Section A · Page 4
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, July 14, 1999
Sunflower games seek teamwork from University
By Lisa John
Kansan managing editor
The headquarters of the Sunflower State Games is a colorful place this month.
A stack of Jayhawk plastic sacks filled with freebies to give to game participants overflows into the room and stacks of T-shirts and baseball caps decked with the Sunflower State Games' logo cover several tabletops in the basement office in the 900 block of Massachusetts.
Almost everything is in order for this year's Sunflower games — except that more volunteers are needed, said Kelly Mason, executive director of the games.
"It takes about 450 volunteers to run the games," Mason said. "Right now, we still need to have about 200 more volunteers."
Volunteers are wanted especially for the track and field events that will be held in Baldwin, as well as for other sporting events at the University of Kansas, Mason said. For those who prefer to stay where it's cool, there are even indoor events, registration tables and sales booths to be staffed. Children ages 10 and above and all adults are invited to volunteer.
Workdays are divided into four-hour shifts, and Mason said that people who worked more than one consecutive shift would be invited to lunch or dinner.
Richard Konzem, associate director of the the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation and past president of the Sunflower State Games, said this was an event that showcases not only Lawrence, but also the University. He said for that reason it was important for people with KU connections to serve as volunteers.
Two years ago, athletes from each of Kansas' 105 counties participated in the games.
"Often, this is their first visit to Lawrence," Konzem said. "The Sunflower State Games allow citizens from all over our state to see our campus. So obviously, we need to have KU people involved in the games. They bring so much inside knowledge as well as the ability to host people."
Mason estimated that as many as 9,000 athletes ages 5 to 80 would be participating in this year's competitive events in areas such as archery, basketball and tae kwon do. The games are scheduled for Friday through Sunday and July 23 through 25.
This is the 10th year of the Sunflower Games, which are promoted as a multi-sport, Olympic-style festival for Kansas' amateur athletes. Mason said the event is put on without state funding. "We are entirely supported by registration fees and corporate sponsors," he said.
For more information or to register as a volunteer, call the games' office at 842-7774.
"We generally have a job for just about everybody." Mason said.
Edited by Chad Bettes
Opinion
Senate code needs amendment
StudEx moves could benefit grad students
In the perspective of the Student Senate Executive Committee (StudEx), one-fourth of the student body doesn't matter. I'm referring to the graduate and professional students, who are about 24 percent of the students at the University of Kansas.
Since becoming a StudEx member in Fall 1999, I have consistently witnessed an ignorance and dismissal of graduate concerns. I would like to give a few recent examples and would ask StudEx to solve the problems.
This spring, when the Finance Committee cut the budget of the Graduate and Professional Association, graduate students got proof that their student activity fees were not being used well.
Then, StudEx jumped at a
There was an erroneous claim that the graduate community had no interest in the position. In fact, past StudEx chairmen had not made the position known.
chance to eliminate a graduate seat from its membership. On June 30, StudEx passed a bill that took away a graduate seat from StudEx.
The graduate seats on StudEx existed because the graduate community had insisted on fair representation in Student Senate.
Because of an error on StudEx's part, the eliminated seat was not mentioned in the University Senate Code. The solution to the problem is not the elimination of members, but a simple amendment to Senate Code.
Partha Mazumdar, graduate affairs committee chairman, has sponsored legislation to be considered on July 21 that would make that correction.
Having three graduate student seats on a 12-member committee is the right proportion. And the graduate StudEx members, like graduate senators, help Senate a lot.
For instance, Mazumdar, who is also the GPA Executive Director, has sponsored many senate resolutions for the past two years.
StudEx on July 7 also failed a motion to allow a GPA report at each Senate meeting. Now, GPA has to request permission to be included under additional reports. The same holds true for all five standing committees, whose reports were eliminated from Senate's agenda.
The student body president, vice president, and some of their appointed staff can still talk for as long as they would like. The result is that the student body in general doesn't get heard, unless it plays the political game.
Korb Maxwell, student body president, aspires to represent the entire university. But let's see talk translated into actions. The academic year 2000 must be the one in which the student body president reaches beyond the undergraduate part of the constituency and sees that all of our concerns are intertwined.
StudEx needs to take the follow
ing actions on behalf of the graduate and professional students at KU:
Give appropriate representation on StudEx to the graduate and professional students by passing Mazumdar's bill on July 21.
Make the Graduate and Profes
sional Association Report a standing item on the Senate agenda.
Fully fund GPA, and learn how the money is used.
■ Continue to support the GTAs in negotiating a better employment agreement.
Amy Cummins
- Seek to dis
cover how the unique abilities of graduate and professional students can benefit the entire KU community.
Cummins is an Newport, N.C. graduate student in English
Israel reverberates with religion, division
Reporting from Israel
I always thought coming to Israel would be the ultimate religious experience.
And it has been — I've never been more aware of my religion and my heritage.
But I've also never been more aware of what a strange—and sometimes destructive—phenomenon religion is.
One cannot spend time in Jerusalem without feeling the religious presence.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews dressed in black pass Christian tour groups, while close by, hordes of Muslims head toward the Dome of the Rock for one of their daily prayers.
It's awe-inspiring to stand in the midst of this outpouring of belief and contemplate how holy this city is to so many people.
However, in learning the history of Jerusalem, it's impossible to ignore that time and time again, religion has turned into a deadly weapon, killing those unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire.
Since its creation, Jerusalem has been the site of bloody battles and riots — mostly in the name of God. It's obvious in studying history that man is a violent creature, taking what he wants by force. But religion is supposed to calm those violent urges and provide people with a moral backbone.
It seems that those concepts are often forgotten in our world, and Jerusalem is no exception.
Whatever happened to concepts such as love thy neighbor and thou shalt not kill?
From the beginning of the Common Era, religion has been a hotly contested issue in Jerusalem. The Jews were forced to leave their holy city in C.E. 70 after the Romans looted and burned the city, destroying the Second Temple in the process.
One thousand years later, the Crusaders came to "liberate" Jerusalem from the "infidels" and claim the area for Christianity.
Invoking the name of God, they brutally slaughtered those in their path.
Jerusalem continued to be a hotbed of activity — often violent — throughout history and is still plagued by unrest between Arabs and Israelis today.
Even when religion isn't causing death, it is still creating divisions between people who think that since their beliefs are different, they must not have anything in common.
In his published diary, "Such Am I, O World," the Palestinian writer Khalil al-Sakakini recounts how he hid an American Jew during World War I when all Americans were ordered to report to the Ottoman government. The Jewish man ate only kosher food and arranged to have a woman bring this food to his hiding place.
This resulted in his being found and both men being arrested.
al-Sakakini wrote: "If you thought our food was so impure, then we must be impure too, because we eat impure things. So how could you take refuge with us? Oh religions! Oh
foolish minds, rather! How you've made humanity suffer! How many victims have you claimed?"
Even in the United States, we suffer the effects of religious hatred. In our country.
there is separation of church and state, and citizens are supposed to be allowed to practice in peace.
However, in recent weeks, people died at the hands of a white supremacist church member.
This summer in Israel, I have prayed at the Western Wall. I have watched Christians walk down the Via
Steph Brewer
Dolorosa, following the path of Jesus on his way to crucifixion. I have heard the Muslim call to prayer reverberate throughout the city.
Through all this, I have marveled at the wonder that is faith in God. But when I remember the killing, the hatred caused by religious differences, I wonder what went wrong that we humans have taken something so beautiful and so often twisted it into something so ugly and wrong.
Brewer is aKillingworth, Conn., senior in journalism.
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