4A - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
TUESDAY,FEB.5,2002
TALK TO US
Leita Walker editor
864-4854 or lwalker@kansan.com
Jay Krail
Kyle Ramsey managing editors
864-4854 or jkrall@kansan.com and kramsey@kansan.com
Clay McCuistion readers' representative
864-4810 or cmcculation@kansan.com
Kursten Phelps Brooke Hasler opinion editors
864-4810 or kphleps@kansan.com and bhesler@kansan.com
Amber Agee business manager
864-4014 or addirector@kansan.com
Kate Mariani retail sales manager
864-4462 or retailsales@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson general manager and news adviser
864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser
864-7666 or mfisher@kansan.com
KEVIN GRITZKE/KANSAN
EDITORIAL
Budweiser spots won our votes in Super Bowl
'Kansan' editorial board breaks down its favorite Sunday commercials
Thank goodness for Anheuser-Busch.
As Americans deal with the war against terrorism, a recession and massive winter storms, at least the beer brewer could make us chuckle.
Several Budweiser and Bud Light advertisements clinched top spots in the Kansan editorial board's assessment of commercials broadcast during Sunday night's Super Bowl.
Earning the top prize in our survey of commercial winners was Anheuser Busch's "Satin Sheets" commercial, in which a lethargic husband races upstairs to his awaiting wife, and more importantly, a couple of cold Buds. Unfortunately, he slides on the satin sheets to go flying out the window, landing without his boxes.
Cedric the Entertainer helped Budweiser in another commercial with his matchmaking prowess, as he inadvertently advised a guy to ask his prospective date, "How much?" If the joke doesn't make sense, trust us, you'll get it when you see the commercial for yourself.
Other Anhueser-Busch ads we liked were the ones that featured a fast-talking Texan's bar encounter with a slew of aloof New Jersey fellows, and one that showed a man enjoying his ride with designated driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Here are some other commercials that made our highlight list:
**Levi's Dockers** — Who knew such plain pants could be so funny? It just takes three middle-aged, cross-dressing men to brand Dockers as the man's answer to the "little black dress" and make TV watchers giggle.
■ Smirnoff Ice — Two dorky white guys sneak onto the set of a rap video. It's not brilliant, but we just can't help but enjoy the sight of a couple of dorks making fools of themselves.
Charles Schwab — Taking a hint from Field of Dreams, baseball legend Hank Aaron tries to talk Giants star Barry Bonds into retirement in hopes of keeping his homerun record alive. Definitely a step ahead of your boring standard commercials for investment firms.
United Way — Baltimore Ravens big guy Sam Adams crushes a dummy while demonstrating CPR to a group of youngsters, among other antics. This one gets points for the warm fuzzy feelings mixed with comedy.
Blockbuster Videos — Small furry animals shaking their groove thing. Silly? Yes. Dumb? Probably. Who cares, we liked it way better than that Britney Spears Pepsi epic.
So pay attention, advertisers. On Super Bowl Sunday, we don't care about flu medicine or steak quesaddillas, we just want witty, clever commercials. Anheuser-Busch has already gotten that message.
Kursten Phelps for the editorial board.
PERSPECTIVE
School board set bad example by letting plagiarism slide
The facts are unmistakable. Piper High School teacher Christine Pelton told her biology students in writing that their project would be worth half of their final grade. The document also stated that plagiarism would result in no credit for the entire project.
The student handbook for the Piper School District, in western Wyandotte County, makes clear its policy that even first-offense cheating will result in no credit for the assignment. When the papers were turned in and Pelton noticed that some paragraphs were remarkably similar, she used a free trial of an Internet program to determine whether a student had plagiarized parts of a paper.
She found that 28 of her 118 students had lifted whole paragraphs from Web sites and misrepresented them as their own work. Pelton gave the students no credit for the project, as she had warned. Those 28 students should have failed the class as a result of their plagiarism.
The board reneged its written policy and invalidated Pelton's authority as a teacher. It decided the students would receive partial credit on the plagiarized papers and full credit for the rest of the project. Rather than comply with the board's policy, which would have
However, parents of some of the students complained to the school board.
COMMENTARY
Audrey Snyder opinion@kansan.com
penalized some students who had not plagiarized, Pelton resigned. Many of her cheating students passed the class as a result of the board's resolution.
The board undermined the authority of a teacher without hearing her side of the dispute.
It waived the district's written policy of no credit for even a first instance of cheating in the student handbook, which it had previously approved.
It also communicated that, under enough pressure, it is perfectly acceptable to ignore academic and moral standards.
It sent a despicable moral message to students, communicating that using another's words and ideas as one's own without citation is OK.
The reasons for the board's failure to uphold academic and moral standards in the Piper School District can only be guessed at because the decision occurred during an executive meeting, and the vice
Nonetheless, it is safe to assume the board agreed that plagiaryism had taken place because it awarded students only partial credit, not full credit, for the plagiaryized papers.
president declined to comment.
It can be assumed that pressure from parents helped the board make its decision. Whatever the board's reasons for making this decision, it did its students a grave disservice in teaching a lesson about academic standards or about life in the real world.
These students were taught that it's fine to use another's words as their own, to refuse to think for oneself. In a real-world scenario, these students might choose to take the easy way out in doing a research project, giving a presentation, or writing a book. They might use another's work and it is doubtful that mommy and daddy (unless they are extremely wealthy) will be able to exert such influence on an employer — or on a judge.
The Piper School District board should have taken a stand on academic and moral standards. It failed to do so. One can only hope that these students are taught this lesson in the near future, before it becomes a matter of a million-dollar lawsuit.
Snyder is a Shawnee junior in political science.
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about
864-0500 free for
all
to speak about
any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Standous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
图
My roommate just tried to lick her elbow.
Yeah, I'm scared.
We haven't had heat in our house or elec tricity in the past 24 hours, and I just wanted to let the power company know that it's really freakin' cold here.
I just wanted to congratulate all my guys on the men's bowling team for all their success so far this year. I just wanted to let you guys know that I love ya.
图
There are two sausages in a pan. One sausage says, "Man it's hot in here," and the other sausage says, "Holy cow. It's a talking sausage."
To the people whining about the field in front of Templin, it's not your field. Get over it.
To all the men and women who spent Wednesday shovelling ice or laying salt, this Bud's for you, and you, and you, and you.
图
Tongue in Beak is the best thing to run in the *UK* since the Free for All.
To the guy who just made the comment about the football team changing its colors from royal blue to navy, those colors are historical, you big dummy.
Hi, I'm the girl who called last week and didn't get published, please, I implore you, do the right thing, publish this. Smokies.
图
I just wanted to thank Facilities Operations for working that hard and cleaning up all that ice, because I didn't fall one time walking to class. Thanks guys.
To the person who said yesterday, "Let people do abortion safely," tell that to all the babies who are so safe murdered.
I think the UDKneeds to put in inserts at the end of the year with the year's best Free for All comments. That would really great.
All right, Meghan Bainum is back. 'Yall finally made a great call on this. Good job.
Why is it that certain religious groups are against abortion and against homosexuals? Well, who has fewer abortions than homosexuals?
This is from a straight girl to the anti-gay protesters outside the Lied center, I thought the people who had found God were supposed to teach compassion and tolerance not narrow-mindedness and ignorance. I'm pretty sure that condemning people to hell is not in your job description as a student. Please take your misguided hatred somewhere else. We don't need or want it here. Thanks.
Warning, puddles on campus are deeper than they appear.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
PAYING ATHLETES
Dear editor.
As I read Kate Eichten's column regarding paying college athletes to play ("Paying athletes: a question that needs to be addressed," Jan. 22), I could not help but pray that this never happens in my lifetime.
Eichten makes valid points about the revenue that college athletes generate for their respective schools, but giving this money to the athletes in the form of a "salary" or "allowance" would completely ruin college sports as we know them.
College athletes play for love of the game. Players play for the fans and their school, exhibiting a sense of pride that you don't find in the professional leagues.
So why would we ever want to change that and turn the focus of the sport away from the game and onto money?
Leave college athletics the way they are. If there are financial problems for the student athletes, let the school help through means of scholarships and financial aid. Just let the players play.
Emilie Guenther Overland Park freshman
ABORTION DEBATE
The "morning-after pill" is as much an abortion as any clinic operation. It still kills a living child; it still harms a mother both physically and psychologically. A second falsehood presented by Freedman is that "the beginning of life is a mystery."
In the Kansan's attempt to
provide its readers with a face-off about the abortion vs. life issue, it failed miserably. When your columnist Bradley Freedman, who claims to be pro-life, advocates RU-486 as an answer to the debate, he completely distorts his credibility as someone who should be writing on the pro-life side.
A tiny baby in its mother's womb is as much a human life as any one of us: The child has a scientifically verifiable human genetic code, and just as each of us grows and matures, so does this tiny human.
This argument does not coincide with a pro-life viewpoint. No educated medical professional can deny that a human life is present in its earliest form as soon as fertilization takes place.
The opinions that Freedman supplies to support his "pro-life" stance are not in the least supportive of the true pro-life movement. The next time the Kansan decides to run a debate on a baby's right to life, it would be wise to seek out a writer who can truly support the side he or
Jessica Pownell Newton junior
Hopefully, then, we can care enough about our own happiness to make that opinion a positive one, and care enough about others to encourage them to do the same.
Thank you, James Manning, for your Jan. 24 column about self-image. Thanks for reminding us that, despite our judgmental soicety's unreasonable standards for physical perfection (exemplified, coincidentally, just pages from the article in a South Padre Island advertisement), it is still our decision alone what opinion we will have of ourselves.
Kristine A. Rausch
Andale junior
5
she claims to support.
DRINKING IN DORMS
POSITIVE SELF-IMAGE Dear editor.
I saw the most irresponsible piece of "journalism" I've ever read in the Jan. 24 issue of the Kansan. Matt Gertken blew me away with his audacious and foolhardy comic encouraging drunken driving. The comic depicted a resident assistant telling his residents that they shouldn't be drinking in their
Dear editor,
Even with the anti-alcohol policies, residents live in an almost entirely consequence-free environment. When a student is irresponsible enough to be caught with alcohol in a residence hall, he or she is asked to pour out the liquor, and the responding staff member documents the incident in a report. The final result of the entire process often is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Repeat offenders might be asked to complete an alcohol education program or in a worst-case scenario the student will be removed from the residence hall.
I don't have sympathy for repeat offenders who can't control themselves. I've had to deal with them. It's easy to drink in the residence halls and never get caught. It's the students who drink irresponsibly and get so
Whatever point Gertken may have been trying to make about residence hall policies was lost on me, as I'm sure it is with most other readers. I guess some people think that the residence hall alcohol policies are too harsh. What they people don't realize is that the entire campus is dry, and the Department of Student Housing has nothing to do with the anti-alcohol policies on campus.
tanked that they can't control themselves who get caught.
Students can and do drink without any major consequences when they are caught. DSH doesn't call the police; they don't even impose fines. The Department of Student Housing makes every effort to keep residents safe. Instead of alienating students to the point of driving drunk, DSH hires and trains RAs and other staff members, all of whom are grossly underpaid, to deal with these residents as one of the many functions of their job.
room, but out drinking and driving instead. Bravo.
I don't have anything against students who drink. I don't have a problem with underage students who drink. I don't even mind that students drink in the residence halls. If it were up to me this would be a wet campus and the legal drinking age would be 18. But it's not up to me, and its part of my job to deal with residents who break the rules. What bothers me is that anybody would suggest drinking and driving as an alternative to drinking in the dorms. I would rather write up a million residents for drinking in the hall than deal with the consequences of a student driving under the influence.
1
Trint Homewood Sedgwick senior