4a
Opinion
Monday, December 11,2000
For comments, contact Ben Voosen Embry or Emily Hughey at 864-4924 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com
Perspective
Several parties deserve blame for fatal wreck
series of stupid, sad mistakes killed Felecia Bland.
Bland, 39, died Sept. 16 in a car accident on K-10 highway just east of the Kill Creek exit in Johnson County. Police say Sean Scott, the 16-year-old driver of the car that crossed the median and struck Bland's car, had been drinking heavily both at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house and the Wheel.
We at the Kansan have known for more than two months about the circumstances surrounding the accident. Until Friday, we couldn't disclose them because the
Kansas Highway Patrol refused to release the accident report.
accident report.
If you didn't read Friday's Kansan, here's a recap. Scott went to the Phi Gamma Delta house, where his brother Mike is a pledge. A fraternity member drove the Scotts to the Wheel, where both drank. They later returned to the fraternity house and drank more. Then Sean Scott got in his car and started speeding on K-10
Chris Borniger
managing_editor
option@hansan.com
toward Lenexa to visit his girlfriend. He never got there.
Bland, who was wearing her seatbelt, was pinned in her car, where she died. Scott, who wasn't wearing his seatbelt, was ejected from his car and suffered a broken wrist. He told ambulance workers at the scene he had drunk "a lot," highway patrol trooper Mathew Heffey said.
We've been trying diligently to confirm the story since we first heard about it. Reporters and editors repeatedly have been stonewalled by the highway patrol while trying to obtain accident records. So we're suing, and we think the law is on our side.
Stepping out of my journalist shoes, however, I'm disgusted. A lot of people directly contributed to this tragedy, and a lot of people could have prevented it as well.
A lot of you probably are wondering why we've worked so feverishly to develop this story. The values we hold dear — including truth, accountability and justice — play profound roles in the newsgathering process, and this story appeals strongly to those values.
This isn't your standard, dime-a-dozen 'alcohol-and-drunk-driving-are-bad' column. This is a call for those responsible to step forward and apologize to Bland's family.
Shame on Phi Gamma Delta fraternity members for helping a 16-year-old boy nearly drink himself into oblivion. (A fraternity member said other members tried to hide Sean Scott's keys. Shame on them for not hiding the keys better.)
Shame on Sean Scott, obviously. Shame on Mike Scott for setting a poor example for his sibling and letting him drive while wildly intoxicated.
Shame on the employees of the Wheel. Granted, underage drinking in Lawrence bars is nothing new. But if the bar's bouncers checked IDs, how in the world could a peach-fuzz-faced 16-year-old pass for 21?
Felecia Bland was an active parishioner at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, where she was a eucharistic minister and an integral organizer of the church's annual Fiesta Mexicana.
Why the fickle finger of fate took the life of a community servant — with her seat-belt buckled, nonetheless — instead of an out-of-control, drunken, unbuckled teenager just doesn't seem fair.
The injustice of Bland's death boggles the mind. For justice to prevail, Sean Scott should be tried as an adult and sentenced to the maximum possible penalty. And to the other responsible parties: Personally, I hope Bland's family sues you into poverty.
That won't bring Fleecia Bland back, and it certainly won't replace her. So here's a novel idea: Next June, those responsible should lend a hand (physically and financially) to St. John's Fiesta Mexicana. It's the least they could do.
Borniger is a Wichita senior in journalism.
John Trever / TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Kansan.com poll
Last week's question What should Student Senate do with excess funds? Build bus shelters. Invest in the stock market so the dividends can be used each year for something new. Add air conditioning to the buses.
- Apply it to reduce student fees for the Fall 2001 semester.
- Save it for something big.
- Other.
Note: This poll is not scientific. Numbers may not add up to 100 because of rounding. Number of votes: 155
Perspective
Alternatives could deter immature false fire alarms
Ten fire alarms have interrupted the sleep of some 900 McCollum residents thus far in the year. Ten fire alarms, most at various early hours of the morning in which sleep is vital, have shaken us from slumber.
Is it fun to have to walk outside at 2:30 a.m. on a school night because one person in the entire complex has yet to grow up? Conversely, is it funny to disturb hundreds
Shouldn't fire alarms be reserved for real emergencies?
of sleeping people and provoke their ire based only on some infantile whim?
This disgruntled resident doesn't find it amusing or entertaining. Not one bit — especially when the false alarms come on the morning of important tests and exams and steal more than an hour of precious sleep.
Brandon Cox
guest columnist
oinario at kanan.com
Matt Damon and
Matt Dahon and strawberry lemonade are the least of this author's worries; sleep, however, is a high priority. Nobody will see this student submitting peacefully and happily to the juvenile amusement of some (likely irresponsibly, inebriated) cohabitant.
Fire alarms are not only a public nuisance (and a federal offense) but, in a university environment, a dire hazard to education and that all-encompassing grade point average.
Nobody pays for disrupted sleep or wasted time here (perhaps there should be a McCollum-resident discount on tuition bills). We are collectively, if not individually, adults and have the responsibilities of
such. Thus, there is no reason to make 900 people upset and weary for an immature laugh.
Many solutions to this burgeoning problem would satiate most residents, including this one. For the price of a single response to a false alarm, McCollum could have $1,000 more to spend on alarm-prevention and building improvements. Simple ink jets on the alarms would betray perpetrators, marking their hands and submitting them to the wrath of 899 students and the Department of Student Housing.
Glass plates over the alarms would likely defer some of the pathetic excuses for KU students. The list goes on and, and, for every $1,000 worth of wasted money, wouldn't it be worth it to spend money in advance on prevention and save the wrath of hundreds of people?
Until that point, however, this writer can only see the at the lack of maturity demonstrated by a few residents—not quietly, no, and not gracefully. Until these people grow up, the rest of us will be miserable. Who wants this? Would we rather sit and walk, sleep-weary in supplication, to the lawn every week in the early morning hours? Are we going to be sheep and be trodden over by the evident stupidity that is ever present? We don't attend Kindergarten University.
Until the Housing Department or the ludicrously immature students wake up, this angry fourth-floor resident will continue in his tirade and refuse to accept this foul hand. So, if your choice is to pull false fire alarms in your stupeffied amusement then you haven't fully experienced the disturbances of these insufferable fire alarms yet. Grow up, McCollum. Wake up. If you're not too busy trying to catch up on your lost sleep, that is.
Cox is a Lenexa freshman in liberal arts.
Editorial
GTAs need higher wages, more benefits
The University should heed GTAC's request for better benefits.
Negotiations are currently underway between the University of Kansas and the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition (GTAC) to discuss proposals for better health care, higher pay and better benefits for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). The University should make changes in favor of graduate teaching assistants.
GTAs make up an important part of the academic community at KU. The University should take their needs seriously and accommodate them as much as possible.
GTAs are an essential part of the learning process at KU, as in any school. They make the material of large lecture courses more accessible to students and easier to understand, acting as a link between students and professors. As GTAs are still students themselves, and most of them young in age, they can relate better to the people they are instructing.
The role of a GTA inherently involves two parts and combines two lifestyles--that of student and that of instructor.
As students, GTAs have to cope with all the adversities of undergraduate and graduate student life—of which is limited finances. As instructors, they have the added responsibility of effectively transmitting some of their knowledge to other students. Though fulfilling, teaching for the University leaves them with less free time than the average student, and limits their time to have another job that generates a better income.
If GTAs feel their needs are not met, the University should accommodate their requests. If GTAs feel respected and valued by the University, they will perform better in their positions and students will learn more. Ensuring an environment conducive to higher learning is paramount at any university. KU is no exception. The University should support its promise of a high quality education to students by providing GTAs with the benefits, health care and higher pay they deserve.
Cynthia Malakasis for the editorial board
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. The Kansas reserves the right to edit submissions, and not all of them will be published. Slanderous statements will not be printed. To read more, go to www.kansan.com.
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What's wrong with this school? We don't have a fall break and a shorter winter break.
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If Coke manufacturered soap, don't you think we'd have decent soap on campus?
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How am I going to get my Free for All over winter break?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is college and not first grade. I'd appreciate it if I had one class this semester where the people around me didn't talk through the whole lecture. Stay home if that's all you're going to do.
The Kansan should print a TV guide in every issue.
Thank you for the free T shirt at the blood drive, and thanks for not spell checking it.
KU basketball is like an opossum. They play dead on the road.
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窗
Campus cops can give out tickets really well, but they can't catch campus rapists.
To those who thought the KU basketball team was invincible: I guess the Demon Deacons gave you a reality check.
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Roy should have gone to North Carolina.
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KU should offer personals or a dating service.
The Kansan is a wonderful paper ... for me to poop on!
Why were the flags not flown at half-mast on Pearl Harbor day?
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Is it weird that I have a golf shoe fetish?
What this country needs is another South Park movie.
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In December, we start to fall apart.
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