4A the university daily kansan
opinion
tuesday, october 14,2003
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Michelle Burhenn
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The flying hamster of doom rains coconut upon your pitiful city.
The other day, my dad made a joke about someone's mullet. These jokes are officially no longer clever or funny.
perspective
For a fun time, drink a gallon of honey, a gallon of syrup, a gallon of milk and then run a mile.
perspective
I just failed another geography test. Pixie sticks all around.
perspective
Mmmm. Justin Temberlake makes me want to buy Big Macs. Mmmm.
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Arrah Naelson, I would just like to let you know that I really enjoyed your article. Keep up the good work.
H
D. K. is the coolest kid in school.
Words have no feeling without loaded meaning. Words take too long to come across. Meanings are meant for defining definitions. We load them for effect. It is cheap but it is working.
perspective
Our cable TV doesn't work. Our Internet doesn't work. Thank you, KU, for ruining my Sunday.
carino's view
Protection Week honors prejudice
GUEST COMMENTARY
Dan Carino/KRT Campus
Marriage Protection Week has arrived.
Have you got your right-wing propaganda and misquoted Bible passages handy to defend against those wacky homosexuals who are trying to destroy marriage?
Patrick Ross opinion@hansan.com
As if we need another reason to despair that the far right will ever be able to see beyond its own nose, enter Marriage Protection Week, which is scheduled for this week, Oct. 12 through Oct. 18. I am sure it is no coincidence that the week is scheduled after Oct. 11, which is National Coming Out Day. However, I have to wonder if beginning Marriage Protection Week on the anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death might not be a calculated move by the radical Christian Right finally to expunge its conscience regarding the tragic death of a gay man through the perpetration of hatred disguised as religious rhetoric. Whether it is intentional or not, it is extremely bad form.
riage. This kind of thing never would have happened 50 years ago! Evidently, a homosexual man should stay in the marriage society forced him into even though he and his spouse are unhappy.
Among words such as "probably," "usually" and "it must be admitted that," and amidst incredibly hidden sources and quotes taken out of context, I found out that homosexuals want to destroy regular marriage. The Boston Globe reported that nearly 40 percent of all homosexuals who entered into civil unions in Vermont were involved in a previous heterosexual mar-
Marriage Protection Week is an attempt to "defend" marriage from rascally homosexuals who obviously want to rip apart the fabric of society because they want to be afforded the same protections under the law as heterosexual people.
A secondary argument is that marriage exists to foment reproduction. You might say to yourself, "Some heterosexual couples don't reproduce." You would be right, but again there is a handy answer for this argument from the trusty Web site "A couple that doesn't want children when they marry might change their minds. Birth control might fail for a couple that uses it." A week dedicated to the defense of marriage might
The overwhelming argument of the Marriage Protection Week proponents is that marriage needs to be defined as a union between a man and a woman because that is what our children need to grow into healthy adults. There are almost 12 million-plus single-parent families that do not fit into this mold. It is hard for me to believe that a majority of these families result in dysfunctional children.
be a thin disguise for hatred and bigotry.
The Christian Right wants to make it clear that homosexual men are promiscuous and not geared toward monogamy. Despite the fact that no men are geared toward monogamy, regardless of sexual orientation and despite the fact that marriage is supposed to foster monogamy, this does not explain the fact that the groups want to prohibit lesbians from marrying. Lesbians are stereotypically monogamous and faithful.
The Right points to the sexual revolution and the use of free love by the emerging gay rights movement to battle for their freedom as evidence that homosexual concepts of sex will destroy the foundations of marriage. However, heterosexuals participated in the so-called sexual revolution too, and that did not destroy marriage.
The Right may maintain that marriage is not about laws, but in the United States of America, the law trumps all. If the law dictates how, when and why a couple can marry, then it must not discriminate against any couple regardless of their sexual orientation. Such is the focal point of this argument that the Right's rhetoric and smoke screening are attempting to conceal.
The question that the Right has yet to answer is why it is so threatened by the idea of more committed, monogamous couples being allowed to exist and garner protection and benefits under the law.
Ross is a Topека sophomore in journalism and a member of the editorial board.
letters to the editor
Community, not spirituality helps relieve depression
I feel like it's only appropriate for a response to be made to the Oct. 10 article by Meghan Brune entitled "Spirituality, religion could decrease depression in teens." Ifeel this title is misleading and that the article reflects an attitude of apologetics for religion.
The aspects of religious activity that are touted as relieving depression include social activity and a feeling of belonging. Why must one get these features from religion exclusively? Students can and do find many secular ways to be social and feel belonging. There are many activist and community service organizations, as well as special interest groups of varied types at the University of Kansas that students may join. I take strong offense, as an atheist, to the idea that religion has anything to do with the benefits the study found. It validates my point to note that the study found private prayer had no effect whatsoever on incidence of depression. The article, as it happens, neglected to include this important point. So are we really talking about religious involvement being a cure for depression, or are we talking about friendships and community being a cure? I challenge the conductors of this study to examine how well secular community involvement can alleviate
depression, and not to presume that religious belief has anything whatsoever to do with it. I further challenge the The University Daily Kansan to take a more nonpartisan viewpoint when addressing issues of religion.
Students should be encouraged to seek qualified help when faced with depression, not just told to go to church.
Stephanie Kirmer president Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMA)
World Company, 'LJ-World' merit derision for calendar
Thanks to The University Daily Kansan for continuing to report on the debate surrounding the Women of KU Calendar, and to Jayhawk Bookstore owner Bill Muggy for not letting profits dictate ethics. Shame on the World Company, its online general manager Rob Curley and its newspaper for failing at both.
The Kansan reported this week that Muggy pulled his sponsorship of the skin-filled calendar after seeing the 2004 cover shot: a woman in a falling-off tank top, spread eagle, with a basketball strategically placed to cover her crotch. The Kansan mistakenly reported the photo
was taken on the floor of Allen Fieldhouse. It was not - Horejsi Center's court was the lucky one.
The Sports Illustrated-esque calendar will go on, of course. Its publisher, the World Company, expects a well-known Kansas grocery store chain to pick up the available sponsorship. Shame on it, too. And Curley defends the calendar by saying the women in it are smart, diverse and achievement-oriented. No doubt they are. But they were chosen not because they are TAs, but because they possess T and A, and when Curley says the girls are well-rounded, he's not talking about resumes.
Moreover, The Lawrence JournalWorld, where I worked part-time before coming back to school, downplays its affiliation to the calendar and blurs journalistic ethics by hiding behind the idea that the calendar is a World Company product, not a JournalWorld product. Yet cross-promotion and overlap of staffs runs rampant: A JournalWorld senior editor took the pictures. And the calendar drives viewers to kusports.com, which gets almost all its content from the paper's pages.
The women in the calendar are beauti ful, and there is nothing wrong with want ing to look at them — or even with a calen dar that features them.
Ten-year-old Jayhawk fans should not be faced with bedroom eyes and cleavage when they log onto kusports.com. And the idea that women have to be sexy to be worthy is better left out of the veggie aisle, where impressionable girls and boys shop with their parents.
rooms. There is something wrong with their being promoted by a family newspaper's Web-site and a community grocery store.
So call the Journal-World and tell it what you think. The number is 843-1000. And when the name of this "well-known grocery store chain" is released, call it too. Businesses don't know how their customers feel unless we tell them. Incidentally, the grocery store chain is not Dillons. A spokeswoman at the store's headquarters said she didn't know of any sponsorship.
But leave the calendars at bars or in bed
Meanwhile, support the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, which is putting together its own calendar of women who look better in Birkenstocks than bikinis, but still deserve recognition. With the money he's saving, maybe Muggy will sponsor it.
editorial board
Leita Walker
Rolfe, Iowa
First-year law student
and former Kansan editor
Make use of off-campus resources for better living
Moving into your first apartment is an exciting time. Finally, no parents, no RA's — you are in charge. But with freedom comes responsibility. And with an apartment comes lots of new things to worry about. You have to shop foryourown food, pay your own bills, fix things when they break and deal with landlords. This can be overwhelming.
Fortunately, a service at the University of Kansas can help students with all of their off-campus needs. The Off Campus Living Resource Center is located in the Center for Campus Life on the 4th floor of the Kansas Union. Its office offers a variety of services, ranging from apartment brochures to legal referrals, and is open to any KU student.
Making the transition to living off campus can be intimidating. When students move off campus, there are an endless number of decisions to make. Where do you want to live? Do you want to live in a house or apartment? Do you want to walk to campus or drive? How many people do you want to live with? How much do you want to spend? What landlords are good?
The Resource Center has information on almost all of the off campus living options in Lawrence. It has student surveys that rate the quality of the units for many of these places. And it also has a record of complaints filed against landlords around the city. This kind of information can be helpful when deciding where to live.
To protect yourself, you should ask your landlord several questions about your apartment. Can you have access to the Internet? Is there anything you should know about the appliances in the kitchen? What are the fire codes? What do you need to do to get your deposit back?
It is important to think preventatively about renting a home. Deciding where to live is only the first step. Once the place is found, you should take some precautions before you move in. First, make sure you understand your lease. The terms of your agreement should be clear to between you and your landlord before you set foot in the door.
The Resource Center can provide advice on many of these issues. It has an extensive list of questions all students should ask their landlords before they move in. People at the center answer questions about the legal rights and responsibilities of both you and the landlord. When the people at the center can't answer a question, they frequently offer referrals to the city inspector and Legal Services for Students.
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The Off Campus Living Resource Center is a great resource for students who are moving or already live off campus. Take advantage of it.
Anna D. Gregory for the editorial board