Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Lindsey Henry, Editor
Dave Morantz, Managing editor
Kristie Blast, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news editor
Marc Harrell, Business manager
Colleen Eager, Retail sales manager
Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser
Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
4A
Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Editorials
University needs to change plans, add lights to Union lot before 2000
Anyone looking for danger just needs to park at night in the east area of the parking lot directly behind the Kansas Union.
It's dark and unprotected because there are no lights, which leaves people running for their cars hoping nothing happens to them.
On weekdays the Kansas Union closes at 11 p.m. that's a scary time for anyone walking alone. But it's made even scarier when students leave the union after it closes and venture into the dark of the east area of the lot.
This is unacceptable.
The lot is used regularly by students and staff. It is the responsibility of the University of Kansas to ensure that when these people are on campus they are protected. KU Police Sgt. Susan
With the renovations being made to Memorial Stadium, lights easily could be added
Hadl has said that criminals think twice before attacking someone under lights and that lights give people a sense of security and comfort.
Right now, people who park in that area of the lot don't feel safe and secure. Lights need to be put there to protect students, staff and visitors.
But despite the evident need, it doesn't appear that the University has any plans to correct the situation.
The east end of the lot is near Memorial Stadium. The area of the lot close to the Union is lit, but there are no lights
in the area by the stadium. And although the University is spending millions of dollars to renovate the stadium, there are no plans to increase lighting in the neighboring Union lot.
Bob Porter, associate director of Facilities Operations, said more lights would be placed this year near the Spencer Museum of Art and may be next to the stadium. But plans to put lights in the east end of the Kansas Union lot don't exist. The soonest lights could be added, Porter said, would be in 2000.
It's possible that University officials — who may never park in this area late at night — have no idea there's a problem. But there is. And it would be wise if the University could solve a real problem and put up a few lights.
The late nighters deserve it.
Spencer Duncan for the editorial board
Dredging up an ecosystem for sand
Few people recognize the repercussions of the indifference Kansans have shown toward the Kaw River. The cause of the river's downfall is sand dredging—the commercial extraction of sand from the river.
We oppose dredging the Kaw River. Dredging puts a tremendous environmental pressure on the river's ecosystem. The river is shallow and much of the aquatic life cannot live in the deep mud holes dredging creates. Entire species of fish are at risk of being wiped out.
Second, the sand on the river's bottom acts as a natural filter of sediment and pollutants. Removing the filter causes these pollutants to flow freely through the water instead of settling into the bottom layer of sand. This increases the already laborious task of water purification.
Kaw degradation should stop before more damage occurs
Finally, removing the sand from the river creates gaping holes that the river fills with sand and sediment from its banks, causing banks and plant life to collapse into the river.
The river and the sand are public property. But construction companies have been taking advantage of nearly free sand from the river for decades, a process Lance Burr, a lawyer and member of Friends of the Kaw, called corporate welfare.
A University of Kansas geological survey identified 74 alternative sources for sand extraction. The Kaw is not the only place to seek this
Kansans should not allow the rape of their river and the theft of their sand. Burr said that until the recent challenge by Friends of the Kaw, no one had ever significantly protested dredging of the river. However, as recreational activities, such as canoeing, hiking, or fishing, begin to be inhibited by the river's degradation due to sand dredging, people are starting to open their eyes.
natural resource.
Environmental issues may seem dull or irrelevant, but they are important. Canoeing is not dull, and polluted water and the destruction of an ecosystem is far from irrelevant. The preservation of the river benefits us all.
For more information or to get involved in challenging sand dredging, call Lance Burr at 842-1133.
Kansan staff
Nick Zaller for the editorial board
News editors
Paul Eakins . . . Editorial
Andy Obermueller . . Editorial
Andrea Albright . . News
Jodie Chester . . News
Julie King . . News
Charity Jeffries . . Online
Eric Weslander . . Sports
Harley Rattifl. . Associate sports
Ryan Koerner . . Campus
Mike Perryman . . Campus
Bryan Volk . . Features
Tim Harrington . Associate features
Steve Puppe . . Photo
Angte Kuhn . . Design, graphics
Mitch Lucas . Illustrations
Corrie Moore . Wire
Gwen Oison . Special sections
Lachelle Rhoades . News clerk
Advertising managers
Kriettie Bisel ... Assistant retail, PR
Leigh Bottiger ... Campus
Brett Cliffon ... 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
"**guess if you were a salamander, 'Amphibian-American' would be a step up. But I think we should just call a toad a toad." —Kermit the Frog, on political correctness
How to submit letters and guest columns
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.
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spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
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 Andy Obermueller (andyo@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4810.
Perspective
Skinny on 'naked diet' not all that appetizing
I had to describe how healthy my winter break was on a scale from one to 10, one being participating in a triathlon and 10 being eating pork rinds dipped in Cheese 'n Lard, it would probably be an 11.
Nick
Bartkoski
opinion@kansan.co
Not that it's entirely my fault. Like any good American, I think that I cannot be held liable for the blatantly stupid things I've done.
Instead, I blame my home environment. My mom is a latter-day Betty Crocker. She makes her own graham crackers. I would bet that even Kate Moss would gain a pound in an environment such as that.
As an unfortunate consequence of a cake-filled home life, I've started to chunk up. Now when an average, 180-pound male says he's starting to chunk up, we can all laugh because he means he's only gained a couple of pounds. When a 360-pound guy like me says he's starting to chunk up, it's a reason to call the National Guard or, at the least, Richard Simmons.
So now I suppose it's time to start back on my diet. To get myself back in a dieting mood, I looked at some of my old dieting journals:
Noon — This is the bold beginning of my diet.
I'm feeling more confident than ever. This time
I'm going to make it.
12:05 p.m. — My roommate just brought his lunch into the room. I swear his sandwich is taunting me.
12:15 p.m.—I just licked a spot on my desk where there was once a candy bar. It tasted very, very good.
12:30 p.m. — White I'm glad that the Elmer's Glue label says the contents are nontoxic, I wish that it would also provide nutritional information.
3 p.m. — I blacked out sometime about 1:30 p.m.
When I woke up there were remains of a McDonald's orgy - fries and burger boxes sweep everywhere. I'm a weak man. I think dieting isn't going to work out for me this time.
I p.m. — I went to the kitchen to get a nice glass of water. While I was there, a monster bowl of ice cream attacked me. It whacked me in the back of the head and then tried to force itself down my throat. I might have escaped, but the ice cream had powerful friends... the horror...
But this time I'm going to go with a less stressful diet. Right now I'm on the "Plan to become an anorexic but end up eating three times as much as normal and feeling terrible about it" diet. It hasn't done the job for me, so I've shopping around with some of the more interesting diets.
After reading my journal, I realize that it represents my most successful diet. I only gained about 20 pounds, an all-time low.
There's the "Eat Naked Diet." The theory is that if you get a look at yourself naked, you will lose your appetite and your weight will go spiralizing down. I've tried this approach but the only thing I accomplished was getting banned from Denny's for life.
There's also a new variation of an old treatment offered by Jack Kevorkian. He works his magic on you and within six months you've lost nearly all of your excess pounds. Technically, you've also lost all your non-excess pounds, so this method is generally impractical. Might be better to just spend Kevorkian's fee on liposuction.
I guess I may just have to...gasp... eat less and exercise.
Between those weight-loss systems and other crackpot programs like "A Tighter Buttocks in an Hour and a Half," finding a diet plan that will work for me is impossible.
Bartkoski is a Basehor junior in journalism and English.
Clinton: a two-bit con man with a trillion-dollar act
Driving home about a week ago, I found myself thinking about the Clinton presidency. I couldn't shake the feeling that Bill Clinton is one of those people who can rationalize anything he does. The next morning, the news came of the alleged Lewinsky affair.
Before I could even get a Nostradamus complex, the whole incident made sense. Why
shouldn't Clinton have done this? It fits in perfectly with his past. In his deposition in the Paula Jones trial a week ago, he admitted to an affair with Gennifer Flowers. I wasn't surprised and I didn't care. He never lied about it, he just dodged questions. Now his legal defense centers on carefully worded statements that draw a line between oral sex and intercourse.
Sam
Pierron
opinion@kansan.com
I don't care what Bill Clinton does with his staff. He has never been a man of monogamy, but that has nothing to do with how he performs as chief executive. If Eisenhower, Kennedy and other presidents could carry on monkey business without compromising the country's business, so can Clinton.
Francois Mitterand, the ex-Prime Minister of France, had a whole second family, and that didn't stop him from being effective. It was touching when they were right next to his "First Family" at his funeral.
Trouble is, Bill Clinton could never be frank
or honest enough to pull off such an affair. Frankness and honesty are not hallmarks of the "I didn't inhale"president. That became a center of jokes in 1992. I didn't care about him smoking marijuana, even if the public didn't cut him any slack. Al Gore smoked marijuana in college. So did Newt Gingrich. Does anyone ever mention that? No. Why not? The answer is honesty. Gore and Gingrich were forthright about it. When asked, they didn't try to cop out. They inhaled, admitted it and got on with their lives. They were forgiven.
So it would have been with Clinton if he hadn't been namby-pamby about admitting to passing the peace pipe—just as he is now about Lewinsky.
It's no wonder that the public's perception of politicians isn't improving. If Clinton didn't have this habitual cop-out fixation and instead bothered to do a little research on American pop psychology, he would have learned that Americans are more than prepared to forgive people who confess their sins. We don't even make you say three Hail Marys and think about what you've done. Just admit it to Oprah and it's over.
The bottom line of all this is that Bill Clinton is not fit to be president. Not because he sleeps around. Not because he smoked a joint. Not because I don't like his wife. It's because he's a liar, a two-bit con man with a trillion-dollar act.
We fell for his con twice. People hate con men, but there's nobody they hate more than a con man who made them fall for it.
Feedback
Pierron is an Olathe junior in political science and international studies.
Village Inn manager Linda Dalley forwarded me a letter to the editor from a recent copy of the Kansan. The letter was an insightful one that deserves both a compliment as well as a clarification.
Village Inn management responds to accessability letter
Sam Reisback wrote about a devastating accident he recently had and how it had confined him to a wheelchair. It was through that wheelchair-bound perspective that he gained a new insight into the trials and tribulations of everyday life in that capacity. Although I don't know this for a fact, it is my belief that through such experiences and advocacy of those in varying handicapped situations, that the ADA law was enacted. It is a good measure to be sure, but in many ways the terms of the law are difficult to implement in the short run. Sam's letter was written to elicit change and to ask Village Inn to do something about the bathroom handicap
accessibility issue. We are doing something, although not as fast as Sam would like.
Sam, in my opinion, in his wheel chair-bound status, deserves access to the bathrooms. His other choice, of course, would be to not frequent those establishments that do not provide wheelchair access. That is not something we desire. As a company we desire to satisfy our guests' needs.
But to achieve that access we have to proceed along a circuitous path. As the ADA anticipated, many companies would not, for various reasons, be able to comply immediately with every aspect of the law. In our Lawrence Village Inn, we do not have the ability to enlarge the bathrooms in their present space, as the revamped bathrooms would not comply with the law as it relates to wheelchair turning radii in a restroom. Typically that is what we do and have done in the eight other Village Inns we operate. The other possible solutions are so costly that it is
impractical for us to comply, and the law allows for that solution. The situation is further complicated by the fact that we lease our existing facility on a relatively short-term basis.
Our short-term solution has been to provide an airline wheel chair, which is more narrow, for the past three years for our guests who need restroom access in a wheel chair. This wheel chair, while not a perfect solution, has been a temporary fix. Our long-term solution is to build a new facility, complete with handicapped accessibility.
To conclude, and to answer Sam's question, we are aware of the access problems for our handcapped guests. Please bear with us for the long-term solution, as it will be the best for all concerned. We do recognize the problem and we look forward to the long-term solution, a new facility. But please be aware of our short-term answer as well.
Dave Lidvall
President, Family Restaurants, Inc.