For tragically obvious reasons the nation of Haiti has been in the news a lot lately, yet as more marketable events such as Obama’s State of the Union address enter the 24-hour news cycle and the dramatic search and rescue operations have been suspended by the Haitian government, perhaps it is finally time to take a look at the problems facing Haiti before and after the earthquake. As we all (hopefully) know the significance of Haiti cannot and should not be reduced to natural disaster. Haiti’s story is a sad one that has only culminated in the devastating earthquake.

Haiti and the United States have had intimate relations since both were slave societies, and both countries were the first two to liberate themselves from colonial rule. While the United States was merely beginning an era of expansion (of both free territories and slave territories), Haiti was only beginning her career as an exploited and stigmatized society. The reason for this, of course, was the former was a white-dominated slave society while the latter was a living definition of the hypocrisy of racism, slavery, and colonization. The first black republic was always doomed to suffer.

The death of Howard Zinn should give us all a moment to pause and reflect on a remarkable life, one that was spent almost entirely in service of people. What he served for and for whom he served are, of course, the most important questions. The mainstream media, as well as people who do not have the intellectual curiosity to investigate a great hero of working people, have tried to pigeon-hole him as an icon of The Left, but such a reduction is a terrible disservice to his name. Zinn was, in the opinion of this undergraduate, a champion for all decent human beings.

"Private: intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class."

President Obama's Race to the Top education plan has not been in the headlines very much because most of it has yet to be implemented, but from recent trends in education reform one can see where it is heading. At the heart of this movement is the effort to privatize the nation's public schools in the form of charter schools.

As we creep towards the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us, the question of why we are still there has yet to be answered. Most likely it never will, unless you follow the no-bid contracts and oil company profits being reaped there. These were the only true winners in the war, at least on the American side. The losers undoubtedly were the American people, specifically tax-paying citizens and the troops.

We all know our national debt has steadily grown over recent years, and now we face the prospects of higher taxes and reduced social services. The hidden cause of this is the American war machine, which receives more national government spending every year than China and Europe combined. Some of the more "enlightened" readers may be thinking "but military spending only takes up 20% of the national budget, about as much as Social Security or Medicaid and Medicare." At best this is misleading, and at worst it is a lie.

President Obama's decision to push for student loan reform in the reconciliation health bill was a shrewd one. After compromising the public health care plan and tightening up the bill to make it more palatable for "moderates" (few of whom voted for it anyway), he included legislation reforming the student loan industry that was much more progressive than the health care bill. The medical industry is creating many more social and fiscal problems for health care in the United States than the student loan business, and Obama wisely used the public focus on the health care industry as a smokescreen. It was, in every sense of the term, a bait-and-switch.

The reforms in the education bill are very significant. Under this legislation loan payments after graduation cannot exceed 10% of the debtor's paycheck. Previously the cap was 15%, and for us soon-to-be graduates who have to pay back loans that could be the difference between struggling to get by after college and not having to constantly worry about our finances. Republicans were silent on this fact. Instead they chose to focus on the section of the bill that phased out the private loan industry from federally subsidized loans.

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Dr. Martin Luther King, from a Birmingham jail

The Columbia chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity recently sent out an invitation on Facebook for what promises to be quite a party. In celebration of Cinco de Mayo AEPi members invited Columbia students to "La Casa," and for one memorable night to go "below the border" to the "hottest, wettest, and spiciest venue in the world." Don't forget the "ponchos, sombreros, bandanas, or ...your best cholo/a." Fortunately for AEPi, someone watches the news, and the invitation was soon modified to a less offensive tone, soon followed by a mea culpa.

Cinco de Mayo is a celebration among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans commemorating the nineteenth-century Mexican victory over French imperialist incursions against overwhelming odds. AEPi is in the process of making amends for their mistake, and good for them. Conflating Latinos and crime is of course racist, and it is similar to assumptions underlying the anti-immigrant legislation recently passed by the state of Arizona. The question that I find interesting is how this quiet little controversy at Columbia relates to the recent events in Arizona.