Opinion THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010
WWW.KANSAN.COM
PAGE 7A
FREE
FOR
ALL
--constantly farting.
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Don't you hate it when you write on someone's wall and they don't write back?
--constantly farting.
You know it's time to do the dishes when you're drinking out of the beer pong cups.
--constantly farting.
We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue then we'll take it higher.
--constantly farting.
Sex and Pokemon!
--constantly farting.
We're being dominated!
To the girl I walked behind on my way to class this morning: Just because you have headphones in you ears doesn't mean everyone behind you can't hear you constantly fasting.
My roommate's legs are huge.
They look like sausages that are about to blow out of their casings!
--girl and her girlfriend and did the same thing.
I hate getting a crush on someone and then finding out they're conservative. Fail
I'm guessing Angelina adopts at least five orphans from Haiti. That disaster will be the best thing that's ever happened to 'em.
--girl and her girlfriend and did the same thing.
I'm going to train my fish to do tricks. Does this mean I have no life?
--girl and her girlfriend and did the same thing.
Whose pants are these?
What's the protocol of asking out someone from Twitter?
--girl and her girlfriend and did the same thing.
Yay,free condoms! Oh,wait, I'm not getting laid.
--girl and her girlfriend and did the same thing.
I think my fortune cookie called me fat tonight.
Tonight on Mass Street I saw a man jogging with a stroller with a fake baby strapped in it. Only in Lawrence.
There's a 95 percent chance I'm about to enter into a pizza
--girl and her girlfriend and did the same thing.
I think my fish is depressed.
--girl and her girlfriend and did the same thing.
Lawrence: the pothole capital of the world
People make fun of you when they see you playing Farmville in the Budic computer lab.
Morningstar's messed-up free throw has 1.5 million views on YouTube. People will know his name now.
Everyone deserves the right to feel comfortable
LGBT ISSUES
It's a pretty uncomfortable feeling to know someone is looking at you, especially when you don't know who the person is or why he or she is staring.
Often, we are stared at because of our outfits or hairstyles. But when the staring is because of the person we are with, it becomes more than uncomfortable; it's malicious.
On Wednesday nights, Wilde's Chateau has Pride Night. It's a night for the adult LGBT community and their allies to enjoy an atmosphere where two people of any sex can dance together, flirt and be a couple without the fear of being stared at or harassed.
The secure atmosphere of Pride Night is dampened with unwanted attention, usually in the form of leering heterosexual men.
It should be known that anyone and everyone is welcome to Pride Night.
However, these men are clearly not there to enjoy the good times.
Instead, they take an obscene pleasure in ogling women who are there specifically to be with other women.
For these men, it's like a live pornographic film, except for the gratuitive nudity and the fact that none of us women are remotely interested in turning on a man.
What's worse is that the creeping does not end with simply staring.
Queerly Speaking
This makes it impossible to not rub against them as we go between the bar and the dance floor.
Some of the men stand at the entranceways to the dance floor.
BY LAUREN BORNSTEIN
Not long ago, I was going out with a group of gal pals, all of them heterosexual.
We were having a great time rocking out to the DJ's tunes when we noticed some guys leaning on a wall nearby, eyeing us and giving us sleazy grills.
They wanted to go to a place where they wouldn't have to deal with men hitting on them, so we decided on Pride Night.
As we continued to dance, a few of them circled our group and moved in, dancing inappropriately and even touching us in sexually harassing ways.
Needless to say, we all felt violated and left. My fury only increased when, as my friends and I were leaving, these same guys surrounded an obviously intoxicated
This is just another reminder of the way many heterosexual men view lesbian sexuality; as if for their entertainment.
I beg you, heterosexual men, to consider the perspective of women—both homosexual and heterosexual. How you would feel if someone came up and grabbed you by the ass? What would you feel if someone stared at you in a sexual manner while you made out with the girl you were dating? What if someone asked you and your girlfriend for a threesome because of your sexual orientation?
We all deserve to go out and have a great time without the threat of harassment, sexual orientation aside.
Pride Night is a night where everyone can enjoy themselves. It's intended to offer everyone a sense of security to be who they are with whoever they want.
But why stop there? Every night should offer such security. Every person should be able to enjoy themselves, free of creeping hands and eyes.
Bornstein is a senior from Lawrence in women's studies.
EDITORIAL CARTOON
NEWS AND INFORMATION
NICHOLAS SAMBALUK
It's 'Times' for a change
The New York Times to charge for online service in 2011
We will soon be paying the piper for more than a decade of free.
The Times, much like many publications across the country, has been chipping away at its collective stored fat, downsizing and laying off as the transition away from print continues.
Unlike when governments and corporations try to reach into the collective pocket of consumers, it's next to impossible to call this greed-based.
The print news industry as a whole is malnourished. When a human being is deprived of food, it begins feasting on the fat and energy it has stored up, but that can only last so long.
The New York Times announced last week it will begin charging to view its online content in 2011.
The Kaiser Family Foundation's study "Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-year-olds" found that during a typical day people in this age range consume an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day across mediums such as TV, computers, video games, music, print and cell phones.
Consumption increased for all these categories except for, you guessed it, print.
This is the new generation of news consumers, and they're
For any media organization to succeed it has to whet the collective appetite and the print product is looking as appetizing to consumers as Brussels sprouts.
insatiable.
Unlike the "too big to fail banks," there's no stimulus package for this cornerstone of information.
The details of the plan released on the Times' Media Decoder blog and in subsequent articles were reasonable and it addressed some of the main concerns of the casual reader.
Otherwise, you'll have to pay for access after a certain amount of page visits.
The Times is still heavily leveraging the print product, but letting its web presence be compromised by something that people are gravitating away from makes very little sense.
Under the plan, if you already have a home subscription, you get free website access.
With unemployment hovering close to 10 percent and the economy in the proverbial toilet, forcing people to pay for something they are conditioned to know as free is no enviable task.
"We can't get this halfway right or three-quarters of the way right. We have to get this really, really right," said Times Company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in the paper's article announcing the change.
Times Select, a previous payment model, was abandoned "because search was becoming a bigger factor and advertising was more robust," according to a recent post by executive editors on the Media Decoder blog.
Other interminglings of Internet and payment plans have been attempted and abandoned.
Sulzberger Jr.'s deliberate approach with this new plan isn't in the spirit of the Internet and it's where the plan falls apart.
I applaud Sulzberger Jr. standing up for the financial well being of an American institution, but the timing is all wrong.
Do the executives at the New York Times honestly believe with rapidly changing technology, especially online, that the Internet ecosystem they are planning for now will be the same in a year?
-Orving DeJohn, Albany Student Press, University at Albany, College News Network
To find out more about subscriptions go to www.nytimes.com
HUMOR
Translating the mystery behind non-KU apparel
Wearing KU clothing has always been a popular way to show school spirit. But there's a phenomenon on campus that bucks this trend. Amidst the sea of "hawkaholic" and "hill yes" T-shirts, a few non-conformists wear the colors of different institutions.
For various reasons, some KU students like wearing other schools' clothing on campus. It's important not to judge this minority, though. Instead, it's necessary to understand the message that each different type of apparel sends.
First, there are the occasional community college T-shirts. Students wearing clothing from a junior college could be sending several different messages. They could be announcing, "I worked my way up from humble beginnings and earned my way into a respected public university." Or they could just be trying to say, "I got lost on the way to community college. Please help"
On the opposite end of the spectrum from these modest community-college-T-shirt-donning students are the KU students who wear apparel from Ivy League schools. It can be startling to see a student wearing such a respected university logo in Math 101, but there are explanations for this rarity.
For example, it's possible that these KU students were, indeed, brilliant enough to attend a prestigious college at one time. Unfortunately, they missed Spangles too much and returned back to the comfort of Kansas. These students still wear their Yale hoodies to announce that, if it wasn't for their tragic weaknesses for half-price-burger Monday, they would be on their way to brilliant law careers.
The much more likely explanation, however, is that these students went down to Victoria's Secret and bought sweatpants with the logo of one of the country's most respected academic institutions slapped on the butt.
This relatively new trend of exploiting top universities' trademarks to sell clothing to anyone who wants to give off the "cute but valedictorian" look makes me question my generation more than anything else. And that includes "Jersev Shore."
Stuff KU Students Like
BY JOEL PETTERSON
Finally, some KU students occasionally wear apparel from universities with names that appear made-up. Don't be confused. This is actually a student who has studied abroad and would like to ensure that everyone around them is aware of this.
Any encounter with a student wearing clothing from an unpronounceable university is a chance to play "Guess the Study Abroad Country" with this person. To play, simply begin insulting every country you can think of loud enough for them to hear until they interject after hearing the home of their foreign university.
So, though school spirit is important, don't forget to accept those with different preferences in college apparel.
They will inevitably defend the country and admonish you for being ignorant of its "beautiful scenery and wonderful people." This means you have won "Guess the Study Abroad Country" and you can award yourself 10 points. Earn five bonus points if they use an expression from that country, like "bloody" or "voila." A total of 500 points during your college career will earn the title of "Guess the Study Abroad Country Champion" or "Xenophobic Jerk."
Petterson is a sophomore from Prairie Village in journalism.
And if you've seen my Johnson County Community College snuggie, please let me know.
Poll:
Is wearing non-KU apparel a fashion do or don't?
Go to Kansan.com to cast your vote.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Walking around campus over the past couple of weeks. I've
seen multiple advertisements for the upcoming Ashr Roth concert at Liberty Hall hosted by SUA. The irony of this selection just hit me today.
With the recent deaths due to alcohol in KU's community and the following actions by the administration and community to strengthen alcohol awareness and policies, I find it kind of hypocritical for SUA to put on a concert with an artist who's main song, "I Love College," describes the exact stereotype KU has tried
I have no problem with Asher Roth writing about drinking, sex and parties, but I wanted to point out the irony of the situation. Also, many would agree that the selection is a tremendous step down from socially conscious artists, such as Common, who have come to KU in the past.
to distance itself from for years: a party school.
Hip hop is an expansive genre and, yes, respectable; SUA could have done a great deal better.
James Baker is a sophomore from Coppell, Texas.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kanan Editorial Board are Stephen Montenegro, Brianne Phamnetlis, Benoit Gouffran, Jeffrey P. Lepin, Emily McMoyle, Kate Lareabee, James Castle Andrew Hammond, Michael Holtz, Stefanie Penn and Tainthorn Tchiron