Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Ann Premer, Editor
Gerry Doyle, Managing editor
Angie Kuhn, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser
Jamie Holman, Business manager
Sarra Cropper, Retail sales manager
Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser
Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
Friday, April 30, 1999
The Chicago Tribune
Editorials
Proposed Gas Out e-mail misses chance to promote conservation
A forwarded e-mail titled "Gas Out" begins: "It's time we did something about the prices of gasoline in America!" The e-mail claims that gasoline prices would drop drastically if a few million Americans did not patronize the gas pumps today.
In reality, a 24-hour Gas Out is a cop-out. The call for a consumer boycott on a single day is short-sighted and will have a negligible effect on gasoline prices. Buying gasoline yesterday or tomorrow, as the e-mail encourages, does not, during the span of the weekend affect the amount of gasoline sold.
However, a significant decrease in gasoline use can be achieved through a nationwide collaborative effort to conserve gasoline on an everyday basis.
Walking, biking and car pooling can help preserve gasoline on a daily basis.
This effort may mean personal inconvenience, but it is a realistic solution.
The solution entails individuals choosing to walk and bike, organize car pools and drive fuel-efficient cars. Only through a conscious undertaking by a majority of the public to conserve fuel continuously can any real impact be made.
The reason for the Gas Out is that the "so-called oil cartel has decided to slow production by some 2 million barrels per day to drive up the
price."
Although this may be true, slowed production and higher prices serve a purpose.
High gas prices, as much or more than any environmentalist literature, encourage people to limit gasoline use.
The concern to merely reduce gas prices is, in itself, a selfish one.
Everyone, including those who received or forwarded the e-mail and considered participating in the Gas Out, should consider participating in a life-long Gas Out.
The e-mail ends. "We CAN make a difference." An improved ending would be. "We CAN make a difference EVERY DAY."
And that is the e-mail that should be forwarded.
Katrina Hull for the editorial board
Students' vehicles to boost Saferide
Students are lucky to have access to Saferide. The University provides them with a program that offers a safe alternative to drunk driving. Not only should students use it, but they should also support it when given the opportunity.
At noon tomorrow, Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol (G.A.M.M.A.) will provide the chance for students to support this valuable program.
From noon to 6 p.m. at the Lied Center parking lot, members of G.A.M.M.A. will be washing cars as a benefit for Saferide.
Safeider, a program that serves students between the hours of 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., picks up students from anywhere in the Lawrence
A car wash tomorrow will benefit the campus alternative to drunk driving.
area and provides them with transportation to their homes.
Without Saferide, most students would be without a safer ride home.
Students should stop by the Lied Center tomorrow, have the raindrop streaks washed from their windows and make donations to the Saferide program.
Because of the six-year-old Saferide program, a service that extends a helping hand to intoxicated students or just persons in need of a lift, the University has helped to cultivate a feeling of security among the KU community. Whether people are looking for a way home that is safer than walking through campus or taking a risk on Lawrence streets, Saferide is the everpresent alternative.
Not only should they get their cars washed, but students also should make donations to expand
and support the presence of Saferide on the University campus.
A program that serves the students so dependably deserves their monetary support at tomorrow's car wash.
Kansan staff
Emily Hughey for the editorial board
Ryan Koerner . . . Editorial
Jeremy Doherty . . Associate editorial
Aaron Marvin . . News
Laura Roddy . . Neus
Melissa Ngo . . Neus
Aaron Knopf . Online
Erin Thompson . Sports
Marc Sheforden . Associate sports
Chris Fickett . Campus
Sarah Hale . Campus
T.R. Miller . Features
Steph Brewer . Associate features
Augustus Anthony Piazza . Photo
Chris Dye . Design, graphics
Carl Kaminski . Wire
Carolyn Mollett . Special sections
Laura Veazey . Neus clerk
News editors
Matt Lopez . . . Special sections
Jennifer Patch . . . Campus
Micah Kafitz . . . Regional
Jon Schlitt . . National
Tyler Cook . . . Marketing
Shannon Curran . PR/Intern manager
Christa Estep . Production
Steven Prince . Production
Chris Corley . Creative
Jason Hannah . Classified
Corine Buffmire . Zone
Shauntae Blue . Zone
Brandi Byram . Zone
Brian Allers . Zone
Justin Allen . Zone
Advertising managers
Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." —Jack Kerouac
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 home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and guest columns
Guest columns: Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staufer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ryan Koerner or Jeremy Doherty at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924.
Perspective
Inconsistency plagues U.S. defense policies
that "Since wars start in (people), it is in the minds of (people) that the defenses of peace must be constructed."
The preamble to the Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization states that "Since wars start in the minds of (peo-
These words, embodying the spirit and mission of UNESCO, are particularly significant now that the United States wants to build a missile defense system that would protect its territory against "enemy" missiles.
Donato
Fhunsu
spinion @ kansas.com
This decision is puzzling, given what we are telling our youth these
days. We urge them to be responsible, to refrain from using alcohol, cigarettes and other drugs. We encourage them to recycle and protect the environment. We want them to be aware of the dangers of risky sexual behaviors and the tragedy of resolving conflicts through guns and other forms of weapons. We want them to resolve conflict peacefully. We want them to be socially engaged and fiscally responsible — that is, if they can achieve the same results with $1, they should not spend $100.
These recommendations seem logical enough, and those of us who work with children, adolescents and young adults make them every day.
However, when it comes to making the big decisions that affect the welfare of the whole world, many in the U.S. government and the defense industry throw overboard the advice they want children to follow. This is inconsistent and hypocritical, and there is nothing more frustrating to the youth than inconsistency and hypocrisy on the part of the adults who are supposed to give them positive guidance.
dampant inconsistency characterizes our political life. We refused to sign on to the treaty to ban land mines. Although we preach nuclear arm non-proliferation, our own nuclear arsenal is well and alive. Chemical and biological weapons are having a life of their own, and conventional weapons have become high-tech killing toys.
Still animated by a Cold War mentality, we expanded NATO to bring in more "allies." During World War II, we had to ally ourselves against the powers of the Axis Alliance and, after the war, against the powers of the Warsaw Pact. During the Gulf War, we had to ally ourselves against Iraq.
Now, we are allied against Slobodan Milosevic and Serbia at the cost of about $40 million a day and much human misery.
Saddam Hussein, we argue, was defeated and his powers seriously diminished. I don't know about that. Anybody who takes away my peace of mind and causes me to control his slightest moves has gained tremendous power over me.
The money we spend in search of enemies and on the defense against those enemies is money not spent on education, social welfare and health care.
We like to literally recreate history. We had a formidable enemy in the form of the former Soviet Union. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, we want another political entity to take its place. We want Russia to have that privilege. But Russia has other pressing problems.
So we say, "If Russia is not up to the challenge, let's try China. And while we are at it, just in case this does not work either, let's have a waiting list and put some candidates on it: North Korea, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Serbia. Let's spend millions of dollars and construct a missile defense system against these potential enemies. The 2000 elections are approaching. We need campaign issues that will exploit people's fears, and the defense contractors in our districts can use the astronomic price of fear."
The missile defense system we want to build is supposed to meet and destroy incoming missiles. Will destruction be the end of the story? What if the warheads are nuclear, chemical or biological? How do we defend against the fallout?
Besides, the United States is not only the continental United States. What about Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam? Are we also going to protect them? If not, why not? Waco and Oklahoma City showed us that there are a few bad apples in the bosom of Uncle Sam, and they can do serious damage to our security. Do we also build a bomb defense system?
Instead of squandering billions of dollars on prohibitive military projects, we should invest the money on domestic social justice and education, international understanding, educational, cultural and goodwill exchanges among the young people who will inherit the world of tomorrow.
Wars do start in the minds and hearts of people. Idle thoughts, selfish thoughts and hateful thoughts produce idle words, selfish words and hateful words. The hateful and destructive action of violence and war are then only a natural consequence.
We have been getting the wrong answer about peace because we have been asking the wrong question: "How can we defend ourselves against our enemies when they attack us?"
The question we should ask is: "Our neighbors and us share the same planet. How can we foster sincere harmony among us in a spirit of mutual respect?"
Despite the present folly, I look forward to the day when "E pluribus unum," unity in diversity, will transform not only the United States but the whole planet through the positive use of the creative imagination. This, I believe, is the deep meaning of the American Dream and the true purpose of the American Experiment.
Fhunsu is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism.
Advertisers lure buyers with sneaky commercial
Slender men and women slurp ice cream sundaes and scarf down French fries. They eat double and triple cheeseburgers. They eat onion rings by the handful.
They eat onion rings by the f
They never gain a pound, and best of all, they don't exercise a lick. All they do is make sure they pop their brand-name pills on time, and the pills do the exercise for them.
Have you seen this ludicrous commercial? At first, it appears to be a Saturday Night Live-style parody, but this is a serious sales pitch.
Come on, now. Everyone knows that exercise cannot come in a bottle. Exercise helps people physically
Weslander
opinion@kansan.com
mentally and emotionally in ways that no pill can.
But the creators of this commercial would like us to think differently—that if we swallow a few of these capsules every day, we can go back for seconds, thirds and fourths, and not even have to do Tae-Bo.
What a deal.
What a detail. The lengthy infemercial claims that as people get older, their activity level drops — as though it's a mysterious chemical force working on them. They just don't have time for exercise.
Then they gain weight.
Then they gain weight.
Well, put me in a leatard and call me Richard
Seems to me that if people are so concerned about staying healthy and slim, they should not let that mysterious "activity level" drop in the first place.
The ad informs viewers that the product is totally safe: no drugs, no caffeine and no side effects.
Simmons. I didn't know that.
No side effects? What about a chemical bond between the rump and the couch? Pure, unadultered laziness? Pent-up stress?
College students have enough of these things as it is.
It's baffling that an ad like this doesn't violate some kind of FCC regulations. But like many diet supplements, these pills are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which means advertisers could claim they were the secret to eternal life and probably get away with it.
Before students pawn their athletic equipment to buy bottles of "miracle" diet pills, they should consider some other ways to lose weight; walking instead of riding the bus, cutting back on the 64-oz. Cokes, or visiting a dietitian at Watkins for some suggestions about how to eat better. (It's cheap — only about $10 per visit.)
There's also the KU FIT program at Robinson Center, as well as a variety of intramural sports.
These are suggestions from Watkins' chief of staff, Randall Rock. One of the last things the doctor would recommend? Exercise in a bottle.
Weslander is a Floyds Knobs, Ind., senior in journalism.
Editor's note
Chad Bettes, Shawnee graduate student, and Seth Hoffman, Lenexa junior, have been selected as the Fall 1999 editorial editor and associate editorial editor.
Applications for Fall 1999
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editorial board members, columnists and editorial cartoonists are available in The University Daily Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer Flint Hall, and the Organizations and Leadership Development Center, 400 Kansas Union.
Applications must be completed and returned to Seth Hoffman's mailbox in the newsroom by 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 5. Call the newsroom at 864-4924 with questions.