8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
》 ELECTIONS
MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2007
Freshmen join Senate
Campaigns can help new students learn about campus
BY ERIN SOMMER esommer@kansan.com
Freshman elections for Student Senate begin this week.
Student Senate members will be at the KU Info Fairs on Tuesday and Friday to pass out information to freshmen interested in running for Senate.
Adam McGonigle, Wichita sophomore and chairman of the Student Senate Executive Committee, said
the election helped get new students involved on campus.
"It's unique at this University that freshmen have the opportunity to participate in Student Senate right off the bat," McGonigle said.
Elections are Sept. 4 and 5
ing Senate committee would elect one freshman who either didn't get elected or didn't run for representative to be an associate senator.
Associate senators have all the rights and responsibilities of other student senators, McGonigle said.
"It's unique at this University that freshmen have the opportunity to participate in Student Senate right off the bat."
In order to run, freshmen must collect 50 signatures from freshman classmates, obtain the dean's stamp certifying status as a freshman and turn in applications to the Senate office in the Kansas Union by 5
ADAM MCGONIGLE Wichita sophomore
p.m. on Aug. 24.
There is a mandatory meeting for freshman candidates at
5 p.m. on Aug.
27 in the Big
12 Room in the Kansas Union, after which campaigning will begin.
Freshmen will elect five peers to represent their class. McGonigle said that immediately after election results were announced, each stand-
successful candidates often chalk across campus, hand out filers and network with friends from class and their residence hall or Greek house,"
Hannah Love, Dodge City senior and student body president, was elected to Senate as a freshman. She said she advised freshmen running for election to use the experience to help acquaint them with the University.
McGonigle said. "Visibility is key."
"Meet as many people as you can the first few weeks." Love said. "It's going to be beneficial to you throughout the university experience."
"Student Senate provides an excellent opportunity to meet a diverse group of people with the common goal of improving the University," McGonigle said.
McGonigle also said that the election process was a good way for freshmen to meet people.
Results for freshman elections will be announced at 6:00 p.m. on September 5 in the Centennial Room in the Kansas Union. Students interested in participating should go to the Senate offices in room 410 of the Kansas Union, or visit www.ku.edu/-senate.
Edited by Dianne Smith
》FOREIGN RELATIONS
Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press
Men walk past a billboard showing a cartoon of the Statue of Liberty at the Maleon on July 26 in Havana. During a ceremony marking the 54th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, acting president Raul Castro said Cuba had avoided the collapse that the U.S. predicted before his brother Fidel fell ill a year ago, and signaled he was willing to talk with a new U.S. administration after President George W. Bush leaves power.
Cuba engages propaganda machine
BY WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press
HAVANA — Most Cubans call him "Fidel," but the island's 80-year-old "Maximum Leader" has never lacked nicknames: "The Man," "The Boss," "The One." Some even call Fidel Castro "The Horse," an obscure reference to zodiac symbols in the Chinese gaming parlors he closed nearly 50 years ago.
When Castro fell ill last July, Cuba's propaganda machine came up with another: "Country."
"Fidel Is A Country" showed up on billboards that seemingly appeared overnight and have remained since then, suggesting that Fidel faithful
will carry on his revolution after he's gone.
Billboards blanket parks, public squares, intersections and highways all over the island, rising above apartment buildings in the city and sugar and coffee fields outside it. Many lionize Castro and revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara, urge energy conservation or use cartoons to promote communism and nationalist fervor.
Communist Cuba is almost completely devoid of advertising. Instead, there is prooaganda.
Just outside Havana's Jose Marti International Airport, a billboard shows a poker hand with Bush caught between a smirk and a frown as the ace of spades. Adolf Hitler is the ace of hearts. Two more aces feature Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, anti-communist militants whom authorities here accuse of bombing of Cuban airliner in 1976.
"It's easy to say, 'I'm good and you're bad,'" said Gloria Mendez, who lives near the Bush billboard. "The political propaganda, it has its effect on people. They see it and they get mad at the United States."
Many also reflect hatred toward the U.S. government, its 45-year-old trade embargo and President George W. Bush.
A play on the Spanish word for "aces," spells out "Full of Murders."
PARKING
Rec parking may open
Senate will meet with commission to discuss changes
BY ERIN SOMMER esommer@kansan.com
from driving to the recreation center during the day.
Student Senate members will be meeting with the Parking Commission soon to make a presentation about parking near
"We heard a concern from a large amount of students," Wittlinger said.
Wittling said that he and Love will be making a presentation to
the Student Recreation and Fitness Center. When Hannah Love, Dodge City senior and student body president, and Ray Wittlinger, Olathe senior and student body vice president, ran for the United Students coalition last spring, one of their platforms was providing 24-hour parking spaces at the recreation center.
"I think it's important that when we present this we show that there is a student need."
RAY WITTLINGER Student body vice president
Wittlinger said this meeting is a step towards fulfilling that platform.
He said he and other student senators worked over the summer to write drafts of proposals and research student needs regarding parking.
"I think it's important that when we present this we show that there is a student need," Wittlinger said.
He said the problem with the parking lot is that it does not allow students without yellow parking permits to drive to the recreation center to work out during the daytime. And because freshmen are not allowed to purchase yellow parking permits, they are excluded entirely
the Parking Commission in the next few weeks. A date for the meeting has not yet been set, but he expects it to be sometime in late August or in early September.
"I expect
we'll present the Commission with a written proposal and run down reasons for the problem and then answer questions," Wittlinger said.
He said options for opening up parking for the recreation center include having designated parking spots available for any KU permits, not only yellow ones, or making an arrangement with the center in which students could get a parking pass from the center to put on their car while they work out, and then return it when they are done.
Wittlinger said that the intention is not to take away any available parking in the lots.
Donna Hultine, director of the Parking Department, said the Commission would be open to making the changes suggested by Love and Wittlinger.
"Whatever decision is made, I think the Commission would give
a fair ear," Hultine said. "If there's a way to solve problems, I think the Commission is willing to help."
Hultine said that several years ago parking was modified at Watkins Memorial Health Center to allow students without proper permits to park in the parking lot while they were in the building. She said the arrangement caused administrative problems, so the policy was taken away and metered parking was added.
Wittlinger said that he and other Student Senate members met with both the Parking Department and KU Recreation Services to prevent any such problems.
"We don't want to take away authority from the Parking Department, and we don't want to create something the rec will have to deal with," Wittlinger said.
Hultine said she met twice with Love and Wittlinger, before and after they were elected last spring, regarding parking issues on campus. She also said she would wait and see the proposals put forth by Love and Wittlinger.
Wittlinger said he thinks there's a good chance the Parking Commission will pass the initiative.
"We've had good communication with parking and transit and the rec center," Wittlinger said.
Mary Chappell, director of recreation services, was not in the office last week and could not be reached for comment.
Edited by Amelia Freidline
PROSTITUTION
BY TOM GARDNER
Famous brothel revitalized
Associated Press
Now it's back.
PATRICK, Nev. — Since its inception, the Mustang Ranch has played a key role in legalized prostitution in Nevada. It's also been shut down by the IRS, burned down, rebuilt and sold on eBay for the price of a small home.
his prostitutes.
Like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, the gaudy pink stucco buildings used to house a stable of prostitutes are in a new location, under new management and looking better than ever.
In its 40 years, the self-proclaimed World Famous Mustang Ranch has seen the mur der of a heavyweight boxing contender, an owner who skipped the country to dodge the federal government and tens of thousands of customers.
Its current owner, real estate developer Lance Gilman, bought the Mustang for $145,100 on eBay. "The Mustang Ranch was a historical site," Gilman said. "It was a business decision."
The original owner, Joe Conforte, arrived in Nevada in the mid 1950s from Oakland, Calif., where he worked as a cab driver who often steered his fares toward
Conforte tried unsuccessfully to set Raggio up with the underage sister of a prostitute. It cost
He opened the Triangle River Ranch brothel in Wadsworth, about 25 miles east of Mustang, and immediately locked horns with Bill Raggio, the then-district attorney in nearby Reno and now Nevada's Senate majority leader.
age sister of a him 22 months behind bars and Raggio burned the brothel as a public nuisance.
Today,prostitution is legal in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties and tolerated in two others. It is illegal in the counties sur-
laundering. Millions of dollars allegedly were wired to Conforte in Brazil.
"The Mustang Ranch was a historical site. It was a business decision."
Four years later, the brothel's new owner, the federal Bureau of Land Management, put the brothel up for grabs on eBay.
Gilman, who opened the Wild Horse Resort Camp; Spa in 2002, a brothel located across the parking lot from the Mustang, estimates
LANCE GILMAN Current Owner
rounding Reno, Las Vegas and the capital, Carson City, according to state officials.
That didn't keep the federal government out of Conforte's hair.
The IRS got its final say in 1997 when it filed a $16 million tax lien, followed in July 1999 by indictments of Conforte and principals in his shell company on charges including racketeering and money
he has spent $6 million to move the 12 buildings four miles from Mustang to his property just off Interstate 80 in Patrick, then refurbish the decaying buildings.
"We spared
no expense in refurbishing the original Mustang Ranch and turning it into one of the state's most luxurious brothels," Austin said.
Conforte, speaking in a teleconference from his beachfront hideaway in Brazil, praised the effort.
"I want to thank Lance and Susan for going to all this work to get this place together," he said. "It turned out real, real, real good."