4A
Monday, March 11. 1996
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OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
If changes aren't made, referendum will fail again
Because 70 percent of voting students opposed the financing of a new recreational center with an increase in student fees, the rec center planning committee has decided to climb back in the saddle on Thursday to restructure the proposal.
The students opposed to this plan should make it clear that unless changes are made, the outcome of the next referendum will reveal similar results.
The committee has spent more than three years developing the plan for the center. Where were the surveys or opinion polls asking students what facilities they desired to be offered by the center? Why would the committee assume students would be willing to finance a project that did not have their input?
Mary Chappell, director of recreational services, said the committee would gather feedback from students. However, it should have done this before mapping out a plan for a $21.5 million recreational center.
For the next referendum
THE ISSUE:
Recreation center
to fly with the students, the committee must find some other way to come up with the money.
What about corporate sponsorship? Chappell said that the committee could not contact corporate individuals to solicit financing.
She said the Kansas University Endowment Association had to be addressed by a request from the chancellor to contact corporations, which as thus far not been made.
Another angle would be to augment Robinson Center's facilities, which would require a minimal increase in fees. Students may find this a more agreeable option.
Anyone who frequents Robinson recognizes the need for improvement in recreational facilities, but when the improvement means $21.5 million for a recreation center entirely out of students' pockets, Robinson seems just fine.
ERIN KRIST FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Regents leave Senate no other option but to write late letter
At last week's Student Senate meeting, senators agreed to send a letter to the Board of Regents voicing their collective distaste for linear tuition. The letter will go out next week.
The Regents voted on linear tuition last spring during finals. Senate and University executive committees were not in session, and most students had gone home or were on vacation. By the time the issue came up again in the fall, Senators felt that nothing could be done because the Regents already had decided about the tuition.
It seems as if this action by Senate is coming too late to do any good, but the Regents left the University of Kansas' student representatives few other options.
It is happening.
It starts this summer.
Kim Cocks, student body president, said senators thought there was not enough discussion on campus about linear tuition before the Regents went ahead and passed it. But now, with the Senate Executive Committee taking a stand against linear tuition, Cocks said, Senators decided to let the Regents know how they felt.
THE ISSUE:
Linear tuition
Senate passes resolutions and writes letters on behalf of the KU students stating its stance on issues. Some would argue that Senate is powerless to enforce these resolutions and letters. Actually, these actions provide University officials and state government officials with organized, thoughtful discourse on behalf of the student body. They are important if the Regents are to hear the students' voice.
For Senate's letters to be given their due attention at higher levels, they should arrive in the mail before ultimate decisions are made that affect the University. But if the Regents doesn't offer them that luxury, then late is better than never. And, just so Senate knows, often is better than once.
PAUL TODD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Chan Lowe/ FORT LAUDERDALE SUN-SENTINEL
Journalists' job is to report not act as spies for the CIA
I was appalled to discover that the CIA can secretly recruit journalists and clergy as snipes.
People all around the planet already have enough reasons to hate us journalists. Why add another one?
Too many people have too hard a time telling the difference between journalists and spies as it is, our jobs are so similar.
Both are assigned to get information the government or the organization that is being reported on or spied on doesn't want them to know.
Of course, there are significant differences.
The sort of information that can get you a Pulitzer Prize in this country can get you shot in someone else's.
That is why, if we are to spread the blessings of liberty with any success, we must be scrupulous in the way we distinguish independent journalists from government employees.
"Is your newspaper a government newspaper or a party newspaper?" one professor asked. He appeared to be genuinely curious.
That is not an easy distinction for much of the world to grasp. Freedom of the press, like brokered political conventions or the designated hitter, is a concept that is not easily understood by those who did not grow up with it. Consider, for example, the difficulty I had trying to explain my role to some university intellectuals in Tanzania as I was traveling around Africa as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune in the mid-1970s.
Neither, I said. It is a big independent newspaper.
"Big?'' said the other. "It is a government newspaper?"
No, I said. It is a big private newspaper.
Parties don't publish major newspapers in the United States. In the
"But what party publishes it?"
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
United States, I explained, quoting A.J. Liebling, the press is free to whoever owns one.
"But what party do the owners of your newspaper belong to?" one said.
of a good story.
That is not supposed to matter, I said. The only bias that is supposed to matter is the one in favor
They looked at me incredulously. I have grown accustomed to that look from Americans. How, I wondered, could I ever persuade Tanzanians that the U.S. press was not beholden to some higher political power when I could not always persuade my fellow Americans?
After all, I already had become accustomed to my assuming that any "journalist" was a spy (and, at the same time, an unofficial government spokesperson) if he or she carried credentials from the Soviet Union, Mainland China or any similarly totalitarian regime.
Regulations passed in 1977 in the wake of Watergate prohibit the practice of using journalists as spies for the United States, but current CIA Director John M. Dutch revealed a loophole during recent Senate hearings.
That loophole has allowed the CIA to secretly waive the regulations in "extraordinarily rare" circumstances and use journalistic or media cover for intelligence activities.
It is a terrible idea. Even with Senate oversight, the practice of recruiting journalists or clergy casts a dangerous shadow of suspicion over all U.S. journalists and clergy who operate overseas.
Yet Deutch defended the practice.
The Associated Press reported that Deutch said since 1977, the agency has been operating under rules that would prohibit the use of journalists except under very rare circumstances.
How, asked Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, would he define those rare circumstances?
Deutch offered two hypothetical examples: "One would be where you had a journalist involved in a situation where terrorists were holding U.S. hostages ... journalists might have tremendously unique access in such a situation ... or where there was a particular access to a nation or a group who had an ability to use weapons of mass destruction against the U.S."
Well, you have to wonder how much access journalists will have, once outlaw governments or terrorist groups get the idea that the journalists may very well be an informant for an agency that has undermined governments throughout the world.
Let us not forget CNN's Peter Arnett, who reported live daily from Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War.
Despite the worry warts back home who criticized Arnett every time he reported the Baghdad government's point of view, Pentagon officials said afterward that Arnett's live pictures actually helped the Defense Department assess the effectiveness of their bombing.
That is how it is supposed to work. In the course of doing their job, journalists can help the efforts of their host government, but that is not their primary purpose.
Some people have trouble telling the difference between spies and reporters.
But there is a difference
Clarence Page is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"I KNOW THE FOOTBALL COACHES ARE AWARE THAT THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNIVERSITY DOES NOT CONSIDER A 1.95 FOR A TEAM TO BE ACCEPTABLE."
ism, about the content of material that will be aired on KU's new television station, channel 14.
Don Steeple, head of the KU athletic corporation's academic committee, about the football teams grade point average.
"THERE ISN'T A BETTER PLAN RIGHT NOW,
SO, SINCE IT'S A CRITICAL POINT, THERE'S
NOWHERE TO GO BUT DOWN RIGHT NOW."
"IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A CONDUIT OF SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL. IT CAN BE A MEDIUM FOR GOOD."
Renee Speicher, member of the planning committee for a new recreation center, about the urgent need for a new recreation center at the University.
John Katich, associate professor of journal-
Cold and constantly gray, Galway lays in western Ireland on the shores of the frigid North Atlantic. For centuries, men, women and children have made their homes here, living off the bounty of the sea and sometimes diving in the process.
Storms here come up suddenly — blown in from the ocean in minutes. And the rain, too, is cold and unforgiving, like the sea from which it is spawned and like the land to which it returns.
Americans share a common law, common present
From the dry shelter of a phone booth, my friend Curt Melzer and I experienced just such a storm in the fall of 1898 as we backpacked our way across Europe. Caught unaware and far from any public shelter, we naively watched the incoming clouds until it was too late to do anything but take
to the nearest refuge. To a passerby, it surely must have looked funny to see two soaking-wet men jammed together in a phone booth, but the comedy of the moment drifted away as we watched the fury of the North Atlantic methodically vent itself upon the proud and ancient city.
And yet that is not quite true. Although our country is only 200 years old, the land it is built upon is older than history. And people have lived and died here, too, for thousands of years. When we walk the Great Plains or hike the Appalachian Trail, it is in the footsteps of innumerable people long lost and forgotten. History was being made here before Christ had dirtied his first diaper. Songs were sung, cities built and wars were waged long before Europeans had formed their first tribal bands. The history of our land also is rich and long-lived.
I am fortunate enough to have the blood of both in my veins – Cherokee from my grandmother and Scot from everyone else. But while I share the genes of my forebears, I do not share their history. I am, without a doubt, American. For all the differences among Americans, we share a common law, a common present and to some extent, a common perspective.
We must look to the future then, as one America. From the past we may gain insight and inspiration, but it is the present we must accept and the future we must forge. There can be an atonement for the wrongs of previous generations, but we can work together so that those wrongs never will be repeated. We must embrace each culture as our own, and look upon all our peoples as brothers and sisters.
KANSAN STAFF
It is we who now are making history. Future generations must see that we came together with a unified voice for one America. Together we can make a history of which we can all be proud.
Todd Hiatt is a Lyndon senior in social welfare
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
The tenacity of the Gaels is legendary and well-earned, though. They have suffered Viking raids, Roman occupation, British subjugation and even the harsh nature of their own lands only to emerge with pints of Guinness in their hands and smiles upon their faces. It is a rich history that the Gaelic people share – and so much longer than our own measly 200 years.
I couldn't help but wonder then how many people had died during the years in storms like this one. How many fishermen had given their lives as they too watched the incoming clouds, knowing all the while they were too far from shore to survive? Galway has been incorporated since the 14th century and populated long before that.
Campus ... Joann Birk
... Philip Brownlee
Editorial ... Paul Todd
Associate editorial ... Craig Lang
Position ... Sports
Sports ... Tom Erickson
Associate sports ... Bill Petula
Photo ... Matt Flinker
Graphics ... Mohs Muser
Field sessions ... Novella Sommer
Wife ... Wife
Illustration ... Micheh Leaker
HEATHER NIEHAUS
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Campus mgr ... Karen Geresch
Regional mgr ... Kelly Comesny
National mgr ... Mark Ozmkel
Special Sections mgr ... Norm Blow
Production mgr ... Rachel Gellat
Respective Vallier
Marketing director
Public Relations dir ... Angle Adamson
Creative director ... Ed Kowalstel
Citizensal mgr ... Stacey Weingarten
Internship/oo-op mgr ... T.J. Clark
HUBIE
SOME MUCH-NEEDED NICKNAMES!!
RAPID-FIRE, WE HAVE JACQUE THE RIVER VAIGNH,
RAEF AND PILLAGE LAFRENZI,
JE-LIGHTNING ROD HASE,
SCOT ME BEFORE I FOUL AGAIN POLLARD, AND CERTAN PAUL OF FAME PIERCE!
By Greg Hardin