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Wasted Potential is like tossing your Peanut Butter Sandwich
Konnie Sewell | Staff Reporter

There are three things in this world I loathe more than anything: peanut butter, math class and the waste of promise.
I understand there are near legions of students who would tar and feather me for degrading their favorite all-purpose snack; for many, peanut butter is a major food group. I also realize that two friends of mine, both of whom happen to be math majors, are blissfully unaware that the mere thought of my ever coming into contact with another square root sign makes my blood hurt. But for a person to waste their potential? That's just ignorant and worthy of a self-inflicted eye jab. Many, many eye jabs.
Let's take it from the top.
Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey were once the definition of the word diva, and all that being a diva entails: big voices, big personalities and (for a time) big hair. Their hair has since shrunk, as have their record sales, popularity and, by extension, their voices. That’s when, along with Michael Jackson, they decided to go ten kinds of crazy on us poor, unsuspecting church mice who never saw it coming. They are now cracked shells of their former selves. Drugs, mental instability and morbid views on parenting followed, and as of right now, there doesn’t seem to be any light leading back to the platinum records and MTV guest appearances.
Frankly, it’s not them I’m worried about - although other people seem to care a great deal about them. By most people’s standards, Houston, Carey and Jackson had (and, I presume, still have) voices and star quality that could knock anyone’s socks off. They’ve just...misplaced it, is all. Still, they aren’t my cup of Starbucks: give me Paul Banks’ unsettling monotone and Tim Pagnotta’s broken snarl any day of the week.
Which leads me one step away from the top.
Pete Doherty, lead singer of British excitables the Libertines, has shown he can do some remarkable things with his bandmates when he’s not skipping his rehab appointments or simply disappearing off the face of the planet for freakishly extended periods of time. And Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots/Velvet Revolver fame? Don’t get me started on his repeat offences and frequent flirtations with the darker side of life.
Now, these two are guys that I could learn to respect, just short of caring about. As you can imagine, it’s sad for me to have to group them with the unholy trinity that is Houston-Carey-Jackson. But they all share a common flaw: their artistic callings usually end up being kicked to the curb as they give into the temptation of their choice. Weiland and Doherty, though, aren’t divas; at any rate, they dress a little bit more like me, talk more like me (or maybe I just dress and talk a bit more like them), and don’t hold all those nasty elitist views that those in the top favor. They are more human, less robot; more loveable rust, less untouchable pristine.
The scariest thing about all of this is that a person’s blatant disregard for himself doesn’t just fester inside those on the top and those one step away from the top: the people close to me, here in the dirty bottom, in the most removed place from the top, are susceptible to it as well.
Most people seem to have just given up. Friends, classmates, the occasional family member - can some people just not see how much talent they’ve been blessed with? Are they so blind to the greatness that seeps through their fingertips? They value themselves so little that they throw everything away. Somehow, they cannot see what I see. Or, if they do see it, they ignore it and follow the examples of those at the top. I don’t want to think about my two younger brothers growing up and possibly not even trying, when I know they are capable of good, if not great, things. It’s the same way I don’t want to think about Craig Nicholls of the Vines deciding to finally and irrevocably lose it: it’s selfish to purposely hide, or sometimes even kill, something so fantastic.
Come on - animals don’t even do it. Animals go all out and give it their all, whether it’s finishing a nest or making that last bound in order to catch that night’s dinner. It’s a part of their survival. Any human can survive, but that’s just basic. We are not animals; we are capable of more than just surviving. We are capable of living. We each have the possibility within ourselves to make others live as well, through poetry, music, lame jokes and well-timed hugs. People weren’t meant to merely survive.
So eat your stupid peanut butter, and take more math classes than necessary - I’ll shudder and eventually get over it. Just don’t waste any of the innate flair you were born with.

Want some good Advice? Don't look for Answers in Seventeen
Camron Rushin | Editor-In-Chief

I was reading my favorite magazine, “Seventeen”, and I think I’ve found my true calling. I’ve always been interested in the advice columns in “Seventeen,” and I think I could do a much better job. People who write advice columns always give sugar-coated advice that no one is ever going to use.  
Here are some examples of questions in “Seventeen” and here is how I would answer them.
Q. I always end up cheating on my boyfriend. Should I just stay away from relationships altogether?
A. Yes.
Q. My mom found two condoms in my room and is now thinking I’m sexually active, but I’m not. What should I do?
A. Buy some more condoms and use them to make a bow for your hair. Tell your mom you had condoms to make hair bows because they are the latest fashion. Get your friend to do the same thing the next day. Pretty soon everyone at your school will be wearing condoms in their hair. They’ll look stupid, but your mom will be off your back.
Q. My friend and I drifted apart since I found out that she slept with my boyfriend. I now have a new boyfriend and really miss my friend. On one hand, I want to trust her and not dig up the past, but on the other, I don’t want the same thing to happen again. Is this possible?
A. First of all, tell your new boyfriend that your friend has herpes. He won’t go anywhere near her. Your old boyfriend was probably a chump anyway,  so get over it and talk to your friend.
Q. In the past four months, I’ve hooked up with four different guys. Each time I think that it will lead to a relationship, and three of them promised it would. But it never led anywhere but to more booty calls. Is there something wrong with me that makes guys want to hook up with me but not date me?
A. There are probably one of two things wrong with you. You either have a bad reputation or you’re borderline ugly. Either of these things would make guys want to hook up with you but not date you. You could either lower your standards and date uglier, uncool guys or join a convent.
Booty calls from four different guys in four months is outrageous. Most people don’t even know four members of the opposite sex who would consider talking to them. Consider yourself lucky.
Q. I really like this guy, and he seems very nice and flirts with me, in a way, I guess. We also have a lot in common, but I found out the other day that he is gay. What can I do now, since I like him so much?
A. Tell him that your sexual orientation attracts you to gay men. He’s got to respect that. If he doesn’t fall for it, you can always get him drunk and have your way with him. Maybe he has bisexual tendencies and has been waiting for someone like you to come along.
Q. It started with my dad’s drinking. Then he got divorced and started taking drugs. Now he’s addicted. He tells me he will change, but he never does. I love him, and I’m scared for him. How can I help him?
A. The only way you can help him is to show him how he’s hit bottom. You need to break into his stash and get really junked out. When your dad sees his little girl all strung-out, it should break his heart. If that doesn’t scare him straight, he doesn’t love you.
Q. I just met this guy at work a couple of days ago, and we constantly flirt. I really want to go out with him, but I’m worried that maybe I’m moving too fast and will scare him away. Not to mention, I don’t want things to get weird in our workplace. Should I wait for him to make the move or go for it?
A. I’m sure this guy is asking himself the same question. When are girls going to realize that guys are twice as insecure about making advances? Go ahead and jump him. If he doesn’t follow through, pretend like it was an accident.  Don’t worry about things getting weird in the workplace. If you’re flirting, things are already weird.
Q. I don’t mind guys grabbing my butt or touching me like that. I also made out with a guy I don’t know very well. Does this make me a slut?
A. Yes. You should call me.  


Disc Jockey wows crouds on either side of the Atlantic
Richard Carter | For the Wichitan

The appellation disc jockey means more than guys and gals with deep voices playing hit records on radio stations. 
Over the last couple of decades, DJs, or turntablists, have taken to digging deep into past and more obscure musics to develop a complex vocabulary to draw from to manipulate and re-contextualize sounds and beats.
More than just playing records, these DJs are creating musical scapes for listeners to re-discover new and old musical forms in vital ways.
OK, enough of the big words, let me just say it then: they’ve become recording artists in their own right.
That more and more people frequent dance clubs that feature music like this, and purchase mix CDs, suggests how much musical taste has evolved. But since not everyone is just dancing to these mixes, it illustrates that people are responding to more than the beats in this new “dance.”
Listen to DJ Krush or DJ Cam, anything on the Ninja Tunes label, or even Chemical Brothers, for that matter.
One of the more intriguing and versatile DJs over the past 10 years is Miss Kittin (Caroline Herve), a Swiss miss best know for her chill-out mixes performed in clubs all over Europe and lately in New York.
Her 2003 collection of mixes titled “Radio Caroline Volume I” gathered together a fresh set of 20 ambient and techno tunes, interrupted only by her sensuously inflected ho-hum, post-ironic comments.
Hardly a deep voice, but one that does utter some pretty interesting things.
For example, in her dance-hit “Frank Sinatra” from several years back, Herve bemusedly told listeners to do stuff that was biologically impossible, for her and the rabble. It’s classic stuff.
The DJ has just released her first proper solo album titled “I Com” in which she wrote and sings all of the 12 tunes. The music, properly enough, is informed mostly by the style, vocabulary and substance of her DJ-ing.
This project follows Herve’s past collaborative projects with DJ Hacker, “First Album,” and DJ Golden Boy titled “Or.” Both of these earlier albums are worthwhile and electroclash oriented.
In a recent e-mail interview I conducted with Miss Kittin, she explained that her turning to do a solo album doesn’t mean she’s quitting her DJ thing.
“I started as a DJ,” she wrote to me, “will always be a DJ, but it happened when I made music ‘on the side,’ it worked! So well, I keep on going...”
Because of her musical versatility and adventurousness, along with loads of charm and attitude, she was recently offered a stage role in a musical, which she refused.
“I was not interested in sacrificing three months of my life in a caravan learning a text, waiting for make-up and the word ‘action!’” she explained.
She prefers the immediacy of DJ-ing, something not based around a set script.  For Herve, making music comes down to the immediacy and joy of playing and manipulating other musical forms.
“I love to DJ because it’s the ultimate freedom, in a three hour set for example, to play music of other people and change the atmosphere instantly. The creative process is instant.”
The studio setting while making her solo record was an adjustment for her, though.
“When making music, the process has a meaning only when the song takes life, then it’s dead,” she wrote.
“I Com” turned out to be a lot easier for her to do than she imagined, largely because of the different musicians and DJs she’s worked with.
“I realized I knew more than I thought, being in so many studios with so many different kind of people.”
Herve feels that her various musical experiences have made her a better DJ over the years. Despite her mother’s past appreciation for famous DJ Laurent
Garnier, attitudes have since changed in the Herve family.
“Now she definitely changed her mind, 10 years have passed! And I am her daughter, so for her I am the best!!!”
Although Herve has no present plans to tour Texas, she did plan on immediately taking a nap after out Net chat to escape the hot afternoon sun of New York--being a cool cat DJ and living all that righteous nightclub life.
Her favorite new listen? Oddly enough, it’s “the great Eagles of Death Metal album called ‘Peace Love Death Metal.’”
Nowadays, it seems that DJ’s are only sometimes what they play, paraphrasing the once great David Bowie.