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Tuesday, April 11, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Give students New Blood
Student Senate needs some new faces. After years of hearing the same solutions to old problems, it's time for a change.
Brad Sanders and John Fawcett of the New Blood com...
represent necessary reform. They offer a...
offer to students in our ouring student government.
Like other candidates, New Blood addresses the issues of environment, campus safety and student representation. But New Blood looks at these problems with innovation and realism. For example, Sanders and Fawcett plan to expand the recycling efforts of Enviros through the creation of a facilities operations position and by ending Styrofoam use on campus. Their well-researched plan for implementation of such programs at KU sets them apart from others.
To enhance representation and awareness of Senate, the candidates plan to create a telephone hot line for students' questions, suggestions and gripes. Publishing each week's Senate agenda in the Kansan is another viable idea. In answer to campus safety, they want to reinstate tipsy taxi.
In addition to more common issues, the coalition presents some fresh ideas: a spring festival to help unify students, suggestions to increase support for women's sports and ways to improve the student newspaper. Sanders and Fawcett talked not only to students about their new ideas, but to people directly involved, such as women athletes and University Printing Service employees, to determine an idea's feasibility.
Of course, not all their ideas can be directly implemented. But that is a strength of New Blood; they realize their limitations and the hard work ahead of them. Furthermore, while they understand the important functions of Senate, they are careful not to inflate their purpose or power; they don't take themselves too seriously. Sanders and Fawcett are open to criticism and suggestions without being irresolute. Such flexibility will be important when they are faced with senators from other coalitions.
Each coalition has strengths that would benefit students, so whoever is elected should take note of their competitors' ideas. The diversity of the coalitions shows that students have not given up on Senate's potential.
New Blood embodies this heartening attitude. With their insight into the aspects of Senate that work and their perception of those aspects that don't, Sanders and Faweett can make a difference. Senate needs the transfusion of ideas that their coalition offers.
The editorial board
Condom machines needed
The '80s are the safe sex decade. And now that the '90s are peeking around the corner, KU may be coming into the safe sex picture.
A reiterendum on the ballot along with Student Senate candidates tomorrow and Thursday will allow students to voice their opinions on whether condom machines should be installed on campus, and if so, where they should be installed. The options include locations such as Watson Library, Robinson Center, the Burge and Kansas unions and most living groups.
These would not be paid for with student activity fees. The machines would be stocked with merchandise paid for with consumer money. These consumers are KU students. Many students are sexually active. And while condoms may not be the definitive answer for combatting AIDS, they have been recommended by the surgeon general as a safe-sex measure. Any little bit helps.
Condoms already are available from Watkins, but condom machines placed in restrooms around campus would be a positive move toward encouraging safe sex. KU students are adults. Condom machines should neither shock them nor lurge them into sexual relationships. AIDS is a reality that students may face for the rest of their lives. Anything that might help prevent it should be encouraged.
Jill Jess for the editorial board
The editorials in this column are the opinion of the editorial board. The editorial board consists of Julie Adam, Karen Boring, Jeff Euston, James Farquhar, Cindy Harger, Jennifer Hinkle, Grace Hobson, Jill Jess, McKenrick and Mark Tillford.
News staff
Julie Adam...Editor
Jule Boring...Managing editor
Jill Jess...News editor
Dan Graver...Planning editor
Karen Fanquar...Editorial editor
Elaine Sung...Campus editor
Tom Stinson...Sports editor
Janine Swatikowski...Photo editor
Dave Eames...Graphics editor
Noel G尔德...Art features editor
Tom Elfman...General manager
Business staff
Debra Cole ... Business manager
Pamela Noe ... Retail sales manager
Kevin Martin ... Campus sales manager
Scott Frager ... National sales manager
Michelle Garland ... Promotions manager
Brad Lenhart ... Sales development manager
Linda Procter ... Production manager
Debra Martin ... Asst. production manager
Kim Coleman ... Co-op sales manager
Can Cressler ... Classified manager
Jennifer Dawson ... Sales and marketing
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Critics underrate Bush's progress
President's leadership tactics don't have to be abrasive to be effective
The word from Washington is that the new President is adrift, that his administration has no sense of direction, that it doesn't seem to be heading anywhere. This is the clearest sign that the nation's punditry, gathered in too solemn an assembly in Washington, New York and limited environs, finds itself rudderless and confused, and so describes its principal subject in those terms. The psychologists call it projection; there are less analytical and certainly less tactful words for it.
We are ten weeks into the Bush presidency and nothing sufficiently dramatic has occurred to arrest the ever-wandering attention of the pack journalists. Therefore, it's the Bush administration that is adrift. The certified pondnity must have missed these developments in the course of one typically "directionless" week of the Bush administration:
■ A bipartisan agreement was reached to pursue a single foreign policy regarding Nicaragua. That would be a refreshing change for a United States that has had at least two foreign policies for the past eight years, one each for Congress and the White House. The result was division, chaos and the Iran-contra affair, which is still spanned by multiple American nations. We discern the fine Republican hand of the New Secretary of State, James A. Baker III, behind this deal: The contrasts are to receive continued aid, which is to be called "humanitarian" out of deference to those aghast at any policy that actually opposes Communist expansion in this hemisphere. In turn, the administration has announced that it is not interested in dictating the political future of Nicaragua. Free electives on the U.S. side would better guarantee of free elections than a contra army just across the border in Honduras?
The return of bipartisanship is a good sign for this country too. To quote Maine's George McKenzie, "They know that it will be better."
Paul
Greenberg
Syndicated columnist
Ten weeks into the Bush presidency, and nothing sufficiently dramatic has occurred to arrest the ever-wandering attention of the pack journalists.
Senate, we should have learned by now that American foreign policy is not sustainable for long without a united public opinion behind it. Even the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, was present at this creation, oozing sanctity on behalf of a bipartisan foreign policy.
A highly successful first test of a missile-hunting satellite meant another step forward in this country's strategic defense program, also known as Star Wars. As the United States catches up with the Soviets in anti-missile warfare, Moscow is likely to grow even more interested in a treaty outlaw space weaponry. Remember that the deployment of American missiles in Europe moved the Soviets to withdraw theirs in an historic breakthrough for arms reduction — not just arms control. So Star Wars may lead to Star Peace. Nothing seems to impress us upon the Soviets for their discussions at the negotiating table like genuine American advances in weaponry
- The administration and this Democratic Congress are moving toward a reasonable compromise on raising the minimum wage, a proposition that makes it easier for companies to WikiHold is holding out (or a training wage that would allow employers to pay less than the minimum to unskilled workers —
instead of pricing them out of the market. The White House may yet find a way to satisfy the conflicting demands of advanced politics and elementary economics.
■ Improbable as it may seem, progress toward peace in the Middle East becomes probable as Secretary Baker, our own Metternich, cautiously advances some ideas that both Israelis and Palestinians agree are unacceptable, preparatory to accepting them, or at least moving closer to accepting one another.
All in all, not a bad week's work. Undramatic,
maybe, but effective. The two can go together in
paint.
Huey Long used to tell about two different types of political operatives: the screech owl and the scootch owl. The screech owl would come down on a hen house a screechni and a hollerin' in a swirl of midnight fuss and feathers and might even get himself a hen if the farmer didn't get his shotgun first. The scooch owl just would flutter softly into the hen house, settle down quietly and slowly scooth over against one hen, then another, then another . . . until there weren't any hens left. Undramatic, maybe, but effective.
The scootch-owl of a President whom Huey Long was describing at the time was Franklin D. Rosewell, he insisted on referring to as Frank. George Bush may prove to be a scootch owl, too. His man Jim Baker certainly belongs to that species.
For someone without a sense of direction, this President seems to know just where he's going: Toward a bipartisan foreign policy. Toward a kinder, gentler world. away from ideology, slogans and dramatic confrontation, and toward a more democratic that give both sides what the White Hope wants.
This President is adrift like a fox.
Paul Greenberg is a syndicated columnist who writes for the Pine Blow (Ark). Gazette.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed