Opinion
'BUTG'
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Ann Premer, Editor
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Monday, February 15, 1999
Clay McCuistion / KANSAN
Editorial
Increase in organ donations hinges too heavily on celebrities' needs
There has been a sudden interest in organ donation that wasn't sparked by the publicity of Saturday's National Organ Donor Day. The interest instead followed the Feb. 2 announcement by Chicago Bears Hall of Famer Walter Payton that he is in need of a liver transplant.
The surge to become organ donors is something this country always has needed, but it shouldn't have taken a celebrity in need for potential donors to sign on the dotted line.
This has happened before. In 1995, former baseball great Mickey Mantle needed a liver transplant as well, and hospitals saw their requests for organ donor cards shoot up. Organ donation offers at the Southwest Organ Bank in Dallas, which supplied Mantle's liver, jumped from 15 to more than 700.
A study released in June found that in 37 percent of cases where organ donation could save a life, families refused to give consent.
Like Mantle's case, Payton's again
Transplants are needed year-round not only when star athletes require them.
has made it safe to assume that a percentage of those who refused to donate probably would if someone important were involved. Perhaps if someone such as Payton were to receive the organ, they would consent.
Even without an awareness day and a sports legend in need, there already is publicity surrounding organ donation.
Organizations such as the Coalition on Donation, a nonprofit alliance of local coalitions and national organizations, promote organ and tissue donation yearround.
Plot lines of popular television dramas such as ER and NYPD Blue have featured organ donations, and characters who do not donate are portrayed as being ignorant and selfish.
The information is out there.
Organ donation is a selfless and gracious act, and anything that can prompt more people to fill out donor cards is a good thing.
An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 deaths each year could result in organ donation, but in 1997 only 5,475 provided donations. This sort of statistic must end.
A person can become a donor simply by filling out a card when they receive their drivers license.
People should fill out donor card all year long. A celebrity should not have to require a transplant before the public shows an interest. When the public heard about Payton's situation, there were reportedly hundreds of people who called and volunteered to donate their liver. Of course, these people then found out that a liver is necessary to live.
People should want to save the lives of others, regardless of whether the organ recipient can hit a baseball or run with a football.
As Mantle said to a crowd shortly before his death, "If you want to do something great, be a donor."
Emily Haverkamp for the editorial board
Feedback
Keeping polling site not only solution
After spending time in other countries and cultures, I have become more aware and, hence, more irritated at the propensity many in this country have for whining. This type of whininess has been illustrated several times in the Kansan in recent weeks, for example, the column by Diana Victor in which she wrote about being stopped by the police for driving at night with
her headlights off, and more recently the reaction to the closing of the Allen Fieldhouse polling site.
Were there not voting alternatives to Allen Fieldhouse, I also would protest its closing, but the fact is there is another polling site close by: Schwegler Elementary School at 2201 Ousdahl Road.
Rather than advocating to keep the Allen Fieldhouse site open, perhaps the Student Legislative Awareness Board could organize and offer transportation for those needing help getting to polling sites off campus. As it was said by one of SLAB's members, "Where there's a will, there's a way."
After seeing people walk for miles to polling sites in Latin America, it seems pretty lame that students can't make a little effort to go a short distance to vote off campus. But unfortunately, we Americans have been conditioned to expect everything to be convenient.
Kansan staff
Ryan Koerner . . . . . . . . . . Editorial
Jeremy Doherty . . . . . . . . Associate editorial
Aaron Marvin . . . . . . . . Nees
Laura Roddy . . . . . . . . Nees
Melissa Ngo . . . . . . . . Nees
Aaron Knopf . . . . . . Online
Erin Thompson . . . . Sports
Marc Sheforgen . . . . 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
Allen H. Fetter
Allen H. Fetter Lawrence graduate student
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
“A president's hardest task is not to do what's right, but to know what's right."
—Lvndon B. Johnson
How to submit letters and guest columns
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.
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.
Clay
McCuistion
opinion@kansan.com
If you have general questions or comments,
e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com)
or call 864-4924.
The United States is approaching technolog-
Perspective
The United States is appraisal as it nears the 20th century. Although I use computers and enjoy them to a point, enough is enough.
Computer addicts risk severing link to reality
If I hear the phrase "information super highway" one more time, I'm going to scream.
Companies are racing to provide access to the Internet and are selling new interactive products as quickly as engineers can invent them. Words such as "e-mail," "modem" and "server" are no longer used exclusively by computer enthusiasts but by blue-haired old ladies. The world is changing.
It's not changing for the better.
As more information and entertainment is offered via computers, fewer people actively seek to enhance or broaden their lives. Those of all ages sit transfixed by computer screens with blank expressions plastered on their faces.
Businesses are quickly jumping on the bandwagon. On Feb. 1 AT&T and Time Warner announced plans to offer a comprehensive package of telecommunications. Internet, telephone and other entertainment options would be available through a single service brought into the home by cable (rather than telephone wire).
It sounds like a great idea — at first.
Making the telecommunications revolution convenient is helpful to consumers, right? Perhaps in the short term. But as computers become easier and easier to use, more and more people make the machine their purpose in life.
Computers offer people the chance exit their dull "real" lives and enter exciting "virtual" existences. Socialization is difficult for many. It takes effort to introduce oneself to others, smile happily and make small talk. Relating to the world is nerve-wracking.
How simple it is to sit at a computer screen and type e-mail messages to an anonymous name somewhere in the electronic abyss. One doesn't have to relate to body language or facial expressions. One just has to read.
The "information superhighway" hasn't become the tool for research and discovery that its proponents expected. Instead, it has become a hiding place where people erect entire worlds for themselves that they — and
The Earth has problems. It's huge, overcrowded and messy. It houses many sick and miserable people. It's polluted, starved and diseased. But it is real. There are real people on this planet with actual problems who can't afford the cozy simulated world of the Internet.
only they control.
I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. I'm guilty. I have my list of favorite Web sites and message boards. I spend at least a couple of hours a day staring at my computer screen and a couple of other hours staring at the television. It alarms me. There are times when I prefer the world that I've created.
Do we ignore these people because they aren't "online?" Do we ignore racism, drug addiction and poverty because they don't have Web sites?
Computers can be replaced. People can't.
Computers can be replaced. People can t. The irony of the 1990s is that technology designed to link people together has isolated them more than ever. Why talk with neighbors when more interesting people are online? Why waste time at a music store poring over stacks of CDs when you can visit a Web site and order music in minutes? Why bother to date when you can screen candidates in a chat room?
As I was finishing this column, something interesting happened. For about two hours on Feb. 3 the KU Internet provider was shut down. During that short time, the "information superhighway" was closed.
It is tedious to talk with the neighbors. It is dull to wade through piles of CDs. Dating can be embarrassing. But these are experiences. These are instances of reaching out and interacting with actual people - not Web sites.
People were angry. As I walked around campus, I saw scowls and heared curses. Students and teachers wanted their access and wouldn't take any excuses. This was serious business.
The Internet wasn't down forever. It was only two hours. Suddenly though, people were forced to interact in unusual ways. They couldn't just send an e-mail. Perhaps they had to visit an office or leave a message in person. The worlds that Internet users on campus had created for themselves vanished.
It wasn't a pleasant experience for anyone—myself included. But it made me think. How much have I given up for all my time in cyberland? How much has everyone given up?
Life can't be spoon fed. It can't be encapsu lated online. It must be lived.
McCuistion is an El Dorado sophomore in pre-journalism.
Merit deserves priority before racial preferences
Tilt an ear to the west these days, and it's likely you'll hear a faint, high-pitched squealing. The usual howling wind at Mount Oread perhaps, but con-
wind atop Mount Great tributing to the peaks little noise is the inordinate amount of whining coming from our Pacific coast.
You see, about a year ago, the University of California at Berkeley was forced to stop granting preferential treatment on the basis of race in its admissions process, leaving a contingent of liberals none too pleased. This change was brought on by the citizens of California through a ballot
Andrew Marino
opinion@kansan.com
initiative called Proposition 209.
Leftist reactions on the campus were split. Michael Rogin, a political science professor at UC-Berkley, argued last May in Black Issues in Higher Education that the initiative was deceptively worded, even though it was modeled after the language in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Elizabeth Wilcox, an admissions officer at UC-Berkley, said that she and her fellow gatekeepers used a lot of creativity and initiative when judging applicants while still conforming to the letter of the law.
But the biggest chunk simply picked up their toys and stomped home.
Dana Inman, who was director of UC-Berkeley's Black Recruitment and Retention Center when the initiative passed, said last May in The New York Times that she told prospective African American applicants UC-Berkeley was a very hostile environment and that they were not welcome there. Grace Carrol Massey was also a little down on her job as director of Black student development. She simply told students to go to Stanford
The latest batch of crybabies emerged from U.S. District Court in San Francisco last week, when five civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit against UC-Berkeley on behalf of 750 rejected minority students with 4.0 high school GPAs.
According to the Feb. 3 New York Times, the lawsuit did not directly challenge the already court-tested and-approved Proposition 209. Instead, the suit alleged an unjustified reliance on standardized test scores and advanced placement classes. With the SAT being nothing more than a one-time
indicator of how well a student did on a test, and AP classes being scarec at most inner-city schools with high minority populations. Berkeley's standards were deemed discriminatory by the plaintiffs.
Standards are certainly high: The New York Times reported that the average freshman received a 1390 on the SAT and had a high school grade average of 4.27 on a five-point scale. But are the standards really unfair? On this note, a few points must be made.
First, even under the adjusted criteria that the lawsuit advocates, there is no assurance that many more minority students would have been admitted. Less than 11percent of "A" students denied admission were minorities.
Second, the SAT is an objective test that tends to predict student performance in college better than subjective measures like grades, interviews or recommendations. Also, it makes little sense to criticize the SAT for only measuring test-taking ability on a given day. This is also the primary measuring tool used in college.
Although it may be disguised, this lawsuit is really an attack on an idea of merit, seeking to replace it with diversity. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of African Americans and other minorities making true gains in U.S. society. The attitude held by Inman and Massey — that the end of preferential treatment means that the school is suddenly hostile to minorities and doesn't allow them to succeed — is surely destructive. Preferences become something required for success.
Finally, if certain high schools fail to offer AP classes, why should a university trying to encourage gifted students to challenge themselves be blamed?
Still, it is hard not to agree with Jesus Rios, a plaintiff in the case and the son of immigrant farm workers, when he told the Times, "I thought if you do the right things, you get what you want."
The elementary and secondary schools that were supposed to prepare the plaintiffs are responsible for this tragedy, not UC-Berkeley. Efforts should be concentrated on those preparatory institutions.
As for racial diversity, an encouraging statistic has emerged among the discouraging drop in minority enrollment this fall.
The number of students who chose not to indicate their ethnicity rose 300 percent from the year before — good news in a society aspiring to colorblindness.
Marino is a Prairie Village sophomore in political science.