Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
4A
Spencer Duncan, *Editor*
Lindsey Henry, *Managing editor*
Andrea Albright, *Managing editor*
Tom Eblen, *General manager, news adviser*
Sarah Scherwinksi, *Business manager*
Brian Pagel, *Retail sales manager*
Dan Simon, *Sales and marketing adviser*
Justin Knupp, *Technology coordinator*
Wednesday, September 10, 1997
Signet / PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS
Ranting
Instead of complaining about glossy inserts, find a trash can
It seems that KU students have forgotten how to pick up after themselves.
About once a week, an annoying booklet of slick paper, called an advertising insert, comes folded inside the "University Daily Kansan." About once a week, students are unable to walk through campus without wading through the even more annoying piles of inserts carelessly stwn on the ground.
Judging from the amount of inserts that end up as litter, one would think that nobody reads these things. True or untrue, advertisers pay premium rates for these promotions.
Many students have complained about the trash generated by the inserts, but there are multiple trash cans near every news stand on campus. But the litter problem is not the fault of
Advertisements a necessary evil, but making campus look like a landfill can be avoided.
the "Kansan," facilities operations or the administration. The litter problem is the students' fault.
As much as some people would like the inserts to disappear all together, it's not going happen. The "Kansan" will continue to run these slick booklets because they bring a lot of money into the newspaper.
This may sound like the "Kansan" cares more about money than a clean campus, but it's not that simple. If the "Kansan" doesn't make money in advertising, then it has to make money
someplace else. This "someplace else" is the students' pockets.
Right now, the "Kansan" is a publication provided to the students for virtually free. The Kansan received $5,300 in student fees this year. If you divide this number by 25,000 students, the average yearly cost per student for the "Kansan" is $2.33. In other words, students pay less than 2 cents for their daily newspaper.
The result of lower revenue from advertising would be a newspaper sold to the students for 50 cents.
Nobody would pay that, you say? You're right. But the advertisers will pay for those obnoxious pieces of paper.
There are necessary evils in life. So next time you start grumbling about the trash inserts, use the energy to walk to the trash can.
Liz Musser for the editorial board
"Kansan" website having problems
webeditor@kansan.com
Web editor
Web editor
By Charity Jeffries
By Charity Jetries
webeditor@kansan.com
I have good news and bad news.
OK, first the bad news. The Web server that allows readers to access the "University Daily Kansan interactive" has had a catastrophic crash. Crashes are nothing new to me. In my first two weeks as Web editor I've nearly gone bald from pulling on my hair every time we had a server crash.
But this was the biggie, the one we've been waiting for. This was the one that prompted the Webmaster to call me at home and ask, "Are you sitting down?" It's been like a death in the family. But our grieving process can't stop until
she comes back to life. And that miracle could take some time.
We are working night and day to rebuild the stuff we've lost. But we
are looking at Thursday or Friday before publication can begin again. Everyone has been patient with us so far, and I must ask for
just a few more ounces of kindness.
Thank you for your support.
Ok, now the good news. I'd like to tell you all about the up and coming basketball site that we have
planned to launch on Oct. 18. We are keeping the really good stuff under wraps. So if you think the following revelations are cool, just think how blown away you'll be when you sign on in October.
This year is the 100th anniversary of Kansas basketball. Let's get crazy. Our site will have player profiles, up-to-the-minute game reports, tons of stories on the history of KU basketball, a traditions section so you finally can learn the school song, audio and video clips, and, like I said, a lot more cool secret stuff.
So stay tuned for the Web address and go ahead and pay for that unlimited Internet access because you're not going to want to sign off unless you're going to the game.
Kansan staff
Bradley Brooks . *Editorial*
Jason Strait . *Editorial*
Jodie Chester . *Neus*
Jen Smith. . *Neus*
Adam Darby . *Neus*
Charity Jeffries . *Online*
Kristie Blasi . *Sports*
Tommy Gallagher . *Associate Sports*
Dave Morantz . *Campus*
Eric Weslander . *Campus*
Ashleigh Roberts . *Features*
Steve Puppe . *Photo*
Bryan Volk . *Design, graphics*
Mitch Lucas . *Illustrations*
Mark McMaster . *Wire*
Ann Marchand . *Special sections*
Aerica Veazey . *News clerk*
News editors
Advertising managers
Advertising managers
Matt Fisher . . . Assistant retail
Michael Soifer . . . Campus
Colleen Eager . . . Regional
Anthony Migilazzo . . . National
Jeff Auslander . . . Marketing
Chris Haghirian . . . Internet
Brian LeFevre . . Production
Jen Wallace. . . Production
Dustin Skidgel . . Promotions
Tyler Cook . . . Creative
Annette Hoover . Public relations
Rachel O'Neill . Classified
Jaime Mann . . Assistant classified
Marc Harrell . . Senior account executive
Scott Swedlund . . Senior account executive
"I'm not sure we that good. We played two lesser offensive teams than we'll play the rest of the year. But I like how our defense is playing."
Broaden your mind: Today's auote
Kansas football coach Terry Allen.
**Letters:** Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and guest columns
Guest columns Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Sauber-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions.
For any questions, call Bradley Brooks (brooks@kansan.com) or Jason Strait (justtrain@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have generic questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4810.
Raving
Phillips 66 a genocidal tool; Kansas pays tribute
You may see in the not-too-distant future flyers hanging in every nook and cranny of this fine institution with a theme very similar to this column.
Matthew Caldwell
opinion@kansan.com
Titles such as the one atop this column (and on the aforementioned flyers) have the unfortunate effect of deterring the very people who most desperately need to understand the information within. But watering down the message is to stray from the truth and lose the necessary intrigue.
I do not resort to extremism to see my reflection in the reaction of confused champions of capitalist democracy. If this column seems extreme, it is because
the situation is so devastating that to portray it in any other way would be disrespectful to the people who are surviving it.
The University of Kansas is unwittingly tied to one of the most blatant and well-funded instances of choreographed genocide in the 20th century. That is not an exaggeration. I'm talking about the situation on East Timor, an island about 30 miles off the coast of Indonesia. The situation there is no less shocking than the one 10 years ago in South Africa.
For the last 22 years, since the island's freedom from Portugal, East Timor has suffered greatly under the hand of the Indonesian government, which is, itself, a victim of American political whims.
It has been estimated that more than 200,000 East Timorese have been murdered as a result of the conflict. One massacre by the Indonesian government, where bodies were being indiscriminately shot and thrown in to the sea, is gruesomely described: "The Indonesians tore the crying children from their mothers and passed them back to the crowd. The women were then shot one by one, with the onlookers being ordered to count," wrote Jeffrey Vain in the May 96 issue of "Z" magazine. The area is now named "The Sea of Blood."
The motivation, in the beginning, may be attributed to a power-hungry Indonesia. It could have been a result of pressure by the U.S. to secure an extraordinarily deep strait between Indonesia and East Timor (which would provide undetected passage for U.S. submarines to
In addition to the Nobel Committee's searing reprimand, the United Nations has condemned the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. If so many well-respected organizations have turned their backs on Indonesia and the companies that are profiting from their violence, why have so few Americans ever heard of the little island off the coast of Indonesia? Understanding that large corporations own the major media sources of this country, the answer is obvious. The company that is profiting the most from Indonesia's occupation of East Timor is American — Phillips 66 Petroleum.
Last year the Nobel Committee awarded a joint peace prize to two East Timorese champions of freedom, Catholic bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta, special representative of the Council of Maubere Resistance. The committee stated, "It has been estimated that one-third of the population of East Timor has lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war and terror ... it is hoped that this award will spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in East Timor based on the people's right to self-determination."
Japan, China, Korea and Southeast Asia).
But today, the motivation for continued subjugation of East Timor is simply money; oil money to be exact. This is nothing new. Since the Nazis showed the world how profitable genocide can be, violent exploitation of peaceful lands has been standard operating procedure for many multinational corporations (Texaco, Shell and Standard Oil are all known to have drawn up contracts in 1935 with the Nazis for German-owned oil reserves around the world).
The University of Kansas has graduated nine CEOs of Phillips 66. Two buildings on campus, Learned Hall and Adams Alumni Center, are named for two of those CEOs. Many KU basketball games are sponsored by Phillips 66. Scholarships to Kansas have been awarded by Phillips 66 (don't be fooled in to thinking such acts are anthropic because 10 times more than the scholarship amount is generally spent on advertising the fact that Phillips awarded the scholarship).
Don't be lulled into complacency. Don't lend your dollars to spill more blood in East Timor. Boycott Phillips 66. Call the University administration and tell it you don't want this institution to pay tribute to the tools of genocide any longer.
Caldwell is a Lawrence senior in the college of liberal arts and sciences.
Delta Force bridging gap to students' awareness
As a candidate for student body president this last pring, the question I heard most often from students in relation to Student Senate was: Where are
these people the rest of the year and why are they only active during election time?
This gets to the heart of why Delta Force, a dedicated group of individuals with whom I ran with last year, was formed. Because the question is still pertinent, we have chosen to keep Delta Force alive and continue to work on what we started last spring. However, now we have the luxury of focusing on the issues, not ourselves.
Jason Fizell
DeltaForce@ukans.edu
We feel students are best represented by other students willing to take a stand for what they believe in.
Simply put, Delta Force is based around the idea of activism. That is, getting off one's butt and doing something rather than just complaining all the time, or worse yet, doing nothing at all.
You may ask, what beliefs does Delta hold? It's simple: We believe students and their welfare should be the primary concern of the administration of the University of Kansas.
Not Coca-Cola, not parking revenues, not cushy stadium boxes, not numbers of National Merit Scholars, not jet planes — but the good of all students, plain and simple.
Unfortunately, Student Senate and the University administration have not always performed well in terms of a standing up for student rights. Boondoggles such as linear tuition, the parking department and the lack of benefits for graduate teaching assistants are only some of the more obvious, recent examples of the failure of these entities to serve students.
Furthermore, it is a mistake to run the University as a corporation concerned only with profits and frilly presentation that disregards the real concerns of students. After all, as students, we are here for an education and this first and foremost should be the mission of the University. Of course, the administration mouths these words, but do they believe them and follow those words up with action? Unfortunately, not as much as they should.
In keeping with our beliefs, Delta Force has established the following goals:
Bring about positive, student-centered
and directed change on issues that concern the student body.
Realizing a comprehensive campuswide recycling, reuse and reduction program.
Raise the consciousness of students on issues that the Student Senate, KU administration, Board of Regents and legislature are addressing.
Represent the concerns of individuals students and groups that have traditionally been ignored or marginalized.
Reviewing and amending the linear tuition policy to save students money.
These goals translate to issues that Delta Force thinks need to be addressed to make this a truly student-centered campus. The issues we are working on include but are not limited to:
Foster bonds and cooperation between the University and the Lawrence community.
- Empower all students to realize the effectiveness of their voice and opinion.
Expanding office space and support for all student organizations.
Implementing a truly comprehensive city-wide transportation program including busing, bike lanes, Saferide and a campus escort program.
Instituting a fall break in October
- Increasing minority recruitment and retention.
Improving recreation centers at Robinson.
Investigating the inclusion of community service components in classes and degree requirements.
Even without becoming a member of Delta Force you can affect a great deal of change on this campus by becoming informed, questioning the conventional wisdom and speaking out on issues that concern you. You can do this by sending e-mails, writing letters, making calls, starting a petition, setting up an appointment, or any other number of ways. Remember do something, do anything just be active!
If you like what you have read and are interested in participating in Delta Force, or simply want to find out more, please contact us in any of the following ways:
842-8569
DeltaForce@ukans.edu
www.ukans.edu/~dforce
.
Also, feel free to attend our next meeting at 3 p.m. on Sunday, September 21 in the Jayhawk Room of the Kansas Union.
Fixell is an Olathe senior in history.