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opinion
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 18,2012
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351 or at kansan.com
Yeah, I totally saw that FFA on a meme... five months ago. Use your imagination, people.
I'm writing Bill Self in on the 2012 presidential ballot. Who's with me?
Ctrl+r: my dignity.
I need more Sylas!
I see that one of the stone trash cans on campus has been smashed in half. Ah, weekends in Lawrence.
I used to think that Cs and Ds were bad test scores. Then I went to engineering school.
Thanks to my native Vietnamese name, I am The Last Airbender of Mc Collum 5th Floor.
We're going to get tattoos on tattoos... Tats on tats on tats.
I'm pro-life and the dead baby pictures make me squamish. There are other ways to get your point across, folks
I am still waiting for the day when all the outfits I repin on Pinterest will just show up in my closet.
Totally just got caught by a passerby picking out belly button lint. Note to self: Anschutz study rooms have giant glass windows
It's not cheating if it's not Facebook official, right?
Sucks to be the hotdog stand next to the dead babies.
Response to Free For All on Monday:
I'm a single, sober, non-smoking lady
who likes to cuddle! You're the guy, you
find me!
Do people really have a problem with kissing and holding hands? I thought we were in college now, not middle school. Grow up, please.
Boredom can destroy relationships
In college few things are absolutely certain. There are always questions of whether or not we'll graduate on time, where we'll sign our next lease and if our next gas fill-up will be an overdraft.
If she knows what Ctrl+F is, she's too smart for you, bro.
Did anyone else not realize right away that a poke-fanatic is someone who loves pokemotion? Sad poke-fanatic.
I'm not lazy... peeing outside is refreshing.
DATING
Knowing how to clap along with the fight songs properly should be a requirement to be at KU. Editor's note: If you want, like, *S* students on campus. Sure.
It would be interesting if KU had its own version of "TMZ."
The majority of men at KU are a lot like our squirrels: hairy, scary and all about their nuts.
But when elements of our relationships become certain — like Orange Leaf and trashy TV on Monday nights, playing trivia on Wednesday nights and 60 cent boneless wings at Buffalo Wild Wings on Thursday nights — the monotony of it all can make us feel very uncertain about the quality of our dating lives.
My weekly schedule has become totally predictable since I started teaching middle school English and communications. The details of my weeks in my classroom vary, but what doesn't change is how tired I am when it's all over each Friday afternoon.
The weekend, which was once a time of trekking downtown to whatever bar that boasted the best drinks, had become reduced to me surfing YouTube, inviting my boyfriend over to eat ice cream in bed and finally falling asleep at 11 p.m. I was so tired that I didn't want to do anything else, but eventually my boredom with my relationship left me diving for a solution.
Then I found the simplest answer to my biggest relationship problem: stop making excuses and do stuff.
That particular piece of advice is easier said than done, especially if you fall victim to laziness. But boredom can be disastrous. It may seem small, but it can wreak serious havoc on our relationships.
According to a Good In Bed survey, boredom can be the single
biggest threat to an otherwise solid relationship. Sex expert Ian Kerner, a sexuality counselor and founder of Good In Bed, who helped analyze the study, said that "boredom is basically like an attack on our relationship's immune system."
And it can spread quickly if it's ignored. Boredom can lead us to get a wandering eye or nix the relationship altogether. But often we become bored in our relationships because we become
For the sake of our relation- ships when life becomes routine, we need to break the cycle and continue to maintain the fresh feeling of them before they grow fatally stale.
bored with our lives. In this way monotony gets the best of us and disguises itself in the form of a decaying relationship.
If we don't act fast, the boredom virus is sure to spread, and the healthy heartbeat that once was in our relationships will soon be flatlining. But at least when it comes to boredom in dating, the problem is easy to fix by simply going out and participating in society.
hurt heart.
If we don't step carefully, our relationships as we know it can end from this seemingly simple problem, and the issue can become chronic in our next ones if we don't recognize the root of the conflict. If we aren't careful about determining the real issue at hand, we could end up making a choice that's fatal to one of the best relationships in our lives.
Sometimes our partners really are at fault. But in reality, they usually aren't. Even if they're not, the consequence (like a breakup) is still the same, and can leave them stunned with unanswered questions about what went wrong. And when the relationship isn't actually the problem, it can leave us with little but a
TELEVISION
And when we learn to resuscitate dying relationships as easily as that, we can finally keep our great loves alive.
Rachel Keith is a graduate student in education from Wichita. Follow her on Twitter @Rachel_UDKeith.
By Mike Montano
mmontano@kansan.com
The reality television show on MTV, "The Real World," was the start of the reality TV phenomenon of our generation, but since 2000, reality TV has exploded into all of our living rooms and it's a dirty mess.
According to the Journal of Consumer Research, people watch reality TV for a number of reasons and those reasons include: imagining yourself as the participant, wanting to be surprised or thrilled by an outcome of the show and having a voyeuristic need to watch people. It has always been a strange concept to me to sit down and watch somebody else live his or her own life. Quite honestly, I'm more concerned with issues that affect my life. I know, boring. Of course I still get in a little movie time or get my fix of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" every now and then.
Everyone's preference is different and our reasons for watching what we watch is as unique as we are, but recent statistics of viewers that tuned into the Republican and Democratic National Conventions might be a strong argument for what people prefer to watch or where the future of our programming is headed.
According to ABC News, the Republican National Convention brought in 1.2 million viewers on Fox's Aug. 29 coverage of the convention while 2.9 million viewers were more partial to watching TLC's "Honey Boo Boo." I might not even have to explain what type of show "Honey Boo Boo" is but just close your eyes, place yourself in rural Georgia, imagine a
stay-at-home mom known as "The Coupon Queen," a little girl bouncing off the walls, lots of sugar, and siblings with nicknames like "Pumpkin" and "Chubbs." And if the mere description doesn't give you a headache, then you're one of millions that would find this show interesting.
Since 2008, ratings for both parties' conventions were down by millions and that could be in part to the 89 percent of Americans that say they don't trust the government that was reported by the New York Times, or the increased millions that tune into reality TV to watch "real people" with "real issues." I can't argue there because with quotes from Mitt Romney defining the middle class income as a range from $200,000, to $250,000, it's evident that if we want to tackle "real issues" then we need to start with "real people."
POLITICS
It's clear that reality TV isn't going anywhere. The ratings are continually increasing and it's a trend that even cable news channels are finding attractive. CNN has been losing ratings and a late-night roundtable seems to be their solution. I'm imagining Carson Daly, Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric and Wolf Blitzter talking about the newest Flo Rida song, a recap of what happened on "Honey Boo Boo" for the week and foods to make you last longer during sex. I guess people are getting tired of staying up on current events or maybe these topics are the new current events.
I might tune in to the next "Honey Boo Boo" to see what all the hype is about but the moment I see a White House Reality TV show with the President confessing how he and Biden drank too much at a Fundraiser and ended up in Vegas, I'm giving away my television.
Montana is a senior majoring in journalism from Topeka. Follow him on Twitter @MikeMontanoME.
Pro-choice movement is part of personal freedom
A few months ago, I was spending time with my five-year-old niece, along with one of her uncles. I'm not quite sure how the conversation started, but at some point we were discussing things my niece could be when she "grows up." Her uncle started jokingly telling her that one of the options (it might have been a lion tamer) was "not the best idea." However, rather than let it slide, my niece turned to him, replying with indigence vividly sharp in her voice, hand on her hip, "I decide my own life!"
As my niece proudly declared herself in charge of her own fate, I grinned and high-fived her like the good feminist aunt I am. But, I couldn't help but feel a bit of sadness along with my pride. See, when my niece says "I decide my own life,"—even though every fiber of my being wants to tell her "Yes, you're absolutely right, of course"—I can't nod along with 100 percent honesty.
My niece believes her rights for bodily autonomy are par for the course in what she sees as a fair world. Not having a say in her own life is a bewildering concept for her to wrap her head around. My niece believes she should have choices, and get to make those choices, whether it's choosing her lunch or choosing her future career.
However, the notion that my niece should be powerless in her own life is not at all bewildering to an alarming number of people. In fact, the notion that people, particularly young people, and particularly young people with the capability to become pregnant, should feel powerless in their own lives is the driving factor behind an entire political
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By Katherine Gwynn kgwynn@kansan.com
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
movement.
There is a very real possibility that entities will attempt to take the power of "I decide my own life" away from my niece. She may be raped. She may be bled to by her doctor about her health and body. She may be told she has no right to a decision about her body, that she is not an authority on her own life, that she in fact cannot, and should not be able to say, "I decide my own life".
I want her to be able to decide.
This scares me. No scratch that—this terrifies me.
According to the American Pregnancy Association, 49 percent of all pregnancies are unintended, and the rate of unintended pregnancy is particularly high among 18 to 24-years-old—the age of the typical KU student. An age group my niece will belong to when she "goes to KU or Harvard" (she hasn't decided which yet).
This is the root of the prochoice movement. This is my niece, someday, if she happens to have an unplanned pregnancy, being able to decide her own life. This is my niece, or your niece, or sister, mother, friend, or you, me, or any of the people whose body has the capability to become pregnant, being able to say "I decide my own life." This is about having options.
I want my niece, and all those with the capability to become pregnant, to be able to pick the best option when it comes to a decision that literally can decide the path your life takes. And I want my niece, and us all, to say, "I decide my own life."
Gwynn is a sophomore majoring in English and women, gender, and sexuality from Glathe. Follow her on twitter @All迪利Gwynn.
and having access to those options; about deciding to end a pregnancy, or about continuing with a pregnancy and choosing adoption, or about continuing with a pregnancy and being a parent.
The pro-choice movement is not the pro-abortion movement. The pro-choice movement is the "you decide your own life" movement. Having options available to a person, and allowing a person to choose the option that is best for them, and their current and future family? That is choice.
My niece is five years old. She was born five years ago because of an unplanned pregnancy when my sister was 19 years old, younger than I am now; the age of a significant amount of students on campus. My sister, when discovering she was pregnant, looked at her options: abortion, adoption, or parenthood. She decided, for her own personal and unique circumstances, that parenthood was the best option for her. She had means to be able to do this unlike many others, which makes her very lucky and grateful because being a parent has worked out for her. It doesn't for everyone.
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