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08
OPINION
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 24. 2008
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Senate should post voting record online
When Student Senate spent nearly $5,000 to buy clickers, the official purpose was to make Senate run more efficiently and to create a voting record for each senator that was supposed to be posted on Senate's Web site.
But here's the big kicker: They aren't using them, at least not for the intended purposes.
Since getting 94 clickers last February, Senate has used them to take attendance and to determine the outcome of close votes, but as of Tuesday, after seven months of using them, not a single senator's voting record had been posted on Senate's Web site.
Senate doesn't need a fancy gizmo to tally votes or create voting records. Why can't they just count?
And the clickers' hefty price tag was paid by students.
When the results of a yea or nay vote are unclear, Senate used to have both the vice president and executive secretary count the raised hands of supporters and then dissembles of a bill
How long could that have taken?
To manually create senator voting records, which is something that
should've been done a long time ago, Student Senate could've borrowed a page out of the United States Senate's playbook. United States Senators are called on alphabetically, and their vote is recorded by the secretary.
But Student Senate probably can't send the clickers back and use the $4,888 on something more worthwhile. They're stuck with the clickers so might as well continue using them.
Student body president Adam McGonigle, Wichita junior, said he hoped the voting records would be done by this past Monday or Tuesday, but as o
Tuesday afternoon they had not.
According to the bill, executive secretary Libby Johnson, Lawrence sophomore, is responsible for posting the records online.
Increasing transparency in Senate has been something the Board has written about before. The Board has asked senators to periodically publish gifts they
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VIEW
receive (Editorial)
receive (Editorial:
"Better to answer? Not for Senate." April 16).
They have not. Posting votes records is another step Senate needs to take so students can
hold their senators accountable.
So what can students do? Ask Johnson why the voting records aren't online by calling her office at 785-864-5114. Or become a senator and be part of the solution. The replacement senator application deadline is Friday. You can find it on the Senate Website, www.studentsenate.ku.edu.
editorials around the nation
— lan Stanford for the editorial board
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Be patient with gas prices after hurricane
Prices jumped 30 cents just while some local customers lined up to fill their tanks.
As gas prices skyrocketed Sept. 12 ahead of Hurricane like, area residents panicked. By rushing to gas stations to fill up every vehicle and gas can they owned, they drove up prices even further by draining supplies.
Gas stations refused to discuss the situation with our reporters, but that does not mean they were engaging in price gouging.
And Big Oil remains a favorite whipping boy for its record-setting profit margins in a time of economic strife for the rest of us.
But the best response to this situation is patience,
according to experts, including AAA. The organization advises consumers to buy gas as they normally would and ride out the storm in the Gulf of Mexico.
It's called simple economics — supply and demand. Gas prices dropped this summer because demand dropped.
Sometimes it's human nature to look for a scapegoat. It doesn't help that politicians constantly look to make political hay out of our misery.
The best course of action is to remain calm. Wait until you need gas and drive less in the meantime. Ride out the storm in the Gulf and hope that the oil rigs fare well.
Just don't panic
Bristol (Tenn.) Herald-Courier Sept. 14 editorial
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TYLER DOEHRING
THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansai Editorial Board are Alex Doherty, Jenny Hartz, Lauren Kehn, Patrick de Olivaire, Ray Sebegan and Ian Stanford.
What it means when a half gallon equals a pint
When I first learned to cook, my dad and I made pancakes. I would create my own pancake tapping with honey, syrup, three types of sugar and bits of candy. When I presented my delicious mixture to my parents, my mom would say, "Sometimes, Cara, less is more." Of course, she wouldn't eat my sugary concoction.
Thanks to the rising price of fuel, everything costs more, including food. Companies such as Kellogg's have chosen to take the edge off these increases by subtly decreasing the amount of product per box of cereal or jug of orange juice in order to hide price increases.
Little did I know that in the food manufacturing business, less really is more. As in you get less food, and you pay more for it.
Instead, Kellogg's slimmed the box down to 8.7 ounces and left the price the same, under the assumption that consumers would notice their wallets getting lighter but probably not their box of cereal.
And with good reason:
According to MousePrint.org, a consumer advocacy site, the price of the traditional 11-ounce box of Kellogg's Apple jacks would have jumped almost a dollar this summer because of the rising costs of ingredients.
Ice cream companies have fudged on traditional quantities of ice cream, too. Usually sold in pints and half gallons, Dreyers and Breyers have gradually shrunk their "half gallons" by almost a pint. The problem has become so rampant that Bluebell Ice Cream based its ad campaigns around their containers being "still a half
gallon."
About 30 percent of packaged goods have shrunk their sizes, some with price decreases, some without, according to USA TODAY. And this trend, at least in the cereal and ice cream businesses, has been going on for several years.
As MousePrint's editor Edgar Dworsky put it, "I'm waiting to open a carton of eggs and see only 11."
Companies clearly state the number of ounces on the packages, but when those numbers slowly go down while cost slowly goes up, customers feel cheated. Perhaps companies would do better if, as they changed their packaging, they
labeled it as "economy-sized," redefine the term to mean "smaller." Our economy shrinks along with products.
More companies are willing to subtly shortchange the customer in a strange attempt to better serve you.
Customers are aware that these are hard times for our economy. Companies should acknowledge that prices have to change as the cost of commodities goes up. Likewise, we the customers will have to respond with understanding.
McConnell is a Dallas junior in English.
How the United States could be the leader in green tech
We have been extremely lucky in this country to have the resources that we do at a price that most can afford. Surprisingly, gas prices are one example.
According to a CNN special report, the United States is ranked 108th when it comes to the price we pay for gas (adjusted to the dollar).
What are we complaining about?
We should take this opportunity to wean ourselves off oil. Foreign dependence for energy and taxes are the only feasible way to do it.
So what about other industrialized countries? Norway pays about $8.70 per gallon, Great Britain $8.38 and France and Germany nearly $8.
For starters, our gas prices should be as high as they are in
Europe, even higher perhaps. If we keep the current price near $3.50 and then match the price with taxes, we could finance research and innovation to get us off our addiction and possibly finance the improvement of our infrastructure.
Tom Friedman, an author and a columnist for the New York Times, put it best in one of his columns from July. He compares the United States to a crack addict. An addict's problem is not the price of crack, he says, but the addiction to crack. Our problem is not the price of oil, but our dependence on it.
Taxes are the only way to fix this. Where else is the money going to come from? We are fighting two wars, bailing out corrupt corporations and rebuilding hurricane zones. The only way to get us off this dependence is to pay the price today and reap the rewards tomorrow.
in the United States since 1990. With fewer people driving and an increase in innovation and green technology, the amount of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, could go down.
Graham is a Columbus, Ohio, graduate student in exercise physiology.
Believe it or not, Congress can help. It needs to extend renewable energy tax exemptions for multiple years, instead of year to year as it is now, to promote entrepreneurships. We have the innovators, but they need a guarantee that their investments aren't dangling on Congress' floor year after year. Think of what would have happened if Congress had stopped the innovation of MS-DOS or the Internet.
Friedman wrote that the environmental revolution is the next industrial revolution and that we need to jump on the train. We can either man the engine or grab a seat at the station and watch our opportunity go right on by.
Because of these taxes, pollution would fall. The State Department reported to the United Nations that carbon dioxide rose 20 percent
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Was Sex on the Hill appropriate?
Some of us are being too uptight. I have all the respect in the world for the campanile as a World War II memorial. I would never think of degrading a memorial or the people who served and died for their country. A photograph set up by University students is a matter of expression not a matter of dishonoring.
I have a long-lost relative, Hubert McKay, a KU student who served and died in World War I. I am pleased that Memorial Stadium and the Kansas Memorial Union are there to remind me of his and others' efforts; however, I would not be bothered if a sexual picture were taken in either of
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those places. I am sure that students today and in years past have had sex in both the stadium and the student union, and that doesn't bother me either.
— Cortney McKay is a graduate student from Insurance
from Lawrence.
Since when did sexually explicit content merit a place in the paper, a spot typically reserved for newsworthy material?
Sex was once a private matter, respected enough to keep between the couple and not paraded around for the world to see. This is pornography.
This shows a great lack of professionalism, a tendency to read more like a combination of Cosmo and Playboy rather than The New York Times. This issue was tacky.
It has become extremely difficult to distinguish between our public and private lives. Having it put on display for the sake of vulgar entertainment and temporary readership is not a compromise worth making.
Bethany Nesbitt is a junior from Overland Park.
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call 785-864-0500.
I just taught my cat to play fetch. Next stop, leash-
me
I'm exactly like Bella, and I've been waiting too long for my Edward or Jacob. Please help.
Yes, the guys are rather short and I'm a straight female. Where are the tall, dark and handsomes?
--vote. Love, a Russian.
Being a gay man in Kansas is like being Shaquille O'Neal in Munchkin Land. Good thing I like my men tall.
--vote. Love, a Russian.
I just got a Facebook event invite to someone's baby. What is the world coming to?
My dad is on Facebook. I'm not sure what to think about
To the guy who wrote the Russia column Monday: Please shut up unless you know what you are talking about. You clearly have no concept of Russia as it is today. You are clearly a McPalin
I hate when I find cool bumper stickers on Facebook but have no friends who would be amused by the offensiveness of said bumper stickers.
the entire lab period.
Chemistry reports are a giant pain in the ass. It'd help if there wasn't a cute brunette in my group distracting me
Just ask her out already.
I'm glad I woke up.
Let's have interesting comments, please. I had to go back about 200 just to find something
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Every time someone says "economy" take a drink.
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I swear there are squirrels in the trees next to Robinson who think it is some sort of sick game to see how many people they can hit in the head with those nuts.
We're falling in love but neither of us can say it. I can't believe I could lose it all come December.
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Do they offer Relationships 101 here?
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Weak sauce, I've been doing a keg stand since I was in the second grade!
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