A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
FRIDAY,OCT.12,2001
TALKTOUS
Kursten Phelps
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear editor.
Deal editor.
The recent article on the threat to KU posed by Washburn University's community college transfer program was informative and inadvertently amusing. To see KU (with some 25,000 students) somehow threatened by the actions of Washburn (with about 6,800 students) was heartening.
However, the article was somewhat misleading. One sentence states that Washburn was "given" funds beginning in 1991 from the Kansas Board of Regents. It is more accurate to state that Washburn was recognized by the State Legislature as a vital component of Kansas higher education, and was granted more funds.
As of the year 2000, Washburn receives about 19 percent of its budget from the State of Kansas, not the Board of Regents, as opposed to the nearly 100 percent received by KU; no KU money is going to Washburn.
Additionally, Washburn operates at a small profit each year — can KU say the same? We do what we do very efficiently. We have a student-professor ratio of 9:1 in our biology department, and that ratio is common across campus. Our medical school acceptance rate for biology graduates is nearly 100 percent. Can KU say the same? So the next time that the Kansan wishes to bash our university, please keep the facts in mind. On the other hand, the fact that KU feels threatened by Washburn means we're doing a darned good job here at Washburn!
Vic Landrum
Assistant professor
Washburn biology department
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PERSPECTIVE
A stranger in a strange land finds we are the same inside
I knew the world had changed the first time I entered my apartment in Paris. A woman was cleaning a shelf, and I startled her.
and started to speak.
"Oh, je regrette," I began to apologize in what I thought was a keen French accent. It was my first true encounter with a native Parisian during my semester abroad.
"No, no — you are American?" she asked.
"Yes."
"I am very sorry. You are OK? When I hear of the attacks, I say to my daughter, 'Get on your knees,' and we prayed," she said, folding her hands in a reverent gesture, little more than a week after the September terrorist strikes.
I saw in her eyes that she, like people around the world, had been sincerely moved. I imagined tears flowing into New York harbor and swimming the Atlantic to be cried all over again.
Recent events have altered the global community, and in doing so have altered a semester for the 23 University of Kansas students studying humanities and Western civilization in Europe.
and western coasts.
We were divided by the attacks.
About half the group had departed in early September to travel before classes began in Paris, while the rest of us awaited our group flight, scheduled for Sep. 12. Until Sep. 11.
Our departure for Paris was delayed one day, then two days, then five, then indefinitely, while harried Office of Study Abroad employees and travel agents risked dialing the skin right off
Sarah Smarsh Guest Columnist opinionkanan.com
Commentary
tneir fingertips, I sighed when I unlocked my luggage, packed with care in anticipation of the program for which I'd worked, saved, planned throughout much of my college career. As classes began without us in Paris, I dealt with my frustration at being trapped by remembering the blessing of being alive.
When we left one week late, effects on the program appeared minimal: two students had dropped out, Descartes had been cut from the syllabus, trips to the Louvre and Chartres had rescheduled, and a mountain of catch-up reading awaited us on the other side of the ocean.
Upon arrival, though, the true impact on our semester was revealed: Meeting the group already in Europe, we found students who seemed somehow different from us.
I suspect, though, that the semester's greatest lesson has already been learned: When tragedy befalls humanity, all of us—students abroad, students at home, French cleaning ladies—cry the same tears.
The New People, as we were known at first, tried to explain to the Old People the state of things at home, as many of them struggled with their isolation. They had been drinking good wine in a beautiful city, but they had missed that gust of solemn pride and buzzing community that swept the nation in the wake of the attacks. They hadn't seen family and friends or attended the emotional assembly at the Lied Center or witnessed the onslaught of U.S. flags decorating their homeland. Still, they too had cried. I was sad for them, and I was glad my flight had been delavel
Now, we are no longer the New People and the Old People but one group who has shared experiences that come once in a lifetime. Here in France, a country more experienced than the United States in dealing with terrorist threats, soldiers armed with machine guns dot the subway, the sidewalks, the shopping centers, the airports. One of my peers was evacuated from the subway in the midst of a bomb scare. We were asked to register individually with the U.S. Embassy in Paris, and we receive briefings on the state of affairs, as well as warnings not to "look American." Being inconspicuous on the Metro is no longer a matter of blending in with oh-so-quiet-and-cool Parisians but a matter of safety.
For the most part, though, no one is scared, and life goes on; we eat cheese and read Mill and go to class.
Smarsh is a senior in journalism from Wichita.
PERSPECTIVE
What do you mean by "gay?"
The English language provides us with 40,000 words, and yet the best we can come up with to describe any person or situation we don't like is "gay." You spill your coffee. That's gay. The bookstore delays your order. That's gay. Somebody scratches your car in the parking lot. That's so gay. Are we homophobic or just lazy?
Let's say a bunch of high school football players (paragons of masculinity who slap each other's butts every chance they get) are sitting around a locker room. One walks across the room in a slightly effeminate manner. Another says, "Dude, quit acting so gay!" (The stereotype is that all gay men are effeminate, or vice versa.) This roughly translates to, "Quit acting in a manner that I don't like and/or that makes me uncomfortable." At this point, the word gay still has some connection with homosexuality, albeit a bigoted one.
The next day, this same group of friends is eating lunch. One spills his tray on another. "Dude, that was gay!" Again, this translates to, "This is bad." But now, the word has no connection with homosexuality. Soon, everybody says it.
John
Audelhelm
Columnist
opinionkansan.com
Commentary
"I've heard people say it that I know don't have a problem with homosexuals," said Curtis Dixon, Kansas City, Kan., junior and KU Queers & Allies member. "I've even heard gay people say it."
say it.
John Roth, director of Q&A, said that "fag" is another word that has lost its meaning. He recounted an experience in high school, when a group of students who didn't know he was gay keyed *fag* onto his car. Apparently, keying "Person we don't like," which is what they meant, would have been too much work.
"Prejudice begins with language," Roth said. Roth said that after he told his high school friends that he was gay, they would continue to say gay whenever they didn't like something. But they would also express guilt and try to explain themselves: "Oh, John, when I said gay just then, I didn't mean that I have a problem with gays." Why not
just say what you mean and save the breath?
But Roth pressed his friends, and eventually broke them of the habit. He said he now has heterosexual friends tell him about other things using the word gay. Roth's friends talk about how unnecessary it is.
"It's such a convenient word to use," Roth said. He's right. It's easier to throw out a syllable than it is to explain why we don't like something. So the current usage of gay has something to do with laziness, but it also has something to do with homophobia.
The meanings of words change all the time. If gay becomes synonymous with bad, then so be it. From a linguistic standpoint, one syllable is as good as another. But, at least for now, the word gay still means homosexual. If we use gay to mean bad, we inevitably associate the two and we unfairly stigmatize homosexuals.
If you don't have a problem with gay people and this is not your intention, then simply choose your words more carefully. Say what you mean. The bigots and homophobes will get along just fine without your help.
Audelheim is a senior in journalism from Des Moines, Iowa.
FREE for ALL
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Not all of them will be published. Slanderous and obscane statements will not be printed.
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For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
I wanted to call and say that took the sex
countman's advice. Thanks for the black eye
--use sure before you use the bathroom at KU to look over in the stall and make sure there is toilet paper. I failed to do so and I'm sitting in the stall using notebook paper. This definitely doesn't rank in the top 15 days of my life.
Salad is what food eats.
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It's time to put the poisonous snakes in America to work. There's plenty of snakes just sitting around doing nothing. We need to send them to Afghanistan now.
I just ate lunch for two dimes and two pennies. Thanks Ramen noodles.
use sure before you use the bathroom at KU to look over in the stall and make sure there is toilet paper. I failed to do so and I'm sitting in the stall using notebook paper. This definitely doesn't rank in the top 15 days of my life.
To all you cool guys out there I have one question. Does water taste better in a NaIgene bottle?
Math, the square root of all evil.
Hey this one is for that guy that started that fight at the Pirate House. Thank you for strangling my friend.
Today I turned on ESPN and they were showing a bunch of 11-year-olds competing in the putt champ championship. So then I flipped to ESPN 2 and there was women's bowling and all I could do was laugh.
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I hope you feel better soon, Mom. I love you.
Okay, I just wanted to say, why do you guys talk about John Cusack? Quit printing John Cusack stuff. And don't print this, 'cause I just talked about John Cusack.
If it's not one thing,it's your mother.
For all those people driving with their cell phones in their hands, put them down. Put your cell phone down and drive.
My roommate and I are two hot and sexy girls looking for two nice, good-looking guys. Any takers?
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Um, can you hang on? I have another call.
My only question is, where has the mastur bator been? I miss him.
Please try to keep your political biases to yourself.
We should go to Afghanistan, hijack a camel and crash it into a tent.
what do you think the guy in my Japanese class would say if I asked him out for coffee?
What kind of person doesn't know how to use a credit card? Oh wait, this is KU.
Yeah, I'm homeless and not even I would eat the food from Oliver Lake cafeteria.
With all due disrespect, aren't all these Osama comments slanderous?
I this is for the guy that watched me fall up the stairs at Wescoe today. Thank you for laughing with me instead of at me. I felt a whole lot less stupid.
I was wondering how can I determine whether I have large vagina lips or small vagina lips? This is a question involving one of your columns.
--it's hard to be a smart human.
I were a ground soldier in Afghanistan, I wouldn't be that excited about the bounty on bin Laden. I would be excited about his beard, which I could sell on eBay.
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Milk sucks. Got beer?
it's hard to be a smart human.
it's hard to be a smart human.
How many pieces of toilet paper does ... Never mind.
Hey Gumby gur, thanks for taking us girl in the back of your pickup truck to the Hawk
They should let guys spend the night at Corbin-GSP on the weeknights because sneaking them through the fire exit just wakes everyone else up.
I think we can solve the problem in Afghanistan. We just need to give them all free TV. That will cure them.
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Why is it so hard to find a guy to be friends with, with a little on the side, that doesn't do the girl thing and get all attached and confused.
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Today in class, I learned that Abraham Lincoln once wanted to fight to fight a duel in the middle of a river with axes. I think history is fun.
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It's hard work to be a smart human.
There's nothing like drunk girls walking head first into stop signs.
My roommate has gas.
as.
Yeah, you'll probably print this,'cause it's dumb and all you've been printing is creep lately.