THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2011
PAGE 5A
opinion
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4/20 is national weed day, 4/21 is national random drug test day.
I just saw a guy with a Phillies hat on and was excited for a split second because I thought maybe the Morris twins were back on campus.
Ferris Bueller ... can I have your day off?
If you say "boyfran" you aren't a big girl yet.
Is anyone else baffled by how they get the sidewalk chalk above the steps on Wescoe?
So what if I sometimes put on my fanciest dress and talk to the mirror in a British accent? Someone has to be ready to step in as Prince William's mistress.
I tried to turn in my chemistry lab report but it told me it was too big. So much is wrong with this.
I would rather Tea Bag a blender than start this paper tonight. Just saying.
Now it would be so much better if i didn't need glasses to see all the HOT guys walkin' on campus!
Dear Pothaeads, why do you have a "holiday," if you smoke every day? I don't need a holiday for being really really good-looking, even though I do that every day.
I was born six months after my parents graduated; I think I am a stacks-baby.
I have a real love/hate relationship with hipsters. I have everything they stand for, but I would love to have sex with one.
I'd love to light up a doob with Yoda.
College, what did you do to my life? I get creeped on by this guy at parties I go to, then a month later I get asked out by a girl only to find out a couple of weeks later that girl is the older sister of the guy that creeps on me. Dr. Phil, here I come.
Stinky people ... stop sitting next to me.
I hate roommates who are too stupid to stop drinking on weeknights and continue to complain that they're failing classes.
I'm skipping class today ... So I can do work for another class.
I'm never sure if I should feel flattered or betrayed when I see something that I put as my Facebook status popping up on the FFA 20 minutes later.
Dear frat guys, You're no longer allowed to make fun of us girls for going to the bathroom in groups until you can walk by yourself to class.
According to Cosmo, 64 percent of guys wish their girlfriends wouldn't write lovey-dovey things on their walls. PLEASE TAKE A HINT.
Dude, I politely said I wasn't interested. Why would that make you think you should stand outside my classes and wait for me. I can see you stalking me!
Sexual assault is an issue that faces all students
CAMPUS ISSUES
As Sexual Assault Awareness Week slowly winds down, we must evaluate why this week is so important. One in six college students will be assaulted before graduation. We attend a University with more than 30,000 students. Why don't we hear more about it?
When we hear stories about these crimes, it's easy to feel sorry for the victims at the moment and then brush off the issue. Even worse, we may blame the victim for his or her assault. "She looked like a slut that night; she asked for it." "She shouldn't have had that much alcohol." "He wasn't molested. He enjoyed it." "They have been dating for three years. It isn't rane."
If it is not consensual, regardless of clothing, alcohol, gender roles or being in a committed relationship, it's assault. As a society, we need to eradicate the problem at its root. We have to change this blaming mindset many people tend
BY MONICA SAHA msaha@kansan.com
to have.
Victims of sexual assault have very little to gain by making up or exaggerating their stories. Listen to them. Do not judge them or the situation. The pain of sexual assault doesn't end when the act ends. There are many long lasting psychological and physical effects victims face. This may include: flashbacks, self-guilt, difficulty concentrating, stress, nightmares, ability to love, STIs or even unwanted pregnancies. It's easy for victims to blame themselves or to ignore the issue in fear that no
one will believe them. But the silence in itself will cause lasting psychological effects. People who have been sexually assaulted have had every ounce of power, dignity and control stripped from them.
We are fortunate as a campus and Lawrence community to have many services available for us to deal with sexual abuse. GaDuGi Safe center has a 24-hour advocate on-call for crisis services. Counseling and Psychological Services provide services at Watkins Memorial Center. Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center put on this outstanding and informative awareness week as well as programs and assistance to victims or people who have questions.
In Kansas, sexual assault is a statutory offense. It's a crime to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat, and this is a felony.
Sexual battery is the intentional touching of a person who does not consent thereto with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the offender or another. This is a misdemeanor.
Sexual intercourse includes fingers or any other object that penetrates the vaginal opening for a female or anal opening for a male. This means one can be charged for rape by "fingering."
Both men and women should care about sexual assault. Most of us know at least one person who's been assaulted. If not, we have probably been at a party where someone was raped. Or lived in a dorm where someone was assaulted. But we might not know it because the victim decided not to tell anyone because of embarrassment. Break the silence.
Saha is a junior in neurobiology from Overland Park.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Debate offers an opportunity for KU students to mature
College is truly a time to learn. Ideas and preconceived notions are challenged and we are formed from adolescent freshman into thoughtful adults ready to take on the future's challenges.
During our university experience, we grow in various ways: obviously intellectually, but also socially, emotionally, and morally. We grow through interactions with new and different people, through the relationships we foster, and through the decisions, and sometimes mistakes, we make.
Discussion is fundamental to growth. All too often, though, that growth is limited by the way we challenge ourselves. It is easy to debate the funniest reality show on television, or which coffee shop serves the best cup of Joe. Conversations of this nature are usually light hearted, and even should our opinions change, we mature very little. However, by exposing ourselves to discussions involving grander, more troublesome topics, we attain the opportunity for deep sincere change.
Though this academic year is
approaching its culmination, a final opportunity exists for any student, faculty member, or Lawrence resident to experience a debate on the most bedrock, philosophical, and controverted topic presented by the human experience.
On Friday, May 6th, two notable scholars and authors will debate the existence of God. Co-sponsored by the law school's St. Thomas More Society and the Society of Open Minded Agnostics and Atheists, the debate is set for 5:30 p.m. in the Woodruff Auditorium at the Kansas Union. The debate pits Dan Barker, founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, against Dr. John-Mark Miravalle, instructor at the School of Faith and author of "The Drug, The Soul, and God."
Questions to either speaker can be submitted by audience members. Events like this are rare, and should be quickly dismissed. Growth demands courage. Remember, an education is more than a degree. I challenge all to attend.
Michael Kelly is a juris doctorate candidate in the school of law
KANSAN.COM
The argument to legalize marijuana is:
A fine one because it should be legal.
Lame, cliché never going to happen.
Medical marijuana should be considered.
Doritos Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch,meow.
Results from:
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POLITICS
Trump has all the qualities needed to be a GOP contender
Listen to the chattering classes discuss the prospective presidential bid of Donald Trump, and they never fail to ask one question.
Should we take Trump seriously?
Please. That Trump previously teased White House runs in 1988 and 2000 only to continue accumulating real estate and wives, should not deceive us.
Consider the words from the horse's own mouth.
Now that we've put to rest any lingering questions about whether the self-promoting huckster is merely ginning up publicity for "The Celebrity Apprentice" or that most valuable commodity of them all, himself, let us count the reasons the once-bankrupt billionaire is surely, definitely, undoubtedly serious about his intention to press the flesh at New Hampshire diners and the Iowa State Fair.
Take the birther issue. Trump is rich, and, by definition, a very
"I've never been as serious as I am now." Trump announced last month.
BY LUKE BRINKER lbrinker@kansan.com
Once convinced that the president was, in fact, born in Hawaii, Trump decided to look into this matter of pressing national concern, and, depending on when you asked him, he now questions the veracity of Obama's account because, in an impressive feat that should qualify anyone for the presidency, "he grew up and nobody knew him," or the birth certificate released by Obama is an outright fraud. At any rate, Trump has
serious person to whom we should all be listening. The reality show star and businessman only came to his skepticism about President Barack Obama's place of birth after much thoughtful consideration.
apparently dispatched his own team of investigators to Hawaii to further examine the issue.
Which brings us to a larger point about The Donald. As recently as 2009, he praised the president as "amazing" after denouncing his predecessor, George W. Bush, as "the worst president ever." Now, because Obama foolishly won't simply demand that OPEC lower oil prices, say belligerent things to our creditor China or demand that the U.S. "take the oil" of Iraq and Libya, the current president merits that dubious distinction. You might argue that electing two "worst presidents" in a row shows the U.S. has had a poor run of things in the last decade, but it says much more about Trump than it does about Bush or Obama.
This is a man who's willing to bend his political positions to suit the whims of the latest political climate. Lambasting Bush was cool by 2009, after eight years of foreign policy misadventures and the eruption of an economic crisis. Now, the repudiation
And amid the rightward drift of the country, Trump saw the light on a bevy of issues. Once a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-single payer health system, and pro-taxing-the-rich political centrist, Trump veered hard right sometime within the last few years. He now opposes abortion rights, blasts "Obamacare," and spouts reliably conservative bromides on economic policy, to say nothing of his decision to jump on the birther bandwagon and embrace the Tea Party so wholeheartedly as to practically go around donning a Ben Franklin costume.
So is Trump serious? Absolutely.
How could a man willing to combine the shameless shape-shifting of Mitt Romney with the Tea Party gravitas of Michele Bachman not be a contender?
Brinker is a sophomore from Topeka in history.
tion of Obama in last year's midterms underscores that the current president has fallen into popular disfavor.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Nick Gerik, Michael Holtz, Kelly Stroda, D.M. Scott and Mandy Matney.
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