How we caused ‘aphid apocalypse’

Originally published September 24, 2009.

Like any good apocalypse scenario, our aphid-caused end of the world may really be our own fault.

I know, the idea of an “aphid apocalypse” is a bit melodramatic. But I’m starting to believe that we’ve summoned the annoying swarms of soybean aphids—or at the very least, given them the freedom to multiply into the endless clouds of them we’ve seen in Champaign-Urbana in the last week.

Many have expressed the sentiment that the aphid situation has not been this bad in the last several years. Large numbers of Buffalo gnats have presented more serious complications in Illinois for a couple of summers because they can do more than annoy humans: they bite, and that biting can cause fatal allergic reactions in chickens, drawing the concern of local poultry farmers.

Another irritating pest has been a notable problem in soybean country, coinciding with this period of decreased aphid population. Asian lady beetles, brought into the United States in the seventies and eighties, have drawn the ire of many Midwesterners.

True to their name, the beetles look like the native species of ladybugs we know and love. They vary in color from red to orange and—if you remember anything about ladybugs from fourth-grade science—they love to eat aphids, which explains why they were brought to the U.S.

Though they can establish lodging in many varieties of plants, Asian lady beetles don’t eat any of the ones important to farmers. Grape growers have complained of accidentally mashing them with fruit during the winemaking process, but they don’t seem to cause widespread damage to crops.

Unfortunately, Asian lady beetles tend to swarm houses during autumn in search of places to weather the coming winter. They also release a disgusting-smelling yellow goo if you squash them. Despite the beneficial purpose for their importation by American agriculturists, everyone else seems to hate them.

Part of the reason for their appearance in the U.S. is the decline of the native ladybug population, which has had both entomologists and farmers scratching their heads. The void they left in the aphid-eating chain was quickly filled by the Asian lady beetles, and their proliferation might have further contributed to native ladybugs’ disappearance.

As previously mentioned, news and pest information sources have taken to warning people in advance of Asian lady beetles’ annual residential siege. And when non-human animals get too numerous, we start our usual plotting of ways to obliterate them, our current dilemma being no exception.

So, if we’re killing off Asian lady beetles that we brought in for pest control and which may have contributed to the drastic shrinkage of the native ladybug population, what’s the problem?

Maybe it’s the one we’re dealing with right now.

An article in the News-Gazette on Tuesday covering the soybean aphid migration mentioned that the Asian lady beetle has not been able to rival aphids’ ability to procreate this year, but provided no clues as to why. I wonder…

In the process of spraying for other things and keeping them out of our homes (in which they don’t eat anything, unlike moths, crickets, and carpenter ants), maybe we’ve dealt their population as great a hit as we have our native spotted friends.

No ladybugs and no Asian lady beetles mean many, many more aphids than we’ve seen in the past. My initial aggravation at their presence has been drained away by my impression that, well, we asked for it. The mass migration of the soybean aphids through C-U is a jab of encouragement for us to wonder if it’s really worth it to keep up our current model of pesticide-heavy farming, our tendency toward hermetically-sealed homes, and our vendetta against every other living creature on the planet.

So, as aphids forcibly cause your eyes to water, I ask that you stop and shed a tear for the ladybugs.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Shooting shows police offers must think before they react

Originally published September 17, 2009.

All sides can agree that on August 24, a 23-year-old man was shot and killed by police officers in a Rockford church. Everything else is still up in the air. Rockford police chief Chet Epperson has said that officers Stan North and Oda Poole fatally shot Mark Anthony Barmore as he attempted to wrestle a gun away from them.

Eyewitnesses at the scene insist that Barmore came out of hiding with his hands up and was killed. These witnesses were two church day care employees, as well as several young children.

Rockford police received a call that day regarding a domestic disturbance between Barmore and his girlfriend, and encountered him outside Kingdom Authority International Ministries Church. According to an Associate Press article on Saturday, the church was one he attended on occasion and that he was speaking outside with pastor Rev. Melvin Brown’s wife and 17-year-old daughter—the two daycare employees.

These witnesses and police dispute whether officers approached with their guns drawn, but all concur that Barmore ran into the church upon seeing them. It’s not unreasonable that Mark Anthony Barmore would have fled.

He had been arrested before, once on charges of assaulting an officer with a firearm, and had recently finished serving a prison sentence. It could certainly be true that he had just come from the scene of a domestic disturbance with his live-in girlfriend. But all accounts have stated that at the time of the shooting, Barmore was unarmed and alone. He should not have ended up dead.

The case is currently under investigation by Illinois state police and the Cook County state attorney’s office, but the NAACP is calling for both a full-on investigation by the Department of Justice and a reintroduction of the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act. The legislation, originally backed by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) in 2000, aims to unify the use-of-force policies of all law enforcement agencies by mandating federal standards.

While the effectiveness of a Department of Justice investigation will become clear as further information is released in the current investigation, the need for passage of the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act is already overwhelming.

Just looking at the details of the Barmore case make this clear, despite arguments over what took place. If Mark Barmore, a single, weaponless man, had attempted to fight one of two armed police officers for a gun, it might have justified the police’s decision to shoot. But that should have meant two shots—one for each officer—in non-fatal parts of Barmore’s body that would have rendered him unable to attack.

If witness testimony is correct, there’s no reason Barmore should have been injured at all.

He reappeared from the boiler room into which he had run, hands up in surrender, according to Marissa Brown.

She has said Barmore was shot multiple times, around as many as eight.

Establishing a standard use-of-force policy would begin a process of re-educating law enforcement officers and how they assess situations in which force is necessary—something clearly needed, as evidenced by the record of one of the officers involved in Barmore’s death.

In the ongoing investigation, it’s come to light that Oda Poole shot three other suspects in last three years, killing one of them.

Poole insists that the 66-year-old man he fatally wounded was pointing what could have been a weapon at him and would not drop it. It turned to out to be hammer in a sock. Police found a suicide note on the man after the fact. The million-dollar question: why did Poole fail to consider shooting him in a spot that would have disarmed him?

Setting use of force standards won’t fix everything, but teaching officers to think before they shoot is a much-needed first step on the path to eliminating unnecessary violence—and unnecessary loss of life.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Politicians pointing fingers in clout scandal conveniently forget where idea comes from

Originally published July 27, 2009.

After getting the run-around from the chairman of the Board of Trustees last week, the Illinois Admissions Review Commission will see current University president B. Joseph White step up to the plate today.

But will a thorough examination of White’s involvement in the clout scandal really make that much difference in the outcome of the proceedings?

Doubtful.

The daily reports from the hearings have been appalling enough on their own. Most recently they’ve included Niranjan Shah’s attempts to pin the blame on everyone from previous University president James Stukel to Shah’s own secretary at his engineering firm for meddling in admissions and housing decisions, not to mention scoring a six-figure job for Shah’s son-in-law.

The estimated 8,000 pages of documents submitted to the review commission have undoubtedly contained the numerous quoted e-mails White himself sent regarding the admittance of many clout-backed candidates.

It’s easy to see the huge scope of the clout scandal when reading any news related to the University these days.

What’s equally apparent are the deep roots of the scandal firmly seated in the Illinois legislature. And Governor Quinn and his Illinois Admissions Review Commission plan to keep a hallowed state tradition alive by turning a blind eye to obvious political corruption.

Thus far, the commission has required the University to send at least two dozen staffers to the admissions hearings. They’ve only asked nine legislators to testify. A grand total of two agreed—Rep. Mike Boland, whose name doesn’t even appear in any of the materials released by the U of I in relation to the Category I list, and Sen. Chris Lauzen.

The big dogs have all politely told Abner Mikva thanks, but no thanks: House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, and House Republican Leader Tom Cross.

Madigan has acted on behalf of more applicants than any other legislator with a total of 43 over the last five years. According to his spokesman Steve Brown in a Tribune piece last Saturday, Madigan “believes he has little to contribute to the probe” as he was only acting on requests by constituents.

As if Madigan had no idea what his lil’ ol’ requests could do.

Mikva, head of the review commission, “seemed unconcerned about” lawmakers’ unwillingness to participate, saying in the aforementioned Trib article that “the heart of the problem is that the university had no policy of pushing back to the pressure that was exerted.”

Instead of commenting on the absurdity of this statement obvious to anyone with even a minimal knowledge of Illinois politics, I’ll follow up with an example that captures it exactly.

Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Republican candidate for governor, has already introduced a bill that aims to remove all nine members of the University Board of Trustees. And who better to demand swift, decisive action to restore public confidence in the university than someone who put his political influence behind seven applicants, three of whom were admitted?

No, we certainly cannot allow University officials to come out of this investigation unscathed, nor can we leave admissions practices unchanged. But, as with almost all of this state’s troubles, nothing’s going to change until we confront the real problem: Illinois legislators’ belief that nothing can touch them.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Student outrage missing in response to admissions scandal

Originally published June 8, 2009.

After the Chicago Tribune broke its story on U of I’s admissions clout list over a week ago, several parties expressed mild dismay. The Sun-Times requested that the university eliminate the list (which has, at least for the time being, been suspended). Illinois House representative Mike Boland called for legislative hearings and the resignation of all University officials and trustees who encouraged the continued usage of the list. And of course, the DI’s Web site presented the opinions of several students and graduates, whose responses were mostly variations of “I worked hard to get here, and I would be upset if an under-qualified applicant had gotten my spot.”

Among all this talk, students haven’t really expressed much anger, let alone any demands that the specific people involved with the clout scandal take responsibility for their actions. Even journalists seem afraid to demand that the people who need to be punished the most are state legislators.

For many students, it seems that the sheer fact that they were admitted is enough to balance the blatant inequity created by the clout list. They can view their acceptance as clear proof that the admissions process was fair in their circumstances. Few seem inclined to pursue the matter of responsibility for the clout list any further.

Even the Daily Illini has hesitated to rile anyone to action over the matter. Its news coverage of the list has included a generic AP article somewhat absolving U of I administration and staff of blame for its actions since it’s not the only University that engages in them.

To top it off, we’ve also given a full article’s worth of space to paraphrasing the mass e-mail Chancellor Herman sent the day the Tribune story broke, as if he needed more of an opportunity to offer his perspective. His letter, I might add, attempted to obscure the matter at hand in the Tribune article by offering unrelated data as a response (including the total number of applications received for next fall and their average ACT score) and essentially approved of the implementation of the list.

Aside from a single editorial, the DI’s coverage selection seems to admit that well, yeah, the University did a bad thing. But it’s not like we’re the only ones! It’s not that big of a deal. And even the editorial only generically requests that University officials and state legislators get their act together.

It’s as if students are convinced that even explicitly mentioning, much less blaming, Richard Herman and B. Joseph White will incur some horrible administrative wrath.

I don’t think anything should be able to match the wrath of a student body that’s discovered even one applicant was admitted to the University based on political leverage.

But more importantly, everyone—journalists included—needs to legitimately consider the involvement of state legislators in this entire clout process. Should White and Herman have caved in to political pressure? No. The trustees? The admissions staff? No. But as employees of the state’s flagship public institution, they are at the mercy of the murderous circus that is Illinois politics. Our politicians, after all, hold the purse strings.

Rep. Boland needs to turn his pointed finger of blame elsewhere, toward people like the all-powerful Michael Madigan, speaker of the house and, according to the Tribune’s follow-up article, the clout behind more U of I applicants than any other legislator in the last five years.

Before heads start rolling among University administrators, we must confront those politicians who have essentially created the clout list and administer swift and decisive punishment. And we—the tuition- and tax-paying student voters—must lead the charge.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Illinois history demands protection

Originally published September 11, 2008.

Kickapoo State Park will close November 1.

Hopefully that grabbed your attention. Many students have already heard about it, and the topic was the primary focus of the Buzz’s cover story last week. But there’s more to this than Kickapoo.

By Nov. 1, 24 state sites will close. In four state agencies, 450 employees are slated for layoff.

Now do I have your attention?

Students’ beloved Kickapoo is just one of 11 state parks set to close Nov. 1 because of the loss of 39 employees at the Department of Natural Resources.

In addition, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency will cut 80 employees and close 13 state historic sites, an oft-unmentioned addition to the park closures. The layoffs will only result in roughly $180,000 of the $2.8 million that the new budget demands IHPA cut. These 13 sites, including tourist favorites, such as Springfield’s Dana-Thomas House, are scheduled to close on Oct. 1.

After reading extensively about the closures, I’ve watched in dismay as less of the information trickles to the ears of the campus population. Kickapoo seems to be our only concern. Even in the papers, the state parks have taken precedence. The Buzz’s article offered one sentence about historic sites. Why aren’t we concerned about them?

The question deserves more consideration, especially when five of these 13 locations are expressly advertised as regional “high points” on the official Illinois tourism Web site. And they aren’t the only ones impacted by the budget cuts; numerous other sites have restricted their hours, even heavyweights like the Old State Capitol and Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield.

Some Lincoln-related sites (including the two previously mentioned, as well as Lincoln’s New Salem, the Ulysses S. Grant home and the Lincoln-Herndon law offices) will receive additional funds for 2009 from the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to remain open 7 days a week. After the Bicentennial, however, everything is up in the air.

From the state park end, complaints have been voiced regarding the difficulty of reopening. People speculate as to whether the number of visitors who return will be as great as the attendance rates prior to closure. At least for Kickapoo, I doubt this will present much of a problem. Being so close to Champaign-Urbana will bring the crowds back in droves, between outdoorsy college students and organizational excursions. I would venture to guess that more than one UI attendee would advertise a countdown to reopening, were it assured.

We also have to remember that we live in Illinois, and many of these parks offer opportunities for hunting and fishing. The state will have more than just angry college nature-enthusiasts on its hands if it opts to maintain the 11 closures over an extended period of time.

The historical sites are another matter. The time and money necessary for upkeep at the sites may not be considered worth it by the state (or rather, the governor) for locations that only attract a few thousand visitors.

It becomes easy to reconcile any semipermanent closure with the public by saying that the money invested in historic sites is a loss and the cost will not be justified by attendance numbers. Tourists begin to lose interest quickly, and sites forgotten. Who cares about a house where some dead poet lived anyway?

We are as misguided as the governor if we allow ourselves to measure the benefit of a preserved historical location by the number of visitors it receives. The point of historic preservation lies in education and providing that education to any and every person willing to seek it. Do people view the Carl Sandburg home (with 8,598 visitors in 2007) and Lincoln’s New Salem (with 432,176 visitors in 2007) as equally interesting? Probably not. Are their continued existences equally important? Absolutely. We cannot assess the significance of personally experiencing these places by staring at numbers on the page of a report.

History itself is a refusal to forget. If we didn’t recognize its importance, we wouldn’t have protected any of these places to begin with. So who is Rod Blagojevich to arbitrate which locations we remember of the vast number of histories embodied in the sites of Illinois (particularly when the blame for the budget imbalance rests mostly on his shoulders)?

If we can refuse to forget what’s in our elementary school history textbooks, then certainly we can refuse to forget what’s right in front of our eyes. Certainly we can fight for the future of the past.

Chelsea is a senior in English and music and will consider believing in God if he spares her from one more parking ticket.