Why There Is No T.N.C. and why that’s A Problem

Problem: There have been fourteen alcoholic-related visits to the emergency room this past semester. The annual average is usually eight. The Dean of Students is understandably upset and has made it difficult for Associated Students of Claremont McKenna (ASCMC) to register parties with the school for a few weeks. This situation is complicated because many of the students who have been hospitalized are rumored to have come from other schools.

Now that there is no official T.N.C., which means college students being college students that the market for booze will go underground, which leads, unfortunately, to more incidents. This market need will undoubtedly be filled by hard-alcohol, which ASCMC is forbidden from buying due to policy, leading to still more accidents.

Solution: When we go to snack, the school keeps track of the students who attend. Presumably this record keeping accounts for student demand. If more students like pizza bagels than hot dogs, then the school will buy more pizza bagels and fewer hotdogs.

Now let’s apply that card-carrying policy to drinking. Under a card system, every time a student comes up to get a beer they will swipe their card at the counter. This system will monitor alcoholic intake per student. The drawback is that it will lead to long lines for booze, which may encourages some to stay home and drink more hard alcohol. The way to fight this disincentive is to have faster card swiping by having multiple kegs.

If a student gets lots of booze, the school can ask him to check his habits. This process is very analogous to the current policy of free paper. When a student begins to abuse, his use is monitored and ultimately, if behavior doesn’t change, restricted. True, a student may circumvent this process by having their friends come up and get booze for them, but good friends will police their alcoholic buddies.

The school will not allow us to pay per drink for the alcohol we consume. As a sizeable chunk of the school is underage, the notion of card swiping and the paper trail it produces may lead to lawsuits from advantageous parents. If anyone has a solution to this problem, please let me know.

Another added benefit is the following: many students do not drink for a whole host of reasons. Why should they pay, in their lump sum through tuition, for their friends’ drinking? A card swiping system would allow a refund to students who don’t drink.

Bon Appetit Favors Food Protectionism?

Say it isn't so! Bon Appetit, the dining hall provider of Claremont McKenna College, advocates "low carbon diets" in an effort to end free trade practices. Essentially aping the whole "global warming will kill us all" scare tactics of the far left, Bon Appetit "will introduce a low carbon point system that allows guests to calculate the impact of their personal food choices and thereby make knowledgeable decisions and/or adjustments to their own diets."

Presumably food that is too carbon intensive won't be eaten and the school will phase it out -- that is, of course, assuming we all comply. Lest we worry, there will be ample people making sure we comply with the food regulations. I can see it now, the Elspeth Hiltons of the world, walking up and down the aisles pressuring people to pick the better, carbon-nice apple over the tastier pineapple. Sadly they would never make a similar chart showing how many people are lifted out of poverty every time you buy a tropical fruit, they won't do that because that favors globalization, trade, and all those things about which we're supposed to be lukewarm.

It isn't odd that the food police seems in total harmony with the global warming hysterical society. They are cut from the same totalitarian cloth that troubles our basic liberty. Though they scream to conservatives to keep government out of the bedroom, they see no problem of government intruding into the kitchen or deciding what's on your fork.

Bon Appetit has already started to take a big, uncritical bite ought of the poisoned apple of food protectionism. We already know of the professed (and ultra inefficient) radicalism of Farm to Fork that buys from local farmers and artisans who support initiatives in sustainable seafood, milk without artificial hormones, antibiotic reduction in poultry and meat, trans-fat free cooking, cage-free eggs, and their stand against animal cloning.

Here is the list of the Low Carbon Diet.

• Reducing the use of beef by 25% – Livestock production is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.
• Sourcing all meat and poultry from North America – 80% of the energy used by the food system comes not from growing food, but from transporting and processing it.
• Sourcing nearly all fruits and vegetables from North America, using seasonal local produce as a first preference and using tropical fruits only as “special occasion” ingredients – Most bananas have traveled 3,000 miles in high-speed refrigerated ships to reach an American breakfast plate. A local apple might be grown within 10 miles.
• Serving only domestic bottled water and reducing waste from plastic bottles – Americans throw away 40 million plastic water bottles every day.
• Reducing food waste – Goal of 25% reduction in three years or less.
• Auditing the energy efficiency of kitchen equipment – In home or commercial kitchens energy losses of up to 30% can be easily corrected for very low cost.

Of course, it isn't hard to see why Bon Appetit favors locally grown produce: it is politically expedient. No one is knocking down their doors, demanding free trade produce (though they ought to!) As they confess, transportation counts for a big chunk of their total cost and the efforts of food critics-turned-activists like Pomona's Elspeth Hilton constantly pressure companies into making these kinds of decisions that ostensibly promote "social justice" and end up promoting economic apartheid. When trade isn't free, thousands suffer.

It is bad enough that Sodexho uses fair trade coffee and produce that ultimately contributes to global inequality, but must Bon Appetit let us down too?

In any event, these type of gambles will ultimately drive up the price of food on campus, adding more to the ever mushrooming cost of higher education, and keeping still more young people from investing in a Claremont McKenna education. Bon Appetit insensitive policies will leave a bitter taste in our mouths and few dollars in our pocketbooks.

I, for one, won't stand for it. Damn the carbon values, I'll be eating many more pineapples. Join me, won't you?

Shermer on his New Book at Reason.Tv

Michael Shermer, an adjunct professor of economics at Claremont Graduate School, has a ten minute or so video discussion on the importance of market economics and evolution at Reason.Tv. The genesis for the discussion is his latest book, The Mind of the Market. Shermer says that he is trying to find common ground between liberals, who believe in evolution, and conservatives, who believe in market forces.

He also says that liberals who be much more reluctant to accept free markets than conservatives will be to accept evolution. I don't know that I necessarily agree, but it's worth a view anyways.