4A - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 23, 2002
TALK TO US
Leita Walker editor
864-4854 or
walkaongan.com
Jay Krahl
Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
864-4854 cm
(kramsey.ramsey.com)
kramsey.raman.com
Clay McCuistion readers' representative 864-4810 or mccuistion@ansan.com
Kursten Phelps
Brooke Hesler
opinion editors
864-4810 or
kphelps@kansan.com and
bhesler@kansan.com
Amber Agee
business manager
864-4014 or
addirector@kansan.com
Kate Mariani
retail sales manager
864-4462 or
retailsales@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager
and news adviser
864-7667 or
mgibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing
adviser
864-7666 or
mfilers@kansan.com
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
Tax hike benefits worth strained student budgets
Higher duties on sales, gas, cigarettes a needed burden to pay for shortfall
As KU students, many of us have the luxury of being able to stay in our own little bubbles. But our "budget bubble" may be about to burst.
The common KU student's budget includes housing costs, means of transportation, tuition and food, with just enough left over to hit the bars once the weekend comes. The threatening needle poking is that of the sharpened Kansas budget.
If money talks, Gov. Bill Graves is trying to have a long conversation with money. Simply put, he isn't going to get a word in edgewise.
Kansas enjoyed the luxury last year of not suffering a rise in taxes. But times have changed as we experience this recession. Our economy is down and no one has money. Like the common college student, Kansas is broke. Moreover, because the state has no parent to bail it out, it looks to us to be its provider.
Graves is proposing to increase taxes in four areas. Sales tax could increase from 4.9 cents per dollar to 5.15 cents, meaning your $50 Super Target bill will escalate from $52.45 to $52.58.
The tax on cigarettes, according to his proposal, would jump from 24 cents per pack to 89 cents per pack. Yes, it's an expensive habit that soon could cost you even more.
And don't complain when the carpool starts charging a bit more. The tax on gasoline could increase to 22 cents per gallon of regular gas and, for the truckers, 24 cents per gallon for diesel fuel.
Jessica Smith for the editorial board.
And although the proposed increase is smaller, the cost of registering a car could spring up to $25.75 from the previous $25.
We are all the future penny-pinchers of the world, and when it comes to personal spending, increases usually come from individual pockets instead of the family college fund. However, the proposed tax hikes would directly benefit all of us.
The sales tax on your Target bill would go toward increases in money for public schools, higher education and social services.
The tax on gas would help reimburse the cut in state highway programs to ensure we don't have too many potholes on the ride home. The Lawrence Journal-World, along with other news outlets, reports that this tax rise might prevent some spending cuts at universities, including the University of Kansas.
If this escalation in taxes bursts your bubble, realize that good will come from it and you will still have the gum to blow another bubble.
PERSPECTIVE
Shampoo orgasm, candy rainbow don't inspire desire for products
As I turn on the television for my weekly dose of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I relish in the thought that my mind won't have to work for an entire hour. But not only is my favorite program inevitably interrupted by minutes of advertisements, it's also interrupted by countless ridiculously stupid and embarrassing advertisements that are actually below the amount of brain power I was willing to use for that hour.
Americans are being humored by more and more nauseous commercials as the years pass by. Does anyone really think the cheesy music and even cheesier actors of the Mentos commercials are remotely funny? And does Carrot Top really get paid money to perform that badly? Am I the only one who wants to shoot the screen every time any kind of designer perfume commercial comes on?
When did we become so mentally handicapped as to actually enjoy this sort of entertainment? None of these so-called ads make me want to go out and buy a product, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the whole purpose of a commercial.
And if this is true, what is the purpose at all of putting commercials in the theater? Does Ford really think that after three hours of Lord of the Rings my first instinct is going to be to
COMMENTARY
Laurel Anne Burchfield
opinion@kansan.com
run out and buy a new SUV?
television shows down to 17 minutes instead of 30, at least make the commercial have a purpose.
It seems more money is being spent on special effects, not for Oscar-nominated movies, but rather for one-minute commercials. As much as I love the idea that planting Skittles in the ground will produce a stunning rainbow with showering candy, how much was spent on those 45-second ads?
Take, for example, the Herbal Essences shampoo ads. While I find the idea of watching a woman shower while screaming and moaning because of her shampoo to be rather embarrassing, some do enjoy it. I, for one, cry at every single Hallmark or Folgers coffee commercial I see, while others are equally embarrassed by that form of advertising.
What good does a commercial do if I change the channel every time I see some gorgeous young adult talk about his or her herpes?
And I sincerely doubt Jared has motivated anyone to go on a Subwayonly diet. In fact, that man alone has convinced me to eat there as little as possible.
Maybe I'm being a little harsh. I have run across people who actually laugh at some of the most humiliating commercials.
yet if advertising is going to cut our
The commercial should make me want to buy the product, not be disgusted by either the amount of money wasted or the level of intelligence advertisers assume we as the general public contain.
While I realize all this criticism coming from a girl who idolizes Buffy may be a little hard to swallow, test it yourself. The next time you sit down for your own hour of relaxation, watch the commercials just as closely as the program. Keep track of any commercials that actually make you want to purchase the product.
If you're like me, you too will find yourself insulted more than awed by any of these deliberately stupid ads.
Burchfield is a Baseer freshman in pre-
ournalism and education.
PERSPECTIVE
Students,not adviser,call shots at'Kansan'
How would you feel if your professors studied with you?
When you read your textbooks, your professors would explain them at length. When the time came to write essays, the professors would scrutinize your rough drafts. You would be on edge. You would think the situation absurd.
Professors don't do that. Yet it's easy to assume the general manager and news adviser of The University Daily Kansan does. An adult wouldn't let students print whatever they wanted. Right?
The general manager and news adviser of the Kansan is one of the few adult instructors involved with the day-to-day running of the paper. Malcolm Gibson (appointed to the position this semester) gives advice to student reporters and editors and makes sure the paper makes money.
Wrong.
But he doesn't control content. Indeed, Gibson doesn't see the paper until it's printed. The University Daily Kansan functions independently of the School of Journalism. The school funnels reporters and editors into the paper, and gives the Kansan office space. In every other respect, the newspaper is under direct student control.
Clay McCuistion cmccuistion@kansan.com
COMMENTARY
"We think the independence serves as a wonderful functional educational tool for the students." Gibson said.
In other words, he doesn't want to be
the annoying professors I asked you to imagine. You couldn't stand such people. Neither could we.
Gibson, who worked for more than three decades in the newspaper business, is loud, quick and brash. He wants the Kansan to cooperate with other campus media and to keep the campus community in mind. ("On every story, ask 'How can I make this relevant to students?' he told me.)
The adviser has influence at the newspaper, without a doubt. Yet it's an influence that extends more to attitude than direct commands. Tom Eblen, the previous news adviser, had a lower-key attitude than Gibson. He was soft-spoken, measured and intense.
Yet Gibson's goals will succeed or fail based on the students who operate the newspaper. He can't control it himself. He wants those who run the Kansan to understand their responsibility.
This gives students an advantage. When you visit the Kansan, you're not interacting with elderly academics. The people who work here are just like you. We have classes, we have crud-filled apartments and we would like to get out early Friday to hit the bars. We want the paper to reflect that.
No professor will censor us — and that means no professor will censor you.
- Clay McQuistion is the Kansan's new Readers' Representative. If your student group wants him to attend a meeting, or if you want to be part of a focus group that will meet regularly to discuss the Kansan, let him know. Contact him at cmcquistion@kansan.com, or at 864-4810. And you can visit — he will be in the newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Gentry came to KU from the University of Missouri at Columbia. There, professors edit the official school newspaper. Students work for them. The dean said he respected KU's hands-off system. He's wary of exerting influence and tries to give the newspaper staff space to work, he said.
sion last week. Gentry doesn't visit the newsroom often—and he said that was a conscious choice.
James Gentry, dean of journalism, said as much when he addressed Kansan staffers during a training ses-
Read more about this semester's readers' representative.
864-0500 free for
seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Not all of them will be published. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
隋
---
To the girl in the Dillion's post office: I don't like you.
Maybe I'm just dumb, but wouldn't it have made more sense to start classes for this semester on Tuesday instead of going to class for two days and then having a three-day weekend? Maybe I'm just dumb.
=
This is my first time. I gotta go.
-
You know, swallowing whole ice cubes isn't that bad because you can only choke for so long.
-
Dr.
II
(clicking noise) Hello? (clicking noise)
I just saw my old J-School senator, Thomas Franklin, interviewing Halle Berry on Entertainment Tonight. If that's the type of job I can get after that, I won't change my major after all.
I like where I live and all, but right now I wish I was in Flagler Beach, Fla.
Last year everybody got me so excited about Brittney Spears coming here. Has she enrolled vet?
Hi, my roommates are all stoned and one of them just turned to the other and said, "Those cats didn't choose to be cadavers."
---
-
Woo ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Behold the power of churning butter.
This morning I went jogging across campus in the predawn hours, and I was presented with having to read signs of uterus, box, vagina and hole. Well done feminists, real well done.
Groupie chicks need to stop calling Free for All and raiting off retarded schedules about wanting all the basketball players in their classes. You're pathetic.
Under Hemenway, the number of minority faculty has fallen, the number of minority students has stagnated and declined and women faculty have been forced to fight for family leave during pregnancy and bereavement. We should all question why Hemenway dismantled the offices and programs that were charged with protecting the rights of the very people who comprise our much vaunted "diversity." It has become plainly obvious that KU's internal mechanisms for protecting them from the prejudices in the workplace are seriously defective.
The University of Kansas is currently the defendant in seven civil rights lawsuits (in comparison, K-State has one). Every year since Chancellor Hemenway came here, the number of civil rights lawsuits filed annually against KU has been four times what it was before he came. KU certainly has increased its ranking in at least one category under Chancellor Hemenway, but this is definitely not an achievement of which we should be proud.
CIVIL RIGHTS AT KU
Be assured, the Civil Rights movement did not die with King. As was true during his lifetime, today we must fight actively to ensure that every person in our nation is treated with dignity, respect and fairness. He would expect no less of us. That is how I honored him on the holiday we have set aside to celebrate his life.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear editor.
Someday we will have a society that fulfills the dream of equal opportunity and full citizenship for every person in our nation. Until then, I consider the day we have set aside to honor Dr. King as a working day rather than a true holiday. It remains a day to work toward his dream, to fight injustice and to continue to build a society worthy of a celebration in his honor. That is why I spent Monday meeting with my lawyers to work on my civil rights lawsuit against KU's Office of Equal Opportunity: it seemed more appropriate at this moment in history than taking the day off.
V
Cynthia Annett, Ph.D.
The Civil Society Group