THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 5A
opinion
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I really hate it when people end up taking the same pictures of themselves, and all their newsfeed is every other day is a picture of them posing, or a picture of them drinking with a straw, or a picture of them posing before they go to bed. It is so vain
I just Facebook stalked your mom. And I judged her.
Words with Friends with Benefits:
Playing each other while you play
with each other.
It's kind of hard for me to focus in my 8 a.m. class when the person next to me is radiating the smell of beer!
Rule 76: Once in a while declare a peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.
FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2011
I told my dad I accidentally hit a church, and his reaction was "knocking on heaven's door, eh?" ... This is why I love him.
Spent too much money at Wal-mart... I hate being poor.
to me?
They need to have a relationship status on Facebook that says, "So single that its not funny anymore."
Why are all my friends getting tattoos? I'm thinking it's a quarter life crisis.
I'm a man. I have no emotions.I do love candy though.
My heaven equals James Franco with a vibrating penis.
New goal before I graduate: do something that will get me on Web Redemption on Tosh.0.
Today my phone autocorrected the word "morning" to "Morningstar."
Thanks, autocorrect, but basketball season is over. =(
If your Facebook wall is just a string of status updates... You should a) STOP b) STOP c) it's embarrassing d) make more friends.
Dear fellow concert attendees:
Please SHUT UP! I paid good money to listen to good music, NOT your conversation. Show some respect and actually cease talking while the performance happens. Thank you.
FACT: If you tell me to be quiet at lecture, I automatically hate you even though I would do the same thing.
Every time someone says any day of the week, all I can think about is that stupid song "Friday." She ruined my imagination. Let's get her!*
I changed my eating times and changed my section in E's. I have not just been avoiding you, but hardcore avoiding you. Needless to say I did not enjoy eating with you when you finally found me.
If nothing else, learn how to Facebook covertly
HUMOR
Have you ever been sitting in class, minding your own business, when all of the sudden your professor rudely interrupts your Facebook chat to call you out for not paying attention?
You were probably totally embarrassed, spending the remainder of the class period stewing with anger over the tremendous atrocity your professor committed upon your innocent and now-blushing visage. Perhaps you contemplated revenge, wondering what crime you could possibly have professor torwiek arrested for.
Turns out the answer is simple:
assault!
Last week, Dr. Frank Rybicki of Valosta State University was arrested for closing a laptop on the hands of a student who evidently was a notorious class-time Web surfer. The student pressed assault charges, and Dr. Rybicki was suspended. For closing a student's laptop. If that seems stupid and unfair, it's because it's really stupid and really, really unfair.
BY ALEX NICHOLS anichols@kansan.com
This whole situation is basically David Mamet's controversial play
"Oleanna," except with all the trenchant psychosexual drama replaced by a real-life Twitter feud.
Now, I'm of the belief that draconian laptop policies are counterproductive. Personally, I'm far more likely to be distracted with a pen and a paper — with their sweet promises of infinite fantastic doodles beckoning me to pay no attention to the infidrone buzzing endlessly in front of the classroom — than by my computer, where I can only check Facebook and Gmail so many times before I'm bored enough to actually start listening to the professor
handwritten notes are often indecipherable, even to me) and augment the lecture or discussion by providing me with in-depth Wikipedia pages about virtually anything the professor mentions.
Also, using a laptop can radically improve my learning experience, allowing me to produce legible notes (my
However, I also believe that laptops are often misused and abused by lazy students who seem to believe that they can acquire information simply by being in a classroom, and that their attention can be dedicated to Tetris while said information floats through their ears and sticks to their brains.
Those students are fairly easy to spot, and any professor who is trying to impart upon his or her students the wondrous gift of knowledge is completely right to be irritated by their zombie-like presence.
It's another question entirely whether it's really worth it to call these students out in front of the whole class. If professors felt the need to confront every inconsiderate student for his or her jackassery, the syllabus of every course would simply read: "The entirety of each class will consist of me confronting every inconsiderate student for his
or her jackassery. The final exam will be cumulative."
And that jackassery, annoying though it may be to the professor, is usually not nearly as disruptive as the professor's response to it. It usually brings the class to a screeching halt, and the rest of the lecture is so fraught with awkward tension that uncomfortable students usually find themselves wishing they hadn't been paying attention.
The key, I think, is to be covert in your distractedness. There's a guy in one of my classes who spends virtually the entire time looking at collegehumor.com. But he also frequently contributes to the discussion, and more than that, he actually makes pretty good points. It's really quite impressive.
If we could all become master multi taskers, then wed have no need for frivolous assault charges. Can't we all just get along and at least pretend to pay attention in class?
Nichols is a senior in creative writing from Stilwell.
FAITH
Relationship with God should determine decision about sex
When the church is asked about sex before marriage, most pastors say the church does not endorse premarital sex, write a couple of Bible verses down and send you on your way. But according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 80 percent of unmarried young adult Evangelicals have had sex compared to 88 percent young adult non-Evangelicals.
"Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't have sex in the missionary position. Don't have sex standing up. Just don't do it. OK? Promise!" This scene from the movie "Mean Girls" is what most teenagers hear growing up — being told what to do and how to lead a perfect lifestyle
But once in college, we start to make our own decisions. Feelings and emotions become real and ultimately most students are faced with the decision on whether to have sex with their significant other.
Something is not working within the church to get across its message.
I believe that whether or not unmarried couples are having sex, it is important to remember God in the relationship. Now, it's not like in the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and saying "you have Christ between your thighs." I am talking about a true relationship with God. Having God truly present in day-to-day conversations and experiences with a significant other.
It is important to first choose to date someone who has the same enthusiasm for God as you do. Try to be in a relationship with someone who
BY ALLISON BOND abond@kansan.com
will build you up in your faith and encourage you to grow.
After the relationship starts, having God present in dating relationships can take several different forms. Praying and reading the Bible together, discussing your personal spiritual lives with each other and where you are on your faith journey can all help strengthen your relationship with God and each other.
Even participating in service projects or getting involved in a church together can help the relationship become more meaningful. Above all, though, keep God in mind as much as possible throughout the relationship.
If you are doing everything you can to have a meaningful relationship with God and your significant other, then perhaps taking relationships to the next level by having sex may not be such a bad thing. Either way, it's up for each individual couple to decide the boundaries of their relationship — not anyone else.
Bond is a junior from Andover in journalism and religious studies.
153 total votes
Yes
No
Only for special occasions
RELIGION
Religion can bridge differences rather than create divides
Does religion cause violence and hatred? History and current events offer uncountable violent acts that seem inextricably intertwined with religion.
Last week, a Christian congregation in Florida burned Quran and posted the video online. Enraged, some Afghani Muslims overran a United Nations facility, killing twenty people. Our long history of religion-driven hatred and conflict leads people to reject all religion.
Who can accept a set of beliefs that have such negative manifestations?
Then we try to solidify and define our group; we try to make that division deeper. Even the University of Kansas versus University of Missouri division has sometimes crossed from fun into damaging conflict.
Religion is not the true cause of violence. Religion is exploited to incite conflict. It's a powerful tool for destruction because of the role it plays in humans' historical tendency to form exclusive groups. We form these groups around race, nationality, language, sports teams and any other superficial division we can find.
It feels good to be part of a group. It
BY HANNAH SANDAL
hsandal@kansan.com
Religion is the holy grail of this "othering," as anthropologists have called it. Lines separating religions often coincide with ethnic and national divisions. This compounds the effects and enables the creation of a vast gulf between "us" and "them." Leaders whose purpose is to increase power, following or wealth
feels good to exclude others who aren't good enough — or who are maybe just too different — to be members. It can be comforting because it helps us affirm to ourselves that we are special and important. The problem is that to increase our own sense of importance, we minimize that of other ethnicities, nationalities or religions.
might exploit this division to achieve their goals. That is what the Christian pastor in Florida did when he told the world he planned to burn the Quran. That is what Hamid Karzai did when he incited violence over the Ouran burning
This is an artificial and damaging imposition on religion. The Dalai Lama acknowledges real differences among religions, but he also teaches that every major religion has "similar ideals of love, the same goal of benefiting humanity through spiritual practice and the same effect of making their followers into better human beings."
Whether it's Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism or Jainism, nothing in religious teachings or proper practice encourages violence and hatred. The most respected figures in each religion lead by example and teach from personal realization. They tell us how to develop profound compassion and love for all.
This is the most important commonality among all major religions. A statement attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) exemplifies this: "You will not enter paradise
until you have faith; and you will not complete your faith until you love one another." In the Bible, the Gospel of John reiterates at least six times that Jesus commanded his followers to "love one another," (e.g. John 13.34, 15.12, 15.17)
In the Talmud, a Jewish scripture, a statement attributed to Rabbi Hillel is this: The central meaning of the Torah is "that which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man." In the several Hindu faiths, love and compassion also play a central role. For example, it is taught that those who have fully understood religious teachings are fully focused on anugraham or doing good to others. (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.19.23)
The fostering of conflict in the name of religion is a tool used by unscrupulous people who want more power and influence. To that end, they exploit religion and they exploit the populace. They degrade religious traditions and underline the essential foundation of all religions: love one another. It is this foundation upon which we should focus.
Sandal is a third year law student from Baldwin City.
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