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Kansan
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Wednesday,September 3,1997
Steve Prince/KANSAN
Coca-Cola: is it the choice of Kansas' future generations?
Forget bike lanes. Who cares if enrollment is outdated? And I'll tell you what you can do with your inadequate computer centers.
It's time we deal with the real issues, like diversity. Not the racial kind. I'm talking soft drinks. Funny how nobody noticed until they took away the Pepsi, but we've been held captive, our drinking freedom restricted for years. If you don't believe me, just try to get a Shasta on this campus.
But it seems students have accepted the situation. "It's no big deal," they say. "I'll just get a drink somewhere else." Well, let me ask you something. Where are you going to get your drink when Coke buys up the rest of the city, then the rest of the state?
The following news report has been fabricated, but it is a possibility.
LAWRENCE — Classes have been canceled indefinitely at the University of Kansas after yesterday's protests against the University's exclusive contract with Coca-Cola, erupted into a full-scale donnybrook, resulting in massive property damage and numerous arrests. The trouble began around 10:30 a.m. as Coke personnel were replacing the campus' final Pepsi machine with an 85 cent per bottle Coke dispenser. According to witnesses, a tall, thin man with curly hair, glasses, red sweatpants and a red T-shirt bearing the slogan "That's My KU," chained himself to the Pepsi machine and refused to move.
Jeff Mudrick opinion@kansan.com
When the Coke employees attempted to pry the man from the machine, an angry mob of students, donning "Pepsi Stuff" apparel, charged forward. Within seconds, kicks, punches and shoulder thrusts had reduced the Coke machine to a mangle, yet sticky, steel wreckage.
From there, the mob marched down jayhawk Boulevard toward the chancellor's home, chanting, "Hey, hey Hemenwain, how many Cokes did you sell today," and "1, 2, 3. 4, we ain't drinking Coke no more."
The protest was just the latest in a series since the Coke contract was announced two weeks ago. The issue has sparked sharp divisions between supporters of the contract and its opponents, known as pro-choice activists.
A boycott of Coke by pro-choiceis has cost the University several thousand dollars and left administrators literally floating in a sea of Coke.
"What are we going to do with all this Coke?" Hemenway asked at an emergency staff meeting. "The shipments just keep coming in, and we have nowhere else to put the stuff. I drank three cases myself yesterday, but it's just not enough."
While one professor is reportedly working on a design that would use excess Coke to fuel the financially strapped KU on Wheels' bus fleet, campus security is resorting to other methods to force students back to the beverage.
A curfew has been established, and anyone found on campus between classes without a Coke will be arrested. Also, dogs have been stationed at selected checkpoints to sniff bags for Pepsi or other contraband.
The majority of students have joined pro-choiceers in calling for abolishment of the contract. Even the greek system, often stereotyped for certain drinking behaviors, has joining the effort.
A Phi Delta Theta representative said, "Fraternity life is not about drinking Coke. It's about brotherhood, and that's why we have made the tough decision to become a Coke-free house. This policy will affect all members, it will be adhered to strictly and it will go into effect in the year 2000 - when we all have graduated and don't have to worry about it."
now. *sunny* said.
Yet it seems that faculty tuition may not be the only thing kept from students.
Disturbing evidence has surfaced that the psychology department performed tests on unwilling psychology 104 students, exposing them to abnormally high levels of Coke, between March 1989 and April 1996. The students participated in the experiments to satisfy a research requirement, but were not informed of the dangerous conditions.
While several professors have openly opposed the Coke contract, most are keeping quiet. This has prompted student body president Scott Sullivan to call for open evaluations of professor's soda preference.
One participant, who asked not to be named, said he experienced many adverse side effects from the testing, including "a gaseous feeling in my belly" and unusually gritty teeth.
"I can't believe how they took advantage of me," he said. "I was only a freshman."
While Hemenway attempts to restore order to campus, he may face legal charges as well. His name has been linked to a 1985 scandal in Arkansas concerning a failed investment in New Coke. The case has been dubbed "Artificially-Sweetened, Off Whitewater."
Kansan staff
Mudrick is a Topeka junior in biology.
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Broadon your mind: Today's quote
“If civilization doesn't learn from this, it will absolutely be very telling as to where we're headed. For her life to be taken in the same vein and torture in which she lived is a complete shame.” —Andre Agassi on Princess Diana's death, USA Today.
Letterers: 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.
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All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Safer-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 (jstrait@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
Recruitment of athletes similar to sorority rush
Last week while sitting on the front porch of my humble abode, I couldn't help but notice the seemingly endless parade of well-
dressed freshman ladies down my street. These ladies were taking part in the annual KU tradition known as sorority rush. After watching this spectacle for awhile I realized that the greek community had several aspects in common with college basketball. I am not a member of the greek community and I detest college basketball, but still I couldn't but see the similarities between the two.
John Colbert
jonlion@tansan.com
The more that I thought
Sororities on the other hand rely entirely upon formal rush to acquire new members. The system whereby a chapter picks a number of women in whom it is interested and then the women decide which house that they want seems far too complicated for my feeble mind to comprehend. The way it was explained to me sort of reminded me of the NBA draft. When I asked a few sorority members about the criteria they used in selecting who they asked to join their sorority I was told that it was a closely guarded secret. Since no one was talking I was forced to speculate as to what goes on behind closed doors.
The more that I thought about the similarities the more I became convinced that there must be some sort of conspiracy at work. Just look at their recruitment methods. College basketball teams are very big on having prospects come and see the campus. Likewise fraternities use visits to see "The House" as a way to convince prospective members to "sign" with their house. Fraternites even go so far as to have new members sign a letter of intent just as college teams require.
This made me wonder if sororities looked for
Another trait that sorority members have in common with basketball players is their use of a special greeting used only with other members of their own group. Basketball players give high-fives and an occasional slap on the ass and maybe accompanied by a "good job." Sorority members give a wave that looks more like a grab than a wave. This grab is usually accompanied by something along the lines of "What's Up!?" These greetings are also usually exchanged by two groups of women numbering between three and five. I guess they don't like one on one.
Social aspects aside, the KU Athletic Department and Greek houses at the University have a lot of organizational similarities as well. The Athletic Department's Parrott Athletic Center is arguably the most extravagant building on campus. Some of the Greek houses at Kansas are the most extravagant student residences in Lawrence. College athletic departments rely very heavily upon support from alumni to sustain their programs. Fraternities and sororities also rely heavily upon support from alumni to improve their organizations. Could there be a connection? It's definitely one of those things that makes you go hmm.
certain traits in their prospective members and, if so, what were they? I began to have visions of Roy Williams looking to recruit somebody who was strong in the backcourt to replace Jacque Vaughn. I think that it would be safe to say that you wouldn't be asked to join based on how strong a rebounder you were.
As I pondered all of these facts the parade of girls continued to march past. It seemed like they would never stop coming. I thought of how many women go through rush every year and how many universities that there are in this country. Although it was ninety degrees outside I still couldn't help but feel a slight chill at the prospect.
Colbert is a Lenexa senior in mechanical engineering.
Lost years of a teenage KU student remembered
D during the summer I turned 20. A lot of people say that 20 is really nothing, with 21 being the big one. I disagree whole- heartedly
heartedly
Losing my teenageness was kind of sad, especially when I considered that if I came from Arkansas I'd be celebrating my sixth wedding anniversary. The big hit about being 20 came while I was watching Alicia Silverstone on Letterman. It was a tough blow realizing that while she was producing her first movie at 20, I was busy enjoying a warm mug of root beer.
Nick Bartkoski opinion@kansan.com
But the worst thing about my accelerated age is that
This year they lectured the entire hour with the rationale that we should be getting our money's worth. I've got to assume that this was just the excuse given to the professors on the memo from the Department of Making Students Lives Miserable (which for some reason is based in the chancellor's office).
"I start to say 'In my day.' " Coming back to campus, I've noticed a lot of things are different this year as opposed to "my day." For example, every single one of my classes stayed the entire hour on the first day. Now, before every one of my professors takes note of this complaint and puts something like "has a bad attitude" in the old grade book alongside my name, I should bring up how excited I was that I got to experience them for the whole hour ... really. Well, not really. Every class went the whole hour! I've NEVER had to deal with that before. In my day professors threw syllabi at us and flew out of the room before the papers hit the ground, leaping out of the window to escape in some extreme cases.
This is, of course, the same university that, after evaluating the needs of technology, scholarships, and child care decided the thing it really needed was a really bitch'in jie.
Luckily the message will get taken because, and I'm not making this up, the state has issued to all its employees a handbook that, among other things, covers bomb threats. This checklist includes such questions as "does the caller sound familiar" and "does the caller sound enraged." Obviously two questions that someone flustered by a bomb threat might not otherwise notice about the caller. The true fear is that threatening housing in that way might prompt the response of "who cares, it's only Steenhenson."
But I do think it's important that someone is finally bowing to the whims of students. I can't count the number of times I've been in a class where the professor didn't show up on a Friday and classmates loudly lamented how they weren't getting their money's worth.
I'm sure some of you think I'm paranoid. Well in my day...
My advanced age has also let me realize that the most effective way of getting student housing to get something done is to make a bomb threat. Let's say something is broken. Let's make it a scholarship hall's TV. Let's furthermore suggest it was broken in April. Now one would figure that SOMEONE have had gotten around to it by ... oh, August. This of course is not the case. So to light a fire under everyone involved, I've considered calling up housing and saying: "You have one week to fix Stephenson Hall's TV or we will detonate a small thermonuclear device in its living room."
Barklowski is a Basehor junior in liberal arts and sciences.
Bitter columnist goes too far
Recycled
What did Jason Fizell ever do to Andy Obermueller? I was shocked at Obermueller's "raving" (what an appropriate header) on the August 28 Opinion page. I'm not a member of Delta Force, and I don't know Fizell well enough to have had more than a few casual conversations with him, but to me, Obermueller was the one who came off sounding "so full of anger and so devoid of selfesteem" that he had to personally attack a KU student in order to get his column written
I'd like to see personal vendettas stricken from the student newspaper. It seemed that Obermueler resorted to belittling Fizell because he couldn't find enough negative things to say about Delta Force as a group on campus working for
the "some" of us who aren't as satisfied as "most students."
This is a large university and every student here has large amounts of money invested in education. Don't we all have the right to change our school for the better? It has been said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and in that respect, Delta Force is a group of student who care enough about the University, and all of us who spend our time on campus, to try to make it a better place. If they hated the University they'd shut up and go elsewhere.
I found it ironic that Obermueler quoted journalist Molly Ivins in his column that so denigrated students trying to make a difference on a campus that may not be run by a conspiracy
but certainly has its share of irrational bureaucracial red tape. Ivins, if I can judge her character by the two books of hers that I have read, is nothing if not an upstart who speaks out with good-natured sarcasm about all the stupidity she notes in politics and American culture. She's not a cynic. She's a critic educating the general public about illogical policies and unintelligent people that effect us all. She's trying to make a difference, not floating along complacent and silent on a tide of imposed culture and law. Doesn't that sound a lot more like Fizell than the obviously embittered Obermuerler?
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Jonny Solig Manhattan senior