I moodily gazed into my favorite sweet, ruby, $3 Tisdale treat and suddenly was hit by a bolt of association inspiration. Liquors, wines and beers, oh my! The amount of money my compatriots and I spend on booze certainly merits some sustainability scrutiny.

My love affair with cheap wine started in France, where I desecrated the country by buying the 5-liter-for-5-euros plastic jug of wine. The habit has continued here where, for my own economic and “SOCial” sustainability, I buy three Tisdale and Carlo Rossi jugs for $10.

But are these choices sustainable in other ways? How do I even evaluate these choices? Is organic my only option?

Turns out, like most things sustainability related, it is a bit more complicated. Water use, waste disposal, energy use, pest management, chemical use, employee treatment, transportation and packaging are the big elements of what makes a sustainable winery, brewery or distillery — but each business is unique and has its own strengths and weaknesses, so rankings are a bit hard to figure out.

In terms of beer and liquor, you have to take the companies’ word for it on their reduced water use or waste recycling. These factors have huge effects, but it is a growing trend in the industry to be more eco-friendly because it is also economically friendly.

Even Anheuser-Busch claims it has decreased its water use by 34 percent and recycles its brewery waste. It won’t make too much of a difference in my choices, because I know how easily statistics are mangled and practices get “greenwashed.”

If I’m going to change my drinking habits, I want to know I’m having an effect, and the best way to do that is to reduce the distance or “booze miles” my drinks traveled and to make different packaging choices.

According to an analysis by sustainability consultant and wine economist Pablo Päster, despite the bigger environmental effects of producing aluminum — in terms of water use and greenhouse gas emissions — the overall weight of glass bottles increases the climate effect of glass bottles over cans.

If you want to reduce your “booze miles” and your packaging impact immediately, you should walk down to the Black Bear Brewery and grab a growler you can return for reuse after drinking. It is the hat trick of beers — economically good for the community, environmentally responsible and the social benefits are fairly obvious, especially on Thursdays.

A similar story can be seen concerning hard liquor with Twenty 2 and Cold River Vodka — and now gin — which are locally made. Although they are a bit more expensive than Orloff, you can pass out easy with the knowledge that you’re making Maine a better place, and at least not hurting the Earth as you are your head.

If whiskey is your thing, your best bet is Maker’s Mark. Most whiskey is kind of wasteful just by virtue of the boutique way the liquor is made and aged, but Maker’s has more going for it than just that sexy red wax.

According to the blog Inhabitat, “Maker’s Mark Distillery functions on less than 200 of its 620 acres of land. The remaining land is operated as a nature preserve, where Maker’s Mark houses its own Arboretum of Kentucky native species on-site. But what makes Maker’s Mark truly unique is its energy production facility that recycles the byproducts of the distillation process.”

Back to my cup. Is Tisdale sustainable? There are certainly other choices — like buying boxed wine for better packaging or visiting Winterport Winery to pick up some fruit wine. I’ve worked at an organic winery in Franklin, so I have a pretty good idea of my local options. But, as I’ve said — I’m poor and $10-15 is not sustainable for me.

Tisdale, it turns out, is a subsidiary of Gallo Wines, which also produces some of my other favorites — Carlo and Andre. They are in California, and their CEO is the current chairman of the Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance.

They are active in encouraging self-evaluations, gathering data and providing workshops to fill knowledge gaps. They have a pretty good reason to pursue sustainability as well. Water and energy scarcity are major problems in California and some climate predictions would put the entire California wine industry out of business because of a shift in favorable grape-growing conditions northward to Oregon.

So, there is a good chance that Tisdale is all right. It is hard to tell from the list of certified Gallo wineries and vineyards because it doesn’t list Tisdale specifically, but I have to assume if this is a pervasive company ethic that at least some practices at Tisdale are up to snuff.

And as long as it’s the cheapest and I can recycle my bottles in good time, Tisdale will continue to grace my cup.

Mackenzie Rawcliffe is a graduate student studying international affairs and public administration. She is the production manager for The Maine Campus.

Unfortunately for Santorum, these victories came in states that have unbound delegates, which means he hasn’t won anything meaningful. So, despite winning almost 50 percent of the vote in all three states that voted Tuesday, he’s really no closer to the White House now than he was Monday morning.

Which is to say, he’s very far away. All signs still point to Romney eventually winning the nomination. Romney continues to hold a significant advantage in national polls of Republicans — averaging 34 percent in polls taken in the last week, with Newt Gingrich second at 23 percent — and he still has enough money to compete in every state in the nation.

According to RealClearPolitics, Romney is also the Republican candidate with the best polling numbers head-to-head against President Barack Obama. In polls taken in the last month, Obama beats Romney 48-44 percent. Obama beats Santorum 50-41 and Gingrich 51-40.

Despite Romney’s status as the front-runner and still the likely eventual nominee, things still aren’t looking good for him. The fact that Republicans have repeatedly tried to find someone more conservative to rally around suggests that if he wins the nomination, many of them will stay home rather than vote in November.

Romney is starting to look a lot like John Kerry in 2004: nominee by default.

If and when we move to a general election campaign that pits Romney against Obama, we’re not likely to see many important differences between the two candidates. Romney may back off some of the conservative positions he’s touting now, since moderates and independents change the outcome of general elections.

Romney is fairly conservative, but Gov. Romney was a Massachusetts moderate. Obama’s health care reform looks a lot like Romney’s Mass-Care, as judged by Politifact, and while Candidate Obama talked a very good game about civil liberties and reducing executive power, President Obama has done little to back away from the Patriot Act and the Transportation Security Administration.

The one significant difference is in foreign policy. Obama has generally stayed true to his promise to use diplomacy as long as possible, is following timetables removing American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and has pledged to reduce the size of the military. Romney, following the Republican Party’s neoconservative base, has criticized Obama for being weak on foreign policy.

So if Romney isn’t likely to win the general election, and might not do things much differently if elected, and Santorum and Gingrich don’t stand up to Obama head-to-head, what are Republican primary voters to do?

Vote for Ron Paul.

I want to make it clear that I’m not endorsing Paul for president; I’m endorsing him as a Republican nominee who would make general-election debates interesting.

Paul hasn’t won a single state in the primaries and is losing to Obama in polls by an average of 48-42, just worse than Romney (but better than Gingrich or Santorum). He doesn’t pose an electoral threat to Obama any more than Romney does.

However, his presence on the national stage next to the president would make for an interesting and honest conversation.

Paul’s economic views are anathema to most liberals and some conservatives: He supports eliminating five of 15 federal Cabinet departments, drastically reducing regulation and cutting federal spending by $1 trillion. He is vehemently opposed to stimulus spending — such as the bailouts of 2009 — and wants to lower tax rates.

I don’t agree with Paul’s opposition to environmental regulations or his steadfast emphasis on lowering taxes, but I don’t believe he would mischaracterize Obama’s economic plan to win votes — we would get an honest debate about the merits of regulation and progressive taxation.

Paul also supports drastically reducing the size and mission of the military and advocating the use of military force only under a Congressional declaration of war, which we haven’t had since World War II. We wouldn’t have to listen to ridiculous accusations that either candidate is somehow “weak” on defense.

Most importantly, Paul would force Obama to discuss the Patriot Act, the assassination of American citizens and laws allowing indefinite detention of citizens. Paul is a staunch defender of civil liberties, and no other candidate will press the president on the issue — they’re liable to accuse him of not going far enough.

While I disagree with many of Paul’s views, his presence in the general election would lead to a frank discussion about how to fix the economy, protect civil liberties without compromising security and reduce the military to a reasonable size.

If we had a campaign based on facts and ideas rather than charisma and personal attacks, we would all benefit.

Mike Emery is a fourth-year sociology student. His political columns will appear every Thursday.

My father once found me in the kitchen pantry quaffing the sugary goodness from the bottle. I was the girl you’d look at and think, “Hey, there’s diabetes in the making.”

Although this proves a somewhat comical memory from my childhood, it also had serious health implications. If my parents hadn’t provided me with a healthy, balanced diet growing up, in addition to encouraging regular physical activity, I could be facing serious health concerns today.

Drinking that syrup surreptitiously in the pantry made me feel like a minority; however, if my habits had not changed, I would certainly find myself in the company of millions who also drink sugar regularly, helping to fuel the obesity epidemic that continues to feast on this nation.

In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that over 100 million adults or 33.8 percent of the United States’ population were obese — obese for an adult being defined as an individual with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher — and in 2008 over a third of both children and adolescents were considered overweight or obese.

The CDC have estimated that obesity costs Americans approximately $147 billion in direct medical costs annually. To put this in perspective, the direct medical costs for all cancers combined totaled approximately $102.8 billion in 2010.

Furthermore, research conducted by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) found that both the economic and medical costs of obese and overweight individuals were estimated to approach $270 billion annually. We’re pointing fingers at Congress for increasing the national debt without even acknowledging our own direct contributions to the fiscal deficit.

The speck is all the more alluring than our own plank.

According to a study sponsored by MaineHealth and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, overweight and obese Mainers are costing the state an estimated $2.56 billion in medical costs, lost worker productivity and worker’s compensation. Talk about squandering away money.

In attempts to curb this obesity epidemic, policymakers are not only advocating for increased funding to prevention campaigns but are also attempting to add restrictions to what one can purchase on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the country’s food stamp program.

In 2009, former Rep. Peggy Pendleton, D-Scarborough, proposed a bill banning the use of food stamps for sugared soda and certain junk foods, as in Maine, food stamp dollars are used to buy sugared, carbonated beverages totaling about $20 million annually. That’s an inordinate amount of sugar, fueling a lifestyle that will end up costing the state in medical costs.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a similar ban on using food stamps for soda. However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) denied this proposal, much to the chagrin of Bloomberg and medical experts alike. Yale public health professor Kelly D. Brownell said in response to the USDA’s decision: “It’s a real shame. … The government purchases $4 billion worth of soda through the food stamp program every year, and that soda is making people sick.”

Another effort targeting the obesity epidemic is proposing a tax on sodas and certain junk foods. Kiyah Duffey, research assistant professor of nutrition at the University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has conducted a longitudinal study on the possible association between the price of soda and pizza with weight and other factors.

“Our results showed that changes in price of these food items — an increase in price — was associated with lower weight gain,” she said. “This suggests that raising the price of these foods, soda and pizza in particular, could result in positive beneficial changes in health.”

Duffey also pointed out that “taxing food is not THE solution, but it could be ONE solution, which, when implemented in combination with a number of other broad intervention measures, might actually help.”

According to a 2011 study, Maine was ranked as the most obese state in New England, with approximately 26.8 percent of Mainers considered to be obese.

We need radical reform now on both the policy level as well as the personal level. It’s time to stop sugar-coating our unhealthy habits.

We’re obese, we’re overweight, we’re getting sick and we’re costing this nation billions of dollars. Put down the sugared drinks. Drink water instead of soda. Go for a walk. Care about your health, as we alone are the masters of our own fate.

Erin McCann is a fourth-year biology student. Her columns will appear every Monday.

I came across a talk from last May by Bjarke Ingels titled “Hedonistic Sustainability.” Well, that certainly piqued my tree-hugging, comfort-loving interest.

Ingels is a young-ish architect from Denmark who has become popular around the world for his innovative and playful designs and defines hedonistic sustainability as “the idea that sustainability is not a burden, but that a sustainable city in fact can improve our quality of life.”

I am a full supporter of this idea, but I also recognize the dangers of whiz-bang technology. We are not the Jetsons yet, and even amazing ideas can fall victim to poor implementation, funding or integration. A building is not a silver bullet, as near-empty downtown revitalization condos can attest, but it is an amazing part of how we think about ourselves and our community.

Every time I read a good design book or come across a true innovator like Ingels, I start to kick myself for my career choices. I had it right back in first grade when I wrote that I wanted to be an architect — and after my mom died a stripper — but we all give up on our dreams sometimes, right?

Many of Ingels’ designs are truly thought-provoking, if not my farmhouse ideal. For example, the periscope town hall with a huge mirror in the ceiling that allows the council to look at the “city they are messing with” and conversely lets people outside see the council at work, or not, is brilliant.

This town hall also incorporates a transparent first floor that lets the public walk underneath the administration and access services. Many of his designs are too modern or urban to really fit in here in northern New England, but one of his designs shows some promise for the University of Maine — such as a waste-to-energy facility disguised as a ski slope.

As described in a New York Times blog, the urban ski park, set to be erected in 2016, “will cover the plant, which will incinerate the waste from five municipalities to generate heat and electricity for 140,000 homes. While their trash is burning inside, locals will be able to take an elevator to the top of the building, then ski down one of three different slopes, graded by difficulty, that jointly run about 5,000 feet.”

I can imagine the wild popularity of such a building exterior here — students hitting the slope after class for competitions and ski jumping. Oh, the possibilities.

The fun doesn’t stop there, though. Ingels also designed the smoke stack of this energy plant to produce smoke rings. The drive to Bangor would be 10 times more hilarious if the huge power plant in Veazie had something like that installed.

There are all sorts of reasons why this is an amazing idea, and also a lot of reasons why it isn’t. For now, it seems like nothing more than a pipe dream.

But the unlikelihood of there ever being a ski slope over the Steam Plant is not really my point. It is the lack of possibility and creativity when I, and I believe other Mainers, look around their communities. I cannot imagine a Maine architect coming up with that design, let alone convincing a city the size of Copenhagen to accept it.

Maine is the way it always has been and nothing ever changes, right? Except we are. Kicking and screaming, Maine society is evolving, and perhaps it is time that our physical spaces followed suit.

We have strong traditions of work and community that strategic and creative planning of buildings, transportation and other public works can only enhance if we dare to think of ourselves as the type of people capable of making smoke rings and ski slopes and create our own little hedonistically sustainable state.

Mackenzie Rawcliffe is a graduate student studying international affairs and public administration. She is the production manager for The Maine Campus.

While I agree student debt is an important issue, especially on a college campus, I think White overestimates its power as a uniting force to bring about change.

Student debt is not the type of universal issue that can help us move past the divisiveness of modern American politics. It is very much a partisan issue, as is anything involving government spending. And college without debt would necessarily involve government spending.

The problem is that students rising over an average of $25,000 of debt for a college education will seem self-serving to some people. Not everyone is affected. Some have paid off their loans and some never went to college.

We’re asking others to help us with our burdens, and some don’t appreciate that. We might be able to get a law passed that forgives outstanding loans or provides for free post-secondary education, but there would be a vocal minority that doesn’t see higher education as a basic human right.

Why is it so important we all come together as a nation? Because there is a much larger issue than student debt, one which White mentions in his op-ed: “So long as the rich continue to profit off the poor, we will fail to solve important issues from global warming to hunger and disease.”

Fixing the student debt issue would not solve the underlying problem of the dangerous inequality in our society.

The thing about wealth and income inequality is that it affects us all, no matter your ideological perspective. For those of us who believe there is no reason for people to starve or go homeless in a society as wealthy as ours, reducing the amount of inequality is a no-brainer. If you believe equality and justice are just two words expressing the same concept, our country is broken.

Even if you’re a market-, profit- or growth-oriented person, you should be worried about inequality. There is a growing body of evidence in sociological and economic literature suggesting that very high inequality slows growth — and if you don’t think the United States suffers from “very high inequality,” consider that the average CEO makes over 300 times as much as the average worker (a statistic uncovered by The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations).

No matter how you look at it, the current levels of inequality in this country are stopping us from thriving. It’s not about class warfare, and it’s not about envying the rich — it’s about doing what’s best for every American.

To create a more equal society — which means increasing access to education and health care — someone will have to give up some of their wealth. It just so happens there is a class of Americans that makes obscene amounts of money, wields inordinate political power and nearly imploded the global economy a few short years ago.

In their excellent article, “The Financial Power Elite,” John B. Foster and Hannah Holleman argue there has been a shift in power from those who derive their wealth from production to those who profit from finance. Almost 30 percent of the Forbes’ 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007 became wealthy from finance — far and away the biggest category.

Executives at hedge funds and “too-big-to-fail” banks routinely leave their jobs to take positions in the federal government — no matter which party is in power — and are given the opportunity to write the regulations their industry must abide by.

This revolving door created policies allowing big banks to become monopolistic cartels, and lax enforcement of foreclosure laws has helped the financial class push thousands of people out of their homes, despite accusations of rampant illegal corner-cutting during the foreclosure process.

After the financial crisis and all of the bailouts, the same people are running these banks. In other countries, bailouts mean cleaning house, temporary government takeovers and management change.

Why not here? Because finance executives effectively control the government charged with regulating them.

To stop this, we need meaningful campaign finance reform. Reversing the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision allowing unlimited corporate and union money in campaigns is a start, though a publicly-funded system like Maine’s would be ideal.

We need strong laws that bar members of the financial services industry from being appointed to positions that regulate that industry. If financial executives want positions in government, they should run in open elections.

If we don’t work together, we won’t accomplish any of this.

Until we rid the influence of the financial elite from our government, we can hope for no lasting reforms. The rich will continue to profit off the poor, and we won’t be able to focus on the bigger problems facing humanity.

Mike Emery is a fourth-year sociology student. His political columns will appear every Thursday.

I feel safe when a multitude of people around me are carrying concealed firearms. The more guns Orono and Bangor residents have, the cozier and more protected I feel.

What would be perfect, however, is if concealed firearms were welcomed with open arms — pun intended — on campus. College students with guns: No one can touch me now.

New Hampshire state lawmakers have come one step closer to that reality, proposing three different bills purporting to loosen the current state laws on firearms. All three have passed in the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

The first, House Bill 334, would allow firearms on all public property, which includes, of course, public universities, state-run day care centers and certain nursing homes. Sixty-one Republicans joined 83 Democrats to vote against the bill. Their combined efforts, however, still fell short of rejecting the bill.

The bill has drawn fierce opposition. Most notably, New Hampshire State Police officials, the Community College System, and both Keene State College and the University of New Hampshire all oppose the bill.

“There are some places in New Hampshire where we just don’t want guns. This bill will put guns in places they just don’t belong,” said another outspoken opponent of the bill, Rep. Stephen Shurtleff, D-Concord, to the New Hampshire Union Leader.

One of the bill’s seven co-sponsors, Rep. J.R. Hoell, R-Dunbarton, said the bill would aim to prevent “a patchwork of gun rules” throughout the state. This would include university campuses.

The second bill, HB 536, would allow an individual to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Sponsors of the bill point to Vermont, one of the four states not requiring a permit for concealed weapons, which is ranked one of the safest states in the country.

Somehow, these N.H. lawmakers have rationalized a correlation between concealed weapon laws in Vermont and overall safety. However, according to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace using data from the FBI, New Hampshire actually ranks safer than Vermont, while still requiring permits for concealed weapons.

Furthermore, the Vermont Narcotics Investigation Unit had more to say on Vermont’s safety. According to their recent data, gang activity has escalated due significantly to the ease of procuring firearms. Moreover, the State Corrections Department have said there have been reports of Vermont inmates tied to gangs like the Bloods and Aryan Nation.
Capt. Glenn Hall of Vermont State Police told the Burlington Free Press that these gang members travel from large cities to Vermont for both guns and drugs.

Excellent, right?

The other bill, HB 194, passed in the House would permit an individual to carry a loaded shotgun or rifle in their vehicle, as they essentially redefine the definition of loaded gun.

In 2008, Alan Godin, a librarian at Northeast Lake College, also with a permit to carry a concealed weapon, shot and killed a fellow librarian. Godin had a history of depression and was, at the time, taking several different medications in combination.

In 2011, Ernesto Bustamante, a professor at Idaho University, shot and killed a 22-year-old graduate student he used to date. He then turned the gun on himself.

Bustamante had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, as he passed the criminal background check done by the FBI. Furthermore, on his application for a concealed firearm permit, he did not disclose his mental history of multiple personalities and the fact that he often referred to himself as a “psychopathic killer.”

Criminal background checks don’t always tell the whole story. Simply because someone doesn’t have a record does not denote that the individual should be given a permit for a concealed firearm. Mental health history and analyses should be mandatory for applicants to further ensure the safety of the community.

Making it easier for someone as young as 18 years old to carry concealed weapons on public property such as a university is dangerous, and it’s an anxiety students don’t need.

The amalgamation of drugs, alcohol and youthful misjudgments with added firearms is not a sagacious mixture.

In New Hampshire, the Senate Judiciary Committee has recommended HB 334 and HB 194 go to interim study, also known as polite death. But the full Senate must agree for the bills to be scrapped upon the conclusion of their session.

Here’s hoping that the State Senate prove a little more prudent in their decision, and consider the health and well-being of the entire New Hampshire community.

Erin McCann is a fourth-year biology student. Her columns will appear every Monday.

I could be considered a Democrat in most respects, but I don’t take too much at face value.

There are many “liberal” policies I don’t think will work; I don’t hate business but I don’t particularly trust it, either; and on I think we’re all in this together. The common good matters.

I try to give other views a fair shake and check the facts so as not to get stuck in an ideological echo chamber. To me there aren’t many absolutes in politics that give one group a monopoly on the truth or good ideas. With that in mind, I approached those who haven’t taken a sip of the sustainability Kool-Aid, and explored what they thought about the idea.

It seems — according to the Internet — that everything from Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects and other “Green” or “Alternative” projects are really the tentacles of a United Nations monster called Agenda 21 that wants to eat your soul and slap your babies. Since all of these are things I had considered unarguably good, I was intrigued.

According to a copy of an unpublished document circulating the Web, the Republican National Committee unanimously passed a resolution exposing the evils of Agenda 21 at their winter meeting this month.

I tried to read the reasoning with an open mind, but it seemed a bit paranoid and unsubstantiated. The resolution claims Agenda 21 is being pushed covertly into towns around the country and will destroy our way of life by taking our cars, our homes and our farms. I tried to understand it, but I just couldn’t.

Did it occur to anyone on the RNC that maybe towns across the nation have dabbled in sustainable development because the idea makes sense for better lives and stronger communities?

I won’t try to defend every project that slaps a sustainability sticker on itself. I know we aren’t close to figuring it all out, but why not take into account the quality of the place we live in and try to keep it stable? Why would we not embrace local businesses that are more likely to buy, hire and stay local?

Alternative transportation means more choices, not less, and better placement of parking means safer and friendlier streets for Americans. Sustainable development is not about saving bunnies — it is entirely centered on the people and trying to make sure our way of life will survive and improve no matter what the future holds.

Agenda 21 is a nonbinding action plan for sustainable development created at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and has been signed by 177 governments, as well as former U.S. presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. It isn’t perfect, but what document that is trying to solve most of the world’s problems could be?

What I don’t see coming from these commentators is any sense that perhaps there is a problem, and it would be good to keep things as they are or better them. No sense that perhaps oil will get more expensive and biking might be a nice option for some people. They don’t seem to acknowledge that towns have less money and may have less money from here on out.

I don’t think sustainable development means you can’t live outside of town with a big car and whatever else you want. I think it just means government is not going to subsidize that choice, or that external factors might make the choice more expensive regardless.

Either the conservative commentators I read don’t agree there are major problems in our communities and environment, or they simply enjoy stirring up fear without offering any alternative or constructive criticism.

The resolution rests much of its argument on a fear of social justice — socialism (hiss) — which I’ll agree, sometimes I have my problems with. But to say that every American shouldn’t have the chance to succeed and to ignore all of the historical and cultural values leading to such success is blind.

Social justice is not something to be scared of. Be cautious, yes — no need to give away the farm — but know that the values put down in our Constitution are good ones that will protect us.

I want a life free of health problems caused by pollution and full of soul-filling nature; I want the liberty to be free of the financial chains that come with paying too much for electricity and oil; and I want to pursue happiness in a community filled with happy people who have all of their basic needs met.

I don’t think, in the greatest country in the world, it is dangerous or communist to demand the best life possible for me, my children and my children’s children.

Mackenzie Rawcliffe is a graduate student studying international affairs and public administration. She is the production manager for The Maine Campus.

These addresses are pure political theatrics — wide-ranging speeches meant to placate constituents and interest groups more than introduce specific policy proposals.

Despite the fact that LePage and Obama are from different political parties and work at different levels of the government, there was considerable overlap in their speeches. Both chief executives talked about the need to provide inexpensive energy and cut taxes for the middle class, and both mentioned businesses having more openings than there are qualified workers.

Both made the connection between quality education and a citizenry that can adapt and prosper in a constantly changing world — and both showed the flaws in their respective parties’ philosophies of governance.

LePage said admirable things about improving education in Maine. He made a commitment to ensure “access to a wider array of educational opportunities,” particularly improving the state’s Career and Technical Education System. He also praised the Legislature for passing legislation that will allow Maine to join 40 other states in experimenting with charter schools — publicly funded schools designed to improve school choice and accountability.

This is the same governor who threatened last week to shut down all schools in Maine on May 1 — over a month before K-12 schools are scheduled to finish — if the Legislature doesn’t adopt his cuts to the state’s Medicaid program to balance the budget.

This was a brash statement, a threat almost no one believes he has the authority to follow through on. It also highlights the fact that his party is committed to gutting public services — even services he has publicly recognized as valuable investments — rather than increasing taxes. In fact, despite the current budget shortfall, the governor announced plans to cut taxes for the second year in a row.

It remains to be seen if the governor can find the political support and funding sources necessary to implement his educational reforms. He has proposed other major changes in Maine’s educational system, including adding a fifth year to Maine high schools so students can graduate with an associate’s degree. As long as his party holds to its no-more-taxes creed, we won’t see any such innovation.

President Obama shows no qualms about spending on education. He said we must “give [schools] the resources to keep good teachers on the job and reward the best ones.” He stated our need for a flexible education system that doesn’t teach to tests, and he called on Congress to increase aid to college students.

The president also made an interesting request to the states: In order to reduce high school drop-out rates, he called on the states to mandate school attendance through high school graduation, or until a student turns 18. Keeping students in school is an admirable goal, but making it illegal to drop out of school isn’t the best way to make sure kids get an education.

First of all, there’s the question of enforcement. Compulsory schooling laws can’t be effective without people monitoring student attendance or going out into the community to round up students who have dropped out of school. This means less money to go into classrooms to hire better teachers.

Also, there is the question of punishment. If dropping out is illegal, what do we do with students who drop out? We could fine them, but such deterrents aren’t likely to be effective. We could forcibly return them to school, but that doesn’t address the underlying causes of students leaving school; kids who are forced to attend when they believe they have better prospects outside of school aren’t likely to be easily engaged.

Or we could create alternative schools and programs to help these students graduate. These programs would need to assess the reasons students drop out and work with students individually to give them the resources they need to succeed. This seems like a sensible option, but we don’t need laws against dropping out to invest in this type of program.

Rather than encouraging states to implement laws that would create new enforcement costs, the president should be encouraging them to put more money directly into classrooms and programs that actively support at-risk students.

LePage’s State of the State address and Obama’s State of the Union address showed that neither party has a perfect set of policies for education, or any other issue.

But encouragingly, both leaders expressed a willingness to work with their legislative bodies and opposing party to improve our educational performance. Here’s hoping they can find solutions that take the best of both parties’ ideas to move education forward.

Mike Emery is a fourth-year sociology student. His political columns will appear every Thursday.

I once overheard a mother proudly give this advice to her young daughter, and the words have resonated with me ever since.

It’s a troubling concept — one that would make Machiavelli smile in his tomb. So long as the end proves beneficial, the immorality of the process is of no consequence. Deception and selfishness prove pragmatic, as they help one achieve one’s desires, one’s goals.

I couldn’t help but ask myself, what kind of adult will this young girl become? Will she achieve success? If she embraces her mother’s adage, perhaps, but how many lies will be told?  How many people will be trampled, manipulated and milked in the process? What kind of habits will this child develop and impart to the next generation?

No doubt she’ll swoon at the mantras of Ayn Rand and objectivism, because those philosophies justify her getting what she wants. They undermine the well-being of the community and rationalize — moralize, even — selfishness.

Sooner or later, however, the achieved end and all its resplendence will fade, and one will be left to face the repercussions of one’s actions. Solitude will surface, as fraudulence can only maintain its company for so long.

Our culture can partially be held accountable. We’ve created a market for milking people for what they’re worth — books about how to get what we want, how to get rich quick; people lying for money, power or position.

We’re sycophants who schmooze and flatter like programmed robots. Insert joke here. Now lie. Sell yourself. Sell your soul. Sign here.

We know what to say and how to say it, while simultaneously calculating our expected yields. Yet as a society, we’ve become increasingly unhappy, sliding down that slippery slope to the vales of terminal depression.

In 2010, the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics published a report on the most prescribed drugs in the United States. First on the list was hydrocodone, the brand name of Vicodin, a narcotic painkiller. Over 131 million prescriptions for hydrocodone were written that year alone.

Prescription painkillers are responsible for approximately three out of four prescription drug overdoses. Over 12 million people admitted to taking the painkillers without a prescription, and nearly 15,000 people lost their lives from overdosing on painkillers in 2008.

Moreover, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antidepressants have reached No. 3 on the list of most prescribed drugs.

We’re combating our realities with alleged miracle tablets rather than treating the underlying affliction. We’re in pain; we’re depressed, but no one dares to ask why.

We are not only ruining our own lives; we’re also ruining those of our children.

Thirty-four percent of children today live in single-parent families, and according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 408,000 children were in the foster care system in 2010.

A report released by Columbia University also found that more than 35 million children live with a parent who abuses alcohol, tobacco or illegal drugs. These children are much more likely to develop similar drug habits, while also being more prone to mental and physical illnesses.

We’re chalked-up, toked-up, jacked-up, dazed and confused — yet we continue to have children. It remains naive to think one’s self-destructive habits and behaviors go unlearned by the next generation.

We teach our children the art of lying, selfishness and revenge propelled by our own discontent, effectively blackening the next generation.

Deception has become a renowned art form, painting lies to mimic authenticity. Everyone knows that if something is authentic, it’s worth more than its weight in gold.

We’re all politicians who support a woman’s right to choose, who don’t support a woman’s right to choose — whichever will procure us more votes.

Integrity is on its way out, as it just can’t seem to compete with singular first-person pronouns anymore.

St. Augustine notably declared, “Indeed, man wishes to be happy, even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.”

Are we making our happiness unattainable? The successful end is to be admired, but far too often we neglect the ethics of the process. Perhaps our individualistic pursuits play a role in impeding this happiness, and by doing solely what’s good for us we’ve learned to embrace destructive habits. Perhaps this selfishness has us accustomed to neglecting the well-being of others.

And perhaps, just perhaps, we’re not meant only to serve ourselves.

Erin McCann is a fourth-year biology student. Her columns will appear every Monday.   

After a semester of reading and writing about sustainability on campus, I have convinced myself it is a good goal to keep moving forward — for our reputation, health, sense of community, environment and, perhaps most importantly, our sense of academic purpose and duty to serve the state of Maine.

I’m no expert, but my readings and musings have led me to three truths about sustainable communities. First of all, the process to develop such a community is long — when it is done right it is never done because people, environments and problems are constantly evolving, as is the solution.

It is also difficult. The logistics of solving sustainability problems are incredibly complex and interconnected between previously unrelated areas, which means we’ll never reach a straight answer. It will always be a process of trial and error that needs expertise, technology, a common vision and a change in habits. Changing the invisible institution is important, but the choices people make daily have an even greater impact.

Lastly, building a sustainable community is worth it. This is a solution for struggling communities with only positive potential side effects.

So where do we go from here?

The most important quality for a community that is trying to be sustainable economically, ecologically and socially is to be self-aware in the same way a person is aware of their body. Our current nervous system is best at picking up economic pain, but we do a fair job of registering social pain as well. It wouldn’t hurt for the message to be louder and involve more cardboard signs to get any attention from the “brain.”

The sustainability movement can be accused of focusing too much on environmental aspects, but I would argue that this makes sense only because it is the area which does affect us — economically and socially — but we have no nerves nor a good way to register the pain there.

Many scientists at this very university have dedicated their lives to figuring out ways to weigh and measure that pain, but the information is not getting back to the heart and brain of the operation.

We live in the Information Age. Our habits, clicks, pictures, movements and everything else about us is collected and sold to companies to better advertise. What we don’t have is data we can use to learn about ourselves as a community. I believe the data is there, but it hasn’t been organized or presented in a way that is understandable to a wider audience.

Last year, when Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom came to campus, she spoke of the power of data to affect electricity use and reduce energy bills. Giving positive or negative feedback about energy use has been tried at utility companies across the country.

“There is some indication that the most successful feedback combines the following features: it is given frequently and over a long time, provides an appliance-specific breakdown, is presented in a clear and appealing way, and uses computerized and interactive tools,” wrote Corinna Fischer in her paper “Feedback on household electricity consumption: a tool for saving energy?”

So let’s imagine that we’re going to make a map — a nice visual, color-coded representation of what we are doing as a community. This map could show energy use in all of the buildings on campus or estimated emissions from buildings and parking lots. There should also be a tree map — heck, a tree app — so I can walk around campus and learn about foliage if I want, and so we know what we’re cutting down during future construction.

Perhaps a pirate map — I mean, a map of invasive plant species, would suffice as well. We could measure the effect of travel to campus by mapping students who live off campus and have a parking permit. I think there must be some way to accurately measure path usage across campus so that facilities could prioritize which walkways to cover or block from winter winds.

Most of these are environmentally motivated because that is the easiest for me to conceive of, but perhaps we even could map students’ jobs, debt or connections on Facebook to get a sense of how we are doing as a community, financially and socially.

Why would we map these things? A map is something we can all understand, which means we might change our behavior and be motivated to demand some change of the administration as well. I know facilities, the Steam Plant and the administration measure many things, but perhaps they are not measuring the right things or analyzing them in a way that will lead to more sustainable practices.

By asking the university to produce a map that answers certain questions like which buildings do students ride their bikes most to, then perhaps they will be able to make better decisions about where new racks go, and we as students would be better aware and equipped to demand it.

We have one of the best spatial engineering departments in the country and while I don’t expect all of the professors there to drop what they’re doing, it would be nice if there were a base map of campus that students were invited to build upon and add information to.

If the institution is not interested in creating these maps, then we have an inexhaustible resource of youthful enthusiasm that could dig into the available data and try to answer some questions.

Mackenzie Rawcliffe is a graduate student studying international affairs and public administration. She is the production manager for The Maine Campus.