The University Daily Kansan emphasizes the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
CRIST: Where does the buck stop? Elected officials need to step up and stand accountable for their mistakes, even if that means answering questions.
See kansan.com for more opinions and Free for All comments
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11.2006 WWW.KANSAN.COM
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
PAGE 7A
》 OUR VIEW
Cartoon was classless, but so was fan behavior
The dialogue that has ensued because of a cartoon in a student newspaper has revealed an unsettling characteristic of college football: classless behavior among fans.
The editorial cartoon in the Oct. 2 Daily Nebraskan depicts Mark Mangino standing next to KU football player Eric Washington. "C'we eat him?" Mangino asks a medic attending to the prostrated Washington, who is thinking, "I had a dream where everyone did the wave ... for me! Bless those number one fans."
The student newspaper printed several letters from Nebraska alumni, students and Kansans that mostly reproached the paper's ethics. The paper's editor responded by staunchly defending the staff's decision to run the cartoon.
The cartoon prompted a dialogue that has unmasked the unsightly truth: Fans of both teams lack class. Nebraska fans initiated the wave while Washington lay motionless on the field. Kansas fans wore (as usual) T-shirts with unkind remarks about Mangino's obesity, such as "Our coach can eat your coach."
Brent Meier, the cartoonist, could have found a better way to convey his message, which was a critique on fan behavior. Meier could have left out the tasteless depiction of a coach contemplating eating an injured player.
Steve Lynn for the editorial board
Both Kansas and Nebraska fans value class. It took a distasteful cartoon to get us to talk about our lack of integrity.
Finding parking a strange adventure
COMMENTARY
I probably have a better chance of ruling the world than finding a parking spot at the University of Kansas. Or maybe I will find a spot, by some miracle of God (although the Royals will probably go to the World Series first) but it will be in the Chartreuse Lot, which is only open during the Winter Solstice and on alternate Wednesdays when the moon is full.
This used to happen to me all the time when I lived in the residence halls. Even with Hash closed, finding a parking spot was harder than finding a good basketball player from Missouri. Of course, there's always that lot in a galaxy far, far away, the Lied Center.
Things are a bit better at the scholarship halls, except on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights when the drunk people can't read and park in our lots. And of course, the KU Parking Department — although you'd think it would want to increase its ticket writing each year — doesn't monitor our lots worth diddlysquat. My friend parked in our lot when we studied for Western Civ. She was there all afternoon and didn't leave until that night after the exam. No ticket.
At the beginning of the semester, the entire staff of The University Daily Kansan had to deliver papers at five oclock ... in the morning. We originally were going to be at the Lied Center lot to sleeve papers, so I drove up there. It was raining so we moved back to Stauffer-Flint, the journalism building. I parked on Jayhawk Boulevard. We should be done delivering papers by 7 or so, I thought.
However, I was out delivering papers and got back to my car at 8:14 only to find a ticket issued at 7:54 ... and the boulevard closes at 7:45.
Classes hadn't started yet and I was on school business, so I went to KU Parking and talked to them. They told me to fill out a form
BY JENNY HARTZ
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KANSAN.COM
online to appeal the ticket. Now,
this was on Aug. 14, and it's now
October. I finally got my appeal
last week ... and now I owe them
$25 instead of $20 because of a $5
appeal fee.
It's frustrating to get a ticket when I've been there for 30 minutes while people take up my parking spot for several hours and don't get a ticket. And it's not just that people without passes park in our lots and take our spots. The drunk people don't realize what they're doing. My car has been egged. One of the girls in our hall had her windshield wiper torn off and then smashed into her windshield. Our cars have been hit too.
Get more parking. Well, this option isn't going to work, especially if alumni keep donating money for things like fountains or practice fields and sports centers. Not that the new fountain isn't pretty, it's just not very useful. I mean, we can't even swim in it.
I did not pay $160 dollars so you could have front row parking to The Wheel, thank you very much. Of course, there is a simple solution to this.
COMMENTARY
I'm going to rule the world. Then I can have my own special space: World Dominator of the Century parking only.
Hartz is a Stilwell sophomore in creative writing.
Even if we did somehow get more parking, it would probably be full because no one would monitor it because it's not Jayhawk Boulevard. So what am I going to do?
Leaders need to answer for actions
In the late 1940s when the Nuremberg Trials kicked into gear to convict 24 Axis leaders of war crimes, the Nazis' typical defense was that they were only following orders. It didn't get them very far and for good reason.
It's a bad defense. It's stupid. Computers take orders and so do children, but grown men should at least have the self-respect to ask why they're putting millions of the "inferior races" to death.
Granted, bucking authority is hard, and perhaps even lethal in Hitler-era Germany, but it's important.
Lynndie England, one of the soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib ordeal, said she was only following orders.
Even more recent is the Mark Foley scandal. For those of you unaware, republican Congressman Mark Foley has been having, shall we say, illicit contact with Congressional pages. House
BY ALEXANDER JOHN CRIST
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KASAN.COM
Majority Leader John Boehner
Majority Leader John Boehner — an awkward surname, given the subject — knew about it, but his excuse is that he told Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, placing the responsibility one notch higher on the pecking order.
What disturbs me is the idea that when people are in trouble, they think they can get away with placing the blame on others. That's a cop-out. They're in trouble because, say, in this case, Boehner probably didn't want to unleash a scandal on the Republican party in a year leading up to an election.
Take, for example, the Iraq war. We've been given many rationales for the conflict — the phrase in Latin is casus belli — ranging from Saddam Hussein having ties to al-Qaeda, stockpiles of weapons, most of which have been now discounted. Many Democrats, especially in the lead-up to the invasion, believed that we were there for oil. Some intellectuals argued that America wanted to increase its influence in the Middle East.
Following orders is never the real reason. It's a facade, a pretense that doesn't even skim the real issue at
hand. Did Boehner keep it to himself, or did he really tell Hastert, and why didn't he confront Foley about it? If partisan solidarity is the genuine explanation, then we're dealing with something bigger, which is why the question why is so important. Why is a versatile word, and one that it would appear the press is using to their credit. Too bad elected officials don't.
"To speculate, 'suppose Hitler won World War II' is uninteresting because he didn't. The interesting thing is to work out why he didn't and what are the consequences of his not having won it. Ask, What is the case? What is so? Believe me, those questions are not so easily answered — because people disagree on even the simplest description of an event in an age when one man's hero is another man's terrorist."
There's a ditch that questions are more valuable than answers. That's like saying yin is better than yang because a question is designed to get at the answer, and the answer is never given without the question. Questions are essential, but answers are pretty keen too.
While we were still waiting for a succinct and absolute rationale for our invasion of Iraq, the casus belli,
or why, I remember something Salman Rushdie said.
Crist is a Marysville sophomore in political science.
IRAN
NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR TEST-
ANOTHER THREAT TO THE
WILD, WILD WEST
FREE FOR ALL
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
Call 864-0500
I just parallel parked in front of Watson library on the second try.
Grant Snider/KANSAN
I'm really happy that the Kyou Portal isn't working right now. I have a test tomorrow, I'm really happy right now.
I think we should start Meier. Barmann is past his prime.
pieces already ripped off?
To the trumpet players in the marching band: Your zombie moves are really hot.
I've got an idea for the offensive coordinator for KU: Don't run a draw play every time we have a first and 10.
pieces already ripped off?
Can I file a lawsuit against McDonald's because I received a meal with the Monopoly game
I just want to thank all the freshmen for taking up all the computers at the library to check their
--about.
Facebook accounts.
--about.
I never thought I would say this, but Lawrence kind of sucks because it doesn't have a Popeye's.
about.
I live in Hash and we are just having our first fire alarm. Now I know what the McColum kids talk
Hey KU, why don't you fix your smelly, prehistoric buses?
Lindsey Shirach, sales manager
864-4462 or 1shirach@kansan.com
Kyle Hoedi, business manager
864-4014 or khoedi@kansan.com
SUBMISSIONS
Jonathan Kealing, editor
864-4854 or jkealing@kansan.com
Maicolm Gibson, general manager, news adviser
864-7667 or mqibson@kansan.com
TALK TO US
Jennifer Weaver, sales and marketing adviser
864-7666 or jweaver@kansan.com
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions.
For any questions, call Frank Tankard or Dave Rugh at 864-4810 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com.
General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com.
Erick II. Schmidt, managing editor
864-4854 or eschmidt@kansan.com
Dave Ruigh, associate opinion editor
864-4924 or drruigh@kansan.com
Gabriella Souza, managing editor
984.4454 us.gabriela.kansan.com
Frank Tankard opinion editor
864-4924 or ftankard@kansan.com
LETTER GUIDELINES
Remember you can make a difference by voting Nov. 7. Vote for Phill Kline, whose policy is to put convicted felons in prison — not let them walk our campus.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Keep Kansas safe this November
**Maximum Length:** 200 word limit
**Include:** Author's name and telephone number;
class, hometown (student); position (faculty member/staff); phone number (will not be published)
**SUBMIT LETTERS TO**
111 Sauber-Flint Hall
1435 Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence, KS 66045
(785) 864-4810, opponlkansan.com
Attorney General Phill Kline has served his state well. During his four short years in office, Kline has reduced the number of methamphetamine labs in Kansas by 70 percent. He has worked with the FBI to form the Cyber Crimes Task Force and the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory to protect every Kansan by using his travel and furniture budget to pay for two KBI agents to work on the task force. He promised voters if he was elected that he would work to reverse the failed policy of reducing sentences that Morrison helped write. Now our state has Jessica's Law and dozens of other increased penalties — putting convicted felons in prison. And Attorney General Kline has pushed for aggressive prosecution — leading his office to prosecute more than 50 murder cases — more than his predecessor.
University of Kansas students, you have a chance to make a difference this year. You have a chance to keep criminals off your streets, keep meth labs out of your neighborhoods and keep rapists in jail where they belong. That chance comes on Nov. 7, when you can vote for the state's next attorney general.
GUEST COLUMN GUIDELINES
**Maximum Length:** 500 word limit
**Include:** Author's name; class; hometown (student); position (Faculty member/staff); phone number (will not be published)
**Also:** The Kansan will not print guest columns that attack a reporter or another columnist.
In the last few years, Paul Morrison has had his chance to make a difference and has fallen short. He has had his chance as a longtime member of the Kansas Sentencing Commission to increase punishments for the worst criminals in Kansas, but instead he decided to use his role on the commission as a budgeting tool to reduce the prison population, putting students in Lawrence at risk. In Douglas County alone there has been a murderer released before his sentence was served, according to paul-spolicy.com, an anti-Paul Morrison Web site. But still there is more: Morrison has reduced the sentence for persons committing robbery and assault in Lawrence as well, according to the site.
Roderick Patton
Olathe freshman
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jonathan Kealing, Erick R. S. Schmidt, Gabrielle Souza, Frank Tankard, Dave Rough, Steve Lynn, McKay Stampler and Lois Mora
1