WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2013
PAGE 4
opinion
To the two guys who said, "yes!"
when they found a bathroom with two empty stalls so they could poop together. Thanks for showing me what true friendship is.
25 minutes usually seems like nothing. Unless it's for a Tuesday/ Thursday class. Then it seems like days. Or eternity.
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I'm convinced every seat in Budig has gum on the end of the arm rest.
My trail mix comes with two things, m&m's and disappointment.
Yoga pants is community service Yoga shorts may cause traffic accidents.
Just saw a guy walking around campus with a shirt that said, "Let my people bro." I'm reminded of why I still single.
"I only wear my beanie until 9 on hot days."
Best bathroom graffiti EVER: "I used this toilet to get to the Ministry of Magic"
Ladies stop being so hot in the library. I'm trying to study.
I deserve to be on the track team for making it from Memorial Stadium to my class in Haworth in 4 minutes. Hill yes!
Who pooped in my shower?
To the poop smearing culprit in Pearson Hall. We will find you.
EDITORIAL
To the guy's girlfriend in my hall who drinks all the milk, eats all our food and smears poop on our toilet seats... I will hunt you down.
EDITOR'S NOTE: These are all from different people...
God Bless America
I'm wearing compression shorts instead of underwear today and none of you have a clue.
What's the point of a gold iPhone when everyone on Earth has a huge-ess Otterbox covering it anyway?
I walked in on my roommate eating my Ores and we just stared at each other for a solid 15 seconds.
I want a dog to just chill with and take to class so bad.
I'm the dude who passed out outside the Cave and lost his glasses. Please drop them off at the Union lost&found. Proof: they're rectangle, black-framed. Be my hero.
Why isn't there any good Chinese food in Lawrence??
12 years later: First responders haven't stopped
It's been 12 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, yet the memory is still fresh in our mind. If you ask around, your friends or peers will tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. As the nation watched the following terrorist attacks unfold in New York, City and Washington, D.C., our eyes were glued to the horrific scenes running on every news station. Time stopped as our nation realized that we weren't the invincible and impervious country we liked to believe we
were. The World Trade Center collapsed, and the New York City skyline was changed forever.
However, as we sat in front of our television or listened to our parents call their loved ones, there were a courageous group of men and women who didn't blink an eye. The towers fell and as the smoke filled the Pentagon, firefighters and police officers responded immediately to the catastrophic acts.
Today isn't Independence Day or President's Day. It's not Thanksgiving and it's not Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We're not eating stuffing and watching football and we're not shooting
off fireworks or taking the day off of work and school. Our lives are busy and our calendars are full. We're constantly focused on what's next, whether that's looking for a job after graduation, the biology exam next week or the birthday party on Thursday.
Today, we ask you to take a step back from your busy life. Take a moment to recognize the brave first responders of 9/11 who gave their life to save another. Take a moment to thank the men and women who protect our communities every day and for those serves overseas protecting our country right this minute.
We also ask you to take a moment to be thankful for the rights and privileges of we, as Americans, enjoy. Our country may not be perfect and there will always be room for improvement. However, we're better off than many others. Be thankful we have the freedom to write this editorial and you have the freedom to pick up a paper on campus and read it.
Lastly, we ask you to educate yourself on the world around you. There is a lot happening outside of Lawrence, outside of the Midwest and outside of our borders. We challenge you to flip on the nightly news
or read an article online and inform yourself on the conflicts and struggles our country is embedded in. As college students, conscientious citizens and as Americans, it's your responsibility to be informed and understand that there's more than the biology exam next week or the birthday party this Thursday.
Be thankful for the sacrifices others have made to keep our communities safe and our country free.
Allison Kohn for the University Daily Kansan editorial board
INTERNATIONAL
Conflict in Syria calls for compromise, understanding
This week, Congress and the American people should carefully weigh the options the U.S. could take in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's deployment of chemical weapons against civilians. The serious, complex nature of the decision necessitates that both supporters and opponents of military action recognize that the opposite side's viewpoint is valid.
There's strong incentive to oversimplify the issue. Syria is complicated. The geography is unfamiliar, the sectarian tensions have deep roots, the civil war's history spans two years and different countries around the world support different factions within the war.
As a result, discussions typically devolve into statements like "there's an al-Qaeda affiliate fighting against Assad, so helping the rebels only increases terrorism," or "President Obama called the use of chemical weapons a 'red line', so if we don't respond, the U.S. will lose all its international credibility."
The problem with these arguments is that they assume no new information can sway the end result, and that no middle ground exists. Instead of taking a little from both camps to create the most effective action, we view the upcoming Congressional vote as a stark yes-or-no choice between full-fledged war and complete inaction. That's a problem, because the Syrian conflict is not going to end soon and carries broader implications for the rest of the world.
In the movie Argo, CIA operative Tony Mendez pitches a desperate, last-ditch plan to extract six U.S. diplomats from Tehran during the Iranian hostage crisis. No good options remain, he explains, but the Iranian intelligence forces will discover the diplomats if the U.S. does not act. Looking defeated, his supervisor says that disguising the six as a camera crew for a fake science fiction movie is "the best bad idea we have."
Good ideas about if-and-how to respond to Syria's civil war are scarce. Likely nothing any country does could create a diplomatic solution or lasting peace. Sectarian tensions are high, Russia and China block United Nations action, extremist groups support both sides of the conflict and Assad maintains control of a chemical weapons stockpile. Over 100,000 lives have been lost.
Targeting cruise missiles at the command centers of Assad's military to punish the regime for using chemical weapons is the best bad idea the Obama administration has produced so far.
The aim is to deter the future use of chemical weapons against civilians, not to shift the balance of power within Syria. Current plans to strike command centers are limited in scope — Secretary of State John Kerry referred to them as "unbelievably small"
Withdrawing from the conversation isn't an option, because we're in a situation where countries around the world are watching and waiting to see how the U.S. responds. While testifying to Congress, Kerry pointed out that international norms against the use of chemical weapons only carry power if countries believe there will be consequences for using them.
Chemical weapons receive special attention because they do not discriminate between soldiers and innocent civilians. The horrific reports of a chemical weapons attack in suburbs of Damascus began spreading three weeks ago. Video footage showed victims writting on the floor while others screamed for help; doctors described textbook symptoms of exposure to the nerve-gas sarin, which culminates in suffocation as the nerve agent paralyzes the lungs. Rescuers reported going from home to home and finding entire families killed as they slept in their beds. U.S. intelligence confirms that rockets launched from government-controlled areas and landed in rebel-controlled neighborhoods before the gas spread, and French spies report that an enormous stockpile remains unused.
A complete view of the problem could reveal some important nuance in determining how to respond — so, yes, there is an al Qaeda affiliate operating in Syria, but it's just a small group among many others fighting the regime. Yes, the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and poses a serious danger to the credibility of treaties, but they have been used in other conflicts before. No, the proposed strike does not have a one hundred percent guarantee of success, but it may prevent Assad from brutally murdering some of his civilians.
Judging by the posts on the Facebook pages of my representatives to Congress, a number of people think that if we create an inflexible rationale for not acting and then vote against this intervention, the Syrian problem will no longer be "our problem." They're wrong.
They're wrong.
We need to recognize that regardless of what we do, Syria's civil war will not end in the near future. We need to understand that both sides of the debate contain valuable insight into how we can best move forward. We need to remember that the stakes are far too high for far too many people for us to dwell on political cheap shots. At the very least, beginning a more reasonable discussion might at least help us come up with a few better bad ideas.
9/11 FROM PAGE 1
Amanda Gress is a junior studying political science and economics from Overland Park.
remember is the look on his face when he returned Friday night around 2 a.m.
He witnessed death.
He witnessed death. His face was gray, he smelled of smoke and he looked frightened. I watched my dad attend countless funerals and take a leave of absence from his second job to dig in that pile at Ground Zero until January the following year. He searched for a piece of his missing Lieutenant and served his time to the city that he loved with the men he called his brothers.
brothers.
The New York City Fire Department coined the term "The New Normal", and my family was trying its best to adjust to it. But nothing was the same. I witnessed my father grow somber and more introverted. My parents attended counseling services provided by the city. Our family vacations scheduled that year were cancelled. Our city doubted our safety, lost a sense of buoyancy and everything was put on hold.
As a family, we dread this week more than any other throughout the year. We want to forget the death, the fear and the terror
that we witnessed. We ignore the phonies and money-hungry people indulging from the event. Instead, we watch my father get dressed in his suit and tie and attend memorials and church services while the names of the deceased, including 343 firefighters, are read over the TV.
This is not meant to be a sob story or a plea for sympathy. Instead, I hope it can give clarity and understanding to those who weren't as close to the tragedy as me, both emotionally and physically. Coming to Kansas for the first time two years ago has been one of the greatest experiences for my family. I am overwhelmed by the reverence and the respect Midwesterners show for my father. The pride that beams through my dad's smile when someone learns he was a first responder and thanks him for his service is contagious. Our lives have changed since that frightful morning, but the unconditional love and support makes it easier to believe the vitality of our country will be restored.
Dani Brady is a junior studying journalism from Long Island, N.Y.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS Pictured above are badges from Ladder 26 and Engine 58. Both units were first responders to Ground Zero during 9/11.
Where's the best place to take a nap on campus?
@jessejayhawk
@Kansan_Opinion Murphy hall practice room!
Perfect napping rooms.
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