Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Ann Premer, Editor Jamie Holman, Business manager
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Friday, April 23, 1999
The Chicago Tribune
Editorials
Campus becoming too dependent on the technology of new KUIDs
University of Kansas students are almost wholly dependent on the supposedly technologically advanced KUIDs. Yet another problem with this "smart card," however, could be on the horizon.
The new KUIDs first were issued last spring and were intended to enable students to buy sodas, use ATMs and other services on campus. Soon after being issued, students noticed several annoying qualities with the KUIDs.
For one, to be used as ATM cards, students had to open an account with Commerce Bank, exclusively. Moreover, when used as bus passes, they required a card reader that took several seconds to operate, resulting in long waits to board the buses. KU on Wheels eventually remedied this debacle by issuing separate bus cards.
And now, the KUID eventually will replace the copy cards in University libraries.
Mandi Turner, director of copying
The use of "smart cards" in library copiers could mean more lost cards for students.
services for the libraries, said that the company that services the machines that read the copy cards is going out of business. Thus, these machines are being phased out in favor of machines that will read KUIDs and deduct the appropriate amount from the card's microchip.
Students still will receive the reduced rate that copy cards offered, 7 cents per copy, if they use their KUID.
Dependence on one card has inherent problems. Consider, for example, the frequency with which copy cards are left in the machines and lost.
With a copy card, at the very worst, a student would lose a few dollars. But the KUID contains so much vital information that losing it could affect seriously a student's daily activities.
For example, a student living in a residence hall who forgets to take his KUID out of the copier and loses it has to go through excessive measures to enter the hall during quiet hours or to eat at the dining halls. And most students require KUIDs to gain entrance to exams and check out library materials. In short, getting stuck without a KUID could make one's life difficult, at least for several days. Students in this situation most likely would end up paying $15 for another KUID.
Turner said that any KUIDs turned into the libraries eventually would be returned to the owner. Nonetheless, she said that authorities obviously could not recover them all.
The increasing reliance of students on one card is disturbing. Students must remember to be careful with them. At the same time, they also can choose just how dependent they become on the card. For their own sake, students should consider using change to reduce the risk.
Chris Borniger for the editorial board
'Baby shower' volunteers prosperous
Several KU organizations earned a pat on the back for the work they have done for the Hannah's House Foundation. Non-Traditional Students Organization, Panhellenic Association, Center for Community Outreach, Watkins Scholarship Hall, Oliver Hall, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., KU Students for Life and the National Council of Negro Women raised money and supplies for the organization.
The groups hosted a non-traditional baby shower. Boxes were
Volunteers raised money, baby supplies for Hannah's House's teen-aged mothers.
placed around Lawrence at businesses where people could donate new or used baby supplies and money. The groups joined at Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1204 Oread Ave., for a "baby shower."
in the Hannah's House living room, thanks to volunteers and those who donated, said Jenn Chapman, House Director.
Chapman said the supplies and money still were coming in, and donations always were welcome. The money raised will be used to furnish educational supplies for the house.
Three large boxes, filled mostly with new baby supplies, are sitting
Hannah's House is a group home for teen mothers. The home offers support services such as pre-natal care, parenting classes and life-skills classes.
Erinn R. Barcomb for the editorial board
Kansan staff
Ryan Koener . . . . . . . . . Editorial
Jeremy Doherty . . . Associate editorial
Aaron Marvin . . . . . News
Laura Roddy . . . . . Nees
Melissa Ngo . . . . . Nees
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 . News clerk
News editors
Matt Lopez .Special sections
Jennifer Patch .Campus
Micah Kafitz .Regional
Jon Schlitt .National
Tyler Cook .Marketing
Shannon Curran .PR/Intern manager
Steven Estep .Production
Steven Prince .Production
Chris Corley .Creative
Jason Hannah .Classified
Corinne Buffmire .Zone
Shaantae Blue .Zone
Brandi Byram .Zone
Brian Allers .Zone
Justin Allen .Zone
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"The responsibility of great states is to serve and not to dominate the world."
—Harry S Truman
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When I heard in class Tuesday that gunmen had taken hostages and killed students in Littleton, Colo., I shuddered. When I returned home and flipped on the television to get an update, again I could not help but shudder.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924.
Non-stop media blitz trivializes tragic event
Perspective
After watching a half-hour filled with inane and trivialized coverage with no new information, I became bored and turned off the TV to play Frisbee with my roommate.
Blame our short attention spans. Blame our emotionless '90s society. Blame whatever you want; I blame the media.
It may seem hypocritical for a journalism major to blame the media for anything, but I can't help it. As much as I
Aaron Marvin opinion @ kansan.com
Two of the key limits to the media's favorite amendment are self-control and good taste, both of which CNN and its affiliates violated Tuesday.
champion free speech, even I understand that there are limits to the First Amendment.
Without self-control, the media pursue a story well beyond when the new and important information runs out. To keep the story rolling until new information emerges, the media begin to ask trivial or philosophical questions: How could something like this happen? Couldn't someone have prevented it? How will this affect people not directly involved?
CNN's reporters asked all these questions and more Tuesday, all the while trivializing the massacre, the very thing they were there to cover.
Without good taste, the media become tabloids, the burr under every respectable journalist's saddle. When the media put aside good taste, they broadcast grusome images of hysterical students covered in blood during the middle of the afternoon, where our children can easily view them after they return home from school.
Though the media have shown worse taste than this incident, CNN need not have shown us some of the more vivid images. First-person testimony from the students gave us plenty of detail about the massacre. CNN didn't need to broadcast a person falling from an upstairs window of the school to show us the victims' desperate escape attempts.
For at least the past 20 years, the study found, respect for the media has dropped considerably. In the past year alone, Americans' opinion of the media has plummeted because of the media's sensational coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and other controversial stories.
The worst part about the media's irresponsibility in covering the killings is that the coverage comes a mere week after published reports showed that Americans no longer trust or respect the media.
The only good news in that study was that most journalists professed a renewed commitment to reconnect with their audience and to improve their poor public standing.
But a week later, those same journalists proved they learned nothing by saturating our televisions with disturbing images from yet another high school killing spree. They pester police officers for the scoop on rescue efforts. They pursue school officials for information about the "Trench Coat Mafia." They track down grieving students and their families to get the emotional angle. All in the name of "getting the story."
The media have a responsibility to cover the news, and the high school killings definitely were news, but they didn't need to broadcast it non-stop all day. We can only take so much bad news before our brains and our televisions turn off.
Marvin is an Atchison senior in journalism and a Kansan news editor.
Kurdish leader's capture helps stem tide of terror
T The Turkish government recently has won a major battle by capturing the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. For the past fifteen years, Ocalan's terrorist organization,
known as the Kurdish Workers' Party, waged a brutal war against Turkey that claimed more than 30,000 lives, as well as exacted a financial burden. Now Ocalan sits in prison awaiting trial for his crimes. Some exalt him as a freedom fighter, but his actions scream otherwise.
Huseyin Sevay
Guest columnist
The Kurdish Workers' Party is a utopian socialist movement established with the pretext of fighting for an independent Kurdish state. After starting his terror cam
However, as the Turkish army gained increasing control against him, Ocalan abandoned his original demand and began asking for an autonomous region in southeastern Turkey. The Turkish government never would negotiate, not with a terrorist.
Ocaan stayed in Syria by the Syrian government, a sugar daddy to the Kurdish Workers' Party, chose to let him go rather than return him to Turkey in October when he was faced with a stern military threat. Turkey had enough of the party's terror and Syria's support of it.
The Kurdish Workers' Party's terror movement would not have lasted 15 years had it not been for the support that it received from the countries opposing Turkey. It is disappointing to witness the close support that the Greek government and the
Ocalan then went on a three-month journey seeking asylum but ended empty-handed. Finally, his journey came to an end in Kenya, when officials snatched him from the Greek Embassy and handed him over to Turkish special agents. Ocalan was kept at the Greek Embassy under the assumed name of a Greek Cypriot journalist and with the full knowledge of top Greek government officials, three of whom were later forced to resign upon their "failure to protect" Ocalan.
paign in 1984, Ocalan, the general secretary of the party, demanded an independent Kurdish state.
Although millions of Turkish Kurds had not even subscribed to the party's separatist agenda, both Greek governments thought it worthwhile to take a chance on Ocalan. Their move backfired, because it was plainly wrong.
Greek Cypriot administration have provided to Ocalan.
Instead, the Turkish people would like to have seen them treat Ocalan as a terrorist and help Turkey capture him. Such strategy could have helped build trust.
The mainstream Turkish public opinion recognizes that the Kurdish people in southeastern Turkey are economically disadvantaged.
Moreover, the Southeastern Anatolia Project, a $32 billion development project — compare it to the $50 billion that the Turkish government had to spend fighting the Kurdish Workers' Party — also was hampered by the threat of terrorism.
Clearly, an end to terrorism will allow the southeastern region to flourish, more so after the Southeastern Anatolia Project is completed within the next decade.
In Turkey, a Kurdish person has the same rights as any other Turkish citizen. Ocalan studied political science at Ankara University. A Kurdish friend of mine came to the University of Kansas on a Turkish Ministry of Education scholarship. And politicians of Kurdish origin became president and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Since arriving in Anatolia more than 900 years ago, Turks have been more friends than enemies with the Kurds. Writing such history off will not be that easy. The Turkish people continue to fight for democracy against all internal and external enemies. And peace is all they want.
Back in 1988, Turkey was the country that welcomed the 50,000 Kurdish refugees who fled Iraq to escape Saddam Hussein's persecution. During the Gulf War, the same scenario repeated. Why would Turkey, a state that is supposed to be hostile to the Kurds, want to help them despite the economic hardship at home? Could it be that Turkey cares for the Kurdish people but fiercely opposes the idea of establishing a Kurdish nation on her soil? Would any civilized country think any differently?
Sevay is a Nicosia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer science.
Feedback
Sacrificing bike lane unfair to KU cyclists
As a cyclist, I must comment on Tuesday's article about the proposed "sacrifice" of the Louisiana Street bike lane. Sacrifice is such a pleasant word; the headline alone described the chokehold the University of Kansas and its hellhound, the parking department, has on this community. I am not so concerned about losing this particular bike lane; it is the attitude revealed by such a move that bothers me.
Will we ever see existing parking areas converted for student residents? Yeah,
right. Rather, the University will make it even more difficult for people who come to campus under their own power and send that message that if you are not surrounded by a ton of moving steel, you are an easy target.
This is just one of many symptoms of the disease, dependence on the automobile. Raging now is a debate on who will park in the new garage to be built next to Kansas Union. Perhaps we can set a weight limit. If you weigh over a certain amount, guess what: You drive too much, so walk.
Want to witness irony? Watch people come from Robinson, jump in their car
and drive three blocks. It is not just this "give me convenience or give me death" mentality drivers are notorioul for, but there also lurks a festering hostility toward pedestrians and cyclists.
It is bad enough that at least two or three idiots yell at you from speeding cars whenever you are out for a stroll, but if the University takes that lane away, regardless of how much we use it, it is as though they are giving us a big big middle finger. Thanks a lot, Kearns. When was the last time you got here on two legs?
John B. Tyburski
Lecompton graduate student