4A
Tuesday, February 7, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: STUDEX SECOND GUESSES
Committee lacks authority
What's the purpose of the Student Senate Finance Committee?
Obviously not much if the Student Senate Executive Committee sees fit to override the Finance Committee's actions whenever it deems necessary.
A few weeks ago, StudEx decided that the Finance Committee was wrong to fail a bill that would give $6,095 for a law symposium and that it should have gone before a full Senate. Senate ended up amending the bill by decreasing the money given to the symposium and passing it.
Whether the law symposium deserved the money is not the issue. If the Finance Committee decided that it was not worth student dollars, so be it. The bill should not be resurrected by StudEx members for whatever personal reasons they have.
The Finance Committee has approximately 30 members and is composed of student-elected senators and interested students. The committee reviews
StudEx overrides a Finance Committee bill, prompting the question: Why have a Finance Committee?
each piece of legislation and tries to pass bills that are in the best interest of the students.
StudEx is made up of Senate executives, including the student body president, student body vice-president and committee heads.
Sheer numbers tell you that the decision of the Finance Committee better represents the opinions of KU students than StudEx.
Senate rules and regulations are not clear whether it is permissible for StudEx to override the decision of the finance committee.
Regardless of the rules, it is best for Finance Committee and StudEx relations that the two entities respect each other. This includes respecting each others' decisions.
What's the purpose of the Finance Committee? Ask the members of StudEx; they seem to know.
HEATHER LAWRENZ FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE ISSUE: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
Arts funding not just for elite
The NEA faces the GOP chopping block this spring
The National Endowment for the Arts is known more for its financing of a handful of controversial exhibits than for the thousands of school arts and community theaters that it supports. It may pay for this perception with its life.
Nancy Kassebaum, chairwoman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, which oversees the NEA, thinks that all options, including elimination or privatization of the NEA, should be on the table. The NEA accounts for 0.01 of 1 percent of the federal budget.
Yet Kansas may suffer a severe blow. Last year, $795,100 was allocated to Kansas artists and organizations.
Opponents of the NEA point out that financing often goes to a "sandbox of cultural elite" and that taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for the avant-garde. Arguably a cultural elite could find alternate private funding for the type of art it seeks and for the few controversial endowments that have tarnished the reputation of the NEA.
Eliminating National Endowment for the Arts funding could mean losing programs in smaller towns.
Those who would stand to lose from the elimination of the NEA are people such as the citizens of Baldwin City or Dodge City, who already have limited access to the arts. They would face the almost impossible task of finding private sponsors for programs such as the Chamber Music Rural Residency Program or touring children's theaters. Similar programs stand to lose a sizable portion of their funding.
Under Jane Alexander's leadership since 1993, the NEA has been moving more into the realm of the average citizen. This reorientation is appropriate. Eliminating the NEA would have the opposite effect that supporters of its demise anticipate. It truly would relegate the arts in the United States to the sandbox.
JOHN BENNETT FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
News...Carlos Tejada
Planning...Mark Martin
Editorial...Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial...Heather LawRENZ
Campus...David Wilson
Sports...Colleen McCain
Sports...Gerry Fey
Associate Sports...Ashley Miller
Photo...Jarrett Lane
Features...Nathan Olson
Design...Brian James
Freelance...Susan White
JENNIFER PERRIER
Business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr ...Beth Poth
Regional mgr ...Chris Branaman
National mgr ...Shelly Falevits
Coop mgr ...Kelly Connally
Special Sections mgr ...Brigg Bloomquist
Production mgr ...JJ Cook
...Kim Hyman
Marketing director ...Mindy Blum
Promotions director ..Justin Frosolone
Creative director ...Dan Gier
Classified mgr ...Lisa Kuseth
Jeff MacNetly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Other people's private lives? It is none of your business
I was afraid this would happen. I tried, I really did, but no longer can I fight it.
I must be relevant today.
You see, there's this trend toward the "holier-than-thou" mentality right now. The great compass of modern society, Newsweek, has articles about the surge of morality. A political party that declares itself to uphold the concept of truth, justice and the American way is still cavorting about the fact that it took control of the Congress. One thousand and one little heads of so-called churches have been marching their xenophobic butts all over this great land of ours, declaring — with badly written signs
— that God hates cigarettes or something like that.
I admit, it has been a while since I took U.S. government or history in high school, but if I recall, this country was supposedly founded on ideals of freedom. You know, freedom of expression, that whole bit. Something was in there about separation of church and state as well.
This leads me to wonder why current debates about whether to add two little words, sexual orientation, to Lawrence's Human Relations Ordinance focus on such sources as the Bible. No matter what one's personal stance is on the Bible or the entire Christian faith, it should be a relatively simple concept that not a single
STAFF COLUMNIST
religion has any bearing on governmental policy of any sort.
So I have to nod, hope for the best and feel thankful.
Simply put, religion is none of your business, my business, the police's business or the government's business. What anyone wishes to do in privacy is — difficult concept, this — the private. Thus the
word privacy is used to refer to such activities.
This doctrine applies to most activities humans engage in. I personally hate smoking, but unless I'm locked in a closet with someone packing a carton of Marlboro Reds and a bad nicotine fit, it's none of my business if anyone smokes or not. See, it's simple.
Let's practice this.
Second: Choice of religion? Hmm. Do they worship trees or fishy so-called preachers? It doesn't matter because unless they perform ritual sacrifices it's none of our business.
There are many people who excuse sticking noses where they don't belong. I've heard many of them, and I agree with some and disagree with some. I hate the thought that anyone can drink as much as he or she wants after a certain age. I hate the idea that no one can force parents to discuss sexual issues with their children before the issues become crises. I hate the fact that most anybody with displaced aggression and a phallic-inferiority complex can purchase a gun. But none of this is my business.
First: Choice of reading materials?
OK, did someone have to be tortured for the book to be printed? No? Then it's none of our business.
Because, in the end, I have my own business to attend to.
Next: Choice of pregnancy? This is a
touchy one. I myself am extremely uncomfortable with the entire issue, especially because I grew up in Wichita, a town known for disputes about this matter. But, regardless of my personal beliefs, this is also none of my business.
Finally: Sexual orientation? Notice I don't say choice because this area is one where choice is not involved. It doesn't matter if you quote the Bible or D.H. Lawrence. It doesn't matter if your stomach churns at the sight of men holding hands or at the sight of a man and woman kissing. It doesn't matter if you are bigoted or tolerant. It is None of Our Business.
isaac Bell is a Lawrence Junior in English.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letter is insulting; the analogy is wrong
I found David J. Barry's ability to spout rhetoric and numbers in his Feb. 3 letter to the editor impressive.
However the analogy comparing the Holocaust to abortion is tired, insulting to those of Jewish heritage and inaccurate.
The Holocaust was a tragedy of incredible proportions resulting from, among other things, one group forcing their extremist religious beliefs on others. According to Leviticus, person hood occurs upon birth and those people in camps such as Auschwitz were born, viable lives subjected to the hell of human evil. But does Mr. Barry know that the same man behind the death camps was one of
the first government leaders to legally ban abortion? It appears that Mr. Barry has found an ally!
Michele A. Kumm Leawood senior
Simply Equal about upholding basic rights
I am writing in response to Chris Wiswell's letter to the editor in the Jan.27 Kansan.
Very rarely do I feel the need to respond to such ignorance, but I feel that this time it is highly necessary. There seems to be a prevaling idea that the Simply Equal proposal is a matter of personal choice. Wiswell seems not to be the only one with such an opinion, and this is my question to all of you who feel this way: Did you feel the same when the "right" of businesses not to hire
Blacks or women was threatened?
wiswell claims to uphold the fundamental right not to associate. That is all good and well, but this is not a question of simple association. This is about discrimination. Discrimination in all forms is wrong, and it is up to the lawmakers to make sure that no one is treated in such a way that their basic rights are violated. That is what the proposal means. It is not forcing someone to associate with someone they don't want to. From the tone of Wiswell's letter, he seems to support selected discrimination, which makes him a bigot and which makes me wonder why he even bothered to use the term "basic rights". What he really meant was "whatever's most convenient for those in power."
Claude Howard Lawrence sophomore
Gingrich puts the future of culture and PBS in our hands
Newt Gingrich.
Now take a deep breath and read the following sentence without tearing the newspaper to shreds in a fit of madness. I like him.
today desperately
I don't wholeheartedly agree with his views, but the new speaker of the House is what the political arena of
STAFF COLUMNIST
today desperately needs: Someone who is not afraid of the lashings of the media. Someone who takes a stand and remains standing.
Compromise has brought us newer and bigger burdens with less to show for them. It has brought us into a void where we are unsure of what our leaders
stand for. President Clinton knows what he stands for, but he plays political Twister. Someone spins a green, and he is quick to slap a left hand on the plastic mat of compromise.
But if anyone is unaware of what Gingrich stands for, it certainly is no fault of his.
And now the issues.
Why should the government support the arts (or just about anything else)? Should we leave our cultural fate in the hands of the biggest, most inept economic machine in the country? I want to be responsible for supporting the arts. That's fine with me.
Give me a little more money in my lint-lined pocket, and I visit one more gallery, see one more show and potentially contribute to a private, tightly run artistic movement — rather than throwing it into the Washington network.
I could even afford to buy those paints or that package of fonts or that roll of film.
Here's where Newt comes in. He's not a government man. He'd rather let me, a subversive college student, decide what is art. What a concept.
Answer: Ahh... Well, ummm.
He's also thinking of putting Big Bird on the chopping block, or Oscar in the trash compactor. Or (fill in bogus image here.)
Question: Do you watch it?
It's funny to hear people talk of cutting public television. "No! What a travesty!"
The point is, public television has served its purpose.
I must admit, I loved Bert and Ernie, Super Grover and the rest. But you don't honestly think that poor Gordon will be evicted, do you? With all the Cookie Monster thermoses and Sesame Street See-and-Says out there, I know they could come up with the small percentage of funds of which they would be denrived.
And Barney? Well, Barney can start his own station: "BarneyTV — You Love Him, He Loves You."
The federal government must be pared down. And what better place to start than with the places and programs which can be easily replaced with private stock, with government systems that are outdated and not swirling in mega-storms of politics.
Gingrich is not a savior of government, and I am not his prophet. But he is an example of what we need on both sides of an issue. Someone with a valid point, someone who uses common sense.
Like him or not, Newt Gingrich is a solid and forcefully honest speaker. He trusts that if we the people (sound familiar?) are given the tools, we will make this a better place to live. We can decide.
Not only does that take some faith, but it also takes some guts.
He's also not afraid to bag a few snufflaunapuses.
MIXED MEDIA
David Day is a Wichita Junior in journalism and creative writing.
By Jack Ohman