WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011
PAGE 5
opinion
Going to bed before midnight makes me feel like I must be failing as a college student.
Dear sun, if you're going to be out, at least make it hotter!
If I wake up one morning with a penis, I'll go to all the men's bathrooms and pee all over the toilet, and walls, and sinks. Let's see how them boys like it now.
The campus bus brakes speak to each other in beluga whale.
How is it free to pick up T-shirts, hot chocolate, coozies and draw string bags but we have to pay to get homework?
Here I sit buns-a-flexin, giving birth to another Texan.
I wanted to push the tag back into your underwear, but I didn't want to get slapped so I let you walk around all day like that.
I know you're pregnant and all but you don't show that much at only three months. That's some non-baby wobble you've got going on there.
If I woke up with a penis, the first thing I'd do is make someone kick me so I would really know how bad it hurts, or if guys just over-exaggerate it.
We have a nationally ranked men's rugby team but people only focus on basketball and football. What a tragedy,
You know you're best friends when you take your birth control at the same time everyday.
To the person who thinks Quidditch isn't a real sport, I'm pretty sure my bloody knee and the bruises I gave this weekend are real.
I'm from England and we say "bull shit" at tea parties too.
Hey NBA, feel free to extend the lock-out another year. We would like to keep T-Rob an other year if that's okay.
I don't always step on leaves, but when I do, they're crunchy. Stay crunchy my leaves.
Just because you've written a book doesn't mean you should be teaching classes.
What would happen if you gave a blind person a hallucinogen?
When will my professor realize no one's paying attention? We're all watching the basketball game playing from the kid in the front row's laptop.
I base how funny I am by how often I get in the Free For All. This year I must not be as funny.
Editor's note: No, I just don't think you're funny.
Dear vegans, I will eat three animals for every one you don't.
I would do the same thing every dude does if I woke up with a penis; pee standing up and try to screw the hottest chick possible.
EDITORIAL
Quality toilet paper worth additional cash
Toilet paper is an issue that is close to every Kansas student. We don't take the time to concern ourselves with matters of the "loo;" it makes us uneasy. However, as reported in a Kansas front-page story on Nov. 9, campus toilet paper is rubbing people the wrong way. The notion that we should stick with the current toilet paper is one that should be circling the drain. It's time that the University looks into better quality toilet paper.
How many times have we gone into a campus bathroom to take of our business and have been faced with gritty paper
that looks like it was made for industrial usage? We get what we pay for. The current tissue cost estimates show that each student flushes away about three rolls at a cost of $2.06 per year. That's a lower cost than Kansas State, which invests $3 of toilet paper, per student; however, each Kansas State student gets 3.55 rolls per year. Pittsburg State students on the other hand tear off 1.8 rolls at a cost of $3.24 per student.
The University's poor toilet rolls are nuisances we can improve. The last thing students should have to worry about is
If each full-time student pays a $1 student fee strictly going toward better toilet paper on campus, it will raise more than $23,000. This is enough to buy acceptable toilet paper for the whole campus.
clogging up a toilet with ineffective paper.
Students will receive a wholesome benefit with this small student fee. We will have a toilet paper that matches home quality. We will not have to use as much, which is an environmentally sustainable initiative, and most importantly, the new paper will make students feel a
lot better. The University should look to bulk up on two-ply or at the very least, a combination of one- and two-ply paper.
Students who support spending $1 extra per semester for a dramatic increase in toilet paper quality should contact Student Senate leaders to make sure this happens. Email Student Body President Libby Johnson at sbp@ku.edu and Vice President Gabe Bliss at gblissku.edu.
Billy McCroy for the Kansan Editorial Board
WHAT ISSUES SHOULD WE TAKE A STAND ON THIS SEMESTER?
Send your thoughts to vshanker@ kansan.com to let the Editorial Board know.
THE NEXT PANEL
AS I'VE SAID BEFORE AND WILL SAY AG-AIN,
Nick Sambaluk
mirandalw
@UDK Opinion turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes,
gravy, GRAVY, cheesecake, turkey again,
cheesecake again...this is an unfair question
Jonsamp
Ralph_Farley
@UBK_Opinion rolls and gravy.and the nog.
stuffing stuffing!!!
iwantmoreofthatstuff
**images**
@UDK_Opinion tofurkey
vegetarianthanksgiving
CAMPUS
mcge3
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Student fees help all even if all don't use
This letter is in reference to the column "Campus fees unnecessary, unwanted by some students."
First, the column doesn't seem to be informed on the issues it is supposed to be writing about, particularly the section on campus fees. How does the author propose we select what campus fees should and shouldn't be open for choice? For instance, the fee to fund SafeRide/SafeBus is only $12.10 a semester. To get a taxi one-way in Lawrence is going to cost you $10 no matter which taxi service you contact. So all you have to do is use or need SafeRide/SafeBus twice a semester to have already saved yourself $8. Or take the bus fee, which is only $47.20 a semester.
Does the author know that with this fee, the busses on campus are not only free to students, but so are the Lawrence Transit busses as well! For a nonstudent it costs $34 for a monthly pass to ride the Lawrence Transit busses. This means students pay about $94 a year for the opportunity to ride all bus services year-round, when
it costs the normal Lawrence resident over $400 to do the same.
My personal favorite is the complaint about the SUA fee, which is a whopping $6 a semester. SUA puts on over a hundred activities for students at free or incredibly low cost per year. Again, spreading the cost over all students allows all students the opportunity of saving themselves tons of money compared to if it was on an optional choice basis. So again, I don't see where you can possibly draw a line that defines what fees should be offered by choice and which ones shouldn't be.
All of the fees benefit students' experiences at KU. It isn't the University's fault that you don't take advantage of the possibilities. The columnn's arguments are no different than if I was to complain about paying for police and fire department services just because I don't need them "now."
J. T. Hammons is a senior from Valley Falls in philosophy and African studies
YOUR COLUMN HERE
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COMMENTARY
Film glorifies Civil War Confederacy
Despite the fact that the Civil War ended almost 150 years ago, it is still being fought in movie theaters and TVs across the nation—and this time, the U.S. is losing. Though the Union won the war, the Confederates won the story.
After the war ended in 1865, both sides went off to lick their wounds and the American public immediately began reshaping the war into a useable narrative.
Normally, this would mean presenting the victors as saviors of godlike grace and goodness, but something strange happened with the Civil War. Former Confederates, distraught at the righteous whooping they received from the North, began constructing what's known as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
At a Hudson Union Society event, documentarian and Civil War expert Ken Burns said "history is written usually by the victors, and it's the first time
Tired of being portrayed as slavery-loving traitors, they presented themselves as noble rebels whose only fault was loving their home and who only lost because of the U.S.'s superior numbers and "dirty foreign politics and cowardly blockades," as the Confederate song "An Old Unreconstructed" puts it.
where history was written by the losers"
The first major Civil War film was D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," released in 1915. The film portrayed the war as a tragic misunderstanding between the states, not a conflict started over the institution of slavery. Even worse, the film portrays freed slaves as ignorant at best, murderous rapists at worst and celebrates the rise of the KKK.
"Gone with the Wind", probably the most famous movie about the war, was released in 1939 and helped solidify the Lost Cause mythology by romanticizing the South and its Confederate inhabitants. Thanks to Lost Cause of the Confederacy, almost every film dealing with the Civil War has Confederate protagonists, from Buster Keaton's "The General" in 1926, to Shirley Temple's "The Littlest Rebel" in 1935, to Clint Eastwood's "The Outlaw Josey Wales" in 1976, to "Cold Mountain" in 2003. In fact, the only two Civil War movies of any
This trend of Confederate protagonists continues even today with AMC's new show "Hell on Wheels," which premiered Nov. 6. The show follows a former Confederate soldier searching for the Union soldiers who raped and killed his wife. As if that isn't one-sided enough, the pilot opens with a Union soldier tearfully confessing that he participated in General Sherman's March to the Sea and utters the celebrated general's name with the same tone you might say "Satan" or "Jerry Sandusky."
"Hell on Wheels" falls over itself making the Confederate protagonist looks good. He reveals that he was a slave-owner, but that he freed his slaves a year before the war began for no reason other than the goodness of his heart. On the other hand, a former Union soldier played by Ted Levine only stops spewing racial
As residents of Kansas, a state born amidst blood and fire as abolitionists like John Brown fought to create a free state, I urge you to look deeper when the Civil War is presented on TV and in film and reject the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, even when it has cowboys on an awesome revenge quest.
Certainly there are other reasons for the numerous films and TV shows featuring Confederate protagonists outside of the Lost Cause mythology. We love romanticizing rebels, even when they actively fought against us. However, regardless of the reason, it is always frustrating to see the Confederate cause championed at the expense of the Union.
Schumaker is a senior in film & media studies and English from Overland Park
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note that feature only Union protagonists are "Glory" and "The Red Badge of Courage."
Kelly Stroda, editor
864-4810 or karttola@kansan.com
Joel Peterson, managing editor
864-4810 or jetterson@kansan.com
Jonathan Shorman, managing editor
864-4810 or joshman@kansan.com
epithets long enough to beat an African-American worker to death.
Clayton Ashley, managing editor 864-4810 or cashley@kansan.com
Mandy Matney, opinion editor 864-4924 or matney@kansan.com
CONTACT US
Vikaas Shanker, editorial editor
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864-7666 or jschlitt@kansan.com
THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Renaissance Board are Kelly Stroda, Jett Peterson, Jonathan Shmanau, Vikas Shanker, Mandy Matthey and Steven Penn.
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