OPINION
5A
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Has The Kansan become The National Engquirer?
Wednesday evening I happened to walk past the now well-known bicycle accident that took place in front of Marvin Hall. The scene was disheartening — EMTs bandaging a shaken young man who was nervously looking down at his own pools of blood on the pavement. I would have never guessed that The University Daily Kansan would draw so much attention to this somber incident the following day.
But it did — and I'm thoroughly disappointed by the disrespect the Kansan has shown to both the accident victim and KU Journalism ("Biker smashes through back window of car", Sept. 18.) Since when does a quality university newspaper like the Kansan have the audacity to print an embarrassing front-page feature about the victim of a traffic accident, complete with a misleading, degrading headline and an array of gory photos?
First and foremost, Andrew Cirocco did not "hit a parked car" as the headline so boldly stated. The fact is, he ran into the back of a car that had just pulled up alongside a curb sec onds before the impact. With that clarification, a reasonable person could imagine Andrew
not seeing the car until it was too late. Unfortunately, many of those who caught a glimpse of the headline probably did not bother to read the entire article and discover this, which inevitably lead to me hearing a number of students making a mockery of Andrew's gruesome accident today.
I realize that not every day in Lawrence brings fascinating news, but that doesn't give the Kansan the right to take an isolated traffic accident and turn it into a grandiose cover story with a close-up photo of the victim's dazed stare and blood-oozing chin. I thought those types of stories were more the forte of The National Enquirer — though after today's paper I'm not so sure of that.
What happened should have been reported in a thoughtful manner, for the sake of those affected and for the virtue of good journalism. Sadly, the article was a lowbrow attention-getter that made a young man's frightening misfortune the entertainment for the entire student body.
If you were Andrew, would you be troubled by the article?
Travis Kimple is a sophomore from Beloit.
Editor's note: The Kansan ran a clarification about the headline in Friday's issue.
@KANSAN.COM COMMENTS ALREADY ONLINE
comment by 01KUgrad
I definitely agree. It was an accident, and it wasn't really worthy of this kind of coverage. If there had been more serious injuries, then perhaps it would have been.
factually correct, a full-page close-up of a terrified guy (a KU student and Kansan reader) with his face smashed up is kind of low.
I had almost exactly the same thought when I saw the UDK: Eif the article was
It's cool that they sprang into action to get the story and a good shot as it happened, but I wonder if there was a discussion about how to present it.
—comment by gabhan
TYLER DOEHRING
editorials around the nation
took that as a direct shot at vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who has risen to fame on the back of a line about the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull dog being lipstick.
Barack Obama said, "You can put lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig."
Want evidence? Just look back over the past week.
Campaigns have straved from issues
Obama's defense was that the comment is merely uttering a simple old saying, and he noted that McCain said it before, too.
Lipstick on a pig has nothing to do with issues facing us, including jobs, the price of fuel, the development of alternative fuels, health care costs, tax rates and the need to bolster investment in the nation's infrastructure.
John McCain's campaign
Campaigning in this era of presidential candidates seeking to wear the "change" mantle really hasn't changed.
Until American voters demand more substantive national coverage — by actively paying attention, watching and reading quality information and reporting — campaigning for president will continue far into the future as attackcounterattack, neck-and-neck horserace events.
If these questions interest you, kindly take your proper, well-adjusted, Jane Austen dating reality, and show it up your Darcy. This column is not for you.
—The (Steubenville, Ohio) Herald-Star Sept. 13 editorial
How soon should I call her after the first date? Is dinner and a movie too cliché? Can I do argyle in 2008?
This one's for the freaks. The geeks. The creeps. The small bespectacled kids non-ironically slanging, "Wat up peeps?" This is for the people with real dating questions.
HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
What's the sexiest item on the dollar menu? Which color of wine cooler best complements fish sticks? How much of her insipid conversation must I nod to before she is obligated to let me smell her hair?
Why your dates are going horribly wrong
Length: 300-400 words
The submission should include the author's name, phone number, grade, hometown.
Freaks, weirdoes, assorted marching band members: Lend me your disproportionately large and protruding ears. This column is for us.
LETTER GUIDELINES
CONTACT US
Matt Erickson, editor
864-4810 or merickson@kansan.com
I, too, in sum, creep. So, let's answer some questions.
Send letters to opinion@kansan.com
Write LETTER TO THE EDITOR In the e-mail subject line.
Kelsey Hayes, managing editor 864-4810 or khaves@kansan.com
I, too, know what it's like to have your casual conversation referred to as "oral contraception." It's like my witty banter is some sort of ovarian air-raid siren — you can actually hear the internal pitter-patter of eggs running for cover, the crying of small eggs as their mothers anxiously huddle them in subways and basements, all under the menacing drone of my Luwafwafe pick-up lines.
Length: 300-400 words
Mark Dent, managing editor 864-4810 or mdent@kansan.com
Dani Hurst, managing editor 864-4810 or dhurst@kansan.com
I, too, know what it's like to give a girl your most irresistible set of cute, dejected puppy dog eyes, only to have her scream, "Psycho!" and then drop them on the ground. Plop plop.
at them up close, even leering at them on Facebook. I'm running out of options here! I'm so desperate that I'm almost to the point of just going and striking up a casual conversation with one about a mutual interest. Help!"
"Belt of Abstinence +3" e-mails the following: "I need help. I've tried everything with girls: leering at them from a distance, leering
Just keep at it and be patient.
Remember the old nerd proverb:
"A watched boil never pops."
"I couldn't help but notice that you're not incredibly fat. Want to feign interest in each other as a precursor to awkward sex we will later remember with a burning sense of shame?"
Lauren Keith, opinion editor
864-4924 or lkeith@kansan.com
I, too, can go over the transcript of my night at the bars and pinpoint the exact moment a girl shifts from "I want to bear your children" to "I want to attack your children to bears."
Said in British accent: "Hello, my name is Ethan. Want to shake my doctor-hand?"
The rest of us need a little help. Put that creative writing major to use — some minor embellishments, and voila! you're not lateshift Doug down at the HyVee; you're Juan Roderigo Cruise; international spy tycoon magnate.
"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Because I've watched you while you sleep"
Reichert is an Oberlin graduate student in law.
Patrick De Oliveira, associate opinion editor 864-4924 or pdeoliveira@kansan.com
First, stand up straight, BoA+3. You're a good lookin' hunk of protein, man. No, you may not be the greatest catch, but hell if you don't smell like something one might find in a large body of water.
"Just be yourself" is excellent advice — at least for those whose insides aren't constantly trying to escape through their facial pores.
Toni Bergquist. sales manager
864-4477 or tbergquist@kansan.com
Jon Schitt, sales and marketing adviser
864-7666 or jschitt@kansan.com
Jordan Herrmann, business manager 864-4358 or jherrmann@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson, general manager and news
Want more? Check out kansan.com/opinion to comment and see updates before they are printed.
others or the Kansan Editorial Board are Alex Doherty, Jenny Hartz, Lauren Keith, Patrick de Ouiraire, River Seegebach and Ian Stanford.
To initiate contact, try these pick-up lines:
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
64-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
The United States should go'Captain Kirk'on Russia
Spock: "Jim, there is a historic opportunity here"
Kirk: "Don't trust them! Don't believe them!"
Kirk: "Let them die."
The exchange above is from the 1991 movie "Star Trek VI." It's science fiction on the outside, but it's brimming with contemporary political commentary underneath, and its theme is the end of the Cold War.
Spock: "They're dying
With the Klingon Empire crumbling (an unsubtle metaphor for the collapsing Soviet Union), Spock wanted to engage the Klingsons to help them and to foster the development of a Klingon Empire more friendly to Starfleet. Kirk wanted to step on their throats.
In the real world, Spock's approach carried the day, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, America engaged Russia, lending aid in reconstructing its ruined economy and hoping that a liberal, progressive Russia would emerge to play a constructive role in the international system.
All of Russia's recent activities on the international stage indicate an unrepentant hostility to the American-led international order. It brazenly invades its democratic neighbors and shows little regard for the rights, lives and aspirations of minorities in its border areas. It uses its oil and gas lines as tools of economic blackmail against its Western neighbors. It provides arms to Syria and nuclear fuel to Iran. It threatens Poland with nuclear attack, and it schedules naval exercises with Venezuela.
We now know how that worked out. It was a colossal blunder.
Klingons, as Captain Kirk warned, are not to be trusted. Neither are Russians. Look at the evidence.
Inside Russia, things look no more promising. Economically and politically, it resembles the petrodollar autocracies of the Middle East more than the liberal, dynamic states of Western Europe.
Culturally, it is almost medieval in outlook. Russian women have a second-class status, and instances of rape and battery are frequently regarded by Russian police and bureaucrats as too insignificant to warrant investigation. Racist violence occurs in Russian cities with "alarming regularity," according to Amnesty International. Stable family structures are rare. Unwanted and neglected children are common and a shocking 56 percent of all pregnancies in Russia are aborted.
Whatever the architects of American policy envisioned, it wasn't this. And that's why I propose the Captain Kirk Plan: Instead of engaging the Russians, we should crush them.
The United States is well positioned to pressure the Russian state to destabilize. Russia is internally weak and vulnerable to disintegration from within because the foundation of its security resides in the vast distances with which it shields itself from external invasion and insulates itself from destabilizing foreign influences.
Neither Hitler's armies nor Napoleon's could successfully traverse the vast Russian steppe, but America shrewdly neutralizes this geographic advantage in piecemeal fashion, pushing east by absorbing former Soviet states into NATO. Ukraine, too, will soon fall into the Western orbit.
This will open the way and will bring Western culture and ideas to Russia's doorstep, delegitimize its government and promote democracy and self-determination in its secession-minded provinces. Only such a reinvigorated containment policy, vigilantly implemented and carried to its logical end, will finally close the curtain on the Cold War.
Armstrong is a Dallas senior in business.
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call 785-864-0500.
Me and my girls got thrown up on at the football game. Stupid freshmen can't hold their alcohol.
I think I'm turned on when you talk about quantum mechanics
What qualifies as the end of the weekend? Because you still haven't called. You should.
--already.
Free for All, I can't sleep. Wanna have sex?
--already.
I can't decide which I'm more pissed about: my ruined car or my ruined relationship.
I'm in love with two guys, and neither one wants me back. What happened to wanting "strong independent opinioned" women?
Christ on a croissant, what just happened?
Humans' biggest downfall is that they are "social" creatures.
--already.
To the drunkies who almost had sex on my car last night: Hope you enjoyed the panic button. I sure enjoyed watching the results.
It is sad that the SafeBus drivers know what my vehicle looks like in my apartment camper.
--already.
I wish you were still as into this as I am.
--already.
--already.
I love everyone I see around campus who is not at the football game.
I wish I was at the game, but instead I'm at home studying for Spanish. Una cerveza por favor?
--already.
Dear Free for All, Let's begin a "Most Frat-tastic Outfit of the Day" competition.
To my Organic lab partner:
We spend five lovely hours
together every week performing experiments we're
ultimately going to lie about
while I subtly flirt. Apparently
it's too subtle. Ask me out
--again.
I hope Travis Barker gets better. Travis Barker is so badass he can walk away from plane crashes alive
I went to a party last night looking for cute boys, and when I go there all the boys were wearing Abercrombie striped polos and baseball caps. I stifled a laugh and then left. Don't ever take me to a party with cookie-cutter boys
---
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