4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
MONDAY,APRIL1,2002
864-0500 free for
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they
taske about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
I'm from Atlanta and the UDK needs to know that it's "Hotlauna",
not "HotLAuna". Hotlauna, thank you.
states plan to spend in 2003
So are the "sand only" buckets on campus, are those for emptying out your shoes and socks after walking the shores of Wescoe Beach?
--states plan to spend in 2003
Shaun Bryant needs to learn that until gay people are accepted as an entire group and are not viewed as different, we need to be out there creating a stir and being noticed, because that is what being gay is all about.
I just walked behind the most gorgeous girl I've ever seen walking from main campus on Crescent Road, and might I say, she was beautiful dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans and a sweater wrapped around her waist and had the most hypnotizing hips of all time.
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This is to the guy that was trashing the basketball band. Just wanted to let you know we found out we get complimentary messages at our hotel in Atlanta, so have fun at home.
I'm in one of the restrooms in Murphy Hall and there's a sign on the ceiling that says, 'Toilet cameras are for research only,' and I'm just wondering what kind of research involves cameras in toilets.
This is a message for the University of Kansas community and it pertains to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Please go on the 'Net and explore why there are three UN resolutions regarding this conflict, because it's really important we understand why this is going on instead of just watching the news and getting confused as to what the heck and who is right and who is wrong
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According to Murphy's Law, if I don't write my paper that's due on Tuesday, then school will not be canceled on Tuesday because KU would not have won the championship. I suppose this means the fate of the Big Four relies on me. Damn it.
OK Roy, it's halftime. You've lost 13 playoff seasons in a row. Try to start coaching now.
states plan to spend in 2003
states plan to spend in 2003
Men's basketball, we love you, Jayhawks. These refs are unreal, so hold your own.
Roy, nine minutes to go. The time to start coaching is now.
Well congratulations, CBS. You got the East Coast team in the finals you wanted. How about next time you let the players play and let the NBA have the crappy refs.
Do you smell that? It smelt like a beating.
This is the first time I've ever called into the Free for All, and all I've got to say is, see you in class on Tuesday, Jayhawks.
I think Roy Williams is the Marty Schottenheimer of college hoops.
states plan to spend in 2003
Hey Gooden, how about you stay, since you just lost the game for us.
After tonight's game I encourage every KU student to go turn in their transfer papers.
Hey Gooden, just so you know buddy, we're out of timeouts.
states plan to spend in 2003
I'm just getting done watching the KU game,and I think we need a day of mourning. So we need Tuesday off,Mr. Chancellor.
People blame our players for losing every year in the finals. Our players change every year, but our coach doesn't.
All I have to say is, rock choke Jayhawk
Even though the guys just lost 10 minutes ago, I'm still proud of them and I think KU's still proud of them for making it to the Final Four.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
STUDENT SENATE ELECTIONS
Eric Borja, you bore me. Every year the Kansan publishes a column that decries Student Senate elections and all but calls Student Senate itself a total waste of time. Last year at about this time Robert Chamberlain treated us with his views on Senate. This year we get Eric Borja ("Student Senate candidates care more about your vote than they do about you," March 26). I'm not sure if that is better or worse.
Dear editor.
While Student Senate can always stand for more change, and Student Senate elections have many problems and annoyances, to denounce the entire system is foolish. The list of what Senate has done for KU is long: the annual funding of over 70 student organizations, the creation and funding of Legal Services for Students, Fall Break, the creation and operation of KU on Wheels, a new recreation center and campus recycling. Not to mention getting students involved every day in University decisions that affect our academic experience at KU.
I appreciate Mr. Borja's thoughts on little changes that could make the lives of students better, but one has to engage in the system (or actively work to change things outside the system) to accomplish anything positive. Writing supercilious and unfair editorials on your Spring Break cruise is not going to change anything.
Kyle Browning Lawrence senior and student body vice president.
SAFE CAMPUS CROSSWALKS
I'm responding to your article "Student: campus crosswalks not safe" (March 4).
Pedestrians on campus would be safer were the University to install blinking yellow globes on poles at each side of the crosswalks, as they do in Britain.
Bunker Clark
Emeritus professor of music biography
Bunker Clark
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
By the Numbers S66.4 billion Amount the United States spent in 1949 on international aid and diplomacy.
$23.8 billion Amount the United States plan to spend in
7. 1
Source: U.S. Department of State
Number of journalists and U.S. soldiers, respectively, who were killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan in 2001.
Number of those journalists who were Ameri-
can.
Percentage of Americans in November who believed the U.S. government was censoring news about the war in Afghanistan.
Sources: Committee to Protect Journalists /U.S. Department of Defense
41
Percentage of those Americans who thought the censorship was a "good idea."
Source: The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
— From Harper's Magazine
PERSPECTIVE
Physical contact can be right touch for social development, life lessons
Touching. It is something we do every day, but hardly think about. Yet it is so essential to our existence. Touches on the arm, pats on the back and warm hugs exist as part of common body language.
Yet for some people, growing out of childhood means a growing discomfort with offering and receiving physical contact.
American society is careful about physical contact, with issues about sexual harassment and abuse, but most people do not realize its benefits. Casual, everyday touching is a great way to reduce your stress level, strengthen your immune system and set your peace of mind.
From the time we are born, humans crave physical attention. Physical contact is a normal and essential component of our bodily and social development.
In an article on touch deprivation and violent behavior, neuropsychologist James W. Prescott of the National Institutes of Health said touch deprivation was harmful to an individual's physical and psychological development. Prescott said body contact acted as an essential "nutrient" for the developing brain.
COMMENTARY
Lack of touching can be just as detrimental to
Tabatha Beerbower
opinion@kansan.com
adults as it is to babies and children, leading to withdrawal, depression and violent behavior.
Touching can make people feel that they are loved and accepted. It is the basic ingredient to feeling human.
A LINE magazine article said, "even a simple touch can reduce the heart rate and lower blood pressure. Positive, nurturing touch appears to stimulate the release of endorphins, the body's natural pain suppressors."
And according to the University of Miami's touch research, "massage boosts immune function — even in HIV-positive patients - and lower levels of stress hormones."
In society today, there seem to be people who are more touchable than others. A bright-eyed toddler is easy to cuddle, but what about a child with autism? You can give your friends an affectionate hug, but what about a homeless person? We can make physical contact with complete strangers in nightclubs, but think twice about touching the hand of a person with AIDS.
The problem does not lie with these individuals, but with the social and physical barriers that we create for ourselves. When I visited New Orleans two years ago, I was uncomfortable holding the hand of woman with AIDS. I knew I could not catch AIDS — I just did not want to touch her.
She started crying and reached out for a hug. All she wanted was comfort and I could give that to her in the form of physical contact.
In the end, it benefited us both.
But the human factor set in. This woman sat in front of me, telling me her life story. Her family had stopped visiting her; her friends had abandoned her a long time ago. She was starved for attention, socially and physically.
- **geebower** is a Fort Scott junior in journalism and creative writing.
Anyway I was considering my role as a feminist. Don't gasp. Feminism is not a bad word. Yet it might surprise people who know me as a feminist to learn that I feel that I have a very long way to go in implementing my feminist ideals on a day-to-day basis. I do several things that I find other women do as well. I can't take a compliment. I feel the need to avoid being loud or aggressive at all costs, and I frequently undermine my own ideas.
I was thinking about myself the other day, which, let's be honest, is everyone's favorite pastime. Thinking about themselves, not thinking about me, that is.
PERSPECTIVE
Feminism hard to practice in everyday life
COMMENTARY
When I receive a compliment about something, say for writing a devastatingly well-written column, I immediately feel the need to prove my humbleness. "It wasn't really good," I'll say, or sarcastically comment, "Well we all have our moments of marginal brilliance." What I should just say is "Thanks".
Ambriel Renn-Scanlan
opinion@ansan.com
Why do I feel the need to not accept a well-deserved compliment? In my mind to appear less than humble is ungracious and unappealing. It's not like I overindulge my ego by simply thanking someone for an honest compliment.
In high school I participated in debate, and in
the beginning of my "career." I was loud and rather abrasive. We would face teams with members of a similar temperament, but rather often they won, in part, because the bold and brash opponent was a man.
You're saying, don't blame high school grudges and your suckiness at debate on being a woman. I'm not. I'm trying to say that when men exhibit characteristics such as loudness and aggression, while they are not always commended, they are also not condemned. Sure, a guy could be cocky, but qualities like this are often construed as being 'powerful.'
The particularly female need to negate one's own idea. A friend of mine was in her English
class earlier this semester when her teacher had everyone in the class answer a question about the text. My friend related to me that what she saw shocked her. Most of the women in the room, regardless of the merit of their ideas felt the need to either begin their sentence or end their sentence with, "Well I don't know."
Yet men, again regardless of their ideas' validity, made no such apology or addendum. All of these situations are, in part, a manifestation of society's expectations for women. Women should not exhibit qualities that make them look ungrateful or aggressive. To accept a compliment, speak forcibly and not demean your own argument might be considered as being unlady-like.
Is this a double standard or my own inability to interact in society? I think the pressure to project humility above all else remains specifically targeted at women. The next time you catch yourself not taking a compliment, intentionally softening your voice when you speak, or deconstructing your own point, ask your self why.
Renn-Scanlan is a Topeka senior in English and history.
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