AN 09
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BUSER: ARE WE "THE DUMBEST GENERATION?"
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2009
COMING FRIDAY
United States First Amendment
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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To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500.
Hey, does anyone know? Is White Owl dead?
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
Thank you whoever turned in my iPod at the gym last week.
It feels like there is something wrong with the world when I am in my Health and Personal Wellness class and I hear two girls talk about how incredibly drunk they got last night.
I've lived in Lawrence my entire life, and I swear that the drivers here are getting shittier and shittier everyday.
I want the "Overheard at Wescoe" back in the paper...it's funnier than the Free for All.
We can breathe in space. They just don't want us to escape.
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
Even if you could,you would still blow up from the vacuum
I think it's amusing how 2.5 million people crowded the Mall on a Tuesday to listen to a speech about how we need to get to work.
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
I told someone yesterday that I didn't follow KU's sports and he looked at me like I was a slug. Sorry fella, I'm not paying $3,500 + books per semester to watch guys throw around a ball. I hate that KU values sports over education.
Maybe you're a freshman, but those guys "throwing around a ball" won the National Championship last year, and don't forget the guys with back-to-back bowl victories just "throwing the ball around".
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
Uh, no. Actually I'm a junior, and while I'm all for the fact that they're good enough for national recognition, that's not why I came to KU. Stop defending them like they're war veterans. Seriously.
I hate that half the hot girls here smoke.
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
My classes suck. Dollar night, time to save the day!
I just saved a bunch of money on books by switching to Beat the Bookstore. Take that KU bookstores.
PAGE 5A
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
That's the money you could be saving at Geico!
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
To the people with handouts on Wescoe Beach, I know it's your job to hassle us, but could you refrain from walking up and interrupting our conversations? Thanks.
--according to Chancellor Homenew in August 2008, students at the University of Kansas should know that they are champions. We hold impressive sports records, have unprecedented enrollment and outstanding academic programs. However, to maintain this champion-like environment we must face an unfortunate reality — we let almost any potential "champion" attend this university.
I want to be Made.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Students should lobby for higher standards
The University will accept an in-state student if he or she is able to earn a 21 on the ACT, manage a 2.0 GPA or higher in high school, or be in the top third of his or her high school graduating class. These standards allow both high-achieving and low-achieving applicants to be a part of the KU student body.
lowering the University's academic ranking among state schools. Lax standards have made college attendance more of a to-do list item than a reward for accomplishment.
Lee Furbeck, senior associate director at the Office of Admissions and Scholarships, explains that the requirements for admission are designed to "prepare students for a successful college experience." However, Furbeck adds that "the University is always trying to improve its academic standards."
Additionally, the issue of lax standards is made worse by the 10 percent rule created by the Kansas Board of Regents. If a student fails to meet the admissions standards set by the Board, he or she may still apply by writing a letter and formally petitioning the University for admission. A university may only allow 10 percent of its student body admission in this manner.
It's possible that these standards are created to help Kansas universities increase enrollment and receive more funding, create jobs and potentially create more college educated citizens. That is a noble goal, but it is not going to push the
KANSAN'S OPINION
Allison Richardson/KANSAN
University forward. Students need to lobby the University and the Board of Regents to raise admissions standards.
not going to push University forward
This University is bound by the standards of the Board and cannot amend its requirements without its approval. With raised standards, we can truly compete with higher-ranking universities across the nation.
Although all Kansas state schools are equal in admissions requirements set by the Board of Regents, we lack academic diversity when we are forced to maintain prerequisites set by lawmakers. To stand above other Kansas schools and schools in this country, the
University must be allowed to raise its standards, and students need to first show their support.
The Kansan questions the benefits admitted students receive when the prestige of their college education is hampered by lowered standards imposed by the state.
FOOD
Stephanie Bell for The Kansan Editorial Board
www.kansasregents.org/
contact.html
OR: (785) 296-3421
CONTACT THE BOARD OF REGENTS:
MADIAM CAIFAN
Fish-eaters should stay alert
At the world's most elite sushi bars, the adventurous eater can find fish so fresh that they're still flipping around the plate, their flesh having been swiftly and expertly sliced and then replaced back into their bodies, readied for human consumption. But not even in the world's top restaurants can one find "sea kitten," the latest target of PETA's famicinism.
PETAs campaign to protect "sea kittens," commonly known as fish, attempts to revamp the image of ocean-dwellers as cute creatures with the same level of intelligence and sensitivity to pain possessed by more beloved animals like dogs and cats. According to PETA spokesperson Ashley Byrne in an NPR report on the new campaign, "Hooking a sea kitten through the mouth and dragging her through the water is the same as hooking a kitten through the mouth and dragging her behind your car."
According to the International Herald Tribune, global fish consumption is on the rise, doubling since the 1970s, and where there's a demand, there's an industry ready to mismanage resources, trick consumers and pollute the aquatic environment.
Behind PETA's gruesome analogies and gimmicks, however, lies the important and often overlooked issue of fish "production."
Farmed salmon, one of the worst offenders in the seafood market, have much more in common with beef industry cattle than any furry pet. Just like the vast amounts of grain consumed to produce a relatively miniscule amount of beef, farming salmon involves a gross misuse of resources, with a "feed-to-flesh" ratio of three ounces of processed fish used to create one ounce of salmon. The fish being "recycled" into feed are not rejects unfit for human consumption, but merely lower-demand fish such as herring and sardines.
Hundreds of thousands of salmon, all busy with the task of reducing three ounces of fish down to one, create a lot of bodily waste in a small area, which then pollutes the surrounding waters. Unsurprisingly, life packed together in feces-littered water breeds disease and infection amongst the fish, which are then treated with antibiotics. This further damages the ecosystem and helps create drug-resistant strains of bacteria.
Farmed salmon quite literally pale in comparison to their counterparts caught in the wild. Farmed salmon don't have the opportunity to consume tiny shellfish like krill, which naturally give them their pinkish color. Instead, the farmed salmon's diet is laden with artificial dyes, which not only helps its aesthetic appeal, but also tricks the senses into believing the dyed hunk of farmed flesh has a higher nutritional value.
While the salmon industry represents the worst of the bunch, farmed fishing of certain types of fish, especially vegetarian species and shellfish, has been handled in a much more ecologically responsible manner and might possibly play an important role in preventing the over-fishing of certain species. Nevertheless, seafood lovers need to make a conscious shift, from species whose farming harms the environment and the fish it produces to fish whose populations are more easily sustained.
McConnell is a Dallas junior in English.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Find out which fish are eco-friendly at:
www.edf.org/seafood
STUDENT LIFE
Better living by bickering
We yell so that you don't have to
Pope: ...listen, all I'm saying is that ointment isn't working because it still burns when I—
Pope: I don't even remember how we did it in the first place.
Snyder: WHAT?! Break is already over? You mean we have to start writing again?
Snyder: Except the level of immaturity. That's still present
Snyder: Quick! Start mashing keys! It's worked before.
Pope: OUIAE"Q|W]eHello readers! (whew) Another year is upon us, and we've decided to try something a bit different with our column space.
Pope: Of course. Anyway, we decided that because we spend most of our time arguing with each other over everything from chores to whores, we should focus our column on just that: arguing.
Snyder: But these countless hours of childish debate have left us squabbling over recycled material, and it's just not the same. So that's why we need you, our seven faithful readers, to send us aid.
Pope: Picture us as starving orphans with our eyes glazed over and our pockets empty. For only one argument every two weeks, you can calm the raging hunger that brews inside our distended bellies.
Snyder: It's simple. If you find yourself coming unraveled over some petty disagreement, the more ridiculous the better, stop immediately and e-mail it to us. Don't ruin your friendship arguing over who liked the movie "Kazaam" more. Let us do that; we already hate each other.
**Pope:** We'll each take a side in our next column and put your name in print for the dozens of Kansan readers who make it past the Free for All to see. That is, unless you don't want your frat buddies to know that you liked "Sisterhood of the Traveling
REACH MICHAEL AND RYAN
E-MAIL:
yourewelcomeku@gmail
com
Pope: Okay. Here's my list of people with mustaches who are creepy and make me cry myself to sleep at night: Ryan Snyder. Seriously, it looks like you were making out with one of Pete Sampras' woody eyebrows and it stuck to your face.
Pants 2" more than the original, in which case your identity will be graciously omitted.
Snyder: I've comprised a list of distinguished mustachioed individuals whose lip tuxedos make this world a better place to live in; Billy Dee Williams, Burt Reynolds, Edward James Olmos and Captain Hook. Just try to refute this logic.
Snyder: Here's an example of what we're looking for: I like mustaches.
Snyder: *gasp* First, what I do with Pete Sampras is my own business. Second, I think it's pretty clear that you are suffering from mustache envy. Walking around with such a naked and childlike upper lip must be both embarrassing and emasculating. I pity your inability to grow the symbol of manliness.
Pope: I'll have you know that the reason I cannot clothe the area under my nose is because I recently donated my mustache hair to those who have lost their sideburns in freak industrial accidents. I bet you feel like an asshole now.
Pope: And I don't.
Pope: And there you have it, folks. This is the kind of quality work you should come to expect from us for the rest of the semester, just send in your arguments and you can thank us later for making your world a little more stress free.
Snyder: You're a freak industrial accident.
Snyder: You're welcome.
Pope is a Kansas City senior in English. Snyder is a Leawood senior in English.
FROM WEST VIRGINIA
Dreams don't die with economy
BY ALYSON MURPHY
West Virginia U.
The Daily Athemum
Students striving to find that perfect job in 2009 are facing the disconcerting realization that they will be graduating into a weakened economy with increasing unemployment and no fast fix to resolve the recession.
Students entering the workforce this year should refuse to allow their dreams to be buried underneath the burden of financial woes.
Instead of looking at the job search as an impossible feat, look at the fledgling options as the opportunity to creatively explore other paths.
The crisis may be the perfect opportunity to prove that a person has the dexterity and determination to accomplish anything no matter how difficult the task.
Live this year not as if the financial world is falling apart, but instead avow to build the life you always envisioned from the bottom up.
— UWire
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Brierna Hawley, Beeley Cremer, Mary Sorick Keely Hayes and Ross Stewart.
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