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Tuesday, September 21, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE
In-line skating is prohibited on campus and in the city of Lawrence.
THE BACKGROUND
The ordinance banning skateboarding was adopted in 1990 because injuries and damage to buildings. The ban includes in-line skating.
THE OPINION
Banning in-line skates on campus ill-conceived
Because of the potential for injury and property damage, skateboarding and in-line skating are prohibited on the KU campus by a Lawrence city law. While there are good reasons for the ban on skateboards,the prohibition of in-line skating is ridiculous. The law should be amended allowing in-line skating on campus.
Those who think that in-line skates are in the same category as skateboards probably consider baseball and football to be the same since they both use a ball.
Skateboards have caused property damage and personal injury on the KU campus in the past few years. In-line skates, however, pose no risk to bystanders in that the skates are securely attached to the skater's feet. In-line skating is closer to bicycling than skateboarding.
Changing the city law to allow in-line skating on campus is overdue. However, the law won't be changed unless more students make their voices heard.
MIKE SILVERMAN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Search for new dean must include students
In the wake of Max Lucas' announced resignation, the University administration must consider student concerns as they select a new dean for the School of Architecture and Urban Design.
Lucas' planned resignation provides an excellent opportunity for the students' concerns to be heard and taken seriously. Students have cited problems with the upgrading of facilities, communication with the dean's office and the dean's qualifications. All of these issues need to be addressed in the selection of a new dean.
Architecture students and faculty also must share the responsibility. Take this opportunity to let your concerns be heard before a new dean is selected.Informing the administration of current problems will be the only way it can help make a change.
Administrators listen up.Hear the students' concerns and select a dean who will make the needed changes in the architecture school. Use Lucas' resignation as a catalyst for improvement that will keep the school's reputation strong.
TERRILYN McCORMICK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
Texas case proves racism alive and well in U.S.
Vidor, Texas, is being publicly castigated as the equivalent of a multiculturalist disciple's Hell on Earth. If its press clippings are to be believed, it is a town where ignorance, morally repugnant racism and depraved threats of hostility against numerically weaker members of its community are the principal stocks in trade.
Vidor had been all white for 70 years prior to court order in a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The judge in the case ordered 170 public housing projects in 36 east Texas counties desegregated after three African Americans who were refused housing because of their race filed suit.
African-American families began moving into Vidor in February. The last two African-American residents fled, a few steps ahead of bombing and hanging threats, demeaning racial slurs and catcalls, and a constant,gressive fear.
What occurred in Vidor was vicious and deserving of condemnation. That sort of racial intolerance is contrary to the precepts of our free society.
WILLIAMSPORT, PA.
SUN-GAZETTE
Judeo-Christian principles lack reason with which to lead nation
The recent column by Lance Hamby stating that Judeo-Christian philosophy is the historical foundation of the U.S. Constitution and is a reasonable basis upon which to deny parental custody rights to gay parents was both historically inaccurate and logically flawed.
Generally, Hamby's column had the tone of a Pat Robertson commercial where nice upper-middle class white folk lament how our government has strayed from its Christian roots and how we need to base our laws on biblical truths. Intellectually, Hamby's column was an exercise in scholasticism, where some authority is cited, and logical deductions are made from ridiculous premises.
First, there is no such thing as Judeo-Christian philosophy except in the minds of right-wingers who need some indisputable source of moral authority from which to argue. There is no authority to determine exactly
GUEST COLUMNIST
what Judaism or Christianity are or what a Jew or a Christian must believe. Basing laws on platiudinous principles that can never be defined beyond the mere incantation of their names is not a good idea.
Western philosophy has had a less than inspiring history when dealing with non-male, non-conforming or non-Western people. So gays are now feeling the heavy hand of the West's past. Based on Aristotle's authority, women have been denied equal rights on the ground that they have defective reason. According to Aristotle, people could also be made slaves if they lacked reason. Is this the Western tradition that we want to live by today?
A history of the U.S. Constitution should be repugnant to any political science major interested in reality. For the most part, our Constitution was written not with appeals to the past in mind but with the Enlightenment faith in the use of human reason to overcome all social and political problems. It was also written mostly by Freemasons and Deists — those who believed in a universal creator, but they did not believe in the God of the Bible.
The Constitution maintained the institution of slavery and did not extend rights to women, Indians, Blacks, non-whites or anyone else a local majority of "citizens" did notlike or consider fully human.
decision in Bowers v. Hardwick is not likely to stand much longer. Would that mean that the Supreme Court suddenly has abolished the entire heritage of the United States and its common law tradition? Plessy v. Ferguson (the case that established the separate but equal doctrine) was also a judicial precedent. Did segregation make the U.S. an "ideal model of democracy?" Should Plessy be reaffirmed? Of course not, since one of the functions of common law has always been to correct errors from the past or by elected majorities, not to enshrine bigotry, ignorance and anything old.
As for the judicial precedent, the 5-4
The case of parental custody for Sharon Bottoms is not really a question of gay rights, it is a question of human rights for a group still not considered fully human.
Raymond Birt is a Lawrence graduate student in political science.
Roofing job makes student wish to be back in school and studying
Each year, my "friends" tell me about the "awful" summers they've experienced. "Oh gosh, I worked at the pool this summer, and it was so terrible because it was sooo hot, and I had to sit up in that chair all day long!" OH WAAAAA. Would you please do me the honor of shutting your trap?
Every summer since my freshman year in high school, I've spent my days toiling with the gang at my father's roofing company. To put it mildly, it's the worst (bleeping) job you'll ever have in your entire (bleeping) life. In a survey I saw a few years ago, this job was ranked second to last out of like 250 jobs. It made you appreciate school. Did I say that? Good God!
STAFF COLUMNIST
I once worked with a guy named, and I swear they called him this, "Ramrod." Rammer spent an entire
Over the course of my career at this institution, I lost three toenails, bruised my back and stepped on no less than seven nails. And there's been much rejoicing.
summer attempting to severely main (that's to administer a whole lot of pair) me.
One time, while he had me suspended about ten feet in the air on a forklift, he started shaking it in an obvious attempt to paralyze me. Of course, I fell off back first into a curb, and much to his dismay, was still able to walk. Oh, it was big fun.
The neat thing about roofers is that although they may be fairly nice people, they feel it necessary to uphold their world renowned reputation for being rude, vile, sexist, violent, one
shower a week orangutans (that's "an arboreal anthropoid ape having a shaggy coat and very long arms.")
More than once, I've heard myself murmur what I thought I could only hear on the Sci-Fi channel: "What is that thing? Where did it come from?"
I think the obvious perks of roofing speak for themselves, so I'm sure you'll be lining up soon at your local roofing outlet. To prepare yourself for this first job, follow my suggestions:
1) Get a tattoo. With some roofing companies, this is actually a requirement. The more you get, with the more depressing and violent theme, the better. I suggest a heart with MOM and ROOFERS ROCK on it.
2) Showering, haircuts and shaving are major no-no's. To be a "cool" roofer, you must reek of cedar and cigarette smoke. Your hair must be as long as Yanni's. In fact, this famous pianist works as a forklift operator at
a roaming supply company in Kansas City. I sweat to God.
3) Take up smoking and most importantly, buy a beat up, rust-colored Chevy pickup truck. This highlight of automobile excellence must have no air-conditioning, an AM-only radio and the famous bumper sticker — I'm sure everyone already owns one — "ROOFS DO IT ON TOP."
So get ready to rock and roll! With these tips, before you know it, you'll be working 50 hours a week in 100-degree temperatures making a baking, and no my friends, this is no misprint, $6 an hour. With the high job stress, heat and potential for injury, you might just want to work for free YEE-HA!
So get to filling that application out. For best results, misspell your first name and tell em' Chris sent ya.
Chris Ronan is a Ovarian Park sophomore major in radio and T.V. broadcast,
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