October 31, 2007
ASUM Bureaucrat betraying students
In a recent Guest Column (titled “Kaimin harming students’ interests"), Sen. Sean Morrison, a well-known B.U.T. (bureaucrat under training) made the ridiculous statement that the Kaimin “threatened the interests of students” by publishing an article that made the B.U.T.s and their allies look bad (for what was obviously a screw-up of epic proportions). Now don’t get me wrong, I support UM Productions and their continued ability to have a student-run organization that provides entertainment to our community. Unfortunately for Mr. Morrison, what I don’t support is incompetence. If someone makes a mistake, they are to take responsibility for that mistake, admit it, and correct it. While UM Productions is not entirely to blame for them Elton John ticketing debacle, it does bare some responsibility in this matter and should be hounded until the issue is fixed.
October 31, 2007
Domo agriato UM students
We, the students and instructor of one of the high-intermediate writing classes at the English Language Institute, want to first of all thank you for covering our “Mix and Mingle” event at the Davidson Honors College on Thursday, October 25.
October 31, 2007
Your reefer rights
Last Tuesday ASUM, the ACLU, and others put on a “know your rights” event. As evidenced by the row after row of empty seats, most students had a better use for their time, and rightfully so. It was a valid effort and I believe the intent was merely to inform students on a wide range of issues that they might be interested in learning about. But, between the “nonpartisan” ASUM student political action director’s ranting that conservatives did all in their power to stop Native Americans for voting in the last election and the decision of many conservative friends to simply chat outside, I knew what lay ahead inside the UC Theater would surely register a few laughs and scoffs.
October 30, 2007
Kaimin harming students' interests
I applaud the efforts of the Montana Kaimin to keep ASUM and the administration as open in discussion as possible. However, the relationship of the Montana Kaimin to the student body at the University of Montana is unique. The Kaimin collects an involuntary fee from all students for its publication. Where an article threatens the interests of the students themselves, I believe the Montana Kaimin has a special obligation, because of the fee it collects, to protect that interest.
October 30, 2007
Red Cross being safe with blood donor restrictions
Before I begin, I must make this absolutely clear, I am no way trying to condemn homosexuality. However, I believe those that are trying to make a stand against the American Red Cross, and other similar institutions because they do not allow gay men to donate is wrong.
Homosexuals are not the only ones who cannot donate. Those who have recently had tattoos or piercings, despite the government mandating that every tattoo or piercing needle be sterile and individually packaged, can’t donate for a year. Neither can those who have simply visited certain parts of the world because there may be a large population of people infected with HIV/AIDS.
October 30, 2007
Main Hall should stay away from UM Productions
Let’s face it, not everything went according to plan with Elton John from ticket sales to the night of show. That is part of the concert industry. Something always comes up. You deal with it and move on. I think it is time for Jim Foley and Main hall to move on.
The head office seemed pretty ecstatic when the Rolling Stones came to town. I did not hear any complaints when Elton John was confirmed or James Taylor for that matter. Main Hall makes a killing for sitting in their offices as UM Productions works sleepless weeks to pull off the biggest shows Montana has ever seen. They have put Missoula on the map.
October 26, 2007
Meditation - not a coup
Well it looks like we have activists out expressing their opinions in Missoula again. If we aren’t arguing about trapping squirrels, then we might as well be judging the ASUM. This is the government body we elected, mind you. We could launch some sort of coup, but let’s just call it a revolution. I personally think more people would sympathize with the word “revolution”. I am sure somewhere on this University we have some individuals that are much better suited for the job.
October 26, 2007
The Pill holds steady
On Oct. 18, 2007 an article in the Montana Kaimin titled “Students protest birth control costs,” implied that Planned Parenthood’s contraceptive prices were going to increase to $50 a cycle for our patients in Missoula.
Planned Parenthood of Missoula is a clinic that provides publicly supported family planning services. This means we are eligible for federal funding that requires us to provide annual exams, pap tests, clinical breast exams, and birth control on a sliding fee scale. Being a publicly supported family planning clinic allows us to buy our birth control at a reduced rate and this is not affected by the nominal pricing problem that Congress needs to fix.
October 25, 2007
ASUM overstepped its authority
I’m writing in response to yesterday’s article about the supervision of permanent ASUM personnel shifting to the Administration.
The article mentions that ASUM had planned on going into executive session to discuss this memorandum of understanding. ASUM President Dustin Leftridge was quoted as saying that the meeting would be closed to the public because the discussion had to do with “personnel issues.” In accordance with Montana’s open meeting laws, an ASUM meeting should only go into executive session to discuss matters and conflicts with specific personnel, not to discuss an alteration to supervisory policy. In fact, the discussion about yielding control of classified staff to the Administration should be an especially public one. Transparency throughout this process is essential, and students deserve to understand why the change is being made.
October 25, 2007
Blasphemous Breslin
In response to your editorial (Tuesday 10-23, “Initiative 2 should not be top priority"); Please stop polluting the Kaimin’s pages with your elitist, misinformed, misinterpreted, undeveloped and over-generalized views on current events affecting our college community.
Starting from your first catchy phrase “Blaze up, kids,” you clearly demonstrate one of two things: either you view everyone that disagrees with your opinions as a subordinate, referring to us as kids; or you are misreading or haven’t yet read that Initiative 2 only applies to adults. It’s little mistakes like this that provoke further inspection of your later statements like “the Citizens for Responsible Crime Policy ... made sure everyone thought that people were getting mugged, beaten and otherwise assaulted because police were running around town chasing kids smoking pot.”
October 25, 2007
SESJ's next step
For the last year, Students for Economic and Social Justice has been working in solidarity with students, faculty, the community and hundreds of other campuses across the country to make sure that Grizzly apparel come from factories that respect human rights. It is a two-step process; last year SESJ got the administration to join the Workers Rights Consortium (the factory monitoring organization) and this year the goal is signing onto the Designated Suppliers Program (the enforcement mechanism). But before launching into a focused DSP campaign, SESJ will be facilitating education and discussion of labor issues, both local and global.
October 25, 2007
Gay blood discrimination outdated
On Thursday, October 25, students from UM team up to play MSU in the “Blood Battle.” Many students may not realize that what seems like an altruistic, campus-unifying event, may be the largest overt act of discrimination that could occur within a university setting. For example, when an academic institution endorses a blood drive, a minority of students are discriminated against due to homophobic, and heterosexist societal attitudes towards men who have sex with men.
October 24, 2007
Pirates remind us what music is for
In response to Emma Schmautz’s Wednesday editorial, let me start by saying I don’t believe it’s right to pair up the recording industry with the software industry and movie industry when talking about file sharing and pirating. Software and movies are usually made by big businesses whose sole purpose and/or motivation is to make money. But money has no part and should have nothing to do with music.
It’s sad to see that in the world of music the biggest problem today is money. It brings a tear to my eye to know that artists are more concerned with how much money they’re making than about their music getting to the fans and public. Shouldn’t they be making music to express themselves? For the joy of making music? Is this all old stuff that has long since died? There was already a problem with artists today selling out or beings fakes and this isn’t helping it. I don’t want to listen to music that was made for money and to make people rich. I want to listen to music that was made for the people by the people.
October 24, 2007
Men's sports sacrificed to meet Title IX quotas
In your October 11 issue of the Kaimin, you published an article in which Roman Stubbs “celebrated” the 35th anniversary of the passing of Title IX. Frankly, I find it disturbing how quickly this law, which was passed by the Nixon administration and has not been significantly changed since its introduction, is embraced, and more shockingly, how quickly its negative effects are dismissed.
Title IX creates a quota system in which the number of female athletic opportunities at a university must be proportional to that school’s female enrollment. Sounds fair, right? In reality, it has been, and still is, used by athletic directors as an excuse to cut any non-revenue producing men’s sports teams he or she doesn’t feel like funding anymore. Essentially, all sports except football and basketball are in danger – and even those two are not entirely safe.
October 23, 2007
Students for choice not just 'abortion rights group'
On behalf of Students for Choice, we would like to thank you for covering our contraceptive pricing campaign. Although we are very grateful for your attention to this important issue, we found your description of us as a “student-affiliated abortion rights group” reductive. Although we proudly defend a woman’s right to choose, we also actively support access to reproductive health care for both men and women, comprehensive sex education, healthy relationships, and, of course, access to affordable birth control. To the students and staff of UM, thank you for your amazing support. With your help, we’ll keep fighting to protect your rights.
October 23, 2007
UM supports governor's CAP
The feature story in Friday’s Kaimin contained some misleading information. Vice President R. Duringer was quoted as saying that the University “didn’t get as much money from the governor’s office as we thought we were going to get.” In my discussion with a reporter, not the one who wrote the story in question, I explained that we worked with the Governor’s Budget Office staff to develop an estimate of the funds needed for a variety of cost increases and missed the mark a bit on some of the estimates. However, we received what we estimated. A second misleading statement again quotes Vice President Duringer to say that “We committed $1.5 million from the contingency fund to plug that hole,” referring to the revenue loss allegedly caused by 100 fewer heads at the University than last year. Yet a subsequent comment, again attributed to Vice President Duringer, explains that the costs of promotions and merits, technology increases, and other items required the use of some contingency funds. Budgets for an institution the size of the University are very complex and do not lend themselves to short sentence descriptions.
