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Mondav.March 7.1994
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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VIEWPOINT
Donating blood a way to save lives
Millions of lives are saved every year by those who donate blood. Yet many people cannot find the time or the courage to lend a helping hand.
Most people would not hesitate to do whatever was in their power to save the life of family members or friends in need. They would not deny sisters, brothers or roommates anything they could give when it comes to matters of life and death.
Accidents and illnesses are not announced events. Lives are being saved right now because blood was donated. There is no way of knowing when someone close to you might be in need of blood.
Giving blood is a relatively painless and safe procedure.
The spring blood drive will be held today through Thursday in the Kansas Union Ballroom.The drive is sponsored by the Panhellenic Association, Interfraternity Council, All Scholarship Hall Council and the American Red Cross.
KU students should support the blood drive by donating blood. Students should allow two hours to donate blood, though the process takes only 30 minutes.
If it is impossible for you to make time during this blood drive, contact the American Red Cross Blood Collection Site, 2120 W.25th St.The phone number is 749-3017.
There is no excuse for missing a chance to save a life.
HEATHER KIRKWOOD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
HEATHER KIRKWOOD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
New method of teaching means education for all
Outcome-based education is a welcome shift in the priorities of our nation's schools.
OBE is an educational reform movement. This method of teaching focuses on clearly defining what students should know at each level and allowing them to continue studying and retaking tests until they understand that material. Traditionally, teachers have a set pace and move on even if they leave students behind.
Kansas school districts are required to implement a version of OBE by the 1995-96 school year.
Those who oppose OBE claim that educational standards are being lowered so that all students can meet them. Some worry that the slower pace permitted for students having problems will hold brighter students back.
Should school systems focus on providing an excellent education for high potential students? Or should they strive to ensure that everyone leaves school with a good basic education?
The public schools should strive to provide a good general education for everyone. Forcing all students to move at the same pace means that some will be forced ahead even if they are not ready.
The students who are left behind are the students who drop out of school or eventually graduate from high school with little or no reading ability. These undereducated members of our society are more numerous than we think, and the financial, social and human costs of this functional illiteracy are enormous.
Outcome-based education, because it focuses on the goal of a universally educated society, is a vast improvement over traditional educational methods.
MARGARET BECK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
JUSTIN GARBERG Business manager
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
Editors
JENNIFER BLOWEY Retail sales manager
Aest Management Editor...Dan England
Assistant to the editor...R. I. Clairborne
News...Kristi Fogler, Kattie Greenwald
Todd Sehlert
Editorial...Colleen McCain
Brittany Olson
Campus...Jose Delavenne
Sports...David Dorsey
Photo...Doug Hesse
Features...Sara Bennett
Alumni Journal...Angela Jones
President...Christine Laue
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writing affiliated with the University should be avoided.
**Notes:**
Campus sales mgr...Jason Eberly
Regional Sales mgr...Troy Tarweier
National & Coop sales mgr...Robin King
Special Sections mgr...Shelley McConnell
Production mgr...Laura Guth
...Gretchen Koefferheinrich
Marketing director...Shannon Reilly
Creative director...John Carlton
Classified mgr...Kelly Connealy
Teamsheets mgr...Wing Chan
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The Kansas reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansas newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Meaningless sex is a time bomb for future intimate relationships
I have a confession to make. I am not a slut.
As a man, this is a difficult thing to admit.
From the moment that a boy realizes the other use for his penis, he is told by his peers to use it often. Somehow, quantity of women defines manhood.
Of course, like most men, I was in a hurry to get rid of the sigma of virginity, and I eventually succeeded. I had a steady girlfriend at 16, and most of my friends assumed that I was "getting some" every weekend. I didn't see any need to reveal that the only thing I was getting was especially frustrating French kisses.
Popular and outgoing in high school, I had many female friends. When guys jumped to the wrong conclusions about my nocturnal activities, I wasn't eager to set them straight.
The stories could have been true if I had been more aggressive, but I usually was too shy and too polite to push relationships to a sexual conclusion. Still, like all myths, my sexual pro
Still, like all myths, my sexual proclivity had some basis in fact.
I met a wonderful woman, no blush
ing virgin herself. We accept each other's past relationships as part of the past only.
Our wish isn't due to some syrupy numbo-jumbo about "virginity is the greatest gift you can give someone." Maybe in romance novels, but in real life it is often painful, awkward, embarrassing and unrewarding.
Except, looking says in the past.
Now I wish to God that I had been a virgin when I met her. She also wishes that I had been her first.
Except, nothing stays in the past.
Instead, we both wished that we were virgins because of the baser side of human nature. It is impossible to look at someone you love without occasionally thinking about who has "loved" that person before.
I get angry when I hear women complain about the double standard that sexually active women are sluts, but sexually active men are studs.
It is men who should complain because they are expected to cheapen themselves for the admiration of their peers. If they go too far in their pursuit of quantity sex, they are not respected by women. Not far enough, they are not a "real" man.
Love is a big deal. If anybody had tried to tell me that love made sex better, I would have smiled politely and wondered how an emotional reaction could heighten a physical act.
I know a man who was a virgin until just recently. He wasn't a virgin because of any moral, religious or physical limitations. He simply wanted to save himself for a woman he loved. I never told him how much I respected that. It would not have been manly. I hope his girlfriend realized what a precious gift she received.
Sex isn't that big of a deal. It's cheap, its easy, and it can be found almost anywhere.
Then I tried sex with true love. It really is different.
many of you reading this are still virgins. Some of you, though, are a lot closer to the first time than you would care to admit.
I am not naive enough to think that
I would be even more naive if I thought my little rant would change the American attitude about sex.
I am not even touting the values of monogamy. Love is not always forever.
I just want you to think twice before you pick up a person of questionable virtue from the local watering hole for the sole purpose of meaningless sex.
Someday, if you are lucky, you will meet someone with whom you will fall madly in love, body and soul. Then a crude friend will remind you of the forgettable person you used to bop in the Campanile. He might even bring up a few other "relationships" that occurred mostly between the sheets.
She might say she understands. She might even say it doesn't bother her.
You will feel the pain and embarrassment, though, when your loved one is hurt by these ghosts of your youthful indiscretions.
My girlfriend lives in Austin, Texas. When I heard about the fellow there whom the authorities busted for running a "prostitution ring," I asked her to send me any news reports she ran across about the arrests and the resulting fallout. I thought that it would make interesting reading.
Legalized prostitution benefits women
I've never been able to figure out why prostitution should be illegal. Can someone explain this to me? Is this one of those things where some people tell other people how to live their lives — ostensibly for their own good?
COLUMNIST
How silly of me. I thought that if people wanted to have sex with strangers, they should be able to do so. If two people want to sweat on each other and slap their bodies together for a bit and one will do so only for a fistful of cash, what is the problem? Maybe this is a national security issue?
Imagine if prostitution were legal: Women who are brutalized by their customers would be protected by police and the courts. I also suspect that the firm that would provide such entertainment (or should we call it
performance art?) would insist on the highest health standards or would lose customers. And think what legalizing prostitution would do for the self-esteem of the women who earn their living in this fashion.
public. The newspaper reports I saw indicated that one Texas state senator was highly anxious.
Those who pay for sex also would have a greater degree of anonymity than they do now. The police seized a computer database from the fellow who ran the prostitution ring in Austin. It had detailed information on between 300 and 500 customers. As one Austin cop put it, the phone has been "ringing off the wall" with people who wanted to know whether they were on the list and whether their names would be released to the
And if people had to be 18 to be prostitutes, it seems probable that children would be exploited less often as prostitutes than they are now. There would be no point for a legal prostitution business to break the law. I think that 18 is a reasonable age because at 18 the government can send us to foreign lands to slam our sweaty bodies against "enemies" in an attempt to kill them.
I imagine organized crime is one group that opposes legalizing prostitution, just as it opposes legalizing drugs. After all, why share a highly profitable monopoly?
I've heard it suggested that some old, Eurocentric, white males wish to keep prostitution illegal. I wonder why, unless it is to keep women down. This is one profession manned, so to speak, predominately by women. By denying women access to the incredible profits of prostitution, we keep women from gaining capital resources they can use, for instance,
for their education. If you haven't heard, Harvard Law School ain't cheap.
Alas, our national policy is to deny women and men the right to do what they may enjoy and find profitable. Though it is possible that prostitution may be legalized just so that Congress can tax it, too, I rather doubt it will happen in this country. It will be a long time before we give up our puritanical heritage and our desire to see the "sinners" among us, such as this fellow who ran the prostitution ring in Austin, burn in Hell, Or, better yet, if burning is what the rulers of our society want, why count on mystical forces? Just have the government cart all the sinners down to Waco, Texas, and immolate them there.
In the case of the ring-leader in Austin, the government is a bit late. Facing life in prison for allowing men and woman to undertake a mutually agreed upon transaction, he put a gun to his head and committed suicide.
Allen Tiffany is a Lawrence graduate student in English.
I am writing in response to the short-sighted opinions expressed by Felicia Jubatic and her opposition to race-based scholarships.
Race-based scholarships right wrongs of the past
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Jubratic is not the only person on this campus who is insensitive to the historical existence of racism in this country. This racism has created the disparity in most public and private institutions, especially schools. Knowing this, one need not wonder why African Americans make up only 3 percent of the KU population.
The past and present existence of this institutional racism makes race-based scholarships necessary. We must begin to right the wrongs of the past, and if that means that people like Jubratic and me must accept something that ideally seems
"unfair," then so be it. I will go
Jubatric the tissue while one of my
African-American friends describes
to her what "unfair" really is about.
Mark Durr Lawrence senior
Women can be treated by women at Watkins
We would like to add to information presented in the Feb. 22 issue of the *Kansan* concerning women's health issues at Watkins Memorial Health Center. There are five board-certified women physicians and two women nurse practitioners on staff at Watkins, all of whom have had training in gynecology. We perform pelvic exams, pap smears, diagnose and treat gynecological problems including sexually transmitted diseases and prescribe birth control.
We appreciate February Sister's concern about women's health issues as we are also concerned. It is important to realize that women can be treated by women practitioners at Watkins.
Patricia Denning, M.D.
Kathy Guth, R.N., N.P.
Linda Lyle, M.D.
Jody Woods, R.N., N.P.
Dee Ann Droin, M.D.
Leah Luckeroth, M.D.
Myra Strother, M.D.
contaminating cigarette new form of censorship
Condemning cigarettes
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration suggested classifying cigarettes, or nicotine, as a drug. This a threat to the millions of Americans who make their living by growing, processing or selling tobacco, and it represents a bigger problem
that makes its home in Washington.
If we fear something or don't understand it, we outlaw it. We should cope with our temptations and anxieties. We should have responsibility to make choices. That requires education and thought.
Ice-T said something to the effect of, "If you don't like it, don't buy the album." He's right. Maybe we shouldn't buy that album. Maybe we should put down that gun, but such actions are for us to decide. Repression is not the answer.
Government discounts the abilities of the human mind. Harmful drugs are stumbling blocks to the mind, but having government take them away doesn't do much for its integrity. The government is starting to make us our minds.
David Day Wichita sophomore