4A
Friday, February 9, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
What if a few stipulations, such as requiring students to attain a minimum grade point average of 2.0, a composite ACT score of 23, or rank in the top one-third of their high school class, were added to the fine print of the KU admissions application? Would this nudge lazy students to take part in the preparation process? If so, it could cushion the blow for a freshman adjusting to college.
Proposed admissions policy might motivate students
The in-state high school graduates who viewed their diplomas as surfboards on which to ride the open-admissions wave may not have been prepared for life beyond Wescoe Beach. A few obstacles, such as English 101, give these students more than they had bargained for.
Apathetic students get pulled under during their freshman year because they are not motivated or prepared in high school. They didn't have to be; their diplomas doubled as open invitations.
THE ISSUE:
Qualified admissions
A proposal to establish qualified admissions at the University is under considerable debate. Brad Tate, principal of Lawrence High School, said he believed the proposed bill might be an incentive to motivate certain students. Some faculty members of Lawrence High suspect the bill could change the carefree mentality of these surfers. But others oppose the idea of making education inaccessible to some students.
The University welcomes all in-state high school graduates with open arms. Unless qualified admissions are established, the invitations still stand. What these students need to realize is that their diplomas will only get them in the door. The next four or more years won't always resemble a day at the beach.
ERIN KRIST FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Buffers not necessary if state increases highway speed limits
There's been a debate in Kansas about whether to raise the four-lane highway speed limits from 65 mph to 70 mph and two-lane highway limits from 55 mph to 65 mph. A bill has been proposed in the Kansas Legislature to raise these limits, and it also allows the state transportation department power to set lower limits when a road potentially is unsafe. But why isn't there a place in the bill for a buffer amendment?
What exactly is a buffer? If a car is going 10 miles faster than the speed limit on a two-lane highway or 5 miles faster on a 4-lane and the driver gets pulled over, the officer would give the driver what insurance agents call an "sp-6" — or what we commonly call a buffer.
An sp-6 does not count as a moving violation. A driver can get as many sp-6s as he wants in a year, but once he gets three moving violations, his license is suspended.
the speed limit. It's just that the buffer ticket will not affect insurance rates.
The notion of a buffer gives people the idea that they have the right to drive faster. But people still are breaking the law even if they drive one mile above
THE ISSUE:
Speed limits
When Nixon was president in 1974, he passed a bill to set the speed limit to conserve energy by saving gas. Like many other state governments, Kansas legislators didn't like the federal government messing with their territory and altered the bill to allow buffers.
If the Kansas Legislature doesn't act before the March 8 deadline, the limits will revert to the ones placed before 1974 which were 75 mph on four-lane highways and 70 mph on two-lane highways during the day.
Our question to the Kansas state government is: "Would buffers increase as well?" Buffers don't provide a needed role in our government today. If the state government sets the speed limit at 65 mph, let the speed limit be 65 mph. The state government shouldn't contradict itself by raising the buffer along with the speed limit.
DOGU WEINSTEIN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
DOGU WEINSTEIN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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Family break-up problem lies in marriage, not divorce
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President Clinton says "the era of big government is over," but plenty of other voices are determined to expand government through any means necessary, including the heavy hand of the divorce court.
No-fault divorce has been available in some form in all 50 states since the 1970's, but legislators in Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Idaho, Pennsylvania and Georgia, among others, would like to make it harder to get, especially in marriages that involve children. Various bills would restore the requirements that one partner be found at fault and that both partners must agree to the divorce.
Proponents of the change say easy divorce harms children, cheapens marriage and more often than not leaves women bearing the bigger financial burden.
Guess what? Maybe she's right. If marriage was made that easy, it might encourage even more folks to think twice about it before entering into such a relationship. Americans have grown remarkably libertarian since the '60s about who shacks up with whom, except when that relationship produces children. In too many cases, raising the child then ceases to be a private problem and becomes everyone's problem.
Opponents also argue that putting fault back into divorce will hurt children. It could force many to live in hostile home environments, they say, and it could set back the problems that led to no-fault in the first place: bitter feelings, overcrowded courtrooms and excessive lawyer fees.
How true. All marriages do not end in divorce, but all divorces begin with marriage. The better job we do with one, the less work we'll have with the other.
"I do custody cases with people who never were married to each other, Neudal, said. "They still fight. It's just in a different court."
Contrary to popular misconception, there is nothing easier about common-law marriages once the petals fall off the romantic rose.
Common-law marriage occurs in certain states when two people of the opposite sex have been living together for a certain length of time as man and wife, whether they have gone through a ceremony or purchased a license or not.
"After a certain length of time having kids, we should say, 'guess what guys, you're married.'" Neudal said.
In some states, if you tell even a hotel clerk that you're married, you're married in the eyes of the law. This raises a host of messy legal issues, which helps explain why instead of wading through all of them, most states simply have eliminated common-law marriages in recent decades.
Who's right? Both are. Fault or no fault, divorce is no fun.
Maybe the time has come to rethink all that, suggests Neudal, for the sake of the children produced by out-of-wedlock unions.
Clarence Page is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune
But the solution to the problem is not to be found at the back end of the problem, which is bad marriages. Let's look at the other end. Instead of making it harder to get divorced, I think we ought to make it harder to get married.
Worse than the no-fault divorce is the no-sweat wedding. If easy divorce cheapens the institution of marriage, so does easy marriage. We have waiting periods for gun purchases, mandatory training for driver's licenses but nothing at all for two people who want to do the most important thing human beings can do, which is create other human beings and raise a family.
Some churches are way ahead of the state on this matter. Catholics, for example, are required to undergo intensive education, counseling and soul searching before the church will help them tie the knot. It is no guarantee of marital success, but it couldn't hurt.
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
Among those who agree with me is Marian Henriquez Neudel, who has been a divorce lawyer in Chicago for the past 17 years. In a recent letter to the Chicago Tribune, she wrote, "Trying to discourage family breakup by making divorce more difficult makes about as much sense as trying to prevent murder by making burial more difficult."
She would bring back common-law marriages.
She makes a good point. Some wise man once described human beings as the most complex mechanisms to be created entirely through unskilled labor. If the state has an interest in keeping unhappy people married, it should have an even bigger interest in discouraging them from getting married in the first place.
I asked Neudel these questions by telephone. Her response may raise even more eyebrows than the idea of making it harder to get married.
Of course there is a glitch to making it harder to get married. If the one-parent child is such a big problem, don't we need more marriages not fewer? Won't making it harder to get married discourage couples from doing the right thing?
That may sound like the opposite of common sense, but it's not quite.
It only makes sense to delay fee reviews
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Chris Vine's Feb. 7 editorial, Discussion of campus fees too important to delay, reflects the type of narrowmindedness and obvious lack of understanding of Student Senate governance that has no place on an editorial board.
As a member of the Finance Committee elected to serve on Campus Fee Review Subcommittee, I know firsthand the daunting task the committee faced. With three distinct and complex fees to review and no precedent from which to work in determining their effectiveness, it only makes sense to build up the committee before knocking down student fees.
Developing a list of questions regarding the fees and a system by which to evaluate their efficiency and justification is a logical step.
Accomplishing that task alone will be no small accomplishing task the committee faced. With three distinct and complex fees to review and no precedent from which to work in determining their effectiveness, it only makes sense to build up the committee before knocking down student fees.
Vine's description of Student Senate president Kim Cocks' actions as shirking her responsibilities is not only ignorant and unenlightened, but also reprehensible muckraking.
To call this foresightful leadership and astute, mature judgement is much more on target.
ments, and it will serve to make this a better committee to serve students in the future.
Andy Obermueller
Liberal sophomore
Once is too often in any case of domestic abuse
the door to intervene, but I was too late. Another man came out of the house across the street, prompting a pause in the beating. The woman, taking advantage of the break, scrambled to her feet and ran — right back inside the house. Not a word was spoken as the two men turned and followed her.
The police came and went. I assume they asked a few questions, but apparently nothing came of it. They drove away without anyone in custody, leaving an uncomfortable silence in their wake. Eventually I went to bed, but sleep was a long time coming.
Late one night last week, I was torn away from the soul-clutching addiction of Internet trivia by the cries of what I thought was a dog outside.
I have seen domestic violence before, but something about this night especially bothered me: When the woman could escape, she ran back inside. When she could have left with the police, she stayed and risked another beating. Thanks to Psych 101, I can put a name on it: learned helplessness. But labeling is as far from understanding as multiple choice is from an essay test.
Upon looking out,
I was horrified to see a man across the street brutally kicking the dog in the head and back. Then a sudden chill overcame me. It was not a dog he was beating but a woman, crumpled on the ground and sobbing uncontrollably.
When I used to tend bar, I heard innumerable stories of domestic abuse. And there always was an excuse attached. "You don't know him like I do," or "You haven't seen the side of him I have," or my favorite, "He said he was sorry. He's not a bad person."
After calling 911. I headed out
A recent study has shown that most men prone to violence suffer from an inflated sense of self-worth, and several studies during many years have shown that women in abusive relationships usually suffer low self-worth. While I am all for humiliating, denigrating and generally tearing down the ego of an abusive man, I would much rather see a woman learn to believe that she is worth something with or without Monkey-boy hitting her. No one deserves to be abused. That is not love, no matter what Monkey-boy might say.
This is not to say, however, that goodness never can be achieved. Character is not immutable. It isn't Silly Putty, either. True repentance does not occur over please-kill-my-hangover coffee. It occurs after serious, protracted self-reflection and involves a committed effort to enact change.
Frankly, I don't want to know him. And the only side of him I want to see is his jumpsuited, shackled backside being led into an anger-control therapy group in the state penitentiary. And finally, yes, he is a bad person.
This last statement needs to be used more often. People are defined by their actions. Some people purposely do bad things. And although there may be reasons, there are no excuses. Please, label these people as bad.
In cases where the man can't or won't change, the person who must change is the woman. Helplessness learned can be unlearned.
If you or anyone you know is in an abusive relationship, please get help. The number for the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center is 864-3552. Call now.
Todd Hlatt is a Lawrence senior in social welfare
THE COMPLETELY POINTLESS ADVENTURES OF BRIGG AND FRO
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