FREE SPEECH FRIDAYS

Date rape drug testers defective

Although I definitely appreciated the article on date-rape drugs in The Daily on Jan. 21, I feel that it still fell short of explaining how and why these coasters are failing -- and the severity level of the date-rape drugs they are testing for.

Drink Safe Technologies, the Florida-based company mentioned in the article, sent out thousands of coaster and stirrer testers announcing they were extremely effective in finding GHB and Ketamine. A month later, they recalled them all, claiming a production "mistake," as opposed to admitting their products were actually quite faulty.

England's Drug Rape Trust and SureScreen Diagnostics have also been busy trying to invent coasters and drink stirrers detecting the same drugs, but continue to fail. Rohypnol, another common date-rape drug, is also a member of the sedative class with GHB, but is 10 times more potent than other drugs -- hence, it is used in much smaller doses and is difficult for scientists to detect.

The coasters will fail in any acidic drink (any type of soda and most types of juice). These drugs dissolve in drinks in less than a minute, and their effects of sedation, lowered inhibitions and often amnesia take effect within 10 to 30 minutes. With abilities this quick and tests so indeterminate, it is very difficult to combat these drugs.

If you consume a date-rape drug, definitely go to a hospital within 60 hours after ingestion; you can get a urine test to check for drugs (the test should be free). Although this is the most effective test in existence today, it is not by any means perfect. There are still detection problems resulting in an inconclusive test: hence, the urine test also sometimes creates a false sense of security to individuals.

One in seven college women will be raped before they graduate, and 90 percent will know their attacker (Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, 1992). Young women between the ages of 16 and 24 are four times as likely to be sexually assaulted than all other women (Freshman Social Pressures, 1996). With statistics such as those, combined with a college environment conducive to partying, I hope all students and administrators feel how serious of an issue date-rape drugs are -- and be sensitive and wise in their decisions.

Thank you to The Daily for bringing up such an important issue to the campus' attention!

-- Kiera Flad

senior, women studies

Quality education, academic freedom

As president and founder of NoIndoctrination.org, I read with interest your Jan. 16 story "Professor denies indoctrination of student." I would like to offer some clarifications.

First, the posting about professor Crutchfield has not been up on our Web site for more than a month. We carefully screen all postings prior to posting, and we periodically review them. In early December, it was determined that this particular complaint (while perhaps justified) no longer met our stricter requirements for "indoctrination."

Second, the article states that I became outraged when my son "was assigned only race-related subjects in a writing course." What outraged me was the imbalance of perspective: four of the five articles in this required writing course echoed what one of the authors refers to as "the ruinous pathology of whiteness." Even in class, the instructor put more emphasis on this agenda than on writing skills.

Third, the article states that Crutchfield believes that "[NoIndoctrination.org and some students] are trying to fight a battle of swelling liberalism on campus." This is not our concern. NoIndoctrination.org is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization. What we are fighting is the use of courses or programs to advance sociopolitical agendas, no matter the perspective, left or right. Open inquiry is the hallmark of a quality education. Indeed, this is what academic freedom is all about.

-- Luann Wright

president, NoIndoctrination.org

Hey, do students know about this?

I am writing to alert students to what is happening to their UW student-directory information. The administration is in the final stages of negotiating a seven-year contract with a major credit card company, MBNA, to give them access to the student directory to marketing solicitations to students. The deal will also allow the company to enter campus to solicit students in person.

There are a few protections built into the deal. MBNA promises not to solicit freshmen, for example. But for the majority of students, the only way to avoid getting credit-card solicitations will be to completely remove their information from the student directory, and lose all the benefits therein. Your friends will no longer be able to send you an e-mail just by entering your name in the address field of Pine or WebPine. And whatever you do, MBNA will still be allowed to enter campus.

So the choice will be yours -- either opt out of the student directory entirely, or be subjected to credit-card solicitations. But the choice of whether or not to allow MBNA to have access to the student directory in the first place is apparently not up to students at all -- the administration is making this decision, despite the fact that a resolution in support of the deal failed to pass student senate.

Student senators did pass a resolution requesting that information be placed on the MyUW page, informing students of the chance to opt out of the directory, and the administration has agreed to do this. But Ernest Morris, UW vice president of student affairs, says the company won't sign the deal if students have the option to stay in the directory but opt out of commercial solicitations -- it must be all or nothing.

The carrot on the end of this stick is some money will go to support student programming and student scholarships. The UW Alumni Association will get money to support student scholarships, and the ASUW and various student groups will get a small share of the money to support student programming. But my bet is most students do not think auctioning off the student directory is a fair way to raise money -- especially since this is one company, and it sets precedence for the future.

The Campus Voice Coalition introduced legislation in student senate to request the administration postpone final signing of the contract until students can vote on the matter in the spring. It may already be too late to stop this deal, but we want students to have the chance to be heard loud and clear about the integrity of student-directory information.

So, what do students at UW think about this deal?

-- webster s. walker

ASUW senator,

Campus Voice Coalition

The fat truth

Last week, a friend chastised me for identifying someone as "the fat girl" in a class of 100 students. This fat girl was clearly the biggest girl in the class, and the word "fat" was the best descriptive. After my appalled friend said she could not believe what I said, I asked her to try and tell me that she did not know whom I was talking about. She said that she knew after a moment, but could not believe that I, of all people, would identify someone by their obesity.

I used to be quite overweight before I started exercising and eating healthier. I know what it feels like to be the fat kid. If that overweight girl had any other more distinguishing feature -- say, curly red hair -- I would have used it. I was not trying to hurt anyone. When and why did it become socially unacceptable to use the word "fat, when describing people? I am tired of being nice, politically correct or whatever you want to call it, treating obesity as an acceptable ailment. It is not an unfortunate handicap, like blindness.

I heard in the news recently about a campaign by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance protesting Southwest Airlines for requesting overweight customers purchase an extra seat. Personally, I have flown with a roll of fat from the overweight person next to me invading the space I paid for; this is not fair to me. I said "no," so can they.

Granted, in our culture, being thin drives many girls and others to eating disrders, which is just as bad. Health experts agree that moderate exercise and a sensible diet are necessary to live a healthy lifestyle. So, if you are going to lead an unhealthy lifestyle, I am not going to support you by ignoring it or offering a crutch to help you function normally in everyday life. Alcoholics and drug addicts have rehabilitation programs for just such situations, but how is morbid obesity any different?

I have never been described as an intolerant person because I value individual differences. I am not bothering anybody, so I do not want anyone telling me what to do. I only ask the same of other people. Clearly, I care about what people think of me, but I am not going to bend over backward to make obese people feel good about themselves. Next time someone describes them as fat, they can chew that Twinkie well before speaking out against the injustices toward an obese lifestyle -- and think about their impact on other people's lives.

-- Christian Rusby

junior, premajor

Free the media

As the Federal Communications Commission prepares to make its final decision on the size and reach of major-media corporations, we, as U.S. citizens, have the right to voice our opinions. By taking action, we can make a difference -- keeping what we currently have in media or a change unlike any other in history.

Think about the present media: the major network TV channels, the big-name movie and music companies, the well-known Internet and cable networks, the popular newspapers, magazines and radio stations -- imagine them owned and controlled by a few or even one huge corporation. It could be AOL Time Warner, Disney or Sony, just to name a few.

Although we may not know much about these companies, they have a strong influential power on what we watch, listen and read. AOL Time Warner not only has Internet, movies and TV, but also magazines and music. That means AOL Time Warner and its executive members decide what we should and want to have in media. If AOL Time Warner's executives assume we want more teen sitcoms, they will give us more on the WB, as we have seen increase in the recent years with such shows as Dawson's Creek.

On the other hand, how can a few executives make that decision or even assumption? AOL Time Warner may have been accurate on choosing the teen sitcoms for the WB since these shows have been popular during primetime. Yet, should one major corporation decide what we want on every TV network?

As a result, if one major corporation controls the entire media industry, there will be a lack of diversity. Can a handful of people decide what an entire nation desires in media?

The bottom line of multinational corporations will shape media-policy decisions.

Simply, these media corporations are profit-oriented. Whatever gets them the highest ratings will equal more money. So if American Idol becomes the top-rated TV show for a long period of time, the corporation owning FOX will give the audience more Idol-like shows. Thus, media policy decisions may become based on profit.

So, what can one do? Go write to your senator and representative. Tell them what you think. Check out www.reclaimthemedia.org for more information and to submit your public comment to the FCC by Feb. 3.

Go voice out today! Free the media.

-- Czarin Chan

Seattle Alliance for Media Education