4A the university daily kansan --- opinion friday, april 16, 2004 Free for All Call 864-0500 Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded. For more comments, go to www.kansan.com selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. Frankly, I have had enough of this KUnited and Delta Force bullshit. Oh yeah, Mizzou sucks. Either I just ran over a bird and it made no sound or I am tripping on the elixir of life. 图 Where's my voter harassment? selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. I just saw a KUnited guy and Delta Force guy hug. It was kind of weird. - My religion class makes me sad because my classmates are all idiots I have got the munchies.The Steve munchies. selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. I just needed someone to call so the Delta Force people wouldn't hand me a flier. I'm just acting like I am on the phone so that no candidates will talk to me. selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. Two more days to keep Jamie out of jail. Is this the Free For All? OK. You all just got served. 丽 selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. To the kid that took a picture of my girlfriend reading a book in front of Strong Hall: Back off. This is to the two girls in the front row in Introduction to Social Work: Shut up. I am not paying tuition money to listen to you talk. This is college now, girls. Get a degree and then open your damn mouth. selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. Can my music teacher just wear a bra? Her nipples are really starting to scare me. By the way: Pink bandannas are not cool. You know who you are. Delta Force SUVs. What's next? A vote for KUnited is a vote against unibrows. Spam busters, bitch. When you call my name, it's like a little prayer. I'm down on my knees. I want to take you there. No, you are not the only one that likes country music. selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. selling themselves as hip-hop are infatuated with their cars, money, herb and all six of their hypothetical girlfriends; but I don't need to tell that story, you can hear it all over the radio, and it is for sale in all the chain stores. I'm just calling to say that country music rocks and you are not the only one. There is a shark and a bear right on the Stauffer-Flint lawn. Only in college. I love it. 图 To the chick that almost ran me over in the crosswalk: Get off your damn cell phone. TALK TO US The Kansan welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni. To submit, e-mail comments or questions to opinion@kansan.com or call Meghan Brune or Johanna M. Maska at 785-864-4824. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or cut submissions due to content or length. PERSPECTIVE Zach Stinson for The University Daily Kansan LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Delta Force not anti-greek Yesterday morning many greeks were rudely confronted with a fear-mongering piece of dirty-tricks campaign literature slipped under their doors in the middle of the night. The intent was to disparage Delta Force and, no doubt, ensure the ascendance of KUnited. MUSIC OF MY MIND This was a cynical and shameless gambit by cowards insulting the intelligence of greek student voters, while attempting to sow confusion and distrust. Shameful. The flier lies and insinuates that Delta Force is somehow part of some anti-greek conspiracy. The hell it is. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jason Fizell KU unclassified staff CLAS '98 I will not repeat the baseless claims, several made against me personally. However, I will say that the first Delta Force coalition was 18 percent greek, or almost exactly proportional to the makeup of campus. Not only that, I was housemates with the immediate past president of the Tri Delt house and two Pi Phis at the time! All students should stand up for integrity and honesty and support Delta Force for a change in the politics as well as the University. Cars, money ruin hip-hop essence "You see the streets have me stressed somethin' terrible..."— Nas "One Love" from 1994's illmatic COMMENTARY Cornelius Minor opinion@kansan.com Last month Sony reissued Nas' groundbreaking 1994 CD, Illmatic. Hailed as an instant classic, Nas' CD was perhaps the last in a decade-long period of album releases that marked one of hip-hop's most innovative and expansive periods to date. In Ilmatic, music enthusiasts found everything that hip-hop's golden era of productivity represented. The album introduced the world to a Nas who possessed a literary quality that was sensitive, observant and creative. The verbal images that he painted with his imaginative pen rivaled, and at times matched, the beauty and stark reality that artists such as Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence painted with their brushes. Many of the folks who are currently For many, the fallacies that we have allowed people to sell in our name have come to represent what it means to be young in America. As I have traveled, I've I can still remember the excitement of the day when Illmatic was released. Though hip-hop had been around since the late '70s, with new artists such as Nas emerging as the standard, fans in the early '90s felt as if they had an expressive eternity ahead of them. In '94, had someone asked what hip-hop would look like today, I don't think that anyone could have predicted the state in which we find ourselves in 2004. Hip-hop is not the complex art form that all the scholars want to make it. It is the act of establishing commonalities. found that one's authenticity as an American finds itself under close scrutiny if it cannot be readily traced to MTV or BET. In the face of our current situation, many find themselves wishing for the days that were. Critics, fans and artists alike gaze back to the good ol' days: 1985, 1987, 1992, 1994. 1930, 1937. What often goes unsaid as we reminisce is the understanding that for many folks in America, the late '80s and early '90s weren't as good as we would like to remember them. When Illmatic dropped in '94, our generation was getting its first taste of some of the problems associated with drugs and AIDS. If we desire what used to be, what does that say about what is? Ralph Ellison, one of the America's most celebrated writers, resisted defining the blues, the expression of his day, in musical terms. He described them more broadly as "an impulse." This impulse existed and functioned with but one purpose: "to keep the painful details and episodes of brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it." So it is with hip-hop, but most importantly so it is with us. Like Ellison suggests, to be the blues, to be the hip-hop or rock, to be the human beings that we are called to be, requires us to know and to face the painful experiences that have occurred and are ongoing in our lifetimes. Even if particular issues do not affect us directly, to live up to our potential as those who are to inherit this country requires us to recognize that to be hip-hop, or wherever we say we are, is more than just attending a concert, buying a CD, getting a degree or securing a job. It is recognizing that our interests, be they artistic, academic, vocational, cultural or political, are just meeting places — places where we can share stories of difficulty and triumph. Our interests allow us to touch the jagged grain of reality, to know its feeling and, in knowing, to do the work of transcending those realities. scending those recesses Hip-hop is not the complex art form that all the scholars want to make it. It is the act of establishing commonalities — many of which are based on our own painful observances — and using those commonalities as a platform upon which to gather support and exchange ideas. Hip-hop isn't going to change the world. It brought many of us together so that we can do that for ourselves. Minor is an Atlanta graduate in American studies. He also co-hosts Voice Activated at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays on KJHK. PERSPECTIVE Gamer generation need not feel shame COMMENTARY My friend knocks on the door, and I scramble to cover my tracks before opening the door. I quickly turn off the television set, sit back down, and try to look natural. Don't get the wrong idea; I wasn't watching Real World or even Girls Gone Wild. Instead, I was indulging in what I thought was my only guilty pleasure: playing video games. But I shouldn't be embarrassed to be caught with my controller in my hand. Video games aren't a guilty pleasure anymore. Zack Hemenway opinion@hansan.com The one system and three games I own are a minuscule sliver of the $13 billion pie of revenues the video-game industry earned last year. This number, which increases every year, is proof that videogame playing is becoming more and more acceptable as boys and girls who grew up playing games cash their first paychecks. paychecks. We're the gamer generation, raised on Mario and Luigi instead of Kermit and Big Bird. And each year we grow closer to adulthood, the stigma associated with video games, the notion that they are juvenile activities, fades a little more. According to a study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the average age of video-game players rises each year, and is up to 29, with males 18 and over making up the largest demographic of gamers. But this image is starting to change. High school and college students hold impromptu tournaments in sports and multi-player games, and new technologies allow friends to face-off online. Just last weekend, my three roommates spent a Saturday watching one another play an Xbox game. All of this proves that like kegs, dim lighting and traumatic experiences, video games bring people demographic of gamers. Part of the bias against game-playing comes from the stereotype people have of video gamers, seeing them as loners cooped up in dark rooms with pixilated images serving as friends, pressing pause only to order pizza or hit up an Internet chat room. together. But this safety in numbers theory might not be enough to change someone's view of video games. He or she could need scientific evidence. Enter researchers Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier from our great nation's National Institutes of Health. Green and Bavelier discovered that playing video games is good for you. They tested groups of avid gamers against casual and non-gaming groups on several visual skills. They found that "video game playing enhances the capacity of visual attention and its spatial distribution," which I think means that people who play Grand Theft Auto five hours a day see things more clearly than I do. I know what you're saying. Sure, visual skills could improve, but gamers aren't exactly brain surgeons. Well, maybe not, but they could be operating on the rest of your body. A study at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York showed that surgeons who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made 37 percent fewer errors in laparoscopic surgery, which is used to combat anything from gastric bypass surgery to appendectomies. The author of the study, James Rosser, said he used the same coordination in video games that he did in the operating room, which makes the surgery channel seem a lot more interesting. EA Sports, one of the top makers of sports video games, uses my Xbox's memory feature to keep close track of my game-playing. My "player bio" informs me that I've devoted a little more than 10 full days of my life to Tiger Woods Golf and other sports games. I was shocked to find out this information. It feels like at least 30 to 40 days. I used to be ashamed of this total. I saw it as a running estimate of wasted time, a monument to my lack of productive free-time activity. But now I see just how productive I've been, and that I will have to find a new guilty pleasure. Next time I hear that knock on the door, I'll beckon my friend in. And when he or she asks what I've been doing for the past few hours, I'll just say, "I've been enhancing the capacity of my visual attention and its spatial distribution. What did you think I was doing, just playing video games?" Hemenway is a Lawrence senior in journalism. KANSAN Michelle Rombeck editor 884-4854 or mhurhenn@kansan.com Andrew Vaupel managing editor 864-4854 or vaupel@kansan.com Meghan Brune and Johanna M. Maska opinion editors 864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com ○ Danielle Bose business manager 864-4358 or addreder@kansan.com Stephanie Graham retail sales manager 864-4358 or adalea@kanan.com Mutt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7686 or mfaisher@kansan.com Malcolm Gibson general manager and news adviser 864-7867 or mgibson@kansan.com Editorial Board Members Editorial Board Members Sara Beuhnek Kendall Dix Lynzee Ford Laura Francoviglia Anna Gregory Amy Hammontree Kelly Hollowell Teresa Lo Staphanie Lovet Mindy Osborne Greg Holmquist Ryan Scarrow Kevin · Flaherty Brandon Gay Zack Hamenway Alex Hoffman Kevin Kampwilp Amy Kelly Cameron Koelling Courtney Kuhlan Brandi Mathessen Travis Metcalf Mika Norris Jonathan Reec r Erin Riffey Alea Smith Kari Zimmerman