4A the university daily kansan
opinion
monday, September 22, 2003
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Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
To all of you people at Gumby's: Why don't I put you on hold, and then I send you my cell phone bill for making me wait on the phone for 12 minutes?
This is just a note to my religion teacher: You have worn the same gray shirt and black pants for the last month
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why women represent 88 percent of all cosmetic procedure patients, according to plasticsurgeryresearch.com. The number of breast augmentations performed has risen 147 percent since 1997, and the new cosmetic fad, a form of botulism called Botox, is the most common cosmetic procedure. Because that's what men care about: big boobs and smooth skin.
I am not a vegetarian because I like animals. It is because I hate plants.
This girl right next to me wants my chocolate.
Last night I figured out that my roommate couldn't cook when I walked into the room and it was full of smoke and she was frying a whole chicken breast.
To the girl who wanted to marry the guy who looks like A.C. Slater: He is in my biology class. Ha, ha.
why women represent 88 percent of all cosmetic procedure patients, according to plasticsurgeryresearch.com. The number of breast augmentations performed has risen 147 percent since 1997, and the new cosmetic fad, a form of botulism called Botox, is the most common cosmetic procedure. Because that's what men care about: big boobs and smooth skin.
My breadsticks are gooey.
I am glad to see that I am not the only one who sleeps on the floor in Wescoe. I am pretty sure that I am the only one that snores.
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Mushrooms, mushrooms.
If I lived under the sea I think that it would be as great as can be. I could visit the fish anytime that I wish. If I lived under the sea.
Why can't they just cancel class on cold, rainy days?
It is just me or does no one on campus know how to parallel park?
I like how the Senate article in the Kansan today made it sound like Senate gave us all the money for the speaker we asked for because they didn't.
Riding your bike in the rain while smoking a cigarette — that, my friend, takes talent.
I have a platypus in my shoe
I am a backwards walking person and I just tripped while I was walking backwards.
--why women represent 88 percent of all cosmetic procedure patients, according to plasticsurgeryresearch.com. The number of breast augmentations performed has risen 147 percent since 1997, and the new cosmetic fad, a form of botulism called Botox, is the most common cosmetic procedure. Because that's what men care about: big boobs and smooth skin.
I just wanted to lodge a formal complaint: Those cut jeans are becoming entirely too flared.
why women represent 88 percent of all cosmetic procedure patients, according to plasticsurgeryresearch.com. The number of breast augmentations performed has risen 147 percent since 1997, and the new cosmetic fad, a form of botulism called Botox, is the most common cosmetic procedure. Because that's what men care about: big boobs and smooth skin.
To the genius who left the laundry room vending machines in McColum unlocked: I would like to say thanks. I now have a laundry basket filled with enough candy to drop out of college and start pirating illegal candy bars.
letter to the editor
Showing off individual beauty more attractive than generic ideals
Elizabeth Willy for The University Daily Kansan
I am surrounded by a generic kind of beautiful. It's packaged, patented, and slapped on television, in magazines and even in the The University Daily Kansan. It's the kind of beautiful where busy supermodels mud wrestle over beer, and sexy coeds like to throw slumber parties and have pillow fights in their underwear. I feel like I'm in "Attack of the 50-Foot Blonde Whose Turn-Ons Include Guys with a Good Sense of Humor and a Cute Butt."
GUEST COMMENTARY
Jon Ralston opinion@kansan.com
Reinforcements of the generic beauty idea can even be found at the University of Kansas, what with the Women of KU calendar and last fall's Playboy's Girls of the Big 12 pictorial featuring KU women. One of the Playboy models from the University has since gone on to become a Coed of the Month.
It's upsetting that girls feel like they need to look like that in order to be satisfied with their self-image. Shows such as Nip/Tuck and Extreme Makeover, not to mention the thousands of makeover tips you can find in magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour, make an impression on the way a woman perceives her own image. They reinforce the idea that you need to look like this to be happy, and that it's the only type of woman a man is attracted to. It would explain
That kind of insecurity is not just exclusive to women. A full page advertisement found in magazines such as Rolling Stone every month claims that the overwhelming majority of women are unsatisfied with their lover's penis. That's only what women care about: a big penis. I guess I'll just add that to my marble slab of ways to please women that I keep hidden under my mattress, next to the porn and my Britney Spears albums. Even the University is thinking about its appearance, and has recently hired a consulting firm to analyze its image.
It's up to us — the tattooed, nosed-pierced, nerdy anime lovers with the dyed hair — to combat that image. The calendar by the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center is a great contrast to the Women of KU college because it will feature women based solely on their academic accomplishments, rather than their perceived physical beauty. It would also be great to see the regular calendar change, because its representation of the female student body seems to be excluded to 34-24-34. And for those non-calendar folk, it's all about showing those around you who you are without rubbing it in their face.
Don't be afraid to show your creative beauty, through hair dye, tattoos or clothing that shows off your favorite band, movie or television show. That's more attractive than blonde hair and a tan. We need to celebrate, show and even flaunt who we are. And you don't have to be a calendar girl to prove you have a good selfimage.
Ralston is a Westwood junior in journalism.
'kansan' report card
Rising rent: Miller Scholarship Hall is raising their rent for each resident from $118 to $1218 per year. Even though their reasons are valid, a $300 hike is pretty steep. But hey, it's still $800 less than any other scholarship hall.
Pass:
Sweet Deals: The University Theatre's costume sale at Murphy Hall. Old costumes and accessories from the department's shows went for as low as 25 cents to $5, with a few exceptions for vintage clothes. Made us think twice about scouring Arizona Trading Co. and Sugartown Traders for used threads.
Louise Stauffer/Kansan
Fail:
letter to the editor
Kansan' made poor decision to run out-of-date column
I am highly disappointed that the Kansan editorial staff felt it necessary to run Arrah Nielsen's column on Sept. 12. What was the point of printing an outdated, stereotypical attack on gay men as plague-bearers?
plague-bearers37
Nielsen tries to equate the actions of gay men in the late '70s and early '80s to the actions of gay men today; she seems to be trying to scare the straights and make AIDS a gay disease once more.
Using past mistakes as an excuse to foster bigotry such as Nielsen does in her column is unacceptable. By Nielsen's justification, we should expect all German people to hate Jews.
Nielsen conveniently ignores the fact
that the Reagan White House would not give the Center for Disease Control the money it needed to educate gay men about the disease which resulted in their lack of belief in the disease as a threat. She tells of "mind-boggling promiscuity," omitting the part where heterosexual intolerance forced gay men into hiding at bathhouses.
The danger inherent in Nielsen's column is that people will look at her out-ofcontext semi-factual data and assume they've gotten the whole story.
The Kansan should never have printed this column without a substantial look into the contextual basis of Ms. Nielsen's facts.
submitting letters and guest columns
Sarah Burris is a Lawrence junior in English. She is the outreach chair for Queens and Allies.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Louise Stauffer or Stephen Shupe at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com.
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
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Also:
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editorial board
Industry must adjust to technology
In another rash,unbelievablypoorpublic relations move,the Recording Industry Association of America announced last week it would dole out several hundred more lawsuits against online music file sharers.
The RIAA showed it will not discriminate who it attacks by suing, among others, a University of Colorado football player, a 12-year-old girl and an elderly man whose grandchildren downloaded songs on his computer unbeknownst to him.
Acting much like a small obnoxious child making faces to others while hiding behind his larger older brother, the RIAA looks to fill its greedy pockets further by throwing out subpoenas and hiding behind the guise of protecting artists and copyright infringement.
Perhaps the RIAA would not find itself trying to protect its artists like it says if it did not push countless tiring artists who consumers do not want to invest their money in.
Most people download music online because they do not wish to listen to an entire album of assembly-line artists the RIAA endorses when they can simply download the catchy single for free.
Others download songs because they cannot stand paying the exorbitant prices of CDs the RIAA clearly gouges. Once upon a time, consumers could buy most CDs for around $12. Since then, the gluttonous hiking of CDs effectively priced out many consumers.
Few businesses get away with the business practices the RIAA employs. While most industries compete to offer their customers the best care or prices, some industries such as professional sports and the RIAA corner most of their industry's market and actively seek to shortchange their paying consumers.
Music fans used to have little recourse from the shackles of the music industry until the advent of Internet file sharing programs like Napster and Kazaa. Now that fans can speak volumes about the slipshod quality of the industry's product by circumventing its abhorrent business practices with music downloads, the industry chooses not to change like most businesses would be forced to, instead opting to sue its patrons for sums greater than its CD prices.
Now is the time for the industry to become accountable for its business. Patrons must not buy the CDs. Continue to download the music and rage against the machine the music industry transformed into. Keep the music downloads coming.
Steve Vockrodt for the editorial board