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Friday, October 27, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
KU survey sounds alarm; AIDS education is ignored
Despite numerous organizations' efforts to the contrary, an alarming number of Kansans still seem to find AIDS education irrelevant.
According to a recent survey conducted by the University of Kansas, many residents have terrifying misconceptions about how acquired immune deficiency syndrome is transmitted. Twenty-two percent of the 682 surveyed Kansas adults said that a person could contract AIDS from an insect bite. Twenty percent said a person could catch the virus from a public toilet. And 33 percent said people with AIDS should not be allowed to swim in public pools.
The figures suggest that many Kansans either have ignored the array of available information or have refused flatly to believe the findings of the experts.
And that represents a behavior we should no longer tolerate. *give health adventurer at Wattles Memo.*
rial Health Center, said she feared that many residents might not care because AIDS information was everywhere.
"There has been a lot of attention given to AIDS in the past few years," she said.
She is right. The press, the government, the entertainment industry, health officials and many other organizations have attempted to educate and inform the public about the disease. The KU campus has an abundance of student, faculty and staff members involved in groups whose purpose is to increase awareness
These people should be commended for their dedication and commitment.
But for all their efforts, nothing will change unless we, as individuals, understand that the disease affects us all. We must want to learn about AIDS because there is not a single one of us who can afford to ignore its existence.
The survey demonstrates that it is time for a second wind. Media attention should increase. The possibility of required AIDS education in the public school system should be made a reality. Proper safety precautions should not only be understood but practiced.
But above all, we must recognize what is at stake and be prepared to point it out to those who can't, don't or won't.
Craig Welch for the editorial board
Middle East crisis creates room for dialogue at KU
The plight of Palestinians living in Israeli-occupied territory was brought to the University of Kansas last week.
The movie "Pays of Rage," which had previously aired on public television, showed the Arab-Israeli conflict from the Palestinian point of view.
The movie, which was shown at the Kansas'Union on Oct. 19 definitely had a place on campus. In an atmosphere of academic freedom, all sides of any given issue should be discussed. The little trouble that was stirred by the movie's showing is a credit to the groups most affected by it.
It seems that groups representing both sides of the Arab-Israeli issue on campus are having a little more success than their larger, more worldly counterparts.
Jennifer Marks, president of Hillel, a KU Jewish student organization, said she thought that relations between the Palestinian and Jewish groups on campus slowly were getting better.
Marks said that a continued dialogue between the two campus groups was more than welcome.
Sadeq Masoud, president of the General Union of Palestinian Students, said he believed that the compromise was important in solving both the crisis in the Middle East and the tensions on campus.
"We can't solve the problem here, but we can learn to listen and try to understand each other," she said. She doesn't believe that tensions between the two groups can be totally erased until the problems in the Middle East are solved.
It would be unrealistic to expect that eased relations between two campus groups could solve the ongoing and complex problems of the Middle East or even to expect these groups to forget what is happening in the Middle East.
But steps taken here are important. They will enrich the campus community and help people begin to better understand each other.
Brett Brenner for the editorial board
News team
David Stewart...Editor
Ric Brack...Managing editor
Daniel Niemi...News editor
Candy Niemann...Planning editor
Sam Dulli...Editorial editor
Jennifer Corser...Campus editor
Elaine Sung...Sports editor
Laura Husner...Photo editor
Anthony Winner...Artist/Fashion
Tom Ebel...General manager, news advert
Business staff
Linda Prokop...Business manager
Debra Martin...Local advertising sales director
Jerro Medford...National/regional sales director
Jill Lowe...Marketing director
Tami Rank...Production manager
Carrie Stankinta...Assistant production manager
Matthew Townsend...Co-op manager
Eric Hughes...Creative director
Chrissi Dool...Classified manager
Jeff Messey...Tear sheds manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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UFO reports aren't out of this world
The recent report of a UFO sighting by Tass, the official Soviet news agency, brings to mind similar valiant efforts by the media of this country. Tablid after tablid tell stories of three-headed beings born of earth women and earthlings' travels with extraterrestrials. But U.S. tablids are supposed to do that: They're trying to make money. What's Tarxia 'crescue?
One might reason that someone in an obscure bureau got bored with relaying the same old propaganda and decided to fire off something not specifically recommended by the powers above. Or maybe the report was from someone who believed that he really did see what he said he saw. Whatever the story or motivation, the "sighting" is launhable.
It might be commendable as well. Surely the government did not intend for its media arm to print such a ludicrous story. Nevertheless, the story ran.
The so-called sighting of an alien in a country other than the United States has sparked a new debate of an old question in the United Kingdom. It seems that in certain parts of England, patches of perfectly neat swirls of flattened crops have appeared many times at night and every time unbeknownst to the farmers owning the land. The swirl range from 10 to 100 feet in diameter and are mostly concentric, although one reported this year had a long curling tail. About 270 were reported this summer, and more than 600 have been reported since 1980.
the swirls are not particular: Farmers of wheat,
David White Wire Editor
barley and oats have all reported seeing such a phenomenon. Certain shrewd observers have reported seeing the swirling pattern in grass fields as well. One particularly interesting sighting was reported to resemble a Celtic Cross but also looked like depressions from the landing gear of an alien spaceship.
Various explanations have been offered for these "circles of mystery." Scientists have tried to explain them in terms of electrically charged spinning balls of air or tiny holes in the ozone layer. Others have theorized that the cause is helicopters flying upside down, groups of demented hedgehogs rotating in unison or, of course, flying saucers. Officials at English military bases have dismissed the helicopter idea with the simple explanation that helicopters have a rather low escape velocity. A dementia theory really holds no weight because animal experts say that such an effect would require the services of 40,000 hedgehogs. This leaves two explanations: science and spaceships.
Physicist Terence Meaden says that the circles are caused by an unknown vortex in the form of an inverse dust storm that buffets the surface instead
of inhaling it. He also says, in his book "The Circle Effect And Its Mysteries," that the electrically charged pockets of air theory deserves some credibility.
In June, a group of 50 scientists and engineers determined to photograph or otherwise identify this phenomenon. They manned high-tech sensors and scanners, waiting for the first sign of the swirls. They waited all night. In the morning, they discovered that quite an elaborate pattern had formed behind their camp and their backs. So much for scientific observation.
Other attempts at explaining the swirls in scientific terms have resulted in varying degrees of failure. Some scientists agree with the physicist Meaden, but many more are still baffled. Thus, with no scientific proof to the contrary, we are left with only one explanation: aliens.
It just might be that a group of spaceship-flying monsters is hiding in the clouds above England and is landing on English soil certain nights out of the year to do whatever groups of spaceship-flying monsters hiding in the clouds above England do. The sightings of such swirling crop patterns are not confined to England: Swirl sightings have been reported from France, Canada and Japan. Maybe, just maybe, the English aliens are not alone. And maybe, just maybe, neither are we.
Whatever the case, Tass should definitely pick this story up. This is hot.
▶ David White is an Atchison senior majoring in journalism and history.
Low-impact Scouting douses fires
You may have read that the Boy Scouts are doing away with campfires. A wire service story to that effect was sent out, and papers all over the world picked it up. Good angle, right? Boy Scouts aren't learning how to build campfires anymore. Whole idea sort of peeves you, right?
Well, settle down. The story isn't really true.
Are you settled down? Fine. Now get peeved again. Even though the story isn't technically true,
"We're still teaching Boy Scouts how to build campfires," said J.D. Owen, editor of the forthcoming 10th edition of the Official Boy Scout Handbook.
That's where all of this started. News stories reported that the Scout handbook was discouraging campfires and teaching Boy Scouts to cook on portable stoves instead.
"In a lot of wilderness areas, fires are now prohibited." Owen said. "So if our scouts are not allowed to build campfires there, we have to explain about the stoves."
The Official Boy Scout Handbook has been in print ever since the Boy Scouts was founded in 1910. A highlight of the handbook has always been the instructions about how to go into the woods and build a campfire — for cooking dinner, for roasting marshmallows and for sitting around at night.
"You can use tinder and matches," Owen said. "You can use flint and steel. You can use a magnifying glass and the sun, although obviously not at night. Some kids like to do the friction method. You use a stick and a bow — it's a hard way to make a fire. It's the fun way to do it. But it's exhausting."
Bob Greene
Syndicated columnist
All of this information will, indeed, still be included in the new edition of the handbook, Owen said. To build a campfire, a scout probably is going to have to hack away at some trees, if not chop them down altogether. Some news reports said that, for the first time, there will be no Official Boy Scout hand ax. This is incorrect, Owen said.
"We still sell a hand ax," Owen said.
The dilemma here is that open fires are prohibited in many wilderness areas — as is the practice of chopping trees. "There are so many people camping out in the woods now," Owen said. "Plus, there is nowhere near as much wilderness as there was when the Boy Scouts were founded. There's less and less wilderness, and more and more people. You go out into the suburbs and you see one of those huge shopping malls — that probably was woods at one time."
Thus, the emphasis is on portable stoves rather than campfires.
"We call it low-impact camping," Owen said.
He admits that sitting around a portable stove is not as romantic and adventurous as sitting around a roaring campfire.
This is not exactly the ideal atmosphere to roast hot dogs and tell spoook stories late night — a
fire the size of a coffee can lid.
The campfire is not the most important thing about camping." Owen said. "It's more ceremonial. We are teaching the boys to be responsible custodians of the land.
"And anyway, by the end of a daylong hike, you'll be ready to go to sleep because you'll get up with the sun the next morning. It's good and dark and you've got a bunch of tired kids. It's bedtime."
So Boy Scouts still know how to build campfires but are discouraged from doing so because of the danger of spreading fires. They're being told that there's no real reason to bring their axes into the woods, because it's against the rules to chop down trees.
"That's about right," Owen said. "We tell them to leave their hatcets at home."
So if a hardy band of Boy Scouts heads out into the woods, without axes, knowing they won't be allowed to chop down trees and they won't be allowed to build a campfire at the end of the day — what are they supposed to do to amuse them-selves?
"There are still a lot of things they can do." Owen said.
Is there a suggested substitute for the campfire — some method of communication to replace the camaraderie of swapping stories around the flaming tree limbs?
Can they bring cellular phones?
"Common sense should dictate what they bring," Owen said.
▶ Bob Greene is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
CAMP UHNEELY
I DIDN'T MIND YOUR
WEARING A GONZALE MASK
AND SCROLLING "JANNIKAS"
TAKE MANHATTAN! AND I
DIDN'T COMPRAIN WHEN
YOU BUYT A RAND-MONLY
ATLAS...
NO DID I
COMPLAIN WHEN YOU
SANG THE KANSAS FIGHT SONG
FOR THE GAE STATION
ATTENDANT...
NOR D10I
BY SCOTT PATTY
AND I DIDN'T SAY
ATTHING WHEN YOU SCOOP UP
IN THE MODULE OF THE
Wildcats' SECTION AT THE
GAME AND DID THE ROCK
CHALK CHANT." . 4 TIMES!
But I DON'T SO
UNDERSTAND WHY WHERE'S
You INSISTED THAT THE
WE DRIVE THROUGH UDDER
AGGIEVILLE AFTER ON THIS THING?
THE GAME.