Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Noland)

New shuttle system exceeds expectations

2007-05-14T13:25:35Z

Expectations were high last year when in August the University of Kansas Parking and Transit Department bought four new buses and launched Park & Rise on west campus to help alleviate traffic woes. The department has realized the change was good, with increased ridership and permit sales up nearly 40 percent, the first increase in permits since 2003 “We’re excited about the increases,” Donna Hultine, director of the parking and transit department. “It’s good to have it happen the first year our department took over the system.” This year, 924 students purchased Park & Ride permits, compared to 663 last year when the shuttle lot was located at the Lied Center.

Hultine attributed the rise in riders to the perks of the updated system. “The investment of the new buses themselves has been a big help,” Hultine said. “They’re newer, air-conditioned and cleaner running. And bus passes aren’t required for the system, so that’s a plus.” The new system has helped relieve transit problems on campus, but not without some complaints. Park & Ride permit holders have always had the opportunity to email or call the department with their problems. Danny Kaiser, assistant director of the parking and transit department, said the shuttle system could not have evolved without the complaints it had received all year. Early on, complaints were mostly centered on passengers arrived 30 minutes before class, but were left behind because the buses were full. The students then had to wait the full six to eight minutes until the next bus came along, which made them late for class. The department responded with a slightly altered the original six to eight minute interval schedule, replacing it with a two-bus shuttle system at the parking lot stops on Becker Drive. These buses worked on a half-hourly schedule and arrived and left within a couple of minutes of each other. Kaiser said the concentration of buses at the peak times covered the demand. Kaiser said some riders haven’t understood that Park & Ride needed to run strictly as a shuttle. He said that there could be a fixed schedule, but it would decrease the time intervals between buses and make it hard to serve all students during the peak times. Other complaints included buses waiting too long and buses not picking up riders on the first stop. In the last case, buses would be ahead of schedule and would loop around Becker Drive twice before picking up new riders. Kaiser noted that the new system changes made the frequency of complaints reduce from several per week to one or two a month. Jennifer Tierney, Overland Park junior, did not have a Park & Ride permit until this year. She said that even though there were problems with the system, she got to class on time and never had to worry finding a parking spot. “I’ve had a few bad experiences with Park & Ride,” Tierney said, “but I liked the idea of taking a shuttle and being close to home. It has its problems, but it’s definitely convenient. Last December, results of a rider survey were published to a transit commission that involved the Lawrence Transit System, KU on Wheels and the Parking and Transit Department. The survey group, Dan Boyle & Associates, Inc., surveyed 294 Park & Ride riders. The survey showed an overall positive experience among Park & Ride riders, indicating that riders use the shuttle to get to class or work, and they use it regularly. Jessica Mortinger, KU on Wheels staff member, said that the KU on Wheels administration works closely with the parking and transit department on the system operations. The parking and transit department and KU on Wheels initially created a joint Park and Ride program, but this year, the department began operation of its own system. Mortinger said even though KU on Wheels no longer helped operate Park & Ride, the two have attempted to boost ridership and create an efficient way to get on campus for off-campus students. “KU on Wheels and Park & Ride work in conjunction with each other,” Mortinger said. “We provide every Park & Ride permit holder with a free bus pass, and the parking and transit department provides us with a financial contribution.” The parking portal opened on May 4 last year and had sold 73 Park & Ride permits through June 1. So far this year, the parking and transit department has sold 70 permits. With enrollment getting underway, students are still selecting their transportation options. Hultine said that even though the numbers are low, expectations are high for an increased amount of riders. “We just started selling them on-line when enrollment started so it's too soon to tell,” Hultine said. “Last year, around this time, we had 73. We ended up with 924.”

Pass The Torch

2007-05-14T03:01:37Z

Pass the torch. It’s a mantra that describes the mission of Fadlullah Firman, the president of the Muslim Student Association of KU. Fiman is in his final days in office as president and he is optimistic about the success of the group when he steps down at the end of the year. Over the year the executive board of the MSA meets every two weeks to discuss the direction of the group and to brainstorm ideas for events. Two of the main events the MSA sponsors are the “Fast-A-Thon” and Islam Awareness Week. Firman said that the group struggled when it came to lining up speakers to headline events and meetings. “We are still in the learning process when trying to book speakers,” Firman said. But Firman has learned a lot over the last year about how to effectively run a student group. Especially when it comes to passing on the leadership responsibilities. The MSA nominates their leadership from a group of students who have been deeply involved in the clubs activities over the year. “We’re able to involve more people and create more leadership with the freshman and sophomore members,” Firman said. Part of passing the torch involves getting younger members involved in sub-committees for the events the MSA hosts. Firman said that this was the first year the MSA was able to utilize funds from student senate to help them get their message out to campus. Firman said that this year about 200 people attended their flagship event, Islam Awareness Week. While that number is short of what the group had hoped for, Firman was still happy with the turnout. “It could have gone better,” Firman said, “but we’re satisfied.” Firman said that during weekly Halaqah meetings, or circle of Islamic knowledge meetings, Muslim students discuss their own faith and find ways to support each other when fasting or praying. The group works closely with other organizations around campus and around Lawrence. Firman said over the past year they teamed up with KU Hillel and Amnesty International as well as the Lawrence Open Shelter. But Firman admitted MSA needs to change it’s routine to increase student participation. “We’ve been doing the same things for the past three years,” Firman said. “We need people set in place; to get someone to sit on Student Senate and spice things up.” Firman said that the group doesn’t exist to directly fight racism, but their strategy of educating people about their faith seems to be paying off. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 8,804 hate crimes nation wide in 2005. Religious communities suffered 1,405 times at the hands of hate; people of Islamic faith shared 10.7 percent of the cases. But, the University of Kansas department of Human Resouces and Equal Opportunity reported no incidences of anti-Islamic racism. “If there is any racism we hope to tarnish it through education and information,” Firman said. “Hate grows because of ignorance and misconceptions. Most of the time people’s opinions can be altered.” Firman’s group attempts to show the community that students who practice Islam are just normal people here at the University for an education. Giving educational seminars and exposing the community to what Islam means to Muslims is ultimately what MSA is all about. “It’s important to give them a first-hand experience in what it means to be a Muslim,” Firman said. And it would appear that their approach to sharing that experience is catching on around campus. Ola Faucher, director of the department of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity, has taken notice of the group on campus. “I think their PR has been as successful as other groups on campus,” Faucher said. The University’s Human Resources department is one of the offices that provide diversity training to faculty and staff. She thinks that for a Midwestern school the university is doing well in supporting diversity and encouraging multiculturalism. “The University values diversity,” she said. “We can’t let our world be restricted by the borders of Kansas.” The MSA also gets some help from the Multicultural Resource Center on campus. Santos Nunez, the program director, said that the MRC has worked closely with Firman’s group. The MRC has invited the Muslim Student Association to be a part of their diversity dialogues series and their brown bag discussions. The MRC also offers multicultural education training to help students and faculty understand a variety of cultural groups. “Our goal is to promote cultural diversity and to promote cultural awareness,” Nunez said. Nunez said that when she has worked with the MSA their leadership has been “excellent.” When Firman steps aside as president he is confident that the group’s new leadership will be able to work hard to meet their goals of having monthly speakers at meetings, get a MSA member elected to Student senate and to increase attendance at events like Islam Awareness Week.

Lawrence lifeguard shortage

2007-05-14T00:23:07Z

Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center supervisor, Lori Madaus, sits at her desk continuously checking her email for incoming lifeguard applications. For now the pool she looks at from her office window has enough guards to safely watch the swimmers. But with summer only a couple weeks away, Madaus worries that she will not have enough lifeguards to operate both the indoor and outdoor pools. “Right now my staff is about 70 lifeguards, by summer I need atleast double that. It is only two weeks away from the outdoor pool opening and I would not say we are ready yet,” Madaus said. Kristin Tirabassi, lifeguard instructor and Red Cross intern, said the aquatic center would face several hurdles in the next couple of weeks. The American Red Cross made changes to lifeguard certification in March according to Tirabassi. All current and future guards must complete 10 hours of training and testing to become certified under the new requirements. Ashlynn Haynes, St. Louis Junior, said the training was demanding but she believes it will help her remember safety procedures. “The most important part of the new training was in CPR. A lot of things changed, from the terminology used to the number of breaths. We also had timed swimming skills tests and new ways of rescuing conscious and unconscious victims,” Haynes said. Tirabassi said she fears the new training and testing could slow down the hiring process before summer. “After teaching the new certification classes in the last few weeks, it has become clear to me that this is a demanding job that not everybody is cut out to do,” Tirabassi said. A shortage of lifeguards can lead to serious problems according to Tirabassi. She said without a fully staffed pool, guards are likely to become burned out and tired by the end of summer, hindering their job performance. Without a full staff Madaus said all of the features at the pool, including the waterslide and diving boards, couldn’t remain open for the amount of time they are supposed to. Madaus and Tirabassi agree giving the lifeguard’s ample time for breaks and days off helps prevent guards from leaving throughout the summer. “If we do not have enough staff to give days off to everyone, especially when our guards are spending long days in the sun without breaks, that is when problems happen,” Tirabassi said. For now, Tirabassi is not as worried about the future lifeguards in her class, she said she knows she can teach them what they need to know to pass the tests. Her concern is only that there will be new lifeguards there to teach.

Homeless cafe struggles for funds

2007-05-12T16:04:46Z

The smell of bacon and hot biscuits rises from the kitchen at First United Methodist Church, and as the clock hits 7 a.m., the students are ready. One of them opens the adjoining room’s doors, and a stream of people noisily enters. The men and women of all ages and appearances who pile into the room represent Lawrence’s homeless community. The students send smiles to the faces of those now in line when they reveal a feast of eggs, pancakes, hash browns and just about every kind of breakfast food imaginable. The volunteers had been preparing the meal since 6 this morning, and as they take enthusiastic orders from their homeless customers, they forget about any exhaustion or sleepy bugs that may have set in. The customers talk with their student servers in between bites and fill the room with feelings of satisfaction. Jubilee Café is a success once again, but there’s a bittersweet smile on the face of Clark Keffer, who stands alone in the kitchen. The program’s director doesn’t know how many more mornings the café will last. They just aren’t getting the money that they used to. “Any program like Jubilee Café, that is, one that’s fairly small and runs through volunteers, has a hard time maintaining funds,” Keffer said. “We do apply and get a grant or two each year, but the number of homeless people is consistently increasing. Therefore, our need for money keeps going up, too.” Keffer said that the program receives about $3,500 in grants each year but that it costs almost $300 per week to run the café. He said that these grants simply weren’t enough. Jubilee Café didn’t always have to rely on just grants for funding. In 1994, the Episcopal-Lutheran Campus Center at the University of Kansas founded the program. The Center and the Canterbury House, both religious ministries that are located on the KU campus, paid for Jubilee as its most important outreach service. Interns who worked in the ministries donated money to the program, and Father Joe, the priest who initiated Jubilee, paid whatever amount of money out of his salary that was necessary to keep it running. About a year and a half ago, though, Jubilee lost all these funds. Father Joe, the head priest at the Canterbury House, left KU to start his own church in Tennessee, and the priest who took his place as the House’s director decided to drop Jubilee from the ministry’s budget. The Center for Community Outreach, located in the Kansas Union, has since run the program. But, students direct the Center through donations, and there is no continuous income for Jubilee like there used to be. Keffer, who started as a volunteer when the café first opened, began directing the program when these changes took place. He said that it had been a huge struggle for the last year and a half to get enough money. “Since Canterbury stopped supporting us, we’ve been fighting and scratching for money,” Keffer said. “There is no nonstop source of income anymore, so we’ve basically been surviving from fundraiser to fundraiser.” Every Wednesday night, Jubilee Café puts on a fundraising program called “Breakfast for Dinner.” Any Lawrence resident can come and spend $5 for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, and Jubilee uses this money for the morning sessions every Tuesday and Friday. Keffer said that the Wednesday night program was not bringing in the funds that he hoped it would. Kim Koelling, Colleyville, Texas, freshman, has volunteered weekly at Jubilee Café since her arrival at KU last semester. She said that she didn’t understand why there was a funding crisis. “At the ‘Breakfast for Dinner’ deal, anyone can come and spend only $5 for all they can eat,” Koelling said. “That $5 means almost four meals for someone less fortunate on Tuesday and Friday. Homeless people need food and fellowship more than anything, and all Lawrence people have to do is spend a few bucks once a week to give them those things. But, for some reason, not enough people want to do that.”

Recently, Koelling and two other freshmen volunteers at Jubilee Café came up with another fundraising opportunity. Koelling, who played volleyball all four years for her high school in Texas, decided to attract donations through a volleyball tournament. The tournament will be held at 1 p.m. on May 11 at the Clinton Lake volleyball courts. Anyone interested in playing in or watching the tournament must pay $5. The tournament will feature five-person co-ed teams. Josh Ibarra, Overland Park, Kan., freshman, helped Koelling organize the fundraiser and said that he hoped it would be a huge success. “Anyone can come out on Stop Day, bring whoever they want and just have some fun for the afternoon,” said Ibarra, a volunteer at Jubilee since the beginning of the semester. “We’re advertising the event on Facebook, and we already have more than 50 confirmed attendants. At $5 per person, that’s about $250 going toward Jubilee Café right there. Jubilee Café serves breakfast every Tuesday and Friday morning from 7 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. in the Bailey Hall room at First United Methodist Church, located at Tenth and Vermont Streets. Anywhere from 50 to 70 homeless people attend Jubilee Café on a given Tuesday or Friday, and in just this year, the café has served more than 100,000 meals. Keffer said that it costs about $1.30 to prepare each meal. The Lawrence Housing Practitioners Panel, who conducted a survey of the city’s homeless community in January of 2005, described a homeless person as an individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. According to the survey, as of January 28, 2005, there were 112 homeless people in Lawrence. Lawrence 6 News did another study of the city’s homeless community in November of 2006 and found that the number had increased to about 413 homeless people in Lawrence, as of January of last year. The news program said that homeless count was Lawrence’s highest ever. Jubilee Café is not the only support service for the homeless in Lawrence. Four days a week, Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, or LINK, serves lunch at First Christian Church, located across from the Lawrence Community Shelter at 214 W. 10th Street. The Salvation Army Center is another homeless shelter, at Ninth and New Hampshire Streets. Ronald Tinkham, 41, has been homeless in Lawrence off and on for almost three years, and he said that none of the services compare with Jubilee Café. “I don’t like the Salvation Army Center at all,” Tinkham said. “I used to stay at the Community Shelter and eat my meals with LINK, but I just recently started going to the Jubilee thing. I wish it was open every morning.” Along with those services already mentioned, other organizations serve Lawrence’s homeless population, as well. The Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, the Pelathe Community Resource Center and Faith Based Initiatives are three other main support services. Even with so many programs, Keffer said that the city still falls short in how it accommodates its homeless. “Lawrence tries real hard to treat the homeless people around here,” Keffer said. “But, so far, we haven’t been able to make a unified effort. There are several different entities that help the homeless in Lawrence and Douglas County, but somehow, we aren’t able to join together and work on a common front.” Loring Henderson, the executive director of the Lawrence Community Shelter, knows Keffer and said that Jubilee Café is an excellent program. However, Henderson said that he doesn’t agree with what Keffer said about Lawrence’s lack of unity. “Up until a few years ago, the Salvation Army was the only true service for the homeless here,” Henderson said. “But since then, several organizations have arisen and really done a great job in providing emergency and housing services. There’s still a lot of work that can be done, but overall, Lawrence is much more accommodating for the homeless than it ever has been.” Koelling said that she hopes the volleyball tournament can keep Jubilee Café going because it has become something that she looks forward to every week. She said that she has even brought a little tidbit from KU into her fellowship with the attendants. “We get to sit at tables with the people and actually serve them and talk to them,” Koelling said. “Recently, I’ve been teaching a few of the regulars how to play Sudoku. A couple of them finish their breakfasts more quickly now, just so they can play Sudoku.” Jubilee Café means more to the people of Lawrence than just a place for games, however. Keffer said that for the homeless people who come every week, it’s a place for food, fellowship and encouragement. “As long as we can keep getting the funds and volunteers, the program will go on,” Keffer said. “Lawrence really would be a different place without Jubilee Café.” It has only been 15 minutes since the students brought out the biscuits and gravy, and those customers who were first in the room are already back in line for seconds. A couple of volunteers are back in the kitchen slicing bread and bacon. This morning, Kim and Josh were in charge of the eggs, and the first batch is already gone. Josh whisks away at the egg yokes and milk as Kim turns the stove back on and greases the pans. Other students yell from outside the kitchen for more eggs, but neither Kim nor Josh gets frustrated. “Sometimes, it’s hard for me to get up so early and have to cook food for almost two hours,” Ibarra said. “I almost slept in, this morning, actually. But, it’s totally worth it because we’re sacrificing a few hours a week for people that suffer almost every hour of the week. It’s a lot of fun, too. I just hope it will all keep going.”

Retired KU professor opposes consensus on climate change

2007-05-11T21:53:01Z

These days Lee Gerhard, retired University of Kansas geology professor, considers himself an independent geologist. He sits in his office in the the basement of his three-story home looking out into the tree-lined backyard. He settles back in his chair and slowly reaches up to fold his hands behind his head. His desk has papers and strewn across it. Plaques marking his achievements are scattered across the wall behind him: he was the Getty professor at Colorado State University, State Geologist of North Dakota, Principle Geologist of the Kansas Geological Survey, the list goes on.

He takes a concentrated breath as he prepares to make his case. After years of research he has concluded that human activities; mainly activities that alter the natural carbon cycle like burning fossil fuels for energy and mass transit, and cutting down forests to make way for urban and agricultural development, are not influencing global climate change. He knows his conclusions aren’t popular in the debate over climate change. In fact the debate over whether humans are changing the climate has all but diminished since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a report with 90 percent confidence that humans are in fact contributing to global warming. “One might say there is a human hubris involved,” Gerhard said. “That humans, at least in this generation, think they are responsible for a lot more impact on the world than perhaps humans have.”

Gerhard’s data shows that human activity has little to do with global climate change. He wrote a book in 2001 called “The Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change.” It’s a compilation of years of data from scientific journals. He said that climate does not flat-line. He pulls out a graph that explains the correlation between the sun and the climate and shows that carbon increase in dioxide doesn’t match up. He claims that the sun and the impending approach of the next ice age are the causes for the rapid change in climate. Gerhard pulls out another graph, explaining excitedly that human intervention ranks at the bottom of the list when it comes to impact on the global climate. He has studied four billion years of geological history to come to his conclusions, and says you can’t accurately judge the current situation without looking to the past. He points out that politics, rather than science, are influencing the majority of current climate change studies. “We have to remember that it was a politician who started this debate,” Gerhard said. “The same former-vice president who claimed he invented the internet.” While most of Washington, minus the Bush administration, agrees with the IPCC report, there are members of congress who agree with Gerhard. For example, Senator Jim Inhofe, Rep. Okla., said in 2003 that man-made global warming was a hoax. Gerhard worked in the oil and gas industry before he began researching climate change and was inducted into the Kansas Oil and Gas Hall of Fame. But he’s adamant that he does not receive funding from them. He doesn’t receive government funding either. He said he resents people who try to demonize him by claiming his funding biases his research. In fact he was recently turned down for government funding for a research project that he said would further prove humans have little effect on climate change. “There isn’t a choice,” Gerhard said. “In order to get the funding, you have to do the science that the funders want done. Competition for funds has become more and more difficult. I’m not saying that individual scientists are submitting, but the funding is biasing the science.” The debate over whether humans play a role in climate change has dwindled. A recent CBS News New York Times poll found that 84 percent of Americans believe human activity contributes to global warming.

Johannes Feddema, KU geography professor, said the climate has a complex system, but has no doubt that increased carbon dioxide concentrations will increase climate effect. His graphs, unlike Gerhard’s, show a direct correlation between climate change and carbon dioxide. In fact, he says that observed climate in the last one hundred years cannot be replicated in the graph without using carbon dioxide as a variable. Feddema said humans are changing the carbon cycle by changing the natural decomposition of vegetation through agriculture, urban development and deforestation as well as emissions from energy consumption and the burning of fossil fuels. He said the debate whether humans impact climate change doesn’t exist in the scientific community. “The media feels like it has to be fair to both sides of the issue,” Feddema said. “So they have only one guy on each side to be balanced, even though 99 percent of scientists agree that we are having an impact on climate change.” Other professors at KU agree with Feddema. David Braaten, atmospheric science professor, said models that only use natural forces such as the impact of the sun can’t explain observed temperatures. Another KU professor, Dr. Nathaniel Brunsell, studies biometeorology, the interactions between life and climate. He said the sun does have some effect on climate change, but that it’s too small to account for the climate change we’ve seen in recent years. Gerhard does have two findings that agree with the majority of scientific findings. First that we have to reduce our energy consumption and use alternative energy routes. Second that no amount of data can predict with certainty what will actually happen. Gerhard said we are more likely to find ourselves in an ice age over the next 20 years than in a warming trend. He said that in the past, the Earth has gone through an ice age every 11,000 years, and we are coming up on that mark. Gerhard said that the government wastes money going green, and that it would be better spent preparing for survival in arctic temperatures. “The number one job for the government is to prepare to adapt and mitigate for certain climate change, warmer or colder,” Gerhard said. “When it happens, the problem of feeding the world in a colder climate is key.”

Outdoor recreation going high-tech

2007-05-11T17:07:50Z

Chris Jones looks to observers like any other outdoor enthusiast simply enjoying a leisurely hike on the trails at Clinton Lake State Park in west Lawrence. For Jones, Lawrence, senior, the thing that sets him apart from other visitors to the park is a small blue device no bigger than a cell phone. It is a global positioning system (GPS) receiver, and it is directing him to a location in the park that contains a modern day treasure chest. The search for the treasure chest, in this case an old ammunition canister, is one of the world’s fastest growing outdoor hobbies called geocaching. The word is a combination of two terms, the prefix geo meaning “earth” and cache meaning “an area for storage.” The origins of geocaching began May 1, 2000, when President Clinton issued a directive ending the decades old practice of distorting the broadcast signal of GPS satellites to civilians. Up until this time, civilians could own GPS receivers, but their accuracy was intentionally poor to prevent them from using the GPS system in ways that could be seen as harmful. Clinton ended this practice by enacting the order to “encourage acceptance and integration of GPS into peaceful civil, commercial and scientific applications worldwide; and to encourage private sector investments in and use of U.S. GPS technologies and services.” To test the newly upgraded accuracy of the system, two days after the passage of the act, a GPS user near Portland, Ore hid a bucket and posted its coordinates, measured in longitude and latitude, on a message board online. Within days, others who owned GPS devices found the first cache and began placing their own. The game quickly spread across the country, so fast that it was necessary to launch an official Web site,www.geocaching.com, in late 2000 to house the coordinates of all caches placed.

Since 2000, according to geocaching.com, more than 150,000 caches have been concealed across the world, including more than 2,500 in Kansas and even a handful on The University of Kansas campus. The appeal of the hobby is quite simple, which explains its rapid growth. “It’s just a great way to get outside and see things you normally wouldn’t see,” Jones said. The concept of the hobby may be simple, but the mechanics of the game are quite scientific. KU professor of engineering Gary Minden says that in order for a GPS receiver to calculate its location on the Earth’s surface, a minimum of three satellites signals must be present. The more satellite signals a receiver picks up, the more accurate it will be. Like Jones, Dr. Jay Kennedy is another local geocacher who has been active in the Lawrence geocaching community. For him, the enjoyment he gets from geocaching comes from his family joining him in the hunt. “My kids really enjoy the ‘treasure hunt’ aspects of geocaching. My son Nicholas is five and my regular caching buddy. He also helps me build and hide caches in the Lawrence area,” Kennedy said. Kennedy says that his favorite cache that he’s found to date, and the most difficult, was one he found in January while spelunking in Kentucky. “Its only been found twice, both solo efforts. I was the second to find it. The cache is at the bottom of a 93-foot deep pit and requires technical expertise in rope work and caving to reach it,” Kennedy said. The rewards for finding a cache varies greatly, but the guiding principle is take something from the cache, and in turn leave something for the next person. Common objects left in caches include books, stickers, CDs and other inexpensive trinkets. For a few lucky cachers, however, iPods, sporting event tickets, PDAs and even $100 bills await those who locate these select caches. Jones said for him, geocaching isn’t about these rewards; it’s about the adventure and simply enjoying the great outdoors. “This was my 208th cache found and I never got tired of it,” Jones said.

Internet campaign tries to lower gas prices; sparks skepticism

2007-05-11T15:50:52Z

Students on the Internet organized an online campaign to boycott gas -- at least for one day. Students on sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com are urging other students not to buy gas this tuesday in an attempt to shock gasoline companies. The campaign said if enough participate, gas prices will fall drastically overnight. “I saw the thousands of people in the Facebook group,” said Ashley Bennett, Garnett sophomore. “I think this might actually work.” The campaign is circulating much like a chain letter. The message says the Internet community has the potential keep 2.2 billion dollars from the oil companies. The campaign says a similar effort in April 1997 caused gas prices to drop 30 cents. A counter-campaign, though, says the plan won’t work. Students like Jake Meyer, Parkville, Mo. senior, said in the long run, the boycott will drive up the price of gas. He said unless people plan not to drive at all Tuesday, the gas companies will recoup the lost money Wednesday. “It may cause a divot that day,” he said, “but demand will be that much higher on the sixteenth.” Joe Sicilian, chair of the KU economics department, said it is very unlikely to be effective in reducing overall demand. “If they really want to make an impact, they should ask for a reduction in consumption,” Sicilian said, “not a rescheduling of their purchase.”

The United States consumes more than twice as much gas as other industrialized nations, yet the average cost of per gallon is about half of what the rest of the world pays.
Source: EIA

Despite doubts, students seem to be optimistic about the plan. On Facebook alone, more than 50 groups support the campaign. One group has more than 6,500 members. Several protest groups have emerged in response, but the majority of those groups have less than 1,000 members. Bennett still plans to abstain from purchasing gas on Tuesday. She said she sees this as a political statement. “Gas is at three dollars right now,” she said. “I’m willing to try anything to spice it up and scare people a bit.” Bennett said she is unable to abstain from driving that day because she has to go to work, but she will make sure she is full the day before. One online group against the boycott says the plan is nonsensical and that a little rationality would go a long way. The group says that overall, the campaign will put more money into oil company pockets by increasing demand. Mary Adair, interim director and associate curator at the Natural History Museum, travels between Kansas City, Mo. and Lawrence every weekday. She says she is nervous about the rising price of gas, because during the summer she will not have the financial help of her carpool. Although she cannot avoid driving, she will stay away from the gas station Tuesday.

According to the EIA, gas prices in recent months have followed the same trends as last year. The current increase in gas prices may be due to seasonal fluctuations and not an increase in overall demand.
Source: EIA

“It’s a statement,” Adair said, “but it is non-statement too, because I won’t use less gas. I have no option.” Sicilian said individual retailers will notice the most, but the major suppliers may not at all. Oil companies sell the gas to the retailers who then sell it to the consumer. If a participant stocks up the day before or the day after, it won’t affect overall profit. Rachel Gray, Blue Rapids junior, said that the campaign is useless. “Gas prices go up every spring because more people need gas,” she said. “I am pretty sure enough people will need gas on that day that it will fail.” With the scheduled gas out date drawing nearer, some students don’t know what to do. Greg Welnitz, Neosho Rapids junior, says he is confused by all the uproar. “I have no idea whether to buy gas Tuesday or not,” he said throwing his hands in the air. “They both seem to have pretty good arguments.” According to the Energy Information Administration, the increase in prices over the last few weeks is right on track for the spring season. In general, consumers can expect prices to increase in the spring as more people travel.

State, businesses take steps to curb electronic waste

2007-05-11T15:23:45Z

The third drawer of Jennifer Simpson’s desk is the graveyard for some of her old companions. “I hang on to them partly out of sentimental reasons,” Simpson said. “They were so important that I feel like I should keep them for now, just in case.” Simpson, Topeka sophomore, isn’t preserving valuable documents or storing souvenirs for safe-keeping, but is instead holding on to something that has been close by her side since her 16th birthday: her cell phones. More than 500 million cell phones lay unused in the United States according to an April 2007 report by the Environmental Protection Agency. The report estimated that 150 million more phones will be discarded this year. The number promises to grow each future year, and the small devices can have big effects on the environment if, when evicted from the drawer, they are thrown away rather than recycled. “A cell phone is so small that you don’t even think twice about throwing it away,” said Gerald Hartman, lead technician at Kansas E-Recycle, a private electronics recycling service. “A computer is so bulky, most people know they should recycle it.”

The number of cell phone users in the United States more than tripled from 1996 to 2006 according to a survey by the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. The rapid availability of cell phone upgrades has caused the increase in cell phone waste, as consumers purchase more of newer models of phones and more of their older phones enter the waste system.

Discarded cell phones are a sliver of the growing problem of electronic waste, or e-waste: unwanted electronics that pose health and environmental risks if not recycled. Cell phones, along with computers, televisions and household appliances, contain lead and mercury, two elements that cause damage to the brain and the peripheral nervous system if they are put into landfills and are able to enter the water supply. Local recycling services have not been able to keep up with the steady increase of e-waste that has come from living in a world of ever-advancing technology. “It’s not a very simple thing to do,” said Kathy Richardson, supervisor of Lawrence Waste Reduction and Recycling, which operates the city’s public recycling services. “Not only does it require a big facility, it requires paid staff. You don’t make money off of it.” Though the state does not consider electronics hazardous waste -- only seven states do -- the Kansas Department of Health and Environment is taking a step to curb e-waste by introducing a grant to fund the construction of e-waste collection facilities in five Kansas counties. The grants will also fund two years of operating expenses for the warehouses, and KDHE will pay each county three cents per pound of electronic waste that it moves from the warehouse to a recycler. “At the national level, the solutions to try to deal with this have not appeared,” said Kent Foerster, chief of waste reduction, grants and public outreach at KDHE. “We wanted to see what we could do to spark more collection, and then take the data from this experience and push for legislation.” Foerster said the department planned to have the new facilities spread out across the state in both urban and rural communities. The grants will be awarded in September and the collection facilities should be operating by January 2008. Though Douglas County has the highest recycling rate in the state of Kansas according to Lawrence Waste Reduction and Recycling -- with 34 percent of its total waste being recycled -- the county may not be among those applying for the new grant. “For the city of Lawrence to take on a project like this, it would be very important for us to track where our waste ends up,” Richardson said. She was concerned that the state-funded collection facilities would pass the e-waste to recyclers who would extract the valuable materials like gold and copper and put the rest in a landfill, still allowing the toxic elements into the environment. Another of Richardson’s concerns was that the e-waste would be exported to parts of the world where recyclers could find cheaper labor but where the material would still be left to pollute the environment. “To pay a person here to process equipment costs a lot of money,” Richardson said. “Instead it’s going to really poor countries, to towns where there’s not even a landfill. But if we’re polluting China, we’re polluting ourselves.” Foerster said the state could not guarantee that e-waste gathered in the collection facilities wouldn’t end up overseas because the federal government had not placed restrictions on this method of disposal. He said the state did plan to regulate the local recyclers that the new facilities use to ensure that the recyclers do not remove the valuable components of an electronic and send the rest to a landfill. “We can require that they take it to a vendor that we approve. If we’re paying for it, that’s the way it will be done,” Foerster said. Though she said Douglas County has not ruled out applying for the grant, Richardson emphasized existing alternatives for e-waste disposal. “I think Lawrence has a lot of options,” Richardson said. “People get stuck thinking there should be mandatory city-sponsored recycling.”

Kansas E-Recycle, which recycles the University’s old electronics, picks up most old electronics taken to UNI Computers, 1403 W. 23rd Street. Gerald Hartman, the only collector for Kansas E-Recycle, said about five percent of electronics that he picks up are up-to-date and in good condition, and he passes them along to charitable organizations. About 20 percent are obsolete models that he sends to other countries where those models are still in use, and about 75 percent of what Hartman collects is disassembled for individual parts to be reused or disposed of through environmentally-safe processes. “The main goal is to keep it out of a landfill,” Hartman said. “Most recyclers are honest, but I know of a few ones around here that aren’t.” Located in Eskridge, Kansas E-Recycle mostly collects e-waste for northeast Kansas, though Hartman said he had made trips to Wichita, Goodland and even Lincoln, Neb. to pick up unwanted electronics from collection sites that want to make sure their waste is properly disposed of. Hartman started Kansas E-Recycle in October 1999 after working as a computer technician and noticing the growing amount of e-waste but no emerging solution for the problem. Though he said he was pleased with the state’s decision to fund e-waste collection facilities and hoped to contract with some of them, Hartman said more action was needed on the federal level if e-waste was to be sufficiently dealt with. “If they don’t step in and help the recyclers with our expenses, there’s going to be millions of televisions in landfills in the next few years,” Hartman said, referring to U.S. television broadcasts becoming exclusively digital in February 2009, which will make every analog television set obsolete -- an estimated 12 percent of televisions in use in the United States. Hartman said the ideal procedure for controlling e-waste would be customers paying a recycling fee as part of purchasing any new electronic. On campus, KU Recycling collects large electronics placed with other outgoing recyclable materials at each building’s designated pick-up point. For small electronics like cell phones, students living in residence halls or scholarship halls can pick up mail-in packets from each building’s academic resource center to send in their electronics to be recycled by the manufacturer. Jeff Severin, manager of the University’s Environmental Stewardship Program, said KU Recycling began stocking student housing with the packets in fall 2005 as cell phones were becoming a staple among college students. Another option for students wanting to get old cell phones off their hands in an environmentally-friendly way is through the online business RIPMobile, which pays for old cell phones in the form gift certificates to businesses like Circuit City and Starbucks. “We make recycling feel like consuming, which everyone likes to do,” said RIPMobile President and CEO Seth Heine, who started the business in 2005. Anyone recycling a cell phone through RIPMobile visits the business’s Web site, ripmobile.com, where they calculate the phone’s value and choose the business through which they want to be reimbursed in gift certificates. Customers also have the option of donating the return on their old cell phones to charities. RIPMobile cleans phones of all content and sends them to buyers around the world, which is what allows them to pass part of the phone’s worth on to its original owner. Even if a phone has no value, RIPMobile still recycles it to keep its harmful components from ending up in a landfill. Heine said he started RIPMobile to draw attention to a type of waste that even those who consistently recycle tend to overlook. “I just realized that everyone had a phone sitting in a drawer that could easily be put to use somewhere else,” Heine said. College students make up a large part of Heine’s market, as he said most students upgrade their cell phones annually. After learning about the incentives offered through RIPMobile, Simpson said she was more likely to recycle her three old cell phones should she ever decide she wants her drawer space back. “Even though recycling should already feel rewarding, it never hurts to use money to motivate people,” Simpson said.

Used music deals with technology competition

2007-05-11T15:12:50Z

At the CD Tradepost, a music store located on Iowa street not far from the University of Kansas, manager Dustin Hall busily stocks his goods, an array of used CDs customers have sold to the store. Every inch of the store is filled with various forms of used entertainment, specifically CDs. Unlike most retail stores,CD Tradepost has no selection of “brand-new” merchandise that can be found in the store; only used. “I think people are finding that used CDs or any type of used entertainment are the exact same as a brand-new one,” Hall said. “They are smartening up and realizing they can spend far less money buying it used than new.” He is not the only one who knows the fresh new market used has become. All around Lawrence, as it has become nationwide, stores such as CD Tradepost and Hastings’ Entertainment have become popping up, all catering to the used market in an era when sales of new CDs, and their prices, have been dropping because of new technologies such as I-Pods. Between 2000 and 2003 (the most current year for statistic), CD sales in the $11.5 billion recording industry dropped 31 percent, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. While the music industry has seen increased sales in the past four years, the industry association reports sales are still down 13 percent as of December 2006 compared to sales of 1999, due to the ability of people to download music from their computers legally and illegally. That trend has even hurt the used market. If people are not buying new CDs, Hall said, the market in used CDs eventually also drops. Even his sales have slipped. “It hurts us to an extent because if new releases are not selling, then we do not get a lot of copies,” Hall said. “Then our customers are forced to buy them at our competitors, like Target or Best Buy.” Hall says sales of his store’s used music can be attributed to technology. “We sell a lot of music, but obviously technology is going to hurt any store,” Hall said. “People find it easier to download from I-Tunes or Napster, online.” Rather than fight the trend, Hall says his company has decided to join it, at least in part. “All CD Tradeposts have begun carrying used I-Pods and they sell somewhat well,” he said. CD Tradepost’s rival, Hastings’ Entertainment, has been dealing with similar issues. “Used music, music in general sells less than it used to, but it has not fallen off,” Hastings’ music manager Jon Hunter said. “We don’t do anything out of the ordinary to compete with technology. We just know that there are always people out there who want the actual CD and booklet as opposed to ripping it off the internet.” And “used” in the CD market does not mean “worn” to customers, he said. “Sales are back and forth, but used music tends to be preferred by our customers,” Hunter said. “People are buying it because they know it’s cheap and ultimately they are getting the same product.” University of Kansas junior Dru Walstrom is apart of that market. “I buy used CDs because the price of a new one even after it has been out for a while is still pretty ridiculous,” said Walstrom. “I need to save money as much as possible.” Used CDs are offered at most stores for less than $10, whereas a new CD can sell for up to $20 and it cost $1 to download a single song off of I-Tunes or any other internet-based music stores. Hall says CD Tradepost has a system for deciding what the price should be for each release. Used CD stores also appeal to students as places to make a little bit of cash off of their own collections, selling them to the stores. “We offer typically $3.99 if we do not have it, and it decreases by a quarter for every copy we already have,” Hall said. “People can make some money.” Hastings’ Entertainment buys used CDs for prices ranging from 99 cents to $7.99 depending on popularity.. “If it is something current and popular, people will get some good money for it,” Hunter said. “But if it just some junk music they would typically throw away, they might be able to make a buck or two.” One large question raised within the used CDs market is whether selling the music should be legal, as the artists and record companies are not paid for each transaction after original purchase. It’s not right if the people who are making the music are not being paid,” Doug Grober, a music client of the Nielsen sound scan charts, the company who keep statistics about record sales, said. “It is just like stealing and should not be tolerated.” Walstrom, the KU student, does not care. “I do not think it is like pirating,” said Walstrom, the student. “Someone else already paid entirely too much for that CD.” BandRadio.com reports 28 million albums were downloaded in 2006, a 103 percent increase from the previous year. While overall CD sales may have slipped, stores are not worried about the technology era ruining their business for good. “We may have to lower our prices more so they are bargain base prices,” Hall said. “But there will always be people who rather have the hard copy of an album as opposed to 10 to 12 songs stored on their computer, so I am not worried.” Hunter agrees with Hall’s notion. “It is a phase,” Hunter said. “People still buy the actual albums and I am sure they always will.”

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. (Please Note: Chart stats out of 70 students on campus.)

Lawrence celebrates Pollinator Week

2007-05-11T14:49:14Z

A national event will take place in Lawrence at the end of June. Several venues throughout the United States will celebrate Pollinator Week the week of June 24, and the Pendleton Farm in East Lawrence will be one of the hosts. Kat McGuire, development and communication coordinator of the Coevolution Institute, which sponsors Pollinator Week, said the goal of the week is to educate Americans about the importance of pollinators and to prevent the creatures from going extinct. “We want it to be a resource for people to go and gather information,” McGuire said. McGuire said Pollinator Week allows different locations throughout the country to host their own events to promote pollinator awareness in their area. The week will also feature the release of four new postal stamps. The stamps feature four different designs, which are viewed individually or together in two different interlocking designs. According to the U.S. Postal Service’s Web site, the fact that the stamps interlock to create different designs demonstrates the ecological relationship between pollinators and plants and the biodiversity needed to sustain the relationship. Stan Herd, a crop artist and Lawrence resident, is creating crop art on the Pendleton Farm that will be a replica of one of the stamps. The image will be of a dogface butterfly. Herd said the art is best seen from an aerial view and uses entirely natural resources. “I’m going to do the piece out of 5,000 flowers,” Herd said. McGuire said pollinators, which include birds, bats, beetles and bees, are responsible for pollinating 80 percent of flowering plants. She also said $10 billion - $20 billion a year in the nation’s revenue comes from agriculture that relies on pollinators. “A huge percent of the national income comes from pollinated food,” McGuire said. Orley “Chip” Taylor, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas, helped organize the event happening in Lawrence. He said the goal is to raise money and awareness for local pollinators and beekeepers.

Download file Last September, the U.S. Senate and Department of Agriculture designated June 24 through 30 Pollinator Week. The event will occur on the wake of recent news that the pollinator population is down. The New York Times recently published a story reporting that more than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost. The problem is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and several theories have emerged to explain why it the problem is happening. Possible theories range from a viral illness being passed through the bees to the notion that human cell phone use is causing the bees to be disoriented and therefore unable to return to their hives. Experts have been unable to reach a consensus about any theory. Kansas, whose state insect is the honeybee, is one of two states in the country to have not reported CCD. The other is Nebraska. Taylor, who has worked with bees since the age of 14, said that one reason Kansas might not be having problems with CCD is because the state does not support commercial beekeeping. Commercial beekeepers generally maintain at least 50,000 colonies and provide their bees to large produce corporations to pollinate their plants. Kansas’ beekeepers are generally small business owners or only participate in beekeeping as a hobby. Taylor said these groups of beekeepers are less inclined to report a problem than commercial beekeepers. Taylor also said that commercial beekeepers frequently move their colonies and sometimes do not provide adequate nutrition for the bees, and this is generally not the case with non-commercial beekeepers. He said there are several factors that could contribute to the current colony collapse of the bee population. “A lot could be contributed to weather and management,” Taylor said. He also said he felt that the overuse of chemicals to kill mites in beehives is playing some role in the current problem. “[Beekeepers] throw a lot of chemicals into their bee colonies,” Taylor said. “It’s got to be on of the issues.” Taylor said that beekeepers who use chemicals to kill mites in beehives sometimes reverse the effects they want because the mites have built a resistance to chemicals, and the chemicals harm the bees instead of the mites. Taylor said he doesn’t feel cell phone use is playing a part in the current problem with CCD. “It’s totally irresponsible reporting that led to this,” Taylor said. “Research which was done about this was not done very well. It should not be given credibility.” Taylor said that he has a bee colony at a central point on the KU campus, a place of high cell phone activity. He has not seen any decrease in the number of bees in that colony. Steve Tipton, president of the Northeastern Kansas Beekeepers Association, said he thinks the current outbreak of CCD is part of a cycle of the bee population. He also referred to previous instances of CCD in which the population recovered from loss. “I truly think that it will pass,” Tipton said. Tipton, a resident of Meridan, Kan., said that among his approximately 100 bee colonies, he has not seen a decline in the number of bees. McGuire also acknowledged that the CCD could be cyclical. “I’ve talked to people who said this happens,” McGuire said. “Still, human activity contributes to the problem.” According to Taylor, Kansas has about 150 species of plants that are dependent on bees for their continued existence. He said that this is significant, but not as large of a dependency as other states. “It’s hard to maintain plant diversity without bees,” Taylor said. The nation relies on bees for food items such as almonds, pumpkins and, of course, honey. “About 90 percent of fruit, nut and vegetable crops are pollinated,” Taylor said. “We just wouldn’t have those things without bees.” Taylor also said that the loss of those crops would also decrease animals that feed on those plants, such as squirrels. He said he hopes that Pollinator Week informs Lawrence residents and people throughout the country of the importance of pollinators.

Positive goal adjustment helps graduates prepare for corporate world

2007-05-11T02:30:48Z

Jenny Collins, Overland Park senior, has had her share of college crises and triumphs. Despite the rollercoaster ride she endured for the past four years, Collins kept an open mind about the future and her prospects for a career. "I'm pretty positive about my job security," Collins said. "I'm ready to make an impact in my field and I know that there are a lot of options." Collins will graduate in May and will leave Lawrence for Tallahassee, Fla., in August, where she will attend Florida State University as a graduate student in religious studies. Like Collins, thousands of students will graduate in the coming weeks and will venture onto new tracks in their lives and will encounter those all-to-common real world situations. As graduates flock into the corporate world, stress and failure accumulate and alter the physical and mental behavioral patterns of people. According to an article in last fall's issue the Bureau of Labor Service's publication Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 55 million jobs will be available by 2014, but more people are attending and graduating from college. The influx of graduates signifies a competitive job market and possible downfalls in a graduate's job search. Heather Rasmussen, an evaluation coordinator at the KU Institute for Educational Research and Public Service, did extensive research in optimism and its effects on people's behavior and health. Her work was based on goal adjustment and flexibility in negative situations. In December 2006, The Journal of Personality published a study co-authored by Rasmussen that observed the physical and mental effects of optimism and goal adjustment. Rasmussen felt it was important and healthful for graduates to have attainable goals and to be able to adjust those goals when they couldn't be reached in full. "People who are hopeful and optimistic usually have the flexibility to adaptively cope with obstacles and stressors in their lives," Rasmussen said. "This hope and optimism leads to less depression and is even linked to better physical health." Rasmussen expressed importance in expecting good things to happen, but to also look for the positive aspects of any negative situation. This mindset enabled study participants to learn from negative things so the next time obstacles arose, it was more likely the end would result in a positive outcome. Shane Lopez, associate professor in the department of psychology and research in education, has done research on hope and positive psychology, character education and psychosocial factors associated with academic achievement and professional training issues. Lopez said that graduation was an exciting time for the entire KU community and that the ceremonies bring graduates many endings and some new beginnings, as well as positive stress and the typical taxing stress. "Graduates that have learned to develop clear and specific goals in good times and in bad will navigate this transition well, regardless of what their job or educational future looks like today," Lopez said. "For all, it is time to consider all valued goals; prioritize them through discussions with mentors, family, and friends; and throw your energy behind the goals that matter to you most." Lopez acknowledged change is never easy and it could be overwhelming. People who are hopeful continue to explore possibilities and ultimately find exactly what they are looking for, he said. Optimistic people were also willing to admit downfalls and be honest with themselves when they needed new tools and skills to make themselves more competitive for positions they desired. According to Rasmussen, research has shown that people who are optimistic experience greater social support than their pessimistic counterparts. "This can affect your career," Rasmussen said. "Others are more likely to enjoy being around someone who is realistically optimistic than someone who is pessimistic." Lopez pointed out the social nature of goal pursuits and people couldn't succeed in getting into graduate school or landing the right job on their own. He said it was important to recognize and utilize all the people that are involved: family and friends who offered support, teachers who provided education and training, mentors and advisors who wrote letters of recommendation, and professionals who interviewed for potential. "The folks who navigate this transition into advanced education or the job force well are the ones who take advantage of social support," Lopez said. "They monitor their own progress, get feedback from trusted others, and keep creating pathways toward their goals." Lopez said when recent graduates got frustrated or disappointed, they went back to their support network and reflected on past successes and kept moving forward. Support systems and communal interaction were healthful ways of dealing with goal achievement or failure. Rasmussen did add that goal setting was personal, but it could be useful to consult others about set goals. The goals graduates set should be based on their priorities and what they aspire to do with their lives, Rasmussen said. Juliann Morland, Girard graduate student in international studies, is graduating this summer and will attend law school at Washburn in the fall. She wants to eventually work in the United States diplomatic core or with the United Nations. "I feel it's very important to come to a place of knowing what blessings and skills you have to offer the world and find the career which allows you to best express these passions," Morland said. "I believe in the concept of what some may refer to as the 'American Dream,' however, more so it is one's ability to make their imaginations their reality."

Special Olympics swimmer makes waves in competition

2007-05-11T02:15:12Z

Video: Amelia Freidline and Chris Horn

Becky Saathoff stood at the pool's edge, swinging her arms to warm up. She looked up at her mom, Sherrie, and the rest of her family and friends. "Swim hard, Becky!" Sherrie shouted. Becky smiled and waved. It was swim time. The gun sounded and the swimmers dove in. Becky kept it close the entire race and never lapsed. Her strokes intensified and her contingent cheered her on. "Come on, Becky," her mom screamed. "Kick it, kick it, kick it!" She finished 1.3 seconds behind the first place finisher in the 50-meter freestyle, one of three events that she medaled in. Becky also won the silver medal in the 50-meter backstroke and the bronze medal in the relay race. That evening, Becky Saathoff and friends celebrated her accomplishments at the first-ever Special Olympics National Games. Becky, who has an intellectual disability, has matured as an athlete since her three-medal performance at nationals in Ames, Iowa in 2006. She started swimming competitively about six years ago, when her parents figured Becky's athletic interest could be tapped in Special Olympics. Training began on March 31 for the 2007 Kansas Special Olympics Summer Games, which will take place June 1-3 in Wichita. Becky's team, the Douglas County Gators, will compete in a total of six events at the games, but Becky's focus is in the pool. "I want to get first place or second," Becky said. "But overall, I just want to do my best." Becky's confidence is not entrenched in her desire to win. She wants to excel and always do her personal best, whether she wins gold or gets sixth place. She practices every Sunday for almost two hours and works with other swimmers on the team and the coaches and timers. Every Saturday, she works to beat her best time from the practice before. One of Becky's coaches, John Samuels, likes what he sees in Becky and thinks her attitude towards swimming is reflective of her overall perspective on life. "She works hard to get better," Samuels said. "She knows that the only way she can achieve her goals is to practice." Sherrie agrees that Becky has the right attitude to make her dreams happen. "The great thing about Becky is she has no self-doubt if she works hard and tries her best," Sherrie said. "She is happy with the outcomes as long as she has done her best." Becky's other coach, Danny Lenz, has seen a strong work ethic in Becky's performance and has noticed that her competitive humility, oxymoron aside, allows her to take swimming seriously and enjoy being with teammates and competitors at the same time. Lenz has noticed Becky's enduring spirit and desire to achieve personal greatness. "Becky never gives up," Lenz said. "That's a great quality for not only an athlete, but a person in general." Becky works part time at the University's Department of Special Education and also works with someone who teaches her independent living skills. Her wish is to move out of home to an apartment with a roommate. Oh, and there's got to be a pool. "I love to swim and I love to get better," Becky said. "I know swimming is something I can do forever." To the Saathoffs, especially Becky, Becky's disability has never been an issue. Becky understands that she has special needs and that it takes her longer to learn things, but she associates the word disability with something physical. This mindset, not to be confused with ignorance, has had an extremely beneficial influence on Becky and how she lives her life. "She doesn't see herself as having a disability," Sherrie said. "Only abilities." Becky's disability hasn't affected her love for swimming and her drive to get better. When Becky was asked what the toughest thing to deal with in her swimming has been, she replied with the answer of an athlete with a little swagger. "Nothing."

Health department offers prenatal care to undocumented mothers in Douglas County

2007-05-11T00:42:40Z

Juan and Leticia, a young, married couple illegal to the United States, have been sleeping well lately. Their baby boy, born just two weeks ago, rarely cries at night. On this recent day, for the first time since the boy was born, the couple is meeting with a nurse and Spanish translator as part of a Lawrence program that is growing in popularity, as is Lawrence’s Hispanic population. Nancy Jorn, director of medical health field services at the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, heads the program, which is part of their Pregnancy and Parenting Services. The program is a collaboration effort between the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, local physicians and the Lawrence Memorial Hospital. Its goal is to provide free prenatal care and delivery to undocumented and uninsured women. Since the program began five years ago, the number of families treated each year has increased from four in 2003 to 24 last year. The health department expects as many as 40 families to be treated in 2006, said Jorn. She said she thinks the growth is due to a general growth in the Hispanic population in Lawrence. “The challenge is, many undocumented immigrant women don’t have access to the care they need because they are not eligible for government programs and don’t have the funds to pay upfront,” Jorn said. The health department identifies the women who need care and then offers support with nurses and provides “wrap around services,” which include continuing education and counseling with housing, transportation, paperwork and child care. It then refers the families to Lawrence physicians, who provide free prenatal care to the women on a rotating basis and deliver the baby at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. Soon after the birth, the mother begins to file paperwork for emergency Medicaid, which is a federal program that provides reimbursements for child delivery to any mother who falls below a specific income level. Undocumented immigrants aren’t required to provide documentation or sign a declaration of their immigration if they meet the eligibility requirements. Although emergency Medicaid covers the delivery fee, it does not reimburse prenatal care. Without insurance, Jorn said, paying the $4,000 package fee, which includes prenatal care and delivery, is difficult for undocumented families. Yet without prenatal care, a baby runs the risk of complications and health problems, which, in the end, can cause life-long consequences. “Our goal was to avoid having women come without prenatal care because it’s bad for the mom, for the baby and for all of us who pay the long-term cost,” Jorn said. Jorn said the Health Department advertises their program throughout their building with bilingual posters and literature, and she hopes that through literature and word of mouth, more members of the undocumented community will become aware that the program is available. Juan, 33, and Leticia, 25, who asked for their first names to be altered, live in a small, dark, second-floor apartment lit by a large window that lets in stripes of sunshine from thin, white blinds. On the wall hangs a portrait of La Virgen de Guadalupe, a symbol of motherhood and Mexican heritage, and next to it hangs a miniature, fringed Mexican flag. The checkered sofa that sits against the wall is adorned with small, white stuffed animals, and in the corner of the room sits a plastic car seat. Leticia rocks slowly in a blue recliner adjacent to the sofa, where her husband and their English interpreter are seated. Meanwhile, the baby sleeps quietly in his crib in the next room. Diane Pope, a nurse from the health department, leans forward slightly as she asks the couple how the baby has been sleeping and eating lately. After each phrase, she waits for the interpreter seated across from her to translate. Juan and Leticia say that they haven’t had any problems yet. The baby wakes up two to three times a night, Leticia said, but as soon as she feeds him he goes right back to sleep. “He just knows his parents feel comfortable caring for him and that helps him to be a happier, healthier baby,” Pope says. After the couple light-heartedly shares stories about their baby, Pope helps them to fill out the baby’s insurance applications paperwork for emergency Medicaid. If their application is accepted, their physician will be fully reimbursed for the delivery cost. Sometimes, Jorn said, there are barriers that keep physicians from getting reimbursed for the delivery. If the family fails to provide sufficient documentation that proves their level of income, for example, they cannot be accepted for emergency Medicaid. “We always tell patients that if they aren’t approved, they may be required to pay,” Jorn said. Since they arrived from Mexico two years ago, Juan and Leticia haven’t made a single visit to the doctor’s office, nor have they needed one. But when the couple found out Leticia was pregnant, a friend referred them to the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department for prenatal care. “If it weren’t for this baby, we would never have gone to a doctor,” Juan says. “We felt we wouldn’t have any support. But knowing she was pregnant, we knew we had to do something to get the care we needed.” Prenatal care is not the only health care issue for the Hispanic population, however. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the leading causes of death in the Hispanic population are heart disease and cancer. In addition, 20.4% of people diagnosed with AIDS in 2004 were Hispanic, making them the racial group most affected by the virus after blacks and whites. Despite health problems, immigrants spend significantly less than U.S. citizens on health care. According to a study conducted by Dr. Sarita Mohanty for the American Journal of Public Health in 2006, immigrants spend 55% less per capita on health care than U.S.-born persons. A possible cause for undocumented immigrants’ relatively low health care expenditures, wrote Peter J. Cunningham in the Health Affairs Medical Journal in 2006, is fear of being asked for documentation. However, public hospitals generally do not collect information on their patient’s immigration status. At Lawrence Memorial Hospital, for instance, emergency room patients are treated in order of the criticality of their condition. The clerks ask for names, insurance information, addresses and social security numbers, but some patients do not provide all of the information. “We try to make as complete of a record as possible, but if you don’t have some of the information, it doesn’t mean you won’t be treated or that you’ll have to wait longer,” said community relations worker Belinda Rehmer. “We treat anyone who walks through these doors the best we can.” For child deliveries, which are generally not treated in the emergency room, the women are also treated regardless of immigration or insurance status. Once the baby is born, hospital and state case managers visit the patients to determine if they are eligible for emergency Medicaid reimbursements. Unlike his parents, Juan and Leticia’s baby will not have to worry about being un-insured. Like all other babies born in the U.S., he is a citizen regardless of the legal status of his parents, and is thus eligible for government insurance programs. Any child born in Kansas who is at or below 200% of the federal poverty level qualifies for HealthWave, which is part of a federal and state partnership called State Children Health Insurance Program created for uninsured children. The program covers physical, dental and mental health services for the children until they are 19 years old. As she left the small apartment, Pope said she felt it was rewarding to see the families get the medical care they need for themselves and their children. “I think the program gives to this population the type of medical care that is assured to citizens in the United States, so they are more likely to have a lot healthier pregnancy and healthier baby,” Pope said.

State supreme court to decide on smoking ban

2007-05-10T22:25:27Z

The future of smoking in bars and restaurants in Lawrence hangs in the balance as a case challenging the city's smoking ban now lies in the hands of the Kansas Supreme Court. The court heard a Lawrence bar owner's argument against the city's ban on April 25 and is expected to hand down a decision no sooner than June 8. The decision is sure to get attention from restaurant and bar owners across the state.

See what students think about the ordinance

Phil Bradley, executive director of the Kansas Licensed Beverage Association, is keeping a close eye on the case, but he said that even if the court overturned the ban, it would not make a huge difference in people's habits. "The damages from the smoking ban have been done," Bradley said. "People who used to go out for a drink and a smoke after work have changed their habits. It will take a long time to get those habits back." Mandy Buckwalter, Hutchinson junior, said she had gotten used to the ban and that she enjoyed smoking outside. "I think it's a respectful law," Buckwalter said. Bradley said that even before the city instituted the three-year-old ban, 85 percent of bars and restaurants in Kansas were already smoke-free, meaning that an overarching law was unnecessary. "Businesses that felt they could do better as smoke-free establishments had already done so," Bradley said.

He pointed to what he said was a substantial decrease in revenue from drink taxes as an effect of banning smoking in bars. He said it was the first year in decades that revenue had decreased. The Kansas Department of Revenue, however, showed a small increase in tax revenue, as opposed to an actual decrease. Revenue from the liquor excise tax revenue, a 10 percent retail tax on liquor sales at private clubs and drinking establishments open to the public, increased 4.5 percent in 2004. In 2005, the first full year with the ban in effect, the tax revenue rose 4 percent. Revenue rose again in 2006, up 7.5 percent from 2005. A pre-ban research effort by a 2004 Lawrence task force on smoking in public places and in places of employment said that the lack of change in overall revenue was common after cities put smoking bans in place. The task force's March 31, 2004 report said that half of all establishments, usually bars, could show a negative impact on revenue, while the other half, comprised mostly of restaurants, would show an increase in business after a ban, balancing out the bars' losses.

Bradley said that even though he is a non-smoker and does not care for smokers in public, he thought the law was too vague and granted too many exemptions. The ban is supposed to prohibit smoking in all indoor workplaces, but Bradley said some places were exempt from the rule. Smoke shops, hotel rooms, and private residences that may have employed a nanny or maid all fall under the exemption. Dennis Steffes, owner of Last Call and Coyote's, argued that the city ordinance which prohibits smoking in indoor workplaces preempted the state law allowing owners to determine whether to allow smoking on private property. He also said the law was unconstitutionally vague, meaning that the average person couldn't discern a clear meaning. Billy Rork, Steffes' lawyer, said the issue was not that Steffes, a non-smoker, believed smoking should be allowed, but that he did not think the city should be able to make it illegal. "I think businesses should dictate what goes on inside," Rork said. "This is just government interfering." Sandy Jacquot is the director of law at the League of Kansas Municipalities, which helped the city of Lawrence defend its position to the Supreme Court. She said cities have the ability to enact ordinances that do not conflict with state law, and that the Kansas Supreme Court traditionally says that ordinances more restrictive than state laws do not conflict with the state law. Richard Levy, J.D. Smith distinguished professor of constitutional law, said that was called home rule, meaning that Lawrence has the right to make the ordinance as long as it does not conflict with the state law. Levy said the court would have to interpret the language of the law and decide whether it implies that the businesses have the right to create indoor smoking areas, or whether having an outdoor smoking area is sufficient. Even that decision may not bring an end to the issue, though. "Another problem is that for some Lawrence bars, there are outdoor areas, but for others there aren't," Levy said. "If not all bars have the ability to designate a smoking section outdoors, is there a conflict?" Steffes had been cited for violating the city ordinance, and when he appealed the guilty verdict, the court dismissed the case because the city was amending the code. He then took his case to district court, additionally asking for an injunction until the law was clarified, and finally he went to the Kansas Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court picked up the case because of the possible statewide impact. Toni Wheeler, attorney for the city, said she expected the court to uphold the ordinance, because she thought the language of the law was clear enough to be easily understood. If the court rules in the city's favor on the other issues, Wheeler said that Steffes' injunction request should be dismissed. The court may give the city an opportunity to make changes to the ordinance if it finds the ban to be unconstitutional, and Wheeler said they would try to retain as much of the law as possible.

Deadwood Derby spotlights local music

2007-05-10T22:08:34Z

In living rooms across the country, kids, teens and adults alike hold plastic guitars with little colored buttons and play some of the greatest tunes of all time. These people are playing the now hugely successful videogame “Guitar Hero,” but several area Lawrence bands were playing the real thing in lawrence.com’s annual Deadwood Derby competition. The finals for this battle of the bands took place May 4 and the event was founded last year. The semifinals took place in April. Each week, several bands competed in a round of competition, with one moving onto the finale. The judges picked a wildcard, which rounded out the final group. The bands in the finale were Sterilize Stereo, The Old Black, Dead Girls Ruin Everything, Kaw Valley Project and Left on Northwood. Before these groups competed though, there was an online competition. Bands for the semifinal rounds were chosen by a fan vote. “We wanted it to be as open as possible,” said Phil Cauthon, lawrence.com’s editor. “It’s up to the bands to get their fans on there and vote like crazy for a couple of weeks. There’s no wondering why this band gets in.” The winner this year was Dead Girls Ruin Everything and the members walked out the door with thousands of dollars in prizes, something that the bands were pining for. The prizes included free studio time, a music video, press kit and merchandise. “There are ridiculous prizes as far as recording goes,” said Travis Hare, singer and guitarist for Kaw Valley Project. “Last time recording cost us $800 out of pocket, so $1500 for free was just to good of an opportunity to pass up.” In addition to the monetary prizes, the Deadwood Derby also gave the bands exposure that is often hard to get in a local music scene. “The grand prize is great, but it’s really the exposure,” said JC Cirese, guitarist for The Old Black. It is that exposure that Cauthon had in mind when his friend, Jay Brown, came to him with the idea. Brown is a musician and works in entertainment law. “It’s a rock show organized into a tournament that showcases local music,” Cauthon said. “We can cross-pollinate existing fan bases with others and mix up different types of bands.” The judges were made up of area musicians and people who work in the industry, but the scoring was set up by Lawrence.com. The judging categories were crowd reaction, musicality, song selection, appearance and stage presence. While each judge comes from a different background, they said they wanted the winning band to have similar qualities and they all expressed how important Lawrence’s local music scene is. “[I’m looking for] a band that has a good sound, plays well together and has a good stage presence,” said Ryan Pope, former Get-Up Kid and current part owner of Black Lodge Studios. “Local music is part of the history of Lawrence.” However, judge Steve Wilson, who manages Keifs, writes reviews for the Kansas City Star and is a musician, say a key element is the quality of the actual songs. “Songs [are an important element.] Without songs, you don’t have anything,” Wilson said. “And, you need the musicianship to execute those songs.” Ultimately it is the fans who make the Deadwood Derby successful, from their initial votes to their support during the finale. “We heard about the show because our friend is in The Old Black and we’re here to support the group,” said Cassie Pahcoddy. “Local music builds character to our little town and supporting local music is like supporting family and friends. Maybe someday they’ll be a little bigger.” Those fans and the music are what keep most of the member of these bands going. A far cry from the superstars on MTV, the member of these bands have extra job and actually pay a lot of money out of their own pocket to get their music to the public. “We all work two to three jobs and then we play our music,” Hare said. “We work 12 hour days and then come to practice. We take it seriously. The music is what allows us to do the other stuff. We work all day and have relationships and it all builds up every single day. It’s an extremely important outlet and it’s also extremely fun.” All of the bands received a 30-minute free legal consultation and Lawrence.com will post a compilation CD of all 16 bands that competed, which will become available as a free download. Photos of the event are available at our flickr site. The Competitors

Dead Girls Ruin Everything

Number of Members: 4
A powerpop rock group, Dead Girls Ruin Everything
has the advantage of two singers
with strong voices and an energetic stage show.
Myspace

Left on Northwood

Members: 5
Left on Northwood uses almost choreographed
precision onstage in an effort that
would not be out of place
on the Vans Warped Tour.
Myspace

Kaw Valley Project

Number of Members: 5
Kaw Valley Project focuses on piano in
its orchestrations and uses scene videos
to add to its live show.
Myspace

The Old Black

Number of Members: 4
A rock band with metal influences,
The Old Black benefits from the stage
presence of its drummer and guitarist.
Myspace

Sterilize Stereo

Number of Members: 5
Sterilize Stereo is an alt-country version
of Panic! at the Disco with a visual
stage show that draws from vaudeville influences.
Myspace