Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Lindsey Henry, Editor Marc Harrell, Business manager Dave Morantz, Managing editor Colleen Eager, Retail sales manager Kristie Biasi, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
Tuesday, Jan. 20, 1998
W. David Keith / KANSAN
Editorial
Dole Center will be campus asset despite editorial board's opinion
Dear Governor Graves:
Not everyone on the editorial board agrees with Spencer Duncan's recent editorial representing the majority opinion of the board.
Duncan thinks there are better ways the $3 million could be spent. He cites crumbling classrooms, buses, parking garages, technology upgrades, scholarships, minority recruitment, and recycling. In almost every case, you have provided the University of Kansas with consistent commitments of state dollars. You supported legislation that brought more than $100 million in grants to Regents schools to start the Crumbling Classrooms Program. Buses, parking garages and recycling are problems that this university is working to solve on its own. In your budget recommendation this year you gave students the two-for-one matching increase in the base budget that will mean $1.8 million for the University to allow it to plan for technology upgrades. You also awarded $5 million to the Regents institutions for technology as well. You have recommended
Dissenting opinion concerning Gov. Graves' request for the Robert J.Dole Center
numerous scholarship program enhancements, minority scholarship, and tuition grants to keep financially needy students in college in every one of your budget recommendations since you were elected.
Duncan thinks that the University, and you, need to prioritize, and that the Dole Institute represents luxury over necessity. I disagree. By housing more than 3,200 boxes of documents that span some 35 years of Dole's career in Congress, the Institute would have more than just the dusty remembrance of the past. The building would give researchers and students the chance to study democratic government by reading the papers of a long-time Congressman. It is history itself that we have been given the privilege of watching
over and using.
Citing the time table given by Chancellor Robert Hemenway, Endowment association efforts, and Dole's own connections, Duncan wonders why public money is needed. The issue here is not whether it is needed or what the Chancellor says he can accomplish, but that it has been offered. If the Governor of Kansas were to recommend $3 million for something that solely would benefit this university, other institutions would feel left out. The Dole Institute is a global resource that will be used by all Kansans.
The Dole Institute represents a rare time when everything works to everyone's benefit, and that hard work pays off. More than honoring Bob Dole, it is a monument to the dedication of Kansans to good government, effective leadership, and yes, investment from the state in our collective future. Spencer Duncan's editorial plainly demonstrates lack of respect for these basic complexities.
It epitomized swift condemnation over careful consideration.
Tom Moore of the editorial board
Feedback
Dole Institute benefits University;
Governor's $3 million offer generous
The University of Kansas was given a great opportunity by Bob Dole. The opportunity to house one of the longest and most complete public service records in the United States. However, with this opportunity, the University and the State of Kansas have accepted the large responsibility of properly displaying and presenting Dole's record to the public. This is not only an archive that will honor a man who gave his life to public service, but an archive of great value to scholars, students, and Kansans alike. Governor Bill Graves
has accepted this responsibility and is ready to provide the financial support necessary to display the record in a manner worth merit.
The Governor's recommendation of $3 million to the Dole Institute is a gift that guarantees the center will be completed in the proper manner. Contrary to the belief of the editorial board, fundraising has not gone as well as was hoped with Dole's former financial supporters. The Governor's recommendation ensures that the resources of private financial supporters of the University of will not be exhausted by the Dole Institute with a University-wide capital campaign.
There is much to gain from the addition of a public policy institute at the University of and so much to lose by insulting the Governor's generosity. We believe that the Kansan editorial board must be more responsible and better informed when taking students interests into its own hands.
Korb Maxwell. Student Representative on Robert J. Dole Institute Committee, Lobby Coordinator for Student Legislative Awareness Board, Leawood sophomore
Samantha Bowman, Legislative Director, Wichita senior
Kansan staff
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"All government is, in its essence, organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms, it is the enemy of every industrious and well-deposed man."
H. L. Mencken
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 Staunfer-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) or Andy Obermeyer (andyo@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff [opinion@kansan.com] or call 864-4810.
Reach out and touch 'Monodemonic Telecom'
Perspective
I just moved into a new apartment. I called Southwestern Bell to set up service and immediately was put through their phone maze. An automated operator was doing her
illusion that I had choices.
"If you are calling to change existing service, press 1. If you are calling to obtain new phone service, press 2. If you are contemplating an act of terrorism against your local phone carrier, please press *9 and stay on the line."
You know the routine.
Before I could press '9,
a live operator came to my
rescue. She said her name
Ryan
Devlin
join@kansan.com
was Eve. She was very friendly, as evil temptresses go. She was very enthusiastic in explaining my many choices. Would I like call notes? Speed dialing? Call Waiting? Would I like a device to be implanted in my head that would allow me to receive calls telepathically? This month they're waiving the implantation fee.
What's a mindless consumer to do? I wanted it all — Even that Jedi mind-phone thing. "When can I get my phone?" I asked her.
There was a moment of silence. "For? Are you there?"
"Eye? Are you there?"
"Yes," she said, hesitating a little. "There is just one more thing you need to do. Give us $93 in advance. Go down to Fast Money. It's one of those shady, general-store-in-the Grapes of Wrath-type places. Payday loans, soul-pawning, cigarette outlet. Pay them $93, they'll brand you with your order number, and in two business days you'll have a phone."
I argued with her. "I thought the cost of phone service was going down! I'm a college student, Eve. I can't afford to put up $93 for anything." No dice. She was only interested in the $83. She only wanted me for my money.
I hung up. I had a tsunami in my soul.
Looking in the mirror, I saw for a second what I thought was Ralph Nader. Yessiree Jack, I would fight. Not just for me but for the liberation of all people who live under the evil hand of Southwestern Bell.
What other options did I have? Cellular? Tin cans and string? What happened to my choices? It was either Southwestern Bell or no phone.
I went to the library. I read up on the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The act's intent was to create lower phone rates, more choices, new technology and to kill the
monopolv.
Why hasn't this happened? The Baby Bells have since reneged on the agreement. They have filed lawsuits to contest it, thus preventing the act from taking shape. Besides spearheading lawsuits, SBC, parent company of Southwestern Bell, is planning to add a fourth Baby Bell to its arsenal and has applied for permission to enter the long-distance market in Oklahoma. Edward E. Whitacre Jr., CEO of SBC, when not busy thinking about new ways to cheat customers out of $93, can be found bulldozing brush off his 1,200-acre ranch outside San Antonio and contemplating changing the name of SBC to Monodemonic TeleCom. I saw a picture of him on microfiche. I swear his eyes flashed red.
I knew the only way to get any real results would be to bypass the bureaucracy and talk to the big cheese himself. Fighting a bureaucratic monopoly from the bottom up is like fighting a thousand Hydras. All attempts to contact Whitacre in San Antonio proved fruitless, especially considering that I have no phone.
I didn't want to be another armchair revolutionary, hanging out in the basement with an American flag for a curtain and a Che Guevara poster on the wall. So I've dedicated my first column to this subject. I also found I was not alone. Earlier this week, Edward Markey, ranking Democrat on the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, asked the Department of Justice to investigate SBC for violations of antitrust laws. Markey said that SBC has demonstrated clear intent to use every legal and regulatory device at its disposal to maintain its monopoly. In lieu of the recent investigation of Microsoft for similar allegations, perhaps the department will be quicker to investigate SBC. Also, the Supreme Court is planning to debate the legality of the Telecommunications Act.
To Congressman Markey, I say right on. Southwestern Bell has been the only choice consumers in this market have had for more than 100 years, and it's about time someone made them sweat. As for me, I plan to write Congress and urge them to back Markey's efforts. It could save you $93 in the long run.
Unfortunately, it's too late for me. I talked to Eve and she said my phone should be turned on Friday.
Ryan Devlin is an Overland Park senior in English. We hope he doesn't try to get cable.
The end of the textbook is nigh: Just don't buy
For those of you who have not yet taken your required inanities (classes), I can tell you in advance exactly what will be
Your speech textbooks.
Now I know how some of you feel about textbooks.
For some, the phrase planned obsolescence springs to mind. For those of you who have not encountered that phrase, it means that there will be exactly $85 and two words worth of difference between the present, required 14th edition and the previous, used 13th edition.
Tina Connolly opinion@kansan.com
your most worthwhile in your stay here at the University of Kansas.
For others, textbooks are a joy. They ensure that you will not have to purchase cinder blocks for your bed. By the end of your college career your bed will be high off the ground and you will be able to store large, bulky items there, such as your scientific calculator and your Western Civilization notes.
For those of you who feel that textbooks are a waste of money that could easily be spent buying better cinder blocks, let me give you a little fact:
The average college student has more Tarzan novels than textbooks.
Kind of gives you something to think about. Of course this statistic is completely accurate only when the average post-college student is your dad, or more specifically, my dad. But it's still something to think about.
So how, you ask, in the interest of getting back to the subject, can any textbook be a worthwhile investment?
Well, that's simpler than it seems. Any fifth-year senior can tell you the secret of textbook investing, which is this:
They depreciate the moment you leave the store.
If this reminds you of another excessively high-dollar item that does the same thing, there's good reason for that. But instead of daydreaming about cars, you should be asking the next question: Why speech textbooks specifically?
Well, this is where personal testimony comes into play.
Personal testimony, or PT in academic circles, is an old standby of speechifying
Now you can make your investment in one of two ways. You can go get slobbering drunk at the establishment of your choice, or you can wait around with me for the day when they have to start paying us to take books away. I'm confident it will happen.
So to finish your economics lesson, just think about this: The more you pay for books, the less they sell back for, right? Therefore, the less you pay for them, the more they sell back for. And if you don't pay anything at all, you get to keep 100 percent of the purchase price.
Once we convince students to strike back against the evil games being played on our poor, feeble minds, the bookstores will be left high and dry. No longer will they be able to run any of these profitable little scams, including the most tempting one that we have all succumbed sometime in the last year.
And we all know which one I'm talking about, don't we?
That's right. The soda machine right outside Jayhawk Bookstore. And if they don't want that to be their only source of income, they'll have to make textbooks more tempting somehow. So they'll pay us.
This course of action, unfortunately, largely depends on your GTA. As we all know, GTAs love to teach introductory classes, which is why they get to teach all of them. If you can manage to get the right set of GTAs, you may not have to buy books for any of your required inanities, that is to say, for your entire college "career." Although this notion may seem eerily liberated at first, in time you will grow to embrace it as sound financial sense.
wherein I get to tell you a bunch of stories off the top of my head and you believe them. This bit of personal testimony that I absolutely positively am not making up is that speech textbooks are endlessly entertaining, a wonderful source of knowledge and will be treasures for years to come.
Oh wait, that wasn't actually my personal testimony. That was what my graduate teaching assistant was paid to say about them.
No, my pertinent bit of PT is that I bought neither book and aced the classes. (Applause all around)
Or they'll just start selling us cinder blocks instead.
Tina Connolly is a Lawrence senior in English and French.