UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorslals
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of the editor.
February 13, 1980
We shall soon see
Today is the day students at the University of Kansas will start making their decisions; to bend over, focus on, coalesce in or apathetically abstain from the Student Senate elections. The winner could be in for somewhat of a surprise.
There have been debates about attitudes, motives and credibility; debates about the issues, the answers—the problems, the solutions; and there even have been debates about debates.
now the debaters, and other candidate, will find out whose message came through most clearly and who was taken (most) seriously. The primary candidates and coalitions in the election are:
Tim Salmer and Ron McDowell,
Bendover; Steve Crane and Shelley
Senecal; Focus; Chris Fleisher and
Steve Duffield; Mike Schrake and
Schracke and Matt Davis, Coalition.
Although Focus and Coalition have dismissed Bendover and Apathy as not being serious and Bendover and Apathy have pegged the Senate itself as insignificant and a token of student power neither set of coalitions have listened closely enough to what they have been saying throughout the campaign.
No one can dispute the legitimate
Apathy contends that those elected to the Student Senate really don't represent the student body because only 15 percent vote. And, even though that 15 percent cares enough to vote Bendover says the Student Senate should not be involved in crucial changes; hence, students are beamed up on by the administration.
concern of the Focus and Coalition groups for the future membership and effectiveness of the Student Senate. Each coalition represents the traditional, straightforward, and straightforward candidates who put himself in a position to change or improve something he thinks is wrong. However, what law says that straightforward is the only way a serious candidate can legitimately present his intentions and expect to be heard? This is where both Bendover and Apathy are making points worthy of consideration.
Isn't one of the primary purposes of the Student Senate to prevent that? Surely the "serious" candidates would agree that it is.
All the coaltions have made valid points whether conventionally or unconventionally. The decision now rests in the votes of the 15 percent—or perhaps in the non-votes of the 85 percent.
To the Editor:
Mennonite clarifies stand on war, draft
In Monday's Kansan article, "Protesters Decry Draft," the representation of the Memnonite peace and anti-war position was somewhat confusing and inaccurate.
To begin with, Mennonites make a distinction between nonresistance and pacifism. The term nonresistance as well today describes the fact of life of those who believe in war and in battle because they believe that the Bible forbids it, and who renounce all coercion, even nonviolent coercion. Pacifism, on the other hand, is a term which covers many real-world situations, and pacifists are opposed to all war, and some are not. Some who oppose all war find their authority in the will of God while others find it largely in human reason. Mennonites do not ascribe to this general form of pacifism either. We can form the form of pacifism which is nonresistance.
Mennonite opposition to all war is based primarily upon the theological presupposition that the teachings and example of Mennonites, the Sermon on the Mount are not just idealized but a normative guide for our decisions and actions. Mennonites believe that the Life Christ lived and taught impiles themselves, and they fullest exercise of love (loving your enemies not only your neighbors), and the resolute abandonment of the use of violence, including warfare. Thus, Mennonites are often called "counterresistance" as stated in the article.
The basic Mennonite position on military service and war was clearly confirmed last summer by a Mennonite conference. The conference resolved: "We affirm our
KANSAN letters
historic understanding that the Scriptures understand that Jesus can bear arms against Christ may be arms against another human being or participate in any supporting role as a member of the armed forces.
For Mennonites, discipleship calls Christians not only to love of nonsense importance but also to organize organizations such as the Memorial Voluntary Service, the Mennonite Central Committee, and the Mennonite Disaster Relief Organization that contributed to fulfill this commitment to service.
The Mennonite Voluntary Service was born out of the quest for a constructive alternative to the military draft. MWS volunteers are active in serving volunteers for a variety of service ministries such as housing reconstruction, day care, mental health, community services, and numerous other involvement areas. MWS volunteers are actively encouraged by the Mennonite church to participate in these service programs. Mennonites serve not because it is their "public duty" as the article quoted below because they are called by the love ethic of Jesus.
In sum, Mennonites are committed to nonresistance and service. This commitment is central to Mennonite nation, family, or personal welfare. Mennonites cannot participate in war in any way and oppose any form of military violence. Mennonites believe a very brief and simplistic description of Mennonite beliefs, I hope it will clarify and explain the basic Mennonite position on issues like immigration.
Dennis Kaufman
Lawrence graduate student
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Kansan Telephone Numbers
Newsroom--684-8180
Business Office--684-8258
Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Dailh Kauanan, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas,
Lawrence, RS6004
18526/846/440 Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and June and Thursday
August 30th, 2017. Mail resume to the address: U.S.A., New York, NY 10017. Mail for personal information by mail to
the address: mail.us.ku.edu for six months or a year in Japan, England, Canada and £3 for hire or £25 for a week.
Mail for professional information by mail to the address: www.ku.edu/jobs/us-eng/.
Editor James Anthony Fitts
James Anthony Pitsa
Managing Editor
Dana Miller
Campus Editor
Bruno Miller
Associate Campus Editor
Associate Campus Editor
Art Director
Seed Team Editor
Associate Sports Editor
Associate Editor
Copy Chefs
Rhonda Helson, Frontend RJ Stowell
Wire Editors
Lisa Wessler, Team Worker
David Writers
Chief Photographer
Ben Bignight, Seed Team
Editorial Cartoonist
Maithew Hardman Haasian
Business Manager
Vincent Coutte
Retail Sales Manager
Cengage Learning Managers
Advertising Makeup Manager
National Representatives
Natural Photographer
Skill Photographer
Tourist Resume Manager
Sales Representatives
Kevin Kander, Candy Price, Mike Routhstein, Paul Winerer, Nancy Canson
Advertizing Matters
Chuck Chowns
General Manager Rick Musser
It is not often that voters have much of a choice in an election—especially in student government contests. Usually the vying candidates are the most suitably homogenized and inoffensive candidates who proceed to spout out the reasons for their lack of "great potential of student government."
Election cannot affect Senate image
This year we're luckier. Joining the two conventional candidates for student body president are two candidates whom many others think will trees in the forest of presidential timber.
Tum Sattrer, presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination, moments contends that "student government at RU is a joke that we ought to laugh at." He drills his point home with a toy car.
Amy coalition candidate Chris Fleisher sports a T-shirt that proclaims his party's Credo—"Who cares? If you can get him to vote?" He is not sure what you're that it's about time Student Senate admitted that only 15 percent of the student body even votes in elections and that, consequently, they should acknowledge that students have powerless and insignificant organization.
**MEWHILE FOCUS** coalition candidate Steve Cramer and The Coalition's Greg Schneck stocially debate whether to release the bill that KU's withdrawal policy. Unlike Suller and Fleisher, the election is no laughing matter—so much so that both are virtually incapable of cracking a smile while discussing "the
Which is why this year's election is both
brenton r.
COLUMNIST schlender
sublimely refreshing and utterly frustrating for those of us whose only means of participating in student government is to vote.
Refreshing because the Apathy and Bendover coalesces, ridiculous as their names and platforms may be, are trying to force the university to student government at the University. They may be ludicrous in their approach to the presidential election, but they raise issues that the university should address.
BUT THE election is frustrating because the two serious candidates, Cramer and Schnacke, refuse to recognize that their own bland approach to student government is no more compelling or rational to many of their opponents. The fierce rentreatings of their opponents.
After all, it is IT true that 85 percent of the body does that. It is also true that 85 percent of the student Senate, in the eyes of many disinterested students, is no more than a social club member.
The mere presence of Salter and Fleisher make these the pivotal issues of the campaign. But what do Cramer and Schnacke have to say in response?
Schneck claims that, with a few modifications—like reducing the number of student Senate Seats and moving student Senate seats to the state, Senate Senate can become an organization capable
CRAMER CONTENDS that Student Senators should have more help researching issues that the Senate addresses. He asserts that better informed Senators will be more inclined to show up at meetings, and thereby could transform the body into a "unified institution" of students that the administration would strain to hear, even when it whispers."
of reaching a quorum even during budget hearings.
In other words, the issue of voter apathy and the Senate's social club image can be easily remedied with a few cosmetic changes.
Still, it would be easier to dismiss Salter and Flesher as bantamweight buffons if Cramer and Schannke would doff their lofty political pretensions and admit the powers of the student body president and the Student Senate are by definition limited.
SALTER AND FLEISHER beat this point with a sledge hammer. Granted, he comes on as an asshole soon becomes as tresome as their counterparts' chitch chat about Senan. A simple story is what makes him
Pardon me, but I don't believe either proposal would do much to enhance the tarnished reputation of the Student Senate. The problem is that some Senators. The problem is deeper than reaching quorum and researching issues, and by the paltry turnouts at student elections.
MOST STUDENTS don't vote because Student Senate seems imputate. The Senate has the power only to recommend that the governor take a particular action. While most of these recommendations are accepted—budge recommendations for the Regents take a particular example—the administration or the Regents can summarize dismiss any the Senate proposes. Why should they listen? Because the student body of only an eight of the student body.
This potential for impotence isn't solely the fault of the Senate, nor of the candidates for student body president. It's in the rules.
We need idealistic student politicians who believe that they can accomplish something with the limited power that they are granted. But they also should be realistic and not allow them to admit those limitations. And an occasional lapse into humor would hurt it.
But it is something even the most dedicated Senator or presidential candidate should acknowledge—not grudgingly but with a spirit of healthy cynicism.
INSTEAD WE'RE stuck with two candidates who insist that Student Senate is meaningless and with two others who just as fervently proclaim that the Senate can be an imposing organization that the ad-hoc ranks of Regents will bend over to accommodate.
All four have my news of the relative importance or impotence of student government no matter what we elect, will be repressed among most students. Our vote will either bilthed perpetuate it or resignedly acknowledge it. No wonder I don't want to
Women have military obligation, too
Dear Matt and Mark
Somehow, it just doesn't seem fair. All our lives, I've got away with things you two didn't, because I was older. As kids, you need to learn about privileges and responsibilities before you do.
Once again, I'll be watching as you two are penalized for your age.
I dislike knowing that you will have to register. I dislike knowing that you may be
You'll have to register for the Selective Service, it appears. I avoided registration only by being born in 1958. I feel guilty about that. For years, as a feminist, I've declared that we were drafted if men were, and now, when women are faced with the draft, I home free.
kate COLUMNIST pound
drafted. I can't stand the thought of either of you in uniform. I can't stand the thought of myself in an Army uniform. But for all dislikes, I imagine I'd register if required
It only seems right, you know. Women have been demanding equality in opportunity and law. Equality and the rule of law have to be applied to some responsibilities. Taxes, voting, and
registration are the price we must pay for our freedom.
THERE ARE many women who object to being registered. They're a sorry lot. Even those who reject feminism were brought up and were educated in the United States. These women also voted for the politicians who now advocate registration. And these voters are going to share the responsibility for the nation.
Now, this isn't to say I believe a registration or draft is necessary. I don't at all. If I had my way, there would be no armies. Unfortunately, I'm a minority and I don't mind fighting them to fight, they need soldiers. And as most people are not normally willing to volunteer
I don't think this drive for the registration was on the day he resigned, but I remain that President Carter has called for registration of those born in 1960 and 1961. So all of your classmates will join you in his drive for registration.
to live the life of a soldier, governme
have to draft troops.
AND WHY not women? Women are capable of surviving basic training. Women are quite able to fire a gun with reasonable accuracy, and the intricacies of firing artillery, flying aircraft, plotting strategy, giving emergency medical care, and all the tricks used by them.
and YOUR'N WOMEN FOLK TOO
Various nations have used women troops, both on the front lines and in support roles. The Army has also proven themselves assets to the military forces, during war and during more peaceful times. Women are distinguishing role models for the Reserve Office Training Corps programs. They are rising in the ranks, and those doing jobs done once only by men.
THESE WOMEN are willing and able, as they male counterparts, to lie the military secrets of their enemies, enlist as non-commissioned officers are doing well. They can do the job demanded of them.
There are people, though, who seem to abhor the thought of women in the military and dying in war. Why is it more aborrent for women to die in war than men?
Women draftees also could serve with distinction. Like their brothers, they might not want to be in the Army, but they could do the work they are ordered to do.
ITS WRONG, all of it. The military life is a loasy way of existence, no less so for men than for women. Fighting, killing and dying in combat is frightening, for men and women in war are wrong, and the death of a man is horrible than the death of a man in combat.
Women are no better humans than men; they do not need or deserve preference; they do not need to suffer a miserable conditions and die lonely, painful death; women should share these conditions with men.
So, Matt and Mark, I'm sorry that, once again, I get away with something you won't. I'm sorry that you may be drafted and that I don't have to worry about military service. But I know my privilege is to have served in war and not be jailed and had been born a few months later. I would have faced that same stumble-burning prospect.
Interior decorating not CIA's talent
By GEORGE AXELROD New York Times Special Features
CAMBRIDGE, Mass — Eating dinner around a stainless steel table that could also serve as a slab in the city morgue is not everyone's idea of a good time. Yet the logic behind industrial chic, the latest trend in home furnishings, is why Should your house or apartment be merely a home when with a modicum of know-how it could resemble a dentist's office, a bolder room or better still, the manufacturer of agricultural machinery?
Advocates of industrial chic emphasize the virtues of stark, functional design that make for a clean, modern statement free of decorative ornamentation. Claims may be true, if it is cleanliness you are after, you might do just as well to re-create the ambiance of your mother's house, which probably enjoyed the benefits of being in an office without looking like an operating room.
It is no coincidence that the very decorators who have embraced industrial chic have undoubtedly never worked in the factories from which they had offered
design innovations. When I get home I like to be reminded that it's my apartment I've entered, not a symbolic environment reflecting 20th-century technology and the sometimes questionable advances for which we thank our local military-industrial "complex."
THAAT SAID, the question that begs to be asked is whether high tech is simply one more in a long line of Central Intelligence Agency involvement in the decorating field, the CIA's hope this time being that by technology in our homes we will somehow get better at creating a potentially have potential that technology's unchecked proliferation presents to civilized life.
Informers in the interior-design industry have already acknowledged that among the many styles whose popularity, or lack of recognition, they maintain on the part of the CIA are the following:
Minimalism. Characterized by its near-absolute abandon of visual stimulation, minimalism was the brainstem of some of the CIA's best minds, who reasoned that if they could live independently, convinced that they could live surrounded by the laatest high fashion without spending a
cent, this would allay social unrest. It has turned out, however, much to the relief of decorators, that the only people who could really afford the deprivations of a miniature environment were affluent who were over the stigma of appearing possessiveness.
TRADITIONAL. After their agents had
Scandinavian. In order to bolster the flagging domestic furniture industry, the CIA persuaded key decorators to boycott Danish modern, claiming that the purchase of such furniture would capital of the world encouraged perversion, promiscuity and invenue delinquency.
EARLY AMERICAN. It is not more happenstance that the boom in sales of style coincided with the onset of the Cold War. Operating under the notion that it would stimulate fervor if every American company offered a new line of pioneers owned when they drove the Indians from their lands, the CIA secretly made illegal payments to decorators and retailers who promoted the sale of Early American furniture. CIA spokesmen are quick to point out, though, that they never urged consumers their upholstery; with plastic slipovers.
arranged for Congress to make charitable contributions of old furniture tax-deductible, the CIA hoped that if a timeless style could be designed, the agency could save millions of dollars fashionable furniture to the poor through Salvation Army and Goodwill centers. Unfortunately the CIA came up with an innocuous, nondescript design, whose owners faced the unpleasant possibility of having their living room and mansion fit it their own.
CLA-watchers predict that the next big development in the decorating industry will be a move away from owners of minimalist apartments, qualifying them as trend-setters in the mental institution city movement. Whether they are to be seen, if there's a moral to be learned from all this, though, perhaps it's that the industry is moving away from its energies on keeping our living rooms safe for democracy and the styles of architecture that should hire some more-talented designers.
George Axelrod, a third-year student at Harvard Law School, builds his own furniture.
---