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FREE FOR ALL
I feel like there is a secret society that delivers the Kansan to the University. You never see it being done after all.
So, I get that you're probably a grad student, which entitles you to as much facial hair as you desire, but it's 80 degrees today.
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351
opinion
You know Chipotle is great when you see an Amish family devouring some burritos!
Why are so many girls walking around with their stinkface on? Smile, you're way more attractive when you smile!
KU basketball: Our deepest fears are not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.
I like to pretend the email from Bill Self was just for me. Yes I will celebrate responsibly, Rock Chalk!
To those of you who think @Fakelet-Withey is a girl, he's not. Met him at the Cave and he's hot!
MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012
My friend was so excited about finally spotting one of the basketball players on campus. I didn't have the heart to tell her that they were already in New Orleans.
I now judge people based on how long I think they'd last in The Hunger Games.
Kansas Basketball: We don't rebuild, we reload!
Just saw a guy sprinting across campus in his boxes. One night stand gone wrong?
Did anyone else see that girl walking through The Underground in what looked like undies? KU Cheeks.
That awkward moment when the garbage goes out more than you.
I'm pretty sure that I used to have a soul. Then I decided to take honors chemistry
My bus driver is whistling. Doesn't he know it's only cool when Dan does it?
Squirrels are much more organized than housing.
It's 6:55 a.m. and we're standing in line at the Superdome. Go Jayhawks!
Hey girl in my math class: putcha shoes on. No, seriously. Put shoes on. It's weird to come to class barefoot.
I know allergy season has begun when
I start feeling like several of the seven
dwarfs at once. I'm Sneezy, Sleepy,
Grumpy and I need a Doc.
Speaking of OCD problems, why does the crossword go past the fold? It ruins my folding routines.
Rebuttal to pastel shorts comment: Bite me. I'm allowed to own one pair of pretty blue pastel shorts.
Smoking laws need to be enforced
Walking in and out of crowded buildings on campus can already be an experience that is less than ideal for some people. When you add smoke filling the air, pouring out of the butts of cigarettes and blown from the mouths of fellow students, the experience becomes even worse.
Smoking laws on campus are not being enforced, at least not in the manner they should be. The policy, according to an open letter from Dianne Goddard, the Vice Provost for Administration and Finance, and the Interim Chief Information Officer on September 10, the
somking policy was changed for the 2010-2011 school year
The policy currently states that smoking is prohibited inside any and all campus buildings, including overhangs, and may not occur within 20 feet of "air intakes." Basically, this means that smoking isn't allowed within a 20 foot radius of any window or door of any building on campus. The policy also states that "smoke must not drift through opened windows or doors."
These laws are not being enforced to the extent that they should be. Outside almost any on-campus building or residence hall, you can see people
right outside the front doors smoking, whether they're killing time between classes or waiting on a bus. These smokers who are not following the rules in place make campus a much less enjoyable place to be.
According to the laws on record, "persons who violate provisions of this law may be guilty of a cigarette or tobacco infraction punishable by fines ranging from $100.00 to $500.00. Individuals may also be subject to appropriate disciplinary action as an employee or as a student for violating the provisions of this University policy."
From non-smokers, as well as those smokers who follow the posted laws, we urge two things.
First, to the smokers on campus: Please follow the guidelines being put in place. These laws are for the benefit of the health of students and faculty on our beautiful campus. If you have to light up, step away from the entrances to the building. It really doesn't require that much effort.
Secondly, to the University of Kansas Public Safety Office, please patrol and enforce these laws more carefully. What is the point of having laws on the record that are not enforced?
If people don't think they'll be punished for breaking laws, why would they abide by them? This is a law, just as observing a posted speed limit is a law. Why enforce one, and not enforce the other?
Let's get rid of this problem, and make our beautiful, lovely campus a more enjoyable and inviting place for students, faculty, and guests alike.
Ryan Schlesener is a sophomore majoring in journalism and Italian from Rington, Kan.
MILITARY
The tragedy in Afghanistan should not be left ignored
There are times when I am overwhelmed by humanity. It happens when I read about incredible feats of science and technology, such as phones that can identify people. It happens when I see stories of people coming to the aid of strangers in the face of disaster, who are neighbors not by geography but by compassion.
But lately, humanity (or lack thereof) has been overwhelming me in a less pleasant sense. In the last few weeks, I've had very visceral, even physical reactions to certain news stories. Murders are, sadly, nothing new. Neither are kidnappings, bombings, rapes, or hate. But nothing has made my skin crawl more than the reaction by a minority of Americans to the recent tragedy in Afghanistan.
It's hard for me to form my own opinion on Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the soldier charged with seventeen counts of premeditated murder after a shooting spree in Southern Afghanistan. Is he a cold-blooded killer filled with hate and rage, who planned an attack that would not only decimate a community but risk international repercussions? Or is he himself, though guilty in a technical sense, a victim of a mismanaged war and a military that overlooked physical, mental, and emotional conditions which would make soldiers vulnerable to dangerous and deadly breakdowns? Was Bales a rogue soldier intent on massacre,
a violent man with the desire, tools, and ability to murder civilians? Or was he the product of his environment, an environment that most of us here in the States cannot imagine because we have chosen not to dedicate portions of our lives to the service of our country? If the latter is true, some question whether his culpability is lessened, should he be found guilty of having carried out these attacks.
In my opinion, that's what the trial is for. Not the trial by media or the public, not the verdict of Glenn Beck or Barack Obama or my neighbor down the street. And while I, with the rest of the world, await the fate of Robert Bales, I cannot help but be overwhelmed by reactions to the whole debacle.
I expect people to be divided over the guilt of Staff Sergeant Bales, especially while the investigation continues and before litigation begins. But to hear Americans talk about the situation "over there" with "those people" makes me sick. It makes me sick to hear suggestions that
this man should not be interrogated or "put through the stress" of a trial. To have people justify, not just murder, but massacre because of A, B, and C.
If this happened over here, to four American men, four American women, two American boys, and seven American girls, we, as Americans, would know their faces. The media would make sure that their names and their images were burned into our brains. If Masooma Wazir was instead named Abigail Johnson, if she had grown up in Pennsylvania or Georgia instead of Harmara, we would know that this seven year old liked to fly kites and bake cookies.
We would know that before a grown man, a father, a symbol of American strength, slaughtered her and her family, Masooma had beautiful eyes.
I believe that if Masooma's name was Abigail or Sarah or Brittany and she was in the second grade at an elementary school down the road in Lawrence, Kansas, we would not hear a small but vocal minority calling for protections for her killer. She wouldn't be one of "those people." She would be remembered, mourned, and honored. We would know her name.
Daniella Onions is a junior in political science and women, gender, and sexuality studies from Shawnee.
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
What is your lucky charm for the big game? Follow us on Twitter @UDK_Opinion. Tweet us your opinions, and we just might publish them.
CBS casting not a problem
For whatever reason, we have become obsessed again with the enigmatic detective who lives at 221B Baker Street, otherwise known as Sherlock Holmes. Between the Guy Ritchie films, the popular BBC show "Sherlock," and CBS' upcoming show "Elementary," Holmes is being updated and modernized faster than his author could have imagined. And with all these competing visions of the character outrage has erupted.
Most recently, CBS has come under fire from the BBC for allegedly copying the show "Sherlock". Additionally, the faceless masses of the Internet are criticizing CBS' decision to cast Lucy Liu, an Asian-American woman, as Holmes' sidekick, Watson.
Now, I won't touch on the legality of the CBS adaptation, except to say that while it certainly seems like CBS got the idea from the BBC, it's hard to call it a "rip-off" since the character is in public domain and has remained relatively unchanged over the past century. The second controversy, the one over Lucy Liu, however, does bother me.
Even ignoring arguments about gender roles and the lack of women on TV, what bothers me most about the complaints against Liu is that they suggest that CBS is somehow betraying the essence of Watson. Let me be clear: Watson is one of the most underdeveloped characters to ever become a household name.
Do you know what Watson does in the Sherlock Holmes stories? Almost nothing for. The only thing he's really good for is to compliment Sherlock Holmes and propose wildly inaccurate theories at crime scenes. He's boring and slow and lifeless and famous.
For reasons utterly beyond my comprehension, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chose to take the fun and interesting Sherlock Holmes and force readers to experience him through the exceedingly dull Watson. I read "The Hound of the Baskervilles" earlier this year
By Lou Schumaker lschumaker@kansan.com
and enjoyed it up until Sherlock left halfway through the story and I was forced to watch Watson stumble his way around the moor.
I really feel that anyone who's upset with Lucy Liu playing Watson cannot have possibly read the original stories or else they would know that the only way it betrays the character is that it adds a personality.
Maybe I'm biased, though. I tend to like any given adaptation of the Sherlock stories more than I like the stories themselves. Spurred by a love of detective fiction and a desire to read the story where Moriarty shows up and kills Sherlock (after which, Doyle revived him), I read the first three novels and twenty-five short stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon and at no point enjoyed myself.
After reading a series of poorlyplotted and unexciting mysteries, I came to the conclusion that Sherlock Holmes' legacy is not due to Doyle's decidedly limited writing ability, but to the ease and talent with which Holmes is adapted for each new generation. Because each writer is able to take the basics of Holmes and mold it to his or her own vision, the detective is able to stay alive much longer than his fellow fictional detectives.
Given CBS' track record, the new Sherlock show probably won't be good, but at least we'll know the good detective will always survive. And even if he doesn't, we'll always have "The Great Mouse Detective."
- Schumaker is a junior in film and media studies from Overland Park.
@falthompson
@UDK Uphonin My 8 straight shirt! I wore it when we played North Carolina, and you bet I'll be rocking it Monday!
@katiedid3691
©JONK Opinion A guy on Mass Street grabbed me and told me, "you are the team's good luck charm and that's why we win!" So perhaps me?
@ohjustcallmeET
@WKK @Quinnum My new #24 jersey! Wore it for the first time yesterday and Releford had a great game and WE WON! I'm wearing it again for sure!
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Ian Cummings, editor
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864-9294 or jasam@kansan.com
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© BDK Spinnaker The white hat. If you've been to the fieldhouse, you've seen it.
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CONTACT US
Malcolm Gibson, general manager and news adviser
864-7656 or mgibson@kansan.com
Jon Schitt, sales and marketing adviser
864-7666 or jschitt@kansan.com
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of The Kansan Editorial Board are Ian Cummings,
Lisa Curran, Jon Samp, Angela Hawkins and Ryan Schlesinger.