WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2012
PAGE 5A
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Just sitting in Watkins makes me feel sicker
Dear boy sitting in front of me in Geography playing Legend of Zelda: want to find my tri-force?
Sometimes when I'm bored during a lecture I just picture my professor bald. Male or female, its entertaining every time.
When you're halfway through the day and you realize your undies are on inside out, do you switch them?
Kevin Young shouldn't be allowed to be in my class, he's just too distracting.
Every time I have a class in Malott. I am just hoping to get a hazmat alert for evacuation.
Hey angel face, next time try buying a whole shirt.
I promise the library printers aren't that hard to use. You just have to be smart.
My roommates and I are starting a collection of guys clothes we've acquired throughout the semester. I love my roommates.
I received a statement in the mail last week from my insurance company thanking me for choosing paperless billing.
Finals week is approaching and people are starting to get that look in their eyes. The look of someone whose soul is about to break.
Just realized the only time I voluntarily take out the trash is when I'm procrastinating from doing big school projects.
There are 12 Schol Halls, and 12 districts. Time for the 76th annual hunger games!
The Hawk should invest in a photo booth in the Boom-Boom Room. One dollar a picture and that thing would pay for itself.
Finals are here. That means that the return of "no pants studying" is finally back.
I wonder if a receptionist at a sperm bank has ever used the phrase,
"Thanks for coming!"
Dear self flushing toilet: I wasn't done yet.
I don't care if he's dressed in pastel head-to-toe, I love when a man holds open a door for me.
When I see the ice cream man I grab my pepper spray.
Yes, I will dance on campus to my music. You should try it sometime.
I don't care how hot you are. There is such thing as your dress being too short. It's not cute to see that much
If you mosey down the wrong side of the sidewalk, dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family! Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow!
Buffett Rule won't affect US deficit
POLITICS
President Barack Obama has made raising taxes on the very rich a central theme of his reelection campaign, at least partly in preparation to run against one of the very rich, Mitt Romney. The primary means President Obama has pushed to tax the rich at higher rates has become known as the "Buffett Rule." The Buffett Rule refers to ensuring that the rich pay their fair share of taxes and ensuring they do not pay less in taxes than the middle class. The threshold level Obama has set for the tax rate on millionaires is 30 percent.
The Buffett Rule has taken the form of legislation in the Paying a Fair Share Act. The bill was introduced in the Senate by Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat Senator from Rhode Island. The bill effectively takes President
Obama's proposal and makes it law, incorporating a 30 percent effective tax rate phased in on those with adjusted gross incomes between $1 and 2 million, and applicable to all making more than $2 million. The bill does allow for deductions for charitable contributions, seeking to still incentivize the rich to give to charity. Sen. Whitehouse said making the rule law would ensure millionaires "pay a fair share no matter what loopholes or special treatment lawmakers add to the code in the future." While the bill was blocked in the Senate by the Republicans, according to Sen. Charles Schumer, the Democrats still "think we can pass something."
President Obama has claimed numerous benefits for instituting the Buffett Rule tax policy, includ
By Matthew Nygaard
mnygaard@kansan.com
ing deficit stabilization. Last fall he claimed the Buffett Rule tax could "raise enough money to stabilize our debts and deficits for the next decade ... this is not politics; this is math." Just last week President Obama again claimed implementation of the rule would help close the United States deficit.
However, this claim is not actually true. Implementing the Buffett Rule would have virtually no effect on the United States deficit. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation the rule would only raise $47 billion over the next ten years. Now, this sounds like a large sum, until you consider the United States national debt ($15.6 trillion) and the projected
deficits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the national deficits will amount to $6.4 trillion in just the next ten years. At that rate it would take collecting from the rule for 1,360 years to pay for ten years of projected deficits.
President Obama also overstates the effect the Buffett Rule would have on the rich's effective tax rates. The Congressional Research Service found the average tax rate among millionaires to be close to 30 percent, with about a tenth of millionaires paying above 35 percent and about a tenth paying below 24 percent. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 35 percent of millionaires would pay higher taxes than they do today. While implementing the Buffett Rule would effect some millionaires' taxrates, the evidence shows the
tax rates are already close to what would be required.
The misleading nature of President Obama's comments concerning the Buffett Rule is disturbing. While it may be a prudent political decision to discuss such policies, there is also a duty for politicians to not mislead their constituents, especially the President. President Obama should stop claiming the Buffett Rule would deal with our deficit or debt problems and candidly admit only comprehensive tax or entitlement reform (or both) can adequately address this issue. Honesty is something we could use more of from our politicians and who better than the President to take the lead.
Nygaard is a third-year law student from Appleton, Wis.
MOVIES
ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN BENEDICK
Judging the summer's movies before they open in theaters
As the year winds to a close and thousands of students get ready for graduation, many of us have only one thing on our mind: pre-judging upcoming movie releases and then making catty remarks about them. Truly, it is my favorite past time. Whether I'm gushing about how good the newest James Bond movie is going to be or rolling my eyes as hard as I can at "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," nothing makes me feel alive like when I offer opinions on movies I haven't even seen. So, join me as I take a look at the year's upcoming films.
MAY
The Avengers (May 4) — Even if "The Avengers" didn't look, scientifically speaking, super awesome, I would still be excited that Marvel is following through on this long-awaited sequel to its many superhero movies. While DC hasn't produced a decent non-Batman superhero movie in over three decades, Marvel is delivering a movie that comic book nerds would have laughed off as impossible ten years ago. If nothing else, this movie will at least give us a lifetime supply of Sam Jackson saying awesome things while wearing an evenpatch.
Battleship (May 18) - While everyone immediately thought it was a stupid idea to make a movie out of the board game "Battleship", I don't think anyone counted on it being this ludicrous. While the game featured bored youths reading numberletter combinations to each other, the movie features aliens blowing up airfields with crazy metal balls and Rihanna talking about her grandmother. I can't even
make a judgement call on this because I'm still not 100% the whole thing isn't a fever-dream I had.
JUNE
Prometheus (June 8) — Ridley Scott's newest addition to the "Alien" franchise is highly anticipated and if it doesn't deliver on the hype, I think we have to all agree to stop saying Scott is a great director. He made two great films ("Alien" and "Blade Runner") and has been coasting on those successes ever since. Seriously, does anyone remember how terrible "Body of Lies" was? Really terrible, that's how.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22) - The recent popularity of nerd culture and comic book movies has been a double-edged sword. While it delivered big-budget, exciting adaptations like "The Dark Knight Rises" or "The Avengers," it has also allowed schlock like "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" to be produced.
Like last year's "Priest" or Finland's "Iron Sky," "Vampire Hunter" promises to be a highly-stylized, off-the-wall, action movie that also manages to look incredibly boring. I can't really get into more depth here, but I'll probably complain about it a lot on Twitter (@LouSchu) this summer, so stay tuned!
JULY
AUGUST
The Dark Knight Rises (July 22) — It's a Batman movie. What do you need, a map?
The Expendables 2 (Aug 17) — Now with Chuck Norris! Listen, I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but I feel like we've lost sight of who Chuck Norris is. Chuck Norris has always been pretty lame and then people made the "Chuck Norris facts" website, which featured over the top "facts." Part of the joke of these was how lame Norris was in real life, but at some point people forgot that and now we're apparently excited that the star of "Walker: Texas Ranger" is going to be in a movie. This is a cautionary tale.
SEPTEMBER
Schumaker is a senior in film & media studies and English from Overland Park.
STUDY ABROAD
Finding Nemo (Sep 14) — Pixar is re-releasing "Finding Nemo" in an attempt to make money off of 3D and also to trick me into thinking I've gone back in time. No such luck, Pixar! I'm hip to your game!
Obviously there's many more movies coming out this year, including a new Bond film (exciting!) and a 3D version of "The Great Gatsby" (hold up, what?), but I've run out of room. As the year comes to a close, just remember these two things: it's impossible to judge a movie before you've seen it and the Superman movie coming out next year is going to be terrible.
How 'la dolce vita' gives meaning to home and comfort
W that is it that makes a place feel like home? I've been living in
Italy for eight months now and the thought of going "home" in June is terrifying. Sure, I don't want to leave all this cultural history in Europe, nor do I particularly want to return to American food, but my fear doesn't stem from the thought that I'll never come back to Europe.
Rather, my concept of what I'm going "home" to has drastically changed. Ever since I've managed to make a home out of a completely foreign situation. That "home" at home has become more foreign in itself. I know Kansas has changed. No matter how many times my friends and family claim how eventless their lives are, things are always happening, and I've selfishly been sad about those changes because I don't know how I'm supposed to fit myself back into them.
Instead I've managed to fit myself right into the middle of la dolce vita. It doesn't have anything to do with being a movie star or being so rich that I can fly myts to the middle of Romania and back for fun. La dolce vita for most Italians is about the little things. It's about the little things that you enjoy because you're comfortable enough to do so. I had no idea that I could be so comfortable in a world where I'm not even sure how to say "comfort."
When I come back to my apartment from a trip, I can easily collapse on the couch and fall asleep only to be woken up two hours later with shouts from my roommates about how my dinner is ready. If I make a mess in the kitchen, I can leave it out of sheer laziness and go back to finish later. I am comfortable hanging up all my
By Bernadette Myers bmeyers@kansan.com
underwear on the drying rack in the entrance hallway. I can even talk with my roommates about bowel movements.In Italian.
I used to want to drop raw pasta on the accordion player who plays outside my window every morning at 8 a.m. Now the same four songs he plays on repeat have become the soundtrack to my morning routine, and I can't fall asleep without the frequent shouts from the Irish Pub beneath my apartment.
I'm comfortable in Italy, and what worries me is that the "home" I'll be returning to won't feel as comfortable as I knew it to be. We constantly define home based on the past, what it's traditionally felt like and the memories that preserve that tradition. But as I come home to a place that is already different, I prefer to define "home" as a place that is always changing. Every time we come back to it, something will be different, but the fact that we're comfortable acknowledging and embracing those differences really makes it feel like "home."
The 6-year-old boy who I teach English to is now comfortable enough to pull his pants down in front of me. I don't know if I'm comfortable with it at this point, but his father seems to laugh about it. He is also comfortable enough to write the dirty words he knows while we're doing exercises. I don't tell his dad about that one.
Myers is a junior in European studies and Italian.
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