4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2002
TALKTOUS
Jay Krall
editor
864-4854 or jkrall@kanans.com
Brooke Hesler and Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
864-4854 or bhealer@kanans.com and
kramsey@kanans.com
Laurel Burchfield
readers' representative
864-4810 or lbuchfield@kanans.com
Maggie Koerth and Amy Potter
opinion editors
864-4924 or opinion@kanans.com
Amber Agee business manager 864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Eric Ketting retail sales manager 864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson general manager and newts adviser 864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mfisher@kansan.com
KANSAN EDITORIAL BOARD
Edgehill Road, a 30-foot wide, oneway street near Phi Delta Theta fraternity and Sigma Delta Tau sorority, has parking available on both sides of the street.
Safety should have been reason for parking decision
One neighborhood resident, Steven Watts, who lives at the corner of Louisiana Street and Edgehill Road, petitioned the city in September to prohibit parking on the south-side of the street.
This ordinance should pass for safety reasons alone. However, in this case, safety appears to have taken a backseat to people's complaints.
Because at a width of 30 feet, Edgehill Road is several feet narrower than normal streets, the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical Department recommends that parking along Edgehill Road be restricted to only one side of the street for safety reasons, and to guarantee the access of fire and medical personnel.
It is disappointing that the city had to wait until one man griped about students parking in front of his house in order to take action on a valid safety concern.
According to Deputy Chief Mark Bradford, the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical Department had been concerned about the safety hazard presented by the narrowness of Edgehill Road before Watts's complaint became public.
As a result, they recommend that parking be limited 270 feet from the corner of Louisiana Street and Edgehill Road, enough room to grant emergency
vehicles access to the buildings and structures located on the street.
The problem was this new ordinance did not arise first and foremost out of concern for the safety and well-being of all Lawrence residents.
As he said in articles in the Lawrence Journal-World and The University Daily Kansan, Watts is tired of students parking in front of his house and sometimes blocking his driveway.
Other residents of neighborhoods near campus echo his annoyance at students taking parking places away from residents.
However, KU students are not just a part of the University community, they truly are members of the Lawrence community.
While obeying traffic laws and not blocking driveways, they have as much right to park near their homes as any other Lawrence resident. It would be unfeasible and illogical to ban parking on certain streets solely because some people believe that too many students are parking there.
Though it is disappointing that it took one man's complaints to see any action on this issue, the Lawrence City Commission should pass this proposed ordinance, but only because of the valid concern for safety.
All other reasons and motives, although they may be understandable and easy to sympathize with, are extraneous when the safety of residents becomes an issue.
Lauren Stewart for the editorial board.
Free for All
Call 864-0500
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Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
There is a God, and he hates me.
I'd like to know what is up with the obscure amount of squirrels on campus. Yeah, there just a lot of them, and it just makes me kind of wonder. There was a really obese one walking next to me yesterday, and it was a hoot.
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You know it's amazing how you liberals love your freedom so much, but you're not willing to fight for it.
The news must be stopped. Kill your TV!
I'm white and middle class. This evidently makes me vapid and shallow. I was just wondering, is there a 12-step program to help cease my apparent ignorance of minority issues? Maybe Tish Merritt would know.
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It's 1 a.m. and we're in McCollum, and our toilet just blew to pieces. It's great. It was the very best toilet in there. It's gone, it's all gone. We're very sad. Come get pictures, it's great. But it was the very best toilet, and now it's gone. That's our news, from the sixth floor of McCollum.
This is to whoever called about going to hell for throwing away the Bible, nah, I don't think so. A friend and I were walking to class one day, and she decided she was going to use it for a collage. So, any good ideas on what to use those books for? Just call the Free for All and give us your answers.
I just screwed up Malt-o-Meal. Am I the most pathetic loser on earth?
growth forests in foreign countries and that it uses a conveniently loose definition of old-growth here in the U.S.? Or that Boise has been accused of human rights abuses in Mexico, halted the implementation of the U.S. Road-less Area Conservation Policy and is the largest logger of U.S. public lands?
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STAYSKAL'S VIEW
KANSAN REPORT CARD
Pass:
Honoring veterans. No matter what you think of war, the men and women who fought in them deserve our respect. Take some time to visit the memorials on our campus and honor their memories.
Gene Stayskal/Knight Ridder
Democracy in action. Referendum B isn't the best option to improve representation in Student Senate. In fact, it may actually make some students less represented. But students voted for it and it should be put into effect.
Fail:
Womens' basketball. Wednesday's exhibition game against the Swedish team Solna proved that the much-maligned womens' team can win a game. Good job ladies.
Hanging out on window ledges. It seems like every semester somebody in the dorms falls off a window ledge. Come on kids, there have to be better places in this town to drink than a two-foot platform, several stories up.
Budget blues. The fact that Kansas is now $310 million in the hole doesn't bode well for the future of the University's budget and students' pocketbooks.
Cutting JRP. Eliminating JRP from the campus bus route will leave a lot of future teachers without an easy way to get to school.
Maggie Koerth/Kansan
PERSPECTIVES
Criticism of Boise protest was reactionary, unfounded
GUEST COMMENTARY
The column criticizing the "Environs' tree theatres" (Nov.12) by Audrey Snyder illustrates how the political perspective of many in this country is awash with ignorance.
Jason Beury opinion@kansan.com
The basis of Snyder's argument against the KU Environcs could very well be considered just as much of an "attention-seeking escape."
The article is simply an example of superficial criticism of the left that, while attempting to belittle and discredit those involved, fails to make a sound argument against the substance of the issue being protested.
That Snyder is a political science major is a cause for worry. The ignorance reflected in Snyder's criticism is very obvious and hopefully does not reflect the argumentative process of the average political science major.
Someone criticizing an event that is meant to inform the public regarding an environmental issue could have been better informed.
Green-washing is a term used by many to describe the corporate tendency to uphold the appearance of environmental justice, thus the corporation itself should not be considered as the final word on the environmental impact of its actions.
Is Snyder aware that Boise Cascade is not required to place restrictions on old-
In July of 2001, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) said, "BCC [Boise Cascade Corp.] is essentially contracting a smear campaign through front groups willing to do its dirty work."
Could it be that this Congresswoman was plagued by the very same "imagined problems [that] seem to be a national epidemic" as Snyder suggests? Or, could it be that these problems are real and the "national epidemic" is simply the ignorance of suggesting that such problems are imagined?
The reference to Wal-Mart is also a significant issue refuted by Snyder's ignorance.
What exactly does Snyder realize that
the "champions of local businesses" do not? Snyder also fails to assess the perspective of those whom she labels as "liberals" and their "claim" that a second Wal-Mart would "take business from small, local businesses."
Could it be that such "claims" originate in real circumstances where actual local businesses have gone under when a Wal-Mart appears nearby?
The poor quality of life that many of the maquiladora workers face south of the border in factories that make many of the products found in Wal-Mart stores could explain the how "Wal-Mart sells goods more cheaply."
Wal-Mart does not even consider it as economically beneficial to sell its goods "more cheaply" to the communities it employs to manufacture those very same goods "more cheaply."
Open your eyes KU.
In the coming years we are to face some of the most trying economic, social and political issues yet experienced by the world. The globalization of capitalism does have ill effects we must address and not simply dismiss as an "imagined... national epidemic."
Ignoring problems, or attempting to discredit those who expose them, will not make them disappear.
Jason H. Boury is a Wichita junior in environ- mental science and Spanish.
Don't ignore good news from the residence hall system
Fire alarms, nosy RAs, unhappy residents, Pick up the University Daily Kansas any given day and
Like any living community, the residence halls have their fair share of problems. We would challenge anyone to find a utopian, problem free community.
you will think that living in a residence hall is the worst thing that could happen.
But with criticism, there's a fine line between bashing and being constructive. As student housing leaders, we feel that the Kansan has ignored the positive side of the residence hall experience to report the flashier negative side.
The Kansan article "An Alarming Occurrence" (Oct. 25) is only one of many stories which proves our point.
If the intent was to talk about the frequency of alarms in the past year, then the Kansan was on target. One can ask the question, how does this pertain to this year
GUEST COMMENTARY
especially when McCollum, one of the halls cited for frequent alarms, has shown a tremendous reduction in alarms?
If the intent was to talk about false alarms, then the Kansan was way off base. There was no mention of the fire safety programs that every residence hall and scholarship hall has during the first month of school. In fact, the article made it seem that false alarms are something that residence hall staffs don't try to combat.
It's more than just one article. It is the tone with which almost every story in the Kansan about residence halls has taken. It
Kristy Klein and Aramis Watson
opinion@kansas.com
is about time for someone to accentuate the positives and eliminate the negatives of their coverage.
We want to share just a few positive vibes with the KU community. Did you know that just this last month The National Residence Hall Honorary raised close to $2000 to benefit Stouffer Neighborhood Association?
We also couldn't find an article about Club Mac, the residence halls contribution to Alcohol Awareness Week.
Residents donated pennies and silver change at the front desk of their hall during "Penny Wars." All of the money raised will be used to improve playground facilities for the children who live in University family housing.
Jay Krall, Kansan editor, said he encourages student groups to call the Kansan with their news. "There are so many groups on campus doing so many
At Club Mac, held in McCollum Hall, students danced to hits spun by a DJ from 95.7 and enjoyed complementary nonalcoholic beverages while socializing with friends in a club-like atmosphere.
good things that unless they let the Kansan know about them it's hard for us to cover them all," he said.
We are not asking the Kansan to ignore the negative things that happen in the residence hall community. We are asking them to be fair when looking at what to report and what to ignore.
The residence halls are a part of most KU students' college experience. Just think how your life would be different had you never experienced life in a hall.
Klein is a Chicago junior in social welfare. She is National Residence Hall Honorary president. Watson is a Wichita senior in psychology. She is president of the Association of University Residence Halls.