Living in Geneva this semester has already brought its fair share of excitement, not the least of which has been grocery shopping. On a continent where Monsanto, genetic tinkerer extraordinaire, is about as popular as Stalin, the food selection is, in a word, curious.

p. Take, for example, the yogurt which is born of processed, pasteurized, organic milk, then is bacteria-fortified and vitamin-enriched — yet the biggest question this raises among consumers is whether to buy the mocha flavor or the one with fruit chunks. Then again, the mocha is on sale this week.

p. Back in the States, we, too, have a growing obsession with organic food. The Federal Trade Commission’s controversial decision to hold up organic grocer Whole Food’s takeover of rival Wild Oats shows its concerns about maintaining competition in this burgeoning industry. But like the Swiss yogurt, organic food is awash in irony.

p. Consider that most environmental types exhort us to believe organic foods are somehow better for us because they’re grown “naturally.” Of course, “naturally” is much more a question of degree — at what point did food production cease to be natural? At the dawn of agriculture? With the introduction of fertilizers? Last Tuesday? At any rate, the farm field is a decidedly synthetic environment, and yet that’s where most organic food is being grown. But let’s not be too critical. Maybe being organic just requires a certain level of natural-“ness,” if you will.

p. And indeed it does. Its regulations are all qualified and quantified in a 554-page tome from the United States Department of Agriculture. However, the layman’s consensus on organic products seems to be “if it’s man-made or genetically modified, it’s not gonna fly,” thus implying all agricultural advances until the 1950s weren’t unnatural in the least.

p. Regardless of intention, these restrictions come at a cost to both the consumer and the environment. While regular farmers are utilizing all sorts of fertilizers and pesticides, their organic counterparts are left piling on the manure and hoping there won’t be a plague of locusts anytime soon. The problem, as you might imagine, is that organic techniques aren’t quite as effective, making it so that more farmland is required to grow the same amount of food.

p. There’s no doubt our artificial additives are hurting the environment, but the jury’s out on whether they’re worse than clearing a forest to put in some more organic soybeans. Whatever you’re disposed to think, it might be wise to consider the plight of millions of starving Africans who are cultivating their crops organically, but not by choice. Recent research has suggested fertilizing their continent would end its hunger problems.

p. But organic advocates seem to be banking on the fact that organic food would be better for people if not for the environment, a strange decision given government agencies from around the world (yes, even in France) have failed to find any nutritional difference between organically and conventionally grown foods.

p. Still, there’s a contingent with some inchoate fears that trace amounts of pesticides and herbicides are killing our kids on the sly, but it sounds a little too much like the fluoridated water conspiracies for my tastes. And anyway, the air we’re breathing right now should probably have us more worried.

p. If going organic is the best way to raise plants and animals, then why not do the same for people? These days we’re loading ourselves with caffeine, drugs and all manner of medicines. If man-made additives are ruining what we eat, then maybe they’re ruining us, too.

p. Neither heart medicine nor Uncle Ned’s Viagra is very natural, so let’s turn back the clock 10,000 years and dispense with that pharmaceutical bunk. It’s not like anyone really thinks life after the mid-30’s is terribly exciting, right? Now if you’ll excuse me, my shark fin soup’s calling. I hear it’s an aphrodisiac.

p. __Andrew Peters is a junior at the College.__

It is no secret that Thomas Jefferson once walked our halls as a student not unlike you and me. As we all know, he went on to fight against oppressive government for what he saw as the “inalienable right” to vote — for democracy.

p. That was over 200 years ago. In 2004, history repeated itself: the Williamsburg city government began to block students of the College from voting in Williamsburg elections. Oppression returned to government. The inalienable rights were alienated.

p. Before 2004, any student of the College could register to vote in Williamsburg elections. This is the norm for Virginia college towns, and it is easy to see why. As College President Gene Nichol wrote in a March 2006 e-mail to students, “This community will be your home for four years or more. It is your present center of focus and engagement … You are full members of this community — entitled to equal rights of political participation.”

p. It began with the city’s voter registrar requiring students to fill out a long and complicated questionnaire to register. The results spoke plainly to the new policy’s purpose: fewer than 15 students gained the right to vote out of hundreds of applicants. But our students, as Jefferson’s record will attest, are tenacious when it comes to securing our right to representation, and we did not give up.

p. Students have been trying ever since to understand the complex, ever-shifting rules for voting in Williamsburg. But city officials have been just as dedicated to keeping us disenfranchised. Every time students make sense of the requirements for registering, those requirements are changed. They were changed, in fact, 10 times in a single year. Students are unable to keep up.

p. Students have been questioned about whether they are financially dependent on their parents, where they go to practice religious worship and what address they have on their checks.

p. One student was rejected because his cellular phone did not have a local area code. Another was quizzed on the names of the members of the City Council in an act eerily reminiscent of the literacy tests once used to disenfranchise African Americans. It seems that any excuse will do, no matter how arbitrary or unconstitutional, to keep students from voting in Williamsburg.

p. So why did the city of Williamsburg decide that College students are analogous to felons and the insane — unsuitable to vote? The apparent motivation is perhaps more shocking than the act itself.
In early 2004, before the disenfranchisement campaign began, four students declared their intention to run for the City Council.

p. They were running in response to increased enforcement of a local anti-student law forbidding more than three unrelated people to live together. (See my column, “Off-Campus Discrimination,” in the Aug. 24 issue of The Flat Hat for an in-depth look at this law.) The students promised to repeal the law if elected, and at first it appeared likely this would happen — College students, after all, comprise the majority of Williamsburg’s population.

p. But this would have meant that the members of the City Council would lose their positions of power. What followed will be immediately familiar to any student of, say, Soviet political history — registration policies were abruptly changed, students were almost categorically forbidden to vote in the local election, and none of the students won office. Though the City Council does not directly appoint the registrar, its refusal to prevent him from disenfranchising over half of the Council’s constituents make it clearly complicit.

p. Last year, when two members of City Council (one of whom was Mayor Jeanne Zeidler) were again up for re-election, another student, David Sievers ’07, ran for office. Again, students sought voting rights. Again, the registrar fought to deny students those rights. In addition to the same tricks of 2004, he began to ignore students outright, refusing to respond to applications or sometimes to read them at all. Despite this, Sievers, with the help of only a handful of student votes, came within 400 votes of defeating Zeidler. Non-student residents of Williamsburg must be as fed up with City Council as we are for so many of them to vote for a 20-year-old college student over their incumbent mayor.

p. Following this narrow victory, City Council members stepped up efforts to block students from voting them out of office. After some students living off-campus successfully registered to vote in the 2006 election, the city fought to keep students from renting off-campus homes. This spring, it evicted 38 students living in such houses. It has also used $310,000 of taxpayer money to buy a rental house on student-heavy Harrison Avenue. The city stated it would only sell the house to a buyer who agreed never to rent it. (Any renters on Harrison would surely be students.) Outright disenfranchisement, it seems, is not enough to keep City Council members sufficiently confident of their re-election.

p. But all hope is not lost. We have a few Jeffersonian crusaders on our side. Among them is Nichol, who publicly called the city’s voting policies a “massive abrogation of the right to equal participation.” Matt Beato ’09 despite chairing the Student Assembly senate, a group known primarily for childish in-fighting, has worked for student voting rights almost since his arrival on campus.

p. The real hero is undoubtedly SA President Zach Pilchen ’09, whose fights for student voting are impossible to catalogue in a single column. Most recently, Pilchen gave a speech on the disenfranchisement of College students to a Washington, D.C. audience that included members of Congress, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Election Assistance Commission. The response, he said, was outright shock — something not easily evoked from the often-jaded members of groups like the ACLU.
“Other students had stories about long lines, screwy voter registration drives, broken voting machines and pre-election misinformation campaigns, but the story of everything that has happened in Williamsburg over the past four years elicited audible gasps from the panelists,” Pilchen told me.

p. A few days ago, I went to the voter registrar’s office to try for myself to register to vote in Williamsburg. I was unsure what to expect — Dave Andrews, who had been the registrar since March of 2004, was fired suddenly and under mysterious circumstances this past April. I assumed his replacement, Winifred Sowder, would be as hostile as Andrews had been. I could not have been more wrong.

p. I told Sowder I was a student and wanted to register to vote in Williamsburg. “That’s great,” she responded. “We love students. I think it’s great when students want to vote. Here’s the form.”
I almost forgot my own middle name. Could it be? A member of Williamsburg government who values, even pursues, democracy? I completed the half-page form and handed her my driver’s license and a copy of my lease (I rent a house off campus). I received my voter ID card in the mail two days later. On May 6, 2008, when three members of City Council go up for re-election, I will be ready.

p. __Max Fisher is a senior at the College.__

The recent informal meeting between members of the Student Assembly and representatives from the city of Williamsburg represents an important step in the improvement of town and gown relations. The last several years have seen a deterioration in these relations — from the three-person “brothel law” to severe limitations on student voting rights — and it is important that mutual efforts be undertaken to correct these problems.

p. The Student Assembly does not have a great deal of leverage when it comes to influencing the city’s policies, but the city must understand that when the laws pertain to or negatively impact students, our voices must be heard. A large part of juniors Zach Pilchen’s and Valerie Hopkins’ spring Student Assembly campaign was making sure that this voice was heard, and we hope that these goals and efforts continue to be sincere.

p. The primary player in mending these strained relations, however, must be the city of Williamsburg. We have often asserted that the students and citizens of Williamsburg constitute a mutually beneficial relationship. Students make up a significant percentage of the work force at several local businesses, dine at area restaurants and visit nearby attractions. Likewise, all members of the Williamsburg community enjoy access to our campus for recreational opportunities, athletic contests, concerts, theater and other pursuits.

p. We understand that town relations are one of the most contentious issues that has faced the student body over the past several years. The movers and shakers on both sides must approach this problem with a courteous mutual understanding that has been lacking in recent years. This meeting represents a start, and for the benefit of all parties, let it not be the end.

At many universities across the country, students enjoy ready access to a variety of newspapers and sources of information that enhance their knowledge of current events and foreign and domestic affairs. Known as Collegiate Readership Programs, various newspapers are widely available daily to college students at significant discounts. These programs are currently in effect at Stanford University, Columbia University, Penn State and Texas A&M and are being considered by other schools. While we are proud of our institution, we cannot help but wonder why the College does not make more of an effort to provide us with the means to be better informed citizens and students by implementing such a practical program.

p. The addition of quality national newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, placed strategically in high-traffic areas, such as the University Center lobby, would have a significant effect on keeping the student body well informed. Students could grab a copy on their way to class or lunch and be able to read up quickly on important developments at home and worldwide.

p. Some may argue that since Swem Library supplies daily copies and free online access to various publications, the school is already providing this service. However, this is not entirely the case, as the average student does not have the luxury of an hour of free time each day to trek to Swem to read newspapers. In addition, print newspapers have a portable quality that online versions can’t match.

p. As the College’s student newspaper, we have a vested interest in assuring that students, faculty and staff are well informed on a variety of topics. Many professors currently recommend — if not require — students to consume news on a daily basis to compliment their academic work. Considering the benefits to students, we think it would be a timely and appropriate decision for the Student Assembly to consider such a program and present it to students in a referendum. Implementation of a Collegiate Readership Program would have low costs for students and the administration and immeasurably high rewards for all.