Opinion
Kansan
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Lindsay 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 Ebien, General manager, news advisor Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
4A
Wednesday, April 22, 1998
TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICE
Editorials
Environmental activism needed on Earth Day, during rest of year
For nearly 30 years, April 22 has been a day for environmental education from the grass roots. Sen. Gaylord Nelson wanted Earth Day, which started in 1970, to be a teach in. Today offer ample opportunities for environmental education and should be observed with active participation by all.
Jason Daniels, member of KU Environments, suggested that students observe Earth Day by attending one of the numerous events or lectures. Daniels recommended a lecture by Doug Peacock, who is an author, filmmaker and environmentalist. Peacock, an expert on grizzly bears, will discuss conservation and his book, "Walking it Off," at 7 p.m. tonight at the Ballroom in the Kansas Union.
Students should get involved in campus environmental groups and activities
More proactive options are available too. Various clean-up programs continue until the end of the week. The Latter-Day Saints Student Association will be cleaning up the Kaw River while various campus groups are planning a campus-wide cleanup. Beginning April 27, everyone in Lawrence will be encouraged to park their cars and use alternate modes of transportation such as walking or biking.
In addition to KU Environs, the University of Kansas has several other environmentally-based groups. Those organizations include the Environmental Law Society, the Environmental Studies Student Association and Students for Wild Care.
Extensive opportunities to get involved are available today and throughout the year. Students should participate in Earth Day events and show that they care about the environment. But efforts and interest should not be limited to organized activities only on Earth Day. Conservation should be a part of daily life by making the decision to take a proactive interest in the environment.
Erinn Barcomb for the editorial board
Parking garage needs student spaces
Anyone who drives a car to campus knows first hand about the difficulties of finding a parking space. Design and Construction Management is planning to improve existing lots and build a few more lots, but the main parking-improvement project, the new parking garage, will be an expensive undertaking with no guaranteed spots for student parking.
The Parking Department should use this new parking garage to give students, not just faculty and staff, more parking spaces.
Construction of the multi-story parking garage, which will be north of the Kansas Union, will begin in November or December and will be completed by the summer of 2000, said James Modig. Design and Construction Management director. The $10 million structure will have about 1,000 new parking spaces. Unfortunately, no one will say how many of those spaces will be reserved for student parking.
Donald Kearns, Parking Department director, said that the new parking garage will provide spaces for students, faculty and staff. However, he would not comment on the actual number of spaces allotted for students. But students have a right to know how their money is being spent.
ing lot will be built this summer. Lots by Oliver Hall will be improved this summer. This will increase the number of stalls, improve the pavement, and get better traffic circulation. Next summer, the same thing will be done to the lot across from Lewis Hall. There are also plans to demolish the Jayhawker Towers parking garage and put down more surface lots to the south, which will provide a slight increase in parking spaces.
Other efforts to improve parking are planned. For example, parking lots will be built on the site of the old Blake Annex, providing 20 new spots. For visitors and prospective students, a Visitors Center with a park-
Although a commendable effort, this is not enough to alleviate student parking problems. Students require and deserve to have a majority of the spaces in the new garage. Serving faculty and staff is fine, but we, the students, pay the bills. It is our university and our money.
Kansan staff
Susan Dunavan for the editorial board
Paul Eakins . . . Editorial
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"I am not sincere even when I am saying that I am not sincere." —Jules Renard
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Secretaries brighten lives with good acts
Perspective
Mother Theresa once said: "We cannot do big things. We can do only small things with great love." Even though I disagree with Mother Teresa
because I believe we can do many big things, I do agree with her that we can do a lot of apparently small things with great love, and make a big difference in the world. One person doing such seemingly small things with great love at the University of Kansas is Sarah Seay, the receptionist in the Department of French and Italian.
Because this week is Professional Secretaries
Donato
Fhunsu
opinion@kansan.com
Week, and today is Professional Secretaries Day. I thought it would be appropriate to dedicate this, my last column of the semester, to Sarah, and, through her, to all the professional secretaries and people doing secretarial work on our campus. Working behind the scene, these sisters and brothers make our university run efficiently. Without them, our work, whether we are teachers or students, would be seriously handicapped. On them rests the hope of our University for smooth functioning.
Throughout human history, many thinkers have paid tribute to these humble-hearted people. Jesus, for instance, knowing the value of these simple spirits in our world, said "Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). And Mother Teresa surrounded herself with many of these behind-the-scene workers.
What makes Sarah particularly special is that she is my quiet writing coach. Writing, when done a certain way, can be a very lonely and demanding endeavor. When you really get into the swing of things, you fall in love with words. You think about words during the day, you dream about words at night, and often you have to get up in the middle of the night to capture them in the computer before they escape and return to torment you again.
Last semester I was discouraged and tired
of the sleepless nights of the writing life. I decided that I was going to stop writing, so that I could have a normal life. Normal? One day I went to work and, as usual, the first person I saw was Sarah. She told me that she always read The University Daily Kansan and that one of the articles I had written several weeks before had comforted her. She had been checking the opinion page ever since to see if there was another article of mine that would bring peace to her heart. When I heard this, tears rushed to my eyes.
"You read my articles?" I asked.
"Yes, I do," she answered. "I look forward to reading them every day as I come to work. Please keep on writing. Many of us need to read what you write."
I sighed as I thought about the strange ways life speaks to us. I told her that if she would pray every day that God would give me the strength to stand all the tribulations of the writing life, then I would do my best to continue to think and write. And on those days when inspiration strikes like lightening, I would joyfully forgo food and sleep and peace because I would know that my humble contribution is needed.
Professor David Dinneen, Sarah's boss and a very tough critic of how things are done in the world in general and at the University in particular, usually complains that Sarah is too sweet, too good. That is a good sign. This means that Sarah's sweetness and goodness show and are apparent even to the toughest critics.
When it comes to sweetness and goodness, I don't think there is such a thing as too much. On the contrary, it seems to me that given the present state of the world, there is not enough sweetness and goodness to go around. I believe that, in our generation, humanity is so wounded that we can use more of the healing fragrance that exudes from Sarah's heart as she sits down every morning to do her work in the department of French and Italian.
Happy Professional Secretaries Day and thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Phunsu is a Lawrence graduate student in French.
AIDS finally understood after death of loved one
My Uncle Bill died of causes related to HIV in June 1990. He was 33. Family and friends mourned his death. But no one dared to speak about
AIDS. Most everyone at the funeral knew he was gay and believed that only homosexuals could contract the virus.
I was one of those people, then a naive 14-year-old soon to be a high school sophomore. I had heard many of the AIDS jokes and rumors. So when I walked past my uncle's frail body one last time, I trembled before deciding not to
Tommy Gallagher opinion@kansan.com
touch him. I would never admit to it then, but I feared that I would contract AIDS with one simple touch.
I learned about AIDS during health class the next year. But I regretted that I didn't know more when Uncle Bill died.
Remember the AIDS myths of the 1980s?
Remember the AIDS myths of the 1960s:
One time I caught my sister drinking milk straight out of the carton. She offered me a sip but I refused. She then turned to me and said, "It's all right. It's not as if I have AIDS."
I had that swig of milk after all.
I remember the time I overheard a couple of teachers talking about Ryan White during recess. They marveled at the courage he possessed, but neither said she would feel comfortable about the food, bathrooms,
water fountains or anything else while in the company of someone who had AIDS.
And I remember when some friends asked me whether I had a crush on any girl in our class. Truth was that I had an immense crush on one girl, but I feared that I would be embarrassed by notes and rumors if I admitted my feelings. So I denied having any crushes. The response from my friends was. "What are you, gay? Do you have AIDS?"
Who was I to challenge what my teachers said?
AIDS could be spread by a gay person anywhere and anytime. At least that was the conclusion that friends, family and teachers led me to believe.
That was why I could not bear to touch Uncle Bill, whose delicate 70-pound frame had replaced the 175-pound body he formerly owned. I had heard all the rumors that surrounded AIDS, and I believed most of them. So I remained uneducated and ignorant about the facts until well after his death.
Fear of the unknown can be contagious, but the spread of the HIV virus and AIDS can be prevented by knowing the facts.
I may never forgive myself for the depth of my shallowness at Uncle Bill's funeral. Even today I talk to him, begging forgiveness for my actions and explaining that I just didn't know any better.
But now I do.
Tommy Gallagher is an Olathe senior in journalism.
Feedback
Student Senate has some power
Although I was quite impressed with Jonathan Huskey's obvious ability to use his thesaurus in his column "Coalitions look similar when masks are removed", the point he was arguing was less impressive.
He admitted as much when he stated that his "opinion may be a case of my cynical ignorance," but I fear that what he wrote may fester into students' beliefs. Owing to the work of activist students in
the late 1960s and early 1970s the Student Senate is endowed with a relatively large amount of power in the University Governance system. This power, of course, pales compared to that of the faculty or the administration, but it is there and it is real. After all, there is a reason this newspaper devoted so much space to the elections this semester; this stuff is important.
To Huskey's snickering at the Delta Force T-shirts that he claimed read "Defeating the Dominant Paradigm" (they actually read "Subverting the Dominant Paradigm"
— I know this is nit picking, but fact-checking is essential in a good reporter, and he should have checked his facts). I'm sorry that he has such a limited sense of irony.
And, finally, to the letter to the editor printed on the same page where Ryan Zimmerman said that instead of harassing students, candidates should have set up web pages. Well, Zimmerman, you should have looked for them — both coalitions did construct fine Web pages.
Partha Mazumdar Pittsburgh, Penn., graduate student