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Wednesday, March 3, 1999
The Chicago Tribune
Editorials
Recreation center petition needs 1,000 student signatures, support
The Student Recreation Task Force will finish circulating a petition this week that is the first step in adding a new recreational center to campus. The center would be financed through an increase in student fees beginning in Fall 2000.
Whether a student supports this addition and the increase in student fees, the issue needs to be placed on April's election ballot for a student vote.
The task force still needs about 300 signatures to reach the 1,000 needed to place the issue on the ballot. The petition is worded neither in favor of nor against the new recreation center.
Students may sign the petition from 7 to 9 p.m. through Thursday at Robinson, and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday at the Student Senate office, 410 Kansas Union.
Scott Kaiser, student body vice presi
The proposal would require student backing before earning a spot on the April ballot.
dent, said that after the petition is passed, more detailed information would be provided, and those signing the petition would benefit from immediate updates by e-mail, mail or phone.
Preliminary plans for the center specified on the petition include four gymnasium courts, a fitness and weight center, a track, a rock climbing wall, a combative arts room, an activities lounge, locker rooms and a student service center. The center would be open an average of 18 hours a day for student use only and not for educational purposes.
men and sophomores. Freshmen would pay $128 in increased fees during two years, and sophomores' fees would increase $30 for the 2000-01 school year. This year's freshmen would be able to use the center when it opens in Spring 2002.
Kaiser said juniors and seniors still should sign the petition because they can have input in what their campus looks like in the future.
If supported by KU students following the April vote, the proposal would need the chancellor's endorsement before the proposal goes to the Kansas Board of Regents. The Legislature then would need to give final approval.
A substantial addition, such as a recreational center, needs to have strong student support. To determine whether such support exists, it is essential to take the first step and sign the petition.
Katrina Hull for the editorial board
Overhaul needed for counsel statute
In the wake of the president's impeachment and acquittal, the independent counsel statute established after Watergate seems to be on its last legs. Unless renewed by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee by June 30, the statute will expire.
Although few on Capitol Hill are eager to fight for its renewal, the debate concerning the independent counsel law is important. Since its inception in 1978, the law has been a source of contention. The debate has grown to deafening proportions, after many watched Kenneth Starr spend nearly $50 million and six years investigating the president. Despite this exorbitant expenditure, Congress needs to ensure that the statute survives, albeit with a few changes.
Future investigators need to avoid endless, costly inquiries.
Many are calling for scrapping the statute completely, but this would be unwise. Major changes need to be made, but the law remains important.
After Watergate, many people agreed that something needed to be done to curb possible presidential abuses. In theory, the independent counsel is crucial in the system of checks established to maintain good governance. Practically, the problems that plague the independent counsel can be fixed by a series of measures.
gress can put on an investigator's expenditures. Congress also must be accountable for how much is spent.
Further, Congress needs to be able to limit the counsel to investigating what is set forth by the congressional mandate. Rather than conducting wandering investigations in search of wrongdoing, there needs to be a clear directive concerning what that wrongdoing might be. Investigations also should be limited to issues that directly impact the presidency.
Any decision reached by Congress cannot be conceived hastily. Born out of concern about partisan bickering, the debate must not revert back to what has started it. Congress must seek to fix this important statute, not scrap it.
There needs to be some limit that Con-
Jeff Engstrom for the editorial board
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An intricately woven, yet unflinchingly honest tale will reveal this tooth, I mean truth.
Broaden your mind: Today's quote "Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast." —William Shakespeare
Pain is the true product of procrastination.
Mike Perryman opinion @ kansan.com
For example, it did not take long for the cavity to develop politics. Each of the cavitoids already has split off into one of two distinct party affiliations; the Rootcanalers or the Dentaldevastators.
Mike
Little life forms, or, cavi-toids — as I have named them — have invaded my lower-left molar. They have become intelligent and collectively have formed a society, which I call a cavity. Time and my own procrastination have allowed this cavity to expand and become complex.
Putting off dentist visit proves painfully costly
Letters: 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.
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Although the two parties disagree on foreign tooth policies, cavitoid taxation and almost everything else, ironically enough, both are working toward the same goal: complete tooth erosion.
Along with politics, the cavitoids already have discovered a mind-altering, short-in-supply yet high-in-demand drug: enamel. Enamel is all the rage, and cavitoids fight each other constantly to obtain just a taste of the drug.
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Although enamel often comes between friends and family, it serves a definite purpose in the cavity. When hyped up on enamel, the cavitoids go into hideous, hallucinogenic tooth-eating frenzes. This, of course, is essential to the prosperity and development of the cavity, for its main goal is always: complete tooth erosion.
If I were to guess, I would say that I've had this society, I mean cavity, for oh...about a year. I'm pretty sure my dentist located it sometime around last March — I have not been able to taste with the left side of my tongue since last March.
During that meeting, he told me that the tooth looked pretty ugly and that it was imperative that I set up an appointment for a filling within a week or two.
Then there is the issue of cavitoid property rights. I'm sure that the prime real estate — reserved solely for high cavital leaders and members — lies deep inside the tooth, buried and far away from the crown's coastal toothpaste and water torrents. Perilous, coastal real estate usually is reserved for expendable cavitoids, such as little rebel, trouble-making cavitoids or old, dysfunctional cavitoids.
Needless to say, there is constant strife and civil discontent within the cavity, within the tooth, but once again, ultimately, all of the cavitoids share the same goal: complete tooth erosion.
That hot afternoon last July, I lay uncomfortably in an air-conditioned dentist's office, surrounded by a nurse on my right — she wore an unsoothing and annoying smile, a blinding light directly in front of me — it created an unending display of colorless, flashing blotches — and a dentist on my left picking at my teeth while citing tooth numbers and humming melodies, off-key, to songs I didn't like.
Cavitoids have gone a step further and have constructed pain networks — named after the almighty Pain — throughout my body. Every time I accidentally chew food on the left side of
Politics, drugs and civil discontent all signal the existence of a developed, complex society. But there is one essential aspect of such a society that has not yet been mentioned. I believe the cavitoids have elected a leader. Furthermore, I believe this leader's name is Pain.
The cavitoids do whatever Pain tells them to. Under Pain's direction, the cavitoids have capitalized on the window I have given them — because of my putting off going to the dentist—and have established a stronghold on the nerves that surround my molar.
my mouth — threatening the cavity's existence, of course — the cavitoids, in unison, jump up and down on the nerves below my tooth, sending jolting impulses of pain to my jaw and throughout my entire body. Just as I begin to break down into a whimpering, pathetic state of tears and moaning, the cavitoids let up and continue with the business of maintaining their society.
What could I say to this man? He was right. I had put it off for too long. I was a fool. Although he didn't quite put it that way, that is what he meant.
But I was busy with school and other things. I put it off and didn't manage to make it back to his office until early July. Big mistake. Big cavity.
Not far into the check-up I heard a familiar, low moan of dismay — my dentist had discovered the now fully developed society, I mean cavity, inside my molar. Then came the sugar-coated, verbal equivalent of "I told you so."
"Hmmm. Hmmm. OK...jokes as if No. 8 on the lower palette has deteriorated significantly since the last cleaning," he said. He pulled back and dropped the mask from his face. "It would have been a lot easier if we would have taken care of this earlier. At this point, you're going to need a root canal."
"You're kidding, right?" I said.
"I wish I were," he replied.
Now here it is, March again, and Pain is getting old and less tolerant of my slips. If Pain even thinks that I'm about to chew or bite down on the left side of my mouth, he summons the nerve cavitoids, and then it's all finished.
Cursing my own procrastinating ways, the tooth, the cavitoids and the dentist, I walked up to the receptionist and set up an appointment to begin the root canal. I missed the appointment, of course—further procrastination.
For this reason, I think it's time I set up an appointment and finally nuke the society, I mean cavity. Pain has become too powerful. Pain has become the true product of procrastination.
"Of course you do, doc," I thought. "Of course, you wish you didn't have to make thousands of dollars patching a simple pothole on my tooth."
Perryman is a Prairie Village senior in journalism.
Rockin' bus driver cruises into Jayhawk memories
Tara Kelly
opinion @kansan.com
T the last thing he told us to do was to "party hearty." Of course, that's what he told us every Friday. And Thursday. Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday, too.
That was his goal anyway. Rockin' Ron Gleason always lived his life to the fullest, enjoying every moment. That's why he never passed up the opportunity to suggest a visit to the Crossing on a Friday afternoon. He'd even wait to pick you up right outside if you were lucky. It was just one of his many impromptu bus stops.
Ron would always go out of his way to make sure you made the bus. He had Stewart Avenue sonar. It
And you always would make the bus.
And you always would make the bus.
But the best, by far, is when you were walking in the bitter cold to some obscure place on campus, and all of a sudden the sounds of Zeppelin and The Dead wafted to your ears.
was as though he could see through the bushes or had eyes in the back of his head for when you were running like hell down the Boulevard to make the bus.
"Wanna ride?"
Let me think about that for a second. My ears are odd-shaped ice cubes only somewhat attached to my head. My fingers are strewn across the ground over the past 100 feet. My backpack has every book known to man in it, and Ron's 184 has materialized like a mirage right in front of me.
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To perfectly complement that sonar, he had some sort of ultra-powerful memory. He always would know your name. People who never had ridden his bus before would receive a "Hey, (insert name here). How's it go?" I've had professors who I see two or three times a week, not to mention that I live in their office hours, who don't know my name.
"Sure. Ron. I want a ride."
And what a bus, huh? Stepping on to 184 was like stepping into another era. It was an era in which The Who still sings and Lennon is alive, well, and still with the Beatles. He had excellent taste in music.
But my bus driver did.
But it wasn't just the music he wanted to hear. Through the years, students made hundreds of tapes for Ron to play. He would play them, too.
Of course, it always was hard to hear Ron himself over the music, but hear him you could. Whether it was his kids, his bus, the latest party, Ron always would have an opinion. Every once in a while, he'd even surprise you and get that Clinton-Lewinsky reference in.
Not only would he play them, but he would always remember whose tape it was, and it would be playing when they stepped on the bus. When you got on the bus out of the freezing cold and heard your music playing, it was one of the best feelings on earth.
It was this easygoing personality that made Ron a highly requested charter driver for the Lawrence Bus Company. He was a permanent fixture for bar crawls and parties.
One of those papers reported that it was always Ron's wish to have a picture of him sitting on top of his bus, smoking a cigarette and listening to his music. He never got it, but hopefully I've left that picture in your head.
He was the kind of guy who never left you in the cold, never forgot your name and always had great taste in music. The kind of guy whose legacy will never be forgotten.
Kelly is an Overland Park sophomore in political science and communications.