There was a despicable op-ed in the Sunday Los Angeles Times by a woman named Heather Mac Donald, who works at the conservative think-tank The Manhattan Institute. Titled What Campus Rape Crisis?, the article is an anti-feminist refutation of rape statistics on college campuses. Mac Donald subtitles the article “Promiscuity and hype have created a phony epidemic at colleges.”

The statistics she is refuting are the same which prompted the ubiquitous “Consent is Sexy” posters on campus, those statistics which claim that between 20% and 25% of college women will be victims of at least attempted sexual assault before they graduate (PDF–check out page 17). The numbers come from a study commissioned by the Department of Justice in 1997. Female interviewers anonymously surveyed 4,446 women enrolled full-time in college and asked them specific questions about various forms of sexual assault and attempted assault taking place over a one-year period. The resulting statistic–about 5% of women had been victimized–was multiplied by four to estimate the number of incidents occurring during college. For the full details, look at the PDF above. Admittedly, their methods are slightly problematic, but not cause for a complete refutation.
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The news for Biofuels just keeps getting worse. Bad enough that turning food crops like soy and palm oil into fuel has raised the price of foodstuffs, severely impacting the world’s most impoverished residents, recent studies show that biofuels are a greenhouse threat, releasing more carbon than fossil fuels. Damn!

One of the main culprits is land use. Slashing forests or clearing natural vegitation to grow biofuel crops produces higher amounts of carbon than the offset of using the biofuel. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the scrubland or rain forest it has replaced. According to the article published yesterday in The New York Times,

The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.”

The article equates the much-touted benefits from biofuels as an accounting error, because creating biofuels is not as simple as just turning plants into fuel.

Nicholas Nuttal is a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program and he had this to say,

There was an unfortunate effort to dress up biofuels as the silver bullet of climate change,” he said. “We fully believe that if biofuels are to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, there urgently needs to be better sustainability criterion.

The one ray of hope in all this mess comes from Brazil, where they have been turning sugar can into ethanol without all the muss and fuss, but Brazilian farmers are also clear cutting rain forests to produce soy, as food and fuel.

As a big proponent of bicycles, “sustainability” and environmentalism, I’m saddened by the news, even if it should come as no surprise. Biofuels are the end product of a whole process and we rarely think of all the steps involved. On the other hand, I may have found just the reason I need to finally move to Brazil.

The snoring Butlerite, the dozing student in the corner of the class, and you–barely able to keep your eyes open while reading this. But do listen, this may be the end of your sleep-deprived days.

According to some gurus at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., there is a peptide in our brain that controls and regulates sleep. When we don’t get enough sleep, this peptide increases our alertness, but as our own experience tells us, this peptide is obviously not working hard enough. I introduce you to peptide, orexin-A.

In perfect scientific rationale, the team at said university decided to increase the orexin-A levels in sleep-deprived monkeys. Unsurprisingly, it “undid all the negative effects of staying up all night.” Their studies showed that:

“When the monkeys were challenged with tasks they had been trained to do that required some thought, they were not able to perform at their normal levels.

However, monkeys that endured sleep deprivation and were then given orexin-A improved their performance to a normal level. Additionally, brain imaging revealed that the monkeys’ brains had the same pattern of activity when they were given the peptide as when they had not lost any sleep.”

And everyone knows that we’re better than monkeys, right? This is it, guys. Our way out. I’m not kidding when I say that I can barely keep my eyes open from the 5 hours of sleep I just had as I write this. All we have to do now is wait until the pharmaceuticals decide to release the nasal spray. On top of this, I think Columbia should allocate one night per fortnight strictly to getting a minimum 9-10 hours of solid sleep, at least for us diurnal types. That means no parties, no catching-up, and certainly no getting ahead. Watch GPAs rise, productivity increase, and see better policy decisions made by the administration.

[College junior Greg Keilin offers us another report from Paris. And the place just sounds better and better...] 

This week marked my first interaction with the French medical system.  When I arrived in the fall, one of the universities at which I am studying had taken the somewhat unusual step of forcing me to buy French health insurance (reimbursed by Columbia), but I had hoped I would never have to use it.  Now, in need of a doctor, I was glad to have it, but nervous at the prospect of navigating an unfamiliar system in a foreign language. 

My advisor at Reid Hall reassured me, promising any help I might need, and referred me to a nearby medical practice.  They gave me an appointment that afternoon. 

The waiting room was empty when I arrived and the doctor appeared almost instantaneously.  She questioned and examined me, prescribed a blood test (to be performed elsewhere) and some medicine, and sat me down to explain the insurance process.  Despite the language barrier, I soon discovered that using Sécurité Sociale is practically painless. 

The next morning, I appeared unannounced to have my blood drawn.  I was the lab’s only patient and the doctor called me in immediately (notice a pattern?).  The sample was taken quickly and painlessly, and I walked out fifteen minutes after walking in. 

At the drug store, I met a very friendly young pharmacist.  He filled my prescription as I stood there (not “After 3 p.m. next Wednesday.”) and recommended some over-the-counter remedies for potential side effects.  Another miraculously pleasant experience. 

The refund requests, which took me five minutes to fill out, have been mailed and should be processed within a week.  All in all, my treatment cost me €84.50 or $125.49 (of which 75% will be paid back) and about an hour of my time.  In New York, with good insurance, I could easily spend thrice that. 

It continues to baffle me that the merits of the French system are so often ignored in the United States.  The economy here is weak and the bureaucracies are notoriously inefficient, but everyone is guaranteed cheap and easy access to medical help.  In our country, famed for its organization and for its wealth, even middle-class citizens are often denied the most basic care. 

The dysfunctional HMO structure has troubled American politicians at least since the “Hillarycare” debacle of the early 90’s.  Their search for a solution has continued off and on, producing few proposals and no compromise.  No one wants to repeat Mrs. Clinton’s mistake and introduce something less than ideal, so the most egregious of old problems are left unsolved for fear of causing new ones. 

When I told my doctor here how pleased I was with my experience, she was surprised.  She said the French complain constantly about their healthcare.  As the old saying goes, “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to want a glass of milk,” but France has not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Neither should we.

-GREG KEILIN