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Monday, October 25,1993
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Super collider project justifiably thwarted
The decision by supporters of the superconducting super collider to withdraw support for the project is welcome news for advocates of reducing the federal budget deficit.
For a project whose cost overruns and behind-schedule work are legendary, the super collider was originally supposed to be built at a cost of $4 billion. In the years since the original proposal, foreign contributors pulled back their support, and the total cost was estimated to reach $13 billion.
It was time for supporters like Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Sen. John Breaux, D-La., to admit that killing the biggest slice of pork would bring more benefits than any scientific gains resulting from constructing the super collider.
Perhaps the scientific knowledge gained from smashing protons together at nearly the speed of light would outweigh the project's costs. However, in an era of $300 billion deficits, the decision to kill the project is praiseworthy.
The House of Representatives should demonstrate that this deficit-cutting measure will not be the exception but rather the rule in eliminating wasteful projects.
TOM GRELINGER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Grounds Award honors facilities operations
Congratulations to facilities operations for winning a 82nd annual Professional Grounds Maintenance Award. The University of Kansas placed second out of 600 schools and was the only Big Eight school chosen for the award. Although our campus is known for its beauty, it is easy to take for granted the hard work necessary to maintain its attractiveness.
This award gives the much deserved recognition to the individuals who work to maintain and improve the appearance of our University. Although this is the first time the University has been chosen for this award, we are certain that the University will have more opportunities to be honored for the beauty of its campus.
RANDALL REITZ FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Clinton's policy balance wobbling
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
In response to critics last summer, that President Clinton had lost his "focus" by trying to accomplish too much at once, aides said he would have a "three-legged stool" approach to issues when Congress reconvened.
Now well into the session, that stool has sprouted more legs than a spider, with Somalia and Haiti wiggling most.
The three "legs" were: health care, reorganizing government and dropping North American trade barriers.
Clinton now is talking about crime control, health care, and trade agreements under the theme of "security."
But, unfortunately, those wiry Somalia and Haiti legs keep popping out, knocking Clinton off balance and blurring the "focus."
Clinton was breezing along quite nicely on international diplomacy auto pilot when the Oct. 3 firefight in Somalia and "the photo" of a dead American being dragged
That was enough to make Congress hum like a hornets nest, with outraged congressmen buzzing to pull out.
Clinton came running, sending troops to back up our forces over there, but then Haiti flared up.
The plan had been agreed to in July that we would send in peaceful carpenters and such to help rebuild democracy.
But what happened?
Armed thugs showed up at the dock instead, forcing our peaceful non-combatants not to land.
There are those pesky foreign policy legs again.
No president can escape international events. But, unless he can get Congress to go along with his domestic initiatives, he will be seen as failing both domestically and on the international front. That would flatten his stool.
THE CLARION-LEDGER JACKSON MISS
JACKSON, MISS.
KANSAN STAFF
KC TRAUER, Editor
JOE HARDER, CHRISTINE LAUE
Managing editors
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
AMY CASEY
AMY CASEY Business manager
Editors
Assistant to the editor ... J.R. Cialborne
News ... Stacy Friedman
Editorial ... Terrilyn McCormick
Campus ... Ben Grove
Sports ... Kristi Fogler
Photo ... Kip Chin, Renes Kneeber
Features ... Ezra Wolfe
Graphics ... John Paul Fogel
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
AMI STUMBO Retail sales manager
Editors
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
TEAMNES THRESO
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr ... Ed Schager
Regional Sales mgr ... Jennifer Perrier
National sales mgr ... Jennifer Evenson
Co-op sales mgr ... Blythe Focht
Production mgrs ... Jennifer Blowey
... Kate Burgess
Marketing director ... Shelly McConnell
Creative director ... Brian Fusco
Classified mgr .. Gretchen Kootterleinrich
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Governmental issues lead list of bad topics
Health-care reform, NAFTA, "Reinventing Government" — these are issues that deeply concern you in the sense that if you read one more word about them, you are going to poke. Nevertheless, we intend to address them today because we are a professional news commentators, and we feel that it is our responsibility, from time to time, to refer to ourselves in the plural.
HEALTH CARE REFORM
This is an important issue because many Americans are not receiving adequate health care. We certainly are not. We haven't been to our doctor's office in several years. Don't use wrong. We love our doctor, whose name is Curt. He sits right behind us at Miami Heat basketball games, and we're deeply impressed his observations, such as: "He's a BUM!" And: "This guy is a BUM!"
But the last time we went to Curt's office, he suddenly, without warning, put on a rubber glove and did something to us that we cannot discuss in the newspaper except to say that it gave us a deeper understanding of what it must feel like to be a Thanksgiving turkey. And THEN he made us take a "stress test" wherein we had to run on a treadmill with wires attached to our skin and radioactive chemicals flowing through our body. So now we're afraid to go to Curt's office because we don't know WHAT he might do to us next.
Thus our only option, if we developed a serious medical problem, would be to do what millions of other Americans must do: go to a Miami Heat basketball game. Our plan would be to get Curt's attention by dropping subtle hints. "Hi, Curl! By the way, we have a large lesion!"
But this is not a long-term solution. For one thing, it doesn't work during baseball season. What we need is
health-care reform that would require doctors to return to the old type of physical examination wherein they don't actually touch you but instead just ask questions, to which the correct answer is always "no." ("Have you ever had the plague? Navel discharges? Eyeball worms? Any trampoline-transmitted diseases?") Also, just to make sure, doctors would be required to wear a restraining device. This would make all Americans feel more comfortable about medical care and free them to think about the important issue of NAFTA.
So the administration has a bold reform program under which the government would take such radical steps as — get ready — REQUIRING FEDERAL AGENCIES TO ANSWER THEIR TELEPHONES. Of course this would require intensive employee retraining programs ("OK, you hear that sound? We call that 'ringing'"). Also, there would be some health risk to the thousands of elderly people who dialed the Social Security administration as far back as 1975 and have been hanging on the line ever since. Fortunately for them, we will soon have health-care reform, so they can all be treated, regardless of income level, at the basketball game of their choice.
"NAFTA" an antonym for "North Atlantic Treaty Organization." This agreement, hammered out by the United States, Canada, Mexico and Belgium, would enable the nations to trade freely with one another. For example, the United States could trade North Dakota, Kansas and a state to be named later to Canada in exchange for Toronto and Montreal; many economists believe that this would create jobs in the moving industry and guarantee that Canada would never again win the World Series.
Leading the support for NAFTA is President Clinton, who favors it because it is a humongously boring government thing that only he understands. Leading the opposition is "H" Ros Perot, the feisty, popular, plain-spoken maverick billionaire space
alien, who believes that the real purpose of NAFTA is—and he can prove this with charts—to disrupt his daughter's wedding.
Which side will prevail? That is a question that remains to be answered, unless it already WAS answered, and we missed it. We frankly haven't been paying much attention to NAFTA because we're so excited about
REINVENTING GOVERNMENT.
This is a brainstorm from Vice President Al "Mojo" Gore, who, while carrying out his vice-presidential duties as stated in the Constitution ("The vice president shall wear a nice suit") noticed that the federal government, in performing its many functions, demonstrates the collective brain-power of a sponge. (Gore failed to notice this during his 15 years in the House and Senate; he was busy passing laws giving the government new functions to perform.)
"It's ridiculous," he pointed out. "The agencies should just steal them from motels, like everybody else."
Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist with the Miami Herald.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Students require more than toleration alone
I applaud the University's attempt in addressing "centuries-old beliefs, prejudices and stereotypes,"—phrasing used by KU officials in their response to the efforts of a task force to study gays, lesbians and bisexuals. I object, however, to the repeated use of the phrase "making people more tolerant" when referring to the goal of the task force.
I cannot speak for the task force, I have to have believe that their primary purpose was to address a long-standing resistance by not just college students, but all people as they view and listen to concerns
of gays, lesbians and bisexuals. We do not ask to be "tolerated." We simply ask that we can exist in an environment in which we can safely affirm who we are. We desire not tolerance, but acceptance as integral members of the community.
Kristen Piper
Kristen Piper Lawrence graduate student
GUEST COLUMNIST
JAY JACKSON Group wants an apology for racism in column
This column is a response to Lance Hamby's column "American-Indian protests about Columbus are not based on facts."
Kansas University's Native American Student Association (NASA) is outraged by the racist overtones of this staff columnist and the Kansan for allowing this type of material to be published. NASA membership consists of people from all over the country and world, not just American Indians.
Membership is open to anyone regardless of race, color or creed and in Hamby's case, extreme ignorance and a severe lack of respect for people different from himself. We invite you and all the Kansan staff to attend our weekly meetings and attempt to gain knowledge of a way of life that has persisted for centuries regardless of contact with outside influences.
Hamby's remark "the students of Haskell continue to demonstrate their ignorance of history and the natural progress of man" is a derogatory statement, and you cannot call a group of people ignorant because you did not experience the same historical, cultural and spiritual world view.
The "Walk of Nations: 501 Years of Perseverance" was coordinated by the NASA organization of the University of Kansas. If you would take a look in the "New World Dictionary," the word "perseverance" has a positive connotation of "continuing to do something in spite of difficulties or obstacles."
This walk was to commemorate and provide awareness to the Lawrence and KU communities that the American Indian is still here in spite of the efforts to eradicate and exterminate our cultures, languages and spirituality throughout the Western Hemisphere.
It was not a "protest" as was falsely stated in Hamby's column. The walk was conducted in a spiritual manner to bring all people of the four directions (Black, Red, Yellow and White) together in prayer, humility, dignity and to acknowledge that we are all related "Mitakaua Oyasin."
In closing, the NASA organization sincerely feels that the Kansan has an obligation and responsibility to assist in the elimination of racism, bigotry and ignorance of other cultures and people in this University's community, not just American Indians. Racism cannot be tolerated in any shape or form, whether blanton or subtle.
We are demanding a written apology in the Kansan from this staff columnist. Not only was the American Indian student population of KU offended, this columnist has succeeded in offending and denigrating the histories and cultures of over 150 separate Indian nations represented at Haskell Indian Nations University and the University of Kansas and throughout the United States and Canada. He has also offended the non-Indian population who are culturally aware and have a sincere respect for people regardless of differences.
Jay Jackson is the president of the KU Native American Student Association.
University of Mars
by Joel Francke
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