Opinion THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2010
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
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Every time I hear someone walking down our hallway, I'm afraid it might be my roommate. I hate her with a burning passion.
I just shouted peace and nothing happened.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
This macaroni and cheese takes artificial orange to a whole new level.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
Watching the Olympics is seriously hindering my ability to be productive.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
Online dating was such a bad idea.
Join the Facebook group "I bet KU can reach 100,000 fans before Mizzou," because they are beating KU by about 3,000 fund.
I have better things to do with my life instead of joining a pointless facebook group.
So it turns out you can bleach your skin with hair bleach. Ooops.
Is it sad that the KU Alert text was one of the only ones I have gotten all day, and I was excited to get it?
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
You want a toe? I can get you a toe. There are ways, dude. You don't want to know about it, believe me.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
West Philadelphia born and raised
Come on, you're being very un-dude.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
Johnny Weir is looking extra fabulous tonight.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
Lindsey Vonn, can I be your male version of a mistress?
I'm a snob when it comes to werewolves.
The Anti-Christ is inconspicuous.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
I thought this was a college town. How is no one down for a Taco Bell run?
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
The Oread has officially been initiated.
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
I only realized how addicted to porn I was when I was forced to go without it and had to create my own fantasies
--lawrence's lack of a public curbside pickup service for recycling makes this very important task a burden. Despite this inconvenience, students need to do what they can to recycle.
EDITORIAL
Despite inconvenience, students need to recycle
Fortunately, there are options in recycling. Besides taking recyclables to local drop-off sites in Lawrence, privately owned recycling companies provide the much-needed service of curbside pickup for a small monthly fee.
Understandably, it can become a weekly nuisance to have to separate recyclable items, load the car and drive to a drop-off center in this frigid weather. Luckily, the city of Lawrence and the University have been discussing ways to make pickup services more available $ ^{b1} $
The Sustainability Advisory Board recently pitched a plan to encourage curbside recycling by designing an advertising campaign that would inform people about existing services. The Board also suggested purchasing uniform recycling bins for all the private companies.
According to Matthew Lehrman, chair of the Sustainability Advisory Board, the board decided to work with private companies because, under the current budget, the city did not anticipate creating a program of its own.
There are currently six privately-owned curbside businesses. Services range in cost from $15 to $20 per month. The fee can easily be shared between roommates. Students should take full advantage of this service because it offers the chance to be more environmentally friendly.
The University needs to become more proactive when it comes to recycling off-campus and making it as easy as possible for students to do so. Currently, numerous materials are collected in large recycling bins all throughout campus, but a program that would offer a recycling curbside service for KU students would be ideal.
Celeste Heins, program manager for the Environmental Stewardship Program, said that finding the funding for such a program would be hard to come by. She said that improving the drop-off trailer in the west Park & Ride lot, provided by KU Recycling, is the most productive way to move ahead for now.
Another way to rally students to actively recycle would be to make the service available in other types of off-campus living places, not just houses. Popular student apartment complexes such as The Reserve and Legends Place do not provide any kind of recycling
service. In these student-saturated living areas, recycling needs to become one of the amenities provided for residents.
Getting students to embrace recycling programs is the first step. Providing the amenities to be able to do it is another. Students should make an effort to recycle whether it's by splitting the cost of paying a curb-side service or by organizing trips to recycling centers. If students take the initiative to recycle it will make Lawrence that much greener.
Private Curbside Recycling Services:
- Stefanie Penn for The Kansan Editorial Board
Community Living Opportunities (785) 840-9278
Home Recycling Service (785) 979-6633
EDITORIAL CARTOON
Jeff's Curbside Recycling (785) 841-1284 (785) 865-6089 (cell)
Sunflower Curbside Recycling (785) 550-8610
Tree Hugger Recycling (785) 550-6267
NICHOLAS SAMBULAK
POLITICS
Don't declare end of culture war yet
The imagery could hardly have been more striking. The compelling testimony could not have been any clearer. When Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen lent his support to open military service by gays and lesbians on Feb. 2, he breathed new life into the Obama administration's dormant proposal to scrap the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy
Here you had the face of the American military establishment telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that his conscience dictated that repealing the discriminatory policy was simply "the right thing to do." Though this marked a watershed in American military history, it's important to consider the broader social context in which the military's shift took place.
Make no mistake. Social issues such as abortion and gay marriage are fading in prominence. Sure, voters in Maine and California may have repeated state gay marriage laws, but such developments only represent temporary setbacks in the movement toward a more tolerant society. The culture war is slowly but surely coming to an end
A Fox News poll earlier this month found Americans support openly gay service by two to one. A May 2009 Gallup poll found that 57 percent of Americans still oppose same-sex marriage. But that's down a significant 11 percent since 1996.
Among Americans 18 to 29 years old, support for same-sex marriage
The Observer
reaches 59 percent.
the movement toward a less hotheaded emphasis on divisive social issues is best observed, ironically enough, in recent Republican electoral successes. Socially conservative governors were elected in Virginia and New Jersey despite, not because of, their views on moral issues. Bob McDonnell, Governor of Virginia, and Christopher Christie, Governor of New Jersey, instead talked up their economic policies, steering clear of abortion and gav rights.
BY LUKE BRINKER
This trend indicates that appeals to anti-gay sentiment will show diminishing political returns in the years to come.
Scott Brown, the current Boy Wonder of the Tea Party movement, supports abortion rights and has described Massachusetts' same-sex marriage law as a settled issue. Republican Senate candidates in Delaware, Illinois, and California are pro-choice and receptive to gay rights.
Even Ted Olsen, the conservative lawyer who represented George W.
Bush in Bush v. Gore, has teamed up with Gore's former counsel, David Boies, to challenge California's Proposition 8. When Ted Olsen takes a more liberal stance than Barack Obama, who still refuses to stake out a public position in support of same-sex marriage, you know the times are a-changer.
Before rushing to proclaim the end of the culture war, however, it's important to keep things in perspective. First, the culture war has persisted not since the 1960s, as some suggest, but for centuries. Competing interpretations of morality have animated human history. Moreover, it's quite possible that McDonnell and Christie skirted social issues in their campaigns out of a pragmatic calculation that the recession means voters are simply more responsive to pocket-book concerns. Once a sustained recovery takes shape, social issues may reemerge.
And lest we write the obituary of the us-versus-them mentality at the core of the culture war, we need only look to Sarah Palin's address to the Tea Party Convention
"We need a Commander in Chief," the former Alaska governor intoned, "not a professor of law standing at the lectern."
The old warriors aren't finished just yet.
Brinker is a freshman from Topeka in history and political science.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Veterans deserve support
Nothing can sum up the sacrifices made by the brave men and women of the United States armed forces.
It is essential that our nation stand behind our troops, no matter our opinions of the war. An important issue in many veterans' lives is dealing with stress after returning home.
It is hard enough to reach out for help when combating this difficult disorder. Many veterans have an extra disadvantage; they are trained to be tough and to show strength instead of weakness. Because of this "suck it up" mentality, many find PTSD even more difficult to talk about.
As with many mental illnesses, there is frequently a stigma attached to PTSD. Society needs to develop a better understanding and greater empathy for individuals with disorders like PTSD.
The National Institute of Mental Health defines post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as, "an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened."
It is time the government made it a priority to assist our veterans. With President Obama's recent budget proposal, the US Department of Veterans Affairs would receive a much-needed boost in funds. Some of these funds would go toward increased mental health services, which is a step in the right direction.
Kansas lawmakers are considering a bill to allow judges to reduce sentencing for veterans with PTSD who commit crimes and instead direct them to treatment.
This bill completely ignores the fact that, in the majority of cases, the symptoms of PTSD are internalized. The majority of those suffering from the disorder don't commit crimes. In fact, people with PTSD are more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else.
Rights and the Law
BY KELLY COSBY kcosby@kansan.com
According to the Collegiate Veterans Association, there are more than 300 registered veterans at KU. Given the situation in Afghanistan, this number will only increase.
The University also needs to make assistance to veterans with PTSD a priority.
PTSD is difficult enough to tackle without the added stress of earning a college degree. The Association provides a comfortable social group, but the University is behind in terms of resources and services for veterans. For example, the University of Missouri has its own resource center for veterans. This makes it easy for veterans to access services.
At the University, we walk among men and women who have devoted their lives to protecting our freedom overseas. The least we can do is support them when they need our help back at home. Cosby is a sophomore from Overcast
Most importantly, students should communicate to veterans that they do not have to fight PTSD alone. Veterans need to know that if they seek help, the necessary services and support systems will be available.
Cosby is a sophomore from Overland Park in political science.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
This letter is in response to a column: "War on Terror won at American gas pumps," published on Monday, I would rather name it "Oversimplification of global politics."
According to governmentexecutive.com, army suicide rates are now higher than the suicide rate of civilian males in their 20s. This shows the need to focus on funding and resources for treatment for any veteran who needs help with PTSD, not just the few who get tangleled with the law.
I found comments about Saudi Arabia and its involvement in terrorism interesting. Most of these comments were misinterpretations of historical events or outright factual mistakes.
Mr. Lowell went to great lengths to criticize Saudi Arabia, implying that it was using its oil money to fund fundamentalists in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I would request him to provide some evidence of how exactly is the Saudi government currently providing support and money to the militants in the above-mentioned countries.
The actions of a few individuals do not represent the actions of a nation.
During the 80s, Saudi Arabia did fund the Afghan resistance but one should not forget that United States itself was the driving force behind this funding.
If Saudi Arabia is to be blamed for the rise of militancy in the Islamic world, then the United States shares an equal or even greater responsibility.
The author claimed that the Saudi ruling family "proselytized"
the ideology that later became the ideological foundations of terrorism.
The author conveniently chose to ignore that this proselytizing was encouraged and supported by the Americans and used in order to find support within the Muslim world for their covert operations against the Soviets.
The author also failed to observe that Saudi Arabia itself is suffering from terrorism by the same individuals who are threatening the United States.
The author needs to understand that it's not the Salafi ideology as a whole that's responsible for the terrorism but a few extremists within that spectrum who misuse it in order to give religious justification for their actions.
In the last decade, there have been various terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia that have claimed many innocent lives.
Extremists exist within all nations and religions but in other cases we do make distinctions between the extremists and the mainstream elements. Then why in this case is the author inclined to blame the whole nation and its ideology rather than a few individuals?
Kashif Naseem is a senior from Karachi, Pakistan.
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Members of the Kansas Editorial Board are Stephen Montemartier, Brianne Pamnellent, Jennifer Tornite, Lauwen Gurning, Vicky Brown, James M. Brennan, Andrew Hammond, Michael Holtz, Sherlene Penn and Catiln Thornbugh