4A
Wednesday, February 1, 1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: CLASSIFIED STAFF, POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
State employee law is biased
Not all of KU's employees were created equal or so it seems as
indicated by recent political events.
In order to run in the 1992 election for state representative, Neva Entrikin was forced to quit her job at KU. State policy forbade her from running or holding a state political office.
If Entrikin could not keep her job, it would follow that none of her state-employed co-workers with political hopes could either. This is not the case.
Working at KU are State Representative Barbara Ballard, director of Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center; and former state representative Forrest Swall, assistant professor of social welfare.
This dichotomy is possible because there are two hiring schemes for Kansas state employees, classified and unclassified.
Classified employees are civil servants who hold positions such as janitors or librarians, which have identical job descriptions and pay scales across the state. Unclassified employees hold jobs with unique descriptions and salaries that vary across the state, such as professors or administrators.
As in many states, unclassified staff are free to be
Unfair law prohibiting some state employees from seeking election could be considered a form of censorship
both politicians and employees
For example, Swall's experience as a state representative surely is an invaluable asset to his students in social welfare courses. His education was also put to good use in service to the state. However, the majority of state employees who are civil servants are prohibited from exercising both of those roles. Most states have similar restrictions.
The state mandates that a custodian may either mop the floors underneath the state rotunda or debate on the floors of its legislatures. To do both under the dome of our capital is out of the question.
Classified employees generally earn less than their unclassified counterparts. They rely on their jobs for their livelihood. Not allowing them to simultaneously run for office and work for the state is censoring them and denying the state potentially dedicated and worthy public servants.
Kansas should set a precedent for the nation and overturn this discriminatory law.
JOHN BENNETT FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE ISSUE: MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE
Wrong time for wage increase
President Clinton's proposed increase in the $4.25 minimum wage
up to $5 — in his middle-class bill of rights — will do little to help the middle class and may hurt those on welfare, the group he claims would feel the benefits of an increase.
In reality, most minimum wage jobs are filled by teenagers or other "job surfers," who are making some extra spending money and learning the humbling responsibilities of a first job. For the most part, they're not supporting families on that meager income.
It's funny how Clinton proposed this increase in his middle class bill of rights. Most middle-class citizens are making more than minimum wage. They must be. It isn't possible to raise a family on $4.25 and hour.
In reality, the pay increase
Clinton's minimum wage hike would hurt more people than it would help,including the targeted middle class.
would end up hurting the middle class. Prices would rise in order to compensate for the wage increase, and the middle class would pay.
This would also affect people on welfare. While they're still receiving the same amount, prices would rise.
And if the GOP has its way with the welfare system, more and more people could become susceptible to rising prices.
It is not the right time for this pay increase. Right now it's an empty political gesture. The U.S. economy is still in recovery, and we need not get cocky, or Clinton's plan will hurt those he wants to help.
JOY MARIE LOFTON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Robert Tapley / KANSAN
Student Senate should dig into its own pocket for funds
Instead of killing the bill last semester, it was tabled so it could merely be dealt with at a later date.
The problem with this bill is not that Senate will vote on this measure but that this legislation was even created in the first place.
To make the philosophical argument that the activity fee hasn't been raised in several years when other student fees are soaring is absurd. Even more disturbing is the lack of any sort of vocal opposition to this fee.
This semester Student Senate again will look at a piece of legislation aimed at raising student fees another $7. This bill is reviewed last semester and tabled for somewhat unclear reasons. The bill is designed to provide more funding to campus organizations and to give a cost-of-living pay increase to Senate Executive Officers.
Despite the rhetoric by some Senate officials that the activity fee hasn't been raised for several years, in reality, Senate raised fees by $20 just last year. What Senate members fail to point out is that in addition to the $28 activity fee they are proposing to raise, there are other student fees that combine with the $28 activity fee to total $194.
As former Student Body President Brad Garlinghouse once lamented,
GUEST COLUMNIST
the student activity fee is paid by 100 percent of the students and affects only about 10 percent of the student body.
In other words, students don't see Senate dollars going anywhere that actually has any affect on them.
when students rarely feel the benefits of this fee and certainly don't favor increasing the fee, Senate should not even consider such legislation.
The activity fee is important to a certain degree, but
While the mandate nationwide is for less government and fewer taxes, Student Senate is preparing to take another $7, thinking it knows better than you how to spend your money. The old Senate justification for raising fees is undoubtedly echoing throughout Senate: "Seven dollars is just a few less beers students will be able to drink each semester."
Since when is it the place of government, let alone student government, to be deciding the best way for students to be spending their money? It seems that while students and Senate
alike complain about tuition rate hikes, all Senate does is turn around and raise its own rates.
The unfortunate truth is that Senate is not endowed with many real powers. Senate's real power lies in its ability to spend and raise student fees. And like most individuals elected to office, senators and executive officers want to have accomplished something that can be remembered when their term expires. Unfortunately, too many members of the Senate see raising fees for "good reasons" as the best way to do this. What would be nice is to see a Senate administration that prided itself in the fact that no fees were created or raised during its term.
There is no excuse for Senate being this unresponsive.
If Senate really wants to adequately fund organizations, it should reduce the number of frivolous organizations and events that it does fund. And if executive officers need a cost-of-living pay increase, they need to find the money in their current budget because we just got soaked for another $20 last year.
Hopefully, Senate will wake up, kill this bill and kill it fast.
Bill Gist is a Leawood senior in political science.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Kansan should give
sex more respect
In the past week or so, the following articles have appeared in the Kansan:
An article about a person who damaged a copy machine in the East Asian Studies Department while photocopying their buttocks and genitalia. The reporter used the phrase "bare-assed" in the first sentence and interviewed a person who thought the incident was "humorous."
A column written by a graduating senior who, reminiscing about the dreaded add/drop line, thought it would be a better experience to have sexual intercourse while waiting in the line.
An article whose headline read: "Students still can have sex in the spring," describing the rescheduling of a sex-education class.
The articles above cheapen and trivialize sex, reducing it to nothing more than a selfish, "was it good for you too?" act. As a happily married man, I want everyone to know that sex is most wonderful when experienced within a life-long marriage commitment.
A front-page article about students' views on orgasms. A well-
Within this framework, making love is private, precious, intimate, loving, caring and definitely worth waiting for.
known KU professor described orgasm as "coming" and "shooting your wad."
deserves.
Shawn Schwensen Lawrence graduate student
I urge the writers of the Kansan to resist the temptation to use provocative and vulgar headlines and stories for shock value and instead give sex the respect it
Orgasm story not front page material
I am concerned with the material that the Kansan has recently decided to include in our campus paper.
I question whether orgasm is a subject appropriate for the front page of a national award-winning newspaper. I was under the impression that quality journalism kept the reporting to timely, informative material and relegated such issues as the definition of bodily functions to Webster's. I think it would be wise to consider material more closely next time before printing it on your front page.
Amanda Mead Wichita junior
First Newt uses "Boys' Town" to explain the benefits of orphanages.
Then a minor panic ensues last week when the media try to link the opening of John Singleton's new film "Higher Learning" with several violent incidents, arrests and a couple of shootings that happened outside the
Life imitates art in ATM thefts reminiscent of'80s movie
ties and plot lines of popular films.
But in order to explain the new wave of thievery plaguing the greater Kansas City area, one must delve deep into the archives of movies past. Well, 1980, anyway.
I don't remember all the details, but even though everything goes wrong, they manage to salvage one of the money bags in the end. And everybody's happy, right?
KANSAN STAFF
Well, this movie must have been checked out a few times recently.
In similar fashion (actually, I don't know if they had on the same kind of clothes), a few people got the bright idea to steal an ATM in a shopping mall. Not the ones at the banks, since the security is tighter. But the mall, yeah, Uh, and there are only a few witnesses. But that's just it, one group got away with it.
On Jan. 12, four men walked into Bannister Mall in Kansas City, Mo., dressed as maintenance workers. They fondled an ATM as if they were working on it, loaded it onto a dolly, waltzed right out the door and drove away. Easy as pie. No violence, no guns, no chaos. It was like the Grinch telling the little Who that he needed to take the whole tree to fix one of the lights. He had a good disguise, too.
Remember that old movie, "How to Beat the High Cost of Living?" I'll tell you about it.
Who says movies don't affect our lives? The ebb and flow of reality often is influenced by the personali-
Then last week four men tried to do the same thing in Metcalf South Shopping Center in Overland Park. But two maintenance workers tried to stop them, and the thieves shot at them as they hopped into their white van. The machine, though not bolted down, went nowhere. It seems the second group is as guilty of a lack of creativity as they are of breaking the law.
JENNIFER PERRIER
Business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
treaters. And how many people do you know who speak to one another almost entirely in "Fletch" quotes? (My own personal favorite is 'Usin' the whole fist, doc?)
Maybe the first thieves consider themselves outlaws, morally above the law, like Robin of the Hood. Maybe they were just trying to beat the high cost of living.
I think that the cops and FBI get smart, they'll start looking into rental records. Not at Hertz. At Blockbuster.
Kate Jackson, Susan St. James and Jane Curtin play desperate women who are, in one form or another, in financial peril. They are so desperate, in fact, that these otherwise honest characters plan to steal a great deal of cash from a local mall. It was like a modern-day Robin Hood kind of thing only they'd be stealing from a mall (the rich) to give to themselves (the poor, I guess).
Matt Gwatt is a Lawrence senior in Journalism.
The plan centers on an extremely large plastic globe that blows money around inside, like those snow globes do when you shake them. It's a big promotion for the mall, and thousands of dollars blow around inside. The women figure they can navigate through the sewers, burrow underneath the mall and cut a hole in the floor. Then they can just suck the money out into trash bags and sail through the sewer, into the sunset.
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
Business Staff
News ... Carlos Tejada
Planning ... Mark Martin
Editorial ... Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial .. Heather Lawrensz
Campus ... David Wilson
College ... Coleen McCain
Sports ... Gerry Fey
Associate Sports .. Maysler Miller
Photo ... Jarrett Lane
Features .. Nathan Olson
Design ... Brian James
Freelance .. Susan White
Campus mgr ...Beth Poe
Regional mgr ...Chris Bramanen
National mgr ...Shelly Falevits
Coop mgr ...Kelly Connealy
Special Section mgr ...Brigg Bloomquist
Production mgr ..JJ Cook
Kim Hyman
Marketing director ..Mindy Blum
Promotions director ..Justin Frosolose
Creative director ..Dian Gler
Classified mgr ..Lissa Kuioth
By Jack Ohman
MIXED MEDIA