MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012
PAGE 5A
opinion
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351
KU might as well be the Yankees of college basketball.
FREE FOR ALL
You know you're a nerd when you refer to your solutions manual as your strategy guide.
Smoking is a great way to meet people? So is talking to others.
My friends asked me what a McDonald's Shamrock Shake tastes like so I was completely honest...a Leprechaun's asshole.
Dollar for dollar, beer is now cheaper than gasoline.
You don't have insomnia...you have a laptop.
Do you think fraternities in England throw rager tea parties?
If you think pompous and pretentious are big words, you need to read a book. Besides, unnecessary use of large words is more pedantic than either of those two.
I think 'Hot n Cold' by Katy Perry was based on Kansas weather.
Nothing ruins my Friday more than finding out it's just Tuesday.
I catch snowflakes on my tongue like a boss!
Sometimes I like to put coffee grounds on my feet, take a hot shower and just brew.
I just told someone my drunken level was a function of my alcohol intake and that it resembled a titration curve. Something is wrong with me.
While you had sea fish thrown at your TV, I was chasing a tree monkey after he stole my banana...darn tree monkeys.
I feel like Captain America with my hoodie on.
It's a sad day when you realize that you like the non-marshmallows equally as much as the marshmallow in Lucky Charms. I don't wanna grow up.
I think that Mullet March would be way more interesting than mustache March. Think about it.
Anyone else think we should have a perimeter of war drums in AFH to further terrify opponents?
You know you have an alcohol problem when you take preemptive measures by taking extra bandages to the bars.
I have a legitimate fear of being attacked by the campus squirrels Veruca Sait style from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."
A friend told me I was delusional. I almost fell off my unicorn.
Just had a conversation with Travis
Relefo: Sure, it was a one-way
conversation but still. It happened.
I hate it when I'm making a milkshake and boys just show up in my yard.
You know it's a good night when someone crowd surfs on Safe Bus.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Religious sensitivity is an essential principle
Withey needs to go without-y the beard.
U.S. needs to respect religious beliefs and cultural differences while occupying countries
Protests swept Afghanistan after an incident on Monday, Feb. 20 at Bagram Airbase showed how a single unfortunate incident could erase months of painstaking progress in the country.
A Muslim protester holds a copy of Quran as he shouts slogans during a protest against the burning of Qurans in Afghanistan by U.S. troops, outside the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Feb. 24. U.S. President Barack Obama apologized to Afghans for the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, trying to assuage rising anti-American sentiment as an Afghan soldier gunned down two American troops during another day of angry protests.
Details of the events vary, but according to the New York Times, two uniformed NATO personnel began unloading books into a fire pit at about ten oclck at night. Upon recognizing the books as holy texts of the Muslim faith, local laborers rushed at the truck, attacking it with their helmets and tools while attempting to save the burning pages. After soldiers abandoned the scene these laborers took to the streets and found two thousand fellow Afghans protesting alongside them by the next morning.
Fallout from the burning, which NATO forces immediately classified a serious mistake, has resulted in over thirty-five Afghan and coalition deaths at the time this goes to print, according to USA Today. Crowds stormed a northern United Nations outpost and a governor's home; in two separate instances members of the Afghan National Army killed American soldiers.
Applauded by the Taliban, these actions fall in line with calls from extremist groups for Afghans to attack coalition military personnel and those who assist them.
It's inconceivable that anyone working in Afghanistan can be ignorant of the serious ramifications of desecrating the Quran. Since Muslims believe the text represents
the literal dictation and representation of Allah, disrespecting that text is akin to directly attacking the tenant of the faith. Last year, threats by Florida pastor Terry Jones to burn a Quran provoked massive violence, prompting the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan to warn Jones that his actions may place troops in danger.
Religious sensitivity ought to be an iron-clad principle, especially while occupying a foreign country where the success of an operation relies on securing the goodwill of the people. This offense violates our country's belief in religious tolerance and badly tarnishes our credibility in promoting similar democratic values internationally. Even if one argues that religious convictions should not justify a violent response, acknowledged resentment of occupying forces should merit extreme caution in potentially explosive issues.
It is true that U.S. and NATO officials quickly tried to minimize the fallout. The New York Times reported that NATO Commander General Allen apologized on Afghan television, emphasizing that the offense was not intentional
and that (perhaps 10 years too late) all military personnel would be trained in the treatment and significance of religious materials. Two days later President Obama extended his apologies in a personal letter to President Hamid Karzai discussing a range of issues. The Pentagon also issued a formal apology.
Although these apologies convey an appropriate message, they should be followed up by serious
diplomatic investments in time and energy to attempt to restore the relationship.
President Obama may be concerned about the political consequences of a more public statement—Newt Gingrich has already criticized his written apology—but a credible, sustained outreach to the Afghan people should take priority over domestic political quibbles.
with a transparent effort to investigate the burning of religious materials. This incident represents a fundamental disconnect between the United States and the Afghan people on basic questions of religion and culture. Future success will be dependent on our ability to close the gap on our understanding of these key issues.
Diplomacy should be coupled
SERVICE
Gress is freshman in political science and international studies from Overland Park.
Learn something from volunteering
When you go to a private Catholic school, certain aspects of life are inculcated into the very fiber of your being. One, wearing a skirt becomes the norm (my excuse for owning exactly two pairs of pants). Two, when young gentlemen discover that you attended Catholic school, they will always ask, "Did you have a uniform?" And three, community service is a part of academics.
Beginning in the 7th grade, a part of our religion class grade required a certain number of community service hours — to which my pre- adolescent self responded with negativity.
I hated being forced to do community service. Even in high school, I was a rebel without a cause; I spent more time caring about writing bad poetry and watching anime than sorting canned food. Oddly enough, I considered myself quite socially progressive—a lot of talking the talk and not walking the walk.
However, when I came to KU, I didn't plan to get involved with service organizations intensely
My attitude began to change my junior year. I started to help my mother organize for the Deaf Teen Club which caused me to look into more service opportunities. I had already finished the 20 hours my high school required that year, but I found myself wanting to do more than the bare minimum.
I began to get involved with Key Club, a community service oriented organization. I began to feel more of a sense of fulfillment, and yet I began to question it as well. Whether working in a day care in downtown Kansas City, or in a food pantry, I couldn't help but wonder why the people I helped were in the positions they were. I had always avidly read, but now instead of just novels and history, I started to read the news, about politics, about social issues. I started to care about the world outside my sphere.
or intricately—I planned to do the theater, join a writing group and then volunteer occasionally. It was an interest, but not a passion.
I'm lucky I had a lot of people around me committed to service organizations, and to social justice and community outreach. I began volunteering, as I had before, but I also started to look beyond just volunteering. First semester, between the classes I took and my interaction with the world, I woke up.
I began to see connections between the knowledge I gained and the volunteer work I was doing. To go from learning about the wide discrepancy between education quality across the U.S. in my sociology class to tutoring in Title 1 schools, was like a hammer in the head — obvious and jarring. I woke up, and I woke up not wanting, but needing to walk the walk.
Now I'm fairly involved with service and advocacy on campus. I have to take on the roles of an activist, a teacher, a student and a leader, sometimes all in one day. It's intimidating, but honestly? I'm just trying to learn as much as I can, so I can do as much as I'm capable of doing.
I'm nervous about screwing up. I have to ask a lot of people older and smarter than me a lot of questions. I get confused about which forms need to be filled out when, and sometimes I step back and think about the fact that I need to check my email five to ten times a day.
Gwynn is a freshman in English from Olathe.
TAINMENT
New movie tells troubles of veteran coming back home
Linda Cardellini has been flitting around the big and small screens for more than a decade. Cool people will know her as Lindsay Weir from the cult TV show, "Freaks and Geeks", where she led a young cast of future stars including Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jason Segal.
She's been living the career of a big actor in small parts, making brief, but lasting impressions. Now at 36, she's received her first leading role in the home coming soldier story "Return", giving a performance that could finally pull her from the corners of independent cinema.
In "Return" Cardellini plays Kelli, an military reservist on leave from the Middle East. She's been in the dessert for 15 months and now she's back in the Midwest with her old friends, her husband and her two daughters. The approach of this story and the journey Kelli takes is unique to modern movies about soldiers, because she really takes no journey.
This isn't a movie about tragedy or trauma like "Brothers" or "The Messenger." Nor is it about the addiction of war, like "The Hurt Locker." Kelli doesn't want to stay in the army, she wants to come home, but when she does, the home she remembered isn't there
anymore.
Even though the movie is told entirely from her perspective, we're never told exactly what's bothering Kelli. She never says what it is, and we get the feeling she doesn't know. She says one thing about her deployment and about her return. She says it's weird. "Now the cups are where the plates should be, and it's weird."
She's caught in a place of depression and disappointment. It's not just that her life at home is passing her by, but she lets it pass by because she thinks it further off than she knows.
She's right in a way. We find out fairly early on that her husband has been beating on her, but even then it seems that she's the one who has a problem. She quits her job, lies on the couch all day, tries to paint the living room and never finishes. She goes on a bender and crashes into a pole, beginning the second
half of the film.
The word 'powerful' is used a lot when describing angst ridden suburban drams and "Return" does have power, but a strange kind. The easy pace and rhythm of the movie are deceptive, and scenes that had seemed innocuous will later trigger a deep breath of realization.
There are important things happening, but because Kelli doesn't realize it, we don't either, and it's really interesting that way. This isn't an independent movie that revels in doing nothing. New director Liza Johnson is more clever than that. She knows that this do-nothance state of mind is Kella's trap. So momentum builds under in movie, and it doesn't completely hit Kelli until the final scene.
The movie is really a series of questions flashing across Cardellini's face. What is going on? Why did I come back? Who was I before I left? The tension in "Return" is based on the fact that she may not have time to answer these questions.
You can watch "Return" on iTunes or find it on DVD on April 24.
Coy is a sophomore in film and media studies from Lenexa.
To the Editor
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
As a follow-up to Vikaas Shanker's story on the Student Senate's rejection of the Homecoming Steering Committee's funding request, I want to assure the KU community that Homecoming 2012 will occur, regardless of the Student Senate's decision.
The following explanation of the overall budget for Homecoming should provide helpful context:
The KU Alumni Association oversees Homecoming and coordinates activities of the student-led Homecoming Steering Committee. The Association also provides more than 80 percent of the funds for the week-long celebration, which includes 20 events. For this year, the 100th anniversary of KU Homecoming, the Association has designated $35,000, more than 80 percent of Homecoming's total estimated budget of $41,900. University partners and sponsors contribute the remaining funds.
In recent years, the Student Senate has contributed $1,200. This year, the Homecoming Steering Committee requested $2,300 because of an expected increase in participation from students,
alumni, faculty, staff and Lawrence residents during this centennial year.
Although the Alumni Association is disappointed that Student Senate will not assist with funding, our organization remains committed to creating a memorable celebration to mark this milestone. Homecoming is a cherished KU tradition, and it will continue to thrive this year and for Jayhawk generations to come.
Jennifer Jackson Sanner is the senior vice president for communications of the KU Alumni Association.
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Ian Cummings, editor
664-8410 or editor@kanan.com
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664-8410 or functr@kanan.com
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Ian Cummings, Lisa Curran, Alex Knutsen, Angela Hawkins and Ryan Schlesinger.