OPINION
Coming Thursday, September 6...
Editorial: As the Big Mac turns 40 does it celebrate American industry or condemn excess?
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2007
**Stewart:** Don't be afraid of your roommate discovering your idiosyncrasies.
BURGERTIMES
A party faux pas can actually enhance the atmosphere
Instead of obsessing over manners take accidents as they come
DRAWING BOARD
As per usual, classes are hitting the ground running and students are realizing what is ahead of them. Add/drop is soon coming to a close, and most students come to grips with what their classes actually entail, and what they've gotten themselves into. In accordance with these lugubrious realizations, the student collective finds within each of themselves the need to provide outlets for the stress and otherwise downing academic obligations otherwise known as the 'long haul.' I'm referring to parties: themed, impromptu or otherwise ridiculous.
At these sorts of gatherings, everyone's out for a good time, and a lot of items fly usually. Last weekend, I chose to sit on a small table and minutes later it broke. Never mind the emotional body image issues that followed. When party fouls happen, and they do, elements of the party are disturbed.
Being the culprit in this situation, I instinctively sought to deflect the immediate and unwanted attention laid upon me by yelling a general cigarette request. Other strategies I may or may not have employed included evacuating the area. This course of action may seem cold, heartless or inconsiderate. If this isn't familiar to you, I will say that I was merely providing the way for an easier cleanup (or whatever needs to be done) by
leaving the area. Why wallow in the buzz-kill?
For the host, an incident of this nature is like a horrible climax. In the back of everyone's mind, from the onset of throwing a party, is the possibility of something breaking, someone camping out by the toilet (admittedly I've gotten comfy several times) or some spilling.
More often than not, however, fouls occur on the small scale. Always is that point in the night where I spill something on myself. My friends and I have coined our inevitable clumsiness "spill time," and there is little need for explanation. When I'm around others, though, I usually silently dismiss it or share a quick giggle with whichever stranger is near.
Come to think of it, it is precisely in sharing those times of spillage that I've come to meet a lot of people I still know today. They knew what I was talking about, or at least they said they did, and that stain on my shirt is actually an icebreaker, not a cape cod.
So alongside the temporary disruption, confusion and uncertainty, you have something that is maybe just what the party needed, or similarly, a definitive point for its winding down. Something is probably damaged, but I have this funny feeling it won't stop anything going on next week. The small plastic table was appraised at five dollars. I owe him a beer, and maybe, some time with the dustpan.
Muselmann is a Tulsa, Okla.
junior in journalism.
NOT SO ANGELIC
Paranoia aggravates race relations
Fear of terrorism and illegal immigration leads to unreasonable profiling
ANGELIQUE MCNAUGHTON
and of the free,home of the brave. All men are created equal. These
are just a few phrases that are often used to describe the freedom that is experienced here and that is desired by so many. But has this and does this always hold true? And if it doesn't, why is that? We all know that immigration and the presence and status of non-white Americans has always been an issue. Within the past six years since Sept. 11, people and politicians alike have continued to express their concern regarding the presence of immigrants and minorities in the United States, or rather the presence of illegal immigrants.
The terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center and then the war in Iraq has further heightened Americans' awareness of those around them, mainly minorities and immigrants. As a society, we tend to focus on certain aspects pertaining to who commits these heinous acts and other various crimes. Those aspects include race,
More recently, the deaths of three Newark college students has brightened the light that
gender, religion and place of birth. As logical as that sounds, I remember reading about the tragic events that happened at Virginia Tech. As the identity of the gunman was made public, I kept thinking to myself, "They need to quit identifying him as a South Korean immigrant." As important as that is to the police and maybe even the families, the public does not need to know that. People focus on nationality and race enough without the media's help. All that does is to further cloud the already-mixed thoughts and feelings that Americans harbor toward immigrants and minorities.
has always been focusing on another group of immigrants, Hispanics, Two of the suspects are illegal Hispanic immigrants. What is inconceivable to me is that amidst all these tragic events and loss of young life, cold-hearted politicians have used those events as leverage in their political campaigns to promote support for anti-immigration and stricter border policies. If they are going to fight for stricter border control and policies, use something other than those deaths to do so.
By labeling the suspects as illegal Hispanic immigrants, it again focuses on nationality. You often hear about violent crimes in which people are mutilated and murdered by a loved one. A man in Kansas City dropped his sick and elderly wife off of a balcony, but the media didn't identify the man as being the white suspect from Kansas City.
Although I'm not the biggest advocate of deportation and strict immigration policies, that to me is not the issue at hand. The issue is how the media's labeling further perpetuates these anti-immigration feelings that are harbored by so many. Last year in my ethics class, I discovered that many of my fellow classmates here at KU felt negatively towards Hispanic immigrants. As a Mexican-American student on a Minority Scholarship, I remember being particularly offended when a student expressed that they were not fond of the idea of scholarships being 'handed' to students just because they are minorities.
All these feelings of malcontent that are used in political campaigns are being passed on to the younger generations. If you do agree with stricter border policies, do so for a logical reason, not because you're afraid of everyone from the Middle East or because you don't like the fact that Jose can't speak English muy bien.
McNaughton is a Topeka junior in journalism.
FREE FOR ALL: 864-0500 OR KANSAN.COM/FACEBOOK
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.
It's Labor Day, I want to play some beer darts, but for some reason, this town, no matter how many stores you go to, doesn't sell steel-tipped darts. What is that
about?
I went to Target. You know how the store's supposed to have everything from A to Z? Take the D out of that category, because
they don't have darts!
I just called Francis Sporting Goods to see if they had darts. Francis Sporting Goods is not picking up! What is it with this town, and not having darts or waiting for them?
I'm playing with a stupid little kids dart which is hard to throw. Thank you, Lawrence, for not sup-
wanting to let me drink?
plying anyone with professional steel-tipped darts. Damn you!
Free for All, I'm broke. Is there a sperm bank in Lawrence?
Does Mexico know you've stolen all their tequila? Really.
OMG, where is Mankirk's wife?
What is the opportunity cost of spending five dollars and an hour and a half of my time doing laundry when I could be studying or working at a job for money. Man, I
hate microeconomics.
I was wondering if the Kansan does wedding announcements, because I just got engaged! (Editor's Note: We don't announce, but congratulations!)
I knew Johnson County drivers were bad, but I didn't realize that included their motorcycle drivers as well.
Putting spinners on a car is embarrassing enough, let alone putting them on your wheelchair. Are you kidding me? Grow up.
So Free For All, my roommates and I don't know how to tell our other roommate that he needs to start flushing after taking a poop.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
I like to sit in a full parking lot with my emergency brake set and my reverse lights on. It's hilarious!
Free for All, today's section is significantly more bizarre than usual.
Textbook options not the cause of increased education costs
Dear Editors,
Nothing in life is free; everything comes at a cost, whether it's a car, a house or tuition and books at a state university. No one would be wrong to say that tuition is expensive, expensive against many comparable state schools and historically expensive when compared to inflation. It's no secret books are expensive, maybe more expensive than they should be. However, if someone said that a professor at the university from both MIT and Rice University is little more than a talented baby-sitter, he would be insulting and wrong. Nobody wants to shell out several hundred dollars on textbooks that they don't need, but to blame a professor for the cost of textbooks is like blaming the foreman on the assembly line at General Motors for a high-priced car. Besides, the textbook in question is optional, not mandatory, but for many, having more tools to succeed in the class is worth the added cost. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some students that never buy ANY books, and simply use the copies found in the library to do homework.
The source of our sticker shock for school can be found not with the professors in our classrooms and their textbooks designed to help the student study effectively (albeit at an added cost). No, the source of the high price of school is the Kansas Board of Regents, the chairman and the boardroom in the General Motors analogy. For all we do to complain and accuse good instructors of collaborating with the publishing industry to sell expensive books to students, we've neglected the fact that over $700 in campus fees is collected annually from every full time student on campus. We forget that the University collects course fees for taking classes in specific schools (many times taught by TA's, not professors like in CHEM 184/188), or the fact that the board of regents decided to raise tuition 16 percent this year in exchange for the opportunity to lock in your "discount" for the next four years. Seems to me like good grades do come at a cost, and I'm not so sure the worst of it is a shrink wrapped textbook packaged with lecture notes.
Adam Vieux Lawrence sophomore
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The Editorial Board
Erick R. Schmidt, Eric Jorgensen,
Daria Slipe, Kelsey Hayes, Bryan
Dykman, Brandon T. Minister, Angelique
McMaughton and Benjamin R. Smith