4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
EDITORIAL
WEDNESDAY,MAY1,2002
Hold student senators to its election promises
Now that another Student Senate election season has passed, the campus will continue going about its business.
The transition period is underway, but students should remember one important fact — Student Senate is more than election season, much more.
Too many students pay attention only to the events associated with Senate when it is time for them to vote again. When all is said and done, they forget who promised them what. Is the student you elected to represent you when important decisions are being made actually representing you?
When the time comes to vote on an issue and make a decision for you, does he or she take your thoughts into consideration? Remember the platform issues — the main promises that were made to you during the elections. Are those important ideas being further addressed and acted upon? If you cannot answer these questions a few days, weeks or months down the road, it's time to expect more from your student senators.
If you think that the promises made to you last month are not being fulfilled, let your senators know and hold them to those promises.
If you have a concern that you are truly passionate about, attend a Wednesday night committee meeting and voice your opinions —and expect that they are taken into consideration.
Most importantly, help your student senators help you. Far too often, people make the mistake of thinking that campus politics aren't important. If the issues Senate is addressing aren't important to you, then they aren't real issues. If the decisions made by Senators weren't important, hours of consideration and serious conversation would not accompany the decisions that are made.
Next year, when election season starts again, remember the senator who represented you during the coming year. If you don't feel he or she did a good job of representing you, take that into consideration.
Hold your Student Senators responsible — your campus will be the better for it.
Blake Shuart for the editorial board.
864-0500 free for
Free for All callers have 20 seconds all
any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
The Magic Eight Ball at Target just told me to go to Wal-Mart for a better gift.
I wear K-Swiss. I wear my K-Swiss.
Hey Chi Omegas, is it necessary to go lay out in your fountain? Get a life.
I was calling about the step show on Saturday night. I just wanted to say Alpha Phi Alpha is the greatest fraternity in the world, and they step really great.
I was at the step show on Saturday, and you know those guys that were wearing black and gold at first? They were the best group that stepped, and I just wanted to let you know.
Cinderella story, tears in her eyes, as the Keggers approach the sixth inning. They have a comfortable 10-point lead, or runs in this case. It looks like he's throwing a curve, and that's it. It's up, it's over. Kegs win the mid-world championship. Go Keggers, and that's all she wrote.
So, it's Sunday. Tomorrow's Monday, and I'm just eating cream cheese and crackers.
So today, my friends told me that I talk like Beavis, and I'm a girl.
Don't hassle me. I'm local.
What the hell? Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes get's three days worth of media coverage, because she dies in a car wreck. Lane Staley dies two days beforehand, and it barely registers on media maps. People, get a perspective.
I'd just like to say on Thursday there was a presentation on how the University could better serve students with disabilities, and guess which office didn't show up — Services for Students with Disabilities. Way to go, guys.
I'm in the NRA, and instead of trying to ban something that's in the Constitution, why don't you ban something like cars, something that's not in the Constitution? They're more dangerous anyway.
TALKTOUS
Leita Walker
editor
864-4854 or walker@kansan.com
Jay Krail
Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
864-4854 or krail@kansan.com and
kransen@kansan.com
Clay McCuistion
readers' representative
864-4810 or cmcuiston@kansan.com
Amber Agee
Kursten Phelps
Brooke Hesler
opinion editors
864-4810 or kphleps@kansan.com and
bhhesler@kansan.com
Amber Agee business manager 864-4014 or adirector@baanam.com
Kate Mariani
retail sales manager
864-4482 or
retailales@ansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and news
adviser
864-7667 of mcevans.com
Matt Fisher
864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing adviser
884-7666 or mfischer@ansan.com
PERSPECTIVE
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
Newsrooms don't calculate irony, they seek news value and appeal
READERS' REPRESENTATIVE
A week ago today, the front page of the Kansan was a study in contrasts. An article about KU's Women's Recognition Program, a ceremony held to honor outstanding female students, sat at the top of the page. Below that was a story about Playboy magazine employees searching for women to feature in an upcoming issue of the flesh-filled magazine.
That the two stories ran so closely together was ironic — an observation shared by Free for All callers and my English professor. But readers should know that the Kansan staff recognized the iron before the paper came out. Editors ultimately decided to go ahead with the page — for reasons that throw light on the day-to-day realities of creating a newspaper.
The story about the women's recognition ceremony was on the front page for the same rea
Kansan editor Leita Walker said the front was an example of the news judgments that had to be made to produce a newspaper. The Playboy story was not originally meant to be the centerpiece of the page, yet as other stories fell through it became more important. It had attention-getting pictures and told an interesting story.
Clay McCuistion cmccuistion@kansan.com
son. It had a picture, it told about an important event.
"They were the two newsiest things in the paper." Walker said.
Kyle Ramsey, managing editor for design, designed the front page. He said that he worked to make sure the page wasn't excessively lascivious.
"We had the photos to make it look like a smut layout," he said. "It was my concern not to make it look that way."
Jay Krall, managing editor for news, was not enthusiastic about the page. He said that the
Indeed, compared to ads found in many magazines (or in some issues of the Kansan), the photos featured on the from page were quite tame. Ironic, yes, but not indecent.
"To deal with the juxtaposition itself of these two stories we detract from them both," said Krall. In other words, putting the two stories together creates a third thing — separate from the contents of each of the stories — that threatens to overwhelm them.
Krall also pointed out that moving the stories around would have created problems, too. Move the story about the recognition ceremony inside, and the Kansan would seem to slight the event. Move the Playboy story inside and the front page would have missed a feature-type centerpiece. In either case, something would have been lost.
newspaper had a responsibility to present the news in a "palatable way."
"There's no easy answer." Krall said. "There's no right answer."
Such is the day-to-day work of making a newspaper. Front pages are constructed from available resources. Uncomfortable ironies occur. But the newspaper's ultimate mission — to accurately report student-centered news — remains.
McQuistion is an El Dorado senior in journalism and English.
U-COUNCIL DECISION A TRAVESTY
When University Council convened on Thursday afternoon, a group of students, including myself, packed into the cramped room on first floor o f Blake Hall. We saw representatives from every school and department on campus file in and take their seat. We saw our student representatives sit along side them, drastically outnumbered.
I slowly watched democracy die in that room. I slowly realized that one person's voice means very little in a system as corrupt and twisted as ours. Most importantly, I slowly learned that my alma mater does not care a single iota about me.
Dear editor.
For an hour, I stood in the back and watched faculty and students wage a war of words. I saw teachers I've respected for a long time lose my respect in minutes. I saw students I ran against in Student Senate a week ago stand up for me and gain the respect I hadn't seen fit to give them before.
With my own two eyes, I saw members of the faculty decry the increase "unfair" and the acts of the state's Legislature "unconscionable."
I saw members of the Ad Hoc Committee admit that the proposal they submitted misled those that voted on it and probably wouldn't have passed otherwise.
I saw students nearly break down into tears hoping to stop this ridiculously unfair increase from destroying the financial lives of the student body.
I saw many things in that room. But the one thing I'll never forget is the lack of shame I saw on those faculty members' faces when they approved the increase. Despite all evidence that this increase will have a devastating impact on the student body, one by one they agreed to pass the proposal.
They passed it despite pleas from students. They passed it despite the formal objection of Student Senate. They passed it despite the objections of members of the Ad Hoc committee. They passed it even when they knew it was wrong.
As we filed out of the room,the students
Brian Thomas
Plano, Texas, sophomore
I walked away from that meeting ashamed at what had happened. I'm ashamed to have those people as my teachers. I'm ashamed that the University sees students as dollar signs instead of human beings. But most importantly, I'm ashamed to be a Jayhawk.
LETTERSTO THE EDITOR
BETOLERANT EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE
looked around in disbelief. That was our "democratic" representation. That was the system that was supposed to protect our rights as members of this university. A room full of faculty on tenure easily out voted the small student minority and destroyed the hope of thousands of Kansas who dreamed of affording a college education. Truly, democracy at its finest.
Dear editor.
It seems as though the definition of tolerance has shifted to narrowly include only those views which directly conform to one's own ideals, beliefs, convictions, etc. The latest controversy to which this can be applied is none other than the "I agree with Lee" campaign.
I have always understood the concept of "tolerance" to mean a "respect to the actions and beliefs of others." Reading through the Free for All and letters to the editor on April 18, it is quite easy to see that this definition is lost on a number of people, which is quite surprising, considering how "liberal" and "open-minded" KU is supposed to be.
Here is another quote which demonstrates my second point: the persistent, hypocritical, double standard that permeates a vast majority of "free expression" and supposed liberal tolerance. "I do not agree with Lee. I think the
Let me pull a few quotes from the Free for All to demonstrate my point. "I'd just like to know when our beautiful, liberal campus became full of so many crazy, religious people wearing crazy, red T-shirts that can't speak for themselves." How wonderfully accepting and open-minded this person is.
KU Environers has the right to speak out against Citi Corp., pro-choice supporters have a right to chalk political slogans, queens have a right to march in a parade, but apparently that same right isn't extended to "crazy, red-shirt wearing Jesus followers." I see any number of Muslim women walking around campus wearing scarves over their heads, yet they are not rebuked for clearly denoting themselves as followers of Islam.
Using this person's same rationale, I could say that a majority of the population is heterosexual, therefore, why should the UDK run stories highlighting Pride Week? Or that minority students make up only a small percentage of the total student body, so why should they be allowed to organize and attempt to increase minority recruitment? These statements would never pass the Free for All censors. I would be labeled a bigot and racist, and rightly so.
Avraham Mendall Mor in his letter to the editor ("Agreeing with Lee," April 18) assumes that only Christians are attempting to convert the world, but neglects to mention, or realize, that every major religion, specifically the ones he mentions, have in their teachings the duty of its members to spread the faith.
So, how then, is a person rightly justified in criticizing someone for expressing their religious beliefs? This is the United States of America. Since when doesn't a person have the right to stand up and declare what he believes in?
I suggest that everyone take a step back and take a deep breath. Everything is going to be okay. No one has been injured, no one has been wronged. It's OK to be annoyed, but when one manifests that annoyance into intolerance, there's a problem. Let's just all stay consistent in our convictions.
ract that about 10,000 students at this University likely do not agree either is reason enough for the UDK to not print full-page confessions." The hypocrisy of this argument is incredible.
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Justin Sorg Wichita sophomore