Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Julie Wood, Editor Brandi Byram, Business manager Laura Roddy, Managing editor Shauntae Blue, Retail sales manager Cory Graham, Management Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Scott Valler, Technology coordinator
Thursday, September 2, 1999
W. David Keith / KANSAN
Editorials
Banning for-profit sidewalk ads should not affect other messages
The chalk advertisements on our campus's sidewalks need to go. They have polluted our space with mind-numbing commercial messages in a clever attempt to avoid University of Kansas regulations. We would all be better off with a regulation against them.
Free speech is not an issue. Chalk advertisements are not protected as "free speech" in the same way as a news article or novel. The Supreme Court recognizes that commercial speech does not possess the same importance as political or aesthetic speech because of the irrelevant nature of its content. If the University of Kansas were to ban chalk advertisements on campus, artwork or relevant messages would not be prohibited. Students could still use our precious sidewalks to protest U.S. foreign policy, wish their roommates a happy 21st birthday or invite other students to campus organizational meetings. For-profit chalk advertising is the eyesore that should be prohibited. These are advertisements for off-campus, private companies, which exist for no reason other than to tap into a the lucrative student market. The issue at stake should not be increased labor for the grounds keeping staff since rain washes these scribbles away, but rather an alarming trend toward commercial speech and consumerism on campus.
Provost policy should target only commercial chalkings
Advertising by companies such as drinksspecials.com is a major reason for increased consumerism.
Varsitybooks.com now ostentatiously
advertises their e-mail address on chalkboards in Wescoe Hall. This encroachment of commercial speech into the very classroom is at best bothersome and at worst destructive. Perhaps in the future, only professors with large corporate sponsorships will be allowed to appear in a classroom. The University may be the first academic institution to receive the honorable "Mountain Dew-the-Dewey-Decimal-System" chair in Library Science. Well, not while Coca-Cola still calls the shots.
No one wants students to lose an outlet for communicating with other students or expressing their creativity. The commercial messages, which typify the sidewalk ckb scribbles, are more of a corporate play rather than a real forum for student expression. We will be better off when they are gone.
Brett Watson for the editorial board
Volunteerism adds to student life
Every Tuesday and Friday morning, while most University of Kansas students still are snug in their warm beds, a few rise with the sun. They find their way, rain or shine, to the lower level of the Trinity Episcopal Church at 10th and Vermont. There, they transform an average church room into the restaurant setting of the Jubilee Cafe where the atmosphere is friendly, the service is fast and the meal is free for the Lawrence homeless community.
The Jubilee Cafe is only one organization staffed by the Center for Community Outreach, a division of the University of Kansas Student Senate. More than half of Jubilee Cafe volunteers are students from the University, whom we commend for volunteering their time.
"It Jubilee Cafe provides anywhere,
Volunteering at places like the Jubilee Cafe should be a part of every students life
depending on the time of the month, between 40 and 100 poor and mainly homeless people with breakfast in a perfectly respectable setting," said Jibilee Cafe co-coordinator Chris Hess.
The Center for Community Outreach had made changes this year to give students more opportunities to get involved. In the past, Alternative Spring Break has given student volunteers the chance for a week-long community service project, often taking place in other parts of the United States. In addition, the center has started alternative weekends and winter
break projects for students who want to do more than go home for vacations.
"Alternative breaks are community service-oriented vacations to emerge yourself into different cultures and communities." Hess said. "It's the most intense community service project."
White students are reading camps looking for parties or just watching TV, they should remember there is another side of campus life to experience. Volunteering is a way to make a positive difference in the community, a way to enrich your life, and a responsibility to keep kind.
For more information about the Jubilee Cafe and other community projects, contact the Center for Community Outreach at 844-7037 or visit the center's office in room 428 in the Kansas Union.
Tabatha Beerbower for the editorial board
Kansan staff
News editors
Chad Bettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editorial
Seth Hoffman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Associate editorial
Carl Kaminski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . News
Juan H. Heath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Online
Chris Fickett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sports
Brad Hallier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Associate sports
Nadia Mustafa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Campus
Heather Woodward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Campus
Steph Brewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Features
Dan Curry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Associate features
Matt Daugherty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Photo
Kristi Ellott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design, graphics
T.J. Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wire
Melody Ard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Special sections
Advertising managers
Becky LaBranch . . . Special sections
Thad Crane . . . Campus
Will Baxter . . . Regional
Jon Schlitt . . . National
Danny Pumpelle . . Online sales
Micah Kaftiz . . . Marketing
Emily Knowles . . Production
Jenny Weaver . . Production
Matt Thomas . . . Creative
Kelly Hefferman . . Classified
Juliana Moreira . . Zone
Chad Hale . . Zone
Brad Bolyard . Zone
Amy Miller . Zone
"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to." —Elvis Presley
Broaden your mind: Today's quote
How to submit letters and guest columns
**Letters:** Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
**Guest columns:** Should be double-spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photocopied for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Chad Bottles or Betts Hoffmann at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (apinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924
In a controversial decision, the New York State Board of Education has voted to put less emphasis on teaching about the existence of Kansas, a move sharply criticized in the Midwest but applauded in civilized areas.
Bartkoski columnist opinion at kansan.com
What if New York said Kansas was a theory?
"This will not cause geography teachers to stop teaching about our 34th state," said Board of Education member John Sausage. "However, it will allow our children to examine the set up of our nation critically, rather than giving credence to every collection of drunken rednecks that claim they've been part of the United States since 1861."
Perspective
The new standards adopted by the board
Depending on the success of this change, New York teachers could one day teach that the United States is made up of the coastal or "civilized" states and a single super-state in the Midwest. Most likely this state will be called Illinois with a capital of Chicago to work with the limited knowledge East Coast students have of the Midwest.
Educators on the coasts and in Chicago applaud this move; however, some "educators" in the state formerly known as Kansas fear this will minimize Kansas' contribution to culture.
"Since most adult New Yorkers refuse to accept the existence of anything west of Ohio and east of (Las) Vegas, it only makes sense that we teach our children lessons consistent with the East Coast snobbery we practice in our everyday lives."
Sausage claimed this would be more natural teaching for the students.
"It's unfair for us to be marginalized like this," said Melissa Roberts, Kansas elementary teacher. "To ignore Kansas ignores the wonderful things Kansas has contributed to America, like...uh..and then there's...uh...Fine, we've done nothing. I never wanted to stay here anyway. I always dreamed of living in New York — the bright lights, the excitement — but John wanted to raise his kids in a nice quiet Midwestern town. Is it my fault that if anything exciting happens, it happens in civilization rather than in this God forsaken state?"
adopted by the court declare that teachers need not include Kansas in a comprehensive teaching of U.S. geography. New maps are being printed for New York schools that will either distribute Kansas' land to its neighboring states or denote it as a new Great Lake.
However, board officials already have warned teachers not to refer to the nonexistent lake as Lake Kansas. "To even use the word Kansas in the classroom will destroy what we have tried to build." Sausage said.
While some experts predicted a backlash in New York schools, many teachers have embraced this new standard. "I only regret such progressive thinking wasn't in place when I was in school," said Erin Dougal, social studies teacher at J.F.K. High School. "In my day, we had to memorize all this stuff about useless places like Wyoming or Kansas. Now the kids can just pretend these places don't exist, which in my mind is the attitude they should take toward those backward yokels."
is encouraging. The board is using this new standard as an experiment toward implementing the "Two Coast" theory of geography.
This is an attitude the Board of Education
Other coastal states may implement this new change based on the success of the New York program, which will put Kansas back into the realm of fiction where it belongs.
Barkoski is a Basehor senior in English and journalism.
Economy isn't so rosy; media image is flawed
Everybody's getting rich, right? That's what Money magazine said a couple of months ago, and that seems to be the general picture that's been painted for us — a capitalist wonderland where everyone works at a great job, makes lots of money in the stock market and has unlimited potential. Of course, that's just a picture. Here are a couple of things that aren't showing up on our cultural drawing board.
And, despite the fact that unemployment has fallen, our poverty rate stubbornly remains at around 14 percent, which seems to indicate that while more people
Aaron
Major
columnist
opinion@kansan.com
First of all, not everyone is getting rich. Rather,
millions of people are still unempLOYed or under-
employed in menial, lowpaying, day-time, dead-end jobs. Despite the misleading term "full employment" being thrown around, unemployment still hovers around 3 or 4 percent which, although extremely low for the U.S., still means that more than 8 million people are out of work.
Second, this seems to be the best things are going to get. Even though "times are great," we've run into a strange state of affairs: the economy is doing too well, unemployment is too low and wages are too high. To offset rising labor costs, companies tend to raise prices, thus producing inflation. Inflation isn't on the rise yet, but it is the fear of the day.
are getting jobs, they are not the great jobs that are being talked about in the press. But everyone is getting rich and the economy's great, right?
So what's the solution? Raise interest rates, curb growth and throw several million people out of work to make the labor market more competitive so people will accept lower wages and fewer benefits.
So this is it. This is the best the system seems to
So go grab yourself a paper or a news magazine — preferably one that pertains to the topic at hand and when you see an article praising the national economy, read between the lines. Although I realize that times are better, that doesn't mean that we should be deceived into equating better with best.
None of this is any one person's fault, but rather it is a natural response to the demands of the system. From the mid-1800s to the Depression, the unstable nature of the capitalist economy itself would first generate great prosperity when it boomed and throw people into the streets when it busted, and then the cycle would repeat itself. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan is smart enough to recognize this, and that's why he plays with the interest rates. It's the artificial stabilization of an unstable system.
be able to do, and yet we parade it around like it's the greatest triumph in human history. We live with an economic structure that even at its peak leaves a lot to be desired, and we market it across the globe like capitalist missionaries.
After all, getting shot in the foot may be better than getting shot in the face, but neither is good for you. To change anything for the better, you have to throw out the bad. To throw out the bad, you have to recognize that it's bad in first place. So why don't we stop being passive receivers of the cultural status quo and become active participants in finding solutions to some big problems?
I know that the national economy isn't something most people think about on a regular basis, but I think it serves as a good example of how we are so wrapped up in accepting what's fed to us that we can't see the flaws in the system.
Major is a Deerfield, N.H., senior in sociology and American studies.
We tell the unemployed to go out and get a job, but when people start to get jobs, we say that too many have jobs. We subordinate the needs of the wage worker to the needs of corporate America and the economy. And through it all everybody sits around eating the same cultural mush thinking. "Wow, times are great."
Editorial board should have read New Jersey case
In the Thursday, August 26 issue of the Kansan, the editorial board argued that the Supreme Court of New Jersey was wrong to force the Boy Scouts of America chapter there to abide by New Jersey's state non-discrimination law, which forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Feedback
The opinion of the Kansan Editorial Board as written by Jennifer Roush stated
that since the Boy Scouts is a private organization, they shouldn't have to abide by state laws and can discriminate if they wish.
I would agree with your conclusion IF the Boy Scouts in New Jersey were not receiving state funds to operate; however they are receiving state (and municipal) funds in New Jersey, and that is why the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled the way they did. If they are receiving state funds, they must abide by state laws.
sion? I wonder how informed all of you are before you deliberate on such issues. That vital piece of information may have changed many of your minds.
Did anyone on the editorial board actually read the New Jersey Supreme Court deci-
Christine Robinson Lawrence graduate student
1
a