Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Julie Wood, Editor Brandi Byram, Business manager Laura Roddy, Managing editor Shauntae Blue, Retail sales manager Cory Graham, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Scott Valler, Technology coordinator
Wednesday, September 8, 1999
Seth Jones / KANSAN
Editorials
Kansan report card
PASS
■ WebMail — The University's new Web-based e-mail system lets us check our e-mail from anywhere in the world. If you have a KU e-mail account and Internet access, log on to http://webmail.cc.ukans.edu, and you're connected. Thanks to academic computing service for this easy-to-use alternative.
■ New parking spaces at Robinson — Finally, more parking at Robinson. Now we won't have to walk so far to get to the treadmills... or classes.
FAIL
Stadium construction — The contractor needs more time, and the University extends the deadline. Maybe profs will reward students for late mid-term papers, but probably not.
■ Bookstores — Lack of textbooks has students and instructors angry. Shouldn't they have this process down to a science by now? Upside: You can't be expected study if you don't have books.
- Lack of air conditioning — McCollum's AC breaks down, while some scholarship halles never had it. Nobody expects student housing to be the Ritz, but AC is part of life in the United States in 1999.
- Long lines at Mrs. E's — if John Belushi and the gang were KU students, the solution would be easy: FOOD FIGHT. Nah, if the lines are too long, just hit Burrito King instead.
Off-campus safety takes cooperation
Efforts to improve campus safety, including lighting and blue phones, should be applauded. More effort should be put into making areas adjacent to campus safer.
This requires cooperation between the University and the city, since these areas are not owned by the University. Adding blue phones would be difficult financially because the University would have to pay monthly line charges for using Southwestern Bell's system, said John Mullens of the security and emergency planning department. Also, private property in these residential areas makes repair work complicated, said Mike Wildgen, Lawrence city manager.
Yet areas such as Ohio and Louisiana streets tend to be dominated by stu
The University, Lawrence and students should team up
dents, because they often live and travel on them. Thus, safety issues like adequate lighting should be a concern for students and the University.
According to Wildgen, the city and University have joined forces for projects as lighting the intersection of 15th Street and Engel Road. The KU Public Safety Office also has jurisdiction over some off-campus regions. This type of cooperation should continue. Furthermore, the University should continue to seek areas to improve safety for students on campus and near campus.
Students also need to get involved. If we fail to express safety concerns to the University or the city, we can't expect the situation to improve. For instance, members of the scholarship halls have started working with city and University officials to find solutions to safety concerns in and around Alumni Place.
To really see change off campus, it is as much our responsibility as students to make suggestions as it is the University's and city's responsibility to make reasonable efforts to improve safety in these neighborhoods.
If you do not speak up about feeling unsafe near campus, as you would on campus, you can't expect to feel safer walking down a dark street near campus next time.
Kursten Phelps for the editorial board
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Broadon your mind: Today's quote
"A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to authenticate." Frank L. Wright
How to submit letters and guest columns
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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If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff [opinion@kansan.com] or call 864-4924
People's dreams are never what you expect. Simply put, sometimes it's the simple things that can make a person happy.
Simple things in life equal joy, happiness
Perspective
My Grandpa will be 75 in December, and,
while my family and I love him and would miss
Sarah
Hale
guest columnist
opinion@kansan.com
... if he passed away, fact is, there's been talk about "what if." My uncle asked him not long ago what's the one thing he wanted to do before he died. No dream too big, no price too much — that was the offer.
He didn't say that he wanted to go on a cruise or that he wanted to drive a new car. Instead, he said he wanted to go to an air show.
An air show? My grandpa raised eight children, served in World War II, worked as a chemist, and
his one dream was to go to an air show.
Jimmy wore his new $40 Nikes on the first day school, perhaps with a bigger smile than the last year's first day. He wouldn't wear them home from the department store — he didn't want to get them dirty — but he wore them later.
A pair of new shoes made Jimmy happy.
Sometimes, it's the little things.
A Trinity Academy high school senior also surprised me. Nicole Wells earned a perfect score on both the SAT and ACT, obviously spring boarding her chances for getting into the college she wants. Guess which school is on her list? Yes, the University of Kansas, among others. But that wasn't what surprised me. Nicole wants to go to college, but then she wants to go into missionary work. Instead of using her talents for monetary gain or personal glory, she wants to help others. Nicole stayed up late the night before she took the ACT, but she wasn't studying. She was watching a movie. Even for this scholar, there's enjoyment found in simple pleasures. The University of Kansas would be lucky to get her
So, last weekend, two of my uncles drove their sons and our grandpa to Lincoln, Neb., for an air show. My uncle made special arrangements, including tours and VIP tickets. Grandpa spent the day staring at the sky, sun in his eyes and smile on his face. That was all he wanted.
I guess I never expected my grandpa to want to do something too extravagant. He's a simple person and he's always led a fairly simple life. He made the one memory that he really wanted to make.
Whether or not a person lives a high-maintenance or low-maintenance life is a characteristic that can't be changed. I think it is something people develop as children that they continue their whole lives. It's just that rest of us don't stop to realize it until those people are old. Then, we call them wise.
Last week, I heard two stories about young people who cherish the simple pleasures in life. One is a fifth grader, the other is a high school senior. Today, I'm calling them wise.
Just when you think you know someone, he or she does something to shock you. I hope I have friends who can say that about me. And I hope I never forget that sometimes it's the little things that can make a person smile or have a better day.
Jimmy began school at a Wichita elementary school on Monday. His mother was afraid that
the young boy would have to start school without any shoes. His sneakers from last year wouldn't do and his summer sandals weren't proper for playing at recess. His mother called social services, but there was no guarantee how fast they could work.
My mom, the principal of Jimmy's school, decided that she'd just take him out and buy him new shoes herself. So his mother got him ready, and my mom picked him up. She told Jimmy that he could pick out any pair of shoes he wanted, as long as they were functional for school and outdoor activities. Then she told him, "Even Nike, Adidas or another name brand." He'd never had name-brand shoes before.
That's what the little things do for my grandpa, Jimmy and Nicole.
Heart of rock'n' roll not beating in techno
Hale is a Wichita senior in journalism.
I cut my teeth on classical. Then I found my first favorite rock band at 7 years old—Guns 'n' Roses. A few years later, I discovered Zeppelin and Floyd and The Doors. Then came Tori Amos, Velvet Underground, Natalie Merchant, Bob Dylan. Then Ani DiFranco, Tricky, JP Harvey, Concrete Blonde, Leonard Cohen. I fall in love with more music every day.
T love music.
Lydia Taylor columnist opinion@bayasan.com
I also love concerts. During my childhood and adolescence, I wasn't allowed to go to concerts,
I love music.
opinion@kansan.com
which, of course, meant that once I arrived at the University of Kansas, I kind of went nuts.
My first concert was Bob Dylan at Kansas City's annual musical festival, Spirit Fest. My second concert was Jayhawk Music Festival the next weekend. After that I just spiraled into some sort of concert-gap trapping
I'm a concert junkie.
I'm a concert junkie.
So, obviously, I bought my ticket to this year's Spirit Fest early. I attended on Friday, when both the
Moby's latest album, "Play," is an absolutely brilliant submission to the hallowed halles of music. On "Play," Moby takes the tools of electronica, transfuses them with a large jolt of the blues and uses them to compose achingly beautiful sonic tapestries.
1
One of my roommates owned a copy of "Play." I listened to it so much that I became addicted to it and my former roommate got sick of it.
Violent Femmes and Moby were playing. The Violent Femmes are an old standby; you can't go wrong with them. Moby happens to be my latest musical obsession.
I have an acquaintance — we'll call him Bernard — who composes techno music. He claims that techno as a genre will soon render all other forms of music obsolete.
But Bernard is wrong. There's one thing he isn't considering; the reason why we have music.
Music has to speak to us if it wants to remain in our collective memory. It's saying that it wants to hold our hand. It's asking the universe why its heart feels so bad. It's affirming that, yes, it is going to stand by its man. It's lamenting that faces are lonely when you're alone.
Music sings our fears. It sings our joys. It sings our tears. It sings our riotous laughs. It sings our hates. And it sings our loves.
Ah, love. But that's another column entirely.
And the best pieces of music are those that cradle emotion in each and every note, whether it's Mozart's "Serenade No. 10 in B-flat Major" or Simon and Gunkfeln's "The Boxer," whether it's Wagner's "Overture to Tannhauser" or Natalie Merchant's "My Skin."
But Berhard is wrong. There's one thing he isn't considering; the reason why we have music. Techno as a genre is unemotional. It's cold, calculating, mechanical.
Techno never can revolutionize music, unless it first revolutionizes itself. Techno has the perfect bionic body, so to speak, but to take over the musical universe as Bernard thinks it will, it must give itself a soul.
For our species, though, music has since its genesis been a way to channel our emotions. We've used music to express fear in the face of a complicated universe. We've used music to express joy at the fact we exist at all. We've used music to praise our gods and pacify our demons. We've used music to sing our triumphs and our defeats, our sadnesses and our delights, our loves and our hates.
Which is why Moby's "Play" works so well.
Each note is infused with soul. Each note lives.
For any musical work to be memorable, for any musical work to, well, work, it must touch us deeply. It must convey the emotion that is in each and every one of us.
We as humans are wrought with emotion. And we have an inherent need to express that emotion, lest we burst.
Taylor is a Wichita junior in journalism and anthropology.
Kansan should be fair to parking department
Feedback
Unfortunately, the UDK has once again contributed to the stereotypes associated with the parking department. Historically, the UDK has used the parking department for a convenient "whipping boy." We understand that we are a target for cheap shots; in fact, we are not naive as to how the university community views us.
However, we have always worked hard to dispel the
image students have of us. This is not to suggest that ticketing will go away. We are all adults here, and as adults it is expected that we will follow the rules. Violators will always exist, for that is the nature of the beast.
We understand the stress students face when getting ready for the start of a new school year, and so we did not ticket any students during the first week for not having a permit in Yellow or Residence Hall lots. This was not, as termed by your paper, "overzealous ticketing."
The department has increased parking for students. Lot 90, behind Robinson Gym is an example. Over 200 stalls have been added to help out a crowded situation in a very popular lot. All we request is that you give us the courtesy of checking the facts first before publishing information about us.
Chris D. Roose Parking Department