[Commentary
Clackamas Print
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
3
Society quick to place blame
passion for the people touched
f by this event.
|. The Clackamas Print
That being said, it has been
brought rather forcibly to my
For the love of all things attention that a great many peo
good and holy, please stop being ple are using these murders as
an excuse to completely abandon
stupid.
The shooting at Virginia the world of logic.
It started almost immediately,
Polytechnic Institute last week
was horrible. I don’t deny that. with the usual claims that “this is
Thirty-two people were mur all due to violent video games!”
dered in cold blood - and can I have never bought in to that
anyone imagine what the shoot particular argument; I’ve been
er’s family is going through right a kid much more recently than
now? I have nothing but com Jack Thompson and Dr. Phil.
laura Cameron
Dear Dr. Kim,
I have been married for
three years. My husband and I
have a 17-month-old daughter.
We both work full-time, and
we work opposite schedules.
After working, clean
ing, doing laundry, cooking
and taking care of the baby,
my husband wants his “qual
ity time.” Is he crazy? I’m so
exhausted that I just want to
climb into bed and sleep, and
he just wants to have sex! I
have no desire to have sex
whatsoever. When we do have
sex, he says I don’t put enough
effort into it
Well, it’s been this way
since the baby was bom.
Honestly, he is a great hus
band; he helps tremendously
with the baby. He sometimes
gets upset with me and tells me
that he is a good man and that
I don’t appreciate him. BUT I
DO! PLEASE HELP.
Thank you, Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
It’s completely normal for
your sex drive to decrease
after having a baby Not only
are your hormones working
against your libido - watching
Barney all day doesn’t exactly
put you in the mood to get
it on. Being a mother has its
rewards, but feeling sexy isn’t
oneoflhem.
Try to set aside some time
every week to get romantic
with your husband. Even if
you don’t have the desire to
have sex, the two of you need
that time to be intimate with
one another. This alone will
decrease some of the argu
ments about sex.
The only thing a man really
needs is to feel adequate. They
just want to feel like whatever
they are - it’s good enough.
Your husband sees his role
with you as a job, and he wants
to feel as though he’s fulfilled
his duty.
Try giving him little “atta
boys” for things he does
around the house. Thank him
for taking out the garbage, or
just mention how much you
enjoy having him around. Tell
him what a good provider he is.
Men are really dumb animals
when it comes down to it
Don’t forget to communi
cate with your husband about
what turns you on. If you give
him some direction as to the
things that *ahem* arouse your
interest you might be inclined
to “put more effort” into the
lovemaking.
Spartan controversy
‘300, ’ the movie,
incites debates over
historical accuracy
and political subtext.
. Heatherann Price
j
The Clackamas Print
The movie 300 has generated
some talk - Iran is demanding an
apology.
Critics of 300 say that the film
displays the Iranian people in a
negative way, incites hate and is
helping to pave the way for war
between our two peoples.
There are many undeniable
points made by supporters of this
claim.
The Persian special ops troops
are grossly misshaped, looking
like bat-faced people. The Persian
army consists of other oddities,
such as a fat giant with knife
arms.
The Spartans are all white,
shining examples of manhood,
parading about in leather trunks
and blazing, red capes, their hard,
chiseled muscles gleaming.
Persia uses its superior num
bers, along with exotic animals and
wizards, to crush the Spartans.
The Spartan forces were only
300 men, with a few volun
after the first two victims were
discovered would have been
next to impossible.
Most students were still en
route to the campus; how were
they to be contacted? If they
simply arrived and found class
es cancelled, their most likely
course of action would be to
all gather in one place and talk
to each other to find out what’s
going, on. Can anyone imagine
what a wonderful target a crowd
of hundreds of students in one
spot would have been for Cho
Seung-Hui?
Administrations don’t plan
for random, once-in-a-lifetime
incidents like this. They can’t,
or else they would spend 100
percent of their time in plan
ning meetings. The faculty of
Virginia Tech is not to blame in
this, and I resent the implication
that we should all dig a hole and
hide every, time some nutter goes
off the deep end.
I refuse to live in constant
fear.
movie 300 is historically accu
rate.
If that is not enough, I’d like
to ask how many people knew
that the Persian Empire occupies
much of the same land that Iran
does today? I didn’t.
More to the point, the
Spartans were not set up
to be perfect either. They
were shown to kill
all of their infants
who
were
bom imper
fect. They
practiced
the
very
“pagan”
act of sac-
rificing
women to priests, who used them
as oracles and sex slaves. In addi
tion, one of the deformed charac
ters in the movie is a Spartan.
Xerxes the Great is made out to
be a god. Through camera angles,
he is eight feet tall and just as
muscular and scantily clad as
the Spartans. He is adorned with
piercings and gold, made to look
like a great, bald demigod.
If you watch closely, you can
see the Great Leonidas waver
when he is offered rulership by
Xerxes, if only the former will
bow before the latter. Even our
great, white Spartan is not perfect.
This film does not favor either
side.
The movie 300 is just that:
a movie. It is a movie based on
a graphic novel, inspired by a
movie, based on mythic events,
birthed by a battle in 480 B.C.
You can see anything you want
to see in literature, be it film or
books. Mostly, we tend to see
what we want to see. So, take a
look in the mirror.
Photo Illustration by Jennesa Palmer and Nicholas Baker Clackamas Print
Fashion tips for the oblivious woman
lela Dickerson
The Clackamas Print
■ I
Girl, where did that outfit
come from?
Women who wear cloth
ing that doesn’t fit them are
irritating - and it’s not just fat
women. Women who don’t dress
appropriately to their size, age
and body type are obnoxious
and offensive.
There are no words to express
how gross it is to see a large
woman walking down the street
with her
shirt so tight that her
.......
stomach is literally bursting out
of her shirt, her thighs ripping
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teer allies. They fight to defend
their homes and freedom. King
Leonidas and his troops are
presented as being upstanding
examples of manhood, who value
freedom and the intelligence of
women.
The Persians are shown as
being deformed, power-hungry
invaders who have slaves and treat
women as
objects.
These
are all good
points;
however,
those claim
ing
that
this movie
incites hate
have forgot
ten that it is
a flight of fiction.
The
movie
300 is based on a
graphic novel that
was inspired by
the movie The 300
Spartans, made in
1962. Warner Bros, had been
planning a remake of said film
since the 1990s.
Yes, there was a battle of
Thermopylae. Yes, the Persians
invaded, and yes, roughly 300
Spartans held them off and were
nearly wiped out, giving Athens
enough time to rally their army
and defeat the Persians soon
after. Almost nothing else in the
They would probably consider
me to still be a kid, and I can
assure them that kids are per
fectly capable of telling the dif
ference between reality and a
video game.
For that matter, kids have
been playing violent games for a
lot longer than video games have
existed. How is it any different
for a little kid with a plastic gun
to “shoot” his friend in a game
of Cops and Robbers? For that
matter, how is paintball or laser
tag any less violent than a game
like Halol
Of course, that particular
subject was soon drowned out
by strident claims that the
Virginia Tech administration
“hadn’t done enough” to pro
tect the students. I don’t doubt
that there will be multiple
wrongful death suits against
the university from bereaved
parents.
This ignores the fact that
there wasn’t much the school
could do. Closing the campus
at the seams of her jeans. Sixty-
five-year-old women who dress
like teeny hoppers are nauseat
ing, and size-zero girls who wear
oversized sweaters and jeans are
aggravating. People need to learn
how to dress,
From a retail clothing stand
point, every day there are women
who can be spotted shopping whose
clothing just doesn’t fit.
For example, the plus-sized,
middle-aged woman who insists
on dressing in clothing that is too
small for her. Her stomach hangs
out from the bottom of her shirt
and flaps against her thighs. There
is a lot attractive clothing for plus
sized women, and there is a reason
A d AfaftAoag Elizabeth Hitz
S taff W riters : Nicholas Baker,
why pants are sized up to 32.
On the flip side, those skinny
girls who dress in huge sweaters
and baggy jeans are exasperating.
Someone should grab them by their
scrawny shoulders and shake some
sense into them. Why can’t they
wear clothing that is the appropri
ate size? Again, there are plenty of
clothes that fit them, and there are
size zero jeans.
Above all, the most distasteful
are the 55-year-old women who
dress like teenage bimbos. If a
woman has more wrinkles than a
bulldog puppy and her children
have children, she shouldn’t be
dressing like she’s 16 - plain and
simple.
Garrilynn Harvey, Chris Young
P hotographers : Juno Dean,
Kayla Berge, Benjamin Caldwell, Brandy-Marie Faulhaber, Jennesa
Jesse Dees, Leia Dickerson, Frank Palmer
Jordan, Heatherann Price, Dustin D epartment A dviser : Linda Vogt
Ragsdale, Jess Sheppard, Andrea
Simpson, Liz Travers, Sean Van
D epartment S ecretary : Pat
Walchren, Emily Walters
Thompson
P roduction A ssistants : Joseph
Elliot, Rachel Gillette,
G oals : The Clackamas Print aims
to report the news in an honest,
unbiased, professional manner.
The opinions expressed do not
necessarily reflect those of the stu
dent body college administration,
its faculty or The Print. E-mail
comments to chiefed@clackamas.
edu.