OPINION
5A
TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2008
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COMMENTARY
Magazines mask true beauty
I spent a weekend in my hometown recently, and I came home to something curious that had been mailed to me. My mother told me I had received the famous Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which seemed odd. I had not ordered it, and frankly, had not realized it was out yet.
As it turns out, the issue comes as part of my subscription to Sports Illustrated, which is still delivered to my parents' house, but the circumstance behind acquiring it really isn't what matters. What matters is what it has made me consider since seeing the magazine in my mail.
Getting the issue reminded me of my early teenage years, when I had barely begun to discover those strange and wonderful beings known as "girls." It was easy to assume at that age, looking at glorified bathing suit ads, that most women I would meet later on in life would be as apparently flawless, and as willing to wander around in bright green twopieces, as the ones featured in SI's annual Swimsuit Issue, or Maxim, or, for that matter, anything else in mainstream media.
My only hope was that most women would have names that were easier to pronounce than all the famous ones.
Apparently one of the guidelines for being beautiful is that the person's last name must have at least three syllables, with at least one vowel that represents a sound it really shouldn't. Of course, it became apparent to me after a while that this was not how they were. Not just the name thing, but I was quite thankful for that.
The mainstream media paint a picture of a world where you are only important if you are physically perfect by the standards that they have set.
Your skin must be clear. Your hair must be perfectly groomed in all conditions. Men have to be ripped, and women have to have certain proportions. Otherwise they are horribly flawed, and they must work hard to overcome those flaws. The fact of the matter is that normal people are rarely like that, and the world still spins in the right direction.
This isn't to say that the people we are told are the standard for perfection are off in another world, by any means. They can come from anywhere, even the University of Kansas.
Look at the Women of KU calendar. It's a standard swimsuit calendar, with gorgeous scenery, little clothing and women who will, in all likelihood, never go out with me, but it is comprised entirely of KU students.
Fun fact: I just found out that one of the models from this year's calendar is a girl I went to middle school with.
There is not enough space in a column for this newspaper to go into all of the problems with being bombarded with images of supermodels as the norm for society. That young people are negatively affected by this idea seems to be more widely acknowledged.
Numerous eating disorders and self-esteem problems have been documented because of teenagers becoming desperate to live up to the supposed standards that their favorite television channels and magazines have set.
I am not here to offer a major solution to the problem. I can only offer some advice.
If you want to improve how you look, feel free. Work out, dress nicely, wear a little makeup if any of that suits you. Just don't take it to an extreme. You don't need to look you are ready to be pasted on a billboard.
Besides, your friends won't appreciate having to learn the new, more difficult way to pronounce your name.
Cohen is a Topeka junior in English and political science.
the fashion industry's perfect woman
Max Rinkel
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pop culture
catastrophe
Lindsay Lohan's younger sister makes her debut
As much of a "partier" she is, I think she has, or I guess 'had' talent that she wasted away with her personal life. Just when the media kind of stops talking about Lindsay, news comes out from E! that they are giving Lindsay Lohan's little sister, Ally Lohan, her own reality show.
Reality television is ridiculous these days. It seems like there is only one requirement to actually have a reality television show: You Need To Have A Face.
Seriously?! Yes, I am dead serious.
It's no secret about the problems Lindsay Lohan has had the past few years.
COMMENTARY
Matt Lindberg
Teaching assistants breathe life back into boring, difficult subjects
An ode to the hardworking TA
We have all been there before. Sitting in an auditorium class where 300 to 400 students are sleeping, doing the Sudoku or crossword puzzle, and minds are drifting away from the subject being taught.
An hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes drift by, and then you suddenly snap when the teacher says there will be a quiz next time on this lecture.
Teaching assistants, perhaps an under-appreciated group of people, are there to save the day when your inattentiveness consumes most of your class time. If I had $5 for every time a teacher said I was inattentive, I would have about $100, but the point is that my mind tends to wander into the great beyond during class. With this thought in mind, I recite my silent ode to the TA's.
you have your usually dreaded discussion session of the course. You breathe a sigh of relief and, under your breath, whisper, "Thank God for the TAs."
You try to recall what he or she was even talking about. You go in panic mode but later realize that
I'm glad you are here to help me learn about the uninteresting topics that I don't care about, and I'm glad that you understand that because you were in my shoes may be only five years ago, perhaps with a disinterest in a different subject.
I'm glad that someone who knows what I'm going through and can really relate to me will guide me through these perilous times of mind-boggling algebraic formulas and the ever-changing lines made up in a graph for supply and demand in economics.
I'm glad that you make a hard and honest effort to get me to learn the subjects at hand so that I won't get hindered by a subject that is not even related to my selected major.
ed us to not listen to you and to ignore the subject altogether. It doesn't, seem that you hold the student's intelligence high in regard to your teaching methods.
I'm glad that you can speak with the students directly, practically face-to-face, and discuss the matters at hand. It feels like a friend who will not quit until you understand the subject.
By doing this, you are only crippling yourself, seeing as how you are making yourself an incapable teacher to the majority of the students.
For the most part, I can't complain. Many of you T.A.'s have been understanding, insightful, and, thankfully, humorous. You are actually able to retain our attention and, in time, our respect and admiration.
Granted, all of you TAs haven't been so kind. There have been some of you who have been short with me and the rest of the class.
May you carry this on as you become a teacher or professor and are able to enlighten young minds into learning.
In doing so, you have only goad.
Brown is a Lee's Summit, Mo., junior in journalism.
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I just bought some Charmin Ultra. My bunhole smiled at
If you don't like the minimum wage in Kansas, get out.
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I apologize to the girls I almost hit on Jayhawk Boulevard. Yeah, sorry about that.
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It's halftime, and we've quit. We're done.
Why doesn't the Parking Department come ticket these basketball morons who park on Daisy Hill to walk to the basketball game? I paid for that spot.
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Hey, Jersey Mikes, where's my free sub?
Free For All, I was thinking you and I could meet in the stacks? You know, for a private study session.
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Why don't you just wait until 10:50 to find a parking spot instead of coming an hour early to class or show up at 5:30 and find a parking spot like all of us athletes do?
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I guess building a new parking lot would be environmen tally friendly.
Johnson County kids don't mow lawns. Our higher education gets us real jobs. So I'll pay you to do that.
I like how the ad in the Kansan says "free sub," but what that really means is that we don't have any bread, you're still going to pay $4 for your sandwich, you have to have a coupon, a KU ID and a ticket stub and a lot of other rules in the ad that they think is a coupon but isn't a coupon. Bogus.
What the hell is this? For the past three months, whenever I'm having sex, the Pizza Street song comes in my head, and I can't do it anymore.
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Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Alex Doherty, Bryan Dykman, Matt Erickson, Kelsey Hayes, Lauren Keith, Darla Slike, Dianne Smith, Ian Stanford and Zach White.