Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Lindsey Henry, Editor
Dave Morantz, Managing editor
Kristie Blasi, Managing editor
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Wednesday, March 18, 1998
JUST THINK SON, ONE DAY ALL THIS WILL BELONG TO BILL GATES."
THE DAILY KENTSTATER
Editorials
Good intentions behind minority groups' Senate seats, but bad idea
Student Senate should not provide seats for minority student organizations.
Annie stollman student union A bill that will be considered tonight would add new seats for Black Student Union, Hispanic-American Leadership Organization and Native American Student Association. Although the intentions of the bill are good, the ramifications won't be. There are many minority student organizations at the University of Kansas, but only three are being offered seats with this bill. The bill's sponsors want to add the Asian American Student Union to the bill, but where should Senate draw the line as to which organizations are allotted Senate seats?
able whether any student organization that receives funds from Senate should be granted its own seat. True, most senators are involved in campus organizations, but most of them have been elected by students who live in similar housing or who are in the same academic school.
Should every minority organization be given a seat? That would create a large group of unelected senators who would make decisions for the students at the University. Also, it is ethically question-
are in the student organization. Giving seats to students simply because they are in certain organizations is a bad idea. If we gave seats to every student organization on campus, Senate would become even more divided than it is already. The body would degenerate into a battle for student money where the needs of the entire student population would not be considered.
Minority students should have seats on Senate. But they should run for them or apply for replacement senator positions, as others must do to win a seat. They should take the initiative to run for Senate or apply for a Senate committee. If minority students are not senators, they should tell their representatives, minority or otherwise, what they want. If legislation that may affect them is being considered in Senate, minority students should go to the meetings and make their presence and views known.
presence and views who At the beginning of each meeting Senate has open forum, during which any student may speak, so long as Mike Walden, student body vice president, has been informed beforehand. Minority students, and all KU students, should use this forum for their views.
There are not enough minority students on Senate. They are not adequately represented by their senators. But to change this, they must get involved and take the initiative, not just take a seat that has been given to them.
Ameshia Tubbs and Paul Eakins for the editorial board
HIV list bill should not be passed
The Kansas legislature is considering a bill that would name individuals with HIV. This bill would overreach the bounds of governmental power and should not be passed.
Under the measure, anyone who tests positive for HIV would no longer be allowed to remain anonymous. The considered measure, Senate Bill 545, would require physicians, health departments and social service agencies that do HIV testing to use names when reporting results to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Currently, the number of HIV-positive people is reported, but names are withheld to preserve anonymity. The measure was attached to an emergency funding bill for a program that provides AIDS patients with drugs.
The legislature should not implement a system that would unfairly single out individuals with HIV. The Health Department does not have a right to this information, and allowing the department access to it would be a violation of HIV patients' privacy.
HIV patterns The effects of this could be devastating. The information easily could leak out as it is passed around.
KDHE spokesman Don Brown said that if the new measure passed, safeguards would be put in place to ensure that the names remained anonymous and were not leaked to the public. The problem is, those safeguards have not yet been outlined or thoroughly discussed. Some states have effective systems that use complicated 10-digit codes combining birth dates and snippets of
Social Security numbers with random numbers. But there is no assurance that a system like this would be used.
a system like this that helps Giving the health agency access without having a system to ensure that those names don't get out is dangerous.
If people think that their names are not protected, they may think twice before getting tested. That would be dangerous for everyone. Also, while it is important for health departments to keep on top of diseases, government agencies have few legitimate reasons to collect the names of HIV-positive people.
At the very least the bill should have a safeguard that would protect HIV patients from public exposure.
However, if the legislature wants to do the right thing for Kansans, it should abandon the bill entirely.
Kansan staff
Spencer Duncan for the editorial board
Paul Eakins . . . . Editorial
Andy Obermueller . . Editorial
Andrea Albright . . News
Jodie Chester . . News
Julie King . . News
Charity Jeffries . Online
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Harley Ratliff . Associate sports
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'Dog Killer' grieves the loss of man's best friend
D dogs have been in our world for a long while, and they have earned the title of Man's Best Friend. Sadly, my family relationship with these four-legged
Perspective
Ily's relationship with it
critters has not been the best. This is the tale of how our love for dogs has led us down the path to loving our dogs too much.
W. David Keith
opinion kansan.com
In my family we always have been lovers of the Lapso Apso breed of dogs. These are fluffy, little, multi-colored pups that used to be Chinese palace guard dogs. They are respectful to their owners but aren't the nicest of dogs to strangers. The
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Radar's life became complicated when he took a vacation to our grandparents' farm and had his eye clawed out by a large Doberman named Bear. We rushed Radar to the vet, but it was too late. One eye was irreparably damaged. The one-eyed Lapso followed me to school every day, and even would walk extra far to bite the toothless, drooling bad kids on the playground.
first dog we ever had was Radar, an all-white Lapso we got for Christmas. We named him Radar because of his knack for hunting rabbits, as if he had a radar built in his head. Radar was a strange dog that chewed on an orange supper dish all day, until my father ran over this supper dish with his car.
Radar mysteriously died seven years later. I remember that night so vividly, I can taste it. I was in the bathroom, reading a G.I. Joe comic book. My brother, Chris, was in our room, watching *Circus of the Stars*. Tina Yothers was walking the high wire with Ricky Schroeder. Then we heard a yelp, looked down the stairs and saw Radar lying in a heap at the feet of our little 6-year-old sister Ashley. We screamed. What had happened? Radar was dead and the only one to witness his death was our red-headed sister. We always had suspected she had an evil agenda, but we never thought she would kill Radar.
that night in our backyard, in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. We marked his grave with a plastic dinosaur.
For Christmas we got two new dogs — little Lapso pups named Bo and Toby. Bo still frolics to this day, but Toby is another story entirely. Toby added another Christmas memory when he bit my sister's nose and we had to rush her to the emergency room so they could stitch the shnoz up. We had had enough. Toby's evil reign had to end. We got in the giving spirit and gave the flesheating Toby to the vet to be terminated. But mom couldn't pull the trigger, so we just got him neutered, which was supposed to lower his testosterone levels and keep him from biting. He grew into an obese and lazy creature. So obese that one night the poor doomed canine lost his balance and fell into our pool. Since teaching chubby dogs how swim is not a Keith family specialty, Toby drowned that cruel night. Only recently has the information surfaced that my brother and his friends put beer in Toby's dish and he was drunk the night he fell into our pool.
It had been a family secret that Ashley had been trying to dress Radar in a baby doll dress, and he tried to run but tripped and fell, breaking his neck. We buried Radar
Then there was the time I eliminated a canine when I was in fourth grade. Our neighbors were going on vacation and asked me to take care of their hyperactive Cocker Spaniel named Cuddles. I did not like Cuddles very much, but I never planned on killing him. It just happened. It was a normal summer day and I went across the street to clean up Cuddles messes he'd made in the basement. I let Cuddles out into the fenced in backyard to frolic while I cleaned. I finished up and went outside to let Cuddles back in, and I was shocked to see that the backyard gate was wide open. Cuddles was gone. Cuddles was one of those dogs that once they start running, they never stop. But Cuddles stopped — after he ran onto a busy highway and was run over by a tennis player in a LeSabre. Surprisingly, Cuddles owners weren't that upset. They even paid me 25 bucks. After that day, my family called me D.K., which happen to be my initials, but stand for Dog Killer.
Three dogs were sent to the hereafter by the people who are supposed to protect them. Rest in peace, Cuddles. Say "woof" to Radar and Toby for me.
Keith is a Stanley freshman in Illustration. We hope he'll invest in a pet rock.
6
As I walked across campus today, I couldn't help but hear the passing conversations about the game and how bad it was. It sounded like the consensus was that the men's basketball team sucks. Well just hold on a minute. How in the world can 35-4 suck? I don't think so. We have gotten so that we expect perfection from the team. Yeah, it is totally annoying that the team didn't make it any farther than they did, but, have we all completely forgotten who we are talking about? This is a team that won the Big 12 title. Doesn't that mean anything? I don't think that it means we are invincible. We definitely would like to think that, but we're not. Roy Williams and the Kansas
University should be proud of Jayhawks
Feedback
Thank you for representing our school with such excellence.
Marie Weigel Brookville freshman
get that kind of help.
They need to know that we are still incredibly proud of their talent and expertise. How can we ask for a better group of people to represent our school? This is not Kansas State, where winning a game is a milestone. So come on. Realize that Sunday's game is something we all would like to forget, and remember that this team is amazing. We all should tip our hats to them, not complain about them not being perfect. I would like to thank Roy Williams and the team for the incredible season they gave us and give them my sympathies for the loss.
5
Perhaps the Derby freshman who came out during Saturday's performance and asked the protesters "Aren't you being a little ungrateful?" said it best.
I agree completely with Matt Bachand's column in The University Daily Kansan on Monday, which discusses the class-based and class-reinforcing nature of such "charitable" organizations as the Rock Chalk Revue. Unfortunately, Bachand's point is almost completely lost in his stilted and convoluted language.
Rock Chalk protest column convoluted
Jayhawks are an entity that we are proud of. Let's not forget that now.
Robert Fort Daytona Beach, Fla., graduate student
THE DAILY KENTSTATER