TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2013
PAGE 4
opinion
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351 or at kansan.com
To the guy drawing dinosaurs every day in Wescoe, I too wish I could major in kindergartner art.
TEXT FREE FOR ALL
Does wearing yoga pants in 100 degree heat count as community service?
Thor from the cheer squad has a SPACE JAM comforter on his bed. ladies.
Dont open a snagchat while in the front row of Budig... some things are best left for private viewing.
Why do the tears of thermodynamic students have to be so tasty?
My chances of this getting published are slim, but I just need to say it... the old FFA editor was so much better.
Turtle Tuesday fun fact: leatherback turtles can swim at 22 mph.
Peanut butter panda puffs = the greatest (all natural) obscure cereal ever! Plus it's sponsored by the greatest animal on earth.
Hey-!!! I'm the girl with the One Direction merchandise! Pretty awesome stuff!
Eating chips and carrots in the library. The two loudest foods possible.
Jokes on you, Anschutz.
Prof. Grizzly Adams just picked up and almost threw a table. God help us all.
I'm not surprised there are so many complaints FROM engineering majors, but I thought there would be more than one ABOUT engineering majors.
A good day is when you're reading while you walk by Watson and do not fall in the new sidewalk construction.
If you are the dude who passed out under a tree outside of The Cave on Friday, I found your glasses. #win
The songs of the day in the paper really get my hipster music searches off to a good start.
To the guy that wants a smoke free campus. Isn't a murder free campus much better? Fun fact, the two are mutually exclusive.
I miss the big desks we used to have in high school. It was so much easier to sleep in class.
Sometimes I eat chips and dip alone outside of a party setting and I don't think that at all depressing.
The vending machines in my dorm accept credit cards so I can always be unfulfilled and poor.
Walk up to the club, like whattup,
how's your family been?
ENVIRONMENT
Conservation of bees necessary for everyday life
Fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds disappear from your diet. Prices of dairy products skyrocket. Blue jeans, towels, mattresses and shoelaces are distant memories. If any of these statements sound unpleasant, then you should care about the future of bees.
Honeybee populations are steadily declining mainly due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The USDA states that the cause is still unknown to researchers. According to the USDA, the total number of managed honeybee colonies has decreased from 5 million in the 1940s to only 2.5 million today. In October 2006, beekeepers began to report a 30 to 90 percent decline in populations. In most CCD-affected hives, Varroa mites (a virus-transmitting parasite of honey bees) have been found. Other research seems to blame the use of agricultural
pesticides.
I'll be honest, when I first heard about the diminishing bee populations, I wasn't automatically inspired to take action. With the ever-rising number of endangered species, caring about a stinging insect is more difficult than feeling sorry for an adorable baby polar bear slowly losing its habitat. It wasn't until I did further research that I realized how essential bees are to our lifestyle and how they really do deserve our attention and conservation efforts.
pesticides.
Although the opening scenarios may have seemed a little dramatic, there is a logical progression to why our beloved foods and household staples will disappear along with the bees. Dina Spector, in "What Our World Would Look Like Without Honeybees," illustrates the progression with thorough explanations and chilling pictures.
To summarize the chain of events described in Spector's article, without pollination, whole harvests of fruits, vegetables and nuts would fail. For example, almonds are primarily produced by managed honeybee colonies (without bees, almond production would be reduced to less than 1/6 the normal value). Almond shells are ground and used to feed cows. Without bees to help produce more almonds, cows become malnourished. Malnourished cows produce less milk, therefore increasing prices of dairy products. Cotton depends directly on bee pollination, and without bees all cotton production would cease.
Honeylove.org also emphasizes how much our society relies on bees. Bees pollinate 80 percent of the world's plants, including 90 different food crops. This basically means that I out of every three or four bites of food we eat is thanks to bees. Also, the honeybee is responsible for $15 billion in U.S. agricultural crops each year.
So how can we save the bees. An easy first step would be to never kill a bee out of fear. According to Justfood.org, the chances that someone will be hit by a car is 59.3% more likely than a severe reaction from the sting of any one insect in a year. Honeybees are not aggressive creatures and are very unlikely to sting unless provoked.
The USDA suggests, "The public
can plant pollinator-friendly plants—plants that are good sources of nectar and pollen such as red clover, foxglove, bee balm, joe-pye weed and other native plants." If you don't exactly have room for a garden in your current location, simply providing a clean water source for the bees is a kind gesture according to honeylove. org.
Finally, we can support beekeepers by being sure to purchase local honey. The beekeepers are the ones ultimately involved in sustaining our bee populations. So unless you'd like to radically alter your diet, wardrobe and annual income, believe the buzz and save the bees.
Jenny Stern is a sophomore majoring in Biology from Lawrence.
EDUCATION
Students must hold Senator Brownback accountable for cuts
When my grandfather was my age, 20, he could get drafted into
the military, but he couldn't vote. The last time I spoke with him he told me about how it felt to not have any sort of representation, but to still carry the burden of his responsibility to his country.
I haven't had to deal with anything remotely like that, but I do have the right to representation, and with it comes a different kind of responsibility.
As students, we are a part of an interest group that is not being appropriately represented. Our interests have been ignored because our state government has learned that students are not willing to actively engage, and due to lack of participation, can be ignored without facing retribution at the polls.
The single largest annual education funding decrease in Kansas' history was not at the height of the recession, but in 2011, in order to compensate for the state's decreased revenue from Governor Brownback's income tax cuts. Since the recession, Brownback has cut education funding to $745 per student, making Kansas the state with the seventh-biggest net decrease in education funding during that period. Conversely, there are many other states that now have a net increase in education funding since the recession.
funding since the recession.
Brownback is simply not making it easier for students to succeed. If students seeking a college education weren't already facing enough obstacles, Brownback has only added to the pile.
While Brownback's administration may have merely intended to distress the deepening tuition epidemic when it cut funding to universities, if that wasn't bad enough, the cuts will have additional consequences for students
Not only are students facing more obstacles to completing school, and facing worse job prospects in Kansas where the recovery has been slower than in other states, but they are also being undermined by an administration that is failing to stimulate the economy and invest in the next generation of Kansas' employees. This administration is at the same time damaging both the short and long-term employment prospects for students in Kansas.
Brownback's strategy has been ineffective in spurring the economy in the short term and has placed an additional burden on students hoping to attend college in the state. This will be detrimental to the long run competitiveness of Kansas' labor force, affecting our state's ability to attract jobs with a skilled workforce in the future.
As a student you may still be willing to put up with this behavior. You may be thinking that while it is obviously not ideal for students, maybe it is necessary to balance the budget. But that's not the case. Brownback's real priorities become clear when you follow the money.
Two birds with one stone - it would be clever if it were an act of sabotage.
Although Brownback toured the regent institutions this spring, delivering the message that he didn't want to cut funding to schools, he was essentially
trying to cover his back and blame external budgetary factors for why higher-ed funding was being threatened. Those factors, however, are self-inflicted and a reflection of what the priorities of this administration are. Brownback forged a false dilemma - that there was no choice but to deliver cuts to education in order to balance the budget. But he was only able to make that argument because of his tax breaks benefitting the wealthy that he prioritized over funding for schools and student interest.
This is not an issue of party politics or a question of fiscal ideology. It should not be a matter of partisanship but one of representation. Whatever side of the aisle you find yourself on, this is an issue of an administration that has neglected and actively harmed a significant portion of its constituency because it believed it could do so without consequence.
It is harder to complete school here, harder to get a job afterwards, and Brownback is doing nothing about it except shifting the burden of taxes off of the highest-grossing citizens. Not only is Governor Brownback neglecting students' interests, he has been effective in undermining them.
We, as the future of the state should not be ignored in the present. Students have the ability to leverage our voices until we are too loud to be ignored, and this is the time for students to actively become engaged in our own best interests. Otherwise, it clearly won't be done for us, and unlike our grandparents, we have been given the right to do so.
Clay Cosby is a sophomore majoring in economics and political science from Overland Park.
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Skipped reading leads to real consequences
Lets be honest—you probably didn't do your reading for class today.
No, really. I get it. You're a busy student. You've got all of those "important" homework assignments that get those pesky things called grades. You don't have time to read. Because I mean, really, we all know reading is optional. It's something that professors assign when they just feel like giving us something to do. It's not like it really has a purpose.
I'd like to think that this is an exaggeration, but looking at the state of college students today, I'm starting to think it's not. Simply put, when the average college student prioritizes their homework, reading will always go to the bottom. There's usually a SparkNotes version or another student to pester for notes - any option but actually sitting down and opening a book.
I can understand the occasional missed reading assignment. Everyone has priorities. But if those priorities never include reading for class, then yeah, you've got a problem. Because I'm going to let you in on a secret right now—professors do actually think reading is good for you. Scientists think that, too. Really, everyone and their dog thinks that reading can do nothing but help you. It expands your vocabulary, it introduces new ideas and it teaches you valuable lessons.
The real question here is this: why did you come to college if you didn't want to learn?
you didn't want to learn?
When I was in high school, I knew people who bragged about never having finished a book in their life. They were proud of it, like it was an accomplishment to turn 18 and graduate without actually working. But all I could think about was the fact that they wasted their only free education proving that they didn't have to learn.
I thought things would be different in college. But in every class I have, there's some idiot sitting there bragging about passing the class despite never opening a single book.
Well, to all of you slackers out there, bravo. You have successfully taken mediocrity to a new level. You're now paying for the right to not learn. Congratulations.
Maybe your highest aspirations in life are to drink your way through college, skate by with the minimum work and get some
Trover Graft, editor-in-chief
editor@kahnman.com
Allison Kohn, managing editor
akohn@kahnman.com
Dylan Lysen, managing editor
HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
But it's okay. You go ahead and keep ignoring your reading. If you need me, I'll be in the library.
LETTER GUIDELINES
sort of useless degree with no skills or knowledge included. Maybe you think you can get a job that doesn't include reading or writing—because that may be difficult, since your college education would suggest you're aiming for something a bit higher than manual labor.
You want to know what I think? I think you'd be angry, because you pay those people good money to know what they are talking about. You pay them to know their field, and to have learned what they need to, and to be well-versed in their specific fields of the English language.
And you realize what that means? You pay the school good money to get an education, and all you do is brag about not having to actually learn something.
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But to those of you who are in college for the right reasons because you want a better job and a better future - listen up. Every white-collar job requires some sort of reading. It's not all like reading in English classes—in fact, most of it is technical and specific to your field. But if you haven't practiced reading, how do you expect to accomplish anything? Reading doesn't just go away, you just have fewer options on whether you to do it.
Will Webber, opinion editor wwebber@kansan.com
Trevor Graff, editor-in-chief editor@kansan.com
What if your lawyer bragged after work that he had never actually had to read the Constitution, he just SparkNoted it and figured he had all of the important information? How would you feel if your doctor told you that she never bothered to read privacy rules because they were long and probably not that important anyway? How would you feel if your professor came into class one day and said, "Joke's on you losers. I never read a single Emily Dickinson poem, and I'm teaching you about American Literature."
Dylan Lysen, managing editor dlysen@kansan.com
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mpointer@kansan.com
Sean Powers, sales manager
spowers@kansan.com
Anna Wenner is a junior majoring in English from Topeka.
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Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Trevoe Graff, Allison Kohn, Dylan Lysen, Wiley Webber, Point Mouse and Pointer Powers.