I really must applaud the students starving themselves to prove a point. In fact, I think it's an excellent idea. If they avoid eating for long enough, they eventually won't be around to put up such a fuss about things. Seriously, though, I'm sick of people whining about the sweatshops. I'll worry about people in another country when everyone here in Lafayette (then Indiana, then the U.S.) has a good job, a nice house and plenty of food.

Let’s think about this another way. What happens if the Worker Rights Consortium declares some company that makes Purdue apparel to be an evil company — they use sweatshops, workers get paid 40 cents a day, etc? What happens? Purdue pulls its license. The company stops making Purdue apparel, thus losing its entire market and going out of business. All of a sudden, those workers went from 40 cents a day to nothing. Zip. Nada. Yes, it’s a worst case scenario — maybe the company will start paying its people more and improving working conditions. But if it does that, maybe it won’t be worth the cost of producing clothes overseas anymore, and instead, they’ll build a high-tech factory here in the states that employs very few people, preferring to use low-cost machines — oops, that doesn’t help those workers much!

There’s a third reason I’m opposed to this group: their actions are pointless. Go do something useful, people — instead of sitting out there to pressure President (Steven) Beering to act on an issue he's already considering, pick up a hammer and help out Habitat for Humanity or lend a hand at the Salvation Army or hunt some squirrels and donate the meat to a local food pantry - anything other than sitting around chanting.