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Friday, October 1, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 3
Kansans for Life to demonstrate on busy corner
By Emily Hughey
writer @kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Today marks the beginning of Pro-Life Month. To increase awareness, Kansans for Life is organizing a demonstration from 4 to 5 p.m. Sunday at 23rd and Iowa streets.
"The purpose is to publicly demonstrate our opposition to abortion in a peaceful and prayerful manner," said David Gittich, executive director of Kansans for Life, an organization based in Wichita.
Anti-abortion activists will gather on busy street corners of 68 communities throughout the state and hold signs saying, "Abortion Kills Children" and "Jesus Forgives and Heals."
Gittrich said he had been organizing Kansas Life Chains for 10 years, and despite signs that may strike a chord with some abortion-rights activists, he said that most responses to the demonstrations had been positive.
"I've been at every Life Chain, and each year, more and more people honk or give the thumbs up," Gittrich said. "How often do you have a demonstration out on the sidewalk if it's not a picket for a labor union or something? Almost never."
he said he did see an occasional middle finger or hear an angry
swear word but that the demonstrations generally were well-received.
However, Jeri Kaeles, staff adviser for the KU Pro Choice Coalition, said she decided to become an abortion-rights activist when she first saw a Life Chain demonstration. She said she was concerned with the safety of small children standing so close to the busy street.
"People get very angry when they see children holding up signs that they don't know anything about," Kaesler said. "They did this a few years ago, and the day they did it was the day I decided to become a pro-choice activist."
Gittrich said if the event organizers saw a child too close to the street, they would tell the child to move back.
"We're in the pro-life business," he said. "That means we like to keep people alive."
Despite abortion-rights activists' opposition to the Life Chain, Sally Puleo, president of the KU Pro Choice Coalition, said she respected the organization's right to demonstrate.
"Im glad they have the opportunity to go out there and give their opinion because that also means we have the opportunity to show our beliefs," Puleo said. "That's free speech."
Bullwinkle's bullied by City Commission
- Edited by Jani Kumpula
The saga of the City of Lawrence vs. local bar owners continues.
By Amber Shuever
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
More than three weeks after a district judge ordered Lawrence City Clerk Ray Hummert to sign a zoning certificate for Bullwinkle's, 1344 Tennessee St., the document remains unsigned.
The certificate is needed for Bullwinkle's to restore its drinking establishment license. the license would allow the bar to change from a cereal malt beverage establishment, which sells only beer and stays open until midnight, to a drinking establishment, which may sell liquor and stay open until 2 a.m. Bullwinkle's had a drinking establishment license from Jan. 1993 to Jan. 1998, but has been a cereal malt beverage establishment ever since.
On Sept. 8, District Judge Robert Fairchild ruled that Bullwinkle's was entitled to its zoning certificate. However, a 10-day stay, during which a judgment was postponed, kept Bullwinkle's from pursuing its plans to sell liquor.
At the end of the stay, a period in which decisions cannot be made, the city had to decide either to give Bullwinkle's its zoning certificate or to appeal.
"The City Commission decided they were going to appeal the judge's decision," said Randall Larkin, an attorney for Allen & Allen, the Lawrence firm which represents the city. "They thought there was a good chance the judgment would be reversed on appeal."
judgement made Commissioner Marty Kennedy said the appeal was a standard procedure in cases in which the city was found guilty.
made the right decision. Gerald Cooley, city attorney, also asked the court to extend the stay until the appeal was decided.
city was found guilty.
"If we were on the guilty side of it, we want to go to the appellate court to make sure the judge made the right decision," Kennedy said.
A judge will decide whether or not to extend the stay at a hearing set for Oct. 15. If the judge decides not to extend the stay, Hummert will continue to be ordered to sign the zoning certificate, and Bullwinkle's could get its drinking establishment license.
Bullwinkle's, 1344 Tennessee St., has not been granted its liquor license yet. The City Commission has decided to appeal a ruling that would have granted the license. Photo by Joseph Griffin/KANSAN
"Presumably he would, but I don't know that," said Edward Colliser, the attorney who represents Bullwinkle's. "What that would mean is the judgment is effective and can be enforced."
Meanwhile, Bullwinkle's licensees claimed they were entitled to costs including the court cost deposit of $66.50, the cost of taking the deposition of $129.30 and attorney's fees of $6,700.
The original lawsuit was regarding Hummer's decision to not sign the zoning certificate for Bullwinkle's to acquire a drinking establishment license in March.
Zoning regulations prevent liquor sales in the residential area that Bullwinkle's is located in. However, because Bullwinkle's was established before the regulations were set, the bar was give the status of a non-conforming use. David
Corliss, city attorney, said the city thought that changing from a cereal malt beverage establishment to a drinking establishment was an expansion of that use that it did not think was allowed.
However, Colliser argued that because Bullwinkle's previously had the status of a drinking establishment, regaining that status was not an expansion of use. Colliser also pointed out that the Jayhawk Cafe, 1340 Ohio St., under the same circumstances, had no problem obtaining its zoning certificate in 1998.
obtaining its acting chief counsel Kennedy said the City Commission was united in the decision to recommend the city attorney appeal the case.
"We just need to make sure that we have the right zoning and the right formula for allowing a non-conforming use in specific areas of town that do affect neighborhoods," he said.
State board receives not so noble award
Edited by Julia Nicholson
Kansas education group wins magazine's prize
By Jim O'Malley Special to the Kansan
At last night's ninth annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Mass., a panel that included four Nobel Prize winners awarded the Kansas and Colorado state boards of education the Ig Nobel Prize for science education.
The State Board of Education won an award last night, but board members who voted in August to de-emphasize evolution in the state's required science curriculum won't be celebrating.
The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is sponsored by the Annals of Improbable Research, a science humor magazine published six times a year in Cambridge, Mass.
Ten prizes are given annually to people who have done some "remarkably goofy things — some of them admirable, some of them perhaps otherwise," according to the Web site.
judge," the Web site reads.
Cannot reuse.
According to the magazine's Web site,
www.improbable.com, the annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony honors individuals whose achievements "cannot and should not be reproduced."
Past winners listed on the Web site include Troy Hurtubise for developing and personally testing a suit of grizzly bear-proof armor, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan for the aggressively peaceful explosion of nuclear weapons, and the inventor of the pink plastic lawn flamingo.
The Web site says the Ig Nobel Board of Governors does not comment on whether prize-winning achievements might be deemed good or bad.
"As with most things in life, that is entirely a matter for each individual to
Judge, Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals, said the awards were not intended to mock recipients.
"The idea is just to get people curious about science so they'll look into it themselves and not believe it or disbelieve it just because some authoritative person said so," he said.
Doug Ruden, University of Kansas assistant professor of molecular biosciences, who accepted the Kansas board's prize, was not so neutral in his acceptance speech.
He did not claim any connection to the board, and said he represented Kansas Citizens for Science.
"The Kansas skirmish is the most notorious episode of a long struggle by religious fundamentalists to eliminate the teaching of evolution in the Kansas
The evolution debate
public schools," he said. "In addition to Kansas, so-called creation scientists have already had success in Alabama, New Mexico, Nebraska and Colorado. What happened in Kansas is 'The Invasion of the Board Snatchers.' Stealth candidates who secretly support the creation science agenda are quietly getting elected to school boards across the country."
Ruden called on scientists to be more active in state and local school boards. "Don't let what happened to Kansas happen to you," he said.
happened to you. As described,
Twelve-year-old Emily Rosa of Loveland, Colo., accepted the award given to her state's board. She is the youngest person to ever publish serious research in a medical journal, according to the Web site. Her paper appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April 1998.
Linda Rosa, Emily's mother, said her
daughter's school district stopped teaching evolution because of statewide education standards adopted by the Colorado State Board of Education in 1995.
"The board is shafting evolution," she said.
said. In her acceptance speech, Emily Rosa said that six of seven Colorado board members thought evolution was just a theory, and that in her school, human evolution and the origin of species were not taught. She said that she was being taught that dinosaurs coexisted with humans and that all she ever needed to know about evolution she could learn from Fred Flintstone.
Seven of 10 Kansas board members said they were not aware of any invitation extended to board members to attend the ceremony.
attend the concert. John Bacon, who voted for the new standards, said, "If that's their idea of fun, I don't have any problem with it."
But he said he would prefer a serious debate about the scientific evidence to let people draw their own conclusion*
Board member Harold Voth said opponents of the new standards displayed ignorance of what the board did. He said the board opened up science education to consideration of all theories. Board member Scott Hill said that he appreciated humor.
"It's a little sad that some people don't understand the importance of good science education," he added.
Hill said that people had tried to make fun of Kansans and Kansas values but that those values had made Kansas rank consistently in the top 10 states on standardized test scores.
Janet Waugh, who voted against the new standards, said that she thought the award was priceless, but that she didn't deserve the honor.
"I think probably the members who passed the standards deserve it," she said.
— Edited by Darrin Peschka
KU center helps army communicate
By John Audlehelm Special to the Kansan
Research done today at the University of Kansas may be used by the U.S. Army of tomorrow.
the University After Next program at Ft. Leavenworth, which seeks to train the next generation of army leaders, and the Information Technology and Telecommunication Center at the University have a number of common research interests, said Roy Carroll, chief of studies and analysis at the program.
Carroll said the University After Next program tried to prepare the Army's next generation of leaders for a full spectrum of missions and to increase both physical and communication speed.
"The UAN explores lowcost solutions to tomorrow's challenges through an extensive network of military, other federal, academic and business partners," he said.
Carroll said the program and the University were just starting to explore common areas of interest.
"No joint projects have been identified yet," he said.
Carroll and Gary Minden, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and chief technologist at the telecommunication center, said one common interest was the development of Rapidly Deployable Radio Network technology.
Minden said the goal was to develop radio nodes that could be placed five to seven blocks apart and allow immediate laptop communication between users.
He said the proposed system was like a cellular phone network that could handle computer data.
With this technology, soldiers could quickly build a communications network,Minden said.
Mindrell Carroll said the military could use radio network technology during an air war, for peacekeeping in East Timor and for humanitarian assistance and relocation of refugees.
Minden said if radio network users wanted to cover the southwest part of campus, they could place radio nodes at strategic positions, such as the bridge on Daisy Hill and 23rd and Iowa streets.
Students on campus could then watch traffic on Iowa Street on their laptops
Judith Galas, manager of marketing and public relations at the telecommunications center, said army personnel toured the center at KU for about an hour on Sept. 1. Participants toured various laboratories, including the Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Laboratory.
Galas said the army officials saw the Remote Sensing Laboratory "sandbox," where they saw sensors that could tell rocks from land mines.
Sensors, which are about the size of an average suitcase, try to detect land mines and differentiate them from rocks, he said.
Minden said the researchers buried land mines, without the explosives, and different depths and angles in the 12-foot-by-12-foot sandbox.
Carroll said the tour of the Information Technology and Telecommunication Center was part of the University After Next program's quarterly review.
"The tour of the ITTC allowed the members of the UAN to see the impressive variety of basic and applied research being conducted at KU," he said.
The telecommunications center works with regional and national companies, uses licensing and sponsored research agreements, and receives industry, federal and state funding.
This is not the first time the center has worked with the military. The center received about $1 million of a military grant to develop the telecommunications aspect of the MAGIC II computer networking program, which was designed to allow users to retrieve and manipulate audio, video, graphic and other forms of battlefield data. Work on MAGIC II began in the Fall 1996.
- Edited by Chris Hopkins
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