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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5. 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
POLITICS
Kansans more likely to flip-flop votes
MADDIE FARBER news@kansan.com
The Kansas governorship is among the 15 most likely to flip from one major political party to another, according to National Journal, a non-partisan political publication.
Don Haider-Markel, professor and chair of the department of political science, helped shed some light on what might be happening here in Kansas.
"It's a question now if Brownback can get some of what he wants in terms of education funding," Haider-Markel said. "When the economy is good, then the negative attitudes about
"Recent polling from late December through January shows that Paul Davis has a slight lead over Brownback," Haider-Markel said.
"Kansas is a Republican
state whose governor has low approval ratings and a democratic challenger with high numbers," Haider-Markel said. "It makes it more likely than in another year to say that this could flip."
"Kansas is a Republican state whose governor has low approval ratings and a democratic challenger with high numbers."
DON HAIDER-MARKEL political science professor
According to an article from the Wichita Eagle, when Davis first entered the race he announced his plan to reform education. He has also been critical of the cuts made to Kansas' income tax rates that were enacted by Brownback and the GOP-controlled legislature in 2012 and 2013.
income and corporate tax cuts being negative could change."
Haider-Markel explained that when the legislature introduces controversial bills, Davis has the opportunity to pin Brownback as being one of the Republicans in the House that is bringing negative attention to the state, even
when the governor doesn't directly support these bills.
Haider-Markel noted that even if a Democrat were to be elected as governor, this does not necessarily indicate Kansas is becoming less conservative.
It's only early March, there's a ways to go before the election and Brownback could turn around polling numbers," Haider-Markel said. "An incumbent is hard to defeat."
"There won't be a sharp overturn in the legislature, Haider-Markel said. "Odds are if he were elected, he would be working with a conservative legislature. Davis won't have much success if he doesn't take a moderate approach. The campaign has just started in Brownback's view. In the fall, we'll see a much closer race."
Edited by Cara Winkley
STUDENTS ON THE STREET
Jennifer Pile, freshman
"It will be interesting to see if it does happen because Kansas has been a Republican state for so many years."
Sydney Sassaman, senior
"I think Kansas has always been pretty Republican so it would be a pretty big change if we went liberal. I'm a Republican so i'll vote that way. I'm from southwest Kansas which is very Republican. I'm not sure how they (southwest Kansas) would handle it."
Dominic Sanchez, freshman
"I'm not really a supporter of Brownback so I plan on voting for Davis anyway."
CAMPUS
Professor releases work on Langston Hughes
MADDY MIKINSKI
news@kansan.com
news@kansan.com
The University of Kansas
presents
Two professors are changing the way English scholars look at the works of Harlem Renaissance author Langston Hughes, a Lawrence native.
"In the years 1926-1938, when she wrote him, Carrie experiences many highs and lows in her life." Tidwell said
In the letters, Carrie writes to her son at college asking for money.
LANGSTON HUGHES
Poet, Jazz Critic, Playwright
and former Lawrence resident
The project was made more challenging by the absence of Hughes's replies.
"We asked, 'how did
Mr. Hughes will read from his own works and discuss
Carrie's reputation within the literary world has been a disagreeable one. Carrie has been described as rootless, detached and flighty. Considered a neglectful mother, Carrie left a young Langston in Lawrence with his grandmother while she was out of town.
Tuesday, October the 7th Kansas Union Ballroom-1:00 p.m.
THE MAKING OF A POEM
"Our goal was to determine what Carrie revealed about herself in her letters," Tidwell said.
The Public is Invited by; Student Union Activities, The University Library, and The Department of English
University professor John Edgar Tidwell and Johnson County Community College professor Carmaletta Williams published "My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes's Letters to Langston Hughes" in order to explore an un-researched area of Langston Hughes's life.
Refreshments will be served
PLEASE ANNOUNCE TO YOUR CLASSES
"Even though college students are by nature diverse and simply different, I think they'll be able to see something of themselves in Carrie and Langston's relationship," Tidwell said. "I'm sure they'll see the value of family."
Tidwell and Williams' aim was not to change the public's opinion on Carrie Hughes but to provide them with more information.
"Scant scholarly attention had been given to Langston Hughes's mother, Carrie Hughes," Tidwell said. "When Dr. Williams discovered at Yale University's Beinecke Library a folder of letters Carrie had written Langston, she thought it would be a great opportunity to explore this mother's relationship to her son."
Famous Harlem Renaissance author Langston Hughes was a Lawrence native. English professor John Edgar Tidwell helped publish a book that examined Hughes' early life and his relationship with his mother.
College students might find something to relate to in the correspondence. Langston's relationship with his mother is filled with ups and downs. Carrie and Langston powered through financial and medical dilemmas together but were able to maintain their relationship.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
"As a woman of color caught in the economic uncertainty of the Great Depression and the fatalism of breast cancer, she found herself depending more and more on her son for assistance."
This book has made waves throughout the University English department.
Stephen Evans said. "It's original scholarship."
"This is a very important addition to our knowledge of Hughes," English professor
["They] have discovered...the way Langston Hughes worked out his family problems through art."
STEPHEN EVANS
English professor
Langston "reply" to his mother?" Tidwell said. "The answer, we determined, was to be found in the art he created in those years."
A method that Tidwell and Williams used in reconstructing the mother-son correspondence was Bowen Family Systems Theory, an idea that studies the emotions of a family unit.
"[Tidwell and Williams] have discovered, in analyzing these previously unpublished letters, the way Langston Hughes worked out his family problems through art," Evans said.
"Once we understood the potential of Family Systems Theory, placing Langston in conversation with Carrie was rather easy", Tidwell said.
Through "My Dear Boy", Tidwell and Williams have taken a woman widely-known as Langston Hughes's mother and revived her to form Carrie Hughes: a complex, controversial individual who is also related to Langston Hughes.
"Did we redefine her image? It's unlikely that we made her a more likeable person," Tidwell said. "But we certainly broadened our understanding of what made her such a complicated woman."
— Edited by Maddie Nave
FUN FACTS
1) Hughes's Lawrence home is located at 732 Alabama St.
2) Hughes originally planned to get an engineering degree from Columbia but instead dropped out to travel.
3) Hughes lists his muses as Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman.
5) Hughes was a world traveler. He visited New York, Africa, Paris, Japan, Mexico and Haiti.
6) Hughes contributed to the lyrics of the Broadway musical "Street Scene."
7) Hughes supported communism as an alternative to segregation.
8) Hughes attended Lincoln College with future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
9) Hughes was instrumental in the Harlem Renaissance movement. His ashes are interred in Harlem.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10) Hughes's best known poem,
"The Negro Speaks of River"
was written while he was still a
teenager.
Obama allots $300 million for Kan. lab
biography.com
Senate Budget Committee Clerk Adam Kamp sets out copies of President Barack Obama's proposed budget for fiscal year 2015.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOPEKA, Kan. — President Barack Obama is proposing Congress provide another infusion of cash to continue construction of a new biosecurity lab in Kansas.
The president's budget was announced Tuesday and includes $300 million for the Department of Homeland Security to continue work on the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility under construction near Kansas State University.
The $1.25 billion new lab is designed to conduct research on large animals and related diseases, replacing an aging facility at Plum Island, N.Y.
Members of the Kansas congressional delegation issued a statement praising the funding recommendation, which they said would allow the lab to be built within budget.
The proposal will be addressed in the coming months by House and Senate appropriations committees before it is approved.
"This gives Congress a blueprint to provide the final portion of funding to advance construction of the modern, world-class NBAF facility so it can protect the national security of the United States," the delegation said in a statement. "We will continue to work to make certain NBAF remains a top priority for Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle as we work to secure
THE
NATIO
the final portion of funding for construction of NBAF during the appropriations process."
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Construction began in 2013 on a central utility plant that will provide power and other services for the lab. DHS says construction on the main lab is expected to begin sometime this year, though no date has been announced for the start of operations.
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"Kansas will be the center of the animal health industry, playing a critical role for our nation and the world," he said Tuesday.
Gov. Sam Brownback said "years of hard, bipartisan work" were paying off with the latest funding announcement.
Kansas legislators have approved more than $300 million in bonding that represents the state's share of the cost for construction of the project. State officials have long touted the new lab as a key component of the nation's biosecurity network to protect the food supply from deadly diseases and viruses that could be unleashed on livestock.
The lab will be built adjacent to the Biosecurity Research Institute at Kansas State, where research into animal and plant threats is conducted. The Manhattan site is considered the western anchor of an animal health corridor that stretches east to Columbia, Mo., and includes many of the world's leading agriculture-related companies.
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