OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
4A
CRAIG LANG, Editor
SUSANNA LOOP, Managing editor
KIMBELY CRAPIEFF, Editorial editor
TOM EBILEN, General manager, news adviser
MARK OZAK, Business manager
DENNIS OHAUP, Retail sales manager
JUSTIN KNUPE, Technology coordinator
JA YSTEENER, Sales and marketing adviser
Friday,March 21,1997
Editorials
SafeBreak program provides protection, informs students
Watkins Memorial Health Center is offering a program to help students have a safe and enjoyable break. This effort is laudable, and the recommendations and information given to students through the program should be utilized to make this year's spring break as safe as possible.
The program, called SafeBreak, provides informational packets to inform and protect students. The packets, which are given away in Watkins, include condoms and sun block. The packets also include the following spring break safety tips:
A 12-ounce beer, a glass of wine and a shot of liquor all contain an equal amount of alcohol. Driving skills can be affected by one to two such drinks per hour.
Abstaining from sex is the best protection against sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. If used properly, latex condoms lubricated with nonoxynol-9 are adequate for people who are sexually active.
To have a worry-free spring break, students should follow safety tips.
Use a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher. Apply it at least 15 to 30 minutes before going into the sun. Be careful especially between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m when the sun is most intense.
Use the BACCHUS maneuver to help intoxicated people who are passed out. Make sure that people are lying on their side to keep them from choking to death if they vomit.
Avoid taking drinks from strangers and do not leave beverages unattended. In areas such as Florida, Texas and California, the drug Robynpol, or "roofties", is prevalent and can be slipped to an unsuspecting drinker. The drug is colorless, tasteless, odorless and creates a drunken-like effect that lasts from eight to 10 hours, often causing amnesia.
The packet also gives information about how many drinks it takes for a person of a certain weight to become intoxicated. It also gives legal information on underage drinking.
To have a safe spring break, some precautions and common-sense guidelines need to be followed. The SafeBreak program at Watkins helps provide necessary information that can make spring break safer and less stressful.
GERRY DOYLE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Campus needs recycling center
A campus-wide recycling program is an issue that concerns many students. However, the University has never had a comprehensive recycling program. This could change if a recent Student Senate proposal for a recycling center on West Campus is passed. This center would be a good start to a much-needed recycling program.
The proposal calls for a recycling center that is 4,000 square feet and would cost about $137,000. Part of this money would be raised through a $1 student recycling fee and the rest would come from University allocations.
Students have voiced support for a campus-wide recycling program, and the University should shoulder some of the financial burden.
In fact, the center would ultimately pay for itself. It would save the University thousands of dollars by circumventing costs of transporting large amounts of recyclable materials, like paper and cardboard, to dump sites. In addition, a profit could be generated through the sale of recyclable materials to companies that handle them.
Students and University administrators can work together.make a difference.
Some students argue that transportation of recyclable materials to the West Campus center would be difficult. However, Grey Montgomery, student body president, said that environmental health and safety workers would be responsible for picking up recyclable materials from University buildings.
versity would handle the general maintenance and upkeep. This would be more efficient than a student-run center, which would depend upon volunteerism and could become overburdened if not enough students participated. University employees would manage the recycling center and it would thus get adequate attention.
Waste management can be improved by the use of recycling, and the University can do its part by recycling some of its waste products. Despite objections by some, students and University administrators can work together to make a difference. The proposed student recycling center is one way this can be achieved.
Many students agree that recycling is an important check to curb the tremendous amount of waste generated by mass human consumption.
Once the center is running, the Uni-
NICK ZALLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
LATINA SULLYAN . . . Associate Editorial
KRISTIE BLASH . . . News
NOVELDA SOMMERS . . . News
LESLE TAYLOR . . . News
AMANDA TRAUGHBER . . . News
TARA TRENARY . . . News
DAVID TESKA . . . Online
SPENCER DUNCAN . . Sports
GINA THORNBURG . . Associate Sports
BRADLEY BROOKS . . Campus
LNDSHE HENEY . . Campus
DAVE BRETTENSTEIN . Features
PAM DISIMAN . . Photo
TYLER WIRKEN . Photo
BRYAN VOLK . . Design
ANDY ROHRBACK . Graphics
ANDREA ALBRIGHT . Wire
LZ MUSSER . Special sections
AERICA VAZEY . News clerk
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Hey, pay phone user, it's an extra dime
Column
"The call you have made requires an initial deposit. Please hang up momentarily, listen for the dial tone, deposit the amount specified on the instruction card and dial your call again."
Looking down at the pay telephone I was using outside the West Glen Theatre in Lenexa last weekend, I was shocked to find that the required deposit was no longer the time-honored quarter but rather 35 cents.
phone call? A phone call has cost a quarter for as long as I can remember. My parents might remember when a call only cost a dime, but that was before my time. In my life, a quarter was what it took to reach out and touch someone.
Southwestern Bell announced the pay phone rates March 1. I must have been a little behind the times not to notice until two weeks later, but I don't make many calls from pay phones.
As I scrounged for a dime, I began to feel a little betrayed by the phone company. How could it raise the price of a
To find out why the rates went up, I dialed 0, which is still a free call, to talk to an operator. She transferred me to a sales associate who told me Southwestern Bell raised its rates because it was not making enough money "to continue calls." She then tried to transfer me to the publicity department, but the transfer was interrupted, and all I got was a busy signal.
I guess that's what the sales associate meant when she said they weren't making enough money to continue calls.
I have a feeling that changing the pay phone rate
Southwestern Bell also has helped destroy a number of country music songs. Although I'm not a country fan myself, growing up in the Midwest has exposed me to my share of country music. I know we're all familiar with the song line: "Here's a quarter, call someone who cares."
Country artists vying for our market will have to change their lyrics to compensate for the rising telephone prices.
Actually, I'm not that upset about the new rate. Last weekend was the first time in about six months that I had to put coins into a pay phone. I've been using prepaid calling cards instead, as has almost everyone else I know.
will upset, or at least affect, a much larger group of people than Southwestern Bell ever considered.
I rans and graduation are approaching for high schools and colleges throughout the state. How many of these schools have given away key chains that hold a quarter as part of a promotion to combat drunk driving after the celebrations? I know that SADD and MADD have made thousands of these now-obsolete novelties. How is a person, drunk from an after-graduation party, supposed to call a cab, when the phone requires 35 cents, and their key chain only holds a quarter?
A 10-cent increase was probably required to maintain a constant level of service. But just in case, I should probably call Southwestern Bell again and find out what's really going on.
"The call you have made requires an initial deposit..."
With the advent of calling cards, I think the coin-operated phone is on its way out.
Mary Corcoran is an Overland Park sophomore in Journalism.
Letters
Tamecka Dixon is a woman, a great player
The article about Tamecka Dixon that appeared in the March 10 issue of The University Daily Kansan reminded us of how far women still have come in athletics.
Although Dixon is the Big 12 player of the year, the article seemed to focus on her lack of a Y chromosome.
Dixon talked about not having any women role models to look up to in basketball, but now that she is a role model herself she has not been given much respect by the Kansan.
If she can be compared to Michael Jordan, as she is in the article, then she is a great player—period.
In the past, women have not had many opportunities in basketball, but now that times are changing it is time to change our attitudes.
Women now have role models like Tamecka Dixon, and there is no need to wish that women played more like men.
If Dixon and so many other basketball players are doing so well, then they do play like women, and they have proven that women play great.
Regan Cowan
Regan Cowan
Scottsdale, Ariz. senior
Janet Cull
Kansas City, Mo. senior
Catharine Gray
Wichita senior
Lori Hoober
Olathe junior
Jennifer Keltner
Wichita senior
Charlene Muehlenhard
associate professor
of psychology
and women's studies
Society forces many to hide their sexuality
It amazes me when someone says that he or she has nothing against homosexuals, just as long as they don't force their sexuality on him or her.
The irony in this statement is that we as a society force heterosexuality on all individuals everyday. This ranges from the extreme firing of people based on their same sex orientation to the subtle underlying assumptions in asking a man if he has a girlfriend, to the horror of taking someone's life because she is a lesbian, to the injustice of government refusal and to legally recognize same sex marriages.
While differing in degrees, these all imply the same basic unspoken rule—heterosexual
ity is the norm, the standard that we must all adhere to in order to safely and acceptably make our way through society.
In reality, people have little to fear of the homosexual population forcing anything on anyone.
The homosexual part of them is forced to hide in secrecy and shame while a mask of heterosexual appears for society to accept.
When I read an article in The University Daily Kansan about coming out in the workplace, these are the thoughts that came to my mind. I felt a horrible, sick twisting in my stomach as I realized that I live in a society in which people's identities are cut apart and mutilated.
For fear of abandonment and harm both physical and emotional, they can't take off their masks to anyone—not their coworkers, their classmates, their friends nor their families. When they do so, they often pay a price higher than they could ever imagine; they endure pain and loss simply for being real, for exemplifying truth.
How can they when they are just trying to maintain their own personal security in a world that tells them that a key part of them is wrong? It is they who are being forced to take on an identity that is not really theirs.
The words of a friends kept running through my head. He once said to me that I would never understand what is to be discriminated based on my sexuality. "If you fell in love with someone, you could bring them home to meet your parents," he said. "You could share that wonderful experience with your family. I can't Philius F. Martin
Larned, Kan., junior
Former BSU vice president could have other motives
I am surprised and appalled that Student Senate would take the word of one student to cut the Black Student Union budget by $5,000 without knowing this member's real motivations.
I believe that Dion Jones has a personal vendetta against the leadership and membership of BSU. Last year, Jones ran for BSU president and lost.
This is important because traditionally BSU's vice president succeeds the out-going president. Jones' situation differs in that the membership didn't have the confidence in his ability to lead them; therefore, he was not elected.
He has tried all types of tactics to hurt those in leadership and BSU.
Jones is using Student Senate as a forum to be get back at those who did not elect him.
It seems to m that his reason for saying that other organizations could use the money is a ploy to undermine all the work of those in leadership, and to detract from the fact that BSU in the past did use its allocation to put on programs for the entire campus.
I believe that Jones also is using this as an opportunity to show all those members who did not vote for him that this would not have happened if they had elected him.
As former president of BSU in which Jones served as my vicepresident, I have seen Jones' risk hurting the entire organization when he does not get his way.
The second point that I would like to address is Jones' objection to BSU presentation of Def Comedy Jam. Who is he to judge if BSU should have a specific program? He is only one of many. BSU is a democracy that carries out the will of the majority while protecting he rights of the minority.
If he now objects to Def Comedy Jam, where was his objection when he was vice president or at the general assembly meeting when it was voted upon?
I do hope that this new information about Jones and his proposals will not allow one person's vengeful motivations to stump the growth of an important organization.
It would be a travesty and an undemocratic move by Student Senate and the Finance committee if Jones' words were allowed to discount the will of many.
Jessica Keith
Kansas City, Kan., senior KU is an institution of learning, not fashion
This is a letter about the story KU style case for fashion police.
First of all, let me start out by apologizing to those international students that find us without fashion, on behalf of myself and every other fashion missits walking around campus, sorry.
What's wrong with jeans? Not everyone wears jeans, also. I see Dockers, slacks and other dress pants when I look around. Jeans do not define a person's individuality. Not all faces are the same.
I'm sorry if we don't update our wardrobes to be in fashida.
Most students have more important concerns. Last time I checked, students had to pay tuition and other bills.
If deciding on what to wear out clubbing is more stressful than class work, then there's something wrong with your priorities.
Ryan Falkenreuth
Olathe junior
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