THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2011
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COMEDY FROM PAGE 1A
out into a rap. An adviser barricades students in his office to explain how awful life becomes after college. And an elderly woman hoping to continue her education gets the full college experience, complete with booze and undergraduate boys.
"We went to the Hawk and did body shots for just a dollar," said the old woman, played by Lyndsay Hailev. "It was Wednesday."
Every sketch might not have been true to the college experience, but the overall effect was just as hilarious to the audience members, including Jen Robinson, a freshman from Ellsworth, Iowa.
"It's comedy," Robinson said. "It's a great way to relax and get away from all the homework we have to do."
Robinson said the show was exciting not only because of the comedy but the potential to see the next big comedy star.
TYLER ROSTE/KANSAN
Edited by Alexandra Esposito
Second City comedy troupe performs on stage at the Woodruff auditorium in the Union. Second City performed skits about the college experience.
TYLER ROSTE/KANSAN
Although Second City is a Chicago-based group, it tailored its jokes to KU students. The comedians poked fun at people for expecting VCU to be an easy victory in last year's NCAA men's basketball tournament.
CRIME
From left, Amanda Cradic and Meagan Mayer react as they learn that the son of a woman they described as their best friend was kidnapped early Tuesday morning from his home in St. Louis County, Mo. Police said the body of 1-year-old Tyler Dasher was found near a cemetery about a mile from where he went missing. Shelby Dasher, Tyler's mother, has been charged with murdering him.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSING FROM PAGE 1A
"If the landlord intentionally rented out for more people than they should, well, that's one kind of problem," said James Dunn, president of the Landlords of Lawrence Association and the owner of a number of rental properties throughout the city. "Another kind of problem is when there's over occupancy based on the tenant's decision."
violated his or her contract and brought in another individual without the landlord's knowledge.
Dunn believes that the underlying reason for the code and the city's desire to crack down on violators is the increasing number of properties being built in Lawrence that are not purchased by families. The owners of these vacant homes are then compelled to rent them out to tenants, the majority of whom are students.
"If they have a six-bedroom monster house in west Lawrence that they can't sell, well then they have to rent it to three unrelated students," Dunn said.
All the extra space for students lends itself to partying and inviting girlfriends and boyfriends to move-in, Dunn said. When students move into up-scale neighborhoods living a different lifestyle than their neighbors, the lower property values can lower.
Dunn said.
Kirk McClure, University professor of urban planning in the School of Architecture Design and Planning, has conducted urban development studies in Lawrence and has a similar view concerning housing growth within the city.
"The pace of growth of real estate in Lawrence in the past has been too fast," McClure wrote in an email. "Lawrence let real estate supply grow much, much faster than the growth in real estate demand."
McClure said the city had wrongly assumed that all real estate growth is good growth. Excess space leads to decline and deterioration of existing space, resulting in the loss of value of older neighborhoods.
The Lawrence page of City-Data.com shows that the city has reduced its new single-family housing construction permits per 10,000 residences after the explosion of growth it experienced in the late 1990s, but that it is still above the average for the rest of Kansas.
Jimenez said that there have been no housing code violations reported since the announcement of the increased code enforcement in October.
— Edited by Jonathan Shiorman
Mother charged with murder of 1-year-old son
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AFFTON, Mo. — A suburban St. Louis woman who claimed her 13-month-old son had vanished from his crib was charged Wednesday with murdering him, after prosecutors say she admitted beating him because he wouldn't stop
Shelby Dasher, 20, was arrested less than 16 hours after she reported her son, Tyler, was missing. People walking
Dasher
people walking their dog found
Tyler Dasher's body on Tuesday near a cemetery about a mile from his home.
St. Louis County prosecutor Bob
McCulloch said Dasher admitted to police that she repeatedly hit her son because he was crying and "wouldn't lay down, wouldn't go back to sleep." He said she also told police she disposed of her son's body.
"Raising children can be frustrating. There are a myriad of ways to handle that," McCulloch said. "This isn't one of them."
McCulloch revealed little else about the boy's death, except to say it appeared he hadn't been struck with objects or weapons. He declined to say when investigators believe the child died.
Police said when Dasher called to report her son missing, she told them she overslept that morning and discovered him gone from his crib when she awoke. His body was found within about 100 feet of a
busy road.
Dasher was being held on $500,000 cash bond. The state's electronic court system did not list an attorney for her Wednesday afternoon, and a county jail worker declined to convey a request to Dasher seeking comment.
Before the charges were announced, detectives and uniformed officers came and went Wednesday from the family's small frame home, which is in a working class neighborhood. Yellow police tape surrounded the home, and a large Halloween pumpkin was on the front porch.
A long, wide area near the cemetery also was cordoned off. A cluster of young adults nearby cried and hugged as they watched officers mill around the scene. It wasn't clear if they were relatives of
Tyler, and they declined interview requests.
"It says to me it's a pretty sick person," St. Louis County Police ChiefTim Fitch said. "Anybody that would take a child and leave a child in a wooded area in that condition needs to be dealt with severely by the criminal justice system."
Johnny Ellington, whose 24-year-old son, Joe Ellington, is Tyler's father, said he knew little about the investigation beyond what had been reported in the news. He said his family had been questioned by police and that the family advised Joe not to talk to the media.
Johnny Ellington, 65, said his son and Dasher were never married, and that his family saw Tyler frequently.
"He was just a wonderful baby and beautiful boy" he said.
Tim Adair was visiting his sister's home three houses down from the Dashers. He said Tyler's grandmother came over Tuesday, distraught, and told them the boy was missing. She said she had no idea where he could be.
Neighbors described the area where the Dashers live as quiet, the people close. But several neighbors said they knew little about Dasher or her son because the family had only moved into their rented home a little over a year ago.
"Everybody here kind of knows each other, but not them," said Rick Angeles, 28, who lives across the street with his wife and 3-year-old son. Angeles said a lot of young people were in and out of the Dasher home frequently but he never saw anything that concerned him.
This first dose of extended time back at home can be a difficult adjustment for freshmen. In reality, though, this is just a small taste of what Winter Break may be like.
family for a couple of days, catching up with friends from back home and seeing my dog, Gryphon."
Collin Edwards, a graduate student from Olathe, thinks that it's sad that students dwell on what they're missing out on when they're not at the University, rather than enjoy the short time they have with their family for the holiday.
"I think freshmen tend to have selfish thoughts about 'having' to spend time with their families, but it's important to realize that this time is valuable for your family," he said. "It took me four years to figure that out."
Edited by Stefanie Penn
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