THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY BABY KANSAS
PAGE 5
opinion
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Does anyone know where a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tubeman emporium is?
I actually had a six pack of Miller in that rolling cooler to study with ... rookie
The best part about the first day of really nice weather is when everyone becomes a runner (if only for one day).
The moment when your studying, and all of a sudden everything clicks ... wait, it's just the ADD medicine kicking
Is it so bad that I judge guys by their discussions of their March Madness brackets?
Turns out even my highest aspirations aren't very hard to attain. Time to check "dance with a KU basketball player" off the KU bucket list.
Brace yourselves ... the KU elections are coming.
It's definitely spring, already sightings of Frisbee and hippie circles on campus.
Just walked outside of my room and to my surprise there's a midget and a Crocodile Dundee look-alike singing "Sexy and I Know" while painting my halls wtf?
If getting into the FFA doesn't make us published authors, can we at least put it on our resumes?
Editor's Note: No. But you can anonymously text that information to prospective employers.
Men: disregard the FFA about no facial hair, unless you're Jeff Weyh. Facial hair is very nice.
Did anyone else notice how the administrator for the EPA is using a plastic bottle?
Just so everyone knows: antisocial = lacking a conscience. So I am sorry that boots at Wescoe are bothering your endeavor to become a psychopath. :)
The thing is, we see more girls wearing ridiculously high socks than guys. You just wear leggings because you hate shaving. It's OK. We understand.
Early shorts season = a ginger's worst nightmare.
My teacher yelled at me for sneezing during a quiz. Cool.
Dear all smokers, go ahead and smoke but PLEASE stop throwing the butts on the ground!! We have one of the most beautiful campuses in the country, let's keep it that way!
Abortion bill contradicts medical ethics
This week, I'm stepping outside my world as a dating columnist and am writing on something that literally hits close to home: a new bill that not only jeopardizes the University's Medical Center Obstetrician/Gynecology accreditation but also every Kansas woman.
LEGISLATION
March 8 marked International Women's Day. But legislators in Arizona and Kansas weren't celebrating.
On March 7, Arizona legislators passed a bill that allows doctors to not inform women about prenatal issues — if omitting that information means preventing an abortion
Basketball team just pulled the fire alarm at the towers ... suspect number one: Merv.
Abortion debate aside, if this legislation doesn't disturb you, it should. What's worse is that the bill has gone on tour, and it came to Kansas.
The bill protects Arizona doctors from lawsuits stemming from those decisions.
If you think guys are going to take a male contraceptive, you clearly don't know guys very well.
Kansas legislators were supposed
to meet last week to further discuss the issue, but it was postponed so that legislators could review the University's Medical Center OB-GYN accreditation and instead discussed primarily alcohol-related bills, including one to legalize wine tasting events in the state.
Right now in Kansas, there is a proposed bill that would raise taxes on abortions for women, even if those abortions are a result of rape, sexual assault, or an ectopic pregnancy.
What's disturbing about it is that this bill also follows suit with what's happening in Arizona. In Kansas, doctors would not be required to give women necessary and correct information for the sake of what they think will save a life.
The irony of it, though, is that it can often end two.
If the bill passes, doctors in Kansas would be able to dodge being sued, like those in Arizona.
By Rachel Keith
rkeith@kansan.com
and lawsuits could only be filed against them if the woman dies. Talk about too little, too late.
What's more is that the bill in Kansas would require doctors to tell women that abortions definitely cause (rather than are associated with or linked to) breast cancer.
While one cannot generalize, this bill exposes pro-life advocates such as supporters in Arizona and Kansas as laying waste to good medical practice to make room for their own anti-abortion agenda.
However, according to the National Cancer Institute, not only has a history of abortion not shown to cause breast cancer, but neither induced abortion nor miscarriage increase a woman's chances of developing such cancer to begin with.
This issue goes beyond the question of whether women should or shouldn't have reproductive rights.
They're laying waste to common sense, and it's the ultimate hypocrisy for a group whose entire purpose is built on the foundation that life is sacred but also a large percentage of the political party that demands less government.
The worst part of this is not the taxation issue. Taxation is a matter of debate. Economic recovery is a matter of debate. Foreign policy is a matter of debate.
having to combat hypocritical issues from the pro-life agenda makes for a dangerous and terrifying situation for half of the population. The part of the population, Gov. Sam Brownback (who said he would sign the new bill) should know, that enables healthy babies to enter the world in the first place. It is illogical to jeopardize the very people having children whom prolifers can't get enough of.
Finally, this issue is dangerous because it shows that before Brownback and other bill supporters learned to use common sense, they learned how to win an election. Brownback is a bully to women, and this move is a shameful blemish on his career from which he may never recover.
Ethical medical practice is not.
With women already scrambling to keep birth control rights under a potential and looming Republican administration, simultaneously
Pro-life means pro-life, and Brownback should be embarrassed of his distinction between the two.
HEALTH
Keith is a graduate student in education from Wichita.
Try reading to relieve stress
With the excitement of spring break quickly approaching, there also comes the inevitable pile of assignments, projects and midterm study guides crammed in just before a full week of relaxation. And if you're like me, sometimes the stress can push you to the edge. Many of us have our go-to stress relievers. Maybe you prefer to jog through the pain on a treadmill, take a nap, or eat a tasty snack. Well, I'd like to propose a stress reliever you probably haven't considered: reading. Yes, reading. You might be saying to yourself, "After I get through a half-semester's worth of biology chapters, the last thing I want to do is read another damn book."
Hopefully, I can convince you otherwise. Here are my top five reasons you should start reading books outside of your classes.
5. READING CAN RELIEVE STRESS.
As I mentioned, reading is one of the best stress relievers out there. It slows your whole world down, relaxes your mind and body, and makes you forget what ever it is you are stressing about. Just brew a cup of your favorite coffee, grab a book, curl up next to a window, and feel all your troubles melt away.
4. READING GIVES YOU SOME CULTURE
Just by making the decision to pursue a college education, you've already exposed yourself to a wide new variety of cultures and ideas, whether they're social, political, religious, etc. Books can provide the same effect on a more universal scale. I literally had no insight into African culture until I read "Things Fall Apart," by Chinua Achebe, in high school. Nor did I
know an inkling about pre-Communist, rural China before reading Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth." A little culture couldn't hurt, and it makes for a more well-rounded individual.
3. READING MAKES YOU SMARTER.
Like solving a Sudoku puzzle or trying to keep up with Watson on "Jeopardy!", reading can help fine-tune your brain. It will expand your vocabulary, increase your analytical skills, and improve your memory. If you are into nonfiction, you will also simultaneously gain real-world knowledge. If you prefer fiction, as I do, you can learn much about the human condition from a well-written story. Plus, it's always fun to share knowledge with friends and family. Some of the best and deepest conversations are born out of ideas produced in great novels.
people have read (and probably re-read) a book or series in which they felt involved or invested in the setting and characters' lives. For our generation, Harry Potter captured the imagination of millions of children and young adults. Personally, I credit J.K. Rowling for sparking my interest in literature, as many others do. So, if you ever wonder whether or not you should really dust off your copy of "The Sorcerer's Stone" for the third time, just remember that sometimes it's good to just get away for a while.
2. READING CAN TAKE YOU TO ANOTHER PLACE.
Remember those motivational posters from the walls of your elementary school library, with smiling children riding rainbows like magic carpets into the sky from the high of reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" for the first time? Well, a good story can actually take your mind to another place. Fantasy novels do a particularly good job of this. But regardless of the genre, most
1. READING COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
I cannot stress this enough: reading can change your life. I think books are the best medium for sharing thoughtful and complex ideas about life. Sometimes, a particular book can affirm how you already feel. If you have trouble articulating your ideas and feelings from time to time, a book can express them for you. There have been many times where I've been reading and thought, "This author just gets me!" or "Wow, I've never thought that before." After I read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for the first time, I remember feeling like my whole world view changed, because it was such an original and profound philosophical novel. Other books, like Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," will grab you by the figurative shoulders and shake you into living life how it should be lived — fun and fast. So, I implore you to make a list of books that sound interesting to you and start reading. You never know when you'll find that story that stays with you forever.
Moreland is a junior in accounting from Lee's Summit.
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
How are you going to show Spring Break who's boss?
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book opinion first in going to hit on Debora, then get some chicken strips, and finally meet a giant fish
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ADVICE
The psychology of misbehaving
Identifying the problem and fixing it
"My roommates cook all the time but don't clean the dishes. I've tried telling them to clean up but they don't." Why won't they clean up, and why do I feel the need to clean up after them?"
Based on the fact that they cook consistently, they are likely reinforced by one or many aspects of cooking and therefore continue to do it. We all know cleaning dishes isn't fun and is typically maintained by negative reinforcement. By this I mean that we engage in cleaning (behavior) so we don't have smelly pots stinking and crowding the kitchen (unpleasant consequence). It likely makes cooking more fun and reinforcing if they don't have to worry about cleaning up until that kitchen starts to smell like a war zone.
Ironically, you likely clean up for your roommates so as to remove the annoying presence of the dirty dishes which is also negative reinforcement for you. Also, because you aren't taking part in the cooking, you are removed from the behavioral processes that maintain your roommates' process of cooking, waiting, cleaning, cooking. This might make it even more annoying for you to see the dishes not done and therefore strengthens the reinforcer of cleaning the dishes yourself.
The Matching Law in Behavioral Analysis states that we behave based on the rate of reinforcement available for that behavior. To make a long story short, you need to make your roommates effort of cleaning the dishes worth it to them. Maybe try joining them with cooking with the caveat that you all need to do the dishes afterwards. Or maybe ask them right after they complete the dishes and give them praise or offer to buy a beer sometime. Making it a more enjoyable experience for them may sufficiently reinforce for them to take the extra step and do the dishes and over time this, too, can become a pattern for them.
The first consideration if your friend is engaging in this behavior is that there are strong genetic links to alcoholism. Actual chromosomes have even been targeted by researchers as links to susceptibility to alcoholism.
Assuming that your friend doesn't have a genetic predisposition she is likely engaging in delay discounting. Discounting is when we choose smaller, sooner, rewards over larger, later, ones. All humans discount, but in excess it is correlated with drug, opioid, and alcohol abuse. Whether we do drugs because we discount, or whether we do drugs while discounting is still debated.
First off, alcohol and drug related behavior is typically quite complex and difficult to explain from a distance, even by experts. There is, however growing research on the topic and ways we can help friends or family.
So what does this mean for your friend? Your friend probably knows that she engages in behavior that isn't good for her, but when the weekend approaches the short term reward is just too powerful. You need to find her alternative reinforcers that can substitute for the drinking behavior she engages in. Researchers have shown that getting drug abusers into alternative recreational activities can help them abstain from drug use. Try and get your friend to go to activities or events where alcohol isn't served. Also, try and focus on reinforcing her in any way you can think when she waits for longer rewards instead of being impulsive.
"One of my good friends is intelligent and very talented, but almost every weekend she gets blackout drunk and doesn't remember doing some very dangerous or irresponsible things. Afterward, I tell her about this and she seems to regret it. Yet the next weekend she is back at it. Why does my friend do this?"
Sons is a senior in applied behavioral science from Pittsburgh, Penn.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kaanan Editorial Board are Ian Cummings
Lisa Curran, Alex Knitsun, Angela Hawkins and Ryan Schlesinger.
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