4A
Monday, January 22, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Senate, be wary of bus bailout
It is evident that KU on Wheels needs help because of bad planning in the last few years. The transportation board is asking the finance committee for a $140,000 loan from Student Senate and also a $2 increase in the activity fee to help bail out the bus system.
Finance committee members and student senators carefully should review this bill before making a decision.
Committee members should make sure that they fully understand what has happened because the blame for the financial problems should not only be placed on past transportation boards and Student Senates, but also on past finance committees.
The finance committee previously voted to increase the activity fee for transportation without fully realizing the problems of KU on Wheels. There were no plans enacted to make sure KU on Wheels would not go into the red.
The committee members should not only ask for a
THE ISSUE:
KU on Wheels
Bus organization should submit plan for future operations before loan is approved by Senate.
detailed plan on how the loan money would be paid back, but they should also take an active role to make sure this does not happen again. This plan should include a timetable of how the money would be repaid.
In addition, there should be a detailed plan for the future of KU on Wheels.
The service provides essential transportation for many students. Care should be taken so that it does not fall apart. This plan should include all projected costs and revenues. Something needs to help ensure that this kind of problem will not occur again in the future.
The finance committee, transportation board and Student Senate should look at long-term solutions rather than emphasizing short-term plans.
SARBPAL HUNDAL FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
Proposed class not necessary
As students decipher the puzzle of requirements, the Student Senate committee on telecommunications and academic computing attempted to add an unexpected piece.
Fortunately, their proposal, requiring incoming students to take an introductory computing course upon the failure of a proficiency exam, has been rejected by the Senate Executive Committee.
Yes, the idea of a pictureperfect, computer-literate campus should excite us all, but the costs of this requirement clearly overshadow the benefits. In addition to the obvious start-up costs, developing the proficiency exam itself would be a difficult task.
Unless the exam is able to categorize the levels of computer literacy and learning capabilities of each student, students who genuinely need an introductory course and those who fail because of inexposure to computers would be lumped together. This lack of separation could cause highly capable students to waste their much-needed time in an introductory course, when basic skills can be developed through the use of computers in other required courses or in professional school classes.
THE ISSUE:
Computer literacy
SenEx was correct in denying request for required computer literacy classes at KU.
Enacting this proposal would be a waste of tuition. With linear tuition beginning this summer, one more requirement means paying for more credithours.
Making the course a requirement to unmotivated students defies its beneficial purpose. Computing classes are offered by the University of Kansas academic computing services to those who seek help to improve literacy.
The students of this University should be given a little more credit. If an elementary school child quickly can pick up on basic computers skills, KU students have a good shot at developing a better sense of computer literacy without imposing another class requirement on them.
ERIN KRIST FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
Snow and the way people react to it tells you a lot about the character of a city and the expectations citizens have of their government.
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Snow plows,or an absence of them,tell a lot about city
This message has come home to me repeatedly during the past week. With an aching back from snow shoveling and wet feet from walking in knee-high slush, I have tried to work something close to a normal work week in the nation's capital despite the back-to-back snowstorms that buried the East Coast this past week.
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
It has been a challenging battle. Sometimes it has been a losing battle.
It has constantly been an intriguing battle for what it tells me about the differences in attitude between the District of Columbia (a government town), and Chicago (which calls itself with deep pride, "The City That Works").
The Chicago attitude is that snow happens every year, so you might as well remove it as quickly as you can.
The Chicago attitude is to put together a "snow plan," which involves armies of snowplows and mountains of salt.
Look, the locals say, what's that white fluffy stuff falling out of the sky?
Editors
HEATHER NIEIAH
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Campus ... Joann Birk
... Philip Brownlee
Editorial ... Paul Todd
Associate editorial ... Craig Lang
Pasture ... Marc Hood
Reporter ... Tom Erickson
Associate sports ... Bill Potulilla
Photo ... Andy Rullestad
Matt Pilzker
Graphics ... Neil Miles
Special sections ... Novelte Sommers
Jen Humphrey
Wire ... Tara Tranyon
On-line coordinator ... Tina Fearst
The Washington attitude is also to have a plan. It goes sort of like this: If it snows less than three or four inches, you wait for it to melt. If it snows more than that, shut everything down — the government, the schools, everything that can be closed — declare an emergency and
Campus mgr ... Karen Gersch
Regional mgr ... Kelly Connally
Administrative ... David Sweeney
Special Sections mgr ... Horm Bailah
Production mgr ... Rachel Callow
Marketing director ... Gary Breischow
Public Relations dir ... Angle Adamson
Creative director ... Neal Worsham
Creative editor ... Barely Webster
Internship/o-eo mgr ... J. T. Clark
"One city looks to city hall for service while this one regards it like royalty," quipped a local psychotherapist.
us who work in the private sector. Two days after Barry told local citizens on television that everything was well under control, three-quarters of the city's neighborhood streets had not been bloomed.
The nation's capital met the biggest snow in 15 years with a snowplow fleet that was only one-third as large as it was four years ago. Only 67 trucks of the city's 120-vehicle fleet were in service, city officials said, and only 50 of those trucks had plows.
Major streets in the city's central business district, including the one in front of the local offices of the Chicago Tribune where I work, just two blocks from the White House, no less, went untouched by a plow more than two days.
Oh? What about the rest of us?
Don't we have to go to work, too?
"SYSTEMS ARE LIKE PLANTS. THEY GROW OR THEY DIE. WE CAN'T SIT HERE AND WATCH THIS SYSTEM DIE.'
Plan? What plan?
Jenna Jarboe, Olathe freshman, about the high cost of buying textbooks.
When you are a newcomer like me and you look at how much business, as well as individuals, have suffered needlessly these past few days, you have to wonder whether independence and industriousness, the fuel of private enterprise and cities that work, are welcome here.
Indeed, you have to wonder how much this lackadaisical Washington attitude toward obstructions to individual enterprise infects the spirit of those who run our national government.
You have to wonder how long you can live in a place like this before you, too, begin to think like the locals.
Say, what is that strange, fluffy white stuff falling outside the window, anyway?
Left by the royalty to fend for themselves in this strategy are all of
Clarence Page is a columnist at The Chicago Tribune
Nevertheless, a *Times* editor told me that at least a couple of staff members shrugged and said, "Well, the mayor's got to go to work."
"I JUST SPENT $75 FOR A PHYSICS TEXTBOOK. IT'S HARD FOR ME TO BELIEVE THAT IT'S THAT EXPENSIVE TO MAKE THEM."
The Chicago attitude is to hold city officials accountable for snow removal, just as you would hold them accountable for garbage pickup. Every mayor picked up the signal when Chica-
"PICTURE A 10-TON TRUCK ON YOUR CHEST."
Nikki Reed, Kansas City, Mo., senior, after an asthma attack on Thursday caused by the cold weather.
Bilandic out of office for re-sponding too slowly and casually to the blizzard of 1979.
Every mayor picked up the signal when Chicagoans voted Mayor Michael
beg the federal government for help.
村
For example, the Washington Times ran a stunning photo on Wednesday of the driveway in front of Mayor Marion Barry's house being cleared clean as a whistle of snow, even though the city would confirm that only a fourth of the city's streets had been cleared of snow by Wednesday night.
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
But the Washington attitude is one of forgiveness, even deference to the city fathers who, it is presumed, have better things to do than worry about clearing the streets.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"WHEN IT FIRST OPENED, IT WAS A GLAMOROUS PLACE TO GO. BUT NOW IT'S A BAD DEPRESSING SCENE."
David Hardy, transportation board adviser, about the struggles of KU on Wheels.
Jim Kollich, Overland Park junior, after losing $1,700 while gambling at the riverboats in Kansas City.
Coffee does not always mix well with art and genuine beauty
I've been spending a lot of time in a coffee place downtown. I don't like to drink coffee, but I like the idea of drinking coffee. I usually settle for tea, yet somehow I feel like I'm missing out on some higher experience by choosing the leaf over the bean. I want to get turned on to the magic, but I lack the appropriate belief system to overcome the nasty taste. So, I decided to call my friend Bob.
A few years ago.
A few years ago, I had an impressionable coffee conversation with Bob. He told me that whenever he drinks coffee he thinks of art and true beauty. He's a little odd, so I didn't say anything. He didn't speak for a minute, probably because he was taking another of his annoying little sip-slurps, but I
can't remember exactlv.
He continued. "Sit down in any diner, at any time of day, and you will be poured a smokin' cup of joe before you even reach for the menu.
The waitress — yes, always a waitress — will slap that steairn' hott java into your cup without even a 'What'll it be?' or a 'Good morning.' In fact, she'll make that pour without a glance, with a practiced, effortless motion that reaches such a level of grace that if Degas were alive today, he would dump ballerinas for waitresses in heartbeat. Yep, drinking some Joe can create pure beauty."
STAFF COLUMNIST
At the time, I shrugged and thought to myself, "Why not? Hell, peanut butter and jelly puts thoughts of a spiritual afterlife in my head."
So, I called Bob the other night thinking he could help me find religion. After a little small talk, I jumped right in. "Hey," I said. "Tell me about coffee and beauty."
"What?"
"You know, the java spirit talk that used to bore the hell out of me."
"Sorry, man," I said. "That must tear you up."
"Ive changed, man," he said. "No more joe for Bob. It messes with my stomach. I can't even hang with drinkers' cause it makes me ugly."
"Yeah, but I'm getting better. I've been going to these groups where we talk about life without coffee. I'm trying to cope. I even wrote a poem about it to share with my group."
"No, but don't worry about it," he said. "It was modeled after 'La Bele Dame Sans Merci.' I call it 'Le Beau Cafe Sans Merci.' I'm gonna recite some of it to you."
"Is he the guy that used to write poems with that Shelley woman?"
I really like this coffee place downtown. You know, friendly people and a nice atmosphere. Everybody has a cup of hazelnut this or lattte that and they look awfully content.
"Hey," he continued, "Did you ever read any Keats?"
But, after talking to Bob, I don't think I can afford counseling if I turn to the dark brew. I guess I'll just stick with tea and risk the censure. My loss.
"I met a cup in the diner, Full Beautiful—an angel's wine, its scent was strong, its color was dark, and its taste was divine. I made a..."
"Bob, uh, I gotta get gain' here." "No, hang on. Listen to this. I'll start at the zood part."
"Bob? Bobby? Uh, I really gotta get goin."
"Bob, really, you don't..."
John Martin is a Lawrence second-year law student
"Hey, what about the rest?"
"Send me a copy. Great poem, man.
Hue, uh. he in touch, OY Later."
OUT FROM THE CRACKS
By Jeremy Patnoi