Opinion The University Daily Kansan
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2010
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--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
To contribute to Free For All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
Not having a hangover on a Sunday morning almost makes me consider not drinking anymore. Almost.
I like my lovers like I like my coffee: hot and rich.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
I found a bee hive, a kitty and a lizzard on campus today. Nature!
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
MY FLOOR SHOULD NOT BE VIBRATING. Turn the "Guitar Horn" DOWN
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
Being a virgin in this day and age is something to be proud of. You're like a unicorn!
TGIBS: Thank god it's basketball
60250
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
God I had forgotten how much I missed Allen Fieldhouse.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
Because I can't tell if you like me or if you're just being friendly.
I really miss VHS.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
There was a football game last night? Oh that's right, I've already repressed that
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
Man, everybody's drunk.
I feel bad for whoever has to
read four days worth of FFA
posts from Fall Break.
Editor's note: That's why they pay
me the big bucks.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
I had to leave work early today to move my roommate's pumpkins because they were causing a fire hazard.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
It would have been awesome if when the Chilean miners came out we all pretend to be robots.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
Let's not and say we did.
"Rocky Horror Picture Show" is available to watch on Netflix. This is my night.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
Easy way to get in the FFA:
Dear (personified noun), I
(love/hate) your (common trait
of said noun), please (direct
command) soon. You are
(uncomon adjective)! Insert
Put your shoes on. Your feet are disgusting.
--option for students on West Campus was Mrs.E's and thankfully, the ever-expanding KU campus has now provided quality dining for those who may not want to make the trek to Daisy Hill.
New cafeteria expands services for students
EDITORIAL
For the first time in KU Dining Services history, a cafeteria has found a home on the west side of campus. Up until now, the only dining
and feast. The dining hall is called Mortar and Pestle Cafe, which is named after the tools pharmaceutical workers use. The cateraie offers several food options, as well as a
Beginning Oct.18, Dining Services will provide weeklong specials leading to the dedication of the Pharmacy Building Oct.22.
Don't let the pharmaceutical theme fool you. The cafeteria may be located in the new pharmacy building, but all KU students are welcome to come
Pulse store for soda and coffee
The $45 million expansion of the School of Pharmacy has proved to be a beneficial addition to this University. The funding came from the Kansas government to help meet the
growing demands for pharmaceutical workers in Kansas. The original facilities had outgrown Malott
Hall, and now classrooms on West Campus can accommodate all 150 pharmacy students and non-majors that are interested in taking pharmacy classes.
With the growing role that West Campus is taking in extending what the University has to offer, the cafeteria only improves the value of our University. The large campus that the University possesses will only continue to grow, but it is important to continue to make students on the West side of campus feel apart of the overall Jayhawk community.
CARTOON
— Stefanie Penn for The Kansan Editorial Board
NICK SAMBULAK
RELATIONSHIPS
Social networking cheapens connections, friendships
I've come to the conclusion that Facebook causes more frustration in my life than it provides entertainment. Aside from the occasional catch-ups with old friends and the hilarious textsfromlastnight.com wall posts, Facebook doesn't do much for me anymore.
For a majority of us, Facebook has been a part of our social lives for as long as we've had real social lives. So, we're kind of oblivious to its negative effects it has us.
I think Betty White said it best on "Saturday Night Live": "Facebook just sounds like a drag. In my day, seeing pictures of other people's vacations was considered a punishment. In my day we had a phonebook, but we certainly wouldn't waste an afternoon with it."
Think about it. Without Facebook we wouldn't have to spend an hour "creeping" and comparing ourselves with our ex-boyfriend's new fling (or whoever appears to be his fling based on evidence of recently tagged pictures and flirty wall posts). We wouldn't be jealous of that bitch from high school whose apparently perfect life always makes its way into our newsfeed, forcefully updating us on everything from her summer abroad to her authentic obsession with the "Jersey Shore".
But the problem is that we are used to an unnecessary amount of updates and images of them continue to crowd our social database. It's normal to us to spend countless hours envying lives of people we really don't know (because let's face it: everyone's lives look more fabulous on Facebook;
we're trained to make it look like that).
BY MANDY MATNEY
mmatnew@kansan.com
Like every other mass medium, Facebook's main objective is to make money. Call me crazy, but I don't think Mark Zuckerburg really cares that his website just derailed all of your progress of getting over your ex or that his site absorbs millions of hours that college students could be working on their GPAs. He just wants you clicking on his site and generating more money.
And if the social media world were filled with all blue skies and butterflies, all this over-exposure would be all right. But the culture we're surrounding our online world in isn't a self-assuring one. It's a profit-driven one. And unlike nearly any other social network before it, Facebook collects personalized data of everyone of its users, tracking everything from your music interest to tallying your clicks on a friend.
I used to think it was ironic that my ex-boyfriend would always appear (sometimes together) in the "recommended" tab on the right side of my screen. Until I realized that Facebook keeps record of the people who I have been "in a relationship" with. It would make sense for them to provoke more
activity on the site.
A recent study in observance of Mental Health Week released data at the beginning of the month stating that college students are 17 percent more likely to be depressed now than five years ago.
Call me crazy, but I can't help but blame Facebook for this statistic. College students spend more time on Facebook each year because college students like me continue to routinely visit the site unknowingly get sucked into wasting time and emotional energy entranced by the online community.
Facebook is depressing because the digital documentation of our social lives falsely fills the millennial's cultural need to feel connected and influential. It cheapens communication between us. It weakens the insecure while strengthening the corporate influence and income.
Most importantly, while we spend our hours absorbing information we do not need to know,we are wasting time we could be spending actually participating in our social lives and not distantly observing it from a computer screen.
But I do still see some benefits of Facebook, so I'm not suggesting our culture should diminish its existence. I'm suggesting we start looking at it from a more knowledgeable and less emotional perspective.
Matney is a junior from Shawnee in journalism.
CAMPUS
Humanities remains critical to education
For many students, the University's general education requirements can be a real hassle.
Some arrive supremely confident of just what it is they plan on doing with their education, if not necessarily their lives. Adding extra courses to the required curriculum can mean diversion and distraction.
Of course, the primary justification for mandating that students take courses in a variety of disciplines is that it will prompt them to explore other areas of potential strength. You may still wind up a political science major at the end of the day, but did those three semesters of English really do that much damage?
As compelling as that line of thinking is, it's really not the most essential reason for the University to maintain general education requirements. Common courses in subjects like the humanities and the pure sciences instill various modes of thinking in students - a hard-to-quantify but critical component of the educational experience.
The vast number of "undecided" students clearly benefit from dabbling in different departments. While many colleges impose no general education requirements on their students, figuring flexibility will be much appreciated, such an approach can leave those of undetermined majors feeling directionless. Surely such students need the nudge of some sort of standard curriculum.
That's why it's so troubling to read of the recent action taken at the State University of New York at Albany. Facing budget shortfalls, the university axed various programs in the humanities – always the prime target when schools are looking to make cuts. In turbulent economic times, the argument goes, it's more important to support instruction in the principles of business than the ethics of Aristotle.
Politics on Campus
While humanities programs at the University are not imminently imperiled, the impending withdrawal of federal stimulus funds is sure to spur scrutiny of areas to trim. Slashing support for the
BY LUKE BRINKER brinkerkanan.com
humanities would represent the triumph of small-minded, short-term thinking.
The practical skills one acquires from an applied science course are not to be discounted. But to claim that they are any more crucial to a quality education is woefully misguided. Philosophy, literature, art, history and music foster creative minds attuned to the diversity of human thought, potential, and character.
Such cultivation is no less important to the aspiring corporate leader than to a budding academic. Indeed, amid a crisis fueled by a go-go ethos of greed, malfeasance, and neglect of the long-term, the importance sensitivity to ethical and moral values has only been compounded.
In Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", Emma is undone by the unattainable notions of happiness she has developed from reading romantic novels. Ironically, though, Flaubert's book underscores why we need a populace that reads. His insights into human nature and the nature of happiness not only make for stimulating classroom discussion; they're tremendously relevant to how we approach our daily lives and relations with our fellow human beings.
Fewer and fewer students are undertaking a humanitiesbased course of study. But although there's much to be said for majoring in, say, English or history, it's most critical to ensure that in the face of tough choices, students from other disciplines are not deprived of the richness of the humanities. Even if that required two-semester sequence of Western Civilization initially triggers eye rolls.
Brinker is a sophomore from Topeka in history.
Chatterbox Responses to the news of the week on Kansan.com
"The theory of evolution is not dependent on faith. People need to stop saying that. The basic mechanism is demonstrably true and can be shown in a laboratory setting (microevolution.) The remaining evidence is found in fossil records and existing relationships between organisms using molecular techniques. There is no evidence that it is untrue. People who question evolution say there isn't enough evidence, but they willfully ignore it or think there should be more. You can't PROVE a theory true. However, you can disprove a theory with just one publication. Where's the evidence against evolution? And no, the idea of irreducible complexity etc. is not evidence. What experiments have been done to disprove evolution?"
— "conernm" in response to "Evolution should be litmus test for public office" on Oct. 14.
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CONTACT US
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Alex Garsion, Nick Gerik, Erin Brown, David Cawthrop, Jonathan Shorman and Shauna Blackmon.
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