OPINION
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
www.kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD
Animation still has place in grown-up viewers' lives
Be honest: you watch cartoons. Everyone does, even if it is not on a regular basis. Shows such as The Simpsons, South Park, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force are as popular with those in their 20s as any programs on television. Family Guy has become so popular on DVD and in syndication that Fox has decided to uncancel it. It is impossible to walk across campus without noticed someone sporting a shirt with the visage of Homer Simpson, Cartman, or Spongebob. So why are cartoons so popular?
Lisa Simpson once told her parents, "If you take our cartoons away, we'll grow up without a sense of humor and be mindless robots." While her brother Bart wanted to know what kind of robots, most of us should be examining the truth of this statement.
Much of the college experience consists of preparing us all for that mystic place called "the real world." Students are constantly forced to live their lives with a stoic seriousness. The combination of class, homework, jobs, and activities often limit students' capacity for enjoying life.
As adults, the gravity of life is enormous, and laughter becomes a
much needed medicine. Cartoons give everyone something to laugh at. Most people have a favorite animated show to watch. Every person should have one. Life is too filled with stresses and hardships to not have the joy of at least one cartoon
We all probably know someone who doesn't watch cartoons. It is time to reintroduce these people to the pleasure of animation. Make an effort to sit down with them and watch your favorite show. Have a cartoon watching party. Reference cartoons in your discussion classes—many adult oriented shows are ripe with satire, pop culture allusions, and conflicts that fit perfectly into many English and Western Civilization classes.
Most importantly, don't give up on cartoons. In our quests to grow up, it can be tempting to leave behind all aspects of our childhoods.Animated sitcoms fill a niche in our lives that nothing else can fill.Simply put, cartoons are an irreplaceable part of life.
After all, it was The Simpsons that gave us the best television line ever: "Grandpa, why are there only 49 stars on that flag?"
"Because I'll be cold and dead in the ground before I recognize Missourah!"
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I just waited for 20 minutes at the Wescoe Terrace opening, but it was all good because I had the best chick en sandwich ever.
a month away.
Hey. Enough of all the liberal/conservative stuff. It's not like your opinion matters anyway.
I got a pop-up that said I was the mil lionth visitor to this Web site and to click here to claim my prize. Well, it turns out the prize was a big, fat virus. Hooray.
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September 23rd and the house I just passed is decked out with Halloween stuff. Come on, people. It's more than
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OK, I'm a female, but I must have a male brain because I think about sex at least every 15 seconds.
I just want to say that the Chick-fil-A opening is the best part of the University of Kansas. Amen.
It's really just terrifying, that's all it is. That man gets re-elected, hundreds of people, thousands, who knows, just gonna die. For what? Because he thinks they should have a democracy. Because he had a weapon of mass destruction. We're not safer. Like the bumper sticker says, "We're making enemies faster than we can kill them."
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Just to let everyone know: Three fire alarms in one night in McCollum isn't funny.
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The fourth floor of Wescoe smells like a hospital today.
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One, two, three, four, my roommate is sleeping on the floor.
I just learned how to take apart an AK-47. It was the coolest thing ever.
Laundry Boy, are you out there? We love you, Laundry Boy.
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Actually, it's every three seconds that men think about sex.
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Mental health not to be ignored
Let's play name that movie quote. Ready?
PERSPECTIVE
"Dr. Marvin! Dr. Leo Marvin!!! Dr. Marvin!!!"
Time's up. If you've seen What About Bob? you probably knew the answer immediately. In the movie, Bill Murray plays Bob Wiley, a neurotic, phobic, obsessive compulsive and schizophrenic man who persistently raises havoc for his new therapist, Dr. Leo Marvin played by Richard Dreyfus.
The movie is a comedy, but it portrays a larger and heavier-hearted issue sweeping across college campuses and the country right now: the issue of mental health.
SEAN PAUZAUSKIE opinion@kansan.com
Conditions span from insignificant to life-threatening, but in a 2003 survey by the American College Health Association, more than 40 percent of students reported feeling "so depressed it was difficult to function" at least once during the year. We have all probably heard this from friends or experienced it firsthand.
But, as every non-crack dealer would remind you, drugs aren't the answer. Or at least in the case of dealing with issues
Mental health problems confuse us because they don't have simple or easy solutions. Over the past decade the use of neuro-pharmaceuticals to treat mental disorders has sky-rocketed in the U.S. at a rate that should alarm everyone. The most popular are serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac. The Alliance for Human Research Protection estimated the use of such drugs more than tripled among people under the age of 20 from 1985-2002.
such as stress and depression, not the best one.
Last Tuesday the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives blasted the Food and Drug Administration for withholding data pertinent to the growing suspicion that antidepressants such as Paxil and Prozac may actually increase the risk of suicide in young people, or have no beneficial effect. It doesn't take a congressional hearing, though, to point out facts that we have all seen either in our own dealings with the issue or in friends - that those seeking chemical help for psychological disorders should approach drugs with caution, and even then, as a last resort.
Many causes perpetuate mental health problems. Some are genetic. Some are environmentally induced. At the bottom of the barrel are those who feign mental illness to seek comparison to geniuses, like eventually-earless Van Gogh or Edgar Alan Poe, who certainly did suffer from psychological disorders. It's fair to say that such artists created in spite of their disorders, not because of them.
If drugs and self-aggrandizement
aren't the place to start dealing with the current wave of psychological conditions, then where? Bob Wiley chose to pick up hobbies — such as annoying his psychiatrist — and to fake mental conditions, such as Tourettes Syndrome, in order to convince himself he did not really have them.
This last strategy would make for some interesting class lectures. Most professors wouldn't highly recommend it, though.
As deep as stress and anxiety press on students and young people, many alternative solutions, other than becoming medicated, exist. Join a club. Go to church. Don't remain isolated. Drop an unnecessary class. Watkins Memorial Health Center offers programs to help treat problems if they persist to levels that impede normal everyday functioning.
Personal caution and will to identify and overcome mental health issues can highly reduce the risk of conditions becoming serious. The truth is that even the National Institute of Mental Health has the answers to the causes, twists and turns of everyday psychological problems.
Don't forget that the brain, which we use to know the world, is also the most complicated thing in the world that we know of. Listening to close friends and your own gut on these issues is probably the best place to start.
Pauzauskis is a Topeka senior in English and cell biology.
Chatting online not as engaging
SARA ZAFAR
opinton@kansan.com
PERSPECTIVE
MON
You come home from a tiring day of classes, put your backpack down and sit at your desk. When you bring your computer back from the screensaver pattern swirling across the screen, you see one of the most common sights on computer screens today. No, not the latest hotte you downloaded as your background, but rather the ever-present instant messenger. As soon as you start chatting with people, a completely different world opens up in front of you.
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CONTINUE
Today's fast-paced society requires faster and more efficient means of communication. The convenience of online messaging services allows people to connect to each other all over the world in near real time, without the hassles of long distance fees or service charges. People can do other activities while chatting: check e-mail, type papers or surf the Internet. It also allows a person to chat with numerous people at once, saving time. At least, that is the idea.
can last longer than the average phone call and usually have less substance than in-person conversations.
There are definitely advantages to instant messaging, but the disadvantages cannot be ignored. People who spend hours in front of a computer screen chatting tend to miss out on the world around them. Talking to more than two or three people at a time online is distracting. The quality of conversation diminishes with every added conversation. People's attention spans were not designed to cope with this type of multitasking.
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Online messaging services provide another convenience. The ability to edit responses, type well-phrased, thoughtful messages and mask true emotions is appealing when discussing difficult top-
The majority of online messenger users spend more time "online" than in any other communication. Typing messages is quick, easy and cheap. Users write in an online "language" complete with emoticons, which indicate the emotions of the users. These conversations
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ies or when trying to put your best face forward. The nature of messages in text form — even with smiley faces — can be unclear, causing unnecessary misunderstandings to occur.
The online messaging is one more indication of a culture that has become more impersonal through technology. People once had to make phone calls, or meet in person to talk, but now — through the ease of technology — people don't even have to see each other to "talk." Even cell phones now come with text message programs. Now people can send messages from wherever they are.
Online messaging is, for the most part, a great service, but that doesn't mean it should become our preferred mode of communication. The relationships between people, such as the art of conversation and daily personal interactions, are what hold society together. Face-to-face conversations are still the best form of direct communication — not screen-to-screen People cannot afford to let technology run their lives until they are missing out on the rest of what life has to offer.
Zafar is a Wichita senior in history.