4B
7
7
t
\
OPINION
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
www.kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD
Recent crimes indicative of larger safety problem
Readers of the Kansan might have noticed that last week's pages seemed unusually replete with stories of campus crime. A female student's car was stolen from her at gunpoint. Police investigated the rape of a freshman in a residence hall. Another student was trapped in the passenger seat as a thief drove off in her boyfriend's car.
It is most comforting to deem the week's crimes freak occurrences. It is easiest to hold onto the picture painted by the admissions office of the University of Kansas as a quaintly secure campus in the middle of small-town America.
All universities want parents to believe their students will be protected from the outside world, from crime and misfortune. Until 1990, this was often accomplished by simply choosing not to release information on campus crime. The Clery Act changed this unscrupulous practice.
The Clery Act, named after Jeanne Clery, a Lehigh University freshman tortured and killed in her dorm room in 1986 by a fellow student, requires all U.S. colleges and universities to report crimes that occur on and around their campuses. Enforced by the Department of Education, the act is intended to prevent schools from hiding offenses that occur on campus in order to preserve their reputations and keep enrollment numbers up. Last Tuesday, the University fulfilled its yearly obligation to the act by sending an e-mail to all students with links to its campus crime information.
Few students bother to examine the statistics. But those that do probably realized that they are incredibly misrepresentative of university life and are not much of an improvement compared to the days of total silence by university administrations on safety issues.
For example, four "forcible sex offenses" occurred on campus in 2003. Research has found that one in five women at the University experiences rape or attempted rape during their time here. That means then that statistically 945 women are made victims of rape each year. Where are the 941 other victims? They do exist. They simply are not talking. Some fear retribution and some simply don't know to whom they can turn.
The claim is that victims of rape are still stigmatized and the University is not doing enough to reach out to them and provide easy, well-advertised avenues for reporting incidents of rape. Change in these areas is necessary because the incredibly low number reported by the University lulls students into a false sense of security and reinforces the notion that awareness of surroundings and situation is unnecessary because rape happens so infrequently.
Rape is, of course, not the only underreported crime on campus, or the only one that needs to be aggressively combated through campus outreach and reforms. It is one that serves to illuminate the entire problem of crime reporting at universities.
Last week's incidents were not isolated occurrences. They are indicative of a crime problem suffered by most large campuses but one that is unpleasant for administrations to address. The risks of damaging the students' sense of security and the school's reputation simply cannot take precedence over student well-being. Even if it causes crime statistics to rise, the University must pursue more aggressive measures to protect its students and obtain accurate counts of on-campus crimes.
Free for All
Call 864-0500
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.
Nielsen, will you marry me?
Yeah, it'd be great if Billy Dee Williams could speak at our graduation and say, "Class of 2008, would you get going, you pirates?"
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
图
Brooklyn, I know you didn't pull the fire alarms in McCollum. I happen to know who did that, but I'm gonna keep that on the D.L. But Brooklyn, seriously, would you go going, you pirate?
I don't care what they say. Arrah
True story: Walking down Engel towards the dorms and this bear jumps out and does the macerena.
---
For those about to rock: We salute you!
TALK TO US
Henry C. Jackson
editor
10 or hickson@kansasan.com
Anna Clovis and Samia Khan opinion editors 864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
864-4810 or hjackson@kansan.com
Donovan Attkinson and Andrew Vaupel
managing editors
864-4810 or datkinsan@kensan.com and
avaupel@kansan.com
Justin Roberts business manager 864-4358 or advertising@ansan.com
Jennifer Weaver
sales and marketing adviser
864-7686 or jweaver@kansan.com
Stephanie Graham
retail sales manager
864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and news adviser
864-7867 or mgibson@kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
EDITORIAL BOARD WEEKLY
Laura Rose Berr, Ty Beaver, Ryan Good, Anna Gregory, Jack Hainy-Rhode, Kally Hollowell, Nate Karkin, Jay Kimmel, Stephanie Lovett, Taylor Price, Neo Rosar, Ryan Scarrow, John Tran, Anne Waltmer and Michelle Wood
The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 200 words and guest columns should not exceed 500 words. To submit a letter to the editor or a column, the document to submit @kansan.com must be submitted by town, year in school or position and phone number.
For any questions, call Anna Clivia or Samia Khan at 844-6924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com. General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com.
The Kansan welcome letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
Maximum Length: 650 word limit
Include: Author's name
Class, hometown (student)
Position (faculty member)
Also: The Kansan will not print guest columns that attack another columnist.
GUEST COLUMN GUIDELINES
LETTER GUIDELINES
Maximum Length:
200 word limit
Hunter Attorney's name and telephone number
Class, hometown (student)
Position (faculty member)
SUBMIT TO
BEELER'S VIEW
Hard copy:
kansan newroom
111 Staffer-Flint
spinion@kansan.com
BEELER'04 KRT CAMROS
Nate Boeler/KRT CAMPUS
Gender Genie ignores context
Do language patterns reveal gender?
The Gender Genie answers with a resounding and confident Yes!
The Gender Genie lives at www.bookblog.net and has never popped out of a bottle. And, alas, it does not grant wishes, though it does 'magically' predict one's gender based on a text sample. At least, it tries.
Site visitors insert text for analysis and tell the Genie if the sample is fiction, nonfiction or a blog entry. The program flags certain words as feminine or masculine, and voila, it gives the text a gender score. For example, the genie scored our last column as Female: 249, Male: 809 (the bigger number is the winner).
LANGUAGE RULES!
After we submitted our actual gender (the site wants to know if it has guessed correctly), the genie responded: "that is one butch chick."
The Gender Genie computes patterns in language with a seemingly objective eye. Looking for these gender patterns is intriguing, but ultimately meaningless.
As a legitimate tool, the site and its underlying philosophy are not especially credible. Besides the fact that the link to the Genie's source algorithm is broken, we must also wonder if certain language patterns really are more feminine or masculine than others. Or is the Gender Genie just another example of a bogus linguistic trend?
APRIL BENSON AND LAUREN STEWART
opinion@kansan.com
The site asserts that men and women use language in recognizably different ways. The Genie deals with the frequency of core vocabulary words rather than the subject matter of text samples.
Feminine keywords include: with, if, should, where, be and personal and reflexive pronouns. Masculine keywords include: are, as, who, is, the, a, at, it, and said.
The Gender Genie declares the gender of an author based on which type of indicating words appear more in a text sample. It does suggest that samples greater than 500 words are most likely to achieve "accurate" results.
With the identification of masculine and feminine forms, the former appears to have authority. Masculine forms of communication, as suggested by the gender genie, are still preferred in the professional and scholastic worlds. The argument that more involved, relational language forms are feminine insinuates the valuing of these so-called masculine language patterns.
The site boils language down to something it's not. It implies that language is instinctive, a mechanism of the subconscious or the expression of one's sex
when the Web site responds to its misgendering with "butch chick" references, it is asserting that there is something potentially unnatural about a woman who uses words like a man.
The Gender Genie's conclusion is fortunate on many levels. If there IS a difference between male and female, masculine and feminine forms of communication, is it a difference that is somehow natural, or is it a learned behavior? The Genie ignores the importance of context—topic, situation, experience—and suggests that gender matters more in determining language.
Sites such as the Gender Genie compel people to think about the ways that humans package and manipulate their language without necessarily meaning to do so. The ideas behind the Genie also speak to the strong link between gender and identity, as language continuously helps reaffirm identity.
Language encompasses many things, including experience, contexts and identity. Yes, gender probably factors in to all of those things—and somehow, some way, probably factors into our language patterns. But should we allow something as simplified as the Gender Genie to deny the complexity of human language?
Benson is a Grand Island, Neb., senior in English and music. Stewart is a Wichita senior in English.
Snuggling cozy alternative to sex
True story: I get off work at three o'clock in the morning. I'm tired, but decide to go spend the night at my friends house in order to meet her new boyfriend. I walk into her apartment and see a boy lying down on her couch. This boy, a casual acquaintance, sleepily wakes up and says, "Hey Stephen, haven't see you in a while." We then hug. It turns into us falling onto the couch and snuggling for the next forty-minutes. It was hot.
The power of the snuggle can cross the boundaries of, apparently, sexuality. While many will claim that snuggling is a non-sexual sport, which it can be, I would also like to note that most good sexin' has precluded or concluded with snugging.
STEPHEN MOLES
opinion@kansan.com
The best snuggle EVER: In order to find out the mechanics behind the snuggle I enlisted my snuggle buddy/partner in crime, Schuyler. We spent a solid hour and a half trying out every position and even making up a few of our own. Our results:
Spooning: The most popular body position. It's where the larger bodied individual adopts a fetal position and presses their stomach up against the back of the smaller bodied person in front of them. Resembling two spoons laid out next to each other. Pros: Easy to get close. For the most part comfortable. Cons: The "arm" problem. The person who is "spooning" the other person always has trouble finding what to do with the other arm
SEX 101
WED
CONTI
C
The tree hugger. The first person lies down and their back and the second person nuzzled up against the "tree's" side. The "hugger's" head is usually laid on the "tree's" chest and their arm over the "tree's" body. Pros: Comfortable and moderately intimate. Cons: One of the Hugger's arms will get crushed.
The lovers: Where both parties lay front to front. Legs usually are intertwined and head to chest or face to face. Pro: It's the most directly beneficial of all snuggles. Cons: The arms. Both parties cannot hug the other; one must fold their arms in.
The dog pile: One person lays on their stomach and then another lays on top.
Pros: surprisingly comfortable and erotic. Cons: Limited personal contact.
Also, the person on the bottom can get
their throat crushed if they don't position themselves properly.
The three-some: Eventually Schuyler and I invited our friend Joel, to see the pro/cons of the three-some snuggle. Much like real three-somes, there's always someone making out like a bandit. The person in the middle got the most loved on.
The 69: It started out as a joke, but eventually became a reality. Both parties lay with their heads on the other's thighs. Pros: Good for eye contact and communication. Cons: Move too much and you could crush some one's nuts. It takes a fair amount of setup.
Final notes: While good body type interaction helps in obtaining that perfect snuggle, it isn't the only mitigating factor. Enthusiasm seems to be key. Be an active snuggler. Get your body close to the other person, stroke their hair and caress their skin. I am assuming you like this person, so show it.
Three people severely limit movement. To keep everyone comfortable, either try a spoon train, or a double tree hugger. Anything more complex just won't work. Trust me, we tried. Pros: It's three people!! Cons: There is a tendency to overheat and the lack of movement can get annoying.
Moles is a Lawrence junior in sociology.
A
(    )
---