4A the university daily kansan
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opinion
friday, december 5, 2003
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perspective
I am at the bus stop once again and the Jayhawk Express is still not here. I am not surprised. It probably is not going to show up.
I was just wondering why Enroll and Pay makes it so freaking hard to enroll and pay. You have to go through like 20 different things to pay your bill, and they wonder why everyone gets late fees.
perspective
People paying attention to just one issue that only affects them is a reason why this country is in the toilet. Everybody needs to take into account everything that a candidate does before they vote for them.
I never called into the Free For All in my life, but after reading Jonathan Sternberg's article on the opinion page I wanted to call in and say thanks for the laugh because that was trash.
letter to the editor
Columnist used Living Wage as excuse to attack liberals
Dear Arrah:
I read your latest column with great interest, as I do all your columns. I share your view about providing more than one side of the controversy about topics that the Kansan writers address.
You had the opportunity to say something constructively critical about the Living Wage campaign here in Lawrence, but instead you chose to present another angry commentary designed to discredit anyone who doesn't see things the way George Will, Jonah Goldberg, etal do.
What a shame. I think you have the ability to write an article on this topic that would be useful for Lawrence residents interested in the issue. Why you passed up the chance to learn about this complex, important, local issue and educate your readers with an original perspective is a mystery to me.
I have to say two things about your unfounded assertion that Living Wage advocates do what they do so they can persuade "stupid people" to vote "for the Democratic Party." Here in Lawrence elected city officials, some of whom support Living Wage while others don't, are non-partisan — they represent no political party. I know of no Living Wage campaign at the national level, but I could be wrong about that.
Second, you used the word "synopsis" incorrectly in your article. It's always rude to call other people stupid, but it's also risky when you write for a college newspaper and fail to use a common word properly.
Ray Pence graduate student American studies
sack's view
Steve Sack for KRT Campus
Empower those with little hope for their future by erasing universal human rights violations
Editor's note: This is a guest commentary by Laura Barr, who is studying abroad in Ireland this semester. She is a member of the University of Kansas chapter of Amnesty International.
Amnesty International is a non-governmental organization operating in more than 150 countries. The organization researches, catalogues and speaks out against human rights violations around the world. Earlier this month, I traveled to Brighton, Great Britain, to represent Ireland at the Amnesty International United Kingdom National Student Conference, along with two other University College Cork, Ireland, students and students from Trinity, Ireland, and Dublin Institute of Technology. We joined about 300 British students to address a number of Amnesty's current campaign topics.
When was the last time you actually got chills from the feeling that you were part of something so much bigger than yourself that you can't even wrap your mind or your heart around it? Seeing and hearing these lines sung together by Palestinians,
lence Against Women Campaign will launch next spring.)
Empowerment was a more personal issue at the conference. Student involvement and direction within Amnesty was made a priority for the first time this summer at the international summit held in Mexico, and that concern is coming into immediate effect. For example, one workshop involved a discussion of the possible directions Amnesty might pursue in the future, and the opinions expressed by students were relayed from there to the Amnesty International United Kingdom Board. Increased student membership and participation is being discussed for the board as well. I'm proud to count Amnesty among a very few organizations operating on an international level that truly give a voice to students, the sole future of their success.
Let's face it; all activists, including students, have busy lives outside of volunteering. It's difficult to balance human rights concerns with families, homework, jobs, religious obligations and all
British Americans, Italians and others in a documentary screened on Saturday was neither the first nor the last time during the Amnesty International United Kingdom National Student Conference weekend that I was moved to tears by that emotion.
the other trappings of our modern lives. It's easy to begin to deprioritize the work you're doing, despite a positive conviction of its importance. This is why conferences such as these are so valuable.
Amnesty has always been about empowerment: giving hope and a voice to those who might otherwise be overlooked. I truly felt the current of this sentiment running throughout the conference. One woman spoke about how Amnestygave strength and courage when she was a prisoner of conscience in the 1970s; another asked for our continued support in empowering her people to feel safe in their home in the Niger Delta through Amnesty's ongoing Control Arms campaign; yet others addressed the need to counter the consistent disempowerment of women throughout the world, from holding rapists and killers accountable for their violations in foreign lands to eradicating the subtle societal nuances that make violence against women in the home seem acceptable in our own nations. (Amnesty's End Vio-
From this conference, I took away new friendships, a variety of new experiences, a host of new information and even a new Amnesty T-shirt. But most of all, I took with me a renewed fervor for both the necessity of human rights for every citizen of our world and the belief in the work I do. They say it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. When was the last time you were on fire for a cause?
For more information about Amnesty International's current US campaigns, see www.aiUSA.org. For information on getting involved in Amnesty at KU, e-mail amnesty@ku.edu.
Laura Barr is a Chicago sophomore in philosophy.
perspective
Are marriage rights worth fighting for?
Between my natural parents, they have a combined total of six marriages and five divorces. It is no surprise, then, that I have serious doubts on the subjects of commitment and monogamy for life. I have had many relationships in my past that have unfortunately not worked out, but it's not like I blame my parents for the circumstances surrounding the break ups, they just happen in the process of dating.
Jayme A. Aschemeyer
opinion@kansan.com
This leads me to wonder why gay couples are so anxious to gain the right to get hitched. Sure, married couples enjoy benefits that are more for financial prosperity than anything else. But when it really comes down to the nitty-gritty of marriage, what is so great about it?
GUEST COMMENTARY
Two people can be committed to each other and not get married. Couples, or more specifically, the women and 'metrosexuals' (the new genre of heterosexual men that proudly display their feminine side) of the relationships, seem to be into the idea of marriage simply for the wedding ceremony and fabulous looking diamond rings. And of course there is always that handy record of documentation, the marriage license, which proves you went through with it.
Businesses, namely one-third of Fortune 500 companies, already provide same-sex partner benefits to
many employees. The bar definitely needs to be raised to other profitable companies, but this is a good step in the direction of sexual equality. These same standards should also be applied to hold title to community property, health insurance benefits and, later in life, Social Security benefits. These standards could all be changed without the need for marriage. But with the Massachusetts' highest court guaranteeing same-sex civil marriage as a right under the nation's oldest state constitution, it is inevitable that most likely in the future, gay men and lesbians will be able to marry.
The truth is they probably will enjoy the rights of divorce as well. More than 40 percent of first marriages in the United States end in divorce, according to columnist George Will.
Our society gasps as two men walk
As a straight, single female, it may be easy to say that marriage is for the folks from small towns and is meaningless. But even though marriage may seem meaningless to some, same-sex marriages should be treated with the same regard, and I do hope that it eventually will be. But I would also love to see the gay community rise above the conservatives and have lower divorce rates than the rest of the heterosexual public.
down the street holding hands, but breathes a sigh of relief when a fighting couple finally divorces. With more and more gays openly stating their sexuality, society will soon reject the disgrace of homosexuality as divorce was not long ago commonly coined a sin. The social stigma of divorce has dwindled but the ideal of marriage ironically continues to be upheld in reverence.
Same-sex marriage-hopefuls have nothing to worry about; they will get their chance at weddings, rings, and marriage before they know it. For now, they should enjoy the freedom of loving each other without the binding, sometimes insignificant, flimsy piece of paper, that the rest of the society still upholds as consecrated importance.
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Aschemeyer is a Aurora, Colo. senior in human biology and psychology.
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