Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Lindsey Henry, Editor Marc Harrell, Business manager Dave Morantz, Managing editor Colleen Eager, Retail sales manager Kristie Blasi, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Justin Knapp, Technology coordinator
4A
Monday, April 6, 1998
W. David Keith / KANSAN
Editorials
Campus computer labs' policies for printing confuse students
Printing papers at KU computer labs can be confusing for students.
It is increasingly difficult for students to keep track of what each lab or center's cost policy is when it comes to printing.
There are a number of computer centers throughout campus, which is great for students without computers. But centers and labs have different policies concerning how much they charge for printing. This is confusing for students trying to keep track of each policy.
The computer lab in Budig Hall charges nothing. The catch is that students must bring their own paper.
The Computer Center has two policies.
If assignments are printed on dot matrix
The University of Kansas should create a guidebook to the KU computer labs
printers, it is free. If the assignment is printed on laser paper, then it is 10 cents per page.
On a side note, the Computer Center should be commended for recently lowering printing prices from 20 cents per page to 10 cents per page.
The lab in Snow Hall charges 10 cents per page and the lab in Stauffer-Flint
Hall does not charge at all. These labs are open only to students in certain schools
It is understandable that to pay for maintenance and ink, sometimes students need to pay a little out of their own pockets.
But something should be done to make it easier for students to keep track of the different cost policies.
A booklet should be put together outlining the different policies so the next time students choose a lab, they will know if they need their own paper or if they have enough money.
It would make life a little easier for everyone.
Spencer Duncan for the editorial board
City Commission: Get on the bus
Lawrence gets bigger every day, but the City Commission is thinking small. As the city grows, many residents are left with few forms of transportation. The commission should create a citywide public busing system and look to Lawrence's future.
Developments continue to sprout up on the town's outskirts, pushing the boundaries in many directions. This growth makes it harder for people, especially those without cars, to get from one side of the town to the other. And there are few signs that this growth will slow.
Many Lawrence residents are finding themselves farther from the city's center and often with inadequate transportation. It is common for KU students, the elderly and low-income residents to not have vehicles. They all would benefit from a public bus system. Also, parents would not have to take their children every time the youngsters wanted to go somewhere —
The city should create a citywide public bus system to benefit KU students, Lawrence residents
children simply could hop on the bus.
Although the KU on Wheels busing system serves the University of Kansas and surrounding areas where many students live, it cannot meet the needs of all students or Lawrence residents. One solution would be to integrate the KU system with a citywide system, better serving the entire populace. This has been proven to work in other university cities. For example, the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana combined its busing system with these cities'. The result was a dramatic increase in ridership and a successful public transportation system.
There are many benefits to a citywide busing system. With it, fewer people would drive, thus lessening traffic and the emissions polluting the air. Safety may increase as fewer drunk drivers take to the streets and get on a bus instead. Downtown parking problems, which have become a concern of city officials and Lawrence residents, could be alleviated as fewer people drive to get downtown.
Taxpayers may have to pay for this system, but federal support can and should be sought to reduce the financial burden. In the long run, when the city has grown larger than anyone now can imagine, Lawrence residents and KU students will be thankful that the commission had the foresight to create a public busing system.
Readers should write their city commissioners and go to commission meetings. They should demand that the commission implement a citywide public busing system, serve its constituents, and look to the future.
Paul Eakins for the editorial board
Kansan staff
News editors
Paul Eakins ... Editorial
Andrea Albright ... News
Jodie Chester ... News
Julie King ... News
Charity Jeffries ... Online
Eric Weslander ... Sports
Harley Rattiff ... Associate sports
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Mike Perryman ... Campus
Bryan Volk ... Features
Tim Harrington ... Associate features
Steve Puppe ... Photo
Angle Kuhn ... Design, graphics
Mitch Lucas ... Illustrations
Corrie Moore ... Wire
Gwen Olson ... Special sections
Lachel Rhoades ... News clerk
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Nicole Lauderdale . National
Matt Fisher . Marketing
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Ashley Bonner . Production
Andee Tomlin . Promotions
Dan Kim . Creative
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Tyler Cook . Zone
Steve Grant. Zone
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"Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs." —J. J. Bourke
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Guest columns: Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stuaffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Paul Eakins (eakins@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4810.
Perspective
I discovered last week that Roy Williams is beginning a new career. I realize that discussion of Coach Williams (or Roy, as unrecognized alumnus with wife)
Williams in the movies: That's as good as it gets
unrecruited players call him) generally takes place on the sports page
Clay McCuistion opinion © kansan.com
But this new occupation isn't directly connected to sports, so I thought I'd bring it to the attention of opinion page readers.
Roy Williams is going into the movie business.
We've always known he's photogenic. After all, his stylish gray hair and well-cut suits make him easy to watch as he pauses to and fro on the sidelines. Easier to watch, at least, than the coaches who are constantly on the brink of major strokes during games.
Being stylish doesn't automatically lead to a film career, though. What Roy Williams needed to break into the industry was a director crazy about basketball. Someone like...oh..Spike Lee.
The new Spike Lee movie He Got Game, starring Denzel Washington and Milla Jovovich, features a cameo appearance by Williams. The film won't be released until May 1, but I caught a preview of it last week before I saw Primary Colors. In the preview, Williams is part of a quick-cut succession of college coaches telling the film's hero, an avidly sought high school recruit, that deciding on a college basketball program is the most important decision of his life. Frankly, I don't know if the coach is actually in the movie, or just an eye-catching image selected for the preview. Either way, he's obviously made inroads into an acting career.
For Williams's consideration, therefore, I'd like to suggest some other movies in which he could appear, based on four of the movies that were nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards this year.
Roy captains the immense, well-crafted ship that has absolutely no possibility of sinking. No, not ever. Not possibly. The ship, according to Coach
Kim Bassinger and Williams heat up the screen as competing basketball coaches at a midwestern university. Sensationalistic news outlets give all their attention to the men's team, while the women struggle diligently in the background. Once the men's coach and his players are grusomely murdered, though, Kim takes the women's team to the Sweet 16, giggling all the way. It is later revealed through a series of convoluted and bewildering flashbacks that Bassinger hired a hit man (named, say, "Rhodes") to wachk Williams and the boys.
Good Player Hunting
Titanic
Williams, should complete all of its voyages successfully. However, totally surprising everyone, the ship hits a huge iceberg — nicknamed "Rhode Island" — and sinks, missing a lot of easy three-pointers along the way. Worth catching for the Coach's tearful performance and Rae LaFrentz's romance with a slightly chubby Kate Winslet.
Williams' character is thrown out of the school after the player informs the almighty governing body, and the poor recruiter ends up living on Massachusetts Street. All he can mutter, as he surveys the barren wasteland of his life and sips from his bottle of malt liquor, is: "My name is Mork. Where's Mindy?"
KU Confidential
As Good As It Gets
Roy, wearing a bushy false beard, plays a kind-hearted college basketball recruiter. He helps an emotionally disturbed high school point guard, played by either Matt Damon or Ben Affleck, by offering him advice, consolation, and other perks strictly forbidden by the NCAA.
Williams portrays a cranky, obsessive-compulsive novelist, who must come to grips with his less-than-perfect life. Helen Hunt, in the role of a waitress at the writer's favorite restaurant, is forced to put up with Roy's annoying ants. Through a serious of humorous and poignant events, she slowly discovers the winning basketball coach buried beneath his crusty exterior. Williams and Hunt eventually end up together, realizing that 35 wins and four losses might truly be as good as it gets.
McCuistion is an El Dorado freshman in journalism with a lifetime pass to the movies.
Africa trip not a diversion, but a landmark event
On March 24, the Laurence Journal-World published an editorial titled "African diversion." The article said that President Clinton's trip to Africa was less a diplomatic mission than a diversionary tactic. "At a time when he is facing increased troubles here at home, what better strategy than to get out of Washington and shift attention away from the charges of sexual misconduct and onto his alleged concerns about Africa," the editorial said.
However, the charges against President Clinton are for alleged sexual misconduct; he has not been charged with anything, and he is innocent until proven
Donato Fhunsu
opinion @ kansan.com
gully by a court of law, not by an editorial board. As to his "alleged" concerns about Africa, bear with me, for we need a deeper analysis.
The editorial warned that images would be coming from Africa to the U.S., "planned and staged with the idea of trying to convince American citizens and those in Congress that Clinton enjoys the support and adulation of millions of Africans." As if this were not enough, the ediary asked, "But what do these Africans know about Clinton's performance as a president and as a person? Does Clinton's character mean anything to the millions of Africans who will be pictured in huge crowds cheering and waving to the president?" To add insult to injury, the piece went on to say, "African leaders and many others in Africa are well aware of the power of a U.S. president and the important role America can play in the continued development of many African nations. This is about as far as it goes. They want Uncle Sam's help — and dollars. And many want to see what an American president looks like."
This is one of the most uniformed statements I ever have seen in print. African people might not know much about American politics, but they know a lot about African proverbs, such as: "It is better to own than to borrow a crazy person."
If Clinton is crazy, America owns him, and the American people have chosen him as his chief, then Africans accept him as he is. In their worldview, Africans know that only the ancestors are perfect and all wise. They know that the living human beings, even the chiefs, have their shortcomings and their strengths. Africans seek out each human being for whatever strength he or she may contribute to the welfare of the community.
Africans also know the value of a visit. In Africa, if you pay a peaceful visit to somebody, even if you are a crazy person, the message of your visit is, "You are such a special person that I left everything else I could have been doing now to come visit you." And the African host will respond by opening both house and heart, saying, "Thank you for coming. You are special too. Let's first give a libation to the ancestors and then sit down and share the little I have." In his supposed lack of character, Clinton is the first U.S. president to visit Africa in 20 years. The last one to go to Africa was Jimmy Carter. At a time when our presidents make official visits all over the world and we pay lip service to the concept of Global Village, do we realize what 20 years of negligence means to Africans? Why forget them for 20 years? Are we ashamed of them? In light of what we have discussed so far, can we now see the positive implications of President Clinton's visit for the African as well as the American people?
As for the leaders, let's remember that today's African leaders are a special breed of people. Many of them have advanced degrees, speak several languages and have taught at universities in the U.S. and other countries before deciding to directly participate in the arduous task of rebuilding Africa. Others, like Nelson Mandela, have overcome the resentment of 28 years of racist imprisonment to set a global example that even the U.S. might consider following in seeking to solve the thorny problems of its racial minorities. Because they are so versatile and have committed their lives to serving the people of Africa and the world, the African leaders have more important things to do in this era of increased interdependence than to just "want to see what an American president looks like." For example, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is from Ghana, helped divert war with Iraq. When one knows what these leaders know about life and the world, the alleged sexual scandals of the White House pale in importance.
As we approach the 21st century, readers in Lawrence should demand of opinion writers the best in thinking, writing, cultural knowledge and sensitivity. As readers scrutinize the opinions of student journalists on the hill, they also should take time to check on the professional journalists downtown. This is the only way our society can achieve an enlightened public opinion, the foundation of true democracy and healthy human progress.
Phhusu is a Lawrence graduate student in French.
Feedback
Kansan article made unnecessary tension
The University Daily Kansan needs to focus on positive changes taking place at this University instead of creating false political tension. In the story "Committee to debate textbook exchange" on April 1, Melissa Ngo made false political assumption
books they wish to sell and to find books they wish to buy that other KU students are selling.
tions about the KU Book Exchange. As one of the founders of the KU Book Exchange, I would like to emphasize that our organization is a nonpolitical group that is trying to help students get the most money for their books. We are seeking to provide students with a place to find the required textbooks for their new classes, to post text-
Had the Kansan bothered to contact any members of the KU Book Exchange, the article would have been much more complete and accurate.
E.J. Reedy
Topeka freshman