A
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 21 2007
4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAQ • UA
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2002
TALK TOUS
Jay Krail
editor
864-4854 or jkrail@kansan.com
Brooke Hesler and Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
864-4854 or bheleser@kansan.com and
kramsey@kansan.com
Laurel Burchfield
readers' representative
864-4810 or lburchfield@kansan.com
Maggie Koorth and Amy Potter
opinion editors
864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
out more
Amber Ages business manager 864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Eric Kelting retail sales manager 864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson general manager and news adviser 864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
KANSAN EDITORIAL BOARD
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing adviser
864-7668 or mffahen@kannan.com
Compost pile plan needs deserves student support
For over a year the Student Environmental Advisory Board has been searching for a piece of land on the University of Kansas' West Campus.
The search is for a half-acre of land that will be home to a compost program. This program desperately needs student support.
Included in the compost is organic food waste from Douthart and Grace Pearson Scholarship halls and animal feces waste from Malott Hall. The compost project will not only reflect that the University is environmentally conscious because it will use the compost as fertilizer, but it will also decrease the amount of waste in the United States.
In 1998, KU started a compost program, but unexpectedly the trial program was cut short.
Unfortunately, the compost project was never restarted due to the lack of land.
The land is the key to the project, yet finding the land for composting is difficult because the land must meet specific requirements. The land must be a flat area with water and drainage available for the compost pile to operate properly.
Victoria Silva, Director of Department of Environmental Stewardship, said, "The land is the only thing holding the project back."
Not only is land a problem, but KU student support is minimal.
It is obvious that the compost offers an environmental advantage to the KU campus.
It is time for KU students to stand behind SEAB and recognize their efforts. Amanda Meglenre, member of SEAB and Overland Park junior, said, "Basilically, more student involvement would lead to active search for land."
However, student support is necessary if the plan is going to be implemented. Students should support the compost pile for the sake of the environment and to improve KU's reputation as an environmentally friendly campus.
The smell of the compost will not haunt students as they walk down Jayhawk Boulevard. Several years ago when the trial program was in progress the waste had been picked up weekly from each scholarship hall. The DES said there were no complaints about the smell and the expected rodent problem was not evident.
Hopefully the next time you see the KU campus fertilized you will thank those who had the environment in mind and took the time to help out.
Christy Hass for the editorial board.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Writer needs to research
The main commentary, "Protesters need to research, think critical about causes" in the Nov. 12 Kansan was poorly researched and badly written.
It was a severe oversight on someone's part that it was allowed into the paper at all, but especially as the feature. The author is apparently upset at recent "leftist groups" protesting against the Boise Corporation for destroying old-growth forests.
Next she attacks the opponents of the proposed second Wal-Mart in town.
At one point in the article, she asserts "Liberals in other small towns across the country try to prevent new Wal-Mart stores as well."
She accuses the group of being badly informed and "full of hot air." Yet the only "evidence" she provides to counter their claims is from the Boise Corporation's own Web site! If the author were seriously interested in the truth, she would have dug a little deeper.
The author must have felt that the audacity in such a claim precluded it from requiring proof, as she gives none. Such is the theme throughout the piece; wild polemics without substance.
She then mangles the protestors' position, claiming they believe Wal-Mart is "evil because the corporation encouraged globalization."
First off, describing legitimate concerns with Wal-Mart business practices as "evil," without giving any mention of these concerns, is a fatuous misrepresentation, which only serves to trivialize the opponents' position. But following it with "The environmentalists whined in general," is outrageous.
Not only has the author indicated her unwillingness to give the protestors a fair hearing, she has now resorted to insults. If she had wanted to argue with straw men, there are fields aplenty in Kansas, and we would have been spared the pain of having to read this rubbish.
Matt Brooks Lawrence resident
'Take back the night' events should be for women only
I'd like to respond to the Nov. 18 article "Women debate male participation."
I feel that if men want to support women in their fight for their rights as women that is one thing. But to actually have men
come into a women-only space, the women's survivor circle (a space for people who identify as women)—these are two totally different things.
I feel that the "Womyn Take Back the Night" events should stay as they are. There should only be women and women who identify as women in the women's survivor circle and also at the march.
I also feel there should be no male children allowed to participate with the women, regardless of age, in the women's survivor circle and the march down Massachusetts Street.
If men come into the women's survivor circle, I believe that most women (and I include myself) would feel violated and threatened. I don't feel I am alone on this issue. I feel it undermines the principle of empowerment that 'Womyn Take Back the Night' creates.
Since the men have their circle while the women are having theirs at different locations at the same time, I don't understand why men would want to be a part of women's survivor circle.
Why do they want to invade our space? If men are allowed into the women's survivor circle then what's next? Men in a sorority?
This is our time. They have theirs
I'd like to respond to the Nov. 7 commentary "Bicycle riders should follow same laws as car drivers" written by Meagan Kelleher.
Don't let 'automania' win
Amanda Kay Zehr
Lawrence sophomore
While I agree that bicyclists should obey traffic rules, the tone of her letter troubled me.
As someone who rides his bike daily in and around Lawrence, comments like "I refuse to share the road with those on bikes" or "Bike are just as dangerous as cars" were both troubling and curious. Troubling, because in the competition between car and bike, the car always wins. Even the best helmet is no match for 3 tons of aggressively moving steel.
But at a deeper level, Kelleher, who I'm certain is a fine person, has been blinded by what I call automania. She believes that driving a car is a God-given right and that the roads belong to the auto.
She seems completely blind to the addiction that the automobile/oil has wreaked upon this nation and will continue to inflict (i.e. a likely war with Iraq.
LYDASVIEW
Free for All
Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obseeme statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
Mark Lyda/Kansan
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What we need is a student member of the Kansas Board of Regents, a voting student to represent what college students in Kansas really need.
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So if throwing the little Bibles away on campus is sacreligious, how bad is it to use the pages as Zig-Zags?
increasing ozone-depletion, etc.). She has succumbed to the omnipresent bombardment from the automakers and appears to now believe their propaganda ("Drive = Love").
I'm freaking out here. My computer speakers are completely unplugged from my computer. I mean, I'm holding the little knobby things in my hand. And somehow my speakers, which, I must reiterate, are not plugged in, are broadcasting NPR food and clear. What the hell? Somebody help me.
increasing ozone-depletion, etc.). She has succumbed to the omnipresent bombardment from the automakers and appears to now believe their propaganda ("Drive = Love").
I cannot deny that the Beck/Flanning Lips concert kicked ass constantly. And after witnessing this constant kickassness, I realize that my lot in life is to be of equal or greater kickassity constantly.
Cyclists should obey traffic laws, but instead of threatening them with physical harm, I encourage Kelleher to park her car and try to see the world from the bike's healthier and more peaceful perspective.
RayFitch
Applied English Center instructor
The editor that put the word research in the headline above Audrey Snyder's Nov. 12 column, "Protesters need to research, think critically about causes," surely had a sense of irony, because it would seem that columnists have an even higher duty to do so.
Column's reasearch is weak
After KU Environs' Friday protest of the Boise Corporation's use of old-growth forests in its products, Ms. Snyder derided the protest, stating, "According to the Kansan story, the corporation's Web site states that it actually uses very little old-growth forest wood and that Boise is decreasing that amount." This sentence tells us a lot. First, it states that by its own admission, Boise does in fact destroy old-growth forests. Second, it tells us that Ms. Snyder quoted a Kansan article that quotes a company's Web site. Clearly a corporate Web site is not the authority on any environmental matter where it has a profit motive, and more importantly, the columnist did not even look at that site, or any other source whatsoever to support the claim that the
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.
Mary had a little lamb... I forget the rest.
Last day and time for all students to enroll:
November 19th, 4 p.m. My enrollment date and time: November 19th, 3:50 p.m. That's right, I'm the last person KU to enrol. Yet another case of the man holding me down.
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My version of PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.
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The reason we're wearing stocking caps is because it's cold. It's winter.
If KU offered a degree in Diablo II studies, I'd have my masters by now.
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My dad's not a dirtball, he was just trying to be nice to one of my friends. So stop talking trash on him.
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I'm watching 7th Heaven right now, and Eric Camden just quit his job. And I'm just wondering, what's the family gonna do?
I just wanna say that the Wa? Disney World college program rules, so Erin Beatty doesn't know what she's talking about.
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My roommate wants to microwave his sperm to create a super race. What's up with that?
Hey, my friend and I just finished the crossword puzzle for the first time ever, and we did it before Coms 300 lecture ended, so we're pretty happy.
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Yeah, we were just watching Fox News, and they just called Osame bin Laden OBL. That's funny.
KU Environs "have too much time on their hands."
Instead, since it ran out of steam so quickly on an environmental front, the column turns its attention to Wal-Mart. After making a general statement that there is a national epidemic of blaming corporations for imagined problems, in the absence of research, the column provides a single, local example.
The column complains that citizens "whined" about protecting local business, traffic problems and environmental concerns. This "whining" as the column describes it, is also known as "citizen participation" and is the reason that the planning commission meets in an open setting.
To defend the claim that Wal-Mart does not harm a community, the column provides the uncited statement that the jobs Wal-Mart provides help people on low or fixed incomes. That is unlikely. Companies like Wal-Mart employ many part-time workers who do not receive any insurance benefits, forcing them instead to turn to government medical benefits, which Ms. Snyder no doubt against as well.
Public protest and citizen participation are both very valuable rights that the column very casually casts aside, especially without factual cause. To borrow a line from Ms. Snyder's column, "Those who think that" students and citizens are "doing something wrong should look into the facts before they make fools of themselves."
Seth Hoffman
Lenexa graduate student
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What's with all the talk about stocking caps? They're called sock caps. Yes, my friend is from Missouri, but he still knows what he's talking about. And he's the cutest little thing when he wears his sock cap, indoors and outdoors.
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Hey, the 40 boys who just walked over to the GSP/Corbin dining room for dinner, oh, baby. Ow.
Yes, my baby has glasses. Glasses.
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I own a stocking cap, and yes it is fashionable. But I don't wear it, because I don't care about the fashion thing, because I'm an adult.
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Mom? It's me again. Well, I was just calling to say, Mizzou sucks.
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I did some research on Yahoo, and there's like, 227 Amys on campus.
Yes, I just wanted to say that we're out at Clinton Lake watching the meteor shower, and everything is better with boys. But the only problem is, we don't have any boys. So if you want to come watch the meteor shower with us, let us know, even though this probably won't post until a week later. But we'll probably still be here.
After choosing all my classes for this semester, I've reevaluated my life and realized that all I really want is someone to stand behind me with a whip and spank me when I've been a bad boy.
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