WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 6, 20XX
4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WEDNESDAY,FEBRUARY 5,2003
TAIKTOUS
Kristi Henderso
Kristi Henderson
editor
884-4854 or khenderson@kansan.com
Jenna Goepert and Justin Hennung
managing editors
864-4854 or jgoepert@kansan.com and
jhenning@kansan.com
Leah Shaffer
readers' representative
848-4910 or jehaffen@kansan.com
Amanda Sears and Lindsay Hanson opinion editors 854.4942 or opining@kannan.com
Eric Kelting business manager 864-4358 or adsales.kansan.com
Sarah Jantz
retail sales manager
864-4358 or adsales@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and news adviser
864.7867 or mglibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 884-7866 or mfisher@kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD
The lots also serve the Multicultural Resource Center. Wouldn't the first step toward improving the center be allowing students to park near it?
Sign petition for parking redemption
So many students decry the atrocities of the Parking Department. In this petition, we have the opportunity to lobby the department to reevaluate a policy based on empirical evidence. For those who wish to stick it to the Parking Department, the petition is a better avenue to do so than vitriolic calls to the Free for All.
Senate has done its research on this one. Surveys of the lots between 5 and 7:30 p.m. have shown that the majority of the cars in those lots at 5 p.m. are students parked illegally. Faculty members are only using a small percentage of the spots. This shows that students have a greater need for the space.
The lots near Summerfield, Haworth and Malott halls are not open to student parking until 7:30 p.m. on weekdays. Student Senate is sponsoring a petition to change that to allow student parking there beginning at 5 p.m.
Get out there and sign that petition.
Other students question the efficacy of Student Senate. This is a great opportunity to help senators do something that helps us as students. If the Parking Commission and the Provost accept the idea, Senate — and the student body — will be victorious with minimal collateral damage. Although several professors might have to walk to Haworth Hall from the lot beside Robinson Center to teach a night class, it won't kill them.
Emily Elmore and Neil Mulka for The University Daily Kansas
So take a walk to the Kansas Union between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. today or tomorrow. As long as you're there, sign the petition. Then maybe you can have the privilege of parking 30 feet from the door of Summerfield Hall and thumbing your nose at a parking truck.
SUBMITTING LETTERS AND GUEST COLUMNS
MaiT Pireeat for the ediTiorial board
MaiT Pireeat for the ediTiorial board
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Amanda Sears or Lindsay Hanson at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com.If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the readers' representative at reader-srep@kansan.com.
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RERUNS OF OUR LIVES
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PERSPECTIVE
Women in draft necessary part of quest to end discrimination
Women, what are you willing to do to gain gender equality? Stage a protest? Lobby your congressman? How about go to war?
So ladies, stand up and fight for all your rights, even the unpopular ones. Like the Selective Service ad says, "You can handle this."
Chances are, most women on this campus would tell you they are in favor of gender equality. We want all the beneficial effects that true equality will bring. Unfortunately, while we have been busy fighting for equal education and job opportunities, we have forgotten that true equality does not always equal fun.
GUEST COMMENTARY
On Jan.7, U.S. Representative Charles Rangel proposed that the draft be reinstated if our country goes to war with Iraq. When he did not propose that women be included in the draft, the most common reaction I heard from my peers was a sigh of relief.
Koerth is a Salina senior in journalism and anthropology. She is Kansan special sections editor.
In a way, this is understandable. Few people desperately want to risk death on a battlefield, and the draft itself is not a popular institution. However, the draft is also one of the most glaring examples of state-sanctioned sexual discrimination in our country.
Every argument made by the Selective Service (www.sss.gov/wmbkgr.htm) and by the Supreme Court (Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57) against the inclusion of women in the draft is based on the assumptions that women do not belong on the battlefield and that the military has no use for anyone who is not on the front lines. Both are untrue.
The Israeli armed forces have drafted both men and women since 1948 with
Maggie Koerth
mkoerth@kansan.com
According to the Israeli Defense Forces Web site, www.idf.il/english/organization/chen/chen.stm, drafted women have been serving as paramilitary border police in combat positions since 1995. This is the equivalent of serving on the front lines.
out any detriment to their ability to fight and win. For decades, those women aided their country by serving in technology, intelligence and other behind-the-scenes positions crucial to the military effort. Their work allowed more men to be moved to frontline positions.
Are Israeli women really that much more useful and capable than American women? I doubt it.
If we accept the discrimination of the draft, we accept the chauvinistic images of an unreliable, delicate womanhood and a macho, war-loving manhood. No amount of protesting for more "fun" rights will erase that acceptance.
So why have so many women ignored this issue? Why are there not daily protests on Wescoe Beach demanding the military respect the equality of the sexes?
It can't be because it's a hard point to argue.
Even those people who will never be convinced that women can fight in a war must see how useful women can be to the support services of the military, espe-
cally now that the military is so understaffed.
I am not asking women to believe the draft is a good thing. I am not asking them to want to fight and die.
This is not a new problem. Gloria Sti腾em addressed the same issues in 1970 in a Washington Post article called "Women's Liberation Aims to Free Men Too."
What I am telling women is that we cannot pick and choose what equalities we want.
"We want to liberate men from those inhuman roles as well," she wrote. "We want to share the work and responsibility, and to have men share equal responsibility for the children."
To her, accepting all parts of equality would ultimately help both sexes by equally distributing the pressure of traditionally sex-related roles like military service.
THE KANSAN ON-LINE
Go to kansan.com and click on the opinion section to check out the weekly online poll. Click on forums to post to the discussion.
Out of 161 votes, 48 percent thought feminists had fought for equality, and part of being equal to men meant fighting alongside them during wartime; 34 percent thought women should not be required to go to war but should not be barred from fighting if they so choose; and 19 percent thought women had no business being on the battlefield.
Opinion Poll
res. Commissioners have the power to vote on issues that affect my life.
Do you think City Commission elections are relevant to you?
No. Commissioners do not care about students' concerns.
How have budget cuts affected your school or department?
Last week's poll
Opinion Forum
Free for All Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansas 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.
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Today's a Monday and it's rainy, and that really gets me down.
when I'm in class, I want to rip ass. Is that wrong?
George Bush terrorizes Americans and Iraqis alike through fear and intimidation.
Daddy failed in the early '90s so you attack Saddam, your niece smokes crack so you launch a massive antidrug campaign. These problems are the Bushes', not ours.
I'm at the Mizzo game and the Parking Department just backed into a fire hydrant. Finally, they get what they deserve.
圆
I was at this party the other night and there was this fat Asian guy going around calling himself Buddha. Isn't Buddha Indian?
I'm watching "7th Heaven" right now, and Simon Camden is smoking, and I'm wondering, what's happening to America's young people?
I just wanted to say congratulations to Bailey for winning Mr. Nude Entertainer of the Year.
题
I once bounced a check for the Jerry Lewis Telethon just so I could hear my name called.
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My penis is just right.
when I'm in class, I want to rip ass. Is that wrong?
I just lost my cell phone in my Lazy Boy. It took us about 10 minutes to get it out, and that was almost after I took my knife to it.
I can't find my pants. Has anybody seen my pants?
Is the guy from the Jim Clark Motors commercial Phil Donahue?
Did anyone else see the lady bust a 12-pack of Shasta at Dillons on Mass. and 19th.
I just want to thank the Free for All for letting me call and vent, because now I don't have to see my therapist anymore and I have more money for drugs.
照
Has anyone else been betting on who Joe Millionaire eliminates next?
Can you believe that Puck ended up with the cutest baby ever?
Puck just got married on MTV. There is still hope for humanity.
Stacy Elmore, I love you.
who plays "Debra Barone" on Everybody Loves Raymond, was scheduled to introduce a segment of the program. But after hearing the raunchy and profane performances of the presenters before her, including the Osbournes, she decided she didn't need it — and left.
This is to the Phi Delt who passed out in front of my house the other day; next time, make sure you get better
PERSPECTIVE
Potty mouth reflects on intelligence of speaker
On Jan. 13, Patricia Heaton walked out on the American Music Awards. The actress,
"I'm no prude, but this was such a vulgar and disgusting show," she said. "What was passing for humor basically ranged from stupid to vulgar, and I just thought, 'I'm not going to be part of this.'"
Heaton's choice was courageous and a sad commentary on American language, where profanity and sex humor pass for normal in sitcoms and everyday conversation.
COMMENTARY
Joe Pull
opinion@hansan.com
Obscenity spouts from mouths everywhere, regardless of the social situation or listeners present. Use of the now commonplace four-letter word is no longer
shocking enough, so people become more and more creative in using mutations of these words and in coming up with new ones.
As for humor, the definition of "joke" has been reduced to an uncreative, brainless formula: 1) Think of sexual anatomy or act, 2) Link a common phrase to this anatomy or act, 3) Use the phrase in a sentence, giving it a slight emphasis, 4) Laugh like a junior high boy in the locker room.
Example: 1) Sex, 2) Rotating car tires,
3) "I'll rotate her tires for her!" 4) Haha-
haahaha.
Wow, wasn't that funny? So clever,
too.
Obscene language and sex humor communicate only a lack of thought. They are unoriginal and rude. They degrade the speaker.
They show a lack of self control and a lack of respect for the listener. They offend. In the case of sex humor, they take something that ought to be beautiful and reduce it to gutter trash, devaluing it as it becomes fodder for crude snickers.
What we talk about becomes what we think about.
Profanity and sex humor are the easy, useless filler a speaker uses when he doesn't have anything worth saying. They waste our time, moving conversation and thought away from useful topics into the wasteland of toilet materials and private activities. They give culture an unhealthy and excessive emphasis on sex and things that are foul, which is not to say that the two are the same.
As U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Connecticut, has often pointed out,
children raised in this environment absorb the sex-and-profanity mentality at young ages and their views of reality are skewed and poisoned.
The obvious solution is simply to not resort to sexual humor and obscenity. Breaking the habit of using profanity or making the easy sex joke may take some time, but there's a lot to win: The impression you make on others is no longer foulmouthed. You no longer need worry about slipping in the wrong word at the wrong time.
English certainly has no lack of words to use in place of profanity.
If emphasis is needed, there are many alternatives to the four-letter word. As a Jayhawk, you might want to try the Roy Williamsism "dad-gum."
Then again, something else might be better.
Find it! You and your conversations will be better for the effort.
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Pull is Colfax, N.D., senior in history and political science.