Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
United States First Amendment
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Roesler: The new and improved Granada
TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2009
COMING WEDNESDAY
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FREE FOR ALL
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500.
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My ex who cheated and lied to me is now with a girl who is cheating on him. I love when people get what they deserve.
Good morning KU, on this day we become legendary.
I find it funny that people can walk around with all sorts of holes in their bodies but when a guy puts on a kilt to represent his Scottish heritage he gets funny looks.
How's this for ironic: I just passed a girl smoking and wearing an "i heart life" shirt.
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An 8 a.m. class and a 6 p.m.
lab. My Mondays are sooo fun
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Hey Free for All. I called KU Info to find out your number, but they said they had never heard of Free for All.
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Anyone else see a Buddhist monk walking around campus today?
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So I just found out that nacho cheese is made from cheese pudding. I can't decide if that made my day or ruined my life.
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Good morning, star shine! The Earth says "Hello!"
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18 girls, 2 guys. Spanish 212 surks
Baby, I'm amazed by you!
If you don't see a problem with wearing a kilt on campus, then you have a problem.
Why can't I get the courage to ask you out? Damn.
To the freshmen: Yes, teachers here cuss. We're all adults now. It's not that big of a deal.
Dear freshman, learn how to pack into a freakin' bus. We're all trying to get to class. You're not going to get cooties. Thanks.
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Did I really just see a girl wearing Uggs? It's August. Are you kidding me?
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H. A.M.F.R. (he accepted my friend request!)
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First week back in Lawrence and it's already better than my entire summer. God I love this place!
New shelter can't come soon enough
EDITORIAL BOARD
This summer Lawrence Community Shelter moved forward in their search for a new home by announcing they had secured a new location and would start construction soon. The proposed location, in East Lawrence near K-10, will provide more and better organized housing, while allowing LCS to further its assistance of those experiencing homelessness. This is an exciting development in what has been a long and difficult search for a new shelter location. With this momentum toward a forseeable new location, the community should make supporting the shelter a priority.
According to Dianne Huggins, staff member at LCS, the search for a new location was a balancing act, requiring consideration of community support and access to social services. The new location meets many of these requirements. In order to build community support, LCS is working to obtain as much land around the shelter as possible. Loring Henderson, executive director of the shelter, said the goal was to provide "security for the shelter guests and comfort for our neighbors." The new location is located near a bus
ter has added a new wrinkle. LCS has started receiving requests for shelter from families, while previously it almost exclusively housed adults. With the presence of families, Huggins envisioned the new shelter being designed to provide each group, adults and families, their own space. Currently the shelter only has its outside porch and a dayroom for common space, a situation it also hopes to improve by including a specified quiet area, potentially a library or computer room.
route, the main mode of transit for those experiencing homelessness. Important social services, such as the Douglas County-Lawrence Housing Authority or Social Rehabilitation Services (SRS) are also nearby or accessible by bus. In addition, the shelter hopes to bring some healthcare on site through a partnership with the Baker University School of Nursing.
KANSAN'S
OPINION
The most important consideration for the new shelter might be how to house such a large and diverse population. Though plans have always called for a larger shelter, housing up to 100 people, the closure of the Salvation Army shel-
While the summer has been an exciting one for plans, the day-to-day situation for those experiencing homelessness has been difficult.
Plans and designs for a new shelter are an exciting prospect, but are not an immediate solution to the current unacceptable situation of the homeless in Lawrence. LCS officials do not plan to close on the property for a new shelter until Dec.
Overcrowding is now endemic. The shelter employs a lottery system to decide who stays the night. Danny Goodwin, a guest of the shelter, said those who didn't make it in were not able to get dinner at the shelter, and then must sleep outside, usually behind the shelter itself or in the alleys nearby. All of this contributes to an uncertain, stress-filled situation that Goodwin described as "hell."
1. and envision construction taking up to a year. This means at least one winter and summer for a shelter that is already desperately overcrowded. With nearly 20 people seeking shelter being turned away already and forced to sleep in alleys, it is difficult to imagine a better situation as colder weather looms and more people search for shelter. Goodwin suggests that the Salvation Army reopen, at least at night, saying, "Let the families go down there, with the kids." Currently, the Salvation Army has given no signal about reopening, nor has any group, including LCS or the City of Lawrence given any signal about how they plan to get shelter-seeking individuals off the streets and into some kind of housing before winter.
Until a new shelter can be built and occupied, it is imperative that this community take note of this situation and respectfully find a way to house those who need safe shelter.
— Alex Doherty for The Kansan Editorial Board
TO OFFER MONETARY OR VOLUNTEER HELP TO THE LAWRENCE COMMUNITY SHELTER E-MAIL:
DIRECTOR@
LAWRENCESHELTER.ORG
POLITICS
785. 832.8864
NICHOLAS SAMBALUK
Conservative rhetoric proves harmful to health care debate
Although the Economist calls these claims "outrageous" and even the Wall Street Journal labels such rhetoric "over the top," such contemptible nonsense has come to permeate the health care reform debate. Congressional town hall meetings resonate with such base, baseless Palinesque demagoguery. All of this depresses me tremendously, not because I'm in favor of the Democrats' plans to reform health care per se, but depressed that this country seems incapable of having a reasonable debate about the issue, and right-wing hacks such as Palin deserve the lion's share of the blame for this.
Sarah Palin recently waded into the fever swamp of the debate over health care reform, claiming that the government would convene "death panels," government bureaucrats who would determine if baby Trip deserves to live.
I wanted to witness this spectacle of American democracy myself, so a couple of weeks ago I drove up to Holton to Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins' town hall meeting. I crowded into the old stone high-ceilinged Hutchins building
When I got a chance to ask a question, I made the mistake of introducing myself as a University of Kansas student. And I was booed! I didn't realize there was so much hostility in rural Kansas to our town and this University. Maybe this is something that many of you know all too well — that Lawrence has a reputation in certain parts of the state as the proverbial Sodom on the Kaw, brimming with communists and homosexu-
Most of them were more than happy to hear Jenkins frame the Democrats' plans as an expansion of government bureaucracy, depriving hard-working citizens of basic choice in medical care and costing way too much money. One guy described it as "communism" to a sounding round of applause.
adjacent the Jackson County courthouse with a hundred or so fellow Kansans.
als. I am neither, for better or worse, but I still felt that I was gazing out at these people from across vast cultural divide.
I asked Rep. jenkins why we shouldn't support universal coverage of some sort, like any other developed country, and she basically said that most of the uninsured didn't want or didn't need coverage.
But this way of framing the issue belies the basic problem. This country spends thousands and thousands of dollars per capita more on health coverage than anywhere else, and we get far less value for our money.
Even if you don't believe, as I do, that we have a moral imperative to provide decent health coverage to every American, you have to consider the possibility that it is possible to be completely rational and self-interested and still support health care reform.
The health care system must explicitly cover everyone in order to bring down costs and solve this fundamental problem of value.
Thompson is a Topeka senior in economics.
STATE POLITICS
Current Kansas GOP strength a precursor to national revival?
The only event in life that lacks a silver lining is the death of someone important to you. Unfortunately, it is a truth that I have been introduced to all too recently (though my pain pales to those closer to this tragedy, my heart aches more for them than itself).
So right now, death is all I can write about, all I can think about, until I can connect this to something I know — politics. (This transition in no way fairly compares the two.)
But even without holding the cards in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, the Republicans have hope — and I'm not referring to health care as being President Obama's "Waterloo," like Senator Jim DeMint.
At the national level, the Republican Party is in disarray. Out of touch. Out of power. Sarah Palin. Rush Limbaugh. And trips to Argentina. The stench of death seems to be here, too.
I'm referring to the state of things here.I'm talking about Kansas.
Seven years ago a Democratic Governor was elected by a 53-45 percent margin with a Republican-turned-Democrat running mate.
Three years ago the same thing happened. This time by a larger margin (17.5 points) with a former state party chairman — of the opposite party — in the number two spot. More importantly, another switch-over, then-Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison, defeated conservative stalwart Phil Kline, also by 17 percent of the vote.
Kansas Republicans were splitting apart into two different parties, but somehow, some way, they stopped.
This is probably because the conservatives were losing, the centrists were not or maybe
TYLER HOLMES
Regardless, now, after the turmoil, the party stands strong, as Kansas City Star political columnist Steve Kraske reported in June.
U. S. Sen. Sam Brownback is running for governor next year with former Sen. Bob Dole, current colleague Pat Roberts heading his national team and "the last four GOP nominees for Congress in Kansas... in charge of their congressional districts for [his campaign]."
The unity doesn't stop at the top. Republican congressmen Todd Tiahart and Jerry Moran, the state's longest tenured U.S. representatives, are competing to fill Brownback's seat, with a host of smaller office holders stepping up to replace them and a strong majority in the state legislature that's sure to stay that way.
Imagine if the Republicans put such an effort together at the national level.
Kathleen Sebellus' departure and Mark Parkinson's refusal to run offer such an opportunity that they've decided not to screw it up.
It's a stretch, but there's always hope, as long as we live like my friend did — with our priorities in order, an unselfish heart and intense passion (some logic, too).
Great advice for national Republicans, great advice for all of us. That's the only silver lining I can find.
This column is dedicated to the memory of Mark Bosesw.
Holmes is an Overland Park sophomore in political science.
FROM CALIFORNIA
CHRISTINE BROZYNSKI Princeton U. The Daily Princtoni>
Replacing ignorance with some skepticism
It was a dark and stormy night. I heard a noise in the corner. I whirled around and found myself face-to-face with an unidentifiable figure. He was wearing a crumpled suit, a wrinkled tie and a look of piteous desperation.
He leaned in and whispered, "Do you know who got a second-round interview at J.P. Morgan?"
"Second round?" he croaked, his eves fixated on me.
Oh no! I realized with a burst of horror what was standing in front of me: an internship zombie!
Luckily I escaped my encounter alive and well. Not everyone might be so fortunate, however,
for the internship mania is contagious.
Once limited to economics and operations research and financial engineering majors, the hysteria is sweeping across such varied departments as psychology. English and history.
Remember a simpler time when we all used to work at summer camps? No, of course not, the intern zombie has crowded that out of mind with visions of a high-salary future.
For those who would rather avoid the do-or-die approach to internships, I have developed some guidelines that would make Public Safety proud: "How to Avoid Becoming an Intern Zombie."
And there you have it. So good night, sleep tight and don't let the intern zombie bite.
UWire
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