OPINION
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
www.kansan.com
Free for All
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Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about really short guys that's so hot.
my housing contract. Will you marry me?
I think too many people are worried about teen drinking and not enough people are worried about elderly drinking. Maybe those people aren't stuck in a car with their drunk grandfather for 10 hours, but I still think it's a serious problem.
I should be studying for the chemical engineering test I have tomorrow. Instead, I just wasted two hours on The Facebook. It doesn't look like it's gonna stop anytime soon.
STINSON'S VIEW
my housing contract. Will you marry me?
my housing contract. Will you marry me?
You can spot a freshman at the gym because they're the only ones that wear makeup to do work out.
I need to marry someone to get out of
editor
864-4810 or hjackson@kansan.com
editor
864-4810 or hjackson@kansan.com
So, I look outside and I realize it's snowing pretty bad. I just can't wait for fire alarm number 24 to go off. So, I just thought I'd get a jump start on whoever pulled it. Thank you.
editor
864-4810 or hjackson@kansan.com
I had a dream about Wayne Simien running down the court naked. Has anyone else had that dream?
editor
864-4810 or hjackson@kansan.com
So, they have Rock Chalk bracelets and magnetic Go Jayhawk ribbon. Is there anyone at KU left with an original idea?
I'm from Wisconsin and I love the Badgers, but you two idiots that wore cheeseheads and Packers jerseys to the KU game on Monday night embarrassed all of us back in Wisconsin. You are morons.
I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the basketball game because I'm sick, but the Jayhawks will do me proud. Go, Jayhawks!
Why doesn't the Kansan print the part of the paper to taunt the opposing team on KU game days? That was my favorite part!
TALK TO US
Henry C. Jackson
editor
810 or hjackson@kanan.co
is a pretty common restaurant theme?
None of these restaurants were ever anything to write home about, though.
Johnny's Tavern is a Lawrence tradition to many.
Donovan Atkinson and
Andrew Vaupel
managing editors
864-4810 or datkinson@kanse.com and
avapeel@kanse.com
Louise Stauffer and Stephanie Lovett opinion editors 864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
Yeah, I would just like to say for all of you non-athletes out there that keep bitching about the scholarship bracelets, why don't you let me know how you enjoy the next basketball game?
Justin Roberts business manager 864-4358 or advertising@ansan.com
Stephanie Graham
retail sales manager
864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and adviser
864-7687 or mqlibson@kansan.com
Jennifer Weaver
sales and marketing adviser
884-7656 or jwweaver@kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Laura Rose Barr, Ty Beaver, Ryan Good,
Anna Gregory, Jack Henry Rhoads, Nate
Karlin, Jay Kimmel, Taylor Price, Ryan
Scarrow, John Waltmer and Walterm and
Michelle Wood
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
The Kansei reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 200 words and guest columns should not exceed 550 words.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Pres. Bushdoesn't represent interests of service personnel
Like most of his aristocratic class — with notable exceptions like John Kerry and Al Gore — and like Dick Cheney's middle class as well, he manipulated the system to avoid service in Vietnam, even though he (and Cheney) vocally supported the war.
Before it all fades into the sunset, I would like to make one last observation about George W. Bush. I speak as a Vietnam combat veteran, the father of an Iraq-bound serviceman and the son of working class parents — as are the vast majority of all Vietnam veterans. What I find even more appalling than Bush's Iraq, environmental and economic policies is his cynical pose as a straight-talking, steel-spined, shoot-from-the-hip, working-class hero.
Zach Stinson/KANSAN
Now Bush struts around like a cowboy hero promising to stay the course no matter what th cost to a new generation of working class sons and daughters. Sadly, even many Vietnam veterans bought into this phoney image. Most shameful of all were the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who bolstered this bogus Bush by trashing the honorable service of one of their own because Kerry dared to criticize the war he served in as a tragic mistake.
Somehow a man who used his "fortuneate son" position to secure a safe haven from the jungles of Vietnam has become a hero in the eyes of many short-sighted Americans. I knew real heroes in Vietnam. Real heroes were my friends. George W., you are no hero.
Michael Clodfelter Retired KU staff member
Snuff out compromise proposal
The complaints about the smoking ban came, as we knew they would. And Lawrence city commissioners have been unable to snuff out the persistent, stinking fog of restaurant and bar owners asking for a compromise proposal. At a Nov. 16 meeting, representatives of Lawrence's hospitality industry proposed that smoking should resume in bars, restaurants and other public places.
COMMENTARY
To keep the public's health in mind, it proposed that the air quality levels would be tested with new, high-tech equipment annually to make sure that nicotine levels don't exceed proper air quality standards.
How sweet of them to think of their patrons' and employees' health.
The bottom line is always the main focus for a business, except when the public's health is concerned, apparently. The growth curve for Lawrence hospitality businesses may or may not be slower, depending on who you talk to, than years prior.
The Hereford House and the Meat Market restaurants are closing and Johnny's Tavern is in trouble. The owners blame the failures on the ban, while others say there are more factors.
While part of the problem could be the smoking ban, part of it could also be because of oversaturation of the market.
The oversaturation theory was mentioned by Dennis "Boog" Highberger, Lawrence City Commissioner, in a Lawrence Journal-World story, and it has been seconded by many.
Besides the fact that the restaurant business is extremely risky, did these owners ever stop and think that serving cheeseburgers and beer in a college town
LOUISE STAUFFER
opinion@kansan.com
In all actuality, smoking bans have not been shown to be bad for businesses. According to the American Lung Association, a study by the New York City Department of Finance, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Department of Small Business Services and Economic Development Corporation, indicates that since New York City's smoking ban took effect March 30, 2003, business has increased for bars and restaurants, employment has risen, the number of liquor licenses has increased, and patrons and employees are being protected from secondhand smoke.
And a 2004 Zagat New York City Restaurant Survey reports that by a margin of about 6 to 1, respondents said they were eating out more often because of the city's smoke-free workplace policy. The survey also said the smoking ban had given restaurant traffic a "major lift".
If the New York City hospitality industry can thrive off of a smoking ban, so most certainly, can we.
ban. The Kansas City City Council voted last week to approve a limited smoking ban for restaurants, bars and other public places.
Students have a special stake in keeping the ban because we are most likely to work in the serving business. The restaurant industry employs about 12 million people, 57 percent of whom are under 30, according to the Restaurants USA publication.
Kansas City, Mo., has also enacted a
According to the American Lung Association, fewer than 13 percent of bartenders and 28 percent of waiters and waitresses have a smoke-free workplace. Second-hand smoke kills at least 38,000 people a year in the United States. Bartenders are the least protected, with less than 15 percent who work in places that restrict smoking.
To take a step backward and agree to the compromise proposal because of business owners' complaints would be counterproductive. Besides the serious health benefits of a smoking ban, there are others that are simply enjoyable. Our clothes and hair no longer reek after a night out. Cigarette burns on clothes and skin are a lot less common. Eyes and throats no longer burn.
Opponents of the ban say it is social engineering and that the government is meddling with the free market. Are they willing to sacrifice the health of their fellow citizens for a puff of carcinogens?
The real bottom line is that the smoking ban is about the health of patrons and employees, not about making money.
Stauffer is a Holland, Mich., senior in journalism.
Evidence points to another killer, let falsely accused go
The West Memphis 3 recently made a legal breakthrough when Echols' lawyers filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to appeal their involvement in the savage 1993 murders of the three 8-year-old boys, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch. The West Memphis 3, all teenagers at the time of their convictions, were sent to jail mostly under the auspices of their anti-Christian nature and their status as community outcasts rather than any solid evidence.
While Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. all fight their way through an expensive justice system to absolve themselves from their wrongful conviction, John Mark Byers somehow still remains free and unquestioned by local authorities in West Memphis, Ark.
Will the real killer of three Arkansas children please go on trial?
These convictions are the best — or
STEVE VOCKRODT opinion@kansan.com
By now, several celebrities have taken up the cause in trying to free the West Memphis 3, including Henry Rollins, Eddie Vedder and Winona Ryder. But comparatively few are taking to the fight to place John Mark Byers on trial. The case isn't so much about the lack of evidence to convict the three, but the plentiful evidence that points directly to Bvers.
STEVE SPEAKS
perhaps worst — examples of a verdict delivered from hearsay in the midst of the absence of direct or even circumstantial evidence.
Byers, incidentally is the stepfather
of one of the victims, and therefore was one of the bogus reasons that West Memphis investigators refused to question him, along with the fact that he was one of police department's drug informants.
Byers has no real solid alibi, and has changed it several times depending on the circumstances. The most of his alibis that can be corroborated place him near the scene of the crime — a heavily wooded area in West Memphis where the bodies were dumped — right around the time of the murders, but he was nowhere to be found directly at the time of the murders.
Much of the evidence exists right on the bodies of victims. The bodies were bitten several times, leaving impressions of teeth. One forensic expert testified in an appeal that the impressions did not match any of those convicted. It left questions directed toward Byers, but incidentally, he claimed he had recently lost all his teeth as the result of
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Another major piece of evidence that casts doubt about Byers' innocence is the mutilation of one of the boy's bodies. Christopher Byers was castrated while still alive. The resulting blood loss was the cause of his death.
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a bar fight and prescription medications.
According to the prosecution timeline, the three convicts had done the crime quickly and savagely. However, the precision involved in the castration was very specific and careful. Even one of the prosecution witnesses, the pathologist Frank Peretti, acknowledged that the process would require exact precision and plenty of time, two things the convicts didn't have in the narrow timeline in the dark woods the prosecution offered.
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Byers was a professional jewel-cutter, in contrast. It's widely believed that of anyone involved in the case, he would be the only person able to perform the castration as it was done.
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Furthermore, a knife was found in Byers' possession that contained blood of two different people. It matched him and his stepson.' His contradictory statements as to the purpose of that knife and how the blood got there is another worrisome aspect. Prosecutors resisted questioning Byers further, just like they have consistently resisted allowing further DNA testing to be done in the trials and appeals.
Now it is up to the defense to conduct these expensive DNA tests on their own bill. It appears that that these tests are on the horizon. They will likely absolve the West Memphis 3, which would be no surprise to anyone familiar with the case. But those familiar with the case, as well as anyone else, should be more interested in getting Byers on the stand to face the questions that point directly at him.
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Vockrodt is a Denver senior in journalism and political science.
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