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New major far too ""liberal

 There might be a new twist in the future when answering the age-old ice breaker, ""What's your major?""

Keep access to 911 calls open to the news media

Last week, the state assembly passed a bill banning the release of 911 call recordings. If it goes on to gain the Senate's approval, Wisconsin could become the fifth state exempting audio of 911 tapes from the public records, following Missouri, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Rhode Island. Even though the new measure is backed by families of the victims, who are the most relevant party in cases of emergency, public rights to access these records should not be abridged.

Right to drink raw milk an individual choice

Pasteurization is not just a nightmare for cheese gourmets. It is a nuisance for anyone who sees selling and consuming raw milk as their natural right.

Credit CARD Act necessary to remove ambiguity from terms and conditions

Metro Transit should prioritize riders over increasingly wealthy drivers

Last week, Metro bus driver John Nelson became a household name in Madison for his 2009 paycheck of $159,258. It's twice the median income of a Madison household plus a nice used car. While arguments over whether Nelson deserves all this are pointless, the number does dig up some deep issues in the Metro Transit System.

Beware the pitfalls of fast-track applications

Still remember the stressful days of college application? Your piggy bank was never full enough for the application fees, $50 here and $60 there. Next came the tortuous months when every frantic reach for the mail box ended with you empty-handed. Thanks to fast-track college application, all these pains could fade out of a high school senior's life, but that might not be an entirely positive development.

OpenCourseWare brings both new benefits and questions to universities

Today is the time to mine the Internet for higher education resources. Just recently, California passed a law requiring that all college textbooks be available in electronic form by 2020. Some institutions have taken steps no less progressive. MIT, for example, has successfully run its OpenCourseWare (OCW) project for eight years, injecting a rare dose of philanthropy into higher education. By offering its course content online for free, MIT initiated the noble cause of open course projects. Many top universities, including Yale and Carnegie Mellon, have since joined the party. However, ideas to take the project further are somewhat more controversial.

Techshop needs funding to tie UW to community

As the generation of Web 2.0, we're all too familiar with its keywords: social networking, podcasting and blogging. Most of us are content with our participation as mere users. At the receiving end, we have been savoring the creations of others for years. An interdisciplinary course at UW, Techshop, is suggesting something novel: link your passion about Web 2.0 to community service. Most students would think that such a worthwhile program could easily get funding from the university. But the truth is Techshop will be discontinued after next semester due to funding shortages. If UW is truly dedicated to its students and the future of Wisconsin, it should reconsider its decision.

No need to bulldoze Gordon Commons yet

Most students here are familiar with Gordon Commons. Regardless of your love-hate relationship with University Housing, you have to admit it's a homey place to relax during free time. Well, fun at Pop's Club and Ed's Express will soon come to an end, as UW plans to tear down the building this upcoming summer. Even if you look at the upcoming project glazed with rosy assumptions, the $34 million project is probably unnecessary.

Communication needed between student groups

Everybody knows diversity matters. For college students, an important way for us to explore the idea is through various student groups on campus. That's probably why UW-Madison now hosts a dazzling number of student organizations. While ""diversity by numbers"" is without doubt a convenient criterion to measure our progress, student participation should be the ultimate standard to gauge the quality of UW's diversity. However, the current lack of communication between student organizations has become a major obstacle deterring students from fully appreciating campus diversity.