During finals week, the Steubenville story was erupting in every news source, social media site and coffee shop conversation in the country. It’s been two weeks, so unsurprisingly the Steubenville case is no longer on anyone’s radar.

Why write the column, then? Because I’m just as angry about this now as I was then.

Hopefully I won’t need to go out of my way to convince you that what happened to this girl was rape, and that rape is wrong. If you disagree with me there, you should probably stop reading (and hope I don’t find you).

What I would like to focus on is what we can take away from this story, now that the dust has settled a bit and we’ve all had some time to reflect.

As angry as I am at the offenders, what really gets me bent out of shape is the way the media portrayed the case.

Rape is a multifaceted cultural issue, an issue so complex that many feel there is not much that can be done about it (besides advising women to trade in their “provocative” clothing for pepper spray). And as satisfying as it is to read snarky blog posts that claim the best rape prevention strategy is “don’t rape her,” in reality, we don’t have such immediate control over those individuals who choose to rape.

What we do have control over, however, is the media, especially in its portrayal of sexual assault cases like these.

The most obvious reporting blunder (as few will let CNN forget) was over-sympathizing with the two convicted boys. But I won’t beat a dead horse.

In reality, the media problem extends far beyond a single screwed-up news segment.

One piece of “advice” I’ve heard and read repeatedly surrounding the Steubenville coverage is that we should take this case as a lesson — to practice more discretion with technology and social media, rather than be aware of rape and know when to intervene.

If the use of social media here should teach us anything, it is that the bystander effect is only evolving with technology. There were not only a number of “uninvolved” witnesses present at this crime, but also many who felt entitled to document and circulate the victim’s humiliation via Instagram photos, Twitter updates and a now infamous YouTube video (not to mention those who saw these things online and did nothing).

It’s much harder to claim the bystander effect when you tweet that the “Song of the night is definitely Rape Me by Nirvana.”

And it’s infinitely more maddening to see intelligent people interpreting this case as a cautionary tale about getting caught, not as a failure to recognize the seriousness of the situation and intervene, or even call the authorities.

Another aspect of the Steubenville media coverage that irked me was the emphasis on the victim’s intoxication.

Don’t get me wrong — there is evidence that the girl was drunk, and that is an essential part of the story. I don’t blame any news sources for including this fact. I only blame those who used it in the context of victim-blaming.

And citing the girl’s intoxication wanders into this context when reporters use it to emphasize the “gray area” of her consent. If anything, the fact that the girl was drunk to the point of being unresponsive should clarify the issue; by indicating otherwise, these news sources have equated silence with consent.

While reporting such as this is clearly irresponsible, it also provides clues for those wondering how much a thing could happen in the first place. Presenting the case’s “takeaway” as online discretion skirts the issue of awareness and intervention. Focusing on the victim’s inebriation muddies the definition of rape when, in this case at least, it should solidify it.

If one good thing has come of this, it’s that the story has opened up the rape dialogue across the country. It’s snapped many people out of their blissful ignorance by reminding them that rape culture is here, pervading our media just as much as our parties.

MARISA MASSARA wants to hear your reaction to the Steubenville media coverage; she can be reached at mvmassara@ucdavis.edu.

Congratulations Davis, we just passed Measure I! For all of you not paying attention, or for those making amateur porn, this means that the city of Davis will shift its water supply from ground water to the Sacramento River. What does that mean for me you might ask?

Well, you might notice a better taste in the water due to the decrease in selenium, boron and salts present in our new water, but more likely than not you’ll notice your water bill will triple since this project is proposed to cost at least $100 million. Why did we decide this you ask? Well, there are a number of reasons, but one basic answer is that we have over-pumped from the ground water for too long and need to find a new supply. But why did we over-pump in the first place? Good question. At this point I could attempt to explain the history of our over-consumption of water because of industries such as agriculture, paper mills, mining and most recently hydraulic fracturing, but instead I’d like to focus on the toilet.

I saw a meme the other day that depicted a child from the Global South with a skeptical look on his face. The text read, “So you’re telling me that you have so much clean water, that you sh*t in it?” Damn, that kid has a point. Every time we use the toilet we are basically contaminating otherwise clean water. I mean, it’s not our fault, it’s what we’ve been taught to do. It’s what we are reminded and reinforced to do every time we enter into the defecation/urination room. But what else could we do? If we pee or poop on the street then we risk an indecent exposure charge or if we just bury massive quantities of it then we risk contaminating groundwater or risk bacterial infections.

Hmmm … what to do, what to do … I got it, we could compost it! Surprisingly the process is really simple. Step 1: poop/pee in a bucket. Step 2: wipe your butt (you can still use toilet paper). Step 3: cover the poop and used toilet paper with a liberal amount of wood chips (the wood chips will neutralize the smell and speed up the composting process). Once your bucket is full, empty this into a barrel lined with straw and repeat the process. Once your barrel is full and topped with straw, put a piece of chicken wire on top to ensure pests don’t dig around in it. Plop in a thermometer and let it sit for six to eight months.

But wait — not everyone can do that, not everyone has the space. That’s true, but the city does have the space. So let’s think about it; the most efficient toilet on the market uses 1.3 gallons per flush (toilets manufactured after 2006). As many people may find out by going into their bathroom, this is not what the majority of toilets are. But for the sake of math we’ll go with this number. So 1.3 gallons H2O x 4 flushes per day (including urinating) x 365 days/year x ~60k residents of Davis = 113,880,000 gallons H2O per year for Davis, Calif. Damn… and that’s the conservative estimate.

I guess at this point I could make a plea to change your toilet to high efficiency or tell you “if it’s yellow let it mellow” but that just doesn’t seem like enough. Especially when you look at the water use of those industries I mentioned earlier (1 natural gas well with hydraulic fracturing = ~ 6 million gallons of water). Thinking back to that meme, there is something definitely off about a culture that believes the best way to deal with waste is to flush it away with clean water.

I got it, poop in buckets and drop them off at your representative’s house until they change things.

Kase Wheatley
Fourth-year sustainable agriculture major

This letter is from a group of international students at UC Davis who would like to send a message to all of you in the larger community. International students are a demographically significant part of the UC Davis student body which has been rapidly increasing every year for the past few years. There are currently about 2,000 undergraduate internationals, and by 2020, UC Davis’ goal is to increase the proportion to 5,000, which is 20 percent of the entire undergraduate population. Because of this, UC Davis needs to make attempts to understand the experiences of international students better.

As international students, we came to UC Davis to learn about American culture, to develop an international network, to learn English and to achieve academic success in a competitive environment at a globally-recognized institution.

However, language barriers, cultural conflicts and references often hinder our ability to be successful at UC Davis. For example, professors often fail to recognize if we’re struggling with class material or the wording of tests. We know that we need to use English to do the homework and tests, but this is a double burden for us compared to native speakers: we need to understand the concepts and the language.

We have made the decision to accept this double burden. It is worth the extra financial investment (international students pay nearly three times more than California residents per academic year in fees) and extra investment of energy for us to learn such an international language as English. We are motivated to make these investments but sometimes resources available to us are not meeting our needs.

Furthermore, cultural differences regarding the relationships between teachers and students in the United States versus many of our home countries are quite different. In East Asia for example, students generally do not ask questions in class, particularly questions for clarification or basic questions regarding the content, whereas it’s encouraged and expected here.

In addition to academic challenges, we are facing another important barrier: networking with local students. It is a common phenomenon for international students to stick together and not communicate with local students. The reason for this is twofold: First, we are often insecure about speaking our second language with native speakers; it’s not a comfortable language for us. Second, many native speakers are impatient or indifferent about interacting with us socially.

Furthermore, we rarely have a chance to get involved in American cultural topics (e.g. popular TV shows, American sports, political issues, etc.). International students often join popular organizations like Club-International (Club-I), a club designed for international students to make friends, but just with each other and not with American students.

We suggest that the following recommendations be considered by the UC Davis community with regards to the diverse experiences of the student body.

Academically, we want to get good grades but we need to already speak, read, write and understand English well. Speaking with native speakers of English is one way that we try to become better at English, but many native speakers do not have patience for those learning the language. Please take the time to listen and try to understand us.

Organizations like Club-I provide benefits, but we want better clubs run by both local and international students in order to break the invisible walls between each other. We are seeking various chances to get connected with local students and get involved in university community.

Finally, there are already a number of resources for international students, but we experience difficulties finding and utilizing them. So, there should be better outreach.

Thank you for listening,
Yuxuan Han, Bei Jia, Zehui Lin, Siyuan Liu, Naoto Tanaka, Xiezhe Wang, and Junghee Woo
Your friends from EDU 98, Winter 2013

I was browsing through The Aggie website when an article, “Master gardeners emphasizes sustainable, water-wise gardening,” caught my attention. After reading a couple paragraphs, the methods and content reminded me of a debate from my environmental history class; the topic was Conservation vs. Preservation of the land and its natural resources. This was brought up when the first national park was opened; two advocates, Gifford Pinchot for conservation and John Muir for preservation, argued how the land and the natural resources within the park should be handled and used. Although the two principals focus on protecting nature for future generations, there is a fundamental difference in the way they go about it.

Preservation is reverting nature back into its primal state in which human influence and presence is nonexistent, while conservation focuses on environmentally-sustainable practices to directly ensure the wellbeing of the ecosystem while providing the most use to the public. The article is a prime example of conservational methods, informing people how to tend gardens, as well as sustainability. They covered basic knowledge about gardening, water conservation techniques and knowledge about what type of plants would thrive in certain settings. The article shows a direct human approach toward taking care of the environment while minimizing human impact.

Nowadays, I believe that society as a whole is leaning towards conservative ideas and policies. As we see more and more people and projects focusing on sustainable techniques and methods while maximizing our use of resources, like water and electricity, we also see more campaigns to limit the amount of industrial waste produced by factories, protests against certain construction sites, and spread the information to make the public more environmentally aware. More and more groups are dedicated to the “green movement,” reducing our carbon footprint and encouraging research and application towards green technology such as renewable energy and recycling.

I believe the reason why people lean towards these kind of policies, directly involving ourselves with the wellbeing and management of our environment, has less to do with preserving the “wild, pristine state of nature” and more with how aware we are of our impact of the environment. There are all kinds of messages and statistics that made us increasingly aware of how various aspects of our society, from our local households to industrial factories, have affected the environment over the years. Such messages showcase a disaster, like the BP oil spill, or studies of the accumulation of pollutants that we have released over the years.

I believe it due to these messages that society as a whole perceives most forms of natural crises to have resulted from our hands in one way or another and that we must take responsibility for our actions. There is also the message that if we do not actively undo the damage and pursue a greener lifestyle, we would evidently cause irreversible environmental damage and climate change. Thus it is no longer a concern about the aesthetics or beauty of the wilderness, but a matter of survival.

I see this article as a sign of where our current mindset is heading, where our belief in what our role in the environment should be, and our image of nature. Thus it is my thought that as the world changes, a tremendous amount of pollution is released each day, and energy demands increase, that I take care to do my part and properly manage the garden. Hopefully, I would be alone and just be one of the many who are encouraged to engage in a greener lifestyle and an environmentally friendly way of thinking.

William Wen
Second-year history major