OPINION
MONDAY. MARCH 28, 2005
PAGE 5A
WWW.KANSAN.COM
▼ GUEST COMMENTARY
KYLE TIMMERMEYER opinion@hansan.com
Join student group,learn something
So, I got active in the Japanese Student Association. Now that I've been to more meetings and become more involved, my shallow intentions that were once centered solely on Japan have gradually spread into deep understanding.
I recently committed myself to the ambitious goal of finding a way to work in Japan for the summer. Specific problems aside about how to get there and what I'll be doing, I knew that I need cultural experience, advice and encouragement.
All the members of JSA have been wonderful: open, welcoming, friendly and genuinely appreciative of my efforts. I first thought that this was primarily due to the politeness I find inherent in Japanese culture, but I have found deeper meaning the farther out I have swum in the global community.
I am now certain that a significant part of the organization's welcoming attitude comes from JSA's recognition that the group and each of its members are members, in turn, of the global community, at the University of Kansas and beyond.
JSA, as a group and through each of its members, is a strong proponent of diversity and crosscultural understanding. Take the president, for example. Three years ago, current JSA president Kengo Terada took office with the goal of increasing diversity in the organization, whose membership, overall, was small and unenthusiastic.
Kengo recognized that there was much to be gained by making an effort to reach out to the massive non-Japanese population at the University. In the effort to attract a larger membership, Kengo knew that he would be spreading the Japanese culture and promoting cross-cultural understanding at the same time. To add extra emphasis to this, the president of JSA joined the executive board of the International Student Association.
"I'd like to change the situation," he decided.
From then on, JSA has worked in tandem with ISA and the many other international student groups, such as the Asian-American Student Union, to help students from backgrounds that are worlds apart to come together to learn and grow by sharing the best that their cultures have to offer. In this way, ISA acts as the avenue through which the specific organizations, including JSA and AASU, share their region-specific focuses with the larger group. For example, Kengo uses his position on ISA's executive board to spread the word about Japanese cultural events, such as JSA's upcoming Japan Festival.
The more that I get involved in JSA, the more I get involved in the global community. The more that I consider the importance of the International Student Association at the University, the more I discover the importance of the international student association which exists, informally, worldwide.
The more that I meet people who are different, the more I understand that we all are, on some deep level, the same. The more I think about the shallowness of my original ambitions, the deeper I want to swim into the ocean of the global community.
As I have benefited from meeting with students from across the globe, I am sure that there are analogous benefits for anyone who has the opportunity to do the same.
As I have learned through my cross-cultural experiences, just as we can all benefit from sharing our unique qualities, we can all benefit from sharing what we find in common.
I would encourage anyone who has nothing more than a passing interest in some student organization, especially an international organization, to test the waters of the global community and see just how wide and deep the possibilities are.
Timmermeyer is a Derby senior in English.
▼ SACK'S PERSPECTIVE
SOK
Smiley face
Steve Sack/TRIBUNE
-AND YOUR OLD MAN, TOO.
Please stop awkward encounters on campus
EDITORIAL BOARD
Religion should not be sold.
Survey-takers were scattered around campus a few weeks ago, asking students if they had a minute to answer a few questions. The students who obliged may have been surprised to find out that they weren't taking a real survey at all, but that they were part of an advertising campaign.
The "survey" consisted of questions regarding religious beliefs and practices.
regarding religious beliefs and practices. The volunteers conducting the survey
The volunteers were dressed just like the students themselves, backpacks and all.
So it might have been a surprise that the first question asked was "How would you describe God? Good, evil, or a combination of both?" and that the response didn't really matter.
It seems like a fair question, but the way it was posed was anything but fair.
It was a loaded question whose only real purpose was to
They were placed strategically at seemingly every intersection between Anshutz Library and Robinson Gymnasium. Of course, students always had the option to refuse the survey altogether. But it shouldn't have to be that wav.
If groups wanted to make an impression on students, they would make more of an effort to actually show the benefits of what they're advertising.
Sinners, and anyone else on campus, might have something else to be afraid of, and it might be worse than hell. It's people who make others uncomfortable by badgering students with flyers, information and other requests. Such promoters should approach people in a more reasonable, less intrusive manner.
get a response that the surveyors could work with to push their own ideas. This was a dishonest means to an end, the end being an opportunity to pressure students into going to church.
People don't want to be bothered. Ask most students how they feel about walking across Wescoe Beach during Student Senate election season.
The endless barrage of flyers, buttons, and, "Are you going to vote?" is enough, to make one cross the street to avoid the circus. Unfortunately, the church group involved with the survey wasn't so easy to avoid.
This does not include covering University buildings with chalk.
Rather that handing out fliers that most
using outliers that most students drop in the nearest receptacle, Student Senate groups should make themselves more visible on campus with services that students are likely to see.
From that sample, the customer is able to decide for themselves using an example of the service. It does not do the church any service to simply get in the way of a student and feed them propaganda.
People are more inclined to identify with a group if they can see the positive results of the group's actions.
When companies give out free samples at the grocery store, they are providing a service.
If they wanted to make a real difference and a real impact, they would take a step back and look at what they're doing. The best way to teach is to lead by example, not to deceive and overload and barrage with opinion.
Whether or not customers end up buying the product, at least they've seen what the company has to offer.
▼ FILÓSOFO GALLEGO
- Erick R. Schmidt writing for the editorial board.
DEVIN SIKES
dsikes@kansan.com
In an ideal society, judges are to be free of political will and/or influence. Traditionalists argue that elected officials, such as senators and representatives, should respond to the political will of society, endorsing and rejecting laws according to the attitude of the citizens of their respective region. However, judges should be free of this influence for an array of reasons.
Currently, the Senate must approve a judicial appointment with a majority vote, which equals 60 votes. With the proposed nuclear option, however, this is lowered to 51 percent, or 51 votes. Thus, the confirmation of judges could become subject to the tyranny of a slight political majority. Republican or Democratic, in the Senate.
With the so-called "nuclear option" being deliberated before Congress, the future of our country appears to lie within the hands of our elected officials. The nuclear option would lower the standards for the confirmation of federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices. This poses a threat not only to our immediate well-being as a whole, but also to the rule of law in the future of our country.
Judges are seen as the experts of the law who decide how the content of any given law may be interpreted. If judges were to be swayed by political influence, laws could become subordinate to the desires or whims of a political, economic, ethnic and/or religious majority. Let it be known I am not naively denying that this sort of political bias exists within our judicial system. However, I am arguing that lowering the standards of judicial nominations will surely augment this problem.
The president of the United States, with the approval of the Senate, appoints federal judges. Article III judges, which include the Supreme Court, the Federal Court of Appeals, district courts and the U.S. Court of International Trade, are the federal judges appointed by the President.
The clause that determines the nomination process of federal judges lies within the greatest social contract of all, the U.S. Constitution. Brilliantly recognizing its own imperfection, the Constitution contains amendments, which allow for the alteration and or addition of rights to this document, according to the changing political desires of the agents within the community.
Leave judge appointment unfettered
Yet unlawful modification of the document can lead to instability and the inability to recognize the rule of law.
In the beginning of "Meditation XVII," John Donne makes an eternal and altruistic statement regarding his ideas for the relations between human agents:
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clob be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind..."
Dismissing the threat of the nuclear option would be to disregard the equality of all individuals under the law. Individuals should concern themselves with the equality for all individuals under the law, including the rights and privileges any social contract grants these agents. It is important to remember that our system of law does not ensure substantive justice for all; rather, it does its best in preserving the equality of rights and privileges for each individual under the law. Yet ignoring the legal injustices surrounding any political environment would be turning a blind eye to the political death of an individual, as it were, within the aforesaid community.
❄ Sikes is a Wichita senior in Spanish and philosophy.
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It's amazing how ungrateful KU basketball fans are. Bill Self leads the team to the Elite Eight last year and gets a great recruiting class and everyone loves him. Fast forward to now and they lose to Bucknell and people demand that he gets fired? Unbelievable.
How will I be able to paczify myself now that the KU basketball season is over?
My dog just beat up my roommate's dog.
The person or group of people who just TPed my front yard, let me ask you. 'How were you able to get in college before the age of 18?'
Louise's West is now the only bar in Lawrence worth going to.
Barry Melrose needs a hug.
Naps cure everything, right? Right?
What's life without a good Jackie Chan movie?
Jackie Chan, where have you been all my life?
I hate to say it, but Villanova was the last chance to keep a ring off Roy Williams' finger.
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
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Mike Mostaffa, Erica Prather,
Erick Schmidt, Devin Sikes, Gaby Souza,
Sarah Stacy and Anne Weltmer.
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