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Wednesday, January 13, 1988/University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Student Senate's efforts help in fight against AIDS
According to the national Centers for Disease Control, if AIDS continues to spread at its current rate, 10 percent of the student population on college campuses will be infected. For KU that means about 2,500 students, says Charles Yockey, Watkins Hospital chief of staff.
In light of these facts, the Student Senate and its AIDS task force should be commended for their efforts in educating KU students through "safer-sex" kits.
There is no cure for AIDS. And once it is contracted, death within a few months or years is inevitable.
Abstinence is one way of avoiding AIDS, but at KU, as on other college campuses, between 50 percent and 70 percent of the student body is sexually active. Virtually none of these students are using condoms, which experts say help protect against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Many other sexually transmitted diseases thrive at KU. For example, about 10 percent of us have chlamydia, an infection with symptoms similar to those of gonorrhea. And last semester, Watkins Hospital treated 1,400 women for venereal warts, which if untreated can cause cervical cancer.
Senate and task force officials said the condoms they distributed were included in the kits to spark controversy and discussion about AIDS and safer-sex practices. The condoms did just that.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is a health threat without parallel in our time, and information and education are two of the weapons available to combat it.
Another weapon is increased use of the condom. But before use will increase, attitudes must change.
Alison Young for the editorial board
Give the coach a chance
Add another loss — make the 1887 KU football record read 1-10-1. Yeah, we blew it again.
Only this one we were supposed to win, right? What else had we been hearing and reading for days but that Earle Bruce, former Ohio State coach, would be our next football coach, that he was ours, in the basket, lid down, take him home and hang him up.
Oh, well. On Dec 16, the few and the true (fans, that is) were treated, once more, to that which had so effectively corroded their livers the previous three months — the familiar fleeting glimpse of victory flying quickly away.
So. what did we get?
We got Glen Mason, a coach with no big-time college experience who kept us waiting two weeks while keeping his own eyes firmly fixed on the available coaching job at Ohio State, the school that eventually spurred him.
What could be better than that? Seriously, it could be the best deal KU never wanted.
Here we've got a young man who's hungry, full of scratch and spit, facing his first shot at coaching a big-time university in a big-time league. So far, it's the opportunity of his lifetime.
Bruce has made his name in sports. He could have walked in here, totally fouled up everything that wasn't already totally fouled up, walked out, and he'd still be a rich, successful retired coach. Besides, his most recent coaching memories are of a good team slowly worsening.
Mason, however, remembers a mediocre team slowly getting better. He took Kent State to 5-6 in 1986, 7-4 in 1987. If he screws up this job, it's probably back to the salt mines of the Mid-American Conference, from whence he came.
Bob Frederick, KU athletic director; Give the guy at least five years to show his stuff. Don't can him in the meantime. Alumni: Just hand over,your checks, enjoy the games and butt out.
Students, faculty, innocent bystanders, everybody: Go and cheer for your team, the fighting Jayhawks.
Coach Mason: Approach the job as an end in itself, not as a quick steppingstone to a better job. (Thinking of you, Mike Gottfried.) Pour your heart into it, turn the program around, and then you can go anywhere you want, although in that case you would certainly be welcome to stay.
Paul Belden for the editorial board
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the Kansan editorial board.
News staff
Alison Young...Editor
Todd Cohen...Managing editor
Rob Knapp...News editor
Alan Player...Editorial editor
George Robello...Campus manager
Jennifer Rowland...Planning editor
Anne Luscombe...Sports editor
Stephen Wade...Photo editor
Richard Stewart...Graphics editor
Tom Ebble...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Kelly Scherer...Business manager
Clark Massad...Retail sales manager
Brad Lenhart...Campus sales manager
Robert Hughes...Marketing manager
Kurt Messersmith...Production manager
Greg Knipn...National manager
Kris Schorno...Traffic manager
Jennie Brown...Classified manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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JIMBORGMANCINNATIEMBER@KR7
Kansan to focus on campus news
Since it was first published nearly a century ago, the University Daily Kansan has become one of the nation's leading college dailies. It has become a regular part of the lives of its readers and an obsession for many of its staff members.
Each day, the Kansan brings its nearly 16,000 readers the news of the University, Lawrence and surrounding areas, along with the important national and international news.
Our first priority is to cover the news as it relates to KU and University life. This includes covering the University administration, professional schools, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, housing, the Kansas and Burge Unions, libraries, the arts and student government.
We recognize that for many students, the Kansan is their primary, and in some cases only, source of news. For this reason, the Kansan will work to provide greater coverage of national and international news.
Our reporters will give you the city, county and police news. And two reporters will cover the Kansas Legislature, telling you how its actions will affect you and the University of Kansas.
These stories will be on page 7. This redesigned Nation / World page will have more national and international news summaries, giving you a wider survey of the day's events.
Keep in mind that we do not seek to be a primary source for national and international
Alison Young Editor
news. We have neither the space nor the resources
Page 2 now will be the home of such regular items as a crime map, Police Record, On-Call and案件档案.
Another change in the spring Kansan will be the addition of a features page each Thursday. The focus of this page will rotate among the areas of leisure, health, living and science.
The arts will receive greater coverage throughout the week on the news pages. And the Friday events will be broadcast on ABC.
Regular Kansan features, such as Sports Monday and Tuesday Forum, will continue.
All of this will be brought to you by our staff of student journalists.
Imagine working 50 or more hours a week — and not getting paid for it. Add to this a full slate of classes. This is reality for our 22 staff reporters, who are expected to write a story each day.
Kansan editors also put in long hours. And each semester, everyone from reporters on up are new
to their jobs.
Despite this newness, several Kansan staff members have professional journalism experience. Many have completed or will complete internships on such newspapers as the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Des Moines Register, Kansas City Star and Times, Wichita Eagle-Beacon and Topeka Capital-Journal.
Even with these credentials, the Kansan cannot do its job without help from its readers.
We need to know what stories interest you. Do you know someone with a special talent? Let us know. Are you caught in the University or government bureaucracy? Let us know. That's why we're here?
Did we leave something out of a story or make a mistake? Let us know that, too.
If you want to voice your opinion about something, give us a call or, better yet, write us a letter. Your letter can be published and your opinion shared with others. If you have a lot to say, talk with our editorial editor about writing a guest column.
Just remember that the Kansan is your newspaper, and we'll work to provide you with the news you want and need.
Alison Young is an Omaha, Neb., senior majoring in journalism.
Overdue accounts can still cause fear
Computer-printed letters replace bill collectors, but intimidation remains
My phone just rang and a man identified himself as being from my favorite bookstore.
I said: "Huh?"
He said: "Your account is $4.29 overdue."
He asked me when I intended to pay the $4.29 that was overdue on my account.
He sounded very businesslike.
He said: "Your account is $4.29 overdue." He sounded very businesslike.
I said: "I'm $4.29 overdue?
"Uh, gee, how long have I been overdue?"
"Three weeks," he said.
"If that is true," I said, "I will pay it immediately."
"Fine," he said, and hung up.
I checked. He was right. I hadn't paid the $4.29.
I wasn't trying to beat the store out of it. Honest, it was an oversight.
The fact is, I usually pay my bills on time. I have to be prompt because of the terrible consequences. When I hear from a bill collector or get an angry letter from a computer, I give the shakes. My mouth gets dry, my heart pounds and I begin panting like a thirsty basset bound.
I have a morbid fear of bill collectors. This stems from a traumatic childhood experience. Almost everybody who grew up in the old neighborhood has it.
For a few days each month, everybody in the neighborhood would turn out all their lights when the sun went down. And they would all sit around their apartments or houses in pitch darkness.
That wasn't the reason. We were ducking bill collectors. Until the next paycheck came, nobody answered the phone or a knock at the door. All the
"It is good for your eyes," the old man would explain.
cars were parked six blocks away so they wouldn't be repossessed.
You couldn't scare any of the kids in my neighborhood by saying the booie man would get us. But we were all terrified of Friendly Bob Adams.
To this day, the fear lingers. People don't hear from bill collectors very often. Instead, we have the computerized letter that begins:
'Dear Customer: WARNING - YOUR
*Dear Customer* IS OVERDUE IF YOU WISH TO
*REMAIN*
I once got that kind of letter from a credit card company. I hate credit cards. But if you don't have one and try to pay cash, nobody trusts you. That evening, I turned out the lights, locked the
That evening, I turned out the door doors and wouldn't respond to any knocks.
I wouldn't even answer when my kids yelled: "It's us, Dad, unlock the door." Bill collectors can disguise their voices. The kids slept under the porch that night.
As a result of this deep-seated fear, I have developed my own way of shopping.
Unlike most customers, I don't necessarily look for the most sturdy product, the lowest price, or the brand that Ralph Nader says won't turn me into a tumorous mouse.
I deal only with companies that send out gentle.
kindly letters. If I forget to pay a bill on time, I want to hear from a nice computer that says:
"Hi, Cherished Customer: We hate to bother you, and we're sure it is only an oversight or the Postal Service's fault, but we thought we'd drop a little reminder that you are a tense bit late on your account. If your remittance is already in the mail, feel free to spit in our face, hear?"
So that is it with me and the bookstore. Even before my $4.29 gets there, they will have a letter telling them to scratch me off their credit-card list.
It's not that I think they shouldn't have called. They were absolutely right in doing so. If I owe them $4.29, and I'm three weeks late in paying, I don't blame them for getting nervous and phoning me at work. For all they know, I might have skipped out to Costa Rica.
suggested one to take.
They are in business. And as Franklin Pierce Adams once said: "Christmas is over and Business is business." (I know he said that because I looked it up in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, which I bought at that store.)
But from now on, it is cash on the barrelhead at some other bookstore.
It has to be this way. I might forget again. And the next time, it could be for $4.99. For that amount, they might have somebody call me up and yell, and I'd probably choke on my tongue.
As it is, I'm the only person in the office today who is typing his column in a closet.
Editor's note: Mike Royko is on vacation for two weeks. While he is gone, we are reprinting some of his favorite columns. This first appeared July 19, 1977.
BLOOM COUNTY
bv Berke Breathed