4A
Thursday, September 19, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Watkins addition lacks needed parking spaces
Watkins Memorial Health Center should be commended for expanding its examination rooms to serve students more efficiently. The addition brings 25 new screening rooms for patients, as well as many other facilities.
However, the new addition does not address parking There are 23 metered parking spaces for Watkins patients. These spaces have not sufficiently served patients in the past and will be woefully inadequate to serve the increased patient load resulting from the addition.
Jim Boyle, associate director of student health services, said that at least 80 percent of students had been seen by Watkins staff last year. Watkins treats an average of 260 students a day, which includes students who visit Watkins more than once a year, Boyle said. That number does not include prescription services or counseling and psychological services.
With at least 260 students potentially vying for 23 allotted spaces, Watkins has severe parking problems. And these existing spaces often are pilfered by students who plug the meter and run to class. Meanwhile, ill students who need to park close to Watkins are forced to park in the yellow lot south of Robinson Center. Students who lack a yellow parking pass, including scholarship and residence hall residents, receive a ticket. The accessibility issue is compounded by the fact that the closest bus stop is at least a block away.
Both Watkins and the KU parking department administrators should explore options to better facilitate the parking needs of patients. One idea is to expand southward the blue lot east of Watkins, incorporating enough spaces to accommodate patients. The entrance to this lot should be kept narrow and perhaps monitored by either a parking attendant or a pass gate to ensure that only Watkins patients can use it.
Regardless of whether this solution is adopted, something needs to be done—and soon.
Watkins provides many needed services to students. Its accessibility should not be hindered by parking availability. Solutions to this problem should be sought immediately.
ANN MARCHAND FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Wal-Mart's censorship of Cosmo, Sheryl Crow album problematic
What is the consumer world coming to? Wal-Mart recently banned the September issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. Wal-Mart's customers did-
mopolitan magazine. Wal-Mart's customers didn't care for the magazine because they found the cover offensive, said Shauna Parker, public relations assistant for Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.
The cover of this issue shows a model with her shirt unbuttoned just enough to catch a glimpse of her nearlynaked breast. This type of cover is typical of fashion magazines. Will banning one issue because of supposed sexual exploitation lead to more censorship? It could, but it shouldn't. Whether it is good or bad, offensive or ridiculous, it is advertising. Unfortunately, sex does sell. Banning one issue is not going to change the face of advertising.
ing. Perhaps it is Wal-Mart's responsibility to censor periodicals. But in aiming to please its customers, who Parker said were mostly mothers, it is creating more attention than necessary.
It did the same thing when it banned Sheryl Crow's new album. Wal-Mart released a statement saying that it has decided not to sell her new album because of the lyrics.
Specifically, Wal-Mart objects to the lyrics in the song Love is a Good Thing,' suggesting that Wal-Mart sells guns to children, allowing them to 'kill each other,'" the statement read.
Understandably, the company said the lyrics made an unfair statement about Wal-Mart. However, this has developed into a much bigger situation and has attracted attention to the album. MTV already has reported on it in its Week In Rock segment, which could make Wal-Mart the least popular chain store in the market.
SARAH PRESTON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L McLAIN
SARA ROSE
Public relations directors
Editors
Campus    Su安娜 LóËr
        Jason Strait
        Amy McVey
Editorial    John Collar
        Nicole Kennedy
Features    Adam Ward
        Bill Petulia
Associate sports    Caryn Foster
On-line editor    David L. Teaska
Photo    Rich Devkin
Graphics    Nicholas Muster
        Andy Rohrback
Special sections    Amy McVey
Wine    Debbie Star
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
HEALY SMART
Retail sales manager
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr...Mark Ozmek
Regional mgr...Denna Haupt
Assistant Retail mgr...Dana Centano
National mgr...Heather Valier
Production mgrs...Dan Kopec
Marketing director...Lisa Quebbaman
Marketing team member...Sedmom Lavelle
Classified mgr...Wachley Wacher
Jeff MacNelly/ CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Escorts, lighting needed to ensure student safety
When I was sitting in a personal safety and awareness seminar in my residence hall the other night, I felt confident. I felt confident that I never would become one of the violent crime or rape statistics being spit at us by the police officer or rape victim support representative. Why would I be scared? We're in Kansas — nothing happens in Kansas, right?
Wrong. Twenty rapes have been reported to the Rape Victim Support Services since the beginning of the summer, and the victims were not just women. We all need to be afraid, not just of rape, but of other violent crimes, too.
The KU campus may not seem to be a threatening place, but the measures taken by the University to ensure our safety leave a lot to be desired.
As is the case with many of the nation's colleges, KU has blue-light safety phones scattered across campus to summon the police if people have been attacked or think they are about to be attacked. But as a member of the seminar audience pointed out, what do you do after stopping at the phone? If one is being pursued, staying in one place probably is not the best idea. The officer's solution was to run to the next phone so the police could track the path of the caller.
This sounds good in theory, but because the phones are fairly far
apart, this may not be helpful. Not all victims were the star of their high school track team.
STAFF COLUMNIST
That brings me to another point about these phones: Where the heck are they? I did not learn of their existence until the middle of my freshman year
I realize these safety measures may be expensive. However, what I am proposing would benefit all students and is necessary if the University wants to reduce crime on campus. Students come to college to learn, not to be attacked.
residents, such as myself, to park in the lot by Templin Hall and walk alone back to the residence halls in the wee hours of the morning. This doesn't sound too dangerous until you recall that a woman was attacked right outside Lewis Hall last year.
Besides the phone situation, the University also must remedy the lighting problem. Daisy Hill, especially, is full of dark shadows where attackers may be lurking. The answer seems simple — don't wander around alone at night. This is not easy, though, because the lack of parking spaces forces defenseless, young residence hall
My suggestions to the University concerning the safety phones are: 1) install more of them, and 2) have a mandatory safety seminar at freshman orientation that covers basic self-defense and the locations of all safety phones. A mandatory session is necessary because many freshmen may not consider safety an issue in Lawrence.
The ideal solution would be to fix the parking problem, but because that probably won't happen in our lifetimes, it would be nice if the University would install more lights.
and now, at the beginning of my sophomore year, I have yet to discover all of their locations.
Finally, to ensure the safety of students on this campus, the University needs to start an escort program. Many other schools have this program in which students who need to walk on campus at night, be it for a night class or any other reason, can call for an escort so they don't have to walk alone.
This would greatly reduce the number of attacks on campus. There is safety in numbers. Escorts could work on a voluntary basis, but if that didn't work, financing for the program could be discussed.
Stephanie Brewer is a Chester, Conn.
sophomore in Journalism and French.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
It does take a village to raise our children
Once again Hillary Clinton has been attacked by a Kansan columnist. The first time was for her involvement in the Whitewater case. In Monday's issue, she was assailed for her book *It Takes a Village*.
The columnist used the standard Republican line of, "It doesn't take a village, it takes a family." This line, popularized by Bob Dole, has been repeated again and again and by prominent Republicans lately.
However, the columnist went even further. Invoking names of both Hitler and Stalin, the writer seemed to think that *It*
He even refers to George Orwell's 1984 and J.F. Baldwin's *lan*, claiming that the first lady is proposing a system in which children are raised by government authorities and forbidden to see their parents.
Takes a Village was some sort of manifesto for a totalitarian government.
Jack Martin
Abilene freshman
This may come as a surprise to many Republicans, but Hillary Clinton's book is not a plan for a fascist regime. Its basic is that while families do raise children, the community also plays a part.
The Hilltop Child Development Center that the columnist referred to is an example of how the village helps to raise a
child. A neighbor baby-sitting a child is another example. Schools, churches and little league teams are all examples of things communities do to help raise happy, healthy children.
Do today's families want help raising their kids, or do they want cynical attacks and gross misrepresentations of the truth? I think the answer is obvious.
September is too soon to buy into the spirit of Christmas
Don't you just hate Christmas?
Don't you just hate Christmas:
I don't mean the actual holiday, of course. I mean the commercialism that has come to surround it.
The reason I mention this is because I went to Wal-Mart the other day. I wanted to buy a plant. I discovered more than plants in the garden center. On the last aisle in the store, about four aisles away from the Halloween display, I found
STAFF COLUMNIST
Christmas decorations. There were Santa Clauses, Mrs. Santa Clauses and a bunch of those three-foot dolls dressed in red and green Victorian caroling outfits.
Wal-Mart is not the only area store that is taking advantage of the holiday season this fall. Hall-Mark stores
began selling tree ornaments sometime this summer. For those interested in making gifts, Hobby Lobby has four aisles filled with Christmas stuff, and some of the nurseries around town already have orders of poinsettias arriving.
It is September, Christmas is more than three months away, but stores already are putting out their Christmas items. What is wrong with this picture?
picture.
When I was growing up, my father always emphasized that Christmas was on Dec. 25. He usually would wait until Christmas Eve to do his shopping. And every year he would lobby to wait until the week before Christmas to set up the tree and decorate the house. Although my mother, my sister and I overrode this particular notion, we always waited to begin our Christmas preparations until the day after Thanksgiving.
It would be nice if some of the stores would subscribe to my father's beliefs. It would be wonderful to concentrate on Halloween and Thanksgiving before I had to begin to worry about how to decorate my Christmas tree or what gifts to buy for my friends and family.
Well, I'm tired of it all. This year, I refuse to participate in the ritual that has evolved around how much money you spend and when you spend it. I pledge that I will not attempt to spend more money than my friends on gifts because I know that it will not show them how much they mean to me. It only will cause them to feel guilty because they did not spend as much on me. I vow that I will wait until after the third Thursday of November before I think about Christmas or buy any decorations for the tree.
Unless of course, my mom asks me to buy her some of the Christmas ornaments she can't find at home. Then maybe I will...
But that is the very reason stores are selling Christmas in September. The stores want the holiday to be in your subconscious. If they plant a seed there now, you will be more inclined to spend money between now and then, making their revenues for the fall even greater.
That is what Christmas has come to stand for, isn't it? Money. Christmas is not about spreading warmth and good cheer anymore. It's about who can spend the most on gifts.
Deanna Engel is a Liberal, Kan., senior in journalism.
HUBIE
Every year people go into debt because of the gifts they purchase for Christmas. For some, especially poor college students, it takes months to pay off the credit card bill we acquire in December.
I am ashamed to admit that I usually buy into this frenzy. I already have asked some of my friends what they would like for Christmas.
By Greg Hardin