4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 27, 2002
POINT-COUNTERPOINT
Where should the immigration line be drawn? Extending driving privileges Privileges should not exist improves immigration policy without proof of citizenship
When something goes wrong in the United States and Americans start feeling that their invincibility is threatened, non-citizens are the first to be blamed.
Those opposing a bill under consideration in the Kansas Legislature that would allow undocumented aliens to obtain a drivers license are pointing their fingers at the wrong people. Letting illegal immigrants drive legally won't open the door to more terrorism. It will, however, take a step towards a more reasonable, responsible immigration policy.
How many of us would be able to work and survive without driving in Wichita, greater Kansas City, Garden City or any rural Kansas community? Let's face it, Kansas is a driving-oriented state. Effective public transportation is woofly inadequate, and to work and contribute to society, driving is a must.
As immigration—both legal and illegal—grows rapidly and moves from such distant places as Florida, California and Texas and into our own back yard, Kansans can choose between two ways to react. We can overreact, blame immigrants for all our woes and try to deport or intern them, as Americans did with people of Japanese descent during World War II and Mexicans (many of whom were actually U.S. citizens) during the Great Depression.
Or, we can realize that immigration into the United States is the result of a combination of economic, political and social factors both in the U.S. and abroad that brings people across our borders to find a way to survive.
Opponents of this bill argue that issuing licenses
work and control.
Why should we deny illegal immigrants the opportunity to safe transportation? By allowing undocumented workers drivers licenses, they would be more likely to obtain insurance for their vehicles. It's time we stop trying to foolishly barricade our borders to keep those "evil" immigrants out, and find ways to manage immigration responsibly. Allowing legal driving is a positive step.
based on IRS-issued work authorization numbers would make it easier for potential terrorists to maneuver in the U.S. What these people fail to realize — or fail to admit to themselves — is that terrorists, criminals and people seeking to cause harm to the U.S. will
find a way to wreak havoc. News report have indicated that at least some of the men who hijacked the airliners in the Sept. 11 attacks entered the U.S. with valid visas. They were not workers that entered this country to make a living or support their families back home.
In the end, opposition to this bill is not a matter of battling terrorism. The fury against this bill is merely a cover for anti-immigrant sentiment that has historically raged in this country when things don't always go our way.
Indeed, driving is a privilege, not a right. But many of the undocumented immigrants in this state seeking licenses are hard-working people who fill jobs in manufacturing and meat-packing plant that most of us wouldn't take. They will likely drive with or without a license, so it only makes sense to issue them licenses so that they are held to the same driving standards as the rest of us.
Kursten Phelps for the editorial board.
riving is a privilege, not a right. Privileges should not go to illegal immigrants. Right now under Kansas law, proof of legal residence is required to obtain a driver's license. This law should not be
I AFOLOGIZE
MR. RABBIT, WE'VE
HAD A BUNCH OF ILLEGAL
IMMIGRANTS PASSING
BY. HAVE A NICE DAY.
changed.
In the Kansas Legionature, a bill is pending on whether or not Kansas should issue driver's licenses to people who are not in the country legally. Unfortunately, this bill conflicts with the federal government, more specifically with Immigration and Naturalization Services.
O ver 200,000 undocu mented ileg aliens are working in Kansas, and are requesting driver's licenses. Passing this new law to allow them to
assess this new law to allow them to obtain driver's licenses
would inhibit work that INS is currently doing in Kansas.
INS and the Internal Revenue Service are sending mixed messages. The IRS hands out tax ID numbers to the immigrants to collect taxes, while the INS insists it will pick up any illegal immigrant if contacted by a law enforcement agency, said Robert Visnaw, a special agent with INS in the Kansas City immigration office. With only 14 agents in the Kansas City office to cover most of Kansas and Missouri, this bill will only make it more difficult for INS to do its job. According to Visnaw, between 25,000 and 30,000 undocumented workers are in just the Kansas City metropolitan area.
Another inefficiency with this process is that IRS does not release names or other information from the tax ID numbers to the INS. How is the federal government supposed to be efficient when agencies do not work together to reach their goals? State government needs to support the federal government. By passing bill HB 2135 Kansas would make INS work more difficult and complicated.
Security is a major concern in the United States since Sept. 11, and many states are trying to update their procedures and precautions. However, allowing illegal immigrants to acquire a driver's license invites terrorism into our state, and directly conflicts with efforts to ensure security in Kansas.
The federal government wants every state to do its best regarding security measures. The federal government wants us to support its programs and adhere to its agencies. How can the state of Kansas do this if a law is passed that directly interferes?
Molly Mueller for the editorial board
PERSPECTIVE
Bloody front page makes us think twice
Blood covered the front page of the The University Daily Kansan Feb.18. It was fake blood, of course, printed on the newsprint page to accompany a lighthearted story about shock-rock band GWAR.
But some took the illustration — and feature — quite seriously.
A letter to the editor from Overland Park senior Vanessa Young called it "quite possibly the most distasteful front page of all time," coming from a newspaper that has a "blatant disregard of all that is taciful."
Before writing more about the page, I must mention that I news edited the night the GWAR front page was put together. That means I oversaw evening work on the Kansan, and proofread the bloody page before sending it to the printers.
Two small Kansas high schools dropped their subscriptions, according to Kansan general manager and news adviser Malcolm Gibson. He was told the paper came to one of the schools in a plastic bag because post office officials worried that the blood was real.
Obviously, though I didn't write the story or lay out the page, I thought it was justified. But letters and comments have dampened my original enthusiasm. While the bogus blood was certainly appropriate for the story in question, it spilled over onto a story about students trying to get men's basketball tickets. Not the best move.
Managing editor Jay Krall agreed.
"That was one thing I would change about it, not having it bleed over," he said. "I was glad we kept it off the Sprint story at the bottom."
Kyle Ramsey, the managing editor who designed the page, said he "probably would have limited" the blood on the other story if he did it again.
Krall emphasized the need to take the package in context. GWAR doesn't take itself seriously, and neither did the design.
"If it was done in a story about an accident on K-10, it would be in unimaginably poor taste and definitely a reason to be
READERS' REPRESENTATIVE
Clay McCuistion
*mccuistion@kansan.com*
upset,"Krall said.
Young's letter also questioned the headline — "Casualties of GWAR." Ramsey wrote the headline, and admitted it didn't entirely fit the story. Headline writing is a tricky business, though. Often, editors' predilection for puns can lead to headlines that don't quite describe a story.
To my mind, though, the bombastic and silly headline complimented a story about a bombastic and silly group. Elements came together on the front page to present the group in an entertaining, sympathetic way.
"It was a very, very complete package," Ramsev said.
In retrospect, as news editor, I would have asked for the front page to be tweaked. Another story shouldn't have been affected by flamboyant design. Stories with hard news could have been placed in more prominent positions on the page.
Problems come when the paper is seen as stodgy. That's not the personality of Kansan staff members — nor is it the personality of KU students. It's sometimes the way the paper reads, though.
But I strongly believe the Kansan should be a college newspaper, with all of the subject matter, attitude and energy that entails.
What the GWAR headline suggested, in a broad way, was the importance of regularly serving readers with interesting, wacky or slightly bizarre stories. This front page was obviously extreme.
McCuistion is an El Dorado senior in journalism and English.
TALK TO US
But then, so is a lot of college
Jay Krall
Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
864-4854 or krall@kansan.com and kramsey@kansan.com
Leito Walker
editor
864-4854 or waakter@kansan.com
Clay McCuiistion readers representative 864-4810 or ccmcuiistion@ansan.com
Kursten Phela Brooke Hesler
opinion editors
854-4810 or kphela@kansan.com and btreeter@kansan.com
Kate Mariani
retail sales manager
864-442 6
retailales@kmana.com
Amber Agee
business manager
864-4014 or address@kanan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and news adviser
864-7667 or mgjan@khanan.com
THOUGHTS ON ORIGINALITY
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mttheuser@kansas.com
Eric Borja's column ("Original idea? All that's new has been done before," Feb. 15) tries to contend that there are no more original ideas left in the world. He cites Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Ocean's 11, Black Hawk Down, Ali, A.I. and A Beautiful Mind as unoriginal because three are based on books and a short story, one's a remake, two are based on people's lives and one is based on real events.
Dear editor:
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is based on what Steinbeck observed during the Great Depression, but it's still original. At least four of the top five on the American Film Institute's top 100 movies are based on books or real lives. Borja would argue they're unoriginal.
When an artist creates something new or takes a new perspective on an old idea, the work becomes his. It is therefore original because nobody else could have done it. What about Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles? It's about the conquest of Mars and running into the natives (an oversimplification.) This is an old idea. Is Bradbury's work therefore not original?
As with Stanly Kubricks's 2001: A Space Odyssey wouldn't be original because it's based on Arthur C. Clarke's short story, "The Sentinel."
Einstein based his theory on somebody else's observation that the speed of light does not change. Is the Theory of General Relativity unoriginal?
And now we come to Citizen Kane. Borja cites it as an original work, but then claims A Beautiful Mind is unoriginal because it is based on a man's life. This is a contradiction of definition because Citizen Kane is based on the life of media mogul William Hearst.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Ian Lewis
Galva sophomore
The mark of a great mind is that it has the ability to generate original ideas, whether it be recycling old material in a new way, extending somebody else's previous work, or coming up with a truly new idea. The statement that all original work has been done comes from a mind that doesn't have the capacity for original thought and is arrogant enough to think that because it cannot generate original thought, no other could.
Unfortunately, such a merger cannot occur before mid-2005, when the KU Student Senate/KU on Wheels contract with the Lawrence Bus Company expires. During the interim, the KU Student Senate and the city of Lawrence need to get busy and iron out the details of the merger so that
A famous quote by Charles H. Duell comes to mind, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." That statement was made in 1899 and look at this past century. I don't claim to be able to generate a new idea, but I realize that other greater minds in the world are able to.
To all those out there fighting to ban abortion, perhaps you should try educating society about abortion, rather than forcing your views upon us. Take a step back and recall why our country is such a great place—each of you has the right to choose what to believe in and how to live your life, so why should your view be the only legal option?
Further, competition between KU on Wheels and the Lawrence Transit System (the "T") is currently preventing the achievement of optimum ridership levels that a unified system would provide. That is why a merger between the two systems is critical.
LOCAL BUSES NEED WORK
Dear editor,
Dear emoji,
Are you tired of riding or seeing KU on Wheels' ancient, worn-out buses belching black smoke? These polluting buses are now more than 30 years old and are not handicapped accessible.
Loral O'Hara Sugar Land, Texas, freshman
new, clean, handicapped-accessible buses with bike racks can be ordered.
Contact your student senator and urge him/her to work for a unified transit system that will protect the environment and serve the needs of everyone.
I doubt I would ever get an abortion, yet I respect my fellow woman's decision to do whatever they feel is right. Call me pro-choice or pro-life — I am both. For myself, I am pro-life. For society as a whole, I am whole-heartedly pro-choice.
Clark H. Coan Lawrence resident
ABORTION DEBATE
Dear editor,
Among the recent debates, I wonder if anyone feels abortion should be up to an individual to decide, not because aborting a fetus is really acceptable, but solely because it is a personal decision that should be up to one woman to make. I understand religion plays a major role in one's stance on the issue, but people are still free to choose their religion. Laws banning abortion are like laws establishing a collective religion. I am not a religious person, but I do value life and would value a life in me more than the obstacles it may cause.
864-0500 free for
Free for All callers have 20 seconds
all
any topic you wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Standerous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
wait a minute, let me get this straight. John Ritter has to pretend he's gay when the landlord comes over on *Three's Company*? Now that's funny.
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To the person that said Jeff Carey had no
business on a basketball court, that is just stupid. What kind of Kansas fan are you? Just because he's better than you and just because he's on the basketball team is no reason for you to be jealous. Be a real KU fan.
Hey Chris Wristen, great article. It's about time somebody woke these students up and told them what's up. Geez, it's about time. Maybe now we'll get some real school spirit, maybe people will start wearing blue to every game and maybe we'll actually start making some noise in the Fieldhouse when we're not playing a top 25 team.
This is in response to the person who asked the question how many mainstream students does it take to screw in a light bulb are you a student? I don't think you are. You're probably one of those lab or practical instructors that doesn't want to take the time to teach kids anything.
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You have to really wonder about the sanity of Duke fans when they have Battiology. I mean, a religion based on Shane Battier? Come on, get a life guys.
A sincere thank you to the students who helped me on Thursday morning in front of Watson library. Yes, I broke my nose.
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Damn the rich. Word to the poor.
OK, this is for whoever said to go to Playboy.com and vote for KU as the No. 1 party school in the nation: it's not so cool to be from the number one party school in the nation when you're trying to find a job.
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Williams versus Hinrich, are you kidding me? Just look at what Steve Blake did to Williams, and Steve Blake is no Kirk Hinrich.
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Man, I am at the top of my game. I just told Vanilla ice he sucks.
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