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Monday, March 6, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Handing out condoms just a waste of student money
Condoms on Campus, part two, take one.
For the second year in a row, the Student Senate Finance Committee has proposed distributing to students condoms and information about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. If the bill is passed, $3,330.75 would be allocated to pay for 10,000 condoms, as well as pamphlets, buttons and advertising.
Supporters of the bill no doubt have good intentions in mind. And if some students think that Watkins Memorial Health Center needs help distributing information about AIDS, then the campus needs facts, not gimmicks.
the camps needs ricks, but the garrisons Gimmicks such as the proposed distribution of 10,000 condoms are not ways to solve real problems. Students who want or need condoms but don't use them aren't going to have their eyes opened to the dangers of AIDS by receiving one condom on Wescoe Beach.
And many students who approach the table in the middle of campus to pick up a condom won't take the message seriously. The same thing that happened regarding condoms distributed last year will happen again this year. Condoms will be props for every practical joke imaginable.
People who have enough intelligence to be admitted to a state university also should be smart enough to know how to avoid AIDS. If the Student Senate is concerned about whether KU students know about AIDS prevention, then providing more information on campus is a valid way to get the point across. But Watkins already has condoms and information about such diseases and distributes them regularly.
Last year when the Senate handed out one condom, it was a gummick that was supposed to draw attention to the need for protection. A repeat performance would only draw attention to wasted student money.
Julie Adam for the editorial board
Bush needs to get to work
George Bush's honeymoon period is slowly slipping away, and he has little to show for it.
Now, almost four months after the election and six weeks after the inauguration, the President's initiatives are lagging because of his failure to put key personnel in place.
At the end of February, Bush had sent the Senate only 24 nominees, excluding routine foreign and armed-services appointments. That's less than half as many as Ronald Reagan submitted between Inauguration Day and the end of February 1980.
Eleven of Bush's nominees have been confirmed, but 12, including four designated cabinet secretaries, are still pending Reagan's full cabinet, in contrast, was confirmed about two weeks after he took office.
Bush is not taking advantage of his opportunity as a newly elected president to set an agenda on a wide range of policies The effects of Bush's delays are being felt throughout the administration. Through February:
a Bush appointee had yet to take office at the Department of Health and Human Services. The confirmation process of Louis Sullivan as HIS Secretary has been held up because of Sullivan's views on abortion and his financial arrangements with the medical school he heads. The lack of leadership has resulted in the appointment of several persons to low-level HHS posts with little experience in the field. Also, Bush's priorities, such as an infant health care proposal, are still adrift.
at the Treasury Department, no subcabinet officials had cleared Congress. Bush nominated two key undersecretaries, but only three of nine assistant secretaries have been chosen. leaving Secretary Nicholas Brady, appointed four months ago to do detail work.
- Bush had not submitted to Congress any nominees for high-level State Department positions. In the meantime, the department moves forward with foreign policy reviews on several important issues, such as U.S.-Soviet relations and the Central American peace plan.
- at the Pentagon, the drawn-out fight over the confirmation of John Tower as Secretary of Defense has postponed decisions on critical issues such as budget cuts and completion of a feasibility report on the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Unless Bush starts to move quickly, Congress will dictate the policy-making process. Bush has had eight years of experience in the executive branch. He ought to start providing the bureaucracy with leadership.
Jeff Euston for the editorial board
News staff
Julie Adam...Editor
Karen Boring...Managing editor
Jill Jess...News editor
Deb Gruver...Planning editor
James Farquhar...Editorial editor
Elaine Sung...Campus editor
Tom Stinson...Sports editor
Jian Swalikowski...Photo editor
Drew Eames...Graphics editor
Noel Gerdes...Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Debra Cole...Business manager
Pam Noe...Retail sales manager
Michelle Martin...Campus sales manager
Scott Frager...National sales manager
Kevin Garland...Promotions manager
Brad Lenhart...Marketing manager
Linda Proppo..Production manager
Derek Martin...Asst. production manager
Kim Coleman...Co-op sales manager
Curt Griese...Glassware
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Cuts are not random
How is debating hours on every significant issue "random"? Failure to cite reasons doesn't mean there weren't any.
Only one of two rounds of consideration are over — all subject to the full Senate's scrutiny. Nobody "got" anything, yet. There are too many requests for too little money.
When charging favoritism and political maneuvering, try to be plausible. Self-serving politicians don't cut their own ears when other risk controversy and quiet cut accounts you don't know about.
Cutting our excellent forensics program might be a rules misinterpretation — but no sinister plot. BSU admirably serves the university community. Cuts recommended were service duplications and off-campus conference registration fees of $55 each for 50 people
registration fees to $35,000.
The Kansan was "in the red" a few years ago but adamily recovered, generating $225,000 surplus — over twice its two-year allocation. Is it appropriate to provide a surplus and risk the very existence of other services?
I found it ridiculous to read a column from a so-called black American looking for his identity this century (Mark McCormick, Feb. 21). He should be smarter by now.
The watchdog function, keeping government accountable, requires an autonomous, objective press. The greatest test of objectivity is self-comment. The Kansan failed. Like swine at the trough, when the farmer feeds the weakest, the biggest squeal.
First of all, this is the United States, and secondly, he is a human being. Nothing else makes sense to me. The idea of looking for an identity suggests an inferiority complex.
Bill Haldeam
Finance committee member
and Olathe freshman
when you can't use the leaking pool or unsafe courts and fields, and they can't afford to keep recreational facilities open because these problems waited while the Kansan feathered its nest with the money - no doubt the paper will highhandedly blame us.
The problem that perforts me most about black Americans is the low esteem and self-denial of potential ability due to institutional neglect. My perception is, pejoratively, subconscious hurting our thinking.
My general research on black has given the color excellence. If the columnist has distorted
If the columnist is as learned as he is supposed to be, he would not have had the slightest thought of looking for identity. He forgot that those who achieve excellence and become the greatest within time make the rules concerning identity.
Looking for identity
information, he will not think clearly. Africa is not only where dark-skinned live. The Middle East and Asia also have black-skinned races. Black Africa's environment included great philosophy, wisdom and spirituality, in it being ignored. The Western world consequently took advantage of it.
The dexterous application of "black" to the Oct. 19, 1987, stock market crash was an indirect result of the mentality of those like the columnist.
As a color, black has not scientifically been proven to be a bad color, but rather to be something of great quality, richness and mystery.
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, graduate student
**Hex Nat. B. A**
**Chemistry**
A bad example
I read Michelle Logan's article "Tenants want out of contract" in the Feb. 22 issue. According to the article, Charles Himmelberg, chairman of the department of mathematics, is the owner of a house in which KU students live. This house has "five burst water pipes, four major gas pipe leaks, a substandard electrical system," and it may be condemned.
This is not the first time that an instructor at KU has provided what I believe is inadequate housing to the very students he is supposed to serve. Such instructors are an unfortunate example of the caliber of instructor and department chairmen who are appointed to task in opposition, it seems that it their intent to rip off and exploit students, not to serve them and to enhance their lives at KU.
Jon Gregor Leavenworth senior
It is appalling that the University hires instructors of this ilk to teach at this institution. If such instructors take pride in the jobs and consider pertinent actions, there is no excuse for such actions. There is more to doing than simply adding up in a classroom.
Stereotypical menu
I was slapped in the face this week by surrounding ignorance. On Feb. 22, Lewis Hall had a "Black American" dinner, supposedly to commemorate February as Black History Month. However, I failed to see the honor in it. The menu consisted of various items, including barbecued ribs, collard greens, sweet potato pie, black-eyed peas, corn bread and watermelon. These foods have been stereotypical jokes about black Americans for as long as I can remember. This University should be a place of learning, a place where we let go of these tactless stereotypes that prevent us from becoming truly educated.
Rachel S. Roth Dallas sophomore
Semiautomatic hunting
The March 1 editorial "Bush incorrect about guns" asserts that "semiautomatic weapons are not hunting rifles. Their sole purpose is to kill people, not animals." That is incorrect. Not all semiautomatic weapons are assault rifles.
The article further concludes that "semi-automatic weapons serve no purpose except to steal the lives of innocent people." That "logic" carried to the freedom of speech would say, "The First Amendment serves no purpose except to encourage people to libel."
except to enclose it.
I have always believed that an object cannot determine its use. With that in mind, I would like to invite the editorial staff members to an afternoon at the rifle club where I am a member. The trip would give them the opper-
tunity to fire 22-caliber and 12 gauge semi-automatic weapons. The only things the editorial staff should bring are safety glasses and an open mind. From the tone of the editorial, the latter should be hard to find.
Matt Mailliar
Overland Park freshman
Disenchantment
In response to Christopher Wilson's supply-side analysis of our nation's "drug problem" (March 1 Kansan), we pose the following question: Why do American conservatives insist on viewing alcohol abuse in the Soviet union as an act of war? Why are a relapse in Russian values and society while adamantly rejecting the validity of such an analysis as applied to the United States?
According to Wilson and his lik, we are suffering from an epidemic of drug abuse which is "destroying the foundation of our country". Perhaps this epidemic signals disenfranchising or social society as such, because the problem perturbs the leading nations of East and West.
Scott A. Gusner
Second-year law student
Eric Milstead
Second-year law student
No military solution
As an U.S. Army infantry officer and an ex-company commander of a highly deployable unit, I strongly disagree with Christopher Wilson (March 1 Kusanai in the military) the military is a “key piece in solving the complex illegal drug puzzle.” That view is very mute.
The drug problem would not be solved by sealing off our borders or launching punitive raids into sovereign nations of Central and South America. The problem rests with those who are tolerant of drugs in any way. Until the demand is eliminated, drugs will be manufactured in illegal chemical laboratories and grown in greenhouses within the United States. Only recently people started to speak out against drug abuse, demanding sanctions against those who use or sell drugs. However, the casual drug users are the main impediment blocking progress on the issue. How often can one read in the newspaper about some groups refusing to undergo drug testing as an alleged violation of their civil rights? Those weak and self-indulgent individuals are against tougher enforcement and increased drug testing. They look to someone else as the real problem.
There are additional arguments against using the military as a weapon in the drug war. We could easily deploy the 82nd Airborne Division into Columbia to shoot up the bad-guy drug kingpins, burn the dope and return home. And what does that change? The peasant who grows the stuff forfeits his cash crop, the kingpins move somewhere else, the United States loses the global public relations contest to Gorbachev and the demand for drugs is still there. Let's be tough on ourselves before we blame others.
Timothy C. Shea Lawrence graduate student
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed