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NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY JAILY KANSAN
3A
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2008
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2006
STUDENT SENATE
Elections reforms limits campaigning
BY HALEY JONES
hjones@kansan.com
Don't make eye contact.
That's what Lindsay Elliott thought as she walked by student senators campaigning on Wescoe Beach. She hoped they wouldn't bother her, but her evasiveness wasn't enough.
"Hi, I'm running for Student Senate. Do you mind if I walk with you for a second?"
Student Senate coalitions are already preparing for spring elections, but this year, campaigning will be less invasive to students. Under a new elections reform bill that Senate passed several weeks ago, coalitions cannot begin any
campaigning - passive or active — until five weeks before election. Last year, tabling on campus was not limited, and active campaigning was allowed only the week before elections. That means that under last year's elections code, coalitions could be tabling in front of Wescoe Hall right now.
But for students such as Elliott, the change is welcome.
"We're students, and they're students, and there still needs to be regulation on what lines you can and can't cross," she said.
Elliott said although campaigning didn't affect her life that much, she didn't enjoy being hassled on campus.
"It bothers me when I politely
decline their little spiel or politely pass by rather than stopping and listening, and they have a smart comment they throw back while I'm walking away," she said.
The bill's limitations allow coalitions less time and money to campaign. The bill caps spending at $6,000, an amount most senators agreed was fair. Last year, some former coalitions spent about $10,000 and another spent only $75.
Adam Wood, Lawrence senior and president of former coalition Students for Liberty, said the new limitations would make running an efficient campaign more important. Wood, who opposed the elections reform bill, said it
handicapped smaller coalitions that had less support and existing campaign materials.
"It's going to be a little difficult," he said, "but in a way it helps because some people are kind of irresponsible and just go out there and, for half a year, just bother everybody. People get sick of it."
The enforceability of the $6,000 spending limit was one of Wood's major concerns about the bill. He said that there needed to be more oversight of coalitions' spending so the race was fairer but that not all senators agreed with him. He said when he voiced his concerns about people exceeding the limits, one senator asked him whether he trusted other senators.
"That's kind of the point," he said. "We shouldn't trust anybody in any point of power. We should keep their feet on the floor."
But Mason Heilman, Lawrence junior and Student Executive Committee chairman, said the spending cap was just as enforceable as any other election regulations. He said coalitions had incentive to obey the limit because the penalty for going over the limit was to pay 50 percent of the amount that exceeded $6,000.
"I think that's steep enough," he said. "Setting the limit at $6,000 is much better than having an indeterminate amount of money."
Wood said he was interested,
albeit a little skeptical, to see how
campaigning turned out.
"I hope they're right," he said.
"If everybody is honest, you'll have a very fair, even race. But I'm really hard-pressed to believe everybody will abide by the $6,000 limit."
Although the new election codes leave Senate with more spending limits and time constraints to enforce, they leave students on campus a little less stress. For students who are not interested in Senate elections, fewer days having to deal with campaigning would be a welcome change. For those who do care, reduced campaigning could mean less voter fatigue when it comes time to vote.
RESEARCH
Edited by Lauren Keith
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jim Carrey stars as Truman Burbank in the 1998 movie "The Truman Show," in which Carrey's character discovers every moment of his life has been broadcast. Now doctors have given the name "Truman syndrome" to a delusion afflicting patients who believe they are living their lives in reality TV shows.
Doctors find 'Truman syndrome'
BY JENNIFER PELTZ ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — One man showed up at a federal building, asking for release from the reality show he was sure was being made of his life.
Another was convinced his every move was secretly being filmed for
a TV contest. A third believed everything — the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed — was part of a phony, stage-set world with him as the involuntary star, like the 1998 movie "The Truman Show"
ture were in, in which fame holds such high value?" said Dr. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York's Bellevue Hospital.
Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman syndrome," a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are secretly playing out on a reality TV show. Scientists say the disorder underscores the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions.
Within a two-year period, Gold said he encountered five patients with delusions related to reality TV. Several of them specifically mentioned "The Truman Show".
Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman Syndrome,"a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are secretly playing out on a reality TV show.
"The question is really: Is this just a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion, or is there sort of a perfect storm of the cul-
Gold and his brother, a psychol-
other, a psychologist, started presenting their observations at medical schools in 2006. After word spread beyond medical circles this summer, they learned of about 50 more people with similar symptoms. The brothers are
Meanwhile, researchers in London described a "Truman syndrome" patient in the British Journal of Psychiatry in August. The 26-year-old postman "had a sense the world was slightly unreal, as if he was the eponymous hero in the film," the researchers wrote.
now working on a scholarly paper.
The Oscar-nominated movie stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank. He leads a merrily uneventful life until he realizes his friends and family
are actors, his seaside town is a TV soundstage and every moment of his life has been broadcast.
His struggle to sort out reality and illusion is heartwarming, but researchers say it's often horrifying for "Truman syndrome" patients.
Delusions can be a symptom of various psychiatric illnesses, as well as neurological conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Some drugs also can make people delusional.
A few take pride in their imagined celebrity, but many are deeply upset at what feels like an Orwellian invasion of privacy. The man profiled in the British Journal was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is unable to work. One of Gold's patients planned to commit suicide if he couldn't leave his supposed reality show.
It's not unusual for psychiatrists to see delusional patients who believe their relatives have been replaced by impostors or who think figures in their lives are taking on multiple disguises.
Delusions tend to be classified by broad categories, such as the belief that one is being persecuted, but research has shown culture and technology can also affect them. Several recent studies have chronicled delusions entwined with the Internet such as a patient in Austria who believed she had become a walking webcam.
But "Truman" delusions are more sweeping, involving not just some associates but society at large, Gold said.
Reality television may help such patients convince themselves their experiences are plausible, according to the Austrian woman's psychiatrists, writing in the journal Psychopathology in 2004.
That's not to say reality shows make healthy people delusional, "but, at the very least, it seems possible to me that people who would become ill are becoming ill quicker or in a different way," Gold said.
Ian Gold, a philosophy and psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal who has researched the matter with his brother, suggests reality TV and the Web, with their ability to make strangers into intimates, may compound psychological pressure on people who have underlying problems dealing with others.
Other researchers aren't convinced but still find the "Truman syndrome" an interesting example of the connection between culture and mental health.
Vaughan Bell, a psychologist who has researched Internet-related delusions, said one of his own former patients believed he was in the virtual-reality universe portrayed in the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix."
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NATIONAL
Sword-wielding man involved with other Scientology incidents
BY THOMAS WATKINS ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — An Oregon man who was fatally shot as he wielded samurai swords and tried to attack guests at a landmark Scientology building had been involved in "prior incidents" with the church, police said Monday.
Berndt said that the Scientology church and security guards were already familiar with Majorski, and that he had been associated with the church in the "distant past." She did not elaborate on the earlier dealings.
"The security people were aware of him through some prior incidents." Berndt said.
Mario Maiorski, 48, was shot once by a security guard as he tried to use the swords to attack guests at the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Hollywood on Sunday, Detective Wendi Berndt said.
"The security guard had to take action to prevent the deceased from killing or maiming people
The shooting will be reviewed by the district attorney's office, but police were treating the killing as justifiable.
on the premises," Berndt said.
Majorski was pronounced dead at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
Security surveillance tape showed Majorski arrived around noon in a red convertible, then approached the guards with a sword in each hand before he was shot, Berndt said. She said the tape would not be released to the public because it was too graphic. No other weapons were found in the car, which Berndt said she thought was a rental.
Messages left at a Scientology media line were not returned Monday.
Public records show he had been associated with a string of addresses in Los Angeles County and in Oregon over the last two decades. He filed for bankruptcy in 2000.
The Celebrity Centre is a turreted, castle-like landmark in Hollywood that serves as "a home for the artist, a place where he can come and learn, attend seminars, meet other artists and even perform at our many showcases and events," according to the Centre's Web site.
Heads, you keep the cups. Tails, they're a gift.