8
OPINION
5A
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2008
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
KANSAN FILE ILLUSTRATION
Congratulations Kansas students, you're an embarrassment to our University.
Two reasons why I've lost respect for KU
After this past week, I've lost a lot of respect for all of you. First, I took a venture to JuicyCampus.com and noticed the things I hated about high school are still prevalent at the university level. I'm not exactly sure who the majority of the people are that post on there, but it looks like the members of fraternities and sororities are loving this particular Web site because it caters to their gossip-loving selves.
And then I went into Saturday hoping coach Mark Mangino's message would be loud and clear, and the students would stop the immature chant. I was really wrong.
I took a stop down at the student gate before the game started and interviewed about 10 or more students. Overwhelmingly, the response to the video was that it made them want to do it louder. Most of these people were freshmen, and I could tell they weren't exactly here for football, but more
for the "woo, let's get drunk and do something" crowd.
The others who said they weren't doing it were older (one was even in law school here). They said that it was trashy and that it didn't represent our school. I agree.
I almost feel embarrassed when I look back at what other generations did for this country. They stood up for women's rights and equality for all. And what does our university rebel upon? Mark Mangino's plea to the student body. And the students here just completely disrespected him.
That's what I find pathetic
— that we rebelled against a video.
I took a look at the comments on the various articles on national sports Web sites. They don't find our chant funny they think it's distasteful. It looks bad on our University and student body.
Unfortunately, they're getting a glimpse of less than a third of our students and what's even more unfortunate is the IQ of those individuals.
Way to go Jayhawks.
— Joe Davis is a junior from Coventry, Conn.
We could be growing the green economy, too
our addiction to oil.
Since 2001, the Dow Jones average has climbed just 2 percent. By comparison, the wind industry has grown 339 percent and the solar industry a whopping 579 percent, and both cut global warming pollution and
Congress's $700 billion taxpayer-funded Wall Street gamble has me thinking about odds and how our money might be better spent. Clearly our economy needs help, but shouldn't we be looking for the bigest bang for our buck?
A recent report estimates that investing just $100 billion in the green economy would create 2 million new jobs while the same amount would generate just 1.1 million jobs in the financial services sector.
Write a thank-you note to Ben and Paul
Lily Siebert is a sophomore from Lawrence.
This November the smart voter will bet on the candidate with the judgment to spend our money on solutions that help the economy, create jobs and protect the environment.
I have no problem with the selling of a printed-off Internet copy of the U.S. Constitution on eBay, and I have no problem with poking fun at the amendments. But I do have a problem with the misunderstanding of the United States financial crisis at large. When I tell people that my major is economics, I am met with a raise of the eyebrows and an outward sigh, as if I missed the memo that the study of economics equates to a life of misery and certain boredom.
Yet here we are, in the middle of one of the defining historical
events that have happened during our generation, and from what I can tell, students around campus just don't care.
One thing the U.S. Constitution never guaranteed was the right to a healthy economy. And although it did grant freedom to vent one's frustration, it was never meant to be an excuse to flaunt one's ignorance.
Next time you're looking to make a statement, how about writing a thank you letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson or Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Ben Bernanke? Your government is doing more for you than you think.
Lindsay Mayer is a senior from Leawood.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansas Editorial Board are Alex Doherty, Jenny Hartz, Lauren Keith, Patrick de Oliveira, Ray Sebecian and Ian Stanford.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
FROM THE DRAWING BOARD
PORCELAINGIRL@FLICKR.COM
Who are the biggest victims of Big Tobacco?
I've never been a smoker. Never have and probably never will. I don't mind when my gay friends smoke, either. I was alarmed, though, when I came across a study that reported LGBT people are 40 to 70 percent more likely to smoke than heterosexu1 people.
The study, LGBT People & Smoking," cited reasons such as higher levels of social stress, frequent visits to bars and clubs, higher rates of alcohol and drug use, and the tobacco industry directly targeting LGBT people.
I reflect on what I have done to escape the tighter grasp that smoking has put upon the LGBT community. When I graduate, start looking for full-time job and living in the "real world," I'll face more social stress, but I won't turn to smoking for comfort — a therapist maybe, but not tobacco. I go out to bars and clubs occasionally in Lawrence and Kansas City, but their respective smoking bans in bars solves the smoking influence problem for me. And I know my limits concerning alcohol, and as for drugs, I've never tried the stuff.
The other is when tobacco
Maybe I'm oblivious to tobacco advertising, but the study cited two instances when LBT could have been more influenced to smoke than heterosexual people. One was advertising campaigns such as "Project SCUM," which was a late 1990s marketing campaign of Camel cigarettes to LBGT and homeless people in the San Francisco Bay area.
The campaigns need to focus on the LGBT community's increased social stress and higher rate of alcohol and drug use. Then and only will the community show more of a willingness to be educated about the problems of smoking and not be lumped together as helpless victims of advertising.
Hirschfeld is an Augusta senior in journalism.
companies offer financial support to LGBT bars and festivals but sometimes prohibit locations from allowing any anti-tobacco promotion onsite. (I actually find antismoking ads, such as www.thetruth.com singing ads, more annoying than thought-provoking.)
LGBT people are not victims to cheap piles of tobacco advertising. I'll concede that the LGBT community probably does smoke more overall for the other reasons the study cites (social pressure, bar frequency, alcohol/drug abuse). I have managed to escape the clutches of tobacco advertising, but the rest of the LGBT community is also not made up of mindless consumers drooling over the latest Camel ad.
People, and not just in the
LGBT community, know that it isn't "cool" to smoke as it was once promoted in the 1950s and '60s. If anti-smoking campaigns want to reduce the number of LGBT smoking, consider ads that don't condescend with singing, cartoons and "disturbing" (yet, forgettable) facts about smoking.
I found a better way to get into politics
I've been receiving an increasing amount of e-mails from organizations lately because of the upcoming election.
But these things do anger me, so the e-mails are a good tactic for getting contributions. They're basically telling me to look at those people over there and imagine them with power. And because those people are crazy, when it is suggested that I donate $5 to "stop them," it sounds like an easy solution.
I don't dislike activism. I just dislike activism that just asks you for money all of the time.
I was a member of the MoveOn.
org e-mail list until I realized earlier last week that whenever the group e-mailed me, all it was really doing was sending me an e-mail that says, "Hey, here's something that should anger you — please donate $5."
Well, it's not.
But these marketing pseudophilanthropic endeavors don't appeal to me. College students don't have as much expendable income as companies believe they do. But, instead, what we definitely have is an excess of time.
Instead of asking us for $5,
which we would rather use on a burger or a tasty brew, political
or activist groups should offer an e-mail list that only asks for time.
Money is great it makes the world go round, but every poet will tell you time is more valuable than money.
So if you want to be politically active, do not donate any of your money to a political campaign the rest of this election season.
Instead, only respond to e-mails or invitations that ask you to take part in what you believe to be the greater good with your time.
Politicians might be in horrible debt, but we weren't the ones who said they should turn running for office into a pissing contest. So we shouldn't pay for it.
Life is a sorry waste if money is worth more than time.
Stewart is a Wichita senior in journalism.
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call 785-864-0500.
I built the ping-pong table in the Templin basement.
--with that.
I now know more about the scrotum. Thanks, community health
--with that.
Eleven hours, eight minutes and 57 seconds until "High School Musical 3"
--with that.
--with that.
If you lost a Sprint camera phone near the tennis courts, I turned it into Watkins. Sorry I couldn't get to it before it was run over by the bus, but it looks like it's still working.
Thanks, professors, for waiting a whole 24 hours before the midterm to give us a study guide
Yesterday I found an empty pint of Captain Morgan in the bathroom by the Math Testing Center. I can totally identify
online is sick. Call me if you want me to feel better.Here are a few comments I've vomited up from my online past.
Why are people discussing the looks of the Hanson brothers when clearly there are bigger fish to fry? For example, how bad we're going to kill Memphis tonight.
So I was woken up at 4:45 by some drunk walking up and down the hall pounding on
doors.
Who? Mike Jones!
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I hate when people say "Rock chalk Jayhawk, go KU" because "go" is not part of the chant. Please stop.
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Why are all women just a big cup o' crazy?
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The girl wearing the Cornish jersey in UBS on Saturday needs to come back in so I can formally propose to her.
The divorce is settled. And Kansas got the house, cars, custody of the kids, the 401K and a shot at a national cham- nionship.
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If you want to riff on someone, at least do it efficiently.
The Phi Psi who was working the door at the Wheel last Thursday: You're insanely hot and have gorgeous blue eyes. Wanna hook up?