MONDAY,APRIL14,2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Film about sex class to play tonight
By Lauren Bristow
lbristow@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
After coming under fire in recent weeks, Dennis Dailey's human sexuality class will be the topic of a documentary about sexual misedecation tonight.
The film, Sex Miseducation: Problems with Sexuality Education in Our Society, will be shown on Out of Focus, a local film and video showcase at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St.
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"The movie focuses a bit on problems that parents have talking to their children about sex growing up," said Erin Widmer, Topeka senior and the document-
Widmer said she would also like to see people open up more and talk about sexuality after seeing the film.
tary's director. "If a few more people see it and understand what Dr. Dailey is doing, then I think that's cool."
"It's amazing how uptight people are about talking about sexuality," she said. "It's important to talk about it."
Chris Martin, Prairie Village senior and film showcase director, approached Widmer about showing the film after Dailey's class came under fire earlier this month. Martin is also the director of a television show called Out of Focus.
"I originally wanted to show it on my television show but it gets somewhat explicit," Martin said. "When I saw that Dennis Dailey was coming under fire, I thought the timing was right to show it in the film showcase."
The documentary looks at three classes taught at the University of Kansas and how sexuality is portrayed in each of those. Widmer said.
"The film goes into classes that are being taught at a college level and how they are trying to fix the problems with the miseducation that people received at a younger age," she said.
The documentary was an independent study project for a thea.
ter and film class. Widner filmed it last fall when she was enrolled in Dailey's class. She said that she thought the film's showing may help the public to understand more about what is going on in Dailey's class.
"I think the class is so important," she said. "The things I saw in the class were always validated in a way for an educational purpose."
as seven. The show starts at 7 p.m. at Liberty Hall. Admission is $3.
Ten local films and videos are slated to be showcased tomorrow night, Martin said. The selection includes an animated film as well as several with a war theme.
Edited by Amber Byarlay
Senator sounds off against obscenity
By J.J Hensley
jhensley@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
For a state senator from Wichita, Susan Wagle has become pretty famous in Lawrence. The third-year senator's fame has come from her proposed budget amendment that would eliminate funding for classes that purchase obscene materials, as judged by Kansas statutes.
If passed, the bill could eliminate as much as $3.1 million in funding for the School of Social Welfare, the school in charge of Dennis Dailey's "Human Sexuality in Everyday Life" class.
The bill would not affect funding for human sexuality classes at the state's five other Board of Regents schools because those classes don't use obscene material. Wagle said.
Wagle's daughter, Julia Wagle, is a junior in Spanish and biology at Kansas State University. Though
she has never taken the human sexuality class offered there, Julia Wagle thinks the curriculum differs from that of Dailey's class.
"I'm not required to take it, but from what I do know is that it doesn't show actual sex like the class at KU," Julia Wagle said. "They talk about controversial things like birth control and homosexuality, but they don't actually show video of it."
Susan Wagle has not seen any of the material she opposes. But what she hears disturbs her, she said in an interview Friday afternoon.
"I heard from several students who've taken the class in the past and some who are currently taking it, and they shared concerns for sexual harassment in that class," she said.
Susan Wagle said although she had not seen the films or slides, she had verified with "quite a few" current and former students that the materials met this definition of
obscenity, Wagle estimated that she'dspoken with several hundred students, both for and against her amendment.
"I know a lot of KU grads, and a lot of them have taken that class," Wagle said.
Susan Wagle's concerns with the class don't stop at sexual harassment.
"In a time when we're in a downturn with the economy, we don't need to support obscenity with tax dollars," she said.
She said opinions on the amendment correlated with the ages of the opinion holders.
According to Kansas statutes, material is obscene if "the average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance had patently offensive representations or descriptions of (i) ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including sexual intercourse or sodomy, or (ii) masturbation, excretory functions, sadomasochistic abuse or lewd exhibition of the genitals."
"People hold very diverse views," she said. "Students feel differently than the older taxpayers."
Wagle also said she spoke with doctors and other medical professionals who had seen no such videos in medical school and failed to see their educational value.
The University can continue the class if it wants, but it should seek private funding. Wagle said.
"Professors don't use vulgarity in class or have homework assignments where you're supposed to take a mirror and look at your genitals," Wagle said.
Gov. Sebellus has until April 22 to decide whether to veto the senator's budget amendment.
Kansan staff writer Lauren Bristow contributed to this story. This story was edited by Lindsay Hanson
Kansas resident faces SARS fears
The Associated Press
WICHITA — Health officials have said the threat of the contagious respiratory illness being blamed for 116 deaths and 2,700 illnesses worldwide is being blow way out of proportion. And one Kansas man is finding out how much.
Mark VanCamp of Wichita has had to find a new daycare provider for his children, been singled out at a restaurant and had an anonymous message left on his answering machine
And it's all because of a respiratory illness that he may or may not have had.
So far, fewer than 200 Americans are suspected of having SARS. All are people who were infected while in Asia or are family members or others who spent a lot of time with them.
At this point, health officials say, there's no reason to buy a respiratory mask or to take other precautions beyond avoiding travel to China and Hong Kong, as the government already has advised.
His condition worsened after he got back to Wichita, and he was hospitalized for about a week. Because of his symptoms and his travel, SARS was suspected.
VanCamp became ill while he was in China with his family in late February and early March to adopt a child.
He's fine now, and his doctors think his pneumonia was from bronchitis, not SARS.
Preliminary tests were negative, and subsequent tests continue to show no SARS antibodies in his blood.
But a number of people around him, he said, seem to have picked up a case of SARS hysteria.
A week ago, at an out-of-town restaurant, the wife of a friend demanded to be moved to a table away from him after finding out VanCamp was the Kansan with the suspected SARS.
Thursday, his daughters' daycare provider said she could no longer care for the girls because other children's parents were threatening to boycott her.
An anonymous man left a message with racist overtones on VanCamp's answering machine, accusing him of bringing the disease back from China.
His son's school called his ex-wife, concerned that the boy could be a carrier.
VanCamp said he went to work at Tweco Products for a week before being hospitalized. However, no one else at the company has gotten sick.
Yet, his employer doesn't want him back at work until he has a release from his infectious disease specialist as well as his family physician.
VanCamp expects to be at work today; his doctor is out of town until then.
Outdoor gear store now top tourist attraction in Kansas
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Kan. Tourists in Kansas seem to prefer a huge outdoor gear store to a casino.
Cabela's, which was open for just the last five months of 2002, was the No.1 tourist attraction in Kansas last year, surpassing Harrah's Prairie Band Casino in
Mayetta, which held the top spot for the previous three years, according to Kansas Department of Commerce and Housing.
Cabela's reported 2.4 million visitors, compared to the 1.4 million that Harrah's reported to the KDCOH.
Cathy Byers, communications manager for Harrah's Prairie Band Casino, said she wasn't surprised by the numbers. Cabela's had predicted at its August 2002 opening that the Kansas City location would attract 4 million people each year.
"They have a much bigger population base to draw from." Byers said, noting Cabela's location off Interstates 70 and 435, near the Kansas City metropolitan area.
"Cabela's is attracting all age
groups, whereas we are only attracting those age 21 and older."
Kim Qualls, tourism marketing manager for the KDOCH's travel and tourism division, said that to be classified as an attraction, destinations must have something a visitor or traveler could experience, see or do.
In addition to its sales of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear.
Cabela's includes a 12,000-square-foot mule deer museum, 55,000-gallon aquarium, a number of taxidermy displays and a food court.
Qualls said locations measured and reported their own attendance figures using admission fees, guest books, sales receipts, observation or a combination of those methods.
Ron Soucie, Cabela's general manager, said the store used sales transactions and an electronic system that counted people as they entered the doors. Byers said safety officers at Harrah's doors counted everyone who enters.
The Kansas Speedway ranked No. 3 on the list, and the Sedgwick County Zoo came in fourth. The Woodlands Racetrack was No. 5.
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