4A
Wednesday, February 15, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: PROPOSED POLLING SITE
Factions in Student Senate don't want new polling place
Student Senate recently voted not to support a polling place at Ekdahl Dining Commons during the Senate elections, which will be in April. This decision is based on political motives and flawed arguments, and it deserves closer inspection.
UNDERQUALIFIED AND UNDERCLASS?
Those opposed to a polling site on Daisy Hill have said that it would reduce the quality of voting. This is ludicrous for two reasons.
First, some senators believe that the average residence hall student is an underclassman who is uninformed regarding campus issues. This may be true. Those opposed to putting a polling place in the cafeteria believe it would increase the amount of unqualified votes these students might cast.
What qualifications do people need to vote? Perhaps these same senators believe that we should return to a system where only white male property owners can vote.
Also, if these underclassmen are too uninformed to vote, whose fault is that? It's the fault of those who run for office.
By concentrating on consolidating voting blocks among the Greeks and other groups on campus, prospective senators ignore a large portion of the student population. A polling place on Daisy Hill might force candidates to campaign among other segments of the student population.
It would raise voter consciousness and make candidates more responsive to the masses. For these reasons alone, Student Senate should support a polling place on Daisy Hill.
PRACTICE MAKES IMPERFECT
Senators argue that voter apathy is the cause of low voter turnout and that providing another polling place will not solve this problem.
The voter apathy on this campus is a direct result of pitiful Senate campaign practices, such handing out fliers and buttons along
Voting on Daisy Hill would decrease impact of political groups and raise awareness of the 'general' student.
Jayhawk Boulevard before elections. Too often this is the only contact that students have with candidates, and this problem is compounded by the fact that the fliers don't always state the candidates' positions on the issues.
In the face of such a practice, most KU students would rather not vote at all than cast a vote based on whose flier had the best artwork.
While a sixth voting place would not solve the problem of voter apathy, it certainly cannot hurt.
TRUTH AND FACTIONS
Since the Senate arguments against the sixth polling place don't hold water, look at the real reasons why many senators don't support it. Like it or not, Student Senate is largely controlled by a few political factions. Many factions fear that an increase in the number of "general" student votes facilitated by the sixth polling place would decrease the power of the "facialion" votes to elect candidates and, therefore, dictate policies.
These factions struck down the idea of a sixth polling place.
The overly politicized system that we have now creates candidates who are afraid to speak the truth for fear they will lose the support of the special interest coalitions needed to get elected.
Election practices are not representative of the total student body. A polling place on Daisy Hill would force candidates to campaign to more of the student body,not just certain groups within the University.
For this reason, KU students should support a polling place at some location on Daisy Hill.
To let your student senator know how you feel about increased polling places on campus, call the Student Senate office at 864-3710 and let them know how you feel.
STANTON SHELBY FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
JENNIFER PERRIER
Business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Jeff MacNelty / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Editors
News ... Carlos Tejada
Planning ... Mark Martin
Editorial ... Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial .. Heather Lawrence
Campus ... David Wilson
Colleen McCain
Sports ... Gerry Fey
Associate Sports .. Anley Miller
Photo ... Jarrett Lane
Features .. Nathan Olanon
Design .. Brian James
Freelance .. Susan White
Business Staff
Campus mgr ...Beth Poth
Regional mgr ...Chris Branaman
National mgr ...Shelly Falevita
Coop mgr ...Kelly Connelye
Special Sections mgr ...Brigg Bloomquist
Production mgrs ..JJ Cook
KJ Hymman
Marketing director ..Mindy Blum
Promotions director ..Justin Frosolone
Creative director ..Dan Gier
Classified mgr ..Liaa Kuleth
careful about the people he sleeps with, too. Since when has an income bracket or educational background or religious conviction had anything to do with sexual morality or keeping someone's penis in his shorts? If you are at all confused about this last point, you have been in a naive stupor for the last several years and wouldn't know a case of the promiscuities if it came up and pinched you on the ass.
My point? It ain't a gay thing anymore. And that sure is in hell doesn't mean that now daddy's little girl could get taken away the same way that daddy's little boy, who moved to California and whom nobody talks about anymore, could get taken away. We went from a "gay plague" to a plague, except we are reluctant to acknowledge it.
Take a note from the gay community. Recognize the problem and discuss it with your partner. Or ignore it. It won't matter anyway because nobody would have to see you shrivel up and die anytime soon at the University of Kansas. You'd do it in a few years in some Kansas City hospital or your childhood room at your parent's house. Just you, mom and dad, maybe a great friend or two and an IV sticking out of your arm when you slip off.
John Martin is a Lawrence first-year law student.
Another day, another headline about HIV. Ho-hum goes the headline: No. 1 Killer In Age Group, Boy, I remember the good old days when the folks in my age group were off in movie-scene deaths. A drunk driver wiped somebody out. A stray bullet caught a kid in the head. Even a normal traffic accident often meant that dark stain on the road. Tragedy. Drama.
AIDS, the 'sneaky killer,' isn't gay disease anymore
Not these days. Today, we get this quiet, sneaky killer that starts out as something called HIV-positive and, at some point, turns into the HIV system. Basically, a person's immune system stops defending the body; the result is death. Nothing very dramatic outside of the average Tom Hanks movies.
At least it's not very dramatic to your average Kansan. We don't live in what one would call a high-risk area. That would be those folks in New York City and out in California. The statement "Sleep around and die" is not something we carry around in our conscious baggage.
No, at best, we perceive HIV to be a mystery disease that kills other people. At worst, we perceive AIDS to be this mystery disease that kills other people who deserve to die. Folks around here don't get AIDS. Well, they do, but it's not advertised. You get this feeling it would be too embarrassing.
STAFF COLUMNIST
If someone dies from AIDS around here, people say, "Transfusion, like what killed Starsky's wife." I don't want to burst anyone's prophylactic bubble, but not everyone gets it from transfusions. It's tough to argue with statistics, and the numbers say that many people get AIDS
through sexual activity. Homosexual sex, heterosexual sex, homo-heterosexual sex: pick a possibility with an unsheated penis in the equation and you've got a loser.
Public broadcasting not a public drain
The numbers also say that the group with the largest-percentage increase is heterosexual women. That would be the group that gets the HIV-positive, no-raincoat penis inserted into their vaginas. And suddenly they're part of the new high-risk group.
I am writing this letter in response to an article written by David Day in the Feb. 8 issue of the Kansan. Day describes himself as a subversive college student. Frankly, I am fearful of letting someone as subversive as Day make any type of decisions, including what to do with the arts.
What's that? You only date (sleep with) guys from KU? You know, clean-cut guys from places like Hays and Coffeeville and Johnson County?
So Chip or Scooter from Lenexa likes to wear one of those little roll-on party hats? Yeah, right, and he's very
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Has Day read the real news about what the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is about? I seriously doubt it. Furthermore, has Day even read about his buddy Newt Gingrich? I doubt this also.
First of all, the president of PBS, Ervin S. Duggan, who recently went on ABC's Nightline to discuss the public television problem, indicates that the federal government only provides 14 percent of the
funding for PBS. In monetary terms it comes out to less than 50 cents per person in the United States (about 125 million total tax payer dollars). The rest of the funding comes from corporate sponsorship and individual viewers. Has Day ever even contributed to PBS? I doubt this as well. Furthermore, PBS doesn't just air programs like Sesame Street and Barney, which incidentally, PBS does receive profits from in order to improve its programming and add new and better educational shows.
Without PBS, *bogus* (as Day refers to them) programs such as Masterpiece Theater, The MacNeil/Lehrren News Hour, Firing Line and the McLaughlin Group would not be on the air.
Secondly, if Day had done any research on Gingrich, he would find that Newt has his own cable station, Empower TV.
While teaching folks about "empowering" Ginrich gets away with comments such as, "In the military, women can't last in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections. Men are like little pigs in the mud and just love to roll around in the mud." The miliary has refuted this remark and indicated that no one, not even men, stay in a ditch for 30 days.
Cutting public television will not reduce the deficit. It won't even make a dent. If Day wants to suggest ways to reduce the deficit, he should look at defense spending, entitlements and health care.
And if Day really wants to cut something, he should cut his column from the Kansan. It would spare readers his mediocre and 'subversive' views.
Tamar Ginzburg Lawrence graduate student
Americans turn on the television and look in the warped mirror
Television invades every facet of our lives. We watch to be educated, entertained, informed and sold. We watch television because it mirrors our culture, habits and penitents. It mirrors us in the fact that some of us do without doing, act without reason, and, generally, be without being.
However, as people can falter and
wane from the shores of reason-ability so can television. There used to be a time in U.S. history when the programs were wholesome, lively and decent. Now, television has drifted from the firm plantings of sanity and rationale into the waters of the ridiculous and ignorant.
Some programs today astonish me. I have discovered things on television with absolutely no value whatsoever.
The show "Baywatch" especially perplexes me. I find it terribly interesting that a nation can embrace a show designed to get lonely guys interested in water safety. Also, if David Hasselhoff had any more back hair, there would be an eclipse every time he hopped his four-wheeler to save the local babe of the month.
MTV offers a variety of no-gray-matter-required programming. I cannot believe "The Grind" is still on the air. I would like to meet the people who watch this show. This would be like meeting the patients in Darwin's waiting room. You know, there is really nothing better than watching a horse of sweaty waitresses in spandex dancing around Eric, the Don Cornelius of the '90s.
The infomercials they put on television are also rather intriguing. There's always the same host, who is a master at cleaning and cutting everything but his own teeth and hair. I just don't think you should give your credit card number to anyone who thinks that apples look really neat without the peel.
LaToya Jackson is another person on television who should not be trusted. If your life has gone so awry that you need advice, trust me, call a friend or a doctor. Do not call an out-of-work centerfold who knows no more about the human psyche than she does about her own brother.
This is where television leaves us — alone with a cast and crew of people who unfortunately belong to our society. And, they are the people who make us laugh, blush, realize, cry, dance, think and act. Just think, that in only one episode of "Fame."
Carter Voekel is a Dallas sophomore in English.
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the authors signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Guest columns: Should be double spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or out-right reject all submissions. For any questions, call Matt Gowen, editorial page editor, or Heather Lawrenz, associate editorial page editor, at 864-4810.
MIXED MEDIA
By Jack Ohman