4A
Tuesday, September 26, 1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE ISSUE: COMPUTER CENTER
Computer wait is frustrating
The computer situation on campus needs to change.
Students often go to the Computer Center to complete an assignment and find a herd of people lingering among the computers. No matter the time of day, students sometimes have to wait 30 minutes or more before they can use a terminal. The situation makes students and lab supervisors crazy.
Cindy Cook, shift supervisor at the center, said the peak hours were from 10 a.m. to noon and from 4 to 6 p.m., but she said lines in the computer lab were not limited to those times.
People using the terminals aren't always working on an academic project, though. Many students play on the Internet while others wait in a sweat to finish a paper. One solution would be to have a separate section for Internet users.
Another problem is that some students occupy a terminal for eight hours at a time. A possible solution to this would be to limit how long a student could
Increasing resources and setting restrictions on computer time are possible solutions for lab congestion.
use a computer — possibly in four-hour blocks.
The center may not be the only place on campus where students can use computers, but other places also have problems.
For example, there is no supervisor in the Fraser Macintosh lab, so students who need help either have to figure out the problem alone or hope that another student in the lab will help.
Plus, the dot matrix printers in the Fraser lab work as if they have been beaten with hammers. The printers are often out of paper.
The University needs more computers and a bigger staff to serve students. There is no reason why students should have to wait indefinitely for a computer or to use a computer that can't serve their needs. Students should have easy access to computers at the computer center and throughout campus.
IAN RITTER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
THE ISSUE: ESCORTS AFTER DARK
Campus escorts are needed
People who give warnings to women who walk across campus alone at night have good intentions of preventing crime. But more should be done to help women feel safe on campus. A walking escort service is an easy way to decrease crime and fear.
Although the University is not responsible for protecting every woman everywhere, setting up a campus escort service would ease the minds of students who work or study on campus after dark.
Kansas State University already has such a program. Students who wish to have an escort from any University building, including residence halls, call a number and are met by two volunteers, one male and one female student. The program is coordinated by the Association of Residence Halls.
A program such as this
Volunteer safety service would be easy to start, inexpensive to operate and students would feel more secure on campus.
could be started at KU with minimal costs. The volunteers could be students who live in residence halls, scholarship halls or Greek houses. This system also would be an ideal way for campus organizations, such as Student Senate, to serve its campus community.
KU students could use this service to be escorted safely from any campus building to any residence hall or parking lot. This would ease the mind of any woman who ever has looked over her shoulder after leaving Watson Library at midnight.
Even in a small college town such as Lawrence, every precaution needs to be taken to help protect its most valuable assets — its students.
CHARITY JEFFRIES FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
KANSAN STAFF
COLLEEN MCCAIN
Editor
DAVID WILSON
Managing editor, news
ASHLEY MILLER
Managing editor, planning & design
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
Jeff MacNelly / Chicago Tribune
STEPHANIE UTLEY
Business manager
MATT SHAW
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Hawne & Special Sections...Deeandra Allison
Editorial...Heather Lewerrens
Associate Editorial...Sarah Morrison
Campus...Virginia Margiela
Associate Campus...Teresa Vazeyez
Associate Campus...Pald Todd
Sports...Jenni Carlson
Associate Sports...Tim Lowe
Sports...Paul Kotz
Wires...Robert Allen
On-line coordinator...Tina Fassett
In a world of starvation, appreciate what you have
I went back the next day. Beggars usually occupy certain territories from which they don't stray. I didn't see him. He was gone, but he probably didn't leave the bazaar on his feet.
Even though everyone knows about Sally Struthers and the starving children, it's very disconcerting to actually see a child dying at your feet. Very few of us ever have felt true hunger. I haven't. At dinner that night, I was about to turn down a suspicious-looking piece of chicken whose only real crime was probably that it hadn't been farm-fattened. I thought for a second, and then I ate it anyway. No catastrophe struck. I didn't deserve a choice, but I had one.
Campus mgr ... Meredith Honnigh
Regional mgr ... Tom Dulac
National mgr ... Neather Barnes
Business mgr mgr ... Nancy Euston
Production mgr ... Nancy Euston
Marketing director ... Katherine Kyte
Public Relations director ... Botha Gahl
Creative director ... Brigit Bloemquist
Internship/co-op mgr ... Kelly Connely
I could throw statistics at you. I could make diagrams and quote famous people. I could ask you to think about a nameless boy who died halfway across the world. I could even plead you to help out at a soup kitchen or donate food and money to charity. I'll leave all that to Sally. This is what I ask: The next time you have a meal, enjoy it. Don't wolf it down and run. Sit there and chew, and feel for the moment when your stomach suddenly becomes full and content. Just feel it, and be glad that you can.
Do you ever get annoyed when a place doesn't have the kind of soda you like? The Max Headroom commercials captured me at an early age, so when I went to India this summer, there was a problem: Pepsi was everywhere. Even in poor, muddy villages, wild pigs could be found pushing around empty Pepsi bottles with their snouts. Since the water quality is questionable, I didn't have much of a choice.
Alisha Aorra is an Overland Park junior in human biology.
We were at a bazaar in New Delhi one sweltering July day, and I was thirsty. The soda stand only had really gross orange stuff left. Keep in mind that FDA means nothing in a Third World country. Like I said, I was thirsty.
So I'm walking around this crowded, dirty market full of tourists and con artists grumbling to myself about the files, the sweat and the Liquid Plumber aftertaste in my mouth. And as if it wasn't bad enough that my own sweat was dripping from my lip into the soda bottle, even sweatier, smaller and hairy old men bumped into me as the sidewalk traffic suddenly slowed. I looked through sticky bodies and saw a bazaar brat sitting on the ground. He was about four or five, and he was playing at the busiest corner of the bazaar. I looked around for the child's mother, wondering why she didn't keep him out of the way. Then I got
STAFF COLUMNIST
Who decides what is or is not politically correct? I do not purposefully come to campus in the morning with hopes that I might offend someone.
closer.
Politically correct Bible is blasphemous
I applaud Amy McVey's column in the Sept. 19 issue of the *University Daily Kansan* concerning this deluge of political correctness that has seeped into our society.
He wasn't four or five. He was probably 9 or 10, or maybe even older. Up close, his head looked gruesomely oversized for his shrunken, starved body. He wasn't playing. He was painfully crawling toward a patch of shade because he was
apparently too weak to walk. The faded cotton rag tied around his middle didn't protect him from the sun; he was nearly naked in the 112-degree heat. Flies circled his shorn head. He didn't brush them away. He probably didn't notice them. He stared at the shade with his cracked lips slightly parted, oblivious to the frenetic pace of the bazaar. He wasn't alone in a desert, but he might as well have been for all the notice people took. The food stalls and soda stands didn't exist for him — only a tiny patch of shade at the side of a makeshift stand where working men would spit as they eyed the wares of the market. The boy looked neither right nor left as he dragged his body over the garbage-strewn ground. Orange soda probably would have been OK with him.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Most people with whom I have been acquainted share this same feeling. I make an effort to be polite to everyone, and I contend that is sufficient. I should not have to adhere to the ever-changing euphemisms that compose this new social language.
The rewriting of the Bible in order that it might be politically correct is appalling. Being a Christian, I believe that God is fair and just and I maintain that as human beings we are inferior to the wisdom of God.
Perhaps they should rely more on God's divine providence and less on their fallible judgment.
Therefore, who are we to correct
our creator, the one who gave us the breath of life? The editors of this new politically correct version of the Bible have overstepped their bounds.
Brett J. Martin Fort Scott junior
Brett J. Martin
Class pitches in to help find lost jewel
In a day and age where so much attention is placed on the negative and all the mistakes and tragedies that occur in the world, I would like to take a moment to share a positive experience that happened to me recently.
I was in the middle of class when I heard something hit the floor. I looked down and was shocked to discover that the opal on my ring had fallen out of its setting. I anxiously awaited the end of class so I could begin
searching for it.
As my class rushed out, I was crawling and peering at the white-tiled floor for the white stone. A girl from the next class asked what I was looking for and offered to help. She soon recruited other members of the class to help. Just as I was ready to give up so the next class could begin, one of the students cried out that he had found it.
It really touched me that through the kindness of strangers I was able to find the stone to myring.
I would like to thank everyone from the 3:30 p.m. class in 4033 Wescoe Hall that helped me look. I really appreciated it, and it certainly made my day a lot brighter.
I hope this can serve as a reminder to everyone that although he University of Kansas has a large campus, the people are still friendly and willing to help a stranger.
Michelle Renner
Shawnee junior
Government should require receipts from welfare users
Abused government assistance clouds this country, smothering and choking the working-class citizen. Not-so-needy hands grasp for pocketbooks, while the government stands over our shoulder, nudging us to give and keep giving.
The following is just one example
STAFF COLUMNIST
The following is of an ugly misuse of government funds:
Meagan has two illegitimate children, 1 and 3 years old, with two fathers.
The 3-year-old's father left Meagan after he decided fathering a child wasn't as fun as the act that got him in this predicament. Meagan neglected to
name the father on the birth certificate. (Therefore, the government is helpless in making him pay child support.)
One year later, Meagan met an alcoholic and let him move in with her and her 1-year-old son. He drank, used drugs and abused her son until the government took the child away from Meagan. She retaliated by getting pregnant again — on purpose. Before the child was born, the father was thrown in jail. Because he was out of the house, Meagan was allowed custody of her child.
Taxpayers pay for Meagan's food, medical expenses, day care for her children and all but $80 of her monthly rent.
Meagan drives a new car. She has enough money for cigarettes and beer. Her boyfriend lived off the government's money as well.
Granted, no one ever would want to see Meagan and her children suffer by being homeless — and that is not the point. The point is that Meagan misuses her funds — our funds.
Meagan is not unlike many welfare recipients in this country. This nation should recall an incident in Chicago a couple of years back, in which children were discovered eating dog food off the floor. Their mother left them alone and used the government's money on other things.
Meagan applies for credit cards, runs them up and uses taxpayers' money to pay them off.
The government wants to use tax-payers' money to educate Meagan, buy her books and watch her children while she is in school. But they have neglected to teach Meagan how to use birth control, provide a safe environment for her children or manage the money the working class diligently hands over month after month.
People supporting these government handouts argue that the children of recipients never ask to be born in poverty.
True — people are not perfect, and no one should live in poverty. And it is our responsibility to take care of the less fortunate and helpless. But this is not Bellamy's Utopia. We should not feel obligated to pay for Meagan's car or her drunken boyfriend. It is a shame that hardworking citizens have to struggle to nav for others' misuse of tax money.
This money was provided to give people a chance to live a healthy life — not to use on luxuries. The majority of people paying for these luxuries cannot afford them for themselves.
We should demand receipts from welfare recipients and make sure these children actually are receiving what they need. Otherwise, there will be an even bigger debt to pay in the future.
Amy McVey is an Olisthe Junior in Journalism.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin