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OPINION
FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
www.kansan.com
EDITORIAL
Senate, students must use readership program wisely
Students will have access to a weekend edition of The Kansas City Star without adding an extra penny to their tuition fee thanks to the Student Readership Program.
This program, established by USA TODAY in 2001, has provided KU students with weekday, on-campus subscriptions to four newspapers: Lawrence Journal-World, The Kansas City Star, USA TODAY and The New York Times. Every student pays a $5 tuition fee that in turn pays for this service.
The University will not have to pay any extra money for this expansion because The Kansas City Star decided to take a hit in its profits in order to boost its circulation.
Students need to return this favor to The Kansas City Star simply by picking up a paper on Saturdays, Sundays or both days.
Note: Sunday's edition is nearly twice the size and chalked full of coupons.
courses. Students no longer have to consider re-reading Friday's news in order to have something to read while spending their weekend up on the hill. Weekend circulation of 576 newspapers of The Kansas City Star will be distributed to the Student Fitness Recreation Center, Anschutz Library, GSP-Corbin Hall, Burge Union, Oliver Hall and Mrs. E's dining hall.
Student Senate now has to decide what to do with an excess of money accumulated from the $5 readership fee.
This amount, during the past three years, has accumulated to nearly $270,000.
The Senate has been brainstorming
several options.
According to Steve Munch, student body president, the Finance Committee will assess this situation in the springtime to decide if the readership fee should be lowered by as much as one dollar.
However, until that time, this $270,000 of excess student money will continue to lay around without benefiting the University.
One option is to allocate the money to increase funding to the Newspaper Readership Advisory Board.
Student Senate needs to realize that placing the accidental excess money accumulated from students' pockets each semester into the hands of student outreach coordinators may not serve as the best way to return that money to the students.
The move will only be effective if the Board consistently ensures that the students will benefit from the program.
The University does not have to return the money via physical checks, but it should use that money,and use it in a way that directly benefits the majority of students. A summer expansion of the readership program is one good way to show an immediate change.
The University needs to work quickly to show immediate benefits to the students who have overpaid for this service.
However, KU students need to continue to show their interest in the Student Readership Program.
Continue to show USA TODAY that it did not make a mistake three years ago when it chose the University as one of the first three schools to participate in this program that now serves nearly 100 colleges across the nation.
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Yeah, it's 4:30 on Tuesday, August 17, and to the guy that is riding down Clinton Parkway on that scooter: You're a frickin' idiot and you're gonna get hit by a car. Bye.
Whose drives the Mercedes: We peed on your car!
Hey, Kansan! You misspelled "dormitories" on the front page of the first issue. Now that's journalistic integrity at its best!
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Sam Roh/KANSAN
Time for issues, not grand parties
One hundred-sixty million dollars.
Not a shabbv amount of cash.
CAMPAIGN COMMENTARY
Let's see, $160 million can buy approximately 2,962 Cadillac Escalades, depending on what features you want. Better yet, $160 million can clothe and feed millions of needy children across the world, and provide badly needed textbooks to inner-city schools, and there would still be enough left over to get an Escalade for myself. Or I suppose we can throw a couple of four-day parties together (we'll call them conventions), throw some politicians in the mix and call it good.
The Democratic National Convention last month had an estimated cost of more than $60 million. The Republican National Convention at the end of this month is estimated to cost more than $100 million. What are the purposes of these conventions? First, they are supposed to officially announce the candidates who the parties are running for the White House, and secondly, to announce the party's respective policy platforms. I hope I'm not the only one that is thankful that I was finally informed about who was running against "Dubya." We did hear some discussion about their platforms, but millions of dollars worth?
Granted, there are plenty of worthwhile things that come from these conventions. Some people got to hear from politicians they root for. But according
JOHN TRAN
opinion@kansan.com
to The Campaign Finance Institute Web site, TV ratings for both conventions are steadily on the decline. The city of Boston was projected to gain roughly $250 million in revenue. But increased revenue doesn't necessitate the spending of such an exorbitant amount of money. The Institute's Web site shows that more than $10 million ($8 million projected for the GOP and $2 million for the Democrats) will be used for the two conventions from the "Parties, Receptions and Special Events" budgets. Just think about the type of party we could throw in Lawrence with $10 million.
In 1992, private contributions made up 14.3 percent or $8.4 million of the two convention's budgets. This year they make up 60.8 percent or roughly $103.5 million. This money comes primarily from large corporations and extremely wealthy individuals. Their contributions are not supposed to have direct influence on the election, and are technically not supposed to go toward
the candidates, but to the parties themselves to "build party support." However, in reality, these corporations and individuals have very distinct vested interests in the outcome of the upcoming election.
not bad enough for you? Well how about $15 million in federal grants to each convention with another $25 to $50 million homeland security grant? These conventions have just gotten out of hand. In 1980, the conventions cost around $10 million, with most of the funding coming from federal grants. From $20 million dollars to over $160 million, it seems like our priorities have gone askey. School districts across the country are running out of money and more than a tenth of the nation lives in poverty, yet we find it acceptable to spend an amount of money greater then the gross domestic product of a small nation to throw a party?
It's not that we should completely discard the conventions. It's just that the money being spent on them is going up and up, while the viewers and the utility of the conventions have taken a decline. What we are left with are glorified parties where politicians are preaching to the choir while everyone else is watching re-runs of "Road Rules."
Tran is an Overtand Park senior in political science and philosophy. He is a member of the Kansan editorial board.
Bush's politics served on waffles
Have you heard about the presidential candidate who can't stop "flip-flopping?" He just can't seem to make up his mind on an issue. His appeals to voters monumentally contradict his policy record.
NATIONAL POLITICS
John Kerry is that candidate, according to $120 million of mostly negative George W. Bush television advertisements, Republican pundits and Fox News and the Drudge Report. Because Bush has made the flip-flop issue a central component of his campaign against Kerry, it seems fitting that he ought to be held to a similar standard.
JACK HENRY-RHOADS opinion@kansan.com
Let's take a look at some of the flipflops that have occurred during Bush's presidency.
Back in 2000, Bush ran a campaign based on being a "compassionate conservative," and a "uniter, not a divider." It's funny now, I recall watching pundits on news shows actually saying that there would be little difference between a Gore or Bush presidency because they were both so moderate.
Bush, of course, wasted no time at all in shedding the moderate image in 2001 with the appointment of John Ashcroft and policy positions that were more conservative across the board than any previous president. From the environment and gay marriage to energy policies and tax cuts, Bush made it
clear that there has never been a better friend in the White House to billionaires, polluters, oil companies and farright religious groups.
The best example of Bush's constant shifting is the No Child Left Behind Act. Oddly enough, after plenty of boasting about his signature education policy, Bush then released budgets for the next four years that left behind $33.2 billion of education funding pledged in the bill.
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Bush must have changed his mind after he realized that America's millionaires need that money more than children in under-performing schools.
Another example of a Bush flip-flop is his signing of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act in 2003.
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It called for extensive old-growth forest logging, plenty of new roads to cut right through the heart of the nation's forests, and also made it much more difficult for forest-area residents to
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mount legal challenges to logging operations they feel are unsafe for the environment. President Bush must think a healthy forest is one without any trees.
While we're walking down memory lane, let's note the following Bush quote made in 2001 at the USS Reagan ceremony: "Precisely because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence."
Just last week Dick Cheney was in attackdog mode criticizing John Kerry for calling for a "more sensitive war on terror." The Bush administration has shifted big time on this one.
After a thorough examination of the contradictory positions of George W. Bush, it becomes clear why he is running a negative presidential campaign. He'd rather send his surrogates out to call John Kerry a French-looking flip-flop than defend four years of his own flip-flops or make the case for why we should vote for four more years of the same.
If Bush ever comes to Lawrence, I'll be there. I'll be wearing my "Flipper" T-shirt, and a nice pair of flip-flops. I'll even give you some free waffles.
Henry-Rhoads is an Independence, Mo. junior in political science and economics. He is a member of the Kansan editorial board.
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