4
Wednesdav. August 25, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE
On Aug. 10, President Clinton signed into law a program that will guarantee free immunizations to poor and uninsured children.
THE BACKGROUND
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the program will cost the federal government $585 million over the next five years. Under the terms of the plan, the federal government will buy vaccines at discounted prices from drug companies and distribute the vaccines to doctors who will immunize children for free. Opponents assert that parental negligence, not the cost of vaccines, is the root of the problem.
THE OPINION
Education important to immunize America
Every year, thousands of children do not receive the vaccinations necessary to fight off childhood diseases. To combat this problem, President Clinton included in his budget proposal a plan that will allow poor and uninsured children to receive free vaccinations.
Although providing free immunization seems an admirable solution, throwing government money at this problem is not the most effective way to ensure that all children are properly immunized.
Unquestionably, an appalling number of children do not receive the proper vaccinations. However, children often go without immunization not because their families are poor, but because their parents are uninformed or neglectful.
Many parents do not bother to have their children immunized or do not know when their children should be immunized. According to the New York Times, only 40 percent of children 2 and under have been properly immunized. However, 95 to 98 percent of school-age children have received the vaccines necessary to attend school. The vast majority of parents can afford the cost of vaccines, but many parents simply wait until immunizations for their children becomes imperative.
Health departments in numerous large cities already offer vaccinations at no cost. In Chicago, the health department offers free immunization to any resident yet an estimated 71 percent of 2-year-olds have not been vaccinated.
Vaccines are available to rich and poor alike. Instead of spending government money to offer free vaccines, the federal government should seek to inform and motivate parents so that children can be properly immunized at an early age.
Free and low-cost clinics exist in cities nationwide. Consequently, forcing private physicians to offer free services is repetitive and unnecessary. Parents must be educated as to what services are available to them and what their children's needs are.
In order to utilize existing programs, the government must embark upon a community outreach program. The government must air public service announcements, send reminders to parents and knock on doors. Parents must be informed of the necessity to immunize and encouraged to take action for the sake of their children.
Immunizing all children is essential, yet parents receive little or no information detailing the importance of immunization. President Clinton's program, though well-intentioned, wastes government money without attacking the true root of the problem. Only by informing and motivating parents will children be properly immunized.
COLLEEN McCAIN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSANSTAFF
Veteran gives more advice to greenhorns
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
AMY CASEY
KC TRAUER, Editor AMY CASEY
JOE HARDER, CHRISTINE LAUE Business manager
Managing editors AMY STUMBO
TOM EBLEN Retail sales manager
General manager, news adviser JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
I know that you aren't going to listen to me. You've had quite enough advice. On every conceivable subject, from every relative and older person in general since you graduated last May. You've had enough advice. After all, you're 18 years old, an adult. You don't need all these people telling you what to do. You're certainly not going to think about what I'm saying. But I think that I'll write it anyway.
So anyway, you're here. Probably planning to hang around for four or five years. Then after graduation, you'll get a job that pays a great deal of money, in a field that is both interesting and rewarding, and in the exact location you've always wanted to live. I'll deal with that fantasy sometime later, but for now perhaps you're wondering what you can expect while you're here.
So, here you are. Usually with a parent or two, and an occasional sibling helping you haul your stuff up the stairs. You weren't really sure you wanted them here. But since the elevators always break on move-in day, the help has been worth the potential for disaster. You're nervous. After all, you really don't know any of these people that your relatives are embarrassing you in front of. You're also excited, because this is what you've wanted for a really long time. But now that you have it, it isn't quite what you expected, is it?
According to statistics, less than half of you will graduate in four years. Barely more than that in five. Some will leave. Some will return later when they are ready. Everyone
Editors
Assistant to the editor J. R. Clairborne
News    Stacey Friedman
Editorial   Terrill McCormick
Campus    Ben Grove
Sports    Kripti Fogler
Photo    Kip Chin, Renes Kneeer
Features    Erra Wolfe
Graphics    John Paul Foegel
There are opportunities throughout life. Many of us don't make the most of the one we face now. It's not a fatal flaw. But when we go to correct it later we often find that window a little smaller, a little harder to fit through.
looking back on my own experience and those of the people that I have known, I realized how wonderful and how difficult these years can be. In some ways going to class is the easy part. It's the living between classes that can be so hard. It can also be a whole lot of fun. So relax and enjoy the rid. You'll never get the same one again.
Jim Kimmel is a McLoughlin junior majoring in history and sociology.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Professor remembers shining Lindley's nose
I have often heard older people say that youth is wasted on the young. I can begin to see why they might think so. That's the reason you have been receiving so much advice since last May. It's not that we think we're smarter than you. Well, actually we do think we're smarter than you. We understand that for us that window of maximum opportunity has passed. Whether or not we've made the most of it, we can't get it back.
You see, never again will you have this combination of so much opportunity and so little responsibility. It is because you are 18, and your opportunities and options, until now, have been limited by age, that it is nearly impossible for you to understand the uninness of your situation.
I don't mean to imply that there is anything wrong with you now. Being 18 when you are 18 is fine. The trick is not to be 18 when you're 25
Someone once said, "Sometimes we don't know how stupid we are until we get a little smarter." This line fits you pretty well right now. Actually it fits us all pretty well. We think that we have our lives figured out, then one day we wake up and realize that everything has changed. We don't know how or why, it just has. You won't be the same person at 22 or 23 that you are now. You won't know why, but you'll probably be glad for the change.
Business Star
Campus sales mgr Ed Schager
Regional sales mgr Jennifer Perrier
National sales mgr Jennifer Evenson
Co-op sales mgr Blythe Fooch
Production mgrs Jennifer Blowey
Kate Burgess
Marketing director Shelli Blowey
Brian Fusco
Classified mgr Janice Davis
Business Staff
STAFF COLUMNIST
So look around. Many of the people you see now won't be with you when you walk down the Hill. Or will you be the missing face that someone else is looking for?
Your article on the tradition of rubbing the nose on Chancellor Ernest Lindley's bronze bust brought back memories. The sculpture, although dated 1956, was not put into Lindley Hall until 1963 or put into Lindley Hall until 1963. At that time I was a graduate student in the Department of Geology. Another graduate student and I saw the potential to start a brand new, old tradition by shining the
**Letters should be type, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.**
**Guest columns should be type, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. The writer will be mailed to the Kansas reservoirs the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansas newroom, 111 Skinner Flint Hunt.**
will tell you that if you leave, you will probably never return. But you can if you're determined to get a degree. Some will be more successful here than ever before. Others will be less successful than they were in high school. Some of you will meet the love of your life, probably more than once. Many will marry before they leave. A few of you will have children. Fewer still will contract the AIDS virus. One or two will likely die. Usually by accident. Occasionally by disease. Sometimes by suicide.
nose. Before the sculpture had been in place a week, the nose had taken on its present shine. At that time, Professor Frank Foley was chairman of the Department of Geology. Foley, for whom Foley Hall on West Campus was later named, had a fine sense of humor. When asked by a University Daily Kansas reporter to comment on the shiny nose, he reported that "for decades" students had been rubbing Lindley's nose for good luck on exams. That was enough. The new, old tradition
"Poco" Frazier, the sculptor, had keen sense of perspective. When asked about the treatment the sculpture was receiving, he expressed delight that the bust had become so popular with students. Incidentally, Frazier's studio was in the old stone barn just west of Clinton Parkway, which is now occupied by the Lawrence Fire Department.
was firmly in place
Roger Kaesler Professor of geology
Roger Kaesler
STAFF COLUMNIST
As I passed the summer months on intellectual sabbatical — in other words, lounging on a Nauyahde couch in front of my TV screen — I couldn't help but notice Coca-Cola's latest advertisements. Cool, cutting edge and computer-generated, Coke ads strive to reach our twenty-something generation. In one of the ads a group of computer-generated polar bears, bottles of Coke in hand, stares at the northern lights — sort of like how I stare at my television. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but finally I realized what was funny about the ads.
HUBER Coca-Cola conspiracy unearthed in Kansas
In each bear's paw was a bottle of Coca-Cola.
Not a plastic two-liter bottle or one of those glass 20-ounce bottles with the plastic twist-off lids that you buy at Kwik Shop, but one of the old, returnable 16-ounce bottles. The kind you used to find at the grocery store but have since disappeared.
I remember as a kid not having enough money to go to the swimming pool in the summer. That was when you offered to take back the Coke bottles for mom. One eight pack (yes, they came in eight packs) was enough to pay for a day at the pool for anyone 12 and under.
It's a Coca-Cola conspiracy.
At some point about five years ago, returnable bottles just disappeared. Now why, in an age when recycling is de riqueur, can we find no returnable bottles?
I asked a friend of mine whom I consider an expert. "I had to go to Iowa for mine," she said.
iowa? Why iowa? I smelled a conspiracy. So I thought I would start at the beginning. I called a local supermarket.
"Hi, remember those 16-ounce returnable Coke bottles? Why can't we buy them anymore?"
"We just can't get them any more," replied the store manager.
anxiety. I did hear that somewhere in the South you can still get a Pepsi for a nickel.
This sounded suspicious. I thought I'd go straight to the top. I called Coca-Cola USA in Atlanta. I was eventually transferred to someone in the media relations department. I asked them where I could get the 16-ounce bottles.
"Gosh, I don't know. I just finished having one myself," she said. "Let me see if I can find someone who can answer your question."
I wonder what Pepsico would have to say about that?
Coca-Cola USA didn't call me back by press time. So I guess the Case of the Missing Coke Bottles will remain a mystery.
I gave her all the information she had asked for. Could it be that she thought I was a Popsi biopi, and was asking me to crack my credentials with the FBI?
"So are you going to use this information in your story? Because if you are, I have to have another office answer your question. Can I take your name, number and zip code?"
"Well, I'm a columnist. This is for a column."
I was then transferred to another office. I recanted my question.
Val Huber is a Lawrence graduate student
marling in Journalism.
The woman on the other end of the line asked, "Is this for a story?"
For the Birds
by Jeff Fitzpatrick