WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2013
PAGE 4
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS
Few things have the power to traumatize me like the words "private shuttle" on a rainy day.
That moment when a squirrel tries to trip you.
My friend thinks the flu vaccine will turn you into a cat...she just got into med school.
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Can we make it a rule not to wear the free "Far Above" shirts to games? You have to have a better KU shirt than that.
Game day papers need more paper.
My horoscope today was "Compromise, delegate, and don't underestimate the power of cookies" ...what kind of sign is that?
Sneaky Baptists and their "basket ball schedule." Well played.
So I am fully aware that raisins come from grapes, but never in my 20 yrs of eating either has a grape tasted more like a raisin than it did today.
The UDK fairy is an old dude in a track suit. He's pretty cool.
When did Jimmie Johnson start driving a bus on campus? We are making record time, never mind the students stuck on the windshield.
Remember kids, "I" before "e" except in Budweiser.
I find myself talking to the squirrels - think I have been here too long.
Is it a crime to be silly?
I'm already over seeing "Remember, remember..." today.
Think God doesn't have a sense of humor? Just look at Mizzou basketball.
I don't know what it was about that guy handing me a pamphlet about animal cruelty, but damam I craving a steak now.
To fellow ABC gum hater. I sympathize, all 4 years as a student I found these unpleasant surprises. It's college not middle school.
POLITICS
Accounting 205 just really pisses me off.
It's really unfortunate that one video of some idiots puts a blanket over all the good fraternity men. Thanks
'Hi grandma, it's Lukel'
Umm marry me? Cutest overheard
phone conversation EVER.
EDITOR'S NOTE: There are
going to be several guys
faking calls to their
grandmas tomorrow.
Educate yourself on strict voter registration laws
When I registered to vote at 10 p.m. on the night of my 18th birthday, Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi had just been released from her seven-year-long house arrest. I'd heard the news on the radio, and I listened to one of her speeches while I logged on to voteks.org. Typing in my name, date of birth, address and driver's license number, I finished the registration process before my YouTube video of one of Suu Kyi's speeches ended.
If a new voter tried to register today, that process would be slightly different — although the prospective applicant might not even recognize that the change existed. New voter registration laws require that would-be voters provide proof of citizenship before their registration is made official. This proof can take the form of a birth certificate, passport, naturalization documents or other official papers. The process must be completed before Election Day.
The problem is that a large number of voters may not realize that the changes have taken place. Registering at a voter registration
drive, like the one sponsored by the Student Legislative Advisory Board and Dole Institute of Politics at the University during Civic Engagement Week, is only the first step in the registration process. Individuals must then contact their election office to prove their citizenship. Since the rules went into effect in January, over 18,100 Kansans have attempted to register to vote, but have failed to complete the proof-of-citizenship step. That accounts for a full one-third of individuals who have attempted to register during that time period. These hopeful voters may be waiting until later, or they may not even be aware the requirement exists.
The future of those registrations remains uncertain. Currently, Kansas and Arizona are attempting to use legal mechanisms to force the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to add special instructions about proof of citizenship regulations to the federal registration form. The two states claim that absent such a change, they would need to operate two separate registration lists, as individuals who used the
federal form and did not prove their citizenship would be allowed to vote in only national elections. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union has warned the two states that it plans to pursue legal action, after a Supreme Court case in June ruled against Arizona's rejection of federally registered voters who had not proven their citizenship.
It's possible that non-citizen voting in Kansas is actually the largest problem in the state, one that justifies spending money on legal battles and registration paperwork at a time when the state is cutting funds for education, health care and social services. It's possible that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach could produce evidence that voter fraud is a
significant problem in the state, and chooses not to so that the rest of us can sleep more easily at night. It's possible that he truly believes the answer he gave when Rep. Jim Ward of Wichita asked Kobach how to feasibly collect the required documents during a voter registration drive ("carry a copy machine with you") is the best model for preserving the Kansan democratic tradition.
It's possible, but I don't think it's particularly likely.
The best way to avoid problems that could hamper your voting is to make sure that you are registered far in advance of an election. Kansans can visit gotovoterid.com to check their registration status and learn how and where they can provide the necessary documents. After they have proven their citizenship once, they do not have to do so if they re-register in the future to update residence or party affiliation (remember, voters must re-register each time they change address).
When Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest in 1995, she reminded her followers of the importance of tolerating differing
political viewpoints, saying "We will surely get to our destination if we join hands." Young Kansans now have the opportunity to join hands to help their friends and family members exercise their constitutional right to participate in elections. Mentioning the citizenship requirements to friends registering for the first time can spread knowledge that the requirement exists in the first place. Taking ten minutes together to stop by the Douglas County Courthouse on Massachusetts Street is easy; scanning and emailing your documents to the information posted on govt voterid. com is too. Hopefully, Kansans can work together to ensure that every voter has the opportunity to exercise their right to vote on Election Day, regardless of how inconvenient that new extra step might be.
Amanda Gress is a junior majoring in political science and economics from Overland Park.
INTERNET
YouTube Music Awards detract from live concert experience
What does "The Harlem Shake," "Gangnam Style" and "The Fox (What Does The Fox Say)" have in common? My immediate response would be that they are all crimes against humanity. However, other than being agonizingly annoying, these songs among others have been deemed as YouTube sensations.
I guarantee that you have seen or heard at least one, if not all, of these videos. While I admittedly watched countless "Harlem Shake" videos on my own time, I accidentally saw a clip of "Gangnam Style" on the news last year and was unknowingly shown the ear-numbing "The Fox (What Does The Fox Say)" by a friend. Regardless of whether I'd seen the viral videos or not, I certainly had heard of them all within a week of their upload.
To praise these videos with further acclaim, the very first YouTube Music Awards "ceremony" — however unceremonious it may have been — took place this past Sunday. Having been inundated with articles from every major publication that covered the event in the past 24 hours, I couldn't help but wonder, when did YouTube become such a prominent force in the music industry?
YouTube was founded in 2005, and though memory often fails me, I am fairly certain that the first time I watched a video on the platform wasn't until 2008. I remember this because the video
I watched was of a young Justin Bieber singing Chris Brown's "With You" in a basement. At the time, the video had well under one thousand views. I decided to recently revisit the video and as of today, it has well over 45 million views. Personally, I think that it is safe to say Justin Bieber was one of, if not the first, official YouTube music phenomena.
I will not refute the fact that bringing awareness to (what was once) great talent is a good thing. My issue with YouTube's involvement in the music industry is that it inadvertently contradicts movements such as Record Store Day and the Affordable Ticket Act, which aim to get music fans in front of a crate of vinyl or a stage, as opposed to a computer screen.
Over one billion users visit YouTube each month, and according to YouTube's statistics page, "over six billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube — that's almost an hour for every person on Earth."
video platform impacts the music industry both positively and negatively. YouTube has become a reliable and authentic outlet to market emerging musical talent, yet along the way YouTube has also provided an inauthentic outlet for music fans to support musicians with views rather than purchases.
Thinking about the hours that I alone have clocked into You-Tube's statistics, I realize that the
It's great, of course, that music festivals and events such as the YouTube Music Awards offer live streaming because they invite anyone and everyone into the experience. While this provides an affordable, comfortable and reasonable alternative for many, it can never amount to a sufficient substitute. The YouTube Music awards attempted to maintain a level of live entertainment by streaming an unrehearsed, organic awards show, and if I were there, I'm sure I would have enjoyed and fed into the spontaneity of it all. But since I was watching it all play out in my bed with the heat from my laptop radiating onto my legs, I soon lost interest and simply exited out.
It is far more rewarding for an artist to look into a crowd of fans singing along with the lyrics, than it is to stare into a screen and count the number of fans that view a video. No story, photo or live stream can compare to the value of physical presence.
Lyndsey Havens is a sophomore majoring in journalism from Chicago.
GENDER
Break out of traditional roles in relationships
After asking me whether or not I was seeing anyone, a friend's mother once comforted me by saying, "Guys in college aren't looking for anything serious. They just want to run around and have fun
they aren't ready to commit to girls they actually want to end up with. You're the girl they'll want to take home to their moms they'll come around in a few years and then you'll have men lining up to take you out."
I'm not exactly sure what prompted this revelation from my friend's mother, nor am I clear on exactly why I should find this comforting, but it's a comment that I have thought a lot about since then.
There are a lot of things I see wrong with this philosophy, but beyond the presumption — again
— that being in a relationship is something to strive for, the thing that bothers me most about this statement is the gender stereotyping. I recently re-watched Disney's "The Little Mermaid" for my thesis project (because deep down, I'm still five years old) and the most striking thing about the film was Ursula's drag show during "Poor Unfortunate Souls." In it, she reveals pretty blatantly that gender is very much a performance. Thinking back to this mother's bit of "consolation" for me, I realized that it isn't all guys have this "no-responsibilities, party-while we're-young" attitude, but rather that it's what we expect from guys at this age.
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
In fact, thinking about a lot of expectations of both genders, I realized that a lot of the assumptions and attitudes we take on because of our genders are performances. Women tend do more stereotypical "girly" things like wearing make-up, dressing nicely and looking for serious relationships because that's what we associate with being female. Whereas men tend to be more interested in sports, working out and maintaining casual
relationships because that's what society tells us men should be like.
To that, I say: Be who you want to be. If you identify as a woman, but you feel like more of the "man" in your relationships, more power to you! If you're a guy, but you are sensitive to others' emotions or you cry easily, that doesn't make you less of a man. Anyone who doesn't recognize their choices about their gender as a performance are simply poor, unfortunate souls.
Now obviously these generalizations are not necessarily accurate in the depiction of each man and woman — I myself love basketball just as much as every other Kansas diehard, and I know lots of guys who are in serious, committed relationships — but the point is that our genders and the way we 'perform' them is very much an aspect of nurture, not nature. It is perfectly acceptable to be a "girlly-girl" or a "man's man," but it's also important to recognize these depictions as choices and performances, and not inherent divisions between the sexes.
Thus, I reiterate the inherent problem with my friend's mother's quote. Generalizing that all men in college don't want to date mom-worthy girls assumes 1) that there are certain aspects of performing the female gender that make some women more dateable/marriage-worthy than others; 2) these aspects are somehow tied into the idea of being a 'good girl', and 3) men in college are wild and immature, and only age and time will tame them.
Tasha Cerny is a senior majoring in English from Salina.
Too emotionally invested in the men's basketball team to feel bad about being forever single.
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