Opinion
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.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2010
T
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--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
A fellow student of mine got up and taught my math class drunk. #epic
I think the horoscope is biased against me. Today is a 5 when everyone else is having a fantastic day.
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
I stretched today before getting on my bike to come to campus, just so that I could procrastinate an extra minute or two.
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
I like Viki and she likes me back! And, she showed me her boobies, and I like them tooil
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
You know how long it takes a monkey to eat a banana without peeling it first?
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
Last night there was a long conversation in my room over all the orgasms we've had. I love my roommates.
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
Gimme your tots!
Ain't no party like a Liz
Lemon party, cause a Liz
Lemon party is mandatory!!
These new facebook pages make it more difficult to creep. WHAT THE HELL!
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
If the moon were made of spare ribs, would ya eat it?
Screw the freshman 15, I made it to the freshman 40.
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
There may or may not be a monster in me trying to eat its way out alien style ... just saving
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
The sign of a good night:
You wake up the next day
looking like Kesha.
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
Just bought glow-in-the-dark stars for my room. Be jealous!
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
But someone will steal my shoes
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
The call number on the Bob Marley biographies in the KU library system is 420. How ironic is that?
--despite numerous complaints by student residents. McColum
If I ever see the guy from the State Farm commercials, I'm going to punch him square in the mouth.
EDITORIAL
McCollum Hall problems not getting any better for students
Hall remains in less-than-pristine condition, with no chance of renovations until the year 2013.
In October, one of the worst incidents in McCollum Hall was reported to The University Daily Kansan regarding a resident who opened his door to find water flowing out from the ceiling in his dorm room. In that case, only a few of the resident's belongings were found to be salvageable.
While this circumstance seems to be the one of the worst accounts, other residents have reported similar issues. Many residents have said that because
of the building's consistent leaky pipes, mold has grown in their dorm rooms. One resident who found mold in their room said the maintenance staff fixed the moldy pipes by placing duct tape on the pipe, putting a foam insulator over it and painting the insulator white. Once the pipe continued to leak, maintenance placed a bucket under the leak. Now, possibly as a result of breathing in the constant mold, the student has suffered from respiratory infections that the student's doctor said might have been brought on by the mold and bacteria.
More consideration definitely needs to be paid to these problems, but unfortunately, McCollum Hall is the last residence hall to be renovated on Daisy Hill. In the meantime, we call on the Department of Student Housing to allow a third party to perform an environmental/health inspection and to release the results to the public.
More particular attention should be made to the largest dorm, which houses up to 900 KU students. Fixing the dire problems and investing in repairs for such a large portion of the student community is a necessary step student housing should take very soon.
Stefanie Penn for the Kansas Editorial Board
CARTOON
SKEPTICISM
MARIAM SAIFAN
Science not always used for good
In 1893, among the hundreds of exhibits at the World's Fair in Chicago, were
exhibit dedicated to the study of anthropometry, the physical measurement of humans.
The exhibit detailed a method used to identify criminals from a witness' account based on body dimensions — things like height, finger length, and shoulder width — that at the time proved an effective method for obtaining more accurate detail of perpetrators than what before had only been a vague description. Photos of criminals were grouped according to their physical characteristics, allowing a better system of cataloging their record
The system was useful in the identification of previous offenders and cleared the name of many falsely accused men; there was, however, a more insidious quality to anthropometry.
The scientific basis for claims like Morton's is completely unfounded, but the purpose of such studies was not truly for the sake of scientific inquiry and to better understand the natural biology of humans; rather, they were performed by one group of people to justify the mistreatment of other human beings by demeaning them biologically inferior.
Although the display at the World's Fair concerned the measurements of a single person that were restricted to that individual, anthropologists as early as the 1770s had used differences in the size and shapes of skulls to identify and catalog people of different races. In the mid-19th century, Samuel George Morton hypothesized that the skulls of white Europeans had the largest interior capacity and could therefore contain bigger brains, supposedly lending caucasians the greatest intelligence of all races.
If it had been found that an entire spectrum of people was somehow naturally less equipped intellectually to make appropriate decisions for themselves, then
by the researchers' opinion, it would only make sense that those who were well equipped should have authority over them.
In Morton's time, establishing a scientific basis for superiority made it much easier to defend the obviously immoral policies of colonialization and slavery that had both begun to come under serious ethical opposition as the 19th century progressed. Scientific racism continued to be an area of serious study even into the 1930s and '40s when Nazi Germany used pseudoscientific rhetoric to employ and rationalize the heinous atrocities committed against those groups deemed inferior to the regime's ideal racial standards.
BY ANDREW HOLTZEN
Even the 1990s saw the publishing of two highly inflammatory books dealing with IQ and race: "The Bell Curve" and "The g Factor: General Intelligence and Its Implications." The "g Factor," written by Chris Bran, proposed that general intelligence (the "g" in "g Factor") was strongly influenced by genetic factors and was lower than average in certain groups (particularly blacks). The book was widely discredited upon its release in the UK due to the author's documented racial biases and support of eugenics, but, most importantly, unsound scientific reasoning. "The Bell Curve," which is often compared to and generally regarded as a better piece of scholarship than g Factor, presented as part of its thesis that genetics and its habitability played a large role in the difference between IQ scores among ethnic groups in the U.S. (black Americans usually score lower than white Americans, while Asian Americans usually score higher than whites). Much of the criticism of "The Bell Curve"
relates to critics',
like Steven Jay
Gould, opinion
that the book
violates the
logical fallacy
of correlation
without causation;
that is, although
race correlates
with IQ, it does
not mean that a
lower IQ score is due to a group's biological difference from another, but could be caused by any number of social factors.
Other critics like Robert T. Carroll, assert that too much is vested in IQ altogether, and that something as complicated as intelligence is difficult to quantitate accurately. The proposed relationship between human physical classification and intelligence has proven a perfect example of the possibility of science to be used beneficially or detrimentally.
In one instance, being able to classify a person based on physical characteristics proved useful as in the example of anthropometry of criminals, but when the genetically determined physical characteristics of an entire group of people are extended to include something intangible like intelligence and permit the assertion of dominance, the misuse of science becomes apparent.
In the United States, where minorities experience disproportionate economic woes, a falsely perceived racial connection to low IQ scores and the poverty that strongly correlates with them would allow the unscrupulous to remove responsibility from society and place it on nature.
In the words of Charles Darwin,
"If the misery of our poor be
caused not by the laws of nature,
but by our institution, great is our
sin."
Holtzen is a junior from Fayetteville, Ark., in chemistry and Spanish.
PERSONAL RIGHTS
TSA trying wrong techniques to protect passengers safety
The time around Thanksgiving is the busiest travel time in the
country. After hearing about the new TSA "pat-down" procedures, I was a little scared about traveling. Luckily, I just walked through the machine. A TSA agent explained to a man behind me that he would be feeling the inside of his thighs and sensitive areas with the back of his hand. This is completely unnecessary, unconstitutional and doesn't keep people any safer.
I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't want to be sexually assaulted by anyone, let alone a TSA agent. And why should you? The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. In a CNN article, CNN employee Rosemary Fitzpatrick was randomly picked for the pat-down. She explained that "a female screener ran her hands around her breasts, over her stomach, buttocks and her inner thighs, and briefly touched her crotch."
The problem here is that she, and every other traveller, cannot do anything about it if they want to fly. If this behavior were done anywhere else, it would constitute being thrown in jail. This new TSA rule legitimizes sexual assault. The last time I checked, a pat-down didn't involve being inappropriately touched.
Each passenger of El Al Airlines is individually interviewed and scrutinized by highly trained security officers. They are trained to specifically
If anyone condones this behavior claiming that it is for security reasons, then they are absolutely out of tune with reality. Consider how the safest airline in the world, Israel's El Al Airlines, conducts its security measures.
BY SETH ROBINSON
robinson@kansan.com
read body language and analyze a passenger's intentions by asking sets of questions. This interview process can be lengthy or short. If necessary, they will go entirely through a passenger's bag. There are also air marshals on every flight that are disguised as normal passengers, yet they have guns to use in case of a terrorist attack on the flight. They are the safest airline in the world, and they don't require passengers to be sexually assaulted before getting on a plane.
President Obama agrees that these new "pat-down" procedures are necessary for our security. He even told Barbara Walters in an interview that, "If there was an explosion in the air that killed a couple of hundred people ... and it turned out that we could have prevented it possibly ... that would be something that would be pretty upsetting to most of us — including me." If this were sincerely the case, then we should try doing what El Al Airlines does. I guarantee that if President Obama, the First Lady, or Nancy Pelosi had to follow these same procedures, the new "pat-down" procedures would be quickly eliminated. These new procedures don't apply to them, so everything is great and dandy.
Here it is, the grope and change we wanted!
Robinson is a civil engineering major from Houston.
Responses to the news of the week on Kansan.com
Chatterbox
"I find it interesting that Big 12 fans (mostly in the North division) have no real resentment towards Missouri (for starting the whole "leaving the Big 12" thing in the first place) or for Colorado, who actually left first. No, it's just "Blame Nebraska." They're the big jerks that killed the Big 12. So, then, just why is it that it's no big deal for a Missouri or a Colorado team to leave, but it's practically the end of the world ifNU does?"
—“lwrennie212” in response to “Sooners' victory one for the Big 12” on Dec. 6.
However, there may be a link between smoking in bars and money spent on booze.
"So can you tell me what qualifies the current resident in the white house? If not then your whole article is a mistake."
When there is a toxic amount of fumes in the air, one needs more libation to provide relief to a throat which is being ripped up. All that hacking and coughing means the body needs more liquid to quench an artificially induced thirst.
"I support public smoking bans. I didn't buy the arguments that it would force bars to close.
Maybe bars should clean carpets (you know with a beating stick) to foul the air.
Oh wait, dust is toxic according to the EPA. Point retracted. Sorry to waste your time."
— "Conserve" in response to "Show doesn't qualify Palin for presidency" on Dec. 5.
—"Metacognition" in response to "Local bars adjust sales tactics" on Dec. 5.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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