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Monday, October 16, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: STUDENT SENATE
Senate fixes committee error
Student senators have corrected a grievous wrong.
At last Wednesday's meeting, Student Senate voted to allot $307 to the newly formed Feminist Collective Force for advertising and office supplies. Student Senate Executive Committee voted to bring the bill off the floor after the Senate finance committee failed to pass it on Oct. 4.
The finance committee denied the Feminist Collective Force the $307 because of ignorance and bias.
Finance committee members objected to financing the group because they didn't like the word "feminist" in the name. The name of a group is virtually irrelevant when considering it for financing and should not be the pivotal factor in a decision. The excuse given by members of the committee was that the group's name could drive potential members away.
This excuse shows the mentality of the committee members, a mentality that reflects their fear of the word "feminist," a mentality that could be interpreted as borderline sexism.
Another issue that the finance committee brought up was that financing the Feminist Collective Force would be a duplication of services
Thanks to Senate, the finance committee's ignorance won't affect the financing of Feminist Collective Force.
because Senate already finances the Emily Taylor Resource Center. The problem was that Senate doesn't finance the Resource Center. Either the finance committee knows little about where student money goes, or the objection was another lame excuse for not wanting to finance a group.
At Wednesday's Senate meeting, the only voices of dissent against passing the bill were senators who feared that if StudEx overrode the authority of the finance committee, a bad precedent would be set.
But when a committee acts as unreasonably as the finance committee did on Oct. 4, it is the job of StudEx to correct the mistake.
Granted, all of Senate shouldn't be considered a clueless body — there are some very intelligent, hard-working people involved. But unfortunately, egos and ignorance on the finance committee prevented a budding organization from initially receiving the allocation that it requested. StudEx and Senate were correct to reexamine the finance committee's decision.
IAN RITTER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
OPINION BRIEF
Students should visit center
Apparently many students remain unaware of the center's activities. Some are even unaware that the center exists.
Considering the amount of publicity and support that the center has received, this lack of knowledge is inexcusable.
Students should take it upon themselves to use the Multicultural Resource Center instead of merely wait for information to be spoonfed to them.
With increasing numbers of students from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds at the University of Kansas, every student needs to take it upon himself or herself to become familiar with issues of diversity. The center is an integral part of this educational experience.
And students should not offer excuses for not taking advantage of the center. Granted, classes and jobs often are at the forefront of many students' minds. But students should realize that they need to prepare themselves for the diverse world that exists and not hide themselves behind excuses and ignorance.
HEATHER LAWRENZ FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
COLLEEN MC CAIN
Editor
DAVID WILSON
Managing editor, news
ASHLEY MILLER
Managing editor, planning & design
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
News & Special Sections .Deedra Allison
Editorial .Heather Lawrenc
Associate Editorial .Sarah Morrison
Campus .Virginia Marghelim
Associate Campus .Teresa Vazeye
Associate Campus .Paul Todd
Sports .Jenni Carlson
Sports Sports .Tom McConnell
Photo .Paul Kotz
Wild .Robert Allen
On the coordinator .Tina Passett
STEPHIANE TLEY
Business manager
MATT SHAW
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Meredith Hanning
Regional mgr ... Tim Deluc
National mgr ... Heather Barnes
Special Section mgrs ... Heather Niehaus
Production mgrs ... Nancy Eston
Marketing director ... Krista Nye
Public Relations director ... Beck Cahill
Creative director ... Briggs Bloomquist
Classified mgr ... Heather Vailer
Internship/oop-mpr ... Kelly Connally
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
You can't always get what you want, but at least try
I've found a new heroine. She's not a poet. She's not an activist. She's not a celebrity.
She is just an angry, elderly woman who had the courage to demand to be heard.
This woman attended a Congressional debate Wednesday about Medicare. She went to the front of the room, and she stood within spitting distance of Republics dead set on passing a Medicare reform bill that would be detrimental to her health.
And for those who can't attend the march, he asks that they abstain from work or school and that they
She demanded her voice be heard. She demanded that Congressional leaders look at the real flesh and blood behind their voting public.
I commend this woman. She represents what this country needs now more than ever, and she is just one of many who have made and will make their presence known in Washington this month.
Louis Farrakhan is leading a march today in Washington. He's calling for all Black men to come together and make their voices heard and their faces seen from Capitol Hill to the Washington Memorial.
She demanded democracy in its purist form. And for that, she and other elderly protesters were hauled away by guards. The rest of the public also was dismissed.
abstain from buying anything today to show Washington and the rest of the nation what this country and the economy would be like without Black men.
Whether you agree with Farrakhan's ideology or not, you should agree with his methodology. It's becoming
painfully clear that to have our voices heard in Washington, we have to make our faces seen. We have to hit below the belt — in the pocketbook.
STAFF COLUMNIST
If we want reform, if we want liberty and justice for all, if we want the individual to matter in this country again, we have to force our presence on a political system that ignores us.
Only we can force them to find that balance. We have to rise up to the level of this elderly woman. We have to rise up to the level of these Black men.
The politicians in Washington are too caught up in themselves and their agendas. They've lost touch with the American people; they've forgotten that when they slash the welfare budget or the Medicare budget, a living, breathing child will go hungry, and an elderly woman will suffer unnecessarily until death.
They've forgotten what hunger pains are, what sickness is. They've
Many will make excuses. They'll say that politicians have to make decisions that provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and that is true. They do have to employ logic with their everyday constituents, not emotional involvement, or they would achieve nothing. They can't please everyone.
lost themselves in bureaucracy, and only we can remind them that we exist.
But the foundation of democracy, the cornerstone of what this country is supposed to be about, is the individual. The individual who is tired of discrimination, racism and hatred. The individual Black man who is trying to rise up, but is continually pushed down by institutionalized racism, by the media, by the government. The common elderly woman who spent the better years of her life paying taxes and who deserves health care to make life comfortable before she dies.
Politicians need to find a balance between serving the greater good and the individual. In fact, the two aren't even supposed to be mutually exclusive.
Nicole Kennedy is an Oathe Junior in journalism.
Misfortune does not indicate laziness
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
So Jake Arnold is moaning that everybody wants to get their hooks on his hard-earned money, and in their scramble to get a handout "some people bypass the whole system that humanity was built on." What, exactly, is the system that humanity was built on? Is it "American pride, individualism, self sufficiency?"
For Mr. Arnold to call the sick, the old and the poor "demanding," to assume that they feel they have a right to his "hard-earned dough because their lives took a wrong turn" reflects a selfishness and callousness that is embarrassing, to say the least. Misfortune is not necessarily the consequence of taking a wrong turn somewhere as we stumble down the road of life. Ours is an imperfect world, where people fall ill, where they lose their jobs, their homes.
Fate can deal any one of us cruel blows, and all the pride and individualism and self-sufficiency we can muster night not save us. If fate is kind, we will grow old, but we might not grow old as gracefully as we would hope. We might spend our final years ill and alone and impoverished. There are simply no guarantees for any of us, and for that reason, we pay taxes to support social programs that help to assure everyone's basic well-being.
work and self-sufficiency, but he's bitter that every penny he has earned cannot go to support his favorite cause — himself.
Book vandals cost KU libraries time, money
Mr. Arnold is proud of his hard
Nancy Marie Wood lecturer in English
Scott Manning, in the Oct. 3 edition of the University Daily Kansan, wrote a very thoughtful column, "Book Vandalism is the Most Nefarious Destruction of All." As The University of Kansas' preservation librarian, I want to echo his concern about defacing library books.
KU spends almost $500,000 a year preserving library collections. For example, if book bindings are damaged, we can rebind them but at a cost of at least $6.25 per volume.
If books are printed on paper that is too brittle to survive, we can try to replace them with reprints or preservation-quality photocopies or microfilm at a cost of up to $80 per volume.
However, if a book is marked with highlighter, ink, or worse, if its pages are torn out, we have no option but to try to replace the damaged pages. As Manning points out so effectively, this often cannot be done.
Brian J. Baird preservation librarian, KUlibraries
observes, "After all, the books belong to you, too."
All of us are responsible for preserving the KU Libraries' collections, as Manning
Alcohol should not be sole focus of greeks
So a "ban on alcohol threatens the freedom of the greek system" because "Organized parties would be reduced significantly, if not completely abolished" — which apparently would result in the horrendous domino-effect of dramatic declines in membership and lost charters due to the ostensibly inevitable violations of alcohol regulations? Horrors!
I thought greek houses were bastions of community service, as they regularly claim, not the organized drinking clubs, bent on disregarding the law, that your editorial has painted them as being!
Assuming all you said in your editorial is true, that the entire system is threatened by the loss of the one true foundation for these groups — alcohol — one wonders why the University continues to affiliate itself with these groups at all.
Lori Askeland
Lawrence graduate student
Multiple parties better reflect our society's multiculturalism
Do you remember the 1992 presidential campaign? Ross Perot single-handedly made it the most interesting in ages simply by running for office. For the first time in more than 20 years, a substantial number of voters turned away from the two political parties that have had a
STAFF COLUMNIST
strange-hold on the American political system for most of this century. Now Perot has announced that he is forming an independent party for the 1996 presidential election. Is anyone surprised? Of course, he hasn't said yet whether he will run himself, but then if you remember,
there was a lot of confusion about that last time, too.
Meanwhile, political leaders from Newt Gingrich to Sam Nunn are decrying Perot's move, citing the threat that it poses to our acrosacron two-party system. While I am not a big Perot fan, he has shown that an alternative to Republican and Democrat candidates is exactly what is needed in modern politics. In fact, a third choice already has appeared regularly on ballots in all 50 states. The Libertarian Party slowly has been gaining strength without throwing the entire system into turmoil. Of course, the Libertarians aren't perceived as posing a threat because they haven't attracted huge numbers of voters. What Gingrich, Nunn and others really fear is the amount of attention that Perot commands, and the votes that he may take away from Republicans and Democrats alike.
If Ross Perot really wants to provide an alternative to "politics as usual," he should devote some attention to beginning a real political party.
The present situation in Washington is typical of the problem that results from depending on two political parties. For years, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate, which allowed them to push through legislation in spite of occasional Republican opposition. Now that the Republicans are firmly in control of both houses, they naturally are making up for all those years of Democrat control by forcing their own bills through the system. While much of what the new Republican majority is doing in Congress may seem quite extreme to some, it is nothing more than the natural consequence of our rigid two-party system. In such a system of oppositions, we are doomed to constantly swinging from one extreme to the other.
In the majority of the world's democracies, the existence of several major political parties means that coalition building is an essential part of effective government. Certainly no system is perfect, but dualistic thought and action are no longer sufficient in an increasingly multicultural American society.
But what could be healthier in a pluralistic, multicultural society than pluralistic representation? The traditional two-party system only serves to reinforce the simplistic, dualistic perspective which pervades contemporary American thinking. We tend to see issues as black or white, right or left, gay or straight, conservative or liberal. But such dichotomous views do not appropriately represent the reality of our day-to-day lives, so why should we be expected to always choose between two opposing views? Granted, there are a variety of viewpoints within one party; Jesse Helms and Arlen Specter certainly do not speak with one voice. But all too often the two-party system results in an "us versus them" mentality that we see on a daily basis in the current Congress.
Scott Manning is a Lawrence graduate student in French.
How to submit letters
All letter 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 Heather Lawrenz, editorial page editor, or Sarah Morrison, associate editorial editor, at 864-4810.
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