4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002
POINT
Keg registration could help regulate underage drinking
The consequences of underage drinking hit home at the University of Kansas during the Fall of 2000.
Students are all too familiar with the story of Sean Scott, whose parents bought him alcohol at the Wheel Cafe, 507 W. 14th St. He went on to drink at a fraternity. Scott, who was underage, killed a Lawrence woman while driving under the influence of alcohol on his way home on Kansas Highway 10.
Underage consumption of alcohol is a serious problem facing lawmakers and educational institutions across the country. According to a 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, underage drinkers account for 25 percent of all individuals who consume alcohol.
We are all affected every time we read a story or experience first-hand when someone has been hurt or caused harm to another because of alcohol.
With startling statistics and the horrific death rate associated with alcohol, it would only be ideal that the Kansas Senate would pass a bill that would require liquor store retailers to keep track of their kegs and those who purchase kegs.
If approved by the House of Representatives, Senate Bill No. 407 would require retailers to attach plastic registration tags to kegs of beer that have a capacity of over four gallons. Retailers would also have to the collect driver's license numbers of all purchasers.
Because most liquor retailers already require some kind of identification for purchasing a keg, the bill would not make collecting information for retailers a hassle. Retailers might welcome the changes because keg purchasers would be more likely to return kegs.
Law enforcement officers could later review information collected from retailers if a keg is found at a party where those who are underage are drinking alcohol. It would also be a misdemeanor
if a keg does not have a registration tag attached.
The Substance Abuse and Men Health Services Administration Household Survey on Drug Abuse found that alcohol is the number-one youth drug problem, killing 6.4 times more people than all other illicit drugs combined. Alcohol is also a major factor in the three leading causes of teen death: accidents, homicide and suicide.
This bill would specifically target individuals who buy kegs for underage drinkers, holding them accountable if anything should happen. Any preventative steps that can be taken to save the lives of America's youth and the victims of alcohol-related accidents should be welcomed.
While this bill realistically will not stop all underage drinking, it will be a positive step forward in curbing a large problem of underage drinking at keg parties.
COUNTERPOINT
Amy Potter for the editorial board.
More paperwork won't keep minors from alcohol
The Kansas Legislature is currently debating Senate Bill No.407, better known as the Beer and Cereal Malt Beverage Registration Act. If passed, it would require all Kansas retailers who sell beer in four gallon containers or larger to affix a tag on those containers so as to identify the store that sold them
Consumers wishing to purchase a keg would have to submit their name, address and driver's license number to the retailer and that information would be kept on file at the store for up to six months.
This registration act would be completely ineffective in solving any problems and superfluous when examined with laws currently in existence.
What is this law designed to do? Is it supposed to help retailers conduct business more easily? Obviously not. Recording information from every consumer takes time. On a busy weekend night, time spent in that manner can mean lost profits for the tailor.
Also, potential consumers who don't wish to give complete strangers their personal information will have no choice but to not buy a keg. This is an additional loss of business. More importantly, though, consumers are being forced to compromise their right to privacy just to buy what was their jefal right to buy without all the hassle.
The point of the bill obviously is to curb underage drinking. But how it accomplishes that goal is still a little hazy. Is it trying to punish businesses who sell to minors? There are already laws and regulations that deal with that.
If, instead, this bill is designed to punish retailers because minors ultimately drink from those kegs, that's just ridiculous. It's not the liquor store's responsibility to make sure that an adult doesn't give beer to a minor. It's not their fault if that happens, either.
Whose fault is it? The adult who gave the beer to the minor. Seems self-evident, doesn't it? Yet this bill doesn't seem to help in punishing those people.
If the Kansas Legislature is that gang-ho about targeting retailers, why are we only limiting this bill to kegs? Can't large quantities of liquor also end up in the hands of minors? What about wine bottles? A pack of beer? Why aren't we just tagging everything that gets sold?
Consumers also have a choice on whether they give out their private information. Everyone involved has an option, and this bill is designed to destroy that. It eliminates our freedom in the name of punishing the wrongdoers. The problem is that it doesn't actually help in punishing anybody. It just adds needless complication to a system that works fine as it is.
Finally, many stores already have a registration for kegs. They do this because they want to keep track of their own kegs they rent to customers. But it's their choice to do it.
Dan Osman for the editorial board.
PERSPECTIVE
Sex column moving up as readers simmer down
Kansan readers have become accustomed to Meghan Bainum.
Or so it seems, as few readers have commented about her sex column in the past two months — except to praise its late-January return. Last semester, many readers offered spirited comments questioning or praising her work.
"Maybe people have gotten a little more used to it," Bainum said. "It's not such a big deal now."
I've read Bainum's writing with interest since last semester, because her provocative column is both fun to read and sometimes gasp-inducing in its frankness. But familiarity has bred comfort — for both readers and writer.
Big deal or not, people outside campus have noticed her. The Associated Press will feature Bainum in an upcoming story. She was interviewed and photographed last month for an article about her, the column and campus response to it.
Bainum didn't even plan on continuing the column. She works as the associate Jayplay editor this semester, and wanted to concentrate on other projects.
But the sex column called.
READERS' REPRESENTATIVE
"It was just my baby a lot more than I thought it was," she said. "And it was something that needed to be handled very sensitively and very maturely."
Indeed, that sensitivity and maturity has become more pronounced this semester. While Bainum sees her work as a continuum, it's seems to me that her column (always responsible in cautioning students to respect themselves and their bodies) has become more tactful.
Clay McCuistion cmccuistion@kansan.com
Sex columns this semester have included informative examinations of Kegel exercises and genital piercing, as well as a reflection about the occasional need to take time off from sex. Thought-provoking? Yes. Shocking? Not really.
"I've been taking it easy on people for awhile." Bainum said.
Kimberly Thompson edits the Jayplay
section and introduced the column last semester. Thompson said she believed in the column, and in Bainum.
"She's willing to talk about things that no one else would ever print, even in a college paper," Thompson said.
And that's ultimately Bainum's value to the Kansan. She takes us new places. Sometimes, they're places some students don't want to be — as those students told us last semester.
Ultimately, however, any discussion of the column's "decency" requires me to define what's appropriate. I don't want to do that, because it's impossible, especially for a college audience that runs the gamut from liberal to conservative, radical to reactionary.
This newspaper's job isn't to look at these extremes and formulate some artificial middle ground, designed to offend no one. Presumably, in this middle, Meghan Bainins wouldn't have a voice.
Instead, the Kansan tries to find articulate voices from all sides. Bainum writes for an audience that enjoys her columns as solid advice or guilty pleasure. So far this semester, she's aimed for an even broader audience, and been successful. That means she's less controversial. But she's still Meghan Bainum. And that means the column will continue to provoke.
"Sometimes I have to reign her back in," Thompson said. "But she's raw enough to throw it all out there and see how far she can go."
McCuistion is an El Dorado senior in journalism and English.
TALK TO US
Leita Walker editor
864-4854 or
walkaan.com
LETTERSTO THE EDITOR
Jay Krall
Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
844-8544 or
jkrall@cam.com and
kramsey@cam.com
Clay McCusition readers' representative 864-4810 or cmccaustion.ansan.com
Kursten Phelps Brooke Hesler opinion editors 084-4810 or kpheleskanan.com kpheleskanan.com hsaleskeran.com
Amber Agee
business manager
864-4014 or
address: amberan.com
Kate Mariani
retail sales manager
864-4624 or
retail@kateaan.com
retail@kateaan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager
and news adviser
864-7867 or
migshow.kanan.com
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mtfshier@anaan.com
This is in response to Loral O'Hara's letter claiming that "laws banning abortion would be like laws establishing a collective religion." There are already many laws in the United States that "force" people to protect life, even if it inconveniences them.
Dear editor.
For example, if a bald eagle nests on your property and screeches all night, do you have the right to kill it? No. The life of the bald eagle is valued in the United States, and is protected by law. Likewise, if your newborn child has become a financial burden, do you have the right to kill him or her? No. Although the child is yours, his or her life is protected by law, because our country values every child's right to life. Laws protecting these life forms have not prevented religious freedom.
Unfortunately, although our country has laws protecting the lives of infants and even many animals, the lives of unborn children remain at risk. I hope that someday all individuals will value life, rendering laws prohibiting abortion unnecessary.
Until then, pro-life activists are justified in lobbying for federal laws protecting unborn children's right to life. Human rights apply to all humans, even those inside the womb.
Andrew Marso
St. Cloud, Minn., sophomore
GAY RIGHTS
Let's see, I've heard that homosexuals engage in unnatural practices and they get beat up a lot and nobody likes them at school and they aren't allowed to marry or raise kids or serve in the army or
Well, gee, here I am, a 12 year-old just entering puberty and I have to choose between being gay or straight.
Dear editor.
donate blood, but on the other hand they have more style and more sensitivity and they are richer and better artists and better hair stylists and they get more sex and they have a powerful secret lobby and they are hung better. And besides, it would piss off my parents. I guess I'll just choose to be gay.
Not.
David Burress Research economist, Policy Research Institute
LIED CENTER SPONSORSHIPS
Even more disappointing is to have to listen to a sponsor's generosity become transformed into a blatantly self-serving endorsement of its own products or services. At such embarrassing moments, the Lied Center feels more like a high school auditorium than a concert hall. Surely more appropriate times and venues exist for reciprocating corporate support of the arts than the night of the performance.
One of the joys of going to a concert is that magical moment when the house lights go down and the performers step onto the stage. We are increasingly being deprived of that feeling at the Lied Center by a series of announcements and speeches praising the sponsors of the event.
Dear editor.
It is difficult to criticize the Lied Center without recalling D.H. Lawrence's assessment of Sigmund Freud — that half a loaf is better than no bread at all. Indeed, we have come a long way since musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra fainted from the heat of Hoch Auditorium and vowed not to return unless we had a new facility; but please, bring back the magic.
Stephen Grabow professor of architecture
864-0500 free for
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak 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.
You, me. Right now. What actual smart kids say to sex
I am getting kind of tired of all these homosexuals crying about injustice and inequality. They knew their entire life that living that kind of lifestyle was going to draw attention. It's just something they're going to have to accept with their lifestyle.
they should stop hiding their research methods. They should submit to an academic review in totality Instead they expect us in blind faith to believe their lies.
Yeah, my roommate and I are watching Miss USA, and we just wanted to say, Lindsay Douglas rules. Go Kansas.
图
I'm glad that Mizzou can say that they hate all of the other Big 12 schools, because I'm sure that we all hate them too.
I was just drinking out of this Tupperware plastic cup, and it said Lawrence, Kansas, and I was thinking to myself, "Where in Lawrence is this factory that makes these plastic cups?"
图
they should stop hiding their research methods. They should submit to an academic review in totality Instead they expect us in blind faith to believe their lies.
If drinking Red Bull and vodka and watching the Olson twins is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Concerning the sign in McCollium about one-night stands, that was probably published by the same group that published the KU student drinking habits. I once quoted that stat in a speech class, and the audience laughed. If these groups want credibility
---
I just wanted to tell Tim Lang that though 28 percent of all Danish homosexual marriages end in divorce or death, over 50 percent of heterosexual marriages in this country end in divorce. So, not really thinking that's a good theory there.
图
I'm going to let the extreme liberals in on a secret, as long as you think boycotting corporations and peaceful rallies and voting will change the world, it won't. Money and power change the world.
---
图
图
Someone should tell Tim Lang that the purpose of marriage is not to have children, and that what's most important is that children have good loving parents no matter what their sex.
To the guy that called in and wondered what kind of fish is in the McDonald's fillet, it's cod fish. Thanks.
Have a nice day.
图
Hey Drew, Tim Duncan stayed all four years, Rookie of the Year, two NBA championships. Need I say more?
Will I get kicked out of school if I don't think any of the basketball players are hot?
图
I just wanted to respond and say that the fillet of fish at McDonald's is pollock, p-o-H-o-c-k, and that should be in the crossword next week.
-
All I know is that when you're drinking, and you come home at 5 a.m., VH1. plays the greatest videos ever.
-
I was just reading Spin Magazine, and I saw a picture of Fred Phelps with a KU jacket on. It kind of pissed me off a little bit