4
Wednesday, February 2, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
KJHK no alternative after format changes
R. E.M. U2. Talking Heads. Each of these "alternative" music bands gained popularity through college radio. But with KJHK's format changes, other rising bands may not be heard. Ultimately, the big losers may be KU students.
Some of the changes may be for the better. For instance, daily jazz programming will be extended.
Also, 30 percent of the station's music playing time is used for listeners' requests. Listeners still can hear requests from their favorite vinyl albums.
But many of the format changes cut to the heart of the station's strengths. KJHK's collection of more than 300 compact discs it uses for regular rotation has been cut to 150.
Jay Berberick, KJHK's program manager, said the changes were made to get listeners more involved with the station. "Before, when our rotation was larger, we were playing songs that some people may never have heard before." Berberick said.
Another change KJHK has implemented is to categorize songs by tempo and mood. By telling DJs the order in which they must play songs, the station diminishes its purpose — that of a learning laboratory for students. The fewer choices DJs have in determining which songs to play, the less likely they are to learn.
But KJHK's purpose is to expose students to music they may not have heard on other stations. Though cutting the number of CDs on rotation does allow bands to be played more than once, it also cuts down on how many bands are played.
KJHK's strength always has been the diversity of its programming. It would be a shame for the station's format changes to diminish that strength.
NATHAN OLSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
FEMA needs reasonable budget,not extra money
The U.S. government should appropriate the Federal Emergency Management Agency more money each year, but not at the cost of increasing the budget deficit. That is why President Clinton should propose across-the-board cuts so that FEMA can get the money it needs to deal with this country's natural disasters.
"The Great Quake of 1994" was just one catastrophe in a long string of recent disasters FEMA could not afford. The government continually underfunds the agency, and the president must allocate specific monies when natural disasters occur. These allocations contribute to the budget deficit.
For instance, in 1992 President Bush requested an additional $2 billion for damage created by hurricanes Hugo and Andrew.
In 1993, additional funds were allocated for the Midwest flood. President Clinton initially had approved about $250 million for FEMA for fiscal year 1994 but since has asked for an additional $6.6 billion and may request more if California Governor Pete Wilson's $30 billion estimates on the quake's damage are accurate.
It appears that FEMA has been continuously underfinanced during the past few years so that Congress could lower the budget deficit. But reducing funds for an agency that continually needs more money will raise the deficit, not lower it.
If President Clinton is going to continue to tout that he has lowered the deficit, then he should plan to budget FEMA a few billion dollars more in 1995.
CHRISTOPHER LIVINGSTON AND BEN GROVE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
Editors
Assistant Managing Editor...Dan England
Assistant to the editor...J. R. Clairborne
News...Kristi Fogler, Katie Greenwald,
...Todd Selfert
Editorial...Colleen McCain
...Nathan Olson
Campus...Joe DeHaven
Sports...David Dorsey
Photo...Doug Hesse
Features...Sara Bennett
JUSTIN GARBERG Business manager
JENNIFER BLOWEY Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Business Star
Campus sales mgr...Jason Ebery
Regional Sales mgr...Troy Tawer
National A & Co-op sales mgr...Robin Kring
Special Species mgr...Shelly McConnell
Production mgr...Laura Guth
Gretchen Koelterhutchin
Marketing director...Shannon Belly
Creative director...John Carton
Classified mgr...Kelly Connexys
Tearsheets mgr...Wing Chan
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Friend's comment demonstrates ignorance about AIDS, victims
I recently saw the movie "Philadelphia."
It was a great film. It also was a real eye opener about the AIDS epidemic, not just in terms of the physical aspects of the disease but also in terms of the civil rights issue that accompanies any form of prejudice. But something I heard as I exited the theater really disturbed me.
A friend of mine said something to the effect that people needed to watch which kind they were sleeping with.
Which kind? What was that supposed to mean?
My first thought was one of disbelief. Did he honestly think gay people were the only group affected by this terrible disease? Then I got angry.
He then said, "Yeah, I mean you've got to feel bad for those people who get it through transfusions and stuff because it's not their fault, but..."
I told him, admittedly a bit harshly,
that anybody could get AIDS no matter who they were sleeping with and even if they weren't sleeping with anyone at all.
I think I cut him off before he got any further. But what? Do some people not deserve our sympathy because
That's not acceptable.
they're gay?
I was surprised at his comment, to say the least. For one thing, he's not an ignorant person. Why then, did he not know what goes on every day in this world?
The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that there are countless others in this area alone who share my friend's line of thinking. And the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
Don't these people know that AIDS is no longer just a "gay" disease? A 1992 World Health Organization study found that AIDS transmitted through heterosexual contact accounted for 90 percent of one million new cases reported in a nine-
month period. Doesn't sound like a "gav" disease to me.
I also thought about how so many people keep going through life oblivious to information like that. With all of the media attention and literature available about AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, it seems to me that you would have to work pretty hard to avoid AIDS education – especially on this campus.
The earliest part of this is that all of us probably know someone who has HIV right at this very moment. Studies done by the national Centers for Disease Control and the American College Health Association found that one in 500 college undergraduates were infected with the HIV virus.
Theoretically, that means that there are approximately 54 people who are infected with HIV on this campus. Those people might not know they are infected because it can take six months to 10 years for any signs of an AIDS-related illness to appear.
We may be young, but we're definitely not immortal. And the "it-could-never-happen-to-me-because I'm-a-young-heterosexual" attitude is exactly what is going to get a person into trouble.
Which brings me back to my friend. I really tore into him the other night after the movie, but I don't feel bad about it. I know he probably thought I overreacted a bit about the whole thing. I don't think I did. I don't believe you can ever overreact to ignorance.
I doubt that my friend considers himself to be prejudiced.
But would he have felt as bad for Magic Johnson if he had contracted HIV by having unprotected sex with numerous men instead of women? Sadly, I doubt it.
Everyone who contracts AIDS is a victim. I don't care how the person got it, or from whom — nobody "deserves" to contract AIDS more than anybody else. Degrees of guilt for contracting a terminal illness do not vary with the victim's sexual preference.
The key to curbing the AIDS epidemic is education - not just listening, but learning.
AIDS can affect everybody. Gay straight, Black, white, young or old this epidemic knows no prejudice.
It's too bad people do.
Danielle Raymond is a Wilmette, Ill., junio
in Journalism.
C
THE CONGRESSIONAL SUPER BOWL
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Common cold battlefield: Wal-Mart
Good Day, and welcome to "A Day in the Life," "starring Your Esteemed Writer. Today we're going to hear about how a sweet-tempered, overworked young girl (that's me) was violently, cruelly and most unexpectedly assaulted by that vile, loathsome creature, that insidious menace to human beings everywhere: The Common Cold.
Now, you must understand, CC and I had met before. He pursued me zealously through the winters of my life, but I was always cool and distant. My mother had warned me about him. "He's nothing but trouble," she told me. But I never thought he would actually do anything to me.
"Those other girls just didn't understand him, Mom. I'm taking vitamins; I know how to deal with him," "I reassured her. I thought we had reached an understanding, but last week CC stormed back into my life and cackled gleefully as he clogged my nasal passages and filled my lungs with fluid. I was helpless in the face of his unprovoked wrath; I crumbled in his fury like an overused Kleenex.
I tried to resist him at first. I staggered to Wal-Mart in search of help, but fate was against me. The managers were in cahoots with CC, it seemed. On some evil whim, they had rearranged the aisles. I stumbled blindly in the direction of Cough and Cold only to find myself surrounded by tankfuls of Siamese fighting fish. Sensing that something wasn't quite right, I cautiously made my way to the front of the store.
On my way, I thought I spotted salvation. I experienced brief elation as I walked (literally) into a cold medicine display. But alas, it was merely another cruel joke engineered
by CC and his Wal-Mart lackeys, I was looking at a display of children's cold remedies. I looked around, expecting to see adult formulas nearby, but Wal-Mart had strategically placed the display in the foot care aisle as to disorient me even further. Maybe they were hoping I would mistake the antifungal foot spray for throat spray in my feverish haze. Maybe they were feeding off of my frustration. Still having the presence of mind to be indignant, I wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth and stubbornly staggered onward.
I passed more aisles of hygiene products until finally I collapsed in Pain Relievers. Lifting my burning eyeballs heavenward, I caught sight of a word that instantly eased my phlegmatic cough : Sudafed. But just as I reached for the coveted package, another box caught my eye : Drixoral. Next to that was Dimetapp, then Triamnic and Nyquil, too. I held my aching head in my hands and stared in anguish at the neat rows of colored packages stretching endlessly down the aisle. My trials had just begun.
The boxes beckoned me, all promised different things. One swore it would end my post-nasal drip. Another claimed it would soothe my aches and pains. Sure, they looked sincere, but which one could I really trust? I felt like I was being pulled in a dozen different directions at once! I agonized for a moment. Then'I grabbed the Sudafed I had first seen, and I fled. I didn't even want to think about my decision. I couldn't deal with the guilt of rejecting all of those boxes or the trauma of discovering that I had chosen the wrong one.
But I chose wisely, as I found out I sluggishly wondered why I had found CC so hard, as I lie in my Sudafed induced coma. Lying on my bed with my head tipped slightly so I could breathe, I was almost comfortable. The Sudafed had my room spilling lazily in front of my eyes, and I felt not unpleasantly floaty. In face I felt (legally) euphoric. CC, baby, I'm yours.
Allaish Arena is an Overland Park freshman in biology and English.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Public affection displays every couple's right
Is it not enough that the administration of this university spoonfeeds a group of people who are, by their choices to come to a university in the first place, assumed to be responsible enough to make their own choices?
The column you ran in Friday's Kansasan about "Public Displays of Affection" seemed to me to be another ploy by the University to force its own morals and ideas upon the faculty and student body, people who I believe would consider themselves individuals who are in the correct position to make decisions
themselves about how to lead their lives.
I do not know how things are in Ms. Raymond's neighborhood — the one she shares with Gene Budig and David Ambler, perhaps? But where I live, the students and professors not only value their freedom of choice in all matters of morality and personal conduct but also cherish the responsibility that comes with making those types of decisions.
Give me a break: I am registered for the draft and pay my own taxes. Can't I decide what to do with myself after I pay my tuition?
Chris Strong
Lawrence senior
Fans need to control actions at field house
I was nerved at KU's basketball game against K-State on Jan. 24. Not so much because we lost but more toward the continuing deterioration of the crowd, especially the student section. KU fans have been seen as some of the best in the nation, but that view may change if we do not. The last few games I have attended, there have been some things that do not seem typical of KU's crowd. Yelling at the referees "YOU SUCK REF" and "bulls*@#!" seems childish. The referees are not going to change the way they call fouls no matter what the crowd says.
Warren Smith
Another thing that I was disappointed with occurred at the Oklahoma game. One of the Oklahoma players said something to students sitting behind the north basket, and the crowd responded with a lot of booing, and one fan threw a Power Bar at him. I do not know what was said, but I do know that throwing things at players is not part of KU's tradition. I hope that Roy Williams does not get fed up with the poor quality of the crowd and start looking for another coaching job. Please fellow students, for the sake of tradition and pride of the basketball program, don't allow these disrespectful actions to continue.
Greensburg sophomore