4A the university daily kansan
opinion
tuesday, September 16,2003
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It is only 9 o'clock on a Friday night and the parking lot is empty. God, I love this town.
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Here is a thought. In loving memory of John Ritter: Problem Child marathon.
I just want to let you all know that Johnny Cash is a real American bad ass.
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I read the article about the guy randomly flashing girls on campus. I think that they should fight back by randomly flashing guys on campus.
Everybody should smoke pot
So the guy from Hash with the tails and ears we are thinking that you need to add some whiskers. Our advice is to add some whiskers.
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I just passed the Safe Ride van that was completely empty and it wouldn't take me to 14th and Tennessee. What is up with that?
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I was just wondering why there is no freaking street lights in Lawrence. It is freaking dark. It is really scary walking home from football games when it is pitch black and you can't see where you are going.
Upperclassmen need to quit picking on the freshman. They were freshmen once too.
Girls who play tennis for recreation are awesome.
Boys from Chicago are awesome.
Hi Arrah Mellson, I would just like to say that I slept with your Bible school teacher and I am gay.
I am at a party right now and there is a guy that is swimming through the grass. Swimming through the grass. I want whatever he's got.
So I huffed and I puffed and then I passed out.
It is like 2 a.m. and we have been playing UNO for the past four hours on one game. I would just like to know if anyone has ever beaten this record.
You know those italic latters that go in the wrong direction? They make me nauseous.
Has anyone else noticed that everybody on this campus has a cell phone attached to their ear? Just wondering.
teruts of our lives
It's different being a minority abroad
Editor's note: Plummer is on a study abroad program in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Before leaving for Costa Rica, I had all sorts of questions. Among the concerns any student would have before going to a foreign country, I wanted to know how being an African American abroad would affect my experience.
ineffectively experience.
I began researching all I could on Costa Rica and studying abroad. Sadly, the majority of literature I found focused exclusively on the white student's experience. While I found and appreciated much advice directed toward the female traveler, even that catered to a white perspective with special warnings to blonde, fair-skinned women traveling in Latin America.
I needed to know the racial climate of where I would be traveling. How would I be treated? And the question I received from almost every African American I told about my destination, "Do they have black people there?"
Why should it matter? I'm going to be a foreigner anyway. What difference does color or ethnicity make? A huge difference.
COMMENTARY
My physical appearance may dictate where I fit into the host society. What will my experience be like as a minority in another country? Will I be treated as American or black or both?
Even grooming becomes an issue. Will I be able to find someone who knows how to cut African-American hair? What if my hair is relaxed? Will I be able to keep it maintained in another country?
Alexzia Plummer
opinion@kansan.com
And the worst-case scenario. What if I encounter racism? What do I do and will there be support for me?
Luckily, my experience in Costa Rica has been positive so far. Many of my fears and reservations were put to rest.
In a way, it's almost like being in the States, because people here are curious about black people. I've experienced the same fascination with black hair that I have encountered in North America. When I first arrived, my host family touched my hair. My host mother marveled that I could still have tan lines even though I have dark skin.
Support from fellow study abroad group members is beneficial. Sometimes it's just comforting to be around other North Americans. Even so, I'm the only African American in the Grupo de Kansas this semester. So sometimes I feel especially different, because not only am I foreigner, I'm a minority in my American group.
Going abroad has exposed me to other parts of the African Diaspora. Costa Rica has a unique Afro-Caribbean culture, and it has challenged my previous conceptions
about the definitions of black and Latino.
I have definitely gotten a distinct side of the cultural customs. Although relatively mild, some Costa Rican men do shout out piropos. The closest North American equivalent is catcalling. These displays of male attention occur when women walk down the street and range from kissing noises to rhymes. They usually refer to some physical characteristic. I have received the saying Mi Negrita, which means my little black girl.
If I had not been warned about this, I would have been offended. But I had to understand that negro doesn't have the same connotation in Spanish. And it has been my experience that in Costa Rica they refer to race more openly than in the States. This type of information is crucial for a student of color studying abroad.
What has been a pleasant surprise is that I don't stick out as much as I thought I would. Apparently I don't fit the concept of a North American as a white person. So I don't get pegged as foreign until I open my mouth and speak Spanish.
I want to use my experience to encourage more minority students to take advantage of this opportunity.
I was disappointed not to see more students of color in my pre-departure orientation, or here studying in Costa Rica. It would be a shame to let lack of information and fear of the unknown keep people from studying abroad.
Plummer is a Bellevue, Neb., senior in journalism.
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111 Staffer-Flint
perspective
Choose your battles in what may be killing you
When I read the story Reusing bottles may be unsafe in the Sept. 9 University Daily Kansan that said reusing water bottles could give you cancer, I immediately put out my cigarette and called my mom. She has been washing her plastic water bottles in the dishwasher for years. At first she didn't believe that carcinogens came from the plastic breaking down after repeated washes. But, after a little convincing, she realized I wasn't kidding around.
COMMENTARY
"Now what am I going to do?" she said in hysteria.
And that got me thinking. What are any of us going to do about all of these carcinogens? Should we stay indoors, drinking only filtered water out of clean glasses and reading books that don't strain our eyes and are made from chemical-free paper? How much do we really need to worry?
Louise Stauffer
opinion@kansan.com
After I calmed Mom down, I lay down in a tanning bed and contemplated what I had heard could give me cancer. Deodorant, Aspartame, cell phones, microwaves, power plants, the sun and of course, smoking. I love all these things.
I also thought about an Italian friend who, when told by an obnoxious American that he was not only giving himself cancer, but her too by secondhand smoke, brushed the statement of like
dandruff flakes on a black shirt:
dandrum lakes after blue sky. "That is all lies," he said, blowing smoke further into her retinas, "Cance by cigarettes, oh, you silly Americans."
Then I got on the Internet, and discovered there were more carcinogens than I'd ever realized.
I'd ever realized. The U.S. Department of Health and Services had lists of known carcinogens, some I expected, and many I didn't. For instance, I expected alcoholic beverage consumption, asbestos and mustard gas, but wood dust? Come on.
Are we simply too afraid of cancer? And maybe illness in general? Are we afraid of anything that will make us sick? In the water-bottle story, it said that not only should we stop washing out water bottles, but reusing them as well. This is because it breeds bacteria, which could make us sick, and then we could die, and then what? Maybe
So, are we closer to death every time we breathe wood dust, and drink out of a used bottle, we're getting closer to death? I set out to find the truth.
that's the issue, the "Now what?"
Paul V. Hartman, a cancer specialist, said in an essay, found on www.naciente.com/essay11.htm, "A cabbage leaf contains at least 54 natural pesticides, and more than half have produced cancer in rodents. Also, Dioxin, a chemical claimed to be the most deadly entity ever created by man, has a natural analog in broccoli." But obviously, these carcinogens are too small of amounts of affect humans negatively.
I spoke with Tom Pierce, a doctor at in the center for environmental and occupational health at University of Kansas Medical Center. He explained that a type of carcinogens, called phthalates, are indeed present when a water bottle has been washed repeatedly, because of the way the plastic breaks down. He said those same phthalates are also present in the plastic parts of ivs, iv machines, automobiles, and more.
Pierce said we all have exposure to phthalates.
But, he said, that small exposure is nothing like exposing yourself to cigarette smoke or UV radiation regularly.
we're just now reaching The point is, there are many things that contain harmful materials. Even broccoli, which is supposed to be the "superfood." contains a small amount of something deadly.
The trick is to think about your individual cancer risk. He advised those who have cancer in their family to talk with their doctor and work out a lifestyle strategy: minimize smoking, eat healthfully, etc. But water bottles, rewashed or not, won't matter much, he said.
But if we spend all of our time and energy trying to keep our bodies as healthy and pure as the day we were born, we might forget to start living. If you are trying to quit smoking, please, continue. And if throwing out your cell phone will help you sleep at night, go ahead, but don't be so healthy that you become boring.
salt.
Most carcinogens have been in our environment for a long, long time, and we're just now realizing it.
become boring Think about what is worth risking and what isn't.
I know I have some bad habits that are slowly killing me. But at least re-washing my water bottles won't make me sick in this lifetime, hopefully.
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Stauffer is a Holland, Mt. senior in English and journalism.She is opinion editor.