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Thursday, November 4, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Gays in military issue should go to court
Congress is not currently prepared to debate the issue of gays in the military. At the start, the issue was clouded by misguided campaign
Issue was clouded by misguided campaign promises that have not been fulfilled. Since then, Congress has debated the issue and determined a policy. They have also debated more and reversed that policy. Currently, they are debating, no doubt preparing to reverse previous decisions and debate some more.
The problem comes in defining the constitutionality of a ban prohibiting gays in the military. Congress needs to stop trying to find a definition; their job is to create the policy based on the current definition. The definition should be left up to that body that is chosen to decide on such issues, the Supreme Court.
As with other moralistic and ethical cases in history, the Supreme Court should be given the topic upon which to decide constitutionality. With that decision, Clinton and Congress would be ready to decide the policy, which could then stand resolute with the backing of the Supreme Court.
The appropriate action for Congress to wait until the issue is sent to Supreme Court and stop wasting time and money drafting and reversing policies. It is now necessary to allow both bodies to do the jobs they were created to do.
DAVID BURGETT FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Raise grazing fees to cut subsidies for ranchers
raising grazing fees for Western ranchers on federal lands would be a step to eliminate the substantial subsidies they now receive.
A proposal in Congress, backed by President Clinton, would raise the fee ranchers pay to graze a cow and calf for a month from $1.86 to $3.45. The current rate is far below what ranchers would pay if they grazed their cattle on private lands. This means that the federal government is getting the short end of the deal, and ranchers receive a subsidy by being able to graze at such a low rate.
Opponents of the increase in grazing fees say that family-size operations would suffer under the new plan. Government surveys show that only 10 percent of the people who graze on federal lands control more than half of that land. This means that large corporations receive benefits that most companies cannot have.
Right now, the increase is being filibustered by Western senators and their allies. Last Thursday, supporters tried for a third time to kill the filibuster but failed. If this effort fails. it would not be the first time.
Increasing fees would bring in more revenue for the federal government and encourage those ranchers who use federal lands to be more competitive.
TOM GRELINGER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS ARE :
DAVID BURGETT, JR CLAIRBORNE, CHRISTINA CORNISH, CARSON ELROD, TOM GRELINGER, MANNY LOPEZ, COLLEEN McCAIN, TERRILYN MCORMICK, MUNEERA NASEER, NATHAN NASSIF, KIRK REDMOND, CHRIS REEDY, RANDALL REITZ, MIKE SILVERMAN, MARK SLAMIN, MICHELLE SMITH, EISHA TIERNEY, KC TRAUER AND DAVID WANEK
KANSAN STAFF
KC TRAUER, Editor
JOE HARDER, CHRISTINE LAUE Managing editors
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
Editors
Assistant to the editor  J.R. Clairborne
News  Stacy Friedman
Editorial  Terrilyn McCormick
Campus  Ben Grove
Sports  Kristi Fogler
Photo  Kip Chin, Renee Kneeer
Features  Ezra Wolfe
Graphics  John Paul Foal
AMY CASEY
Business manager
AMY STUMBO
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr ... Ed Schoger
Regional sales mgr ... Jennifer Perrier
National sales mgr ... Jennifer Evanson
Co-op sales mgr ... Blythe Footh
Production mgrs ... Jennifer Elowey
Kate Burgese
Marketing director ... Shelly McConnell
Sales manager ... Caroline Wittel
Cleared sellers mgr.. Gretchen Kottenkeldtch
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Wisconsin are encouraged to send their letters.
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Muppets, gay or not, shouldn't be part of the political agenda
and
By Da
Kansas
I'm sure you can understand my amazement when, while driving down the street, the news broke over the radio.
At first I thought my tiny-sounding AM radio had been infiltrated by alien space beings intent on wreaking havoc on American culture. But no. A little blurb syllabed inserted in last week's Pitch confirmed the story.
Bert and Ernie are not gay.
I immediately called a local PBS affiliate.
It seems that the saga of Bert and Ernie's questionable sexuality was first brought into question last summer by God knows who.
COLUMNIST.
The rumor mongers claimed that, well, the guys have been living alone for a long time, sharing (gasp) a bedroom. And well, two guys ... alone every night, know a girlfriend in sight. Yay, nary what I knew.
(These kids eventually learn the truth when they share a dorm room at
The statement issued by the Children's Television Workshop basically said that Bert and Ernie are not gay and have never been gay in any past episodes. They lived together to show children that people with differing opinions and habits can live together and be friends.
college with the all-night drummer who insists on burning strawberry incense.)
"The Children's Television Workshop was absolutely right to issue the statement," said a conservative friend. "Just think how all of us could have been subliminally affected if the two were gay, not to mention all the legal ramifications."
all. Why, when I think I may never have grandchildren because of them (sniff) ... I'm sure you agree that $1.5 million is a reasonable amount to ask for."
I polled friends on all sides of the political spectrum. I wanted to see how a homosexual Muppet would effect the cultural consciousness.
Picture, if you will, a mommy standing before a judge and jury, a little five- or six-year-old in tow.
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Not a pretty picture.
“Your honor,” she pleads, “I just knew there was something wrong with Johnny when he traded all his G.I. Joes for Malibu Barbies. Those two sexual deviants are the root of it.
My liberal friend painted a different scenario.
"How dare the Children's Television Workshop kowtow to those knee-jerk homophobes," he cried. "Bert and Ernie could have been the greatest role models for young gay America."
I thought I would check with a gay friend of mine.
"Big deal," he said. "They're Muppets. What about gays in the military?"
I thanked him for reminding me that there was at least one same person in this town. He hit the nail squarely on the head. Ernie and Bert have been, are, and will be for all eternity, Muppets. They are made from felt and various manmade fibers. Where human beings have genitalia, Muppets have a hole in which a puppetette inserts his hand in order to bring life to an otherwise inanimate object.
But I can't say that the Children's Television Workshop was wrong in issuing its statement. It was simply dealing with the politics of the matter.
And politics controls a great deal of the money it receives.
I can just imagine the Honorable Senator Jesse Helms testifying before the Senate Appropriations committee.
"Give money to a bunch of commie loving, left-wing radicals who are now trying to usurp God-fearing Americans by promoting a couple of sodomites as role models for children? I think not! In fact, I think this is a good time to pull the plug on the whole organization!"
Yeah, it could get rough. But thankfully PBS, the only channel honestly devoted to providing quality, educational television for children has been preserved, for a little while, at least.
With make-believe characters starring in more television programs every season, I wonder what will come up next. Maybe Actors' Equity will sue, since a two-dimensional character can't carry a union card. Or Barney will marry a 50-year-old divorce from Topека. Or somebody will claim that a couple of cartoons were responsible for the fires in southern California.
Val Huber is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism.
Double standard for students denies real world experiences
People all over this country have been clamoring for improvements in education.
We need more teachers. They need better pay. Students need to be motivated to learn. Our students need to catch up with those who are surpassing them.
My purpose in being in Washington, D.C. is to get "real world" experience. I am corresponding for two newspapers, which together reach more than 100,000 people every day. Yet I am treated like a second-class citizen once people discover I am a student.
I recently attended a news conference given by the National Education Goals Panel. It cited a dropout rate of 12 percent and a staggering adult literacy rate of about 50 percent. Members of the panel said that students' needs are not being met.
My friend and I wanted to attend President Clinton's "unveiling" of his health care plan, and when we called
I agree. Everywhere I go, I find a double standard of treatment for students.
Katie Greenwald Washington report
to see if we could get tickets, we were told to go to the House of Representatives press gallery to pick them up. When we got there, one of the staff members sneered at our temporary press passes.
It did not matter that my friend and I were working for newspapers that would have been interested in the story. We were not considered fullfledged members of the press because we were students.
"Oh, you're students," he said. "You'll have to come back at 8:30 p.m. to see if we have any seats left."
Last week, I wrote a story on the North American Free Trade Agreement for one of my newspapers. It was only then that I was allowed to meet and talk with the congressman
"I've already talked to a student at the Kansan for a column and that's enough," she said . "I just don't have the time."
For the Topeka Capital-Journal, I wrote a story last week on the abuses of the Pell grant program. I did so without the comment of KU's financial aid director. The directors for Kansas State University, Emporia State University and Washburn all agreed to speak with me. But Diane Del Buono refused, and she admitted that it was because I was a student.
from my paper's district. I continually had been put off all semester even when other members of Congress actually had given me the time of day. Believe me, I realize that senators and congresspersons are busy, but in this case, I suspect that my status as a student was part of the problem.
I even found prejudice at my own university.
Even when I tried to protest, she said she realized that I was working for a different paper, but it did not matter.
I made the mistake of admitting to her that I was a student. I do not deny that.
But if employees of the University refuse to talk to students, whatever the reason, what gives students the right to expect that they will be treated any differently when they are working as interns or completing professional projects in the real world?
The primary reason for any university's existence should be the students Vice President Al Gore recently said that students and their parents should be thought of as customers and schools as businesses.
In business, isn't the customer always right?
University officials who think that they don't have time to talk to students had better re-examine why they are at a learning institution. If employees have no interest in helping students, what are they doing at a university?
Katie Greenwaid is a Denver graduate
student in Journalism.
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Health care plan steals freedom from citizens
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The Clinton health care plan is a perfect example of what is most wrong with America today. It is perhaps the greatest single transfer of private responsibility to government in American history.
The plan gives the government the ability to tell businesses and individuals where they will obtain coverage. It takes money from private citizens and business owners and redistributes this wealth elsewhere.
The Clintons know their plan violates classic principles of freedom. Members of the House and Senate also know what national health care means.
The plan tells health care providers how much they may charge for various services. All the above measures clearly violate life, liberty and property.
Our University and our country should take a look at the values of individual freedom and responsibility that built the United States into an envised and respected power. The socialist dogma and twisted rhetoric
that supporters of the Clinton health care plan have spotted should be exposed as the destructive force that it is.
Joseph Suber
Topeka sophomore
E-mail communication should benefit all users
I am pleased to see e-mail addresses being published in the University Directory that came out recently. Electronic access facilitates communication and collegiate information-sharing. But apparently you have to be in administration or work at the computer center for your electronic address to be important enough to be published there. Why weren't the rest of us who are active on-line included? Who made this decision? The hierarchical implications go against the democratic, fair and open-access principles that are causing the exploding popularity of this medium for communicating in on-line academic communities. Ellen Kaler
Lawrence graduate student