Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Julie Wood, Editor
Laura Roddy, Managing editor
Cory Graham, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser
4A
Brandi Byram, Business manager
Shauntea Blue. Retail sales manager
Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser
Scott Vallier. Technology coordinator
Monday, August 23,1999
THE KU PARKING DEPARTMENT IS GLAD YOU'RE BACK.
Seth Jones / KANSAN
Editorials
Senate should have made effort to fill seats before cutting them
Though the full body of the Student Senate hasn't met this fall, student executives met this summer to make decisions that affect students. Some of them were good, some were bad.
One of the best decisions Senate has made in recent memory was to move its meetings out of the Kansas Union and into places where students will be able — and much more likely — to attend and contribute their voices. The locations are as diverse as residence halls, scholarship halls, academic buildings and the KU Visitor Center.
This may prove to be an antidote to the apathy on this campus. Each year, student senators complain about the lack of student involvement — this year, they have chosen to do something about it.
However, not all of Senate's decisions
Undergrad executives need to remember grad students
have been positive.
This summer, the Student Executive Committee eliminated two seats from its ranks: the executive director of the Graduate and Professional Association and the chairman of the Graduate Executive Committee. Of these two positions, only the GradEx chairman had a vote.
Korb Maxwell, student body president, said that the two positions were eliminated because they were redundant. Because graduate students can run for and serve in any position in Senate, there was no need for the seats. Also, they had been unoccupied for as
long as any current senators could remember. Maxwell argued that Senate practices should agree with Senate rules and regulations, and the eliminated seats were not mentioned anywhere in those regulations.
The problem for Senate is one of perception. While eliminating the seats may have been within regulations, it creates the perception that Senate is run by undergraduates who only are interested in throwing their considerable weight around.
This situation could have been fixed by publicizing the presence of these graduate seats and the absence of people to fill them. Eliminating the graduate seats may have been efficient and within regulations, but the move may make graduate students feel unwelcome.
Jennifer Roush for the editorial board
Americans should have right to die
Do you have the right to die? In the Netherlands, a law soon will be passed allowing terminally ill people to kill themselves or have themselves killed. The United States should carefully watch this important and positive step.
While no one enjoys thinking about it, unbearable pain is sometimes the dominant theme at the end of people's lives. Some people find it so overwhelming that they wish to die. They are unable to enjoy a private, social or even spiritual life. In these cases, suicide or euthanasia should be permitted.
To assume that we as a society can stop it by branding it as illegal is a gross misstep. Certainly, if people can own any property at all, they own their own bodies. If they
Harshly judging individuals who wish to end unbearable pain is simply incorrect.
perceive their lives to be without worth, it is not the place of outsiders to decide otherwise. While our sense of morality and religion may lead us to try to make this decision for others, this is undesirable. Just as we cannot force others to go to the church of our choosing, we cannot force them to find meaning in a life that they perceive as painful and negative.
powerful that the body and brain only can attempt to compensate for it and perform dramatically fewer functions. To assume that individuals who wish to die are quitting or prematurely stopping something positive is incorrect. The human body and psyche only can withstand so much.
While we must, of course, value life, mercy killing does not devalue it. To acknowledge that some things are worse than death is simply to realize the truth of the power of suffering. If individuals can be given an assurance by doctors that they will die, and that before they do they will experience profound pain, it is best to let them choose their own fate.
Erik Goodman for the editorial board
Kansan staff
Chad Bettes . . . . .
News editors
Becky LaBranch . . . Special sections
Thad Crane . . . Campus
Will Baxter . . . Regional
Jon Schlitt . . . National
Danny Pumpelly . . . Online sales
Micha Kaftiz . . . Marketing
Emily Knowles . . . Production
Jenny Weaver . . . Production
Matt Thomas . . . Creative
Kelly Hefferman . . Classified
Jullana Moreira . . Zone
Chad Hale . . . Zone
Brad Bolyard . . Zone
Amy Miller . . . Zone
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30 and is not a conservative, has no brains." — Sir Winston Churchill
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 pho-
taopedraphed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Chad Bettel or Seth Hoffman at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924.
Bumper stickers fine, but this page is better
Perspective
f we're not supposed to eat animals,
why are they made out of meat?
"Good point." I answered silently.
I”
bumper sticker awkwardly slapped on a rusty Bronco II, probably wasn't aimed at a meat-eater like me.
"Good point." I answered silently,
though the question, nosed to me by a
Seth
I didn't know the driver, but a quick read of his other generally NRA-related bumper stickers convinced me his name was Rowdy or Bubba. As I sat in traffic eyeing Rowdy's variety of adhesive-backed beliefs, I thought about the bumper sticker's place in our world.
Seth
Hoffman
Associate
Opinion Editor
opinion@kansan.com
If there were no bumper stickers I may not have known that mean people suck, girls rule, and that nice people suck. And I would have never visualized whirled peas, a thought
that really gives me hope for the future.
While all of those expressions need no further explanation, the same can't be said for all bumper stickers. For example, there are bumper stickers featuring a cartoon character peeing on a Chevrolet logo, and there are stickers of the same variety with a Ford logo absorbing the urine stream. From these I've deduced that some Ford and Chevy owners don't like each other's vehicles. I feel a little left out, because I own a Ford pickup, but none of the stickers have ever explained why I should hate Chevy trucks.
That brings me to the meat of this column. (Get it, Bubba?) That's the reason I like reading and writing for this page so much. It gives anyone who writes here a chance to tell their side of the story. If you read Friday's columns, you remember that there were two opposing views about the Kansas State Board of Education's decision not to require the teaching of macro-evolution.
The editorial board is made up of 14 students who meet twice a week, debate issues, vote and then write the Kansan's editorial position on a topic.
Both were well done, and both explained their positions well. Maybe someday a Chevy truck owner and a better-informed Ford truck owner
For new opinion page readers, I'm going to devote a little ink to its structure. On most days, the opinion page is composed of two columns, a cartoon, letters to the editor, and two editorials written by members of the editorial board.
It could be your chance to let people know how you really feel about the parking department, Student Senate, or Nick Bartkoski (see below), and give your solutions to their problems. And to do it, you have several choices. You can send a letter to the editor, draw a cartoon, or write a column like this one.
A new feature of the page will be our Wednesday Pass/Fail section. This section will allow the editorial board to give a quick thumbs up or down to events or people that effect our lives.
That's where you come in. To ensure that this opinion page is a forum for healthy discussion, we need you to express your opinions here. In fact, it's essential. Nearly every day, you'll probably see something here you don't agree with. It's my job, along with the opinion editor, Chad Bettes, to make sure as many people as possible make their voices heard.
can do the same right here.
Something else I'd like to try is to print insightful quotes (look at the bottom of this page) like ones you've heard your friends or instructors utter.
If you read the opinion page regularly, there are probably times you think you could do better. I hope you'll try. Bring in your columns to Chad or me in the newsroom at 110 Stauffer-Flint, or e-mail them to us at opinion@kansan.com.
It may be true that some messages like "Queen of the Universe" are best left to a well-placed bumper sticker, but for more in-depth expressions of your opinions, this is the place to do it. It beats coating your car with stickers.
Hoffman is a Lenexa senior in journalism.
Let's discuss alcohol policy over a six-pack
Dear Chancellor Robert Hemenway.
We came to the University at the same time, so I was able to watch you grow as our chancellor. I doubt you had the same interest in my progression as a student, but since I'm still here for a fifth year, you can probably make some solid conclusions.
D Tom Chandrae Roof Bennettwy, Hi, my name's Nick Bartkoski. You may not know me, but actually we have quite a bit in common.
You've also helped my column survive. Before I actually learned how to write a column, I'd
just aim baseless attacks at you for a cheap laugh.
As strained as our relationship is, I feel kind of odd writing this letter. But, unfortunately, one of your policies has spun out of control, and I felt it my responsibility as a journalist and tenuous friend to point that out to you.
See if you can remember back to our freshman year. Alcohol was not a hot issue.
Bartkoski columnist
spinion @ kansan.com
you for a cheap laugh.
I've never really acknowledged you before, but thanks.
But then the spring before I turned 21, an interesting wrinkle came into the equation. A girl fell on Tennessee Street and someone in a car struck and killed her. Both had been drinking.
This constituted a dark day for the University. Not because one of our own was lost, but because of the possibility for bad publicity. Who wants to donate to a University that lets its students drink to the point where they endanger themselves and others?
As a freshman, I made the semi-responsible choice not to drink until I turned 21—a choice I lived up to for my college career.
Sure, there were problems, but they were the same problems that had existed for years.
Because you couldn't change the rules off-campus, you acted out on campus. It made sense
Almost as great was when Matthew Vestal, the driver who struck and killed Lisa Rosel, received his sentence: 14 days of jail served on weekends. The lesson I learned was that it was better to get caught drunk behind the wheel of a car after killing someone than it was to be caught drinking in the residence halls. What kind of consequence is spending two months' worth of weekends in jail?
Then you shut down drinking in the Jaybowl, because you wanted to send a message that alcohol is not permitted on the KU campus.
Luckily, we still can drink at your place. How is that not on campus again? Anyway, why don't I come up some Monday night and we can split a six pack and watch WWF. You're a big Stone-Cold fan, right? We could even discuss the alcohol policy during commercials.
to attack the hottest of hotbeds of binge drinking; The Jaybowl and the residence halls.
When the letters to the residence hall residents came out, I was full of questions, mostly because I was a housing staff member. The letter made some vague threats and told everyone that having alcohol was a zero-tolerance offense.
I was unsure how this was different from the old policy, and still am, mostly because a letter was sent to residents without another letter telling the staff what changed — but that was great publicity.
I'm concerned that in your attempt to solve the problem, you're exacerbating it. Part of the societal reason that we have alcohol problems is because we tell people "no."
So anyway, I wanted to point that out. To show you I hold no ill will, I want to buy you a drink, but I can't invite you over. I live in student housing.
Yours sincerely, Nick Bartkoski
Except that's a lie. What about the "scholarship" boxes at Memorial Stadium? What about the 70 other alumni-only events last year where alcohol was served?
Bartkoski is a Basehor senior in english and journalism.
Nick Bartkoski
Creationists believe in science, too
Feedback
The creation scientists never stated that they wanted to teach the Bible along with science or evolutionary theory. Creation scientists, hence the name, study scientific data the same as other scientists but have come to the conclusion that a higher power was at work in creating the universe. They also bring up the numerous loopholes and unsubstantiated evidence in the Big Bang theory, evolutionary theory and fossil records. They want children to be taught
Dr. Duane Gish, who received a Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley in biochemistry, worked a total of 18 years in biochemical research and is senior vice president at the Institute for Creation Research states: "Furthermore, it is impossible to go into the laboratory and test any t a fish
"Furthermore, it is impossible to go into the laboratory and test any theory on how a fish may have changed into an amphibian or how an ape-like
another theory of the origin of the universe also using scientific, not Biblical data. Then let the children decide for themselves which evidence they will choose to believe.
creature may have evolved into man ... Therefore, neither creation nor evolution is a scientific theory. Creation and evolution are inferences based on circumstantial evidence."
Lindsay Gentry Lawrence senior
Correction: An editorial in last Friday's Kansan incorrectly stated that a $300,000 incentive had been paid to the contractor working on the Memorial Stadium renovations. The incentive will not be paid unless the August 31 deadline is met.
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