4A
Wednesday, November 2, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Thompson for treasurer
State treasurer may be an selected position many consider unimportant and unworthy of much consideration. However, voters should consider it long enough to elect Sally Thompson, Democrat, to a second term against Randy Duncan, Republican.
At the most basic level, Thompson is more qualified based on her experience and education. She is a certified public accountant. She was the president and chief operating officer of Shawnee Federal Savings and Loan in Topeka and has a bachelor's degree in business, accounting and finance. Her opponent is an novelty salesman.
During her term in office, Thompson has generated $100 million in nontax revenue for the state. That is the same amount a half-cent sales tax would generate, but clearly Thompson's money management techniques are preferred to picking the pockets of tax-payers each day.
Many consider Thompson to be the most efficient state official. She has improved the operation of the treasurer's office, which she inherited from Joan Finney. She has upgraded the computer system and returned professionalism to the office.
KANSAN ENDORSEMENT Kansas State Treasurer
Duncan's primary criticism of Thompson has been about an investment pool created by the Legislature at her urging to help city governments invest their funds. He claims the pool is unsafe based on a number of foreign investments it has made.
However, the facts don't seem to confirm his criticisms. Many cities and government agencies within the state benefited financially from Thompson's idea and are richer today for it.
The Kansas state budget is more than $7 million, and it is money that cannot be left in the hands of a fiscal amateur. Sally Thompson has earned the state money, Kansans' vote and another term.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Sebelius for insurance post
In no other state-wide race are voters given such a stark contrast of candidates than in this year's contest for insurance commissioner. State Rep. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, is squaring off against Republican incumbent Ron Todd.
Todd has been in the commissioner's office for the past 38 years, serving as commissioner for the past four. That is four years too long. Kansas insurance consumers need Sebelius in the office.
This is not the first time Todd has played loose and fast with
Students, perhaps even most citizens, may view the insurance commissioner as an unimportant, insignificant elected office. However, the past several years have brought to light abuse and cronyism in the office, highlighted by the Fletcher Bell incident, in which Todd's predecessor was awarded $94,000 in workman's compensation for lifting a briefcase into his car. Bell has since been indicted by the attorney general's office. Strangely, Ron Todd never questioned the award or its legitimacy.
KANSAN ENDORSEMENT Kansas Insurance Commissioner
the rules. In 1988, he resigned his job at the commissioner's office so he could start receiving a pension. He was rehired the next day, retaining his pension, plus drawing a full salary. In addition, many of Todd's campaign contributions have come from the insurance industry—the group he is supposed to oversee.
Sebelius, on the other hand, is a refreshing candidate. During her tenure in the Legislature, she was a strong supporter of consumer rights and served on the House Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee. She has spoken out loudly during her campaign for strong ethics in the insurance commissioner's office.
By electing Kathleen Sebelius insurance commissioner, Kansans will be putting into office a principled, devoted public servant who will remember that the insurance commissioner's office exists to protect consumers, not to promote the insurance companies.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSANSTAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
JEN CARR Business manager
CHRISTOPH FUHRMANS Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
JEN CARR
CAMERON DEATH Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH Systems coordinator
business manager
JEANNE HINES
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Editora
News ... Sara Bennett
Editorial ... Donella Heame
Campus ... Mark Martin
Sports ... Brian James
Photo ... Daron Bennett
... Melliea Lacey
Features ... Tracel Carl
Planning Editor ... Susan White
Design ... Noah Musser
Assistant to the editor .. Robble Johnson
Campus mgr...Todd Winters
Regional mgr...Laura Guth
National mgr...Mark Masto
Coop mgr...Emily Gibson
Special Sections mgr...Jen Perrier
Production mgrs...Holly Boren
        Regan Overy
Marketing director...Alan Stigler
Creative director...John Carton
Chaiseled mgr...Heather Nielhou
Business Staff
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Florida are required to type their signature and contact information.
The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newroom, 111 Stauffer Flint Hall.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
You may recall the familiar childhood rhyme, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." The fact of the matter is that words often do hurt.
'Insensitivity' training relieves pain
The political correctness movement is aimed at ending that hurt. In its most palatable form,political correctness is all about sensitivity.
But everyone is not so sensitive.
A few blatantly deny the equality of your views. We may improve the situation, and we should try, but we will never end it. There is only one way to end the pain wrought by insensitive comments: insensitivity training.
As you might have guessed, I have always been a white male. As a result, I don't know what it's like to have someone call me a nigger or a chink. I
You have to be able to laugh at your tormentor.
You have to learn to let the water roll off your back.
ZACKARY STARBIRD
don't know how a Jew feels when someone with whom he is speaking unwittingly describes how the local used car salesman jewed him. I don't know how a women feels when she reads an article in which every third person singular pronoun is masculine.
Nevertheless, I do know how it feels to be unrelentingly razzed for things I could not change.
Is it memeaning to members of other cultures when the Pope announces that Catholicism is the only true religion and that the Catholic way of life is superior to all others? My answer, even as a non-Catholic is no.
In junior high, I reacted to insults by crying. Later I combated the insults with physical violence. By the time I reached high school I learned to ignore the words, though they still hurt me.
Now, the words of my tormentors seldom, if ever, bother me. I laugh with, laug at, or ignore my tormentors, depending on the situation.
I learned to deal with it.
If you want to end the pain you feel when you are insulted, learn to deal with it as I did. When someone attempts to insult me I determine whether his words are true, whether I have the power to change the perceived fault, and whether I want to change it.
demeaning?
While I don't mean to condone hateful or demeaning comments, I recognize the reality of a free society. People will express their individual opinions, right or wrong. Moreover, who can say what is hateful or
When an individual Catholic refers to Islam as a second-rate religion or to Allah as a false God, however, he may well be regarded as insensitive or racist.
We will only end the pain associated with insensitive commentary by desensitizing those who might be offended.
I close with this message to those of you who find yourself frequently hurt by the comments of others: as Johnny Cash used to sing, "great to cough or die."
Jeff MacNelly / Chicago Tribune
Government proposal gives shopping advice
I seldom give shopping tips, but here is a piece of shrewd advice that might be handy for those of your thinking of buying a computer.
Be sure the computer you plan to
bun will do what you want it to do.
In other words, don't buy a computer that won't do what you want it to do. That's because if you buy a computer that won't do what you want it to do, the things you want it to do won't be done.
Then you will have wasted money.
Zackary Starbird is a Topeka third-year law student.
I'm confident you are impressed by the wisdom and profundity of that statement. No need to thank me. That's why I'm here.
But what is that you are saying? That my advice is stupid because it is so obvious?
My feelings are hurt. I really thought I was being helpful.
You see, I had just read a startling report on the computer purchases of the federal government.
I was dismayed to discover that the government has squandered billions of dollars on computers that don't do what the users want the computers to do.
Many of the computers are obsolete when they arrive or there are no spare
Senator William Cohen of Maine said the government has been spending about $20 billion a year for the last 10 years on computers.
COLUMNIST
That comes to about $200 billion.
MIKE ROYKO
parts, and the government has to look in junk piles when they break down.
Sometimes they don't work because the people who bought the computers didn't bother to ask those who will use the computers what they want to computers to do.
That, of course, could lead us to another important shopping tip: Always know what you want a computer to do before you buy it. In other words, don't buy a computer unless you know what you want it to do.
Actually, that advice would apply to just about anything you buy, whether it is underwear, a power lawn mower or a $40,000 car.
And I'm sure that once again someone is asking why I am giving out more stupid advice.
But here we have a United States senator drafting a new law specifically requiring the government to know what a computer will do before it is
purchased. And the law will also require the computer to actually do what it is supposed to do.
See, smarty. If it is so obvious, why do we have to have a law?
The law would tell people, who buy computers for the government, that if there is a computer on the shelf of a computer store that will do the job, they should buy it instead of asking a company to start from scratch to design a computer that will do what the store model will do.
I suppose that, too, seems obvious to many readers. Which is why most people buy ready-made computers, instead of hiring a team of engineers to spend millions of dollars.
But how obvious can it be if a committee of senators has to recommend a law requiring these shopping practices?
For a decade or more, government buyers have been spending billions on computers which don't do what they are supposed to do.
And we would have saved billions of dollars.
If someone had taken the trouble to tell them to buy a computer that will do what it is supposed to do, or to know what it should do before they bought it, a great cartoon-like light bulb would have gone on over their heads.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR People are Asians; food is Oriental
I am writing in response to Jason Popovits' difficulties in understanding multiculturalism and the question of identity that Asian Americans and other people of color face in this campus and country.
However, the article had nothing to do with multiculturalism. It dealt with how a group of students identified themselves and how they came to grips with their identity.
In his letter, Jason contends that the Kansan article "Students Search for Identity" was a prime example of the rampant excess of the dreaded scourge of multiculturalism.
Another of Jason's arguments against multiculturalism is that it builds walls instead of bridges, and he objects to Joseph Perez's use of "Asian." Perez was inferring that Asian, although a more preferred term than Oriental, has its limitations. These limitations blind people to the fact that Asians are not one homogeneous group but rather consists of many different languages and cultures.
Jason has no difficulty in using Oriental. He sees it as a compliment. Oriental is a thing. It's something you put on the wall or next to your coffee table. Oriental is something you eat or how you decorated your living room. It is a tourist trap; come visit the Far East, the Orient.
I am more comfortable with Asian because, as a new term in our cultural vocabulary, many of those meanings are not part of it. It recognizes us as a people with unique backgrounds and differences and not as a locale.
When you call us Oriental, you may not mean to say gooK, jap, flip, slant, ching-chong Chinaman, but you might as well.
You may not mean to be insensi tive, but you might as well be.
Mark Chotimongkol Dodge City senior
All races deserve the same respect
I was deeply offended by the blatant racism in the article "Shooting Sets Off Racial Violence" (Oct. 26), in which the word "Black" (referring to a race of people) was capitalized, and the word "white" (also referring to a race of people) was not capitalized. When will the staff of the Kansan ever realize that all races deserve to be treated with the same respect? Although the original fault may lie with the Associated Press, which first distributed the article, the Kansan is no less guilty for having reprinted the article without correcting its offensive racist bias.
Dan Drees Hays Graduate Student
HUBIE
By Grea Hardin