By Amy Murakami

Millions of Americans embraced the athletic shoe created by Skechers called the Shape-Ups.  Many pairs were sold because they promise to strengthen and tone muscles without setting foot into a gym.  Let’s be real, people, how can a shoe magically make you achieve a rear like Kim Kardashian?
The way I see the Shape-Ups is just another form of a fad diet.  They are telling you to take the easy way out; just lace up these shoes and fitness is guaranteed.  Like a crash diet they promote exercising less and promising to look beautiful while wearing them.  Even more gag-worthy, they have a celebrity endorsing the shoe who was already famous for her body prior to the shoe’s creation.  Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner, advertise Shape-Ups with the tag line, “Get Fashionably Fit.”  Another advertisement encouraging people to look the “part” in Hollywood.
Fortunately, I am not the only one  who sees past these claims.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently fined Reebok $25 million because of their EasyTone shoes that made bogus claims to tone the calf muscles.  Skechers now is facing the same battle and a larger fine of $75 million.  Starting out with furious bloggers, now the media is attacking the brand for its preposterous claims.
Skechers is planning to stand up for its shoe and fight.  In an article in Advertising Age, Skechers is quoted, “We believe that our claims and advertising, with respect to our core toning products, are supported by scientific tests, expert opinions, and other relevant data.”
Skechers leads the shoe-toning category with a 60 percent share.  Making a number of people believe that Skechers has done something right.   Some bloggers have given better feedback with saying that the shoe gives them more thought about walking and exercise is more on their mind when they have them on.   This is a positive aspect to the shoe when people are willing to walk further distances.
As for the most part, people just need to get it in their heads that you have to pay visits to the gym and do more than walk from your driveway to your front door to get a toned bottom half.  The only fashionable aspect of this phenomenon is the advertisements that feature Kim Kardashian, and that is because you are looking at her face and not her feet. Therefore, may these ridiculous allegations and ugly shoes come to and end faster than her 72-day marriage to Kris Humphries.

By Erika Keffer

The greatest snow on Earth, our snow here in Utah, is cause for profit and environmental degradation.
Utah ski resorts have proposed several plans for expansion, including expanding skiable terrain and connecting Summit and Salt Lake counties over the Wasatch mountain range. These expansions are an unnecessary addition to the resorts and would have an enormous impact on the environment.
Alta seeks to add two separate lifts connecting to Big Cottonwood Canyon in two different gulches. Park City Mountain Resorts also wants two new lifts accessing Guardsman Pass and Brighton. Canyons Resort, the biggest in Utah, wants to build a tram to connect to Solitude, and Solitude wants another lift of its own for more skiable terrain. Also, Snowbird wants another tram.
These connector expansions, according to Ted Wilson, director of government affairs for Talisker Mountain Inc., are a “public service” and another way to access the high mountains. He admits it would also be profitable for his company. Wilson believes it will be an easier way for skiers to travel among Utah resorts and there would be no environmental impact.
This is ludicrous because Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons support the watershed that supplies drinking water to almost a half-million Utah residents. Providing easier access implies more recreators. In order to accommodate such recreation, concessions, restrooms and lodging are bound to follow. Also, more people mean more trash and less land for wildlife to roam and forage.
Carl Fisher, executive director of Save Our Canyons, said, “We as people are loving this place to death.” Traffic up and down Big and Little Cottonwood and Parleys Canyon causes severe pollution in the Salt Lake Valley. This is inevitable because of the enormous popularity of ski and snowboard tourism in Utah, but more reasons for people to travel the canyons is not helpful.
Expanding resorts in order to access more skiable terrain is profit-motivated and has a negative impact on the environment. All of the terrain where these resorts wish to expand is currently accessed by low environmental impact backcountry users who would be displaced if the expansions were put into effect. Backcountry skiers are more susceptible to avalanches because of the uncontrolled terrain, but there are great local resources about avalanche education.
If what these resorts are seeking is a more efficient way to get skiers from one resort to another, it would be more beneficial to negotiate lift ticket deals among resorts. Package deals for multiple resorts in the same canyon, or package deals for different nights at different resorts with corresponding lift tickets seems like a less impactful way to help winter tourists. Also, reworking the public transportation system to more effectively access the different canyons and resorts would benefit not only skiers and snowboarders, but ideally reduce pollution-causing traffic.
Changes like this would be much more beneficial to Utahans and visitors. We must protect our most valued resource, our champagne powder, and at the same time, drinking water.

By Catherine Johnson

I too am jumping on the organic bandwagon. I make sure my products are locally grown, or if they can’t be local then at least they are organic. I get a special sense of pride and dignity when I choose to walk into Whole Foods rather than the other grocery stores. There seems to be a little bit of a righteous feel when you  walk in there. As you shop with fellow customers, there’s an unspoken word going around about how we made the right choice.
I was not always this way. I am an easily persuaded person, and once persuaded I am passionate. My influence was the movie Food, Inc. After watching the movie I picked up my phone and started to call everyone I knew, telling them how we only need to buy organic and “Did you know chickens are injected with hormones and raised to have so much meat on them they can’t take two steps without collapsing?”
This became a new obsession of mine.  I would start conversations with perfect strangers, asking them if they knew where there milk was coming from. To me it was something that just made sense. Why would I want to eat anything that had hormones injected into it? I remember seeing a cartoon that made my organic choice even more simple it said “Organic… or as our grandparents called it, ‘Food.’”
I understand that not everyone has the luxury of spending money on these fancy organically grown apples, but there are alternatives.  Community gardens are a good way to receive organic food without paying expensive store prices.
I get into disputes with people on the subject of organic food. People tell me that organic is a new craze that will die out.  I like to rebut by saying organic is what has always been around, and hormones being injected into food is the new craze.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie Food, Inc. is when hamburger restaurants are being examined and the process of making the hamburger is being described.  Many hamburgers have cardboard filler. There are tiny pieces of cardboard put in to make a bigger burger with less meat.
I can understand my sources are biased, but it seems pretty simple to me. When I pay $6 for a hamburger I don’t want to be eating cardboard. In that case why don’t I just squirt some mustard on a box and save a few dollars?
I don’t need to have an outrageously huge strawberry; I would just like a basic strawberry. One that came straight from the earth untouched until it was picked just for me. I am taking some words of wisdom Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: “Less is more.”

By Jetta Harris

TV anchors are not more important than the rest of us. They are not better than the homeless, non-English speakers or minimum-wage workers.
Hope Woodside, Fox 13’s evening news host, walked into my store a few nights ago and shopped for apparel. I casually greeted her, and we both went on with our tasks; I did not realize the person I was greeting was a technical person of interest. As my colleagues noticed who the woman in the leopard print skirt was, they flocked, swarmed and surrounded her with comments and outfit ideas. I, on the other hand, began helping a conservatively dressed mother and daughter. The mother did not speak English, and the daughter served as our interpreter as I helped them find the items they wanted.
As I ushered the mother into the fitting room, I was beginning to feel guilty for not giving more assistance to Hope Woodside. How did I not notice her? Before I could find her again and offer my opinions, I had begun assisting another customer. I continued to grab sizes for the mother and daughter and helped them pick out clothes for a son, too. Suddenly, I had a realization: Hope Woodside is not more important than the mother and daughter with whom I could barely have a conversation. Her needs are not more important, and she should not receive better treatment. Would she spend more money? Maybe. Did she? No. I ended up helping the mother and daughter select multiple items, and Hope didn’t find much.
Patrons in public should be treated equally, regardless of status, and the employees attending to them need to acknowledge fair treatment. As a retail employee, and a minimum-wage one, this incident reminded me that I need to care for all my customers equally. I have since noticed that my equity epiphany is not present in other situations, but I’m hoping it can be.
In service jobs, think about the people you are serving; think about them as people. Each person requires your assistance to meet his or her needs, but one person’s needs do not override another’s. Judging by outside appearance, status, career or language capabilities is not the way to establish customer priority; it’s a way to leave your goals and your customer’s goals unmet. Did I want Hope Woodside to feel unattended to? No. But did I want the mother and daughter to feel that way either? Absolutely not. Did Hope and the mother and daughter get the assistance they needed? Yes, and it was an equity epiphany that brought success.

By Braden Hammond
Ryan Clark, safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was fined $40,000 Sunday for a helmet-to-helmet contact penalty, a new rule that may be doing more harm than good.
Ed Dickson of the Baltimore Ravens caught the ball across the middle of the field in front of Clark, so Clark did what he has been trained to do: hit the opposing player hard enough to try and stop further progression of the football.  Clark had no desire to hurt Dickson, just the intention of making a play that would help his own team.  This hit turned into not only a penalty against Clark and the Steelers, but also a $40,000 fine for Clark.
Helmet-to-helmet penalties have been a controversial subject that has led to many disagreements between NFL players and league commissioners in the last couple years.  Defensive players are no longer allowed to do what they have been doing for the last 90 years.  Instead of possibly being a game-changing play and causing the crowd to go wild, a helmet-to-helmet collision will now result in a penalty.
Players should not be penalized for what they’ve been taught to do for years.  A defensive player’s main job is to stop the football from progressing so their team can get the ball back.  Players are taught to hit the man with the ball in an attempt to make him fumble; hard-hitting is just a part of the sport.  A single play only lasts a few seconds, which means every player is forced to make split-second decisions.  A defensive player usually doesn’t have time to aim or decide how he’s going to tackle the person with the ball.  This means that it will never be possible to completely eliminate helmet-to-helmet hits.
I understand that collisions to the head can easily cause injuries, especially with players running at high speeds in the NFL.  The rules against helmet-to-helmet contact were made with good intentions and the league commissioners are only trying to protect the players, but every player knew the risks of the game when he started playing.  They all know that football is a contact sport and that they could be hit hard and injured at any second on the field.  If they weren’t okay with these risks, then they wouldn’t be playing.
This new rule is meant only to prevent injuries to players, but could it actually be doing the opposite?  What if players decide that since they’re going to be fined anyway, they’ll just try to make the hit as hard as possible and injure the guy?  Some players, including Clark, are thinking exactly that.  Clark said, “So it’s going to turn into if you’re going to fine me $40,000, I might as well put him to sleep for real or I might as well blow his knee out.”

By Emily Dunn
The National Basketball Association has been around for years. This year will be the first season that the players will not be playing as of right now. Some of the players saw this coming so decided instead of sitting around waiting, they are going overseas to play there.
At first when Deron Williams announced that he was going to play in Europe, many thought it was a stupid idea and he would get hurt and ruin his NBA season here. Now being mid-November and the season still not starting many are starting to think Williams was smart to leave and continue playing.
Williams wasn’t the only player to leave to go play. Local Jazz player Andrei Kirilenko has gone over to play for Moscow with a three-year contract, but he has the option of leaving anytime when the NBA starts back up.  It is not only local players, but big-name players as well have left to play in the Euro league. One of the biggest stars in the basketball world right now, Kobe Bryant, was a big debate on playing across seas. Bryant ended up not going and rumors were started that the Euro league doesn’t have enough money for Bryant.
Europe hasn’t been as easy on these NBA players as they might have thought it would be. A lot of them have been struggling to get going, and their stats are nothing like what they are here.  Williams has said that “the reffing is different over there, and it has taken time to adjust to,” according to a fan site.
The players over there haven’t had respect for the NBA players coming over and stealing their spotlight, so they’re trying to make sure the stars stay out of the spotlight and on the benches.
Many of the players are wishing they had followed Williams from the beginning. Derek Fisher is the spokesman for the players during the lockout, and he is wishing he were overseas doing what he does best and what he loves.
As of now the lockout doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, and many fans and players are very upset by this. If we could just go back to the days of high school or even college when money wasn’t an issue and it was all played with heart. The athletes and owners today have become too greedy and are ruining the great sport of basketball. If the lockout doesn’t end soon, I could see the whole NBA moving to the Euro league.

By Jessica Chindgren

Annoying. Disruptive. Intrusive. These may be words that come to your mind when you think of a telemarketer.  As of three weeks ago, I would have agreed.
Then I started a job as a telemarketer.
Yes, I chose the hated role of the annoying, disruptive and intrusive, but I needed a job—plain and simple. Rent due, bills due, tuition due; I needed a job. We’ve all been there, taken a job because we needed it, not because it was really what we wanted. So why is it that we treat telemarketers with little or no respect? We’ve all been there, right?
Yes, it is true, telemarketers a lot of the time can be an annoyance. But does that mean they aren’t human and don’t deserve to be treated with respect? These telemarketers are people, just like you.  You have no idea what may be going on in their lives and your attitude, good or bad, has an effect on them.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “If I’m not rude, the telemarketer won’t leave me alone.” I understand the reason people think this; I thought that too. Telemarketers have a very negative image.  The stereotype is that telemarketers are only out to sell you on something, and they won’t stop until you are sold on it. However, this often isn’t true. We have to remember that this is a stereotype.
Don’t ever treat blondes as if they are smart; they are dumb. Never let Arabs on a plane; they are terrorists. Don’t ever give telemarketers the time of day; they are only out to get your money. As you can see, these stereotypes are wrong and we shouldn’t treat people according to stereotypes.
How would you like it if you were working a job that you already didn’t enjoy and almost everyone you talked to treated you like an annoyance? It’s awful. No one, no matter what stereotype, deserves to be treated as an annoyance.  We are all human, we are all trying to make it in this world and we should all treat others with the respect that they deserve.
Overall, if you treat telemarketers with respect, they will treat you with respect. If the telemarketer knows that you aren’t interested, he or she will not waste time on you. If you aren’t interested, let them know; just do so nicely. It really is easier than you may think.
So next time you get a call from a telemarketer, don’t be so quick to hang up, yell, or play a nasty trick.  Think if it was you or someone you knew on the other line. “Treat others the way you wish to be treated.”

By Emilio Manuel Camu
“As I see all of these posters of the so-called students on campus, I have to ask myself: where the heck are all of the Asians?  It’s as if our institution consisted solely of smiling white, 18-22-year-olds with a handful of token ethnics,” said Jen Le, a senior in accounting.
In fact, when you look at many of the posters on campus, including the health programs sponsored by the field house, the laptop rentals sponsored by the Union, the Campus Life discount books, and even the mouse pads located in the Language & Communication building, most, if not all, images on advertisements or posters include people of Caucasian descent.
“It’s a little disheartening to know that this is how our university is represented,” said Dao Tran, a freshman in business.  “I feel like my needs aren’t addressed because the current administration and student government do not understand the needs of people that come from a different background than theirs.”
But why should diversity be on everyone’s agendas? Why should there be a need to demonstrate diversity through ads or through the student government?  Well, the purpose of the university is to provide higher education for the students who attend, and the purpose of the ASUU is to serve the needs of the students.  As the current population of U is very diverse in terms of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, socioeconomic status, marital status, and includes many non-traditional students while ASUU is majority white, many people feel that they do not understand many of the ways they represent the student body.
At a children’s Halloween event located at the Union, a member of student government passed me in the hall wearing a faux-feather headdress.  She wanted to be a Native American for the Halloween activity.  Obviously, she didn’t understand the social and cultural implications of her wearing the headdress as a costume, as the feather is a symbol or respect, dignity, honor, and importance in many cultures, not just that of the Native Americans.
As I walked up to her to ask kindly to take off the headdress, I didn’t know what I would say.  I knew if the encounter were to turn bad, she somehow had the power to affect negatively the resources that I need to serve as the president of the Asian American Student Association.
I told her what the importance of the headdress was, and repeated four times that the headdress is “part of a culture, not a costume.”  She still didn’t seem to understand the implications of what I had repeated to her, but she respected my wishes and removed her headgear.
I was in shock that she left without really understanding that the feather headdress was part of and important to many cultures, but it wasn’t a costume to be worn to festivities.  If this is how knowledgeable our institution’s leaders are about the students they’re supposed to be serving, I wonder how dedicated they are in serving us.  To be that unaware of different social and cultural communities located on the university and not being able to address such simple needs as respecting each others’ culture surprises me.
Should our leaders really be this ignorant of us, the students whom they serve?

By Kyle Biehl
“Damn, it looks better in here, man, and I’m down with the mustaches,”  said Eric Miller, a University of Utah student.
When you think the most stereotypical thing that college age kids eat what do you think of? Pizza!
Last Wednesday Eric, my longtime friend from Orange County who also migrated to Utah, and I ate at Spedelli’s Pizza.
Spedelli’s has a fairly diverse menu, especially for only being open a month. They serve your standard cheese and pepperoni pizza by the slice, and you can get two slices of cheese or pepperoni and a soda for just five bucks. They also serve several different delicious beers on tap as well as high-point beer in bottles and $1 PBR’s! They also serve chicken, steak, pork, fish and street-style tacos where you ad on your own toppings at the taco bar right next to the soda machine. Spedelli’s offers four different sub sandwiches as well as some appetizers you’re not likely to get anywhere else like fried raviolis, and Poutine, which is French fries covered with cheese and gravy. They also have desserts too they call “happy endings” like fried Twinkies, friend ice cream and cinnamon sticks.
The ambiance of the new restaurant at 2325 Foothill Drive is great. The walls are filled with local artists’ murals that have a mountain theme with the mustache logo hidden in them as well as several beautiful large photos of mountains and snowboarders, enhancing the mountain sports vibe. The back room also features a pool table that is free on Wednesdays, which was lucky for me and Eric because we went on a Wednesday.
The crowd consisted of mostly of young adults but also had a couple of large families and some middle-aged men and women enjoying watching a baseball game on Spedelli’s three HDTVs.
Owners Mac and Sam Spedale have friends who are professional snowboarders, and they have named pizzas after them. The “ Merill Man-za” is Bode Merill’s pizza, the “Harry’s Choice” is Harrison Gordon’s and the “Hot Carlson” is my good friend Jonas Carlson’s pizza.
Eric and I ordered a 14-inch Hot Carlson. The pizza has pepperoni, spinach, red and yellow onions, black olives, garlic, tomatoes, banana peppers, mushrooms and green peppers. The Hot Carlson is definitely my favorite pizza on the menu. It has the most bang for your buck; you get so many toppings it’s crazy.
“This is f@#king good!” Eric said.
Sitting across the table from Eric, I had to agree. The speedy service was good, the food was delicious and the atmosphere was on point. I give Spedelli’s 5 out of 5 stars.