Opinion
United States First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2010
WWW.KANSAN.COM
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PAGE 5A
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To contribute to Free For All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500.
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I just wanna get high and watch Disney movies all day.
To the couple who sits in the back of abnormal psychology every day ... Knock it off! You are disgusting!
Everybody everybody wants to love. Everybody everybody wants to be loved.
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I dare you to make less sense.
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I'm freezing my nips off.
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Particle physics gives me a hadron. That is all.
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To my downstairs neighbors:
You'll never be a musician so save my ears and quit playing your awful music.
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She always knows how to brighten my day!
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Listening to classical music while writing this monster paper. Either I'm growing up or my soul is dying.
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My friend just caught me watching "Mamma Mia" ... I'm doing research on girls, not watching it for enjoyment.
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--home.
This is not good - too many guys telling me they love me. Yes, this is a legitimate problem
Hey, Oliver, we're sick of the cold showers. Sincerely, the fourth floor.
--home.
Lawrence, I love you, but you're bringing me down.
--home.
Cereal for dinner.
--home.
There is nothing like driving down the highway and seeing the people in the car next to you pass a bong from the front seat to the back.
--home.
I love deleting friends off Facebook; it feels so liberating.
--home.
I don't know what it says about me that my motivation to get through Mondays is the promise of Scotch and "Mad Men" on the DVR when I get
--that over 20 percent of them face. This mistreatment affects every part of their lives and leads to LGBTQ students having a suicide rate three to four times higher than straight students.
My roommate and I might lead two of the sketchiest lives ever.
--that over 20 percent of them face. This mistreatment affects every part of their lives and leads to LGBTQ students having a suicide rate three to four times higher than straight students.
New law would combat bullying and harassment
DISCRIMINATION
In the last three weeks, four young people across the nation have committed suicide due to anti-gay harassment. How young were they?
Seeth Vaalam, in California, was 13 when he hung himself. Asher Brown, in Texas, was also 13 when he shot himself in the head. Billy Lucas, in Indiana, was 15 when he hung himself. Tyler Clementi, at Rutgers University in New Jersey, was 18 when he jumped off a bridge. These tragedies highlight the necessity of having antibullying legislation and support networks for LGBTQ youth, and the detriment that anti-gay environments cause for people.
There is no doubt that we as Americans are living in an environment hostile to LGBTQ people, and this hostility especially hurts teenagers who are particularly vulnerable to peer abuse and do not know of the resources and recourse available to them, if it's available at all. In many cases, LGBTQ students do not have any option but to deal with the harassment on their own.
Currently there are only eight states in the country that have anti-bullying laws that explicitly address bullying based on gender and sexual orientation.
When states do have these laws, there is at least a bigger chance that tortured teenagers do not have to put up with the harassment that, according to a very recent National Education Policy Center study, affects 85 percent of LGBTQ high schoolers, or the physical attacks
Progressive Perspective
BY ALI FREE
afree@kansan.com
This piece of legislation, introduced in August, would require public schools to create sex- and gender-specific anti-bullying strategies.
This is why students should support the Safe Schools Improvement Act.
It's not the whole solution, but it's definitely something to go on. High school is hard enough even if one doesn't have to deal with such blatant, ignorant harassment, remember.
Kids in hundreds of schools are suffering partly because schools tend to ignore bullying based on sexual orientation. I don't know about you, but I can't bear the thought of one of my young siblings having to go through a constant battle at school. No one should be in that situation.
Apart from government action, there are other projects appearing that support gay kids. The Trevor
Project is a national organization focused on suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, and it's been around for a while.
The "It Gets Better Project" is a brand new initiative begun by none other than Dan Savage, of the famous "Savage Love" syndicated sex and relationships column.
Formed directly in response to the recent several suicides, the It Gets Better Youtube channel is full of videos from hundreds of adults from the gay community, including some celebrities, talking about their experiences in school and their current lives.
They are all there to tell LGBTQ youth the messages they aren't hearing anywhere else — that they are normal, that they are fine, that the unbeatable bigotry and isolation in high school won't last, that it does get better.
Is anyone in your life having trouble? Maybe they are and you don't know about it. Dan Savage's project is so fantastic because adults are telling kids what they need to hear. The knowledge that there is someone out there like you, who has experienced what you are experiencing, is powerful. Spread the word about the It Gets Better Project — you may save someone's life.
And support the Safe Schools Improvement Act. Being a teenager is hard enough.
Free is a sophomore from Blue Springs, Mo., in women's studies.
EDITORIAL CARTOON
"WE HEAR THAT MANY OF YOUR MORTGAGED HOMES IN AMERICA HAVE BEEN 'UNDERWATER' FOR QUITE SOME TIME.
IN PAKISTAN, WE HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT, TOO ... KINDA..."
NICK SAMBULAK
GUEST COLUMN
Product placements fall flat
I never realized how cool Aston Martins are until I saw Daniel Craig drive one off a cliff as James Bond in "Quantum of Solace"
I never realized how refreshing Coca-Cola is until I watched Simon Cowell sip a big red cup of it on "American Idol." I never realized how charming American Airlines is until George Clooney handsomely sat aboard an AA aircraft in "Up in the Air"
After seeing each of these things, my regular nightly dreamscape was replaced by a repeating plot of flying an AA plane into an Aston Martin while Daniel Craig and George Clooney shower me in Coca Cola.
With the advent of TiVo and other ways to digitally record and watch TV shows and skip those doggone commercials, companies need a new way to convince us how awesome their stuff is and how we should totally buv it.
Or so these companies would hope.
The answer: product placement.
Excuse me for a moment while
I puke all over myself. OK I'm back
their plots to suit a corporate sponsor? Don't answer that question. Of course there are worse things than this. This is a sick world we live in. All right.
What could be worse, what in the world could be worse, than films and television shows bending
It's possible, I admit, for product placement to add to a piece of art. This can be seen in comedies for purposes of irony. Tina Fey's "30 Rock" is littered with brands. Alec Baldwin once sang an ode onscreen to the McFlurry. Fey later claimed that no cash exchanged hands for the McFlurry bit – it was product placement done to benefit the plot
All right, it's open mind time. God I hate this part.
And who could forget Stephen Colbert's Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania primary coverage from Chili-Delphia. I know I couldn't; it was too delicious. Colbert grasped the reins of product placement and tasted the spicy sweet monetary awards. He also earned some chuckles in the process. Success.
But can product placement succeed beyond the accommodatingly ironic sphere of comedy?
Jason Reitman's 2009 "Up in the Air" suggests so. Rather than inventing a fictional airline to
fly George Clooney around his loveless world, Reitman instead struck a deal with American Airlines and Hilton Hotels to accommodate his crew throughout filming in return for Clooney making their brands look sexy in an old-guy kind of way.
Money saved. But the embedded advertisement has perks beyond mere financial savvy. "Up in the Air" scores major believability points for its incorporation of real-world brands. Which is the point of a brand – to make us feel comfortable. We know exactly what we're getting with a well-known brand, and when that familiarity translates to film, an audience is given an extra boost toward relating to fictitious characters and their experiences.
There, I said it. The incorporation of corporate sponsors can help a film. I feel dirty. Someone call up Craig and Clooney to wash me in Diet Coke.
— From UWIRE. Hannah Jewell at The Daily Californian at the University of California-Berkeley.
RELATIONSHIPS
Life events put school and GPA in perspective
W when I was seven my only brother, Michael, died
suddenly of brain complications, shattering every bit of life as I once knew it into a million pieces.
From that day forward, I have been forced to search for significance to all the struggles my family underwent due to his sudden absence.
Somewhere in my road of repair, I found someone to help fill some of the gaps that Michael once occupied. His name is Jordan. We met when we were both clueless 14-year-olds and he's been one of my only friends who has continuously cared for me for more than six years. Translation: He's been there through all the bullshit
breakups in birthdays,
through
drunken
nights and
sudden
deaths,
during
I momentarily lost al sense of perspective I gained from my brother's death.
And in the midst of the chaos, jordan's grandfather died. And two hours before his grandfather's wake, I sat selfishly staring at my to-do list, cursing at the overwhelming workload I had to somehow complete within the next 48 hours.
And I have this annoying voice programmed in my head that tells me if miss class and these few hours of homework, I'll be doomed forever.
holidays and hard times. He's been a helping hand and a sturdy shoulder of support. To me, the friendship surpasses expectations of its title. We're family.
I wanted to be there for Jordan and his family. He rarely gives me an opportunity to emotionally support him. It's always him there for me.
BY MANDY MATNEY
mmatney@kansan.com
Was I really going to miss
But college makes us lose perspective of very basic ideals, like the importance of sleep. Most of us here have an enormous amount of pressure to succeed. We are constantly
Anyway, these last couple weeks for me have been a blur of living life Red Bull to Red Bull (because sleep really isn't necessary), mindlessly juggling work, papers, tests, interviews and occasionally trying to squeeze in some sort of social contact for the sake of sanity. On top of that, I got sick with a nasty cold that sucked the little energy I had out of me, which required me to spend twice as much money on caffeine (so yeah, sleep is kind of important).
told to use this time to maximize our intelligence to prepare for our future in the deteriorating economy and highly competitive job market out there (at least for journalists).
one of the few opportunities I had to show emotional support and prove my loyalty for someone I consider family?
And what for? A journalism class I wouldn't be able to distinctly remember in a month? For a few hours to work on a couple papers and study for a test, which all and all probably wouldn't even amount to1/100th of a GPA point?
I momentarily lost all sense of perspective I gained from my brother's death.
No grade could have possibly replaced the significance of that evening.
So I threw on the first black dress I could find and headed east. At the wake, I hugged my teary-eyed pseudo-brother, visibly shaken by the loss of his grandfather. As I sat in the second pew of the funeral home I was overwhelmed with clarity.
Because, in the aftermath, death teaches us things. It clearly separates the things that matter in life from the things that don't. And although I was little, I still remember the people who supported my family and me during that time. And I'm still thankful.
Because when all is said and done, your GPA won't be there to mourn your death, but your friends and family you once sacrificed your GPA will be.
Matney is a junior from Shawnee in journalism.
Chatterbox Responses to the news of the week on Kansan.com
"Rights? What rights don't they have? They signed up knowing about the policy as an employee its responsibility to implement it. Now I do not agree with the policy and to believe it is "bogus", but to say any rights have been diminished is incorrect.
—"ku1988" in response to "End Don't Ask, Don't tell" on Oct. 5.
"hanks for taking the time to do this. As a military girlfriend living in a college environment a lot of people don't know about the differences or the sacrifices. When I first started my relationship, I was a lot like you. I knew pretty much nothing and it has been a long and slow learning experience for me, but I wouldn't change it for anything."
— "ambee03" in response to "Basic Training" on Oct.1.
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