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OPINION
7A
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19,2008
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Why protest a decision that's already made?
By the morning of Nov. 5, the results were clear. The count I heard at the time for the popular vote was Barack Obama 52 percent, John McCain 46 percent (though Obama has gained a little more as more votes have been counted).
As expected, McCain duly admitted defeat and congratulated Obama on a hard-earned victory. While millions of people voted against Obama, there is no mounting cause of people protesting the results of the election or calling for Obama to step down. No one thinks the Supreme Court should keep him from taking office. Except for a few extremists who should be ignored, the nation is rallying around its new president-elect whether they voted for him or not. Our nation is a democracy, and the people have spoken.
But there was another result from the election that also got 52 percent of the vote that many people seem much less willing to accept. Last time I checked cnn.com, 52 percent of the votes in California were in favor of Proposition 8. It is understandable that the millions of people that voted against it are disappointed, but the people have spoken. We're a nation that prides itself on being a democracy. The same power that will carry Obama to the White House is the same power that passed, and should enforce, Proposition 8 — the voice of the people.
That people have the right to protest is beyond question. But when our fellow students gathered over the weekend to protest, I had to ask myself: Are they protesting Proposition 8 or democracy?
Nathan Markham is a senior from Lawrence.
RECENT COMMENTS
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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
I'm a tax-paying, gay citizen of California, and I'm not getting equal protection of the laws. Next question?
excerpted from a comment by 14th_Amendment
This needed to happen for a lot of people to wake up, in and out of the LDS Church, and for the truth to be known about the LDS Church and how those in it think they can push anyone around who is different.
The 14th Amendment is our right, gay or straight. It's insane that this was allowed on the ballot to begin with. I was a "good Mormon" for 27 years before coming out to my own truth and now live as a law-abiding lesbian who is active in my community. I pay taxes and deserve the same rights and privileges as any straight man or woman.
The role that the LDS Church has played in this situation is typical. However, when you are a member of the church, trying constantly to be "better than yourself," you are frankly too close to see real truth.
This will not stand, and I hope the members of the church will finally wake up.
members regarding Prop 8, it's amazing how many people do not even have a clue what it is and voted blindly to pass it.
When I speak to church
I have two children. They didn't catch my gayness, and neither will you.
— excerpted from a comment by csommer
- comment by Satirical
Since all laws discriminate are all laws invalidated by the EP clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
I want to vote on every issue before the U.S. Senate, how dare I be denied that right? I pay my taxes. This is crazy!
California has equal protection and benefits under the law. They are called civil unions. Every legal benefit afforded in California marriage is given to couples of California civil unions. The people do not want the word marriage redefined in California (at this time).
- comment by barryj
What I find interesting is that Prop 8 was passed in one of the most politically liberal states of this country and by a majority of African Americans and Latinos. I see the biggest obstacle is convincing California minorities that homosexuality has a place in the state's minority political leadership. If minorities don't even acknowledge homosexuals as a disenfranchised population, good luck convincing the majority of Californians.
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FROM THE DRAWING BOARD
MAX RINKEL
How corn infiltrated the entire food chain
Baking mixes. Cheese, Peanut butter. Toothpaste. Vitamins. Adhesive. What do all these items have in common? Potentially, corn.
So is corn really benefiting you?
Or are you just benefiting the corn system?
And that's just the beginning of the types of items people like Jenny Connors, a corn allergy sufferer, have to avoid every day. On her Web site, www.cornallergens.com, she lists close to 200 cor-derived ingredients that she and other allergy sufferers must avoid. The list ranges from simpler items to avoid, like hominy, to ingredients such as corn starch and citric acid, which show up in thousands of food and non-food items.
as possible so they can turn cows into hamburgers as fast as possible. Nutrition compromised for cheap and fast - the name of the Western diet game.
Corn allergy sufferers are the canaries in the mine of the Western diet. Their search to find the few foods that don't include corn signals huge trouble: that we're slowly narrowing our diet down to a handful of ingredients.
Why is corn one of them? It's definitely not because it's overloaded with every nutrient needed to sustain a healthy human being. Corn is good for some energy,
We've got to stop letting cheap and fast dictate one of the basic needs of human existence. Staying alive is the primary concern of every individual, and eating is how we do it. As Pollan suggests, if we don't start paying attention to what we eat, we will continue to be a paradox: an undernourished culture consuming an overabundance of food. We need to live like a corn allergy sufferer — we need to know exactly what we're eating, and we need to adapt our diets accordingly.
Food diversity is the key to thriving rather than merely surviving. To butcher an old saying, "man cannot live by corn alone."
Likewise, Americans are unknowingly narrowing down to a corn-driven diet thanks to ever-present processed foods that are, of course, cheap and fast. And it's having the same effect on us as it does on cattle — lots of nutritionally deficient calories to help us "grow."
McConnell is a Dallas junior in English.
But corn is the chosen one because it's fast and easy. As Michael Pollan puts it in his book "In Defense of food," corn is one of "nature's most efficient transformers of sunlight and chemical fertilizer into carbohydrate energy." Basically, if you want the maximum number of calories per acre, corn's your crop.
some fiber, a little bit of vitamins and not much else. It's no super food.
So now we're in a vicious cycle. Corn's in everything because it's readily available, and it's readily available because the system demands it for every product and will consistently shell out money for it.
Americans are quickly becoming cattle in feedlots. Meat producers have switched cows' diets from their normal grassy fare, one that provided cows naturally with nutrients like omega-3s, to corn and soy.
And calories equal cash. Corn pays, thanks to government subsidies and a food culture demanding large quantities of it to sweeten its soft drinks and thicken its gravity.
So if you want to survive as a farmer, you're stuck feeding the corn system. Corn keeps corn on the table.
The new diet provides the maximum number of calories as quickly
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rescuing our waistlines will be expensive,too
ZACHARY GRAHAM
I have distinct memories of high school P.E.: my P.E. teacher rolling out basketball so he could flirt with the music teacher, playing table tennis and good ol' fashioned square dancing. But it was mostly a lot of standing around.
But new data has been released that should make teachers and administrators think about the curriculum. Almost 20 percent of 2 to 19 year olds are considered overweight, which can be a precursor to diabetes, a recent study by the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey reported.
In 2007, diabetes cost Americans $174 billion, up $42 billion since 2002, according to the American Diabetes Organization. How can we combat this?
Another way to decrease the financial burden of diabetes rests on school boards and state and federal education departments.
We have to be personally responsible. Exercise is a cheap and easy way to fight diabetes.
We should increase the amount
of time kids spend in P.E. and shift the overall focus from team games to physical activity. We need to move away from teaching square dancing and table tennis to a curriculum that mandates physical activity. With the increase in childhood obesity, we need to make kids have P.E. all year, every year.
Don't drop exercise classes in favor of math and reading. Because schools need to meet certain requirements for these subjects, resources are freed by eliminating exercise. Children should be active instead of taking standardized tests. The only physical activity some students get may be in a P.E. class.
But don't feel so safe, college kids.
A recent study reports that only 8 percent of us meet the American College of Sport Medicine's recommendations for physical activity, meaning 30 minutes of moderate activity five times a week.
Getting that much exercise is not hard. All it requires is being proactive and not lazy.
The only way to stop this trend is to form exercise habits at the earliest age possible, or our Wall Street Rescue package is going to look like chump change compared to our national health bills.
Graham is a Columbus, Ohio graduate student in exercise physiology.
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call 785-864-0500.
Has anyone else noticed that since Obama's been elected the History Channel's been playing a lot on the anti- China?
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.
--comedy.
D. C. loves the Fantastic Four.
--comedy.
--comedy.
I saw two girls making out at the Phoggy Dog this weekend. Scary scars.
--comedy.
--comedy.
To the blonde bitch who's all over my man: Back the fuck.
How gay does it make me that I'm more in love with Edward Cohen than all of my girl
--comedy.
To the guy who came into the 23rd Street Brewery tonight in the smoking hot navy blue pullover: Give me a call. I will marry you.
--comedy.
Hey GDI, I don't know what peeping is. So...
Since when do the police not have to stop at a red light?
--comedy.
Some guy fell down right next to me. When I went to help him up, I stepped on his basketball shorts and then when he got up his basketball shorts came down. It was kind of sad, but I couldn't help laughing at that kind of
I just heard a guy in a trench coat say that the thinks that Malibu Rum is the "shizzit"
I captured a level 22 campus squirrel in one of my poke'
--to eat you?
Let's cut a deal! 'll backpack with you in the mountains, if you debate epistemology with me.
--to eat you?
I wish I could be like Judge Judy
--to eat you?
"If God didn't want us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?" You are meat, does God want me to eat you?
I'm not friends on Facebook with any of my ex-girlfriends.
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Trolls: Don't feed them
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Step on the crunchy ones.
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