---
PAGE 5A
MONDAY, APRIL 11,2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
opinion
apps.facebook.com/dailykansan
Mom's Day 2011... You taught us how to walk. We'll teach you how to crawl.
I learned a funny lesson last night. When a girl tells you she is taken Wednesday then sees you with your shirt off at the gym and is suddenly single Saturday, you're WINNING!!!
If you're going to copy another party's theme at least don't use the same picture on the FB event page.
In my bed, Saturday morning, willing myself to sober up. #neverworks.
Oh shivering girls in skimpy clothes, surely you can get someone to love you without being cold, no?
They're pear trees. If you're going to insult them, know what they are ... And yes, they are god-awful trees.
You're probably leading her on into giving a reason to feel like she shouldn't stay away.
Being skinny without abs is like the worst kind of skinny.
I don't care if the government snuts down as long as I get my NFL!
Came home drunk last night, started throwing up, then proceeded to drunkenly call work and leave my boss a message saying I was too sick to come in this morning. Fail.
I don't know whose idea it was to plant the trees that smell light rotten vajay, but they need to play hopscotch on the nearest freeway.
Oh my god, here's what you need to do: Pay somebody to buy you a case of beer from a liquor store, go into your room, drink it, and shut the hell up.
There are some weird people in the Budig computer lab on Friday nights... And I suppose that includes myself.
I just googled "Do people eat grape seeds?" So goddamn high right now.
What annoys me even more than the government shutdown: people who complain about it but don't know what they're talking about.
U. S. Congress, bringin' you more drama than your baby's mama.
If you're going to quote "Friday" on Facebook, please use the correct lyrics. You're just coming off as stupid.
Normally I would have felt bad about not showering before going to class today, but the trees on campus smell so bad that nobody probably smelled my stink.
I learned a sad lesson and truth tonight. When a girl says I gotta pee/ smoke and I'll be back, it means she's not interested in you and never comes back.
While I'm sad to let them go, the Morris twins gave their heart to KU and their legacy will continue. F.O.E.
You know what I miss? You shutting your dirty mouth.
Anti-gender identity religious group sings same old psalm and dance
QUEER CULTURE
Lawrence has been attempting to add gender identity as a protected status in the city for a while now, which would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity in employment, housing and public accommodations.
Last Wednesday, a group called Voice of Reason — a group "brought together by this particular issue" that consists of churches (surprise, surprise) and businesspersons — held a meeting to voice opposition to the proposed ordinance, which they claim will "destroy our culture," as one of the speakers so rationally put it.
But the group's presentation failed to focus on gender identity. Instead, there was nearly two hours of cliché lecturing on the deviance of homosexuality.
The meeting started with a prayer lofty! — and proceeded with the coining of homosexuality as a "behavior" and the dangers of too much exposure to certain "lifestyles"; you know, that old chestnut.
Judy Smith, the opening speaker and president of Concerned Women for America, gave the audience a literature
BY JAMES CASTLE jcastle@kansan.com
review, including how studies supporting the biological origins of sexual orientation towards sex organs had poor methodologies and couldn't be repeated, how Matthew Shepard was beaten and killed for his money, not his sexuality, and how Alfred Kinsey's research was "flawed," among other things. All of these claims were of course supported with expert sources — just kidding. What did all of this have to do with gender identity? Not a damn thing.
topic at hand, which lasted roughly five seconds. Wilson then went on for several more minutes about how he "prays daily for homosexuals" and warns of the dangers of "exposure to [such] evil," all with an adorable Leave-it-to-Beaver persona.
After Smith's Review of Bigotry lecture, the next speaker, Bennie Wilson, native of Manhattan (Manhattan recently passed the gender identity protection ordinance) talked about the
The next two speakers, a prayer leader and a lawyer, continued the comprehensive banter about the LGBT "lifestyle," "gays and alcoholism," "predators," etc., always being sure to concide with something like, "... but we love everyone."
I'll be honest, folks, I got the church giggles a few times (no pun intended); I had no idea I was walking into a sermon (the church location didn't help much) about queer-mo-sexuals.
The final speaker, a lawyer, was the only person to mention the issues that could stem from passing a law protecting gender identity in Lawrence. He speculated on something about gender-neutral bathrooms, which wasn't brought up until the closing minutes of his talk, after his two cents on same-sex marriage and other irrelevant policies, of course.
Really? Bathrooms? So this is about the level of privacy someone feels while they're taking a crap or urinating in a public restroom? Not about the impact on a person fired from a job or denied housing because that person is transgender?
Those few moments aside, the meeting was simply another opportunity for orthodox Christians to voice their non-support for LGBTs — nothing new or productive and certainly nothing constructive about the gender identity ordinance.
I can't understand why anyone would give a fudge if a transgender person wants to get a job or place to live in the city without fear of being fired or denied living space for being transgender.
I am literally more concerned about whether I'm going to have chicken nuggets or hot pockets for dinner.
James Castle is a junior from Stilwell in political science & human sexuality.
SOCIAL MEDIA ETIQUETTE
Twitter me this, Twitter me that. Just don't tweet about your dinner.
Twitter gets blamed for a lot of things. It's used as a go-to villain for politicians, pundits and old men shouting at kids to get off their lawns. A recent commercial for Stoli brandvodka had Twitter co-founder BizStone reading tweets from PresidentObama about the status of his salad,demonstrating the insanity of Twitter.
We all have those friends on Twitter who don't have a filter and send out anything that pops in their mind. A tweet from one of them might read "brr, it's cold out," or "I almost couldn't find my keys."
Well, most of us do.
The worst are the people who send out a detailed itinerary every day. Their tweets usually look something like "going to class/gym/studying/then pasta for dinner!"
But I use Twitter (shameless plug: @louschu) and so do many of my friends. I think, for the most part, we all make pretty good use of it. We tweet jokes, interesting news items and links to one another, stuff that we think other people would find interesting.
You're eating pasta tonight? Holy molly! I'm glad that message was relayed through four different satellites and beamed into my phone. That was definitely the best use of a communication network so complex, it
makes the technology on Star Trek look like a pile of wet rocks.
BY LOU SCHUMAKER
Ischumaker@kansan.com
Another common/infuriating trend is when people talk about things they did with other people on Twitter.
"Just Skyped with @soandso and @ whoever!"
I want everyone who uses Twitter to pull up a list of their most recent tweets and read through all of them. If you find yourself thinking "Wow, no one could possibly care about any of these" then please either stop tweeting completely or at least filter some of the most boring ones out. Either way, stop telling me how cute your dog is.
Wow, you talked on the phone? That reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time that gravity continued to exist?
Schumaker is a junior from Overland Park in film and media studies.
Weekly Poll
KANSAN.COM
Do you care about Student Senate?
□Yes, it represents the student body
□Important, but I don't care
□No, they just dress up and play Congress
Vote now at KANSAN.COM/POLLS and leave a comment
Today's top
weet
meganjo13@kansanopinion Despite your severe character flaw, good job,Tiger.Poor Rory #Masters
Tweet us your opinions to @kansanopinion
If your tweet is particularly interesting, unique clever, insightful and/or funny, it could be selected as the tweet of the week. You have 140 characters, good luck!
COMMENTARY: LIZ STEPHENS
Let's shake up the chit-chat and talk about ... Vomit?
In modern human life there are some things that you can't avoid: food poisoning, yellow lights, essay exams, red lights, hangovers, hangnails, the trace of pubic hair a roommate leaves on the toilet seat... You name it. They're inconveniences, for sure. But what other common undertaking causes uproar in the human psyche? Small talk.
Small talk, or shooting the bull, or light conversation, is an ever-present constant in our lives. It's at the store when you're waiting in line with the slow attendant; it's at your friend's house when you are stuck alone in the room with someone you've only just met; it's at Quinton's on a Saturday when no one is quite drunk enough yet to interest interesting.
Through the years, I've experimented with different topics of conversation to get a feel for what people like. Weather and classwork are the standard lineup that anyone can use to fill-in for up to two awkward minutes.
But it gets old. The routine stales and there are only so many things that I can contribute to the pot of Biology 100 complaints. What other topic do all humans like to hear and talk about?
What is something that is lighthearted, can be manipulated to fit the listener, is a universal truth to all wide-eyed, heart pumping mouth breathers?
It's a subject hurling with emotion. As such, the subject of vomit can be toyed with to suit the audience based on their individual dispositions. To my boyfriend's gentle and kind mother, I can talk about the
How 'bout barf?
embarrassment of pulling over on the interstate, hunched on the side to puke bad Mexican food onto a patch of dry grass.
The cashier at a convenience store with his unending sunny optimism likes to hear about the joy of looking at my friend passed out on a couch, pausing and then looking back to see that she is blanketed in her own dinner.
My father, the banker, will listen to the economic aspects of puke and pitch in his ideas when I finish my story—"A ten dollar lunch at Zen Zero ends up on the floor of a Chevy Cavalier instead nourishing the brain and its surrounding organs? Now that's a waste of money and digestion."
The loveliness of it all is that it is a self-sustaining topic. I tell you a story about puke, you tell me a story about
puke and I can use that as material for the next person I come across. Someone else's third-hand detail of throwing up into the wind at a concert is as emotionally charged as if I had done it myself.
I would guess that 80 percent of what I talk about is someone else barfing, 5 percent my own barfing and 15 percent weather and I'm trying to taper off the weather talk eventually to come to a 100 percent barf-talk ratio. This tactic will work for you and provide for you a bit of enjoyment separate from the humdrum standard conversation.
Stephens is a junior from Dodge City in English.
HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Length: 300 words
The submission should include the author's name, grade and hometown.
Find our full letter to the editor policy online at kansan.com/cletters.
LETTER GUIDELINES
Send letters to kansanopdesk@gmail.com. Write LETTER TO THE EDITOR in the e-mail subject line.
rick serik, editor
864-4810 or ngerik@kansan.com
Micholt Haltz, managing editor
864-4810 or rohlztz@kansan.com
Kelly Stroda, managing editor
864-4810 or kstratan@kansan.com
D.M. Scott, opinion editor
0462 or scissor7kanan.com
Mandy Matney, associate opinion editor
0462 or mmatneyan.com
CONTACT US
Carolyn Battle, business manager 864-4358 or cbattle@kansan.com
Jessica Cassin, sales manager
864-4477 or mgibson@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson, general manager and news adviser
864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
Jon Schittt, sales and marketing adviser
864-7664 or jschittt@kansan.com
THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Nick Gerik, Michael Holtz, Kelly Stroda, D.M. Scott and Mandy Matney.
---