Opinion
Kansan
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4A
Tuesday, October 26, 1999
Seth Jones / KANSAN
Editorials
Students should wait their turns National Merit Scholars or not
The University of Kansas finally has proven that athletes in revenue sports aren't the only ones who get special treatment by the University at the expense of everyone else. Now National Merit Scholars do, too.
In a letter dated Oct. 13, all 101 of KU's freshman National Merit Scholars were informed that enrollment had just gotten much easier for them. The letter read, in part, "In the event you are not able to enroll in the classes you need, show this letter to the Enrollment Center supervisor. They will then give you a special National Merit completion form. Take this form to the Freshman/Sophomore Advising Center or the University Honors Program. Individuals in these offices will discuss your enrollment options."
Enrollment privileges given to Merit Scholars not fair
What this vaguely worded paragraph
gives to National Merit Scholars is permission to go to the head of the enrollment line without passing go. If a Merit Scholar wants to get into a closed class and no alternative exists, suddenly that class will have another slot.
This treatment is unfair to other hardworking students at the University, especially to graduating seniors in a spring semester. Interim Assistant Provost Diana Carlin, who wrote the letter to the Merit Scholars, told the Kansan that athletes were allowed to enroll early because of their schedules, and then wondered if it was even fair to
allow graduating seniors to enroll early. This statement ignores the fact that graduating seniors should get priority precisely because they need certain credits to graduate on time.
National Merit scholars should not be deprived of the college experience during their time at the University, much of which involves standing in interminally long enrollment lines during one's freshman and sophomore years. These students generally come from middle-to upper-class backgrounds, and they have enough money thrown at them just in the form of the scholarship. Perks that put at a disadvantage other students who may not have had the time or opportunity to become Merit Scholars is unfair and not needed.
Jennifer Roush for the editorial board
Economic sanctions should stop
Economic sanctions are one of the poorest foreign policy tools the United States uses. They are ineffective at advancing democracy, brutalize the poor and sick, and empower dictators. Currently, legislators including Pat Roberts are considering a bill that would reform foreign policy by removing sanctions on food and medical supplies. This would be a humanitarian move, good for the world and Kansas specifically.
Right now, one tenth of the world wheat market is cut off by economic sanctions. This hits farmers in Kansas harder than anywhere else in the nation. By lifting food sanctions, our farmers would have more access to the international market. This would have a rejuvenating effect on the Kansas wheat farmer.
Cutting off food and medical supplies only hurts innocents and empowers dictators
Food and medical sanctions have a devastating effect on the population of so called "rogue nations." In the case of Iraq, as long as water purification technology and medical supplies are denied, the citizens will continue to suffer while Saddam Hussein is glorified for his fight against the west. Malnutrition and water-borne diseases are some of the greatest threats to the Iraqis.
but they have a way to influence their governments to change policy. Nondemocratic nations, on which we impose most economic sanctions, do not provide the people with a voice in government affairs. Therefore, a dictator can allow the burden of an economic sanction to fall on his people while preserving the quality of life for the ruling elite.
When we impose sanctions for food and medical supplies on democratic nations, or nations such as South Africa in the early 1990s, the people may suffer
If we were to remove food and medical supplies from sanctions this problem could be treated, and humanitarian relief could be administered. Food and medical sanctions never affect the guilty parties, only innocent citizens who have no effect on the policies of their governments. To deny food and medicine to these nations is far worse than a military bombardment.
Kansan staff
Brett Watson for the editorial board
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." —Dr. Seuss
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If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924
Broken ankle, codeine alter view of disability
I am temporarily physically challenged. About two weeks ago, I fell down a few stairs and broke my ankle. Anyone who went to the Pavement show at Liberty Hall will remember me from my performances in "Girl Howling Like a Sick Dog" and "Being Carried
Perspective
By My Boyfriend." Ah,
how silly men are they to
the weights, listed on
women's driver's licenses,
no?
After a brief encounter with Demerol at Lawrence Memorial, I reluctantly let someone put a plaster prison on my leg. Now, I am doomed to a life of self-pity, helplessness and armpit trauma for the next six weeks.
Jenny
Oakson
columnist
opinion @ kansan.com
So I can truly appreciate the rollings in the handicapped bathroom. In fact I
capped me see many facilities in a different light, gold and glistening from the heavens. For example, a typical office chair with wheels can be transformed into not only a transportation aid, but also a sponge bath perch. Every other day, because, hey, I wasn't that clean of a gal before the accident, I cover my roller chair in trash bags and towels, strip down to nothing and wash myself down with a cold, wet towel. Erotic, isn't it?
To wash my hair, I lean over the edge of the tub and let the shower spray hit the side of my head, mostly draining into my inner ear. As for body hair, I'm acquiring somewhat of a middle-aged Russian woman motif.
It sounds awful, I know, but not really in the Land of Codeine. Glassy eyes, slurred speech and full-body tingling make this Land a great place to visit, but no place for a home. The first three days after the fall, I was constantly loopy, but with no mobility to really enjoy it, just five
pillows elevating my foot and *Wings* three times a day. When I finally sobered up, I was in a deep depression about falling behind in my classes, letting my employer down and missing out on great Halloween parties — what could I be, FDR?
When I thought things couldn't get any worse, I had my first week on campus. After the first day, I had to take a day off to recuperate. I can't read my lecture notes from last Thursday because I had to take a pain pill after someone let the door close on my foot that day. I had to stop and rest every five feet on my way to Murphy Hall from Staffer-Flint. I hate wearing sweat pants. I think the codeine is giving me acne and my professors don't approve when I take a roller chair outside for a cigarette.
But don't cry for me, Argentina. This broken ankle could be a blessing in disguise. My own, personal fall 'break' if you will. Sure I have to gimp around campus for a while and I can't really feed myself, but I also don't have to walk up the bill or drive my friends to the bars. So yeah, Marc Summers, I'll take the physical challenge and I'll triumph and persevere because I have seen the worst and the best must be just a one-legged hop away.
So, do I understand what it is like to be permanently physically challenged? Hell no. My obstacles are circumstantial, the biggest being time. People with disabilities never have the cast removed, they overcome.
Pretty good lesson, huh? Yeah, well, it's just like in 'Soul Man' when C. Thomas Howell tells James Earl Jones that he never lived the life of a Black man because he had the option of not taking the overdose of tanning pills everyday. What an inspirational movie! Who says basic cable doesn't have some real gems?
Oh well, time to take my medicine.
Oakson is an Overland Park senior in journalism.
Get more out of college than grades and diploma
I started college when I was 17, having already supported myself for six months. Working full time fell between classes and sleep.
When I walked onto the campus of my first of four colleges, I was holding life by the throat. I felt that I had to control everything in my life and that financial independence was paramount. That left very little room to enjoy what I was trying to accomplish. As a result, I missed out on a lot of things.
Troy
Fowler
guest columnist
ginieri@kansan.com
Now, a couple months after my 23rd birthday.
My days were filled with classes, my afternoons and evenings with work, and my late nights with homework. Somewhere in there I had a couple friends and a girlfriend. Last year, I found myself unable to relate to many people who
Now, a couple months after five majors later, and in the last semester of my undergrad career, I look back and I think I might have done some things differently. It seems that I missed a lot of things in my growing up and my college experience.
had done wild and crazy things the night before a test or on spring break. I decided that it was time to try to live the college life. I stopped working insane hours but kept the 12-hour load. Instead, I filled my time with making friends and volunteering. I decided to live a simpler life. My summer was now going to be filled with
Just like you don't go to a football game just to hear the final score, I now believe that college isn't just about the diploma and the future. It is about the present. It is about memories and stories. It is about friends, learning, giving and experiencing.
I'm going to take that lesson from college into life. If an employer demands seventy or eighty hours a week from me, with a company cell phone and pager, I'll tell him or her where to stick it — because life is much more than just the bottom line. It is about the ink that you use above the line.
a reasonable amount of work and my school year budget was going to be determined by what I earned during the summer and my loan for the semester. No more." If I work a few more hours each week, I can get so-and-so." With the monetary stress gone, I was left to focus more on schoolwork and getting involved with the community.
I finally started to live instead of wandering through life like a zombie, wondering where last month went. While other students have stories of Cancun or Florida, the only spring break in which I didn't work full time since I was sixteen was last semester when I went to Denver to help build homes for families trying to make it on their own, without welfare.
I now have some "stupid things I've done while drunk" stories. I now have friends who will mean something special to me for the rest of my life. I now have debt. The college experience is mine, and it is priceless.
Fowler is a Lawrence senior.
Feedback Preach freedom
My name is Mark Hulse. I'm one of the custodians at the Student Health Center. I'd like to express my opinion on the subject of freedom.
We as a people possess no greater, nor more valuable, gift than freedom. Freedom; to go where we wish wish, within reason, what we wish, express our individuality as we please, we cling to as our birthright.
All these things we claim as ours are unique as a whole in the history of nations.
Yet, sometimes gifts are not as appreciated as things earned. I hear a great many of you students expressing yourselves in the UDK and it sounds as if many of you would be willing to trade some of your freedom for peace of mind for however short a space of time. Let me assure you this is a poor trade. Any loss of freedom, even if it comes under the guise of being for the good of a few seemingly oppressed, must not be tolerated. I cannot understand why the young people of this institution, usually the ones desiring the most
Mark Hulse
Custodian
M.R.S. Degree
If I offend, please forgive. If you wish to talk, look me up.
Mark Hulse
We do not lack law; we lack patriotism. We do not lack perversion; we lack a positive sense of morality. We do not lack a "free" spirit; we lack accountability.
If you must err, err on the side of greater freedom. If you must preach, preach patriotism, liberty and morality. These are the soil that this great nation sprouted from and was watered with the blood of countless numbers of our brothers and sisters. Nurture liberty, and freedom will blossom in a new generation.
There is something truly atavistic about a front-page article in a college newspaper, in 1999, on students who come here for an "M.R.S. degree."
And there is also something
freedom, even would entertain the idea of invalidating any of the principles this country was founded upon.
revolting about the author of this article referring liberally to "The Rules," one of the most awful books about relationships ever to come down the pike. There is no mention of the fact that this book advocates the worst kind of manipulative, dishonest behavior for women, all in the service of catching a man. Furthermore, the last time I looked, most women marry men. And I am presuming that these men are marrying of their own free will. When are we going to see an article about men coming to KU to find a mate?
If this article were only pure drivel, it would not merit the time it takes to write a response. But it's truly offensive as well, in its depiction of women as desperate, consumed by appearances, and not terribly deep. If you think this article is worthy of publication, maybe you should look into running Dr. Laura.
Alice Lieberman Chair, Baccalaureate Program in Social Welfare