Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Jodie Chester, Editor Marc Harrell, Business manager Gerry Doyle, Managing editor Jamie Holman, Retail sales manager Ryan Koerner, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Justin Knapp, Technology coordinator
Thursday, September 10, 1998
Editorials
Change to KUIDs difficult for students, maybe profitable for KU
Do you have your rent money?
Check. Do you have your food money? Check. Do you have your tuition and books money? Check. Do you have your smart card money?
This question has ambushed many KU students who otherwise thought they had their fiscal matters under control. Adding yet another hassle to students' lives, many have abruptly found out that they, too, have to cough up $10 to join their fellow students in the technological revolution.
In a front-page article in The University Daily Kansan last April, students were notified of the need to update their archaic KUIDs at the Kansas Union. Not only would they be trend-setters among their peers, but they also would receive the cards for free.
So why are some students still in need of that benchmark in identification design? Embarrassingly, it
The University should not charge students who didn't get new KUIDs last semester.
seems that not every student at KU reads the Kansan. But these students should have heard the buzz around campus, right? It also seems that not every student is knowledgeable about the goings-on at their fine institution. Sadly, these students who didn't get their smart cards are left to pay $10 for something they need.
It is a pity that the University has to squeeze as much money as it can out of its student populace. The raw cost of a smart card to the University is $3.04, Nancy Miles, assistant director of academic computing services said. However, besides just the cost of the card, the University has to cover the
$300,000 bill for smart card equipment and a licensing fee. The weight of the bills are laid on students with the $10 smart card and a $15 charge for a replacement card.
The reason for this apparent price gouging must be that the University is trying to send us "kids" a message about responsibility. If we know we are going to be punished, we won't lose our cards or shrub off our responsibility to get them. Why not financially punish students, many of whom are having a difficult time scraping together enough money to last the year?
the University cannot do business like this. The University should not be engaged in business at all. They should be looking to make us, the students, less worried about trivial matters such as ID cards so that we can enjoy this great institution more fully.
Jeff Engstrom for the editorial board
No excuse for torn-up tennis courts
Darkened and empty, the tennis and racquetball courts south of Robinson Center are surrounded by yellow caution tape and orange fences.
Two years ago, the department of KU Public Safety deemed the courts unsafe and closed them to the public. Since their closing, the courts, unfit for use, have taken up valuable space that the University should use to enhance its recreational facilities.
Torn-up and desolate tennis and racquetball courts serve no purpose. They are nothing more than eyesores, and the University should make use of the valuable space. Instead of blocking them off and pretending they do not exist, the courts should be torn up and
The KU Public Safety Office determined two years ago that the courts were unsafe.
replaced by something more useful.
Replaced by scout-in-line skating park. Mary Chapel, director of recreational services, said that the department of health, sport and exercise sciences has several proposals for improvement. One such proposal is to modernize the facility with a new in-line skating park.
cours. The final suggestion is to wait until a plan for a new recreational building develops and to use the space for expanding Robinson Center.
Other suggestions include replacing the courts with grass playing fields, resurfacing the courts, adding more outdoor basketball courts or combining tennis and basketball on the same
Although the new Recreational Advisory Board will meet for the first time this week, the probability that plans will form promptly for a new facility are slim. Although the University has chosen not to use student dollars for improvements that may be temporary, there is no excuse like a large plot of land to go completely unused for two years.
Instead of just walking by the vacant courts on your way to Robinson, walk into the department of recreational services and offer them your ideas.
Emily Hughey for the editorial board
Kansan staff
Ann Premer ... Editorial
Tim Harrington ... Associate Editor
Aaron Marvin ... News
Gwen Olson ... News
Aaron Knopf ... Online
Matt Friedrichs ... Sports
Kevin Wilson ... Associate sports
Marc Sheforgen ... Campus
Laura Roddy ... Campus
Lindsey Henry ... Features
Bryan Volk ... Associate features
Roger Nomer ... Photo
Corie Waters ... Photo
Angie Kuhn ... Design graphics
Melissa Ngo ... Wire
Sara Anderson ... Special sections
Laura Veazy ... News Clerk
News editors
Advertising managers
Stacia Williams ... Assistant retail
Brandi Byram ... Campus
Micah Kafitz ... Regional
Ryan Farmer ... National
Matt York ... Marketing
Stephanie Krause ... Production
Matt Thomas ... Production
Tracie Meisenheimer ... Creative
Tenley Lane ... Classified
Sara Cropper ... Zone
Nicolle Farrell ... Zone
Jon Schlitt ... Zone
Shannon Curran ... Zone
Matt Lopez ... Zone
"A liar is not believed even though he tell the truth." — Bob Cicero
Broaden your mind: Todav's quote
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and guest columns
Guest columns: Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 411 Stuart-Filr Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions.
For any questions, call Ann Premer (premer@kansan.com) or Tim Harrington (tharrington@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or comments, email the page staff [opinion@kansan.com] or call 864-4810.
Perspective
Being a writer means writing from the heart
Today, Sept. 10, is the most important date of the year for me. It is my birthday, and I am celebrating. Because my mind usually races, I celebrate not by party-
out by meditating. I meditate on the meaning of my existence. Where have I been so far and why? What kind of impact, if any, has my humble life made on those around me? After I am dead, how will the living remember me?
This year my meditation is about writing. What does being a writer mean for me? I decided to make this question the main subject of my birthday
Donato
Fhunsu
opinion @ kansan.com
meditation this time because some of my readers have told me that they were disappointed by some of my perspectives on life.
After all, they reason that I am male, heterosexual, Christian, Black, Congolese by birth, Venezuelan by first naturalization and U.S. citizen by second naturalization. And I write for the opinion page of The University Daily Kansan — such an important public forum!
Some readers, therefore, may expect that I am a dedicated advocate of male chauvinism, homophobia, religious bigotry. Black power, Congolese consciousness, Venezuelan idiosyncrasy and U.S. nationalism. Whenever I depart from these ideals that I am supposed to embrace, I am committing a religious sin, cultural abdication and patriotic betrayal.
These readers have legitimate concerns, and I sympathize with them. However, I don't think that is what being a writer means for me. As a writer, I am in the School of Life, taught by Life itself and tutored by Human Experience. I am simply a human being trying to identify myself with all living beings in all the kingdoms of nature: spiritual, human, vegetable and mineral.
I would like to hope that I am a free thinker. As a free thinker, then, I am an advocate of Life and of all beings through which Life expresses itself. I write by inspiration from Life, not on special assignments by interest groups. My head is in the clouds of the sniri-
tual worlds and my feet on the ground of human sensibilities.
If, in my inspiration, I perceive that angels need my help. I will write about angels. If I see that human beings — all human beings — need my help. I will write about human beings. If I notice that animals need my help. I will write about animals. If I realize that plants need my help. I will write about plants. If I discover that minerals need my help. I will write about minerals.
I do this for a very simple reason: words are power, and power carries with it tremendous responsibility. After my time on earth is up, I want to look back and be able to take full responsibility for everything that I wrote. I want to be able to say: "I thought those things with my own head, felt them with my own heart and wrote them with my own hands."
I want to live as a human being, not as a robot or a puppet. I want to live my own life, for I will die my own death. And when I die, nobody else will give account of my writing
nobody else will give account of my Wrath
— which is my life — but myself. As the apostle
Paul put it: "Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (Galatians 6:7).
Writing, as I understand it, is such a personal thing that I cannot borrow it. I endeavor to spell out the life that comes from the core of my being. If something doesn't resonate with me, I won't communicate it.
Separatism is one of those notes that doesn't resonate well on the strings of my heart. If a writer is needed to push the agendas of some groups to the exclusion of other groups, then I am the wrong person for whatever job that is. I would like to be a writer of synthesis, not of paralysis. But I understand that there are all kinds of writers in the world.
Today, as I turn a year more experienced and, hopefully, a year wiser, I want to thank all my readers, all of them, old and new, and of all persuasions. I hope we will continue to walk together on this difficult path of communication! Finally, I want to take advice from this English proverb: "A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, his next to escape the censures of the world."
Fhunsu is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism.
Feeling old is state of mind but shows state of world
went to the grocery store the other night and came away feeling old.
I saw a display announcing a sale on candv bars — 49 cents. My immediate response
candy bars — 49 cents. My I was: "I remember when the regular price was 25 cents." It was then I realized I had become my mother.
My mother's well-worn speech about how, when she was a kid, she could take her 25 cents-a-week allowance and buy a candy bar, a comic book and go to a double feature, echoed in my head as I walked down the aisles. As a 29-year-old senior, I often feel a bit old around all the 18-to-20-year-olds at the University, but this shopping trip brought
Meredith
Toenjes
opinion @ kansan.com
it home. I can remember when pay phones cost a dime and a loaf of bread could be purchased for less than 50 cents without shopping at Aldi.
All of this soul-searching about age has been building for a while. I don't think that approaching 30 years makes me old, it just makes me no longer young. I'm now closer in age to the people who give speeches to teenagers about sex or drugs than I am to the teenagers who hear them. My 20-year-old roommate's mother is the same age as someone I once dated. More important than the actual calendar years is state of mind, but I realized that I just don't get a lot of the things that the traditional undergraduates do, and that their parents' concerns make more sense to me.
So I've decided to put off the whole grown-up thing just a little while longer, at least until I graduate. I've decided to take in the whole college experience. So, here's my plan: I'm going to shave my head three inches from my scalp in an asymmetrical pattern and dye the remainder a very bright color not found anywhere in nature. Then I think I'll pierce my tongue, buy a CD player and a bunch of CDs by groups named after body parts whose members' genders are still a mystery — even to their mothers. After that, I'll go to a club downtown where the music is so loud that they give out Kleenex to stuarch the blood coming out of your ears and the words are different every time because no one can understand them anyway. After that, I'll buy a Kurt Cobain T-shirt and sit around and discuss Courtney Love's sexuality at a coffee house until I sober up. Then I'll sleep through my 9 a.m. class and try to study for the test in my 11 a.m. class between 10:30 and 10:59 while attempting to get the sweater fuzz off the back of my tongue.
On second thought, I need my sleep. My hearing is already impaired, and I really couldn't care less who Courtney Love is or isn't sleeping with.
Maybe I'll just do my homework, curl up with a good book and go to bed early. After all, I need to keep up my grades to get into graduate school. I guess I grew up whether I wanted to or not. So, if you see me in Dillons grousing about the price of bread, just nod and smile.
Toenjs is a Kansas City, Kan., senior majoring in history and psychology.
You'll get there soon enough, and it's not so bad after all.
Feedback
Students shouldn't allocate finances
I agree completely with the views expressed in Partha Mazumdar and David Perico's columns that were published Sept. 8 regarding the Wisconsin ruling allowing students to refrain from paying student fees because they may disagree with some student groups.
I would like to add a point to the ones they have already made.
If a student can refuse to
pay their student fees because they disagree with, say, the Feminist Union, then why can't another refuse to pay because they dislike some other part of the University of Kansas?
If I think the Crimson Girls promote unhealthy images of women or that football is too violent, would I be able to refuse to pay money that would go to the athletic program?
What if the religion department does not solely promote my individual religion when I believe it blasphemous not to do this?
Can I demand that none of my tuition go to that department?
Deciding that students only have to pay for what they agree with creates a situation that I believe would be extremely harmful to the university.
Part of living in a community is supporting things that one, as an individual, might not have chosen themselves.
/
Erik Goodman Dayton, Ohio junior