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Show Monday, April 5, 2010 Page 12 Views&Opilli011 Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com OurView AboutUS Editor in Chief Patrick Oden Waited until midnight and still not getting lucky ? p Rachel A. Christensen Assistant News Editor Catherine Meidell icture 11 p.m., the night of class registra- tion. Aggies prepare their schedules for next semester, plotting out times for each class and figuring out which classes fulfill which requirements. They compile a list of course numbers, the CRN, so they can quickly fill out their registration online. They have high hope of getting into every class they want or need for the next semester. Facebook status updates reads Sally Jones is "waiting up for registration, ugh" while Brandon Cox "hopes to get the school schedule he needs," and it becomes apparent that Aggies are all on their computers, and it's like a campuswide pajama party. By 11:30 p.m., students are doing other things at home, like browsing Photobucket or watching movies on Hulu, but they keep a close eye on the clock. They've got Banner all cued up, but midnight registration veterans know it's smart to refresh the Web page every now and then. They also know that once registration opens, Banner will be so overloaded that if you're not signed in before midnight, you might as well go to bed and try in the morning. At 11:59, students start refreshing their Banner page every few seconds, hoping to be one of the first as registration opens at midnight. Banner slows down as the system becomes overloaded with activity, takes forever (a slight exaggeration) to load and tension runs high. The daily count of swear words for Logan increases by about 30 percent as frustration rises among students. Sometimes there's a happy ending to this story. Registration is completed and students can go to bed before 1 a.m. Yet sometimes, despite all this effort, students will not get into those classes they so desperately need, and the Banner game changes. These Aggies will start checking to see if a student drops a class so they can quickly add it before someone else takes the spot. These Aggies will obsessively check Banner, hoping to be lucky enough to snag one of the open spots. Thank goodness there's a new system that will make things run a little smoother. Banner will now have a waiting list feature, which will e-mail students when a spot in a class they need becomes open on a first-come-first-serve basis. Aggies should read up on how to use the wait list before registration night so they're prepared. There's a tutorial online at www.usu.edu/registrar/waitlisting that will get students acquainted with the process. Finally, registration is a little bit easier - still stressful (students will still find themselves cursing at midnight as Banner inevitably freezes up) but easier. So the question we have, why didn't they think of this sooner? If dinner is still twitching, don't eat it E News Editor ating out is becoming a blood sport. According to recent news stories, food adventure clubs - whose members sample "gross-out" dishes such as sauteed lamb's brains and duck embryos - are springing up across the country. During one recent outing at a Korean restaurant in New York, a group of gastro-warriors dined on freshly vivisected lobster and live octopus. The lobster's head watches as you consume the body, and the octopus writhes as a chef clips off his tentacles - which diners eat quickly while the limbs are still wriggling. Apparently, it's not enough that we eat all manner of dead animals - now we have to eat live ones too. But consuming live animals doesn't just push the boundaries of good taste: It's animal abuse. "Live seafood," which has been available in upscale sushi bars for some time, is increasingly finding its way onto the menus of more mainstream restaurants. Adventurous eaters might try live shrimp, "drunken prawns" (live prawns are plucked from a tank, doused in alcohol and set ablaze) or live flounder. To prepare this last dish, chefs fillet the live fish down to the bone - leaving the head and tail intact - chop and season the raw flesh and return the meat to the fish's skeleton. The flounder is pinned down with wooden skewers to prevent the fish from jumping off your plate. Sea animals are not merely swimming vegetables, and it's not OK to carve up their bodies as casually as one would a carrot or a rutabaga. Fish and octopuses are smart, have unique personalities - and are sensitive to pain. Researchers know that octopuses, for example, are extremely intelligent and curious animals. They play, just as dolphins and dogs do, and are often mischief-makers in aquariums. Otto, an octopus in a German aquarium, has been observed juggling the hermit crabs who live in his tank. Another octopus, after being given a slightly spoiled shrimp, stuffed the offending morsel down the drain while maintaining eye contact with his keeper. Scientists recently filmed octopuses in Indonesia collecting discarded coconut shells, emptying them out and using them as shelters -the first time an invertebrate animal has been observed using tools. 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The man who promised to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions and promote renewable energy announced Wednesday that he would open millions of acres off the Southeastern and Alaskan coastlines to offshore oil exploration. The announcement ends a decades-long moratorium on drilling off the East Coast. Included are 167 million acres from the northern tip of Delaware to central Florida, millions more in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and about 130 million acres north of Alaska in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Even couched in Obama's soothing language, the announcement had the sting of betrayal. "Is this President Obama's clean energy campaign or (GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah) Palin's 'Drill, baby, drill' campaign?” wondered Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford. The confusion is understandable. Soon after taking office, Obama halted plans TODAY, fne1701A PIED! - tm mayor% To BE UNN3LE TO t1/4FFOR17 THE MEDICAL CARE YOU NEED! launched during the final days of former President George W. Bush's administration to lease some of these same coastal waterways for oil drilling. But the plan Obama announced Wednesday is neither an endorsement of the drill-at-all-costs mentality of the bad old days or a repudiation of his vision for a greener future. Instead, it's a somber nod to reality: No matter how much we may long for a cleaner future powered by renewable energy, it has not yet arrived. Until it does, American energy policy has to balance conservation and development of new and renewable energy sources with our existing mix of fossil fuel sources including oil, natural gas and coal. Drilling won't start anytime soon. Most of the offshore areas won't be made available for lease until 2012. No one knows how much oil and natural gas they hold - for many of the fields, estimates are based on data that are at least 25 years old. The process of building deep-sea drilling rigs probably will take years. Some drilling could begin off the Alaska coast much sooner - as early as this summer. But that would be for preliminary testing to see if the areas are suitable for future development. RIGIVT! THE FREEDOM lb LOSE YOUR RM.% %MACE \MEN YOU LASE `(QUIZ JOSI THE mayo.\ TO LIVE IN FEAR OF ILLNESS, SANKRUPTC`{ AND RUIN! Experts believe it will be seven or eight years before the first oil begins flowing. Even if oil prices continue to climb, it may prove too expensive to exploit some of the undersea oil and natural gas. Just as with health care reform, Obama is seeking a bipartisan middle path through what has been a partisan minefield of an issue. By giving ground on offshore drilling, Obama may hope to woo support for cap-and-trade legislation now languishing in Congress. It's a bold gamble. As with health care, Republicans are united in opposing any effort to address climate change. Many on the left, meanwhile, would prefer a direct carbon tax to a market-based emissions-trading system that some people worry would be open to manipulation and abuse. Still, Obama's offshore drilling plan is an important nod to an uncomfortable truth: It's vital to transform the energy sources that power America. But that greener future is only a dream unless we have the power to get there. This editorial appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Thursday, April 1. - n FREEDOM 10 TA DENIED COVERAGE INCASE OF A PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONI. AC-RAM I WAS "%RAKING of TRE. FREEDOM TO SAY MY EXTREME RISTERIcAL -MING AND STILT. TAKEN SERIOUSLY! 0 0 00 0 Karlie Brand About letters • Letters should be lim- ited to 400 words. • All letters may be shortened, edited or rejected for reasons of good taste, redundancy or volume of similar letters. • Letters must be topic oriented. They may not be directed toward individuals. Any letter directed to a specific individual may be edited or not printed. • No anonymous letters will be published. Writers must sign all letters and include a phone number or email address as well as a student identification number (none of which is published). Letters will not be printed without this verification. • Letters representing groups - or more than one individual - must have a singular representative clearly stated, with all necessary identification information. • Writers must wait 21 days before submitting successive letters - no exceptions. • Letters can be hand delivered or mailed to The Statesman in the TSC, Room 105, or can be e-mailed to statesrnan@aggiemail. usu.edu , or click on www.aggietownsquare.com for more letter guidelines and a box to submit letters. (Link: About Us.) Sound Off ual lobsters, remember past acquaintances and have elaborate courtship rituals. Fish "talk" to one another underwater and form complex social relationships. Scientists at Stanford University say that fish have the reasoning capacity of small children. These animals also feel pain - as all animals do. In December 2005, the European Food Safety Authority's Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare concluded that lobsters, crabs and octopuses are all capable of experiencing pain and distress and are worthy of legal protection. After surveying the scientific literature on fish pain and intelligence, a team of researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada concluded that fish feel pain and that "the welfare of fish requires consideration." Researchers who conducted a two-year study on fish pain at the Roslin Institute in Scotland reached the same conclusion. Eating dinner so fresh that it squirms is nothing more than macho posturing. Here's the great irony of the live seafood trend: It's actually rather stale. You never hear about "adventurous" eaters taking on beer-battered seitan or coconut-grilled tofu. No, it's always some poor animal. But there's really nothing new or original about abusing animals for food - that happens every day in slughterhouses and restaurant kitchens. I have a challenge for foodies who truly want to push the envelope: Go vegan. Trade in your live octopus and pork brains for tempeh sausages and dairy-free tiramisu cupcakes - then you'll really have people talking. Paula Moore is a research specialist for The PETA Foundation. Leave your comments on the stories and columns you find in The Utah Statesman at aggietownsquare.com |