4A
Wednesday, November 8, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: KU ON WHEELS
Bus system should look for alternative funding
KU on Wheels is in trouble, and the city of Lawrence should help bail it out.
The organization, which includes Saferide and the busing system, could be $60,000 in debt by the end of the semester, according to budget projections.
THE MONEY TRAIL
KU on Wheels is student-run. Student funds from the activity fee finance the organization, and student senators coordinate it. From the $35 activity fee that every student pays, campus transportation is allocated $12.04 — giving it a total allocation of $517,500, the largest block of money given to any group on campus. More than 80 percent of the fund goes toward the busing system. The remaining money goes to Saferide and the lift vans.
Campus transportation faces few choices. The city of Lawrence could help foot the bill, or the organization could go back to Senate for more money. Another option discussed by the board is to cut routes in East Lawrence and other stops throughout the city.
HELP FROM THE CITY
Lawrence has been getting a free ride on student money for a long time. The city has yet to directly finance the only bus system that serves the Lawrence community. And residents pay only $1 each time they ride the bus.
The most ideal, and maybe the most unlikely, scenario would be for the city to help students pay for a system that serves the Lawrence community. This additional funding would have a number of benefits: Buses could be maintained more regularly and would meet federal environmental and disabilities standards. Unfortunately, city commissioners aren't flocking toward the Senate office with checks in their hands.
If the city isn't going to help, campus transportation may have to look to students for more money. This option may be needed in the end, but it would be unfair to students.
Lawrence should help finance transportation because KU on Wheels serves residents but is supported by students
INCREASING FEES
The student body already pays $500,000 to run the organization biannually — this is no small amount of money. And while ridership has been decreasing, the price of a bus pass has been increasing.
In 1989, a bus pass cost $35. This semester, students pay $60 for a pass.
Dumping student money into this group obviously has not been doing the job. Either the money is inadequate, or students on the transportation board aren't qualified to handle such a large task. As bad as continuing to finance this mismanaged resource may seem, the consequences of cutting routes would be worse.
CUTTING ROUTES
Cutting routes could be disastrous for nontraditional and low-income students who rely on the bus to get to campus. Many of these students can't afford the high-rent housing around campus and depend on bus rides.
Money needs to be spent on these routes, or the concept of campus transportation is meaningless. Why have a bus system if it can't perform its functions?
Members of the transportation board will meet with Lawrence officials this week to discuss these issues. Perhaps the city of Lawrence will gain some much-needed sense and help keep University's bus system from certain doom.
Many non-student residents love to complain about University students. Ironically, this town would suffer without the students, given that the only public transportation in Lawrence is paid for by students.
IAN RITTER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
Marko Fields/ KANSAN
More people equals less responsibility to others
Coming from a town of fewer than 1,000 people, I have become accustomed to the endless questioning of small-town customs and the jokes about inbreeding. That doesn't mean I like it. I too used to think that farm boys dating their livestock was a funny theme for a joke — until I saw it in person. For a time, I wondered if I would ever laugh again.
But there are good things about small towns that many people who live in them tend to take for granted. The one I miss the most is the sense of connection between people and the way neighbors will look out for one another and lend a hand when needed.
Twice in my life, my car broke down on the way to high school. Since I lived 10 miles from town, walking wasn't an option, but I had no need to worry. Despite having hair down to the middle of my back and a surly look permanently affixed to my face, both times I was given a ride by the first motorist I flagged down.
This is the sort of altruism missing in larger populations. Last Christmas, I was heading home for church and a day with my family. My hair was shorter, and I was looking respectable in my good suit and new, flowered tie. The Christmas spirit was beginning to come fully upon me when I hit an icy bridge and spun out of control. I barely escaped the sure death of an 80-foot plummet into the river below by crashing head-on into the concrete guardrail. After checking myself for evidence of an unintentional loss of bodily function control, I continued on my journey. Unfortunately, a bolt had
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punctured my Jeep's oil filter, and less than 5 miles later, I was stranded again and looking for a ride.
my Christmas cheer, I hated him.
Finally, a priest stopped and gave me a ride. Even though it all ended happily enough, I can't believe to this day that it took a man of God to give an obviously stranded man a ride on Christmas morning.
I walked for miles that morning with car after car passing by me. Once, a snot-posed kid with his face pressed against the back window waved to me and smiled. In spite of
I shouldn't wonder, though. In 1909, just outside of Florence, Italy, a 6-year-old girl named Vanessa was out for a drive with her father. Moments after they entered a tunnel, he had a heart attack. With great determination, he was able to pull over to the side of the road and instruct his daughter to find her way home. Then he died. Vanessa did as she was told and tried to walk home, but she was so small that the wind from passing cars would blow her down. For 30 minutes, this little girl struggled to make it through the tunnel. She was bruised, bleeding and obviously crying, yet no cars stopped to pick her up. By sheer luck, no cars hit her, and her story had a happy ending. But if no one would stop for her, how could I ever
expect anyone to stop for me?
It's an ugly truth, but in a large population, people don't care enough about one another to get involved. Psychologists call this phenomenon "diffusion of responsibility." There are so many people who could help, but no one feels personally obligated to do so. The next person will pick the little girl up. The next person will reach out.
My grandfather would have used another word for it — shameful. Each person who drove by that little girl should be ashamed that they lacked the basic empathy to help her. They should be ashamed of lacking the decency to get involved.
Unfortunately, this cold, uncaring behavior is repeated every day by millions of people. Neighbors refuse to call the police, though they can hear the woman next door being beaten by her husband. People in a check-out line fail to intervene when a mother violently strikes her child for crying. Nobody wants to get involved.
But we are all morally obligated to do what we can to help those in need.
It is a shameful,ugly fact that moral obligations are too often compromised in favor of expediency, convenience and apathy.
In truth, I could have walked back to the nearest town last Christmas, but there are people out there who are helpless without outside aid. Please, don't pass by those in need. Don't close your hearts. If you don't help out, no one will.
Todd Hiltat is a Lyndon senior in social welfare.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Protest deserved Kansan coverage
I was very disheardten to go up to campus Oct. 30, pick up an issue of the University Daily Kansan and not find a single word about the demonstration to free Burma that took place on campus on Oct. 27.
and/or media blas. It seems odd to me that the Lawrence Journal World had an article at the event while the paper at the University at which it took place had nothing. It is a sad state of affairs when an article about the illogical nature of a Disney movie is on the front page of the Kansan and there is absolutely nothing about the protest. To the casual observer who saw or heard the demonstration on Friday and saw nothing in Monday's paper, it must seem as if the editor is ignoring pressing issues and events that take place on this campus.
I do not presume to know what the campus editor was thinking when he or she decided not to cover the march, but unfortunately, it seems to me to be evidence of suppressing the truth
There is no justifiable reason for
there to be no recognition of student activism on campus. To judge an international event focused on stopping human rights violations and the oppression of indigenous cultures as not newsworthy is an insult to the fight for social justice around the world. I am ashamed for the editor that he or she is so narrow-minded as not to see the significance of the fight to free Burma and the importance of student activism on this campus.
Katherine Smith co-coordinator of KU Environs
Maintenance of family ties is challenging and gratifying
It was almost a comical situation. Twenty-one of my relatives surrounded my grandmother in my parents' living room while she tried to remember each of us. After confusing several of my cousins, I think she pretended to know the rest of
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COLUMNIST
us. She didn't even recognize my uncle (her son), although she did think he looked like himself when he smiled.
What prevented the situation from being funny was that I couldn't help her remember half of the people there because I didn't remember them myself. The last
time I saw some of them, I was about 4 years old. I had never met some of them. They hadn't been born or hadn't married into the family yet.
I am not sure how it happened, but for more than 16 years I didn't see my father's side of the family, which included more than 15 relatives. Until that weekend, I wouldn't have known them from any other stranger on the street. And because of that, I felt a little cheated.
I take family very seriously. On my mom's side, I probably could name all 60 of my relatives and their vital statistics. I am close to my brother and sisters, and my nieces alone make my life worth living. Because of these relationships, meeting relatives I didn't even know was a little foreign to me. But it also made me realize that not everyone views family the way I do.
The decline of the family structure has become one of the most widely discussed topics of the decade. People from all parts of the political spectrum argue about "traditional family values," whatever that means. The only thing that people can agree about is that the family structure has changed a lot. But with this change in the structure, how will the way people view their families change?
It is almost normal when a family doesn't extend as far as a father, so it may seem unfair that I feel cheated because I don't know some of my cousins. I think it's unfair because there was no real reason why I hadn't met my family. If there had been a geographical reason (for example, if they all lived in Antarctica), or some material inability (no car, no money, etc.) to explain why we hadn't met, I wouldn't feel so bad about it. But there wasn't — we just never made the effort. And that is why I feel cheated.
Family is an important commodity. Unfortunately, not many people see that anymore, and consequently, families spend less time together. Sharing a history creates a bond between family members that can't be broken by 16 years of absence.
When was the last time you spent time with your family? Was it too long ago to remember? Increasingly, people are forgetting about their extended families and, in some cases, their immediate relatives.
I don't think that most people realize what they are missing. Until this weekend, I certainly didn't. It is definitely easy to forget to spend time with aunties, uncles and cousins who live far away. However, the effort to see them needs to be made. It is necessary to spend time with family, even if it doesn't seem important. You never know what you might learn or what you are missing.
Stacy Nagy is a Topeka sophomore in Russian.
KANSAN STAFF
COLLEEN MCCAIN
Editor
DAVID WILSON
Managing editor, news
ASHLEY MILLER
Managing editor, planning & design
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
News & Special Sections...Deegrast Allison Editorial...Heather Lawrence Associate Editorial...Sarah Morrison Campus...Virginia Merkelheim Associate Campus...Teresa Vazeyne Associate Campus...Paul Todd Sports...Jefferson James Associate Sports...Tom Erickson Photo...Paint Koz Wire...Roben Allen On-line coordinator...Thin Passett
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin
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