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4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
THURSDAY,AUGUST 29,2002
TALKTOUS
Jay Krail editor
864-4854 or jkral@kansan.com
Brooke Hesler and Kyle Ramsey managing editors
864-4854 or bheeler@kansan.com and kramsey@kansan.com
Laurel Burchfield readers' representative
864-4810 or lrburchfield@kansan.com
Maggie Koerth and Amy Potter opinion editors
864-4924 or opinion@kansan.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 news adviser
864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mtfisher@kansan.com
KANSAN EDITORIAL BOARD
Both support and funds needed to save KU Info
There's a common misconception being spread around campus in need of clearing up: KU Info is not dying.
It is true KU Info has been dying, slowly painfully, over a number of semesters. Its hours of operation reduced, its workforce out and its budget as a whole decimated.
The University of Kansas's information center was but a shell of its former self. But no more.
KU Info is not dying. It is already dead. It seems the only question for the administration now is how best to divvy up the corpse. Who feeds off its meager monetary remains? Perhaps we can allocate some of it toward supporting an open archeology exhibit for students? Oh wait, that's also closing down come October. Strange that the more money KU has, the less student services it seems to provide.
No, the administration believes the exact same money that could have employed a dozen staff to personally answer student questions is better off in the hands of a single webmaster as he or she maintains a glorified search engine. Anyone who's used AskJeeves understands just how difficult it is to find good butlers these days.
Nevertheless, there are a number of people from both student senate and campus as a whole who believe the phonelines can still be saved. Like Miracle Max, they've concluded that KU Info is only mostly dead, and they have some propositions to facilitate its recovery.
First and foremost is getting the word out to students. There will soon be tables set up in both Wescoe Beach and the Kansas
Call 864-0500
Free for All
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Standerous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
isn't there anything more important going
on at KU than triplets living at Oliver?
I'm Jeff, and I think pancakes are a lot better than waffles' cause, like, they aren't as soggy.
Galen Turner has determined that an increase of $2.25 per student per semester will provide KU Info with the money it needs to keep several phone lines open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m every day. But is it the student's responsibility to continually support everything the administration will not? How tired of it will we become?
That's a problem Karen Keith, holdover senator for Student Senate, foreseees. She's confident students support the continuation of KU Info, but is worried that, if put to a vote, it will not achieve even a 10 percent turnout and the referendum would fail.
my roommate is a porn star, she does nasty videos. We call her triple A.
So while signing petitions at tables won't put cash in anyone's budget, it will give those who fight the good fight a better idea of what weapons to use.
The new DJ on the V100 morning show is a real humbo.
I was just observing the girls of the Big 12 issue, and I noticed that a KU girl had the best crotch shot. And I am very glad to see that, and it makes me glad to be a member of KU.
Union where students can sign a petition to continue KU Info using some of the money raised through the increased tuition, Jonathan Ng, student senate president, also has a resolution he'd like to pass confirming campuswide KUInfo support.
But let's face facts. Showing student support ain't gonna pay the bills. It will only ensure the administration closes the door before snickering rather than laugh in our faces. Real solutions call for real money.
from an outsider's point of view
from an outsider's point of view
Here's my rendition of the bean dip song.
Bean dip, bean dip, bean dip, bean dip, bean dip. (Laughing) Bean dip makes you smarter.
It makes you a better fatter. Bean dip, bean dip, it's my friend.
Another proposal is the creation of an endowment fund where benefactors can donate money towards keeping KU Info open on a permanent basis. But, the best solution many see to providing an adequate budget is also its last resort: raising student fees.
Um, yeah. I'd just like to say that my roommate is singing the bean dip song while I'm trying to read the *Iliad*, and it's just not working.
from an outsider's point of view
Sorry to say it, but I know what the point is when your roommate goes insane when she starts playing the itsy-bitsy spider. What is that?
Yeah, everybody keeps complaining about the closing down of KU info, and yet there's nothing in here about the closing down of the KU anthropology museum. I'm complaining about the closing of the KU anthropology museum. Thank you.
图
Oh, I forgot to say, the sexual favors were worth it, because Eminem was hot and I wanted him to be my sugardaddy.
编
What's the difference between college students and canoes? Canoes tip.
Dan Osman for the editorial board.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Coca-Cola asks for removal of V8 juice
Many readers may remember the long running advertising campaign for V8 in which health-conscious snackers would pop the tab on their soft drink and then gently reprimand themselves and say, "I could'a had a V8". That used to be true at the University of Kansas. But, not anymore.
On a recent visit to the Kansas Union, I was told by a cashier that the Coca-Cola Company has requested that V8 Juice not be restocked for sale by KU vendors.
She went on to explain that Coca-Cola's contract with KU gives them the prerogative to insist that Hawk Shop remove competitive products that might negatively affect Coca-Cola's profit margin. If this is true, it does not bode well for health-conscious students, faculty, or staff trying to keep their minds sharp for the coming academic year. Never mind the fact that Coca-Cola does not offer a competing vegetable juice product even remotely similar to V8. Never mind recent reports that the United States has an embarrassing number of obese and Type II diabetics. Never mind the fact that even after successive years of cafeteria renovation at the Kansas Union, you still can't get a decent meal.
I'm not angry. I'm just disgusted any time I'm expected to kiss any large corporation's BIG FAT CAN, especially here at KU.
I don't expect to see riots in the streets over this issue. Hopefully, it won't come to that.
David McKinney
Lawrence Resident
KU Graduate '87
GRITZKE'SVIEW
Kevin Gritzke/Kansan
PERSPECTIVES
'Pop' tunes aren't real music
COMMENTARY
All the radio stations in Lawrence seem to sound the same. At any given time one would be lucky to find a station that doesn't alternate Avril Lavigne's shoddy "Complicated" with Eminem's completely embarrassing "Cleanin' Out My Closet."
Pop songs are generated by the hundreds and can be produced from a single guitar riff ripped from an existing song. Suddenly it has become musically appropriate to steal bass lines off of songs already written and slap some completely ludicrous lyrics onto them. Are we really that unimaginative? Are we going to let a 17-year-old Lavigne tell us "Life's like this, Uh Huh Uh Huh, That's the way it is?" She is 17! She just got into R-rated movies, what does she know about what life is like?
Megan Kelleher opinion@kansan.com
Society has been dumbed down to such a level that a song titled "Hot in Herre," about taking your clothes off, can climb the Billboard charts. Then there are those who may argue that listening to music isn't a deep psychological journey and that the lyrics don't mean anything.
Well then I guess when Eminem describes how he wants to hold a gun to his ex-wife's head it really doesn't mean anything. It is just domestic violence anyway.
I am, of course, looking at these songs
Anyone I know will tell you that above all I am a music elitist and I wouldn't be caught dead listening to any of the above songs. Reason being that I don't want to be insulted.
Pop songs insult my intelligence. Stringing together two lines and repeating them over and over again to a funky backbeat does not constitute a song, even when you add a goofy rapper in the background.
Do not attempt to insult me by passing this off as a song. Songs consist of lyrics, chorus, verses,and-believe it or not-perhaps some new music to go along with it all.
Members of the mainstream public have become drones. Listening to the same songs over and over again will keep them happy. Every six months speed the song up or slow it down, add a different name to the singer, and make a video with as many women in little bikinis as you can find. Done and done.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
KU needs to adapt for disabilities
Tonight while I tried to sleep, I started to think about what I did today and realized how difficult the day was. What an effort! Early this morning I drove my boys to school and went to KU. I parked near the Memorial Stadium. I got out my carry-on case, put on my raincoat and stood in the rain trying to think of the best way to climb the hill. Shortcuts don't work for me just now, as they have too many stairs. Slowly, I started walking behind the Spencer Museum of Art and with an enormous effort; I finally got to Strong Hall. There was no place to rest! It took almost thirty minutes to climb the hill. By now you must think, what happened to her? OK, at this point in life I like to think of myself as "temporarily handicapped." I had surgery just four weeks ago and have stitches from one hip to the other. It will be another month before my energy is 100 percent again.
This experience has made me realize how unfriendly KU is for "temporarily handicapped" people such as myself, or those with minor physical disabilities. It is so ironic. Since I cannot climb the stairways (and there are zillions on the campus), I now have to look for places with handicapped access. I get tired easily and walk slowly, and almost always the accesses are in the back of the buildings, making me walk more than double the distance of a healthy person. The
accesses are not so accessible, and some elevators do not really take you anyplace, as happened to me in Lippincott Hall. Not all of the Watson Library stacks have ladders to get a book. There are places where sidewalks are incomplete or there is no sidewalk, and there are almost no ramps, and some irresponsible persons park near the building entrances. If you need to rest, basically, there are no places to sit down. I know my disability is temporary, but how do those with permanent physical disabilities make it here?
Patricia Fumero
Graduate Student
Department of History
Reader appreciates Kansan changes
I am not a student but I am over 65 years of age and look at the Kansan every day over the Internet. From looking at it today and being the first day, I have seen a lot of the changes you have made.
In my opinion, the changes that have been made from last year are all good. It seems to me a lot more convenient to see what I want to see along with more.
Good job.
Bob Ebey Lawrence resident
That is a million dollars more in the hands of the recording companies and a million more dead brain cells for the listeners.
Naturally, there will be those who get angry when they read this. It will upset them for two reasons.
One reason is that they don't want their favorite Ashanti jam to be bashed for the repetitive drivel it is.
The second reason people may be angry is because they realize how sad they have been for listening to such absurdity for so long. I think this is a good thing.
Hopefully, if people get angry enough they will voice their opinions. By voicing their opinions I do not mean getting drunk and dialing up the Free For All. I mean having actual, honest reasons to defend their musical tastes.
Someone give me proof that these are "songs" written and performed by "artists."
I'm not asking anyone to change their musical tastes, no matter how ridiculous I think they are. I'm merely asking for someone to prove to me that the songs played daily on radio stations everywhere are more than goofy bubble gum pop.
Kelleher is an Omaha, Neb., sophomore in journalism.
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