005
OPINION
everyday.
THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2005
PAGE 9A
WWW.KANSAN.COM
▼ GUEST COMMENTARY
VALERIE TARBUTTON
opinion@kansan.com
University disregards safety issues
I am a resident of Gertrude Sellards Pearson Hall. I am also an outraged resident of GSP Hall. Before I moved into the residence hall, there were a few things I was anxious about: sharing a bathroom with a whole floor of other girls, eating questionable residence hall food and what my roommate would be like.
Never once did I think that I would have to fear for my safety on a regular basis. At the beginning of the year, I came home from work to find the parking lot fenced off with police tape and frantic girls chattering on their cell phones about how a resident was held at gun point and had her car stolen.
From my residence hall room window, I watched again as the police came to investigate another incident involving a knife in the shadowy secluded parking lot.
When I first was considering the University of Kansas, my parents and I went on a tour of the residence hall and one of the things we heard over and over again from the housing department was that the University planned on putting in cameras in the parking lot.
I was unable to understand how two violent encounters could happen and we still weren't getting cameras; I went to the Parking Department's open meeting in October with my concerns.
According to them, it was the police department that was responsible for the cameras. Instead of getting cameras, we got an extension of lawwalk to Corbin Hall.
There, I was told that it wasn't the Parking Department's problem.
Last week I came home to see three or four police officers on my floor and nervous girls talking of a drug overdose involving two residents of my hall, one from my floor.
Since all of these incidents, we have had absolutely no action or precautions taken to prevent further terrifying encounters.
There were no floor meetings to talk about safety, no noticeable increase in police patrolling the parking lots and no one to come and talk to us about what to do in case we find ourselves in a similar situation.
We have a problem here at GSP/Corbin. Unlike most problems at the residence halls, there is more at stake than the discomfort or inconvenience of the residents. This is something very serious that no one in University administration seems to put as any type of priority.
Something needs to change, and yes, it will take time and money. Honestly, I would be willing to pay more for my residence hall if I knew for a fact that I could feel safe living there.
Part of the freshman experience is not clutching your keys sharp edge out sprinting from the parking lot scared out of your mind that someone will try and assault you.
We not only deserve what we were promised, but have a real and immediate need. I'm not saying that cameras in the parking lot could have prevented any of the safety problems that we have had here at GSP/Corbin. Yet in light of the several dangerous incidents here at my residence hall, it is time for the University, the Parking Department and the Housing Department to step it up and start caring about the safety of the residents here at my residence hall.
- Tarbutton is an Overland Park freshman *
SACK'S PERSPECTIVE
Steve Sack/STAR TRIBUNE
Columnist doesn't regret taking diverse viewpoint
TIERRA TALKS
"When we are moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other." — from the Crash movie trailer.
TIERRA SCOTT
tscott@kansan.com
This has been a semester full of surprises, some were expected, others were not. I have concluded that through my
concluded that although the opinion columns, I may have managed to land a spot in the University's top-10 list of most hated and controversial University Daily Kansan writers.
It seems that some of the student body was displeased — to put it mildly — with the content of my columns. Despite those reactions, I believe I have fulfilled the duties assigned to me at the beginning of this semester.
As an opinion columnist, you have the right to be biased. At the same time, I tried to be as straightforward as possible and leave little room for miscommunication or misunderstanding.
As fate would have it, some readers managed to overreact to each of my articles because they refused to take the time to read the column fully and carefully and to give it serious thought.
I am a confident individual, and therefore did not react negatively toward an e-mail — in response to my column on rap music — telling me that I am an ignorant racist who has disgraced the University and needs to go back to Africa.
As CNN reminds us, readers relinquish the full story for the convenient piecemeal observation. I respect a reader's opinion, but only when they have bothered to examine the entire column.
In fact, I would like to thank those who wrote to me for giving me the motivation that I needed to continue with my articles.
Simply reading the headline or portions of a column with which you agree is not what I expect from enlightened University students.
When a publication lacks diversity, then some issues are not given the multiple perspectives that they deserve.
I applied to be an opinion columnist to add some diversity to the Kansan, not to become the most controversial writer of the semester.
a little bit by sharing my outlook on some issues that are important to me.
I decided to spice things up
If I did not address issues that you thought were important and you thought that my articles were ludicrous, then you, too, can become an opinion columnist. Simply go the Kansan located in Stauffer-Flint and follow the road to writing guest columns — we need the diversity.
I had fun writing the columns, but I also learned a number of lessons.
As the recently released film Crash warns, "When we are moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other."
More than ever, I am convinced that the University needs to take more concrete steps to better prepare us for those "collisions." And because it is not only an institutional responsibility, we need to take individual steps as well.
in order for this campus community to grow and for us to prepare ourselves for the world that lies beyond "the Hill," students must learn to respect each other's opinions no matter how unusual they might be. The truth is, the University will be your home until you graduate or as long as you are here.
Therefore, it is up to you to make the most out of an exceedingly rare experience while you are here. These few years are unlike any that you will ever encounter.
Attending college is not entirely about gaining book knowledge; it is also about gaining life lessons through the people that we encounter.
So, be prepared for those collisions.
Scott is a Chicago junior in journalism.
CORPRATOCRACY
STEPHEN SHUPE
sshupe@kansan.com
Media bloats U.S. foreign policy acts
On a quiet day in Washington, D.C., if the weather is right and you're out and about, you can witness a strange spectacle. A caravan of 32 cars rolls down Pennsylvania Avenue. Near the back, machine guns stick out of a black SUV. As the vice president sits comfortably behind tinted windows, his movements are marked by the appearance of erect roadblocks.
I was talking with a professor friend of mine recently, and he said, "This is the direction now." By that he meant: The United States is becoming a quasi-fascist state.
Now before you sit down, dear reader, to remind me in a strongly-worded letter that "Bush won the election" and I'm "anti-American," please read on. None of the issues discussed here on the 2004 ballot, including Dick Cheney's travel habits. And I'm not anti-American. On the contrary, I want to stem the ominous tide.
Lets start 10 months ago, with the death of Ronald Reagan.
The media coverage, as you'll recall, was enormously positive: America had lost a great hero. Missing in the coverage was some perspective on what it meant for a nation to consider such a man one of its heroes. After all, Reagan was the guy who engaged in international terror campaigns throughout the 1980s. A journalist returning from Guatemala reported: "One is tempted to believe that some people in the White House worship Aztec gods — with the offering of Central American blood."
Later that summer in 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made minced meat out of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The nation seemed evenly split on whether the Vietnam War had been a good idea.
The war under question had nearly wiped out the country of South Vietnam in the 1960s. As many as four million Indo-Chinese perished, and tens of millions more were displaced from their homes. Even so, Americans continued to wrestle with the moral questions presented by the conflict. Did we care about a few million peasants who we killed or not?
Aside from Iraq, we could also discuss acts of aggression by the current administration. The CIA under President Bush government backed a coup to remove the democratically elected president of Venezuela, and the White House supported the overthrow of the president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide. The difference between the mainstream media coverage at home and the actual situation on the ground was the difference between night and day.
I refuse to believe that everyone on the right of the political spectrum knows about these events and supports them. Maybe that's a part of growing up that I missed. But if not, this leaves the rest of us with an opportunity. We have to create a forum for unlimited debate, so that all issues are on the table.
To do that, we're going to have to get away from the corporate media and expand alternative resources. Start by inviting friends over to watch CSPAN, where viewers can hear voices as Noam Chomsky and Chalmers Johnson. Go to democracynow.org, which covered the story of the U.S. overthrow of President Aristide of Haiti. Publish your own rage and send it to prisoners at Leavenworth.
Things are going to get worse before they get better. We could be bombing Iran by the time class resumes in the fall. We'll feel small at first and people will call us naive. But remember: In 1965, 100 people gathered on the Boston Common to protest the Vietnam War. On October 15, 1969, about two million people assembled in towns that had never seen an anti-war protest. And just six years later, the bombs had stopped dropping, the children had stopped crying and the soldiers had returned home.
♦ Shupe is an Augusta graduate student in journalism.
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Perhaps all Catholics, including Catholic editors, need to realize that it's not the Vatican that needs to change their principles, but the lay Catholics who need to change their values and practices.
Yeah, the new Star Wars movie is going to suck, but that's not going to stop me from dressing up as Yoda and going to the premiere showing. Anyone else with on that one?
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Does anyone notice in the Guinness commercial that the guy drinks his suntan lotion instead of his beer?
I can't think of anything right now.
ing capris.
Yeah, I just got done with my journalism campaigns class, and I'm now getting more stoned than humanly possible, which is not actually humanly possible.
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I'm pretty sure I just saw a guy wear-
We didn't grow moustaches just because ESPN was coming to town to watch us play. We grew the moustaches because of one Tom Selleck, aka Magnum P.I., the slickest-looking man ever.
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Man, I feel so much like Pedro right now.
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