SAN 009
Opinion
ME UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
LUCERO: BLACKBOARD STILL NOT USED, APPRECIATED
COMING THURSDAY
United States First Amendment
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
These aren't even cookies.
They're like no-bake pieces of
pane.
Last year I had two pairs of sunglasses stolen. This year I drop them at Wescoe and someone returns them. KU is a better place.
My friends and I went to see the psychic on Mass. yesterday. She had just left — shouldn't she have known we were coming?
The University of Kansas has posted a recording of the campus steam whistle on its profile but doesn't endorse using it to try to get out of class early.
I saw a hot dog vendor at Wescoe today. Perhaps White Owl finally got a job.
Just so you out-of-staters know, whenever a tornado is predicted, 99.9 percent of the time it will not happen.
I have this awesome habit of putting white out-on my white teeth with stains on them. I'm so crafty.
--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
Pork rinds and thunderstorms, an epic combination.
--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
I'd be willing to help a girl with math so long as she's hot by my standards and not hers.
--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
Wow, a guy who has standards! That's hard to find! Maybe I'm just looking in all the wrong places.
When Cole Aldrich does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth
FML = Find Me a Life.
--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
Is it strange that in every show I watch there are commercials for power chairs and old men chamers?
Looking into what I have to do today, I'm pretty sure today just might suck a bit more than I thought
PAGE 7A
My psych professor just told us taking Adderall to stay up and study isn't a big deal.
Don't go to Mexico. There are Mizzou fans there. Canada has better weed anyway.
--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
I woke up at 2 a.m. to that huge thunderclap. I jumped and gasped, and freaked my cat out to the point that he bolted from my room and hid in the tub.
--period as both Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard
EDITORIAL BOARD
Liberal arts dean good pick for interim provost position
The administration has made a commendable choice by appointing Joseph,Steinmetz, current dean
Joseph,Steinmeier of liberal arts and sciences,
as the interim provost.
The
University is going through a transitional leadership
Steinmetz
Lariviere are leaving their positions.
Steinmetz is highly qualified and has the experience necessary to ensure the transition is smooth.
transition is a smooth one.
Steinmetz plans to focus on the challenging financial difficulties facing the Universit
Though he has been the dean of CLAS only since 2006, he had 19 years of experience at Indiana University, where he was the associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences and chairman of the department of psychology. Since coming to the University, he has been the leader of the 17,000 students and 53 departments that comprise CLAS.
"In my role as dean, I've had to manage budget cuts we've already seen," Steinmetz said. "We can't predict what's going to happen down the road in the national and world economy. This will require long-term effort."
KANSAN'S
OPINION
Being named interim provost adds more work to his already extensive number of responsibilities. To balance the
two jobs, he said he wanted to work closely with Hemenway and Lariviere to "ensure that there is a continuation in the
He also has other leaders to assist him in CLAS.
"I have a great set of associate deans, program directors, and chairs that I will depend on during the transitional period to step up and help in running the college," Steinmetz said. "My
knowledge base and the potency and procedures going on right now at KU"
leadership model here in the college is a team-based model. The deans are very involved in the decision-making that goes on. I've already been able to delegate while I'll still provide the oversight."
Steinmetz will serve in this position until at least July 1, 2009, which is also when Chancellor Hemenway is stepping down. It will be up to the new chancellor to elect a permanent provost.
"I want to move forward in developing research, teaching and developing academic programs," Steinmetz said. "This is not a time to sit on the sidelines and be passive. We should be developing new ideas."
Even though he is filling this position at arguably one of the most strenuous times for the University, he remains optimistic about the future. He is the best choice for this position because he represents the largest portion of the student body and thus the students' interests.
Caitlin Thornbrugh for The Kansan Editorial Board
EDITORIAL CARTOON
JAMES FARMER
STUDENT LIFE
Secular University still practices fervent local basketball religion
It is a common assumption that the campuses of colleges and universities tend to be some of the most secular areas of society. I recently Googled "secular college campus" and found more than 500,000 results.
Many of the links that came up were to Web sites that gave advice about how students could keep their religion when going off to college. From my time here, I've found the University generally fits the reputation as one of the "secular campuses" religious parents are sometimes worried about. But during the past couple of months, I've been wondering whether this campus really is as secular as it seems to be.
This religion comes in the polytheistic flavor, with the major gods of Aldrich, Collins, Morningstar, Little and Morris and many other lesser gods. All these gods are governed, of course, by the head god Self.
The more I have observed, the more I'm convinced that not only is this campus not secular, most of the people here are actually deeply religious.
But what is our religion of choice? It is, simply, the Religion of Basketball.
Forefathers in the faith built a temple for the religion, Allen Fieldhouse. Now, followers of the
faith congregate regularly during the winter to worship.
A typical service in the temple of Allen Fieldhouse begins with the invocation ("Hail to Old KU") and, to show our congregation is technologically savvy, showing a video recounting the past conquests and accomplishments of the gods.
There is no sermon here. The main focus of the service here centers around sacrifice. Each service revolves around offering up another community's set of gods to be devoured.
This religion even has a televangelism operation: ESPN and CBS.
The reward for our worship is glory. If the gods are successful, then we can brag to our family and friends about what awesome gods we serve. They might even convert.
Our worship, then, is extending praise, clapping, shouting, jumping and raising our hands.
The followers' devotion also extends beyond the service.
Followers scour the writings of the prophets in their newspapers, attempting to find meaning in the actions of the gods and predict the future.
The followers of the Religion of Basketball have many reasons and justifications for their devotion. Undoubtedly some of those reasons are good.
But is all this healthy?
In all seriousness, I fear that our fervent following of KU basketball sometimes causes problems. We give up so much energy on games, camping and ESPN highlights that it can become an unhealthy obsession that isolates us from other interests.
We invest so much time in the Religion of Basketball that when the unthinkable happens and the gods fail, our mood suffers not just for minutes, but for hours or days.
There has to be a better way. There has to be a way that we as a community can enjoy basketball for what it is without putting it up on a pedestal and deifying it. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like, but I invite you to join me in figuring it out before next winter.
Shorman is a McPherson freshman in journalism.
SCIENCE
Buyers trust shaky science when making food choices
I is hard not to be strenched with awe and amazement when one thinks about the rich American history of scientific progress. During his presidential campaign, President Obama reminded us of how "federally supported basic research, aimed at understanding many features of nature ... has been an essential feature of American life."
Despite science's great achievements, however, things go awry when we depend on it too heavily. Scientific information must be respected for its uncertainty and limited scope. When science is not respected, and when it is instead used for profiteering, people and the environment get hurt. This hurt is most readily seen in the food industry.
We used to go to the supermarket to buy food, but instead one is now confronted with a zoo of edible food-like substances. America, the melting pot, has never had a strong food culture. After all, historically we never developed through trial and error that rice and beans, for example, are an excellent way to obtain many different proteins. In absence of this cultural underpinning, we've looked to science to help lead the way.
But science's good intentions are often led astray by the profit-hungry. We find ourselves bombarded monthly by diet books of what we should and should not eat, often to be repealed in subsequent months. Michael Pollan, a food expert, wrote for the New York Times Magazine that "humans deciding what to eat without expert help — something they have been doing with
notable success since coming down out of the trees — is seriously unprofitable if you're a food company, distinctly risky if you're a nutritionist and just plain boring if you're a newspaper editor or journalist."
This "spin" on scientific information exacts a large toll on the environment. The current system encourages copious consumption of meat. Meat production is extremely energy intensive, and feedlots are an unregulated, yet intensely concentrated, pollutant source. Grains that also require large amounts of energy, through fertilizers and pesticides, are put at the base of the old food pyramid (which the food lobby heavily influenced).
Going forward requires that we respect science. We have to use its information to benefit all people and not the few looking to make a quick buck. Declaring his own stance, Obama said that "promoting science ... is about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology." A more comprehensive rendition might include — in addition to "politics" and "ideology" — the "free market," where we're all encouraged to seek profit, for the supposed benefit of everyone.
Kenny is a Leavenworth senior in civil and environmental engineering.
FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
Twitter takes scary turn
BY AMANDA DAVIS U. South Carolina Daily Gamecock
You want to hear something scary? Even though I may not have seen you since our freshman year of high school or have only met you a few times through a mutual friend or maybe have only recognized your name, I can know almost everything you are doing when you do it.
Most have probably heard of Twitter by now. I finally had to find out what it was a few weeks ago when the new verbs "tweeting" and "twittering" started coming out of the mouths of professors who can't even work Blackboard.
It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, and yet most of us have given in to the digital community that has pulled us into a stalker's dream.
And I have to admit I've given in. Although Facebook statuses creeped me out when New Facebook came out and disrupted our lives, I eventually started filling out the little line of text available to me.
Twitter is a little much for me. It's nothing but a list of who does what, when and where. I used to get tired of my cell phone,
never getting a chance to really be separate from the world. Now, the connectedness of cell phones meets a whole new level.
You know how people call dating legal prostitution? The whole point of Twitter. I have discovered, is legal stalking.
And now we return from spring break to discover the Twitter Facebook. The main page, as I'm sure you saw, is a simple stream of what your friends are up to. Not your messages or your updates, not friend's requests or wall posts, but status updates.
We have multiple feeds with the same purpose; to share pointless information with people who only read it for something to do. They can't log in to one? No worries. There are dozens of other outlets to let them know that you are studying in the third cubicle from the left on the third floor of the library for your international studies exam that starts at 8 a.m.
Don't we miss our privacy?
Don't we miss not knowing every detail about everyone's life? While these online community sites take over my procrastination time as much as the next person's, this latest Facebook change was a wake-up call.
— UWire
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Brenna Hawley, Tara Smith, Mary Sonick, Kelsey Hayes and Dan Thompson.