Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
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I feel terrible. I'm sitting at Yacht Club eating a kid's grilled cheese, and I am drinking out of a tower
Getting drunk at inappropriate times and having lots of sex. I'm totally the female version of Tucker Max
Can anyone tell me why I attract married men? I just don't understand.
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--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
To all of the girls who like soggy biscuits ...
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I will kick you repeatedly in the balls.
Fat people need loving too!
I colored my hair again! Look out, you won't recognize me for a week.
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
Nerf war at Anschutz ... sounds like a plan once I stock up on ammo. Who's in?
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
I hear/felx bass coming from the people who live below me, above me and next to me at least 18 hours of the day. It is slowly driving me insane.
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
Any female up for sex right now?
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
How do you recover from acting like a stage-5 clinger when drunk?
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
I'm freaking starving right now because my hangover from game day is finally gone.
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
I'm watching a man eat a muffin with a spoon ... possibly the most awkward thing ever.
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
Canned peaches taste like gasoline.
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
Today I would like to encourage everyone to make someone else's day a little more awkward.
I studied abroad, and now that I'm back, I can't stand my best friend anymore. I don't know what to do.
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
--can be a sign of solidarity in the fight against breast cancer. With October marking Breast Cancer Awareness month, Salon Hawk is giving students a chance to add pink to their hair to raise awareness about breast cancer. This is a cause worth supporting in any way students can
Get a new best friend?
99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer, take one down pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Help raise awareness about breast cancer
Pink ribbons, pink pins, pink stickers and now pink hair can be a sign of solidarity.
"Two years ago my best friend found a lump on her breast," said Emily Willis, owner of Salon Hawk. "She thought at the time that students and young people didn't really have a way to contribute to the cause of breast cancer."
So Willis started her own local charity and breast cancer awareness drive.
For $10, Willis will give students a pink extension and donate
an proceeds to the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Breast Center. The donations help fund everything from wigs to mammograms to medicine — and the
charity specifically helps members of the local community. The goal is to raise $11,500. Willis will also be taking donated bras to string across the Kansas River in October in order to raise awareness.
"This gets people talking, asking why they have pink in their hair, which gets people thinking about contributing," Willis said. "The funds also stay in the local area, so it brings the community together."
Cancer Society. Many suffer arduous treatments, taxing emotional pain and often a hefty financial burden.
KANSAN'S
OPINION
Despite this, thousands of breast cancer patients fight the disease
It's easy to see those little pink ribbons or hair extensions and forget just how serious a disease breast cancer is: Every year more than 40,000 people die from breast cancer, according to the American
with incredible humil
bring hope to victims in their time of need. It's a commendable effort and one students can easily take part in.
"It only took like 30 seconds," said Katie Lavery, Salina senior, who got a hair extension last year. "I think they're cute and they're for a good cause."
An important part of Breast Cancer Awareness month is to remind women about preventive measures they can take to minimize their risks. Eating healthy,
Lavery also knows from experience that pink extensions are a great way of spreading awareness. "People were always asking me where I got it," Lavery said.
exercising often, moderating alcohol consumption and monthly self examinations are recommended by the Mavo Clinic.
Breast cancer isn't something only women should be aware of. Not only can men get the disease in rare cases, but it's also brothers, fathers and sons who bear terrible emotional pain when someone they know gets the dreaded diagnosis. Charities such as Willis' make treatment less physically and economically taxing on patients and their families.
Willis also makes it easy for men to get involved.
"Anybody is welcome to buy T-shirts or make donations and men can certainly get a hair extension," Willis said.
Students should consider taking part in this and other charities during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Each donation is a step closer to fewer breast cancer victims and a step toward more breast cancer survivors.
Clayton Ashley for The Kansan Editorial Board
EDITORIAL CARTOON
HELLO, WE'RE CONDUCTING A TELEPHONE POLL ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S STATEMENTS & POLICIES REGARDING ISSUES THAT MATTER MOST TO AMERICANS...
*THE HEALTHCARE
*THE AFGHAN
*KANYE WEST
REFORM PROJECT
SURGE
AT THE L.M.A.
Namibia Lake
NICHOLAS SAMBALUK
Vaccines not to blame for autism
HEALTH
Autism is becoming an epidemic in the United States, having increased about five-fold in the last 10 years. From its rise in diagnoses and increased media presence, autism has become the target of misinformation.
The greatest myth surrounding autism is its hypothesized link to vaccines, an idea advocated by the anti-vaccination movement often attributed to Jenny McCarthy. They contend that the childhood vaccines impair normal neurological development and, therefore, cause autism. But an overview of the evidence behind these claims exposes them to be both false and dangerous.
Is autism a true emerging epidemic? In the time that autism rates appeared to have grown in recent years, the medical definition of autism has begun to expand, and more people have gained access to physicians. Most scientists agree that this is creating the illusion of skyrocketing autism rates. Though it is possible that autism rates are growing, it remains far more likely that we are just much better at detecting it now than we were a decade ago.
Anti-vaccinationists often point to vaccine's mercury-containing preservative Thimerosal as autism's true culprit. Intensive research has overwhelmingly shown that this is not the case.
Thimerosal contains the form of mercury called ethyl mercury, which is cleared from the body
quickly and safely, not methyl mercury, which is more toxic and leads to most mercury-related neurological damage. Regardless, those who are exposed to toxic levels of mercury do not develop autism, but rather a more general form of neurological damage.
The Centers for Disease Control had Thimerosal removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, with little change in the autism prevalence since. Many rigorous, independent epidemiological studies since have shown no significant connection between vaccines and autism. Despite these many lines of evidence, the anti-vaccination movement persists, now targeting different components in vaccines as harmful. This idea is not only scientifically incorrect; it is dangerous
Measles, mumps, rubella and other vaccine-preventable diseases are slowly increasing around the country. After the historical use of vaccines had virtually eliminated these diseases, their numbers are steadily climbing. We are losing our herd immunity, our protection against disease transmission when nearly everyone is vaccinated.
But if individuals continue to deny vaccines for their children and rely solely on herd immunity for protection, a devastating recurrence of these past-feated diseases is foreseeable.
The cause of autism is still elusive, but researchers are slowly unraveling its mystery. It is becoming increasingly apparent that autism has a very strong genetic link.
For instance, males are more than four times as likely to become autistic than females. Although there is almost certainly no single gene or mutation that contributes to the entire spectrum of the disorder, it is likely that the complex interactions of genetic expression and regulation result in autism
Researchers are investigating the neurological characteristics of those with autism. By understanding what neurotransmitters are elevated or depressed, synapses grown or destroyed, or brain structures altered, we move steps closer to understanding autism and potentially developing better treatments.
The safety and efficacy of vaccines may be one of the best-studied and documented treatments of modern medicine, but the non-evidence-based rationale of well-intentioned individuals in the anti-vaccination movement may do more harm than good.
Folmsbee is a senior in neurobiology.
TELEVISION
Commercials embrace new sense of humor
The video's title said "Steve Nash Vitamin Water Community."
Commercial". Although I'm usually not one to voluntarily watch commercials, I hesitantly loaded the YouTube video. What followed was one of the best marketing campaigns in recent memory: basketball star Steve Nash in a satirical infomercial that makes fun of everything from traditional advertising techniques to his public image.
Advertisements have attempted to use humor as a marketing technique in the past, but Vitamin Water's use of parody shows the new direction the market is heading. Young adults have always been reliable consumers, and there's no secret to which demographic is being targeted by Vitamin Water.
Oh yeah, he's also saying some thing about creating your own Vitamin Water flavor through a Facebook group. Nash plays his part perfectly, using a gravely voice that's clearly an octave too low for him while slugging his way through the product presentation. I started to wonder. What makes Nash's commercial stand out?
Similarly, Snickers has been running similarly witty campaigns by using popular public figures in their ads. One of my favorite commercials is the Patrick "Chewing" spot that features NBA legend Patrick Ewong zealously dunking a ball over an excited. Snickers eating fan
Does it make sense? No, not really. It's not going to appeal to everyone. But this commercial has more than 700,000 views on YouTube, not including when the spot airs on regular television. It's impossible to deny that Snickers hasn't created a successful marketing campaign. The number of views of the video speaks for itself.
Both of these companies understand the growing appreciation of satirical humor in our generation.
I have a tendency to block out "normal" commercials on
TRENT BOULTINGHOUSE
television, often because they're plain boring. Granted, some commercials I find boring could be appealing to others. (Maybe the Verizon Wireless commercials, but if anyone finds that damn "Can you hear me now?" gw appealing, it's news to me.)
Some commercials think they've got what it takes to get the masses to chuckle, but fail miserably. (Sorry Dairy Queen and KFC. I appreciate the effort, but try again next time.) As a large consumer market, we appreciate commercials that appeal to our style of humor and personality. We all know the freecreditreport.com song, even though 90 percent of us have probably never visited the site once in our life.
Burger King probably isn't a daily meal for most of us, but we're all familiar with "the King" and his amusing activities.
Just because a commercial uses humor doesn't necessarily mean it's effective. What makes commercials stand out is their ability to leave an impression. Steve Nash and the Vitamin Water team have clearly put their unique stamp on an over-saturated market. Comedy isn't anything new with advertisers, but the new formula seems simple: Hire a public figure and satirize for humor.
The formula is working for Vitamin Water. The Internet-exclusive commercial was recently shown on SportsCenter and has more than 120,000 views through its first week on YouTube. To find out for yourself, do yourself a favor and watch the commercial.
Boultinghouse is a Girard sophomore in journalism and history.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Anti-abortion displays showed that the truth can sometimes be scary
The writer of Thursday's letter to the editor, "Replacing graphic displays with sex education," mentioned several times the abortion display using scare tactics in order to push the message of staying abstinent. The several pictures of aborted fetuses and facts of harm to a baby and its mother were not pushing an anti-sex message. The goal of this panel was to inform people of the destruction of a child during abortion.
The message was anti-abortion, not anti-sex. Open your eyes and open your mind. Regarding sex education, in Missouri a child in public school starts taking sex education in the seventh grade and continues until their second year of high school to take the class.
This idea of multiple years of sex education did not prevent the 12 girls in my high school from getting pregnant. That is four years of the continuing message, yet it
was ignored. Apparently we need "programs that embrace sexuality without using scare tactics."
My question to you is this: When should you not see the effects of STIs in sex education class? You know, the pictures of disgusting warts that are oozing with puss and blood on a person's body from such infections. Is that not using scare tactics?
The truth of the matter is that abortions look like the pictures that were on the display. And let me tell you that the truth is scary sometimes, but we have to accept it.
Regarding the abortion dilemma I have to quote Ronald Reagan, who said, "I've noticed everyone who is pro-choice has already been born."
There is a goal both pro-life and pro-choice people should have in common: reducing the number of abortions to zero. If the two groups can't come together then the task will never get done.
Mark Wade is a freshman from Kansas City, Mo.
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