Opinion
The University Daily Kansan
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Laura Roddy, Editor
Sarah Hale, Managing editor
Kristi Elliot, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser
Shauntae Blue, Business manager
Brad Bolyard, Retail sales manager
Matt Fisher, Sales and marketing adviser
Scott Valler, Technology coordinator
Thursday, April 27, 2000
Dana Summers / TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Editorials
Attendance should be first priority for Council, SenEx representatives
Student Senate elected new representatives to the University Council last night. The council, made up of students, faculty and staff, looks for individuals who show leadership abilities and dedication to the positions to which they are elected. This year, there seems to be tension surrounding the election of the new council student representatives.
In past elections, after the excitement of being elected dies down, some members seem to forget their primary responsibilities: attending meetings.
Amy Cummins, 1999-2000 graduate senator, said the student representative attendance rate at University Council and Faculty Senate had been embarrassingly low during the last few years. In the past, many students elected to University Council have resigned their positions, dropped out or been replaced because of excessive absences.
This year, excessive absences by student representatives have hurt student interests
An example of how this affects the University of Kansas occurred the April 13 council meeting at which the body voted on raising parking permit fees. Cummins said of that day, "People couldn't stop campaigning for a small time to attend the meeting. Parking fees were raised only because I was the only one there to vote against it."
The solution to this problem is simple.
Students representatives should attend all the meetings for which they are responsible. This is why they are elected in the first place. That is the position for which they have strived. Cummins said that there were SenEx rules for low
attendance rates. If the new group of members cannot achieve better attendance and put out better efforts, the rules should be enforced.
The low attendance rate has been an embarrassment and a problem to the few presently hard-working council members and to the University. Cummins gives this advice to the newly elected members in hope of better efforts, "Attend every meeting. Don't stand for your own reputation. Go to the meetings you're supposed to."
KU students need leaders who actually will lead. Let this be a reminder and motivator to the newly elected University Council and SenEx members. Please do the job you are appointed to do, and exercise the leadership abilities that have placed you in those esteemed positions.
Tabatha Beerbower for the editorial board
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Religious studies objective
In his April 25 guest column, Nathan Rice still doesn't understand certain basics about the teaching of religion in public education institutions, which by constitutional mandate must not involve advocacy of any religion or theological viewpoint.
The KU Department of Religious Studies is concerned with religion as a complex set of phenomena in human culture. We do our best to approach the subject objectively, neither advocating nor opposing any particular religious belief. Persons with strong personal commitments sometimes find that approach unappealing.
- In the case of the Bible, we approach it in the way other disciplines approach other ancient texts: as a document (or set of documents) that was created by people living in specific historical circumstances and writing for a specific purpose.
Supernatural explanations of its origin and propagation and affirmations of the ultimate truth of its content are beyond the scope of religious studies in a secular institution, although students are welcome to maintain their own convictions about such matters, as most do. I surmise that Rice has not lost his faith as a result of being exposed to an objective survey of biblical literature.
Students seeking classes taught from the perspective that certain doctrines are divinely true may find them at the dozens of religious affiliated colleges and theological seminaries within a 50-mile radius of Lawrence. Credit hours earned at any accredited institution may be transferred toward graduation at the University of Kansas, although if the courses don't fit the standards of secular institutions, they may not fulfill certain major, minor or principal-course requirements.
The department will continue to operate within the guidelines laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which demand that religious advocacy be kept out of the classroom, and that specifically reject the contention that such avoidance of advocacy amounts to some kind of "religion of secularism" that equally deserves to be barred from the classroom.
Tim Miller
Chairman, Department of Religious Studies
Jack Martin Abilene senior
Rice claims that all he wants is for the Bible to be taught "like any other ancient book." What he fails to realize is that the course does this already.
Kansan staff
I have never heard my professor say the Bible is not the word of God, which is what Rice claims is taught. The class' theme is that the Bible's origin is in doubt, but that there is a leading theory as to how it was compiled. It doesn't set out to confirm or deny the divinity of the Bible, because this is not the course's intent, and it is impossible to do.
I am enrolled in Understanding the Bible, and was appalled at the false characterizations and faulty logic in Nathan Rice's April 25 guest column.
The study of the origin of the Bible is done in an objective manner and is based on the work of countless scholars. However, because he apparently disagrees with the idea that the Bible was composed during a long period and has gone through many revisions, Rice simply claims that this idea is "controversial" and that "all relevant theories" need to be taught. He also claims to have a "landslide" of evidence, but never cites any. Strangely enough, both of these arguments sound like lines straight from the antievolution camp.
Seth Hoffman ... Editorial
Nadia Mustafa ... Editorial
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"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."
Broaden your mind: Today's quote
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Until recently, the words "conspiracy theory" would elicit an eye-roll from me at best.
I would dismiss anything introduced as a "conspiracy" as fantasy-land gibberish spawned by some miscevlish storyteller and
Perspective
Dorothy, evolution are part of larger conspiracy
perpetuated by an infinite network of the gullible, paranoid, disgruntled and the tetrahydrocannabinolized, among others.
Cauthon columnist
opinion@kansan.com
But after several months here in Washington, D.C. — the very epicenter of most "conspiracy theories" — I've stumbled on a quite plausible conspiracy. So plausible that I refuse to attach the word "theory."
And surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the FBI, CIA or any other federal acronym known in some
Phil
des for questionable patriotism.
O
.
The conspiracy's prime objective: to orchestrate a global reputation for Kansas as nothing less than the archetypical U.S. repository for ignorance, bumpkin-backwardness and general artlessness.
The conspiracy's main operatives: the so-called Kansas Travel and Tourism agency, the Kansas Department of Commerce and several other dubious institutions that I should not disclose at this juncture.
Yes, my fellow simpletons, it's true. But hold on! Before you drop your newspaper, dashing out the nearest exit and to the local Kansas conspirator's office to protest for a decent, respectable national reputation, know that this conspiracy works for us.
First, the conspiracy dates back 200 years to when Louis and Clark first laid eyes on this fine piece of national claim. The two gentlemen realized that if the secret got out, the land would be overpopulated quicker than prairie dogs duck at the sight of an oncomin' herd of bison.
Permit me to vaguely allude to just three pieces of evidence of this Kansas Conspiracy, leaving the reader to add his or her own personalized embellishments.
So they told all the folks back East that (what would become) Kansas was a sad stretch of dusty land that could not possibly be farmed, much less lived upon — never mind that they didn't explore it much.
And so the precedent was set for Kansas to be the armpit of the United States. I suspect that it is from this tradition that spring such illustrative comments as I have heard yonder east here in the nation's capital.
For example: "Oh, you're from Kansas! And now you're working here in D.C. Your parents must be so proud!" (said with a straight face). Or "Hey, just curious: Do a lot of Kansans own guns? No, not uzizs. I mean, like shotguns, rifles, you know, the huntin' kind."
Most Kansans probably could tell similar tales — tales that reveal that, in the popular imagination of America, Kansas is pitied, at best.
That phrase alone – especially said with the supposed cleverness with which most speak it
Second, in my case for a Kansas Conspiracy is the thorn in the proverbial side of every traveling Kansan: "You're not in Kansas any more, Toto." At this very moment, some variation on that phrase is being heard by Kansans across the globe.
illustrates that people everywhere continue to associate Kansas with an image from a 60-year-old movie rather than with, say, something based in reality.
And that's exactly what the folks orchestrating the Kansas Conspiracy planned.
But the credibility of the century-old conspir- acy seemed to be in jeopardy.
As many towns like Lawrence burgeoned with immigrants, it became apparent that outsiders no longer were being duped into believing that life here was backward.
People were showing up and not finding desolate surroundings, ignorant neighbors sitting on their porches with loaded weapons or much trace at all of Philistine lifetimes!
Lucky for Kansas, the conspirators are quite experienced and quickly crafted a surefire way to keep people the heck outta Dodge. I suspect I hardly need mention this, my third, piece of evidence of the Kansas Conspiracy.
However, until coming to Washington I had nearly forgotten this bit of our state's fame. Many Kansans probably have. But rest assured, outsiders have not. Mention Kansas outside of Kansas, and likety-split, evolution is the topic of condescending conversation.
But I don't tell outsiders about the Kansas Conspiracy. I simply smile and nod at the comedy surrounding the Kansas State Board of Education. "Yes," I say. "Kansas suffers a tragic lot. But hey, Ad Astra per Aspera."
And if I'm feeling particularly punchy, I'll thank the scoffoning non Kansans for not mentioning Dorothy. But I do this only to rekindle endangered tradition.
Cauthon is a North Richland, Texas, graduate student in journalism. He is an intern at the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Houston Chronicle this semester.
This week is officially TV Turnoff Week. It's a culmination of a now-worldwide effort to get people to turn off their television sets and turn on their minds to the communities around them, at least for one week. Like it or not, television has had a huge
Time to turn off the tube to spite the corporations
impact on each and every one of our minds because, for the most part, we have all been raised with it. It has been ingrained in our brains.
According to Nielson Media Research, the average U.S. household has the television on for 7 hours and 12 minutes every day. Even more shocking is that by age 65, the average American will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.
Lean Shaffer guest columnist opiner@kansas.com
I realize that by college age we have all seen and
heard something similar to these numbers and have been preached to countless times that, "TV rots the brain." I know it gets tiresome, and for the most part, college students do not have that much time to watch TV in the first place. So you may ask yourself, "Who cares? What is wrong with watching a little TV?"
Nothing is wrong with vegging out a little bit, but you better keep track of who is controlling what you watch. Besides personal betterment, there is another reason for TV turn-off week. This week is also about wrecking vengeance on the corporate climate that has homogenized our culture. I know that sounds kind of heavy, but the story goes like this ...
Nine years ago, an organization known as Adbusters tried to air its "uncommercials" on some of the major networks. Those "uncommercials" were meant to be public service
announcements that would encourage people to be aware of their consumption habits and how they affected the world. Every major network —CBS, ABC and NBC — consistently refused to air the commercials because they feared they would be distasteful to its big-money sponsors. American television is dominated by only seven mega-corporations. These seven corporations decide what we see, what our culture will be and which information will be filtered indirectly get to us. Adbusters turned what originally had been a spirited discouragement of too much consumerism into a tirade against the homogenization of our culture through a corporate-dominated media.
I do not mean to sound self-righteous. I am as much of a TV junkie as the rest of the nation. I am always overjoyed when I can watch the Cartoon Network and relive my childhood through all the commercialized cartoons I watched — Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony and the whole gang. However, now I am without a TV, and while some people would consider that to be an inconvenience, I have been set free. Watching TV is tempting, but interaction with other humans is so much more fulfilling. Occasionally I have to shake myself out of a slack-jawed, entranced stare while glancing at the TVs in Walmart or at a friend's house. It's hard to quit the habit.
Last year, all of Adbusters' work paid off and they finally got one network, CNN, to air their TV turnoff "uncommercial." This year, you can help the cause by going to www.adbusters.org and joining the Two Minute Media Revolution, a collective demand that broadcasters set aside two minutes of air time every hour for citizen-produced advocacy messages. Or you can do what 7 million Americans did last year: Turn off your TV.
Shaffer is a Hays freshman in journalism.
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letterz: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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 e-mailed to opinion@kansasan.com or submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Nicole Mustafa or Seth Hoffman at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4926
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