OPINION
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11.2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
EDITORIAL BOARD
www.kansan.com
Athletics Department must stop trampling traditions
Lew Perkins cannot place price tags on traditions, but apparently he will continue to try his hardest.
He crossed this line when he decided to abolish the long-standing "Border War" tradition. Now he continues to walk further on the other side of that line with his back turned toward Campanile hill.
Last week Perkins, along with associate athletics director Jim Marchiony and football coach Mark Mangino, defended their construction plans for a new facility solely for the football team. The building will be constructed behind the MegaVision at the base of the Campanile hill. According to the Athletics Department, the facility will be two stories tall.
It won't quite block out the sun, but say goodbye to the beautiful view of the Campanile.
Yes, the rising football program should have its own facility for training and meetings closer to the stadium than the Anschutz Sports Pavilion on the other side of campus. The football team does have a history of success that dates back more than 100 years. In fact, the football team still holds several series leads over other traditional football powerhouse universities, including Kansas State and Colorado. This historical success makes the football program another tradition at the University of Kansas.
And Perkins has done a great job for the athletics department by raising money and treating every sport equally, but right now, though, he is placing the football tradition over other traditions that are just as important.
The new building will affect two long-standing traditions: the graduation walk down the hill and the scenic view of Campanile hill.
Few schools have a graduation
ceremony like walking down the hill. As Kansan sports columnist Ryan Greene wrote last week, graduates will either have to walk around the construction or through the building to get to the football field.
The open-stadium view of Campanile hill is also a truly unique setting for any athletic event. Another drawback: The facility will also affect the hub of pre-game tailgating.
Coach Mangino defended the facility by referring to the MegaVision that already partially blocks the view. However, the majority of the fans in the stadium can see beyond the screen to their fellow fans tossing footballs or just lying on the grassy hill.
One tradition should not be placed before another. Perkins told the Lawrence Journal-World, "We recognize the time-honored graduation traditions of the University of Kansas at Memorial Stadium; we will make decisions regarding proposed facility's location with thoughtful consideration of those traditions and the best interests of the University."
Well, who will he consult regarding these time-honored traditions? Will he talk to alumni, who no longer attend the University, or fellow athletics directors or friends who, like yourself, never attended this University? Talk to us, Lew. Talk to the student body at the University of Kansas. The University could have the nation's wealthiest athletic department and best football team for the next 100 years, but none of that will matter without our support. Students represent the heart of the University's present and future.
You already abolished one great tradition without our consent. For once, put down the checkbook and just listen to us.
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SACK'S VIEW
Steve Sack/Star Tribune
Democrats let political reality slip
It may seem patronizing of me to say this, but much like our President, I want to reach out to the Democrats. President Bush wants to try and get Democrats to buy into his agenda for the next four year, I want to try and get Democrats on this campus to understand how it all went so wrong.
STEVE SPEAKS
I believe in the system of checks and balances, and even though I normally agree with the Republicans, I must admit feeling somewhat uncomfortable with what could be unchecked power for the GOP in the capitol. It's been 10 years of frustrating elections for the Dems who still haven't been able to wrestle away power in the Legislature and just completed a catastrophic election.
The trend will continue so long as Democrats avoid the issues and stick to the same tired and untrue tactics to discredit its opposition. A recent KU grad sent me this quote from The Wall Street Journal that ran last week, which seems to sum up exactly what the left's problems are:
"This is a Democratic Party in which nostalgia for tradition is too often considered racism, opposition to gay marriage is bigotry, misgiving about abortion is misogyny, Christian fundamentalism is like Islamic fundamentalism, discussion about gender roles is sexism, and confidence in America's global purpose is cultural imperialism. To put it mildly, this is not the values system to which most Americans adhere."
STEVE VOCKRODT
svockrodt@kansan.com
As one who leans to the right, I've been told I'm a racist redneck and
been pigeonholed into just about all the terms The Wall Street Journal rattled off. All of that was news to me, because I'm not any of those, even though I'm constantly reminded that I am. And now that the election is over, I'm told I am among 59.6 million people who must be stupid, for no other reason than they voted for George W. Bush.
Being conservative in Lawrence teaches me to be thick-skinned, to the negative rhetorical approach from the left. It hardly affects me. It seems to have hardly affected many others, as well. Something mobilized 10 million extra people to vote for Bush this year as opposed to 2000.
For one thing, the whole bit about Bush being stupid must come to an end. Repeating that mantra, not only alienates sensible people on the fence as election day nears, but it's further perpetuating an untruth. Tom Brokaw broke the news to John Kerry that his IQ was about equal to Bush's, if not even less. Criticizing Bush's intelligence does for the left what a rat running in a cage does for its progress in
moving forward.
It's critically important for the Democrats to find a different outlet to plug their message. MTV is not and cannot be the place to mobilize people. Most MTV viewers are watching the channel to be pacified by reality television and gossip news, and are not ready to be indoctrinated into a political ideology. The Democrats might pick up a vote here and there, but they're going to lose plenty, and further risk angering who would rather see how Ashlee Simpson is going to reconcile her wasted career in real time.
Young voters proved their worth in this election. For a campaign that was so focused on getting them to register, only one in 10 people among the 18-24 year old demographic actually cast a vote. Kerry didn't even manage to corner the market among the demographic. True, he got the majority, but only got about 54 percent of them. It was the only age demographic he won. My guess is those higher age brackets are where the Oval Office is. A party that relies on MTV for its constituency gets what it deserves.
I expect that Bush actually does try to bridge the gap between the nation's ideological divide. But if the Democrats want to have a more direct impact in his administration, they should have changed their tune two years ago.
2006 is their next chance.
vockrodt is a Denver senior in journalism and political science.
Homosexuals denied rights, liberty
GUEST COMMENTARY
RYAN STRINGER opinion@kansan.com
Imagine this: A female is in the hospital in critical condition after an accident, and her life partner wants to be there. As she approaches the room, the doctor stops her and says, "Sorry, you can't visit or make any decisions because your love is not like ours nor does it conform to our moral standards."
I am not homosexual. So why would I care about homosexuals plight? I care because I am sympathetic and psychologically aware of my fellow creatures, and as furious and hurt as I am about America's active heterosexism. I can only assume it is much worse for those personally affected.
Sound cruel? It is, and that is exactly what America is doing.
In my experience with homosexuals, I have discovered one constant: They are no different than anyone else. Like all people, they have feelings, thoughts, likes, dislikes, dreams, goals, insecurities, problems, frustrations and fears. Because of the religious undercurrent and active gender roles in our culture, homosexuals face stigma, alienation, scapegoating and a constant fear of hate crimes and social badgering, in addition to what "normal" people experience.
THU
In the last presidential debate, President Bush said America treated all people with "dignity" and "tolerance," yet he actively supports a ban on gay marriage, and as 11 states callously demonstrated, much of the population did, too. This is not dignity nor tolerance. This is an affirmation that homosexuals are not worthy of either, and therefore should be discriminated against and deprived of rights, which is not the ideology America professes.
THUF
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CONTIN
From what I have been told, America is about humanity, liberty, equal rights and the pursuit of happi-
Bush and those like him can claim they don't hate or discriminate against homosexuals, but their actions make a mockery of these claims.
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ness. As long as we don't infringe upon these rights, we are free to do what we wish. Homosexual individuals are innocent of such infringement, but I cannot say the same for the religious right.
Where in the constitution does it say a thing about strict Christian morality or religious definitions of families being enforced upon the public? The Constitution directly prohibits this enforcement in the first amendment, which is the real institution in need of defense, along with the rights and the pursuit of happiness of our citizens.
There is only one question left: Who's next? Which trivially labeled group will be the next to receive discrimination from the despotic Christian right? Interracial marriage is a "biblically based" prohibition, according to some — is this ban next?
A popular anti-gay marriage argument is this allowance will lead to other differing "lifestyles" wanting marriage. But where will the discrimination and deprivation of rights end once this holy-roller starts rolling?
Stringer is an Otteva senior in psychology and philosophy.