OPINION
LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD ● LJWorld.com ● Sunday, January 9, 2011
EDITORIALS
Lots to like Lawrence and Kansas University don’t need to change, but our image in the Kansas Legislature needs some work. eing different isn’t necessarily a bad thing. State Rep. Anthony Brown, R-Eudora, struck a nerve on Wednesday when he told a Lawrence Chamber of Commerce gathering that “KU and Lawrence are not very well respected” in the Kansas Legislature because they are viewed as too liberal. Brown’s comment really should come as no surprise to Lawrence and Kansas University officials, but that doesn’t mean that they should take such abuse lying down. Exactly how different Lawrence is from the rest of the state is open to debate but many of the differences people could cite about our city are decidedly positive, not negative. We have a vital community that always draws high marks for its quality of life. Large numbers of retirees who no longer are tied to jobs in other cities and can live anywhere they want choose to return to Lawrence because of its ambiance, its location close to a metropolitan area and, often most importantly, because it is the home to a major teaching and research university. KU is a primary factor in what sets Lawrence apart from many Kansas communities — in a good way. It draws many highly educated people to Lawrence and enjoys a strong national reputation. It is the only university in Kansas to be ranked by the Fiske Guide to Colleges and to hold membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities. University activities add tremendously to the artistic, athletic and cultural offerings in Lawrence. The research and teaching done at KU benefits Kansas students, Kansas business, Kansas health care and many other facets of the state. With all that Lawrence and the university have to offer to local residents as well as to people across the state, why would it have “a bad reputation” in the Kansas Legislature? Maybe they just need to get to know us a little better. The sad truth is that Brown’s statement is correct; many legislators do think Lawrence is too liberal or too different and he’s not wrong when he says that perception “needs to change.” But it won’t change if Lawrence and KU let statements like Brown’s go unchallenged. Lawrence and KU need to do a better job of telling their stories! They need to meet with legislators and other state leaders, talk to them one on one about what KU and Lawrence have to offer. They should go into the conversation armed with facts and anecdotal evidence — not with a chip on their shoulders or an arrogant attitude. Legislators and other leaders need to understand that the people in Lawrence and Douglas County aren’t really so different from people in the rest of the state (many people who live in Lawrence grew up in other parts of the state) — and that whatever differences we have should be viewed as a potential benefit for the state, rather than qualifying us to be locked in the attic (How many elected and appointed state officials actually choose to live here and commute to Topeka?). Rather than be angry about Brown’s comments, KU and Lawrence should take them as a challenge. There is plenty that state officials should like about Lawrence. Let’s tell them all about it.
B
OLD HOME TOWN A recent nationwide poll, sponsored by blood bank officials, revealed that more than one-third of Americans surveyed believed that they could get AIDS YEARS from donating blood. Local Red Cross AGO officials said that there didn’t seem to be IN 1986 as much fear of that connection in Lawrence, and that screenings of local blood for AIDS antibodies had not yet turned up any “true positives” from this area.
25
From the Lawrence Daily World for Jan. 9, 1911: “Beginning February 1 every young woman in the home economics departYEARS ment of the University of Missouri who AGO takes a course in testing fabrics must roll IN 1911 up their sleeves and work over a wash tub. Each student will have a locker in the laboratory which will contain a tub, washboard, soap, bluing and chemicals. It is the aim of the university to teach the effect the starch, bluing, and other chemicals have on clothing. Later the laboratory is to be equipped with an electric washing machine.” “Just one minute is all the time necessary for a piece of bread to be evenly toasted in the Electric Upright Toaster. This little fixture is light and adds to the attractiveness of the table. When ready for the toast the bread is placed in the toaster, the current of electricity turned on and in one minute the toast is hot and brown, ready to be eaten. That the public may have a better idea of the excellence of this modern convenience, a public demonstration will be given tomorrow afternoon at the office of the Lawrence Railway & Light Company.”
100
— Compiled by Sarah St. John
Read more Old Home Town at LJWorld.com/ news/lawrence/history/old_home_town.
9A
Midwest Republicans go on offensive W A S H I N G T O N — Consensus is scarce but almost everyone agrees with this: The government is dysfunctional and the Internet is splendid. But last month, the Democratic-controlled Federal Communications Commission, on a partisan 3-2 vote, did what a federal court says it has no power to do: It decided to regulate the Internet in the name of “net neutrality.” The next morning, a man who can discipline the FCC said: Well, we’ll just see about that. “We are going to be a dog to the Frisbee on this issue.” Rep. Fred Upton, 57, who represents southwestern Michigan, is now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He notes that last summer the Progressive Change Campaign Committee got 95 Democratic congressional candidates to pledge support for federal regulation of the Internet. In November, all 95 lost. Upton will try to stymie the FCC’s impertinence by using the Congressional Review Act, under which a measure to reverse a regulation gets expedited consideration and cannot be filibustered in the Senate. The capacious jurisdiction of Upton’s committee will allow him, if he so desires, to issue the biblical command “Let there be light” by pushing repeal of the 2007 law that, in 2014, effectively bans sales of incandescent light bulbs. This law, which creates a captive market for those annoying, twisty, flickering fluorescent
George Will georgewill@washpost.com
The Midwest has “much to lose from
Obama’s agenda, particularly his animus against coal, which generates 60 percent of the region’s electricity — 90 percent in Ohio and Indiana.”
bulbs, is protectionism disguised as environmentalism: It is corporate welfare for U.S. bulb makers afraid of competition from imported incandescents. But Upton has a bigger repeal in mind. He thinks enough Democrats will join all 242 House Republicans in voting to repeal Obamacare, and that repeal will come within 25 or so votes of the 290 necessary to override a presidential veto. This will intensify pressure on other Democratic members — imagine their town hall meetings — who could provide the veto-proof margin. Upton thinks opposition to Obamacare is intensifying as people realize the reality behind
Barack Obama’s slippery promise that if you like your present health care plan, you can keep it. The new law will not directly take it away, but its requirement that businesses either provide expensive government-approved insurance or pay a fine is designed to prompt businesses to drop their insurance, pay the fine and dump employees into Medicaid. Upton favors deregulating Medicaid by giving governors block grants and latitude: “Cut the strings and let the states figure it out.” He majored in journalism at the University of Michigan and was a sports editor of the student newspaper, thinking he might eventually cover the Chicago Cubs. He avoided that misery by coming to Washington in 1977 to work for the freshman congressman from his district, David Stockman, who in 1981 took Upton with him to the White House when he became President Reagan’s budget director. Upton was elected in 1986 and has begun his 13th term. His state has more than its share of problems: The automobile industry is a shadow of its former self, the unemployment rate is 12.4 percent, 68 municipalities are on the state’s fiscal watch list (38 are rated worse than Hamtramck, which is seeking permission to file for bankruptcy), the 2010 Census will cost the state a House seat, and, worst of all, Michigan has lost seven consecutive football games to Ohio State. Michigan’s power is waxing in
Washington, with Upton’s boon companion Dave Camp, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. They are part of a Midwestern ascendancy in the House, which also includes Ohio’s John Boehner (speaker), Michigan’s Mike Rogers (chairman of the Intelligence Committee), Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan (chairman of Budget), Minnesota’s John Kline (chairman of Education and Labor), and Missouri’s Sam Graves (chairman of Small Business). The Midwest has much to lose from Obama’s agenda, particularly his animus against coal, which generates 60 percent of the region’s electricity — 90 percent in Ohio and Indiana. Officials of a steel tank manufacturer in Niles, Mich., recently told Upton that cap-and-trade carbon regulation would have meant an instant 20 percent increase in electricity costs, which would have forced the company to operate only at night in order to take advantage of off-peak rates. Such mundane matters may be intensely boring to Obama administration officials, to whom the private sector is as foreign as Mongolia. But the next presidential election probably will be won in the Midwest. Soon House Republicans from there will begin conducting a two-year tutorial on the reasons the region should continue to recoil from this administration. — George Will is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.
‘Huck Finn’ censorship is just wrong It is, perhaps, the seminal moment in American literature. Young Huck Finn, trying to get right with God and save his soul from a forever of fire, sits there with the freshly written note in hand. “Miss Watson,” it says, “your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.” Huck knows it is a sin to steal and he is whipped by guilt for the role he has played in helping the slave Jim steal himself from a poor old woman who never did Huck any harm. But see, Jim has become Huck’s friend, has sacrificed for him, worried about him, laughed and sung with him, depended upon him. So what, really, is the right thing to do? “I was a-trembling,” says Huck, “because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things
Leonard Pitts Jr. lpitts@miamiherald.com
the first place, any work of “artInrepresents a series of conscious choices on the part of the artist — what color to paint, what note to play, what word to use — in that artist’s attempt to share what is in his or her soul. The audience is free to accept or reject those choices; it is emphatically NOT free to substitute its own.”
and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ — and tore it up.” When NewSouth Books releases its new version of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” next month, that revelatory moment will contain one troubling change. Publishers Weekly reported last week that in this edition, edited by Twain scholar Alan Gribben of Auburn University, all 219 occurrences of the so-called N-word will be cut. Huck’s note will now call Jim a “runaway SLAVE.” Twain’s use of the word “Injun” will also be struck. Gribben brings good intentions to this act of literary graffiti, this attempt to impose political correctness upon the most political-
ly incorrect of American authors. He told PW that many teachers feel they can’t use the book in their classrooms because children simply cannot get past that incendiary word. “My daughter,” he said, “went to a magnet school and one of her best friends was an African-American girl. She loathed the book, could barely read it.” But while Gribben’s intentions are good, his fix is profoundly wrong. There are several reasons why. In the first place, any work of art represents a series of conscious choices on the part of the artist — what color to paint, what note to play, what word to use — in that artist’s attempt to share what is in his or her soul. The audience is free to accept or reject those choices; it is emphatically NOT free to substitute its own. In the second place, it is never a good idea to sugarcoat the past. The past is what it is, immutable and non-negotiable. Even a cursory glance at the historical record will show that Twain’s use of the reprehensible word was an accurate reflection of that era. So it would be more useful to have any new edition offer students context and challenge them to ask hard questions: WHY did Twain choose that word? What kind of country must this have been that it was so ubiquitous?
LAWRENCE
JOURNAL-WORLD
What the Lawrence Journal-World stands for
®
●
Accurate and fair news reporting. No mixing of editorial opinion with W.C. Simons (1871-1952); Publisher, 1891-1944 reporting of the news. ● Safeguarding the rights of all citizens Dolph Simons Sr. (1904-1989) regardless of race, creed or economPublisher, 1944-1962; Editor, 1950-1979 ic stature. Dolph C. Simons Jr., Editor ● Sympathy and understanding for all who are disadvantaged or oppressed. Dennis Anderson, Managing Editor Ann Gardner, Editorial Page Editor ● Exposure of any dishonesty in public Chris Bell, Circulation Manager Caroline Trowbridge, Community affairs. Ed Ciambrone, Production Editor Edwin Rothrock, Director of Market ● Support of projects that make our Manager community a better place to live. Strategies ESTABLISHED 1891
●
How hardy is the weed of self-loathing that many black people rationalize and justify its use, even now? I mean, has the black girl Gribben mentions never heard of Chris Rock or Snoop Dogg? Finally, and in the third place, it is troubling to think the state of reading comprehension in this country has become this wretched, that we have tweeted, PlayStationed and Fox News’d so much of our intellectual capacity away that not only can our children not divine the nuances of a masterpiece, but that we will now protect them from having to even try. Huck Finn is a funny, subversive story about a runaway white boy who comes to locate the humanity in a runaway black man and, in the process, vindicates his own. It has always, until now, been regarded as a timeless tale. But that was before America became an intellectual backwater that would deem it necessary to censor its most celebrated author. The one consolation is that somewhere, Mark Twain is laughing his head off. — Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald. He chats with readers from noon to 1 p.m. CST each Wednesday on www.MiamiHerald.com.
THE WORLD COMPANY
Dolph C. Simons Jr., Chairman Dolph C. Simons III, President,
Dan C. Simons,
Newspapers Division
President, Electronics Division
Suzanne Schlicht, Chief Operating Officer
Dan Cox, President, Mediaphormedia Ralph Gage, Director, Special Projects
Letters Policy
The Journal-World welcomes letters to the Public Forum. Letters should be 250 words or less, be of public interest and should avoid name-calling and libelous language. The Journal-World reserves the right to edit letters, as long as viewpoints are not altered. By submitting letters, you grant the Journal-World a nonexclusive license to publish, copy and distribute your work, while acknowledging that you are the author of the work. Letters must bear the name, address and telephone number of the writer. Letters may be submitted by mail to Box 888, Lawrence Ks. 66044 or by e-mail to: letters@ljworld.com