Last week’s congressional elections brought a new party with a different outlook to the United States Congress. Amidst the turmoil surrounding a reform of the nation’s policy on Iraq, a different kind of reform is long due in foreign relations. For over 40 years, the United States has invested heavily in foreign aid to Sub-Saharan Africa. These investments have only expanded in recent years, after President Bush dedicated himself to the righteous cause of addressing the plight of AIDS in the region. Americans have overwhelmingly approved of African aid programs, but recent polls indicate that only one-third of Americans would approve of further spending increases in African aid programs. Why? Because the American population has perceived the rampant corruption within many of these programs and that much of the money targeted for the African population goes to support suspect regimes and dishonest politicians.

p. Proportionally, the United States gives a very small percentage of its GDP to foreign aid, compared to most nations. However, the total amount of U.S. aid to Africa over the past forty years comes to a sizeable $500 billion. At last year’s G-8 summit, world leaders agreed to double aid funding by 2010 and to continue increasing foreign aid for the foreseeable future, amounting to roughly $1.6 trillion in aid for the first decade of the program. The G-8 leaders also agreed to forgive the massive debt of these countries, which came with a roughly $400 billion price tag. The United States, which currently provides about 20 percent of total funds for the world’s aid, will soon be providing about 50 percent, with $125 billion dollars per year going to Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

p. Yet, despite the massive investments the United States has poured into Africa, per capita incomes on the continent have fallen an appalling 25 percent over the past 30 years. Roughly 46 percent of the African people now live in what can only be described as extreme poverty. Despite American efforts, the state of sub-Saharan Africa has only gotten worse. It has been estimated that anywhere between $95 billion and $500 billion in aid programs have been lost due to corruption via a number of means, from kickbacks surrounding the placement of diamond mines and oil fields, to skimming the funds from government monopolies on agricultural exports. The continuous flow of funding coming from the United States and other industrialized nations has allowed corruption to be streamlined, and with the recent proposed increases at the G-8 summit, future corruption can only be expected to increase. The massive aid increases can be viewed as merely rewarding the inefficient and disgraceful manner in which the aid programs have been managed by African regimes as well as negligent American bureaucrats.

p. How does the United States deal with the problem of corruption without limiting resources to the impoverished people of sub-Saharan Africa? As we have seen from the history of aid programs, beginning with the Marshall Plan used to bring Europe out of the ashes of the Second World War, aid programs are most effective when there are no strings attached. However, without strict regulations outlining how money should be appropriated as well as close oversight to ensure funds are being spent properly, aid programs are very vulnerable to corruption. No one expects fraudulent practices to be completely expunged, but strict oversight is now required to assure an efficient aid process that helps the poor rather than lining the pockets of dishonest politicians. The new Democratic majority in Congress must take action to show the American people that their hard-earned money, which could be used to help the poor within the United States, is being more productively used to help the indigent people of sub-Saharan Africa.

p. For the time being, I am one American that is not entirely convinced.

p. __Joshua Powers is a senior at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__

If you can recall, The Flat Hat published an article Nov. 10 exploring the legitimacy and rising influence of Comedy Central’s “fake news” shows, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. More and more students are tuning in to this hour-long, “no-fact zone” block. But why? Do students depend on Stewart and Colbert for reliable news? For kicks? I asked around.

p. On my way to Swem, I ran into Ted. Like most students, he and his roommate, Devin, watch the Daily Show occasionally. The Colbert Report gets trite, Ted said. For news, he relies more on Yahoo or Wikipedia. “It seems The Daily Show is sort of a news follow-up you watch. I mean, I use it as a news source, yes, but for fun too. The Colbert Report … not so much,” Ted said.

p. At Swem, I cat-napped, wrote letters, made dinner plans at a friend-of-a-friend’s and then called Devin to verify what Ted said. But Devin said the same thing, more or less. “I watch [The] Daily Show from time to time, and find it quite amusing. I try to avoid the hackneyed cliche of an O’Reilly pastiche that is The Colbert Report. I watch The Daily Show to laugh. That is really it. I don’t watch it for the news, no.”

p. I went outside and asked random students what they thought of it all and they generally echoed the same sentiment. Well, to take it back one sentence, I scribbled on a piece of paper four or five questions. These answers reflect the majority of responses:

p. **Do you watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report?**

p. Irregularly; by chance; not religiously.

p. **Do you watch them for news? For kicks? For both?**

p. A bit of both. I mean, if I had to choose one or the other, I would say for kicks.

p. **Are they your only news source? What other news sources do you subscribe to?**

p. Word of mouth — usually I get my news from friends, something’s always coming up in conversation.

p. **What do you think of Stewart and Colbert, personally? You can tell me.**

p. I don’t think about them, I have no idea what to tell you.

p. **Oh, but you must!**

p. Well, all right … I’m split. Half of me wants to say they are brilliantly incisive satirists and social commentators who, as comedians, have a license to get to the heart of problems facing society today … Stewart is a fucking genius and I’ve never seen him lose any debate or discussion he’s ever had … if they ran as a team for president, I would support them, if their candidacy was viable.

p. **And the other half?**

p. Colbert is an idiot. He has potential to be funny, he has it within him to amuse the audience, but he tries way too hard. His interviews are stupid.

p. **What impact do you think these shows have on our society?**

p. They provide useful insight into our cultural foibles that more sanctified media outlets are barred from giving. Younger people are getting excited about politics because these shows are able to present their content in funny and thought provoking ways.

p. So ended my interviews. More and more kids are approaching these shows with the expectation of acquiring valid information about the world today. Whether or not Stewart and Colbert intend it, they are delivering news, and quite a handful of us are buying it.

p. Most believe that these shows are only meant to make us laugh, so they’re not worried about any political agenda. One shouldn’t consider these shows to be “dangerous” with regard to how they portray our politicians — it seems they are making it easier and easier for the media to point out their innate corruptibility and horrid flaws of character. All Stewart and Colbert are doing is laughing at the idiocies of our leaders. What’s the harm in that?

p. __Sherif Abdelkarim, the editor of Jump! magazine, is a sophomore at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__

I’m pissed off, and it doesn’t matter to me that there are probably more eloquent ways to express myself — nothing else conveys exactly how frustrated I am with sports, and to a greater degree, our attitudes toward them at this school. I’ve been here for two football seasons and I can honestly say our program is depressing both on the field and in the stands. Nobody likes to see one hopeless match-up after another, but that’s just the thing: nobody’s going to the games anyway. We all (read: all 250 of us) show up late to partially fill the student section and, by the time the fourth quarter rolls around, the homework we ought to be doing has drawn all but a stalwart few away. Of course, we engage in a lot of rationalization and hand-wringing because we know that if we can make time for 900 extra-curricular activities, we can probably schedule in three hours on a Saturday afternoon.

p. Maybe I’m romanticizing, but I find it saddening that I have rushed the field and court more times and felt more team pride in high school than I ever have here. This Thanksgiving break, I’ll be heading back home to St. Charles, Mo. to see my high school’s basketball squad take on its cross-town rival in one of the biggest games of the season. The line to get in will stretch outside the door, the fans will be screaming non-stop and we’ll be rooting for our respective teams like our lives depended on it. I’ll be in the company of several thousand individuals who, despite whatever differences they may have brought to the arena, will be wholeheartedly cheering their teams on to victory. If we can be so invigorated by intramural competition, as mentioned in last week’s Confusion Corner, why can’t we get excited about athletics at the collegiate level?

p. That said, sports are a rallying point for any school community. Take Kansas State University, for example.When I visited in September, all 50,000 seats were packed for the game against Louisville despite the near certainty of a loss. Granted, we’re probably a bit more scholarly than the Wildcats, but we have to start acting like human beings every once in a while, too. I’m certainly not saying we shouldn’t take pride in our grades and accomplishments, but failing to appreciate success beyond a personal level leaves so much to be experienced. Right now, our enthusiasm for athletics is entirely conditional — we’ll support our teams as long as it doesn’t conflict with that meeting we have on Tuesday or that service project on Saturday afternoon. We seem to have “Tribe Pride” in name only, and let’s face it — you are not the Tribe, I am not the Tribe. We are the Tribe, and without the feather controversy to rile up the spiteful among us, I’m not sure we’d really be standing together for anything. Heck, we don’t even have a mascot (pizza slice notwithstanding).

p. Here’s the deal: as students, let’s start getting excited about sports on campus and show our support even if the teams aren’t doing so well. To those of you who have no interest in sports, I think you’ll find that a certain happiness results from the less cerebral pursuit of yelling your head off for an hour or two. And, on the flip side, let’s pressure the administration to start working harder to make our sports programs the best they can be. I realize we’re not a “sports school” per se, but I think I speak for a lot of folks when I say I’d feel a lot more pride if the number 95 were our winning percentage, rather than our athlete graduation rate. So, if nothing else, if we can fill William and Mary Hall with thousands of screaming fans confident of a victory, once, just once, I’m pretty sure we’ll be doing something right. Go Tribe — just so long as it’s not after seven on Monday or Tuesday, or during “Grey’s Anatomy,” or “Deal or No Deal” or …

p. __Andrew Peters is a sophomore at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__

As prospective students continue traipsing the campus in droves, the question naturally arises — what is it, exactly, that differentiates a good university from a bad one? To our aspiring applicants, weak from walking and inundated with senselessly colorful pamphlets, I offer one piece of crucial advice: check out the bathrooms.

p. The scrawls on restroom walls are something like civilization’s lowest common denominator: the yardstick with which we can measure the true scope of our students’ wit and intellect. I took time this weekend to travel to every public bathroom I could find on campus, hoping to uncover comedic gems or the wise musings of some shitting sage. And, pervert though I may be, fear not — I steered clear of the ladies’ rooms.

p. Of course, certain slogans were ubiquitous, most notably “J.T.’s date,” that legendary lass who, alas, “did not reciprocate.” Millington’s men lampooned the Sig Ep catchphrase in a charming piece called “J.T.’s data,” which featured a chart cataloging various genetic Xs and Ys. Had Gregor Mendel graced our urinals, he’d have been proud.

p. Equally pervasive is the “grout pun” phenomenon, which purportedly originated in Tucker before proliferating to nearly every academic building on campus. The premise is simple: in homage to moldy bathroom tiles everywhere, students pen their finest pun on “grout,” optimally mocking some aspect of popular culture in the process. Personal favorites? “Grout Gates of Kiev” and “Grout! Grout! Let It All Out” (Blair); “Oscar the Groutsch,” “The Grout Potato Famine” and “A Classy Man A-Grout Town” (Millington). Highest honors, however, are awarded to whatever effulgent soul played on these classic lines from “Twelfth Night”: “Some are born grout, some achieve groutness, and some have groutness thrust upon them!”

p. Oftentimes, a stall will reveal the interests of its department. Tucker, for instance, references “Paradise Lost” and the W.A.S.T.E. symbol from Pynchon’s “The Crying of Lot 49” — tributes to the value of a liberal arts education. One student, perhaps a music-econ double major, wrote out the notes to “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits” on a Ewell wall. “Although, the cost has gone up,” he added, “Damn recession.” McGlothlin-Street Hall has urinals adorned with “Optimized for Windows ’98” stickers, proof that the College’s computer science buffs will go to admirably extreme lengths to insult Microsoft — or to pee on them.

p. Not all of our graffiti is brilliant satire, to be sure; as with any institution, there are ineradicable traces of homophobia and racism. Even these, however, are treated with enough creativity to merit some Tribe Pride. “Ryan Scofield is a racist!” declares one wall in the University Center basement. “Shut up, man,” someone has written beneath it, “you don’t know. He could be dating an Asian guy.” Underneath that: “He is. It’s me. I’m a Korean exchange student and I love his big American ideas.” In Washington, one satisfied male carved “I Masturbated Here” into the door. Another similarly jaded youth responded, “Who hasn’t?”

p. If “grout” is the good and “racist” the bad, then the Campus Center offers samples of the ugly. Attentive readers will recall the “gay sex bathroom scandal” of past years; unfortunately, it appears the Campus Center basement hasn’t quite lost its reputation. “Leave times for Nov 06,” writes one desperate hopeful. “11-4 after 10PM Hospitality House Rm. 372 I Want BJ or Tite Ass!” We’ll never know, regrettably, if his wish came true. But why didn’t he just use MySpace, like everybody else?

p. What does this collection of graffiti say about our school? It’s certainly a testament to our collective sense of humor. It flaunts, in its own peculiar way, our unique braininess. Interestingly, I found nearly no misspelled words during my misadventures. Even “masturbate,” which is all-too-frequently rendered as “masterbate” by horny high-schoolers across the country, was seldom besmirched. Furthermore, most vandals took the time to punctuate their messages, right down to the commas. Are JMU students so meticulous? Is it beneath U.Va. men to make puns on “grout,” lest an errant speck of ink stain their J. Crew slacks? Do Princeton kids spend time libeling each others’ eating clubs, or do they hire people to write their graffiti for them?

p. Clearly, our lavatories have much to teach us. It’s a shame that so much great graffiti is routinely obliterated in repainting jobs; the administration assumes that we’d rather stare at a pristine wall than at the witticisms of those who came — and worse — before us. Our student body is nothing if not self-aware. In its hands, most bathroom graffiti transcends “vandalism” and emerges as something of an art form. One author in the UC basement openly invites creativity. “The classic lines for this situation are: ‘Here I sit, all broken-hearted / Came to shit, but only farted.’ However, since this is such a prestigious institution of higher learning, be creative and compose a new one.” There’s a section for “submissions.” Several are noteworthy, though they may be plagiarized. “Man’s ambitions must be small,” suggests one, “to write his thoughts on a shithouse wall.” The greatest wisdom, however, is accredited to poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, circa 2006: “This is a teepee / for you to pee-pee / not a wigwam / for you to beat your tom-tom.”

p. What prospective student could possibly resist that?

p. __Dan Piepenbring, the editor of The Pillory, is a junior at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__