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Thursday, January 27, 1994
OPINION
新版 2018.12.19
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Separate representation for graduates is illogical
Last week, Student Senate voted to create a Senate for graduate students. Although it is necessary for graduate students to be represented at the University, a separate Senate is unreasonable.
Creating a separate Senate gives graduate students and undergraduates equal voices in University Governance, even though undergraduates outnumber graduate students almost 3 to 1.
In addition, the justification of those who voted to create the second Senate is illogical. They argue that graduate students are not fairly represented in Senate. Proportionally, however, graduates would have equal representation if they could find enough students to fill the 13 seats allotted them. Currently, only six of those seats are filled
Maybe they don't realize that a graduate Senate will have to be built from the ground up. The new graduate senators will need to write a constitution, hold elections, attend meetings and write legislation all the things that Senate is required to do.
Graduate students contend that they don't have enough time to participate in Senate. And yet they seem to think that they can find the time to create a whole new governing body.
If graduate students think that separating themselves from other students in governance will give them better representation, they should consider more closely the reasons they are not well-represented in the first place.
The six graduate senators who have seats in Senate will have a hard time building the new Senate on their own. Even without the course load graduate students carry, they still would not have the time.
DONELLA HEARNE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
After all, there's plenty to praise in Lillehammer. The marksmanship courses have devices designed to prevent lead bullets from polluting ground water. The Gjørvik ice rink is housed inside a mountain to minimize its effect on the surrounding village. From energy-efficient accommodations to a new fuel for the Olympic torch, the games have been planned with the environment in mind.
Norway should be praised for the environmental theme of the Winter Olympics. Instead, it fears retaliation from environmentalists who, angered by Norway's continued defiance of worldwide commercial whaling bans, threaten to force the issue onto the Olympic stage.
Norway deserves credit not criticism for Games
Though protest is sometimes the answer, embarrassing Norway could slow its environmental progress. But by helping the country showcase its Green Games, activists can keep Norway's environmental movement going long after the Olympics.
The design was no accident. Since 1987, when Norway won the right to host the Games, local environmentalists have been working with the Olympic organizing committee to make sure that these are the greenest games possible. Cheering for their accomplishments could help activists gain ground on other issues after the Games.
The world will learn from Lillehammer's Green Games; whether those lessons are positive or negative depends on environmentalists. Norway deserves a green medal for sponsoring an environmentally friendly Olympics. Let's hope that the country gets it.
SAMANTHA ADAMS FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
Assistant Managing Editor...Dan England
Assistant to the editor ...J. R. Clarkbree
News...Kristi Fogler, Katie Greenwald,
Editorial...Colleen McCain
...Nathan Olson
Campus...Jess 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
Campus sales mgr ..Jason Eberly
Regional Sales mgr ..Troy Trayer
National & Co-op sales mgr ..Robin Kring
Special Scaffolds mgr ..Shelly McConnell
Production mgr ..Laura Guth
Gretchen Kootterleinrich
Marketing director ..Shannon Reilly
Creative director ..John Carlton
Classified mgr ..Kelly Connelys
Teachets mgr ..Wing Chan
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address, and telephone number affiliated with the University of Minnesota, to whom they are addressed, or faculty or admissions office.
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Nude dancers deserve more respect than society grants
Just when you think you have a group of people stereotyped, somebody throws a monkey wrench into the works. This happened to me within the last year.
I met a topless dancer.
I got to know the dancer very well. She went into dancing because she was a 16-year-old girl living on her own. You can't pay bills and eat on minimum wage. She tried. A friend talked her into dancing. A naturally modest person, she was afraid, but she had to eat. She made $200 that first night. She overcame her shyness. A part of her was lost.
Her story is not unique. Women usually take up dancing because there are no other options left. Without a college education, they have no real hope of getting a good job. Many of these women have kids to support. With dancing, they can make good money, badly needed money.
There is a price to pay, though, a heavy price.
From the moment a woman starts dancing, her self-respect is under siege.
Two kinds of men frequent strip bars. There are the polite ones. Lonely, shy or just horny, they treat the
girls with some respect and dignity. They talk to the girls, they buy them drinks and they tip them. They treat the girls like people.
Then there are the jerks. These guys think of women only as objects. They need buddies and liquor to give them the artificial courage they lack. Like little boys in a toy shop, they try to touch and play with everything. They paw and leer at the women. They insult, degrade and humiliate the dancers.
Some women are strong. They believe in themselves and their own worth. They can withstand these attacks. Others have little or no self-respect. They have been told all their lives that they are worthless, and they begin to believe it. Many are dragged
down by the advances of these men. Constantly degraded, these women lose respect for themselves. Their lives are thrown away on drugs or abusive men.
For those who survive the attack within, their trial is not over when they step out the door. The self-righteous have declared these women bad. Dancers are shunned by "good" people, ridiculed, despised. Dancers are caught in a loop. Try getting a job with "dancer at the Flamingo" on your resume. Try to get fair treatment when your boss finds out what you used to do.
There is nothing sick about the display of the human body. It is a beautiful thing. Many of these girls are talented dancers. My friend trained in both ballet and gymnastics before she fell on hard times. Sometimes I have been awestruck by the abilities of some of those girls. Nude dancing can be an art form of life.
All across the United States, zealous citizens are trying to have strip bars shut down. They call them sick and sleazy. They are only half right.
What is sick is the way these women are treated by some customers. The customers, not the dancers, make it
sleazy.
Common manners tell you that these women should be treated with more respect, but some men are just stupid. Because these men have no honor, there are laws. In many bars, it is illegal to touch the breasts or buttocks of dancers. This law is rarely enforced except by the dancers who still care about themselves. It is a pity.
I know that you will find it hard to believe, but those girls whom some of you look down on and some of you openly lust after and try to fondle are real people. They are somebody's wife, girlfriend, sister, daughter or mother. The stigma of being a nude dancer sometimes drives a wedge between the dancers and their loved ones.
It shouldn't be that way. Better laws and better enforcement can regulate customer actions. Only you can change society's opinions.
Somebody cares about these women, and somebody is hurting because of your actions.
Do you care?
Jacob Arnold is a Wichita Junior in Journalism.
Weird uses for microwave radiate fear
I stumbled upon the most interesting sight last week. I had just put a Lunch Bucket in the microwave after sampling the delicacies offered in the Residence Hall Dining Facilities. I left the room while it was microwaving, and when I re-entered the room, I noticed that my roommate was huddled in the corner next to the trash can.
She nonchalantly looked up from the book she was reading and said that she was trying to escape the microwave radiation.
My first thought was, "The trash can? Why not the hallway?" I decided not to argue with her logic. Then we both looked at the offending contraction. It gurgled ominously while it swayed from side to side on top of the refrigerator.
"Radiation is bad for you," declared my intellectual roommate.
If radiation doesn't kill me, the Lunch Bucket certainly could. The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 2, 1993, that "food scientists now admit that mastering the high-speed and error-prone art of microwaving
has proved far trickier than anticipated." Lovely. The key words that strike fear into my heart are "now admit" and "error-prone". Considering that the heating ability of microwaves was accidentally discovered by Army technicians during World War II, "error-prone" is not inaccurate. Between bombings, some hero noted that rations left near the radar gear heated up.
Now, maybe I'm being a bit narrow-minded, but isn't this an overly enthusiastic implementation of the word "multipurpose?" I left my coffee mug on top of my hot rollers once, and the coffee stayed warm. But I'm not going
to sate vegetables on them while I'm doing my hair.
Entrepreneurial spirits are going to further extremes in an effort to use microwave energy. One brilliant inventor suggested a microwave hair dryer. John Gerling, a consultant in Twain Harte, Calif., was not impressed, observing that "It would coagulate the eyeballs and curdle the brain."
Not to be outdone, Robert Schiffman, a microwave consultant from New York, developed a microwave blood warmer to defrost plasma in hospitals. Great idea, Bobby. This could lead to pleasant conversations like:
DOCTOR: How long has this coffee been here? it's kind of syrupy.
NURSE : Gosh, Doctor, I just made it.
DOCTOR : Well, maybe we should use instant. Hey, has anyone seen the bag of plasma Linda just defrosted for Mr. Wilkins?
NURSE : Plasma?
If you're not into microwaving food
or body substances, International Marketing Partners Inc. of Atlanta has developed microwaveable flannel bandannas. Nice idea, but somehow I don't quite see Mean-Looking Biker Man With Several Tattoos zapping his grungy, dirt-encrusted bandannas before hitting the road.
I suppose that Stanley Protokowicz Jr. discovered the worst use for a microwave oven. Protokowicz, a lawyer, pleaded guilty to breaking into the home of a friend's estranged wife and killing her kitten in the microwave oven. Apparently, the animal was underfoot, and Protokowicz used the machine as a Pet Taxi. The oven "accidentally" turned on and steam-roasted Kitty-Kat. As James Watkins, chief executive of Golden Valley Microwave Foods Inc., said, "It is very difficult to have a positive experience the first time with any (microwave) product."
I think I'll be joining my roommate in the corner.
Alibaba Aorra is an Overland Park freshman in biology and English.
Anti-abortion activists get favored treatment
Your incredibly biased coverage of the 21st anniversary of Roe v. Wade shocked me. A front-page picture and an inside article about anti-abortion activists, but nothing about the 70 to 80 percent of Americans who support abortion rights. We saw the anniversary as a reminder of the tens of thousands of women who died from illegal abortions and of those who continue to die because of parental-consent laws. It was a reminder that all women now have the legal right to a safe and legal abortion.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Your omission is especially troubling after this country has seen a year in which anti-abortion activists murdered a doctor in Florida and shot and wounded a doctor in Kansas. Doctors now are living in fear. This is not a time to glorify the anti-abortion crusades.
It must have passed unnoticed to you that there were also abortion-rights rallies in Washington and across the country.
I hope that next time the Kansan can be more objective and fair to both sides.
Michele A. Kumm
Leawood senior
Education about AIDS is vital to community
The Senate's charitable act should be seen as a public service to Lawrence as well as the University. I, for one, support the use of my money to expand the community's
The $3,200 that Student Senate allocated for the Douglas County AIDS Project is money well spent. Considering that every person is susceptible to the AIDS virus through unprotected sex, contaminated needles or other practices that involve shared body fluids, it is vital that information concerning HIV, AIDS and protection from the virus be produced and distributed.
knowledge about this deadly disease. Perhaps through education, some of the myths surrounding the virus and its victims will be dispelled.
Student senator Michael Moyer says the project is not a student organization. He is correct in this assertion. Would it make him feel better if the funds for the project were labeled a donation?
If labeling the money as a donation will suffice, let the project educate the community about AIDS. Isn't that the idea of an educational institution? To educate the community. The Senate is only taking an alternative approach to do so.
Timothy Mathews
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Overland Park sophomore
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