4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
MONDAY, NOV.5, 2001
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EDITORIAL A new place to find your car in the morning New downtown garage is a welcome addition for KU students
Recently, a new addition was completed in the city of Lawrence making things more convenient for all of us. A 7-million-dollar parking garage was opened on New Hampshire Street, one block east of Massachusetts Street.
The new garage has 459 parking spots, to make parking easier when shopping, eating or hitting the bars on Massachusetts Street. This added convenience was much needed and a welcome addition to our city.
Parking has been a real problem for business patrons trying to park on or near Massachusetts Street. One of the charms of Lawrence is that the downtown has remained a bustling center. Yet with commercial success of the downtown area has come a lack of parking. With Lawrence and out-of-town shoppers flocking downtown on the weekends and in nice weather, Massachusetts Street and alley parking doesn't provide enough spaces and patrons overflow into nearby neighborhoods. The parking garage will help ease congestion for everyone downtown.
The City of Lawrence did everyone a favor by creating various parking options. On levels 1 and 2, parking is free for two hours. This saves the students and citizens of Lawrence money that they would have to pay a meter to park on Massachusetts St. It costs one dollar to park on the upper levels and year parking passes are available for $192.
Although this garage is not on Mass Street itself, it located toward the middle of the downtown. Not only is the garage convenient for daytime parking, it will help ease nighttime bar congestion as well.
congestion as well. Venues such as the Granada, the Replay Lounge and Liberty Hall draw large crowds at night. The new garage will provide more parking to the students who head downtown to study in coffee shops and eat out in the evening.
Another good reason to use the garage is that the city is allowing a two-hour grace period in the morning. Students who may have had too much to drink and need to leave their car downtown for the night don't have to worry about morning tickets. In contrast, if your car is parked at a metered spot on Massachusetts Street in the morning, the city will ticket the car.
car. This new parking garage is needed addition to downtown and a step toward making the area a strong financial district today, and in the future. The city spent its money well and provided a welcome addition to Lawrence.
Brett Norman for the editorial board
PERSPECTIVE
Why do SOA grads keep killing?
The School of the Americas was founded to train Latin American soldiers in combat and counterinsurgency techniques, and its philosophy has never wavered since inception.
Ostentatiously, the school claims that it exists to teach democracy and human rights in Latin America. Only one of 42 courses in the 1996 course catalog, Democratic Sustainment, centers on democracy and human rights. In 1997, only 13 students took it, compared with 118 who took Military Intelligence. The mandatory human rights component of other courses is insignificant, reports former School of the Americas human rights instructor Charles Call.
The SOA teaches students to abuse human rights. In September 1996, under intense, grassroots political pressure, the Pentagon itself admitted that torture, execution, false imprisonment and extortion techniques were included in training manuals used at the SOA and by mobile training units in Latin America until 1991. Teaching soldiers mechanisms for suppressing their own population is the antithesis of teaching democracy. The New York Times reported, "Americans can now read for themselves some of the noxious lessons the United States Army taught thousands of Latin Americans... [The SOA manuals] recommended interrogation techniques like torture, execution, blackmail and arresting the relatives of those being questioned."
The SOA has always claimed that it didn't teach its students how to torture or how to commit other human rights abuses. Now after the truth has been revealed by the release of the training manuals, the SOA claims that it has changed. The school has never been forthcoming with information; it would be illogical and emotional to assume credibility from an institution with a history of blatant deception.
Commentary
Anna
Wagner
Guest columnist
opionkanansan.com
Robert Chamberlain (Oct. 29) bases his entire argument on the dubious fact that one percent of the general population is psychopathic, therefore it is logical to assume that one percent of a military school's graduates would likewise be psychopaths.
That there are 600 documented graduates of 60,000 with the exact same psychopathic disorder that manifests itself in the same behavior of rape, assassination, and torture of civilians is a clear causal connection.
a civil education Chamberlain's "few bad apples" argument is not convincing, given the evidence of the involvement of SOA graduates in human rights abuses two of three officers cited in the assassination of Archbishop Romero; three of five officers cited in the rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen; ten of twelve cited for the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians; over 100 of 246 cited for atrocities in Colombia.
The 600 proven human rights abusers (UN Truth Commission), are only those that SOA Watch has uncovered by combing through Truth Commission documents. The school itself has no mechanism for tracking its graduates. Furthermore, the full scope of atrocities committed by SOA graduates will likely never be known because members of Latin American militaries are often above the law. It is rare that crimes by members of these militaries are investigated and rarer still when the names of those suspected are released. If the University of Kansas was teaching courses on torture, execution, and psychological warfare and if a proven one percent of graduates then went on to use these skills against non-combatant civilians, we would justifiably call for KU's closure as well.
SOA graduates continue to commit human rights abuses. The February 2000 Human Rights Watch Report on Colombia implicates seven SOA graduates in 1999 crimes including kidnapping, murder, massacres and setting up paramilitary groups. The 1998 and 1999 US State Department Reports on Human Rights in Colombia implicate SOA graduates in abuses including a 1997 massacre, an illegal raid on a human rights group in 1998 and involvement in kidnapping and murder in 1999.
If the SOA is so virtuous, prove it. Why doesn't the school track the human rights records of its graduates? Why aren't students enrolling in its "mandatory" human rights courses? Why does the school continue to be linked with human rights abuses? It is illogical, emotion-based, misguided and unethical to support a school with such a track record.
Weigh the evidence for yourself. Visit the SOA Watch website, http://www.soaw.org www.soaw.org. Discover why members of this community legitimately oppose the SOA by attending a video showing Monday, November 5th at 7:00pm at the Ecumenical Christian Ministries Church
We want our government to hold itself to the same standards it holds others: do not harbor or train the outlaws and killers of innocent civilians. The school, under any name, is incorrigible; we want it closed. We demand that the U.S. stop training terrorists in our name, with our tax dollars.
Wagner is a senior in/environmental policy from Topaka.
KU2030
The K-Book 1947-1948
The 1947-48 K-Book (at right) includes the campus smoking policy (no smoking in campus buildings except the Union and the Kansan press room ) how to get to Lawrence (central bus depot at 658 Massachusetts, the Union Pacific rail depot across the bridge, and the Santa Fe rail
From 1888 through the second half of the twentieth century, the All-Student Council published a handbook for students.
depot at 7th and New Jersey), and the answer to the "64-buck question: What's the chain of command at K.U." (The answer: governor, Board of Regents and then the Chancellor "the king-pin of University administration")
One submission idea for students' vision of KU in 2030 would be to write the K-Book for 2029-2030. Describe what incoming freshmen will need to know to start life up on the hill.
Below: View of campus from the south in 1947 from the K-Book
CONTRIBUTED ART
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For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
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I never realized how much corporate America controlled my life until I realized that my diet is regulated by what's on sale at Dillard's.
B
George Clinton is God.
You know, cheese really is the food of the gods.
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I live for things that make me smile, like catfish and dillion juice. That is all.
Putting four people on a futon will cause it to break in half, just FYI.
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It's Halloween Night, it was at the bar, and I saw this girl in a maid outfit, and she was supposed to come over and clean my house, but she didn't.
I just saw Kevin Spacey on the Letterman show, and frankly, I would like to bear his children.
I just got back from my 8:30 class, and now I'm going to sleep.
Beer, it's a hearty drink, like a stew.
Yeah, toilets do flush backward in Australia but since they're upside down, everything goes the right way anyway. So what's the problem?
Does anybody else ever try to convince themselves that they might drink less coffee, drink less alcohol, smoke less cigarettes and eat less pizza if they weren't a student living in Lawrence?
Should I be overly concerned that the woman cleaning in the hall is wearing a gas mask and using an unmarked bottle?
Think sweater, not car.
The Greens' fast was to raise awareness about suffering in Afghanistan. It was not pro-Taliban.
I want to be a male prostitute because what better way to make money and then I'd be able to pay for my school.
Honk Bobo's nose. ___
I think we should have elected a president that knows how to write his own speeches.
To the caller who called Zippy weird; it is the most profound and enlightening comic ever written.
I think I could draw better than the UDK's political cartoonist. Oh yeah, by the way, I have no hands.
Invite me over. Please.
Cowboys are superior to the Chiefs
The way everyone's putting "and the horse you rode in on" on the end of their message, that's not really working anymore, so I link we should all change to putting the phrase "just like in that movie Aliens" at the end of those sentences because that would work a bit better. OK, bye.
What's up with that dog that was in Wescoe Hall on Friday. Just like in the movie Aliens.
I don't care what anyone says about enrollment. It's still a pain in the ass. When are we going to get telephone or computer enrollment?
The Taliban is so great. I mean they're teaching us exactly how not to be. That's wonderful. They're so great.
I heard that Gene Hackman got in a fight with a guy over a traffic accident. He's definitely cooler than John Cusack.
I just heard that our country was killing innocent people. Isn't that wrong?
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Does anybody have an extra liver I can borrow. I think I used mine up.
mucronat is the worst. It is worse than burger King, Rock and roll, McDonald's.
Instead of sending anthrax all over the nation, people should send flowers. Flowers are always nice.
To the person or persons going around campus breaking into cars, the police have your prints — they were all over the car this weekend. You better pray that I don't catch you breaking into another car this weekend.
Not only does the UDK not spell check their paper, but they also must not check the Online. It's also things spelled wrong.
This is for the ladies, would you be mad if your boyfriend and his friends would not stop chanting "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk. Hey Hawaiian cheerleader." I think I have a right to be a little pissed off. I just wanted to know what the ladies thought.
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I really think neo-Nazis would be more popular if they just changed their hairdo or something.