Opinion

  • A Letter From The New Editor-In-Chief Of The Messenger

    A Letter From The New Editor-In-Chief Of The Messenger

    Hello everyone, my name is Baptiste Raffin, and I am the new Editor in Chief of The Messenger. Before saying anything else, I would like to thank our advisor Mike Humphrey, along with the Student Media Center Board of Advisors for giving me this opportunity. I hope to be worthy of their trust, and to…

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  • My Experience At The JCCC College Expo And World Mythology Event

    My Experience At The JCCC College Expo And World Mythology Event

    This past Wednesday, I went to JCCC’s college expo and World Mythology event. There were around fifty tables featuring various colleges like Kansas State, Emporia, MNU, and many more as well as JCCC clubs and other organizations. 

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  • Opinion: Cuts To Kansas Housing Tax Credits Threatens Affordable Housing

    Opinion: Cuts To Kansas Housing Tax Credits Threatens Affordable Housing

    Removal of these tax credits for the development of affordable housing, despite the high initial cost, will set Kansas back on the long road to account for a substantial housing deficit. If the state legislature aims to resolve this crisis, the reimplementation of tax credits, reevaluation of zoning laws, and changes to eviction filing visibility…

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  • Opinion: Measles Comeback – Kansas Faces Growing Outbreak

    Opinion: Measles Comeback – Kansas Faces Growing Outbreak

    In 2000, the United States declared that measles had been eradicated from the country, but it appears that the virus hasn’t drawn its last breath just yet. After decades of decline, the resurgence of measles earlier this year in Texas has resulted in many health officials raising alarms, and it seems like Kansas is the…

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  • Opinion: My Experience With Campus Cancel Culture In Student Media

    Opinion: My Experience With Campus Cancel Culture In Student Media

    A college, and by extension its student media, should reflect a marketplace of ideas, not a monoculture.

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  • Ogallala Aquifer Depletion Threatens Kansas Farmers

    Ogallala Aquifer Depletion Threatens Kansas Farmers

    Between the Rocky Mountains and under the Great Plains, an invisible crisis has been developing. Since the start of the 20th century, farmers in Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska have relied on the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation. But from the onset, overuse and mismanagement has set the stage for…

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  • Opinion: Keep Transit Free – The Case Against Bus Fares

    Opinion: Keep Transit Free – The Case Against Bus Fares

    Last March, the Kansas City Area Transport Authority (KCATA) announced that it would be cutting 13 of its 29 bus lines. This was announced after the city planned to only allocate $71 million for the KCATA budget, a far cry less from the needed $117 million. On top of the loss of lines, 18% of…

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  • Opinion: Inflation Is The Real Killer, Not Spending Cuts

    Opinion: Inflation Is The Real Killer, Not Spending Cuts

    In an opinion piece titled “USAID: A Murder,” the author criticizes Elon Musk’s significant cuts to USAID funding, presenting them as a moral crisis. However, this emotional perspective misses an essential economic truth: concentrated benefits are obvious, but dispersed costs—like inflation—are a silent killer.

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  • Opinion: Embracing A National Pariah – The Need For DEI

    Opinion: Embracing A National Pariah – The Need For DEI

    Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, also known as DEI, has become the new hot button topic championed by Democrats and decried by Republicans. Initiatives around the country in both the public and private sectors have been gutted, or removed all together. Recently, The Messenger reported that even here at Johnson County Community College the office of…

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  • Put the ‘T’ Back in LGBTQ

    Put the ‘T’ Back in LGBTQ

    The updated NPS site for Stonewall now reads, “Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal, but the events at the Stonewall Inn sparked fresh momentum for the LGB civil rights movement!”

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  • In Support of Raccoons

    In Support of Raccoons

    Lenexa resident Stephen Kaspar, has been on a mission to have Kansas join 20 other states in finally having the right to be able to have these lovable creatures as pets. 

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  • Opinion: USAID — A Murder

    Opinion: USAID — A Murder

    If you’re a particularly empathic person, you could see the good of USAID, providing help to places where there is a need. Now maybe it’s the 13 years of Catholic School in me, but I see helping the less fortunate to be one of the greatest acts any person could make.

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  • Editor’s Note: Four Month Check-In & Open House

    Editor’s Note: Four Month Check-In & Open House

    Editor in Chief Elizabeth Taylor. I was at work when I first got the call from Mike Humprhey and was not able to answer, but when I called him back before I went home for the evening, I was offered the job. At that moment,  I never could have imagined where we would be now. …

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  • Do you listen to jazz? You should

    Do you listen to jazz? You should

    “But I don’t like jazz and didn’t care for the movie Whiplash.” I hear you cry out, incorrectly. Whiplash is a modern masterpiece and jazz comes in all sorts of forms in which I am certain you will find one you love. Don’t believe me?

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  • Opinion: TikTok’s Premature Obituary

    Opinion: TikTok’s Premature Obituary

    Editor’s Note: All Opinion articles reflect the opinion of the writer only, not The Messenger or Johnson County Community College. JCCC students interested in writing for The Messenger’s Opinion page can contact us at themessengerjccc@gmail.com. Today I watched some videos. Some were nonsense conspiracies. Others were videos of Sonic the Hedgehog singing in chinese. Riley…

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  • Election Analysis: The Possibility of Kansas Turning From a Red to Purple State

    Election Analysis: The Possibility of Kansas Turning From a Red to Purple State

    “The Democratic Party and everything that they stand for is so pro abortion, pro homosexual, pro gun control. And I’m a Kansan. We are conservative.” This was the dramatic opening of the 2008 film, “What’s a Matter with Kansas?” and brash as this statement may be, for decades now this is how much of the…

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