WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY RANSAN
PAGE 5
opinion
Send your FFA submissions to freeforall@kansan.com
FREE FOR ALL
This sidewalk BARELY fits one person, let alone you, your bike and myself. Get in the street.
My boyfriend from K-State told me that they read the preamble at all of their games. I thought this was weird until I remembered that those Republicans love their Constitution.
Romo is sponsored by Starter not finisher ... What do you expect?
While I was at DIOP tonight for a meeting, I spotted my grandpa on the wall of WWII soldiers. I felt proud to know a hero. So here's a BIG thank you to all those who have served our country from the past, present and the future.
So I ran into this girl on campus I like. We talked for a while. I texted her later, only to find out she wasn't on campus that day. WHO THE HELL DID I TALK TO?
"I'll Make a Man Out of You" just came up on shuffle . . . must . . . dance
I forgot if what I had in my hands was shampoo or face wash. I guessed face wash. Wrong.
If the electrical engineers get tablets, can the MEs get cars and the ArchEs get skyscrapers? Give the Aeros kites.
I really wish the anti-abortion club would stop showing aborted babies. I don't want to join the club, I just want to vomit.
Can't wait for yoga pants season
I would think you'd have to be an actual legend to play in the Legends of the Phog, something Selby isn't nor will ever be for our fine school.
Woke up Sunday with a pocket full of beer tabs. I'm glad to see I consider the earth while drinking.
It's funny because KU football has as many wins as K-Suck and Misery combined!
Yes, rolling backpacks are essential! Some of us have commutes that may or may not include airplanes.
I think it's funny that all the students getting mad at these pro-life people are kids who WERENT aborted.
My 72-year-old teacher said "whore" today in class ... Priceless.
Whoever wrote "babies are delicious" on the free speech board next to the abortion display, my definition of hero was just redefined.
Campus tour for the class of 2016.
And on your left you can see our gigantic
wall of dead fetuses.
That awkward moment when the girl who's peeing in the next stall starts talking to herself.
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EDITORIAL
Communication essential to Senate success
At any college or university, student government is a key institution of protection for students.
The University of Kansas Student Senate is a broad organization that handles student issues covering all corners of campus. From allocating student fees for essential services to advocating for student involvement on administrative committees; Student Senate governs with a representative voice at the University.
Last year, representatives voted on the Underground expansion, changes to the Code of Student Rights and controversial cuts to community health
groups.
Running on the KUUnited ticket, student body president Libby Johnson and vice president Gabe Bliss won the April elections with a platform of attaining progress and feasibility on campus. Increasing sustainability and decreasing the general education requirements for graduation are key areas Johnson and Bliss campaigned for. Other KUUnited initiatives include introducing bike rentals for students, forming a graphic design club to provide free services to student clubs and organizations and making the Kansas Union more comfortable. Johnson and Bliss should make sure all initiatives they campaigned for are explored. Also, they should consult the senate and pull together three major initiatives to focus on. Creating key priorities will help clarify the senate's goals.
However, accomplishing many of these initiatives will be difficult if Student Senate can't improve internal communication, which has been shaky in the past few years.
In an interview with the Kansas editorial board, Johnson and Bliss focused on methods to ease exchange of information. By creating a system of communication, depending on solid officer reports and planning to hold each other accountable for
projects, we hope the senate will maximize its potential.
Another big issue is student representation.
Communication is something Student Senate cannot fix right away, but it needs to begin improving at tonight's full senate meeting. And communication should remain a high priority throughout the year.
"This really is a unique year" Johnson said. "There are lots of changes affecting student success. It's up to us whether students are involved in the changes."
We're glad that Johnson and Bliss are eyeing student representation. Students' tuition and
fees made up 20 percent of the University's revenues last year and students are essential to the success of the University. It's important to find active students to participate in advisory and administrative positions.
Vikaas Shanker for Kansan Editorial Board
Tonight's senate meeting should focus on how Student Senate can be more representative and how it can better serve the student body by becoming more efficient through communication.
LIFESTYLE
Dear Lazy students,stop complaining
MIKE MONTANO
mmontano@kansan.com
In preschool, your homework was to learn colors and not eat the Play-Doh. In grade school, your homework was mathematical problems and historical events. In high school, you got a taste of freedom by driving yourself to school, choosing which electives piqued your interest and which group of friends you hung out with on a Saturday night.
And then came college, which threw you into the real world of academia whether you were ready or not. From what I have noticed by looking around at my peers, is that some are not.
It continues to frustrate me that there's always a handful of students that don't do the assigned homework and act as if it were a complete surprise, when
the teachers have clearly assigned the homework and given out the syllabus. It's like the TLC television show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," where women miss all the obvious signs of pregnancy - morning sickness, weird cravings and gaining weight only in your stomach region.
Let's be honest here, it's about not being an adult and expecting to be babysat. I don't like reading 75 pages for a class when I could be out on Massachusettes Street watching a game or catching up with friends, but I do the work because tuition is expensive. I don't want to take the class again and class is what is required of me right now in my life.
I was in a class just last week where we had to get into groups and answer questions based on our reading assignment. Then the teacher said we had to hand in
our work so it'd be in our best interest to group with someone that had done the work. It was unnerving to find out that the people around me had not done their reading.
I'm left wondering if my fellow classmates think that after graduation, in any line of work, that it will be okay to say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I just didn't have time to do my work." With today's unemployment rate and the ever-increasing tuition rate, it's more important than ever to be competitive and get the most out of your education. The unemployment rate for someone with a degree is half of what it is for someone without their degree. That should be reason enough to do your homework, get a degree and get a job.
For me, not having to stress over finals (forgive me for saying
the “f” word) and cram while being on a caffeine-trance, is reason enough for me to go to class and keep up on my studies. Plus, believe it or not, some of the reading that I did not want to do but forced myself to do turned out to be a good read and I actually learned something. Imagine that
There is so much stimuli
Mohammad Ataie
around us and there will always be something to do in good ole' Lawrence. So hit the books, party a little and cut your unemployment rate in half. No one is going to babysit you in college and certainly not in the workplace.
Mike Montano is a junior in journalism from Boston
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
WHAT'S THE WORST SHOW ON TV RIGHT NOW?
bafast
@UOK_ Opinion Ancient Aliens is absolutely terrible, but I watch it... when my dumbass roommate has it on.
@UDK Opinion I wouldn't know. I watch classy things like Teen Mom and Jersey Shore.
MelanieRR
@UDK Opinion Opinion I'm just going to get the obvious out of the way. Jersey Shore. I will never watch it because I value my brain cells.
Jahera91
@UDK. Quinton #SwitchedAtBirth on @ ABCFamily is ruining my life. Teen dramas based in Johnson County? Looks like i'm skipping class again.
pBoomCityAdamTM
COMMENTARY
JASON BENNETT
Expansion money was a waste
Jbennett@kansan.com
A recent Kansan editorial said that the nearly $500,000 Underground expansion was "money well spent." I have to disagree.
I have frequented the Underground during the past year, often during peak lunch hours. As other Kansan editorials have said in the past, I agree that it could be difficult to find an empty table. However, I've never had a problem finding an empty seat.
There are always plenty of places to sit in the Underground. The problem is we live in a culture where people don't want to risk sitting down next to someone they don't know and possibly having a conversation with a total stranger.
Just look around you the next time you're riding the bus home from class. Dozens of people are crammed in like sardines and no one is talking to each other. Instead, we put in headphones, blast music and pretend like the people next to
us don't exist.
Student Senate spent almost half a million dollars expanding the Underground, when all they really had to do was invest a few hundred dollars for some posters and start a campaign to encourage students to sit down and have lunch with other students they didn't yet know.
I also have to wonder why the project had to be funded by student fees. In a Kansan article from last September, the director of Dining Services said there are about 3,500 transactions each day in the Underground. Assuming the average transaction is around $5, collecting an additional 2 or 3 percent surcharge in the Underground would have allowed the entire project to be funded by people who actually eat there. The project would be paid off in about five years.
And for those concerned the added cost could make sales drop, perhaps that risk would have changed the mind of David Mucci, director of KU Memorial Unions, who in the same article said he didn't see
investing money in the expansion as a "good business decision."
There was an opportunity for student leaders to change the culture at the University: to foster a sense of camaraderie, friendship and togetherness. Instead, they opted to spend lots of money unnecessarily to add an additional 139 seats so students could continue to avoid almost all human contact during lunch by having one person take up a four-person table.
For the current and future student senators out there — the next time a problem comes up, try to solve it without just throwing money at it. And for the rest of you, the next time you're at the Underground, be the student leaders that others have failed to become. Sit down next to someone you don't know and encourage your friends to do the same.
Jason Bennett is a senior in journalism from Bendena.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Regarding the Kansan's triumphalist article, which was nothing more than a bit of crypto-abortionist propaganda, I feel compelled to voice my opinion and that of thousands of fellow Jayhawks regarding the "sextival" (sub-Pythonian word play at best). Under the veneer of objective reporting was a direct endorsement of refunding Planned Parenthood, a group, lest it be forgot, founded by a paranoid racist eugenicist. The very presence of their representation on our beloved Jayhawk Boulevard turns my stomach. Depending on who you ask, the
daily tally of abortions varies between 3,000 and 3,600. These are human lives, not choices. Let it be noted that abortionists target, and have demonstrably decimated, birthrates among minorities and
the impoverished, a repugnant fact which would positively elate its founder, Margaret Sanger. Indeed, the whole abortion lobby has a decidedly anti-human, for profit and (de facto) racist agenda. Aside from outright infanticide, the psychological and emotional repercussions to post-abortion parents are well documented and summarily ignored by the avatars of abortion.
an act of creation. What really occurred was sexploitation (to borrow another unfortunate portmanteau). How best to use the person like a punching bag or a piece of cake was the real message. When did we forget that people are ends in themselves instead of to a means? Who could speak of the "Sextival" with pride to their parents? Who would feel affinity with another who had used a beloved family member as a sexual plaything? The whole sham of a "Sextival" is a puerile act of self-indulgence and degrading to human sexuality. Real responsibility lies in respect for our collective and individual humanity, not pornographic propaganda.
Daniel Obermeier is a junior from Olathe.
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Furthermore, there was no "sex education"2 How to use contraceptives properly is the exact opposite of real sex, which, until very recently, was universally acknowledged as
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CONTACT US
Vikaas Shanker, editorial editor 864-4924 or vshanker@kansan.com
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864-4358 or glen@kansan.com
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansai Editorial Board are Kelly Strona, Jeff Peterson, Jonathan Shannon, Wikya Shanker, Mandy Matthey and Stenke Penn.
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