MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2012
PAGE 5
opinion
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I heard that the whale in Potter Lake is an abstract algebra god. That's why he lives so close to Snow Hall.
Is it more strange that my lecture teacher quoted Blues Clues, or that I know what show she is quoting?
It seems like everyone from my high school is having a kid. I don't get it. I had a hard enough time deciding if I wanted the responsibility of a hamster.
With all this talk about a whale, is that a hint Mangino wants to come back?
Dear people smoking near the doors, don't act offended when I ask you to move. No one wants to smell that. From, students with asthma
Maybe the FFA editor is actually @FakeJeffWithey too...
Editor's note: Guess again.
I hate the awkward "does a bus count as a building?" umbrella shuffle.
Damn you man with adorable lab puppy on campus. Don't think I don't know your game.
My anthropology professor biked to class in the rain #gainingrespect
Posting a video on your teacher's Facebook wall. That's weird, right?
To the girl who plays video games with her boyfriend, give me a call if he is dumb enough to break up with you.
As the self-proclaimed leader of Oliver Hall, I declare war on the dorms of Daisy Hill.
Military Science Building: where men are gentlemen and hold the door open.
To the person tired of whales, Jeff Withey and driver Dan in the FFA. wise choice not mentioning the squirrels.
What's the best part of a rainy day?
All the Occupy KU's nonsense chalk writing washes away.
This rolling backback thing has gone too far. I just saw a girl using a rolling cooler for her books.
Mizzou's intro video: "0 national championships, but we really want one."
Here kitty kitty... Come play at Allen.
Sometimes I fill a bathtub with spaghetti sauce, crawl in, and pretend I'm a meatball.
I hate it when I accidentally dress in monochrome.
Withey says NO!
The freedom of conscience in society
Actions of the Department of Human Health and Services violate our First Amendment rights
At least we beat you at Quidditch. Suck on that Mizzou!
I will call in the sea shepard if this whale fighting doesn't cease.
I want to time travel back to the first party with alcohol. #letsgetweird
I'm a stats major and 69 percent of the time I win girls over with my smooth talking #seewhatidthere
It would just be too easy to stalk Jeff Withey.
POLITICS
Rain boots: the Uggs of precipitation
In the 16th century, King Henry VIII sought to divorce his wife and marry another woman. Although the majority of the English nobility and hierarchy accepted the validity of his new marriage, not all did. The classic movie, "A Man for All Seasons" depicts the trial of conscience of Thomas More, who refused to agree to the divorce, remarriage, and power of the king over the conscience of his subjects.
Everytime my french teacher says "bonheur" I swear she says boner.
religious and political freedom in our country. It is a sentiment we all can agree with; essentially, live and let live.
Why am I going on about a man who refused to sacrifice his conscience and his soul for his welfare? Because, unless I am horribly mistaken (and I sincerely hope
"If this weren't the United States of America, that might be the slightest bit totalitarian."
More was subsequently beheaded and canonized (i.e. shot out of a cannon).
Although spoken by a saint,
these words set the tone for
In that movie, Sir Thomas More, falsely accused of treason, declares before the high court, "I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live."
I am), I fear that an old prejudice is about to rear its ugly head in a very hackneyed, and malignant way.
color of my skin (a rather subdued olive, on a good day), nor the content of my character (although that might justly be censured), nor even my sexual orientation (entirely in the pantheon of things that no one cares about).
It has nothing to do with the
It has to do with a startlingly subversive action against First Amendment rights taken by our very own Department of Health and Human Services. On January 20th, Health and Human
Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a directive, countermanding the provisional conscience clause regarding exemption to individuals and institutions who are morally opposed to the use of contraceptives and abortificants under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e. Obamacare).
the Church is the intellectual and cultural repository for western civilization. Effectively, the Obama administration is sawing the branch on which we all sit.
In other words, we now live in a country where Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Francis of Assissi could be thrown in jail for not providing the morning-after pill. If this weren't the United States of America, that might be the slightest bit totalitarian.
It's impossible for me to briefly say what, to a believing Catholic, contraceptives and abortifacients effect. It is tantamount to obstructing and destroying creation itself, analogous to forcing beef on a Hindu or conscripting the Amish for war.
This matter doesn't just affect those in the medical field. At the
very least, it obliges the rest of us to pay, in taxes, for practices which not only violate our sensibilities, but our very consciences.
Those of you who read the New York Times already know that Catholics would like nothing better than to oppress the state because we're genetically incapable of understanding religious freedom any other way. My hope is the rest of you will have a more enlightened (less 18th century) view of us.
As a Catholic, it is an action that is particularly disconcerting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the cavalier nature of this persecution and silence of our vaunted media watchdogs.
This Machiavellian reneging would not only affect my fellow co-religionists and myself, but many Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who objects to these measures. It renders people of faith as second-class citizens. This measure ignores the contributions people of faith have made to the welfare of this country, and humanity at large. It is like a body making war against its heart.
Besides being the oldest active pro-bono health care provider on the continent, nay, in the world,
Surely even those who profess no creed can understand that it is, at the very least, a deep psychological torture on someone when you compel them to violate the dictates of conscience.
It's my hope that religious freedom and tolerance will be in vogue once again. Until then, I'll just try to keep my head on.
Breakups don't have to end a friendship
Daniel Obermeier is a junior in history from Olathe.
RELATIONSHIPS
W whether you dated him or it was just a fling, you broke up, whether you liked it or not.
And it seems like most breakups go the same way: you swear you'll be friends and that not even your split or all the hard feelings associated with it will get in the way of that.
Often, these "friendships" dissolve or fail to launch altogether because they aren't friendships we really want or even care to maintain, and we don't seem to mind.
It's important not to feel obligated to make a friendship out of a broken relationship. If you don't want to be friends with your ex, don't suggest it. Being friends post-breakup is a never a requirement.
But some people are actually worth having around, our exes included.
When a guy I was dating unexpectedly broke off our relationship in June 2010, he asked if we would still be friends. I nodded, but really doubted the chances of that even remotely happening. We weren't friends before we dated. We probably wouldn't be afterward.
Just like after our first breakup, I figured I'd never see him again. I classified him as just a bygone. He was like an ex who merely existed somewhere else and was reduced to only a few memories.
And even though we shared the most dramatic relationship I've ever been in, I love spending time with him now because I've stopped stressing about the barriers that existed in our relationships and can finally enjoy an uncomplicated bond with him.
Despite all that though, nine months later we were sipping cocktails downtown together and reminiscing about the summer before. It was a good time, so we hung out again.
But as it turned out, we wound up being more than friends again only six weeks later. That is, until our relationship fell apart once more a month after.
But our friendship still has special boundaries that make it
That time our split was amicable. We again agreed to "be friends," but after two months of what felt like me suggesting plans and him blowing them off, I finally cut the thread our so-called friendship was hanging by.
unique from my others. When it comes to really being "just friends" with our exes, we must follow certain cardinal rules of having a platonic friendship with someone with whom we used to be not so platicic.
CNN Living blogger Ami Angelowicz has it right when she offers some rules about being friends after a breakup.
Her first rule is crucial to maintaining a solid friendship: allow a mourning period and let both hearts heal. That way, sexual tension or resentment is significantly less of a threat. When these tensions burn out, a healthy friendship is possible and may even be better than the relationship.
We must understand our emotional boundaries. I love hanging out with my ex, but I make a point of keeping emotional distance, and I don't mean that to insult or criticize him. I don't rely on him when I'm upset, which Angelowicz also suggests. Keep the new friendship free of emotional entanglement that could make it complicated.
Finally, absolutely no hookups. Under any circumstances. Ever. Slipping here once can make it harder to resist later, and it forces the former couple to reassess the relationship. Hooking up post-breakup could cause both people's emotional progress to relapse, which complicates what is supposed to be a simple relationship. Friends with benefits are not actually friends. You're either dating, or you'a a boo'ty call.
Breakups don't have to be the end all, be all, but that doesn't mean they can never be. There is nothing wrong with a healthy friendship after the fact. However, they are never obligatory.
But with that said, we shouldn't always knock being friends post-breakup before we try it.
Rachel Keith is a graduate student in education from Wichita.
It could wind up being better than the actual relationship.
INTERNATIONAL
World isn't perfect, but it's not that bad either
Occupy members seem to ignore the advancements and improvements made in developing countries.
In July 2011, a poster began appearing in coffee shop windows, subway stations and university corridors across New York City. Its message was short: "#OccupyWallStreet. September 17th. Bring Tent." The simple directive incited a movement that swelled to include thousands of protesters across the United States, and was heralded as a turning point in American democracy. But as winter set in, the number of protesters dropped alongside falling temperatures. In the US, the Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be in hibernation.
But in the snowy Swiss resort town of Davos, sub-zero temperatures didn't prevent Occupiers from constructing a colony of igloos to protest the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) two weeks
T he WEF is considered by many to be the most im portant glo bal leadership event of the year and draws politicians, jour alists and
alive.
According to the United Nations, just over 1 billion people are classified as living in "developed" nations. That means there are around 6 billion persons living in developing nations beyond the reach of Davos and the systems Occupiers are protesting. If this majority is included in the analysis, almost every metric suggests that we are living in the most peaceful and prosperous period in the history of mankind.
"Given all of this, it is clear that while the current state of the United States and the Western world is uneasy, pessimism does not accurately reflect the outlook for the rest of the world's 6 billion people."
For instance, take the Occupy movement's largest gripe:
aires from across the developed world. Attendees aren't the 1 percent — they're the 0.01 percent and represent the Who's Who of Western capitalism.
Nestled among snow-capped peaks and deliberately difficult to reach for anyone without a private jet, Davos is perhaps the starkest representation of the type of wealth inequality and non-representative governance that Occupiers criticize. The outlook for the developed world, at least from the perspective of Occupy Davos, is grim.
rising income inequality and the destruction of the middle class. In 1990, about 50 percent of the world lived on less than $1 per day. Today, that portion is less than 28
But the Occupiers are diverting our attention from a more important, and optimistic, reality; for the majority of the world (the non-Western part), there has never been a better time to be
percent. Furthermore, more than 1.3 billion people live on more than $10 per day, indicating the growth of a global middle class. Globally speaking, the Occupiers gries are unfounded.
According to Foreign Policy, a number of other statistics also support an optimistic view of the world. Between 1970 and 2008, the portion of the developing world considered "undernourished" fell from 34 percent to 17 percent. Thanks to vaccination efforts, the number of children who died from measles dropped by 60 percent between 1999 and 2005. From 2000 to 2008, child mortality dropped by 17 percent and the average person's life expectancy increased by two years.
Despite the tragedy of the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq, that violence pales in comparison to the carnage of previous periods in human history. The number of armed conflicts worldwide has steadily declined since the end of the Cold War, falling by more than 60 percent.
More than four-fifths of the world can now read and the number of women in government leadership around the world increased from 11 percent to 19 percent between 1997 and 2009. Technological advancements like cell phones and social media have facilitated the spread of democracy, as we saw across the Middle East last spring.
Given all of this, it is clear that while the current state of the United States and the Western world is uneasy, pessimism does not accurately reflect the outlook for the rest of the world's 6 billion people.
This suggests that the most fundamental aspects of our global system are working. Specifically, individual liberty, economic freedom and democratic systems of governance have enabled the unprecedented safe and prosperous period that we now live in to occur.
Occupy Wall Street calls some of these ideals into question. The worst possible scenario would be for the United States or other Western nations to bow to populist pressures and take any action that undermines their commitment to these principles. Doing so would send a signal to the world to follow suit, undermining the spread of freedom and prosperity in developing nations.
That is not to say that the Occupiers don't have legitimate concerns. Growing income inequality and the decline of the middle class are troubling issues in the United States.
But as spring approaches and Occupy camps once again begin to grow, it would do the Western world well to remember the ideals that made its rise possible in the first place.
Greg Loving is a senior in chemical engineering and economics from McPherson.
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