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TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2014
TEXT FREE FOR ALL
Text your FFA submissions to (785) 289-8351 or at kansan.com
Snow in April, time for everyone not from Kansas to break out and for those from Kansas to forget this happened in May last year.
Is my horoscope still valid if it talks about Pluto? Since, you know, we decided it wasn't a planet in '07.
Spelt is a grain. Not a flower.
Spring is here!
Aaaaaannnd its gone.
Does the FFA accept picture submissions? If so, I'd like to send a lot of silly cat pictures.
The flags haven't flown atop Fraser now for four days. What gives? Campus isn't campus without them.
My only complaint about my textbooks is that their covers are too far apart.
Nerd fighter here. I would love a KU
nerd fighter group. DFTBA
When it comes to getting things off of high shelves, you can either jump or climb. Peronally, I choose the ladder.
The awkward moment when the journalism major researched his science story better than the biology major.
It's not fair that the high schoolers here for junior day look older than me!
To the fratters who like to pee outside the scholarship halls Wednesday through Saturday nights, we see you. There are lights.
Campus in the spring though
Dear freshmen! Park & Ride skips Daisy Hill!! So please do not make the bus driver stop due to your stupidity!
Just had my first rare "random basketball player sighting" - Hey, Perry Elisi!
This week in Kansas all the weather!
Hey while we re banning smoking on campus, can we ban too much perfume?
Got a ticket on daisy hill and it felt like what I imagine getting shot on a broken foot would feel like.
If you're going to make our campus ugly by smoking, at least throw away your cigarette butts.
I got to the 1024 tile in 2048 once... That was pretty exciting.
it was really unfortunate that I had to dig my coat out of the closet this morning.
DIVERSITY
Ethnicity and gender don't matter in farming
My alarm goes off. I roll out of bed and pull on the farm clothes I laid out the night before. Quietly, I tiptoe outside and sit on the front steps. Marissa, my black labrador, curls against my side, resting her head on her paws. I wrap the blanket that I brought around us and we watch the sun rise over the country hills.
I am a farm girl. Being a farmer is not a piece of cake. You get beat up a little and end up with bruises all over your body. Sometimes you come home so tired that you fall into bed without dinner. Farming has taught me that life isn't just handed to you. You have to work, sweat and bleed for every little thing you get.
Farming is a challenge itself,but being a farmer.
a minority and woman is a whole different realm. During summer harvest, my ma and I are the ones in charge of getting food during the lunch breaks. I remember one time standing in line to buy drinks. A few migrant workers were in front of me. They looked back at me curiously, their large eyes taking in my dusty jeans and worn boots. I looked back at them from under the bill of my cap and we nodded at each other, sensing an agricultural connection. Maybe they thought I was a migrant worker like them. Or maybe they were surprised to see another person of color in such a small town. I don't know. But they were apparently surprised to see a girl just as dust-caked as they were.
As a farm girl, you have to endure hoots and cat calls from young, male farmers. Women are always viewed as the weaker sex, no matter how many bushels you harvest, no matter how many times you get bucked off a horse. You're seen as weaker, and always will be.
Being a person of color makes life in general tougher, but it's especially tough in farming. My family has experienced racism in farming for a long time. We were enslaved and beaten to raise crops that weren't even
our own. Once free, we were given rough ground that was hardly fit for crops. We had our homes and fields burned down. Whenever the cattle broke out of the fence, it was always tense; it meant that the white farmers and the black farmers had to work together.
But farming showed me how to do things that most people don't know how to do. I can drive a tractor, work the field, drive a four-wheeler, load and shoot a gun, corral cattle and shoot a bow and arrow.
So coming to Lawrence was a bit of a culture shock. The ideas of farming are different here and I'm never mistaken for a farmer. Some are even shocked by the existence of black farmers — yes, someone actually asked me that. But one thing
I noticed was that farmers have a bigger influence than most people know. They are the ones who helped put that hamburger on your plate. They sweated for that piece of bread that you're eating.
Skin color doesn't matter. The land doesn't know if a white or non-white farmer plowed the soil. The crops don't know the color of the farmer. The sweat rolling down our backs doesn't know. Also that steak doesn't know the difference. In the end, it just tastes mighty good.
Crystal Bradshaw is a freshman studying English.
Music complements rather than contradicts religion
If you come from a religious tradition like mine, you've probably at one point or another been told that music is sinful. There was a time in my life when I promoted such an idea, believing that music led to sin and distracted me from God. I even packed up my violin, intending never to play it again for the sake of pleasing God.
Thankfully, a few years later I finally started listening to music again. I simply could not make sense of what I was supposed to believe about music when it had always been such a positive thing in my life.
The first assumption we should make about music is that it's inherently good, not sinful. Actually, I've heard how it can be the exact opposite of sinful or anti-religious. There are many musicians out there that prove my point that music is not only good, but can be quite appropriate for religious expression. And by this, I don't mean to invoke what we normally call religious music such as Gospel or Gregorian chant; religiously-themed music can find voice in the very genres of music that I was once told were inherently sinful.
Matisyahu is a Jewish musician known for blending reggae and hip-hop with spiritual and social messages. His newest album is called "Akeda" referring to the Biblical story about Abraham's binding of Isaac. Biblical
references are intertwined with lyrics about modern life. In "Reservoir" he sings "I'll keep struggling/Like Joseph/ My brothers wanna sell me out/ I had a dream/ Time to leave the doubt." These words put spiritual meaning behind personal experiences of betrayal, then contrasting that with our ability to dream, a prophetic gift to realize our lives anew.
Yusuf Islam, known as Cat Stevens prior to his conversion to Islam, dropped his musical career for 25 years, but in 2006 he picked up his guitar again and released his album "An Other Cup." Similar to Matisyahu, his music is introspective and spiritual, beautified with religious imagery.
His song "The Beloved" celebrates Prophet Muhammad as a mercy to mankind, singing: "He was born to be the beloved/ A will of the Divine... born to be kind... his mercy stretched from East to West/ To every man, woman and child." On the strings of his guitar, Yusuf paints a picture of Islam's message of mercy and love that is much needed in a world that seems to pay more attention to the violence and extremism associated with the faith.
Another notable religious musician is Ani Choying Drolma, a Buddhist monk, known worldwide for her chants and devotional music. In a Huffington Post article she spoke about how important music is to Buddhist practice, reminding me of both Matisyahu and Yusuf's faith-inspired musical careers. However, all three break tradition to address the contemporary world.
For Drolma, recreating tradition through newer styles of music means collaborating with other musicians, showing by example how Buddhism is every bit at home in the world as it is in her monastery. A.R. Rahman, the musician behind the music for "Slumdog Millionaire," included Drolma in one of his newer songs called "Zariya," to which she adds her meditative voice.
For Matisyahu, Yusuf and Drolma, music is inherently good, even to the point of it being holy. What strikes me about these three musicians is how their three religious traditions can be translated into today through contemporary musical styles. They affirm that our own spiritual and religious identities never have to be compromised when we bring music into our lives. And they certainly encouraged me to brush the dust off my violin.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Garrett Fugate is a graduate student from St. Louis studying architecture.
Internet the new 'Wild West' of info
Let's shatter the Facebook business model. The Internet is a hunting ground for personal information and targeted advertising and it's time for the consumer to change.
Last week's scolding by Derek, a Resident Assistant at the University of Connecticut, went viral. Some regular Joe Shnoe jerk trended on Twitter, pushed me to watch the whole championship game and certainly got his dorm room egged — if not anything worse.
The lesson that I took from Derek is that it's definitely time to start cutting back how much information I let go online. From sending emails to liking Facebook pages, the more of myself that gets out there the more I put myself at risk. Not that I'd ever pull a Derek, but I sympathize with him — if only a little.
I used to believe vehemently that the responsibility to hold and protect information lay in the hands of the companies that gathered it. I dumped that naive idea into the garbage pretty quickly. The Internet is the modern Wild West, and the regular consumer is at the mercy of pretty much anyone with a dial-up connection.
Services like Facebook, Twitter and Gmail have become central to our everyday lives. These websites have evolved from fads to a cultural foundation. And since the companies that run those services care more about the stockholder than the potential for identity theft, it's time for us as customers to adapt.
Lawmakers considering regulation of these services find themselves caught
between two equally passionate camps. Lobbyists don't want to risk the information harvest business model and the most diehard Internet users want to preserve anonymity and free Internet usage for as long as possible.
Until the majority of Congress is made up of people who have a clearer understanding of the Internet, aka younger crowds, I won't count on them.
In the end, I've relegated Facebook to a simplified email account for organizing school clubs and messaging friends with only the most innocuous content. I've already sold my soul to the advertising devil with more than six years on the site, but some damage control is better than none.
I'm not advocating everyone evacuate the web. I'm recognizing that every byte of content I create and consume is being used to profit off of me. Companies are the ones swooping and selling my information and the government couldn't care less, so now the only realistic option is to back out.
I'll stick to my guns unless that Nigerian prince emails me again; he sounded desperate.
Wil Kenney is a sophomore from Leawood studying English.
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
Do you ever worry about how much social media sites know about you?
Follow us on Twitter @KansanOpinion. Tweet us your opinions, and we just might publish them
ransandUnion I do sometimes. From social media, I go from a feminist to a woman throwing herself at the feet of One Direction. #NoShame
@ErikaNorthcutt
@SieARose
KansanOpinion the NSA knew it all before Facebook,not worried
HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
LETTER GUIDELINES
Send letters to opinion@kansan.com. Write LETTER TO THE EDITOR in the email subject line.
@Geegs30
Katie Kutsko, editor-in-chief kkutsko@kansan.com
Allison Kohn, managing editor akohn@kansan.com
Lauren Armendariz, managing editor
larmendariz@kansan.com
Length: 300 words
The submission should include the author's name, grade and hometown. Find our full letter to the editor policy online at kansas.com/letters.
Anna Wenner, opinion editor
awnenner@kansan.com
Sean Powers, business manager
spowers@kansan.com
Kolby Botts, sales manager
@KensanOpinion Yeah. I'm also worried who they share that info with. We've got work to do regarding online privacy law here in the US.
Koiby Botts, sales manager kbotts@kansan.com
CONTACT US
Brett Akagi, media director and content strategist
bakagi@kansan.com
Jon Schitt, sales and marketing adviser
jschitti@kansan.com
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Katie Kutiek, Allison Koen, Lauren Armendariz, Anna Wenner, Sean Powers and Boly Kotbs.
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