4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
FRIDAY,OCT.26,2001
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A: You can unscrew a light bulb.
KAG201'
KEVIN GRITZKE/KANSAN
OPINION EDITOR'S NOTE What is your vision of KU in 2030?
I am a fifth-generation Jayhawk. More than a century has passed since my great-great-grandmother graduated from KU law. As each successive generation has spent their college years on Mount Oread, the campus has looked and felt different.
different.
How will it be different for my children and for yours?
over the years, students, professors,
traditions, and buildings have come and
gone. In the next few weeks, the opinion
page will highlight how much and little
the school has changed over the years.
Then, in November, several issues will be devoted to students' and faculty members' guesses of how the University will change over the next thirty years when the children of the current crop of students will be sleeping through classes on the hill.
The opinion page is soliciting essays, artwork and even Free for All comments describing ideas of life at KU in 2030. These can be e-mailed to opinion@kansan.com or delivered to 111 Stauffer-Flint.
Submissions ideas include a sketch of Jayhawk Boulevard, a diary entry from a freshman coming up to school, a redesigned logo, an alternative use for the remenants of Wescoe Hall, a pay scale for GTAs or a sample class schedule. Have fun.
Brendan Woodbury is associate opinion editor.
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PERSPECTIVE
Greens' fasting demonstration ignores real reasons for protest
In the article about the KU Greens ("Organization serves cake as students try to fast," Oct. 25), I am not sure if "green" means environmentally conscious or simply inexperienced.
According to the article, a Greens' member, said he found it "curious" that the Objectivists handed out cake during the Greens' fast. In response to the Greens' position, I find it curious that you have not spoken up, let alone fasted, for the six years that the Taliban have oppressed women and denied them medical care and the right to earn a living. I find it curious that you did not fast as Afghan women were stoned to death, or had acid thrown in their faces, if they not have the proper attire, even if this means simply not having the mesh covering in front of their eyes.
I find it curious that you did not fast because Afghan women are subject to mob violence, torture and murder for merely exposing flesh of their arms, making noise as they walk or attempting to engage in scholastic pursuits.
I find it curious that you did not fast to oppose the fact that in Afghanistan, women cannot work, and those without male relatives or husbands are either starving to death or begging in the street, even if they have doctoral degrees.
I find it curious that you did not fast to bring to light the fact that depression among Afghan women is becoming so widespread that it has reached emergency levels, or that women are essentially forbidden from seeking medical care.
I find it curious that you did not fast when the Taliban ordered Hindu to carry yellow
Jay Kenyon Guest Columnist opinionkansan.com
dus to carry yellow stickers inside their pockets to be differentiated from the majority Muslim population (Nuremberg?).
Commentary
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depriving the people of Afghanistan both their history and their future.
I find it curious that you did not fast to protest the fact that the Taliban regime, in its war with the other factions, routinely carries out summary executions and indiscriminate aerial bombardment.
Dear KU Greens, your protest is misplaced, and your passion misdirected. It is all too easy to set up a card table at Wescoe Hall or in the Kansas Union and try to protest for a protest's sake — perhaps in an effort to re-live the '60s, or perhaps simply to flex your liberal enlightened muscle.
Why don't you leave the sheltered existence of the University for a few years and see what the real world is like. Then you will realize that your hunger strike is nothing more than a futile gesture in support of an oppressive regime. You need to grow up, get informed, and have a piece of cake.
I find it curious that you did not fast to protest the Taliban's destruction of traditional Afghan culture for their own political goals including prohibiting all forms of music and traditional recreation; looting and destroying the historical and cultural patrimony of the Afghan people — the Kabul Museum; reducing the centuries-old Buddhist statues in Bamiyan to rubble; and
Note to Objectivists: Read Ayn Rand a little more closely before handing out anything free except literature and thought. Objectivism is anti-charity and anti-volunteer work. If anything, you should have handed out cake for a minimal amount of money. Pay for what you get and charge for what you give. That's objectivism ... very pro-capitalism in an effort to keep the worker bees busy so the innovators can continue creating. How is free cake pushing capitalism except that it inflames the "Greens"?
Kenyon is an attorney in Las Vegas. He is a 1994 graduate in political science and communications.
I find it curious that you did not fast when the Taliban, in an effort to block supply to the people living in opposition-controlled areas, directed soldiers to shoot to death the people smuggling foods along with their animals of transport.
Safety outweighs FDA's 'discrimination'
PERSPECTIVE
Potential male donors are asked if they have ever had sex with a man since 1977. If they say yes, they are turned away. So are women who have had sex with MSM (the FDA's acronym for the previous group), intravenous drug users, and people who have traveled to Europe or Africa, among other groups. Lenore Gelb, a representative of the FDA, said this was because these groups are at a higher risk of carrying HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, than the general population.
Last month, Queers and Allies members and other students protested the Food and Drug Administration's regulations on blood donation. They made good points, but theirs was not the only side of the story.
The protesters argued that the regulations were discriminating against gay men, and turning away many potential healthy donors. They were half-right. "They screen all the blood anyway," said C.J. Snow, Lawrence freshman. If the tests were effective, he said, then none of this would be an issue. But Gelb said that HIV has a window period where even the best tests can't catch it. Even if the tests were foolproof, she said, the person running the tests could still make a mistake. "We have a blood system based on overlapping safeguards." Gelb said. "We don't rely on one safeguard."
Commentary
John
Audlehelm
Columnist
opinionkansan.com
Nor should they. The FDA last considered relaxing its blood regulations in
September 2000. It considered banning donations only from men who had had sex with men in the last five years. At the time, The New York Times reports that Andrew Dayton, an FDA medical officer, estimated that this would result in 62,300 men seeking to donate blood, and 1.7 units of HIV-infected blood entering the blood supply.
The Times quoted Dr. Michael Busch of the University of California-San Francisco as saying that of the nation's 12 million units of donated blood, about 10 HIV-infected units slip through each year, causing two to three HIV infections a year. Nobody wants any more HIV infections, Gelb said.
On the other hand, testing methods have greatly improved in the last few years. The Associated Press reported that, until 1999, all donated blood was tested for the immune system cells that fight HIV, which do not appear until 80 days after infection. But in 1999, blood banks began using nucleic acid testing, which can detect the virus itself 11 days after infection.
Even so, the FDA's advisers rejected the proposed change 7-6. The Times reports that even panelists who voted against the change encouraged the FDA to keep studying how to improve the system. Snow, Gelb and the panelists agree: The FDA's regulations turn away thousands of healthy people who want to donate blood. But at what point does this wrong outweigh the wrong of three or four new, unnecessary HIV infections a year? I don't know, but if the FDA continues its trend, the problem will probably correct itself soon enough.
You can't choose your sexual orientation, but you can choose who you have sex with, or whether you have sex at all. If you are a gay man and giving blood is that important to you, then just don't have sex with other men. The FDA will gladly accept your donation.
The protesters were right in their desire to donate blood. But they were wrong in their assertion that the regulations were unfairly discriminatory. The FDA does not discriminate against gay men any more than it discriminates against people who have a desire to use intravenous drugs or who would like to travel to Europe or Africa. The FDA discriminates against people who have actually done those things.
Audlehelm is a senior in journalism and political science from Des Moines, Iowa.
4
FREE for ALL 864-0500
Free for All callers will have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Not all of them will be published. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
TV is going downhill. We need Scott Baio to come back, for Charles is back in charge.
It's my birthday, and I used that as an excuse to call my ex-girlfriend. Bad idea. She didn't say anything about my birthday, and I think she was having sex with someone else because she kept saying it was a bad time.
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酶
I was just wondering what fasting has to do with world peace?
If peeing your pants is cool, consider me John Cusack.
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If peeing your pants is cool, consider me Gene Hackman.
We had some mysterious tuna show up in our room. Could someone stop by and check on this?
Page 211 of the December issue of Playboy has a KU student on it.
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Hi, my friend tried to tell me that you only print the first 15 messages, and I don't think that's true, so could you please print this, and say I called at 9:30?
Why is it the longer and harder I study for a test, the worse I do it?
I got caught underage drinking by some skinny punk who made me read some poster on the wall about how underage drinking ruins everyone's night. So, I apologize for everyone that was there.
Oh, come on. I call in all the time witty comments, and some moron gets in with rustling papers? That's crazy.
Even though we lost to our archival on Saturday,we still got to watch flag dude perform.
Remember those days in elementary school when we used to have hat day? What if in college we had naked day? Think about it. Think about it a little more. Yeah, gross, huh?
Tuesday morning, I watched a beautiful sunrise with a beautiful woman. A month from now, I may not remember that sunrise, but I'll never forget that girl.
Hey basketball player, who was supposed to deliver the flowers and Diet Coke to my friend on Monday night, thanks a lot. You ruined my friend's birthday.
It's a sad day at KU when the girls exchange their tank tops in favor of hooded sweatshirts.
if kicking a Bronco fan in the face is wrong,
I don't want to be right.
I've given rides to four different girls in hopes that they'll call up Free for All and thank me, but they never do. What's up with that?
I think if we lived in a bizzaro world, Gene Hackman would be known as Hack Genewoman.
Like weird people. They make me smile.
Keep up the good work, weirdoes.
I have a crush on a guy in my Spanish class and his name has four letters in it.
This pirate walks into this bar and he's got a steering wheel over his crotch. And the bartender says, "Hey, pirate, what's with the steering wheel over your crotch?"
And the pirate says, "Arrrgh, it's driving me nuts."
This is a message to the KU Objectivists. I'm the one who stole your cake. I just wanted you to know I mailed it to Afghanistan.
Why is Michael Jackson being featured on BET right now?
Josh, I told you I was going to make it in
Free for All, and the horse you rode in on.
I just found a small white vial of white powdery substance on the stairs of Wescoe and I can't decide whether to sniff it or call the authorities.
Being from St. Louis is a different kind of handicap.
The First Amendment is clearly detrimental to modern society. Stop free speech now.
I'll admit that John Trevota is a fine actor, but should we be mentioning him in the same breath as Gene Hackman? I think not.
I shaved my entire body. Can I get on the front page of The Kansas City Star?
I got a way to pick up chicks: Instead of shaving your chest, try doing some crunches.
面
to the guy who says the Kansas City Chiefs are the worst football team he's ever seen: Apparently he's missed the Kansas football team the last six years.