4A
Wednesdav, November 29, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE ISSUE: LOAN CUTS
VIEWPOINT
Loan cuts hurt students
As part of a recent plan to balance the national budget, the U.S. Senate has proposed a 20-percent cut in direct lending loans to students that would affect 1.9 million students across the country.
As a result of the cuts, 12 schools in Kansas would have to do away with the direct lending program, and more than 20,000 loans would be lost in the state. The budget must be cut, but higher education should not be sacrificed in the process.
Students who will lose their government loans as a result of the cuts will have to pay higher interest rates and suffer through less-consistent payment programs from private institutions. Basically, the
Politicians such as Sen. Nancy Kassebaum have said that education cuts are an important part of balancing the budget. But what politicians seem to have forgotten is that without their college educations, they wouldn't be in the situation to cut loans in the first place.
banks will be getting richer, and students will be getting poorer.
The message from Washington seems to be that higher education is not valued in this country. If Congress keeps cutting loans and financial aid programs, fewer and fewer people will be able to afford to go to college.
IAN RITTER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
THE ISSUE: COMPUTER CENTER
Center should update services
While the ever changing and modern technol-
modern technology of computers makes it difficult for the Computer Center to keep up with new computer developments, it should do its best to update and make computer terminals and services available to all students, staff and faculty.
The Computer Center is a necessity to many students, and it should keep pace with current trends and changing expectations. Change in the computer industry occurs rapidly, but in order for students to benefit completely, the Computer Center should do everything in its power to maintain updated services.
Now with the increasing popularity of e-mail and surfing the Internet, the Computer Center is overloaded with students, faculty and staff accounts. Demand for services provided by the Computer Center is overwhelming and only will increase.
Ever-changing computer technology requires center to keep up with students' demand for services.
The popularity and demand for all computer services is amazing. It was not long ago when computers were used by only businesses. Now almost everyone is or will be required and expected to have access to computers. Many students and faculty rely on the services that the Computer Center provides for school, work, and personal enjoyment. This should be reason enough for the Computer Center to be concerned with the upkeep and accessibility of all its services.
The Computer Center cannot allow the new technology to pass it by. Although it will be expensive and challenging, the center needs to gather all its resources and expertise and do whatever it has to do to maintain quality services.
TARA FITZPATRICK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauff-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Heather Lawrenz, editorial page editor, or Sarah Morrison, associate editorial editor, at 864-4810.
All letters should be submitted to
Shooting victims were casualties of dumb love
Maybe you noticed a brief story in the paper last week about a woman and a 12-year-old girl being shot while they sat in a parked car on Chicago's West Side.
KANSAN STAFF
The story was brief because there isn't anything surprising about people being shot in that part of the city. In those parts, you can be gunned down for not twiddling your fingers in a proper gun signal.
But this shooting was a bit unusual because of the reason the woman and girl were sitting in a car in so deadly a neighborhood.
There were two women sitting in the back seat, and the child was in front.
The two women are in the care of Seguin Services, a private, not-for-profit organization that takes care of disabled clients in the western suburbs.
One of the women is retarded. The other is paralyzed on one side, uses a wheelchair and can't walk.
Earlier that day, the attendant took them to a movie. At least, that's where they were supposed to go.
The movie theater was on the Southwest Side, a long way from where they were shot.
They live together in a group home in the suburb of Cicero, where an attendant takes care of their needs.
So if they were going to a 1 p.m.
movie, what were they doing in a car
on the West Side at 3 p.m.?
It appears that the attendant has a boyfriend who lives at that location. The investigation still is going on, but it appears that the attendant may have been visiting her boyfriend and left the two disabled people in the car.
The 12-year-old is the sister of the boyfriend. It hasn't been explained why she was in the car.
But what is known is that a man about 20 years old came up to the car, tried to get in, and one of the women reached over and hit the
COLLEEN MCCAIN
Editor
DAVID WILSON
Managing editor, news
ASHLEY MILLER
Managing editor, planning & design
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
"But," the sister said, "she's been terminated, and they will go through channels to prevent her working with others."
"I was taking care of two people, and I left them at the curb, and they were shot."
Anyway, there is probably some kind of message here. If the woman was visiting her boyfriend, it proves that love is not only blind, but it can be kind of dumb, too.
STEPHANIE UTLEY
Business manager
MATT SHAW
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
And he might be affiliated with a gang. So in the world of gangs, it is possible that a rival gang member would have shot anyone who happened to be in that car — even a child and women with disabilities. A target by any other name is a target in some parts of town.
Yes, it might be a difficult job interview:
Business Staff
Their attendant has come up with a story about being paged at the movie theater by a relative who said he was locked out of his home.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
They also are trying to figure out why the helpless women were left in the car in the first place.
And that was why she drove there and left the women in the car. To help the relative get into his abode.
Yes, it's possible. The police told the relatives that the car belonged to the female attendant. But the boyfriend frequently drove it.
But nobody is sure if they ever went to the movies. It's also possible that the attendant went there to visit her boyfriend and was otherwise occupied.
Whatever the reason for the women being sitting ducks in an urban shooting gallery, the relatives are upset. "We're really flipped out," said the sister of the paralyzed woman.
"She left them in a car in a gang area. That is just sick. And it is an appalling statement about our society that someone would shoot at a paralyzed woman, someone retarded and a young kid. How could anybody do that?"
Columnist fails to support arguments
Since there are no parking meters at that location, she won't even get a ticket.
Well, I'm sure the shooter didn't know about their conditions. Had he known they were totally defenseless, he might have taken his time, aimed and killed all three.
There was a time, years ago, when University students learned and studied the art of persuasive reasoning, where one argued in logical, step-by-step fashion, offering support for every assertion. If the daily columns in the Kansan are at all indicative of the rhetorical skills of students at the University, those days have passed.
The attendant had a good work record, they said, and had several years of experience working with the disabled.
A representative of Seguin Services said the company was looking for answers, too.
The sister said: "The police say they have no grounds for prosecuting her on criminal charges."
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
So the young man took out a gun and opened fire. The girl apparently tried to curl up away from the shooter and was hit several times in the buttocks.
Campus mgr ... Meredith Hanning
Regional mgr ... Tom Dulac
Manager of Special Sections mgr ... Heather Nihaneh
Production mgr ... Kenyast Eston
Marketing director ... Katie Kye
Public Relations director ... Bettie Gullbill
Creative director ... Heather Valerio
Internship/co-op mgr ... Kelly Connolly
The retarded woman, in her 20s, was hit in the jaw. The paralyzed woman was grazed.
The police aren't saying much. But they told the women's relatives that it was possible that the shooting was gang-related.
Editors
Gang-related? When the victims were a child and two handicapped women?
button that locks the door.
COLUMNIST
Why would someone shoot at two women and a child? There is always the possibility that it was a racial crime because the gunman is Black and the two women are white. But the girl is Black. So he seems to be an equal-opportunity shooter.
News & Special Sections - Decora Allison
Editorial - Heather Lawrens
Associate Editorial - Sarah Monton
Associate Faculty - Teresa Vazey
Associate Campus - Teresa Vazey
Associate Campus - Teresa Vazey
Associate Campus - Jenni Carlson
Associate Sports - Tom Erickson
Photo - Paul Kutz
Rocky Mountain News - Marcel Meyer
Dr. Lisa coordinator - Thina Fessett
Murder is the intentional cessation of a human life
All pre-birth and post-birth human beings are, by composition, "human"
Abortion is the intentional cessation of the life of a pre-born human. Therefore, abortion is murder.
Jim McMullen
Lawrence second year law student
Help the people labels are attached to, rather than the superficial fix of trying to abolish a harmless and essentially meaningless word.
Chris Hampton's Nov. 14 column attacking the so-called "radical religious right" is nothing more than baseless invective because Hampton relies on terms which she fails to define and draws conclusions which she fails to support. Who and what constitute this "radical religious right"? What factual evidence is there that this supposed movement is behind the murder of abortionists or was the underlying cause of the Oklahoma City bombing? Let me present a rather basic, logical argument which I challenge Hampton to counter.
Let me get this straight. This woman has her panties in a knot because a few city folks laughed at those from the country. She was further outraged that country vacations, country dress and country music were popular among people who had never tilled the soil or fed the chickens.
Let's face it. Some of the backwoodsman of the Ozarks, often called hillbillies, are less than the ideal of humanity. This petty Newsweek writer was more worried about being unfairly included in the negative image under a random collection of consonants and vowels then changing the conditions that created that image.
Welcome to America, maam, where culture is only the latest fad of exploitation.
Then she had the audacity to bemoan the fact that in places such as Branson, Mo., they had to put up with city slickers' derision for the sake of making money. If money is more important than pride, don't look to me for sympathy.
Jake Arnold is a Lawrence senior in Journalism.
The label hippie, cracker, honkle, hillbilly or other non-white racial derogations this paper won't print aren't the problem. It is the lack of education and poverty that create the people negative stereotypes are attached to that is the problem. It is the ignorance and hate that flings these labels around to inflict pain that is the problem.
I think what annoyed me most was this woman's quest for her own particular niche of victimhood and persecution. She obviously was a successful white woman, and the worst example she could give of her own negative effects of the hillbilly stigma was some good-natured ribbing from her coworkers.
Labels are just words, not anything to get upset over
Flipping through Newsweek, I ran across a commentary written by a woman who was saddened and angry because of the negative connotations of hillbilly. She didn't think the unflattering stereotypes of people from the Ozarks were fair.
Cry me a river.
STAFF COLUMNIST
I, personally, am proud to be called a redneck. There are a lot of good qualities associated with rednecks. They are tough, independent, loyal to their friends and good to their dogs. My redneck friends are some of the best, most real people I know.
But call me a hippie all you want. Hippies, too, have their good qualities. My friends call me far worse in fun. The words have no meaning, positive or negative, without accounting for the attitude of the person speaking.
Labels mean about as much as the person being labeled allows them to. I have been called a hipple many times because of my appearances and attitudes. My ideas, however, are anything but those of the usual hipple, and many hipple stereotypes are repugnant to me.
There are a lot of negative qualities that are attached to the redneck label, too — racism, ignorance and poor choices of music. But these things aren't me, and I know it. That is enough for me.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin
X