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Thursday, April 7, 1994
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Students need break between classes, finals
Students will oppose any final exam schedule that does not allow for a break between the last day of classes and the first day of finals.
Today University Council will vote on two calendar options for Spring 1995. Both would eliminate Stop Day.
The changes are being made to increase the number of work days between the fall and spring semesters so that the University can deal adequately with probation and dismissal procedures and the preparation of new students. The situation was worsened by the increase two years ago from 144 to 150 instructional days.
In other words, the University thinks that it no longer can afford to have Stop Day in the last days of the semester.
Students will argue, however, that Stop Day is a much-needed break before the final exam period begins. That day is much appreciated during a period when stress levels run high and time is at a premium. Never mind that the University is the only Regents institution to have a Stop Day. Stop Day is beneficial, and we would endorse it for other schools, as well.
One of the proposed options for Spring 1995 would schedule classes to end Thursday, May 4. Finals wouldbegin Friday, May 5. The other option would be to have classes end Friday, May 5, and finals begin Monday, May 8. The latter choice is the preferable one.
The second plan would push commencement back a week, scheduling it for Sunday, May 21. This is offset by the value of the weekend before finals begin.
Students need a break immediately before final exams. A plan that allows this break, in the form either of a Stop Day or a weekend, is preferable to one that does not.
MARGARET BECK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
New liquor laws would make policy coherent
The Kansas Legislature is considering changing the state's alcohol policy to allow the sale of packaged liquor on Sundays and the sale of packaged liquor to customers using credit cards. These changes would make the state's alcohol policy more coherent.
The state's remaining "blue laws," laws that were enacted based on moral and religious beliefs, restrict the sale of packaged liquor. These laws lead to incoherence in the state's overall alcohol policy.
Alcohol can be bought in bars and restaurants with a credit card and on Sundays but not in establishments that sell packaged liquor. Anyone wishing to have a drink on Sunday can drive to a restaurant, drink alcohol and drive home.
Why not make it possible for that person to buy the liquor from a store, take it home and drink it where there would be less of a chance that person would drink and drive? The same question could be posed about the issue of credit card sales. State law allows customers of restaurants and bars to use credit cards, yet customers can't use them to buy packaged liquor.
Another issue is that many Kansas residents can go to Missouri and buy liquor on Sundays, when Kansas stores are closed. Every time someone from Kansas drives to Missouri to buy booze on Sunday, that represents a loss of income for the state and for Kansas liquor store owners.
Our state legislators have the opportunity to make the Kansas liquor policy more coherent and increase state revenues at the same time. They should seize this opportunity and enact the legislation.
J. J. ANDRE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSANSTAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
JUSTIN GARBERG Business manager
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BILL SKETT Systems coordinator
JENNIFER BLOWEY Retail sales manager
Editors
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Aest Managing Editor ...Dan England
Assistant to the editor ..J.R. Cairborne
News ...Kristi Fogler, Katie Greenwald
...Todd Selfert
Editorial ...Connat Stein
Courtman Olsen
Campus ...Jeff Dekelman
Sports ...David Dorsey
Photo ...Doug Hesse
Features ..Sierra Bennett
Alumni News ..Alton Moore
Freelance ..Christine Laue
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr ...Jason Eberly
Regional sales mgr ...Troy Tawarter
Retail asst mgr ..Judith Standle
National & Coop sales mgr ..Robin King
Special Sections mgr ..Sholly McConnell
Production mgrs ..Laura Guth
Gretchen Kootenleihnchlmt
Marketing director ..Shannon Kelly
Sales manager ..Kelly Crennall
Classified mgr ..Kelly Connally
Teare sheets mgr ..Wing Chan
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 Wisconsin-Madison will receive a certificate of attendance.
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reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newroom, 111 Stauffer Flint Hall.
Grand Canyon-size gap between sexes seems to be getting wider
The Grand Canyon should be offlimits to honeymooners. Not because so many tourists slip and fall into the darn thing, but because it's a foreboding metaphor of the space men and women have to bridge to reach each other. We need smaller, less daunting metaphors. Even with numerous talk shows and therapists trying to reverse the trend, the trench between the sexes is getting wider and wider.
Take the Jan. 30 death of a Winona, Minn., woman, for example. Police charged her 'boyfriend with manslaughter for letting her freeze to death outside his house in 23-below-zero temperatures. The man, 35, told police that he had not wanted to spend the night with her. But when the woman, 37, showed up at his house and began pounding on his door and bedroom window, begging to be let inside, he ignored her. The woman's frozen body was found the next morning wearing only a flannel nightgown. She had a blood-alcohol level of 0.27.
When questioned by police, the man reportedly said, "She just gets so drunk and obnoxious. She just wants
other Robert Bly and his drum-beating men's movement. And the talk shows are just the playing field.
To avoid appearing misogynistic, I want to make it clear that I in no way condone this type of behavior. I use this example because it illustrates the callous disregard people can have for each other. This is what we've come to.
Retreating to our respective corners in this gender tete-a-tete says a lot about the progress we've made. Huddled together we find strength in numbers. Occasionally we'll send people out to scout the terrain, but usually they report back emotionally crippled. If you've dated much lately, you know what I mean. And don't even mention the "R" word. Relationships, it seems, are for the truly fearless.
Fearing a similar experience, men and women have isolated themselves from each other. We're seeing a polarity of the sexes that moves beyond mere woman- and man-hating. It's organized like a sport. On one side we have Patricia Ireland and the National Organization for Women, and on the
Many play this game, but few win. So when we are occasioned with a couple about to marry, we perform bizarre rituals to mark the bridging of this widening gender gap.
To celebrate the upcoming wedding of a friend of mine, the men threw a bachelor party — no holds barred. I'll spare you the details, but it would make a romp in the woods with Robert Bly and his man look like a Cub Scout meeting. Rest assured, however, that there were no "whoots," "howls," or "woo-doggies" coming from this columnist.
Though nothing new, the bachelor
party represents more than just bonding of the sex. It is a right of passage. It is also an opportunity to see a side of ourselves rarely shown as if the fear men and women have of each other is concentrated, whipped into a fury and funnely into the one individual about to cross into the unknown. The spirit of our sex goes with this person. His or her success is our success.
to hold me and be with me all the time,
and I need my own time, my own
space."
Much like the Grand Canyon, there is something ominous about being in a relationship. It may be thought of as an odious experience by many these days, but sometimes someone like my soon-to-be-married friend comes along to give us hope.
So, this Saturday my friends and I will gather, wide-eyed and woolly, men on one side and women on the other, to send our intrepid friend across the great divide. I feel good about it. He's starting his marriage on solid footing. And he's going nowhere near the Grand Canyon on his honey-moon.
Greg Thonen is a Kansas City, Kan. senior in Journalism and sociology.
Multiculturalism may foster division
Criticizing multiculturalism is a perilous business. One risks being labeled ignorant, intolerant, or worse. Multiculturalism has been elevated to sacred campus cant by its self-appointed guardians, and woe beside the unbeliever.
Multiculturalism's acolytes think that anyone who disagrees with them seeks a staid, monochrome uniformity and is therefore an enemy of other hallowed concept, "diversity." But this is not necessarily true. I think that the problem with multiculturalism isn't the "multi;" rather, it is the "cultural" part that does so much damage.
Ever notice how the Kansas Union does culture? It chooses one of those slick, wooden display windows with the glass front and turns it into a sort of shadow box model of French-ness, Latin American-ness, African-ness or whatever happens to be the culture of the month. Passers-by stop and gaze at these little culture boxes, their contents neatly sealed against outsiders and other boxes.
As far as I can tell, this is multiculturalism's vision of the future: Ameri
who is not. Of course, we have adopted a kinder, gentler approach to such matters. People who are on the wrong side of the cultural divide don't get burned or bombed: They just get shouted down, voted out of office or occasionally lose their education or job because they aren't sensitive enough to multiculturalism's dictates.
Lost in all of this is real, unfettered choice, with people adopting their own identities freely and without the immutable dictates of a "culture" telling them what to eat, wear, say or think. And that is the real tragedy of a multicultural world view: It allows only for the interaction of cultures or cultural identities, not freethinking individuals. It is multiple cultures, not multiple people.
ca as a long wall of cultural display windows. We may appreciate a display, comment on its value and worth, but that's about it. You had better be tolerant of, say, Native Americans, but you can never choose to be a Native American. You can look, but don't touch.
In the end, we'll all end up with our noses pressed to the glass, staring out at each other from our own little display windows. Is this multiculturalism's superior dream of a new America? Sounds like a recipe for division, distrust and disaster to me.
Brian Dicke is a Conway, Ark. graduate student in history.
Multiculturalism communicates this vision in countless little, subtle ways, from its compartmentalization of time into cultural months, to its promotion of interaction between cultures as if they were independent fielddams. This is the twisted logic behind such questionable practices as discouraging whites from teaching Black history, or gerrymandering voting districts to elect leaders of a given ethnicity. Carried to a logical extreme, this keeps white Americans from speaking with African-Americans, African-Americans from talking with Jewish Americans, and so forth. It also produces the inverse result of conservative African-Americans being ostracized for failing to be "Black" enough, or Hispanic immigrants finding themselves condemned for learning English.
Multiculturalists like to think that they are on the cutting edge of social progress. But actually their way of thinking looks more backwards than forwards. Defining the "in" group from the "out" group and using that definition to give oneself a sense of moral security and certainty as is old as history itself. Religion used to do that, when different sects imprisoned and burned each other's members for believing in the wrong God. Nationalism served the same purpose, and we have seen and fought countless wars about differing national identities.
Nowadays culture is the new source of certainty. It tells us who we are and who we aren't, who is one of "us" and
Federal tax on domestic workers is ridiculous
Federal tax laws on domestic workers, including baby sitters, are so ridiculous that many Americans cannot believe they're real. So, by the millions, they don't comply with the laws.
Even some lawyers who know better don't bother to comply, as was demonstrated last year in the cases of Zoe Baird and others President Clinton wanted to nominate for posts in the executive branch. Baird hadn't paid Social Security on a domestic worker.
A 1950 law requires that anyone with a housekeeper or baby sitter in their own home must pay Social Security taxes on an income more
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
than $50 a quarter paid to the employee. The law means that even a low-income working couple, using a $1.50 an hour baby sitter for as little as one week every three months, must go through the paperwork and the expense of sending in Social Security taxes.
The law makes no sense. This week the Senate Finance Committee voted to update the law, requiring Social Security tax payment only on household employees paid more than $630 a year.
The updated law should be enacted. It would be an end to the spectacle of a government that scoffs at billions of dollars in deficit spending — yet feels it has to come down hard on people who need baby sitters.
Perks eroding public trust in U.S. Congress
The attack on lobbyists is getting more heated with each passing day.
The Leader-Herald Gloversville, N.Y.
Now Congress is rushing to slap limits on the wide variety of perks lobbyists lavish on them. Gifts range from meals to trips and golf outings.
In the midst of an angry public, increased media attention and several scandals, 35 states have enacted some sort of restrictions on the receipt of gifts by public officials.
Members of the House and Senate are expected to get together after the spring recess to hammer out a compromise between lobbyist-gift regulations passed by both governing bodies.
The legislation approved by both bodies broadens the definition of what constitutes a lobbyist and requires more folks to register and disclose their activities. The bill also tightens the reins on the perks congressional members often receive from lobbyists.
Congress can tell the American public all day long that these perks don't influence its decision-making capabilities, but the public just isn't going to buy it.
If nothing else, it reflects that nasty appearance of evil that pervades government these days and chips away at the public's trust.
The Daily Record Malvern, Ark.