OPINION
Coming Friday, August 17...
Editorial: Get busted for drugs and your ride may end up being the city's newest police car.
Hartz: Is campus construction worth the inconvenience and frustration it causes?
WWW.KANSAN.COM THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2007
Durbin: Incoming businesses should respect campus tradition when they choose to build
and to *petition* the government for a redress of grievances
EDITORIAL BOARD
Somebody alert the media: It's very hot outside
News agencies fall all over themselves to state the obvious when it comes to the weather
There was an episode of "CSI" in which Gil Grissom and his diverse team of crime scene investigators showed up to find that a father had left his young son in the car on one of the hottest days of the year. Diagnosis: BABY-B-Q.
What got us thinking about this scene, you may ask? The answer: HEAT! Bugger, it's boiling out!
Of course this isn't news to anyone with the unfortunate burden of being alive and mobile during the dog days of summer. If you have an epidermis, it has been burned, if you have sweat glands they are open and flowing and if you've got air-conditioning it is on. If not, you've probably turned the refrigerator on its side so that you can sleep in it as if it were a coffin.
Temperatures are in the hundreds, asphalt is bubbling, and if you're a good grandchild like I am, you're calling at least every other day to make sure Granny isn't spending too much time out in her garden without her big floppy hat and an ice-cold bottle of Eviian.
Anyway, it is hot and the newscasters at all the nearby television stations can't help but feel that we aren't getting that message loud enough or clear enough.
I don't care if the tomatoes are as big as basset hounds, I don't want to have to deal with a heat-stroked Granny (she's addled as it is, kids).
Flip on any local channel and you will see any number of reporters standing out in their lovely suits, the female correspondents invariably in floral scarves, holding up thermometers and water bottles whilst talking over B-roll footage showing dogs panting and people who have no business in shorts wearing shorts. Egad! It is a crisis!
Aside from the standard forecast, telling us what the weather will be like tomorrow through Wednesday of next week, we don't want the television news telling us how HOT it is outside. We can gather that information for ourselves, thank you. Some of us can even breathe on our own and recite the alphabet. We don't need the television news to inform us that we're sweating
HEAT TRACK 2007, with meteorologists Larry, Curly and Moe. Don't trust your senses! Let us tell you what's going on outside!
through our best shirts, sticking to the seats of our cars, burning our fingers on exterior metal door handles and morbidly keeping our eyes peeled at the back seats of cars parked next to ours.
All that need be said is this: "It is hot again today. Keep Fido watered, keep baby out of the car, keep the SPF 10 handy and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Thank you so much. Now on to what color underwear Paris Hilton wasn't wearing today."
Unless the heat causes something to happen, it is not news; it is weather. And it's great that most news outlets in Kansas promise accurate and precise weather coverage when it's needed but, ladies and gentlemen of the press, when it's not needed it's just too much information.
Harry Potter's spell is powerful
Why the boy wizard's epic story is one for the ages and a cultural icon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last entry of the famous book series, was released this summer to the eager public with thunderous applause. While this is no review for the last book or the last movie, this is a salute to Harry Potter for its huge impact on our pop culture. I mean, kids are actually reading again. When I was a kid, somebody would have to force me to read a book. These days, many others and I crave something like Harry Potter, hence the astronomical popularity about a boy wizard and his journey to adulthood and maturity, and what a story it was.
It is amazing to think that such an idea for a book was once just a little seed in J.K. Rowling's mind that quickly grew to a phenomenon. It has penetrated the pop culture sphere of influence directly and indirectly. While the direct influence is obvious, it has indirectly found its way into other forms of pop culture. In Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," his main character Robert Langdon makes a joke about Harry Potter outselling The Bible. "Saturday Night Live" made a skit within the Harry Potter universe, using its terms and concepts as sexual innuendo while Lindsay Lohan (as Hermione Granger) waved her wand while showing a lot of cleavage, while the other characters just
watched. According to Rowling's official website, she was delayed on a train for four hours when the idea of Harry Potter came to her. In just those four hours, with just that little idea, she created the icon that would turn her into the richest woman in Britain.
I think we should really appreciate such aphenomenon, because the size of the impact the Harry Potter series left does not come so often. I would assume that it's safe to say that the last great similar impact on pop
ries was satisfied with the movie trilogy. So I gave the first book a try and it was entertaining, but when I finished the chapter titled "The Mirror of Erased," I put the book down and realized that this was more than just children's literature; this had emo-
culture was the original "Star Wars" trilogy. I honestly wish I would have known and read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" back when it came out in 1997, but I wasn't aware of its presence until the first movie came out. At first, I did not see the appeal of Harry Potter. I just thought it was kids' stuff. Then I saw the second movie and it got me thinking: Harry Potter is growing up through each book and I expected it would become more mature and exciting for someone my age to read. This was of course, after my craze for "The Lord of the Rings" se-
tions and heartache on the page that, hopefully, most kids do not know at the age of 11. The love for Harry Potter and his adventures now had a heavy beating heart and fans worldwide were beating with it.
Although the supposedly last book has just come out, will that be the end of Potter mania? While plans have been made to make "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" with "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" director David Yates, with the whole cast returning, it is safe to assume Warner Bros.
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will make the seventh installment. This guarantees that Potter mania will last a little longer, but will it be as strong? Has the "Star Wars" mania really ended? I would agree that fans still crave "Star Wars," hence the prequel trilogy, the new television series that is being created focusing on other characters in the "Star Wars" universe, and the numerous books and games that are created within the "Star Wars" universe. Are we to think, that after the movies and the rich universe that J.K. Rowling created, that that would be the end of it?
Reasons to keep Potter mania continuing are numerous. There is money that could be made, but what means the most to us fans is that we just want more. Whether its popularity falters or not, the phenomenon of Harry Potter is an experience that I was happy to participate in. While the future of Harry Potter is in the dark right now, I do not think we have seen the last of him.
I just wanted to say that the KU new bus is awesome, and I love it.
The band doesn't play "Thriller" this year. Well, the games just won't be the same.
Alan Rickman dies hard
I think I lost my wallet on the front steps of the Hash. If you find it, please turn it in to the Hash front desk. Thank you!
There's nothing like a bunch of scantily-clad freshman to bring in the new year.
Hey Free For All, I was wondering if you had any idea how to decontaminate a depleted uranium round, so I can make it into a shot glass. If so, call me
Free For All, it's me again. I just started drinking, and I remembered that you probably started working again, so I just wanted to let you know that I missed you very much this summer.
Some stupid, frat-tastic jerk just drove by and egged my girlfriend's car! It's frickin' move-in day! If I had enough eggs, I'd drive down whatever street all the damn houses are on and egg every single house!
(Editor's Note: We cannot endorse using depleted uranium rounds for doing shots)
All the girls at Corbin: who wears high heels on move-in day?
Hey Free For All, do you know how dumb you are? You're so dumb that you don't even know how dumb you are.
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Brown is a Lee's Summit, Mo. junior in journalism.
Media division hurts Partisanship poisons journalism
depending on who you ask these days, something is always dying. According to Nas, hip-hop is dead. Ask any writer for "TV Guide" and they will say the three-camera angle sitcom is dead (and reality TV killed it). However, watch an episode of "The O'Reilly Factor" and it will be made perfectly clear that most investigative journalism perpetuated by men and women in coastal enclaves is effectively killing journalism.
that's fit to print."
But is this really so?
The major issue here seems to be one side of the political spectrum blaming the other side for journalism's death, when journalism appears to be doing just fine. I really don't buy Ann Coulter's schtick about liberal universities pumping their little liberal graduates into the media in order to keep some imaginary stronghold on the public and force it to adhere to liberal philosophy. Just in the same way, Fox News or conservative radio hosts are not out to destroy all
People like Mr. O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann believe that activist, biased reporting is responsible for the demise of journalistic integrity. Take case in point: Mr. Olbermann has a rather humorous moniker for Fox News
Hey, don't get me wrong. I would absolutely jump at the chance to contribute to or work for the Fox News Corporation or MSNBC. I feel both media outlets are very much authentic and worthy of their reputations, but both companies could ease up on the mudslinging of each other. So, enough of those two. How about that New York Times? Almost every conservative pundit nominates this prestigious institution as the bastion of all things liberal, biased and contemptuous of the Bush administration. While the Times has printed some questionable columns, I still believe this paper has the wherewithal to back up its creed of "all the news
Channel; he calls it Fox Noise Channel. The basic premise behind this nickname is that Fox News blatantly disregards the nobility of serious journalism. By constantly employing conservative commentators who seemingly give slanted views on liberal Democrats, Olbermann asserts that this new form of TV journalism sullies the name that journalists like William Allen White and Walter Cronkite had endeavored to create.
Sadly, the pink elephant in the room remains to be that these aforementioned news and opinion journalists aren't willing to accept articles and editorials written or spoken with a differing point of view. It seems like every other week some liberal goes into an apoplexy over some article written by a conservative that may suggest that Osama Bin Laden is a real terrorist, not Rupert Murdoch or any branch of the U.S. military. However, as with most prophecies of doom and gloom, the inevitable silver lining rears its head. Lil' Wayne is giving the breath of life to hiphop, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine on "Seinfeld") continues to generate high ratings and Emmy nominations for CBS. So perhaps Keith Olbermann is a bit premature in pronouncing Fox News as the assassin of all things spoken and scribed with journalistic integrity. But really, can we do something about that Glenn Beck guy?
Williams is a Coffeyville junio in English and Pre-Law.
that is holy and free in the media or broadcasting.
DRAWING BOARD
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Erick R. Schmidt, Eric Jorgensen,
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