THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2006
WWW.KANSAN.COM
OUR OPINION
Transportation funds need second thought
The Park-and-Ride lot at 23rd and Iowa streets has one advantage over the old lot. It has a free bus system.
To alleviate some of the costs of the new lot and buses, the Parking Department got federal money to pay for 80 percent of the buses. But that money came with a catch: The buses must be free.
So park and riders don't have to worry about paying for a bus pass for KU on Wheels. But wait, they're still getting a bus pass.
These are students that do not need a pass. They don't take the bus to school. They use the Park and Ride. They don't need buses to get around town. They have a car they can use, which they drive to get to school.
That's right, included in the $205 for a Park and Ride pass is a KU on Wheels bus pass.
They don't need buses to get to class. They have a free bus ride from their lot on West Campus that drops them off a short distance from every building on campus
So why is the Parking Department still giving students and making students pay for a bus pass?
The new lot is being paid for, at least in part, by all students, faculty and staff who pay to park on campus. Permits are getting a $20 increase to provide funds for the new lot and the Universi-
issue: The new Park and Ride lot
Stance: Including a bus pass in the price is wasteful. The money should be spent on the lot.
tv's share of the buses.
Adding new buses will save KU on Wheels from taking the Park-and-Ride students on its buses.
Those buses won't be taking the students who use KU on Wheels to get from the Park and-Ride lot now.
So, money that those students paid for bus passes — and is no longer necessary because of the free buses — should go exclusively to pay for the new lot.
Don't change the costs, don't give Park-and-Ride students a bus pass, just take the money that would have paid for busing and use it to pay for parking.
Park-and-Ride only directly benefits students who drive to campus and are willing to park in West Campus.
Let's try to keep from making all parkers pay for that service. And let's not give Park-and-Ride students a bus pass they don't need and won't use.
John Jordan for the editorial board
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PAGE 5A
So you know that puppy that was killed in that house fire not too long ago? I heard that it was ignited by a certain coalition on campus. Who could it be? Ignite!
Bud Light tastes so much better than a boyfriend.
Today I watched a pirate make three double plays. A pirate. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen.
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I voted for Peter Griffin.
What do the last four years have in common? Delta Force lost every one.
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Free-for-All, procrastinating gives you time for every thing else.
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I just saw a guy run a red light at 11th and Tennessee, just because he was too lazy or busy to wait for 30 seconds for it to turn. That's ridiculous.
GOOD COP/BAD COP
To the person who wrote "Go Yankees," you deserve to be drawn and quartered.
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fans.
Abortion was the best medical experience of my ...
I have just identified why I hate the St. Louis Cardinals: It's solely because of their
To whoever has our George Washington sign, let's just say a Hooters girl lives in the house and she'll also be in the Playboy Big 12 spread. I think that's reward
enough
Ah KU in the springtime. Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming and lots and lots of girls are wearing bathing suits playing sand volleyball. Makes me happy.
The girls at the smoothie place today had no idea what they were doing. My berry breeze was carnation pink. Carnation pink! Worst $4 I've ever spent in my life.
图
No, seriously, the guy who works at the smoothie place in the union needs to call in the Free-for-All and leaves his name. Hey UDK, can you do an editor's note for that?
Crap. I'm so mad about the smoothie that my ear started bleeding.
You know, I have a perfect answer for abortion. You ready for this? Stop. Having. Sex.
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All a woman really wants is a man that does Sudoku.
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What's his name?
(Editor's note: I'm sorry
Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.)
Seniors should give gift of tradition to those remaining
COMMENTARY
It's been a long ride, baby.
It's been a long time, baby. I'll never forget attempting to walk from GSP to Lewis Hall on move-in day in the sweltering August heat and getting lost at 17th and Louisiana. Don't ask why or how, but I was on the corner of a dead end, near tears when my friend's dad came to pick me up.
Welcome to KU, I thought. Cran, this isn't a good sign.
The past nine months have been a year of firsts and a year of lasts. It's the first time I'm going to walk down the hill at Commencement, and one of my final experiences being in Memorial Stadium. My first time not stressing out picking classes for the fall and my last move out of my sorority house.
In a way, I long for the 19-year-old emotional basketcase dropped off at GSP four years ago. I knew that year would be trying. I was excited to start college, but that was heavily overshadowed by my parents' moving 1,700 miles away.
As I prepare myself to leave everything I have known and loved for the past four years, there is something that needs to be instilled in returning students: Tradition.
I still get chills when I see the video before football games and get weak in the knees watching the video in Allen Fieldhouse when they play the historic recap on the scoreboard. It is one of those things you can't quite put your finger on, but it's a mixture of the illumination of great player's names, the beat of the music and the game highlights I can't get out of my head.
LINDSEY GOLD
opinion@kansan.com
presman, sophomores and juniors, there is something you need to realize during the rest of your time at the University of Kansas. This is not high school; no one cares how big your house is or if your parents are doctors or lawyers. It's not a matter of family pride or relishing if you came from Johnson or Wyandotte County. As soon as you make the decision to attend KU, you join the Jayhawk nation and everything that encompasses it.
The University is about convocation, basketball games and homecoming. It's about buildings that have a story, the Campanile (and the hundreds of ways that people mispronounce it) and the Chi Omega fountain. Most importantly, it is bigger than the students who are here now, who carry an important responsibility to uphold the traditions. Know that the things that you are doing are not trivial nor a waste of time, but the reflection of 134 years of history.
While neat events are spread throughout the academic year, one of my favorites was Traditions Night, held every August as part of Hawk Week, in Memorial Stadium. Two freshmen are selected every year to be passed to a torch, a
practice that symbolizes the passing of knowledge. Sometimes these students are Jayhawks through multiple generations, and others they the first in their family to go to college. There are speakers and members of the administration and Student Senate who welcome you to the University and all of that formal bureaucratic stuff.
Chancellor Hemenway's words at that event, my freshman year in 2002, have always stuck with me. He told us to look around and of the 2,500 in attendance, a little less than half would graduate. I was amazed by this and immediately wondered who would not be here with me in 2006. It is not until now that I realize how this event really comes full circle: I attended Traditions Night my freshman year, and I will end my years here with graduation in the stadium.
All I ask is take the time to learn about the campus you walk on every day. Hear the stories about haunted areas and architects who committed suicide off of a building because it was built backwards. Become your own mythbuster and dedicate yourself to discovering if these rumors are true.
When I walk down the Hill in May, there will be a lot of memories circling in my head. But there will be one thing I won't forget long after my time as a Jayhawk has ended: The traditions that come with bleeding crimson and blue.
Gold is an Overland Park senior in journalism and political science.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Catholic unity should be praised
Richard Martinez, I am very sorry for the obviously poor experience you have had with the Catholic Church thus far. I know that, unfortunately, you are not alone in your opinions.
It saddens me, because you are missing out on the many, many joys that so many of us have as members of the Church. We are not mindless machines just waiting for the next command. We are strongly individualistic with our own opinions and issues. What we share is a beautiful, common faith.
population — more than 1 billion people — is Catholic. It is the largest Christian church in the world. There is only one Catholic Church. I couldn't even begin to count the number of non-Catholic churches out there who have done exactly what you prescribe for Catholics: Interpreted the Bible for themselves. It doesn't seem to have given them much unity. We have unity because we have shepherds to guide us: The Pope, bishops and priests.
One-sixth of the world's
I invite you to get to know the priests at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center. You might begin to understand why more than 20 adults -mostly students
— were baptized, confirmed or both at the Center's Easter Vigil on Saturday night. You might begin to understand the true joy and peace that so many of us have in our lives.
St. Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in the Lord. I invite you to find peace in your heart.
Micah Shilling Ozark,Mo.,graduate student
Students lose basics to comply with Act
RYAN SCARROW
opinion@kansan.com
COMMENTARY
I am an unabashed fan of the liberal arts, all of them, as well as the other various professions taught on this campus.
In fact it is this love of all that is interdisciplinary that has prevented me from pursuing a graduate degree for the time being— those programs are so specific!
So, normally I would not be holding up any one field as more important than any other, but with only a few weeks left here at the University, I must say it once and for all: If we as a society don't make the teaching of history more of a priority, then the Republic will fall into tatters.
If you want apologies for being so apocalyptic then you will be disappointed.
As George Santayana once wrote, "A country without memory is a country of madmen."
History is the absolute life-
blood of a democratic republic;
It is a record of where we've
been, that we may chart where
to go next.
History is more than just dates of events and statues of generals. It is the tapestry onto which we see the ideals and pitfalls of human beings striving for justice or greed.
But our history is in peril in a time when it is needed most.
A front-page story in the New York Times of a few weeks ago stated that many schools across the nation are cutting back on subjects — history as well as arts and sciences — in response to the emphasis of the No Child Left Behind act on testing proficiency in reading and math.
While no one doubts that students must read and calculate, does anyone believe that those students will then be able to fully participate in society?
We have allowed our schools to become factories for creating consumers, not citizens; for training workers, not producers; for teaching the basics, without a thirst for anything more.
Through history, those factory walls come down, exposing each of us to a world greater than ourselves, but within us at the same time.
The analytical tools and mindset of history are useful in every profession. My decision to go into journalism and publishing, not just my love of Civil War battlefields, led me to the history department.
Thomas Carlyle wrote that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." He should've left a word out of there to make it more accurate: 'great'.
It's a big world out there, and there are plenty of stories to tell. So read a book, and start writing your own.
Scarrow is a Humbolt senior in history.
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