OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
CRAG LANG, Editor
SUSANNA LOOP, Managing editor
KIMBERLY CRABTREE, Editorial editor
TOM EBLEN, General manager, news adviser
MARK OZMEK, Business manager
DENNIS HAUPT, Retail sales manager
JUSTIN KNUPP, Technology coordinator
JAY STEINER, Sales and marketing adviser
Tuesday, January 28, 1997
Amy R. Miller/ KANSAN
Editorials
Frequent textbook changes hit students in the pocketbook
As students purchased their textbooks for the new semester, many had complaints about the bureaucracy surrounding textbook purchases and buy backs. These complaints are neither new nor unfounded. However, the problem of high textbook prices does not stem from bookstores. Responsibility lies with both textbook publishers and professors who frequently order new textbooks for large introductory classes.
Little can be done about publishing companies that issue textbooks packaged in shrink-wrap with study guides or other materials. Although professors sometimes request such packaging, shrink wrapping is more often a marketing ploy used by publishing companies. These shrink-wrapped packages usually cannot be returned once they have been opened, and most workbooks and study guides can be used only once, eliminating the option of reselling the
Instructors teaching the same classes should use the same textbooks.
materials at the semester's end.
Another problem is professors who frequently order new textbooks for introductory-level courses. Of course, there are some legitimate reasons for using updated editions. Professors have the right to choose which materials they will use, and in some courses, frequent advances in science and technology necessitate the use of the most up-to-date textbook editions.
These are valid arguments in upperlevel courses, but they have no real bearing in introductory undergraduate classes. Introductory courses do not teach in an in-depth manner, and the material taught is fairly uniform regardless of who is teaching. And although new advances emerge regularly in some subjects, most of these changes do not affect what is taught in introductory courses, simply because these classes only skim the surface for that particular subject.
Therefore, professors teaching the introductory courses in each department should collaborate and discuss different texts to establish the universal adoption of textbooks for at least one full year. Universal adoption means that all teachers would use the same book for all different class sections in the same course. By taking a cue from the mathematics department, which has universal adoption for all large undergraduate courses and generally keeps the same text for at least three years, these departments could make book purchasing and buyback a much easier task for students and bookstores.
NICOLE SKALLA FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Students should fight bad landlords
Overflowing toilet, broken air conditioners, fried circuits and endless lists of necessary repairs plague many students living in Lawrence apartments. Repairs have waited two or more months, but the landlord never seems to find the time to take care of them.
This is the seemingly helpless struggle between tenants and slumlords, landlords who refuse to make repairs on the properties they're renting to students.
This is an increasing problem in Lawrence, and it's time for students to take a stand.
Unfortunately, the laws favor the slum lords.
According to the Landlord/Tenant Act, landlords in the state of Kansas are required to do little or nothing to their properties unless there is a health or safety hazard. They are only required to
Renters should check out potential landlords before signing any lease.
have one working shower and toilet, even if the property was originally rented as a three-bathroom house. And they are only one room is required to be heated.
It's possible for a landlord to rent a place that looks all right in August but will be so bad by January that renters will wish they had never moved out of the residence halls.
unit that is a health or safety hazard and your request for repairs has been ignored, you should call the city building inspector immediately to verify the hazard. Then contact Legal Services for Students to see what action to take. You may be able to persuade your landlord to make the repair or break your lease.
The most important thing renters can do is check on a landlord before moving in. When looking for an apartment, ask current residents if the landlord makes repairs. Also make sure to get a written agreement from the landlord to take care of any necessary repairs before signing the lease.
The act also states that a tenant may not withhold rent because of repairs that aren't made. If a tenant does withhold rent, landlords have the right to sue their tenants. All of this works against tenants.
Students also should be aware of their legal rights when renting apartments and know what, if any, legal action they may take against landlords who don't fulfill their obligations.
If something is wrong with your
DREW DEGOOD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
LATINA SULLIVAN ... Associate Editorial
KRISTIE BLAASI ... News
NOVELDA SOMMERS ... News
LESLEY TAYLOR ... News
AMANDA TRAUGHBER ... News
TARA TRENARY ... News
DAVID TESKA ... Online
SPENCER DUNCAN ... Sports
GINA THORNBURG ... Associate Sports
BRADLEY BROOKS ... Campus
LINDSHE HENRY ... Campus
DAVE BRETTENSTEIN ... Features
PAM DISIMAN ... Photo
TYLER WIRKEN ... Photo
BRYAN VOLK ... Design
ANDY ROHRBACK ... Graphics
ANDREA ALBRIGHT ... Wire
LZ MUSSER ... Special sections
AERICA VEAZEY ... News clerk
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Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Kim Crabtree (opinion@kansan.com) or LaTina Sullivan (sullivan@kansan.com) at 864-4810.
Just so everybody knows, I've given the following statement lots of serious thought. The last thing I want anybody to think is that I came by it rashly, because ever since April, it's been stuck in the back of my mind.
Sorry, folks, I can't help it. I just don't like the McDonald's Arch Deluxe. And that's with or without that pepper bacon stuff.
Column
Strange sauces mask fast-food favorites
Some may credit it to my immaturity. After all, it is the burger with the grown-up taste, and I, for one, am certainly no adult. Instead, I'm caught somewhere between young and old. But still, how long for the carefree days of youth, if only because those were also the days of Taco Bell's ingenious 59 cents, 79 cents and 99 cents menus. Oh, I do miss that.
silence, please — the Bell has had a monopoly on cheap, late-night, oh-my-MGod-I-hadway-too-many-schooners Mexican food: Somebody alert Congress. I omit Burrito King from the above category only because at 2 a.m. that kind of beyan goodness is just more than I can take. Man, I bet Amigo's would never have fooled with their goods like that. Some people know not to mess with perfection.
Can I please tell you how much I crave a crisp pinto right now? I would give my first child for one.
And none of this is above McDonald's however. With the state of flux in fast food today, the McChicken got lost somewhere in the shuffle.
Long gone are those days, however, and it costs $1.19 for a chicken soft taco. That's roughly a 50 percent price increase from four years ago, plus it's now lite. That's "lite" with an e, mind you. If you choose to look at it a certain way, and I do, you're actually paying more money for less of the good stuff. But ever since Amigo's closed — a moment of
Too boring, one would suppose, because now MCDonald's has the Crispy Chicken Deluxe and the McGrilled Chicken something or other. Look, they can tack on all the superfluous adjectives they want, but it's not going to change the fact that I don't want all that extra stuff.
Believe me, it's hard — so very hard — to live in a world of deluxe, super and gourmet when you're just a straightforward, meaty, cheesy kind of guy.
1
Robert Bishop is a Wichita senior In English and film.
Guest column
It took millions of years of evolution to produce a child as lovely and captivating as JonBenet Ramsey. It took just a few seconds to destroy her
JonBenet's murderer probably not her father
The story of the murder of a cute little girl always sells newspapers, which is probably why there been so much ink and airtime devoted to the subject in past weeks. But even more exciting is the possibility, much discussed in the tabloid press and on campus, that the former Little Miss Colorado was killed by her own father.
That's an interesting speculation, and I'm sure it could
hep seit even more newspapers. But speculation that casts John Bennet Ramsey as his daughter's murderer flies in the face of both science and common sense. Common sense tells us that if parents rarely murder their children, which is true, then it is unlikely that John Bennett Ramsey murdered his child. I'm not saying that parents never kill their own children; in a heartbreaking number of cases, they do. But we should not assume that John Bennet Ramsey is guilty of murder simply because some very unusual parents are. Science and common sense should guide our speculation rather than the TV movie of the week.
The theory of evolution shows why it is so unlikely that John Bennet Ramsey killed his daughter.
In terms of evolution, John Bennet Ramsey has a powerful disinfective to murder his child. Long before the first lungfish decided to try its luck on dry land, creatures that took good care of their offspring were far more successful in continuing their lineage than those that abused them. Those that neglected or killed their young had genes that went nowhere. Their destructive tendencies died with their children. Operating throughout millions of generations, during millions of years, evolution weeded out those parents who killed their own children. This process is called kin selection, and it explains why bees in a hive, all relatives, make individual sacrifices for the good of the group.
It also explains why John Bennet Ramsey is
probably not guilty of his daughter's murder.
Because adults who kill their own children don't succeed in evolutionary terms, there aren't a whole lot of them around. Of course, children do get killed — but rarely by their own parents. Stepchildren are 60 times more likely to be killed by their guardians than their peers living with biological parents, as reported by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, psychologists at McMaster University in Ontario, in their study of child abuse conducted during the past 16 years. But even the murder of children by their stepparents is rare.
Of course, there's always the possibility that John Bennet Ramsey is that one-in-a-million fluke who kills his own child. But that's all it is: a possibility and an unlikely one at that. It's not probability, and it hasn't been proven to be true. And it's certainly not reason for a trial by media of a likely innocent man.
Humans aren't bees, but we are animals, and like all animals, our anatomy and behavior is determined to a large extent by what preceded us. Our existence is the result of our ancestors' successful genes and behaviors. Successful behaviors don't include the murder of one's own kin.
Occasionally, a person who kills her own children will come along, such as Susan Smith. But such individuals didn't evolve that way — that is, they didn't come from a long line of child-murdering lunatics. A long line of descended child killers isn't possible, because the would-be murders would be killed by their own parents before they could produce their own children. People like Smith are the result of genetic randomness or perhaps bad upbringing. But their genes and their behaviors won't last long and won't contribute anything to the evolution of human beings. They are and will continue to be quite rare.
So what are the odds that John Bennet Ramsey had not only the genes to produce a captivating and lovely girl like JonBenet but also the predisposition to kill her? Very low. And what are the odds that he, like nearly all other parents for millions of years, wanted to protect the life of his little girl? Pretty good.
Rachel Naas is a Baldwin Junior in journalism and biology.
Hubie
by Greg Hardin
The Kansan opinion staff is looking for editorial cartoonists. Anyone interested in applying should submit three black and white sample drawings, depicting an editorial stance, to Kimberly Crabtree, opinion page editor.
Applications should include a cover sheet that has the applicant's name, address and phone number.
Applications can be submitted to 111 StaufferFlint Hall.
Questions should be directed to Kimberly Crabtree or LaTina Sullivan, associate opinion page editor, at 864-4810.