TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 2012
PAGE 5
opinion
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Just saw Supergirl chasing Batman who was chasing Robin in front of Fraser Hall. Have I fallen into an alternate universe?
Sometimes I take gratuitous amounts of drugs and pretend I'm original.
Whenever it's time to study for midterms, I find I get urges to work out, deep clean my entire house, or cook a 5 course meal. Just proof of my hate for studying.
I found my little brother puking outside of some sorority Saturday night. They grow up so fast.
I'm bringin' phoggy back. The other Jayhawks know how to act. If you're a tiger you better watch your back. We're #1 and that's a fact. Take it to the Fieldhouse!
You know it's a recession when gas prices are higher than your G.P.A.
Lawrence, Kansas: Where Jesus would have come to play basketball.
Claiming that someone else's marriage is against your religion is like being angry at someone for eating a donut because you're on a diet.
Never use "KU basketball" and "Yankees" in the same sentence. That's like comparing an angel to Satan.
Juenemann's speech lasted longer than his playing time.
Dear Roommate: Please throw your Sonic drinks away BEFORE they start fermenting on your desk. It would be much appreciated.
English professors: conspiracy theorists of literature.
Last night I got stoned and dipped my chicken nuggets into my shamrock shake. It was heaven in my mouth.
Friends don't let friends grow mullets.
I'm worried that my religion professor is the lead singer for Eiffel 65. He only wears blue, if he wore green he would tie.
When your weekend turns into an exact replica of "The Hangover," it gives you a new appreciation of the movie.
I think frat guys are trying to bring back the 90's with their fashion.
Professor: I am a student with OCD. Meaning, I cannot listen to your lecture until you erase that chalk line in the far left corner of the board.
If life gives your neighbor lemons, steal 'em.
Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm actually being sarcastic or if I'm just being an a--hole.
Why can't I take sodoku for my math class?
Anyone else get the message about Budig becoming a circus?
Wither without his beard is like Samson without his hair. Don't do it, Jeff!
Alas, our friends across the pond do not have Greek life as we do.
I am a firm believer that the soap in the bathrooms of Wescoe is the best on campus. It's a fact.
EDITORIAL
Get ready to vote for future elections
A lot has happened in the three years that Barack Obama has been President. There's been unrest in the Middle East with the Arab Spring, in politics with a number of controversial topics and in movements such as the Occupy protests along with an economy that is still less than stellar. With so many issues, it's important that students exercise their right to vote.
In the past three elections, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of 18 to 24-year-olds who voted has increased, but there's still room for improvement. With the 2012 election approaching, there's still time to register, learn about the candidates and, in November, vote.
REGISTER TO VOTE:
Kansas's registration process includes providing some personal information to the government via the internet or paper form. For the internet process you will need a Kansas driver's license and an alternate form of identification.
The paper form will require your driver's license.
BE INFORMED
Once you've made the decision to vote, it's time to decide who to vote for. This is the most difficult stage.
Start by thinking about your stances on issues. Are you pro-life or pro-choice? How do you feel about health care? What about education? And how about immigration, taxes or foreign policy? Then examine the views of the candidates. What do they plan to do about the issues you care about?
In presidential elections a lot of information is available. Dissect this information carefully. Find out if your source is credible and what biases it might have. Then form your opinion. Do the candidate's views align with yours?
Races that are less publicized, like the county judges, names may be posted online through the county's election office, but if they aren't, contacting the elections office can
give you more information.
Use that resource as a way to
find out what offices you'll be
voting for and who'll be running
for those positions.
As things develop in the race, your views on people may change, and you can adapt with that. Remember that your final decision should be for a candidate you feel would be the best person for the job.
In the 2008 presidential election 66 percent of voters in between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for President Obama according to a poll by NBC News. Whether young people were essential to President Obama's win has been debated, but either way it puts the young voice out there. That voice has been growing overall in the past eight elections with dips occurring during elections with an incumbent President.
This year falls into that category, but letting the number of college-aged voters fall would decrease the influence students have on government.
Right now the debt, Social Security, and the price of education are on the government's agenda. Decisions on these issues would affect students and thus students should vote in order to affect the outcomes.
VOTE:
After you've decided who you'd like to win the election there's one final step: vote. After you register, you'll be given a polling location. On Election Day, go to that location. Bring your driver's license. The people in-charge at the location will check your ID and find you on a list of registered voters who can vote at that location. You'll be shown where to cast your ballet and how.
With approximately eight months left, there's still time for you to register, learn the truth about the candidates and make your voice heard on Tuesday, Nov. 6.
Angela Hawkins for the Kansan editorial board.
VOTING RESOURCES
Registration For Kanas Voters:
https://www.kdor.org/voterregistration/De-
fault.aspx
Information for Long Distance Voters:
http://www.longdistancevoter.org
Douglas County Election Commission:
http://www.voted Douglascounty.com
Forms of Identification Accepted by Election Officials in Kansas:
Driver's licenses
State ID cards
Concealed carry handgun licenses
U.S. passports
Employee IDs
Military IDs
University/College Student IDs (Kansas)
Welfare ID cards
CULTURE
Source: Douglas County Election Commission, Long Distance Voter; org. Office of the Kansas Secretary of State
True art is outlet to express individual opinions
Artist who wanted to slaughter chickens in city was making art through an unusual medium
Art" deals in making statements. Ranging from the
Local artist Amber Hansen's recent art project, "The Story of Chickens: A Revolution," has received a lot of condemnation lately from local and national
profound to the repetitive, art projects exist because they are created as expressive points of view.
chickens were to be slaughtered in front of the public and fed as part of a potluck. It was meant to be a project examining our personal relationships (or lack
outlets. The project entailed displaying a chicken coop housing five chickens at various locations in the downtown Lawrence area.
"To say that Hansen's project is not art is to say that Monet paintings and Michelangelo sculptures are not art, or that musical arrangements and theater performances are not art."
The public were to be encouraged to interact and observe the chickens in order to develop a personal relationship with them. Near the end of the month, the
thereof) with the food we eat on a daily basis.
But now it appears this project will not happen in its original form, since city officials have told Hansen she cannot slaughter.
ter the chickens within city limits. She has explained on her blog since that there will be an empty coop occupying the downtown area, and for the potluck, she will bring in speakers that will speak about caring for chickens as food we eventually eat. No chickens will be slaughtered.
Luckily for Hansen, it is clear that she has achieved her goals. From the outset, the mere mention of the fact that she received a grant for this project and the easy access to her project plan from the Internet has led to a very passionate, widespread response, and not just from local animal activists. People are talking about the exact issues she meant to bring up into the public forum.
I take issue with any outcry that the project was inartic to or unintellectual. Clearly, our
culture's perception of what art projects are is a bit slanted. Art is not just paintings and sculpture; art can be anything we envision it to be, whether symbolic, functional, multi-layered, simplistic, mult-media, or otherwise.
Obviously, from Hansen's project, specific questions of the implications of certain art projects are put in question (how can publicly slaughtering chickens be art?). But in the end, there is no difference between slaughtering chickens publicly and slaughtering them privately.
Almost every artistic movement from history (especially from the 20th century and on) has been met with skepticism or anger from the public since it had no real precedence and may have seemed audacious.
To say that Hansen's project is not art is to say that Monet paintings and Michelangelo
sculptures are not art, or that musical arrangements and theater performances are not art. Art gives individuals an outlet to say something worthwhile; it is not just something pretty to look at.
The beauty of art is that not only can it be translated across very diverse media, but it can also be used to express points of view that may not be as easily expressed in every-day conversation and discourse.
Art is the outlet so many search for to make their voices heard. To discount its influence and legitimacy just because of its implications is an insult to our culture that was built on free individual expression.
Salsbury is a senior in English and history of art from Chapman.
LITERATURE
Fill your spring time with lively poetry
Celebrate spring by appreciat ing life through poetry
"O sweet Fancyl let her loose; Summer's joys are spoilt by use, And the enjoying of the Spring Fades as does its blossoming"
- John Keats "Fancy"
Once again, by some fortunate whim of nature, our corner of the world enters that miraculous changing of the weather guard.
The days are now perceivably lighter than fluorescent bulbs and the wind bears that sweet scent not unlike Jaeger. Soon, we will no longer have a shadow of an excuse to wear our stylish overcoats or sport our treasured Uggs.
Sadly, far too many people will squander their spring constantly checking out what their Facebook friends are up to. Others will rot in the bowels
As students, nothing is more important than social networks and schoolwork. However, this vernal respite is too much of a treasure to humanity to spend mindlessly listening to Ke$ha in a drunken stupor; we have the winter for that.
I don't know what the English department would say, but I've always felt that poetry is the most pure form of speech, for good poetry is always the essence of speech. Poetry is the ideal of communication whereas prose, and the majority of our interactions, is the imitation. But then again, I was brainwashed by Bill Shakespeare at an impressionable age.
of KU's many state-of-the-art libraries.
What's the best way to celebrate this gaiety of renaissance? Other than splashing in mud puddles, rolling down the hill, and otherwise regressing into that most salubrious of times, childhood, I recommend poetry.
Poetry, when mixed with a beautiful day, is one of the most intoxicating concoctions known to man. If you don't read, shame on you, but if you want to read, here are a few of my favorite spring laureates.
Nothing quite describes the life and aesthetic exuberance of spring like the sprung rhyme of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins' poetry is charged with energetic descriptions ("The Starlight Night," "Strike; churl; hurt") and unites transcendental heaven to a well-beloved Earth ("Pied Beauty," "God's Gran-deur"). I can say that my most satisfying springs are the ones I
For those playful days, "when the world is mud-/ luscious... and puddle-wonderful," I can recommend no better than E.E. Cummings — a caveat-temperto to all pedants. If incorrect syntax will result in increased blood pressure, Noam Chomsky's waiting at your home.
Perhaps you're trying to seduce someone. Is she highbrow? Shakespeare's sonnets will do you a world of good, as would memorizing key-passages in "The Tempest," and "Romeo and Juliet." Although one should avoid making pledges of undying love on the first date as this will result in immediate repulsion or (horror of horrors) reciprocation.
A smattering of Keats will not only impress your friends, but let your fancy take flight! I can recommend virtually all of his poems to enhance your springtime.
William Wordsworth is well
There is no better time to celebrate life than when everything is celebrating with you. Life has unlimited opportunities for joy, you just have to be willing to appreciate it. Or Robert Browning:
worth a recitation or two. Your heart will leap up and fill with pleasure if you look at clouds and daffodils with his words in mind.
"The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!"
Obermeier is a junior in history from Olathe.
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lan Cummings, editor
864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
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864-4810 or lcuran@kansan.com
Alexis Knutsen, opinion editor
864-4924 or lcuran@kansan.com
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CONTACT US
Maleclim Gibson, general manager and news adviser
864-7667 or mgibson@kansas.com
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kananian Board are Ian Cummings,
Lisa Curran, Alexis Knutsen, Angela Hawkins and Ryan
Schlesner.