THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012
PAGE 5
opinion
FREE FOR ALL
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351
To be opposed to suspending camping, then leave immediately following vote #bitchmove
The basketball team is wearing short shorts for the game this weekend! Yes please!!
Some guys do like to keep the old dating traditions alive, most women just don't look hard enough to find us.
Oliver and Jayhawk Towers: If you knew anything about military tactics, or if you have ever seen "The Patriot," then you would know that the high ground always wins!
That awkward moment when u see yourself from the future.
Oliver Hall versus Daisy Hill, which side are the campus squirrels on?
I find a perverse pleasure in walking extremely slowly when someone holds the door for me so that they hate themselves for the offer.
Turn the music off of those stupid kiosks. I feel like I go to school at a strip club.
Sometimes I just wish the FFA would text me back.
Editor's note: Sometimes, I really consider texting people back. But just accept that it's never going to happen.
My teacher just asked the class if we know what it feels like to wake up with our pants down and not know how they got there. Of course! #itscollege
You know your a stoner when the professor says edibles and you think of special browns.
Is it bad that my internet connection outside of wescoe is faster than my connection in the dorms?
Forget about defeating the Potter Lake whale, I've got Backstreet Boy songs running through my head.
biggerproblems
Bitch please, I can remove 90 percent of your 'beauty' with a wet Kleenex.
Woah, pajama pants are comfy.
Unless you want us guys wearing yoga
pants — don't hate.
As the definitively elected representative of the Scholarship Halls, I say we will be the referees of this battle between the dorms.
Envoys sent to scholl halls. Mercenaries contracted. Plans made. Beginning expanded Jedi training regimen. Bring it, Oliver and the Towers. We're ready for you.
People tell me, "Oh you just came to KU because they are good at basketball." That's ridiculous. I came because we are good at basketball AND Taylor Swift visits.
I don't understand half the things my boyfriend says. #EngineerBoyfriendProblems
I hate sitting down at the lunch table and hearing about pokemon every day. #schoolhallproblems
Naismith has a pool. If Oliver and Jayhawk towers joined forces with them, they could have a navy.
The only thing worse than pajamas or leggings is the people who bitch about them
PHILOSOPHY
Life lessons from an unexpected source
Woody Allen's classic films have a lot to say about love and death, which we should listen to
Five years ago I discovered the genius of Woody Allen. Through his philosophical stories this what I've learned from two of them.
Love:
In Allen's classic Oscar winning movie "Annie Hall", Alvy Singer (played by Allen) ends with him no longer being together with Annie Hall (played by Diane Keaton). After they broke up, he wrote a play in which the characters are based on them. The difference is that in the play they get back together. This seems to imply the overall formula of writing, in which the guy gets the girl in the end; however, this is not that kind of love story. They leave no longer as a couple and continue on with their search for love.
The movie ends with Alvy giving a monologue, "... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken.' ... the doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in?' And the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.'
Well, I guess that's pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and ... but,uh,I guess we keep going through it because,uh,most of us need the eggs."
I find this true in my search for love. I have had my heart broken and I have hurt others, but we all seem to ignore the absurdity of love in search for happiness in hope that one day we will find a significant other.
Death:
As everyone is aware, one day we will all die. Like most people this scares me. Friedrich Nietzsche's response to this was Eternal Recurrence. In "Hannah and Her Sisters" Allen's character Mickey struggles with the idea of living with no greater meaning in the world. As he says, "[Nietzsche] said that the life we lived we're going to live over again the
same way for eternity. Great. That means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again."
Mickey's feeling toward life and death is that without a greater meaning life is not worth living. Through the movie, he fails to find a rational answer to why we are here, and is unable to accept any religion. Without being able to prove for certain that God exists, he decides to kill himself, but he gets nervous while attempting to, the gun slips and goes off in his hands before he can do so. Out of embarrassment he goes for a walk and ends up at a movie theater, and while watching it he concludes: "I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself ... Look at all the people up there on the screen, they're
real funny ... What if there is no God and you only go around once and that's it. Don't you want to be part of the experience? I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never going get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And after who knows, I mean maybe there is something, nobody really knows."
There is no possible way to prove that there is an afterlife or that there is a true reason to live. All we can prove is that we are all here, and with that we must make the best out of it. Even if that is just being a part of existence for the short time that we are here.
Moffitt is a senior in English and philosophy from Wichita.
POLITICS
Campaign ads power election
We've all heard of these types of ads: Politician A speaks softly about the problems the nation is facing, points out how politician B couldn't possibly be tasked to solve the issues and finally explains how they would be the right person to lead the nation into an age of prosperity and equality.
Kansas voters have thus far been spared the types of political ads that waste our time and annoy us to no end. I was astounded by the types of political ads that I saw when I went home to Iowa over winter break.
But this presidential election, the commercials will be even worse, due to the onslaught of the Super PACs. Students should be aware of what they're in for once the Kansas March 10th caucus comes upon us and we're all inundated with these political commercials.
Super political action committees, or PACs as they're referred to, were allowed to take part in the election process beginning with the 2010 election. This came about following two judicial decisions.
Super PACs are not supposed to have any direct coordination with any candidates or political parties, but a candidate may talk to his associated Super PAC via the media. Super PACs are also required to disclose their donors, just like the more traditional PACs; however, thus far, Super PACs have used a technicality to postpone filings until well after elections. The entire issue lies in the fact that Super PACs have very little rules, and with such a large amount of money available to them, they are able to wield enormous amounts of power with little policing.
Despite the lack of direct coordination with candidates, the current GOP primary race has seen several occurrences of suspicious behavior. The Restore Our Future Super PAC benefited Mitt Romney while attacking fellow nominee Newt Gingrich.
In the first, the Supreme Court held in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that government may not prohibit unions and corporations from making independent expenditures about politics. Shortly following that, in Speechnow, org v. FED, the Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that contributions to groups that only make independent expenditures could not be limited. These super PACs are officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees" and can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals.
Not to be outdone, the pro-
Gingrich Winning Our Future
Super PAC attacked Romney.
Each Super PAC was run by former employees of the candidate it supported, and each attracted money from that candidate's associates. More recently, the Nevada casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson reportedly made a donation of at least $11 million to a Super PAC backing Newt Gingrich. Gingrich will be staying at the Venetian hotel which is a Sands Corp, an Adelson owned company, while he is in Las Vegas to campaign for the Nevada primary. There isn't enough understanding of how much coordination nominees may have with these donators and that creates problems.
Our political process is held in high regard as one of the most open in the world, yet we as the voting public aren't privy to who is behind these Super PACs and their large amounts of financial backing. Super PACs are emblematic of the amount of outside influence on political figures in the system by groups like unions and corporations. There are millions of dollars spent on leverage by lobbyists, Super PACs are simply a representation of that in the campaigning process.
These issues would be solved if we allowed people to donate an unlimited amount of money to the candidates themselves and then candidates were forced to file who gave them money. Candidates need money, we can't expect people to run for political office without acquiring vast amounts of money. If donations were unlimited, but filing was forced, candidates would receive those funds but the voting public would be informed of the kinds of individuals and groups making donations and imposing their influence. It isn't a perfect solution, it still allows people to exercise large amounts of power and influence over political candidates but in lieu of the recent problems, something must be done.
McCroy is a senior in economics from Des Moines, Iowa.
LIFESTYLE
Time management a skill, but not impossible to learn
Adding more to your schedule may actually save time for you to watch that romantic comedy with friends
I am taking 17 credit hours, working 15 hours a week, and am involved in multiple organizations: I am a busy person. Too often when I ask people to add a commitment to their schedule they look me in the eye and utter, "I don't think I have time for that."
Obviously I understand people need time to relax and sleep in on weekends but I expect more. I am sure that my brethren are indeed swamped with commitments, but this is where a tomato can save you.
Let me introduce you to the "Pomodoro Technique." In case you are not Italian, "pomodoro" is Italian for tomato, and it refers to a tomato-shaped kitchen timer. An Italian man named Francesco Cirillo started using his kitchen timer to help him focus. The idea stems from the fact that our attention spans are getting weaker as our social media outlets become more prominent.
I made a list of all the little things I needed to get done and started to tremble in fear. It was like staring a ferocious animal in the eye. I reached over and turned the timer
to 25 minutes and I was off! Twenty-five minutes is not too long, but it is also nothing you can sneeze at. I worked constantly and diligently for 25 minutes and when the timer rang I thrust my fists into the air and proceeded to peruse my phone for any text messages and Twitter updates.
The secret is what followed this stretch. After working for 25 minutes, I only had five minutes to complain about the new Facebook timeline layout and to check the myriad of blogs I read. After the five minutes was up, back to another 25 minutes of focused productivity. As I worked down the list, I found myself finished, with time enough to watch a romantic comedy. Who would have thought?
It is ridiculous how much time I wasted before, procrastinating on math homework by trying to pick the most appropriate math snack (Count Chocula or apple pi)? If I could get back all the time I have spent untangling headphones and watching Lost, I would have enough time to have a significant other or finish that music minor. I would certainly be a more accomplished person.
Time is the hardest thing for a college student to manage. We only have four short years here, and every student needs to make the most of it. There is no better way to make great memories than to get done with your homework/studying earlier and start making use of your education, whether it is in an organization or getting into mischief around campus. I have always wanted to DJ on KJHK and rollerblade down Jayhawk Boulevard and perhaps now I will have enough time to make it happen.
Samp is a senior in human biology from Lawrence.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
- Members of the Kansan Ecclesiastical Board are Ian Cummings,
Anne Aisakus Knutzen, Angela hawkins and Ryan Schiebern.
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