OPINION
1 HURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2004
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To the girl that's walking around Wescoe with the K-State shirt: You've got balls.
cant double cheeseburger pops out of the paper.
What does Snoop Dogg wash his clothes in? Blae-otch!
cant double cheeseburger pops out of the paper.
So, you like me wearing my kilt, huh, baby?
Just wait until you see what's under it!
STINSON'S VIEW
cant double cheeseburger pops out of the paper.
This is trickin' hilarious. I'm reading an article on Super Size Me and a coupon for a 99
Oh, boy! Whoever decided to cut off ESPN and ESPN 2 from Oliver Hall, thanks for ruining my life.
for any questions, call Anna Clovis or Samia Khan at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com. General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com.
for any questions, call Anna Clovis or Samia Khan at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com. General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com.
You know, this KU computer system is absolutely ridiculous. Just the other day, I logged on to see what my holds were and it said that I owed the library $208, which is ridiculous to begin with, but now, that hold is officially gone. I checked my KU card and it said I have $420 on there. Called the place where they cash out the cards, no money at all. Way to go, KU.
Critiques are meant to discuss the bad and good aspects of work. Be more positive and quit making your students feel like crap every time they turn in something.
for any questions, call Anna Clovis or Samia Khan at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com. General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com.
I just figured out what the crappiest job in the world is: the toll-booth worker. Think of all the paper cuts, man!
for any questions, call Anna Clovis or Samia Khan at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com. General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com.
OK, it's me again. I'm back on 8th Street and it's the middle of the day. OK, it's a little cloudy and I still can't see the paint on the road. I still don't know what it's called. Road markings? Pavement markings? Pavement paint? Whatever you call them, I still can't see them and it's not even raining this time.
"Dead men will have indeed died in vain if live men refuse to look at them. LIFE Magazine, 1945 Dover Air Force Base
Now is the time to see things through another point of view. Countless opinions must find some point of reconciliation if peace is a possibility. This world is too complicated to paint black and white. If Israel and Palestine are to move bilaterally toward peace, then everyone — Palestinianians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, and Christians — must cease childish finger-pointing. We must stop over-simplifying with words like "right" and "wrong" and work for peace.
Bridey Maidhof Overland Park freshman
This conflict is not as simple as counting the dead, or putting up a wall, or proclaiming who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor. The fact is Palestinians and Israelis alike are suffering. To place blame on one side or the other is not just closed minded, but counter-productive. If peace is indeed our goal then the first step is to clear the way for open dialogue.
Zach Stinson/KANSAN
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Israeli-Palestinian rhetoric mustmove for compromise
Dear editor.
Arrah Nielsen: thank you. A public response defending Israel and admonishing the use of violence against any people has been desperately needed. If nothing else, your column on Palestinian violence has given us an alternate point of view to help shape our own opinions on the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
I oppose the use of violence and believe that no matter how desperate the situation, there is always an alternative. There is no excuse for the destruction of innocent lives as a political or ideological tool. I am a student who believes politically in Israel's right to exist, but I must question the ease with which you place blame.
Dear editor.
Columnist blind to oppression in Israeli-Palestinian conflict
As Arrah Nielsen herself says, "everyone is entitled to their own side, but that doesn't mean that all sides are morally equivalent or equally factbased."
In terms of the facts, she starts off with the typical inability to see them all. Her sources are The New Yorker (no pro-Israeli demographic there) and The New Anti-Semitism, a publication that doesn't even know that Arabs are Semites too!
What kind of peace deal is it when a robber invades your house, chains you in the basement and then tells you to be satisfied with getting part of the downstairs while he eats Big Macs and watches MTV in your bedroom, waiting around for more checks from America?
Then you say Israel is a "shining example to be emulated", because "it has a vibrant economy with a gross domestic product approaching western European nations." What does wealth have to do with morality?
The best part is, you talk about Israel as the only country in the Middle East "where citizens of all nationalities and religions enjoy equal rights," but Palestinians don't, be they Christian or Muslim. Jerusalem used to be a majority-Christian city. Now they are all gone. Palestinians don't even hold passports, let alone vote.
It's easy to criticize people who've had everything taken away from them, but I wonder how you far out your tongue would come in support of occupation if a foreign country had decided to create a race-based state in Andover, and you and your family had been living trapped in squall at the edge of town since 1948.
Adam Bittlingmayer Lawrence sophomore
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GUEST COLUMN GUIDELINES
"I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and West Bank could describe events in South Africa."
Palestinians want peace, not terror
— Archbishop Desmond Tutu
GUEST COMMENTARY
ALEXISHOP, Dr. Mazim Qumsiyeh, a professor from Yale University and a Palestinian American came and spoke of the true nature Palestinian/Israeli conflict. While he only could present his side to a multi-faceted issue, he encouraged all to learn from others, like the Jewish Voice for Peace, Women in Black, or Tikkuun.org, working "to mend, repair and transform the world."
Delta Force, Students for Just Peace in the Middle East and the ACLU all believe in a just democracy and refuse to paint this as a simple black-and-white conflict.
KAHLIL SAAD
opinion@kansan.com
All of the plans offered have been rejected by the many sides at different times, by Arabs, Jews, Zionists and Palestinians (Christian, Muslims and Jews), because they all have been untenable. All of the offers made have been a distraction from the real issue: human rights.
The Oslo accords failed not because former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's "generous offer" was offering a ghetto, but, as Amnesty International has said, it was doomed to fail because it ignored the critical issue of human rights.
Colonization is colonization, which here is also racism and fast becoming genocide, despite how sanitized the crimes we help commit are made for the public.
While the United States is suffering
from the worst economy in years, we continue to give $6 billion a year including military aid to a country that not only violates international laws such as the Geneva Conventions daily, but also consistently violates U.S. laws. The U.S. Arms Export Control Act makes it illegal to provide military assistance to any nation that violates internationally recognized human rights.
In the current incursion into Gaza, more than a quarter of the more than 500 killed and injured are children. Aside from the destruction of homes, hospitals and schools, Palestinians are murdered because they are denied basic needs such as water, food and medical attention.
Israel has consistently destroyed the agrarian environment of the Holy Land in favor of an industrial wasteland, has carried out extra-judicial targeted assassinations and terrorist acts both inside and out of the illegally controlled Occupied Territories.
Most importantly, Israel's courts have not held up to international standards and have upheld racist laws that grant citizenship to anyone in the world solely on the basis of religion while denying it to the nine million native
Palestinians, effectively keeping the Palestinians that live in Israel (17 percent) as third class citizens without basic rights to preserve the "Jewish Democracy." The U.S. was established as a free and democratic alternative to theocratic and racist rule, so why should we support it elsewhere in the free world?
And because the accusation of anti-Semitism is going to come up, as it has been often used to kill any talk and dialogue, let's really look at it. How does enforcing a new racism protect anybody, least of all the Jewish populations that have suffered so much in the past, form the new horror which is being inflicted?
The most recent survey by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion states that even though 86 percent of Palestinians feel they lack personal security and safety, 83 percent want a mutual cessation of violence and 59 percent supports taking measures to prevent attacks on Israel in a cease-fire agreement.
The Palestinians are ready. And nonviolent peaceful adherence to human rights and justice is the only path for all.
Check out some morally-equivalent and multi-faceted events coming up, including the Students for Just Peace n the Middle East's video, "Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land" on Nov. 16th in Alderson Auditorium or Rabbi Ascherman's talk "A Call to Compassion" in Kansas City on Nov. 17th , at Congregation Beth Torah in Kansas City, Kan. The lives of the innocent depend on it.
Saad is a Wichita junior in biochemistry
Citizens must act in harmony
GUEST PERSPECTIVE
I've always listened to classical music. But recently I had a thought: How does each instrument play its part and complement all the other sounds from the accompanying instruments?
I then thought of the conductor of this orchestra, whose job was to lead and guide these independently-minded strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion instruments through endless notes and difficult musical arrangements.
STEVEN MAH
opinion@kansan.com
It doesn't work that way in politics, I thought.
With the debacle that was the 2000 presidential election still fresh in my mind, I felt confident that the errors that occurred in Florida would be anticipated and corrected in preparation for the 2004 election. Considering how much confusion resulted, one would think all sides of the political fence would want a decisive and conclusive victory.
The American citizen is a powerful instrument.
The need to reunify this country under one leader would be a primary motivator for both sides to have a clear winner so that no one would have the chance to undermine his success. Yet, this does not seem to be the case.
bers in Georgia attached literature supporting their party and respective candidates in the same envelope as the official absentee ballots, contrary to a state law that was passed after the 2000 election because of similar actions taken by that party.
Journalists are telling stories all over the United States of electoral misconduct even before the election has a chance to occur. The Associated Press reported that Republican Party mem-
In Milwaukee it took an active protest by citizens to get the local county's election board to release enough ballots for everyone to vote. The City of Milwaukee had requested more than 900,000 ballots but the county was only going to provide 679,000. An inquiry has been launched by that state's governor into this issue.
In Florida, local news agencies are reporting that several hundred voters
T
have had their party affiliations changed fraudulently by forged registration documents. Incidentally the change was from Democrat to Republican.
I'm a person who believes that we are a "freedom to" society. We have the freedom to express ourselves in whatever way suits our own life.
Much like a trumpet that fascinates the mind, or the cello that resonates through the soul, we speak in individual tones and notes. The American citizen is a powerful instrument. But without a leader — a conductor that can effectively lead this discordic band that is our nation — all we are is noise.
American citizens are the greatest collection of musical instruments in the world. We are a bit out of tune with each other, but all we need is to realize we are all on the same sheet of music. It is therefore imperative that we elect a maestro who can reunite us and not let those who act in support of him subvert the very foundations of our democratic processes.
Our defining movement of American music is about to be played. All the instruments are ready. The global audience is listening. Who will we choose to lead us in the truest American symphony yet?
Mah is a Topeka freshman in film studies and creative writing.
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