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Show THE ym j THE DAILY- .!? ? UTA - .jiLy...,, H r i CHRONICLE ( ' .. .nM CHRONICLE'S VIEW -- J Across:1 the 'Board billion budget rests in his the same leveL All faculty and staff get a pay along with the of 25,000 students raise from the state Legislature and the employment of 13,000 peoeach year. Traditionally this raise ple. This doesn't even include the has hovered near the 4 percent healch of thousands of Utahns who level. Last year, legislators handed visit University Hospital each year. ' faculty a 5.3 percent pay increase. When he speaks, people take Looking at the past four pay raisnotice. When he acts, it changes es, Machen's salary has jumped by lives. President Bernie Machen nearly 37 percent If you add up the doesn't have an easy ob. paltry pay increases for faculty" For this herculean task, he gets members, they have received less than half the financial help that $271,000 each yean His received a n this and is worth lawmakers and year every $35,000 lias He be more officials afforded to have our presipenny. proven effective with the Legislature than dent. But faculty members don't past presidents, and donations are get a mansion to live in, or a cook, or a car to help them out with their going through the roof. He is a valuable public servant. expenses, which means a pay raise for Machen goes almost directly However, he is not the only valuable public servant at the Universiinto his pocket, while a pay raise for Utah. of of Hundreds faculty your professor goes to pay the ty members put in countless hours to house payment, the car payment and those other pesky bills. enrich the lives of individual stuMachen is the faculty's represendents,' Some are searching, and with some success we might add, tative in the Legislature, and for technological and medical because of that, his pay should be breakthroughs that will improve tied to theirs. Why should one the lives of everyone. employee have his or her pay set Some are trying to find new independently of every other insight into the human psyche. employee? Some are trying to create great art Machen deserves his money, but ' What they do is vital to society. don't the faculty members as well? He should join the faculty and fight Faculty do not get the pay that Machen gets, nor should they, but side by side with them for ' ' their pay increases should be on increased pay. A$i oy An x ft . fe international hockey team contemplates the requirements of living in the U's dorms. LETTER TO THE EDITOR . Disabled Parking Price Inhibits Progress . ; Unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of The Daily Utah Chronicle Editorial Board. Editorial columns and letters to the editor are strictly the opinions of the author. The forum created on the Opinion Page Is one based on vigorous debate, while at the same time demanding tolerance and respect. Material defamatory to an Individual or group because of race, ethnic background, gender, appearance or sexual entation will be edited or will not be published. mYfy - 6 higher-educatio- " 5 1 ori- Editor: I believe the University of Utah is overcharging people who require disabled parking permits. I have a spinal cord injury and drive a vehicle specially adapted to my needs. I use a wheelchair to move around on campus. Wheelchair parking spaces are not a luxury to me, but a necessity. If I could, I would pay the less- - expensive fee and use the economy parking. I cannot, however, because it would be extremely time consuming and physically exhausting to push my wheelchair from the economy parking lot to my classes. Many people who are disabled are going to school to get a new start on life. Seme may be unemployed because they have a disability. It is unfair to charge these people who are looking for a new start $120 to park their vehicles. Disabled parking spaces are located near buildings, but most people who use these spaces do so because it is a necessity. It is more time consuming and physically difficult to get out of my vehicle and into the buildings on campus than it is for most people even when I use disabled parking. At Salt Lake Community College disabled parking permits are only one dollar for a school year. I use this example to show that other schools in the Salt Lake area recognize the difference between a parking luxury and a parking necessity. The University of Utah should seriously consider changing the parking rates for disabled parking. It is the right and fair thing to do. PAUL ROBERTS Graduate Student, Exercise and Sport Science Meal Dialogue Meq uires Letters of Distinction Few inside or outside of Washington would disagree with Murphy's claim, and evidence of the corrosion is easy to find. Political cam- MICHAEL CHIDESTER Chronicle Opinion Columnist On July 29, CNBC showcased a match of Promethean were two of Going and heralded most opinionated Washington's Old Grand consultants Party advisor political Mike Murphy, senior strategist of John McCain's presidential campaign, and James Carville, senior political advisor to the Clinton administration. As the debate began, I could almost hear an announcer introducing the combatants like boxers in a ring. In the red corner, standing six feet three inches tall and weighing in polling results before making any policy decision is James Carville, the "Ragin' Cajun," bold, bald, belligerent and ready toe-to-t- oe to spin to win. And in the blue corner, standing for all things conservative and weighing in at a slightly 200 pounds is Mike Murphy, sultan of sneer, unafraid to jab and sometimes known to hit below the belt. And so the contest began and ended on the weekly "Tim Russert Show." Although the contest was ultimately more hype than fight, one gem of wisdom did remain after the dust settled. Late in the debate Murphy remarked, "We all know that political discourse has deteriomore-than-optim- al rated recently." paigns now commonly feature more dirt than debate. Proliferating small interest groups jam communication channels with increasing rhetoric, and the media continues to show increased fascination with scandals and affairs. As Washington Post Writer Tom Shales wrote at the height of the Clinton sex scandal. "Once more, as seems to be happening with greater frequency, the lead story on 'Inside Edition' and 'Hard Copy' is the same as the lead story on "The CBS Evening News.'" In addition, Murphy's claim might be as ironic as it is true, since Murphy and Carville are arguably examples of this decay. Carville, who many describe as "outspoken," is really more of a loudmouth whose strongest arguments are behavior. weakened by his tantrum-lik- e The lesser-know- n Murphy is much more levelheaded than Carville, but during the "Tim Russert Show," he was snide and sarcastic, throwing in stingy criticisms of his opponents whenever possible. The result: while these two pundits had impressive command of all the issues, they didn't command my respect As another year of debate begins at the University of Utah, students, faculty and members of the administration might find it helpful to consider how they will discuss the issues that surface during the school year. Will it be with Carville-lik- e pompousness, with Murphy-lik- e scorn or with a more measured and more articulate approach? CHRONICLE OPINION EDITOR Letters to the editor are undoubtedly one of the most controversial and entertaining sections of The Daily Utah Chronicle. Although students from every background and discipline, and with varying ideologies, write letters to the editor, the form and tone of these letters often show amazing similarity. Some common letter styles that seem to appear frequently are: The Impassioned Plea. This type of letter is the written equivalent of the cry, "Won't somebody pleane think about the children?!" A heavyweight on emotion but a lightweight on reasoning, this type of letter smacks of hand wringing and fretting. These letters sound an alarm, but they don't tell anyone how to get to safety. The Sardonic Reproof. Letters that follow this style reverberate and insinwhile sophistication, pitying (though cerely) those who live in darkness, ignorance, the shackled confines of conscience or Utah County. These letters usually call someone or some idea "archaic," "provincial" or "narrow-mindedhigh-mindedne- ss ." The Abomination Declaration. Letters of this variety rebuke with passion and fervor but generally with the intent of castigating rather than convincing. These letters, which are packed with conviction, might be more effective if they were also laced with understanding. The Mourning After. The authors of these letters usually write them when anger and frustration are near the surface, and when reason and composure are in a galaxy far, far away. By the time rationality returns, these LAURA D. WEISS LETTERSCHRONICLE.UTAH.EDU unhappy writers wish they had never clicked the send button. So what, then, makes an effective letter to the editor? What is the model to which social discourse should aspire? I use as an example the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The NRDC is an environmental- - defense group whose declared purpose is nothing less than "to safeguard the Earth." When President Bush unveiled his energy plan last May, the NRDC was one of the President's most vocal critics. NRDC officials began their assault on the Bush plan with the generous use of environmentalists' and democrats' favorite new epithetbig oil. For many media types and environmental groups, this weeping, wailing and gnashing of Bush made up their entire protest. Few seemed interested in rationally countering Bush's plan. and Dirtier: A Critique of the Bush Energy Plan" surprised me. I expected to find an emotional report filled with the usual pictures of baby sea lions ("us") and smokestacks spewing suffocating refuse ("them"). What I found instead was an intelligent, measured, assessment of Bush's plan, the critique briefly summarized each Bush proposal and then countered with what the NRDC called "a responsible alternative." g and whinLacking the typical ing, while full of facts, figures and evidence to point-by-poi- nt name-callin- see DIALOGUE, page 581-704- 1 14 |