ISAN
2009
n
s
Opinion
FHE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
CLOSSIN: THREE MISCONCEPTIONS GIRLS DON'T LET GUYS FORGET
MONDAY, APRIL 27, 2009
COMING TUESDAY
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I'm pretty sure GSP has the worst tornado procedure ever. Oh wait, they don't really have any tornado procedures.
We should just throw flour on the invisible children. That usually works in the movies.
I drove through Columbia, Mo. and there's a street called Champions Road. Really?
I work as security at Anschutz and there's a guy who fell asleep taking a shit on the toilet, and it is hilarious!
--feel that having two wheels gives them more of a right to the sidewalk?
Who wants to go storm chasing with me?
--feel that having two wheels gives them more of a right to the sidewalk?
A Prius with leather: "Yay, lets save the environment and kill the animals." Nice.
Next year is going to rock so hard; awesome basketball team, awesome roommate. It's going to be legendary!
--feel that having two wheels gives them more of a right to the sidewalk?
On Saturday my dog survived getting hit by a car on Tennessee and a tornado. God, he's a pimp.
I am still waiting for my Hogwarts acceptance letter.
I woke up a little drunk this morning and thought I was late for work and raced there only to find out I was an hour early.
--feel that having two wheels gives them more of a right to the sidewalk?
Yeah, that was a good idea. Until I wet my pants.
PAGE 7A
Just a friendly notice to the Alpha Chi Omega girls running around honking at people at bus stops: You're not going anywhere in life and your Volkswagon is leaking differential fluid.
On Friday night my dad told me that he'd found my next boyfriend and to plan my life accordingly.
To the girl in my sociology class: I thought you were hot until I saw your hairy armpits.
Dear Hashinger Hall: Because you are not going to turn on the AC, I am going to make you waste more money by opening up my fridge to try to cool down my room.
That's right, we totally made a midnight run for Nerf guns and came back with a model of the Enterprise. That's just how we roll.
In between the first-floor stacks of Watson Library for a tornado warning: Fun Saturday night!
--feel that having two wheels gives them more of a right to the sidewalk?
CAMPUS
Ban the bike (and cyclists too)
In the interest of full disclosure, let me preface this column by stating on the record that I have a long-standing fear of bicycles (more specifically, people riding bicycles) that grew out of a harrowing experience from my childhood. When I was seven, I was walking with my parents in the park when, filled with the boundless energy of childhood stupidity, I decided to take off running. Separated from my parents, I heard the tell-tale ring of a bicycle coming from behind me. Assuming that this was universal bicyclist language for, "Get out of the way, I am on a bicycle," I jumped to the other side of the sidewalk.
Apparently, the real message the cyclist was trying to impart through ringing was, "Do not alter your path, I am on a bicycle." The grown man on the bicycle jumped off so as not to hurt himself as the bicycle crashed into me. He landed on his feet, walked over to the bicycle, which had stopped half a foot from the child he had just brutalized, and rode off. I lay on the ground in a daze until I realized I was covered in a variety of horrible boo-boos and immediately began哭 uncontrollably. My parents (who weren't ever actually that far from me) took me home as I bawled. I've been terrified of bicyclists ever since.
With that, let me give you the crux of this column: Bicycles should be banned and bicyclists should all be thrown in prison. Perhaps the key should be forgotten. Maybe they should be subject to public flogging when they try to sneak a pleasant Sunday afternoon ride through the park. They are monsters and they deserve to be punished for three primary reasons, which I will impart to you now.
1. Legally, in Lawrence, bicyclists are required to keep to the road. They seldom actually do this and seem content to endanger the walking public whenever it fits their diabolical designs. A few weeks ago I watched as someone tried to ride his bike full-speed across Wescoe Beach. He didn't care that people had to jump to get out of his way; he was too damn hip on his bicycle with his pants partially rolled up. When I walk through Veterans Park to go to class, I am routinely forced to relive my childhood trauma as cyclists tear ass on sidewalks where children play. Why do they
2. They frequently retard the flow of traffic by being obnoxiously slow when they do decide to ride on the road. When those who have places to be honk or pass, they then yell things like, "I have a right to the road, too!" This isn't even true. Roads were made for cars and totally rockin' motorcycles. Bike paths in national parks were made for bicycles. It gets worse when cyclists organize and form things like "Critical Mass" that occupies the entire road and inconveniences everyone. Some of us actually do have jobs and places to be, you smelly hippies!
3. They ignore any and all road signs during such time that they occupy the road, further invalidating their claim to a stake in it. Running red lights and stop signs is just dangerous, stupid and inconsiderate, you beatniks!
All this talk of "saving the environment" is just globo-facist propaganda. Everyone knows that the fresh scent of car exhaust is like bottled America. A world where my children don't come home at night coughing up black, viscous goo is not a world that I want to live in.
Neubauer is a Lynn Haven, Fla., senior in journalism.
EDITORIAL CARTOON
ACCORDING TO FACEBOOK, BARACK OBAMA IS MORE POPULAR THAN COCA COLA.
NICHOLAS SAMBALUK
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Last week's items you might have missed. Check out Kansan.com Roundup for full stories.
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
THE CONTEXT
The time the body of Dalton Hawkins, Shawnee freshman, was found on Friday. Hawkins fell three stories from the roof of Watkins Scholarship Hall. Hawking was living in Ellsworth Hall and was a pre-pharmacy student, a member of the Mount Oread Scholars Program and a member of the colony Alpha Kappa Lambda.
The number of plants students and other volunteers planted to finish the rain garden near the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center on Earth Day.
Jon Goering/KANSAN
The amount of fines imposed on United Students after hearings last Sunday. Alex Porte, Great Falls, Va., junior and former Envision vice-presidential candidate, filed four violations against United Students. The elections commission hearing board dismissed two of the violations.
THE CONTEXT
THE CONTEXT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE CONTEXT
The national ranking for the University's special education department among public universities accoring to the U.S. News & World Report. The school was ranked second in the nation and the KU School of Education's graduate department was ranked 10th.
THE CONTEXT
The number of women inducted into The University of Kansas Women's Hall of Fame on Tuesday evening. The new members were Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Jacqueline Snyder, chancellor of Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City, Mo.; Maria Carlson, professor of Slavic languages and literatures; Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, professor of mathematics; and Joey Sprague, professor of sociology.
FROM COLORADO
Media shows ugly side in Susan Boyle coverage
BY ANDY BOCKELMAN U. of Northern Colorado The Mirror
Attractive people are the only ones worth the world's attention. Unless, of course, you've got talent. Then you can be forgiven for your appearance. Such is the message sent with the popularity of up-and-coming Scottish singer Susan Boyle.
Boyle, 47, made a huge splash that rippled worldwide when she appeared on "Britain's Got Talent" facing off against renowned nitpicker Simon Cowell. The heavyset chanteuse
— plain and dowdy by her own admission — shocked the crowd by belting out the "Les Misérables" tune "I Dreamed a Dream." Since then, the Internet has been abuzz with the emergence of a fresh, musical voice who represents the common people.
Much has been made of Boyle's ugly duckling story and her background. Originally surprising people with a false confession of never being kissed, Boyle seems to take pride in making her life sound worse than it is. This kind of media fodder is amusing in a kind of self-awareness viewpoint as the singer can keep everyone guessing as to what she will do next.
With a marketing campaign of having an unglamorous appearance combined with her amazing voice, Boyle could stand to make a phenomenal career out of her tale. But the public is uninterested in
keeping Boyle as she is.
To quote another well-known musical act from across the pond, "Another one bites the dust."
Making role models out of those who don't quite fit the traditional Hollywood standards — Nia Vardalos in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" or America Ferrera in "Ugly Betty" — has been a pet project of the entertainment industry lately. Though while such endeavors promote a differentiation in standards of beauty, these have been counterproductive more often than not, turning talented women into martyrs of body image.
Though Boyle has not been quick to jump into makeover mode, much has been made about recent facial touch-ups, most notably her newly curled hair and trimmed eyebrows, chronicled in the tasteless E! Online story, "Big Plucking Deal."
A joke about Boyle on a recent episode of "South Park" said what we're all thinking: too much hype. The news media outlets have gone out of their way to promote Boyle's offbeat look more than her singing and, as a result, have become guilty of preaching the same narrow-mindedness that made it easy for her to be overlooked in the first place.
One can only hope that Boyle can rise above this misguided attention to prove true the lyrics of the song that made her famous, a cry for a better life filled with love.
— UWire
Students in dormitories should aim at adulthood
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
"If you want to be treated like an adult, then act like one," is what my father has told me for the past few years. Just like punishing a child, you punish the "adult" because they did wrong. However, many of us feel we are too old or too independent to be told what to do
One thing we have lost in our generation is respect for our dormitories and peers. After living in Hash for two years now, I understand that we get annoyed because we're cramped, or we hate E's food, or we don't want to follow the rules because we're "adults." But just because the majority of students are at least 18 does not give them the right to refer to themselves as adults.
Perhaps if we acted like adults maybe no one would be babying us. As an employer in Hash, I find more of these "adults" than I expected. I find profanity written on the walls, elevator lights removed, trash left in the lobbies, and filthy bathrooms.
I am ashamed to show my face to the janitorial staff because I am embarrassed that the dorm is left this way. Think of it this way. These dorms are
our homes. Would you trash your house back home? Of course not. Besides the fact that our parental units would beat the living hell out of us, we simply don't want to live in filth. Hash was renovated in 2006, so it is the nicest dorm on campus. In order for it to be kept that way we need to respect it and the future students who will live here.
I feel like saying "don't shoot the messenger" whenever someone gives me shit about telling them to not do something. Residence hall staffers can get tired of the rudeness, attitudes, disrespect and overall bullshit that we get from residents. Hey, we're students too, just doing our job and making money.
If you don't like the rules that are set out by student housing, if you feel the staff is pointless for enforcing rules, then by all means live off-campus next year. Deal with the police instead of a desk assistant every time a complaint is filed
So next time you decide to destroy something for whatever reason, just ask yourself, am I acting like an adult?
Ashley DeSandre is a sophomore, from Pocono Lake, Penn.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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