Kansas and Colorado face off Saturday. For more in-depth information, check out Gameday. 12A A radio theater company will perform a courtroom drama at 7:30 p.m. at the Lied Center, complete with on-stage sound effects. 3A
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2006
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOL.117 ISSUE 50
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
PAGE 1A
Congressional candidates discuss Iraq,nation
BY ERIN CASTANEDA
Voters will determine Nov. 7 the next U.S. House representative for the 2nd Congressional District, which covers much of eastern Kansas, including part of western Lawrence. Running against Republican incumbent Jim Ryun are Democrat Nancy Boyda and Roger Tucker for the Reform party.
Rep. Ryun has been in office since 1997. He and his wife, Anne, live in Lawrence.
Boyda, a Topea resident, has worked for numerous pharmaceutical companies, recently as a manager for Marion Laboratories in Kansas City, Mo. She and her husband,
Steve, have two children and five stepchildren.
Tucker lives in Ottawa with his wife, Judy. He has six children and worked as an electrician for CertainTeed Corp. from 1979 until 2002.
National security and defense abroad are a high priority for all three candidates.
Ryun said America needed to keep the main front of the war on terror outside its borders. He visited Yuma, Ariz., Oct. 19 to meet with guardsmens and border patrol agents. There, he learned that 644 illegal immigrants from "countries of interest," such as North Korea and Iraq, were arrested last year as they
crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
"These people are potential terrorists from countries that harbor terrorists, and we need to prevent them from crossing our borders," he said.
As for U.S. troops in Iraq, Ryun said they should be concentrated in certain areas. He said they could only come home as soon as military commanders could hand over control to the Iraqi Security Forces.
Boyda said she was concerned the Iraq war contributed to growing debt and a possible draft. She agreed with invading Afghanistan but said invading Iraq was a dangerous decision that increased terrorism worldwide.
She said young people needed to
Boyda Ryun
Candidate Roger Tucker did not respond to the request for a photo.
understand that every politician was going to do everything they could to avoid using the word "draft."
"Politicians need to be straight with young people," she said. "But nobody wants to talk about a draft."
The cost of the war is a concern
for Boyda because it is not being paid for as part of the national budget, she said. Instead, American citizens are paying off the national debt interest.
Tucker said because of the growing intensity of the apparent civil war in Iraq, any supporters of the U.S. would never have enough popular support from their people to endure.
"We should only continue to support them with arms, not with our blood," he said.
Boyda and Ryun report contradictory views over the NAFTA Super Corridor Highway, a proposed 10-lane highway that would run from Texas to Canada.
Boyda said the corridor would threaten national security and the economy because it would drive down transportation costs to send profitable industries overseas.
The Texas Department of Transportation in a press release this September announced a plan proposing the first phase of Trans-Texas Corridor 35, which Boyda said was the first step to building the super corridor highway. Boyda said Ryun had denied the initial construction of the corridor.
In response, Ryun said there were no plans to construct the highway and he would not support the proj-
Study links lack of sleep to obesity
SEE ELECTION ON PAGE 4A
BY ANNA FALTERMEIER
Not getting enough sleep could be making you fat.
According to a review of recent research published in the November issue of the journal "Archives of Disease in Childhood," a link has been found between a lack of sleep with obesity.
A 2004 study, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I, found that people who reported getting less than seven hours of sleep a night were more likely to be obese. These same people were also more likely to develop obesity in the future.
The same study found that people who got six hours of sleep each night were 27 percent more likely to become obese than those getting seven to nine hours of sleep.
In the study that recently appeared in "Archives of Disease in Childhood," researcher Shahad Taheri said childhood obesity often followed people into adulthood.
Carol Guillaume, Watkins Memorial Health Center physician specializing in sleep disorders, said this link between obesity and sleep deprivation was partially caused by a chemical imbalance in the body.
SEE SLEEP ON PAGE 4A
Making faces
Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . 7A
Crossword. . . . . . . . . 8A
Horoscopes. . . . . . . . . 8A
Opinion. . . . . . . . . 5A
Sports. . . . . . . . . 11A
Sudoku. . . . . . . . . 8A
Chris Neal/KANSAN
Natalie Rodriguez, Belleville, Ill., freshman, carves a jack-o-lantern Wednesday evening in McColum Hall. Many residence hall students participated in the jack-o-lantern carving contest, sponsored by the McColum Hall Student Government in preparation for Hallowen on Tuesday.
All contents, unless stated otherwise
© 2006The University Daily Kansan
PROFILE
Alumnus helps write NBC series screenplay
BY MARK VIERTHALER
Aaron Thomas, a 1999 graduate and a KU alumnus, is one of several staff writers for the new
An NBC drama this season has a Jayhawk connection.
series Friday Night Lights," which was adapted into a movie from the book of the same name by H.G. Bissinger.
Thomas
Thomas helps tell the
story of loss and the pains of reconnection against the backdrop of a team living through the stress of high school football.
An English literature major, Thomas said he worked through the McNair Scholarship program.
He got his professional start five years ago as an intern and writing assistant in the Showtime original series "Soul Food: The Series." The desire to write began before he ever considered pursuing a career in the field, he said.
"I've been writing since the time I could even hold a pencil," Thomas said in a phone interview from his office in California.
SEE WRITER ON PAGE 4A
ORGANIZATIONS
Letter campaign benefits cancer research
BY BEN SMITH
Close to 400 students have volunteered to write letters requesting donations for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Up 'til Dawn, the largest charity fundraiser conducted on campus, will hold "Round Up," a western-themed letter-writing party, at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the fifth-floor ballroom of the Kansas Union. The KU group joins more than 150 college campuses nationwide in the student-led program that fights to end childhood cancer.
Up 'til Dawn, which raised more than $69,000 in 2005 and 2006 for the children of St. Jude, will put on the event at which student volum-
teers will write letters requesting donations to friends, family and acquaintances, and will listen to a father who lost his child to cancer.
Doctors from around the world send some of their toughest cancer cases and most vulnerable patients to the St. Jude facilities in Memphis, Tenn., for free treatment. The hospital's Web site said "all patients accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay."
St. Jude is the third-largest health care charity in America and it is in the business of making miracles.
Melissa Schmidt, director of Up 'til Dawn's officer's board, and several other officers have been promoting the event on campus this
semester asking students to join the initiative.
Brennan Metzler, the group's co-entertainment chair, said that it had been a wonderful experience working for the charity.
"It's a pretty remarkable cause," Metzler said. "It benefits a place that works miracles."
St. Jude's mission is to advance cures and means of prevention for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment.
Research efforts are directed at understanding the molecular, genetic and chemical bases of catastrophic diseases in children, identifying cures and promoting the prevention of cancers, acquired and inherited immunodeficiencies, infectious dis
"I've never been to a hospital that's that cheerful," Schmidt said. "It's not like a hospital at all."
Edited by Elyse Weidner
Schmidt said that she had visited the hospital in Memphis and thought it was a special and unique place.
eases and genetic disorders.
Kansan staff writer Ben Smith can be contacted at bsmith@kansan. coin.
For more information, go to the Up 't Dawn Web site at http://groups.ku.edu/~uptildawn/ or stop by their office in room 400 of the Kansas Union.
4
4
14