Senile History Professor Teaches Sex-Ed (Bounce Magazine Vol. 13 Issue 1 October 2012)

Professor Barnwurst of the UNC History Department has been teaching upwards of 100 first-year students about seminal vesicles for at least two weeks now.

The students, who are relatively certain they originally enrolled in a class about European history, were first merely puzzled, and now totally flabbergasted by the lecture topics Barnwurst has selected.

"The class started out totally normal," said freshman Ron Dreyfuss. "We actually talked about Napoleon and stuff for about a week, but then things started getting weird. I would have dropped by now, but I could use an easy A."

"There was a day, I think it was the second week of class, when he just talked about birth canals for the entire 50 minutes," said student Sally Stickman. "At that point I knew something was wrong."

"I would have gone to an advisor or something, but he still talked occasionally about European history until mid-September or so," said Stickman. "I think that was the scrotum rant; he kept us after class for that one."

It's unclear whether the gradual modification of Barnwurst's syllabus was due to a descent into perverted insanity, or if he's only become less aware of his surroundings as time has gone on, but one thing is certain: his class isn't going anywhere.

"I'll admit that the banana-condom project las week was a little uncomfortable, but I'm actually doing really well," said student Evangeline Mason. "Barnwurst is strict, but he's a great teacher!"

Other students were less appreciative of the professor, but they still seemed content to remain in the class. "Honestly I feel bad for the dude," said student Taylor Gillian. "I don't think he's all there, and even when he's clearly talking about sex he can be a bit hard to follow. It's kind of nice to learn something practical for once though."

Sweet Frog Hosts Obama Fundraiser (Bounce Magazine Vol. 13 Issue 1 October 2012)

Nearing the end of a long and expensive campaign, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party announced Tuesday that they'd be holding one last big fundraising drive at Sweet Frog, the popular frozen yogurt chain in Chapel Hill.

"Sweet Frog already brings in a lot of traffic, so that's an impressive quantity of donors that we can just take for granted," said Judy O'Donnell, the campaign organizer in charge of creating the Facebook event. "We just have to remind the attendees to tell the cashier they're here for Obama."

Obama said he picked Sweet Frog for the specific environment it provides. "I'm confident that the vivid, pastel-colored walls and the free-spirited, individualized way they sell frozen yogurt will pique the community's interest and energize our base constituency," Obama affirmed. "You get to serve yourself whatever you want and pay by weight--it's pretty cool, actually."

Vice President Joe Biden, who plans to man the table by the door, expressed excitement for the unique opportunity to communicate directly with a long line of voters. "There's gonna be a lot of customers coming through, so I'll have to talk loud and fast," Biden said. "I'm bringing flyers too--that way I'll have a cheat sheet if I forget platform principles or whatever else I'm supposed to tell people."

"I'm planning on getting here early too," he added. "That way I'll have time to buy a bowl of skittles and gummy bears and settle in before the rush. Have you seen the lights here? They're paper mache or something, it's great!"

O'Donnell said she is "incredibly excited" for the upcoming donor event. "It's a Thursday, and that's a BIG 'fro-yo night,' according to the locals. The only thing I'm concerned about is our competition. Cold Stone, Ben & Jerry's, and the Yogurt Pump are all aggressive marketers, and they get remarkable sales on weekday nights," O'Donnell said.

"I've also heard the Romney folks might be setting up shop at the Domino's up the road but that doesn't really worry us."

UNC's Environmental Affairs for the 2012-2013 Year: An Interview with Logan Mauney (Campus BluePrint Print Issue October 2012)

Logan Mauney is a co-chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill Environmental Affairs Committee, which is a part of the executive branch of UNC-CH Student Government. The EAC works with the university administration and various student groups to foster communication and collaboration and work on projects relating to issues like sustainability, recycling and financial transparency.

Last year you helped put together SBP Will Leimenstoll's platform; how has that and the specific goals and initiatives outlined in it informed your plans for the Environmental Affairs Committee (EAC) this year?

Mauney: Well of course we want to address the line items in the platform--those things you can just check off the box--and also we want to channel the spirit of the platform. The environment was integral to Will's platform, coming from his background. But also, we don't want it to limit us to certain topics.

We just got our committee last week, and one of the biggest things we're trying to push is that we want this to be their committee, and though we've got a long list of things that are already in the works--you know, things leftover from last year, things that we as co-chairs stumbled into in the first month of school--we want to hear their ideas, and try to work on those throughout the year too.

Can you tell me about how you plan to work with other environmental groups on campus? Eco-Harmony was a program started by the Cooper Administration to bring all those different groups together; what are you planning to do with that initiative this year?

Mauney: The whole idea there was just bringing together the leadership of student groups just for us to have a time to meet. I'm hoping bi-weekly, maybe once a month--I think it was a little more infrequently last year--but just to have a quick time so we can have that familiarity amongst ourselves.

Last year I got to go to some of the first meetings; I thought it was a great idea, because one of the things we've kind of identified this year is that we have the Office of Waste Reduction and the Sustainability Office, which are the administrative--the long term--you can think of them as the rock of environmental affairs on campus, but on the student side, things are pretty fragmented.

We as student groups aren't very aware of each other or what's going on. And I don't think there's ever been a time of stepping on toes or doing the same thing, but I think that in terms of accomplishing more, and making more of an impact, we can get a lot more done if we're really aware of each other, especially recognizing that we're coming from a lot of different angles.

I think in Will's platform it says something about 'supporting and collaborating with other student groups on campus,' and it's just that central idea that we want to be a hub for communication and collaboration, but the other half of it is that we want to streamline and initiate projects on campus.

That could definitely help students more easily find groups to volunteer with that really match their interests, too. Another issue on the platform is the lack of transparency regarding UNC's $2.2 billion endowment fund. What have you and the committee done about that so far?

Mauney: I think the date is October 29--we have to confirm that with the administrators--but it's the Endowment 101 Forum. We had some talks last year with the administrators about having this open place where they could talk about the endowment and what its uses are.

Being able to give a spiel on their side, to say, "[this is] the purpose of the endowment; this is how it's allocated; this is how it's managed,"--but then to have that opportunity for students to hopefully have some prepared questions, that we could get from those student organizations. Like Students for a Democratic Society had a big voice last year--we talked to them--Sierra Student Coalition, the Student Power Assembly--you know, working with them to have good questions and really get a student voice up there, and then hopefully have a spontaneous Q&A too. We want to make sure that students can get the full information in how the endowment impacts the environment, and also just creating the environment--in a different sense--on campus, of having that openness.

So basically trying to work with the administration and just bring everyone involved together to cooperate and get on the same page?

Mauney: I think that's exactly what we're trying to do. We've been talking to the executive board of officers under Will about something like an Endowment Transparency Committee that has student representation...That could be maybe a realistic step towards that divestment.

What are some other projects you're planning to work on this year?

Mauney: So we're going to be working with the dining halls, the Greek system and housing. In housing, dorm composting is something...the sustainability living-learning community sort of had the pilot program I think, but this year it's going strong, and actually...in Cobb they've got composting. But again we're hoping to set the model, see what sort of success we can have, and then make it an option that all students can have on campus.

In Lenoir they're going to be launching compost right outside Freshens. That was something that we brought up last year just as an idea, something that I was really excited about, and this year we're going to have the pilot at least. We're going to be supplying volunteers for that to monitor the compost and hopefully educate people too.

Could you tell me some about the Game Day Challenge and what else you might be working on with the Athletics Department?

Mauney: It's another thing that's coming up--on October 6 I think it's going to be this year--so it's one of our big focuses right now. Hopefully it's going to be a day where we can try some pilot projects. It could be a zero waste game, where we have a lot of volunteers that go through and sort everything into recycling and compost, and then that little bit of trash that would be left over; something like that that we can try one time, and see what the feasibility is of institutionalizing these practices. It could be composting in the Blue Zone or the chancellor's box. If we could convince the right people that this is something that, one, is really little effort on their part, and two, a big impact, or something that could be a positive PR move, and also just something they should do.

We've also collected some contacts with the Office of Waste Reduction to do a lot of research on our peer institutions and hopefully compile a report of best practices, and maybe a wish list for things that we could add here at UNC that there's already a model for at other universities.

And hopefully they'll be watching us too. Do you have any kind of more long-term goals or general themes for the committee to work on?

Mauney: One of our big pushes this year is visibility and outreach; we really just want to raise awareness and be like an educating tool. One of our big goals is to change the culture a little bit.

So it's things like tweeting short articles that could be interesting, or little things that students can do on campus, or little reminders. It's things like working with the administration to institutionalize maybe a little greener curriculum--that was one of the projects last year. You know in the top corners of the Daily Tar Heel there's a little tiny bit of empty space, but if there was just a little something, "remember to recycle," or something like that on every page--little things like that. Or maybe in the administration, [these issues], in a more tangible sense, could be part of the chancellor's platform, or part of the message of UNC.

I mean, we're the flagship university of the UNC system, and with this much influence and this many students, we can really set a good example--I think we have more of a responsibility to be a role model.

North Carolina Trees Sacrificed for Billboard Visibility (Campus BluePrint Blog October 2012)

North Carolina advertisers are being allowed to cut more trees on state property than ever before, say critics of a North Carolina law that went into effect early this year.

The law expands the area around billboards that can be cleaned of vegetation, and allows advertisers to ignore local ordinances, which has sparked a heated debate about the relative value of trees and billboards to the state.

Now the N.C. Department of Transportation, after using temporary rules since March, has proposed a set of permanent rules to guide them in their selective vegetation removal policy in compliance with the law.

Ryke Longest, director of the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, said in an interview that the biggest problem is no one has really examined how much state property is being given away in enacting these rules.

“That’s the public’s property,” Longest said, “and we’re giving it away.”

When a company clears vegetation around a billboard, they must compensate the state by replanting trees elsewhere, taking down two other billboards, or by simply buying the trees from the state, Jamille Robbins, public involvement officer at the N.C. Department of Transportation, said in an email interview.

The price per tree is 75 dollars per caliper inch, said Longest, who speaks on behalf of non-profit environmental organization Scenic NC. “There’s no way that comes close to the replacement value of the tree; there’s a discount,” he said.

Longest said that the billboard companies do the measurements themselves, so there’s an opportunity for them to pretend certain trees don’t exist.

At one site, Longest said, “They cut 53 trees, but they told the state that one of them was existing, and so they paid $1,700 for the one.” The other 52 would’ve cost $34,000 to cut, he said.

“Buy one existing tree, get 52 free,” Longest said. “That’s just a ridiculous subsidy.”

Alyson Tamer, roadside environmental engineer for the N.C. Department of Transportation, said that advertisers only have to pay “for trees that were existing at the time the billboard was put up.”

Tamer said that advertisers don’t get a chance to lie about tree numbers. “The companies definitely measure, and they say whether there’s existing trees or not, but our technicians go out there and verify everything,” she said in an interview.

Tony Adams, executive director of the N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association, defended the law and the new proposed policies, saying that billboards are more important than trees for North Carolina.

There were very few trees on the public right-of-way before the 1970s, he said. “I will contend to you that many places in North Carolina were prettier back then,” he said at a public hearing in Asheville.

Billboards play an important role in leading visitors to cultural landmarks, Adams said, and people should be concerned about visibility instead of trees.

Adams said that trees are also worse for the environment than billboards because they give off methane and deplete groundwater. “But isn’t it interesting that when there were less trees in the public right-of-way 30 or 40 years ago, global warming was less of a problem than it is today?”

Adams cited studies done by the Max Planck Institute in West Germany to support his statements. “So if you’re willing to look at it objectively, you can see where trees have positive influences on the environment, but there are negative influences also,” he said.

Trees by the side of the road can be dangerous to motorists, and advertisers are doing North Carolina a service by paying for their removal, Adams said. “That could be somebody’s grandfather, and when those people get killed, they should not have to give their lives because a tree was too close to the road.”

The N.C. Department of Transportation’s new policies do include some improvements, Longest said. The policy now recognizes the importance of state and federal environmental laws, which the law alone didn’t, but it still doesn’t respect local ordinances, he said.

The new policies also allow a 30-day period for individual municipalities to review vegetation removal proposals and make comments before the N.C. Department of Transportation looks at it, Longest said, “but the state is not obligated to deny it based on that.

“That’s the piece of it that I think is really missing,” Longest said. “It’s not like when you cross that line from private property onto state right-of-way that local ordinances don’t apply—they do in every other circumstance.”

The Rules and Review Commission of the the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings will meet on Oct. 18 to determine whether or not the proposed policies conform to state law.



 http://campusblueprint.com/2012/10/13/north-carolina-trees-sacrificed-for-billboard-visibility/

Hunting Threatens Last Wild Population of Red Wolves in the World (Campus BluePrint Blog October 2012) (Mother Nature Network NC Correspondent Blog)

Steadily rising coyote populations have been causing enough trouble in North Carolina as it is, but now even management efforts are having unintended consequences.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission adopted a temporary rule on August 1 which allows night hunting of coyotes with a light. Daytime hunting without a specific season or limit has been permitted for years, but some say that night hunting puts the red wolves of North Carolina in danger.

“They look very close to coyotes,” said Tara Zuardo, legal associate for the Animal Welfare Institute, one of several organizations that jointly filed a lawsuit in September against the commission, as well as a request to end the night hunting.

Eastern North Carolina has the only wild population of red wolves left in the world, and there’s only about 90 to 110 of them, Zuardo said in an interview. She said that there are already about seven red wolves mistakenly killed every year.

“Out of the total population, that’s 7 to 9 percent annually,” Zuardo said. “That’s before the night hunting.”

“If we have those issues in the daytime, we’re definitely going to have them in the nighttime,” said Kim Wheeler, executive director of the Red Wolf Coalition, another organization involved in the case. Many hunters don’t even know that North Carolina has wolves, so they just assume they’re coyotes, Wheeler said in an interview.

Red wolves were officially declared extinct in the wild in 1980, but the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service tried to reintroduce them to several areas in the late 1980s. “This is really the only reintroduction program that worked,” Zuardo said. “It’s a pretty sensitive population.”

Wheeler said that shooting even a few wolves can be disastrous. “We have less than a dozen [mated] pairs of animals,” she said. Not only that, but shooting coyotes can also hurt the wolves, she said.

Because of interbreeding concerns, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service already sterilizes coyotes within red wolf territories.

A press release issued by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Chapel Hill organization that officially filed the complaint against the commission, said that shooting these coyotes “will undo effective coyote population control efforts and further jeopardize the native red wolf population.”

Forrest Orr, enforcement officer for the commission, said that hunting is necessary for dealing with rising populations of coyotes.

“Coyotes have no natural predators; they’re pretty much the top of the food chain,” said Orr in an interview. “Hunting and trapping are really the only management tools that we have.”

Mallory Martin, chief deputy director of the commission, said in an email interview that coyotes prey on livestock on farms and domestic pets in urban areas, and they’ve been reported to damage crops like watermelons as well.

“These are environmental and economic realities for landowners, farmers, ranchers and others who are directly affected by expanding coyote populations,” Martin said.

Martin said that night hunting is an important tool for landowners to have for managing coyotes and their effects on their private land. “Adoption of this rule recognizes the importance of providing private landowners a reasonable and full range of options to respond to the expansion of a non-native predatory species on the landscape,” he said.

Orr said that as the coyote population explodes, “they move into the more urban areas, and that’s where you start getting more of the problems,” as coyotes lose their fear of people when you can’t hunt them.

The Southern Environmental Law Center’s press release said that the commission also violated state laws when they adopted the night hunting rule.

“Temporary rules are supposed to be more like emergency rules,” Zuardo said. “They can be passed when there’s a serious or unforeseen threat to public health or safety or welfare.

“But in terms of night hunting, that’s not really covered under a temporary rule,” Zuardo said. “It just doesn’t qualify.”

Zuardo said that the legal issue is not the most important issue. “It’s not just that they went ahead with these rules, it’s that they didn’t take into account the danger to such a sensitive and endangered species,” she said. “You could wipe out the population in a night basically.”


http://campusblueprint.com/2012/10/05/hunting-threatens-last-wild-population-of-red-wolves-in-the-world/

http://www.mnn.com/local-reports/north-carolina/local-blog/red-wolves-endangered-animals-still-at-risk