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opinion
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It's the last home game of the year. We stand at basketball games, ESPECIALLY this one. Lazy.
I have a confession: I'm in love with the KU drummer.
Got to hit up my last game as a senior, and the woo is finally gone. Couldn't have ended it better.
I have mastered the art of making newspaper confetti.
It's always a sad moment when I have to go back to reality after a basketball game
Finally.. THE WOO HAS ENDED!
We should have started singing the Rock Chalk chant during the first half. Love our seniors!
From the guy who has nothing to do with the girl in the stupid pikachu hat: a simple thanks would have been nice. Editor's note: Looks like there won't be another FFA couple.
I no longer want to go to the bar above Henry's, it is too groovy for my taste
Does it bother anyone else when people refer to KU as Kansas University?
Watching an and of people spilling their coffee on themselves. I look down, sure enough, so I soaked.
To the indifferent KU basketball fan-ies, you are the only one. We will hunt you down; and we will find you. Signed, the squirrels.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013
To the person who is indifferent towards KU basketball... LEAVE.
Going to college: acceptable. Having a kid: acceptable. Bringing your kid to college: unacceptable. Sorry.
So much kid hate in FFA...Yes people have kids. Yes people who have kids go to college. Get over it. Discrimination by a "diverse" student body.
I had a dream the FFR Editor broke my ankles with a devastating crossover. I woke up and had to drink water.
F U WIND!
I just want it to snow again so the student senate chalkings will go away.
Bathroom stalls provide only the best life lessons.
Be truthful. You read that in Gollum's voice.
Blackout at Anschutz. Waiting for Bane to swoop in. Aaaaay time now.
A flicker of lights and there goes your midterm project...
You know we shouldn't be in class when the lights go out in Budig.
Let the Nic Cage FFAs roll in.
Withey currently has the highest 3 point percentage in the nation. Huzzah!
CULTURE
Is there a Hall of Fame act in today's music?
For about a month, HBO has been rebroadcasting the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony a few times each week, probably because the 2013 inductions are only a month away. If you get HBO, if you "dig music", or if you have a few hours to burn, watch it.
It's a good one. The Beastie Boys get inducted. The Red Hot Chili Peppers get in. The original members of Guns 'N' Rose even reunitie for a few songs — without capcitious front man and all-around jerk, Axl Rose, of course. It's so weird to think that three groups whose music I grew up to, have been around so long.
If you didn't know, artists can't be inducted into the Hall of Fame until after the 25th anniversary of their first LP or album. It's not very different from halls of fame in sports, either. Bigger legacies generally translate to quicker inductions.
For the most part, 2012 was the first time bands that I've actively listened to for years got inducted. In the next few years, artists like
Nirvana, A Tribe Called Quest, Pearl Jam and Radihead will likely be first-ballot inductees. We're at the age where our favorites are starting to join our parents' favorites in the hall of rock and roll immortality.
But, as a whole, popular music is more diluted than ever before. Each genre and subgenre has its own stars, but there isn't anyone like Led Zeppelin or Queen or the Rolling Stones anymore — bands universally appreciated by almost all music fans from that era.
Think of the last few artists who played huge shows at your city's stadium or arena. No matter where you're from, the only people playing at your stadium are either current hall of fans or will be shoe-ins the year they're eligible—or they're touring with Kenny Chesney, which further illustrates the sad fact that there aren't any new, transcendent, larger-than-life rock and roll artists like the old days.
So who are we going to put in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 20 years from now?
Don't mistake what I'm saying here. Selling out a stadium doesn't automatically mean you should be in the hall of fame. But who are we going to put in the hall of fame once we've already inducted Dr. Dre, the Foo Fighters, Green Day, Tupac, Biggic, the White Stripes, Jay-Z, Coldplay and Eminem? Whether or not you think they're worthy of being inducted, they're going to be, because they're some of the only artists left with careers worthy enough of receiving that honor.
and you may not. You may think a bunch of artists deserve to be hall of famers, and I may think they don't. That's the problem — the big acts today aren't anywhere near as big as they used to be.
I could list off plenty of artists that I could see being inducted once their time comes, like the Black Times, Modest Mouse, Beck and Jurassic 5. You may like them
I personally don't think it has anything to do with quality of music, because people are always going to say, "the new stuff just isn't as good as the old stuff," no matter whether that's true or not. I think it's because, as a collective, we haven't yet figured out how to handle the amount of new music we now have at our disposal.
That's not a bad thing, though, because having "too much music" is a fantastic problem to have. Technology has made it incredibly easy distribute music from anywhere, and that's given thousands of brilliant musicians a foot in the door that they never used to have. That's beautiful and exciting; it's something new and it's something that's in the process of completely redrawing the landscape of popular music.
can tank your casual fan base. When you lose the casual fans, you lose their ticket sales. When you lose their ticket sales, you lose their album sales. When you lose their album sales, you lose people who would like your music but never had the chance to hear it.
But the cycle moves faster now. One bad song or one bad album
So what's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame going to look like in 20-30 years? I don't know. Somewhere along the road, I think people are inevitably going to have to stop calling inducees "legends" because frankly, I don't think you can really be a legend in popular music anymore. You may be a legend to some, but it's turning increasingly difficult to do what the Beatles or Michael Jackson did — to become universal, music legends.
You may disagree with me, and that's fine. Either way, we'll have 20 or so years to see who's right.
Barbosa is a junior majoring in journalism from Leawood. For more hilarity, follow him on Twitter @AJBARBROSA.
SOCIETY
U.S. far off from perfect, needs to make a change
It's no secret that we were handed a messed up situation. America is an interesting country with glorious high points in the early 20th century. The very nature of our country and constitution is unlike any other. Following the Enlightenment, we established a state by the people for the people. A nation with an evolving set of rules and leaders to satisfy the needs of the times.
Boom baby! It's dynamite — in writing.
In reality, we're far from perfect. Civil war within the first hundred years, cultural bigotry which seems to come and go in waves, a great depression, the Nuke, and the Recession tarnish our history.
We could talk all day about the aforementioned exploits, but I think what concerns us at the moment is something more important. Because, right now, we are on a fast track toward oblivion and it's up to us, the millennials, to stand up, look into the eyes of this monster, and fix it.
The recession was terrible.
The last 10 years were terrible.
Remember where you were on Sept. 11? That day marks when our self-destruction began. The next eight years would see us diving deeper and deeper until
suddenly we ran out of money.
College graduates were suddenly unable to find jobs and older people suddenly unable to retire.
We're moving forward, right? Obama is providing necessary safe-guards for long-term growth and development, right? So we can all keep using our credit cards... Taking out loans. Hoping that the ship ships steady.
Then we can simply graduate from the University with a smile on our face, a degree in our hand, and a career on the way. We'll make money, settle down, and the American dream will just fix itself.
This is a tragic mindset. If you look around, you'll notice that almost everything about our country in 2013 is still going wrong. We're an old rusty machine that needs its joints oiled with two children fighting over who gets to oil it. At the end of the day, the machine just won't be oiled.
The political-party box
ing matches are the first major issue with this country. It's like a Superbowl that happens every four years where we all place bets on an elephant and a donkey. The next president needs to be something different and the two parties need to be dissolved.
Why don't we have some sort of tie breaker? We're at this stalemate in our own country and it's killing us with each passing moment. There have been many great presidents in the history of this country. They led the people behind a single idea toward a brighter tomorrow. That isn't happening today. We're too passive. Too lazy to get up from the couch and miss an episode of "The Walking Dead."
Although it seems that nothing can be achieved, the reality is we're simply not making it happen. While the political-party stalemate appears to be the root of our disease, it is only a major side-effect. When we shed away all other layers it becomes evident that the source of our downfall is rooted in a crooked characteristic of our culture. A characteristic that we glorify and foolishly succumb to.
Bartocci is a junior majoring in journalism from Kansas City. Follow him on Twitter @NBartocci.
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
Follow us on Twitter @UKIP_Upmin. Tweet us our
opinions, and we just might public them.
Beatles, Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones?
@grayspeeks
@UOK_ Opinion That's easy: Pink Floyd.
@CatsForScience
@UDK Opinion Led Zeppelin, because everyone knows Kashmir, Immigrant Song, and Stairway to Heaven. AKA the best songs ever for a bad day.
POLITICS
Economy injured, trying comeback
The sequester. It is big, bad, and confusing to the majority of people who do not get excited by the phrases "deficit" or "spending."
The sequester is a man made deterrent to a lack of progress. More specifically it is a combination of cuts to the federal budget over the next few years supposedly designed to address the deficit. The problem with the sequester, however, is it does not play to win the game.
On one side of the coin, everyone can agree that there is a long-term debt problem. The harsh reality of this is that both revenue must rise and spending must decrease to conquer the deficit dilemma. Spending cuts have to be made when reasonable and taxes have to be increased where they can. Most importantly though it has to be done without panic and in a thoughtful way that does not ignore the rest of the issue.
We may be able to survive the sequester, but we will not thrive with that strategy. The costs of the programs that have kept us in an annual deficit will inevitably rise. Even with these spending cuts our operating costs will eventually catch up with us. That is the problem of a nation like the U.S., with so many commitments that can't be undone, and standards that must be maintained.
Before calling for smaller government, consider that it is also a source of beauty. The U.S. can have a debt, that doesn't make our current dilemma acceptable, but it is a reason to have faith. It is also a reason to be careful about making panicked
decisions. Alexander Hamilton suggested we always hold a debt because it is in practice an investment of the debtor nation into our own. We do not have to treat our debt the same as an individual would.
The only reasonable way to address this problem is by means of economic progress. This leads to another consensus. The economy must perform better, but how to make it so is just slightly more contentious. However, the sequester as a solution will not cut it. Adrian Peterson did not rush for more than 2,000 yards after tearing his ACL the previous season because he came back to practice in the offseason while he was still recovering, deemed himself fit to play, and went out to have someone hit him in the knee. That is what the sequester is like and our economy is like Peterson, recovering from an injury. Adrian Peterson waited until he was ready and then came back better than ever.
The sequester violates its own principles because it does not address the real problem, which accentuates the problem. It does not play to win the game (credit to Herm Edwards).
Cosby is a sophomore majoring in economics and political science from Overland Park.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The ability to criticize one's own behavior is a quality that only a few possess. Trying to portray our government as the Batman of the world certainly demonstrates the lack of the mentioned quality. The lack of such quality will bring about bad consequences, one of the most important of which is that it makes you think that any those who oppose your views are villains, or even worse, "supervillains." It takes a very selfish mind to label Japan as the "supervillain" when we are the only nation in the entire history who has ever used a nuclear bomb against another nation in such a brutal manner.
I don't think the solution to North Korea is "We burnt the forest down" type of reaction. The solution is diplomacy and collaboration. Considering the fact that a government's power comes from its own people, whether the people know it or not, the strongest tool against totalitarian regimes is to, somehow, educate its people. We need more moves like Syracuse University's collaboration with North Korea in the field of IT. We need more of this, rather than childish fantasies that are inspired by mythical heroes like Batman.
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Nadi Ataal is a senior from St. Louis
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board and Hannah Wise, Sarah McBabe, Nikki Wellington, Dylan Lyson, Elise Farmington and Jacob Sinder.