Daily Kent Stater (2005-2007)
After transferring to the main campus at Kent State University in the fall of 2005, I became a weekly columnist at the Daily Kent Stater. See some clips here.
I worked as a reporter at the Stater for two semesters. As the student-affairs reporter in the spring of 2006, I covered the offices of the bursar, registrar and financial aid. In the fall of 2008, I covered the College of Education, Health and Human Services, which serves 3,000 students. See some clips here.
Commentary
The design of the opinion page was static during the time I wrote commentary for the Stater, and each column was limited to 550 words. The tight word count mandated that I make concise arguments. These columns were written with a bit of zeal, but I feel that the arguments are strong.
No real reason to vote means no one will
Find the original article: http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2006/09/14/Opinion/No.Real.Reason.To.Vote.Means.No.One.Will-2271164.shtml
Some political scientists blame low voter turnout on apathy. Maybe so, but when the top two political parties are fundamentally the same, apathy is understandable.
Both sides of the mainstream punditry — Democrat and Republican – have been preaching that the upcoming November elections could be one of the most important in history. Democrats are looking to capitalize on the current administration’s unpopularity and gain seats in Congress. Republicans are looking to maintain their dominion over all three branches of government. But, as we shall soon see, differences in party affiliation don’t matter. So instead let’s look at differences — or lack thereof — in political policy.
On Sept. 7, the Senate approved the 2007 Defense Appropriations bill, which had a price tag of $468 billion, according to Bloomberg.com. Surely no Democrats – the anti-war party – voted for the bill, right? Wrong. The bill passed 98-0.
Instead of opposing the bill, Democrats used the opportunity to attack the Bush administration. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) said, “What we have is a failure of leadership. What was hailed as our shortest war has now become one of our longest.”
Sen. Kent Conrad (D) of North Dakota said, “Osama bin Laden remains at large and capable of attacking our country again.”
Notice in both of these quotes that the Democrats present no plan to end the unlawful war on Iraq. That’s because they don’t have one. The closest thing to a plan they have come up with is a notion to develop a timetable for withdrawal. But as Democrats try to come up with a feasible plan, U.S. troops are killing Iraqis, Iraqis are killing U.S. troops and Iraqis, trained by the U.S. military, are killing other Iraqis.
So, if you’re against the war on Iraq, who do you vote for? Or do you vote at all?
The war is only one issue on which the Democrats and Republicans overlap. Others include abortion rights, immigrant rights and unwavering support for Israel.
Unfortunately, third parties have little chance in the U.S. political system. The laws favor the two major parties. For instance, candidates in some states have to pay a filing fee of 7 percent of the annual salary of the office for which they’re running. Democrats and Republicans have big party machines to cover these costs, but third-party candidates often have small budgets.
Unless election laws are reformed, we will have no real choice other than the Democrats and Republicans. But being forced to choose between Hillary Clinton and Bill Frist is hardly any choice at all.
Maybe the Democratic party should formally fuse with the Republicans. That way, we wouldn’t have to worry about low voter turnout because we wouldn’t need elections, and no one would be fooled into thinking they are two separate parties. Another benefit would be that the de facto oligarchy of the ruling class in this country would become reality and cause the masses to fight for real change.
Allen Hines is a sophomore pre-journalism major and columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at ahines@kent.edu.
Governor Taft doesn’t score hole in one with finances
Find the original article: http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2005/08/31/Opinion/Governor.Taft.Doesnt.Score.Hole.In.One.With.Finances-1517621.shtml
One would think that with as much golf as Gov. Bob Taft plays, he could avoid the sand traps. But apparently, he still has a big handicap.
On Aug. 17, Taft was charged with four counts of ethics violations, one for each year since 2002. For the past four years, he has filed incorrect financial disclosure statements with the Ohio Ethics Commission. According to the OEC, the purpose of the financial disclosure statements is “to remind public officials of financial interests that may conflict with their duties.”
Taft forgot to report golf outings with officials from Ohio-based companies, such as Nationwide Mutual Insurance and Longaberger. Taft also met with coin dealer Thomas Noe on one of these 18-hole business engagements. In all, Taft failed to report 52 gifts with a total value of nearly $5,800. He has said the omissions in the financial disclosure statements were accidental.
I have an easy solution that would eliminate such accidents: Don’t accept bribes, err, I mean, gifts.
Countless professions have strict ethics codes that prohibit members from accepting gifts. Many journalists take these codes to heart, doing nothing that could jeopardize a story’s credibility. Accepting gifts and doing some routine actions may lead some to suspect bias in stories written by that journalist.
Journalists often like to meet potential sources in person, sometimes at their homes. Out of kindness, many people offer coffee or tea to visiting journalists. The strictest of us politely refuse this offer. A cup of coffee would hardly sway a story, but such a gesture may suggest to the source that forthcoming stories will show him or her in a favorable light.
In the same way, the golf trips Taft has taken may make the officials of the host companies believe they have garnered some sort of favor. This is not only misleading, but also harmful to relations between companies and the state government.
The gifts may have indeed garnered favor for Longaberger and Nationwide. Not only did the companies give Taft a few free rounds of golf, but they also got a chance to bend his ear.
Diebold, another Ohio company, is currently working on voting machines for future elections. Diebold was not involved in Taft’s ethics violation, but imagine the influence the company could have when talking with the governor. Possibilities for impropriety abound. These secret meetings could get Taft to give the company tax breaks. Bribes may even make Taft look the other way while Diebold tampers with voting machines in pursuit of its own political agenda.
The instances above are hypothetical. But there is a handful of companies in Ohio as powerful as Diebold, and each could potentially harm America. To prevent bias when making decisions, politicians should follow rules as strict as those followed by journalists concerning gifts.
Taft, who has been voted the worst governor in the United States, may have messed up again, but I believe all politicians who accept gifts are making mistakes, which could hurt us all.
Allen Hines is a freshman pre-journalism and mass communication major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at ahines@kent.edu.
‘Illegals’ deserve rights, too
Find the original article: http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2005/12/01/Opinion/illegals.Deserve.Rights.Too-1518969.shtml
Conservative talk radio hosts can be laughably ignorant. Like when Lars Larson defends the PATRIOT Act by saying the Founding Fathers would have approved of it. What he doesn’t say is the Founding Fathers wrote the Fourth Amendment, which explicitly states no one is subject to “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Conservative talk radio hosts can also be frustratingly close-minded, as was seen in Jeremy Glick’s interview on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Jeremy Glick lost his father in the Sept. 11 attacks. Glick had signed an advertisement calling the United States a terrorist nation. But when Glick brought this argument to Bill O’Reilly’s show, O’Reilly told him, “I don’t really care what you think.” When Glick persisted in arguing his position, O’Reilly told the show’s production staff to turn off Glick’s microphone.
From time to time, from the lips of conservative talk radio hosts you hear the most ignorant and offensive garbage, and it makes you look at the radio. On Nov. 28, at about 12:30 a.m., I had this experience. Nationally-syndicated radio personality and uber-bigot Mike Gallagher said the United States should pump up security along our border with Mexico to keep “these illegals” out.
First of all, “these illegals” are human beings. They may have immigrated to this country illegally, but we must recognize they are not inferior to naturalized citizens. By calling people who look for work in this country “these illegals,” we dehumanize them.
As President Bush has recognized in his proposal to reform immigration, “these illegals” are vital to the economy. They do the work many Americans don’t want to do.
Bush’s plan would let millions of illegal immigrants gain temporary guest worker status for a fixed period yet to be determined. But at the end of this period, the immigrants must go back to their home country.
Bush’s proposed immigration overhaul is a start to finally give immigrants rights they are entitled to as human beings. They will no longer be subject to the vigilante minutemen who patrol the Mexican border looking for people crossing illegally.
This plan could be amended to allow guest workers to become permanent citizens. Instead of making them go back to Mexico, the United States should extend a hand to immigrants and welcome them to our country.
One of the major arguments against allowing immigrants into the United States is that the immigrants are causing law-enforcement problems and adding to the cost of welfare programs and education. But with Bush’s guest worker program, the government would be able to monitor who comes into the country and weed out those with criminal backgrounds. And once the immigrants are enrolled in the guest worker program, the government could tax the workers’ wages, thus making them pay into the welfare and education programs.
As Harry Reid has pointed out in a letter to President Bush, the United States should “secure economic stability for our neighbors to the south and honor the values of the United States of America as a nation of immigrants.”
Allen Hines is a freshman pre-journalism and mass communication major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at ahines@kent.edu.
News
The first story here has a strong, question-driven lead. The KAPS story showed that a utility to help students track their academic progress is difficult to use, even for the university officials who implement it. The cafe story was important to the readers I served on my beat.
Photojournalist shares thoughts on poverty
Find the original article: http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2007/11/02/News/Photojournalist.Shares.Thoughts.On.Poverty-3074569.shtml
Migrant workers come to the United States to escape extreme poverty by doing the jobs citizens do not want to do, Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times photojournalist Don Bartletti said while showing some of his pictures last night in the Kiva.
Bartletti’s speech was part of the Gerald H. Read Distinguished Lecture Series called “Village Voices in Your Own Backyard.”
“What pushes people out of Honduras? Well, it’s poverty,” he said. “I went to the poorest part of the poorest city of Tegucigalpa into the local landfill, where children compete with vultures for food.”
Bartletti conveyed his ideas through stories of people he followed along their trips to the United States, such as Willy Ramirez. Bartletti said Ramirez’s father convinced him to leave his new wife in Mexico and cross the U.S.-Mexican border in the 1980s to become a farmer. Ramirez took his family to northern Mexico but hopes to someday legally bring them to the United States. Ramirez now speaks English and has become a U.S. citizen.
Bartletti also told the story of a group of migrant workers from Honduras. He followed the story of one boy, Enrique, through the train routes of Mexico. Enrique was trying to find his mother to find out if she still loved him.
Bartletti showed how the boys hid from police under trains so they weren’t captured and told of the unclean water they sometimes had to drink.
Enrique found his mother in North Carolina, moved in with her and found a job as a painter. After finding out everything her son went through to come here, she wished he hadn’t come.
Bartletti’s presentation was sponsored by the Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education and the College of Education, Health and Human Services.
Contact College of Education, Health and Human Services reporter Allen Hines at ahines@kent.edu.
Small change planned to simplify KAPS reports
Find the original article: http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2007/02/19/News/Small.Change.Planned.To.Simplify.Kaps.Reports-2727357.shtml
The Office of the University Registrar is working to change the way majors are labeled in the Kent Academic Progress System.
When students log on to KAPS, which tracks their progress toward attaining degrees, they can select a degree program other than one they have declared. In the drop-down menu where students choose a program, a label is added to the beginning of the actual degree program title. For instance, the Applied Conflict Management program is labeled “A BA ACM – APPLIED CONFLICT MANAGEMENT.”
The proposed labels are added by the program KAPS is based on, which comes from Miami University’s Degree Audit and Reporting System, or DARS. B.J. Brooks, an administrative assistant with the registrar’s office, said Kent State academic rules and policies for degree requirements are added on top of the DARS base program. The base program adds the excess letters to the degree program title.
University Registrar Glenn Davis said his office has asked Miami to fix DARS so it doesn’t add the excess letters to the degree programs.
Many students have found KAPS difficult to use.
During a demonstration, even Brooks, a KAPS specialist, had difficulty adding a class to the Planned Courses function.
The Planned Courses function allows students to figure out the grades they need for future courses and plan which courses to take in subsequent academic terms.
Adding to the Planned Courses involves placing courses into the Course Cart, then selecting the courses and labelling them planned.
Brooks added the course JUS 12000 to the Course Cart but failed to make it planned.
| The Course Cart component of KAPS allows students to put courses into the system to see what they need to graduate and plan what classes to take in the future.
By planning with the Course Cart, students help the university determine course offerings, KAPS specialist B.J. Brooks said. There are a few steps to planning with the Course Cart: |
After working with the system for a few minutes, Brooks left the room to get someone to help her. Together, they figured out the problem.
Brooks said she never uses the Web version of KAPS.
“You have to spend some time with it,” she said. “You really do.”
Davis said there was no problem with KAPS itself, but how it was used.
“(Brooks) attempted to do something that she rarely would do, and that was to interact with the system as a student by using the Web product,” he said.
Davis insisted students must learn to use the system.
“I will agree that this demonstrates how easy it can be for a student to become frustrated with this aspect of KAPS,” Davis said. “Training and frequent use of the system are the keys.”
Davis said his office is willing to make changes to KAPS, but students have to learn how to use it so they can accurately describe the flaws with the system, not operator errors.
The registrar’s office wrote a help file, available on the KAPS Web site, to assist students. The office also offers an e-mail help system.
Davis said he would like to create a frequently asked questions Web page based on student feedback.
“I would say mostly students are confused because they don’t work with it. They don’t like spending time reading the help,” Brooks said. “They don’t spend time reading it, they look at it and, they just don’t use it.”
He said that hearing negative things about KAPS will reinforce students’ aversion to the system.
Davis suggested a contest with awards up to $200 for “students who can articulate the longest list of positives about KAPS and why they are glad they have it.”
Contact student affairs reporter Allen Hines at ahines@kent.edu.
White Hall cafe offers healthier alternative to fast food
Find the original article: http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2007/10/05/News/White.Hall.Cafe.Offers.Healthier.Alternative.To.Fast.Food-3014171.shtml
A new cyber cafe is now an option for the 1,000-plus people who work and take classes in White Hall every day.
The focus of the new cafe is healthier food and smaller portions with a menu of low-fat items, including salads, wraps and other snacks.
“We have smaller cookies that are not as big as your head,” said Greta Siler, director of the cafe. “They’re like a normal-sized cookie in hopes that you’ll have a sandwich, maybe a piece of fruit with it. You’ll have room for it.”
Every item in the cafe has zero grams of trans fat, which, like saturated fat, can cause heart disease.
Siler said she became involved after David England, former dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services, approached Dining Services about creating a place to eat in White Hall. Dining Services suggested the School of Family and Consumer Studies tackle the project. At that point, Siler’s master’s adviser suggested she make it her project.
After two years, the cafe is now open.
“The Health Department came and said everything looked very good, and, actually, they said they were very impressed,” Siler said.
Prices at the cafe are comparable to those around campus. One difference is that smaller wraps cost less. The cafe accepts cash and FlashCash. It does not accept meal plans because it is not part of Dining Services. They also do not accept credit cards to avoid the 5 percent fee on sales.
The cafe also has Wi-Fi and two big-screen TVs.
Siler said all employees are nutrition and dietetics or hospitality management majors. Half are ServSafe certified, meaning they have taken a class and passed a test on safely preparing food.
Fast-food restaurants sit across the street from White Hall, but Siler said she hopes, in addition to the healthier food, a relaxed atmosphere, along with convenience, will attract more customers.
“Most days I go across the street, but today we decided to try this because it was new,” said Lynne Guillot, assistant professor in the Office of Counseling and Human Development Services.
Contact College of Education, Health and Human Services reporter Allen Hines at ahines@kent.edu.
