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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2007 WWW.KANSAN.COM
EDITORIAL: There's a lesson to be learned from Critical Mass. Lawrence should use alternate, environmentally-friendly transportation. See Kansan.com for more opinions and Free for All comments
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
PAGE 9A
》 OUR VIEW
Be kind to environment, ride a bike around town
Last Friday, more than one hundred bicyclists claimed the roads of Lawrence to protest human reliance on cars. The bike ride, dubbed "Critical Mass," occurs in cities around the world on the last Friday of every month to celebrate alternative means of transportation and to demonstrate that transportation is possible without polluting the air.
Their point is well-taken. Now that global warming is more fact than theory, we should all take it upon ourselves to save a little energy. Turn light switches off when exiting a room. Use cold or warm, not hot, settings for the washing machine. Plant a tree! Or, take a cue from Critical Mass cyclists and find an alternative means of transportation. Approximately 20 pounds of harmful carbon dioxide are emitted in the atmosphere for every gallon of gasoline used, so saving even a gallon or two of gas per week can go a long way.
Plus, there really couldn't be a nicer time to get around sans gasoline. Spring is here and new life is blossoming, erasing memories of cold winds and cracked skin. The grass is green, the flowers have bloomed, and
For those far from their desired destinations, alternative methods of transportation are still possible. Use Lawrence's public transportation, or arrange a car pool with friends or roommates. If looking for a new car, invest in an energy-efficient one. At the very least, appreciate America's highly developed road systems which make off-roading unnecessary, and abstain from buying monster "all-terrain" vehicles.
nests are filled with eggs. Time is really not of the essence. Students should forgo the car in order to meander and smell the roses. Biking and walking are both excellent ways to simultaneously be earth-friendly and physically fit. They're also stress-relieving methods to refresh and invigorate the body.
All of us should take a lesson from Critical Mass, even those who loathe bike riding or who roll their eyes and mutter "damn hippies" while reading this article. Not only is it a good idea to take care of our planet, there really couldn't be an easier time to be a little more energy-conscientious.
FREE FOR ALL
Alison Kieler for the editorial board.
Call 864-0500
calls are recorded.
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming
Hey Free for All, I was going through my call history, and I just wanted to apologize for drunk-dialing you the other weekend. That was totally not cool of me.
did.
To the girl who just ran into the light post on Wescoe Beach: You thought no one saw you, but I
I think I just saw a fly getting raped by a rolly-polly on the ground. So hot.
---
Remember me? The puddle in the elevator girl? Well guess what? I found out from the janitor that it was Sprite, not your urine, you liars! By the way, it would have been sweeter if it was amniotic fluid.
I wish my boobs were filled with helium, so I could float around campus all day.
I found a cup of what looked like pee in my theatre class, today.
图
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To the girl that wrecked her scooter outside of Budig: That was hilarious. I like watching others in pain. You made my day.
COMMENTARY
Al Jazeera provides relevant news
On March 12, Buckeye CableSystem became the first American cable company to broadcast the Al Jazeera English channel. This is a small but important breakthrough for Al Jazeera, and hopefully a sign that the channel will finally reach a wide audience in the United States.
Since its launch on November 15, the English version of the largest Middle Eastern television network has failed to find cable providers to carry its programming. This is outrageous because the channel is a wonderful opportunity to diversify the way news is covered in the U.S.
Why aren't major cable companies offering viewers this channel? Comcast has claimed that it is not adding a lot of new channels. This statement is absurd. On March 23, Comcast launched an I-70 traffic channel in Colorado. If the issue is really bandwidth, it is nice to know where their priorities are. As long as there are 20 shopping channels everything is fine.
The U.S. is in desperate need of a new cable news channel and Al
jazera might just be the solution.
American cable news is in terrible shape, FOX News, CNN and MSNBC are becoming increasingly similar to entertainment networks.
It's hard to find
BY PATRICK LUIZ SULLIVAN
RICK LOUZ SULLIVAN
DE OLIVEIRA
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KANSAN.COM
valuable journalism in the midst of the newest celebrity overdose, latest blond girl gone missing or the constant partisan squabble between "analysts" All of this, of course, is interrupted every three minutes by the newest erectile dysfunction commercial.
Although Al Jazeera has had its faults along the way it has been crucial in providing objective news to the people in the Middle East. Western media has taken advantage of its breakthrough coverage by using its footage. The network has often attracted criticism from authoritarian governments when ever it aired critical reports against their administrations. It has also
faced remarkable challenges, whether having reporters banned from Arab nations, having its Baghdad office hit and a reporter killed by an American missile and having one of its cameramen detained in the aberration that is Guantanamo Bay.
However, Al Jazeera is still misinterpreted by many Americans. It's not even close to being the "pro-terrorist" network its critics accuse of if being. It has never shown footage of terrorists beheading hostages. It has showed dead American soldiers, but didn't American news outlets show images of burnt private contractors in Fallujah, or the dead bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons? Why should the general population be insulated from the horrors of war?
Al Jazeera English, at least the online stream version, shows some excellent reporting. Its stories have
a BBC feel, with a great degree of objectivity and calmness. I've yet to see sensationalist overtones in the reporting or loaded headlines asking, "Will Dems crush the economy if they control congress?" or, "Are atheist tactics too militant?" — both real headlines used by Fox News and CNN respectively.
The most positive aspect of Al Jazeera English is its news focus. It offers news coverage from areas that have been ignored by other cable news networks. Including significant coverage from Africa and perhaps the most thorough coverage of the Middle East. Even its European coverage, constantly reduced in the United States to only terrorist threats or French battering, is better.
Shame on Time Warner and Comcast for not carrying Al Jazeera English on their channel lineups, perhaps they can learn something from Buckeye about the importance of media diversity.
Sullivan De Oliveira is a Belo Horizonte, Brazil sophomore in journalism and history.
COMMENTARY
Dykman overcomes pitfalls, learns lessons in love
When all else fails, at least I have some good stories to tell.
And let's face it — all else fails quite often. Tuesday night seems to repeat itself endlessly when you don't have a car and the bank account reads in the single digits.
But when I think about the stories I've shared — the ones (when all else has failed) about lacking courage, the ones about needing to give advice and having none, the botched dates, the bad valentines — I've noticed that I finish the story and end the column, but I never come to any sort of conclusion.
Here's what I mean: I tell this tragedy that goes something like this. Boy meets girl. They go on a couple of dates. One that particularly went well was a Royals game where they bought Hy-Vee tickets and snuck down to the third or forth row, talked about life, books, college, but not the weather, even though it was one of those June afternoons that justifies spending $6
on a lemonade.
Boy thinks it's a sign when the Royals win.
But things go south, both for the boy and the Royals' season.
History, along with my other columns,would tell us that things don't work out,and it's over for the boy.
BY BRYAN DYKMAN
BY BRYAN DYKMAN
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KANSAN.COM
His thoughts are heavy and force him to sit down. He wants you to know that he's not making any of this up when he says he just happened to sit down at the same table as girl.
And, it is.
The summer is coming to a close, and at a graduation party, the boy is feeling down. This is one of the last times he will see these people. He doesn't know many of them, but he figures they all struggled through high school, acne and finals together, so they must be worth knowing.
"I haven't seen you in a long time," she says. He feels worse. He leaves.
He and a friend go looking for a cup of coffee. It's Sunday night, and the first two places
they try are closed. Finally they stop in a grocery store. And it's there, in aisle five, that boy sees girl again.
And it's about this point, when I am done telling the story, that my friends start to grin.
Usually it's "what a coincidence" or "what are the chances for that." We start to talk momentarily about a belief in fate or destiny. And when it's time for a second round of coffee, the absurdities and coincidences stay just that. This unspoken, yet assumed, "that's-too-bad" mentality makes its way across the room as we realize our coffee is too hot to sip. We sit and wait in silence.
We leave it up to ourselves to decide what it means. We file it away with the names of former teachers and old telephone numbers, as we work busily on our math. I wonder what the purposes of these stories are, these slices of life? I wonder what it means that he saw her in a grocery store?
It could be something about lost opportunities, but that's too simple. Anyway, I fear delivering a message like: Seize every opportunity you have; let no grocery store visit or graduation party slide crisely by.
It would be easier just to forget about coming to a conclusion and brand it a "good story" or "another one of those things that happen," ending it abruptly with something that sounds nice and has a touch of the dramatic. Something like: The coffee's cooled. This is the last time I tell a story like this.
Dykman is a Westwood freshman in English.
》 LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Pride Week not just intended to shock campus
I feel obliged to add to what wasn't mentioned in Tuesday's The University Daily Kansan article about the Queers and Allies Kiss-In. From an outsider's perspective it could appear the sole objective was to be obnoxious and in-your-face. While this is one aspect of the kissing, it's not why such things are done.
The idea behind the Kiss-In is to promote visibility of queer people on campus in a way that can't be avoided by the general public. While many people don't like public displays of affection from queer or straight people, the truth is, straight couples do not have to battle the same things couples in
Pride Week is meant to be for everyone, not just the LGBTIQ — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex — community. This is the third year we've done the Kiss-In to kick off Pride Week. We leave the rest of the week to educational, social, entertaining and community building lectures and activities.
the queer community have to. It's easy to say "get a room" or "gross" to straight couples showing their affection. Queer couples not only receive that but also face possible violence, hate and discrimination. The goal is to make you think about this and not to necessarily accept it.
and many may not even support such blatant activities as the kiss-in. We don't kiss to garner support for queer couples' public displays of affection, but to provide a glimpse of our visibility and to bring awareness of the fear, oppression, hate, violence and discrimination that is all too common toward the queer community in general.
We all have differing opinions
We hope you can join us the rest of the week for University and Lawrence Pride. For more info check out our Web site at www.kuqanda.org/pride.
Jonathan Pryor Columbus senior and KU Queer and Allies president
TALK TO US
Gabriella Souza, editor
864-454 or gsouza@kansan.com
Nicole Kelley, managing editor
864-454 or kelley@kansan.com
Patrick Ross, managing editor
864-454 orross@kansan.com
Courtney Hagen, opinion editor
GAY A's
Courtney Hagen, opinion editor 864-4924 or chagen@kansan.com
Natalie Johnson, associate opinion editor
864-4924 or johnshirk@kaman.com
Lindsay Shirak, business manager
864-4014 or shirak@kaman.com
Jackie Schaffer, sales manager
864-4642 or jchairker@kaman.com
Malcim Gibson, general manager, news adviser
864-7667 or mglison@kaman.com
Jennifer Weaver, sales and marketing adviser
Jennifer Weaver, sales and marketing adviser
864-7666 or jweaver@kansan.com
》 SUBMISSIONS
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions.
For any questions, call Courtney Hagen or Natalie Johnson at 864-4810 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com.
General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Gabriella Souza, Nicole Kelley, Patrick Ross, Courtney Hagen, Natalie Johnson, Alison Kieler, Tasha Riggins and McKay Stangler
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