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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
opinion
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351 or at kansan.com
Tina Fey has a face scar, I have a face scar. I am the next Tina Fey.
TEXT FREE FOR ALL
you know it's gonna be a good day when the first thing scheduled is to get naked for a stranger.
I think we all agree it's hard to look cool wearing a bicycle helmet.
It's so cold outside! How am I still sweating when I get to class?!
Well, only six weeks till Thanksgiving break.
Wearing my Dunder Miffin t-shirt around campus is my attempt at finding my soulmate.
"its a little chilly outside... so lets make all the classrooms 10,000 degrees." KI
Once I had a dream where Bill Self picked the FFAs.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dreams do come true.
A KU cop almost hit me with his car...
again. Turns out crosswalks are just
a suggestion.
Having to take a gateway 100 times and still not passing is hard on a man.
So being a fat white kid am I allowed to be Aladdin? Because my biracial girlfriend is Jasmine and I already have a costume.
The vending machines with the card swipes are terrible for my bank account in tiny increments.
I will like any and all Instragams of your pets. Keep 'em coming.
You ever have a subpar Chipotle burrito and just feel like ending it all?
Really dreading all the inevitable Miley Cyrus costumes this year.
Petition to stop people from wearing those Vibram toe shoes.
This week is almost over and it's already been too long.
Roughly everything I say is about how hungry I am.
Appreciate small accomplishments for better self-esteem
Leaves are changing, pumpkin spice coffee, etc. I think I just summed up every conversation for the next few weeks.
Government -- please open back up so I can get in on all those sweet fall craft brews.
I think a lot about self-esteem, which is to say that I wonder how I might come by more of it. Call it middle-child syndrome or whatever, but nothing I ever do feels good enough to take credit for. It's a vicious cycle, because the harder I try to attain perfection, the more unattainable it seems. But people need to see the value in the things that we are accomplishing every single day. We can let that be what drives us. Those little achievements can be fuel in the tank on the road of life.
What do you prefer: Little Debbie or Hostess snack cakes?
I once heard that self-esteem comes through accomplishments, so I've out to try to accomplish all sorts of different things. But I've only just realized that accomplishment comes in all different shapes and sizes. I'm always
held in awe of other people's drive. A friend of mine, a single mother, works three jobs and has at least one night each week when she is scheduled for work and school 36 hours straight. Yet every morning, she is there when her son wakes up. She takes him to school and spends every free moment with him as she is positioning herself to give him the best life possible. There are days I don't want to get out of bed, but she is my inspiration. Every damn day is a battle to which she comes armed with a smile. If she can do that, I can drag myself out of bed by 9 a.m.
Life wasn't great when I was younger. I felt completely forgotten by everyone. I wanted to die. Every waking day was
spent begging the gods to give me strength to kill myself, but it wasn't to be. One of my teachers had handmade a card and gone out of her way to get my class to sign it (while I wasn't at school) with something that they liked about me, and I remember getting the card and just sitting and crying over it. One of my biggest regrets is that, to this day, I've not yet expressed how much that*
It isn't just things like that though. There are so many seemingly small things people do that make me feel just a bit better about the world I live in. Simple things. Picking up a piece of trash that they necessarily drop. Holding the door for someone. Smiling at someone for no reason other than possibly brightening their day. Making it to an 8 a.m. class. Looking before crossing the street, or maybe waving "thanks" to the car that had to slam on its
meant to me. That was perhaps, to her, something small, but it was life altering. Something that only took people a few minutes to do, changed and possibly saved my life. Don't underestimate the power that we can have to help other people.
brakes not to hit you when you forget to look both ways. Hell, the person that didn't hit you deserves credit too. Such small things can make a world of difference to somebody.
somebody. I have this incipient belief that life is not a series of quick sprints. Even major accomplishments can only take us so far. In this marathon we need something to drive us forward each painful step. I just want to point out that all of those things we do, that seem so small to us, could make a world of difference to someone else. So let's keep doing great things for each other, and appreciate ourselves for doing so.
Nick is a junior majoring in chemical engineering from Lawrence.
Hold government officials accountable at the polls
When I was a sophomore in high school, I met a holocaust
survivor living in my home town. She came to visit my honors English class, right after we had finished reading the novel "Night," by Elie Wiesel. Listening to her speak about her experiences was simultaneously heartbreaking and fascinating. As she sat there, recounting the horrors of her past, she gave the entire class a stern look and said something along the lines of: "Be careful who you pick as your leaders, because all it takes is one crook and the whole thing will crumble." I will never forget that.
At the time, my classmates and I thought that idea was a bit too paranoid—after all, isn't America based on a foundation of freedoms that inherently opposes tyranny? Had we not been learning about the government system of checks-and-balances set up to prevent a power overthrow since grade school? The idea seemed simply impossible.
Yet the older I get, the more I realize what she meant. As the government shutdown has clearly demonstrated, we need to pay attention to the leaders we elect. We are ill informed—more concerned with Hollywood scandal than public policy, more likely to base our political opinions on biased sources rather than facts. With the growing division between the Republican and Democratic parties, it's becoming more and more important
that people of our generation educate themselves on the issues and really start considering our future as a country.
future as a country.
Being an uneducated voter is dangerous. When you don't know the candidates you are voting for, it's easy to vote solely off party bias, or simply choose the names that look the most familiar, and this often means that the best candidates for the job aren't being chosen. Sometimes - especially in an eternally-red state like Kansas - two candidates from the same party might run, but one will switch party association so that both parties are represented. And voting by name recognition only means that you are probably choosing the candidate who had greatest campaign funds, not necessarily the candidate whose platforms you most agree with. And to top it off, sometimes these politicians are not even true natives to the state that they end up representing.
It's frustrating to think about the government shutdown and how powerless we are in preventing or fixing it. How
can we hold our politicians accountable when they are the ones who design and pass our bills and regulations? Their ability to exclude themselves from the consequences of their own legislation is, in itself, a form of corruption. I honestly think that if Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he would tell us (after having a massive stroke of shock upon seeing what our country has become) that "this is what your right to bear arms is for, people!"
But that may be an exaggeration. The truth is, this isn't the first time the government has shut down, and though it feels a whole lot like Congress is unable to fulfill the most basic of their duties, it would still be a bit ridiculous to resort to violence. However, though we don't have the power to simply upend congress at the moment, midterm elections will be upon us sooner than you think (about one year from now), and it is our duty as citizens to use this upcoming election as a way to hold Congress (and all of our political leaders) accountable.
So go online and do some research on your representatives, and find out whether you are happy with the job they are doing or not. And when midterm elections come around, don't forget to vote!
Tasha Cerny is a senior majoring in English from Salina.
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
Now that I'm fat, there's a whole new world of fat guy costumes just waiting for me this Halloween.
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Social media enables users to create art
When was the last time you made a piece of art? Unless you have
art? Unless you have a creative hobby or an artistic major, your answer is probably "never." Yet in today's online world, average users are filling the roles of artists. Mass media has put the creative tools into everyone's hands.
Think about it. Some of the most visited websites in the world exist solely for user-generated content - Wikipedia, Blogspot, YouTube, eBay, Flickr and most importantly, social media sites. Without these websites and apps, people wouldn't be exposed to the world of multimedia.
When I was 12,I started making YouTube videos because I saw people doing cool things online and wanted to emulate them.My videos were absolutely horrible, but I was inspired. Now, I hold two jobs where I produce and teach video. Without the background of YouTube and Facebook, I never would have realized my passion for multimedia and journalism.
I know I'm not the only one; currently, 18-34 year olds are the highest proportion of smartphone users, meaning they have cameras and quick access to online posting. Over half of Facebook users are in the same demographic.
When I started out, I just had a point-and-shoot camera and the barebones Windows Movie Maker software to work with. As technology develops and social media grows, more people are learning how to create multimedia.
This has led to us broadcasting our lives as they happen, and arguments have arisen that social media is distracting us from our experiences. However, I think it becomes a cathartic part of our existence. Through writing.
The rise of Vine is a great example of creativity being expressed through social media. Vine's six-second parameters challenge us to think critically about how we will transmit our joke/thought/message. The convenience of a web app also lets anyone enjoy the satisfaction of producing a video.
So what does this mean? Next time you're looking at yourself in the front facing camera, think about how you're capturing your life. Think about how you consume media. The markets will follow as younger generations who've grown up producing media hit the work force. Social media will continue to be an important part of our lives. How will it be a part of your life?
HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
vatton Boehm is a journalism major from Prairie Village.
Social media is constructed perfectly for this because of the instant feedback. People follow and like our content, or perhaps even share it with others. Immediate responses create a direct audience for our work that is vital for motivation. The more favorites or retweets you get, the more likely you are to continue to use Twitter.
With everyone producing at such a rapid rate, social media becomes an immersive experience. We see what others are creating and contribute to the cycle. Also, understanding what it takes to develop content causes us to raise our standards for what we consume. Look at television. In the era where overall viewership is declining, Breaking Bad broke records for the most watched television broadcast ever with 10.3 million viewers. Everyone is consuming. Additionally, Grand Theft Auto 5 sold over $1 billion in three days and broke the record for the highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours.
Trevor Graft, editor-in-chief
editor@kansan.com
Allison Kohn, managing editor
akohn@kansan.com
Dylan Lysen, managing editor
dlysen@kansan.com
So, we're artists. We're creators. Where are the consumers?
Length: 300 words
The submission should include the author's name, grade and hometown. Find our full letter to the editor policy online at kansas.com/letters.
photographing, recording and posting. we paint a picture of our world. We are artists,and our lives are our subject matter.
How do you use social media to create art?
Send letters to kansanopdesk@gmail.com. Write LETTER TO THE EDITOR in the e-mail subject line.
Will Webber, opinion editor
wwebber@kansan.com
Mollie Pointer, business manager
mpointer@kansan.com
Sean Powers, sales manager
spowers@kansan.com
LETTER GUIDELINES
@Ben_Samson
sometimes I post pictures of my dog and sometimes people favorite them that count as art or am I way out of my league
@Harpin Hannah
CONTACT US
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s/o to all those #musichoolpoets!
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bakag@kansan.com
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Trevor Graff, Allison Kohn, Dylan Lysen, Will Webber, Mollie Pointer and Sean Powers.