Some people look like they have not showered in a week. Others look obese and like they have not slept in two days. About half of the people in the room are college students.

“It's great because it works as a supplemental income,� says UMD sophomore Jeremy Beckman. “Especially when you don't have a job and you need money for groceries.�

ZLB Plasma Services is located in downtown Duluth, making it an easy location for UMD students to get to. Many Students need this money for bills, booze, or food.

Beckman has gone to the plasma services about 20 times. He stopped going for awhile when he had a job. Now that he is trying to find a job again and is running low on money he had to go back, even though he does not like going.

“I don't like the scar on my arm,� he says as he lifts his sleeve. “I applied at probably six or seven [restaurants and stores] in town and none of them called me back for a while. Money was getting tight so I started donating again.�

A group of four male college students sit in the corner of the room. They talk amongst each other about how they come here regularly. They continue to talk about the weekend and what they are going to buy with the money they get from their plasma.

“I'm going to get a bottle tonight and some beer,� said one student to another. “We should have a party this weekend.

The conversation continues with each guy bragging about what they will contribute to the party.

ZLB Plasma Services allows a patient to come twice a week but you have to allow 48 hours in between the times you go. It seems as though every five patients get sent away and told to come back in a day. Some people come before their next scheduled time because they need the money. Some get sent home if there are other problems.

That happened to Beckman one time he was at the Plasma Services.

“I got sent away once because my temperature was 99.7 degrees,� he said. “That is .1 degree off what it can be.�

To high of a temperature is a way you can get sent home, but you do not have any control over that. The employees try to address the patients with are preparing 12 hours before they come in to donate.

“It is very important that the clients eat healthy foods prior to coming to ZLB.� said lab technician Shari Holenberg. “The donating process goes faster if the blood isn't thickened by foods high in cholesterol.�

Overall, patients and employees seem to have a good experience at the Plasma Services.

“The [students] are usually always polite.� said Holenberg. “We get a few groups in here that are all friends. They can get loud but it never gets out of control.�

Beckman believes that the employees are polite in return to the students.

“The employees are friendly and professional,� said Beckman. “They know what they are doing.�

Sitting at a table, occasionally glancing to the left out the window, Aaron Johnston comes here regularly to take a break from his long days at school. This college junior wears a short sleeved button down shirt with jeans and slightly jelled hair, blending in with most students at UMD.

But Johnston is 31, has a wife and two kids, and feels like he has more motivation than and 21 year old does.

Once thinking that college was not for him, Johnston is now 31, starting when he was 27. It took him eight years to figure out where his true passion was.

“I never realized until I came back to school how much I loved to learn,� said Johnston, “or where my true talents were.�

Studying late does not seem like very hard work for Johnston, like it would most college students.

“The human body is capable of so much more than you realize,� he discovered his years before starting college. “Your body will give up way before you mind does.�

For most of his years after high school Johnston went to Alaska to work on a fishing boat for six months of the year. He worked 20 hour days, seven days a week, with only being able to shower the smell of dead fish and sea water off him once a week. At the end of the six months he would be paid anywhere from $40,000- 70,000 depending on how well the boat's crew did.

“One of the things I learned while fishing was a pretty solid work ethic,� said Johnston.

During the six months Johnston had off from work, he met the woman he wanted to marry and have children with. After going to work for six month and then coming back, he knew the relationship would not work out. Johnston decided he would have to go back to school and eventually hold down a normal job if he wanted to have a family.

“At first it felt like I was being forced to go back to school,� said Johnston, “but it's a perk.�

After going to Lake Superior College for two years to finish his general classes, Johnston is now enrolled at UMD as a cell biology major. He takes classes year round and will be graduating in a year and a half. After graduating he plans to continue his education at UMD in medical school.

Johnston said that he finds it tough being back at school, but he loves the hard work. He knows now what he can achieve. His motivation is his love for biology, but mainly his wife and two children.

“After being forced to work that hard,� he said, “it gave me a sense of what I could accomplish.�

An old skipper that Johnston knew gave what Johnston called the best advice to success and one of his most important life lessons.

“It's the guy that works harder that gets ahead,� Johnston said he would hear quite frequently on the boat.

Every year after he was finally done with working he would tell himself that he would never go back to work on the boat. The main reason he would go back was for the money.

There were times on the boat where he would feel like swimming the 14 miles to Russia. The only thing that kept him from jumping was the thought that it would all be worth the money he was making. After you're able to handle being out at sea, it's a great feeling, said Johnston.

“I actually get a high from it,� he said. “It's like switching to autopilot.�

Johnston thinks about his years before college as an experience he needed to do before being able to go back to school. He was able to get all the partying stages out of him. He says that he realizes students have a hard time keeping focused at school.

“It is easy to daydream about being somewhere else,� Johnston said. “You always think that the grass is greener, but it really isn't.�

“Sometimes you just have to take time off for yourself,� he said. “It doesn't necessarily mean you take ten years off,� but if you do what you want to do “It will make you a happier person.�

The council made their decision after several citizens spoke against and for the transfer to a new owner for the bar at the last City Council meeting.

“Resolution passes,� says City Council President Roger Reinert as half the room gets up to leave, most in favor for the transfer.

The transfer of the sale of intoxicating liquor license from former owner Paul A. King to new owner Eric Ringsred was passed in a 9-1 vote, with fourth council district member Garry Krause being the one to oppose.

“If you plant a tree in the middle of the dessert, it will die,� Krause said about the location of the bar. “A new owner of the bar is going to have a hard time� in that area, he continued.

First Avenue is notorious for being in a bad part of downtown. Drug dealing, prostitution, drunken loitering, and violence, are all occurrences of the corner of East First Street and Second Avenue East.

More than 400 times police were called in the direction of the Kozy in 2005, making that corner the largest area of police call complaints in Duluth that year.

“I see the problems everyday,� said third district City Council member Russ Stewart. “They are serious.�

Ringsred said he does not want to see the summer of 2006 look how it did in 2005. He understands the problems in that area and realizes that there needs to be a change.

“As people who really care about out community,� Ringsred said, “we need to address this.�

Ringsred did not say he had an affirmative plan of action for changing the dangerous conditions on the corner of the bar. He does not believe that it is “fair to blame all those problems on the Kozy�. His first plan of action is to change and improve the appearance of the building.

The council agrees that if the problems on that downtown corner don’t get better, they can always revoke the license. They agree that it is not Ringsred who let the bar become the way it is. To deny him the chance to fix it up and improve the area would be wrong, said many different members of the council.

First council district Laurie Johnson also added that her “concern is that [they] are just going to shift [the problems] to another area� and that isn’t solving the problem.

“This is an opportunity to let things improve,� Stewart said. “I think we should have a positive attitude.�

She tosses some pamphlets on a chair and puts on a tan, plastic grass skirt and a blue Hawaiian lay for the perfect touch to the tropical themed room she is standing in.

“I have been planning this all school year long,� Batzlaff said as students continued to gather into the Kirby Rafters on Wednesday, March 1st for the Treasure your Health tropical themed health fair.

“It was pretty difficult,� said Batzlaff, the head coordinator for the health fair, “It was my first time running [the health fair].�

Loud chattering came from every angle of the room as more students continued to walk in. The Eta Sigma Gamma group was taking out a limbo from under their booth and asking people, “How low can you go?� Long lines of eager UMD students waited for Lake Superior College students of massage therapy to give them a free back massage.

“We asked our favorite booths to come back first,� Batzlaff said.

“They all came for free,� she continued, “I just had to call and send letters to coordinate time and who would come.�

Batzlaff takes off around the room from one tropical incorporated themed booth to another making sure all the companies and groups are happy.

Dressed up as a pirate in the entry way, health services intern Bryce Joanson is trying to talk people into going to the Garden Room for one of there special events.

I am “trying to get people to try something new,� he says as the Jazzercise teacher dances in the room by herself.

Special events in the Garden Room included Pilates with rec sports from 11-12, Jazzercise from 12-1, and yoga with Yoga North from 1-2. Yoga and Jazzercise were from off campus and they both had tables at the fair to promote their services. The Pilates was run by a student at UMD.

“I thought it was great,� said sophomore Sean Daugherty, “There was a bunch of free activities that I would not normally go to.�

The four hour long health fair ended with clearing students out and taking down booths.

Overall the health service team felt that the fair went pretty well. “There were a few quirks but nothing major. Everyone came and seemed happy with their space so that’s the biggest thing,� said Batzlaff.

American women could be greatly affected by changes in Roe v. Wade in 2006 Duluth attorney Sonia Sturdevant said in a speech last Wednesday at UMD.
New Supreme Court justice Alito is revisiting the law passed in 1973 that legalized abortion. He is saying it is not a settled law.
There is a privacy “right to abortion in the 14th amendment,� said Sturdevant. “The government can not take life, liberty, or poverty� from American citizens.
Although the mother has rights, her rights are competing with the rights of the fetus she is carrying.
Roe v. Wade makes it legal for a woman to abort her fetus at anytime during her pregnancy. The courts have left it up to the States to decide on whether it is legal during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
An element making it hard for the courts to diminish abortion is stare decisis. In Latin that means “To stand by that which is decided.�
It is important to respect the courts before us said Sturdevant. The American citizens will think the courts decisions have no meaning if they are changing their minds. Approximately 1,365,000 million women get abortions in America ever year. It is estimated that there have been 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973.
If Roe v. Wade is diminished the country will go back to having the States decide on legalization of abortions and emergency contraceptive pills.
Before the law was legalized, many women would have to travel to a different state like California to get an abortion. Not all women have access to traveling across the county.
Sturdevant continued to talk about the future of emergency contraceptive pills. There are many small towns in the U.S. that only have one pharmacy. That pharmacy may or may not carry the Morning After pill.
It is important that a woman receiving an emergency contraceptive takes it within the first 72 hours to be affective. If a rape victim or woman who needs an emergency pill for any reason has to travel to a different town, this will lessen her time and chances of it working.