Out in the distance, a Wildcat did growl.

Fans have begun camping out for Saturday's Big Blue Madness ticket distribution. The tent city is enveloping Memorial. Last night several players visited the campers, including Kevin Galloway and Darius Miller. Today, Coach Gillispie stopped by to say hello.

Sales Tax on Complaining, Not on Textbooks

As Americans, it is our god-given right to complain about things we don't like. When Benjamin Franklin wrote the Second Amendment, he knew good and well that people would complain about others walking around with bear arms. First of all, people just look stupid in bear arms, even if it is your Halloween costume. Beyond that, anyone that would wear bear arms is probably a communist.

I like to complain about things too. When George Bush leaves office, I'm going to be a little bit bummed. Complaining about W's nescient presidency has been a staple of my adult political chatter.

Everyone has something they like to complain about. For college students, it's the price of textbooks. As a college bookstore manager, I absolutely agree with students; textbooks are ridiculously expensive. If the price of textbooks was the end-all, cure-all, however, Wildcat Textbooks would be the biggest store on campus, not the smallest. There are books used this semester that Wildcat Textbooks was over $100.00 cheaper than UK Bookstore, but UK Bookstore probably sold more.

However, most innocent complaints often have very complex answers. For example, high gas prices. We don't care why; we just want the price to go back down. As often is the case, the person complaining really has no interest in the reason why or who is really to blame. A recent USA Today Gallup Poll found that 98 percent of the people who complain about anything don't really care as to the cause of their beef. That's why mad cow disease was so devastating in Europe.

UK's Student Government President wanted to prompt state legislators to remove sales tax from textbooks. Why? Because they are too expensive. That's true. It's also true that there is no sales tax on textbooks, but maybe there should be on mindless complaining.

If you really want to know why textbooks are expensive, I would be happy to tell you. If you have four hours to discuss it, let me know. When your eyes start glazing after fifteen minutes, there is only one thing I can say -- George Bush is a stupid-head.

Funny, Funny, Funny

To the left you'll see an editorial cartoon that appeared in the Kentucky Kernel a few days ago. It is funny. However, I'm afraid it is funny for reasons other than the artist intended.

Let me explain.

I feel the artist is implying that the tution hike that U.K. has levied on its students is paying for the Rupp Arena expansion and the new U.K. Law Building. The question the 'everyman' student depicted in the cartoon asks is that of a rhetorical nature.

Pretty perceptive on my part, huh? Bear with me-

The thing with most rhetoric questions is that the answers should be assumed to be a known truth- most of the time a 'yes' answer. This is an example of a 'rhetorical affirmation' (thank you, wikipedia) - A rhetorical question that intends the communication of "yes, of course". I.E., "yes, of course" my tuition increase is there to pay for Rupp Arena expansion and the new Law Building. Yes. Of course.

HA, Mr. Cartoon-guy- that's funny because it's true! That damned ole U.K. jacking up my rent to pay for some pretty buildings. Screw them and their money-grubbing ways. What's next? A new fountain in the President's yard?

The problem with the artist's joke is that 0% of U.K. students' 9% tuition increase goes to either one of these projects. Do you know how I know that? Because 0% of the total tuition students pay goes towards those projects. That's right, the question the artist apparently expected would receive a resounding 'yes' (or at least a "huh, I bet it does go to that" ) instead gets a resounding 'no'.

That's why I think it's funny. Because it's so ill-informed that I have to laugh at the stupidity of one who would mock an institution of higher learning for its supposed frivolous tuition increases while citing examples that have nothing to do with tuition money from that university.

The Rupp Arena expansion is a city project. Complain about your city taxes if you want, but don't insinuate that the university that has a basketball team that plays there somehow is responsible for paying for a building it doesn't own. That's so obvious I didn't even look it up. Hell, if you really want to blame someone for Rupp Arena's expansion, blame Brad Paisley- he has concerts there all the time and his songs suck.

The Law Building, however, required exhaustive research on my part. This included a google-fueled trip to this website - http://www.uky.edu/Law/alumni/building_fund.html , where I found this statement - "The College is raising private donations in the amount of $13,000,000 to match the $52,000,000 commitment of state funds for the $65,000,000 project."

I was fairly sure that 'private' meant 'no U.K. tuition money'. But what about 'state funds'? Since not 100% sure I was forced to call a buddy that works for U.K. to make sure that I read that right. No tuition to build the new Law Building! He confirmed my suspicion, and after a full 38.2 seconds of digging around, I had my answer.

So, it is very funny to me that a guy would draw a cartoon making fun of the reasons for U.K.'s tuition hike when those reasons don't exist.