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Thursday, January 21, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
Clinton fulfilling vows key to his credibility
As president, Bill Clinton's first priority appears to be offering excuses —excuses as to why he must renegue on many of his campaign promises. Clinton now acknowledges that accomplishing all of the goals laid out during his campaign will be difficult if not impossible.
Admittedly, the completion of the majority of Clinton's goals is contingent upon congressional action. However, to fulfill his vow to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, Clinton is dependent on no one.
Throughout his campaign, Clinton promised voters in no uncertain terms that if elected, he would issue an executive order removing the 54-year ban on gays in the military. Now, though, Clinton's aides report that Clinton may instead give a written order to Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to lift the ban.
By deferring this responsibility to Aspin, Clinton obviously hopes that gay rights advocates will be satisfied with the result, while opponents will not blame Clinton directly. Though the result is ultimately the same regardless of who lifts the ban, Clinton will lose credibility if he ducks responsibility for this action.
Although the issue of who lifts the ban seems a minor one, Clinton can quiet critics who question his leadership capabilities by issuing an executive order. By taking action, Clinton would demonstrate that his immediate focus is accomplishing what he promised voters last fall.
Lifting the ban on gays in the military is one of a few campaign promises that President Clinton can complete immediately and without the approval of Congress. By issuing an executive order, Clinton sends the message that he personally will do everything within his power to fulfill his promises.
By delegating the responsibility to the Secretary of Defense, Clinton appears indecisive and his resolve appears weakened. If he is unable to take a firm stand on a relatively minor issue such as this one, it seems unlikely that Clinton will take definitive action on more important issues:
Obviously, Clinton's success as president will not be determined by his actions regarding gays in the military. However, if the ban on homosexuals in the military was lifted, Clinton would be wise to take action himself. Clinton must surrender his irrational hope of appeasing everyone and focus on accomplishing the goals he set forth during his campaign.
COLLEEN McCAIN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Clinton must be active in fight against AIDS
the casualties of AIDS and the human-immunodeficiency virus that leads to this incrigable disease are once again drawn to the fore with the untimely death of dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
More than 1 million people in the country are now infected with HIV which causes the disease.
This is not an epidemic confined to only one group or segment of people. It is a worldwide epidemic. Some troubling statistics.
As of Sept. 30, more than 242,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with AIDS and 160,000 of them have died of complications from the disease.
year.
During the year that ended Sept. 30, there were 46,400 new cases of AIDS, compared with 43,800 new cases in the previous
Many Americans with the HIV virus do not realize they have been infected.
Ironically, in November, it was revealed that local and state health departments across the country may have to scale back their AIDS prevention and education programs due to federal funding cuts.
President Clinton will inherit an AIDS prevention problem that was little supported by the previous administration.
To not take a more active role would be to turn his back on many suffering Americans who have been condemned to death by this disease.
Clarlon-Ledger Jackson, Miss.
Allen Field House student section designed for surprise, students
Basketball usually rules my concerns any spring semester. This year is no different.
It's not Roy or the team's play I'm worried about — I'll leave that to sportswriters.
But I do have complaints about fan play in Allen Field House. Several times in the four years I've been here I've noticed non-student sites sitting in the student section. Usually I overlook it because they're sitting in empty, nosebleed seating.
The scenario: the first Big Eight game against Iowa State. My roommates wait in line like any students who want to get good seats.
But not this time.
they jumped up in the fourth row. Furry, they would have sat in the third. The couple parents and a handful of kids sat sit there first. Funny, I bet they weren't sitting in the student section because they had to
After my roommates returned in outrage and that family had their faces splashed across TVs everyple must just assume they can sit there without being bothered.
Maybe my roommates should have asked for IDs.
They ended up in the fourth row.
KANSANSTAFF
Maybe these people read the signs and tickets wrong. They though it said "The-student-and-assorted-transient section."
I admit my behavior at Kansas basketball games hardly demands respect; however, I think general admission ticket holders need to respect the students and what belongs to them.
Oh, they thought it was: "The-student-and-anyone-whodoesn't-pay-tuition section."
The problem arrives when non-student types take some of the best seats in the section when students would otherwise be sitting there.
I don't even consider sitting anywhere but in the student section because I'm courteous and know I'll get kicked out of other sections.
Because the ticket office lets general admission people take student seats if vacant or available, these people must just assume they can sit there without being bothered.
These people pay $15 a pop and usually sit in worse seats than I do. Let them sit there as long as students who pay to sit in that section and can only sit in that section aren't sitting there
But please, isn't it obvious to these people and the ushers when a family is sitting third row center at a game? Especially because they're sitting down in a sea of standing, chanting students.
Now I could offer a solution: trash the old seating chart and sit the students like they do at Duke. Obviously, this has been suggested before, and I don't want to suggest that this solution is possible or simple.
So I'll provide another suggestion. Why don't people who buy general admission tickets give students the first crack at the student section. What an unusual concept. And why don't ushers, students and everyone else make sure the gesture by the ticket office is not abused.
As long as seating remains as is, everyone needs to compromise, even if it means being respectful of those obnoxious, old students.
Shelly Solon is a Wheeling, Ill., senior majoring in Journalism.
Lack of effort leads to stereotyping
Mui Soo sells birds nest drink, white fungus — with or without longons — and "good luck" Chinese New Year's candies in her parents' shop. She said some customers also may come to the Beijing Food Store, next door to the family's Peking Restaurant, 2216 Iowa St., to buy packets of jellyfish for their New Year's dinner this weekend.
STEVE PERRY
Business manager
MELISSA TERLIP
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales aft marketing adviser
"It is a dish for very special occasions," said Mui, a Lawrence freshman who goes by the Americanized name of May.
For some people, response to this information might be "So...?"
and sitting there. Fine with me
Bernie Kish, director of ticket operations and sales, reassured me that the ticket office allowed this. He said many people called the office during breaks asking about getting tickets
STAFF COLUMNIST
Editors
- Aest Managing ... Justin Knapp
- News ... Monique Guillaume
- ... David Mitchell
- Editorial ... Stephen Martino
- Campus ... KC Trauner
- Sports ... David Mitchell
- Proofs ... Mark Rowlings
- Features ... Lyle Mickens
- Graphics ... Dan Schauer
"The So what?" is that any ethnic or cultural event is an opportunity to learn about traditions, lifestyles and mores that are different from our own. And learning about others is the first step in bridging the chasm that separates suspicion from understanding, discrimination from
Now, I am not unreasonable about this. During games between semesters or during breaks or when the weather is bad like during the Iowa State game, I see no problem with general admission ticket holders sitting in the student section — I doubt season ticket holders would move to sit there. Sears are probably open because students are gone or stuck in their driveways.
An answer is found in those who react to the same information with: "Jellyfish? Yech!"
Business Staff
where, I was determined to learn why I've seen this so many times.
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr...Brad Broon
Regional sales mgr...Wendy Baxter
National sales mgr...Jennifer Hessel
Co-op sales mgr...Amy Hessel
Production mgrs...Amy Stumbo
Marketing director...Angela Clevenger
Creative director...Holly Perry
Classroom mgrs...Jill Toney
Art Director...Diane Daw
GREG FARMER
Editor
GAYLE OSTERBERG
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Technology coordinator
The next time you're tempted to utter "Yech!" about another tradition, lifestyle, beliefs, physical appearance or ability, try to envision the chasen at which you stand and the one at which you reach. No one will be able to reach for your need either, if there is no span between you.
Who knows, you may even learn to like jellyfish while honing your construction skills.
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But, why would anyone equate "that person" with "those people?"
Certainly less violent, but just as pernicious, are the subtle acts of exclusion and blind apathy that take place every day right here. And we're all poorer for them.
STAFF COLUMNIST
Cecile Julian is a Leawood senior majoring in Journalism.
In a word: ignorance. In some parts of the world, much more effort is expended in destroying links than in
Contrain to Judeo-Christian imperatives, I am not advocating that we must love — or even like, beyond acknowledgment for and practice of human rights — everyone we meet works come in all kinds of packages.
trying to create them. The list is woefully long and, in our good fortune, far removed from our University: the Hindus and Muslims in India, the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, the sinewy remnants of apartheid in South Africa.
respect, adversity from peaceful coexistence.
In today's very small world, that opportunity borders on obligation and responsibility. We are elbow-to-elbow, yet many people resist diverse connections. After all, it's hard work to build bridges; it requires interest and effort. Sometimes it takes courage.
Let's hope it is, rather, a matter of only a temporary "condition." Conditions can be corrected.
If you can fill in the blanks,you either don't know many people outside your own circle, you've had incredible bad luck in acquaintanceships, or you suffer from one of the scariest, most virulent disabilities possible: a closed mind.
Why should we care, anyway? Don't we have enough to do already with studies, work, family and our own social involvements? Who has time to check out every organization's philosophy and all the ethnic events that
Besides, every ___(fill in the blank) that we've ever met is always ___(fill in the blank).
go on around here? We're comfortable with our own kind.
501 Bluez
By Moses Smith