WEDNESDAY,JUNE 18,2003
OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 7
Get smashed squirrels off Lawrence streets
Guts are gross. Earlier this year, I got the pleasure of passing by a squished squirrel every day on my way home from class. I watched for weeks as hundreds of tires mercilessly mashed the parts of his body. I repeatedly told myself to take a different route tomorrow, but 24 hours later I'd undoubtedly forget. The image of squirrel and pavement uniting as one had long subsided. The trauma continued.
COMMENTARY
Megan Schwerdt editor@kansan.com
Whv are squirrels' run-over bodies
left behind in the streets for us, the community, to enjoy? Does the city, for some ungodly reason, think that we are amused by these fresh-to-flattened carcasses? I realize that birds, bees and enough road kill to feed two starving countries come with good weather, but spare us the daily gore.
Why are squirrels' runover bodies left behind for us, the community, to enjoy? Does the city, for some ungodly reason, think that we are amused by these fresh-to-flattened carcasses?
According to Sgt. Mike Pattrick of the Lawrence Police Department, the Lawrence Sanitation Department responds to calls dispatched by police who come across road kill as a traffic hazard. So unless it's Godzilla's guts that are blocking the road, no one is
really too concerned. As for dog and cat victims, there seems to be no priority pick-up for pets. However, we don't see their lifeless bodies hanging out on the side of the road for weeks at a time. Hmm.
Maybe I'm being over-sensitive. I guess it is possible that some folks don't even think twice when innocent intestines are strewn over two lanes of traffic, but I'm offended.
If someone is trying to teach a lesson of 'life is short' or 'look both ways', it's not working. Guts are not profound and do not in any way make me feel good about myself. I cringe at the moment when there is no room to swerve and I must accept the 'bump, bump' as an already squashed body is devoured by my tires. I wish some city professionals would take their job a little more seriously. Get the squirrel when removal requires a shovel, not a spatula.
Schwerdt is a Derby senior in strategic communications.
BELGIUM: Columnist wades in waffles
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
(adamantly antiwar Russia). What makes this selectivity troubling is that the United States is being picky about its allies as it builds toward an impossibly difficult task: building the first Arab democracy.
There are also other political issues at stake. The United States sets a dangerous precedent by not valuing the opinion of other countries - especially countries with established social order and free democracies like France, Germany and Belgium. In the game of foreign policy, the United States is essentially saying it doesn't need checks and balances.
If the United States persists with this
attitude it will eventually run out of the goodwill it has built in Europe.
As the world's leading military power and the most recognizable democracy, the United States should be the first nation to acknowledge that expressing opinions is tantamount to making the right call. Even if those opinions come from nations that are hung up on waffles and the origin of French fries.
It's too bad.
Jackson is a Long Valley, M.J., junior in journalism. He is interning abroad this summer in Brussels, Belgium.
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