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Thursday, September 13, 1990/ University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The debate debate
Finney and Hayden are depriving the electorate by bickering about where and when to face off
For weeks, Mike Hayden's campaign has grumbled that Joan Finney is reluctant to debate. The Hayden staff has called for 10 joint appearances for the candidates, although Finney's folks have agreed to only four.
But Hayden's let's-get-together rhetoric rang hollow last week when the governor skipped his first chance to face Finney. On Wednesday, Hayden failed to tie the state conference of the Association of Community Mental Health Centers of Kansas, where he and Finney had been invited to speak. The governor sent Dennis Taylor, acting secretary of social rehabilitation services, to represent the administration at the Lawrence meeting.
Hayden's decision to send an expert lieutenant to defend his social services record is understandable. During the 1990 Legislature, the governor often was embarrassingly at odds with the Republican-controlled Senate about his efforts to limit spending for social programs.
Taylor, formerly Hayden's chief of staff, had proven his ability to handle sticky situations for the governor. In November 1989, he calmly confronted hundreds of angry property-tax protesters in the governor's office while Hayden was sequestered to work on the state budget.
But in this election, Taylor won't be on the ballot. Voters need to hear from Finney and Hayden.
The Finney campaign tried to make the missing governor into a political issue last week but bumbed the effort miserably. Jack Parry, Finney's campaign manager, told reporters that Finney was surprised when Taylor showed up instead of Hayden.
The deeper question is who should determine when the candidates will square off?
That's odd. The governor's weekly schedule, compiled by his staff and made public each Friday, clearly showed that he had planned days in advance not to attend the conference. Does Finney not track her opponent?
Frank Ybarra, the governor's campaign press secretary, said, "If Joan Finney is interested in debating Mike Hayden, we've clearly outlined the forums she ought to attend. These are forums that will receive statewide (news) coverage."
Long after Mike Hayden and Joan Finney have faded into Kansas history, politics will continue in the state. The real question of this campaign is whether Kansans can resist the national drift toward stiffly formal campaigns, candidate packaging and mass-media image-making.
More important than who wins in November is whether the campaign process resists further adulteration. As long as the bickering continues about when, where and how the people who would be governor present themselves, the public and the future will lose.
Derek Schmidt for the editorial board
Budiq to budge?
University Senate fails to press ROTC issue
Voting was never so easy.
The 1.244 members of University Senate have been sent ballots that, when returned, will measure support of a proposed amendment to the University Senate Rules and Regulations.
The amendment would allow the University to eliminate a gaping contradiction in policy. ROTC courses no longer would count toward 124-hour bachelor's degrees unless the Department of Defense changed its policy discriminating against gays and lesbians by 1995.
Those who pressed for the vote hoped to convince Chancellor Gene A. Budig to take a proactive stance against the Department of Defense.
Senate, made up of all faculty members and 90 student leaders, is voting by mail because less than 10 percent of the group bothered to show for a Sept. 6 meeting.
Even the dulest professors draw more than 10 percent of their students.
Yet, only about a third of Student Senate members were at the meeting, along with a weaker faculty turnout of about five percent
Despite the outcome of the vote, concerned students are likely to find student and faculty leaders efforts wanting.
And Budig is unlikely to sway because of the vote of a group that doesn't show for its own meetings.
Rich Cornell for the editorial board
Souter merits close examination
Today marks the beginning of the Senate hearings on the nomination of David Souter to the United States Supreme Court. Souter can be no better characterized than as President Bush's stealth nominee intended to sail through the confirmation process without detection by either Senate or the U.S. public.
All of us, regardless of political persuasion, have a responsibility to make sure this does not happen.
The question is not whether in Souter there lurks a Robert Bork or Jesse Helms under the surface of what appears to be a quiet, reclusive nature lover. Rather, the challenge the Senate faces is whether this particular nominee is qualified to take the seat left by Justice William J. Breman Jr. on the nation's highest court.
The Senate cannot and should not grant its consent to this nomination unless it feels comfortable leaving in Souter's hands the responsibility of weaving the constitutional fabric of this country for years to come.
Recall that it was Brennan who wrote for the Court's majority that flag burning, no matter how offensive to some, is speech protected by the Constitution. Souter, on the other hand, argued that New Hampshire state flags be flown at half-mast on Good Friday and that we should not sacrifice of Christ to our society." No doubt a Supreme Court Justice Souter would fail to see the constitutional infirmity of the federal government censoring unpopular
Michael Tulis
Guest columnist
art
Brennan stood for the principle that all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but Souster's judicial record reflects an Ed Meese view of the Bill of Rights — if you weren't guilty of something, you wouldn't have been arrested in the first place.
It was Brennan who wrote for the Supreme Court majority that an important governmental interest in giving a voice to minorities was promoted by setting aside a percentage of federal licenses for minority radio stations. But Souter has called for greater protections, such as "affirmative discrimination."
Finally, at a time when 10 years of conservative appointments to the federal courts have left few alternatives but the streets to protest governmental and business overreach by federal agencies in nuclear demonstrations "the most well-planned acts of criminal conduct in the state or nation."
These comments should provoke thorough questioning by the Senate, particularly because Congress is on the verge of adding 34 new categories to its already federalized federally-imposed death penalty. If peaceful demonstrations in New
Hampshire evoked such acrimony in Souter, Senate inquiry must reveal whether Souter would wield a trigger finger when presented with complexities of urban crime not seen in New Hampshire.
Brennan's resignation and Souter's nomination represent the coming age of a shift in the role the Supreme Court plays in our daily lives. Brennan's decisions were grounded in a view of the Constitution, incidentally shared by its framers, that the Bill of Rights and the courts were created to check the tyranny of the majority over the rights, desires and wishes of the minority. In addition, his decisions reflected a belief that cultural and ethnic diversity is something by which we all are enriched.
Our constitutional system does not permit the court, in the name of judicial restraint to subject the will of society to the members of society to a popular vote.
Citizens and the Senate bear a responsibility to ask Souter hard questions and receive clear answers about his views on the role of the Constitution in our lives, particularly as we approach the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights in 1991. If his answers in September bear an resemblance to his judicial and legal record, we have not been presented with a nominee who embodies the requisite experience, distinction or sophistication necessary to serve on the Supreme Court.
Michael J. Tulis is president of the KU National Lawyers Guild.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
KU can help refugees
Foreign refugees from Iraq and Kuwait are dying of exposure in a makeshift camp in the no man's land desert between Iraq and Jordan. There are an estimated 41,000 stranded human beings fighting each other over scant supplies of food and water.
It is not known how many people have died so far. The agony these people are suffering can be seen in the words of an Indian national who is stranded in the Shallan refuge camp in Ruwaeshid, Jordan. His plea for help was televised in an open letter to the world.
He wrote, "You don't have to visit he know to misry. All you have to do is visit the camp between Iran and Iraq." He added, "You'll camp, they look like aliens covered in mud."
with dirt. Few people have tents; people are building tents with bed sheets, suitcases, blankets and sleeping cloth, scorching heat is impossible to bear.
"It is at this place that you come to know hunger. The trailer that brings food makes you dance from place to place.
"Transportation of people from the camps to Jordan is slow, and people have to go through great agony. It's because we are since our group of it arrived here."
This is but one voice among thousands of voices pleading for help. I appeal to all KU faculty, staff and students to contribute money to buy food, water and medicine for tens of thousands of forgotten men, women and children dying a slow death in the desert.
Tax deductible checks can be sent to: American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013. Checks should be mailed to: Red Cross of Middle East International Response" should be written on the memo line.
Aida Dabbas, Manhattan graduate student.
KANSAN STAFF
Men's catcalls are harassing and degrading to women
MARGARET TOWNSEND Business manager
So there I was, on my porch for no more than five or 10 seconds when a truck with a group of men in it came roaring down the quiet residential street where I live
True, the incident was fairly non-threatening and almost guaranteed not to happen again, but it
Iyey baby, wanna come to bed with me?" Naturally, I didn't answer, knowing that the question did not deserve a reply. Besides, the truck hadn't even slowed down.
One of the men leaned into the window and yelled at me. "Rey baby, wanna come to bed with you?"
While at h...mini-vacation, I went out to...from the box attached to my front porch. Feeling safe and cozy because I was in my own neighborhood and because it was a weekly morning, I felt perfectly justified in stepping outside in my far-flung robe.
MINDY MORRIS Retail sales manage
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
DEREK SCHMIDT
Editor
JKIERSTIN GABRIELSON
Managing editor
TOM ERLEN
General manager, news adviser
And the more I thought, the angrier I became.
Those men, none of whom I knew, had invaded my home. But the fact that my sexuality they had no business considering,
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Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University Kansas Medical Center should use the following format.
Yet what made me most angry was that they refused to accept my status as a human being.
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What they had said to me was not a compliment, even if they had meant it that way, because it was not the sort of thing I liked.
Amelia
Beard
Staff columnist
This summer I had to walk to work downtown, which took about 25 minutes. Even in broad daylight, when I was wearing clothing suitable for work in a dressing room, the recipient of catcalls would be ready for print.
I was alone and vulnerable, and they took advantage of the situation.
"Hey baby, need a lift?" they yelled, strongly suggesting that payment of a sexual nature was required.
was something to be looked at and laughed at. My feelings were, to them, inconsequential.
I like to think that those men who are looking at interesting sidebars and who find it in women, are
meetings were, to them, insensitive.
That incident was not the only one.
"Hey sugar, whatcha doin' all alone?" they croon, implying that I want company, you. "I will take the job."
Even with the nation's increasing intellect, and women's new viability as a workforce, the disparagement of half the population cannot be ignored because it has not stopped.
I like to think that the men who yelled at me that morning in my hometown were in the minority
cavities may seem harmless, something done for a little fun. Yet they are directed toward fellow human beings who come equipped with feelings that can be met by that catwalkers view them as only sexual objects.
I hope I am right.
Almost every day, I fielded those catcalls. I got in the habit of checking myself in the mirror before I left — making sure no buttons were unbuttoned, no hems too high.
But I can't help hearing the comments, and they make me think. And when I think about them, they make me angry. I get angry not because of the catcalling itself, nor because I feel I need to be careful of how I dress. I get angry because of the disrespect that is shown to women.
When it happens to me, I do the only thing I know to do — ignore it.
This is not funny.
- Amelia Beard is an Atchison senior majoring in English and journalism.
Home Remedies
By Tom Michaud