THE UNIVERSITY BAHY GANSAN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2013
PAGE 4
Dear attractive lady on the face wash commercial, people don't actually splash their face with water like that. Sincerely, My Bathroom Floor Is Now Soaking Wet.
To whomever took the crossword then put the newspaper back, I hate you.
The piccolos did a wave in the 4th quarter. It was awesome. Hope they do it again next game.
opinion
There's always that one Facebook friend who likes about 62 vines in a row.
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351 or at kansan.com
Hey editor, hook up the banana suit and gorilla suit.
Sometimes when I see a person with a pizza in the library, I want to tell @ FreeFoodAKU so random people will come up and take a slice.
TEXT FREE FOR ALL
I taught my grandma how to use Netflix and I don't think she has changed clothes for three days.
Why couldn't I have been born a cat?
The way to feel warm in Smith is to refute your belief in the AC. I hear it works with gravity also but I am afraid to try.
No one knows it but I pull the strings of student government like Kevin Spacey in House of Cards.
If you don't want your copy of the New Testament, Pearson Scholarship Hall will gladly accept it.
To the couple on the first floor of Wescoe; straddling each other in the middle of a hallway is not allowed. Kindly dismount and stop being gross. Sincerely, everyone.
I've sent an IFA about the Chiefs every week and we've won every week, so we go we go.
I hope to someday live in a world where people don't smash other people's pumpkins. Excuse me for thinking I could safely put my pumpkin on the porch for just an hour, Jerks.
My mustache doesn't look so bad, maybe.
Can Ass Jamz just stop, please?
when are bidets going to become standard in the U.S.? Just another example of our government failing us
SOCIAL ISSUES
I wouldn't say I eat meals, so much as I just never stop eating at any point during the day.
Demeaning fundraiser cheapens breast cancer fight
I love October. Besides being my birthday month and the month when temperatures finally dip below 80 degrees. October is the month of breast cancer awareness.
Each year I am amazed by the wide amount of businesses, schools and organizations that choose to go pink in the name of beating breast cancer. Some just seek to raise awareness with their "pink out" games, others want to raise funds through pink hair extensions or special deals at their stores, while still others want to involve cancer patients in a walk/ run event.
One local establishment, however, has a particularly unusual way to support the cause. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's the Jayhawk Café's "Bartenders in Bras, Booze for a Cause." It's pretty much exactly what you think it is. Female
employees wear nothing but bras and bottoms while bartending in order to draw a larger-than-usual crowd for the fundraiser.
On this night, patrons pay a higher cover charge to benefit various breast cancer charities. Last year's event raised more than $5,000 for the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Breast Center.
Here's my problem with the "bartenders in bras" scenario. You don't get to support one faction of women by objectifying another. I say this with full knowledge that men can contract breast cancer, as well, but that it is 100 times less common in men than in women.
I'm sure Lawrence Memorial Hospital is thrilled to receive thousands of dollars toward treating their breast cancer patients, but at the expense of the dignity of dozens of our Lawrence women? I'm sure they can find another
way to raise the funds.
Touting our most attractive Lawrence women in next-to-nothing behind a bar is not supporting a cause. It's a thinly veiled excuse to use female bodies for profit. And the hype around the event doesn't lead me to believe that supporting breast cancer is at the forefront of this night.
Take some of the tweets people used to recommend the fundraiser. One supporter: "Booastes and large amounts of booze at the
@JayhawkCafe tonight so what else can you ask for?" Another: "Combine boobs and booze at the @jayhawkCafe and you know its going to be a great night. #BartendersInBras" Still another: "Bartenders in Bras tonight! Guys, you can stare at the bartenders' boobs & it's okay! Girls, you can tease & tip the BOYS!"
Can we not think of any better way to support breast cancer efforts? I know from personal experience how willing these female employees are eager to help the cause, and willingly participate. But I don't need my friends to offer up their bodies to get my money. I'll just hand it to them to support a good cause.
If the jayhawk Café can raise the same amount of money with out the bartenders dressing half naked, I applaud them. But I don't think they can garner the same
amount of enthusiasm without the half-naked women, and that's the problem.
Just because breast cancer involves the word "breast" doesn't mean we can support it using near-nudity or offensive terms like boobies, tats and breastes. Until the male employees agree to wear thongs for prostate cancer, I'll continue spending the "bartenders for bras" night at home and give my money to Lawrence Memorial directly.
Lawrence is an extremely generous, socially aware town. Let's not betray it by using these types of tactics to support an otherwise upstanding cause.
Lindsey Mayfield is a senior from Overland Park studying journalism, public policy and leadership.
'The Pale King' shows importance of discipline for long-term success
Today's column is once again brought to you by my intense obsession with David Foster Wallace's work. His final novel, "The Pale King," was left tragically unfinished. I have neither the space nor the clarity of opinion on it to discuss his suicide here, which is what cut the work short of coalescing into possibly his best (a tall order to fill with Infinite Jest already under his belt). In "The Pale King," Wallace immerses the reader in the world of an IRS auditing facility. This is hardly an exciting place for a novel to occur, you might think—and you are absolutely right: DFW selects this setting and cast of characters to bring the struggles of everyday modern life into sharp focus. The Pale King challenges our concept of success, suggesting that it is measured in disciplined, daily actions over time, rather than in an imaginary list of significant accomplishments.
Heroisim is where our concept of success manifests itself. What makes a hero? In popular culture, a hero might be the guy that can shoot a ball into a hoop better than anybody else, or the character in film that saves an entire planet/race, destroying the would-be destroyers in the process. We define heroisim in the fleeting moments of incredible transcendence of human limits and hold the heroes in high regard. DFW turns this notion on its head: "True heroism is in minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care--with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world."
This definition of heroism
isn't about what you do, but how you do it. It doesn't rely on your validation or recognition. Anyone can aspire to this heroism, which is about intentional personal control rather than decisive action at a critical moment. DFW brings out this new heroism against the backdrop of the monotonous workday of an IRS auditor. One of the great challenges that an everyday hero overcomes is that of boredom.
"To be, in a word, unborable..." he writes, "...is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish."
As college students we are lucky (and unlucky) to have an endless list of things to do and opportunities to make use of our time. Even with a full schedule, or maybe especially with a full schedule, boredom can creep in. Those hours spent grinding out homework, working a job, or even just grocery shopping can become an interminal torture. Not everyone works five days a week auditing tax returns, but to some degree we are entrenched in a routine. Rather than running away from boredom, DFW suggests that the secret is to transcend the monotony and live within it, yet without it.
I spend a significant amount of
my week working in a chemical engineering research lab. I deeply care about the broader impacts of the research like biorenewable chemical production and green reactor engineering. On a day-to-day basis, though, research involves precise repetition of experiments and great attention to detail. Progress doesn't come in great leaps and bounds, but in the incremental solution of thousands of smaller problems. Were I to succumb to boredom, I would be continually dissatisfied with the routine and disappointed in my (as of yet) lack of an academic publication. Instead, I have immersed myself in and focused my attention on solving the everyday problems, which will eventually yield those personal results and broader impacts.
I don't believe that DFW is suggesting that having bold aspirations is a bad thing, or that significant accomplishments don't have value or bring one a sense of success. It's that we spend most of our time in between these points. We don't spend every day of our lives walking down the hill with a degree in hand: we spend four (or more) years working toward this single day. And afterward, it's back to the everyday grind. I think that DFW is telling us to remember that we can experience heroism in the everyday so that, at one time or another, it will help us all make it to those singular moments of success.
Jason Bates is a senior majoring in chemical engineering from Overland Park
Brought home some 150 pounds of new beer from my weekend trip. I think I heard the Super Smash Bros announcer shout "a new record!"
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
CORPORATE CAUSES
Research business practices before buying
Step onto campus, scan the sidewalk and you're likely to notice a lot of people wearing TOMS. While you probably don't know that the shoes are modeled after the Argentinian alpargatas, or that TOMS founder and CEO Blake Mycoskie found the inspiration for his now-multimillion-dollar company while learning how to play polo in Argentina in 2006, you're probably aware that TOMS matches each sale with a donation of shoes to a child in need. October is International Fair Trade Month, but every purchase made year-round provides an opportunity for students as consumers to think about which business practices they want to support.
The "One for One" business model is simple: Produce shoes, sell them, and match each sale with a donation. It's been astonishingly successful - to date, TOMS has given away over ten million pairs of shoes, with plans to double that number within the next two years. It's also sparked controversy, with critics arguing that money spent on shoes could be invested in other, more efficient community interventions like health clinics or clean sources of drinking water.
The most serious criticism is that, by simply giving away the shoes, TOMS misses out on the opportunity to employ local workers and strengthen local economies. Kelsey Timmerman, author of "WHERE AM I WEARING? A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes," points out that our real, underlying problem in impoverished communities worldwide is not that individuals just decide not to manufacture and purchase shoes. It's that shoes become an unaffordable luxury when families are making tough decisions about finding food and water and shelter. Here, the obvious point is the one captured in the parable about deciding between giving someone a fish, feeding them for a single day, or teaching them to fish and empowering them to feed themselves for life.
Timmerman describes an example of a company with a very similar message as TOMS- with one key difference. soleRebels is a shoe company based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It employs about 100 people and pays them triple the average industry wage and quadruple the legal minimum wage. It also provides complete medical coverage and sends the children of its workers to school. The message from the founder.
Personally, I prefer the sole Rebels model. While I'm certainly not a fashion expert, I'd guess that the shoes will gain popularity in the U.S. as they increase their exposure – currently, they are sold in 40 countries worldwide. This doesn't mean that the TOMS model is a bad one, and they are taking steps to improve and update their practices. Currently, TOMS is giving a portion of profits to third-party charities working in the communities TOMS serves. In two years, the company plans to manufacture one-third of the shoes it gives away in the regions where they are donated. TOMS employs Haitian artists to hand-paint shoes to be sold, and last month Mycoskie announced that TOMS will open a manufacturing center in Haiti this January. The company has also begun to sell eyeglasses, using the profits to provide sight-saving medical care in thirteen countries.
Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, is simple and powerful: creating a global brand of shoes while providing high quality jobs for individuals builds strong communities. This is evident in the way the company treats its workers – there are no quotas for how many shoes workers must produce per day, and the company provides transportation to and from work for its employees with disabilities.
Why should students care about the benefits or disadvantages to a business model, especially the business model of a company that is obviously doing its best to improve the lives of people around the world? Each purchase we make represents a choice, and I'd guess that students who buy TOMS are choosing to be stylish while doing good. That's admirable, and TOMS deserves credit for making consumers more aware of the seriousness of poverty worldwide. Our decision to support any company shapes the market for successful socially conscious groups - so it's important that we first take the time to know exactly what it is we're supporting.
Travoo Graft, editor-in-chief editor@kansan.com
Allison Kohn, managing editor akohn@kansan.com
Dylan Lysen, managing editor chyesn@kansan.com
Amanda Gress is a junior studying political science and economics from Overland Park.
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