4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
MONDAY,NOV.12,2001
TALKTOUS
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EDITORIAL
E-mails should replace board of canceled classes
It doesn't take the most up-to-date technology to make a university run smoothly and work conveniently for students. It would be nice, but simple changes can be made to make enrollment easier for KU students.
The University of Kansas does not require individual colleges to notify its students about canceled or rescheduled classes, as many students are finding out this fall during enrollment.
Because of a teacher's time conflict, lack of interest in a class, or similar circumstances, sections can be canceled.
It's unrealistic to expect every student to pass by that sign in Strong Hall. And given the inadequate and time-consuming advising process in so many colleges, it should come as no surprise that many students skip that hassle.
The information regarding these cancellations are posted on an obscure and antiquated board in the back of Strong Hall, and sometimes distributed to students at advising. This is an unacceptable situation.
It isn't until their scheduled day and time of enrollment, after waiting in line, that they find that their class is canceled or rescheduled.
One might argue that this is the student's responsibility to seek this information out, and that it is their own fault for missing it. The student does bear some responsibility.
construct them scheduled Underclassmen might not even understand how enrollment works. It can be extremely frustrating for a new student to deal with a canceled class, when he or she had no idea about the canceled class board at Strong or how to find an adviser.
But one simple solution the University could take would be to require all colleges to use their existing individual mailing lists to inform students of those changes well in advance, before they construct their schedule.
Upperclassmen are counting on the classes on their schedule to be offered so they can stay on track to graduate. A canceled class needed for one's major could become a college-prolonging disaster if it isn't identified quickly.
Granted, online enrollment is supposedly just around the corner, so this need for e-mailed class-cancellations should soon be obsolete.
PERSPECTIVE
But given the University's track record for following on initiatives—for example, plans to eventually build a new recreation center and alleviate crowding in Robinson—and that online enrollment isn't even scheduled to be in place until registration for Spring 2003 classes, sending out e-mail in the interim two semesters is a simple step that could make students' lives a lot easier.
easter. Requiring each college or department to send students a simple e-mail with changes to the course offerings could save students a lot of trouble later on in scrambling to fill up a schedule. This rule should take effect by next semester.
Andy Knopp for the editorial board
Grassroots recall drive going up against Kansas voter apathy
Weather, the holidays, legal constraints and the American tendency to forget news events are all working against Ronda Hassig. She is a librarian and lifelong Republican who has started a recall drive to oust Republican state senator Kay O'Connor of Olathe.
O'Connor recently said that the 19th Amendment, which grants women the right to vote, was a bad thing. She said that men are the head of the home and women, the heart. If men were doing their duty and taking care of women, women wouldn't need to vote.
women will Hassig's effort is an opportunity for KU students to get involved in grassroots, local politics - and combat the mass voter apathy that got O'Connor elected in the first place.
Hassig reports that apathy is the biggest problem in her signature drive. Her grassroots campaign can get people more interested in politics. It may not be glamorous work, but sometimes real change requires people trudging door to door gathering signatures. Hassig has collected almost 1,000 of them. She needs 3,208 to apply for the petition to recall O'Connor from office. She isn't under any legal deadline to gather the signatures, but wants to get them as quickly as possible, while O'Connor's comments are still fresh in voters' minds.
Assuming she gathers her signatures
John
Audlehelm
Columnist
opinionkansan.com
Commentary
- and it sounds like she will - she will then have 90 days to gather 14,000 signatures for the petition. The people who signed their names in the first round can sign again in the second round, but somebody would need to collect all those signatures.
That's where Hassig says KU students can help by gathering the signatures of people who have signed the first time. She and her team of more experienced signature-gatherers can go for the other 11,000. "It will be difficult, but we can do it," Hassig said. "I can want this so bad, but I can't do it on my own."
Then the actual recall process could begin. If Hassig can get the 14,000 signatures and the state approves them, a recall election would proceed. The ballot would read simply, "Do you vote to recall Senator Kay O'Connor?" If voters vote to recall O'Connor, the state's 99 precinct committee chairmen would appoint a new senator. Hassig hopes they will get the message and appoint a
moderate Republican.
The recall vote may be the hardest part of the whole process. O'Connor's supporters will all turn out to vote. "They're not the majority," Hassig said. "They just get out and vote."
They have to live in the Ninth District should get home to vote or send in an absentee ballot to recall O'Connor.
As she and her team travel door to door. Hassig finds that many people either don't know about O'Connor's comments or don't care. Many don't sign the petition, she said, because they don't think their signatures will do anything.
In the move to recall O'Connore every signature and vote counts. The larger an election, the less each individual vote will matter. But a vote always counts. A registered voter who didn't bother to vote counts for nothing. So even if you don't help Hassig gather signatures, at least make sure you vote.
Hassig's recall drive has presented us with an opportunity to get even more involved in local and state politics. If you are interested in helping, call Hassig at home at (913) 492-2898 or at workat (913) 681-4819, ore-mail herat hassig@hotmail.com. For students who want to change the world, this may be the place to start.
Audlehelm is a senior in journalism and political science from Des Moines, Iowa.
PERSPECTIVE
Enough with animal rights protests
Animal rights activists get their message out often in the media. Their absurd protests of fashion shows, department stores and fishing boats are almost always front-page news.
Then I saw a front-page article in the Kansan about a group that protested a rodeo. Enough. There needs to be another side of the story -the side that supports animal testing and animal cruelty.
too long.
Groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) are standing in the way of our God-given right to choose products that have been tested on animals, eat our tuna with a few dolphin flakes, and to watch a calf get roped in only 5.2 seconds.
people who do support animal testing and who love watching animals be humiliated for the purpose of entertainment have been hidden behind our fur coats and tortoise-shell glasses for too long.
seconds.
So its time for us to return to our roots — the days when animals were looked at as tomorrow's meal and not as equals. Our group is People for the Consumption or Testing or Wearing of Animals (PCTWA). In this time of high anxiety and paranoia about terrorism, protesting a rodeo hardly seems appropriate.
Commentary
Back in the day, protests used to mean something. People would protest racial segregation, war and deforestation. Now people are stooping so low
Eric Borja Columnist opinionukansan.com
The fact remains that animals have always been and will always be lower on the food chain. So why should they be treated as equals when half the human world isn't even treated in a humane way
as to protest a rodeo. These people who protested the rodeo aren't making the world a better or safer place. They are protesting for the sake of protesting.
Some animal rights activists don't believe animals should be used or exploited for entertainment purposes. Have you seen what we do to humans for entertainment these days? Animals in zoos and ocean parks have much more dignity at the end of a show than someone who was on Temptation Island, The Real World or any movie with Freddie Prinze Jr.
The protest of the rodeo is ironic. Rodeo is a sport in which the animal wins almost every time. This is a sport where the animal is the aggressor and a sport where men die and get seriously injured every year. A cowboy wins when he stays on for eight seconds.
nothing protects my baby soft skin from the bitter Kansas winters better than a Sable fur coat. So tasteless, yet so luxurious and warm. But seriously, the root of the problem in the clothing industry is the fact that children are still being used to make the clothes for pocket change. We should be more concerned about who is making clothing, and under what conditions, than what clothing is made out of.
Then there are those who are against the use of fur in clothes. Come on,
At the root of all this madness is vegetarianism, and the philosophy behind it makes about as much sense as a Jean-Luc Godard film. Vegetarians are denying themselves an essential part of the food pyramid that we all learned back in seventh grade. Animal rights activists believe that humans have a responsibility to live in harmony with our animal friends instead of eating them. For me, bring on the porterhouse and make it rare. People have been eating meat since the beginning of time. It's a part of life.
It's a big and wonderful world out there Sunshine McSoyburger. If you don't like the scenery here in the great animal consuming world of America, think about all those veggieburgers and tofu cakes that you consume and remember that they could have been used to feed some poor cow in South Dakota, instead of yourself.
Borja is a senior in journalism from Springfield, Mo.
FREE for ALL 864-0500
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For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
I'm a mog, half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend.
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I didn't realize that the journalism and psychology departments were qualified to make medical decisions concerning ephedra.
If I take my ephedra in the dark, and I walk to the store to get it, does that mean I'm less likely to die?
OK, so Bob Barker just told me to have my pets spayed or neutered. That's kinda funny.
I don't know, maybe I missed the point of the ad, but I think a big orgy on the Hill would be fantastic!
I really do think Sigourney Weaver's best work was in Ghostbusters.
Sometimes I'm so scared and I know I shouldn't be but am, I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm scared and I know I still shouldn't be.
There's this guy named Pete that screwed me over, and I just saw a pumpkin someone named Pete, and I had the sudden urge to throw it out the window. So, if you see any flying pumpkins, that was me.
OK guys, girls like to know when you like them, but they don't like it when you smother them.
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We should all be ashamed of ourselves
Yeah, I'm skipping class to play nude Tetris. Anyone who knows what this game is, try it with the sound.
I think drinking has less to do with girls getting the freshman 15 than does eating pints of Ben & Jerry's every night.
I am a very happy person. I enjoy playing sports and spending time with my family. I am also interested in learning new skills and improving my abilities. I believe that everyone can achieve their dreams if they put their mind to it.
I got a fever.
Don't at least get bonus points for my Def Leopard T-shirt?
My roommate is learning English, and I just had to explain to her what pubic hair was.
I can't tell if this guy in my digital logic class actually thinks he's smarter by asking really dumb questions, or if he just can't keep his pie hole shut.
Yeah, I was just wondering what idiot thought Allen Fieldhouse was named after Terry Allen, and why we should change the name. That's just ridiculous.
I just realized that if I was in the shower, and a burglar came in, the best way to get rid of him would be to throw my naked body on him. That would surely scare him off.
I'm still bitter that the Counting Crows aren't coming here.
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Whoever ordered the pizza to 120 Budig,
that was hilarious.
I wished to Ball State just so I could say that I went to Ball State.
So today my anthropology teacher showed me how to stick a finger through weamer's eye socket. Pretty interesting, huh?
Damn it feels good to be a gangsta
So I went up to this girl today and I said, "Hey, how's it going?"
I just got a burrito form Burrito King, and it had two whole japenones on it. What's up with that?
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Do you have any idea what public hair is?
I'm really smart and I used to be on the swimteam. Can't be in the newspaper?
To the roommate who ate the pizza: I live with two rowers, and they eat my food all the time.
I'd like to request Janet Jackson's new song.
My roommate likes to pick his nose and flick it on the floor.
What if the hokey-pokey really is what's it's all about?
Last night I was at work reading the Free for All about Play-Doh, and it got me thinking. What ever happened to Nickelodeon Gak? That stuff was awesome.
I thought I'd enlighten everybody to some unanswered questions. No, toilets do not flush backwards in Australia. YKK is the world's biggest ipper company. Travolta sucks, Hackman rules, and all phrases should now end in "put that in your pipe and smoke it."
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