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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2013
opinion
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It amazes me how many people still don't know which doors are unlocked during camping.
You can always tell a freshmen by how they rip their paper before basketball games...
This has to be the most amazing student section ever.
FFA editor, I know this is late but will you be my Valentine? Editor's note: Of course!
You know you have the wrong major when you spend 35 hours a week in class #ididtsignofforth
So glad the ghost of Phog Allen was with us during the game by making K-State players trip.
Why the hell doesn't my phone automatically capitalize "Self"?
Ben McLemore just gets more attractive with every shot he makes!
I do it best.
Let's be honest, you're not a true basketball fan until you've accidentally eaten or drank a piece of newspaper.
Get some toast ready cuz here's the jam.
I'm almost as happy about the woo going away as I am about crushing K-State.
This is our state.
Believe in your Self!
Policeman/traffic controller after the game said, "are you Jayhawk fans? You can cross whenever you want."
Do you know what a Jayhawk is? A mythical magical bird. Do you know what a wildcat is? Vermin.
I have senioritis so bad that I couldn't even finish rereading the senioritis column.
Every exam should start with the KU basketball video. We would never fail.
If she looks good at lottery, wife that.
I seemed to have lost my voice in the Phog. If anyone finds it, could you let me know? Thanks.
Why do the KU buses frat pack all the time!?
THEY'RE DOING BRAIN SURGERY ON THE JAYHAWK IN FRONT OF THE UNION. I feel sick
The front page just made my day!!!
INTHEFACE
HUMAN RIGHTS
Dan the Taxi Man, can you come get me? Everyone keeps telling me I'm drunk and need to go home.
Fell asleep in calc today... Dreamt about accounting. Ugh.
Study hard. You never know when the hot girl will need your help.
Judging my graduate school choices based on what I know about their Quidditch teams. *Priorities*
KUBoobs sparks feminism debate
Let's be real—you've heard about KUBoobs. I've heard about KUBoobs. The Huffington Post has heard about KUBoobs. And the feminist community has certainly heard about KUBoobs.
If you're in denial, I'll play along and inform you that KUBoobs is a social media craze that began here at the University last spring during March Madness. It started with a twitter account that sought to have female fans show support to the men's basketball team by tweeting pictures of their breasts all done up in their gameday swag. It has more than 3,000 tweets and more than 35,000 followers; as in more followers than the University has undergraduate students, by 15,000. You could say it's pretty popular. And you could say it's pretty anti-feminist.
Only I think it's a little more complicated than that.
That's how a feminist lens of looking at the world works sometimes. It's not always clear cut if you get the feminist seal of approval or not, if you've earned the complimentary vulva-shaped
fruit basket and Maya Angelou mug. And surprisingly, by which I mean not surprising at all, feminists disagree with each other frequently about what's "best" for feminism, a reality that is very clear in the discussion about KUBoobs and what it means in a feminist context.
There are two sides that have dominated KUBoobs in terms of how it relates to feminism: one claiming it is a feminist expression, and one claiming it's incredibly anti-feminist. The pro side claims that these women are choosing to tweet pictures of their bodies and send them in order to take control of their bodies in a typically male-dominated arena, a fandom version of choice feminism. The anti side says that this is merely sexism, that it is rape culture cloaking itself as female empowerment, and that, as Feministing.com put it in a recent article on the topic, "doing what feels good to me isn't always good for women at large."
I have to say, neither of these sits well with me.
Female sexuality is constantly policed as is. Women are told that
they either need to cover up or bare more; to be prettier or to be more professional; to be a virgin or to be a vixen.
I'm don't support the idea that a woman is "anti-feminist" if she decides she wants to dress in a way that showcases her body however she's most comfortable, or if she chooses to share her body with the world. Whether that means being covered from head to toe or wearing a miniskirt and cleavage-bearing shirt is an individual's choice to make, and should be a choice that individual feels safe making.
However, all too often, feminists assume young women who are proud of their bodies must be blinded by patriarchy, that a woman could never possibly want to revel in the fact that she has a really great rack, that a woman
would dare want to take her sexuality into her own hands and wield it blatantly.
I'm also not behind the idea that a Twitter account, being run by males who identify as men, that directly objectifies women's bodies as a way of tribute to a male sports team can be said to have feminism first and foremost in their minds. And as one commentator on the KUBoobs Facebook page put so eloquently, and surprisingly accurately.
"The female body has motivated men to strive for success since the dawn of time."
Ah, yes, to strive for success — that success defined as who can dominate, and that domination defined as what kind of or how many women you can "win." Where women's body are a prize to be viewed in the afterglow of a Jayhawk win.
I don't think these individuals who choose to participate in KUBoobs are anti-feminist in their personal decisions. It's unfortunate that women aren't allowed to express pride in their sexuality without having to trouble whether it's "feminist" because
of a society informing us that the main purpose of a woman is to be sexually consumed, and frequently conditions individuals to take that as undeniable fact.
Probably not.
And if you think female sexuality isn't presented and treated differently in the media than male sexuality, let me ask this: why isn't there a male equivalent to KUBoobs? Can you imagine KUAbs? KUBiceps? KUBallsack? For a male sporting event, would there be such extreme popularity of a twitter full of men tweeting pictures of their bodies, hashtagging them in order to cheer on our boys in blue and red?
The discussion can't be laid out in a moral black and white, and my point isn't to have you try to fit yourself into this binary of feminism. But I do want you to realize that the issue is complicated, challenging, and is worth discussing.
Gwynn is a sophomore majoring in English and women, gender, and sexuality from Olathe.
POLITICS
113th Congress plagued with procrastination, partisanship
Top procrastinators of the day: Congress, Obama, and me. While our projects are of varying importance, putting things off has moved from killing grades to wrecking budgets.
113th Congress, I can relate. You're all basically in an insanely difficult college course. There are plenty of tough meetings to and long nights spent reading boring bills ahead of you. But take it from me: procrastination begins to lose its charm when you're an elected official in the most powerful political body in the world.
Already you guys are falling back into the soupy mixture of stubbornness, stupidity and fanatical partisanship that drove your predecessors into the ground. Where's the passion? Where's the love of democracy? What do you need to get going? I've got a fruit roll-up, if that helps.
Obama, don't go anywhere; you aren't excused. You've managed to miss your fourth budget
A method I've found effective is to hang a wood-chopping ax over my desk with a timer attached. If I don't finish my homework by midnight, I'll be beheaded. I know you already tried this out last summer with the whole "devastating trillion dollar cuts across the board" thing that will kick in at the end of the month. A trillion is so unimpressive anymore. Have you ever heard of a quadrillion?
deadline this past week. I know keeping the illegal drone strikes hush-hush is time consuming, but give the budget a few minutes a day and if it finish itself. I've got my own secrets to keep, but I won't let the skeletons in my closet keep me from finishing my French vocab.
As your State of the Union approaches, try to ease off the mudslinging and focus on the details. Spending all day scolding Republicans sure is entertaining (especially if Speaker of the House John Boehner cries) but not nearly as productive as it should be. That Grand Ole Party is a defensive bunch with a persecution complex, so drop the name calling for some number crunching.
We've gotten your big picture of America on a live feed for the past four years; we don't need an anecdote about an ailing sick immigrant building a successful small business to get us on board. What we need are labels and numbers on these budget plans you've been tutoring for so long.
But don't micromanage too hard. Democrats can't seem to
agree with anyone, especially one another. They're so stuck gripping about timeframes and what constitutes a "loop hole" exactly that they haven't had time to get out of their grimy offices. Once they do they just waste time on the congressional floor itself, but that least feels like progress.
To relieve the palpable tension on Capitol Hill, you guys could have a two-on-two basketball game: you and Sen. Harry Reid versus Sen. Mitch McConnell and Boehner. Follow that with a tag-tteam Karaoke battle D1J by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Winners get a massage from Sen. John McCain. He knows tension like no other.
Get hot tubs on the Senate floor. Host an ice cream social. Go laser tagging and cosmic-bowling. Do anything you guys want, really. Just get moving unless you want to be less popular than communism and Hugo Chavez like your friends in the 112th were.
The chemistry in these past few Congresses has been off-the-charts bad and some major party changes may be needed before anything gets done. That could mean there won't be a productive Congress until Obama leaves office or an entirely new set of bitter seniors gets voted in. For now though, try the axing.
Kenney is a freshman majoring in journalism from Shawnee.
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CAMPUS
Intramurals offer fun competitions
The everyday grind of going to class, writing papers and taking tests can become an exasperating trend for some students. Sure, going out and experiencing the Lawrence nightlife is a must in terms of soaking up every ounce of this great city's identity. But think about how much more physically active you could be throughout the week to counteract all the drinks and late-night junk food consumed on what feels like a daily basis. This is where intramural sports come into play.
Intramurals have a longstanding tradition at the University, with sports ranging from basketball to bowling. Enjoy playing doubles tennis with a friend from the dorm? Doubles tennis intramurals are available. Ping-pong, too. Intramural sports have shifted to a nearly all-sports encompassing weekly recess for thousands of University students
This being my senior year, I've nearly played out my eligibility as an intramural "student-athlete." During my time in Lawrence, I've seen intramural sports culture and the way students approach these leagues change. It's getting competitive. Not the unhealthy, "I want to break you" kind of over-the-top competitiveness, rather a general wanting to get better at any particular sport while fighting for the ultimate intramural prize: a T-shirt.
T-shirt aside, one sport in particular - basketball - offers another prize for making it to the league tournament championship game. a trip to play in legendary Allen Fieldhouse. Yes, the very same floor that the likes of Wilt Chamberlain and Danny Manning competed on. Granted there are about 16,000 less people in the gymnasium during intramural championships, youd still get the chance to play basketball in a competitive format inside of the greatest cathedral of college sports.
Indoor soccer games can be some of the most physical intramural contests. The space to play is so small and enclosed that one rough tackle can send the game into a no-holds-barred
Most of these referees are kids that KU intramurals train within league play. So some of the referees you might see in an indoor volleyball match might be in their first ever week of volleyball refereeing. And you know what, from the few years I've played, including indoor volleyball with inexperienced referees, they do a damn good job. They take a lot of crap from every different direction, but—for the most part—they are able to dig in and make the right calls, so kudos to them.
slugfest. OK, maybe not that bad, but trust me, I've seen it get pretty chippy out there. Which leads right into how efficient and composed most of the referees are in some of these physical and competitive contests.
From freshman to senior year, there's going to be a lot of time to study, to party and to sleep. While I enthusiastically condone all three, I can't overemphasize how crucial intramural sports have been to my college experience. I've got fond memories of winning the basketball championship in Allen Fieldhouse with my younger brother hitting the game-clinching free throws at the end. Next week my brother and I will compete in doubles bowling intramurals, which a year ago I would have laughed at had you asked me if I'd compete in that event.
With each intramural sport I play, the more open-minded I am to participating in another. Or who knows, maybe I know my time's running out and I just want to get it all in before I am no longer eligible.
Roque is a senior majoring in journalism from Overland Park. Follow him on Twitter @rouge4.
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