4
University Daily Kansan/ Wednesday, February 12, 1992
OPINION
Womyn push interests too far at Multiversity
Hello! This is William F. Muckrake, your host for Firing Whine - a soapbox discussion show promoting the political intimidation of the oppressive white male hegemony.
Today I'll be talking with Jane Butkus, one of the February Fillies. The February Fillies, you remember, were the group of womyn who occupied the East Asian Studies building 20 years ago here at the Multiversity of Kansas.
Jane: Thank you.
Welcome, Jane.
William: What's this you've brought with you today. Jane?
W: I see. You seem to have quite a chip on your shoulder.
J. This is my very own custom-made man-axe, William. I made it myself. I carry it always.
W: And what a muscular shoulder it is, too.
Why don't you tell the audience how you made your man-axe. Jane?
J: Well, first I came to the realization that a woman could make an axe as well as a man. Then I went into my dad's attic and found his old Mickey Mantle signature Louisville Slugger and ...
W: No! You didn't...
J: Yup! I honored that sucker right down and forged the axhead out of carbon steel.
Carbon steel will stay sharper longer than stainless steel, but it has a tendency to rust and stain if you don't wipe it off when you're done.
W: Ohno! You don't really ...
J: Well, not yet anyway. We use it for therapeutic purposes at our meetings of the Coalition of Paranoid Womyn.
W: Therapeutic purposes?
J: Yeah, we take a few caualties and put Halloween masks on them of
Eric Fiolkoski guest columnist
Ronnie Reagan, G. Gordon Liddy,
Clint Eastwood, Axl Rose and the like.
Then we chon away.
It relaxes the girls. Afterwards, we go over to my place for espresso and tofu burgers.
W: Wow! Sounds like a really liberating experience. Does your dad know you ruined his wonderful bat?
J: Well, not yet. Dad, if you're listening... I'm sorry, but you drove me to it. I just felt I should have been more important to you than Sandv Koufax.
He doesn't need a place like that. Besides, the cost of the commune would be covered by Mr. Budig's present home maintenance funding. He can be such a baby!
W: Some administrators believe that many of the February Fillies' demands are outside the scope of a university or that they would be fiscally unfeasible and...
J. Fiscally unfeasible?! By asking
Mr. Budig to move out of his campus
abode behind Blake Hall and allow us
to art a February Fill commune
here?
J: Not really. First, I don't like the name "Womyn's Studies." The first four letters in the word *Studies* "sends out the wrong message. It should be
W: Hmmm, interesting. Since 1972, the Multiversity has responded to the February Fillies' demands by creating a Womyn's Studies program. You should be pleased.
called "The Instytute for Intellectual and Political Inquiry of Womyn's Concerns".
Secondly, you can't even get a Ph.D in that area here.
W. Couldn't you work on a Ph.D. in, say, ... sociology, taking special classes and writing a dissertation that would be concerned with womyn's issues?
J: Sure, ... but that would defeat the whole purpose. There would be just one more dissertation gathering dust in Watson Library, and I'd be just another face in the crowd at faculty meetings.
W. But as long as you're pursuing truth ...
J: What does the truth have to do with anything? How is a woman supposed to finishher Ph.D. when the Mul-tion won't even provide day care for her?
J. That 's because you're an apathetic male.
W. Uh huh. Didn't you have some children with you when you occupied the East Asian Studies building in 1972?
W: Ireallywouldn'tknow.
J: Yes. You're referring to the February Foals, one of whom is my son, Ragweed.
J: Yeah. He's a Womyn's Issues major at Duke. He's pretty decent for a man, even though I didn't want him to begin with.
J: Yeah, if the Multiversity would have had a Womyn's Clinic way back when, I would have been able to have a safe abortion, free of charge.
W:Oh?
W; Ragweed?
Eric Flokolski is a Topea senior,
majoring in Philosophy.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Costs of bus system too high
Expansion of KU on Wheels would provide alternative plan that is more financially feasible
The city of Lawrence is growing every day. Look around. It is easy to see. In most big cities, public transportation is a necessity of life. Now, a new group called the Citizens Public Transportation Blueprint Committee wants to bring a citywide bus system to Lawrence.
Although the bus service may be a nice idea, the city is not ready for it.
In large cities around the country, busing systems are losing business. Case in point, Lawrence's neighbor to the east, Kansas City. The Metro busing service in Kansas City, Mo., launched an advertising campaign last year to bolster public use for many reasons. Even with the number of people in the area, the service still is floundering.
Why does this new group think it can generate the money it would take to subsidize a busing service in a town this size? It is highly unlikely that the same people who are continually asked to give more and more tax dollars would open their pocketbooks to a tax increase for public transportation.
The costs in running the service would be astronomical. Not only would Lawrence have to buy new buses, the city would have to service them, fill them with gas, insure them, train drivers and develop a dispatch network. The burden to maintain half-empty buses would be too large on the people of Lawrence.
The committee cites accessibility and traffic congestion as reasons for developing the system. However, compared to other cities, the traffic in Lawrence is not unbearable. Besides, who is to say that large buses placed on streets not built for that type of traffic would not cause more trouble.
The only feasible plan would be to expand KU on Wheels. Although Student Senate is against it, the idea could work with proper financial and guiding cooperation between the University and the city. By working together, Lawrence could have expanded routes, increased operating times and added convenience at lower costs for all involved.
A new bus system may be necessary in the future. Right now, however, it would be a waste of taxpayer money and would confuse the very problem it is trying to solve.
Jim Brown for the editorial board
Olympic etiquette is flagging
U. S. team's refusal to dip flag as gesture of respect to France disregards common courtesy
The 1992 Winter Olympics opened in Albertville, France, on Saturday with a question of ethics on the United States' part. Since the first modern Olympics in 1896, a ceremonial march of nations has opened the Olympic Games which included dipping the flag before the president of the host nation.
However, since the 1908 Olympics in London, the United States has not dipped its flag in the ceremony because the United States thinks it should not bow to anyone.
The United States should get off its high horse and determine whether its tradition of not dipping the flag is really necessary.
This year, at Saturday's opening ceremony, the United States continued its tradition of not dipping its flag.
France was offended because it thought the United States should dip its flag like everyone else. With the end of the Cold War, the United States should follow suit and dip its flag as a recognition of the new world order.
The United States might have gained a lot of respect from the other nations if it had dipped its flag.
Maybe the United States should realize that dipping the flag is not a matter of bowing down to anyone but of courtesy. Dipping the flag not only would have shown the United States' recognition for a new world order, it also would have shown respect for France and the other nations as they traditionally dipped their flags.
Dipping the flag appears to be etiquette. What would Ann Landers say about the United States' manners in this situation?
Tiffany LAssa Haur for the ediitional board
Tiffany LAssa Haur for the ediitional board
Age depends on location in time; you can be young your entire life
Age is a relative thing. It is all where you are at the time. I remember being 5 years old and thinking that was as old as I ever wanted to be. I went to school half a day where I played with children.
The toughest challenge was learning to tie a sheoilace. I could eat anything I wanted and not worry about body-fat percentage, cholesterol, blood pressure or gas. My hair was long and straight. My mom braided it forming and not gave it a thought. And everyone older than 5 was old.
Kate
Kelley
staff
columnist
In grade school, high school students were old. Teen-age boys had sideburns. Girls had breasts. After that was marriage, family and death. They could have it.
By the time I had reached high school, the guys had become jerks, not at all sophisticated like the way I had remembered. Real breasts were not as common as we had been led to
believe. In fact, with Twiggy as our standard, we did not really want them anyway. Old had become college students.
Then I went to college (the first time). Kids away from home for the first time, eating and drinking to excess, dating anything that looked their way, blowing money in one weekend that was supposed to last an entire semester ... these were not grown-ups. We were still children. Old was married people.
But I got married, had children still felt like a 5-year-old inside sometimes.
I did not have all the answers, still did not like peas, hated cooking and housework, still ate to excess. Old looked ruge like 40.
Now, in my 30-to-40 decade, this seems very young, not even the prime of our lives.
My parents are approaching 60, but they still seem very young. They have more fun now than I remember them ever having. I read obituaries, and anyone dying younger than 80 I think must have been in a tragic accident to be taken so young.
I know that if I ever reach 80, I will realize Methuseah was really the only old person. Because deep inside, I will probably always be 5 years old. It is the best year, after all.
Kate Kelley is a Fort Leavenworth junior majoring in English.
KANSAN STAFF
VANESSA FUHRMANS Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
TIFFANYHARNESS
Editor
Editors
News ... Mike Andrews
Editorial ... Beth Randolph
Planning ... Lara Gold
Planning ... Eric Gorski/Rochlin
Sports ... Nelson
Photo ... Julie Jacobson
Features ... Debbie Myers
Graphics .. Jeff Meesey/Aimee Brainard
JENNIFER CLAXTON Business manager
JAY STEINER Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr ... Kim Leibengood
Regional sales mgr ... Rich Hahnbarger
Co-op sales mgr ... Ame Johnson
Production mgrs ... Kim Wallace
... Lisa Keeler
Marketing director ... Kim Clxton
Creative director ... Bevany Benty
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be pho-
thes. The Kansas reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansas newroom, 111 Stuart-FintH Mall.
Stick
by David Rosenfield