Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
PUBLISHED UNTIL 1972
Lindsey Henry, Editor
Marc Harrell, Business manager
Dave Morantz, Managing editor
Colleen Eager, Retail sales manager
Kristie Blasi, Managing editor
Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser
Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
4A
Friday, April 24,1998
DAYTON DAILY NEWS
Editorials
Campus living groups should make an effort to recycle everything
Recycling is one of the easiest ways to help out the environment and our future. The editorial board has written many editorials this year trying to persuade students to use the recycling bins on campus. No matter how much money the University spends on recycling programs, it won't make any difference if students don't use them.
Those that started recycling programs should be commended, and those that have not should follow the others' examples and work to make recycling a part of their residents'
Fortunately for the environment, students are beginning to supplement the University recycling system with comprehensive recycling systems in their living communities.
Some halls and houses already have efficient, effective recycling programs
daily lives.
Organized living groups like residence halls, greek houses and scholarship halls all have the potential for an effective recycling program, and many are starting to realize this. All of the nine scholarship halls recycle aluminum cans, and some of them have extensive programs set up to recycle plastic containers, cardboard, styrofoam and batteries. Next year, the scholarship halls plan to implement a composting program, so that food scraps will not be sent to
the landfills.
In the residence halls, there has been a similar push for more in-hall recycling. In November, Hashinger Hall started a pilot program for recycling paper, cans, and plastic containers. If the program continues to be successful, it will be implemented in all the other residence halls. Communal living, whether in a Greek house, a residence hall or a scholarship hall, presents a perfect opportunity to set up and use a comprehensive recycling program.
If your hall or house does not have a program, start one. If your hall already has one, make use of it—it never will be easier to help out the environment.
Susan Dunavan for the editorial board
Hawk Week coordinators need help
It is hard for many students to forget their first week at the University of Kansas. Hopefully, most took advantage of Hawk Week events to help them meet people, prepare for classes and become acclimated to the campus.
The Office of New Student Orientation helps organize Hawk Week. A subcommittee with representatives from Student Union Activities, the Student Alumni Association, Intercollegiate Athletics, the Office of Minority Affairs, the Organizations and Leadership Development Center, the Greek Community, Recreation Services, the Lied Center and the Department of Student Housing have made recommendations for 1998.
This year, two students were selected to take on the huge responsibility of
Students should give input and ideas to make Hawk Week better for all students
planning Hawk Week. The Hawk Week coordinators this year are Holly Tallen and Hilary Johnston, and they need input from students, faculty and staff about ideas for the 1998 Hawk Week. They are researching what has worked in the past and looking at new ways to reach out to all student so that Hawk Week can be better than ever before. They need as much input as possible to improve the program.
about the resources on campus and the University's traditions, it is the first time for most students to be on campus as Jayhawks. These first few days before classes can be critical in preparing students academically, socially and mentally for the upcoming school year. And Hawk Week is not only for new students. It provides entertainment and activities for all students.
Hawk Week plays an essential part in new students' transitions to the University. In addition to learning more
- But to make Hawk Week effective, its coordinators need more student input to help welcome all the new and old students back to campus next year.
Students should e-mail ideas and suggestions to Tallen and Johnston at orientation@s3t7.eds.ukans.edu. Help make Hawk Week a memorable experience for all KU students — old and new.
Aroop Pal for the editorial board
Kansan staff
Paul Eakins . . . Editorial
Ann Premer . . . Editorial
Andrea Albright . . . News
Jodie Chester . . . News
Julie King . . . News
Charity Jeffries . . Online
Erik Weslander . . Sports
Harley Rattif . . Associate sports
Ryan Koerner . . Campus
Mike Perryman . . Campus
Bryan Volk . . Features
Tim Harrington . Associate features
Steve Purpe . . Photo
Angie Kuhn . . Design, graphics
Mitch Lucas . Illustrations
Corrle Moore . Wire
Gwen Oison . Special sections
Lachel Rheades . News clerk
News editors
Advertising managers
Kriett Bisel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assistant retail, PR
Leigh Bottiger . . . . . . . . . . . . Campus
Brett Clifton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Regional
Nicole Lauderdale . . . . . . . . . . . . National
Matt Fisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marketing
Chris Haghirian . . . . . . . . . . . Internet
Brian Allers . . . . . . . . . . . . Production
Ashley Bonner . . . . . . . . . . . Production
Andee Tomlin . . . . . . . . . . . Promotions
Dan Kim . . . . . . . . . . . . Creative
Rachel O'Neill . . . . . . . . . . Classified
Tyler Cook . . . . . . . . . . . Zone
Steve Grant. . . . . . . . . . . . Zone
Jamie Holman . . . . . . . . . . . Zone
Brian LeFevre . . . . . . . . . . . Zone
Matt York . . . . . . . . . . . Zone
"A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she 'adjust' to prejudice and discrimination. She must learn to compete... not as a woman, but as a human being." —Betty Naomi Friedan
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 home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and quest columns
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.
Perspective
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Paul Eakins (eakins@kansan.com) or Ann Premer (apremer@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4810.
Smoking shortens life, but makes it enjoyable
Ice-cold Pepsi kisses, laced with cigarette smoke. I associate this taste with love, and it's one of the fondest memories from my childhood. My mom's kisses always tasted like that because, beside my sister and I, she loved Pepsi and Meal ___
because, beside my sister and I, she loved Pepsi and Marlboros most of all.
I guess you could say she was, and still is, an addict. In fact, she gets shakes and acts upset when denied either of her vices. But she's content, and that's all that really matters to me.
Keith Burner
opinion@kansan.com
"What's the point of living if I don't enjoy it," my mom would say.
I would then point out that my uncle Leslie had died of lung cancer a few years ago, and I'm sure that he would have family quit care.
have happily quit smoking for another day with his children.
But he too had seen life through a smoke-screened truth. He, like my mother, had lived life by the "smoke and enjoy life" motto.
Aply nicknamed "Smoke," he consumed nearly three packs of non-filtered cigarettes a day until he died at 52.
Not that he just dropped dead one day. It was a long, drawn-out odeal of chemo and radiation therapy. For me, it was more than a year of watching my five cousins witness their father die slowly. I had to watch a one-strong and stubborn man turn into a frail shell.
The last three months of his life he spoke in a higher tone. He didn't do it on purpose, but in the latter stage of radiation therapy, his throat had been damaged. The surgeons also had to remove his left lung, denying him the wind necessary to have a strong voice, even if he'd had the vocal chords left.
I remember the first time I saw Smoke after his voice was changed. It was a warm, late-spring afternoon, and he was working in his garden. He didn't hoe at the ground with the same vigor as he had in previous years, and he wasn't making much progress. I think he was hacking at the ground to find peace. Gardening was something he had done his whole life. With every hoe stroke, it was as though he was tapping a message in Morse code, to whoever might be listening, that he was alive and well, gardening just like every other year.
I saw that he wanted me to believe he was OK.
I wanted to humor him but couldn't. He was now no more than skin and bones from the radiation, and his jokes lacked the depth they once had.
It came to the point that he had to stop hoo-hacking and talk to me, so he told a joke. I can't remember the words, just the voice. The voice would have been a mouse if he had the lung power to push for a squeak. When he spoke, I knew that Smoke was already dead, just waiting for the body to turn cold.
Both of my maternal grandparents have smoked all of their adult lives. Both have developed heart problems, survived heart attacks and undergone heart surgery. Doctors say smoking caused the heart problems, and they could add years to their lives if they quit.
I ask my grandparents why they don't quit.
The obvious reply to this question is, "There is more to enjoy in life than just satisfying addictions."
But who am I to talk? I smoke a pack a day myself.
"What's the point of living if I don't enjoy it," they respond.
So, why do I smoke when I know it will send me to an early grave?
Being from a small town of 200 people outside of El Dorado, basically in the middle of nowhere, young boys had plenty of places to do boy things, such as catching snakes and wading in creeks and blowing up stuff with firecrackers. During our grade school years, Paul and I were like Tom and Huck.
My first experience with smoking was in the first grade. My cousin Paul and I were best friends for my entire childhood. Paul is one of Smoke's sons.
That's the million dollar question and answer-
ing it could tell a lot about a person.
One day Paul stole a pack of his dad's Pall Malls, and we walked along the creek that runs by my house and smoked some cigarettes, turned green and felt like big shots.
And it caught on. Soon everyone in my town was stealing their parents' smokes and coming over after school. "Walkin' the crick," soon became synonymous for having an after-school smoke before the parents got home from work.
When my friends and I got to middle school, we were still smoking but with one difference. We had quit stealing cigarettes from our parents and started stealing them from stores because we weren't old enough buy them. Many of my friends got caught, but I never did.
When I got to high school, I quit stealing cigarettes and started having my older friends buy them for me. By this time I was up to a pack a day, except during track season when I quit for a couple of months. I've smoked a pack a day for the last seven years.
I know smoking is bad for me, and I know that it will send me to an early grave, but I just can't help it. When my roommate says, "Keith, you should really stop smoking." I have to reply, "What's the point of life if I don't enjoy it?"
He just shakes his head and walks away. I'm sure he's thinking, "Now there's a winning motto."
He's right. But the need to rationalize our collective addiction runs strong in my family — for some reason longevity doesn't.
Burner is an El Dorado freshman in pre-journalism.
Irrational fear of dogs never will be erased
Why am I so scared of dogs? I have never been bitten by one. Even puppies scare me. Anything with four legs, a tongue, a tail and a bark can turn a
certain 26-year-old woman into an absolute chicken. And that Chicken Woman is me.
I can be brave, sometimes even surprising myself. I can walk around Lawrence all by myself at night. I can sleep peacefully even when I know that I am going to be absolutely broke for the next two weeks, and the only people I can really turn to for money, my family, live on the other side
Pallavi Agarwal
opirion@kansan.com
of the world. I have moved in with absolute strangers for roommates about six times since my sojourn to America 1 1/2 years ago, decided departure from a cozy family life in Bombay, India. I have been battle-crossed and emotionally wrecked from living with incompatible people, but I still can do it if I have to.
But if there is something that arouses in me a fear with no leash, it's a dog on the loose. Each time my brain encounters a situation involving a dog, the familiar reflexes dart out and join hands. Run. Yell. Hide. Disappear. Fear. Fear. Fear.
My encounters with enthusiastic dog owners who let their dogs roam around without a leash and fail to see why it should bother others has been embarrassing and exasperating. Many don't understand what the fuss is about. Some laugh in your face. Some ignore you. Some lecture you. Some give you that funny foreigner look. Each will tell you that dogs are harmless and that Suzy, Jane, Jill, Blacky, or whatever their dogs are called, only want to play with you. I know that — but I want to yell at them that I still can't help being scared. The fear, I want to roar, is deep within, like hunger, thirst and carnal desires. It leaps from a part of my brain that a hand cannot reach out and stop. Even when I tell myself, "Now don't behave like an idiot," I turn deaf.
I didn't grow up with a lot of dogs around me. And the ones I knew were not pretty or petite. Barky, the fright of the neighborhood
There were two Barkys in my life. Barky No.
1 I could avoid by running away. Barky No. 2
was more insidious and fearfully close. He had teeth like stalactites and stalagmites and would chase me in the dark tunnels of nightmare land until I would wake up in a cold sweat, afraid of being bitten.
The road to erasing dogs from your life is a long one. It consists of mad detours past parks and open spaces in the summer, and yoyoing from one side of the street to another to avoid a loose dog in the distance. The crosswalks and turnings that the approaching dog takes map my path, only I move in the opposite direction. If it goes right, I go left. If it continues right ahead, I disappear to the other side of the street. The rustle of leaves on the road sometimes scares me. It sounds too much like the wind whooshing through a dog leash.
children and the first dog I knew, was a big, ugly bulldog. His face settled under his chin like a loose pouch, and none of us wanted to find ourselves in the guttural regions behind the folds.
Friends who are also dog owners are not in my address book. I would never have the pleasure of owning a certain loyal animal as a pet. And I could never, never marry a veterinarian. When I have children, and they scream about seeing a dog, I will be the model mother. I'll scream with them. I could never live in the countryside all by myself. It's too dangerous to live there without the protection of a guard dog. Like many other people, I will grow old with a phobia ossified in my psyche like a bad habit. I sometimes wonder if a little impulsiveness is the best antidote to fear.
Both the Barkys departed from my life but something of that childhood fear remained. Often I have wondered if every other dog after them became a potential Barky.
I could close my eyes, hug a dog, and it would all be over. We could be friends. But best intentions don't always translate into best actions. Bad habits don't always die young. And certain things in life are just meant to be what they are — a sad and unnecessary version of what otherwise could have been.
Agarwal is a Bombay, India, graduate student in journalism.