IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The series of sirens was the first to pierce the crisp, 20-degree morning air. The sharp and clear bell sounded again at one minute.\nThen came the initial explosion.\nThe iconic Hawkeye press box collapsed on itself Dec. 3 with an earthshaking noise, releasing a massive plume of dust and leaving on its flank -- impervious and unaffected -- the new press box.\nThough University of Iowa officials had advised people not to do so, a cluster of roughly 30 Hawkeye diehards gathered on a nearby parking ramp located close to the collapsing press box to watch the structure topple.\nGazing from the cement parking lot -- one of the sole points of view available because of safety precautions -- were 15 cars worth of onlookers.\nThe children were covered from head to toe in winter wear, and adults sipped black coffee from white Styrofoam cups provided by one Hawkeye fan stalwart enough to watch the building go into the record books.\n
U. Kansas cuts new intelligent design course
\nLAWRENCE, Kan. -- Just a week after attracting national media attention, the University of Kansas will no longer offer a course focusing on the "religious mythologies" of intelligent design and creationism next semester.\nPaul Mirecki, the religious studies professor slated to teach the highly controversial course, cancelled his involvement last week after inflammatory comments made about Christian fundamentalists came to light.\n"I want to be clear that I personally find Professor Mirecki's e-mail comments repugnant and vile," Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway, an outspoken proponent of evolution, said in a statement. "He insulted both our students and the university's public, and he misrepresented beliefs of Kansas' faculty and staff."\nMirecki's e-mail, sent Nov. 19 to Kansas' Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics, referred to Christian fundamentalists as "fundies" and said his course would be a "nice slap in their big fat face."\nWhen these comments were first made public last week, Mirecki issued a public apology and planned to move forward with the course -- which was renamed by the religious studies department to remove any reference to intelligent design as a mythology.\n"I have assured the provost of the university that I will teach the course according to the standards this university rightfully expects -- as a serious academic subject and in a manner that respects all points of view," Mirecki said Nov. 28.\nThree days later, however, he issued a second statement and withdrew the course from the spring semester's course catalogue.\n"My concern is that students with a serious interest in this important subject matter would not be well served by this learning environment my e-mails and the public distribution of them have created," he said. "It would not be fair to the students"
