Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Julie Wood, Editor
Laura Roddy, Managing editor
Cory Graham, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser
Brandi Byram, Business manager
Shauntie Blue, Retail sales manager
Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser
Scott Vallier, Technology coordinator
Wednesday, September 22, 1999
Robert James Novak / KANSAN
Editorials
Kansan report card
PASS
Touchdown Tuesday at KU Bookstores
Bookstore offers 5 percent discount for every touchdown the KU football team scores. Note to football team: Please keep scoring; have you seen their prices?
dition and have a bonfire near Memorial Stadium. Sounds good, but let's not to torch the new MegaVision.
Homecoming bonfire — Student Alumni Association wants to revive an almost fortnight trapi
- **Clothesline Project** — Many KU organizations are working together to make T-shirts and raise awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence. These shirts are far more expressive than any other free shirt on campus.
FAIL
Computer lab closures — Some campus computer labs are being closed to general student use. These restrictions complicate student technology choices and give unfair precedence to some classes.
- Naked guys — Exhibitionists have been running rampant in the Oread area. That's much more information than we need; please spare us the show.
■ Obnoxious chalking — Sidewalk chalk renegades scribble tacky and sometimes dirty words on campus. The colored chalk was great, but let's tone down the colorful language.
Boxing should be uniformly regulated
When Randie Carver died last Tuesday of severe brain damage received in a boxing match two days earlier, a ringing condemnation was levelled at a sport that already has had its fair share of problems. Carver's death cannot be blamed on any one person, but rather must be shouldered by the entire boxing industry and a society that sits idly by as individuals are ruined for the sake of entertainment.
Randie Carver was, by all accounts, a tremendous role model. He had pulled himself out of poverty and hoped to use his position to help others in the community. A graduate of Westport High School in Kansas City, he had a special connection with the children in Kansas City who grew up like him. Carver, unlike others in his profession, would not let celebrity overwhelm his strong commitment to organizations such as
Untimely deaths and other physical injuries too common
Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
Carver loved the sport of boxing, but unfortunately the sport only was able to reciprocate a cold, and ultimately deadly, silence. Many claim that the "sweet science" has lost much of its luster through incidents of ear biting, cheating and fight fixing. The death of Randie Carver is not another sign of boxing's decline. It is a vivid reminder of what this sport always will do. Whether it is the sight of Muhammad Ali with physical problems caused by this sport or the premature death of a local hero, boxing is meant to destroy human beings.
Now is the time for boxing to reform itself. First, there are too many differences in the way boxing is governed in this country. From state to state, there are different standards for stopping fights. Perhaps if Kabary Salem, Carver's opponent, was disqualified earlier for repeated head butts, Carver would be alive. Perhaps if head gear was required no fighter would suffer severe mental debilitation.
The responsibility for Carver's death also falls on all the people that support boxing. Carver boxed because it was a way out of poverty. As long as there is an interested public, boxers will line up to receive their cut of the enormous amount of money generated by the sport. The sure way to stop boxing is to stop watching. Paying to watch boxing means paying to watch someone risk his or her life. In Carver's case, people paid to witness an execution. The time has come to end these horrible tragedies.
Kansan staff
Jeff Engstrom for the editorial board
News editors
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
$^{64}$Human history becomes more and more a race between education and
atropogrype. $^{65}$H. G. Wells
Letters: 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 hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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Perspective
New Web site for notes offers help for sick, lazy
I can't America great? Not only do we have the opportunity to go to a fine center of learning like the University of Kansas, but now we also have the chance to avoid stepping foot on campus.
Elizabeth Peacock columnist
I thank you, America, for giving students the freedom to openly swap notes within the global community, that is, the
community that is the Internet
Thank you, Oran Wolf,
student from the
University of Texas at
Austin, for creating studentu.com so that slackers everywhere can sklp lectures and still get the valuable notes they need. You and others like you have revolutionized the college notes industry.
"In't this kind of immoral?" you ask. Well, not really. The lecture notes for the University of Kansas only are available for 16 classes. The majority of these are for introductory classes, but a few are still under construction. (Sorry, BIOL 100 students, you're going to have to wait a little longer.) Besides, no one said that the notes were good. They could have been taken by a C-student who just really needed the cash. (Students get paid $300 to post notes throughout the semester.)
On top of all this, most classes don't base everything on just the lecture. There are labs for most science classes, and discussion classes for all those social science and humanities requirements. Some lecture classes take attendance, either daily or periodically, for class credit; others give pop quizzes or even exam questions to encourage students to attend. For most classes, lecture does not even play a significant role in grading. Most professors do not take attendance, and if they do, it's not a big part of your grade. Most rely on term papers, midterms and finals to determine your grade.
When our parents were in college, they had to borrow or buy notes from the "brains" in their classes.
So you're pretty much taking your chances with studentu.com. Either you don't get any notes or you risk getting bad notes, and you still may be stuck with four-hour labs and discussions. That is if you actually want to pass your classes and eventually graduate.
When our older brothers and sisters were attending, they could only find notes as recent as the previous semester from Jon's Notes. But now we may not only find notes for our particular class and professor, but we also can have yesterday's notes in hand in a matter of minutes — from the convenience of our bedroom (or bed, if you have a laptop). Now you can go to a lecture without even leaving your horizontal position. Isn't life grand?
Oh sure, professors everywhere claim that the Web site will decrease attendance at lectures, infringe on their right to own their lectures by making the lecture public without their consent, and devalue their worth as professors.
On the other hand, you could always just get off your butt and go to class.
But Wolf just wanted to help out those students sick in bed that had to skip class or risk infecting their fellow classmates and honored
faculty. He wanted to help out those students who need supplemental notes for studying or just needed a place to confirm that they really were getting what they needed out of the lecture.
But now the information is free for all to use, so I say, get hooked up and go for it.
Peacock is a Newark, Calif., junior in anthropology and political science.
American student protests a force for campus freedom
"Student protests delay the beginning of fall semester." This headline was
When I was a freshman at Federal University in Brazil in 1996, I had to endure a three-month strike that almost devastated my semester. For the students' benefit,
in the Kansan on Aug. 10th, referring to the strike started by students at the National Autonomous University in Mexico. Maybe it shocked many University of Kansas students; however, this is a common reality for Latin American students.
our teachers, after being threatened by the Brazilian government, spent a good part of the summer helping us recover the classes we had lost. So we didn't lose the entire academic year.
I couldn't blame those teachers for starting that strike, because missing out on three months of school seemed like a small sacrifice to improve their miserable salaries.
Cássio
Furtado
columnist
opinion@kansan.com
At institutions like the Nationa Autonomous University or Federal University, students don't pay tuition because the schools are regulated by the federal governments of their countries. But in most cases the countries do not really want to educate people, so they do not spend very much of their budgets on education. They do this because most Latin American countries were, until a couple of decades ago, ruled by dictators. Many continue to be governed by dictators wearing the masks of democratic leaders, so citizens have very little voice in education funding.
So I don't blame the students at the National Autonomous University for starting the strike. Students said, "We close the university today so that tomorrow it can be open to all," and this truly reflects the roots of the movement. They started the
movement when their rector, Francisco Castro, started to give clear indications he would raise tuition from two cents to $160 a year. The problem lies in the students' claim that in countries such as Mexico, as in Brazil, higher education supposedly is free, as stated in the countries' constitutions. So the university cannot charge students for admission.
The rector doesn't receive enough funds from the government to fund education and to pay a reasonable salary to teachers, and he doesn't receive tuition from his students. The situation is really very difficult. Worse, the country's constitution does not allow him to make contracts with private companies to fund his university. So what can he do?
I can't blame Castro, since he is powerless in this situation. Castro withdrew his proposal for a tuition increase, hoping that students would come back to class and everything would go back to its regular pace. But he was wrong. Students remained on strike, now demanding more participation in their university.
In most cases, Latin American universities don't have student participation. They don't have a student senate as we do; they don't have a strong newspaper as we have here; and the student body presidents at these universities are nothing but the puppets of a system that leaves them powerless.
The government is the only one to be blamed in this case, as it was in my time as a student in Brazil. Latin American governments don't want to educate their youth because these governments will remain in power only as long as they can lie to their people and make this lie seem like the truth. For the benefit of the entire population, this must no longer be accepted by Latin American citizens. They must protest and use the movement at the National Autonomous University as an example of what a student movement should be: an example of dignity, solidarity and strength when fighting to achieve an objective.
Furtado is a Pelotas, Brazil, junior in political science.
Feedback
Online petition could save Lazer
Last week, the Lazer (105.9 FM) changed formats from modern rock to Top 40, thereby abandoning its entire listener base. Add to this a lack of another area modern rock station and you end up with fans like me without a station to listen to. This move can also be expected to hurt local businesses in the modern rock scene due to a loss of interest in the community. Furthermore, since the Lazer's new Top 40 listeners will likely not be interested in local music,
these musicians will be struck a blow as the Lazer's support for them disappears.
1
then maybe — just maybe — they will revert back to modern rock.
But there is still hope. I have put together an online petition to educate the Lazer on the community it has so carefully separated itself from. You can help by pointing your Web browser to http://www.virtex.org/lazer, entering your name and e-mail address (if you have one), and pressing submit. This will add your name to the petition and send an e-mail to the Lazer for you. With enough signatures, perhaps the Lazer will come to realize just how strong the modern rock/local music following is here, and
James Williams Weston graduate student