Wednesday, February 14, 2001
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The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 5
Letters to the Editor Students should consider using city buses instead
In reading Wednesday's Kansan article concerning the crowded KU buses ("Packed Daisy Hill buses cause safety concerns"), I'm wondering why students can't catch the new city T bus that goes right through the campus to Daisy Hall. It would be worth the cost (50 cents) not to have to wait for their packed bus or not to be passed up by already full one. Now they can buy a $5 book of tickets for 10 rides, eliminating the task of finding the right change.
Carolyn Bailey Bemeking University Archives Librarian
Story about sign language fails to understand changes
The author (and the headline writer) of the article on changes to American Sign Language ("Revising sign language," Feb. 6) does not appear to have an understanding of the concept of political correctness. This lack of understanding does a disservice to the recent changes in sign language.
Politically correct language attempts to avoid offense by muddling language through the use of non-specific phrases. "Visually challenged" is a good example. The purpose of this ambiguous phrase was to avoid the word "blind" and therefore help blind people feel better. The lack of specificity confuses the issues.
My vision is 20/900. Am I visually challenged? Yes. Am I blind? No. In order for "visually challenged" to stand in for "blind" (a specific, descriptive word), we all have to agree that the former is the same as the latter.
The changes to sign language are in opposition to politically correct language. Instead of one sign to indicate both Japan and China, there are now two signs. This change provides accuracy, clarity and specificity. (The sign for China is the sign the Chinese use and now is in use in many forms of sign language.) I would add that the concepts of courtesy and respect towards other cultures and peoples existed before the political correctness movement, even if too few people took them to heart. Specificity and accuracy is what speakers, and writers, of any language should strive for.
David-Michael Allen Cheyenne, Wyo., graduate student
Student Senate should leave campus safety to the experts
In her column in Friday's Kansan ("University, not students, should bear cost of safety"), Jayme Ascheneyer, a student senator states that the University administration, not students, should have to pay for students' safety, and she criticizes Student Senate for approving the new Campus Safety Fee.
Although I agree with many of her points, there are a few other important points that Aschemever does not mention.
As she says, students have been paying a Campus Lighting Fee for nine years to put up lights and blue phones on campus. The new fee will continue this, but the fee's sponsors say it also may fund such absurd uses of student money as fire alarms, card scanners for entrance to residence halls, and "safety fact sheets." Perhaps the proposal I found most offensive was using student fees to put surveillance cameras in parking lots. Besides being the first step toward an Orwellian dystopia, this clearly could be paid for by the Parking Department or the Public Safety Office.
When I say it is ridiculous for "student fees" to be used to pay for safety, what do I mean? Every semester we pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $230 in fees, in addition to tuition. These fees are administered by Student Senate and pay for student services, such as the health center, recreation center, KJHK, the Kansan and Legal Services for Students. In my opinion, student fees are not intended to fund basic human needs such as safety.
I would like to echo Aschemeyer's criticism of Student Senate as well. In the past, Senate's primary role has been to allocate and oversee, through itself and its boards and committees, millions of dollars in student fee money each year. Senate's other functions include working to provide input on the campus, local, and state levels on all sorts of issues that pertain to students, as well as providing student and community services like the KU on Wheels bus system and the Center for Community Outreach.
Now Senate's role has been expanded to make it some sort of safety patrol. No longer content with advising where lights and blue phones should go, some student senators want to finance and oversee all aspects of campus safety. That should be left to the full-time administrators and officials in the University's Public Safety Office. Even if this new student fee could assure student safety on campus (it can't), I, as a senator, do not want Senate to get in the business of overseeing the safety of its constituents. We're not qualified to do it, and there are a lot of other important things we can do for students instead, things that don't already have University departments that oversee them.
Finally, I would like to say I was disgusted with the manner in which this fee was passed. The fee's sponsors convinced the Student Rights Committee that they or their friends would be raped if they did not vote for this bill (as if lights or cameras could stop rapes, which almost always occur inside residence halls).
The scare tactics were a success: One girl voted against the bill. And in the full Senate, during the roll call vote, senators seemed to forget they were voting on implementing a new campus fee that would effect all students for the next several years. In addition to the standard
"yeat" and "nay" votes, we have a dozen or so "sure, why not," I guess," "ah, who cares" and the like. I applaud Aschemeyer's willingness to speak out on this important issue, despite the overwhelming opposition she faces among fellow senators. I hope students, especially now that it is close to Senate election time, will pay close attention to issues such as this and let senators know how they feel.
J.D. Jenkins
Shawnee senior
Opponents of partial-birth abortion use scare tactics
John McCool's Thursday column ("Partial-birth abortion can happen") was offensive, ignorant and representative of the stereotypical male conservative point of view.
This "monstrous act of medical malpractice" is not the aggressive avenue of abortion choice McCool makes it out to be. It is not as if there are "motley" hordes of women running around begging physicians to use the procedure described through McCool's use of graphic, intimidating language.
In fact, this procedure is one that is very hesitantly used by the medical field, and a scapegoat at that, for the entire abortion issue. McCool infers this procedure is being used constantly, but this assertion makes no logical sense. The further along a woman is in her pregnancy, the more dangerous it becomes to remove the fetus as well as the more reluctant the medical field is for doing so — hence the fact that most abortions are performed only during the first trimester, and any abortions after that are to save the life of the mother.
Get a grip, McCool. Your snippy inaccurate "facts" are nothing more than scare tactics scraped off the anti-abortion smokescreen.
Came Gray
Portland Ore. senior
Laura Bush wasn't elected, shouldn't act as if she was
This letter is in response to Sheri Martin's column ("First Lady sends status of women back to 1950s." Thursday).
Ms. Martin, I read the article about Hillary Clinton you're referring to, and I agree: It was terrible. The author didn't present a single fact or worthwhile idea. But that was bad comedy; this is serious politics.
When you say that the writers of the Constitution were interested in "keeping the status quo," you're presenting the worst kind of revisionist history. If these white men were rich under the old system, why would they change it? Why would they throw out the existing monarchy for a popular democracy?
Many signers of the Declaration of Independence died at the hands of the British. Many others had their property totally
destroyed. And what's more, the Constitution had tremendous popular support when it was adopted. (In fact, most of the people who opposed it thought that it granted the government too much power!) Let's keep it straight: Socialism was a reaction against capitalism and not vice versa.
But the main point of Thursday's article was that Laura Bush should take a more active role in the presidency. The problem is, the people didn't vote for Laura; they voted for George. Laura didn't have to collect signatures, debate openly or win people's votes; she just married the guy who did. To say the first lady should have strong political power just because of her relationship to the president is a dangerous swipe at democracy. Put it this way: If a woman were elected president, would you expect her husband to swoop in, and usurp some of her power?
Ben Mohr
Colorado Springs, Colo., senior
Supreme Court commits errors; Roe v. Wade was one of them
I am writing in response to Clay McCusimion's column ("Abortion issue offers no new perspective," Monday). He mentions "even if one doesn't believe in abortion rights, the Supreme Court repeatedly has supported their existence." He goes on to say, "We can no longer assume that because something is legal and accepted by many that it will remain free from the brutal, excess attacks of others."
I'd like to remind Clay of a time when his champion of morality, the Supreme Court, had a firm stance on another issue that was "legal and accepted": the peculiar institution known as slavery. That 1857 decision, Dred Scott v. Sanford, denied citizenship to Blacks; thankfully, the 14th Amendment corrected the Court's mistake. Again, in 1866, the Supreme Court ruled "separate but equal" racial segregation was "legal and accepted." As we all know, they reversed their grievous wrong with a 1964 case from our very own Kansas, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. For 58 years, the Supreme Court stood behind this ruling, despite resistance from civil rights groups that gave rise to the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sorry, Clay, but I just can't say that King was guilty of brutal and excessive attacks on something as "acceptable" as racial discrimination.
We challenge these issues because we believe the law is not always right. And as I've shown, the Supreme Court's "law" has often been wrong; *Roe v. Wade* is only the most recent case in a history of legal misinterpretation.
We would be one step closer toward fixing the problem if former President Clinton hadn't twice vetoed a bill banning partial birth abortions — a bill that passed 99-1 in the Senate. I guess it just goes to show that one man and nine judges acting with the highest authority in the land still can't tell right from wrong.
Enc Buschelman
Edmond, Okla., sophomore
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| | Sat & Sun | Daily |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1 What Women Want⁽²⁾ | (1:50) | 7:35, 9:35 |
| 2 Miss Congeniality⁽²⁾ | (1:50) | 4:35, 7:65, 9:35 |
| 3 13 Days⁽²⁾ | (1:50) | 4:40, 8:00 |
| 4 The Emperor's New Grace⁽²⁾ | (2:00) | 4:45 |
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American Pimp documents the phenomenon of the black urban pimp.From 70's blaxploitation icon to modern day hustier, a series of pimps are analyzed interviewed,and deiceted.Their histories, habits, and practices are all caught on camera providing rare access to this dangerous unstable industry.
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