Opinion
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2009
United States First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Brown: Experiencing dorm life important for freshmen
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It's been over a week since someone has complimented my beard. I am so distraught.
I wish I was back in Lawrence instead of where I am.
I wish life was as simple as the board game.
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The best way to get to class? Find a good ass and follow it.
To the blonde girl who ran the red light on sixth and Kentucky last week: The IRS called, they need you to pay attention.
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Damn you's a sexy biotch, a sexy biotch!
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To the guy in my English class with the dreadlocks: Hide your boners better.
To the people who go to the Underground at the really busy lunch times, stand in line for 10 minutes, then get to the register and search your backpack for your wallet for another five minutes:
I hate you.
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Rock me mama like the wind and the rain.
I want a Viking funeral.
Set me to sea with all my possessions and servants on a burning ship. Only then shall I be happy in the afterlife.
I'm not sure if breaking my glasses and looking for new frames is a good reason to skip class, but here we are.
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Just because you're listening to your iPod and can't hear yourself fart doesn't mean the rest of us can't.
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Ah, the joys of a roommate free (and consequently pants-free) lifestyle.
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I got HBO today and watched 11 straight hours of True Blood. Day well spent.
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I had a rule before that funerals were a waste of flowers.
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For the second day within a week I have forgotten to zip up my pants. FML!
Mmm okay. I need to get laid.
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I'll be in my bunk.
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A day without being in FFA is like a day without pancakes.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Band Day parade will be a missed tradition this year
For 62 years, thousands of high school musicians have marched up Massachusetts Street for Band Day, drawing a multitude of spectators from across Kansas and the community.
This year, however, the University has chosen to serve corporate interests before the Lawrence community and longstanding traditions.
The KU Band Day Parade was canceled this year because Fox Sports Net is broadcasting the game.
According to a
According to a University of Kansas press release, Fox decided the game will start at 11 a.m., meaning there isn't enough time for bands to parade down Massachusetts Street before kickoff.
"It's disappointing," said Amber Coffman, Ottawa sophomore. "The KU Band Day parade was always something I looked forward to in high school."
Coffman marched in the parade in high school and in the KU Marching Band. She said she always thought the half time show was the bigger part of the experience but she thinks that losing the parade is disappointing.
With the football team now receiving nationwide recognition, the University's games are getting wider television broadcasts. Unfortunately, this also means the University has less, if any, control
The University is a victim of its own success it would seem.
KANSAN'S OPINION
over the time home names will be played
Losing the parade and its thousands of spectators also means losing a hefty amount of
visitors to Lawrence, visitors who might have shopmed downtown
The loss of all these customers is hardly inconsequential to downtown businesses in the current economy.
Bringing hundreds of prospective high school students to the University also served as a great recruiting opportunity for the University, a chance fewer students will get without a parade to march in.
"It's kind of a bummer," said Mike Jones, director of bands at Lawrence High School. "Our kids
love marching behind the KU Band. We can't go this year."
"As long as there's been a Band Day, we've marched in it," Jones said.
The Lawrence High School band traditionally performed only in the parade and will not be able to attend KU Band Day this year.
The University is trying to spin the national broadcast as a plus for band students, noting in a recent press release that they'll be exposed to a "nationwide audience."
This may in fact be a worthwhile trade off for some of the bands, and especially the Athletic department's wallet, from here it could only start a slippery slope
How many more decade-old traditions could go the way of the KU Band Day parade if they aren't conducive to the whims of corporate partners? layhawk tradition and the fans should be remembered as University sports progress forward.
— Clayton Ashley for The Kansan Editorial Board
RELIGION
Questions of faith should be asked while in college
live off campus this year, which requires a daily navigation up the hill, around the cigarette butts and plastic red cups, on my way to campus.
Finally when I reach the top,
I pass by Spooner Hall, the oldest building on the campus. She whispers to any passersby aware enough to pause, turn down their headphones and listen.
The old inscription across the building reads, "Whoso findeth Wisdom findeth life"
The quotation is a paraphrase of an old Jewish proverb in which personified Wisdom calls out to be found.
Each semester, students come to the University from a myriad of places for a myriad of reasons to answer that call.
In recent years, we have sought her in databases, PowerPoint projects and Blackboard documents.
But more than a century ago, when Spooner Hall housed the University's first library and Naismith was off somewhere pinning up a peach basket, students may have approached the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge with a slightly different
understanding.
Their search is ingrained across campus. Twente Hall's bas-relief features the ancient Saint George, the doorway to the Campanile is engraved with the word, "Faith," counseling all who walk beneath to "Look to the stars through difficulty," and in front of Smith Hall kneels Moses before a burning bush, the very seal stamped on graduate's diplomas every spring.
For them, seeking wisdom meant wrestling with the possibility of an unseen truth and whether such a thing could exist just beyond our scientific methods and measurements, somewhere between the scholarly and the sacred.
In the minds of many who first founded and attended the University, the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge went hand in hand with the idea that such a journey led not only forward, but upward.
Academia often intersected with the divine in the search for what is true about ourselves and our world.
So what does this all mean? There was a time in the University's history when big questions about truth, beauty and the divine were asked during the academic's pursuit of wisdom.
Though students still purchase paperback copies of the Koran for western civilization courses and appreciate religious art at Spencer Art Museum, the conversation about faith and spirituality seems fairly hushed on the hill. Political discussion is no longer taboo, so what about discussion on faith?
Certainly we are all going to answer and confront these questions about faith — or lack there of — differently, but perhaps the greatest tragedy would be to not ask these questions at all, and miss out on the life that finding wisdom might bring.
Hafner is a Great Bend junior in journalism.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
In health care debate pick facts over scare tactics
In his column of Aug. 31, Chet Compton warns a public health insurance option will "inexorably" lead to a government takeover of health care. Never mind that nonpartisan projections suggest otherwise, and that a public option is essential to salvaging the health care system.
Although Compton claims that a public option would drive private insurers out of the market, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 11 to 12 million Americans will enroll in a public plan — and that takes account of employers who would shift their employees to the cheaper government option.
In a nation of some 300 million people, that's a long way from mandatory socialized medicine
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The public option won't just
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benefit those Americans who choose that particular policy. Because a government-run option would, by definition, be not-for-profit, its administrative and overhead costs would be substantially lower than those for private industry, making it easier to bend the cost curve. Offering Americans this less expensive choice would spur competition from private insurance companies.
A Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that insurance premiums have skyrocketed 119 percent since 1999. Isn't it about time we instituted a public plan
The submission should include the author's name, grade and hometown.
to keep insurance companies honest?
Though the facts on the public option may be inconvenient for Mr. Compton's case, they remain facts. And those stubborn things
not biology or scare tactics
should guide the health care debate.When you step into the job market,you may miss the days of being a student.Learning is a life-long and endless process.
Treasure your opportunity to be easily accessible to information.
— Luke Brinker is a freshman from Topeka.
EDITORIAL CARTOON
It was at that moment, after he realized the event had indeed been canceled, that John decided to enact his own one-man band parade.
JAMES FARMER
STUDENT LIFE
Early birds get the grades How sleeping boosts GPA
It starts softly at first, but quickly my alarm becomes a wailing siren so annoying that I am forced to jump off the top bunk and walk over to my desk and turn it off. It's 5:30 a.m. on the first Monday of class, and I have only myself to blame — and maybe my roommate.
In June, Time ran an article covering the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, which detailed new findings on college students and sleep.
After all, college students are not commonly thought of as morning people. If the rooster crows some of us might shoot it. But it turns out my roommate is actually onto something.
During Hawk Week he casually mentioned that he was planning on waking at 7 a.m. every morning. Yes, I had the same reaction: He's insane.
Different studies were cited that show a student's sleep schedule has either a positive or negative impact on school performance, depending on when he or she sleeps.
Researchers found that students who described themselves as night owls — go to bed late and sleep late — had lower GPAs than those who described themselves as larks — early to bed and early to rise. According to one study, night owls averaged a 2.84 GPA at the end of their freshman year. Meanwhile, larks averaged a 3.14 GPA.
Now, if my roommate knows this intuitively, I figure other people do, too. Maybe some people wake even earlier than 7 a.m.
Let's be clear. I'm not talking about people who have to wake up early for a job or other obligations. I'm talking about people who do it because they truly want to.
I wanted to talk to those
JONATHAN SHORMAN
people to find out why they do it and if it comes naturally to them.
So now, at 5:45 a.m. on a Monday, I'm walking down a very dark and silent Jayhawk Boulevard toward the only place that I know on campus where you can go to study at unholy hours: Anschutz Library.
I arrive, and I'm amazed at what I see. Nobody is there. There are no backpacks. The sound of clattering keyboards is absent. The not-so-hushed collaborative library that is Anschutz is silent.
So I sit down and wait. Maybe I'm just too early.
I spot only one staffer behind the desk hunched next to a computer and wearing headphones.
And I keep waiting. I wait for 40 minutes, actually. Frustrated that no one has either come or emerged from another floor, I leave. Maybe there are fewer voluntary early-riders than I thought.
I love sleeping, but I wonder what we could accomplish as individuals if we set the alarm clocks earlier; I wonder what we could accomplish if some of us dragged ourselves to Anschutz at 6 a.m.
It's only a baby step, but I'm going to try to not sleep past 9 a.m. during the week. Maybe I'll get more done and have more free time in the evenings. It can't hurt, right?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a nap.
Shorman is a McPherson
Brenna Hawley, editor 864-4810 or bhawley@kansan.com
Jessica Sain-Baird, managing editor
B64-4R10 or jsain-baird@kansan.com
Jennifer Tontine, managing editor
864-4810 or jtorline@kansan.com
Haley Jones, kansan.com managing editor
864-4810 or hinne@kansan.com
CONTACT US
Michael Holtz, opinion editor 814-4024
Caitlin Thornbrugh, editorial editor 864-4924 or thornbrugh@kansan.com
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Brenna Hawley, Jessica Sain-Bard, Jennifer Heller and Michael Holtz.