4
University Daily Kansan/Monday, December 2, 1991
OPINION
Field house fiasco
After the Kansas-Central Missouri State men's basketball game Saturday night, the Central Missouri team returned to its locker room to change. But when the players and coaches returned, they discovered that their money and personal belongings, worth about $14,300, had been stolen.
A visit to KU should not include burglary
According to the KU police department, an unidentified man was seen leaving Allen Field House with the belongings Saturday night. Lt. John Mullens said that the man gave the impression that he was associated with the Central Missouri State team and that
he was taking the items to the team bus.
Guards from Manpower Temporary Inc. were posted at the doors of the locker room throughout the game. Windows to the locker room were padlocked, and the visiting team had access to the locker room through the showers.
Bob Frederick, athletic director, Kansas coach Roy Williams and players from the Kansas team have expressed disappointment and confusion about the burglary.
The fact that this happened in the field house during a game is indeed disappointing. With the amount of security at
the field house, something like this should never have happened.
Actions such as this do nothing but give the athletic department and the University a poor reputation. It is disconcerting for everyone associated with Kansas athletics, be it fans, players, coaches or administrators, that something like this could happen under everybody's nose.
Holly Neuman for the editorial board
A visit to the field house by other teams, whether they win or lose, shouldn't be overshadowed by concern about the belongings they left in the locker room.
Indifference expressed towards those with AIDS should be replaced by students' willingness to help
In 1981, doctors in New York and San Francisco began identifying a disease running rampant in the gay communities of both cities. The disease became known as the "gay cancer," the "plague," AIDS and HIV disease, as the medical profession prefers to call it today.
In 1986, I attended a forum on changing sexual mores. One topic seemed to dominate the presentations: How do we avoid contracting AIDS? In five interviews, she has gone from being perceived as only affecting gay men to a major concern.
Unfortunately, the audience was not very informed about the disease. They wondered about kissing, about blood transfusions. I wondered if they comprehended how AIDS would affect each of us, I heard jokes, indifference to them, and fear that those who were dying needlessly. Maybe because it was so easy at first to dismiss AIDS. At all, it only affected homosexuals and drug abusers.
Perhaps few in the audience ever shared the fear of waiting for HIV test results, of waking up in the middle of the night shrouded in sweat. Perhaps they had yet to realize it affects people other than those infected: Each person with AIDS who died was someone who loved, who was loved, who must
Patrick
Dilley
Guest
columnist
be missed
It's easier to look at numbers and statistics, at rational absolutes rather than at people and other lives we might relate to. Andrew Holleran, in his introduction to The Normal Heart, wrote:
"... the only way it [AIDS] ceases to be a news story is this—you, or someone you care for, gets it. Then it is transformed immediately from a bizarre, depressing media topic into a fact that is indiscreciably cruel. --- Try to imagine, if you can, the individual horror. The hospitals. The blood. The pain. The fear. The final prize for being homosexual. The world. How your friends would behave, how you would tell your family, what all this had been for."
Ten years have passed since AIDS was first diagnosed. Our society has
lost notable personalities: Liberace, lOST. Rep. Stewart McKinney, designer Perry Ellis, writers Robert Ferro and John Fox, philosopher Michel Foucault, playwright Charles Luddam, actors Rock Hudson and Brad Davis, and most recently rock star Freddie Mercury. But thousands of others have died, too. Bombardment by the media with information, and disinformation, has extended both knowledge and fear of AIDS. Instead of joking, we now consider mandatory testing, separate facilities, even quarantine when you are not aware that carriers of numerous germs and viruses are usually a bigger threat to a person without an immune system than they are to us.
AIDS polarizes our society, but why? Is it sex itself? Homophobia? Partly. It's also partly because people fear those who are not "like" them. But it's really not the differences that frighten people. It's death. Because, we live in a world where our lives and living, we die. Not, we hope, we are young. Not, we think, because of sharing our love with another. In dying we are all alike.
Yesterday was AIDS Day, a day created to build communication and commitment between people working to stop AIDS. The theme was
"Sharing the Challenge," emphasizing the importance of a partnership approach to doing something about AIDS. Most of us were probably on our way back to campus, saying goodbye to our families and loved ones; most of us probably did not know about or do anything about World AIDSDav.
But any day can be the day you do something. AT KU, the Student Senate AIDS Task Force hangs posters, creates public service messages, trains students to be peer educators about HIV and AIDS and hosts several special projects each semester. If you have a few hours a semester to spare, the task force is a place you can learn more about HIV and AIDS and help. In Lawrence, Douglas County AIDS Project provides services for people who have HIV or AIDS and the people who care for them. The project has support groups and buddy systems that allow you to help people.
The amount of time or training that you have about the disease is not as important as the willingness to help. The time you take to listen, to care, makes more of a difference than you might ever realize.
**Patrick Dilley is an Oklahoma City graduate student in English and is the head of the Sts. Library.**
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Sandinistas hurt U.S. interests
The article "Playwright tackles politicalissues" by William Ramseyin the Nov. 21 Kansan contained some misconceptions. It was based on an interview with me about my trip to Nicaragua in the 1990 elections and subsequent writing of the play "Brigadista," which played in Lawrence the week of Nov. 17.
The article stated that ("Shafter" said U.S. officials did not want the Central American country to be as successful as it seemed under the nondemonocratic rule of the Sandinistas. "It went on to describe the thousands of international officials invited by the
Sandinista government to observe the electoral process. Why did Mr. Ramsey call that government "non-candidate?" The Nicaraguan constitution, established after the 1979 revolution, calls for periodic elections by secret ballot. The Sandinista government was elected in Nicaragua's first free and fair elections in 1984. The elections were recognized by the United Nations and the Organization of American States.
Under the Sandista government, Nicaragua established labor unions, agricultural cooperatives and minimum wage laws. This threatened U.S. interests because it presented an example to other third world countries on whom U.S. corporations depend for extremely cheap labor and resources. For that reason, the U.S. government attempted to destroy the Sandista model with an embargo and the contra war. It had nothing to do whatsoever with "demonocracy."
Tanya Shaffer
Playwright, "Brigadista"
For those of you who care Kiefer dumped Julia first
As time passes, the reflexes slow down. The hand-eye coordination isn't what it once was.
It was the kind of show I try to avoid. A show-biz show, with breathless hosts gushing about some stunning development and giving it a second look, people that I'm only vaguely aware of.
They aren't like the early "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" shows, which I thought were enlightening. There was something educational about some obscure little fat guy with a blue shirt about the deck of his 200-foot yacht, upon which he made his fortune selling pickled pigs' feet.
But on the show-biz shows, you have alleged movie stars, most of whom dress like vagrants, telling us about the creative process. Things like; "Well, in this role as a vampire, I tried to show how the stress of sleepless nights can drive a man to extreme forms of sexual harassment."
Anyway, the show-biz show was suddenly on and a man was talking very intensely about how an actress named Kristin Stewart has understood by the American people.
That made me feel left out. I am one of the American people, or persons, and I had never misunderstood anyone named Julia Roberts. In fact, I didn’t know enough about her to understand or misunderstand her.
He went on to say that the American people had been given the impression that it was Julia Roberts who had called off her marriage to someone named Kiefer Sutherland when the truth was Kiefer Sutherland had beaten her to the punch and called off the marriage before she could call it off.
And the man indicated that it was disturbing to Julia Roberts to have the American people think that she had jilted Kiefer Sutherland when the movie was released true, although she would have jilted him first if she had the opportunity.
He also said something to the effect of that Julia Roberts just wanted to get on with her life, which is what most people do. In the absence of those who jump off bridges,
Then they showed film clips of Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland, and I remembered having seen them in a movie or two, although I didn't see it until recently because I usually fell asleep if I saw Wayne wasn't shooting someone.
Incidentally, I don't know who the man was who spoke on behalf of Julia Roberts — agent, lawyer, hairdresser, or maybe all of the above. But he was clearly determined that the American people should know the truth.
I thought the story was over, but
Mike
Royko
Syndicated
columnist
then a young woman came on TV and was identified as a stripeptase performer and a friend of Kiefer Sutherland. And she revealed that she and Kiefer had been non-physical friends, which in these trying times is the safest kind of friendship you can have. She indicated that Julia Roberts had been jealous of the friendship and was just a publicity seeker.
Then Julia Roberts came on and said that she just wanted to get on with her career. Or maybe it was her life. Or both, which a versatile person can do.
Finally it was over, and as part of the American people who had misunderstood Julia Roberts, I felt better about her. I found the understanding of what had happened.
Wanting to share this with someone, I phoned Sam 'Billygat' Sianis, my favorite keeper and said: "Were you aware that Julia Roberts didn't dump Kiefer Sutherland, that he dumped her first?"
After a moment of silence, Siansi said: "I don’t. Butuny doesn’t doeet in my place. I don’t like my guys bumping no women in my place. Eees not classy. Desig yu bumper here, Itrow heem out."
"No," I explained, "they are not your customers. They are stars, and her friends said that the American people didn't understand who dumped whom. Or is it whom dumped who? Anyway, she now says he dumped her."
"No. thevaren't married."
Sianis said: "Den she gets the alimony, huh?"
"Oh, den she no get the alimony. He's lucky guy, you know, Fat Joe who comes in, he dumped hees wife and she got house, car, bank account, alimony. Fat Joe got that old camper truck. He live in it now. I think he park it outside his old house and sleep there every night. You can be his boyfriend so he can catch them and not pay alimony. Dees guy you talk about was luckier than Fat Joe."
Anyway, we now know the truth about who did the dumping. And as the Bible says: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."
Or maybe it was: "The truth shall make you sit closer to your TV zapper."
■ Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
KANSANSTAFF
HOLLY LAWTON
Editor
JENNIFERREYNOLDS Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Editors
News Erik Schutz
Editorial Karen Park
Planning Sarah Davis
Campus Eric Goraki
Sports Mike Andrews
Photo Brian Schoenli
Features Tiffany Harness
Graphics Melissa Unterberg
KATIE STADER Business manager
RICHHARSHBARGER Retail sales manager
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr. Leanne Bryant
Regional sales mgr. Jennifer Cleration
National sales mgr. David Mellwaine
Co-op sales mgr. Lae Keeper
Production mgrs. Jay Steiner, Wendy Stertz
Marketing director. Mike Aishee
Creative director.黛西
Classified mgr. Jennifer Jacquotel
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