4A
Friday, August 30, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Wage increase will harm workers,small business
President Clinton calls his new wage bill "a cause for celebration for all Americans of all parties, all walks of life." However, average Americans working for minimum wage should be decrying the injustices done to them by the new bill.
The new minimum wage is a Faustian bargain that would give the average worker an immediate rush of financial power. In exchange, the overall financial wellbeing of an individual could be worse than before the wage increase because of inflationary pressures.
the principle underlying this pessimistic prediction, the law of supply and demand, is simple.
If an employer has a fixed payroll and is forced to raise salaries, he or she has difficulty paying everyone at the higher wage without reducing the number of jobs. This is especially true for small businesses. The cost of products and services will rise because more money is needed to produce and market a product. The quality of services will be reduced because fewer workers will be stretched too thinly among the same tasks.
Although concessions such as tax reductions, write offs, and pension plans were created to mitigate the effects of the wage increase on small businesses, they are minimal in comparison with the serious effects of the new wage bill.
Melody Smith, co-owner of Joe's Bakery, 616 W. Ninth St., agrees with these points and acknowledges that the wage increase is a political tool for re-election.
The eventual effects of the wage increase are not an issue that average college students think will affect them. However, students know the cost of textbooks, tuition, living expenses and the difficulty of finding a job. All of these costs could rise with the already burgeoning price of a college education. Students should be wary of the ramifications of such legislation and should exercise their vote accordingly.
The Citadel's ranks finally are open to female cadets
Four female cadets arrived on Saturday at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., to begin drills with their male counterparts. Their admission into a state-supported institution of higher education is fair and overdue.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court found the all-male policy at the Virginia Military Institute, a Southern military school much like The Citadel, unconstitutional. Faced with the choice of supporting the academy privately or admitting female cadets, The Citadel announced it would admit women.
Following the Supreme Court ruling against the Virginia Military Institute, the four new female cadets' integration has been more successful than the attempt to integrate Shannon Faulkner, the first female cadet in Citadel history.
Bryant Butler, the top-ranking student officer at the Citadel, said in an article in Monday's Lawrence Journal-World that he had noticed significant changes in cadet interaction one year after the arrival of Faulkner. Butler called those changes amazing.
Past refusal to admit women to public, state-supported schools worked against our nation's attempts to achieve gender equity. Moreover, it was not fair.
The merits of a single-sex education touted by students, faculty and alumni of The Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute are grounds for an entirely different debate. Private schools should be encouraged to continue policies that they find effective, including single-sex education. Schools supported with tax dollars, however, must benefit all who pay taxes, including women.
Many men have benefited from the state-supported Citadel in the last 153 years. This year four women will, too.
LEWIS GALLOWAY FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L. McLAIN
Public relations director
Editors
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
HEALY SMART
Retail sales manager
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Campus ... Sueanna Lóel
... Jason Stratk
... Amy McVoy
Editorial ... John Collar
... Nicole Kennedy
Features ... Adam Wies
Sports ... Bill Petitlin
Associate sports ... Carylyn Foster
On-line editor ... David L Teakna
Photo ... Rich Devinkel
Graphics ... Noah Musser
... Andy Rohlbach
Special sections ... Andy Moye
Wire ... Debbie Staine
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Mark Odknne
Regional mgr ... Dennis Haupt
Assistant Retail mgr ... Dana Centeno
National mgr ... Krista Nye
Special Sections mgr ... Heather Valier
Production mgrs ... Dan Kopec
Marketing director ... Lisa Quebbman
Public Relations dir ... Sara Roe
Creative director ... Desmond Laville
Classified mgr ... Shelly Wachtner
SO... YOU NEED YOUR KU ID' RE-MAGNETIZED... OK, FIRST GET YOUR ADVISER'S STAMP AT WESCOE, YOUR DEAN'S STAMP AT FRASER AND HAVE MS. PEARSON VERIFY THOSE STAMPS AT THE LIED CENTER. THEN, PICK UP THE APPROPRIATE PAPERS AT STRONG
HALL. SUMMERFIELD
Jeff Victor / KANSAN
Bob Dole certainly seems to think so. He pokes fun at her village homily every chance he gets.
But what is his solution? Declaring that the family is the primary unit for raising children is fine, but that doesn't say anything about the problem at hand.
Community involvement in child rearing is needed
Simply holding the family responsible is simplistic and laughable. While no one I know of is advocating mandatory state-run child raising facilities, the sad fact is that many people who have learned the steps to procreation haven't learned the first thing about raising the product.
Hillary Clinton has endured a lot of heat during the past four years from the Grand Old Party, the media and the general public. And some of it actually has been justified.
Her involvement in Whitewater and the Travelgate flasco begged for the open, public investigation that has haunted cable news for the past several years.
Ideally, every politician suspected of breaking the law or abusing his or her position should face the same scrutiny that was directed toward her.
In light of the cut-welfare-andproperty-gains fad sweeping the Republican Party, Clinton's stance on using the community to help curb rising teen violence and drug use seems an easy target for right-thinking conservatives.
But some people have criticized her for nothing more than daring to write a book calling for increased community responsibility for our nation's children.
STAFF COLUMNIST
Demanding that families do better solves nothing, and trusting that the problem will go away with time and less govern-
ment intervention is foolish.
As a community, we have a responsibility to help children when their parents are abusive, neglectful or are unable to handle children with emotional or behavioral problems. If that means getting the adults into parenting classes, then that should be done immediately.
If it means taking the children away for a while to teach them the skills they need to be responsible adults, then that should be done immediately as well. Usually, it means both.
Unfortunately, we as a community are better at taking away children than preventing the necessity to do so. Again, it is a case of simple answers to complex problems.
Warehousing children in safe environments is a facet of this stunted mentality. Most adults who abuse or neglect their children aren't evil people. They simply don't know a better way to raise them.
But nobody is helping them to become better people or better parents. We simply take their kids and pat ourselves on the back.
This assumption that removal will fix everything is obviously false. Isolating kids in group homes and throwing money at facilities or programs will not make things better any more than if we simply wait for families to improve on their own. As moral citizens, we have a responsibility to become involved.
Luckily for us, getting involved is easy. One way is to learn about child welfare and how it is being handled by the government. Hold politicians accountable for their stupidity and insensitivity. Become loud and persistent in your criticism of moronic public policy and see-through politicians.
But don't stop there. It isn't enough. We must actively reach out to those who need our help.
By joining Big Brothers-Big Sisters of America Inc., volunteering at an area group home or by offering your services to Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center for a couple of hours a week is a great way to make a child's life better. And it will be a lot more effective than some stupid sound bite or campaign promise.
Todd Hiatts is a Lyndon senior in social welfare.
Lack of respect is responsible for conflicts in our daily lives
I have come to understand that there is one great problem with the world that, if solved, would solve all of the problems that seem much larger. We, as members of one common group known as humanity, have lost the ability to treat other people with respect.
I know that respect sounds too simple to solve all of the problems in war-ravaged Bosnia or Chechnya. After all, the conflicts among the peoples in these lands have been around for years.
However, I have come to believe that the lack of respect for other people and cultures is more than just a little to blame.
I came to this conclusion simultaneously with an understanding of how people can take a machine gun to their co-workers. I have discovered that it is not their co-workers that disgruntled workers are after; it just seems that way to a society that does not want to believe the truth. It is the customers they want to kill because many customers don't treat employees with respect.
Working at a local grocery store helped me reach this conclusion because I deal with customers every week. I have learned that some customers can be the rudest people in the world. Other customers can be the nicest. My mood often depends on how customers treat me.
STAFF COLUMNIST
Unfortunately,
many customers
see grocery
store workers as
punching bags,
not as people
who are just
doing the best
they can. They
lack the respect
for employees — whether it is at a grocery store, a restaurant or a gas station — as people. Hence the machine gun in my trunk.
The same type of logic applies to problems such as wars. One group of people is tired of being treated as punching bags by some other group of people and vice versa, so they pull machine guns on them in a manner similar to that of a disgruntled postal worker.
While war is perhaps more organized than the postal workers, and certainly much larger, it is nonetheless the same problem. The lack of respect for others has facilitated conflict in the past several decades, and the problem is
No one likes to be treated like a punching bag, yet it is a phenomenon that is sweeping the world. If, for just one split second, we could all step into our enemies' shoes, perhaps we would begin to understand the other point of view.
getting worse.
And if understanding is not achieved, at least people could learn to accept it as valid and respect it as different.
They could learn to compromise, find some common ground, talk with words instead of guns and get on with the happier parts of life. Plant flowers.
Of course, getting the word out about this radical new idea in solving all the world's problems will not work, mainly because there are too many people on this campus and in the world who will laugh and simply say no.
But perhaps someone who says "well, OK" will enter my little corner of the world and tell me to have a nice day or will understand that we are out of chocolate Pop Tarts.
Then perhaps I would be able to put my machine gun in the trash.
Stacy Nagy is a Topeka Junior in Russian and women's studies.
Dole grappling for office like sumo wrestler
Bob Dole will be the next president. I'm sure this is delightful news at the University of Kansas, where Bob Dole is slightly more popular than Kansas State University.
STAFF COLUMNIST
Only a month ago, Dole's chances of beating Clinton looked about as good as K-State's chances of defeating KU in basketball. But Dole surged to within five points of Clinton after the Republican convention. Now Dole's chances of
winning look
more like a K-
State vs. KU
football contest
No, my confidence in a Dole victory is not influenced by second-hand pot pot smoke Clinton exhaled — but didn't inhale. My forecast is based on an understanding of sumo wrestling.
In sumo
wrestling and presidential politics, the combatant who gains leverage against his opponent and pushes him out of the ring wins.
(Given the widespread cynicism toward politics, I doubt that visualizing Dole and Clinton as 400-pound men grappling with one another while wearing thongs will require much of a stretch. Oh yeah, Ross Perot is running. Oh yeah.)
Although Dole is closer to being pushed out of the ring than Clinton
he continues to train in the polls
he has leverage against Clinton
on the most important issues in the
campaign - money and morals.
Presidential elections aren't decided by people who understand all of the issues, but by those who are persuaded that a candidate can deliver on his or her promises.
In politics, candidates earn leverage by creating the perception that they are more capable of producing positive change than their opponent. Because politics are about 80 percent perception and 20 percent reality, the details of a politician's plans aren't the most important variables to communicate.
Money Dole is perceived as the more serious candidate. It's true that the public doesn't necessarily believe that he can cut taxes by 15 percent and balance the budget, but that's not the point. Dole looks more serious about improving the economy than Clinton. Clinton isn't even talking about cutting taxes, and he broke a previous promise not to raise taxes. Both mistakes put Clinton on his heels.
Morals Again, Dole looks more serious about improving the state of the family than Clinton. The baggage Clinton has accrued in four years between Whitewater and Paula Jones will weigh him down and prevent him from catching his re-election plane on the other side of the airport.
The only way Clinton will win is if his post-Democratic convention boost in the polls is too great for Dole to overcome before November. If Dole trails by fewer than 15 points after the Democratic convention, he will win.
Dole has leverage, but if anyone could slither out of his grip, it would be Bill Clinton. But with attack-happy Bob Dole performing a sumo wrestler's squeeze, Clinton should be thrown out of the ring.
John Hart is a Shawnee graduate student in Journalism.
How to submit letters and guest columns Letters: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Student letters must include the author's signature, name, address, telephone number, class and hometown. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Guest columns: Should be double spaced, typed and fewer than 700 words.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hail, The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For more information, call John Coller or Nicole Kennedy, editorial page editors, at 864-4810.