Opinion The University Daily Kansan
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010
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FREE FOR ALL
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
To contribute to Free For All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
Nothing like a jar of peanut butter and a spoon!
Fun fact: I spotted two skunks next to Allen Fieldhouse. Gotta new excuse for smelling bad when I don't have time to shower.
When life gives you lemons, put them in vodka.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
I hate how you can't creep on Facebook like you used to. Damn privacy protections
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
No matter how hard you try,
Big Bird will always be a better
parent than you.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
I feel a bit like a villain right now and it's making me love myself even more.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
Do you ever think about how many butts have touched the toilet you just sat on? Ewww.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
Just paid my parking tickets in pennies, nickels and dimes. Suck it, Lawrence ticket office.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
Today in ECON 104, the teacher apologized for our lecture not being "sexy enough... Apology not accepted.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
If you are a Kansas Jayhawks fan you cannot be a Chiefs fan. They are from Missouri!
I just saw a guy on campus walk by with a shirt that said "tap that." I think it's safe to say I should walk the other way.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
Hey FFA, I think it's weird that chocolate kills puppies, but chocolate and puppies is what cures women.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
Since when is glitter on the floor hardcore?
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
So why don't I have a girlfriend? Because I'm a level 80 Night Elf Rouge and I don't
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
What's better than finding your roommate passed out on the toilet at 4 in the morning? Duct taping his hands to his
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
I hate people when people in easy majors say their homework is hard... get to my level and your brain will explode.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
I really want to study abroad, but not during basketball season. At least I know my priorities.
--downtown area, we commend University of Kansas juniors Justin Sharkan and Jason Mandel for their consistent efforts with Lawrence City Commission.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Students win in decision on downtown food cart
Now that the long-awaited late-night food cart has finally arrived to the
The food cart was first proposed in the spring and just a week ago, by a unanimous vote, they gained approval to operate the Last Stop Snack Shop food cart on the southwest corner of 10th and Massachusetts streets.
"When we first looked into starting this business, we couldn't understand why no one had done it before us, until we found out about the ordinance and the process," said Mandel.
Before the food cart received the go-ahead, the city ordinance required all street vendors to close by 9 p.m. Sharkan and Mandel sought approval to stay open until 2:30 a.m., in order to sell to those people who would be leaving the downtown bars after the 2 a.m. closing time. Once granted, the Last Stop Snack Shop became the city's first post-midnight food cart
"We never considered giving up. We felt that it was a reasonable thing we were trying to get done and we were confident, if not blindly so, that we would be able to
convey to the city why we thought that this should be allowed downtown" , said Mandel.
While hungry boys and girls everywhere are elated that a late night food vendor is just a close downtown walk, downtown
the door for other entrepreneurs who are looking to operate as a mobile sidewalk food vendor. Some pitched the idea to obtain food trucks and trailers for various parking spots downtown and around the city, but the city
landford Doug Compton is less than pleased. Compton, who leases space to Encore, Pita Pit and Pyramid Pizza, encouraged the city commission to deny the proposal for
What can you find at Last Stop?
■ grilled cheese sandwiches
■ veggie burgers
■ walking tacos
■ hot dogs
■ hamburgers
Wednesday through Saturday until 2:30 a.m.
Last Stop Snack Shop because he didn't think it was fair for businesses to compete with a food cart that would operate cheaply on publicly owned property. Other businesses that opposed complained about potential security and cleanup problems, as well as the risk for traffic congestion and vandalism. In reality, if the food cart does anything, it provides a safe service to bar patrons who want food and should not be driving to get it
With the approval of one late-night food cart, the city commission has now opened
commission rejected the proposals at last Tuesday's meeting because it feared enforcement problems. Although there does not seem to be a major
difference between the Last Stop Snack Shop food cart and those who want to operate food trucks and trailers in parking spots, it seems as if mobile food services are here to stay in Lawrence.
According to Mandel, Last Stop Snack Shop hit the streets for the first time last Thursday and business has been great.
-Stefanie Penn for The Kansan Editorial Board
CARTOON
GUEST COLUMN
Watch out, Comedy Central is going to Washington D.C.
As a satirical response to Glenn Beck's rally to "Restore Honor", Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are having rallies of their own at the National Mall on Oct. 30.
Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive" will ridicule the overzealousness of Beck's rally but in different ways.
Stewart's rally, with the motto,
"Take it down a notch for America," is a call to tone down the fanatical rhetoric being spewed on both sides, and
Colbert's rally, with the motto, "Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom," is attempting to communicate the same message as Stewart's, but as is customary for Colbert, it will parody Beck's fear-mongering to make its point.
If either of these rallies transitions from mocking criticism to abrasive derision, they will be no better than their opposition.
These rallies have the potential to be a provocative form of civic engagement through the use of
satire and humor, but we hope that the message stays comical and lighthearted.
And because Stewart announced that his rally will feature special guests, we hope the event does not become a campaign
One of his protest signs reads, "I disagree with you, but, I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."
is a plea for rationality and reasonableness in a media landscape dominated by the loudest and craziest sector of the population.
If either of these rallies transitions from mocking criticism to abrasive derision, they will be no better than their opposition
By keeping the rhetoric playful and farcical, and in a sense, antithetical to Beck's rhetoric, his message can be subverted and made to look foolish.
An exemplary use of political satire occurred before the 2004 presidential election when a group called "Billionaires for Bush" took to the streets.
to be for Sarah Palin.
tool for political candidates, as the "Restore Honor" rally seemed
They described themselves as "Ruly bands of Billionaires" who will "roam the streets of New York, stopping for three-martini lunches and spontaneous outbursts of ballroom dancing."
The participants dressed them
selves in tuxedos, top hats and elegant gowns and flaunted signs such as "Widen the income gap" and "We're selling your future today!"
Arvind Singhal and Karen Greiner write that, "Through playful actions, satire and ridicule, 'Billionaires for Bush' engaged both participants and observers to expose the nexus between the presidency and right-wing, upper-class, neoconservatives."
Stewart and Colbert's rallies can accomplish a similar feat, especially because these events might garner a wider audience than their individual television shows.
If they can successfully contrast the dogmatic lunacy of Beck's rally with the composed rationality of Stewart's and the exaggerated antics of Colbert's, their
message might reach and affect more people.
But if these rallies become lectures rather than vaudevillian spoofs, their message might get lost among the rhetoric.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
— From UWIRE. The Indiana Daily Student at Indiana University
Security concerns slippery slope
W While the Jayhawks were per-
were performing a miracle in Memorial Stadium on Sept.11, so too was another group of Lawrencians across town.
More than 100 members from three different religious groups came together at Lawrence's Plymouth Congregational Church ,925 Vermont St., to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedies.
As the Lawrence Journal-World reports, the group of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic community members also came together in a display of unity against the Florida pastor, Reverend Terry Jones', plans to burn the Quran. Though the Reverend has since cancelled these plans, his original announcement spurred a national debate on America's growing Islamophobia. As the Plymouth Church's pastor, Rev. Peter Luckey, told the Lawrence Journal-World, "We cannot have sacred texts being burned. We will not sit back and allow that to happen. That is why we are here today."
But unfortunately this gathering will not be what Kansas gets attention for in the national media in regards to the Quran burning ordeal. Instead, the old-news crazies in Topeka — that's right Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church — are making the national headlines for actually following through on heinous threats to burn the Quran on 9/11.
Instead of discussing how ignorant and hateful Quran burning is—should I even have to? — I want to look at another side of this national debate. General Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, brought national security concerns into the discussion when he told NBC news, "They [images of Americans burning the Quran] would be used by
Let's Talk Foreign Policy
BY MEGAN ADAMS
madams@kansan.com
Basically Petraeus is telling all the Islamophobic Americans to stop because their actions put our troops in harms way. And though this could be argued as true, that actions against Islam in America do fuel our enemy's hatred towards us, this line of discourse needs to be stopped
those who wish us ill, to incite violence and to enflame public opinion against our mission here in Afghanistan, as well as our missions undoubtedly around the world."
What Petraeus and many other military experts were hoping to do was to scare, or fear monger, Americans like Jones and Phelps from exercising this form of free speech. And as abhorrent as Quran burning is it a political statement that cannot be infringed on by the government.
Government officials telling the public that if they do X more American troops will be killed is just the peak of a very slippery slope. National security does not trump everything, but let's not test it.
Call me naive, but rather than fear mongering the best way we can overcome the growing intolerance is through demonstrations like the one Lawrence's Plymouth Church had. Open-minded people from different faiths coming together in unity can create change. As Rev. Jill Jarvis of Unitarian Fellowship said on Saturday, "We do not have to think alike, we do not have to believe alike, but we have to love alike."
Megan Adams is an Overland Park junior in international studies and political science.
Responses to the news of the week on Kansan.com
Chatterbox
"This is an article by a hyper-partisan meant to make fellow hyper-partisans go "Yeah!" in a self-congratulatory manner rather than something meant to make a well-justified and structured argument. It is drivel and I wouldn't want someone on the conservative side publishing anything similar to it."
— "Connerm" in response to "Voter anger better aimed at economic policy" on Sept. 21.
"I truly believe FWBs are a valid option, and I've been in several of those types of relationships as well. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't—just like any romantic, sexual, or purely platonic relationship. I've gotten a lot out of those relationships I've been in, and I think many people can. You just have to acknowledge the risks, and there are risks as you point out, and take any consequences in stride."
—"Glasstangerine" in response to "Friends with benefits may work with boundaries" on Sept. 22.
"So they cost 60 percent more, are more laborious to produce (and thus have lower yields), but they're better. Why? Is there any evidence that shows they're actually healthier, contain higher levels of nutrients or taste better? I've seen no evidence backing up any of these claims."
— "Kujajahawk" in response to "Cutting organic confusion worth time" on Sept. 22.
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nick Gerik, managing editor
954 4116
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kananian Board are
Alex Garrison, Nick Girk, Erin Brown, David
Anthony Jonathan Shaulman and Shauna
Brown.