4
Thursday, April 28, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Project lets students learn while also helping children
For most students, working on a class project is just something they do to make a grade. But for some engineering students at the University of Kansas, a class project meant a little more.
little more.
Terry Faddis, associate professor of mechanical engineering,
asked students in one of his classes to design devices to make play easier for mobility-impaired children. The KU students visited children at the Capper Foundation in Topeka to get an idea of the needs of children with limited mobility.
idea of the needs of children with learning disabilities. For their class project, the students worked at designing devices that would be easier for children to operate than wheelchairs. The new devices would have to require minimal strength, be close to the ground, adapt to terrain changes and allow children to get in and out easily.
Faddis said the project was designed to bring together everything that the students had learned and give them the challenge of applying their knowledge.
Jeff Brake, Overland Park senior and a member of the class, said the students were excited about the project because this was the first time students in the class actually were required to build what they designed.
to build what they designed.
"Any mechanical design is quite a task, but there's an additional feeling of achievement when your work helps others," he said.
By having his students design and build mobility aids for children, Faddis gave his students a taste of real-world engineering; and mobility-impaired children may end up with a device that makes play more fun. Everybody wins.
Alan Player for the editorial board
Keep Persian Gulf promises
It is in our national interest to keep the Persian Gulf open for shipping. No doubt about it — we need a free flow of oil. But if the requirement for keeping the middle-east pipeline open means extending aid to any vessel under attack in the gulf, there are some questions that need to be answered.
there are some questions that need to be answered. Recent action should have shown Iran that the United States will not continue to roll over in the face of its aggressive moves. And now, the Reagan administration has hinted to Iran that the U.S. Navy could come to the aid of not only U.S.-flagged vessels but any neutral ship that Iran may choose to attack.
that they have against Iran? The administration has to be careful when it uses the justification of 'free navigation' and insure that the rules of engagement are applied in a non-partisan manner. To take sides while preaching a sermon on free navigation would be damaging to our national image.
attack.
What does the administration define as a neutral vessel? And further, what if Iraq chooses to attack a ship that is defined as being neutral? Will the U.S. Navy respond in the same way that they have against Iran?
If the American people are expected to become the policemen of the Persian Gulf and to pay with their taxes, and their servicemen, then it should be done for reasons of principle and national interest. Not for a venture that enriches certain royal sheikdoms.
Van Jenerette for the editorial board
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board
Other Voices
End capital punishment racism
Whether the death penalty is moral or not, one fact rings clearly as unjust about it. Studies show racial discrimination plays a role in deciding who gets sentenced to die.
pass a vote in deciding who gets sent to Georgia, for example, black defendants found guilty of murdering white victims were 11 times more likely to receive the death sentence.
Clearly the justice system is not infallible in its application of the death sentence. The Racial Justice Act would make it more difficult to racially discriminate when handing down the death penalty.
the death sentence. In April, a Racial Justice Act will be introduced in Congress to safeguard against racial bias when a capital punishment sentence is handed down. The act would establish a process to appeal these sentences if the decision was found to be racially biased.
The Daily Collegian Pennsylvania State University
Alison Young...Editor
Todd Cohen...Managing editor
Rob Knapp...New editor
Alan Player...Editorial editor
Joseph Rebello...Campus editor
Jennifer Rowland...Planning editor
Anne Luscombe...Sports editor
Stephen Wade...Photo editor
Richard Stewart...Graphics editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news admin
Business staff
News staff
Kelly Scherer ... Business manager
Clark Massad ... Retail sales manager
Brad Lenhart ... Campus sales manager
Robert Hughes ... Marketing manager
Kurt Messersamth ... Production manager
Greg Knipp ... National manager
Kris Schormo ... Traffic manager
Kimberly Coleman ... Classified manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and less than 200 words and must include the student's signature, name, address and telephone number. If the writer requests it with the University of Kansas, please include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
faculty or staff position
Guest colour pictures could be type, double-spaced and less than 700 words. The images could also be photographed.
The hotel offers a variety of sit-out dates and guest rooms. They
The KansanResident has the right to reject or edit letters and guest columns. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 State Street, Berkeley, CA 94720. Letters, guest columns are addressed to the writer and do not optionally reflect the views of the University Daily Kansan. Editorials are the opinion of the Kansian editorial board.
writer will be photographed. The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters and guest columns. They will also send the Kangan, newroom, 111 Stuaffer-Flint Hall.
The University Daily Kansan (USPS 650-940) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuffer-Flint Hall. Insurance, Kan. 66044, daily during the regular school year, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods, and Wednesday. Annual summer session. Second-class postage is paid in Kan. 66044. Annual subscriptions by mail are $50. Student subscriptions are $3 and are paid through the student activity fee.
subscriptions are $3 and are paid to the southern campus,
POSTMARKT FIRST HALL, Lawrence, KA 6045, to the University Daily Kansan, 118
FIRST HALL, Lawrence, KA 6045.
"OF COURSE, WE REPUBLICANS NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH SUCH UNTIDY MATTERS..."
Fighting drugs is not the solution Problem must be tackled from the angle of why people need to escape
All this talk of cracking down on Colombian drug producers had me worried for awhile.
WHERE
My way of choice, you see, is Colombian. I like it black, strong and freshly ground. And I mean the real thing, not that pantywain decaffeinated muck. I am thoroughly addicted.
I had these nightmares. Visions of the feet of Juan Valdez, dragging slimly in the dirt between two enormous Marines. Images of glittering, lovely steaming walls in the sea, the sea, the salt, the energetic sharks.
fribbie class at a kind soul explained to me that it was coffee they were after but a different, more dangerous and powerful stimulus. So I poured a cup of nectar and with a clear eye and sharp mind gave thought to the anti-drug rhetoric swirling about. And I got worried again.
Because we do not have a drug problem in this country.
We don't have a drug problem in this country; we have a suicide problem.
country.
Drugs are inanimate. Very rarely do they sneak up behind you and climb up your nose or jump down your throat. We use them voluntarily, though it is no secret that drugs, from alcohol to heroin to Valium, to cigarettes and Little Globs of Sugar breakfast cereal, will kill us sooner or later.
Jay A.
Cohen
Staff Columnist
or ammunition will be with us if we do not stop pretending that a little more money and cops will seal a combined border and coastline of some 18,000 miles; that it would matter if they could. If we do not turn our attention toward why the demand for drugs is so strong, why so many of us embrace suicide, then the current problem will be as the acorn to the oak.
And so there is talk of a "Drug War." We want to send the Good Guys to shoot the Bad Guys, and make it all better, just like on TV. Us vs. Scum. A simpler concept, easier to face, especially when we can hire mercenaries to face it for us.
But suicide has no color, no gold chains and no evil grins. It does not speak a foreign language. Suicide is in the mirror, in our own weakness, in our own cowardice.
And no matter how many dealers we kill or users we bust or fields we burn, drugs of one kind or another will be with us.
we can hire mercurial staff. But Sum is in the mirror as well. There is no moratorium between the drug distributors and good American businessmen who sell whisky and greasy fast food, leak toxic chemicals, fight pollution controls, and defraud the defense department.
No difference exists between the Colombian peasant grateful to the drug lord who provided his job, and the American peasant who admires the corporate CEOs with multi-million dollar salaries and wage cuts for the laborer. If fast boats and submachine guns are not visible in their business
Don't lie me wrong. I am a believer in the capitalist system. It is the only one yet devised that actually works. If there is opportunity for crooks, there is also room for honest people and high quality products to succeed. But as world population grows and minorities here gain the power to truly demand a fair share of the spoils, the fight for pieces of a dwindling pie will become more difficult, more complicated. Our lives will become more tense, the future more uncertain and thus more frightening. The desire for escape will grow.
it is only because they have found more efficient means of preying on the public. But they have used them in the past, and they will use them again if they feel the need.
Jay A. Cohen is an Alta Vista senior majoring in journalism.
Dear KU:
What joy!
Thanks from Denmark
What joy!
The coach. The player. The team. The title.
And bragging rights in Copenhagen!
Thanks for it all.
Stephen Grabow
Visiting Fulbright Professor
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
Coach needs better plan
While visiting a KU student last weekend, we attended the Saturday baseball games with Kansas State. We watched some talented KU players humiliated by a spirited K-State team. After the first game, the same KU players returned to the field and were again defeated by a lopsided 25-3 score. Never during the second game, even with the score 20-2, did the KU substitute a player, other than pitchers, from the bench. Surely some of those nine or 10 young men who had warmed the bench for five hours could have injected some new spirit into their teammates. The psychology of the KU coach escaped me today when I read an article in the Wichita Eagle-Beacon. Coach Bingham explained that he wasn't a psychologist. He disciplines his players because he can't spank them as he does his own children. This from a university and Olympic coach? As a teacher, I know that human beings respond to positive reinforcement, and that self-image directly affects
performance. I suggest Coach Bingham enroll in psychology class and sign up for charisma class with Larry Brown.
Karen Wright
With his president
Hypocrisy disappoints
Once again I am disappointed by your newspaper's inaccurate reporting on crucial issues. Besides being hopelessly and misleadingly misquoted, your quotation of the anti-Israeli graffiti was falsely labeled as being anti-Semitic (Palestinians are Semites too, you know).
I am heart-wrenchingly appalled by the terrorism against Professor Katzman. That such a wicked, hateful act can occur at the University of Kansas is a frightening reminder of the rampant ignorance still lurking everywhere in our societies. I find it high distressing that this would happen to any person at all.
ing that this would reinforce I am equally disgusted with the hypocrisy surrounding nearly every aspect of the Israeli question. Yes, terrorism and human rights violations have been showered upon the Jews for militants, but none the less pro-Israeli people are more than willing to suppress people's freedom of speech in blind support of Israel. It happens when the Israeli lobby financially subsidizes the opponents of congressmen who speak out against Israeli governmental policy, and it happens when individuals are wrongly accused of insensitivity and Anti-Semitism if they voice their honest opinions about Israel.
tools would be. We also like to comment Andrea Katzman on her beautiful compassionate statement also in April 21's Kansas. I respect her as I respect all people, but the harsh reality of Israeli policy toward Palestinians only highlights the complete lack of conviction. I see so
often these days. The hypocrisy of Israeli policymakers is astounding. We frequently (and justifiably) hear about historical Jewish persecution, and about Arab aggression and terrorism against Israel, but then they behave if other human beings and nations did not have the identical rights they so vehemently demand. Two prime examples are the killings of more than 150 Palestinian nationalists and one 15-year-old Jewish girl at the hands of Israeli soldiers, and the alleged Israeli invasion of the sovereign state of Tunisia to perpetuate the Mossad's brutal assassination of the late PLO military leader Abu Jibd.
This flagrant act of war is far beyond the right of self-defense afforded free nations under our system of world politics. I am not denying Israel this right, and I certainly do not contest the existence of Israel, a vital concession many Arabs refuse to allow. But by the same token, I have no doubts about the existence of a unique Palestinian state either.
The radically conservative Israeli government is effectively slitting its own throat with its stubbornness. By absolutely refusing to pursue a rational, diplomatic solution, they necessitate a bloody, violent resolution. Their present policies will only perpetuate the bilateral escalation of Arab/Israelian stills someday Israel will have no longer recourse than to drop the stockpiled weapons they have acquired in the Eastern conflict has grown immensely, and is a hell of a lot closer to home. It would be such a shame if our lives, and maybe those of our entire species, were cut short by a global nuclear war which could have been prevented with just a little honest compassion and understanding from everyone.
Nikolas Huffman Lawrence senior
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed