A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
4
Friday, September 14, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Living will decision
Legal avenues give people the power to make wishes known to all before tragedies happen
As the result of a car accident, Nancy Cruzan has spent the last seven years in a vegetative state, kept alive by a feeding tube. Her doctors say she could live like that another 30 years.
Relatives and friends say Cruzan would not want to be so hopeless and that she had said as much to several people before the accident.
When her parents took Cruzan's case before the Supreme Court this summer, asking for the removal of the life-sustaining feeding tubes, they lost. The Supreme Court ruled that the memories of friends and family regarding Cruzan's wishes were "vague and unreliable."
Perhaps the attorney general of Missouri described Cruzan and her family's situation best. "They are in this legal, medical night-away this limbo," he said in a Time magazine article.
One potential solution that has gained popularity since the Cruzan decision is the living will. A living will allows people to decide now whether they would want doctors to use life-sustaining medical procedures as a last resort. A living will gives power to an unconscious or incompetent person that formerly was given
only to doctors.
Living wills serve dual purposes: to describe the conditions that would trigger the will, and to list the types of treatment a person chooses not to undergo.
There are still some hang-ups with living wills. The language must be very explicit. Even then, the language's interpretation and its treatment would vary from state to state. In some cases, the person was terminally ill, which wouldn't have helped Nancy Cruzan.
Kansas appears to have a broader interpretation of living wills than many states. The Kansas Natural Death Act allows adults to control medical decisions that affect them.
Living wills are not perfect, and they may not be for everyone. However, they remain the best solution when a person is in an irreversible comatose state and has indicated that he or she would not want to live in that manner.
It also can save the family of that person from a traumatic decision: whether they should fight to let the person die peacefully.
It could have made a difference for Cruzan.
Jill Harrington for the editorial board
Jayhawk football
Dogs and cats are friends after Saturday's wins
saturday, dogs befriended cats, and a chorus of angels sang. It was enough to make a grown man weep: Both Kansas and Kansas State won football games.
Well, maybe the dogs were just ignoring the cats, the chorus of angels was coming from the portable radios among the throngs of people on the Hill and the man had just finished chopping onions for his tailgate party.
But there is no doubt: Football is back in Kansas.
Saturday's victories were a historic event.
Not since 1984 had both schools won football
games during the same weekend.
Coach Glen Mason and the Jayhawks are slowly building a program at KU and need the support of the fans. If Saturday's attention is indicated, the team is getting that support
The Jayhawks will take their show on the road for the next five weeks. The next time fans will get to see them play at home is Oct. 20 against the Colorado Buffaloes. Regardless of its performance on the road, the team deserves a good show of support when it comes home. Rock Chalk Jayhawks!
Stephen Kline for the editorial board
Superpower swap
Summit may lead to mutually beneficial trade
During the weekend, as Finland welcomed President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the
groundwork was laid for a superpower swap. In light of Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, Bush and Borbachev began discussing the possibility of deploying Soviet oil for U.S. petroleum
Bush supports the possibility of U.S. petroleum industries sharing drilling and production technologies with the Soviets on the grounds that the country significantly benefit both country's economies.
The superpower summit was called primarily to discuss the future of superpower involvement in the Iraqi crisis. Concern about the possibility of a long-term, perhaps permanent, increase in petroleum prices precipitated the discussion of an oil-for-technology swan.
Justifications abound for sharing petroleum technology with the Soviets. For the United States, it means finding another source of
petroleum. Despite outdated technology, the Soviet Union is the world's largest supplier of fossil fuels. The long-term effects of U.S. sanctions on Russia have put its dependence on Middle Eastern nations for oil
The U.S. consumer also would benefit: as the Soviets became more efficient, we would pay less for oil.
For the Soviet Union, the swap would bring revenue to a cash-poor petroleum industry. The high prices generated by the Iraqi crisis have sent other countries to the Soviet Union to pay every $1 increase a barrel may translate into every year in additional revenue from oil exports.
The stabilizing effects of this superpower swap are obvious; it would bolster the Soviet economy, which depends on oil sales for roughly 40 percent of its hard currency earnings. In addition, open exchange would strengthen U.S.-Soviet relations.
Sally Gibbs for the editorial board
Other Voices
No draft exemptions
The prospect of a draft is looming as the crisis in the Middle East intensifies.
Very few people understand how the system would work should we acquire one. Many assume that college or marriage would be grounds for exemption. These classifications did exempt many in Vietnam, but they were guaranteed that they would be revived.
According to the Selective Service System, the draft would be a simple lottery. If your number came up, you
would have 90 days to report. If need be, it would be up to the Bush administration to organize a possible formula regarding exemption. No one currently would be ineligible, however.
From the Daily Texan
Save your families extra grief
The crime was senseless. An attempted murder coupled with an attempted suicide. Two victims, both with gunshot wounds to the head. Two worlds needed to produce one horrific scene.
A teen-age girl was dating an older, violent man. One scorching summer afternoon, the girl's mother kicked the man out of her apartment vowing to end her daughter's turbulent relational life. The man. He left, seemingly for good.
Later, while the mother sat knitting, entranced by the loud Latin music in her headphones, the man returned — angry and armed.
The woman had no time to react before a small-caliber bullet entered her skull. She slumped in the armpit, and she watched TV videos on the set in front of her.
Her daughter emerged from a bedroom only to be dragged to the man's rusted car on the street below. He drove in circles with the shiny, bluestone revolver pressed to her bluestone for what seemed to her an eternity.
Suddenly, he pushed the girl from the car as it hurled into an alley. The impact shattered her pelvis and left femur.
He finally parked near a newly painted, white garage and placed the barrel against his own head. He
Buck Taylor
Staff columnist
shouted obscenities at the clear sky and pulled the trigger.
Both bullets were lodged in almost-identical precarious locations. Both shooting victims would be brain-dead — never to utter another word. Both would never again see the bullet. But both would be brunt of this meanless battle.
The girl told bystanders about the afternoon's gruesome events, and soon all three victims were rushed through the stained doors of the trauma center. As emergency teams worked feverishly, families were notified. Detectives paced anxiously beyond the shielded mayhem.
The victims were moved to neighboring beds in the intensive care unit. The beds cost more than $5,000 life. Respirators and other life support technology kept them alive — yet silent.
Surgeons begged both families to put these two lives out of misery. Relatives were constantly advised of the risks and monetary tolls that lay ahead
After careful contemplation, the woman's family agreed it would be for the best to end the longevity of the couple. She insisted that she would have wanted, they said.
The man's family refused to give in to the doctors' requests and maintained his life more than three weeks because he eventually died of complications.
He had become a prisoner of his own actions. More than $100,000 had been used to keep his body alive. Had he not attempted to end his miserable life, he would have faced numerous years in prison.
Though a tragic example, don't both families have enough to endure by experiencing the living hell of this trauma? But they were also forced to decide the fate of their loved ones because of endless in a sterile hospital room?
A living will would have helped above the families of that overwhelming decision by making known the choices made by their loved ones
No one wants to calculate his or her eventual fate by merely signing a sheet of paper. But why burden others with the decision?
Save your family from that living hell. It's what they would've wanted.
Buck Taylor is a Winnetka, Ill. senior majoring in journalism.
Don't be cruel to these Tabloid Celebrities
I was an average two-headed Elvis clone, quietly savoring my uniqueness, when I was discovered by the National Enquirer. Now my peace is gone. I have become a Tabloid Celebrity.
Tabiidu Celebrities have a terrible time. Nobody mobs us and asks for our autographs; nobody wants us to make commercials advertising their products. Even reporters and writers write and write speculative stories about whom we're dating.
We are the forgotten men of the United States.
Even the Enquirer treats us like dirt. You would think that, having taken the trouble to dig up us from our peaceful obscurity, it would breathlessly report our latest findings. It wouldn't. The Center center and whisper unproven rumors about our sex lives.
Stop for a minute, dear reader, and consider the pleasures we bring to you each week. Think of the times you've been astounded by eyewitness accounts of "Big-foot's Senior Prom."
The time has come to put an end to such hypocrisy. We, the Tabloid Celebrities of America, demand that you, the readers, support us in our struggle for general recognition. We want to be photographed at glamorous dinner parties and mobbed in front of exclusive movie premiers. We want to be persecuted by the media whenever we take a new lover or sample a new drug. We want the same fame that regular celebrities get.
However, it doesn't even bother to mention our religious and charitable efforts, such as Tablodle Cebeliian's work with the Ghebri people.
Eric Swanson
Staff columnist
Recall the happy moments you spent with the man who
lived in an ice cube. Can Liz Taylor's latest operation on Madonna's newest outrage stir the same awrestruck amazement as Satana, the devil's own daughter? Of course not!
If you are horrified by the thought of Tabloid Celebrities living in miserable limbo, half notoriety and half obscurity, write to the Tabloid Celebrities Foundation of America. Write to your Congressbeing and demand that we be granted our basic civil rights. Your voices will help fill the full-fledge celeb identity that is rightfully ours.
If you truly want to make a difference in the way we're treated, please feel free to send a large donation to TCFA. Your dollars will help us bribe the Enquirer's team so we can grant us the eminence we've worked so hard to gain.
Please don't hesitate to make your feelings known. Rush out and mail cash evidence of your support today. Help make the United States a place where two-headed Elvis clones can revel in an eternal spotlight.
KANSAN STAFF
▶ Eric Swanson is an Arvada, Colo., senior majoring in English and journalism.
DEREK SCHMIDT
KJERTHYN GAHKELSON
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news advisen
Business staff
MARGARET TOWNSEND
Business manager
MINDY MORRIS
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Editor's business staff
News Campus sales mgr Chris Doolan
Editorial Regional sales mgr Jackie Schalmzrid
Planning National sales mgr David Price
Campus Pam Sollin Co-op sales mgr Deborah Salzer
Campus Holly Lawton Production mgr Missy Miller
Sports Brent Maycook Production assistant Julie Axland
Photo Andrew Morrison Marketing director Audra Langford
Features Stacy Smith Creative director Gail Embinder
Letters should be typed, 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 will not be typed.
Guest columns should be typed, double spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The Kanan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be malformed or brought to the Kanan newsroom, 111 Sauffer-Flint Hall. Letters, columns and cartoons are the opinion of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kanan. Editorials are the opinion of the Kanan editorial board.
Three Imaginary Girls
I REALY DON'T CARE AT ALL
WHAT ANYBODY DOESN'T EAT.
I DON'T EAT TOMATOES.
BIG DEAL, WHO CARES?
TWICE TODAY, SOMEBODY TOLD ME,
"I DON'T EAT MEAT," LIKE IT WAS
SUPPOSED TO MEAN SOMETHING;
By Tom Avery