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The Pendulum Opinions Thursday, November 13, 2003 •Page 3 Crisis of Creativity in America This weekly column will entertain you with relationship questions from the minds of actual Phoenix students. Do not fear the subject matter of the questions. THE GURT T "What constitutes cheating?" Let’s make this simple. I believe cheating is anything and everything that you would not want your significant other to find out about. This can range from “platonic” lap dances to a simple kiss on the cheek. There are multiple levels when it comes to cheating. And it is up to the individuals in a rela tionship to make that call. Often, the problems occur because the two people have very different meanings of cheat ing. Due to the large amounts of alcohol consumed on this cam pus, it is not surprising that drunken episodes happen. The most frequent being the drunken dance floor kiss. You know what I am talking about, even single people fall prey to this action. The lights are low, the music is thumping and you are having fun, when suddenly your lips aren’t just for breathing. The drunken kisser has struck again. Fear not, this is not some ran dom bit of juiciness that I felt a compelling need to write about, it does have a point. The point is how you teel about it. Do you consider this cheat ing? And secondly, does your partner feel it is cheating? Communication is the source of all goods and evils in relation ships. When it comes to what constitutes improper cross-gen der interactions, both partners need to be clear on where the boundaries are. When discussing this with your significant other please be honest. Don’t play the “Oh it s fine if you and your best guy friend from home sleep in the same bed while he is visiting. I mean you are just like brother and sister, you even hold hands...” If what your boy/girltriend is going to do is something that bothers you, speak up. Tell him/her that it’s not something you are kosher with. At one point in your relation ship, somewhere between a month and “I do,” there comes a time when you really have to sit down and discuss. You can leave the conversation about your future children’s names for anoth er time; this discussion should be solely on your boundaries. And we all know that there is nothing more fun than pushing boundaries, so make yours a tad bit narrower than you would truly allow. That way if someone slips, it’s not the end. Don’t listen to other people’s opinions of “problems” within the relationship causing cheating to occur. It’s ridiculous and just an excuse for bad behavior. If your partner truly cared for you, he or she would bring the problem to you—not someone else. In the end it all comes down to how you feel. Cheating is pur posefully doing something that can hurt the other person in the relationship—as well as the third party. Being the “lover” is never easy, especially if the “lover” sta tus is not truly understood. As my friend says, “there is nothing like being the ‘kept’ lady when you don’t even know you are being kept.” Cheating toys with people’s emotions and has the potential to turn everything sour. Very sour. The answer is clear; cheating is anything that will hurt your part ner. So just don’t do it. Really, it’s that simple. Se/ici a (/iies- tion to the GURU’ at elonguru@ yahoo.com Adam Davis Columnist It isn’t often that someone finds himself hoping for a crisis, but that’s exactly where I find myself now. There’s no hiding the fact that the economy is turning around. The highest GDP quarterly growth rate since 1984 and the lowest unemployment numbers in six months are great news. However, an awful lot of American workers are looking over their shoulders and trying to fig ure out how the economy recov ered without them. For more than a century now the United States has defined itself as the greatest industrial power on the planet. While this is for all intents and purposes still true today, our dominance is noth ing like what it used to be. Economists who champion glob alization argue that by outsourc ing manufacturing jobs to other counties, we free up the time of American laborers to do other things. The catch here is that we have to find other things for American laborers to do. Nearly 80 percent of the new American economy is made up of service companies. The phrase “Made in America” has been diluted to “Assembled in America” and is rapidly moving towards “Brokered or Sold by Americans (but made somewhere else).” Globalization economists champion this sequence as the pursuit of self-actualization and human progress. They point out that by freeing up the time of American laborers to do other things, like think up new ideas or become more educatedj_we move our society, and consequently humanity, forward. Theoretically,' this progression makes sense. It’s a lot like doing chores as a child. As you get older and are capable of doing more, you pass the less entertain ing and more strenuous chores down to your younger siblings and spend your time partaking in more stimulating and hopefully more advanced activities. However, as with most things, if it’s too good to be true, it proba bly is. With all this free time on our hands,-Americans have set their innovative radars on technological develop ments. Through the use of these techno logical breakthroughs we have vastly improved manufactur ing efficiency as well as communication and data compilation capabilities. Americans have gotten fat by “cutting the fat” out of business. We do more with less and we shorten supply chains. We cut back on the number of laborers, replacing them with machines and we cut back on the number of middlemen between the manufac turer and the consumer by imple menting improved distribution channels and online shopping. So what happens when the manufacturing countries that we create by outsourcing our manu facturing jobs, take our technolo gy to cut us out of the supply chain? In other words, how long can a service country survive without finding something new to make? I don’t think Americans are going to like the answer to that question. What we need is a crisis. We need a crisis of creativity. The American people need to stop being satisfied with the innova tions of the 1970s and 80s and embrace the opportunities created by the globalization of the American economy. The industri al revolution in the United States has long since come to pass. It’s time to replace it with an idea rev olution. We need to relieve our selves of the humdrum manufac turing tasks of the industrial revo lution. In its place, let us turn our now idle factories into new, state of the art factories that produce more advanced products. Globalization, otherwise known as natural progress, is supposed to allow for Americans to utilize our freed up time to become smarter. So let’s do just that. Let’s market SMART. Let’s manufacture SMART. Call it the “Sustainable Manufacturing of America’s Revolutionary Technology” if you want. Why buy American? Because it’s the cheapest. No longer can we use that answer when it comes to questions about textiles, rubber and steel. However, if we make the conscious decision to leave behind the comfort of the indus trial revolution and its products and become innovative once again, perhaps we can spark a new, even more impactful revolu tion that will secure America’s place at the top of the societal lad der long into the future. Instead of saying our product is the cheapest, let’s answer with ’’it’s the most advanced” and “we’re the only one capable of producing it.” Contact Adam Davis at pendu- lum@elon.edu or 278-7247. coat^ Nate Beeler, KRT Campus Adam Davis
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