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Thursday, January 20, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Term limits for Congress restrict personal choices
The primary design of the Constitution was to ensure governmental control by the people. Unfortunately, term-limit legislation is doing just the opposite by taking away people's right to vote for whomever they choose.
Other than age, citizenship and state residency requirements,the Constitution places no qualifications on running for office. Our founding fathers had the democratic idea that members of Congress were to be held accountable by election not by states placing extra-constitutional restrictions upon candidates.
fifteen states presently have term limits. The citizens of these states are potentially at a disadvantage because their representatives are less experienced. Term limits advocate inexperience over experience.
Entering term limits into law suggests that people cannot make intelligent decisions themselves. Contrary to what the pro-term-limit supporters may lead people to believe, the electorate is not consistently bamboozled by incumbents who are able to secure votes by outspending their opponents.
Trying to pin the problems of Congress on the length of time its members spend in office is shortsighted. Term limits are wrongly being championed as a remedy for congressional problems that have nothing to do with time spent in office.
WILLIAM GIST FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Legislature must fund National Merit waivers
Last month, the Board of Regents voted to ask the Legislature for money. The money they seek will be used to offer Kansas National Merit semi-finalists a full waiver of tuition and fees at Regents schools. The recommendation needs to be adopted if Kansas hopes to retain its most intelligent students.
A 1993 Emporia State University study revealed that only 38 percent of Kansas' National Merit semi-finalists enrolled at Kansas universities. Though some semi-finalists undoubtedly will choose Ivy League schools, many talented students must consider financial constraints when selecting a university. Kansas universities lack the financial incentives for those students to remain in the state.
Other universities offer National Merit semi-finalists impressive scholarships, but Kansas universities do not. Any semi-finalist who enrolls at the University of Oklahoma, for example, will receive scholarships totaling more than $37,000 during four years.
The Regents estimate that more than $600,000 will be needed to offer the students a full waiver of tuition and fees during the next four years. The program's returns far outweigh its costs, though.
Recruiting is not new to Kansas universities. These universities spare no expense to recruit and retain top athletes. Attracting the state's academic standouts should be at least as important.
National Merit semi-finalists represent the state's best and brightest students, and every effort should be made to keep these students in Kansas. The Legislature must offer adequate scholarships if it hopes to retain top scholars.
COLLEEN McCAIN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: SAMANTHA ADAMS, MARGARET BECK, KRISTIN BRUMM, RICHARD BOYD, J.R. CLAIRBORNE, CARSON ELROD, WILLLAM GIST, BEN GROVE, DONELLA HEARNE, DAN JANOUSEK, CHRIS LIVINGTON, COLLEEN McCAIN, NATHAN OLSON, GERALDO SAMOR, DAVID ZIMMERMAN
KANSAN STAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager. news adviser
Editors
BILL SKEET. Systems coordinator
Assistent Managing Editor...Dan England
Assistant to the editor ...J. R. Clairhome
News ...Kristi Fogler, Katie Greenwald,
...Todd Selfert
Editorial ...Colleen McCain
...Nathan Oloon
Campus ...Jess DeVaven
Sports ...David Dorsey
Photo ...Doug Hesse
Fantasies ...Sara Bennett
JUSTIN GARBERG
Business manager
JENNIFER BLOWEY
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr...Jason Ebery
Regional sales mgr...Troy Tawarvey
National A Co-op sales mgr...Robin Kring
Special sections mgr...Shelly McConnell
Production mgr...Laura Guth
Gretchen Kotterhelmeltb
Marketing director...Shannon Reilly
Creative director...John Carlton
Classified mgr...Kelly Connelys
Tearheads mgr...Wing Chen
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 letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be pleased to receive the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansas newsroom, 111 Staffer Flint Hall.
The death of a family member severs ties that seemed binding
My girlfriend's great-grandmother died on New Year's Day. She was only 86.
Korrie, as a child, had been close to her great-grandmother, and she respected Elsie a lot. Naturally, I agreed to drive her to the funeral in Arkansas.
We arrived at Korrie's grandmother's house at 1 a.m., but some of the family members were still gathered around the kitchen table talking and reminiscing. Korrie's mother, Cheryl, who lives in Maryland, hugged us tightly. I was introduced to the other family members in the room. It was an awkward way to meet Korrie's family.
When Korrie and I were dressed, we were fussed over and forced to smile for a thousand pictures. Desperately, the two generations before Korrie tried to grasp at and retain our youth. We were as they once had been, not as Elsie had become.
At last everyone reluctantly drifted off to bed. Death and sleep are so similar; one makes us uncomfortable with the other.
We then went to Elsie's house. Still more introductions to the relatives of a woman I never met. Korrie and I ducked out the back door. She led me around the farm, showing me her childhood haunts. Here was her great-grandfather's old work area.
We drove to the funeral home to view the body. More introductions that I would forget as soon as a new name and hand were thrust at me. It seemed unreal and unnatural to be pleasant in the room that held the empty shell of a once vibrant woman. Kids bounced on their mothers' knees, not really comprehending the significance of death. Try as I might, neither could I. I went outside for a breath of crisp air and life.
Harley had died 10 years earlier, almost to the day. Then we went into the root cellar, Korie's play house. In her eye, it had changed little in 15 years. I saw an overtured bench and a chair, cobwebs and old leaves.
In the morning, Korrie and her mom rushed off to find Korrie a black dress. I sat and picked dog hairs off the suit I did not have time to dry-clean.
Korrie saw much more. She saw youth, happiness and security.
We went into the big red barn that every old farmhouse must have as a companion. It was empty except for some broken implements but still serviceable. It seemed lonely. Out back, Korrie took me to a bluff where you could see the whole valley below. As a child, it must have seemed like the whole world to her. Now it was filling with houses, and Korrie knew all too painfully what was beyond those distant hills.
The funeral was full of good words about a person who could no longer hear them. I will never know what kind of woman she was — you can't trust a preacher at a funeral.
As the body left the church, Molly, Elsie's oldest child, finally broke down. There is nothing sadder then seeing an old woman cry. Her lined face already held a lifetime's worth of sorrow, and only great misery could bring those tears to the surface again.
Cheryl, one of Elsie's favorite grandchildren, tried to comfort her mother, knowing someday soon she would be the one needing comfort from her daughter.
The final words were said. The coffin was lowered into the hole. Dirt filled over. The people left. A long and full life was permanently sealed off with only a stone to mark 88 years of trial and tribulation, of joy and depression, of love and hate. $^{13}$
We returned to Elsie's home, which was already being parceled out by the siblings. It would be a bitter fight over who got what and deserved the most. It was sad to see this proud woman's legacy reduced to a squabble about material goods.
Korrie slipped out the back with a night light she had used as a kid and an old flannel work shirt of Harley's. $^{(1)}$
Our steel carriage took us into the night, leaving behind the last remnants of Korie's childhood. She would never return. The last string that had held together this far-flung family was broken.
Jacob Arnold is a Wichita junior in Journalism.
'Math-a-thon' is open for your call
The other day, I was awakened from a sound drooling on my algebra book by an angel, an angel with a tiny wand and addition signs for wings. Unto me the angel said, "Scott, math is GOOOOOD...math is your FRIEND..you'll NEEED math...you-" WHAM! I smashed her in my book. I don't need some not-snored angel saying what's good for me. I mean, no offense to people who enjoy the stuff, but math makes me physically ill. It's boring. It it's unnecessary. It's not even tax deductible. I'm in 002 for the THIRD CONSECTIVE SEMESTER, and until now I've been one of those math-impaired people who always complained about it but never did anything. And then I had a thought.
There has to be some way of making the topic of math seem less threatening while at the same time exposing its apparent worthlessness to people
like Ed Meese. That way is through a telethon: a "Math-a-thon."
In order for most people to make donations, all we would have to do is stand around on national television and make fun of math. For the benefit of those viewers who do not have Budweiser-can sculptures in their living rooms,however, there would probably have to be entertainment.
I think, for starters, that we could
situate a panel of the nation's leading mathematicians on stage, bound in straitjacks, and directly in front of them we could have a group of third and fourth graders, normal kids, who ALWAYS forget to carry their two's in long division, and the mathematician who could keep from cringing to death would receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas.
Next, there would be people wearing big number-shaped foam costumes bearing resemblance to some of history's most prominent figures, like a huge "4" with Winston Churchill's face. The numbers would clomp around stage, espousing in loud, pompous voices the virtues of getting a proper background in math. They would probably cut to commercial right after this.
Also, to further the progress of government aid to math-related programs, we could have Chelsea Clinton come on. She would be given a random set of problems from KU 002/101 math tests, with up to seven seconds to answer each one, taking extreme care, by God, to Simplify to Lowest Terms. Ideally, she would be given a take-home test that has several story problems about the deficit.
I know this idea would rake in millions for mathematically challenged people everywhere, and I'm sure that you'd want to help. But if you don't have time to sit around watching telethons, I understand. You can just send your donation directly to me, and I'll make sure it gets to the people who really need it. And hey, no personal checks.
Scott Agin is a Topeka sophomore in journalism.
Increasing traffic threatens city
When students return to the University of Kansas, several things occur in Lawrence: Retailers rejoice, police perk up and locals retreat. The impact of 27,000 students on a city the size of Lawrence can be summarized in two words — traffic snarl.
Among academics, these two words translate into mass transit.
An inter-urban transportation system between Kansas City and downtown Lawrence may seem like a social-engineering pipe dream, but there was a time when austerity and foresight shared the same tracks.
From 1916 until 1935, the Kaw Valley Line Trolley System shuttled students and businesspeople between Kansas City and Lawrence. The electric trolley operated between 6:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m., carrying 60 passengers from the Lawrence depot, now Free State Brewery, every hour.
Faced with the highest growth rates in the state, Lawrence city commissioners could stand a "back to the future" perspective on
dealing with the city's growing pains. Though Lawrence has been successful at staving off shopping malls in order to preserve the downtown atmosphere, it's still trying to accommodate the automobile.
In addition to the swelling of 23rd Street, a possible effect of a proliferation of automobiles in Lawrence is a parking lot on Mount Oread. Jennifer Brown, Mount Oread Neighborhood Association coordinator, says the Association has agreed upon a parking-permit proposal that soon will be submitted to the City Commission.
The lack of residential parking caused by student commuters who park close to campus has resulted in this proposal. Its effects are farreaching and involve zoning and building codes, says Brown.
The proposed South Lawrence Trafficway and East Parkway also exemplify the city's ongoing attempts to handle the influx of an important segment of this city, you and me. Where the city's responsibility ends, and our's begins, is a matter of considerable debate.
Consider some alternatives, though. Will we turn Memorial Stadium into a parking garage? Maybe commuters will be forced to park in lots on the edge of the city and take shuttle buses
The impact of individual behavior is something we tend to see only from a personal perspective. For some of us, a car is an entitlement. To say that the city can sustain only a certain number of automobile owners and that the rest must do without would be absurd.
into town.
The commission recently passed a $100,000 transit plan that will reportedly expand door-to-door public transportation in Lawrence. Students constitute half of the population of Lawrence three-fourths of the year. Those who live here have a transportation choice. Those who commute from outside the city do not.
With a developing K-10 highway corridor, traffic in Lawrence will undoubtedly get worse. Lawrence, whose motto since 1863 has been, "From ashes to immortality," could be facing its most insidious enemy — unabated growth.
For J.J. Heim, the Kansas City Brewer and Kaw Valley Trolley owner, the advent of automobiles and buses meant the end of an astute era. For us, it derailed a future we have been trying to regain ever since.
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Greg Thonen is a Kansas City senior in journalism.