MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 5A
opinion
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Procrastinating is like eating an orange — I'm not quite sure how, but I assume I'll figure out how the two activities are related eventually.
Honesty is the best policy ... unless you're a woman. Apparently a vagina is an exemption from said rule.
So, after many weeks of never witnessing this historic event, my roommate took a shower! Our apartment may not stink anymore!
"You gave me a cheesy smile that I would love to blow a load on." And I still let him buy me a drink
Some days, I am really thankful that you can't upload long videos on Facebook.
There's nothing I hate more than having sex with an amazingly hot girl ... and then waking up. :(
And then God made Saturn and he liked it so he put a ring on it.
My agenda for the day - which involved writing a paper - has turned into a 12-hour Pokemon session.
Why could I hear Nickleback blaring from the baseball stadium today? There were tours being forced to listen to that.
There's nothing quite like getting off to a rainstorm.
Fact: There isn't a man in this world that does not like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the movie "Blow"
Just because it's Easter doesn't mean you can't have Bagel Bites.
My parents asked to watch some recent programs from the Dole. Two and a half hours later, we are going to bed ... They had no idea what they had gotten themselves into.
April showers bring May deflowering.
I like to look at the "Missed Connections" on Craigslist and pretend they're all about missed connections with me. Then I like to go to the "Casual Encounters" section, and laugh at all of the hairy penises.
Awkward moments in my college career: 1. Running into your professor at the gym while he does that inner thigh machine workout. You know, the one where you spread your leas.
Ah, Easter. A time of joy, church and candy ... unless you're still stuck at the dorms. Dammit.
I take people's facebook statuses and get them on the FFA all the time
I'm not up early; I'm up late. Ha.
As a girl that's been single forever, I understand that not all guys want girlfriends. Being single is so easy and cheap!
Editor's note: So you're the one
My final project partner is so hot. We might have to cheat.
Je$u$ holiday$ are Sacred
boner.
Stop using hashtags.
POLITICS
Politicians should be less concerned about grumpy, old men
The Tea Party played a pivotal role in propelling Republicans to victory in last year's midterm elections, but a look at its demographics indicates that they are not quite the future of the nation.
In a nation that's becoming browner by the day, Tea Partiers are overwhelmingly white, male and older than 55, according to a 2010 CNN poll. They're also socially conservative, breaking with an emerging public consensus in favor of gay marriage. A 2010 poll by CBS and the New York Times found Tea Parties 23 percent less likely than the average respondent to support marriage equality.
Movement activists are the types who furiously took to town hall meetings during the health care debate screaming that the Kenyan-socialist president needed to keep his "government hands off my Medicare"
Context like this demonstrates what drives the typical Tea Partier. Their corporate backers such as the Koch brothers see the activists as useful idiots in electing anti-tax, anti-
BY LUKE BRINKER
lbrinker@kansan.com
regulation Republicans, but there's no denying that the pitchforks and torches crowd represents a very real sentiment, even if it's only felt by a minority of the white and elderly.
Though they inveigh against government spending, polling reveals Tea Partiers jealously guard their Medicare and Social Security benefits. When it comes to other segments of the population, though — the young, the black and the poor — their philosophy can best be summed up as "Government largesse for me, but not for thee."
A recent New York Times poll found that 55 percent of Republicans
supported government-provided health insurance for the aged. When asked whether the poor deserved the same benefit, support plummeted to a scant 25 percent.
There's nothing intellectually inconsistent about this. Many Tea Partiers argue that seniors, having paid into the Medicare and Social Security systems for their entire adult lives, are entitled to draw benefits from those programs. The undeserving poor, meanwhile, find themselves in such circumstances due to laziness, choice and immorality. Why should the taxpayer be on the hook for subsidizing such a lifestyle?
The problem is that this commonly held perception about poverty is based on national myth. The U.S. may fancy itself a meritocratic society in which there are no bounds to what even the lowest-born can achieve — and there's no shortage of rags-to-riches tales to enliven the national imagination — but such success stories are exceedingly rare. Being born into poverty is becoming a life sentence.
Among industrialized nations studied by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2010, the U.S.bested only kleptocratic Italy and the socially stratified U.K. on intergenerational social mobility. While the incomes of 15 percent of Danes can be predicted by their parents' incomes, that portion rises to nearly 50 percent in the U.S.
The Tea Party movement may not look like most of America, but their voting turnout is far superior to that of the young and the poor. Unless younger generations demand egalitarian economic policies to redress the effects of our present inequities, the Tea Party's misguided views about poverty and the welfare state will continue to guide policy.
Brinker is a sophomore in history from Topeka.
HUMOR
Let's clear up some misconceptions about National Adderall Day
I think we all know what today is, especially living in a liberal-college town such as Lawrence, but I will lay it on you just in case.
Today is April 25, more commonly known as 4/25 in the hip crowd, and as National Adderrall Dropping Day in the really hip crowd.
I am going to start off by debunking some popular 4/25 myths: It isn't Jack Nicholson's birthday, even though a lot of people used to say that Addies were a bunch of Satanists because their holiday was on the birthday of a person who played a man that tried to kill his wife, son and Scatman Crothers in "The Shining."
That's just not true. It is not Jack Nicholson's birthday, and that has nothing to do with our day of amphetamine appreciation.
Others think we just picked a random day and decided to do
BY JAROD KILGORE jkilgore@kansan.com
what we do every other day, just more so, and all the others droppers just followed. We have a long counterculture tradition of rebelling against anything and everything, often without reason. That's not true either. The truth is that there were some teens in California who got together at 4:25 every day to remind each other they hadn't eaten yet, and offered one another their sandwiches, because they were "not that hungry today, for some reason." As I heard another fan
of 4/25 say in one of my classes earlier this week, "It's my St. Patrick's Day, man." Absolutely, man.
Adderall definitely has its side effects, like making me not want to eat and totally chilling me out, but that's cool. It can also make the user a wee bit paranoid. Sometimes people, especially my overbearing parents, ask me, "How's school going?" But I know what they really mean. They want to ask, "Are you doing Amphetamine Salts? WELL, ARE YOU?"
No matter what my parents think, on 4/25 you can bet I will take at least my prescribed daily dose (wink, wink). I doubt I will take any more than that though, because my dealer
If they ever worked up the courage to actually ask, then I wouldn't have to work up any courage to deny it fully, while spraying Febreze in my room.
at Shawnee Mission Medical Center might start asking questions. I used to get the good stuff imported from California, but I lost my hook-up because of a tragic dry-mouth incident, and now I have to go local.
I do Adderall because I enjoy it, no matter if my parents, family or especially Corporate America tell me it is wrong. I expect I will be doing it for the rest of my life, which is exactly what I want, because you can't control me. Unless it is approximately 30 minutes after I just dosed, then I will probably do whatever you say, after finishing the dishes and cleaning the microwave.
Kilgore is a junior in film and media studies from Lenexa.
POLITICS
Separation means politicians should keep beliefs out of legislation
The culture wars continue. After cities in Missouri branded "In God We Trust" in their city halls and our president instituted an Annual Easter Prayer Breakfast, I've been thinking about issues of church-state separation: how religion has too much of a role in politics, and how First Amendment issues are being ignored.
Contrary to perception, we are not a Christian nation. Our nation was not built on Biblical principles. We are free to believe what we like, but, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1802, the First Amendment built "a wall of separation between church and state."
Religion has no place in politics for two main reasons. First, privileging a particular religion over others means privileging a particular group of people over others. The U.S., and almost everywhere else, has a history of religious persecution and violence based on superstitious beliefs. In theory, at least, with the establishment clause, we're all equal under the law, no one is disenfranchised because of his or her faith and no one is forced to
That's fine, because individuals and institutions are fully capable of being ethical and moral without Christianity or any religion.
BY ALI FREE afree@kansan.com
pretend to believe something they don't in order to be recognized by the state.
No one should make decisions for me based on their faith. I do not have a religious faith; my world view is secular humanism. I am insulted and mildly terrified when a policymaker who has control over my life claims that he opposes climate change regulation based on Bible verses (John Shimkus, R-IL, head of the Environment and Economy Subcommittee), or tells
Second, privilegeing a religion means imposing a faith-influenced way of life on others who do not share that faith. While the federal government hasn't actually imposed a religion, some politicians are imposing their religion on those they govern by basing certain political decisions on personal religious beliefs rather than evidence.
me how I can or can't deal with my own reproductive health based on something I do not believe.
It's insulting to any non-Christian, as well as to the Christians who have an alternative view of Christianity. When politicians do things like this, they assume that everyone shares their worldview. Thus, they don't need any other evidence to back up their positions. The U.S. is composed of many different faiths and nonfaiths. Our politicians abuse their power by not respecting that fact.
Think of the justifications for banning gay marriage. It's incredibly difficult to form a convincing secular argument against gay marriage that would appeal to both the religious and non-religious. Instead, politicians and think tanks use religion to support their prejudice and policy against LGBTQ people.
Those legislators may truly think that gay people are going to hell, but there's nothing they can do about it, because for the most part many gay people do not share that belief. And they have a right to not be banned from marriage based on someone else's religious convictions.
We are free to believe as we like, but we are not free to impose those beliefs on others.
Every believer and non-believer
thinks they are right. Everyone feels they have access to The Truth and that people who don't believe the same are wrong. But can we agree on one thing? Not everyone believes in God, nor does everyone believe in the same God. The best and most respectful option is to operate as a secular nation and allow people the freedom to act and think in their own lives how they like. The separation of church and state protects both believers and non-believers. We are free from imposed religion and can make our personal choices based on our own convictions.
Are you a non-believer? A skeptic?
Religious but curious as to what the other side has to say? KU Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics is putting on a two-day free festival featuring a variety of nationally renowned speakers who will discuss things such as the paranormal, naturalism, sex and secularism and, of course, the existence of God.
ReasonFest will be May 6 and 7. Join us. It'll be great.
Free is a sophomore in women's studies from Blue Springs, Mo.
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