4A
Tuesday, February 14, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: EDUCATION ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK
Education budget cuts wrong
At a time when a high school and college diploma are the most valuable assets a person can have, budget cuts in education are a bad idea.
In attempting to compensate for spending cuts and lower taxes at the national and state levels, politicians are sacrificing this country's greatest resource, education.
In the proposed national budget for fiscal year 1995, the Department of Education is by far taking the biggest hit. President Clinton's budget calls for a $2.2 billion decrease to $30.7 billion. At 7 percent, that is double the decrease of any other department.
State politicians are also reducing education funding. The Kansas House Appropriations Committee recently sliced $23.4 million from the budget of state universities, and Rep. Fred Gatlin, R-Atwood, has promised to cut at least an additional $13 million. While it is likely that this money will be put back in the budget in a smaller amount, the fact that cuts in education are being considered to pay for campaign promises is a tragic notion.
Politicians trying to fulfill campaign vows could be mortgaging the future of the country in the process.
The arrogance and disregard that some politicians have towards higher education was summed up best by Rep. Darlene Cornfield, R-Valley Center, when she stated, "I know they're going to whine and cry and say they can't exist, but we know that's not true."
These proposed cuts in education financing represent nothing more than a short-term answer to a long-term problem. A country's greatest resource is a well-educated populous. One needs only to look at a country like Japan, a country with scarcely any natural resources, to realize this fact. With juvenile crime rates soaring, welfare programs becoming inundated with requests for more aid and a decrease in the unemployment rate nowhere in sight, now is not the time for budget-cutting battle axes to bludgeon education funding.
Where would these politicians be without their educations?
TIM MUIR FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE ISSUE: PATRIOTISM BILLS
Mandating pledge is unfair
Conservative legislators have recently introduced two patriotism bills to the Kansas House of Representatives. Part of one of the proposals is strictly unconstitutional. Part of the first bill would require that Kansas elementary, junior high and high schools start each day with a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance.
While a moment of silence would be a welcome and needed addition to the school day, mandating recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance cannot be supported. It may seem harmless to some to display patriotism and reverence for one's country. But members of certain religions cannot utter the phrase "one nation under God." Imposing the Pledge of Allegiance on those whose religious preferences prohibit them from saying it would be unconstitutional.
History bill is important for proper education,but forcing students to say the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.
The second bill, dubbed the history bill, would allow teachers to read and post historical documents including the national anthem, the state and federal constitutions, the Declaration of Independence and "organic documents."
This bill is a necessity. As citizens of the United States and of the state of Kansas, students deserve and require the right to be taught from the documents that govern and impact this nation.
The Kansas Legislature should pass the history bill and either strike the Pledge of Allegiance from the first bill or pass the authority about that decision to the individual school boards of Kansas.
CHRIS VINE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSANSTAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
JENNIFER PERRIER Business manager
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Editors
News...Carlos Tejada
Planning...Mark Martin
Editorial...Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial...Heather Lawrence
Campus...David Wilson
Colleen McCain
Sports...Gerry Fey
Associate Sports...Ashley Miller
Photo...Jarritt Lane
Features...Nathan Olson
Design...Brian James
Freelance...Susan White
Jeff MacNetly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Both Poe
Regional mgr ... Chris Branaman
National mgr ... Shelly Falevits
Coop mgr ... Kelly Connesty
Special Section mgr ... Briggs Bloomquist
Production mgrs ... JJ Cook
Kim Nyman
Marketing director ... Mindy Blum
Promotions director .. Justin Frosolone
Creative director .. Dane Gler
Classified mgr ... Lissa Kukesh
more than an invention of greeting card companies. The giving of flowers means something that we never can articulate. The simple act of being told you will have a Valentine can make the entire day, hell, the entire month, worthwhile.
The entire process of reaching out and facing rejection is candy-coated for one day. You put your neck on the block and either are cut or saved. It doesn't necessarily signify undying love, but then, it doesn't signify complete isolation. We're given a layer of protection, be it cynicism or sentimentality.
Today, we can feel ridiculously good if the answer is yes.
Today we can be brave, because this isn't for the whole ball of wax. Today we can try. Today the gentle smile that we can't forget might be given to us. Today the eyes could be on us.
Today, we can ask a stupid little question that is childish and sappy.
Get rid of 'love's shadow with courage and a question
"Will you be my Valentine?"
This day always brings a slew of memories and emotions. Some people will run and hide, doing anything possible to avoid the pink and red hearts. Others will walk around with big smiles and lipstick-red kisses on their cheeks.
I want to dislike Valentine's Day. I wish that I could sneer at the little sugary hearts with cute sayings and open my mailbox without hoping I received a single card with sappy greetings. Nothing would make me happier than a lack of emotional content today. Some friends of mine react with anger at the sight of a heart with an arrow through it. They plan an evening involving gravel-voiced blues singers and unhealthy amounts of alcohol. The stories I hear from these people are truly the stuff of made-for-TV movies. I have a few of these stories to tell myself.
After all, we can always discuss the trauma of elementary school, where I and a thousand other little boys dealt with their first rejections. Why should anyone have a pleasant memory of being told in second grade that the love or your short life just wants to be friends? This is hardly a
STAFF COLUMNIST
sob story that only I have experienced. One or two people I know are still bitter over this turmoil.
Even the pleasant moments that accumulate over the years can be painful on Valentine's Day, such as the card from a secret admirer or a gift given with a
shaking hand and unsteady voice.
shaking hand and unsteady voice. It hurts. There isn't a single person in the world that never felt a moment of love's shadow across the heart. A person who didn't dream of someone's lips, hair and smile. A person who never stared across a room, wishing for the courage to go speak to this vision of perfection. A person who never resented the fact that this vision was distorted, the perfection existing only in the mind.
But there are people, and sometimes I'm one of them, that look forward to the old 14th of February. People who think that this day is
Ticket policies show bias toward alumni
Isaac Bell is a Lawrence junior in English
The decision to raise by 60 percent the price of faculty/staff tickets for football and basketball is just another example of the low regard the Athletic Department has for the KU faculty and staff who educate their athletes.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
University Counsel Victoria Thomas claims that IRS rules require KU to cut its staff ticket discount from 50 percent to 20 percent, a full 60percent increase in price. Wrong! Faculty and staff may have to report as income discounts that exceed 20 percent, but the Athletic Department is free to set price and discount without IRS help.
And, they have decided that an additional $150,000 (in increased basketball ticket prices alone)
will come out of the pockets of faculty/staff ticket holders next year and go into the coffers of an athletic department whose sumptuous headquarters rivals those of the wealthiest corporations. The decision continues a troubling trend.
During the last 10 years, the number of tickets allocated to faculty and staff has dwindled, despite a decision this year to allocate some new seats to KU employees. At the same time, Williams Fund donors got tickets that once went to staff. Those few faculty lucky enough to get tickets can no longer hope to improve the location of their seats. I am a full professor in my 15th year of teaching at KU, yet my seats — and those of fellow faculty/staff — have remained in the upper reaches of Allen Field House. At the same time, I have watched Williams Fund donors move steadily toward the front row.
These favored few also get to park their cars in a covered parking garage — conveniently connected to the field house — that KU faculty and staff can't use for the game but nonetheless are paying for with higher parking fees. The chosen ones get to sip cocktails and visit the luxurious restrooms of the Naismith Club — also conveniently connected to the field house — so that they don't have to mingle with the masses in crowded public restrooms or concession lines.
Perhaps it is time to end the illusion that faculty and staff are part of the KU athletic team. Wealthy donors can buy their way inside Allen Field House, but KU faculty and staff are treated like outsiders.
Ted Frederickson professor of journalism
Even hard hearts may grow to love harsh history of Valentine's Day
Cynics, take heart.
Cycles, take her I know.I know.
"Please, not another word about Valentine's Day!"
Or, if you want, despair at will,
because today doesn't have to be
filled with hearts, candy and Hallmark cards. For those of you who dislike heart-shaped chalk with suggestive inscriptions, here are a few positively awful things about this time of year.
Tired of talk about passion, love and romance? Don't despair.
Valentine's Day is named for someone who was killed for his religion. St. Valentine, according to the handy newsroom
Encyclopedia, was a bishop of Terni who was martyred at Rome. In spite of the popularity of his name, however, he has been omitted from the calendar of Catholic saints' days. Church officials decided that he never really existed.
You think you have a raw deal? Try dying for a cause and then being eliminated from memory as a fairy tale.
Cupid, who came from Roman mythology's god of love and is symbolized by the Greek god eros, is always pictured ready to perform the violent act of firing arrows at innocent bystanders. But o'l Cupid's got nothing on Al Capone. One of the fathers of American organized crime, Capone made one of his more famous contributions to history on this day back in the Roaring '20s, when Prohibition lasted all week, not just Sunday. He and his Tommy gun-carrying Joeys killed seven men of a rival gang in what is affectionately referred to as "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre." Wives, girlfriends and mistresses were all left alone that Feb. 14.
Had enough yet? Wait, there's more.
The Midwest is downright cold in February. Flurries of snow, thousands of cold and flu viruses circulating. Temperatures dipped down into the realm of the negative this weekend. Phil must have soaked his contacts in glue the night before Groundhog Day this year because winter's not going anywhere.
Today just so happens to be one of the busiest days of the year for private detectives. Why? Because, private eyes say, cheaters always cheat on Valentine's Day. An adulterous rendezvous here, a dinner with the mistress there. Many an uncontested divorce will be sealed with a camcorder (S.w.a.c.) today.
Do you want more?
If Valentine's Day wasn't predictable enough already, the whole holiday has gone on-line. Heart-felt, high-tech prose and orders for dozens of roses will fill the Internet today. Several on-line companies are offering advice on wines, movies and intimate locations. Just think of it, couples across the land sipping the same cheap wine, watching the same sugar-coated movies and going to the same authentic Italian ristorantes. Zero points for originality.
Ouch! I can't go on. This heart-hearted stuff is starting to make me sick to my stomach. I think I'll go curl up with my girlfriend, sip some Ernest and Julio Gallo White Greenache and watch "Sleepless in Seattle" after dinner at the Macaroni Grill.
Original? Maybe not. But it's all been done before. Besides, I can't seem to get the sweet tooth of affection out of my dental work. So, if this grisly list wasn't enough for you cynics, grab a nice salt lick or a paper cut and have an Unhappy Valentine's Day without me.
Matt Gowen is a Lawrence senior in journalism.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin