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Tuesday, November 16, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSA
VIEWPOINT
一
Respect your pups; do not tie them up
Campus is a wonderful place for walking your dog,but tying up a dog during class is inhumane and inconsiderate. Dogs and their owners are
fixtures on this campus. Many people bring their animals to campus to exercise them on the Hill, but others bring their dogs to campus only to tie them to a tree outside their classrooms.
This practice is inhumane to the animal, it disturbs the surrounding classes, and most important, it is dangerous to the animal, especially during cold weather. What purpose does tying a pet to a tree or post serve? It has absolutely no benefit to the animal. Dogs love to be outside when they can run around and play, not when they are chained up.
The strongest argument against leaving dogs chained up outside is the risk to their health in extreme weather. Some dogs can handle cold weather if they are used to being outside for extended periods of time, but it becomes unhealthy when you take a dog out of its home environment and force it to remain outside. Also, most dogs tied up on campus are without water. The amount of water a dog needs varies, depending on its age. Puppies and older dogs generally require more water.
Often, the most popular place for tying up dogs is beside Wescoe Hall. On most days, more than one dog is tied up in this vicinity. When two or more dogs are tied up in close proximity and are not free to "socialize" with each other, both start barking. This creates a situation that not only bothers passersby, but also disturbs classes in progress.
If you really care for your dog, take it for a walk on campus or any of the other beautiful places Lawrence has to offer, but please don't bring it to campus just to tie it up.
DAVID WANEK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Crime bill tackles gangs; Senate must vote for it
Passing the anti-gang amendment offered by Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to the crime bill was a necessary and beneficial addition that will help curb violence in our streets. The entire crime bill has yet to be voted upon.
Recent gang-related activities in Topeka and Wichita illustrate how widespread and universal gang violence has become. The amendment, which passed 60-38 in the Senate, would provide $100 million for the prosecution of gang members engaged in criminal activity.
The money will be distributed over five years. An equal amount of money would be set aside for states and local organizations to offer after-school activities and sports programs. The amendment requires mandatory sentences for recruiting individuals into crime-related gangs and would increase the penalties for federal crimes committed by gang members.
This amendment is good because it would provide money for prosecution, and it also recognizes the need for prevention. This proactive measure by Dole and Hatch clearly addresses the source of the problem. Innocent bystanders are too often caught in the crossfire of gang violence. If the crime bill passes this week, gang-related violence will decrease, and the streets will be safer.
MANNY LOPEZ FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSANSTAFF
KC TRAUER, Editor
JOE HARDER, CHRISTINE LAUE Managing editors
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
Assistant to the editor ... J.R. Clairborne
News ... Stacey Friedman
Editorial ... Terrilyn McComick
Campus ... Ben Grove
Sports ... Kristi Fogler
Photo ... Kip Chin, Renee Knoeber
Features ... Ezra Wolfe
Graphics .. John Paul Fogel
AMY CASEY
Business manager
AMY STUMBO
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr...Ed Schager
Regional Sales mgr...Jennifer Perrler
National sales mgr...Jennifer Evanson
Co-op sales mgr...Blythe Focht
Production mgrs...Kate Burgesea
Marketing director...Shelly McConnell
Creative director...Brian Fusco
G Classified mgr..Gretchen Kootterholchin
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position. Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be followed by a reference to the letter. The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Infomercial typhoon wipes out tired late night channel surfers
mime da milla or
It's late at night when I realize how beautiful our capitalistic system is. The reason? Late night television.
At around 2 a.m. on Lifetime, I see a guy named Tony Robbins talking to former pro quarterback Fran Tarkenton. They're discussing Robbins' program to ensure success in life. The program seems to combine a healthy dose of self-esteem mixed with an even healthier dose of secular religion, with Robbins as God/Aalh/Buddha/Whatever. When Tarkenton assures me that had he known Robbins before he retired from football, he would have won a Super Bowl, I know I need to sign up. (Hmm ... Maybe John Elway or Jim Kelly should think about it.)
COLUMNIST
But I hold off because the night's still young. The next infomercial, on the Discovery Channel, is for a program that helps you understand the Great Works of Literature so that you can incorporate their valuable and timeless messages into your daily life.
The plan goes like this: you study a synopsis of the work (the example given was "Moby Dick"), listen to a 45 minute tape and review the synopsis. It's that simple and that quick. Think of all the money you can save by not having to buy the long and boring original texts.
Somewhere around 3 a.m. (time begins to blur at this point), hundreds of infomercials appear, all touting their workout machine as the ultimate workout machine. All feature well-muscled men and women working out on the revolutionary machine
(NordicTrack/SoloFlex/NordicFlex/
Whatever), achieving their perfect
physiques in no longer than eight
weeks. And, no, you don't have to live
at the gym. You only have to workout
on [insert machine] for 30 minutes a
day, three times a week. But where
will it fit in my apartment?
My next stop, QVC, displays a huge ring and an unreasonably low price. Cubic zirconia. I sit up, thinking it would be the perfect gift for my girlfriend. But then I see Cher plugging some hair care products. Cher's got great hair, I think — maybe I should get that instead of the ring. Or maybe the workout machine? The deluxe pasta maker? Something else?
My problem is that I want at least one of them to be honest. I want that one to say, "Hey, you out there. I know you're tired, and I want to reach out to you in your moment of weakness and take your money. I want to make you feel guilty because you're overweight or because you don't make $300,000 a
year or because you don't have great hair. I want to make you feel so guilty you'll buy my product. It's all about money." But I know that that's asking too much.
And so, finally, gratefully, I turn to CNN, where I hear about how last summer Mrs. Bobbitt allegedly cut off Mr. Bobbitt's penis as he slept because he allegedly raped her. CNN reports that Mr. Bobbitt has just been acquitted on charges of marital rape; Mrs. Bobbitt will be brought to trial soon. (John Leonard, in the Nov. 22 issue of *The Nation*, writes that a current joke involves the type of dog used to find the penis: a cocker spaniel.) But I feel better when I find out that Mrs. Bobbitt already has a media adviser. I can't wait for the next late night infeminal. Cutting off a man's penis can be profitable, you know.
Nathan Oson is a Chicago graduate student In English.
Delinquency, blandness, immaturity all tag residence halls with their identities
Each residence hall here at the University of Kansas comes with its very own stereotype. I know it's not acceptable these days to acknowledge stereotypes for fear of perpetuating them, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Templin Hall is known as the boys' dorm. Not a men's dorm, as is purported in the official literature from the department of student housing, but the boys' dorm. Why? Because you'll more likely see a football being tossed around on the front lawn, hear of vandalism being committed, see a souped-up '60s muscle car in the parking lot or see some childish female-degrading message displayed in a window at Templin than at any other hall.
Gertrude Sellards Pearson, or GSP, Hall is known as the sorority dorm, simply because the majority of sorority members in student housing are found there. Or is that pledges? Or do I care? At GSP, one can never have too many message boards on one's door, especially if they have lace around the edges.
COLUMNIST
McCollum is known for its international student population and size. It has also been known as the Trash Chute Capital of the World, but its claim to this title is sporadic. This year, incidentally, is shaping up to be mediocre for McCollum in this respect, as there has been only one trash chute fire thus far.
Ellsworth Hall, also known as Ellsworthless, is known for its blandness. Not participation, as Student Housing claims, but blandness. Plain people, plain activities, plain dorm.
Lewis Hall's reputation similarly is bland, but only because it has lost all its identity to its new addition, the
Lenoir D. Ekkdahl dining commons.
Oliver is known for its delinquents — people who pull the fire alarm for kicks, have neon Budweiser signs in their windows and cover their fake ID manufacturing apparatus when it's not in use with a poster of a scantily clad woman under the slogan "Stroh's Spoken Here." They are famous the world over for their sheer genius when it comes to sneaking a keg into the building.
Just across the street is Naismith, the privately-owned dorm, with its pool and reportedly luxurious accommodations. It is notorious for being filled with the children of rich suburban Chicagoans seeking asylum from the higher tuition of an Illinois school.
Hashinger Hall, home sweet home,
located at the crest vetch of Davis Hill
— "Residence Center for the Creative Arts," the lobby window reads — is known for its freaks. Freaks, you say? Surely not. What's freakish about us? Is it our hair? Couldn't be. We have hair that transcends judgment. More styles and shapes than anyone could count, much less criticize. Our clothing, too, is transcendental in nature. The only other component of our public image is the way we act. These we display with seeming pride each element day of the school year on the front steps of good ol' "Hash." There are certain requisite personalities for each of these displays, people whose presence is mandatory for any proper showing of the Hash colors. These include the Guitar Man, whose job it is to look and act extremely musical, whether he is or not is immaterial, and The Groovers, who stand or sit around and move rhythmically while smoking cigarettes. Without these people, the scene is not complete. Add several more cigarette-smoking bystanders, a few generic loiterers and a loud person or two climbing the walls, and the scene is complete and ready for inspection.
This ends today's Lesson Full O' Worthlessness.
Ryan McGee Is a Worland, Wyo., sophomore.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Faculty reputation hurt by a careless mistake
I was appalled by the erroneous and careless journalism displayed by Kansan staff writer Christoph Fuhrmans in his Nov. 5 article on the Faculty Committee recommendation to eliminate six degree programs.
As a faculty member in the Atmospheric Science Program, I feel compelled to respond to a statement made in this article because it is not true, and the statement insults my reputation as a faculty member and research scientist.
Mr. Führmans writes in his article that "the M.S. in atmospheric science was recommended for elimination because the program lacked high quality faculty and research
projects ... " In fact, the committee report said no such thing, and the truth is I personally have several ongoing research projects. One is an experiment funded by the National Science Foundation investigating ice sheet growth processes, which I will be setting up in Antarctica this coming January. I also have an active wind tunnel laboratory, and discoveries that have been made in this facility have been published in several scientific journals.
On the statement that the Atmospheric Science Program lacks high quality faculty, IT only say that lately the overall success rate of research proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation is about one out of ten funded. In other words, if you're not a good scientist with a good research
record, you can essentially forget about getting any money from the National Science Foundation.
David Braaten Assistant professor, physics and astronomy
I would like to invite Mr. Fuhrmans and/or other Kansan staff members to visit my laboratory (B075 Malott Hall) to see firsthand the experimental research I'm involved in. I would hope that in the future, "Kansan" reporters check their facts before running a story which questions the reputation of a faculty member at this university either by association or name.
The editor responds: The faculty Academic Policies and Procedures Committee, which made the discontinuance recommendations, stated that the atmospheric science master's degree program did not have "a critical mass of faculty members who are active, creative and productive scholars, working on important, 'forefront' problems."
In other words, there aren't enough high-quality faculty to retain the program, the committee said. If Mr. Braaten or anyone else read "lacked high-quality faculty" as meaning "no high quality faculty," the Kansan apologizes for the miscommunication. — KC Trauer
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