Opinion
The University Daily Kansan
Laura Roddy, Editor
Sarah Hale, Managing editor
Kristi Elliott, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser
Shaunte Blue, Business manager
Brad Bolyard, Retail sales manager
Matt Fisher, Sales and marketing adviser
Scott Valler, Technology coordinator
Wednesday, April 5, 2000
Clav McCuistion / KANSAN
Editorials
Kansan report card
PASS
Baseball season — Spring has sprung, and with it, baseball abounds. The Royals open their home season Friday. Kansas baseball's next home game is April 14 vs. Oklahoma.
New dean — Provost ends long search and hires F贝满Fuerst from TEXAS &AMD to lead the
FAIL
- Dirty tricks — To prove they have too much time on their hands, local goons tear down coalition banners across town.
a site relies completely on advertising for revenue, it's not going to make billions.
Uh-oh.com — Several Internet whiz kids didn't ever come up with a method of raking in cash to pay for their morning cappuccinos. Our investment advice: If
Home Depot — Soon to be built mega-hardware store evicts trailer park residents living at construction site. Better Home Depot than a twister.
New cybercafe will benefit students
The construction of a new cybercafe on the third floor of the Kansas Union is a good move. The new cafe will benefit students while allowing the Javbowl to remain in existence.
Earlier this year, a controversy arose concerning the implementation of a cybercafe. Problems occurred because earlier plans involved destroying the Jaybowl to make room for the cafe. This plan upset many people who thought that the Jaybowl was a tradition that should not be replaced at the University of Kansas.
Now, a compromise has been reached that will be beneficial to students. The new cybercafe will occupy the northeast corner of the dining
Plan preserves the Jaybowl, provides computers; lost space to be retrieved with renovation
area on the third level of the Union, while the Jaybowl will continue to remain on the first floor. Putting the cafe on the third floor will maintain the recreational nature of the first floor.
The construction of the cybercafe will result in lost dining space on the third floor, but the loss is only temporary. The lost space will be replaced when an additional 1,600 to 1,800 square feet of space is created with
the Union's renovation. Not only will the cafe provide much-needed computers on campus, the computers also will be located in an environment conducive to studying.
The computers also will be readily accessible. A door will be cut into the building to provide 24-hour access to the cafe but will limit access to the rest of the Union. The cafe also will be enclosed, possibly by a glass partition, which would allow light in, but keep noise out.
The cybercafe will offer students an easily accessible study area with more computers. Providing this and keeping the Jaybowl seems to be a winning combination.
Heather Herrman for the editorial board
Kansan staff
Seth Hoffman ... Editorial
Nadia Mustafa ... Editorial
Melody Ard ... News/Special sections
Chris Fickett ... News
Julie Wood ... News
Juan H. Heath ... Online
Mike Miller ... Sports
Matt James ... Associate sports
Katie Hollar ... Campus
Nathan Willis ... Campus
Heather Woodward ... Features
Chris Borniger ... Jayplay
T.J. Johnson ... Photo imaging
Christina Neff ... Photo
Jason Pearce ... Design, graphics
Clay McCuistion ... Wire
News editors
Becky LaBranch ... *Special sections*
Krista Lindemann ... *Campus*
Ryan Riggin ... *Regional*
Jason Hannah ... *National*
Will Baxter ... *Online sales*
Patrick Rupe ... *Online creative*
Seth Schwimmer ... *Marketing*
Jenny Weaver ..*Creative layout*
Matt Thomas ..*Assistant creative*
Kenna Crone ..*Assistant creative*
Trent Guyer ..*Classifieds*
Jon Schittt ... *Zone*
Thad Crane ... *Zone*
Cecily Curran ... *Zone*
Christy Davies ... *Zone*
Broaden your mind: Today's quote
Advertising managers
"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon."
E. M. Forster
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924
Tommy was a 5-year-old kindergarten student who had recently begun to color with nothing but black crayon.
Everything in his artwork was black — even the suns that were supposed to be yellow and the grass that was supposed to be green.
Perspective
His teacher, suspecting depression or problems at home, became incredibly concerned and contacted his parents. They had several phone conferences and met with the elementary school counselor to discuss his "problem." Therapy was mentioned as a solution. Tommy's parents were dumbfounded—their son had grown up in a loving, nurturing environment.
Details are just that; don't read too deeply
Lori O'Toole columnist opinion@kansan.com
The following afternoon, Tommy's mom asked if he was having any problems at school.
"Anything at all?" he whispered. "Promise you won't get mad!"
"Yes," she said, sighing deeply and expecting the worst.
He looked up to her, his little green eyes
welling with tears.
"Please don't be mad," he begged. "It's not my fault."
Images of abuse from a school bus driver or an older friend ran through his mother's mind before being interrupted by his cry: "I broke all my new crayons, and all I have left is my ugly black one!"
A grade school teacher told me this story years ago, and I often think about the lesson of misinterpretation it teaches. It's easy to misunderstand others' actions, body language and comments like Tommy's parents and teacher did.
A recent episode of the Thursday night sitcom Stark Raving Mad also touched upon the issue of misinterpretation, but on the collegiate level. During the 30-minute show, entitled "The Grade," horror writer Ian Stark helped his friend Katherine write a paper about his own
When Stark met the professor during office hours to discuss Katherine's grade, the professor explained that she did not have a handle on the author's intentions. The irony of the situation is blindly obvious — the author of the book and the author of the English paper were the same person. It was the professor who had a misconception of the author's intent.
The television show reminded me that there could be many interpretations of literature, music, art and conversation. But an open mind and a nonjudgmental approach to them is indispensable, especially because an individual's analysis could be incorrect.
book for her junior college English class.
*Frasier star* kelsey Grammer guest starred as Professor Tuttle, who refused to sway from the 'B' he gave her on the paper.
There are many times in classes when I think others may be reading into something a bit too excessively. I am an English major and love discovering symbolism, parallels and representation in carefully crafted literature. But at times, supporting detail could be just that — not everything has to reflect, represent and require reading between the lines.
I have been that writer whose work has been misinterpreted. I wrote a column for my high school newspaper years ago about the desperate measures some teenagers took to attract the attention of members of the opposite sex. I described such actions through a fictional character, "Anita Man." (Yes, you're correct if you interpreted the name to sound like "I need a man.") After the column was published, a friend asked if I had intentionally made Anita Man's initials the same as a student at our high school whom my friend believed was demonstrating similar actions. But I had not modeled Anita after anyone in particular. My friend twisted my words to represent something they did not.
I try to keep this in mind while I'm interpreting a poem, story or conversation — maybe everything is colored in black because the other cravons are broken.
O'Toole is a Wichita junior in English and journalism.
U.S. should not support child soldiers in battle
In the international community, the dom inant means of exerting political power, however unfortunate, is violence. Whether it is direct military action, terrorism or economic deprivation, violence is an all too accepted means of acquiring "legitimate" political victory. For many militarily and economically weak countries, children often are used as both soldiers and targets.
According to the U.S. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, there are 300,000 people under the age of 18 who participate in
Erik Goodman guest columnist opinion at kansan.com
5
conflicts. Some of them are as young as 7. These children live in more than 30 countries and on almost every continent. Even more distressing, children now make up one-third of all modern war casualties. In the last decade, 5.5 million children were killed or maimed in conflicts, and another 12 million lost their homes.
Child soldiers are used for several reasons. First, they are easily manipulated into fighting because of
their lack of emotional and intellectual maturity. Second, many conflicts become so protracted and devastating to an area that there no longer are enough adults to fight. Seeing violence as the only solution and lacking any international aid or intervention, military commanders see children as a viable option. They often are seen as expendable and sent on particularly dangerous missions, such as walking through mine fields. They even are sent on suicide missions. Finally, young girls are seen as sexual objects for male soldiers. They sometimes are kept as sexual slaves and raped repeatedly.
Children most likely will become soldiers when they live in poverty or on the fringes of their societies. These children are "recruited" by being kidnapped, conscripted and violently coerced. They are sometimes taken, in large groups, from schools or orphanages. Children also are sometimes given to military groups by their parents, as even small wages can be the difference between families living or starving to death. Children without families or a means to provide themselves with food sometimes join fighting units believing that it is the only way to eat and have shelter.
A particularly perverse side effect of using
Even if we are to accept violence as a prop or means of political expression, we must at least demand that children are spared. This is simply in concert with human decency. The wars of adults need not be those of their children.
Because of our government's involvement in these atrocities, it is up to us to use whatever spare time or energy we may have to correct things. First, we can write letters to representatives praising the current aid to child victims of war and encourage more. We also can press our government to push for the success of the Optional Protocol of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would raise the international standard age of soldiers to a minimum of 18. We also can ask that the government work with groups who use child soldiers and encourage them to cease. Finally, we can pressure the media to expose the use of child soldiers and denounce it as the crime that it is.
children as soldiers is that children who are not combatants also become targets of violence. Because children are seen as potential enemies, soldiers are reported to have entered villages and killed all but the youngest children on the grounds who they were believed dangerous.
The fallout for a child who survives combat, as one can imagine, is terrible. There are profound emotional traumas caused by witnessing the brutality of war at any age, but especially when one is young. This is compounded when, coming home from war both psychologically and physically scarred, many children are rejected by their families. As these children have missed out on any type of education, they lack the knowledge and skills required to provide for themselves. Their futures are more than dim.
Fortunately, the United States and the United Nations are working to ease this situation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Amnesty International, the International Red Cross and the International Red Crescent are pushing to make the use of child soldiers illegal internationally. The U.S. government provides $20 million per year to Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe to help children displaced and injured by war.
Goodman is a Beaver Creek, Ohio, junior.
However, the United States also is a culprit in this situation. In 1997 alone, the United States provided almost a quarter of a billion dollars in military aid to countries and groups using child soldiers.
Feedback
Legal abortions are child executions, too
This is a response to a column that ran in the March 29 edition of the Kansan.
rape, or any other capital crime.
Warren Bainter Oberlin resident
If author Karen Keith really is concerned about executions of youth under 18, she might want to work to abolish legal abortions. Those executions involve victims that are clearly under age 18. And none of them is guilty of any murder,
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