spots to claim the front-run-ner position in the race for the Repub-lican Party nomination, according to multiple national polls. By the end of July, to the apparent surprise of near-ly all news media outlets, Trump sat atop the GOP field, polling 20.8 per-cent support according to the Real Clear Politics average of select nation-al polls. His nearest contender, Scott Walker, was a full 7 points behind.

Trump’s rise to the top of the

polls became an instant hot topic; given comments he made at his an-nouncement speech regarding ille-gal immigration, as well as multiple attacks on Senator John McCain of Arizona and his opponents in the race including, but not limited to Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, Hillary Clinton, and Lind-sey Graham, the media erupted in ut-ter shock with the release of each suc-cessive national poll. Polls including The Economist and Reuters showed Trump garnering twice, if not more than twice the support of his nearest contender in the GOP nomination race, and spurred discussion and anal-ysis from nearly every news network.

Following a questionable perfor-mance at the first GOP debate hosted by Fox News, the news media reacted similarly when new national polls not only showed that Trump wasn’t losing support, but actually gaining support, polling above 30 percent in multiple national polls. Trump’s record-setting crowd size at campaign events com-plimented his massive lead in the key early-voting states of Iowa, South Car-olina, and New Hampshire.

Many anticipated that Trump’s poll numbers would fade en masse after coming under fire for his inflam-matory comments about fellow GOP candidate Carly Fiorina, coupled with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s recent rise in national polls follow-ing the second GOP debate. Sooner or later, news of Trump’s domination got old, and subsequent headlines replaced news of Trump’s rise with polls showing Carson catching up to Trump, even though said polls bore high margins of error and surveyed very few people.

As a general rule, reliable na-tional polls survey a minimum of 800 people via phone interviews, and have a margin of error of five percent or less. Polls conducted by The Econo-mist, Reuters, and FOx News usual-ly meet these general characteristics, surveying as many as 2000 people at times, and even asking those surveyed to name a second-choice candidate in

addition to their first-choice. Reliable polls conducted at the state level gen-erally survey a minimum of 450-500 people via telephone interviews and have a margin of error of five percent or less. While less reliable, polls that do not meet the general requirements sometimes make their way into the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, their releases do not go unno-ticed by news media networks, and often make for greater publicity since their smaller sample sizes are more easily influenced by isolated inconsis-tencies that favor a single candidate over another.

To no surprise, such polls were repeatedly used to highlight Trump’s decline as the front-runner, a trend consistent with the medial value placed on Carson’s rise. In mid-Oc-tober, the news media erupted when Trump lost his lead in Iowa to Car-son, which was the first time in over a

hundred days that Donald Trump had not taken the front-runner position in any state-wide poll. Every media out-let soon joined in on the bandwagon when a poll released by CBS News on October 27, 2015 showed Carson at 26% and Trump at 22%. While the poll surveyed less than 600 likely GOP voters, and had a margin of error of 6 percent, the media followed it closely. From sun up to sun down the num-bers 26 and 22 under their respective portraits dominated the imagery on TV.

“This is not to say that Trump is the deserving front-runner of the elec-tion for the GOP nom-ination, but merely to suggest that polls are used more often to entertain a story or shared belief, as opposed to strategic cam-

paign purposes.”


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM POLL DANCING

Just days later, an IBD poll re-leased showed Trump at 23 and Carson at 28, which made headlines once more, with NBC News taking the opportunity to resurface claims Trump had made about Ford a few weeks earlier to imply a causation for Trump’s seeming poll slip. Interest-ingly, reporters hardly mentioned the poll’s small sample size of 402 likely Republican voters and high margin of error. More polls making head-lines that week included a CBS News poll, showing Carson leading Trump 29 to 23, and a McClatchy poll, with Carson leading Trump 24 to 23. All of these polls, despite their small sam-ple sizes and high margins of error, were included in the RCP average, and spurred more excitement when the average of the week’s polls showed Carson leading Trump 24.8 to 24.6, making him the “official” front-run-ner in what became a monumental end to Trump’s reign at the top.

Interestingly, Reuters released a poll the same day that the CBS poll made headlines, and sampled over 900 registered Republican voters, and showed Trump leading the GOP field at 35.7% support, over 15 points above Carson. Later that same week, The Economist released a poll that sam-pled nearly 2000 GOP voters which showed Trump’s support safely above 30%. None of these polls made head-lines nor were they included in the RCP average. This is not to say that Trump is the deserving front-runner of the election for the GOP nomina-tion, but merely to suggest that polls are used more often to entertain a story or shared belief, as opposed for strategic campaign purposes.

What is most striking about the brief slip in Trump’s polling is that the CBS poll was not the first poll to show that Carson was the front-runner. In fact as early as October 1, an IBD poll was released, showing Carson leading Trump 24 to 17 percent. While this poll was by no means accurate, sur-veying just over 300 likely voters, the news media did not purport it, likely because it still made for profitable me-dia to marvel at Trump’s success amid his brash comments.

While Carson’s lead in the RCP

averages lasted only a few days, al-most no polls were released following the first week of November, keeping Trump and Carson locked in a fragile tie, separated by 0.4 percent.

However, the tragic terrorist attacks on Paris on November 13 changed everything. Ann Coulter de-clared the next day that “Last night, Donald Trump became the President of the United States,” sounding off a brief era of Trump’s rise amid an increased desire for the wall he has promised to build at the southern bor-der should he secure the nomination and win the general election. The ac-curacy of this sentiment is unknown, but after a two-week respite in poll releases, a series of polls, Bloomberg, PPP, and ABC/Wash Post showed

other candidate who has largely gone under the radar: Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Many Republicans have come under fire from President Obama for their calls for a stronger strategy to combat ISIS and more cautionary measures on the intake of Syrian ref-ugees. It would come as no surprise if a Cruz surge became the new main-stream talk of polls, given that he has claimed second place in a CBS poll conducted among likely Republican voters in Iowa. Although the poll has a hefty 6.2% margin of error, its mainstream attention could signal the arrival of a Cruz-favoring polling era.

With the election close to a year away, the polls so far have seemingly served little purpose other than mak-ing for profitable headlines. However, with Super Tuesday just around the corner, and a series of debates ap-proaching, the polls will likely come under increased scrutiny as voters be-gin to make their decisions as to who they want to be the next President of the United States. Because polls also determine debate placement, added attention as to which polls are used becomes a responsibility of the news network hosting the debate. At the recent GOP debate hosted by Fox Business Network, Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey were disqualified from the main debate stage because of low polling numbers. Trump still took center-stage despite Carson’s recent takeover as the official frontrunner.

Although many polls are put out there for publicity’s sake, their rele-vance is taken into consideration in the context of more serious matters. As Iowa is set to caucus on Monday, February 1, 2016, many of the polls to come will place some candidates over another, and will ultimately influence campaign decisions as they did back in 2012. A 500-person sample does not accurately reflect the views of mil-lions of people in every state. Small polls do not ensure that the sampled people will actually make the effort to vote. yet, polls do matter, and they will very likely determine campaign strategy despite their inherent inac-curacies.

Trump as the clear favorite among Re-publican voters. Most notable was the Fox News poll released on November 19, showing Trump leading the GOP field at 28 percent support, ten points ahead of Carson.

While the polls that show Trump on top are all more reliable than those that were used to actualize Carson’s dominance in terms of sample size and margin of error, the sequence in which they were portrayed brings about another defining characteristic regarding polls. Accuracy does not as-sure a wider release by the media. The public accessibility of polls is largely due to what will make the most head-lines or draw the most viewer interest.

While current polls show that Trump has regained a healthy lead over Carson in nearly every state, these polls are signaling the rise of an-

“With Super Tuesday just around the corner, and a series of debates approaching, the polls will likely come under in-creased scrutiny as voters begin to make their deci-sions as to who they want to be the next President of

the United States.”


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMPUT UP THAT FENCE

Mr. Orban, Put up that FenceWritten By David Iksak

Over the past summer, the growth and spread of ISIS led to the

displacement of countless Syrians forced to flee their homeland. The surrounding countries in the Middle East refused to help take these ref-ugees in, leading to waves of Syrians overwhelming Europe, a region in which almost all nations allow the fluid movement of people across their borders. But many of these nations realized that taking in and relocating all these people would strain their welfare systems, lead to less living space in communities, create even more ethnic and religious enclaves, and even threaten the security of their citizens. Hungary is one such nation.

Hungary was originally sup-posed to allow Syrian refugees in and relocate them, but the Hungarian peo-ple vehemently protested against these plans, showing their fervent opposi-tion to Syrians being placed in their communities. Prime Minister Viktor Orban listened and constructed a ra-zor wire border fence along stretches of the Hungarian border. The bor-der fence was met with fierce criti-cism from western European leaders. French President Francois Hollande compared the Hungarian government to that of the Nazis and claimed that Hungary’s membership in the Euro-pean Union should be reconsidered.

The fence went up anyway.The border fence actually ended

up being successful. Before the fence was completed, thousands of Syrians entered into Hungary each day, but in the week after it was finished, only twenty nine people were able to cross Hungary’s border. The day after the fence went up twelve Syrians made their way into Hungary, the day after that it was only seven, the day after that the number dropped to only four. During the weeks following, there was virtually no movement of Syrians into Hungary.

After Hungary’s defiance in the face of the European Union, other countries were emboldened to make their anti-refugee feelings known. Po-land was originally allotted by the EU to take in one thousand refugees this year. The Polish government instead intends to allow in one hundred refu-gees into their country over the course of four years from 2016 to 2020. Two thirds of Polish people oppose any refugees being placed in their country and other nations are following in that sentiment. Slovakia announced that it would only take in 200 refugees and they would have to be Christian Syr-ians. An Interior Ministry spokesper-son for Slovakia claimed that “Slova-kia has no mosques, we only want to choose Christians.” The Danish gov-

ernment went so far as to pay for ads in Middle Eastern media telling Syr-ian refugees to stay out of Denmark, warning them that they wouldn’t find refuge there. Slovenia has been total-ly overwhelmed with refugees trying to get to the west, which isn’t sitting well with the government there. The Prime Minister of Slovenia, Miro Ce-dar claims that “If necessary, we are prepared to put up the fence tomor-row”, flirting with the idea of follow-ing in Hungary’s footsteps and build-ing a border fence. Slovenia’s strategy currently is to funnel all Syrians into Austria. Austria and Croatia, coun-tries which are trying to pick up the slack, are failing miserably in their ef-forts to shelter the refugees. The Syri-ans in their camps are being described like animals penned in and living in squalor, but yet they continue to wel-come these refugees. If the Austrians can’t effectively take in all the refu-gees, the Slovenians might actually go through with their fence idea.

If I were Trump I’d be paying attention to this situation in Europe. Hungary’s success is an example of a secured border keeping out unwant-ed migrants that goes to show Trump might not be as crazy as people think. His talk of a “wall” is often mocked and his name for it, “the great wall of Trump” didn’t help his image as a serious candidate, but if he went into detail with his plan it might actually be taken seriously. The barbed wire fencing along areas of the American border that are close to major cities on both sides of the border are cred-ited with keeping illegal immigration numbers lower than they otherwise would be. More barbed wire or razor wire fencing along parts of the border that are easily crossed would do a lot to bring the number of people enter-ing the country down. The anti-ref-ugee fervor also mirrors the massive support Trump has enjoyed on our side of the pond. Trump’s numbers have always been high and part of the reason is that his message resonates so deeply with so many people.



The Greatest Show on TVWritten By Sean Glendon

GREATEST SHOW ON TV

The winner of Survivor receives $1,000,000. The winner of American Idol receives a record deal and management con-

tract. The Apprentice offered the winner a $250,000 contract to run a Trump company. While some reality shows offer no com-petitive aspects and no prize money, the focus here is not on that sub-genre. This is about the prize-bearing shows, not about Keeping up with the Kardashians.

While many reality shows offer cash prizes, the incentives to compete do vary from show to show. Reality shows can bring fame and job opportunities, even to the losers, but they can also provide a source of haunting embarrassment for the rest of a competitor’s life.

Reality shows exist because they are cheap to produce and offer networks a huge return on investment and high ratings. Cost savings exist because fewer writers are required, and paying stipends to a cast of random members of society is way cheaper than paying legitimate actors for scripted shows. Another huge financial benefit of reality television is the ability for companies to sponsor specific events and implement product placement on a grander scale, meaning more revenue for the show.

of the game, the title of Sole Survivor and a million dollar prize.”Now another pitch: “a group of individuals under constant

public scrutiny that must defend their past actions while shar-ing a vision and building support from viewers. The contestants are in one of two parties that participate in a series of televised debates, where a small sample of viewers voting in polls deter-mine rankings and who is allowed to compete in the next de-bate. The winner of each party then chooses a partner, and after a few more episodes of televised debates, viewers over the age of 18 vote for the winner of the game, the title of President of the United States, a $400,00 salary, and four years of living in the White House.”

The American Presidential Election system is a reality show. This holds especially true for the Republican primary sys-tem in the 2016 cycle. The Democratic Party started with only a handful of candidates, which meant that those with enough money to survive could do so temporarily, as is the general stan-dard with presidential races. However, the Republican Party featured 17 contestants to begin, which coincidentally was the same amount of contestants that were featured in the most re-cent season of Big Brother.

Having 17 candidates on stage at once would be an abso-lutely unproductive mess, so a new system was created. While specifics have differed, there have been two debates set up, with different thresholds to participate. In general, anyone polling decent numbers (usually around 2.5%) gets to participate in the top-tier debate, while those polling lower but still in conversa-tion (>1%) get to participate in the lower-tier debate. This offers upward mobility, which Carly Fiorina achieved by moving up to the main debate after a polling increase following an undercard debate performance. This system also offers downward mobili-ty, with Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee falling to what has been deemed the “junior varsity” debate in the most recent set of debates. After lackluster performances, George Pataki, Lind-say Graham, and Jim Gilmore have failed to qualify for the last debates at all. Polls directly determine who competes in debates, which indirectly determines who will receive funding, which in turn determines who will be able to continue participating in the reality show that is our political system.

How is Donald Trump performing so well and maintain-ing his frontrunner status while being viewed as a candidate that isn’t serious? This is a reality show, and Donald Trump has hosted a reality show before. He knows what garners ratings and he is treating the primaries like a reality show moreso than any other candidate is, by far.

In what is the largest reality show, with more money going into production and advertising than any other reality show, by far, the American people are in for a treat. Initially there were 17 contestants in this show, and 3 have failed. Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal have been eliminated from contention. While there were initially 17 candidates, the competitive field still stands strong at 14. This show only airs every four years, and with good reason. If you’re going to spend your time watching reality television, this is the show you should be watching.

“If you’re going to spend your time watching reality television, this is the show you should be watching.”

While varying from show to show, advancement by con-testants on reality shows tend to occur in one of four methods, based on a combination of performance and personality: 1) in-ternal competitors vote out another member (think Survivor), 2) judges eliminate competitors (think The Apprentice), 3) per-formance indicates who advances (think The Amazing Race) or 4) external viewers vote for who advances (this is rare to find in its pure form, but Big Brother season 1 took this format). There are exceptions, and there are often hybrid formats - American Idol begins with judges eliminating competitors before switch-ing to external viewers voting as the competition narrows down - but generally a competitive reality show follows one or two of these formats.

To summarize - contestants compete against each other on national television, and eliminations occur until the last man standing receives a grand prize. When thinking of traditional reality shows, Survivor’s $1,000,000 is likely viewed as the top prize. However, let’s make a comparison here:

Survivor can be pitched as “a group of strangers, split into two tribes, must provide food, water, fire, and shelter for them-selves. These strangers compete in challenges to earn rewards, or immunity from elimination from the competition. Votes occur each episode, with the elimination of a competitor. Eventually, the two tribes merge and individuals compete against each oth-er. The last few competitors face a jury of more recently elimi-nated players. After interrogation, there is a vote for the winner


BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COMLOBByING FOR DUMMIES

Written By Haim Engelman

Many popular media sources have done a fantastic job portraying

lobbyists as unethical legislative assas-sins used by big business and evil spe-cial interests. While it is often fun and easy to blame boogiemen and vaguely defined entities for the world’s prob-lems, this image is far from the truth. Using Congress’ own definition, “Lob-bying is the practice of trying to per-suade legislators to propose, pass, or defeat legislation or to change existing laws.” Lobbyists represent non-for-profits, businesses, small municipali-ties, and citizen interest groups of all stripes. It is strikingly odd that the act of citizens coming together as a group to attempt to change legislation to what they view as a positive outcome has been so thoroughly demonized.

What do Boeing, The American Diabetes Association, Binghamton University, and your local microbrew-ery all have in common? The answer is that they are all involved in legisla-tive efforts; they all lobby. Groups of citizens who share similar interests and ideals come together and ask the government for what they want. They publish reports, ad campaigns, and days of advocacy when mobs of well-intentioned folks “storm the Hill” to harass the hell out of their represen-tatives’ staffs. This is lobbying, and it’s not that terrifying after all.

Another element of the influence

of lobbies that people overlook is the reason that many companies are so well off to begin with. Do you find yourself at odds with a “Big-Some-thing” lobby? Perhaps you should stop funding it! yes, it may be time to stop complaining about how mega-chains are putting mom and pop shops out of business if you have never bought from a mom and pop shop in your life. Think large agri-business is poisoning the world’s population? Maybe it’s time you stop purchasing their prod-ucts. It is easy to complain about boo-giemen. It’s a bit more difficult to alter your lifestyle to combat the specific targets of your complaints. If you de-spise child labor, maybe the solution is to no longer purchase products made by children. you see, your dollars fund the legislative pushes that companies and large groups pursue. If you didn’t fund the venture you find yourself op-posing, it would not be as strong.

The preceding paragraph only deals with business though. What about all of the advocacy groups that you disagree with, why are they so strong? They are strong because sometimes, people disagree with us. Just like we may be happy when a group we identify with wins a legisla-tive victory, we must also understand that there will be times when those who disagree with us have their day. This is part of being a member of a so-

ciety in which the freedoms to speak your mind, have your own opinions, and petition the government are guar-enteed.

It is also a mistake to say that one party or one group has a corner on the influence market. Lobbies and in-fluence groups exist in all shapes and sizes, representing all political angles. There is absolutely nothing wrong with citizens asking for their interests to be represented in the laws of the land, to the contrary, this is the type of thing that occurs in an environment where citizens can voice their opin-ions to the government in an open, free manner.

you may find yourself disagree-ing with the positions of many lobbies and interest groups. That is to be ex-pected, you cannot agree with every-one. If that is what bothers you about lobbying then perhaps your greatest problem with the system is that you cannot handle those with viewpoints that differ from your own. It should be understood that the purpose served by lobbies and activists is a vital one. They act as a pipeline between groups of concerned citizens, corporations, and trade associations and the gov-ernment. Our government is a large, bureaucratic maze; it is not surprising that it takes a professional to navigate its complex system of regulations, re-lationships, and inner workings.

Lobbying for Dummies



A Binghamton Review ReviewWritten By Jordan Raitses

A BINGHAMTON REVIEW REVIEW

The Binghamton Review does not exist in a vacuum. We realize that

our readers (that’s you) have many things to read, and we appreciate that you choose our magazine out of the many on campus. But this isn’t an edi-torial and I won’t write at length about how much work goes into each issue. Instead, I am using this space to pro-mote our fellow magazines on cam-pus. you read that right: I am actually encouraging you to read other maga-zines (but don’t forget to keep reading us too). We produce top quality con-tent and we decide how we’re doing by (favorably) comparing ourselves to the other magazines on campus. That’s not an easy task as they’re all so differ-ent, so here’s a short summary of each:

Asian OutlookA subsidiary of the Asian Student

Union, this magazine is different from the others on this list in that it has a unifying purpose: to represent Asian and Asian American ideas and diversity in the mainstream. Contrary to what you might first think, it is ac-tually meant to be read by everyone. The mission statement describes it as a window into Asian and minori-ty concerns for everyone else. Being dedicated to the concerns of minori-ties, it sometimes takes a liberal bent, but I find it is one of the better-written magazines on campus because of the unity of purpose across its articles.

Free PressThe Binghamton Free Press is a free

format magazine with opinion and literary pieces from a mostly lib-eral bent. They have published twice as of this writing and I actually had something to do with their second publication--but more on that in a bit. It seems they have combined with another magazine, Impact, to produce one full issue every month. Their con-tent is fairly similar, so it’s easy to see why they would choose to work to-gether. It can be difficult to produce enough content to fill these pages ev-ery month, after all.

ImpactAs I was mentioning, the Free Press

and Impact are fused together.

Their cool way of flipping pages half-way through is courtesy of yours truly and our Editor-in-Chief, Sean Glen-don. you may recall the flipped page idea from our April Fool’s edition where the reverse side was the Bing-hamton Preview. Free Press / Impact’s first issue of the semester had some serious layout issues, so I assisted and gave them that idea as well. Impact itself is an arts/media commentary magazine, writing reviews on new movies, songs, albums, etc. It seems they have some literary magazine components too. Like Free Press, it is fairly liberal, but it tries to stay more focused on arts/media reviews.

ProspectLess artistic, Prospect is more fo-

cused on being a literary journal. It has only published once this semester (read: they just put out a hand-print-ed booklet right before Thanksgiv-ing break). It seems as though they may be struggling to get sufficiently committed staff and consistent con-tributions to produce a true monthly publication. Since there is only one issue out this year, it’s hard to evaluate them. They used to be a highly liber-al magazine, and their back cover / mission statement indicates that they have a focus on social justice. Who knows, maybe we have a big rival coming back from the past.

december 2015 - binghamton review

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