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Opinion
University Daily, Kansan, February 16., 1983
Eye-for-an-eye politics
Kansas college students who think political waterers are a little too dirty for their liking and beyond the concern of students should pull their heads out of the sand momentarily and take a look at the Kansas Legislature.
What they will see is vindictive party politics in action.
The subject of this political lacrosse game is former Speaker of the Kansas House Wendall Lady from Overland Park, a designee for the Board of Regents. The losers may be the students at the Regents institutions.
At a hearing before the Senate Confirmations Committee Monday, the first step in his confirmation process as a regent, Lady spent much of his time answering political questions. Several of the senators were more concerned with his political leanings than with his views on education in the state.
He apparently incurred the wrath of many Republicans for his early
support of the oil and gas severance tax and for his refusal to endorse Republican gubernatorial candidate Sam Hardage in last November's election.
election;
But Lady told the committee that he had no apologies for his past political decisions.
"I have always felt I should place the interest of the people as I saw it above the interests of the party," he said Monday. "Some disagree."
Lady spent 14 years in the Kansas House, and his rise to the position of speaker attests to his ability and knowledge of events in the Capitol. There can be no question that his experience with the state budget would be a valuable asset to the Regents.
Lady's responsibilities would be with education, not politics. The Senate's responsibility is to make sure that the person who sits on the board is qualified to fulfill the job. And it is the responsibility of students to see that politics don't interfere with education.
There is a sickness in the land, a cancer that threatens to eat away at spiritual and intellectual America. We are bedridden with an intolerance toward ideas and ideologies, and the symptoms are getting worse.
sysphonix. The main prejudice reared its ugly head recently as I sat peacefully in my living room. Between the hours of noon and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 6, someone destroyed a 7-foot penis.
That's right. Someone deliberately and maliciously kicked over my anatomical snow sculpture that a friend and I had painstakingly erected. Who was the person who, rather than confront us with his complaint, covertly manhandled our well-sculpted genitalia?
The answer to that question is not simply a name or a face. If a civilization is measured by
MATT BARTEL
the quality of its thought and the liberty with which we are able to express ourselves, then this country is in the middle of a revival of the Dark Ages.
Part of this revival is a result of an ideological elitism that inevitably accompanies success. This country has succeeded in building the highest standard of living in the industrialized world, and we have done so while maintaining a high degree of personal liberty.
But we have gloated in our success too long and it has begun to rot our temperament. We think we have defeated want, hunger and oppression, and now we have begun to defeat ourselves.
our ten best. Our brief in the American system has become strong that we have begun to value order, stability and predictability above diversity, experimentation and risk. The payoff can only be a return to the age when heretics were boiled in oil and blasphemers drawn and quartered, their entrails strewn about the village square in the name of God.
the name of God.
Of course, the destruction of a single snow
pents is not evidence of a widespread conspiracy to deprive us of our freedom of expression. But it is, nevertheless, an example of what happens when we are confronted by something unconventional or new.
Such examples abound:
- In February 1980 a Kansan reviewer panned the Molly Hatchet concert at Hock Auditorium and the paper was swamped by a deluge of vitriolic letters from indignant Hatchet lovers suggesting that it "get someone to write who has some knowledge of rock music."
romas defferson once said, "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god." Certainly our forefathers did not intend for us to reduce ourselves to a quarrelsome rabble over a piece of art, rock music, religion or even our penis.
*In a speech to students Feb. 8, 1983, Lou Michel, KU professor of Architecture and Urban Design, lamented what he called "unpleasing disparities in architecture, music, and other aspects of popular culture." He claimed that there could be no great art given people's kaleidoscope of tastes and opinions and the lack of discipline in today's free environment.
*In the Jan. 7, 1983, issue of a publication called the "Biblical Evangelist," the conservative writers and editors repeatedly assailed every denomination other than their own L. Ron Hubbard, leader of the Church of Scientology, was called a "charlatan who seeks to profit from the simple-minded," and the Jehovah's Witnesses were labeled a "cult."
- In September 1981 the "Salina Piece," a 40-ton sculpture, was booed off the hill by students and alumni alike, because they thought it was "unly."
We must face the reality that we will always be many and different, and learn to revel in that diversity. Our tastes in art, music, and certainly religion will never reconcile themselves.
Vengon P. Kennedy once said, "If we cannot end our differences, at least we can make the world sale for diversity."
Right at 8:10, Josh:
*Thought for the day:* "'One generation of idiots is enough."
is enough. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Student Senate efforts wasted, again
They're at it again. Or rather, they're NOT at it again.
The student senators are, as usual, setting a brisk pace of inaction that leaves me reeling. When are we going to make some progress?
Oh sure, the Finance and Auditing Committee has been busy, playing God with our student activity fee money. It is a thankless job, and I am sure the committee does the best it can, considering that the amount of money requested usually far outweighs the available funds.
But the full Senate has done almost nothing.
Except complain, that is, about stupid things.
First, the Senate in general and Student Body Vice President Jim Cramer in particular became terribly concerned that students would be outraged that part of their student activity fee money was going to print pamphlets for Latin American Solidarity. Cramer and others said they thought the group should run a disclaimer in its pamphlet.
The Senate is confused about whether one of its many guidelines would prevent this funding. But the only rule that comes close is 7.5.8, which states, "No funds shall be allocated for campaign expenses of any type for the purpose of promoting a specific candidate or slate of candidates, or issue, or state of issues, in any election or referendum."
election of reelection.
Well, Latin American Solidarity used its printing allocation to put out a pamphlet decrying the situation in El Salvador. Somehow, I don't think too many students would take issue with a pamphlet taking a stand against the slaughter of civilians in a bloody civil war, but I could be wrong.
Then he a senator admitted that the Senate breaks its own rules all the time — not exactly news, but interesting nonetheless. The cochairman of the Senate Rights, Privileges and Responsibilities Committee, Robert Walker, says the Senate unevenly applies its rules.
Walker says the Senate funds KJHK, the student radio station, despite the fact that the Senate is not supposed to fund groups that require a certain grade point average. KJHK requires a 2.0 for student workers at the station.
And then, of course, there was the Emily Tayler hubbub. Seems someone was supposed to pay Taylor, who spoke at least year's Higher. That meant that Emily had fulfilled its rules in voting to pay her, Walkers say.
Well, what was the Senate to do? Look even more ridiculously incept by not paying her? Of course not. The damage had been done and the
TRACEE HAMILTON
Senate was once again exposed as a bumbling appendage of the student government system
But maybe I'm being too harsh. After all, the Senate passed a terrific important resolution at its meeting last Thursday. It officially condemned racism at the University.
defined racism at the university.
The resolution says, in part, "A university should be a place of free and unhindered freedom of speech, opinion, and research in order to promote open exchange and fruidal discussion of differing ideas."
discussion of differing views.
That's something the Senate should bear in mind in further dealings with Latin American Solidarity's funding.
simulties everywhere will sleep easier tonight, knowing that the Student Senate is their watchdog. No one is saying, God forbid, that racism should be allowed at the University. But that resolution is typical of all Student Senate action — totally symbolic.
While the senators were quibbling among themselves and grabbing headlines to further their chances of being our next student body president, a woman was raped on this campus. Another was accosted, in nearly the same location, several times after being raped by yours; one might sit next to you in class or live next door. One might even have been a student senator.
when leans me to make a suggestion to our beloved student leaders. Why not take the money we are pouring down the rathole called Associated Students of Kansas and instead use it to beef up campus security at night?
Granted, I think that we should expect and demand our campus police give us adequate protection, but they, too, are under budget constraints. Meanwhile, we give ASK $14,000 a year to do nothing.
But I'm dreaming, because the Senate would never kill ASK, the other half of its mutual attack society. And because the Senate sees the threat to ASK as a threat to itself, it will never have the guez to give an honest evaluation of ASK's performance. If the Senate did, it would honestly find that ASK's value as a lobbying group is nil, that no one in the Legislature takes it seriously and that the money could be better spent elsewhere.
I had a dream over Christmas break about Student Senate. I was alone with the entire Senate in the Post Rock Restaurant (in Lincoln, Kan). We were arguing about various issues, including Kansan funding and ASK.
including hearing loss. They eventually lost control and rushed me, fingernails and eyes protruding grotesquely 1 woke in a cold sweat, thinking that the Senate couldn't get under my skin any deeper than in that dream. But Student Senate, with its inherent weaknesses and shortcomings, should be haunting all of us.
Letters to the Editor
American double standard causes contradiction
To the editor.
To the editor,
Bonar Meeinger is suffering from the same lack of perspective that he justly observes in media types, and "enlightened elite." His colleagues Feb. 3 declined the progressive movement's lack of participation in condemning Soviet expansionism in Afghanistan and linked it to the legacy of distrust from the Nixon and Vietnam years.
His linkage is skewed, but his point is well taken. To the extent that progressives are content to throw stones at the United States, they should be willing to do the same to the Soviet Union.
Uncle Sam got a terrific fright this morning. When he looked into the mirror, he saw a Russian bear. If we 6 percent of the world's population consume 50 percent of its resources, and the Russians consume 40 percent of its resources for the dirt-poor Third World to fight over. Could it be that the Soviets and Americans are acting in collusion? Both go under the names of imperialists and consumers;
However, the cause of apathy is probably not the history of the recent past, but the confusing double standard under which we live. What is happening in Afghan villages is little different from what is happening in Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Honduran and Nicaraguan villages. The
Polish solution to Solidarity was little different from Reagan's solution to the air traffic controllers' strike. The Soviets dominate or prevent elections in the Third World; the Americans do the same.
careful about which politician we'll trust our vote to, because that's what being an American still means. Our freedom is worthless, pitiful mockery of prior generations' sacrifices and struggles if not exercised.
Bonar Menninger should not find fault with the folks who have given their lives, fortunes and of honor in the society to movements such as the nuclear freeze. These level-headed people are working for justice in an unequivocal and absolute quest for peace. It is a disservice to number them with the lame fringe.
The contempt for the present administration does not come so much from the "delicate understanding that the timid reserve for the insane" as from seeing thousands of homeless, hungry people right here in the U.S. of A. Sure we remember Vietnam, and bet we're
They are saying, "Let's not be taken by Russian lives, but let's look behind the garbage shovelled at us by our own government, too." Given the present circumstances, that's an important message.
John P. Blatz,
Brooklyn, N.Y. law student
Bob
KU PARKING SERVICE
The article "Neither rain, nor snow" (University Daily Kansan, Feb. 4) dealt with a sluggish administration that canceled classes on a treacherously snowy day only after campus buses could no longer navigate slick roads.
Students and faculty left campus without any more penalty than maneuvering on streets and highways that were considered hazardous enough for a traveler's advisory to be issued (earlier that morning).
Allowance for snows
Civil service employees, however, were told that offices would remain open, and if they left, the time missed would be charged to vacation or compensatory time. After the forced closing of many campus buildings from Dec 24 through Jan. 2 to conserve energy, then classified employee time was charged those missed work days to vacation or compensatory time, few had enough hours accumulated to go home when classes were canceled and had to stay until 5 p.m., after another inch or more of snow had contributed even further to dangerous travel.
To the editor:
This is not only discrimination, but it is violation of Affirmative Action guidelines.
Barbara Paris, administrative assistant, department of English
Since civil service personnel fail to acknowledge the injustice of this, even though employees make up time missed in the same way faculty and students do, perhaps the University of Kansas should incorporate a policy of snow days into the spring calendar, as do the public schools. This would allow, at least, for equal benefits and penalties for all employees and students.
Kansan Telephone Numbers
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Business Office--684-4358
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