It's always fun hearing the ideas concocted by the Associated Students of Madison. In my afternoon perusal of my e-mail Tuesday, I found out that their latest idea is to start a campus grocery store. I can just imagine.

First, ASM probably immediately hires a women’s liaison, a student of color liaison, an LGBT liaison and an LGBT of color liaison to set all sorts of hiring and marketing quotas. Once ASM hires associates according to these quotas, the staff will likely start at around $20 an hour — have to pay living wages, right?

Whoever gets put in charge of supply chain management will likely have strict orders to only buy food produced from local, organic farmers who pay living wages to their workers. They probably will not offer milk or any other dairy products, since everyone agrees that methane from cow flatulence contributes to global warming. Students lucky enough to find groceries meeting all these criteria will only be able to carry them home in reusable non-bleached cloth bags.

After all this, if ASM can still provide cheap, accessible groceries and bring in customers, all the revenue will mysteriously disappear and SSFC won’t care about it. Or, it will go to pay for “travel expenses” for grocery store staff who don’t really do anything, yet need to attend crucial seminars in Florida and Arizona.

Oh, and to answer the original question ASM posed in big bold letters, yes, we do “got” cheap, accessible groceries. It’s called Woodman’s.

ASM should stick to what they do best, which is… well, just about nothing.

Mark Baumgardner

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