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Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BUSER: INTERNSHIP AUCTIONS FOR THE RICH AND UNQUALIFIED
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19,2009
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FREE FOR ALL
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500.
--weekend.
Did the article about sushi make anyone else crave some suchi for dinner?
--weekend.
Wash your hands — the cold is taking over campus.
--weekend.
Dear dorm neighbor, if you keep me up another night crying about how you are failing your classes. I might have to tell you to start going to class and actually take notes, then hit you in the face.
--weekend.
To the boy in my life who can never be replaced by another: Thank you for opening my eyes to another world.
--weekend.
--weekend.
It's called a four-way STOP, Johnson County kids. It's not that hard
The guy who rides the micro scooter around campus is straight pimpin'.
If you have a problem with smoke, don't walk behind someone smoking. It's really not that hard.
--weekend.
I see speed limits as targets. If you cannot reach each speed limit, you have failed.
--weekend.
--weekend.
I wish I were old now so that I could have someone wash me.
I swear, after we rearrange furniture in our room, my roommate and I get along better
--weekend.
--weekend.
Free For All, move yourself to the front page, that way I don't have to dissect and waste a newspaper just to read you and throw you away.
Dear red Mustang girl: I'm sorry I cut you off in the parking lot today. Sincerely, silver Taurus ouv.
--weekend.
To the guys in the Jeep who sprayed me with windshield washer fluid on my bike after the organic chemistry test: Have you checked your tire pressure lately?
--weekend.
Dear kids who aren't from Johnson County: Learn how to drive
--weekend.
I just got three Valentine's Day cards in the mail, each containing cash. I can thank my parents and grandparents for providing my alcohol this
--state accounts to another, in order to meet bill payments in a timely manner. Monday, Sebelius was told this would not be all unless she signed the 20 bill.
I just touched the same net that Cole Aldrich jumped on Be jealous.
I just want to let you know that the back of your head is RIDICULOUS!
--state accounts to another, in order to meet bill payments in a timely manner. Monday, Sebelius was told this would not be all unless she signed the 20 bill.
--state accounts to another, in order to meet bill payments in a timely manner. Monday, Sebelius was told this would not be all unless she signed the 20 bill.
EDITORIAL BOARD
State payroll should never be in jeopardy
Tax refunds and paychecks for Kansas employees were called into question Tuesday during a political faceoff in Topeka. Republican legislative leaders issued an ultimatum to Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that could have ultimately ended in withheld paychecks for state employees this Friday. The University employs more than 10,000 state employees.
In a routine proposal, Sebelius wanted to move funds from full
This is a bill she had previously vetoed because of the detrimental effects it would have on Kansas education.
Republican legislators used the urgency of the issue to get their bill passed with complete disregard to what it meant for Kansas employees.
Sebelius signed the bill late Tuesday evening to settle the dispute but reduced the amount of money to be cut from schools.
Sebelius said in a statement released Monday, "Through
their refusal to act today, the Republican legislative leadership is jeopardizing our citizens' pocketbooks for no other reason than to play political games — games in which the only ones set to lose are Kansas families, workers and schools."
The senate president's response to the accusations that paychecks were being threatened contradicted the governor's opinion.
"I don't think that paychecks were ever in jeopardy" Senate
KANSAN'S
OPINION
President Steve Morris, (R-Hugoton), said. "The governor chose to spin it that way. She has other
mechanisms to meet payroll."
Yet Morris and Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt were quoted in a Lawrence-Journal World article Tuesday as saying that a meeting needed to be convened, "so that taxpayers can get their refunds and state employees can be nailed on time."
Republican leaders should never have used the paychecks of Kansas workers as a bargaining chip in their political strategy.
Sebelius should have been allotted more time to review the proposed budget bill, this ultimatum was a rush to pass something still permeated with harmful flaws.
CONTACTS:
House Speaker Mike O'Neal:(785) 296-2302
Senate President Steve Morris: (785) 296-2419
Gerald E. Mikkelson, professor of Russian language, literature and culture, expressed his concern.
"Student government should be involved." Mikkelson said. "We all need to put pressure on these people to not give up on the schoolchildren of the state."
Republican legislative leaders in Kansas should not be allowed to treat the livelihoods of constituents, including the 5,000 student employees at the University, as an insignificant factor in their decision-making.
The paychecks are how many of us pay for rent, food and utilities. To ensure that a similar situation does not occur again, students should contact their representative as a voice of dissent against politics interfering with subsistence.
Caitlin Thornbrugh for The Kansan Editorial Board
EDITORIAL CARTOON
PAGE 7A
Pristine produce raises concerns
FOOD
When I was growing up, the best part of my summer was coming to Kansas to stay with my grandparents, two of whom lived on a farm outside my parents' hometown of Independence, Kan. For two weeks I would run around in muddy and stained clothes helping my grandfather, and at the end of the day sit down to dinners that highlighted the best a Kansas farm can offer.
Though everything was delicious, it was the bright red and juicy tomatoes that stood out to my young taste buds. What always temporarily turned me off about the tomatoes, however, was that they were usually the ultra-ripe rejects that hadn't been sold. They often had spots that had already started to decompose. My grandmother would slice off any bad parts and serve them. When I questioned her, she would explain that one bad spot didn't ruin a tomato.
As I stare down the tomatoes in the grocery store this time of year, I've begun to think that, in fact, a few bad spots are just what produce needs. It seems as though grocery-store produce has stopped going bad, and too-perfect produce is a sign of trouble.
It's hard enough to get Americans to purchase raw ingredients rather than easy and convenient prepackaged meals. Produce that doesn't spoil as fast sounds
great — it's cost effective for the grocer and the consumer, neither of whom wants to trash molded peaches or rotten zucchini.
Among the many strange and harmful tactics employed to "protect" crops (but more often profits), the answer to the mystery of the missing rot is actually quite simple: If you remove what the bacteria want, they won't attack.
Every other creature on the planet seems to be substantially less bogged down with such dilemmas as "Nacho Cheese or Cool Ranch?" They tend to be unconcerned with what price has been slapped on which variety of apple, and they could care less about what the FDA has deemed healthy. Bacteria care about one thing: keeping themselves alive and reproducing. To do that, they need nutrients.
Here's the catch, though. What bacteria, fungi and bugs want is what we want, or at least should want; nutrients.
To that end, they're going to spoil whatever's got the goods.
An orange sitting on your table?
They're on it. Frosted Strawberry
Milkshake Pop Tart? Don't hold your breath. In fact, stick it in a time capsule, and with maybe a little bit of added staleness, your grandchildren can dine with confidence on what only our species would ever dare to call sustenance.
Fruit and vegetable growers pull off this little nutrient bait-and-switch by harvesting produce long before it's ripe and at its nutritional peak. They then use techniques such as gassing the produce to create a product that's aesthetically ripe but nutritionally devoid. The bacteria see it coming, but most consumers think they're getting the healthy benefits of produce that they've sacrificed the convenience of faster foods for.
Like most grocery store shoppers, I'm used to having access to a wide variety of produce without any concern for seasonality, which is why I can buy tomatoes in January. A few days ago I found my January tomatoes hidden behind some jars, larking there for who knows how long, but still belemish-free as the day I bought them.
I chopped them up and tossed them with some pasta. They were grainy, watery and awful, a world apart from my grandfather's.
McConnell is a Dallas junior in journalism.
POLITICS
Tale of two forums Global economic forums widely different
Every year for the past decade two world forums take place to discuss and elaborate solutions to economic and social problems plagu ing the world. The first one takes place at Davos, an elite Swiss Alpine resort and is by invitation only. The second one has been held in cities in South America, Africa and Asia, and is open to all those who wish to participate
They are, respectively, the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum.
In Davos, the mood seemed to reflect the cold weather of the Alpine city. The event, which has been held since 1971, is characterized by a strong neo liberal approach to economics — placing faith on capitalism, corporations and free trade. This year, however, the faith seems to have been a bit shaken by the world economic crisis. News stories about the event were permeated with anecdotes about how people were searching for someone or something to blame and how pessimism seemed to set the tone. An article by Bloomberg News reported that only "one in five of 1,124 chief executives in 50 nations said they were very confident about prospects for revenue growth in 2009," while more than a quarter were pessimistic.
This year both forums took place at the end of January, and even though they were both concerned with the current economic crisis, the atmosphere and attitude in each place were significantly different.
However while the rich and the powerful were moping and trying to make sense of the crisis, another group carried itself more gleefully. According to an article by the Guardian, the unofficial motto of this year's World Social Forum, which was held in Belem, Brazil, was, "We told you so."
The World Social Forum started in 2001 as a counter to the neo-liberal ideology of the World Economic Forum. From the start it has been open to groups that were excluded from the deliberations at Davos; workers, indigenous groups, students and various forms of social movements. The World Social Forum has a democratic character (this year more than 100,000 people participated) that starkly opposes the elitism of the World Economic Forum. It has also featured prominent intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Joseph Stiglitz and leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
From the very first, participants in this forum had been issuing warning sirens against the current structures. Unrestricted capitalism was not producing the desired effects; it was marginalizing large sectors of society in all countries of the world. And in 2001 these people decided to speak.
The World Social Forum has had its share of unfortunate events. According to news reports of this year's forum, after a meeting between the presidents of Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez proceeded to start a chant of "Fidel, Fidel, Fidel!"
But none of this compares to the hubris at Davos, which only now is starting to fall apart.
This year the theme at Davos was "Shaping the Post-Crisis World," but those at the World Social Forum were aware of the crisis all along, when in 2001 they established in their permanent charter that "Another world is possible."
Maybe this time the big shots at the top of the mountain heard the echoes from the rest of the world.
De Oliveira is a Belo Horizonte, Brazil, senior in journalism, history and French.
Campus media overlooked Lincoln
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
I was very disappointed when I opened last Thursday's edition of The University Daily Kansan and found no mention of Abraham Lincoln. On the 200th birthday of arguably the greatest president in the history of the United States, I was expecting to see his name appear at least once in the newspaper. Lincoln was not mentioned in any articles, editorials or even the Fact of the Day section.
But it wasn't just the paper that failed to recognize this great leader. The University's Web site featured Charles Darwin on its home page to draw attention to a new exhibit at the Natural History Museum. I read articles about Lincoln that appeared in regional and national publications throughout the day, and I was surprised to see Darwin take precedence
over our 16th president in our campus media.
During the day, I asked three of my friends if they knew why the day was of historical significance. All three of them knew that it was someone's 200th birthday, but that someone turned out to be Charles Darwin. After I asked them if it was important for any other reason, only one was aware that it was Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
It seemed strange to me that people seemed to know more about a British naturalist than a man whose actions helped set the stage for the recent election of Barack Obama. For a man who brought our country out of the Civil War and signed the Emancipation Proclamation, it felt like he was almost being forgotten.
— Scott Toland is an
lola junior and a former editor
for The Kansan
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864-4810 or bhawley@kansan.com
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Malcolm Gibson, general manager and new
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Brenna Hawley, Tara Smith, Mary Sorrick, Kelsey Hayes and Ross Stewart.
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