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4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WEDNESDAY,OCT.24,2001
TALK TO US
Kursten Phelps editor 864-4854 or editor@kansan.com
Leita Schultes Christina Neff managing editors 864-4854 or editor@kansan.com
Erin Adamson Brendan Woodbury opinion editors 864-4810 or opinion@kansan.com
Jenny Moore business manager 864-4014 or adddirector@kansan.com
Kate Mariani retail sales manager 864-4462 or retailsales@kansan.com
Tom Eblen general manager and news adviser 864-7667 or tebellan@kansan.com
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mfisher@kansan.com
LETTERSTO
THE EDITOR
DESIGNING GRADE
Dear editors.
Dear editors,
I was disappointed with the article titled "Design students give department poor grade" that ran Wednesday. I attended the meeting and not only was the chairwoman misquoted, but the title of the article had a negative tone that we were consciously avoiding.
We arranged that meeting to state what we see happening, then discuss possible solutions to the problems. It was not "us" blaming "them." No one who attended the meeting would give the department a "bad grade," because that assumes that we have passed judgment and moved on.
The students of the visual communication department have by no means given up. We are working with the dean and faculty to find ways to continue to be involved in determining the future of the department, because we believe that the students are as important as the faculty in making the department a success.
As for misquoting the chairwoman Lois Greene, that is just carelessness. Greene did not say "Education looks bleak." She said just the opposite, in agreement with Montgomery. What caused her to hold her head was that we, the visual communication students, are unsure about our education and our future. I am sure Greene had some calls about what she is quoted as having said, and I am sure she did not enjoy having to explain your mistake.
EXPLAINLY Overall. I thought the article covered what was discussed accurately, but the headline and the misquote are unfortunate mistakes that misrepresented the mood of the meeting. It did make for a good discussion of appropriateness in my class that day.
Dana Hill
Norman, Okla., senior
SHARE YOUR VISION OF KU IN 2030
The opinion page is soliciting essays, art work and even Free for All comments describing what life may be like at KU in the year 2030.
Submissions can include a sketch of Jayhawk Boulevard, a diary entry from a freshman, an alternative use for Wescoe Hall or a column.
Submissions can be e-mailed to opinion@kansan.com.
How to submit letters and quest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
PERSPECTIVE
Guest Columns: should be double-spaced, typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be e-mailed to opinion@kansan.com or submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Erin Adamson or Brendan Woodbury at 864-4924. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the reader's representative at readersep@kansan.com
Filtering of Free for All means not all opinions get printed
Readers who call to impart their wisdom on the Free for All usually don't know what happens to their message after they hang up the phone. How do certain Free for All messages make it in the Kansan while others do not? And is there anything you can do to increase your chances of seeing your words in print?
The Free for All averages anywhere from 50 to 100 calls a day. A news clerk transcribes messages and then passes them on to opinion editors Erin Adamson and Brendan Woodbury. They then decide which messages make it onto the page. Most messages end up being posted online at www.kansan.com
Adamson said she and Woodbury tried to make the Free for All representative of all the calls in a particular day. If 30 percent of the calls in one day are about the Kansas football team, then they try to make 30 percent of the messages printed in the Free for All about the football team.
Usually, if you see several messages about a particular issue or person in the Free for All, chances are there were plenty more about the same topic. Woodbury said there really was no particular message that would make it into print over another. However, the more
Jonathan Ng
Reader's representative
opinionkanans.com
The Free for All is usually checked in the morning and messages that appear in the paper are from two days earlier. Most people call in the evening hours after class, late at night while studying or during the weekend while partying, Adams said.
Some readers have called the Free for All multiple times within an hour to set up a joke or tell a funny story. Other callers opt not to speak and instead leave odd noises — bodily and otherwise.
The Free for All is not representative of what the student body thinks. At best, it represents only a small group of students. According to Woodbury, the same students tend to call repeatedly. You have to admit, however, that no matter how moronic most of the messages appear to be, we do have some
creative or abnormal the message, the more likely it is to be picked.
Commentary
creative people on campus.
The Free for All, which was introduced to the Kansan by former editor Nathan Willis, has been around since Fall 2000. Since then, it has created quite a buzz on campus, becoming one of the most popular parts of the Kansan.
Just recently, that buzz has spread beyond campus and onto the pages of the Pitch Weekly. In its latest "Best of Kansas City" edition, the Pitch rated Free for All as the best daily newspaper column.
The entertainment tabloid wrote a brief description of Free for All and cited some example comments such as "Hello children, I'm Bobo the sea cow, and I like to do stuff." The description ended, "It's good to know college hasn't changed much."
It's hard to say if that is necessarily a "good" thing, but at least it keeps us entertained. One could only imagine what would happen to our University ranking if some of the students who called Free for All directed some of that creative energy into their classes.
Ng is a junior in journalism and Spanish from Leawood.
PERSPECTIVE
Learn about the roots of violence
What is it about the issue of domestic violence and violence between intimate partners that makes most of us look down at our shoes or get incredibly defensive when anyone begins talking about it? (Better known as the, "Hey, look. I have nothing to do with this. It's them over there," syndrome.)
It's not that most people think domestic violence is an acceptable practice. Instead, domestic violence seems to make most of us nervous because it challenges some basic assumptions about our personal lives. It challenges our assumption that our homes are always safe, sacred and far removed from the harsh realities of crime, victimization and war-like scenarios of survival and self-defense. Domestic violence challenges our assumption that love is about safe space, open communication and commitment, where the most difficult issue is to figure out who's turn it is to walk the dog.
For many, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and children, relationships and homes are neither safe nor comfortable. And no matter how you look at the issue, if you go by statistics presented by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey or the neo-conservative National Family Violence Survey, facts are facts — women and children are the primary targets of intimate violence. In fact, women and children are the most affected victims in any systematic form of perpetrated violence, whether it's within our homes in
Almas Sayeed
Columnist
optionnaan.com
Commentary
this country or within the context of international conflict and war.
Intimate violence doesn't occur because men are inherently more powerful than women, naturally more violent than women or better equipped to act as protectors of the family and state. In fact, recent socio-biological evidence suggests that there may be more differences within the sexes than between them. And it is certainly not the case that this violence continues because the movement to end it has been so focused on women that we have forgotten about "our men."
We can all become better informed about the nature, context and source of cycles of intimate violence and sexual assault in order to end it. With its focus on structural barriers that prevent effective change and personal stories to put a face on the issue, the events during Domestic Violence Awareness Month encourage us to think about how to better understand this crime in relation to other acts of violence that occur in the United States.
October also highlights movements such as "Womyn Take Back the Night" (Oct. 25, 2001) and the work of women in the 1960s and 70s who founded a network of domestic violence shelters and safe houses for survivors of violence. This month enables us to deal with the issue of intimate violence head on, without shuffling our shoes or passing off responsibility.
The numbers counter the opinion that feminists should stop whining and adopt the cooler "post-feminist" label. The bigger questions are why does this violence continue? How should we think about and analyze it? And most importantly, what can we do to stop it?
ing," the U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey notes that middle class, working professional women make 60 to 85 percent of men's earnings for comparable work. Women are also 40 percent more likely to live beneath the poverty line. In this group, 83 percent have two to four dependents in contrast to 17 percent of men. Moreover, women are less likely to vote or run for government office. And when they do run, they are less likely to be elected.
Domestic violence continues because of a combination of factors that include women's lack of economic and political equality and lack of access to forming and implementing social policies. Contrary to those who suggest that men are actually the disenfranchised victims of "feminists' bicker-
Sayeed is a Wichita senior in philosophy, womens studies and international studies.
FREE for ALL
864-0500
Free for All callers 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.
I work at the library and I'm wearing a bar code, so come check me out.
I'm driving, talking on my cell phone in traffic, because I want people to see me talking on my cell phone, because it makes me look cool when it talk on my cell phone and people see me.
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I believe in the need to reinstate the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
Belgium. A country invented by the English to annoy the French.
I just got done looking at 164 stamps
I think my chinchilla is a vampire.
I'm a GTA and wanted to say I love how my students treat and respect me, and how the faculty work with me so well. My only problem at KU is the administration, which does not respect or compensate me fairly.
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I would just like to say that it lifts my spirits to read Mark Ingler's column in the Kansan, and I would like to see more of them.
I'm officially a nerd. I just skipped all my classes to play "Duck Hunt" on the original Nintendo.
I saw Lawrence made the USA Today newspaper with our proud record of under-age drinking. Thank you very much Chancellor Hemenway and Mr. Bohl.
runk that the people who spell woman "w-o-m-y-n" need to have their heads examined. If they look at the dictionary it clearly spells woman with an "a" or an "e." And its phonetic anyway so there's still the sound of man in woman no matter how they spell it
IU
You must pace yourself when performing sexual favors.
if loving the Denver Broncos is wrong, then I don't want to be right
Yes, I was just wondering, is Mario going to be a quarterback or a running back?
I just wanted to call and say thanks to the two boys who stopped and helped us change our tire at 24th and Kasold. You're the greatest.
(rustling papers)
Instead of the women of KU calendar they should make the women of Rudy's calendar.
You got 20 guys with switchblades staring you down. One choice of the guy who gets to fight with you. Who's it gonna be? Gene Hackman.
I've been told that one in four students at KU are gay. Well, I'm in my room with three other guys, and one of the m just asked if his DKNY jeans clashed with his Armani shirt. No. I'm not open to new things.
Get ready for some well-supervised craziness while you rock out with your father. Whew hoo!
Osama bin smokin' some reefer
My roommate is an art major, and a lot of her tools look like penises. So, I'm wondering if she is an art major for the art or the tools.
What's with White guys wearing FUBU?
yrs
I just saw my roommate get his feet massage with peanut butter. I not joking
After seeing Butterfly Kiss, my first thought was $8 for soft porn? Not bad.
I was just wondering why they call it the Night Campus Express when it's slower than all of the other buses?
The dude with the peanut butter on his feet just stuck his foot in my mouth and it tasted really good.
Yeah, uh last time I checked, October was spelled "October," not a "v." Um, does the software that the Kansan uses on this paper have a spell check? Maybe we should invest in that.
4
Michael go home,we're not letting you in.
Help me. I'm in love with a marine and I only know his name. Help I Christ!
I think drugs have done good things for us. I really do. If you don't think drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight and take all your CDs and all your tapes and all your albums and burn them. Because you know what? All those musicians who made all that great music that has enhanced your life throughout the years: real freaking high on drugs.
is anybody out there looking for a female roommate, because I have one for sale.
I