OPINION
1111
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
www.kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD
'Daily Show' last bastion of real news for students
Of all of the news programs and organizations out there, only one has
the courage to ask the tough questions, the knowledge to cut through Washington and corporate spin, and the desire to bring back honest, hard-hitting, muckraking journalism.
One might wonder why, in a country filled with as many newspapers and major news organizations as ours, a fake news show could be this influential.
Never mind that it's a fake news program. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which won an Emmy Award last week, has developed a large, fanatical following since Stewart succeeded Craig Kilborn almost five years ago. The show took off in 2000 with its satirical, perhaps genius, coverage of the presidential race with its "Indecision 2000" campaign. Despite a brief hiatus after the Sept. 11 attacks, the show soon recovered its courage and brought American political leaders, democrat and republican alike, back into the arena of biting, honest humor.
To be sure, there are a variety of factors involved in The Daily Show's phenomenon: the documented apathy of American youth, the prominence of 24-hour cable news, sound bites and the polarization of the electorate.
But despite the viewing public's
waning interest in anything but celebrity news or political gossip, The Daily Show manages to engage its sources and its viewers, many of whom are those "apathetic" young people, with the issues of the day. Even if its methods are light-hearted and off-beat — regular segments include "Mess O' Potamia," "This Week in God" and "Back in Black," by comedian Lewis Black — the goals of the show, and the ends it achieves, are certainly desirable.
Commentators in the mainstream media may be in shock at the ratings that The Daily Show gets and at surveys reporting that more young adults get their news from that program than any other, but perhaps they continue to play the show off because they realize that the The Daily Show is doing the job they either can't or won't do.
The Daily Show allows for tongue-in-cheek musings at serious issues because it uses humor as its vehicle — you laugh at the messenger, but you cannot forget the message.
With satire, The Daily Show manages to do the near-impossible in our "just-the-facts, ma'am" culture: They've brought context back into the discussion of issues. And for this, the show and its anchor are a credit to the nation.
Free for All
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.
Call 864-0500
--to the chick who got her jeans stolen that almost cost $1,000. I hope she has to spend her whole life looking for them and when finally finds them, her greedy ass is too big to fit in them.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
Hey, last night, there was some girl peeing outside McCollum. I bet she thought no one saw her, but we did!
二
I wish, instead of Dave Thomas dying, Mr. Wendy would die and Dave Thomas was still here.
ne people at Cork & Barrel took my ID and I'm 21. How embarrassing is that?
ne people at Cork & Barrel took my ID and I'm 21. How embarrassing is that?
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ne people at Cork & Barrel took my ID and I'm 21. How embarrassing is that?
**free for All,** I just want you to know that I love you. I know we had a fight, but we can get past this, alright? I know I love you and you love me and if we work together, we can get through this and maybe have some great make-up sex.
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I used to do drugs. I still do and I used to,
too.
Mr. Wendy may be bad, but not as bad as the Arby's oven mitt.
Maybe the dingos ate your baby
TALK TO US
Henry G. Jackson
editor
64-4810 or hjackson@kansan.com
'I'd just like to point out that chivalry didn't die, it was murdered by feminism.
Let me burn. Just turn off the fire alarm and let me burn.
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Donovan Atkinson and Andrew Vaupel managing editors
864-4810 or datkinson@kansan.com and avaukel@kansan.com
Anna Clovia and Samia Khan
opinion editors
884-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
It's 10:20 on Saturday and I'm in bed alone.
Damn.
Stephanie Graham
retail sales manager
864-4358 or advertising@ansan.com
Arrah Nielsen is the stupidest, most ignorant girl alive. Why is she still writing for *The Kansan*? I don't think one KU student knows and I don't think one KU student respects her or *The Kansan* anymore because of what she wrote yesterday.
Jenny Weaver
sales and marketing adviser
834-7868 or jweaver@kansan.com
Maloalm Gibson
general manager and news adviser
884-7697 or mglibson@kanan.com
both words are made by punching 2-9
Alright, bitches! Keep your hands off my Quizno!
Justin Roberts business manager 864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Laura Rose Barr, Ty Ryan Good, Anna Gregory, Jack Henry Rhoades, Kelly Hollowell,
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Taylor Price, Noel Rasor, Ryan Scarrow, John
Tran, Anna Welmer and Michelle Wood
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Zach Stinson/KANSAN
Habits make words peas in a pod
LANGUAGE RULES!
2-2-5-5 6-3
That's cell phone for "Call me."
Predictive text programs like T9® Word allow cell phone users to tap only a few keys when writing memos or sending text messages, rather than scrolling through the alphabet. So the word "call" only requires that the 2 key and 5 key are hit twice each to spell c-a-l-1.
'T9® Word is smart, but not smart enough to automatically know the words users wish to type. The program can't predict that the word between 'I' and "going" should be "am," instead of "an" by pushing 2.9
Of course, we don't expect perfection from cell phone software, but T9 demonstrates a major discrepancy between artificial and human intelligence when it comes to language. T9 doesn't recognize common collocations.
Collocations are exactly what their name looks like: "co-locations." In other words, collocations are pairs or collections of words that often appear in the same vicinity. Sometimes the combinations create meaning; sometimes the togetherness is the result of routine.
Idioms are good places to find meaningful collocations, such as "rain or shine" and "once in a blue moon." Each separate element of these phrases has meaning, but the elements gain new meaning when placed together. Collocations can also include words that generally appear in the same area,
APRIL BENSON AND LAUREN STEWART
opinion@kansan.com
such as "bird" and "nest," though they don't necessarily add new meaning to one another.
People almost naturally recognize collocations in their native languages. Collocations help speakers predict the words they listen to and pattern their own speech. Collocations often describe things that just seem natural to everyday language.
Collocations are studied within the field of corpus linguistics. A corpus is an electronic collection of millions of words from real-world texts. Universities and other institutions compile and manage these databases, which show scholars the frequency in which certain words appear in close proximity to each other.
Some collocations are stricter than others. A 1991 article in American Speech discusses the importance of order in certain common word groupings, such as "male and female" and "men and women." These phrases sound awkward when reversed — "female and male," "women and men."
The author points out several reasons why these orders are neither coincidental, nor easily explained. At first, these constructions look like they're following a pattern of one syllable followed by two, but "husband and wife" is a similarly standardized pair that reverses the pattern.
To some extent, gender roles seem to be mandating these collocates' orders, but examples such as "ladies and gentlemen" or "mom and dad" defy this idea.
Similarly, the word salt always comes before pepper, and ham before eggs. Somehow these constructions have become normalized and ordered collocates in the English language.
Collocations are a subtle feature of language. Non-native speakers who can recognize words commonly found together and then incorporate these collocations into their own verbal communication are demonstrating mastery of their new language.
Yet, while collocations derived from the study of corpus linguistics display general lexical relationships, other collocations may be more specific and personal.
For example, a collocation we'd like to continue using this season is "football team" and "winning season."
Benson is a Grand Island, Neb., senior in English and music. Stewart is a Wichita senior in English.
Instead singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, who identifies as Yusuf Islam since becoming Muslim in the early '70s, spent last year's Overland Park fundraiser talking about a parochial elementary school over which he currently presides.
Everyone in the auditorium was hoping that the former singer would touch upon his time as a pop icon, his sudden decision to trade his life and name for Islam and maybe even hear him toss off a version of Wild World for kicks.
'Peace Train' unfairly derailed
In lieu of his greatest hits, Islam treated attendees to a plodding powerpoint presentation and an awkward music video featuring a Moroccan crooner for Allah. It was the type of activity Islam has dedicated himself to since becoming a very public symbol of his newfound religion, the peaceful flipside to the death and destruction that makes headlines daily.
So it was a shock when representatives from the Department of Homeland Security suddenly exhibited a 180-degree policy change concerning the singer, alleging he has ties to terrorist groups.
AHSAN LATIF opinion@kansan.com
Islam was visibly deported from the country last week following his famous appearance on the "No Fly List." The United Airlines flight he was on was quickly grounded, and the offending religious superstar was deplained and quickly redirected to his way back to merry old
SHEIK UR BUTI
Not to completely question the legitimacy of the Department of Duct-tape Security, but it does seem a bit contradictory to close the borders to a man who has held meetings to discuss his charity work with President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as several other high profile figureheads in the War on Terror.
England, The Wind clearly at his back.
Islam also denounced the actions of guerrilla rebels who seized a school in Beslan, Russia, last month.
C
"Crimes against innocent bystanders taken hostage in any circumstance have no foundation whatsoever in the life of Islam and the model example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him," the statement that appeared on
Islam has repeatedly spoken out against terrorism as a tactic Muslim extremists use, including specifically condemning suicide bombings and the attacks of Sept. 11.
R
Homeland Security may have succeeded in protecting the country from the man who once frighteningly asked Where do the Children Play? (Answer: The Patriot Act Playground).
his Web site, yusufislam.org.uk.
Unless Dave Matthews and John Mayer are deported in the next few days, the department has done a gross disservice to the War on Terror.
Keeping the good old U.S. of A. from a Muslim leader who has publicly taken a stand against the extremists within his ranks, even going so far as donating money to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, turns even more all ready hardened souls against the United States.
With no Moonshadow of a doubt, we should be embracing leaders as influential and benign as Islam, and not publicly humiliating them and then conducting sloppy smear campaigns from the Pentagon.
We are the country that is waging a war against an adjective.
In the meantime, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is seeking further explanation from our higher-ups and it looks like Islam will be grounded, until further notice, when it comes to the United States. I'm sure he'd rather be ridding the Peace Train anyway.
Letif is a Lexington, Mo., senior in journalism.
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