OPINION
ANSAN
2008
red
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5A
MONDAY OCTOBER 6 2008
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
I am a 1967 KU graduate who has been an intense Jayhawk sports fan, always proud of my Alma Mater and quick to welcome visitors of opposing teams to take in the scenic beauty of our campus and to check out all the wonderful traditions intrinsic to our football game days.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Our band had always been one of my greatest points of pride; however, a few years ago that changed when a gift of new band uniforms brought a drastic change in appearance. It's great that someone was willing to support our school in such a major manner, but I wish that money had not been used to totally change the uniforms. I wonder if anyone else has compared the majesty of the old style uniforms to the mediocrity of the new ones?
Having seen them up close for the first time during the Band Day parade a few weekends ago, I was dismayed to see some of the high school bands march by in uniforms that were superior in both appearance
Why can't new uniforms look like the old ones?
and quality to our new KU band uniforms. Somehow the black pants, plain blue vests and simple capes just don't measure up to the former uniforms that were of such high quality and that, in my opinion, were the best looking band uniforms of any collegiate band I'd ever seen.
I was pleased to read that Dana Anderson had donated $100,000 to enhance the band program in the future, and I salute the Anderson family for their incredible support over the years. I wish that I were capable financially of donating enough to restore the "best damned band in the land" new uniforms exactly like the former ones that were so awesome to see. Unfortunately, I can't, but I can suggest that a fund be created that would eventually accomplish the switch back to those red, white and blue beauties.
Joel Ahlbrandt is a 1967 graduate from
Thanks for the opportunity to state my opinion, which I hope is shared by all alums who have seen and can fairly compare both types of uniforms.
Where is the news coverage about Bolivia?
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Before being interviewed for the article mentioned above, I joked win friends on being worried that things might be misquoted or inaccurate. After reading the article, I felt amused that all my fears were correct. The main idea is not to criticize the writer. This goes beyond that.
I must inform readers (whod rather eat all the flavors of Tad's Tropical Snow) they won't hear about Bolivian hostilities. And if they do, it won't be accurate.
Wed like to apologize for the article "Violence in Bolivia not so far from 'home'" (Oct. 2), which includes information regarding the deaths of 30 people as well as Bolivia's expulsion of the U.S. ambassador.
This is the not the way I expect to hear the news regarding an international crisis, and those tiny blurbs in the corner of the
newspaper aren't enough.
I would assume that a paper not reliant on sales can forget the idea of being profitable and truly embrace the outside world. To those who have criticized us for not having "open eyes" to what is really going on perhaps they could be opened wider with more concrete and accurate media.
But then again I guess it's my fault for trying to believe I could let KU students know about problems going on, outside America. It's my fault for believing that a paper run by peers could help me get a clear message across.
Maybe it's even bigger than this, it's simply my fault for believing that America stands for more than mainstream media, but who am I to criticize a land built by immigrants?
Diego Taborga is a senior from La Paz, Bolivia.
HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Send letters to opinionkansan.com
Write LETTER TO THE EDITOR in the e-mail subject line.
Length: 300 words
The submission should include the author's name, grade and hometown
The Kansan will not print letters that attack a reporter or columnist.
LETTER GUIDELINES
CONTACT US
Mark Dent, managing editor
864-4810 or mdent@kansan.com
Matt Erickson, editor
864.418 or merickson@kansan.com
Dani Hurst, managing editor 864-4810 or dhurst@kansan.com
Kelsey Hayes, managing@
864-4810 or khaves@ikansan.com
Lauren Keith, opinion editor 864-4924 or keith@kansan.com
Jordan Herrmann, business manager 864-4358 or jhermann@kansan.com
Toni Bergquist, sales manager
864-4477 or tbergquist@kansan.com
Patrick De Oliveira, associate opinion editor.
864-4924 or pdeoliveira@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson, general manager and news
THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Alex Doherty, Jenny Hartz, Lauren Keith, Patrick deOvery, Raye Shiray, Ian Sanford.
1
Jon Schlitt, sales and marketing advise.
964 7666 ext 1033
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
164-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
FROM THE DRAWING BOARD
Although the military has been at war, the nation hasn't. The structure of the modern military doesn't require broad participation from the general population. It is far too easy to go to war. This is a huge
Most students walked right past them. I did, too. KU students, and most Americans for that matter, are well-insulated from the sacrifices of this war. There's no draft, so why should we care? We aren't paying for the war. We're borrowing the money from China.
What does war mean for all the rest of us?
MATT CHASE
Walking through campus last Friday, I saw something that truly shocked me, a rare occurrence these days. Iraq veterans were protesting against the war. A camouflaged watchtower had been erected on the Stauffer-Flint lawn, where the former soldiers distributed literature and chatted with students. One veteran stood on a bench and provoked the passing students with brutal accounts of his experiences during the war.
the draft, which, as he correctly reasoned, would remove a principle argument for antiwar protestors and the political opposition. Since the end of conscription, the military has become increasingly isolated from society, and, in some respects, more unrepresentative of society at large with respect to background, privilege or education.
He continues, "The life of a robust democratic society should be strenuous; it should make demands on its citizens when they are asked to engage with issues of life and death." The implication is that this isn't the case anymore.
At the heart of these traditions is the critical link between our democratic government and its citizens' sacrifice and participation in the government's momentous decision to wage war.
The United States military embarks on grand campaigns in distant corners of the world with only the slightest inconvenience to most of us. But when the U.S. engages in the most fundamental issue of war and peace, of life and death, the general population should be involved in these decisions and should make sacrifices.
problem, which has been exemplified by the war in Iraq.
The Pulitzer Prize winning-historian David Kennedy wrote in a recent op-ed in The New York Times, "History's most potent military force can now be put into the field by a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so." He worries that modern warfare, which puts much less of a burden on society at large, creates a dangerous precedent for military adventurism abroad.
I'm hesitant to support any program of compulsory public service, but we need to reconsider a system in which our nation can deploy such a powerful military force without much inconvenience to the public.
In the presidential election of 1968, Richard Nixon, faced with declined popular support for the Vietnam War, promised to end to
Thompson is a Topeka senior in economics and political science.
I picked up a copy of Sit-Rep, a publication of the Iraq Veterans Against the War. The front page article argued, "To understand what it is to be a patriot, one must look back at the proud revolutionary traditions upon which this nation was founded."
Why lawyers are fighting depression
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge felt his depression as a "grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear." For Philip Larkin, it was an "irresistible force meeting an immovable object right in your belly."
The legal profession is battling closedet-gay-teenager-with-Baptist-parents levels of depression. I was even able to find two studies, one with depression stats for lawyers, the other for prisoners, and, well, let's just say, if you're ever in a courtroom with some overzealous prosecution trying to hit you with 20-to-life for "waiting with intent to loiter," you could be worse off.
Lawyers, though, just call it "billable hours."
First stop: Kidshealth.org, the definitive medical source for us submorons. The site contains helpful hyperlinks such as "I've Never Had My Period," "So What's This Discharge?" "Is My Penis Normal!" and other possible responses to the Family Feud topic, "Questions Your Father Never Wants to Hear."
"Lately Lindsay hasn't felt like herself. Her friends have noticed it, too. Kia was surprised when Lindsay turned down her invitation to go to the mall last Saturday (Lindsay could always be counted on to shop!)."
detour — it's supposed to look like THAT? — I found this intense Kids Health narrative description of depression:
No, my delightful and ambiguously ethnic Kia, Lindsay is not a terrorist or a vampire — she's just depressed! And possibly a werewolf. Losing interest in things you used to enjoy, such as shopping or being human when the moon is full, is classic depression.
Why are lawyers depressed?
What even is depression?
You could be him.
So after a small, "personal" site
Well, here's an analogy: The law is to the soul what a gravel road screaming by at 70mph is to the unprotected human face. It is evisceratingly dull, ripping off layer after layer of conscious thought, until only the raw, bleeding abyss remains.
Why lawyers, though? After all, lawyers earn so much money that some are able to eventually pay off their student loans.
Whenever I read another poorly drafted statute, my mind seethes with black, Miltonic verse. Most appellate court prose reads like the scream of tortured angels.
that it made absolutely no sense.
I can still remember the moment I looked down at my notes and saw that I'd just written "reasonable suspicion is more than a hunch but less than a preponderance." And
This realization sent me tumbling down a spiral staircase of epiphanies: that all Law was mere word-wizardry, making sense only in a legal frame of reference separate from reality, that I had spent all semester reifying legal fictions in place of actual justice and that the only probable way to stop the spinning was the application of large amounts of beer to reality.
Even the most liberal-minded among us, after their first encounter with our convoluted Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, would pine for the simple elegance of Hammurabi's Code — kill a man, give his family a goat, look lustily at a female, be crushed under 3 tons of jailed rock.
"I think that people who work in the law are probably happier than people who work in the sewers. I mean, you have to consider your options."
So, to be fair, pre-laws, before writing that admissions essay-cum-suicide note, consider: Do you want to work knee deep in the stinking filth and muck of society, with only rats for colleagues?
But, if law is so depressing, why so many lawyers? One of my law professors gave this defense:
Or would you rather work in the sewers?
Reichert is an Oberlin graduate student in law.
FREE FOR ALL
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call 785-864-0500.
You know you have a drinking problem when you wake up and forgot about the corn from a field from the night earlier. The end.
---
To the two dudes riding the same moped: Can I have a ride?
To whoever found my pink wallet and didn't take the $20 inside: You are a kind soul. Thank you.
---
I'm going to play red rover with the next couple that I see making out on Jayhawk Boulevard.
Only 22 more days until "High School Musical 3" comes out.
Volleyball team: You played awesome last night. You should be really proud of yourselves. Good job.
---
I didn't eat my 18 acres of pizza today, so I guess I'm not keeping up the national
Still probably won't get any birthday sex, but thanks Free for All, I appreciate the effort.
I'd like to thank the UDK for letting me know that I have a sister. Thank you.
I have been single since 1988,
and I was just wondering: Am
I ever going to meet a tall,
dark, handsome man at KU?
No.
There is a guy sitting in front of me at the Underground eating his Chick-fil-A with a fork and knife.
---
I totally think DJ Parlay is winning the graffiti war.
---
To the girl having sex in Lewis; I could hear you in the Templin parking lot. Shut your
Wet floors + flip flops = death.
---
I met the cutest, nice gay couple tonight. It really raised my homes
---
Man, Free for All is not doing a very good job of entertaining me right now so that I can put off my homework a little longer.
---
Dear hermit freaks who live
Dear hermit freaks who live below me: There is other music besides techno. Go discover some country music so won't mind when you blast it.
---
You may be thinking of the wrong person.
KANSAN.COM
Want more? Check out Free for All online.
14