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Hawks feel the sting of defeat
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2009
Kansas couldn't get back into the groove and lost 17-10 in Manhattan. FOOTBALL] 1B
A drink with a local flavor
oreg Shipe makes wine at Eudora farm using only Kansas grapes. BUSINESS 4
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TEXTING TERRORS
Photo Illustration by Andrew Hoxey/KANSAN
**Texting while driving is the cause of many accidents. This is true in Lawrence, according to Lawrence Police Sergeant Michael Monroe, who cites new Internet and e-mail applications as only increasing the problem.**
Photo illustration by Andrew Hokey/KANSAT
Eyes on the screen, not on the road
New PSA highlights dangers of texting while driving
BY RAY SEGEBRECHT rsegebrecht@kansan.com
As Lil Wayne's "3 Peat" floods out of Garrett Petty's Jeep Grand Cherokee, he reaches for his iPhone. He holds the device high above the dash, darting his eyes back and forth from
screen to street.
Luckily for Petty,
texting while driving
hasn't caused
Petty, Topeka sophomore, says he reads and sends text messages at eye level because there, he can still safely see the road.
public affairs for the CTIA Wireless Association, an international organization representing all sectors of the wireless communications industry. People who text and drive are 23.2 times more likely to have an accident than a driver without a distraction, according to a study released by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
him an accident. However, many other Americans haven't shared in his fortune. Texters have run stoplights, crashed and worse, said John Walls, vice president of
"A lot of people think they can drive safely while texting. And that's simply not the truth."
VOLUME 121 ISSUE 56
Texting-while-driving is such an alarming threat that the Wireless Association and the National Safety Council (NSC) have launched a national video campaign against it.
MICHAEL MONROE Police Sergeant
Walls said. He said the campaign started in major U.S. cities and would reach television channels in Lawrence in the next couple of weeks.
Walls said the 30-second public service announcement was startling.
"We happen to believe that was way over the line." Walls said of the British PSA video. "The message
but less graphic than a controversial PSA aired in Britain.
really gets lost in all that chaos and activity. We think we have communicated that same message in a clear and more effective way."
Deb Trombley, senior program manager of the NSC, said while the focus of the PSA was texting-while-driving, the message — "On the road, off the phone" — was intentionally broad. That way, the message also applies to all in-car cell phone use, she said.
"The use of cell phones while driving continues to go up," Trombley said. "Text messaging over the past two years has sky-rocketed."
The number of text messages sent monthly in the U.S. jumped from 7.2 billion in 2005 to 135.2 billion in 2009, according to the CTIA Web site.
Walls said the addition of e-mail and Internet applications now available on some phones were other cellular distractions.
Sergeant Michael Monroe of the Lawrence Police Department said one of the negative effects he and other local officers have noticed from this surge was the growing number of texting-related traffic
accidents in Lawrence.
"We get a lot more texting excuses than we used to," Monroe said. "Usually people don't admit it, but what will happen is the other
SEE TEXTING ON PAGE 3A
PERFORMANCE
Andrew Hoxey/KANSAI
Dancers from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange perform at the Lied Center. The show, "Ferocious Beauty: Genome," paired genetic research with modern dance.
Science and art mingle in dance
BY DANIEL JOHNSON djohnson@kansan.com
When Albert Einstein said the greatest scientists were always artists as well, he could not have imagined how Liz Lerman would combine the two disciplines.
Lerman, head choreographer of the Liz Lerman Dance
graph a dance that would represent the structure of DNA. A group of dancers attempted to follow the scientists' demands, struggling to produce a movement that resembled the double-helix formation of DNA. The segment revealed the difficulty of bringing science and dance together.
Ex change, brought together the latest genetic research and modern dance in the company's two-hour performance of "Ferocious Beauty: Genome." Saturday night at the Lied Center. The production
"It was funny to see how awkwardly the two sides tried to interact."
used music, video and dance to discuss genetic research and its related ethical dilemmas.
"We want to make genetic research something people can really engage with," Elizabeth Johnson, associate artistic director of the company, said.
Johnson said the performance was the brainchild of Lerman and 34 international genetic researchers who began collaborating in 2002.
The show's first act presented the fundamentals of genetic research. Projections of professors and genetic researchers were shown on large screens and helped teach the audience elementary concepts about things such as DNA makeup and the history of genetic research.
RYAN FAZIO
Sedona, Ariz.
Sophomore
The audience laughed during a later segment in which two scientists attempted to choreo-
"That was my favorite part," Ryan Fazio, Sedona, Ariz., sophomore, said. "It was funny to see how awkwardly the two sides tried to interact."
The show's second half took
on the loftier ideas of genetic research, such as long life, genetic disorders and human ancestry. In one segment, a 70-yearold man watched his memories pass by on the projections as he aged to 105 years old. The audience watched the man act out his struggles with loneliness and restlessness as the years passed in the video behind him.
Johnson said the scene questioned the use of genetic discovery to extend life past its natural limits. She said it was natural for people to want to delay death.
"Genetic discovery is making this possible," Johnson said. "There's a lot of discussion to be had here."
To capture the audience's attention, the company used a video projection screen that
SEE DANCE ON PAGE 3A
THEATER
Visiting acting group illuminates perspectives on immigration issues
BY RAY SEGEBRECHT rsegebrechtkansan.com
Five immigrants in the back of a pitch-black, sweltering trailer by the Mexican-American border gasp for oxygen and water. One cries out in Spanish to God, another to his mother. Then they curse each other for panicking. Later, five women, in shawls and tears, sprinkle sand over the four who didn't survive.
Emotional moments like these portray the perils of immigration throughout "Desiertos," a play about Mexican-American immigration that 11 Cornell University undergraduate students performed in Woodruff Auditorium Saturday night.
The students are part of a group called in the group Teatrotaller, or "theater workshop." The group performs a play in Spanish every semester at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y., but the group has traveled as far as England and Israel to perform the plays. Professor Stuart Day was one of the first scene managers for Teatrotaller during his doctoral program at Cornell years ago. Day now teaches at the University of Kansas and helped the department of Spanish and Portuguese to bring the group to Lawrence.
"There were a lot of students there, and we wanted them to see
The play, written by award-winning Mexican playwright Hugo Alfred Hinojosa, portrays the hardships of
what a group of undergraduate students can do," Day said. "We also wanted to tie in a lot of issues
that are important to us at KU as we have more and more Latino students from around the state coming to KU."
"There were a lot of students there, and we wanted them to see what a group of undergraduate students can do."
those they leave behind. With the exception of one character, a bigoted border patrol agent, the
dialogue is entirely in Spanish. The Cornell cast had six native Spanish-speakers and five students
index
STUART DAY KU professor
who started studying the language in school, said Jimmy Noriega, Cornell doctoral student and director of the show. Noriega, who grew up by the border in Douglas, Ariz., said although the characters and their words were
SEE PLAY ON PAGE 3A
Classifieds...6B
Teatrotaller, a theater group from Cornell University, performs plays written in both Spanish and English or all in Spanish. The group performed "Desiertos" in the Kansas Union Saturday.
Andrew Hoxey/KANSAN
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All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2009 The University Daily Kansan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
USS New York joins Navy ranks
The ship, its steel made from rubble of the 9/11 attacks, was put into service. NATIONAL | 5A
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