4A
Thursday, April 18, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
1011 2629
1. What is the sum of the first five numbers?
VIEWPOINT
Career counseling can work if students are aware of it
The Career Counseling and Planning Service offered by the University of Kansas is a valuable source of information for students. Many students have taken advantage of the service, but many more have not.
Roughly 8,000 students, about one-third of the campus, used the service last year, said Dick Nelson, director of the Career Counseling and Planning Service. The counselors can tell students what jobs would best suit them. They also can tell students how to make career choices.
The problem is that students are unaware that this service exists. The staff members do many of their own outreach programs. They go into residence halls, classrooms, fraternities and sororities to reach students.
But the counselors cannot reach everyone by themselves. Nelson is the only
THE ISSUE:
Career advising
full-time employee. Eight part-time graduate students also work there. This lack of resources hinders the counselors.
"I find it hard to believe that at a University the size of KU they can only hire one full-time employee," Nelson said.
The service is a valuable tool that students should use. Telling students about the service through advertisements and continued campus visits is important. Letting freshmen know of the service at orientation also would help.
The University should take an active role in letting students know about the service. Those unsure about their careers should contact a counselor. Students cannot do this if they don't even know the service exists.
DEBBIE THOMPSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
Memorials pay rightful tribute to Holocaust victims and survivors
Yom Ha Shoah is the Hebrew name for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yesterday was the day on the Hebrew lunar calendar that commemorates the significant event in the lives of Jews and many other innocent victims whose lives were tragically taken between 1933 and 1945. Unfortunately, many people are ignorant of the events of the Holocaust. Much of this ignorance comes from a lack of education. But some of it comes from people closing their eyes to its reality.
These people are turning away from the facts. Six million Jews were killed, and 10 million non-Jews also died. But the Holocaust is most often associated with the Jewish people.
There are many museums and memorial sites in different countries to commemorate those lives. Tourists can find Holocaust museums in Copenhagen, Denmark; Prague,
However, let's not forget about the other lives that were taken. The issue is how one man led the world in hatred, bloodshed and disaster. Yom Ha Shoah is a day to recognize the victims' struggle for survival and to pay tribute to the lost lives.
THE ISSUE:
The Holocaust
Czech Republic; and Israel. The Holocaust Museum in Israel has a remarkable portrayal of the events of the Holocaust. Recently it added a children's memorial for the young lives lost. It is a moving exhibit.
The museum in Copenhagen offered graphic descriptions of the tragic occurrences as well as a display showing how many people were killed in each country involved in World War II. Copenhagen is one of the few cities that helped the Jews during the Holocaust, and the fewest Jews actually were killed there.
The memorial site in Prague has a selection of artwork done by the children who were imprisoned. The artwork tells the story of their experiences. Outside, in the Jewish quarter of Prague, is a cemetery holding the remains of Jews who lived in the Jewish Ghetto during the Holocaust.
After seeing these detailed displays, it is impossible for anyone to turn away. The least we can do is recognize the reality of the 16 million lives lost and the pain suffered in the Holocaust.
SARAH PRESTON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Letters protest Native American rally editorial
Editorial maligns Native Americans
I have been working, on behalf of my own and the other tribes in North Dakota, for 11 years to retrieve the tens of thousands of our dead ancestors and their personal burial property, appropriated by the museum and science industries without our permission. I do this because the spiritual beliefs I was raised with tell me what has happened to our ancestors is wrong, because it hurts our ancestors and it hurts us. I also do this because, here in our own homelands, everybody else can go to their eternal rest sure in the knowledge that they will stay there and that no one will molest them out of curiosity or greed.
Mr. Moore, I take great umbrage at your editorial, and I will tell you why. It is, indeed, you who used poor judgment, who who is ignorant, you who is wrong, you who have chosen blatant political correctness (hasn't it always been politically correct to bash Native people?), and it is you who has made a huge fool of himself. You require some education, some sensitization and some humanity.
No one has accused your "honored institution" of being out of compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, so why are you so defensive? Because the Native students have a few legitimate questions for the department of anthropology? Like why has it taken them so long to compile a basic, simple inventory of the relatively small number of Native dead in their possession? Like why should they even NEED an extension to the five-year deadline set by federal law for this inventory to be completed? Don't you think you and the people you are a mouthpiece for have overreacted, thus tipping your hand? I do.
lessly, ignorantly and disrespectfully to the Native students at the University of Kansas, and by extension, to all Native people, and I demand that you apologize at once.
No one has "defamed" your honored institution, either. Just asked a few questions and met with the usual wall of racism, defensiveness and obstacles. But you, on the other hand, have spoken care-
You couldn't even get your facts straight. The Native students were not planning a protest, they were planning a rally and a public debate, activities that altogether are different. You didn't even wait to see what the Native students had to say about the matter, but jumped to the defense, armed with all your ignorant assumptions and rude, offensive ways.
Possibly the most ignorant thing you said, however, is the following statement: "If Native Americans wish to see more information about their culture in this society, they should not attack the very people whose job it is to teach them such information." Not only ignorant, but condescending and patronizing as well. Ignorant because we never have needed, and don't need now, anthropologists or archeologists to teach us about our cultures. They are not even remotely qualified to do such a monumental thing. That's not their job; that is why we have our elders, our parents and our spiritual leaders. They are the experts, and they are the only people who are qualified to conduct this special task. Do you really think we need to rely on strangers from foreign cultures to teach us about our own? Boy, you really are ignorant — once again, you should get your facts straight before you open your mouth or turn on your computer.
Also, Mr. Moore, what evidence do you have that anyone has been attacked? You have none, because nobody has attacked anybody, the only possible exception being the evidence you supplied for all the world to see of yourself committing your own attack upon Native peoples' beliefs and values.
Which brings me to the last thing I want to say to you: How dare you call Native people ignorant? Not only are we knowledgeable about what is right and wrong concerning
the treatment of our dead, but our knowledge goes back thousands of years and has been handed down to us by the very same Old Ones who now languish in KU's department of anthropology. Who are you to tell anyone that they do not know what they are talking about? Where do you get your facts and your evidence to make such a serious statement? Who taught you that it was OK to defame an entire race of people? To me, you are pitiful not only because you are ignorant and lacking knowledge of Native peoples' viewpoint on the issue of repatriation and reburial of our dead and their personal burial property, but also you are pitiful because, obviously, no one has taken the time to teach you how to live your life in a good way. To me, you live your life just like Coyote does. Now you go run and ask the Anthropology Department to tell you what that means!
And by the way, tell Alfred Johnson that the earthly remains and personal burial property of our deceased ancestors are not part of America's cultural heritage, and it's time America learns this vital lesson: the contents of our ancestors' final resting places are not the property of any institution, individual or government, cultural or otherwise. Neither are they the equivalent of the "breads, quilts and rugs" that are a part of America's heritage — they are the earthly remains of human beings, for God's sake, and the fact that they are casually defined as something that could be a museum "collection" plays a major role in your ignorance, Mr. Moore.
Members of the editorial board, please think twice before you run such an opinion again. This editorial is the most blatantly racist, ignorant thing I ever have seen.
Let us do our job of representing our own beliefs and values, free of your criticism and judgment.
Pemina Yellow Bird Lawrence resident
Clinton could regret vetoing abortion ban
More letters on page 5A
President Clinton in November will regret his decision to veto the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act when his Republican adversaries justifiably link him to the most extreme elements of his party.
Clinton offered a lame excuse for his veto, claiming he would have signed the bill had it included a provision to allow the procedure when the mother's health was at risk. The actual wording of the bill permits the use of the procedure if a doctor rea-
sonly believed that a mother's life was in jeopardy and that no other form of medical intervention would suffice.
STAFF COLUMNIST
In this procedure, an abortionist delivers a child feet-first, except for the head, then punctures the infant's skull with surgical scissors, inserts a suction
The House voted to ban this grusome procedure by a more than 2-to-1 margin last November. The Senate soon followed suit. Supporters of the bar included many abortion-rights Democrats.
tube, and removes the child's brain.
Douglas Kniec, professor of constitutional law at Notre Dame, testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the ban did not violate Roe vs. Wade. He said the case had legalized abortions of "unborn" babies, not "partially born children."
Other opponents of the ban argue that a mother's right to choose and right to privacy always are paramount, even in a procedure that blurs the line between abortion and infanticide. Babies aborted in this procedure often are capable of surviving outside the womb. But not even the most ardent abortion-rights advocate would support a person's right to choose to kill infants born prematurely or to kill such infants in private.
Although abortion opponents would love to see the ban undermine the ill-conceived Roe vs. Wade decision, that unfortunately won't happen. On the other side, the abortion rights movement shouldn't fear the ban as the end of abortion rights.
To some fringe abortion-rights ethicists, merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to classify a baby as nonhuman and void of rights.
The only difference between a baby aborted in a partial-birth abortion and one born prematurely is location; only three inches, the length of an infant's head that remains in the birth-canal during the procedure, marks the difference.
a baby, they claim, only can be classified as human when it achieves a physical "separate and unique existence" from its mother — as if any child under five could survive on its own.
The real threat the partial-birth abortion ban poses to the abortion-rights movement is not the ban itself but that when a person comes to believe that partial-birth abortions are immoral, the next logical step is to conclude that all post-viability abortions are immoral.
After all, the only difference between a premature baby, a baby aborted in a partial-birth abortion and a baby aborted by other means is location and the manner in which they were aborted.
Abortion is an issue that needs to be discussed. Most people have strong feelings on the issue, but few have strong arguments. Agreeing to disagree on an issue of this magnitude should not be an option.
John Hart a Shawne graduate student in Journalism.
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HUBIE
By Greg Hardin